After shifting gears with our Shadowdark games, I’ve started writing up more about the world and setting for this new campaign. Not much mind you, I’m not looking to fully develop a game world or even fully develop this Borderlands mini-setting. Rather just the things that come to mind and the words start to flow…for good or bad. A number of these little bits of writing are related to the monsters of the Borderlands (and the broader world). Below the break is some information about the Midnight Elves and their servants, the Dusk. This is relevant as the player characters have been exploring a location that one of them, Aja, has identified as an outpost of these creatures. The other characters know nothing of them.
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Borderlands Session 2
In our prior session, the PCs clever plan to lure in either the brigands or the scrablings had worked…just not exactly how they had wanted. This led the PCs to a path that split with brigand traps leading in one direction and scrabling tracks in another. Reasoning that with scrablings being creatures of the night and it was daytime, that they would be at an advantage to pursue the scrablings now and the brigands later. This proved true. They caught many of the scrablings mostly unaware in Goblin Gully (based on the wonderful map from Dyson’s Dodecahedron) but not without harm to themselves. After regrouping (and some healing), the PCs started to head deeper into Goblin Gully.
RJ and Savannah were both missing. Rachel played Aja and Jen played Norfek. More below the break.
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Wider World of the Borderlands Setting
My intent with the Borderlands game is to largely develop the world as we play. The players are helping to name and develop stuff like major NPCs such as Harold at the Spider’s Bite Inn, the name of the Baroness (Fluvia), the name of the commander of The Keep (Lord Luca Blackwood), the name of the capital of the Kingdom of Darnesh (Fairchild). I also asked for input on the name of the world for the campaign. I got a few responses and one was Spyro. While the name didn’t really grab me, it did spark the thought of a world that was a spiral or a helix instead of a globe. Another suggestion was Panoply…which means a collection of things. While this campaign will be limited to the Borderlands, this name suggests a world with a LOT of cultures and peoples and kingdoms and so on…maybe even one that is nearly infinite in variety and breadth. Another was Norn and this sparked the thought of not simply fate or the shaping of destinies but the role of deities in the creation and life of the world. This soup of thoughts led to a relatively brief description of the World of Tahvel which is below (the break)..
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Borderlands Session 1
“What do you want?” That was the response from the priest as he realized that most (but not all) of the player characters had entered the church and were approaching him. And that’s where we picked up our next session (below the break). All of the characters had arrived in Bridgeford and had met in an inn during our Session 0. They began to gel as a group–if for no other reason than knowing that they are the player characters–and settled on following a lead which had brought Ellery to the Borderlands…a rumor that a ruined abbey, Valvur Abbey, might not be quite as empty of treasure as was as commonly believed. In the hopes of learning more about the location of these ruins, they had come to Bridgeford’s church to ask some questions.
All players participated this week.
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Borderlands Session 0
Our first session of the campaign was a “Session 0” for creating characters and to start to learn who they are. All four players attended and rolled up their characters. We have a half-elf bard, a human ranger, a human fighter, and a dwarven paladin. They all arrived in the Borderlands and the town of Bridgeport and they all met in a tavern. 😉
Details on the PCs and our first session below the break.
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Borderlands and Exploration
Fifth Edition enshrined in its player’s handbook the notion that there are three pillars of the game: combat, exploration, and social interaction. I don’t think this is correct, at least not for me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen combat as a pillar of D&D and other role-playing games. It is, obviously, a part of the game but not a pillar. I also don’t see social interaction as a pillar of the game. Instead, both are supports for what I consider the pillar of RPGs…exploration. (This entire post, of course, is my opinion and perception of things…folks are free to have different opinions and perceptions. Similarly, the line between old and new/modern versions of D&D is something that is up for debate and it can be a blurry line.)
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Borderlands House Rules
Below the break are the house rules used in the Borderlands campaign, modifying the core Shadowdark rules. Some of these are to emulate older versions of D&D, some for the setting, some to bump up player character life expectancy a bit, and some to make certain elements a little more dramatic.
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Barony of Grenzant
(Continuing from the prior post on the Borderlands, this post provides a little more information about the area in which the campaign will be set.)
The Borderlands are part of the Enduring Kingdom of Darnesh, a kingdom whose lands are to the west. The Borderlands or, as it is officially known, the Barony of Grenzant is the most easterly holding of the Kingdom. Fluvia Tidewater–Grenzant is the current Baroness. The only child of Baron Avial Tidewater-Grenzant, she was thrust into this position of leadership at the age of thirteen when both her father and mother succumbed to a strange illness that evaded all attempts to cure it.
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The Borderlands
As usual, I have been sporadic (to put it nicely) in posting on my website. We had been playing a mostly weekly Shadowdark campaign. However, for various reasons, we haven’t really gotten to play consistently for a couple of months now. I don’t know about other GMs out there, but I have a hard time staying invested in a game when we are not playing regularly…as most of my players who have been around for a while know by now. Before we started this now ending Shadowdark game, I had been knocking around an idea for a bit of a sandboxy game with locations scattered about based on (or at least inspired by) various classic D&D modules, especially the B-Series. And so…<dramatic drum roll>…I present…<dramatic pause>…yet another take on…<ta-da>…The Borderlands!
Continue reading →Shadowdark: The First Sessions
We’ve now played somewhere around six to eight sessions of Shadowdark for our Friday night game. We’ve had one character death via a bit of self-immolation, a bunch of exploration and a bunch of “Nope! We’re turning around,” and quite a bit of improvisation as we play (as in making up crap as we go). I’m going to see if I can offer up a quick summary of what has happened so far. It is highly likely that I’ll miss something as these sessions have been spread across about six weeks. First up, the player characters.
There are currently four players: Jen, Rachel, RJ, and Sky. Jen is playing Kati, a halfling thief. Rachel is playing Branwyn, an elven fighter. Rachel’s first character, Lauriel, was an elven wizard who died in one of the earliest sessions. RJ is playing Wrark, a goblin priest, and Sky is playing Spyder, a human fighter. We are doing max hit points at 1st level, but I believe that is our only house rule at the moment. Foundry (hosted by the Forge) is the virtual tabletop that we are using for the game thanks to the folks who have developed the unofficial (at least as of this writing) Shadowdark system for Foundry.
Continue reading →