Sir Oliver's page

After our party - Dië Stëppënwölfën - finally managed to establish our own People's Kingdom of Ulfland, we also decided upon various other national symbols like our flag (giant wolf's head with a crown atop it on the field of black and green), national holidays (Everflowing Mugfest is celebrated every year on the day our kingdom was established) and even a national instrument (accordion).

But now I'm thinking of how to rename our political functions. Let's face it, Treasurer sounds kinda boring. So why not call the guy Master of Coins instead? And, since our kingdom is a weird mix of aristocracy, democracy and a benevolent tyranny, we took a page from Andoran and Galt and named our king First Citizen. Spymaster could be Master of Whisperers and Warlord is SUPreme COMmander. You humble servant is a High Councillor but he likes to refer to himself as Kabinetmeister.

As for other titles, I don't really have much inspiration and I could use some good suggestions for them. Especially for the fun alternative to the title of "queen" as our only female player wants something cool-sounding for her character.

Recently, my sister bought me Scott Lynch's "Lies of Locke Lamora" - a swashbuckling urban fantasy set in the sprawling Venice-like city of Camorr. There's a thieves guild there ran by guy named Vancarlo Barsavi who rules the city's underground from a derelict ship and throws his victims to sharks through a trap door.

In "Curse of the Crimson Throne" we have a thieves guild ran by guy named Barvasi who rules his thugs from a derelict ship and throws his victims to giant spiders through a trap door.

Suspicious! :-D

But seriously, I wholeheartedly recommend this novel to anyone who liked CotCT or plans to run it. It's chokeful of inspiring bits and pieces about fantasy city heavily modeled after 17th century Venice. There are gang wars, water markets, thieves guilds, secret police, corrupted city guard, intrigues, merchants, plague ships, con artists and wizards. There are also numerous remains from ancient, incredibly advanced civilization upon which the new city was built throughout the centuries.

In parts, "Lies of Locek Lamora" almost sounds like "Curse of the Crimson Throne" novelisation which, personally, I found very cool. It is also supposed to be a first in the series of seven self-contained novel. Apparently, in the second book - "Red Sails under Red Skies", main heroes try to rob a casino in a pirate city-state. Golden Goblin in Riddleport, maybe? :-D

I'm just looking at the character sketch for Duelist prestige class and I wonder who drew it. It looks amazing!

Creating a sixth level PC today reminded me what I disliked the most about being a DM. When game mastering, I love creating my own adventures: stories, NPCs, villains, interesting locations and such. But, as much as I enjoy that, I dislike the math part: the number crunching and rules-browsing where I have to choose what kind of feats and magical items will enemy mooks have or how do the enemy's individual spells work like.

If it were only a single NPC I had to build and check, that wouldn't be much of a problem. But with a whole adventure, I often wasted more time building it then we actually played it! Figuring that I'm obviously doing something wrong, I gave up from DMing for about a year and a half.

But DMing is a nasty itch that I'd love to scratch but not before I seriously reconsider my approach to the game preparation.

I was thinking of running a medieval fantasy game. I have access to D&D 3.5 & 4th Editions and WFRP 2nd Edition rules. From them all, WFRP turned out to be the simplest to run, but this was also in large part due to me running sessions with very little combat encounters. The moment I started planning (and later, running) my first Warhammer dungeon, it was back to the world of number-crunching: stats for enemies, monsters, traps, etc.

So, let's say you have D20 SRD and core rulebooks. Let's say you're creating your own adventures - not just because you prefer running your own stuff but also cause you don't really have much of an access to official adventures. What kinds of shortcuts would you use to ease up a preparations for a session, an adventure or even a campaign?

After finishing my reading of Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, I found myself mostly drawn towards Ustalav. I've been thinking about a gothic horror - themed adventures and campaign for couple of years and I even ran them for a little while in WFRP system. Ustalav seems as nice place for such things as the Old World while also giving me an excuse to stick with D&D rules and make PCs a bit more heroic.

But, despite four pages entry about the Immortal Principality, I found myself looking for some rather basic info which I could really use for a game. Aside of that, I started this thread to get my creative juices flowing once again. :-)

1) What should be typical races and nationalities of Ustalav? For now, the only ones that come to mind are Varisians and maybe some half-orc (from Belkzen) and Khellid (from Numeria) minority. But what about other ones like - for example - Chelaxians, Taldorans or Dwarves?

2) What deities should be appropriate and usual for Ustalav? OK, so we know people there mostly worship Desna, Pharasma and - from the evil ones - Urgathoa. But what other deities could be popular there, aside of these three?

3) Related to the previous question, how does this religious observance usually work? Do people run around with pitchforks and torches burning witches in the name of Desna (that seems kinda unlikely for that religion, at least to me) or do they simply stick to their own superstitions and religious rituals hiding in their houses?

4) Any interesting ideas for evil cults for Ustalav, aside of Urgathoa? Hidden monks of Norgober in the Monastery of the Veil are, for example, splendid idea, precisely because they're recognizably evil, while still avoiding the classic undead cultist schtick.

5) Finally, I'm trying to think of a nice thematic good organization set in Ustalav. So far, the best idea I've came to are the paladins of Iomeade... except that they're actually set in Lastwall and only occasionally patrol the SW Ustalav.

I don't know was this already addressed here before, but is there any chance for us to witness the walpapery goodness of WAR iconics for the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path? :-)

Ever since I finally got core rulebook for WFRP 2nd Edition, I've been toying with various ideas for adventures and a mini-campaign I could run. I'm going through the rules now and I would like to know are there any glitches or peculiarities of the system I should be aware of.

For example: I know that the combat in WFRP is more lethal compared to D&D, but how lethal is it? On average, how many fights in a day could party of beginners possibly take? On the other hand, I'm also interested in how useful are the rules for social interaction, knowledge or research skills.

Then there are careers for which I'm not really sure how balanced are they: it seems to me that mechanically the player of Noble or Soldier has a definite advantage over Rat Catcher - which is all the more reason to be interested into practical in-game value of various skills and talents.

So far, I like what I've seeing from WFRP: the rules seem refreshingly simple compared to the D&D 3.5: far less magic and magical items to take into account, for example. On the other hand, basics of the combat seem quite intuitive and similar to D&D, which is great 'cause it means less times for new players to adjust.

I like it! A lot!

Picture of a Scarecrow Ghoullooks very cool and atmospheric. On the other hand, Skinsaw Cultist seemed kinda silly at first: after all, he is dressed in a jester's outfit. But then I noticed that the guy has only one, weird-looking eye smack in the middle of his face. Suddenly, picture stopped being funny and became creepy. Finally, Princess of the Market is exactly the type of NPC pictures I grew to like in Dungeon. I was very happy when I saw the same quality of character portraits in Player's Guide to the Rise of the Runelords.

Kudos to all of the artists involved! :-)

On Pathfinder blog, there's a PDF preview for Bestiary in Pathfinder No. 2:

"It is said that in the deepest swamps of the Hollow Morass, the Stinking Sink, and the Mushfens lurk the progenitors of the boggard race: the first priests, the Mobogo. Intelligent, primeval toads of gigantic size and incredible magic power, these swamp kings are said to be the off spring and harbingers of (goddess)Gogunta herself, spreading her gospel of croaking doom."

If this ain't a D&D adventure in making, I don't know what is! I love boggards. They're so wonderfully disgusting and cheesy! :-D

I was reading this article about D&D by Rich Baker where he writes:

The Dungeons & Dragons game assumes many things about its setting: The world is populated by a variety of intelligent races, strange monsters lurk on other planes, ancient empires have left ruins across the face of the world, and so on. But one of the new key conceits about the D&D world is simply this: Civilized folk live in small, isolated points of light scattered across a big, dark, dangerous world.

Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders. A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands. Anything could be waiting down that old overgrown dwarf-built road: a den of ogre marauders, a forgotten tower where a lamia awaits careless travelers, a troll’s cave, a lonely human village under the sway of a demonic cult, or a black wood where shadows and ghosts thirst for the blood of the living.

Given the perilous nature of the world around the small islands of civilization, many adventures revolve around venturing into the wild lands.

I absolutely loved this bit cause it clearly described everything I like about Varisia and Pathfinder. D&D is more than just killing and looting the monsters: it's also the game where PCs brave the unknown wilderness and all of it's mysteries, dangers and rewards. :-)