Session Updates - Level Up and Kit Up

The party is now in 4 groups. Felix, Felice, Gurwinder and Rona will arrive by wagon my lunch time. Melvin, Jim, Megen, Matilda and Jaime arrived by horse at the end of the last session. Melvin and Jim have gone off to acquire new equipment for Jim as he is now a 1st level ranger. Megen and Matilda are exploring the town while Jaime is getting lunch for the party. The plan is to meet up at Five Tree Hill at lunch time.

Megen, Matilda, Jim, and Rona have all leveled up last session. The players will check out their new character abilities and proceed from there. You can click the link to see the PDF file.

I have also created a reasonable list of provisions in the wagons, as record keeping became a nightmare last session. I believe the party somehow acquired an extra horse. Not sure, but it is now official, they have two wagons, 4 oxen, and 6 horses. The players don't seem to be abusing their character sheets, so I'm letting this one go. They don't need six horses and perhaps don't realize they have that many. It seems they gave Gurwinder a horse to search for the raiders last session, but now she's riding on the wagons like a captain of a fleet of ships.

They'll have a chance to obtain new horses and such in town. The players don't seem to be making a distinction between horses, but by my records, they have 3 riding horses, a medium war horse and 2 draft horses.

As a gag, I plan on firing up my old Mac and letting the players play a little bit of Oregon Trail. That should be fun.



If the numbers seem right, I'll let them obtain provisions like this. They need more Oxen and a few wheels. :)

I have to run. I need to generate some raiders and a couple of witches.

Worldobuilder By Inkwell Ideas for Maps

A few months ago, I picked up a whole suite of software for mapping and world building. I have to tell you, the Worldographer software is excellent. I use it for my books, my blogs and my campaign. It couldn't be more handy. They have a collection of software, but my favorite is Worldographer. It basically does everything I wish it to.

You can pick up new icon packs from Patreon, as monthly subscription. My campaign is Roman themed, so I haven't partaken in that yet. I did purchased the e1 Icon pack when I bough the software. It allows me to make maps that look a bit like the Greyhawk campaign map. I love it.

You can give it a try with very few limitations from the store section of their main site. The free version doesn't nag or limit you too much. It is mean to just give you a taste.

I can't help but tinker. My setting is a peninsula with a vast savanna, I needed acacia trees. The set of icons I had didn't have any, so I modified a regular tree into one using the GNU Image Manipulation Program.

It reminded me of modding Civilization Icons. You need a transparent background. Did you ever try that? I used to have great fun adding dinosaurs and Veritechs to the game.

Anyway, back to my campaign. I have a large Romanesque city. Romans lived in villas and apartments. The software had a half dozen choices, but I need to populate a massive area. Repetition stands out like a sore thumb, so I got modding.

In the first version of my city, the buildings looked very medieval. I decided to make the whole area more Roman by making most structures either ramshackle wooden or Spanish tile like.

  
You can see those Spanish like rooves from 35,000 feet. Nice.

Then I wanted new villas. Just two choices didn't give a lot of variety.

I now have 4 or five variations. Square or rectangular and so on. One thing I discovered while working is, if you leave the courtyard area transparent, you can trees and other structures to the yard. Nice touch. The other thing is you can use the software to flip, rotate and scale the same building so even a copy doesn't look exactly like the one next to it.

For my last trick, and this is completely outside of the scope of Worldographer, I decided to add my party.

It is completely useless for game play, but I thought it was a nice trick. I have two wagons and 5 horses, to match my party. If you zoom in too much, there is zero detail, so the trick loses it's charm. But I enjoyed giving it a shot.

The Campaign So Far

Last session, mistakes were made. The raider party was not much of a combat, it was a just an opportunity to chew up NPCs and scenery.

Here is the set up for tomorrow. First, Guilbert and Ortaire surrendered themselves at the Villa. Guilbert was outmatched and Ortaire was exhausted. There is no more fight in either of them. The players got some information out of them, but decided they were safe to leave behind for the Empire's justice.

The elven war band is still out there. They were hampered by their uniforms, so they stole some clothes from the Villa, plus a horse.

Horses have become a record keeping nightmare for me. The players seem to absconded with too many horses, so at their next stop, I will present them with a livestock auction so they get the animals they need and dispense with the ones they don't. They swiped horses from the raiders and the elves, then lost some to the Guilbert. Now I am convinced they have two too many. We'll fix that with some auction fun. The characters are flush with cash.

The raiders are just as scattered as the characters and the elves. So, let's get everyone together.

Step one, the elves flinched some stuff from the Villa and have entered Nace ahead of the characters. They are doing about as well at disguise as Spock, Capatin Kirk and Bones but no one has noticed them yet. The elven sloop is in the south, marked in green on the map. It is too far away to help, even if they had more troops, which they don't. I'll give them all something to do in a moment.

There are five raiders in or around Nace. One is going home to never again venture off the farm. His farm is the small structure on the right hand side of the map. It's isn't important, I'm OCD. We'll likely never hear from him again. The four raiders in town have been drinking themselves stupid. Their ship is marked in red, so it's of no help to them. Let's have them join the elves.

Guilbert and Ortaire were back at the Villa the last time the player saw them. Justice was swift. Guilbert is on his way north to the Capital for torture and execution if he doesn't come up with a plan. He has a plan. He is pretending to be a much high rank than he is and will happily make up anything he can to save his neck. This got Ortaire's neck out a noose. Ortaire has been taken to Nace for a mini-triumph. He is being paraded around on a donkey and will be auctioned off a slave as soon as the humiliation gets old.

(Remember, the Emperor is NOT into slavery and he is the only person who can declare a Triumph, so heads are going to roll over this. Luckily, his agents, the player characters are on hand. Maybe they'll do his will or maybe he can spin whatever happens to his will. The Emperor really needs a name because he is turning out to an ex post facto, arch-machiavellian, super Amadeus.)

Queue up the 3 elves and 4 raiders. The elves hate slavery and the raiders are horrified by the capture of their friend. Both groups are going to attempt a rescue. The characters will become embroiled in the mini-triumph over Ortaire and will definitely meet the raiders and the elves.

Maybe, everyone will wear disguises. Wouldn't that be fun?

Aligning the Stars and Setting the Stage

Last session, the players romped all over the raiders then chewed scenery. I totally lost track of both real time and game time and probably let them do too much. This caused the party to be fragmented, with half at the gates of Nace and the other half still traveling with the wagons.

To get around any sort of headaches, I'll start the session at Five Tree Hill. It's a location just outside the Eastern gates. The "hill" is actually the slope to the city, so it is lower than the gates, but still dry.  As you can see, I have revamped much of my map to look more Roman.

Just inside the gates, there is an inn, a stable, water on the outskirts of the city. Food is also available at the Inn. Five Tree Hill is a convenient meeting spot for travelers. It's a large open area marked out by some arrowroot trees. The guards keep this trees pruned, so they don't interfere with the defenses of the town. No camping is allowed, but a lot of people grab a meal here while waiting for news, deliveries or friends. It's a good place to find a walking stick and swap gossip.