Adventures in Meleon

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In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon.

- Dylan Thomas



General Notes

"The World of Meleon" is the product of five or six years of continued design; I might have mentioned the project in earlier stages under other names ("Mordred", "The Shattered Kingdom"). Basically, it's my homebrew world, written in English, which is not my first language, and designed principally as a sandbox for my online group, which I still somewhat tenderly refer to as "The Company of the Maiden". Whatever I write for "The World of Meleon" sure has some commercially-oriented dimension. But in principle, I designed "Meleon" solely to provide a playground for my pals and me, as hunting ogres and dragons has always remained one of our favorite pastime activities. And so it will hopefully remain, until we are old and grey, and tell our own kids and grandkids of the days of high adventure.


My way of D&D

My two main influences are the works of Dave Arneson, and the works published under the Ravenloft banner, for TSR and White Wolf. Rules-wise, the usual choice for my home game is the DCC RPG, and has historically been very towards a very simplified d20. My main "oldschool" D&D experiences were with RC D&D, and systems I like outside of D&D are Dragon Warriors, as well as Harnmaster 3e. Books you'll find on my table for any setting or ruleset are the "Penumbra Bestiary" by Atlas Games, "The Black Company Campaign Setting" by Green Ronin (personal favorite), as well as, lately, our own Geoff's "Isle of the Unknown" for short encounters. When I look for inspiration, or ready-to-run adventures, my first choice is always old "White Dwarf" magazines, from back in the day when WD still supported D&D.

In terms of fantasy literature, in general, my favorite books are the "Thieves' World" series - both the old and the new ones, which makes me a minority -, as well as the "Ithkar" series, which is a similar project as the multi-author enterprise that was TW, but different in style. The biggest influence on the creation of "Meleon" was Guy Gavriel Kaye's "A Song for Arbonne".


Gaming in "The World of Meleon"

As a rule of thumb, all my online games set in "The World of Meleon" are taking place in the broken land "Asterion", or in its neighboring country, the quasi-Spanish "Tizona". All my offline, face-to-face, tabletop, pen-and-paper games are taking place in and around the town of Gravesend, in the northern kingdom of Duneyrr. For my online games, I use OD&D/RC rules - with a few tweaks, and for my home games, you may assume that I use either DCC RPG rules, or Dragon Warriors 2e rules, unless otherwise specified. All games, both on and off the grid, take place in the same chronological timeline, tangentially referred to in my notes as "The Rainy Years". As I will surely explain, or have explained at some point in the past already, I think rainy days are the best, though, so this is not a sad name, at least not how I read it. My games historically have tended to be story-heavy, but still rather light-hearted. I hope to be able to go on in that tone. Gaming is about friendship, and games are about adventure!

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You can read about some of my earlier, mostly Blackmoor-related games over at The Comeback Inn.
The "Adventures in Meleon" are not at all related to any of my prior games, though. They're completely their own thing - though I am never going to deny my roots.
...And every time I write that, I feel like I have to buy Terry Brooks a bottle of good Scotch.

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A bit of meta...


...In general, don't expect all too extensive write-ups from me; I'm not cut out for it, and I prefer to spend what little time I have actually doing stuff that is result-oriented, like, in this case, preparing or playing actual adventures, rather than rehashing older stuff. In practice, most entries will not be longer than, say, between five and ten lines, in total. So, I thought, creating some sort of quick, referential glossary might be useful.

So, here we go.


Setting Premise

One hundred years ago, the king of the human realm of Asterion, today only remembered as "King Allwoes", and supposedly possessed by a mystical entity priests refer to as "The Shadow", disastrously tried to recover the lost magic of the Elders. But instead of the desired "Awakening", the mad king and his followers created a singularity - a concentration of wild sorcery manifesting as a terrible, world-spanning thunderstorm. This "Tempest" raged on for weeks and months, and incinerated most of the kingdom of Asterion, and almost the entire Northern part of the continent of Erle. And when the black clouds finally dispersed, the lands of mankind were no more.


Asterion

Over one hundred years after the Tempest struck, Asterion is still deserted land. On the northern coasts, the Dwarves of Norran, the Dvalor, have taken over and expanded what little infracstructure remained. But in the south, only the small former duchy of Caladan offers any form of organized government to its citizens. Asterion's old mainland remains in total ruination, with most of the remaining population having fled into the depths of Flathinnis, the enchanted forest that separates Erle's Northern part from the smaller kingdoms in the South. It is in Flathinnis, the realm of the demon-like "Children of the Many Gods", that our shared story will begin, next month...


Angria

You know this place already, if you have followed my exploits in the past, say, via my old blog. Set in the same world as Asterion and Duneyrr, the lands of Angria are supposedly a colony of refugees that fled destruction that came with the Tempest. Somewhat tragically, the Westerners did not do well with the indigenous population, to say the least. - But that's another story, for another time. To Westerners, Angria, and the continent of Shahar, on which it is located, remain places of mystery, and wonder. The recent arrival of a certain red wizard in Asterion might, uhm, bring a new *spark* to intercontinental relations, if you pardon the bad pun.


Duneyrr

Largely unaffected by the events in the South, the small kingdom of Duneyrr has endured this last, turbulent century relatively unscathed. Guarded by young king Lyle, and defended by an order of sworn knights, the people of have learned to appreciate the modest prosperity that the land just below the tree line can provide them. One time after another, the people of the North wrestle their home back from the hostile elements, and from the many horrors that live in the lands of snow and ice. Meanwhile, our shared stories center around the remote town of Gravesend, seat to Duneyrr's northernmost barony, and the arrival of its new, young baron from the capital, to the south...

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The Coward's Blade

Played out on these very boards, and the first online bout set in the World of Meleon. Live today!

"Over a hundred years ago, when King Allwoes challenged the Elders for their magic power, his people turned away from of the great cities, and towards the vast forests beyond their fallen kingdom.

The lords of those forests, the Children of the Many, welcomed them, and greeted them in peace. But, mindful of the past sins of mankind, they demanded a prize that the settlers would one day have to pay...

A prize, to be paid in blood..."



Obviously, way too early for any serious comments; for now, I think I can reveal, though, that David Gemmell's novel "Knights of Dark Renown", the movie "Valhalla Rising", and the video game "Dragon's Dogma" were big influences on the composition of the tale. (The video game being remarkable for visual inspiration only, though. "Sword World", the Japanese RPG, being one my major visual influences when it comes to fantasy.)

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For those interested in the game, this thread in particular might be of interest:

The Coward's Blade - Footnotes & Campaign Journal


Little by little, I'm adding the world description for my players there, as we go on with our shared story.

As an introduction to our game, it's probably the best possible summary - even if the info right is obviously centered around the very narrow setting of our introductory adventure.

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Duneyrr, Autumn of the Year 115

For this, supposedly final installment of my home setting, I sort of synchronized all my timelines. The PBP starts in Winter 116, and my home game is set in Autumn of 115, and onwards.

My homegame, as mentioned above, takes place in the kingdom of Duneyrr, perhaps best described, in genre terms, as an amalgamate of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, Dunador from "Destiny of Kings", and Thieves' World's land of Adrale. In terms of climate and space, Duneyrr is probably a fantasy version of Washington State. (Twin Peaks, yayay!)

In game terms, I am suing DCC RPG, as my system of choice - my games are more like, *game night at Rafe's*, than an all too organized campaign endeavor, and so I need somethign fast and self-explanatory.

If I come to run a more organized, ambitious campaign in 2016 (looking at you, "Skarda's Mirror"), then I will likely use C&C 3e rules, because I like their more chivalric tone.


My games in Dunyerr revolve around two human settlements.

One is West River Riding, a town at the edge of a vast forest. One hundred years ago, West River Riding was abandoned to the plague, but now, young and dashing Lord Morstan has decided to reclaim the lands of his ancestors. Unimpressed by old tales of terror, he has summoned a group of valiant settlers and pioneers to West River Riding. And that, as they say, is the start of high adventure...

The other is the small hamlet of Chimney Rock, a remote roadhouse near the even more remote village of Grassy Water. (See, I really love at least the fictional version WA.) Chminey Rock serves as a post station, as a waystation, and as a trading point for trappers from the area. (The "Wizard's Hill" mountain range, but I feel like I might still change that one.) The stories of Chimney Rock are small-scale, goofy, and short adventures that mainly concern the stories of the roadhouse's patrons. If nearly all my other treatments of Meleon are ultimately reflections on literary existentialism, Chimney Rock stories are my attempt at Jerome K Jerome.



For the next few months, the action surrounding West River Riding centers around a replay of the at-this-time classic "Perils of Pekal" d20 module of Kenzer's Kingdom's of Kalamar. - I am a big Kalamar fan, though I am not very active online. The books, though, in retrospect, some of the best of the d20 era.

With Chimney Rock, I'm planning a more classic approach: All of you might know that I absolutely adore the old "Night Gallery" compilation for 1e/FR, because it's usually the first adventure I recommend to newbies. So, I'm, slowly, and not very determinedly, leading the party into that direction: And, if we manage to do a lil' bit more around the Christmas holidays than I am currently anticipating, then we will see if perhaps one of the adventures in Chimney Rock can become a bit more feature-length.

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A primer on magic in the world of Meleon, with a few mild spoilers of "The Coward's Blade".

CLICKY

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A first map for the World of Meleon.

How muchn of this will make into the published version, how much of this will change on the way... No idea yet.

Obviously, I have only marked the spots on the map that the party of "The Coward's Blade" campaign vaguely knows about.

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Okay, I make a point of not promoting "Meleon" as a brand on these boards; the idea is that, sooner or later, some sort of book will come. When, how, and in association with whom, no idea yet, really.

I'm finding that writing fiction and writing RPGs is completely different, as with RPG writing, it's mainly about collecting as much content as possible. Right now, the Meleon Bible is about 50 DIN A3 pages. (Yes, DIN A3 lots of conceptual sketches, and tables.) When I have 100 pages of the kind, I'll sit down in earnest, and look what to do with the setting.

The setting, and particularly the "Beware the Tempest" storyline (set in 40 years in the future of "The Coward's Blade") would well lend themselves to some sort of attempt at writing longer fiction, but English not being my first language, I have my reservations about that. Right now, I think we might see setting book on one of the world's principal regions; Duneyrr being the favorite over Asterion and Angria, if only because fantasy with a Northern European note is generally easier to write than Byzantinian (Asterion) or East African (Angria) fantasy. "Adventures in Gravesend" - that does sound catchy, doesn't it?


Now, what I'm still doing is to prepare that I don't release - whatever I am going to release - inside a promotional vacuum. RPG books there are aplenty, and good settings as well. So, in short, what I am doing is small stuff, to get my name out. Like this one:


www.facebook.com/bewarethetempest/

This is the Meleon Facebook page!
If the Meleon Facebook page at any point gets 500 likes - which is not an entirely unrealistic goal - I will write a short story for the fans, of about 7.300 words in length (around 20 pages), and, of course, publish it for free.

So, guys, if you want to read that story, let's get the word out!

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Since it appears that the party of "The Coward's Blade" might be approaching Waymeet, very soon: Well, this is one of my oldest, and arguably cheapest RPG creations.
Basically, modelled around "Wayrest", from the classic "Daggerfall" video game.

To be fair, the only thing those two places really share is the map; beautiful Waymeet has, at least in general, nothing in common with the legendary Tamriel-ian city of treachery and betrayal.

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Elephant men are sort of the "World of Meleon's" signature creatures - because there are a few prominent ones in the scenarios and stories evolving aroung the Angria games. So, I am pretty happy I smuggled one into the Prologue to "The Coward's Blade". - The truth is, especially during The Blackmoor Years, I increasingly turned to all sorts of Eastern and Arabic fantasy, which was also furthered by my interest in the CoC and (IMO superior) "Masque of the Red Death" game, and with that, began to read more and more what I would label "unconventional" fantasy. - Lamentably, not in the sense that I got acquainted with too much real historcial facts, or learned a new language. (Though I think I bettered my French in the process.) What I did was to read a lot of earlier English takes on Near East fantasy scenarios. The books by Melanie Rawn, however oversexed, were a huge influence, as well as one book in particular, which was Tanith Lee's "Cyrion" collection.

In general, though, the continents of Shahar and Ifriq, as depicted on that very simplistic map I made with a tables generator, serve as an archetypal "mystery backdrop". As in, you know it's there, but if you really go on an explain too much about it, it loses its appeal. - Suffice to say that, like with most of "Meleon", Victorian Age writers from Europe and from the US are the principal influences. - And, yes, once I can report that Robert E. Howard is really a thing for me: "The Tower of the Elephant" was surely one of the principal inspirations for the later inclusion of elephant men in my campaigns. (Though they are morally ambivalent, and not just stand-ins for Howard's usual "evil black men".)

The image above shows the character bust for "Poacher" from the "Spawn" comic series: That action figure has, over the years, become my personal mascot; I own five or six of them, in total, and even have one in my office, and one, still in the original packaging, packed away among my most prized possessions. - To my players, though, no worries: "Suru" is indeed one of "stock" characters, but not my Mary-Sue.

That role would probably go to Angria's "Roh", who is best friend to the setting's central character, Chyat of the Everflame, and really just a pretty primitive mirror to "Simon Snowhair" of Tad Williams' Osten Ard. - "Central", by the way, Chyat is only in the sense that I always approach settings by writing fake character biographies, and that Chyat's character biography is the most elaborated one so far. The name, "Chyat", is, by the way, simply a Farsi word for "tailor", as I originally created the character as a homage to John an Richard Snider, from the St. Paul's group. ("Snider", presumably derived from German "Schneider"; "Schneider" = "tailor" in German.)

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Nov 18, 2015 10:54:52 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Since it appears that the party of "The Coward's Blade" might be approaching Waymeet, very soon: Well, this is one of my oldest, and arguably cheapest RPG creations.
Basically, modelled around "Wayrest", from the classic "Daggerfall" video game.

To be fair, the only thing those two places really share is the map; beautiful Waymeet has, at least in general, nothing in common with the legendary Tamriel-ian city of treachery and betrayal.

I realize I never posted the maps of the Daggerfall PC game that I used for my own games.

Here are a few examples, all renditions of the city of Wayrest, which I use as "Waymeet".









The game itself, by the way, looked pretty much like this:

www.dfworkshop.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DaggerfallUnityTest2Splash.png

(Caution, big.)

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Waymeet at a Glance




Basic Demographics

9.400 able male adults; 40.000 people in total, of which roughly 98% are pure-blooded humans. The remaining 2% are usually enovys of ambassadors of some sort; non-human citizens are, generally, an unknown thing, as non-humans are almost universally reviled by the common folk.



Government & Authority Figures

Prince Aldrin, of House Kainan, is the lord of Waymeet - if little else, at the moment. He is the third son to King Viddar "Allwoes", who, as peasants say, brought the wrath of the Tempest upon Asterion.

Bramwell Ingram, head of the powerful House Ingram, is prince Aldrin's chancellor, and his best friend since childhood days. Their friendship, more than any political allegations is what keeps the Duchy of Marriot (in which Waymeet is located) together in these troubled times.

Whitehorn is the sheriff in town - and one of the few Kudur (Beastmen) allowed within the city walls: He is a 8-ft.-tall minotaur, and has guarded Prince Aldrin as his bodyguard since the prince's birth. He commands the city's military force and serves as the prince's champion in case of a challenge from the outside. - Not that this would be particularly advisable.



Popular Faces & Factions

Dismas of Angria is a self-styled noble and the city's chief theatricalist; more dangerous than he looks, though, he controls most of the city's illegal operations - but always with a smirk.

The Roughnecks are a mercenary unit from Tizona that was recently recruited by the prince's administration, in his quest to protect not only his city, but to eventually make a move for the crown.

Boulez of Zembla is a bard from Norran, and quite probably the finest musician in all Asterion. He runs a small school for the gifted, and once a month, holds a free concert that moves mountains to eleviate the generally bad morale of the people of Waymeet after the horrible events of last year.



Weather

Located relatively far to the South of Asterion, weather in Waymeet is usually hot and dry, though autumn and spring rainfalls are universally feared by the population: Almost every year after spring season, the roofs of the houses in- and outside the city have to undergo long repairs.



City Structure

The Venaticon is the old city palace in the heart of Waymeet, around which in better times tradesmen big and small have their booths, and now the core supplies of the city are stored - and guarded. Northeast of the Royal Palace is Dwarfhill, the old Dwarven quarter that now has become your home. South of the Venaticon is Market Road, the noble district, where all those who want to live close to the prince live. - Look at the city's architecture, it's clear that the has no such inclination, by himself. - Other important locations inside the city include the Garrison (Southwest of the Venaticon), and the Temple District, Northwest of the Palace.



Dwarfhill

In earlier times, sort of a closed community, Dwarfhill has become more integrated into the city's overall structure in recent years. Since the unceremonious ousting of its former inhabitants, obviously, the nature of the quarter has changed in fundamental fashion, but at the same time, the castle-like structure of the Tenements keeps life inside. Exchanges between neighbors outside of the Tenements are rare, and there's even a certain clan mentality to belonging to a Tenement. Competitions between the dwellers of each Tenement are common - friendly and unfriendly ones, that is.



Falstaff Tenement

You are, indeed, the first inhabitants of Falstaff Tenement since the cleansing last summer - and the traces of that are still visible. Rags, broken furniture, and even a few dead bodies are still laying around. - To its favor, the tenement building itself is relatively new; it was vacated before any distinctive iconography was built in, and the Eastern wing is still incomplete. That means that you will have to put some substantial work into its completion; but this also means that you'll have space for expansion and modification, should you so desire.



Neighboring Country

Rumon is Waymeet's fortified inland harbor, about ten miles south of the city.

Winter Oak is the location of the refugee camp you just exited.

Summertree is where the Roughecks camp, and where Aldrin presently tries to assemble an army.

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This last post is taken directly from the game - mind you that the description is intentionally sketchy, for two reasons:

1. This snapshot of the city is set 100 years before the era I usually use Waymeet in.
2. The party needs some space to make the city their own.

Finally, "The Coward's Blade" has entered its second part! It's an ambitious plan I am following with the game, for sure, but if it's works out as planned, in the end, we will have a lot of fun along the way --- even though things evolve obviously as fast, or slow, as the PBP form permits. But I am pretty confident we're looking at a good 2016!

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Okay, so there are two spots open in our PBP on OD&D '74, which just so happens to be set in the World of Meleon.

If you're interested, please click here:

odd74.proboards.com/thread/11510/dogs-asterion-rats-samavia

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On Meleon-ese calendars:

The events of the Tempest happen in the year 729 of the City of Asterion ("729 AST"), or in the year 813 of the Dwarven Supremacy ("813 ASP"). - As you know, by the time of our game, the Dwarves are the de-facto political superpower on Meleon, with the centre of their empire being situated in the kingdom of Aspen (--> ASP), on the continent of Norran.

A fresher, and slightly spoilerific way to count the years for our campaign, and the one that I would recommend that we use from now on is "Years since the founding of the Imperial prefecture of Almace", or, "Years counted in the Dwarven Almanac of Almace" (ALM): In the early winter of your current year, Dwarven forces from Norran invade Northern Asterion, and conquer the fallen kingdom's former province of Almace, presumably to keep it for the next century.

Our campaign will start 116 years after that event, making it 116 ALM, 845 AST, or 929 ASP.

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Small update - in merging the LFC page with the Meleon page, I make social media a bit less messy for me; you can now find the new site, presumably only dedicated to Meleon, but de facto the vessel for all our group's future efforts, over here:

www.facebook.com/swordsofasterion


Yepp, over 500 likes. I guess I will have write that short story now...

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On the Toponymy of Meleon

In a longer post in our PBP game latertoday, I'll introduce the land known as Tizona to the players. Now, historically, the name of the most important region, for our game, at least, "Orision", has prompted allusions to Pathfinder's world of Golarion: From my side, this is neither wanted, nor intentional. All names in *Meleon* either are taken straight out of mythological contexts, or early 20th-century fantasy classics - or, like "Orision", they have a firm, if tongue-in-cheek etymological meaning.

So, Meleon is the Spanish name for one of the sons of Mordred, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Likely a mistranslation or copywriting error of "Melehan".

Asterion, not related to the Asteroid, at all, but hodge-podge neologism from Aster- "the star"- and "ianus": The City of the Summer Stars. - Wait, what, noooooooooooo! Actually, the name sort of came together from this and frequent allusions to a goddess not unlike ancient Oriental "Astarte", the goddess of seafaring, and, at the same time, the moon, which both fit in well with the theme of the game I was playing, then. - In general, the moon, my favorite piece of sky. Even the title of our campaign, "The Coward's Blade", in some obscure way alludes to it. (Insert *mad poet laughter.*)

Orision, in turn, has nothing to do with the god Osiris, or with Pathfinder's Osirion, but is an allusion to ancient Spain, specifically, to the province on Jaén, where real medieval site of Navas de Tolosa was located. "Orisians" or "Orisantes" was simply the name of the local tribes, roughly translating into "mountain people". - And since Tizona - as that name, again, strongly suggests - is fantasy Spain, well, "Orision" is simply fantasy Jaén.

Finally, to give you an idea of the world's general setup, Erle, the name of the continent on which Asterion and Orision are located, is obviously taken from "The King of Elfland's Daughter". Norran, in turn is taken from a public-domain story by Poul Anderson, and again professes my love for the Thieves' World universe. Angria, and all the place names on Shahar and Ifriq are taken straight out of 19th-century literature, from the Brontes to Henry Rider Haggard, and again, Lord Dunsany. (Another city that gets often mentioned in my games is Merimna, which is straight out of Dunsany's "The Sword of Welleran".)

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odd74.proboards.com/post/177446

"The Coward's Blade"-recruitment thread, as per January 31, 2016. (Depositing the link, because I tend to, errh, misplace things like that.)

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BOOM!

So, since a few things changed last week, this is what I did: My novel script, tentatively titled as "What You Know, or, the Tale of the Rose" (in English) is deemed to grim and adult-themed, and it has repeatedly been recommended that I emancipate it from sunny and child-friendly Meleon. Probably, I should not have advertised the idea with "inspired by the US-series 'The Killing'"...

So, I am again in full control of the IP. And since I know a bit about the possibilities of copyright law, and on, I moved ahead on Monday, and made the first steps for what is going to become an international intellectual property ownership company - pocket-size, yes, but nonetheless. We will have to talk about the details later - as late as perhaps August, or September - but bottom line is, starting in 2017, everyone of you who participated in the game for longer than a year will be awarded a small share of the company. Don't run for the Whiskey bottles just yet, because, one, I'll keep 51% of shares, so nobody gets crazy, and, dunno, licenses out the IP for that badger-Ursai-rageporn he has always dreamed of, rizak, and two, there's nothing to profit from, just yet. But, ideally, you all will be able to use Meleon like it was completely your own, once all the paperwork is done. No, re-licensing, of course, but basically, you will be allowed to use the setting as you want.

I literally invented Mordred/Meleon because I was frustrated with WotC's copyright policy, and wanted us all to have a shared world to peruse. Well, here you have it, and all boils down to me writing stories that are too evil for teenagers. Yummy.

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Since I have made the habit of using avatars on these boards that, one way, or another, have to do with Meleon, here's the story to this one:

My first couple of games in this world, as you might remember, were all set in and around Angria, the quasi-"crusader state" in the region of my gaming world that can most be compared to medieval Syria. Well, the first few adventures evolved around the GURPS Harkwood adventure, and one of the characters I introduced there was a smith named "Randor", or, "Rander", who was himself pretty much an ersatz Theros Ironfield (from Dragonlance), at least in the beginning.

He later becomes a teacher to Roh and Chyat, my tentpole characters for the setting, and helps them during their search for the mythical "Book of Winter". I am toying with the idea of introducing a similar character into the Asterion campaign, but... Not right now.

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Changed my avatar again; this one, just a picture that I like, one of my most common avatars, along the web.
No story behind this one, though. I'll have to think of one.

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Not a journal entry, either, but I wrote this on the Piazza, yesterday night:

I actually did that, but only of sorts - Manifest was part of the Nuchar continuity of adventures, and supposedly had existed in Thonia's past, around the area where the Thonian Rand was placed in Blackmoor's present.

(North of the Great Bay, perhaps on the Eastern shore of 1030 NC's Markovia.)


Not the greatest fit, in actual play, IMO. If I ever went back to it, I'd probably run Ghostwalk all by itself.


I think, and that might interest Rob, that my current treatment of the Dwarven Empire in our Meleon campaign was initially inspired by the module. Not a cheap plug, but I liked the concept of the Dwarves being mankind's spiritual guardians, and being corruptable in different ways than Man was. (As the backstory with the Deathwardens in GW explains, IIRC.)

Now, going back the insane timeframe that are 13 or 14 years, I think, yeah, the old Ghostwalk book by WotC might have been one of the initial inspirations for "Mordred" and "Meleon". "Dawnforge", by FFG, and "Pelinore" were two other, very important influences, I think. But, yeah, Ghostwalk might just have been the start.

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Finally!

I restructured the stickies on the Meleon board, and, in all modesty, I think I made a quantum leap with the structuring of the information, as compared to what I had put together before.

Go take a look, if you like:

odd74.proboards.com/thread/10976/cowards-blade-overview-campaign-primer


If you are, or were, at at any point, interested in the progress of our online game, I'd say now you have all the relevant info in one place.

Hope you like it! Let me know what you think!

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Meleon's Matters of Money

In retrospect, should have posted that one earlier.

Bundles, Daggers, Blades, and Bypennies are the coinage usually being used in the lands of Old Asterion, with Bundles being the coins of least value.

50 Bundles make 1 Dagger, 500 Daggers make 1 Blade, and 5000 Blades make 1 Bypenny, with 25 Bypennies theoretically being counted as 1 Hrunting Talent.

An peasant farmer in good standing, like Beckett of Basswood, would make about 30 Daggers per year, if lucky.
A soldier or craftsman in a city like Marriott might make up to 100 Daggers per year.
A knight or magistrate might make up between 1 and 3 Blades per year, and a nobleman with his own lands might earn up to 100 Blades, annually.

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May 20, 2016 16:22:39 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Economy in Marriott, 116 ALM


First off, on the matter of translating your standard D&D money into the currency used on Erle:

For that, it's important to know that Old Anac, the father state to Asterion and later Tizona, extended over most of Erle's Eastern half - divided from the Western half by the Forest Kingdom; so, the currency in Asterion and the Golden League was pretty much the same. The Dwarves have now introduced other, foreign coinage, from Norran - but go pay your bills in Marriott with one of these, I dare you!

Also, there are currency entities that are purely mathematic. A Hrunting Talent, for example, is a specific seal on paper, but usually, at least, never found as a physical coin.

Value	1 Copper Piece (1 cp)	1 Silver Piece (1 sp)	1 Gold Piece (1 gp)	1 Platinum Piece (1 pc)
1 Bundle	1	10	100	1.000
1 Dagger	50	5	1/2	1/20
1 Royal (Tizona)	100	10	1	1/2
1 Shield (Tizona)	500	50	500	1/2
1 Acer (Dwarven Dominion)	1000	100	10	1
1 Blade	25.000	2.500	250	25
1 Bypenny	125.000.000 (!)	12.500.000	1.250.000	125.000
1 Lion (Tizona)	200.000.000	20.000.000	2.000.000	200.000
1 Hrunting Talent (Dwarven Dominion)	3.125.000.000	312.500.000	31.250.000	3.125.000
1 Anacen Talent of Moongold (Historical)	~ 10.000.000.000	1.000.000.000	100.000.000	10.000.000

Moongold, by the way, the mythical most valuable noble metal in the world. All known sources were supposedly exhausted centuries ago.

May 20, 2016 17:56:04 GMT -6 @rafael said:

A Price List for Marriott, 116 ALM.

Monetary Value	Merchandise Value
1 Bundle	A meal at an inn. Drinks, and simple food for the entire entourage.
3 Bundles	A chicken.
5 Bundles	One week of lodging, one month of drinking at a village tavern, like "The Blue Whiskers".
7 Bundles	The daily rent for an untrained horse.
10 Bundles	A healthy pig.
20 Bundles	The daily rent for an untrained horse if you somehow manage to piss off its owner.
30 Bundles	A healthy cow.
40 Bundles	One week of lodging, one month of drinking at a city tavern, like "The Whaler's Lodge" in Marriott.
1 Dagger	A bad horse. Second-hand weapons, and armor.
5 Daggers	Any sort of new mundane, iron-forged tool. A newly-forged blade weapon. A good bow.
10 Daggers	A good horse.
25 Daggers	A poor's farmer's annual income.
50 Daggers	A trained warhorse.
100 Daggers	A foot soldier's annual income.
250 Daggers	The average costs of the materials to build a small village house.
1 Blade	A knight's, or cavalryman's regular annual income.
10 Blades	Custom-made weapons and armor.
100 Blades	A wealthy nobleman's annual income.
1.000 Blades	A small merchant ship.
2.500 Blades	A stone house.
1 Bypenny	A stone house, in the upper-class quarters of a major city.
5 Bypennies	A fully-stored warship. The annuak tax revenue of the city of Marriott before the attack of the Blood Mothers.
1 Hrunting Talent	The annual tax revenue of the kingdom of Marriott. A fleet of small trading ships.
1 Anacen Talent of Moongold	A fleet of warships. A small kingdom in the Golden League.

[Deleted]

Here's an old piece I wrote for The Days of Rain, back in the day, and that I just found in an old folder: Basically, it details one of the setting's most prominent characters, the notorious magician "Chyat of the Everflame", who was notably inspired by the campaign I ran based on the world from "Powers & Perils", back in '11.

(In fact, "Chyat" is apparently a Farsi word for "tailor", or... Snider.)

Chyat first surfaced in the "Mordred" series of adventures - when I was trying to build a bridge between our Blackmoor game, and wrote many aspects of the setting around it; hence, Angria, the place of Chyat's and his friend Roh's main adventures, was supposed to lay on the Eastern side of the Blackmoorian sea.

In terms of what Chyat means to The Coward's Blade, it's preciously little, to tell the truth. His adventures take place around the year 180 ALM, while our campaign takes places in the year 116 ALM. But still, since Chyat is essentially Meleon's Elminster, I might still find a way to sneak him in. Not that I'd be of any bigger importance, but all things concerning the original "Wars of Angria" are really references to the original games that led to Meleon, in any written form. So, I enjoy the memories, more than anything.

...So, whenever I write something fantasy-ish in a new setting, be it a short story, or a campaign adventure, I have the same modus operandi:
I devise a mothership character – actually, usually a couple of them – and first plan their story, as thoroughly as I can. Not as a railroady measure, but so I get a general idea what is happening in my setting when I devise whatever kind of scenario.
In RPG terms, this has proven to be extremely useful, because I always know what is going on elsewhere, and have a tighter idea of what is happen behind the scenes.
Now, for Modred, one of my most important mothership characters is Chyat of the Everflame, a priest to the God of Fire.
His story, as the article I linked to above already details, begins in Glass Town (not Troll Lord Games’ Glass Town, the Bronte’s Glass Town of Angria), where he, uhm, sparks the anger of the mightiest local crimelord, and is forced to leave the city.
This time, not detailed in the campaign itself, and set way before a certain even we shall henceforth call The Tempest, are Chyat’s formative years, and marked by distinguished hardship. (Hint: Nobody likes a firemage who is not yet fully in control of his powers.)
Chyat’s journey eventually leads him to the land far east of Angria, in the shadow of the Hollow Mountain, to the Cities of Sand.
P&P’s Portu from “Tower of the Dead” is a stand-in for one of those cities, the choice of the adventure stemming quite simply from the fact that I wanted to have some Snider in my setting.
You know, not in a copycat way, but the same way that, honest to God, the origins of my setting probably can be traced back to two short games based on The Broken Tree Inn, a Judges Guild module, and another campaign that was based on the old Midkemia Press RPG modules. First, you play things by the book, and, as you eventually stroll away from that, a wholly new dynamic is created.
(No shame in admitting that, I think.)
So, County Mordara, and similar P&P addenda likely won’t serve me, as I take other stuff from Mordred to put it in their place.
The overall idea is to bring Chyat into the game as a counterweight to the lich – the necromancer, in D&D terms, uses unholy, secular magic, and Chyat, albeit batshirt-crazy, is a priest.
The party is meant to run into Chyat on several occcasions, the most important one being at Zendar farm, where the firepriest is also on the hunt for Priam’s (yes) treasure.
Depending on how the party interacts with Chyat and his likely entourage of other mothership characters, Chyat will either stay with the group, and assist them in getting a greater understanding of the lich’s magic, or even take them to adventures further east, to the Hollow Mountain, and perhaps beyond. While it is extremely unlikely that they kill him, as he is genuinely friendly, such an act would be a grave mistake, because a certain lich would then resurrect him, and pit him against the party. Which would be, uh, flamboyantly entertaining.
In my personal canon for The Tempest, which admittedly reads more like a novelette than anything else, Chyat’s time in the eastern territory serves mainly to write him out of the story, as he is meant to act as a more experienced uncle-like character to the setting’s main mothership character, a young thief named Ro. All that is really known about Chyat’s time in the East is really that he mastered his magic there, and that he made the doubtful acquaintances of a few pirates. So, plenty of space for expansion.
As of now, I like the desert adventures so much that I’ll likely run a longer campaign in Mordred’s version of Eldarad, whenever we complete Tower of the Dead.

[Deleted]

Here's the ready-to-use blueprint for the battle grid that we use in our PBP. Maybe someone else might find it useful, as well; tables are notoriously hard to build in a forum environment, so you really want to use something pre-made, if you can.


Battle Grid Template

Position

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[Deleted]

I made a blog for my German gaming group:

zumgoldenenbecher.wordpress.com/

Not much to see there, yet, and obviously, it's in German. Still, perhaps worth a look to you, even so.

The game is, as indicated above, set in the kingdom of Duneyrr, on the continent North of Erle (where our PBP, "The Coward's Blade", takes place). Notably, Duneyrr is very strongly based on my personal take on Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.

[Deleted]

A class that I want to implement in the game, created by my old pal, havard .

True Shaman
True Shamans are found in many cultures in Blackmoor, but most notably among the Peshwa. This is an attempt to combine the Shaman and Shamani Classes that appeared in the Gazetteer series with some additonal ideas taken from AD&D 2nd Edition and D&D 3rd Edition.

As Cleric except:
    
Does not serve Immortals or Deities
Cannot use armor heavier than Leather
1d6 HP per level. +1 per level after 9th Level
May use the following weapons: Dagger, Spear, Staff, Bolas, Net, Bows, Blowgun, Handaxe. If Weapon Mastery is used, True Shamans begin the game with Basic Mastery in two weapons.
Cannot Turn Undead
May learn the Shaman spells from both the Ethengar Shaman and Atruaghin Shamani Classes.
Control Spirit Ability: Use Turn Undead Chart for Clerics with the following modifications. A Turn result means the number of HD of spirits will stop attacking and respectfully retreat from the Shaman. A Destroy result means that the Spirit is under the control of the Shaman 1 turn (6 rounds). This ability only affects spirit creatures (see below).
May speak with Spirit Creatures
Gains a Spirit Companion as described in the Ethengar Gazetteer. Animal type may vary depending on local fauna (DM's discretion).



Spirit Creatures
The following monsters are considered Spirits

Spirits (from the Ethengar Gazetteer)
Elementals (including Djinns, Efreets etc)
Immaterial Undead (Ghosts, Wraiths, Specters, Undead Spirits, but not zombies, Ghouls or Liches etc)
Fey (Pixies, Sprites, Sidhe etc)
Some woodland creatures (Treants, Satyrs, Dryads and Unicorns but not Centaurs or animals)

Not yet sure how I'll treat it, in the end, but I think it would be sweet to have this one in the game, one way, or another.