Sunday, March 17, 2024

Three Worlds #5


The news of the magical teleportation pits caused a stir in Fort Davelmag. Believing that getting past the rock guardian that blocked their path in the Tower cave complex held the key to finding the manticore, our heroes sought the aid of Dareni, the dwarven stone mason at the fort. Dareni revealed that the rocks in the canyon could be split by the careful application of force through a chisel placed along their planes, but that to do so required the guardian to be held immobile.

That same evening that our hero returned another caravan arrived at the Fort, this time from the eastern end. The merchant and guards of the caravan reported that they spotted several orcs at Watcher Butte the day before as their caravan passed. Concerned that this meant that the canyon orcs were plotting an attack, Captain Mossak asked our heroes to find out if the orcs were indeed gathering north of the river.

While Kargen and Rokas worked with Dareni on a means to immobilise the rock guardian, Arwin and Mala, accompanied by Enree (see PC profiles here), a guard with the caravan, Gad, and Lennard the porter returned to Watcher Butte to investigate.

A day's travel brought our heroes to Stoneglow Draw campsite just as the sun was setting. While the rest made camp, Enree went to the nearby stream to collect water. There, he saw the prostrate body of an orc across the stream. The orc was wounded and unconscious; he carried no weapon, but had a bag that held some berries, and a bone flute. Enree packed the orc's wound with his hat, splashed water on him to wake him, and gave him water to drink. When the orc had regained some of his strength, Enree helped him back to the camp.

The orc's arrival was met with disapproval by Lennard. To our heroes' relief the newcomer was a farmer orc like Gad, and introduced himself as Tokala. Tokala told the party that he and two other villagers was foraging for berries to take back to their village at the nearby Rak-Rosar plateau when they were attacked by canyon orcs. He was struck by an arrow but managed to flee, but grew weak from the loss of blood and fell unconscious just as he was about to reach the stream.

As they were having their meal around the camp fire, Enree asked to see Tokala's bone flute, which the orc happily obliged. Tokala then offered to play a tune for the party. As the party listened to the tune, they grew sleepy, and one by one, except for Enree, they fell asleep. Through his groggy eyes Enree now saw Tokala transform into a bestial form: his skin inverted and fur covered his body; a snout emerged from his mouth, baring sharp teeth. The transformed Tokala moved towards Lennard...

Enree called upon his magic to cause fear in the mind of Tokala, causing him to pause, and at the same time roused Arwin. The two then battled the monster, and were soon joined by Mala, who conjured up fire to set it aflame and kill it.

Afterwards Gad, who was frozen with fear throughout the event, told our heroes that the monster was known as a Skinwalker among his people: an evil shaman who had the ability to assume the form of orcs and beasts.

The party spent a fitful night at camp. The next morning, as they were eating breakfast, they saw a small party of orcs approaching their camp. The party hid among rocks as the orcs approached, and when they were close enough for Gad to identify them as farmer orcs, they revealed themselves.

The farmer orcs were apprehensive at first, but when they noticed the burnt body of the skinwalker nearby and learned from Gad what had happened, they became friendlier. Our heroes asked about the presence of canyon orcs, but the orc party had not seen any of them so far. The orcs in turn asked about sightings of Bighorn sheep, which they hoped to hunt. Eager to earn an ally, our heroes offered to lead the orcs to where they saw some sheep the day before. There, they saw a herd of sheep drinking from the river in the valley below.

The orcs invited our heroes to join them in their hunt, which they agreed. Setting two parties in ambush on either side of the valley, a third party made their way near to the herd to cause an alarm. The herd split into two, each fleeing one way. One ram led the herd up the side of the canyon, right into the site chosen by Arwin for the ambush, who brought it down with a bolt from his crossbow.

The kill was met with much rejoicing by the orcs, who butchered the ram and presented the tongue and the head of the ram to Arwin. The party was invited back to the camp of the orcs, where a feast was held. There they met with the matriarch of the tribe, when our heroes presented gifts to her and received gifts in return. From the matriarch they learned about the history of conflict between the farmer orcs and the canyon orcs, and also about the legend regarding the manticore - which the canyon orcs called the Piasu. The Piasu was a creature from the legend of the canyon orcs - a monster that arose from the underworld and terrorised the people, until at last it was slain by a hero. Unfortunately, the means by which they did this was not known to the matriarch.

Prepping and Running the Game

A couple of the regular players could not make this session, and we had one new player, and so I decided to not progress the story to a final encounter with the manticore, but play a sort of a filler session. This session consisted of two parts: the encounter with the skinwalker, and the Bighorn sheep hunt.

I decided on the second part after a player wondered aloud in an earlier session how the Bighorn sheep (which I had said they encountered in previous sessions) tasted. I did a bit of googling, and it turned out that native Americans did hunt bighorn sheep, and still take people on hunts today.

I knew that a hunt would only take up part of a session, and so I looked for a combat encounter to fill the time. I came upon the legends of the skinwalker, and decided to build an encounter around them. The skinwalker as it appeared in our session is not representative of the skinwalker as the Navajo people know it; in fact it seems that the Navajo people are reluctant to share their tales of skinwalkers with outsiders. Now even though I included the skinwalker as an encounter which was not linked to the rest of the campaign, my players were very curious about it and asked many questions on its nature, which I was able to give second-hand answer through the farmer orc matriarch.

The campaign should come to a close in another session or two, after which I hope to move on to another sandbox campaign by the same author.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Three Worlds #4


Gad and Mala kept watch over the orc tower through the night. They learned that there were about two dozen orc warriors in the tower, and that they were receiving supplies from the south, which told them they were not leaving any time soon.

The next morning, with their supplies running low, the duo returned to Fort Davelmag. They arrived at the Fort in the evening, but just as they were reporting their findings to Captain Mossak over dinner, they heard a commotion outside: the manticore had flown past the Fort and dropped the body of one of the guards sent by Captain Mossak to Belton earlier that day to get help from the duke. It was missing the lower half of its body.

There were now only seven guards and nine caravan guards left in the fort, and no help would be arriving soon. To make things worse, the four orc mercenaries announced that they would continue with their plan to leave the next day with the remains of their employer, and take the message to Belton. On his part Captain Mossak was reluctant to evacuate the fort, reasoning that they would be safer behind its walls.

Fearing an attack by the orcs and the manticore, our heroes decided to venture once more to the cave of the manticore, hoping to kill it if it had returned to its lair. And so Arwin, Kargen, Mala, and Rokas (see PC profiles here) once more made the trek up Devil's Laugh Canyon, with Lennard, the fort's porter.

Returning to the cave that led to the salt lake, our heroes this time explored down another tunnel to find another magically cold cave with a shallow pit at the centre, and a firepit to its north, just like that which they found inside the cave complex to the north.

Further exploration led to a burial of another orc shaman in a nearby cave, along with similar grave goods and a necklace bearing a large gemstone, this time a white moonstone.

Mala sensed that the two stones were magical, and surmised that they were somehow connected to the caves with the pits. When our heroes brought the stones near the pit, the space within the pit turned pitch black, and objects placed within it vanished into the darkness, but could be retrieved.

After some experimentation, Kargen made the bold decision to leap into the pit... and found himself emerging in a similar pit in a similar magically cold cave. In the same cave was the frozen body of yet another orc shaman, who wore a necklace of yellow topaz. Kargen retrieved the stone and stepped back into the pit, and as transported back to the cave where his companions were waiting.

By further experimentation, our heroes were able to determine that the stones allowed travel between this cave, the cave to the north, and a third cave, and that they could determine which one the portal led to by their thoughts, and that the thoughts "tower" and "manticore" led to the third cave.

Despite the lateness of the hour, our heroes traveled once more to the third cave, and exited the single tunnel that led from it. a short distance from the cave they found a boulder in the middle of the tunnel, and when they approached it the boulder shifted and took the form of a giant humanoid. When they got closer, the rock form attacked them, and pursued them back to the magical cave.

Unable to get past the magical guardian, and by now hungry and exhausted, our heroes returned to the salt cave to plot their next move.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session saw little combat, but took the campaign forward by putting the PCs back on the "right track" and let them figure out how the teleport system worked. The original portal in the module took the more traditional form of a portal/door, but I chose to lean into symbolism of the sipapu (the pit) and make it a real magical portal.

The module did not give much information on how the portals worked, and I had to make things up as we went along, but I think the way they work now is practical for the purpose of a game.

The rock guardian in the tunnel leading out of the cave is too powerful for the PCs to defeat in a straight fight, so the players will have to figure out a way to defeat it or bypass it.

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Forbidden Psalm, This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 of Us, and Tiny Towns

For our February session we played a game of Forbidden Psalm. Well technically it was two games: the play area being 2' x 2', I set up terrain to cover a 4' x 2' area and the four of us played two separate games side-by-side.

The game rules were simple enough, although with each character having some sort of special rules, it was difficult to keep track. It plays very much like Mordheim or Frostgrave.


After the game we played two games each of two board games: This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 of Us, and Tiny Towns. The first is a simple game that is sometimes difficult for new players to grasp, but once they get it it is easy to set up and play.

Tiny Towns is one of my favourite board games, but one which I am not very good at. Still, I managed to win the game for the first time in our first game, but a careless mistake in the second put me at the bottom of the table. I am keen to play that game again soon.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Three Worlds #3

photo by Stefan Thüngen

When they had rested from their travels, our heroes decided to explore the cave known as the Salt Cauldron Tunnel across the canyon, on the belief that it too may contain a chamber of magic which will give them more clues on the nature of the cave which they had explored.

And so Arwin, Kargen, and Mala (see PC profiles here) undertook the journey across the stone bridge across the River of Hiad and up the slot canyon known as the Laughing Devil Trail (for the eerie sound the wind made when it blew through the canyon). It was close to sunset when they arrived at the end of the canyon and at the foot of the path which led to the cave, but wary of spending a night out in the open, the party elected to continue on.

The path led to the entrance of the cave, and when Mala entered it he was attacked by a black mountain lion which had made the place its lair. Arwin slew the lion with a bolt from his crossbow, but Mala was much weakened from the attack.

Exploring the first chamber of the cave, they found two paths leading from it: one led downwards to the east, while another, some ten feet from the ground, was a tunnel which, from the salt left on the ground, was the tunnel which led to the salt lake which the orcs of old harvested salt from.

Despite their weariness, our heroes decided to press on. They entered the narrow tunnel, which was so narrow that they had to crawl on fours. For more than an hour they crawled upwards, until their lantern went out and they had to carry on in pitch darkness, until at last they could see the light of the moon at the end of the tunnel. Them making themselves as comfortable as they could in the confines of the tunnel, they laid down to sleep.

The next morning our heroes awoke and exited the tunnel. They found themselves looking down at a round valley some three miles across. At the floor of the valley was a salt lake a mile long and half a mile wide. A trail led from the tunnel to the shore of the salt lake, which was covered by a crust of rock salt.

Our heroes walked to the floor of the valley and explored the salt lake, but except for some signs of salt harvesting from a long time ago, they found little of interest. The resolved to return to the fort, but unwilling to endure the crawl through the tunnel again, they planned to climb over the mountain on the far side of the valley instead.

When they reached the foot of the mountain at the far side of the valley, they noticed a cave opening some 20 feet from the floor of the valley. Mala once more entered the cave to reconnoiter, and to his surprise found the "manticore" asleep inside!

Mala made his way out of the cave silently, and together the trio hatched plan to smoke the manticore out of its lair by setting their bedrolls on fire, setting a rope across the mouth of the cave to entangle it when it fled out, and Arwin would shoot it with his crossbow.

The party put their plan into action, but when Mala attempted to set the bedrolls alight the striking of the flint woke the manticore. As the bedrolls caught fire the manticore let out a roar and charged through the flames, knocking Mala down as it sped towards the cave opening. Arwin let fly his bolt but missed. The manticore ran into the rope stretched across the opening of the cave, one end of which was anchored by a grappling hook to the side of the mountain, and the other end held by Kargen; the force of impact ripped the grappling hook off the rocks, and threw Kargen to the ground.

The manticore took to the sky, while our heroes retreated inside the cave, expecting the manticore to turn and attack, but it flew eastwards over the mountain and disappeared from their view.

Wounded and low on supplies, our heroes had little choice but to continue their journey back, and in the evening they arrived at the fort hungry and tired. Based on their testimony, Captain Mossak decided to move Jorrus from the pit in the courtyard and placed him under guard in the dormitory instead.

During the time they were gone another caravan had arrived at Fort Davelmag, escorted by four Plains Orcs. Despite the news of recent events, the merchant nevertheless decided to set off the next day as planned. This proved to be disastrous as the four orcs would return the evening after with news that the manticore attacked their encampment at night, slew the merchant and their mules, and they had to flee with nothing but their weapons and the clothes on their backs.

Captain Mossak then despatched a few guards, our heroes, and the orcs to return to the campsite to investigate. There they found the bodies of the mules and the merchants eaten by coyotes, and the food, furs, and tools looted, leaving behind the silver and iron ingots which the merchant carried. The orcs declared that they would bring the body of the merchant back to his family, taking the silver for their labour.

The next morning the orcs and the guards set off for the fort, while our heroes, accompanied by Gad, followed the trail of the looters, which led down to the canyon floor, across the river (which there ran as shallow rapids), and up the opposite slope of the canyon. The trail led to a spur of the mountain which was raised above the surrounding like a promontory. At the end of the promontory was a high tower, which our heroes could not determine if it was natural or man-made.

Arwin tried to make his way to the tower long the steep-sided spur, but he found that orcs had built a low wall of stones across it, and when he got near they shot arrows at him.

With the orcs unwilling to communicate, our heroes decided to split up, with Gad and Mala staying near the tower to keep an eye on the orcs, while the rest returned to the fort.

Prepping and Running the Game

Despite having sufficient time and heads-up to prepare for this session, I made an error in describing the map, missed out a fork, which led the players to choose the courses of action which they did.

It is not an unrecoverable mistake, as I can simply put the room down the other passage which they did not explore, but it did lead back to the discussion of Blorb Principles about which I had a discussion with my friend Steve the week before.

My mistake had kind of accelerated the development of the plot of the campaign, but it being organic, I am happy to live with the consequences. I am quite curious to see how my players will deal with the situation which they have found.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Three Worlds #2

Kargen falls afoul of a giant scorpion
When our heroes returned to the fort they found that their success had already been made known by the restoration of the spring. Once more a modest feast was held in their honour, where they made acquaintance of two newcomers to the fort, who had escorted a priest of Andeus there.

After learning what our heroes had encountered, Captain Mossak asked our heroes to lead a party of his soldier to the site of the dam, where they hope to pick up the trail of the orcs and find their lair and end the threat. Arwin and Kargen, the two new arrivals, were asked to join the mission.

The next morning Arwin, Kargen, Mala, and Rokas (see PC profiles here) and five soldiers from the garrison made their way back to the site of the dam. There they found that the bodies of the orc warriors slain by our heroes the day before had been dragged away. Following the trail east for two hours, the party came upon an abandoned village set against the side of a cliff. The adobe houses of the village lacked doors at the ground level; a wooden ladder led from the ground to the second storey door in one of the houses, and through its windows Arwin saw a few orc warriors.

Kargen and Rokas approached the house, but immediately the orcs shot arrows at them - the ladder to the door was withdrawn.

The soldiers took shelter behind some rocks, while Kargen and Rokas ran towards the houses and stood against the walls of the houses beside the one occupied by the orcs so they could not be shot at. They were soon joined by Mala.

After a failed attempt by Kargen to flings a lit lantern into the house, the trio decided to entered the house next to the one held by the orcs. From there they ascended to the roof top by a hole in the ceiling, and sneaked to the roof of the house held by the orcs.

Through the hole in the ceiling there, the trio could see that four orc warriors were in the room. The three planned a co-ordinated attack: Rokas would hurl a throwing axe at one of the orcs shooting from one of the windows, Mala would cast a spell of fire to burn the two behind the other window, while Kargen would leap from the roof down and attack any surviving orc.

While Rokas and Mala managed to execute their attack as planned, Kargen found to his surprise that when his feet landed on the floor of the house it gave way and he plunged into the room in the floor below. Almost immediately he heard a clattering sound and turned to see giant scorpion charging at him. Kargen was seized by the giant claws of the scorpion, and fell unconscious.

On the floor above Mala and Rokas had trouble taking down the last orc warrior, until the soldiers entered the fray and cut him down. The party then shot missiles at the giant scorpion to keep it away from the prone body of Kargen. Eventually Gad, an orc soldier, offered to jump to the floor below with a rope tied around his waist, and recovered the dwarf.

Eventually the soldiers killed the scorpion, and when they searched the house they found that the bodies of the two lost soldier had seemingly be fed to the scorpion, while their gear were found in another room. With the hour being late, the party made a sweep of the village to make sure there were no more threats, and then settled for the night.

==

Two days later, when they had rested and recovered, Valdus offered to take Arwin and Kargen into employment, and sent our heroes out to scout the routes ahead to make sure they were free from orc raiders. So once more our heroes ventured out of Fort Davelmag, this time to investigate the cliff painting of the manticore which gave the valley its nickname.

It was late afternoon when they arrived at the base of the cliff which bore the painting of the monster, which differed somewhat from the manticore of the Old World. Under the painting, some 20 feet from ground level, they saw a cave opening the size of a door, which they entered by employing a grappling hook.

image from wikipedia

Inside, they found a large cave with the floor covered by a layer of sand blown in from the outside, and a tunnel leading further into the mountainside. With sunset approaching, they resolved to spend the night in the cave and explore further when morning came. While they prepared to settle in for the fight, Mala was attacked by a giant lizard which had laid hidden under the sand. After a short fight, Mala killed the lizard with a blow from his shovel, and the party settled down for the night.

The next morning our heroes ventured deeper into the cave. There they found a larger cavern which was used as a burial site for orcs. In another chamber they found the remains of an orc interred in a seated position, with grave goods placed on and beside him. Our heroes took some of the goods, with Kargen claiming a necklace with a turquoise stone the size of an egg.

One tunnel led to a strange round cave that had the size and shape of the pit which served as a jail in Fort Davelmag: a round chamber some 12 yards across, with a ring of stones placed in the centre serving as a fireplace, and a small pit about two foot across set north of the centre. The room was also unnaturally cold, and frost formed upon the floor and walls of the cave.

Mala was able to sense magic in the cave, but was otherwise unable to learn more about it, and so the party decided to return to the fort.

Prepping and Running the Game

The first part of this session was a continuation of the encounter from the last session, but I changed the scene of the combat from a dungeon to an adobe village and added a vertical element, which worked well and provided some tension and laughs.

With the first encounter and quest done, I asked the players to choose which location they wished to explore next. There are about seven "dungeons" in the module, so it was not difficult to prep all the locations beforehand, especially since I modified all of them to cut them down and make them easy to remember.

The "manticore" in the photo above is actually a piasa, a mythological monster from the Mississippian Culture, which I borrowed because I thought it fit the name of the module.

The magical cave is based on the kiva of the Ancestral Puebloan culture, and is actually an important part of the plot of the campaign.

The character Mala had scored three criticals while attacking with the shovel in our two sessions, and it had become a running gag in the campaign. The player and I have decided to capitalise on this and use the shovel as a device in the character's specialisation as a warlock.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Three Worlds #1

Mala, Zua, and Rokas battle an orc warrior

Our story begins as Mala, Rokas, and Zua (see PC profiles here) entered Fort Davelmag at the western end of Huloror Canyon - known also as the Valley of the Manticore - as guards for the first trade caravan of the season. Valdus, their employer, had hoped to be the first merchant to reach Karn Buldahr in the south this year, and make a tidy profit.

The party were welcomed by the garrison, as news from the outside world was eagerly sought. That evening a modest feast was held for the visitors. But midway through the evening, a cry and a loud sound was heard outside the mess hall, and when the soldiers and our heroes rushed out they saw the body of Arnellas, one of the soldiers, lying face down at the bottom of the fort's watch tower. Standing at the top of the tower was Jorrus, the caravan's muleteer. His face was in a daze, and in his hand he held a knife.

Jorrus was disarmed and bound by the soldiers, and it soon became clear that he had stabbed Arnellas in the back and the latter had either fallen or been pushed off the watch tower. The two men had not met each other before the day, and no motive for the attack could be found, but nevertheless the guilt was clear. Jorrus was placed in a large pit in the courtyard of the fort which served as a jail, and Captain Mossak would send messengers to the town of Belton to fetch the duke's emissary to execute the death sentence for the crime.

Having found Jorrus an honest and upright fellow during their time together, our heroes were puzzled by his actions, and so they asked him what had trasnpired. Jorrus, still in a daze, replied that he had gone up to the top of the watch tower with Arnellos to take in the view of the canyon at night, and that he heard the saw the flapping of giant wings, and the next thing he remembered was that he was being arrested by the soldiers.

Our heroes returned to their quarters to find Valdus waiting for them. Valdus was unwilling to leave the fort without Jorrus, who had been a good muleteer, and in any case it would be unwise to travel on without someone to tend to the mules. He would ask the soldiers traveling to Belton to seek a replacement for Jorrus, which meant that they would have to wait for four weeks at the fort.

To make things worse, Captain Mossak had informed Valdus that the stream supplying the fort had in recent days decreased in flow, and their water would not be able to sustain the garrison and the mules if the caravan remained for more than a few days. Two soldiers sent out to investigate the cause of the lessened flow had not returned, so now Valdus asked our heroes to seek out the cause of the problem.

The next day, our heroes followed the course of the stream up the hills, and about noon time they came to a place where a pool had formed over a flat area of ground; a crude dam of rocks had been built across the stream. Zua observed that two orcs were hiding among rocks in the sloped overlooking the dam.

Rokas and Mala decided to make a wide flanking move and come upon the orcs from their rear, but as they neared the orcs' position Zua saw that one orc archer had in fact noticed the two of them and was aiming an arrow at Rokas. Zua loosed an arrow at the archer, and Rokas and Mala were warned of his presence. A brief skirmish broke out, and soon one of the orc warriors were dead, and the other one defeated and bound by our heroes. On the orc they found a sword which belonged to one of the soldiers from the garrison.

Our heroes attempted to interrogate the orc, but they could not speak each other's language. Zua, who had learned something of the "hand speech" used by some orc tribes during his travel, was able to learn that the orcs had indeed dammed the stream as they deemed the garrison of the fort enemies.

Our heroes began the work of dismantling the dam, with Mala wielding a shovel which he had acquired from the fort for this purpose, but before they could complete their work Zua spied two more orcs heading their way. As the two orcs began to shoot arrows at our heroes the first orc attempted to break out of his bonds. Mala felled him with a blow from his shovel.

Once more a fight broke out, and Zua and Rokas in turn fell to the orcs, until Mala struck down the last of the orcs with his shovel and ended the battle. Fearful of more attacks, our heroes looted the orcs, laid their bodies in a row, and then returned to the fort.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session is based pretty much "out of the book" from the module Through the Valley of the Manticore. I had the PCs be part of the caravan described in the module to give them a reason for being at the fort, and reversed the roles of the murderer and murder victim so that the PCs would have a motivation to want to get to the bottom of the mystery and prove the innocence of their fellow traveler.

This was a little more successful than I had hoped for, and the players spent quite a bit of time trying to solve the crime, and I had to move things long by nudging them in the direction of the problem with the water supply. The scenario with the water supply was supposed to lead to a second location, but given the time we had left and the state the PCs were in, I decided to delay that to our next session.

One of the things I have done for this campaign is to replace all the "humanoid" opposition with orcs, who play the role of the indigenous people of the continent. I used the culture and the architecture of the tribes of the American Southwest for the setting, and used the idea of the Plains Indian Sign Language to allow the PCs and the orcs to communicate.

Friday, January 05, 2024

Three Worlds #0

art by Jacob Fleming
Campaign Background (see here)


PC Profiles

Arwin, elven ranger seeking to learn about the flora and fauna of the Third World

Enree, human warlock; formerly a sailor

Kargen, dwarven fighter seeking his fortune in the Third World

Mala, elven warlock on a secret quest

Rokas, orc barbarian, orphaned as a child and raised by humans

Zua, elven bard traveling through the Third World to collect lore


NPCs

Captain Mossak, captain of the garrison at Fort Davelmag, human

Dareni, dwarven stone mason

Gad, orc soldier at Fort Davelmag

Lennard, human porter at Fort Davelmag

Mama Clay, human cook at Fort Davelmag


Playable Races

  • Elves

More than three thousand years ago, the elven cities states in the First World joined to become an empire that ruled over the First World. From there their ships sailed to the Second World, where they built many cities and enslaved the humans there and forced them to produce the goods to feed their empire. All that ended two and a half millennia ago, when the humans revolted and invaded the homeland of the elves, shattering their empire. Several of the elven cities survived the Age of Strife and the Great Plague that followed, and while their fortunes have waxed and waned in the years that follow, they still endure.

Today the elves are known for their prowess as seafarers and traders, as well as their skills and knowledge as scholars, mages, and craftsmen.

Elves are slighter in height and built than humans, but have a longer lifespan, living up to the age of 130.

  • Dwarves

The dwarven have their origins in the mountain ranges that divide the First and Second World, where they mined the metals the elves needed, and acted as middle-men in the trade between the elves and men. The various dwarven kingdoms warred with each other and the elves in earlier times, until the Dwarven Empire was formed.

In time the Dwarven Empire became rich and powerful, and the dwarves became skilled craftsmen in their own right. But their fortunes were intertwined with those of the elves, and during the Age of Strife and the Great Plague that followed they retreated from the surface world and withdrew to their underground homes.

Dwarves are shorter than men but more stoutly built. They too have a longer lifespan than men, with most living past the age of 100.

  • Men

It is believed that men originated in the Second World, where they were once simple hunters and gatherers, until they were taught the knowledge of farming and metal-working by the elves. In time they learned also writing and sailing from the elves; but of all the races men alone knew how to tame horses. During the Age of Strife men overthrew the elven yoke and invaded the First World, shattering the Elven Empire.

Today men rule over most of the First and Second Worlds, divided into many kingdoms and empires, and now they have begun to conquer the Third World.

  • Orcs

The myths of many of the orc nations of the Third World tell of how their gods brought them from the First World to the Second, and thence to the Third World in a time long past.

There the orcs lived apart from men, elves, and dwarves and formed their own nations and empires. Then two hundred years ago, men arrived from across the ocean. After a brief period of conflict, men were driven off, but the diseases brought by them afflicted the orcs and soon spread across the Third World, killing most of their populace and causing a collapse of their nations. When men once more arrived fifty years ago, they found the lands abandoned and unworked, and the orcish cities in ruins and deserted.

But the orcs still abide, in thousands of villages across the Third World, some clinging on to their old ways, some trying to adapt to this new threat to their land.

Orcs are shorter than men but stronger. They have a lifespan just a little shorter than that of men, with few reaching the age of 60.

Playable Classes

  • Warrior

Barbarian

Fighter

Ranger

  • Thief

Assassin

Bard

Rogue

  • Zealot

Cleric

Druid

Paladin

  • Mage

Sorcerer

Warlock

Wizard

Character Stats

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

Assign in any order: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

  • Ability Score Modifiers

1-3

-4

4-5

-3

6-7

-2

8-9

-1

10-11

0

12-13

+1

14-15

+2

16-17

+3

18+

+4

 Racial Traits and Talents:

  • Dwarf

+2 to STR, CON, or WIS

Movement 5”

INT check to detect direction when underground

  • Elf

+2 to DEX, INT, or WIS

Movement 6”

INT check to know purpose of crafted item

  • Human

+1 to any 2 (different) stats

Gain Adv to next check when enemy Crit against you

Movement 6”

  • Orc

+2 to STR, CON, or CHA

Ignore 1 level of Exhaustion

Movement 6”