Post by greenfielder on Jul 17, 2022 19:09:31 GMT -6
EDIT: This is a re-up of an earlier recruiting post. I’ve got a bit of COVID brain going on so I wanted to post for the game I’d like to run a bit more clearly and purposefully).
Post may be a bit long…
So for about seven years, I’ve had the idea of an OD&D campaign I’d like to run; but I’ve lacked the courage of conviction to do so.
I’d like to run a campaign set on a setting named Dwarf-Land. You’ve probably never heard of.
Dwarf-Land was the conception of Scott Driver, author of the great now defunct Huge Ruined Pile blog. His old school stuff was great and was his writing. Here for instance is the introduction to the setting:
On a crag in the shadow of the Eldricht Alps lies enchanted Castle Blitzendrang, the glimmering fortress of Dwarf King Flim IV. The castle and its surrounding cottages, fields, furrows, and groves are the haunts of furtive Dwarfkin who see to their business and industry in shadowed fairy-taverns and misty lamplit streets untrod by Men, braving the perilous purlieux of the surrounding valleys and thickets to reclaim rivers of gold, fabulous jewels, and the lost Donnerhammer of the Old Kings.
The realm known herein as Dwarf-Land is a heathenesse land on an imaginary continent in a time that never was, a doomed phantasm of a kingdom which implicates certain wondrous dark shadows of our own familiar Earth, and which thus may be suited for a night's consideration by those among us who find the shadows to hand regrettably prosaic.
It is the homeland, as one might surmise, of the namesake Dwarves and their close cousins the Gnomes, collectively those unearthly folk closest to Men in earthly sensibility. There are enclaves of wilder, more distant kin - strange Elves lurk in a few fairy-fortresses, unseen Pixies haunt dark vales, and any abandoned mine or fastness quickly becomes the province of malign Kobolds and Trolls. However, the most troubling encroachment is by grasping races of Men - pagan races not unlike our own - whose towns, fortresses, and temples now dot the landscape.
For their part, the Dwarves are content to bar their gates to the fecund interlopers and bide their time, for how much trouble can a few short- lived Men cause?
Much of Dwarf-Land's magic and even its Gods are suspected by learned scholars to be cast off shadows of other worlds, e.g., the Krampus; the snake-tressed, dripping-eyed Furies who hunt kinslayers; Vroonops and Termagant, the Gods of Men; and perhaps even the Dwarves themselves, many of whom count Wotan, Jove, and others among their Dwarf-Gods. It is even said that the windmill of Granny Grim blew to Dwarf-Land from elsewhere or elsewhen, and that she is not a fairy at all but an ancient and shrunken version of Something Else Entirely.
He even commissioned a gonzo campaign map from Russ Nicholson!
devilghost.com/blog/20140526123800.html
I communicated with Scott before his last disappearance and gained access to the sparse setting info and gazetteer.
I want to DM this game.
So here’s the how’s and what for’s.
1. Dwarf-Land is a setting of the weird, crossed with Victorian fairy tales, a bit of 19th century Orientalism and general fantasy tropes just slightly off their normal axis, illustrated by Harry Clarke.
2. Apart for the requisite adventure and delving, it’s a game in the meta sense of fantasy race struggling against an oncoming tide of evil human hegemony. But if you’ve played a Fantasy rpg you’ll be fine. Plus the PC’s have lived relatively parochial lives on the lands heartland so setting fluency is not required.
3.Player Characters are Dwarves or Gnomes. Dwarves tend toward Law and Neutrality and may be Fighters and Clerics. Gnomes are Magic Users or Thieves, and tend toward Neutrality and Chaos. Level cap for both is level 6. Both races are otherwise mechanically identical, but players should create One Unique Thing (ala 13th Age) to individualize their character.
4. My chosen ruler set is the White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game OD&D clone. I’m sure there are still free versions about.
That’s about all. Thanks!
Post may be a bit long…
So for about seven years, I’ve had the idea of an OD&D campaign I’d like to run; but I’ve lacked the courage of conviction to do so.
I’d like to run a campaign set on a setting named Dwarf-Land. You’ve probably never heard of.
Dwarf-Land was the conception of Scott Driver, author of the great now defunct Huge Ruined Pile blog. His old school stuff was great and was his writing. Here for instance is the introduction to the setting:
On a crag in the shadow of the Eldricht Alps lies enchanted Castle Blitzendrang, the glimmering fortress of Dwarf King Flim IV. The castle and its surrounding cottages, fields, furrows, and groves are the haunts of furtive Dwarfkin who see to their business and industry in shadowed fairy-taverns and misty lamplit streets untrod by Men, braving the perilous purlieux of the surrounding valleys and thickets to reclaim rivers of gold, fabulous jewels, and the lost Donnerhammer of the Old Kings.
The realm known herein as Dwarf-Land is a heathenesse land on an imaginary continent in a time that never was, a doomed phantasm of a kingdom which implicates certain wondrous dark shadows of our own familiar Earth, and which thus may be suited for a night's consideration by those among us who find the shadows to hand regrettably prosaic.
It is the homeland, as one might surmise, of the namesake Dwarves and their close cousins the Gnomes, collectively those unearthly folk closest to Men in earthly sensibility. There are enclaves of wilder, more distant kin - strange Elves lurk in a few fairy-fortresses, unseen Pixies haunt dark vales, and any abandoned mine or fastness quickly becomes the province of malign Kobolds and Trolls. However, the most troubling encroachment is by grasping races of Men - pagan races not unlike our own - whose towns, fortresses, and temples now dot the landscape.
For their part, the Dwarves are content to bar their gates to the fecund interlopers and bide their time, for how much trouble can a few short- lived Men cause?
Much of Dwarf-Land's magic and even its Gods are suspected by learned scholars to be cast off shadows of other worlds, e.g., the Krampus; the snake-tressed, dripping-eyed Furies who hunt kinslayers; Vroonops and Termagant, the Gods of Men; and perhaps even the Dwarves themselves, many of whom count Wotan, Jove, and others among their Dwarf-Gods. It is even said that the windmill of Granny Grim blew to Dwarf-Land from elsewhere or elsewhen, and that she is not a fairy at all but an ancient and shrunken version of Something Else Entirely.
He even commissioned a gonzo campaign map from Russ Nicholson!
devilghost.com/blog/20140526123800.html
I communicated with Scott before his last disappearance and gained access to the sparse setting info and gazetteer.
I want to DM this game.
So here’s the how’s and what for’s.
1. Dwarf-Land is a setting of the weird, crossed with Victorian fairy tales, a bit of 19th century Orientalism and general fantasy tropes just slightly off their normal axis, illustrated by Harry Clarke.
2. Apart for the requisite adventure and delving, it’s a game in the meta sense of fantasy race struggling against an oncoming tide of evil human hegemony. But if you’ve played a Fantasy rpg you’ll be fine. Plus the PC’s have lived relatively parochial lives on the lands heartland so setting fluency is not required.
3.Player Characters are Dwarves or Gnomes. Dwarves tend toward Law and Neutrality and may be Fighters and Clerics. Gnomes are Magic Users or Thieves, and tend toward Neutrality and Chaos. Level cap for both is level 6. Both races are otherwise mechanically identical, but players should create One Unique Thing (ala 13th Age) to individualize their character.
4. My chosen ruler set is the White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game OD&D clone. I’m sure there are still free versions about.
That’s about all. Thanks!
