Risus Monkey: Beyond Sanctuary: Getting Started

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Beyond Sanctuary: Getting Started

With my Old School Premise and a batch of freshly created characters, I am now almost ready to begin the adventure. All that remains is to add a few more setting details and gather my play materials. When playing a solo game using the Mythic GME, I typically sit at my computer, dice at the ready, and write out everything that occurs. So what you see in the transcript is precisely what happens during play. Not everything gets resolved through game mechanics or checks on the Mythic FATE table. To keep things flowing, I usually only stop writing at decision points (or if I want to force some action through random events).

Characters

Hal Ptor: Male Human Adventuring Cleric of the Southern Cult of Sawdorn.
Arien Fingalen: Female Elven Knight of the Crimson Wolf and Swordmage of the Galenteith.
Tenistan Rhial: Male Human Rancher and Mercenary Cavalier.
Liamas Appledore: Swashbuckling Halfling Adventuring Thief.
Kandara Tanum: Female Adventuring Wizard of the Hidden Vale and former Aristocrat of the Western Principalities.
Valdora Balinsdottir: Female Dwarven Shieldmaiden, Dungeoneer, and Artificer.

Setting

As a result of the ideas generated during character creation, the setting is already starting to come together. The campaign will focus on the wild North Lands, a region that was once civilized but has since fallen to barbarism. There are scattered fortified settlements, but the region remains largely uncharted. What maps do exist are hopelessly out of date and the characters will only have vague ideas of the true geography. Hal Ptor hails from the civilized city-states of the Southern Alliance, a region that has fully emerged from the Dark Age and has been sending emissaries out into the world. The Western Principalities (where Kandara originates) were the first areas to benefit from Southern trade and they too are beginning to come out from the Dark Age (though these lands are still rife with danger). The homes of the other characters are vaguely between the Western Principalities and the "home base" town of Sanctuary.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary is the eastern-most civilized settlement of the North Lands. It lies on the end of a dangerous caravan route from the Western Principalities. Benefiting from natural defensive features, a fortified Abbey dedicated to the Storm Father [a Northern aspect of Hal Ptor's god] attracted settlers from the surrounding countryside. Slowly, the settlement grew into a full-fledged town.

Sanctuary primarily trades with villages along the western caravan route. It provides iron ore, iron-work, wool, and beer. It imports various agricultural commodities as well as all the typical products of civilization that are difficult to produce or find locally.

Other than a trickle of refugees from aborted or lost settlements in the east, Sanctuary has very little contact with the Wild Lands. What contact it does have usually consists of the occasional party of adventurers who venture out from Sanctuary in search of treasure troves in forgotten labyrinths. Treasure returned from such adventurers, though rare, is often of sufficient quantity and quality to spur trade in its own right.

The Silver Wolf
The Silver Wolf is the more specific home base of the adventurers. It is the best inn in Santuary, catering to caravan merchants and adventurers. It alternates between being fantastically over-crowded and almost empty (given the ebb and flow of caravan traffic). It has an ample dining hall that serves the best beer in town (and that's saying something) and frequently draws locals as well as guests to enjoy its excellent cuisine and spectacular views of the valley. It is build into the hill-side, with an interesting multi-level architecture. It takes advantage of a natural hot-sping to provide hot water and spa services (mineral and mud) to it's guests. An associated caravanserai is just down the hill.

Goods and Services
I'll be using OSRIC and AD&D for equipment tables. All common items are available in town. Hirelings and henchmen can be hired in town (OSRIC covers this quite well). Sanctuary is not large enough to support alchemists or sages, though the occasional magic-item may be available through caravan trade. There is a magic shop that sells spell components to caravan specialists and adventuring wizards or clerics.

Adventures

I'd like to spend as little time in Sanctuary as possible. This is a West Marches/sandbox-style campaign where all the exciting stuff should be happening in the wilds. Characters will return to Sanctuary to recover from wounds, dispose of loot, resupply, and obtain their next quests. That being said, there is always a chance (through Fate Chart rolls) of the occasional in-town encounter scene.

A wilderness hex map will begin "a day's journey" from Sanctuary (the limit of what is commonly known). From that point, the party will be charting their own course or following some kind of treasure map. The AD&D DMG will be very useful here.

Quests
The first issue that comes up is the initial plot and set-up scenes for a given adventure. Most should involve some combination of hex-clearing and dungeon crawling. A good place to start is the Big List of RPG Plots. A genre-appropriate subset follows:

1	Any Old Port In A Storm
2	Breaking and Entering
3	Clearing the Hex
4	Escort Service
5	Hidden Base
6	Manhunt
7	Ounces of Prevention
8	Quest for the Sparly Hoozits
9	Recent Ruins
10	Safari
11	Uncharted Waters
12	Roll on table from the *Risus Companion* instead