WE'RE BACK!

Welcome back to the game boys, thank you all for your patience. 

We are about to begin the YEAR FIVE (AKA Actually Year Four). 

Please read on for a recap, some updates and important changes!

*** CURRENT STATE OF PLAY ***

[This doesn't cover everything that's going on, only the most recent 'action items' of the last few sessions.]

Group 1 - Current Date: Thistleburn 12

Currently: Robert the Swift, Daqqa-Jin, Gorr, Xenos, Uriah, Young Joe Spruce and Lord Fesgate.

- The group is planning a return to the Night Wolf Inn to clear the gnolls occupying Fort Behringer.

- You have finally rescued Reymund the Pale, master bowyer. Gorr is about to spend a ton of his money to get a legendary item, and the rest of you should take notice. Chris took the initiative to make this happen in his first session, and has worked towards it since. His dedication is about to pay off in a big way!

- Guild Service for Robert the Swift is coming up soon (from Harvestime 1 - Goodgrove 11). You will have to RSVP to James Everbleed about your plans. You have the choice of Room IV or somewhere brand new. I estimate this taking about 3 sessions but could easily go longer. Remember that this counts as yearly guild service for any members who come along, and it's mandatory if Robert wishes to retain guild member status!

- You spoke and I listened! There is lots of adventure to be had in Room I - The Forest of Dreams. The lair of the 3rd demon Varthatov awaits you and LOTS more!

Group 2 - Current Date: Thistleburn 14

Currently: Clif, Finrod, Salzige, Cassia, Black Phalaros, Owen and Gaddock. 

- Clif needs to rest until Thistleburn 19. Many of you will need to train (see below).

- Review the play report for Session 40, then see the latest Downtime Thread in Discord for costs of living. (Who is paying to identify all your items?) I know many people wanted to ask questions or look for clues, so refresh your memories about that if you can. All of this must be declared before play resumes with this group, or you will miss the boat!

- You have found the Oil of Revelations which grants the ability to see hidden streets and paths through the city. This will surely help you in your mission for the necromancer Zalán to find the Shadow Market. You have enough for six people. Who is going to use it?

- You have raided the sorcerer Rogat's home. Where is he? Clues point to a criminal entanglement of some kind, and there is the path down to the Undercity...

- Clif has a mission from his elementalist mentor Unazhon: entering the astral fortress of the legendary Shodredh Dachod! You haven't made any progress in this direction yet, but perhaps upcoming events will provide clues.

- Going forward, you will find lower-level adventures in Viridistan. You can be confident that an adventure will be roughly level-appropriate for the character who hears about it, but may provide paths onward to more difficult things.

Everyone

- If you want to swap members between groups, you'll just have to wait 2 days for Group 2 to catch up. Otherwise we can proceed with the current composition.

- The Night Wolf Inn Midsummer's Day garden party is coming up in less than 2 weeks (Harvestime 2) and is open to Guild members and visitors alike. This will be a valuable chance to join the Guild, connect with NPCs (everyone's favourite elf waifu Rain will be there), make new friends, compete for cash & prizes, or play Evocation. Don't miss it!

- There is now a PLAYER'S CALENDAR page on Discord so you guys can see what day it is and when things are happening so you can plan accordingly.

*** RULES CHANGES ***

We're dropping some 'house rules' I added at the beginning of the campaign that didn't really contribute anything, and bringing the rules more in line with AD&D 1st edition (the way God and Gary intended). 

I hope that our long hiatus makes these changes less jarring!

Complex Alignment

To add some more depth, we are moving up to 9-point alignment! This might result in a few awkward moments but we will smooth them over. Other than a few class restrictions, you will be free to choose any alignment that you feel reflects your existing characters the way you've been playing them. 

Please remember D&D is a game of cooperation. 

I would assume by this time that everyone is familiar with classic D&D alignment but if you aren't, the following may provide guidance, along with the blurbs I've posted in the discord.

If you have any questions please DM me or ask in the discord.

With some exceptions, aligned & intelligent items that your character has been using for a while will be set to a compatible alignment so you don't get robbed.

Training

Characters will now have to train with a higher-level mentor to gain levels. This will cost both time (from 1-4 weeks) and money (based on training time multiplied by level).

When a character gains enough XP to level, they will be capped at that point and cannot gain any more experience until they train. However, they still take the same share of experience from the party if they continue to adventure (this extra XP is wasted). You will have to manage this yourselves.

Clif, Owen the Vitalizer, Gaddock the Inebriated and Cassia are the first to fall under this new rule, since they all leveled last session. They will need to train in order to gain the benefits of their new levels, and before they can gain any further experience. Clif needs to rest first before he can train.

Material Components

Some spells will now have expensive material component costs, to bring them in line with AD&D. We will handwave this in general. As long as a spellcaster has their "component pouch" with them, we can simply scratch the money off the character sheet and assume the components were bought previously, except in certain rare cases. There will be a list of affected spells in the player's document on Google Drive.

Heroic Points

A new bonus for you guys!

A simple and versatile house rule to replace other "survivability bonuses." They will balance out some of the lethality of classic D&D, are simple and flexible.

Heroic points can be used to save your ass in a pinch. The rules are simple:

- spend any number of points for a bonus to a roll before it's made (attacks, saving throws, whatever)

- spend a point to re-roll something once (no reroll chains)

- spells can be modified in some ways (saving throws, damage rolls, possibly others)

- you can hoard a maximum # of heroic points equal to your level, excess points are wasted

- points are NOT gained automatically but are awarded for good play, heroic actions, clever solutions, teamwork, playing your alignment, etc. by the DM

Each character will be granted a full stock of Heroic Points equal to their level to start with. Use them wisely, but don't be afraid to spend them when things get dicey - they're no good if you're dead!

Character Creation

Never let it be said that I am deaf to the entreaties of my dedicated players! 

We will now be rolling ability scores using 4d6, drop the lowest, ARRANGE AS DESIRED.

This means a lot of specialty classes with high requirements will be much easier to play. Enjoy rangers, illusionists, paladins and other such cool stuff! There will be some slight tradeoffs for this though (see below).

Spellcasting & Other House Rules

> Previously, all spellcasters got bonus spells for high attributes. This was a house rule I included to give low level study-for-it casters a bit more power, but it is not by-the-book at all, so it's out the window!

From now on, only CLERICS and DRUIDS will get bonus spells for high WIS. 

This means all Magic-Users, Necromancers, Elementalists, Incantrixes, & elves (Finrod) will be losing a fair number of spells per day! Sorry, guys. I hope you took advantage of this boon while it was yours, but it's gone now.

However, affected spellcasters may report to their magical mentors during downtime to get some limited-use magic items in order to smooth the transition into this new status quo. I will be correcting your character sheets for you.

> Another bone I'm throwing to spellcasters. Forget about Read Magic. What a waste of a spell!! There is already a secret language of wizards (called Grimscribe). So why cast read magic anyway? Stupid. 

From now on if you find some magic runes, you will just be able to read them if you know the language!

So you can delete Read Magic from your spellbooks, you never have to memorize it. Instead, every spellcaster will automatically know the written language that applies to them:

Magic-User and Elf - Grimscribe
Illusionist - Secret Tongue
Incantrix - Warding Tongue
Elementalist - Oremouth
Necromancer - Eldritch

These languages are closely guarded secrets, and casters will never teach their languages to outsiders. (This makes the Incantrix class really good, because they can read M-U and Illusionist magic). When you create a new character, these will take up a language choice just like any other - but your existing characters get them for free.

Spellcasters can try to use scrolls from other classes, but there will be a significant chance of failure or miscastings!

> Fighters, Barbarians & other melee classes are losing CLEAVE. We never use it anyway!

> Clerics lose "spontaneous cures" - this was another house rule I added that never got much use anyway. Now you'll have to plan ahead!

*** WHAT'S NEXT ***

If you've made it this far, DM me the passphrase "None. None More Black" and include the following information in your message:

- All of your characters' new alignments
- Your Group 2 character's downtime activities, if any (including training, see above)
- Any questions you need answered in order to achieve these requirements, and
- When you can play next
Do all this to get 1000 bonus XP per character.  [OFFER HAS BEEN FULFILLED]

Prepare for our first session to be a bit longer than usual, it will likely involve record-keeping, explaining new rules, refreshing our memories and updating before we get into playing. 

Then get ready for the COMEBACK SPECIAL!!!

Tracking Treasure

Last session the question was asked:

"How do we know what treasure has been sold? Who has which items? What are their plans for these items? What about treasure picked up a few sessions ago by players who aren't here today?"

These are good questions. Now that we have more players and this campaign is not just a handful of one-shots like it was when we started out (back in Halloween '19), they are more difficult to answer.

First of all.

- Your DM has limited time & energy. I would rather spend it developing exciting adventures and not add even more bookkeeping than I already do.

- Encumbrance (who is carrying what) is a vital factor, but it's different from dividing up the loot (who is owed what). It's easy to get these confused.

- I'm Not Bloody Psychic. Most of you keep your own character sheet on your computer that I don't even look at. I can't very well help you with shit I can't see.

With the above caveats in mind, 

*** What I Do For The Players ***

- Track the value of all treasure, monsters, cash, etc. Both for money and XP purposes.

- Track who was present when the treasure was recovered, ie. how much money & experience points your character is "owed" if that item is brought back to civilization and exchanged for hard cash. I can thus deal out treasure & experience for you based on who was where, when.

- Do the math when the group returns to town and sells off treasure. Then write up everyone's payouts in the play report. 

If someone wants to keep a particular piece of valuable treasure as their own share, I will work the numbers for you. However: if this results in an unequal distribution I will need everyone involved to communicate their agreement. 

*** What You Must Do For Yourselves ***

 - Keep track of your inventory. This is one of the few things I expect the players to handle on their own. If keeping track of encumbrance is too hard, try managing an entire game world. 

Then, try the Automatic Character Spreadsheet I wrote just for you. Your character sheet is the only thing you're responsible for. Please make sure it's accurate.

 - Decide to sell off your treasure. I only post up the values and distribute coinage for treasures you choose to sell! I reminded you guys of a few outstanding items last session, but I will not be doing so again. If you aren't interested enough in the cash or XP to mention a piece of loot, it can sit in your backpack forever for all I care. I can't play the game for you, and if I could it'd be rather pointless.

 - Keep track of coinage. Both carried (encumbrance) and stored (where and how). 

Let's say you pick up a sack of 100 coins during an adventure. Weeks later, how am I going to remember what you did with it? This is impossible for me to supervise even if I wanted to. Obviously I distribute XP for those 100 coins (because I know who was there when it was found) but I don't know who is carrying it or what happened to it.

You have to communicate with each other (does anyone remember how to do that?) so that each player gets their fair share. Make notes, write out IOUs, do whatever the fuck you must. If the players aren't careful, it is easy for some characters to be carrying huge sums of cash that are not actually theirs, but belong to everyone. How you resolve this problem as a group is up to you.

I am sometimes able to remind you of things like "you guys found that 250 gold in the Orc caves" but I delete my treasure records after all experience has been awarded, so don't wait too long!

***

I hope that clarifies a few things. As always if you need help or have questions, just drop me a line and I will answer any rules questions you may have, walk you through how encumbrance works, or teach you how to use the character spreadsheet. Have a blessed day.

Session 9 Downtime - Viridistan

Suba-Jin

Reports to the great Battle-Dome of Hextor on the Street of the Gods to make his devotions. The dark edifice looms over nearby buildings. It is surrounded by statues of warriors and adorned with stained-glass windows, friezes and murals featuring scenes of historic battles against goblins, elves, monsters and just about everyone else. The clanging of weapons, shouts of battle and cracking of whips ring out at all hours. He passes by Hextor's red-robed priests & soldiers, naked slaves, and the familiar if unnerving skeletal temple guardians to the sanctum of his superior Votgauum, a severe & scarred Viridian.

The clergy finds the mournful, ethereal scent from the Forest of Dreams a bit sensitive, but are pleased at Suba-Jin's diligence & piety for bringing treasure wrested from his enemies. Votgauum also suggests Suba-Jin consider choosing one of the "arms of Hextor" to become proficient with, and he selects the falchion. Votgauum presents him with one as a gift to the promising acolyte.

[Offerings of roughly this value are expected from crusading clerics such as yourself regularly. As you donate more, Hextor will favour you with other benefits: special one-use abilities, magical buffs, guidance, followers or even magic items.]

Votgauum also passes along a request: a seedy-looking pawnbroker in the Old City named Morthevole has asked the church for help, saying his shop was taken from him unlawfully. Suba-Jin found him staying at a bar in the Old City (a lower-class district against the northern city wall. Filled with crumbling tenements, narrow alleys and outlandish structures left by the city's original builders, whoever they were). "The White Egg" is a lousy dive bar on the Avenue of Power, in the shadow of the great aqueduct. It's only made tolerable by a few tough-looking serving girls who work the crowd for tips. The pawnbroker probably picked it because it isn't very busy.

Morthevole is a wienery-looking Antillian in once rich, but now shabby clothes. He looks scared shitless. He is evasive about questions. He says he didn't have dealings with "the things," but that they are so dangerous he fears returning to his shop. They came up from a hole in his basement, and there are at least six or seven he's seen - but he has heard the sounds of more. He wants this whole thing kept secret, and says if nobody finds out, you can keep any treasure you find. His shop is in a part of town called The Nest. It's a district of adobe & brick structures built on top of each other in layers upon layers, until it forms a 3-dimensional maze. Most of the neighbourhood never sees the sky at all. As you would expect it is populated with criminal gangs, scum, mutants & drug fiends. Morthevole can give you directions & the key to his store which is not too far inside, but doesn't know the district well other than that. 

["A hole in his basement" is significant. It is commonly believed that dungeons exist underneath the city. But everyone knows it is illegal to explore below, on pain of death.]

Lothos

Studies magical tomes. From The Starless Stars, Lothos is able to decipher several spells easily: charm person, allure, shocking grasp, jump, scare & arcane lock are added to his spellbook.

To decipher the encoded text of Obliteration Without Glory, Lothos locks himself in his tiny rented room in Otherside, poring over the ancient & forbidding tome for three days straight! At the end of the third day, his efforts bear mixed success. He has decoded one of the spells, but its magic is unusable to him - it requires a spellcaster devoted to the forces death! 

There are several more spells to be deciphered, and each attempt will take three days. There is no guarantee which ones will be usable by elves and magic-users, and which require a dedicated necromancer.

Vanished!!

When you are done resting and get ready for your next adventure, Lothos the Undesirable is nowhere to be found! The rooming-house where he stayed does not remember when he left. With him go the two aforementioned spellbooks, as well as the mysterious engraved staff lifted from Eralion's tomb, and the 'talking book' Pheldrazash.

His whereabouts are unknown. Amongst the indifferent masses of the Emerald City, a determined elf could hide for a long time. Perhaps you will see Lothos again, perhaps not. I am sure you can all guess what might have happened. Mike will need a new character for the time being.

Spotted Around Town

On the third day, you spot some parchment handbills posted around the city:

Unlocking New Character Classes

When player-characters die, this is my gift to you. Each unique death will unlock a new playable character class or sub-class. Lothos didn't exactly 'die' but was taken out of play, so it's close enough for this purpose. For being 'killed' by a magical effect, this class is now available to everyone:

"The Incantrix"

A dimensional guardian specializing in divinations, wards and metamagic. Viewed with suspicion by established magic-users for their dangerous spell-stealing ability.

Requirements: INT 9, WIS 12

Casts a mixture of Magic-User and Illusionist spells up to 7th level

17 INT to cast 6th level spells, 18 INT to cast 7th level spells

Special Abilities:

1st level - charge healing - Drain charges from magical devices to heal (2d4 hp per charge). This takes a full round and does not work on artifacts or items without charges. This can raise hp above max, but these phantom hp last for only 10 rounds.

2nd level - spell steal - The incantrix can steal a memorized spell from another spell caster. The spell to be stolen is determined at random and the incantrix knows nothing about the stolen spell. This special ability by-passes magic resistance and there is no saving throw. The stolen spell may be cast by the incantrix immediately or held for later use, and can be cast without any material components. When cast, the spell functions as if cast by the being it was stolen from (with regards to level). Any spell already in the process of being cast cannot be stolen. 

The incantrix can erase the spell from her mind and inscribe it on a scroll or in a book with the Write spell, though this does not allow her to use it if it is forbidden by her class. Only by such scribing can the stolen spell be identified. The incantrix may use this special ability 1/day at levels 2-4, 2/day at levels 5-6, 3/day at levels 7-8 and so on at a range of 10'/level. There is a small chance of spell-steal victims being mentally damaged in the process, especially after successive strikes.

3rd level and up - other abilities which help fight ethereal & undead creatures, etc.

Session 6 Downtime - The Forgotten Village

Occasionally, adventurers have spare time to work on things between expeditions. These activities are called downtime actions. Anything that might be significant for the game, but doesn't involve immediate danger: buying equipment, constructing a special item, researching new spells, making friends with the locals, running a business, looking up ancient lore at the archives, asking around town for information, etc.

Normally downtime actions are abstracted - we don't care how long they take exactly, just that you get to do something before you go back to adventuring. In this case we do care, because the party is in a strange place and time is a factor.

Players in the last session told me how they're spending their downtime. If anyone else wants to do something, get back to me BEFORE next session or you missed the boat!!!

Trading

In the Forest of Dreams there isn't much of an economy. Some things are available:

Water: At least you won't get dehydrated. There is a small spring not too far from the village with the same metallic, bubbly water as before.

Holy Water (50 sp): Created in the Crucible of Solaris and preserved in a dusty clay jar.

Herbal Tea (200 sp): A collection of forest herbs and dried flower-stems in a packet. Brewing it restores some vitality: 1d4 hit points over 2 hours.

Shadow-Wine (25 sp per cup / 800 sp per cask): The same murky black liquid that Robert & Veigar tried out a few sessions ago. Aged for centuries. Has strange & variable effects.

Incense (250 sp per brick): Made from glowing forest flowers. Comes in four different colours. 

Heliotrope - smells of melon and summer rain & evokes a feeling of serene, dreamlike calm. 

Indigo - burnt leaves & smug sense of superiority. 

Buff - horseradish & warm, fond nostalgia.

Pearl - honey and dry wood & Sunday-morning sadness.

It's worth mentioning that the folk here do not have any food for sale.

Money

The townsfolk do not care about coins! They will trade for any of your metal gear (at 2x book price). Some of the treasure you've picked up on the last few adventures is interesting to them:

Any magic items, the etched metal plate (500 sp), the brick of incense (250 sp), both amulets (200 sp each), the china tea set (200 sp), those old copper helmets (10 sp each). They might also take other strange items you have picked up.

Downtime Activities

Lothos: The Starless Stars is indeed a spellbook with these spells inside: 

1st - charm person, allure, shocking grasp, jump. 2nd - mirror image, scare, arcane lock.

You can spend your whole downtime to study this spellbook, and in that time you can roll to learn as many spells as you like based on your INT.

The second book, Obliteration Without Glory will take work to decipher. Each attempt to unlock its mysteries takes 3 days of intense reading. It may require multiple sessions of study to fully comprehend. There is no telling what might happen in any case, magical traps and safeguards are not unknown in some ancient tomes. Roll a d20 at the end of 3 days and we'll see what happens. Any elf or M-U can attempt this by the way, Aladar can help if he is interested.

Liliya is willing to help. For a favour, she will assist you with one session of reading (+5 to the roll). 

Pheldrazash can help you as well. It thinks you probably have about a 50/50 chance of deciphering the book by yourself. If you consult it to help translate, I will roll for its attempts. Both of your successes are added together, so the book can be deciphered faster. Transcribing things for Pheldrazash does slow you down a bit so one period of study will take 4 days.

It wants you to fetch something for it in return, saying you should consult it when you are back in Viridistan.

The staff taken from the tower basement is a dark blue wood carved with swirling designs. It is likely magical, but a sage or wizard or some other expert is needed to learn more.

Suba-Jin: The seal of Uthummaos (black pit with purple rays emanating) strikes fear into anybody you show it to. It seems to represent some kind of evil god or demon, whose worship appeared around the time the King went mad 1000 years ago. The details are vague, but it appears to rule over shadows and darkness. 

Some of the village folk recall the two-crescent pendant as Eralion the wizard's personal seal. Several folk think it's strange that Eralion had his own fortress. In the ancient days before King Wakelinus' time, royal wizards used to retire to an island in a great lake, not too far from here.

You hear that the Sage of Lune might know more - although she asks a high price for her knowledge, so don't bother going unless your need is great.

Gorr: The amulet you retrieved from the corpse is made of tarnished silver, 2" high and cylindrical, carved all over with exotic runes, images of bones and skulls. It feels light, maybe it's hollow. One symbol stands out, but nobody around here recognizes it:

You are able to chop down a smaller tree. It does not dissolve like the monsters did, and seems to be normal wood, although strangely coloured and exotic.

The shades will let you stay in the village as long as you want. You can keep your gear here, and Shandril assures you that it will be safe while her and Baran are around.

Anybody else who wants to do stuff during downtime, or if anyone has more questions, you know how to find me. Before next game session!

*****

ADDENDUM

Gorr asked about master craftsmen in the hopes of having a bow made.

We are using these rules for commissioning splendid items and creating new magic items through mighty deeds. The leader of the guards Baran had this to say:

"Reymund the Pale was the best bowyer I ever knew. We called him that for he never ventured out to war or hunting. He loved peace most of all, and the feeling of a well-made piece of wood in his hands. A sensitive soul, not suited to the world as it is now, but a good man in his own way. I remember the last time I saw him, when he went off to join the lake-men. Not more than low brigands who call themselves 'rebels' really. We had words over it. Those of us who remain are still loyal to King Wakelinus, mad nor not, and Reymund was never one to take up causes like that. 

Might be he's still with them up by the great lake, but I heard there weren't many left after the King rounded up most and imprisoned them so's we could have some peace around here. If he's among those unfortunates, you'd best forget about him: the King's oubliettes are time-locked within the Moonlit Zones. Nobody ever gets out, and the Zones themselves are dangerous enough."

[Rules] Spellcasters and Familiars

Many people assume that familiars are animals that a spellcaster has empowered to be servants and allies. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Holy Inquisition teach that familiars are demons, sent to corrupt sorcerers with power. Others say that they are the ancient spirits that originally taught mankind magic, or spells that have slipped away from their masters and now meddle in the affairs of men. Whatever is true, magic-users and elves may obtain familiars by casting the spell known as Call to Familiar Spirit.

Dealing with a familiar is not a simple master-and-servant affair, but a relationship between equals. 

Once a familiar has agreed to work with you, it can be summoned to your side. But familiars are fickle. Whenever you attempt to summon your familiar, make a Charisma check (equal to or less on 1d20). Success means that the familiar arrives immediately. Failure indicates it arrives in 1d20 hours. If you have annoyed your familiar you automatically fail this test, while familiars that are extremely pleased will always arrive promptly.

Your familiar doesn't really exist before it's summoned. It crawls out of your hair, or scrabbles out of the wall, and leaves in similarly dramatic fashion. It can only be hurt by magic.

Services and Favours

Familiars can perform services for you, but no more than once per day. 

For every service your familiar performs, you owe a favour.

0. Familiars can use the detect magic spell at will, and even share the results with you if you ask nicely (this is so trivial that it doesn't demand a favour in exchange). 

1. Familiars can teach you spells, which you can then add to your spell book immediately and at no cost. The DM will pick &/or roll for the spells your familiar knows. It cannot teach you what you cannot understand. The first spell is free.

2. Familiars can grant you an extra spell slot of your highest level spell for one day.

3. Familiars can give you +2 to your caster level for one day.

4. Familiars can save you from a violent death—but only once, and only if the familiar answers your summons immediately (you make that Charisma check mentioned above). The details of how this actually happens are left to the DM. Once your familiar has performed this favour for you, you become bound to it body and soul. You will never be rid of it. You owe it a favour every time you level up, or every time you gain a negative level.

5. Pretty much anything else you can dream up. Want it to scout out the next room? No problem. That counts as a favour, though.

Each favour is something that the familiar can call in immediately or at a later date. It's up to the DM, and depends on the familiar's goals. If the spellcaster performs the favour that the familiar requests, that's the end of it. If the character refuses, that is a violation the contract with the familiar and the DM will roll on the Breach of Covenant table for the consequences (may include random curses, debuffs, mutations and other punishments). As long as you can convince your familiar that you still have a chance to fulfil your destiny it will not abandon you, although it might get grumpy. It has a contract after all.

Player Character Familiars

Lord Glaumr is a ferret with golden fur and glittering purple eyes. (Getorix)

Welcome To The Viridian Empire

Welcome to the Emerald City!

Once the pinnacle of social progress and development, the Imperium has fallen into oppressive decadence. This is the price of peace: no more kingdoms to conquer or wars to wage. The paranoid Emperor grows increasingly out of touch with reality while his stranglehold on the Imperial tributaries begins to weaken. The Inquisition rules all aspects of social life. Deviation, unrest and ‘strangeness’ are not tolerated. Magic is viewed with suspicion at best. Nonhumans, alternative religions and those born ‘different’ are repressed or forced to the very fringes of civilization.

The capital is VIRIDISTAN - City of Spices, The Immortal City, tarnished Emerald of the Empire. This millennia-old sprawl built by a forgotten people stretches across the cliffs above Trident Gulf, its glittering jeweled towers and crystal domes visible for miles. Who would dare this crumbling, treacherous bureaucracy? Your characters: disillusioned war veterans, cutthroat mercenaries, repressed sorcerers and feared holy men - a generation of lost warriors, the empire’s last hope for a cynical age.

Fight on the side of Law against enemies of the state and the rising tide of Chaos! Accomplish your goals, amass wealth and rise through the ranks, but watch your back - traitors and heretics are everywhere and it’s not easy to know who to trust. See to it that you don’t fall victim to their plots - or burn alongside them!

A Message from the DM

Welcome to the game! Let me emphasize this is a drop-in game. We are all busy adults. Show up when you can, it’s okay if you can’t. The goal is to play with whoever shows up on game day. As long as we have at least four people, we can game.

Thematically, this campaign might be a bit unfamiliar: I’m drawing from swords & sorcery fiction (Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser for example), history, the weird tales of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, Conan the Barbarian (the books, not the movies), Dark Souls, Warhammer, horror movies and heavy metal. This isn’t the mythic or heroic fantasy of Lord of the Rings. Sometimes harsh shit goes down - on par with any Game of Thrones episode (with less tits).

There is no grand destiny that dictates victory. Adversity and tragedy will plague your characters every step of the way, and some will die! Adventuring requires teamwork, observation, luck, and bold action to succeed. Nobody knows who will be triumphant until the campaign’s end, but those who win through the coming days may call themselves mighty heroes indeed...



Rules:

Core Rules - Labyrinth Lord rulebook (free no-art version)

Expanded Classes & Spells - Advanced Edition Companion.

The Auto-Filling Character Spreadsheet - with instructions!!!

Players' Reference Spreadsheet - Equipment, Combat, Rules, Abilities & Magic - helpful reference!