Wyrmspear...

[waysoftheearth]

It's only been 12½ years since my first inklings, but it's now a thing...




So it's "coming along", by which I mean: should be done in fewer than 12 more years

[waysoftheearth]

Jun 24, 2012 20:09:30 GMT -6 sulldawga said:

*cough, cough* interested in playing *cough, cough*

If anyone is interested, I'm standing up a playtest over on the immersive ink forum here.

I'll be running 8 level 3-4 pre-gens; DD/0e backports of the original AD&D legends (Thanis, Garamon, Wraislin, etc.).

Sully, if you're still around, you're in

[waysoftheearth]

Looks like the playtest is a goer

[waysoftheearth]

Game background is up; Comments/input welcome...




Wyrmspear is a re-imagining of the classic Dragons of Despair DL#1 adventure scenario (published by TSR in 1984) in OD&D/Delving Deeper terms.

Wyrmspear eschews the wider scope of TSR's epic campaign setting to focus on a single, dungeon scenario based on the Xak Tsaroth map. It brings players back to the original 3 (or 4) PC classes, positioned at 0e-scale experience levels, and includes a bunch of minor tweaks to DL#1 that make it directly playable with the original rules. E.g., hobbets rather than kender, lizardmen (cough) rather than draconians, armies of normal fighting-men rather than scores of 4th-level fighters, and so on.

Wyrmspear is ultimately a re-keying (and modest expansion) of the awesome isometric DL#1 dungeon map, only loosely inspired by the TSR legendaria. While many of the names are throwbacks to DL#1, this is simply for a fun sense of nostalgia; it is not intended to align properly to DragonLance canon. (Whether I stick with these names or replace them will depend somewhat on feedback I get during the play test).


Wyrm Wurld

The world of Wyrmspear is less high fantasy, more sword & sorcery. That means it's grittier, deadlier, and emphasises individual struggles over grand geopolitical machinations. The "Wyrm Wurld" is deliberately not named "Krin" or "Qrin", or anything else, so that the whole scenario could be dropped right into a ref's existing campaign.

Wyrmspear is set in a network of towns and villages that could be anywhere. Harvest, Plow, Solstice, Flax, and other villages of the North Holdings are run by the Speakers---and distant High Speakers who supposedly converse directly with the gods. There are Speakers and gods for everything, but miracles are few and far between; their clerics have no spells or power over the undead. The neglected order of the Knights of Solaria is scarcely continued by its last handful of practitioners. The nomadic, hunter/herder plainsmen are regarded with suspicion by sensible towns folk.

Gold, silver and copper pieces are the standard currency because that's interoperable with most refs' settings. While clerics of Wyrmspear have no spells, they could co-exist with clerics of other games who do have spells. There are no Kender and there's no draconian army. There's no blue crystal staff, no unicorn forest master dishing out quests, and no rail-roady plot. There IS a brooding Nightwood, a hidden swamp, and a sunken ruin. There is local trouble with lizard men. There is a terrible dragon, lurking somewhere in the ruins. There is treasure to be found. And, there is a legendary Wyrm Spear.

[waysoftheearth]

Spoofy Wyrmspear Pre-Gen PCs have been posted.

DL#1 features eight legendary AD&D characters of experiences levels 3–6. These have been adapted/back-ported to DD/0e sensibilities at experience levels 3–4 for the Wyrmspear experiment as follows...


Thanis [Hero, MV 12′′, AC 7, HD 4, hp 16, FC 4 men/hero, SVF4, N]. Hooded cloak, padded armor, sword, longbow +1 & quiver of arrows, dagger. Backpack, rations, water skin, tinderbox & 6 torches, 2 flasks of oil. Woodsman, bidower.

Garamon [Hero, MV 9′′, AC 4, HD 4, hp 16, FC 4 men/hero, SV F4, L]. Mail armor, helm, shield, spear +1, sword, dagger. Backpack, rations, water skin, tinderbox & 6 torches, 50ft of rope, 2 large sacks. Thick-necked spearman.

Stern [Hero, MV 9′′, AC 3 HD 4, hp 16, FC 4 men/hero, SV F4, L]. Plate armor, helm, two-handed sword +1, dagger. Backpack, rations, water skin, signet ring. Knight of the abandoned Order of Solaria.

Flin Ireforge [Dwarf Myrmidon, MV 6′′, AC 5, HD 3, hp 15, FC 3 men/hero −1, SV F7, N]. Mail armor, helm, throwing axe +1, returning, axe, dagger. Backpack, rations, water skin, tinderbox & 12 torches, pouch of charcoal, whetstone. Mount Horne regulator, in pursuit.

Wraislin [Conjurer, MV 12′′, AC 9, HD 2, hp 8, FC 2 men, SV M3, N]. Hooded robe, mage staff (light, feather fall), scroll of sleep spell. Charm person, hold portal, and invisibility spells. Backpack, rations, wine skin, lantern, flask of oil, ink & quill case, spell book. Empyrean Tower emissary, gathering intelligence.

Tass Purrfoot [Hobbet Warrior, MV 9′′, AC 7, HD 2+ 1, hp 9, FC 2 men, SV F6, N] OR [Hobbet Varlet, MV 9′′, AC 7, HD 2, hp 8, FC 2 men, SV T7, N]. Padded armor, shield, staff, sling. Backpack, rations, water skin, tinderbox, lantern, flasks of oil, grapple & 50ft rope, pouch of marbles. Pickpocket and trouble magnet.

Goldwen [Abbess, MV 9′′, AC 6, HD 2 + 1, hp 9, FC 2 men, SV C3, L]. Hide armor, helm, wooden shield, mace, gnarled branch of healing, no spells. Backpack, rations, water skin, wooden Cross, flask of Holy water. Plainsmen priestess.

Witherun [Hero, MV 12′′, AC 6, HD 4, hp 16, FC 4 men/hero, SV F4, L]. Hide armor, helm, wooden shield, sword, hunting knife +1, +2 vs reptiles, horsebow & quiver of arrows. Backpack, rations, water skin, tinderbox & 6 torches, gamesnare, wolvesbane. Melancholy plainsmen tracker/hunter.

A plucky entourage it is, all heroes or names gossiped in the ale houses of the lands about.

Comments welcome...

[Red Baron]

Looks great - planning to keep an eye on and follow this playtest!

[tdenmark]

Excellent.

I always thought that Xak Tsaroth was an excellent dungeon crawl, despite all the problems with the DL modules. If more of them had been like this it would have been a better series of adventures.

Looking forward to this.

[hamurai]

This looks good!

But, since the cleric has no spells etc., what do they do in an adventuring party? What are their abilities? Will "Cleric" just be a fluff option for other classes?

[waysoftheearth]

To emphasise the S&S feel, each of the pre-gens has their own personal struggle or objective to achieve. Goldwen (or Goldrake, male option) is a plainsmen cleric, whose personal objectives are perhaps the "biggest" in terms of driving the story arc.

In gamey terms there are a few options to play around with. One option is that she is a straight up OD&D cleric, with spells and turning.
Another option is to create a more unqiue Wyrmspear take on it, in which case she could have a few practical gamey advantages to replace the standard cleric advantages, potentially including:

-- She has an anti-magic effect against sorcery.
-- She alone has and can employ the branch of healing (substitute for the blue crystal staff--a gnarled limb from the Tree of Life with scarcely a score of green leaves remaining).
-- She has a rare flask of Holy water (the purest, clearest water from a sacred Well-Spring, with healing/anti-magic properties).
-- She has a wooden Cross (cough) prolly needs to be substituted for a polytheistic symbol of some sort, which is a token/symbol of membership in the broader clerical society.

I'm planning to mess about with the latter in the play test to see how it goes.

[hamurai]

I like the idea of anti-magic or dispelling abilities for the cleric.