The Adventurers Guild was established in the Dragon City as a training facility and common meeting place for adventuring parties. It began as an extension of the first Green Ale Tavern. The Guild is organized into different companies; each adventurer is part of a company of adventurers. Generally when a group of adventurers complete their training they form a new adventuring company; each individual adventurer also may opt to join the company of an adventurer who agrees to mentor them. The adventuring company allows a group of adventurers to pool their resources and and have companions on which to call when in need of aid. All treasure found is property of each company; a company member may withdraw up to half of company resources from any chapter house with the available funds. Adventurers of different companies may work together; usually each company will agree to a percentage of any treasure found.
Each adventurer receives a magically enchanted iron badge after completing training and joining a company. The badge identifies the wearer and the company to which they belong. Any adventurer may be voted out of his company by a unanimous vote. An adventurer without a company receives none of the privileges of membership in the guild and may often be hunted down by the guild. When a character is ousted from a company he must relinquish any magical items owned by the company. Such a character may petition to join another company at which time they regain all their past privileges.
The Adventurers Guild has three types of establishments: the guild house, the chapter house, and the safe house.
A safe house is usually a single story one room building of sturdy wood or stone provisioned with 40 rations and water. The food and water is restocked every week by a permanent create food and water spell. The Safe House contains 3 bunk beds, has a single door which can be barred from the inside, and no windows are present. A permanent protection from evil spell has been cast on the building. The inside of the house also has a permanent control temperature spell present, keeping the temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. There is also a small stone embedded in the ceiling with a continual light spell cast on it. Once the door to a Safe House is closed, it is sealed by a Wizard Lock. Access to a Safe House can be gained by pressing a guild badge against a small circle on the door, if the door is barred from the inside the adventurer trying to gain access will also have to circumvent that obstacle through negotiation or force.
A Chapter House is fronted by a Green Ale Tavern. Adventurers receive one free pint of Green Ale and one free meal every day, and may stay at the Inn without charge. The chapter house has a backroom available only to adventurers stocked with provisions and supplies. These supplies are given at a standard rate no matter location. Items stocked will include everything from the Expert Rules equipment section. The Green Ale Tavern will also always have a bulletin board where locals or adventurers may post help ads. Often the local populace that frequent the Green Ale Tavern can be hired as Hirelings or Torchbearers. Torchbearers generally start at 1cp/day, and Hirelings start at 1sp/day. The Chapter House will also have the same enchantments as a Safe House, excluding ration replenishing and the wizard locked door. The continual light will only be present in the main tavern.
A Guild House has all the amenities of a Chapter House with the addition of training facilities. A Guild House is a compound composed of a large chapter house and separate buildings for each type of class to train in. In the center of the compound will be a courtyard dedicated to weapons training. The Guild House also contains a small alchemical laboratory available for the creation of potions and scrolls. Sometimes the Potions and Scrolls will be available for sale, these will be priced at 100sp/spell level of the potion/scroll. It is also possible to sell potions and scrolls to the guild at 3/4 price. If a character(the whole company must agree to such a sale) wishes to sell a more permanent magic item(such as a sword) he can do so by putting up an ad on a selling list in the Guild House and must negotiate for the price with the buyer. There is a 10% chance that 1-4 magic items will be up for sale at any time. Each Guild House has a secret closet with a teleportation spell which will take the Character to any other Guild House. An adventurer wishing to use this device must contact the local Guild Master who has a key to unlock the closet and a separate key to specify destination.
Training at the Guild House is as described in the current house rules document. To level up a character must pay 1/4 of xp needed to level and take 10 days to trains per level. Weapon mastery training is as described in the Masters Rules as if trained by a Grand Master.
27 June 2017
06 June 2017
Government in the ancient world
I have been reading Caesar and Christ by Will Durant. It's a history of Rome and the rest of the ancient world at the time of Rome's dominance. Reading about the intrigues of the Romans, simply impressed upon me how complicated the laws and government of the Republic were. Often in modern society we have this opinion that our government is better than those in the past and that government was smaller and simpler. Yet if we study ancient history we find quite the opposite, their laws and customs were just as complicated and obscure as ours are today. just because their constitution wasn't written on a piece of paper doesn't mean it wasn't just as binding or important to them. The corruption present was probably greater then anything we have ever seen in the US. Everything we know about ancient Rome shows they were our equals in bureaucracy, legislation, class warfare, and corruption. This also applies to all the other ancient governments we have good records of. We can conclude that everyone of the ancient world, whether we have good records for them or not, had sophisticated governments because of all the ones we do know about and it doesn't make sense for other peoples not to govern themselves; it's not like certain groups of humans are less intelligent then others.
To link this topic to D&D is pretty simple. Every village, city, and country should have sophisticated laws and customs and methods of self-governance. There should be no group of humanoids (by humanoid I mean any species like humans in mental function and physical appearance) in a Utopian society where everything is shared and there is no central government, everybody just gets along. That just doesn't happen. There is always a government. The strong try to rule the weak, whether that is one very powerful man, or a group of aristocrats, or simply the majority in a democracy. Their is always a government and the methods by which it functions are complicated and based on ancient customs called "the constitution" and "common law". It is not like cities just appear overnight with no previous history. The history of a people determines and is determined by their laws and government.
To link this topic to D&D is pretty simple. Every village, city, and country should have sophisticated laws and customs and methods of self-governance. There should be no group of humanoids (by humanoid I mean any species like humans in mental function and physical appearance) in a Utopian society where everything is shared and there is no central government, everybody just gets along. That just doesn't happen. There is always a government. The strong try to rule the weak, whether that is one very powerful man, or a group of aristocrats, or simply the majority in a democracy. Their is always a government and the methods by which it functions are complicated and based on ancient customs called "the constitution" and "common law". It is not like cities just appear overnight with no previous history. The history of a people determines and is determined by their laws and government.
04 June 2017
Armstrong Company, part 1 & 2
So there are a few session notes that I haven't posted yet, this is going to be from this last week, the first games of the summer.
Date: 31 May 2017
Characters:
Edge, lvl 3 Mystic
Thaddeus Lightbringer, lvl 1 M-U
Calendar Date: 27 Kaldmont - 24 Thaumont
27 Kaldmont
Thaddeus Lightbringer is lost in the woods/looking for adventure. He finds a gecko lizard that appears to be injured sprawled on its back in front of a cave. He attacks it, it fights back, more lizards come out of the cave, and he is injured and knocked unconscious.
Edge is walking by on a nearby trail and hears screams. He runs into the woods and sees Thaddeus being munched on by lizards. He runs, picks him up and runs away. After he gets a safe distance away he performs first aid on Thaddeus. While traveling on the trail, a Tuatara lizard comes out of the trees and attacks Thaddeus. They manage to run away from it.
They set upcamp for the night. Not long after dark, they are ambushed by a group of 10 iron ring bandits. The bandits try to put manacles on them, but both Thaddeus and Edge manage to escape, killing 2 bandits in the process. They are separated, and Thaddeus climbs a tree and sleeps the rest of the night. Edge plays a game of cat and mouse with the bandits for a good portion of the night and manages to kill 2 bandits, and capture 1.
28 Kaldmont
In the morning Thaddeus and Edge find each other. They continue south along the trail through the forest (Edge is on his way back to his monastery). They reach Wereskalot in the afternoon. Told by Innkeep that a beast has been killing local sheep and kidnapping children. Edge gives his Iron Ring prisoner to Azemur, the only human in the halfling village, and Azemur gives him a pearl in return.When Thaddeus goes to Azemur's house afterwards, it is dark inside and no one answers the door.
29 Kaldmont
They go north into the hills to hunt down the beast. A trail of sheep fur and blood and bits of cloth is easily followed. They pass an Ogre cave and the trail leads to a Dire Wolf den. They go back to the the Ogre cave and draw out and ogre and run towards the wolves. The wolves rush to attack them, they climb a tree; The Ogre throws the wolves a piece of meat and then proceeds to shake the tree in an attempt to shake the PCs out of it. They jump out of the tree and manage to run away towards Wereskalot.
30 Kaldmont
Thaddeus writes a letter to the Adventurers Guild asking for help from his company to defeat these monsters.
31 Kaldmont - 24 Thaumont
Edge and Thaddeus stay in Wereskalot allowing Thaddeus to heal from his injuries.
Date: 1 June 2017
Characters:
Edge, lvl 3 Mystic
Thaddeus Lightbringer, lvl 1 M-U
Beren, lvl 5 fighter
Calendar Date: 25-26 Thaumont
25 Thaumont
The Armstrong Company (12 NPC adventurers ranging from lvl 4-7 led by Beren) arrives in the morning. Beren sends one of his halfling adventurers to scout the territory. He finds evidence of 5 ogres and 5 dire wolves. The party journeys into the hills and and sets up camp before reaching the ogres' territory.
During the night, Edge sees a moonbeam that looks nearly solid in the woods. He wakes up the rest of the party. Only some of the characters can see the moon beam. They decide not to investigate and go back to sleep
26 Thaumont
In the morning they appraoch the Ogres' cave and hide in the trees nearby. Edge draws the ogres out. 5 ogres chase him into the trees, the rest of the party surprises the Ogres and attack. 4 Ogres are killed in the first round, the 5th Ogre runs back to the cave and rolls a stone in front of the entrance.
The party then travels to the wolf den and attack them. they manage to kill all the wolves. They return to their camp and find it has been ransacked by Ogres and see tracks leading toward Wereskalot.
XP: 623 Each
Date: 31 May 2017
Characters:
Edge, lvl 3 Mystic
Thaddeus Lightbringer, lvl 1 M-U
Calendar Date: 27 Kaldmont - 24 Thaumont
27 Kaldmont
Thaddeus Lightbringer is lost in the woods/looking for adventure. He finds a gecko lizard that appears to be injured sprawled on its back in front of a cave. He attacks it, it fights back, more lizards come out of the cave, and he is injured and knocked unconscious.
Edge is walking by on a nearby trail and hears screams. He runs into the woods and sees Thaddeus being munched on by lizards. He runs, picks him up and runs away. After he gets a safe distance away he performs first aid on Thaddeus. While traveling on the trail, a Tuatara lizard comes out of the trees and attacks Thaddeus. They manage to run away from it.
They set upcamp for the night. Not long after dark, they are ambushed by a group of 10 iron ring bandits. The bandits try to put manacles on them, but both Thaddeus and Edge manage to escape, killing 2 bandits in the process. They are separated, and Thaddeus climbs a tree and sleeps the rest of the night. Edge plays a game of cat and mouse with the bandits for a good portion of the night and manages to kill 2 bandits, and capture 1.
28 Kaldmont
In the morning Thaddeus and Edge find each other. They continue south along the trail through the forest (Edge is on his way back to his monastery). They reach Wereskalot in the afternoon. Told by Innkeep that a beast has been killing local sheep and kidnapping children. Edge gives his Iron Ring prisoner to Azemur, the only human in the halfling village, and Azemur gives him a pearl in return.When Thaddeus goes to Azemur's house afterwards, it is dark inside and no one answers the door.
29 Kaldmont
They go north into the hills to hunt down the beast. A trail of sheep fur and blood and bits of cloth is easily followed. They pass an Ogre cave and the trail leads to a Dire Wolf den. They go back to the the Ogre cave and draw out and ogre and run towards the wolves. The wolves rush to attack them, they climb a tree; The Ogre throws the wolves a piece of meat and then proceeds to shake the tree in an attempt to shake the PCs out of it. They jump out of the tree and manage to run away towards Wereskalot.
30 Kaldmont
Thaddeus writes a letter to the Adventurers Guild asking for help from his company to defeat these monsters.
31 Kaldmont - 24 Thaumont
Edge and Thaddeus stay in Wereskalot allowing Thaddeus to heal from his injuries.
Date: 1 June 2017
Characters:
Edge, lvl 3 Mystic
Thaddeus Lightbringer, lvl 1 M-U
Beren, lvl 5 fighter
Calendar Date: 25-26 Thaumont
25 Thaumont
The Armstrong Company (12 NPC adventurers ranging from lvl 4-7 led by Beren) arrives in the morning. Beren sends one of his halfling adventurers to scout the territory. He finds evidence of 5 ogres and 5 dire wolves. The party journeys into the hills and and sets up camp before reaching the ogres' territory.
During the night, Edge sees a moonbeam that looks nearly solid in the woods. He wakes up the rest of the party. Only some of the characters can see the moon beam. They decide not to investigate and go back to sleep
26 Thaumont
In the morning they appraoch the Ogres' cave and hide in the trees nearby. Edge draws the ogres out. 5 ogres chase him into the trees, the rest of the party surprises the Ogres and attack. 4 Ogres are killed in the first round, the 5th Ogre runs back to the cave and rolls a stone in front of the entrance.
The party then travels to the wolf den and attack them. they manage to kill all the wolves. They return to their camp and find it has been ransacked by Ogres and see tracks leading toward Wereskalot.
XP: 623 Each
31 May 2017
Building a Web Map, part 8
Since I'm going to be running a game today, I wanted to be able to use the web map. A big part of that usefulness fro me is the presences of hexagons for distance measurement. I know I already have a scale bar on the map, but I always find those pretty useless on interactive maps. So I generated hexagonal tessellation in ArcMap at 3 different scales: 6 mph, 24 mph, and 96 mph. I know Mystara is traditionally mapped at 48 or 72 mph at the smallest scale, but I felt I should be consistent in size difference because 24 is 4 times 6, whereas 72 is only 3 times 24, which works for the 8 mile hex, but I'm using 6 mph because I'm trying to stay consistent with the older source material and the 6 mile hex is great for measuring in general. Yes, that was a ridiculous run on sentence.
You may notice that the hexagon layer doesn't match up with the size of the hexes in the original maps. This is due to actually placing the maps in their geographic locations on Earth. I'm am positively sure that the "Continental Map" published in X1 and "The Grand Duchy of Karameikos" map published in the Expert set were developed prior to and independently of the "Known World" map which appeared in the masters set. So the map from Isle of Dread was smashed into a place on the world map that looked like it might fit, and the scale was retroactively applied to the world map. The scale of the hexagon layer and the scale bar are the accurate scale produced by matching the "Known World" map up with the map from the Jurassic, giving me actual geographic coordinates and a basis for an accurate map. If you prefer the original scale, it is fairly simple to convert; in most places the original hexes are 2/3 the size they are supposed to be. So the 6 mile hexes in the original map are each about 4 miles across, thus the 6mph layer would be 8mph at the old scale.
Also you may notice a distortion of the hexagons as you get closer to the poles. This of course is due to the mercator projection used in pretty much all web maps. The hexagon tessellations appear as regular polygons in the mollweide projetcion (the original projection of the Known World map), but become warped in any other projections. Displayed in another equal area projection, such as the cylindrical equal area projection, the hexagons still maintain their area while shape is distorted.
You may notice that the hexagon layer doesn't match up with the size of the hexes in the original maps. This is due to actually placing the maps in their geographic locations on Earth. I'm am positively sure that the "Continental Map" published in X1 and "The Grand Duchy of Karameikos" map published in the Expert set were developed prior to and independently of the "Known World" map which appeared in the masters set. So the map from Isle of Dread was smashed into a place on the world map that looked like it might fit, and the scale was retroactively applied to the world map. The scale of the hexagon layer and the scale bar are the accurate scale produced by matching the "Known World" map up with the map from the Jurassic, giving me actual geographic coordinates and a basis for an accurate map. If you prefer the original scale, it is fairly simple to convert; in most places the original hexes are 2/3 the size they are supposed to be. So the 6 mile hexes in the original map are each about 4 miles across, thus the 6mph layer would be 8mph at the old scale.
Also you may notice a distortion of the hexagons as you get closer to the poles. This of course is due to the mercator projection used in pretty much all web maps. The hexagon tessellations appear as regular polygons in the mollweide projetcion (the original projection of the Known World map), but become warped in any other projections. Displayed in another equal area projection, such as the cylindrical equal area projection, the hexagons still maintain their area while shape is distorted.
28 May 2017
Building a Web Map, part 7
Sorry to anyone who actually keeps up with this blog, I know I haven't posted all week; I have been distracted by TotalWar. I haven't played any computer games all semester and I decided I have time and deserve a break, but then I got sucked into the hole that is Europa Barbarorum.
So, I finally updated the web map. It now shows a version of the poster map, along with a scan of the original known world and brun maps. I have started digitizing the smaller streams, and once I 'm done with that I plan to fix a few anomalies I didn't catch earlier so I can run the interpolation again. Then it should match the stream network on the poster map and I can move on to creating hexagons for the webmap and filling them with data.
So, I finally updated the web map. It now shows a version of the poster map, along with a scan of the original known world and brun maps. I have started digitizing the smaller streams, and once I 'm done with that I plan to fix a few anomalies I didn't catch earlier so I can run the interpolation again. Then it should match the stream network on the poster map and I can move on to creating hexagons for the webmap and filling them with data.
21 May 2017
Building a Web Map, Part 6
School is now over!
I presented my thesis on monday, I'm going to upload it as a link in the sidebar. The web map has all of the locations placed with custom icons and popups.
also I finished a poster of Karameikos for another class, I'll also post a link along with the paper for that project, but here is a screenshot.
Of course I continue to plan working on this project, I am going to upload a modified version of the of the poster to the web map as a new basemap. From there I will probably be working on a hex overlay with info tied to each hex.
There are still a few locations that need to be placed, I'll listthem below with pertinent information, If you have any input, let me know.
There are still a few locations that need to be placed, I'll listthem below with pertinent information, If you have any input, let me know.
- Village of Kaldarak/plains of desolation, on road, between carrabridge and ford, several farms nearby, near dapleth woods home to elves and treants, Dungeon 15 pursuit of the Slayer
- Elven Home, in sylvan wood, treeant, Dungeon 1 Elven Home
- Elwyn's Sanctuary, deep wilderness, in domain of patriach sherlane, elwyn made deal with shrine of evil chaos, B9 and B1-9
- fire giant home, large mountain with cae entrance in foothills, AC10
- Tuma, mountains spurs in west, sylvan forest in north, desert around ctiy of tuma, most likely northwest of wereskalot in 5 shires or lake amsorak in darkokin, B8
- Giant's castle, in northern mountains, more than 3 day journey from town to castle, above the treeline on a black mountain, AC10
- guido's fort, probably on edge of malpheggi swamp south of darkin, B5
- Haven, original orange book in gulluvia/glantri, green book in karameikos - 'valley in heart of altan tepes' according to B 1-9, placed north of lake of lost dreams south of zargash mountains in 83 expert
- Highdell, on duke's road, at source of river, 83 expert
- hive brood lair, near rugalov north of road, Dungeon 13 of nest and nations
- mist raven, destroyed in explosion rebuilt, AC11
- white dragon cave, 10 day journey into mountains, trail leads past and through mountains, in ravine with spring, pine trees, AC10
- Mt Caylorne, abandoned dwarven city
- port town, trade from caravans to south to north sea, zenopus tower on hill near city, Holmes Basic
- Gray Mountain, in elven forest, middle eastern overtones, mountains to north, B7
- spinyon, small village far from trade routes, grows corn and wheat, AC11
- stonefast, abandoned dwarven stronghold, on edge of human territory, white dragon, classic D&D
- stone peak, dwarven kingdom, AC11
- dragon lair, dragon in wulfwolde hills raiding peasants on edge of moor, Dungeon 27 Tarfil's tomb
- Zanzer tem's Tower, near town, salt mines and dungeon below, classic D&D
03 May 2017
Building a Web Map, part 5
I have begun redoing the location markers. I have divided locations by category: settlement, stronghold, lair, ruins, and dungeon. I Have been working on updating one category at a time. I have finished the settlements. They can be seen on the webmap split into different layers with different icons. The categories of the settlements are based on the population of each place, based on the pop figures in the RC or Expert books. The different categories are Homestead, 1-49 pop; Village, 50-1,000 pop; Small Town, 1,000-4,999 pop; Large Town, 5,000-14,999 pop; City, 15,000-99,999 pop; and Metropolis, 100,000 or more pop, the last category being one I invented.
Of course Karameikos has no cities or metropolises, if you go with pre-gazetteer numbers. I think I am going to have Specularum have a population of 7,000 because it is stated as having 70,000 in Kingdom of Adventure. My general rule of thumb for pop figures post gaz is to divide everything by 10, but the city as shown in B6 is a little large for a medieval town of 5000 people even if you take the scale which shrinks the city. So I think 7,000 is a good compromise number; 5,000 of the people could be of thyatian origin, and 2,000 could be traladaran. the traladarans just aren't included in population figures normally. The same principle applies to Threshold. In the expert set the town is said to have 400 inhabitants plus 100 visitors, and then it says it has 500 inhabitants and 50 demihumans and visitors. Both those numbers are given on the same page. we could reconcile that by saying the extra 100 are traladarans not given full citizenship by the karameikans/thyatians.
Anyway, I created the settlement markers in Adobe Illustrator. I just traced an image of the legend given in the Kingdom of Adventure poster map, with some slight modifications. I have also created symbols for the stronghold and dungeon categories, but have yet to put those locations on the map and port them over to the web app.
Because blogger kept messing up the map, and the marker symbols, I decided to just have the blog redirect to a web portal on my student account at the school for now. It seems to be working just fine so far. I'm currently working on a new base map, based on the elevation model I created, as a side project for another class, and hope to finish it over the weekend, when I do I'll be uploading it to the web map as another base layer.
Of course Karameikos has no cities or metropolises, if you go with pre-gazetteer numbers. I think I am going to have Specularum have a population of 7,000 because it is stated as having 70,000 in Kingdom of Adventure. My general rule of thumb for pop figures post gaz is to divide everything by 10, but the city as shown in B6 is a little large for a medieval town of 5000 people even if you take the scale which shrinks the city. So I think 7,000 is a good compromise number; 5,000 of the people could be of thyatian origin, and 2,000 could be traladaran. the traladarans just aren't included in population figures normally. The same principle applies to Threshold. In the expert set the town is said to have 400 inhabitants plus 100 visitors, and then it says it has 500 inhabitants and 50 demihumans and visitors. Both those numbers are given on the same page. we could reconcile that by saying the extra 100 are traladarans not given full citizenship by the karameikans/thyatians.
Anyway, I created the settlement markers in Adobe Illustrator. I just traced an image of the legend given in the Kingdom of Adventure poster map, with some slight modifications. I have also created symbols for the stronghold and dungeon categories, but have yet to put those locations on the map and port them over to the web app.
Because blogger kept messing up the map, and the marker symbols, I decided to just have the blog redirect to a web portal on my student account at the school for now. It seems to be working just fine so far. I'm currently working on a new base map, based on the elevation model I created, as a side project for another class, and hope to finish it over the weekend, when I do I'll be uploading it to the web map as another base layer.
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