August Blog Bandwagon: Setting Pitch for the Lizard Kingdom Deeps

tl:dr; I wanna run an explo campaign because I have a map too cool to never see the light of day.

This is bandwagoning in after The Foot of Blue Mountain Setting Post! Talking About the Spokelands and Draw the Rest of the Owlbear Setting Pitch for the Tower Lands, seasoned with some of Matt Colvilles campaign pitch formatting.

The Pretentious Doc / Region Info / Pitch:

The Lizardfolk built a great empire, said to encompass most of the world. It is said they ventured forth from the steaming depths of the land that lies deep below the levels of the sea. Noone is sure because for centuries they have been walled in behind the dragons who lair along their borders. The dragons have gone, who knows for how long before the probing of a brave or foolhardy few revealed the borders were now passable.

Art by Evlyn Moreau

Tales come back, of dwarfholds conquered and abandoned, of cities of the lizardfolk consumed by the jungles, of towering walls to keep away titanic lizards, of great fish drawn from oceans beneath the earth, of impossible flying creatures that soar the abyssal forests.

The more learned say that something has happened, a shift among the lizardfolk, that has them abandon their old borderlands.

Now adventurers, both crown sponsored and freelance, venture forth to see gold and glory is now free for the taking.

The Player Doc / Player Buy-in

Sandbox Adventure in a Mysterious Jungle Empire

Summary of campaign style: Exploration, Mystery, Deep Time, Factions, Ruins

The scaled-lands are the high-standing border lands between the lands you come from and the deep abyssal basin where the lizardfolk dwell

Blank basin map by Evlyn Moreau

Mechanically this would be an large roster of players, run when there are at least three, aiming to be as close to episodic 'ending back at base' as possible.

Ruleset - would love to try Shadowdark, could go with 5e with gritty realism if that is what people prefer.

Shop Talk
Combat: Medium
Roleplay: High
Travel: High
Starting Level: 1

This is a resurrection of old campaign material - but less a rework of the setting and more a repositioning of the start point to put the players in the thick of it directly. This is me slamming the levers over and going straight to the good stuff - the deep abyss...

I did a bunch of work in this setting, first setting up the original Lizard Kings game which flared out ~ 5 years ago and culminating in a NaNoWriMo novel draft in November 2019. I got art including maps done for this by OSR luminary Evlyn Moreau. Part of the motivation for all this is to finally be able to bring out the magnificent map she did of the lizardfolk imperial core - the completed version of the structural form above.

Art by Evlyn Moreau

Despite all this world-building, one thing I would love to deploy kicking this off would be Beak, Feather + Bone to collaboratively build a starting city.

Class/race choices from 1 year of Baldur's Gate 3 vs tabletop 5e

Larian Studios, makers of Baldurs Gate 3, bless their transparent little hearts, have released another update to their player stats - now after a year of play. Once again we get class and race choices of the players. We got two previous updates - the weekend after launch and an update after four months of play that looked different to the typical tabletop choices despite being a pretty faithful implementation of the 5e ruleset.

So here is the rerun of that number crunching - with the launch weekend and 4 month stats in with this 1 year set and the patterns from a bunch of forum surveys and 5e character building apps.

On class the broad patterns stay the same - since the 4 month update - a completely different pattern to the tabletop game with Paladin and Sorcerer much more popular, wizards, warlocks and clerics way down off what the tabletop surveys show. What is especially interesting is that we now see a steadying of choice between the 4 and 12 month surveys compared to the launch weekend. Paladins and rangers launched well but faded off a bit - though paladin still stayed top of the heap. Clerics and fighters were less preferred on launch weekend but became more popular over time.

Shiny TTRPG links #186

Some slightly out of sync links while I was out of town. For yet more links, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Beneath Foreign Planets shares Words! Linguistics, Etymology and Onomatology - Blog Carnival Roundup

Recall this months blog carvnial right here - It Came From Beyond Time

Mazirian's Garden announces Ultan's Door Patreon Launches!

Elemental Reductions gives us How I Generate Home Brew Fantasy Towns Quickly

Mindstorm writes Adding Congruency to Anti Canon Worldbuilding

Torchless gives us Letters from "Readers": Dungeons & Dragons 5e vs Baldur's Gate 3

Fail Forward shares Microblog: The Chorus

Monsters and Manuals gives us Top 10 Early OSR Blogs, Now Defunct

Joy and Forgetfulness writes Heroquest - the best thing about it.

d30 creatures in this unseelie nobles entourage

Taking the unseelie court as a mix of the takes of 'dark mirror of the seelie' with beautiful-but-terrible combined with 'the court of misfit things' with goblins, monsters and other rejects from the seelie plus also recognising that any courtly entourage comprises not just its native members but also those who have come to petition the couty. All together we get the following mix of people in the entourage of your unseelie noble.

d30 entourage member role
1. bewitched mortal
2. desperate supplicant
3. gleeful cultist
4. bored relative
5. climbing noble
6. sadistic duelist
7. prancing fool
8. harassed page
9. serene handmaiden
10. overloaded scribe
11. gaudy herald
12. lurking bodyguard
13. peering apothecary
14. preening companion
15. detached shadow
16. leashed monster
17. unkindness of ravens
18. magic mirror bearer
19. bestial knight
20. savage hunter
21. snarling heir
22. bombastic sorcerer
23. smirking almoner
24. scowling cupbearer
25. glowering guard captain
26. overbearing sage
27. beast-leashed huntmaster
28. animated armorsuit
29. shadow dryad
30. orbiting fey musician

d20 entourage member origin
1-3 eladrin
4-5 shadar-kai
6-7 elf, other
8 sprites (d4)
9 dryad
10 faun
11 brownies (d4)
12 quickling
13 awakened animal (terrain appropriate)
14 fairies (d4)
15 satyr
16 redcap
17 yeth-hound
18 bugbear
19 goblins
20 mortal, random

Actual Play: The Apocalypse Annex

I took a slice - the first twelve rooms - of Bearded Devils awesome Apocalypse Archive to by Friday Night open table as the Apocalypse Annex. It was a little bit of a tone shift vs the usual Brancalonia fare but I think it worked well. I ran some rooms 'as is' but then clipped some of the 'bottled horrors' to make it a harbinger of the main threat rather than the final boss.

Party was Zell - Tabaxi warlock, Francis Loxodon bard, Drog hobgoblin sorcerer, Alex human cleric - system was 5e using Gritty Realism (strictly also Brancalonia rules but none of them became relevant). Write up below is from the post-session report our DMs do after every session on our forum. I have added in DM commentary to give the 'how I ran it' perspective and tag what came from where in the Apocalypse Archive.

Session Report: The Apocalypse Annex

With funds and food running short, Rougher approaches our heroes with a scrap page "recovered" from others of the group at the Golden Cockerel, a page from the Great Red Book marked with dwarven sites from the time of the elven invasion. He points out that all the other sites on the page have detailed catalogs of the contents but this one does not - it must be still sealed and therefore full of treasure! The site lies in the Ditch of Serpents, up near Appollonia - familiar terrain, Rougher assures them that no doubt the job will be easy

[DM Commentary: This is my standard one-shot launch "the stew and the wine are getting more watered down. Today is a grim morning where you had a lot of both last night but wake up today hydrated and hungry. The running gag is Rougher is usually right about there being treasure, dead wrong about the level of hazard]

Sceptical but hungry our heroes hitch a barge ride up the river, noting someone tailing them as they leave and boarding another barge behind them. Laying a false trail that they disembarked at the end of the day at the Rugged Hearth, the riverside inn, they travel on a little more and disembark at the nearest point on the river to the place they seek.

[DM Commentary: We had a four-man party this time - Zell - Tabaxi warlock of some undead patron, Francis Loxodon bard (both PCs with 6+ sessions at my open table), Drog hobgoblin sorcerer (experienced player with new L1 character), Alex human cleric (new guy with L5 cleric of the some twilight domain deity).]

Hiking through the forest to the edge of the Ditch of Serpents as night falls, they spy campfires and move towards them. Finding some common folk from Appollonia in religious festival costumes camped for the night they join their camp.

Asked if they shared their dreams about the New Sun, our heroes lie that they do, put together the Appollonians tale with the festival cooked up by others from the Golden Cockerel a month previously and in the morning tell them they have had further revelatory dreams and lead them to the mapped site.

[** DM Commentary: At this point the players (and PC's) were waiting for Roughers other shoe to drop and probed these cultists pretty hard. They spotted that some of the costumes had bits and pieces from their colleagues, backtracked the timeline and made some decent Religion rolls to twig that while this did look like the thing their comrades had set in motion, nothing any of them were aware of explained how that false festival could have evolved into dreams so quickly.]

After some searching and more digging the find a stubby archaeolith tower, force the door and descend into the pitch blackness. Natural darkvision and gifts from patrons and deities furnish all the party ability to see in the dark but still it is disquieting as they descend.

[** DM Commentary: Actually cracking into the content here although as per standard with 5e, seeing in the dark was trivially easy to solve. The door was Room 1 - Trapdoor Entrance.]

A spiral stair opens to a great ramp, both stained with ancient blood, watched over by a bastion. At the base of the ramp they find another door into darkness so complete even their gifted sight fails. Alek ventures in and plunges from the tilting blocks of the bridge into the frigid pool of liquid darkness beneath. Hauled back out by his comrades, Zell draws on his tabaxi gifts and boons granted by all his comrades and sprints across.

[** DM Commentary: The stair was Room 2 - Staircase, the ramp was made up new and the 'spinning block bridge' was room 5 'darkness bath' with a trapped bridge over it to create a 'darklock' in front of this dwarven bastion. Though they sensibly chose to have someone scout ahead with a rope attached, once the cleric went into the pool (and found it frigid and damaging) they chose to futz about poking at things and taking more damage until their comrades pulled them out.]

Locking the bridge on the far side lets the rest cross and they find a barrack room and a sizzling mutated goblin corpse. Poking at it a bit Zell consults his patron and is told this thing is anathema.

[** DM Commentary: I made the bridge lockable so they just needed to solve it once and I wanted to get everything done in one session. The barracks was a reskinned Room 4 andthey poked the Illumined vessel a bit and got their first failed saves vs. Radiation - enough to clue them in that this bad light is bad. The way the flaming eyes followed them while the body was apparently dead had them pretty sure that 'the light' was bad - their theory was it was a puppeteering influence from some entity elsewhere.]

Covering it with a blanket and trapping it beneath a chest, the party proceeds upstairs to the spiral library. There they find a shelves packed with scrolls that they figure must be valuable and start stuffing them into their bags. Distracted, they are ambushed by two more mutated goblins, these blazing with sickly light. Tipping a shelf and then casting back their physical forms before banishing them entirely, the party wins some quiet to further explore.

[** DM Commentary: The voidskin scrolls were an object of fascination - and they were paying no attention even when I said there were light sources elsewhere so the other illumined vessels got the drop on them. This was a straight port of Room 6 - Voidskin Scroll Archive. The light cast by the illumined was a nice, scary effect and there was some proper panicking while they figured out who of the cleric, warlock, sorcerer and bard was supposed to be in front. In the end the warlock flexed 'Among the Dead' at a choke point where, grace of some failed saves, the illumined vessels got stalled long enough for the cleric to turn them.]

At the top of the library, the top of the bastion they had seen from without, they find a dwarven planning station and glean snippets of the Membrane Wars and the infectious light of a strange sun that spreads to herald its coming. The also find notes that this place is a containment unit and sigh as they realise the have to check whatever it contains is still there.

[** DM Commentary: we flexed the gritty realism rules and let a pair of second level spells get burned off for a casting of Tongues by the cleric so they could decrypt all the books in Aklo, Sidereal script and Dwarven. I figured with no time pressure and some spare spell energy in the tank this was not unreasonable.]

Making their way back down they find that the Illumined vessel they had trapped under a chest is awake and trying to free itself. They fail to snipe it from ambush and then have to sneak up on it from behind light-blocking blankets before dousing it with liquid darkness from the bridge room.

[** DM Commentary: were I meaner I might just allow blankets blocking the light to only provide advantage against saves but I liked the ingenuity and wanted to keep things moving along. Plus I figured they would have to expose themselves to get things done later.]

Fetching buckets of liquid darkness from the bridge room they proceed past many disturbed warning signs and find a pair of mutated goblins gnawing on the biomechanical roots of a great dome within which liquid darkness sloshes. The damage from the gnawing causes brief gaps in the darkness and when those capture the light of the goblins, the chamber blazes with the sickly light. Our heroes shelter beneath a blanket tetsudo and chase the goblins with mage-handed buckets of darkness as Zell stays out, braves the light and acts as spotter.

[DM Commentary: This room was a combo of Room 12 - Ember of the Final Star and Room 8. Captured Beacon - the apparatus was from Room 12 but the thing inside containment was only an infectous beacon. There was a brief discussion about whether invisibility makes you immune to the light, since you cast no shadow, therefore you are not blocking/absorbing any of the light. In the interests of keeping things rolling, I went with yes. This got them an attack from ambush on one of the goblins.]

Finally a mildly irradiated Zell guides the others to dousing the last goblin with liquid darkness and they set to work Mending and Healing the contraption before retreating and shoring up the damaged barriers.

[DM Commentary: I played this as there being periodic full room 'flashes' from the beacon as the sloshing of the partially damaged darkness cascade let the goblins gaze light it up. A couple of failed saves in and Zell was up to second level of radiation with infravision and sparkly eyes. He was thrilled and happy to keep this, then sad when he fell into the darkness bath on the way out and lost it.]

Back at the surface, with flasks of darkness and pockets full of scrolls, they exhort the New Sun cultists that they have been successful, that their work today will cause the New Sun to rise tomorrow but they must never speak of this place. Highly persuasive, the cultists are raised to a pitch of fanatical devotion and vow to take the secret to their graves.

[DM Commentary: this was an interesting one where they actually played their hand really well with the cultists leaving them convinced that something had genuinely happened but that they must never speak of this place. To be seen exactly how this weird little Pelorite heresy will evolve.]

Session report ends

All told this ran well - people said they liked it, we got all this done in 4.5 hours. Probably not as grim an experience as the author might have originally intended but they were properly spooked by the light of the Last Star and were absolutely convinced they had to make sure this thing never escaped so I consider that a success.

Shiny TTRPG links #185

Some slightly out of sync links while I am out of town. For yet more links, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Sinusoidal freakshow gives us D6 ways to kill an ogre

Shadow & Fae gives us No God But Their Stomachs - d3 Ogre Encounters to Haunt Your Wilds

The Dripping Tap gives us Interesting Dialects for GLoG

Unlawful Games gives us What is in Pocket Wizard’s d100 Pockets?!

Grackle Court gives us [RPG Blog Carnival] Languages of the Underworld

Path Unending gives us Crime, Profession, Social Class

Elemental Reductions gives us On Names

Aiee! Run From Kelvin's Brainsplurge! gave us Die Drop Campaign Maps at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Starshine Scribbles gives us TTRPG Creator Resources Masterpost

Dungeonfruit gives us Asking The Right Questions (Worldbuilding By Bibliomancy)

i'm going to blog here gives us There SHOULD only be One - Exclusive Class-as-Hirelings Options for OSR Games

Draw the Rest of the Owlbear gives us I CAST TESTICULAR TORSION

The Pastel Dungeon gives us Doors, Gates, and Metroidvania Dungeon Design Cannibal Halfling Gaming gives us Black Sword Hack and the evolving OSR TableTobRPG gives us On Bucket Lists and fighting the real enemy: Time Management Campaign Mastery gives us Metagame blogdex page

The Flytrap (Barkeep Jam)

As an entry to Barkeep Jam hosted by Prismatic Wasteland - adhering to the Barkeep on the Borderlands Third Party License - we have the Flytrap.

Situated in the repurposed stable-block of an allegedly haunted castle, atop a tunnel-riddled rise, the Flytrap is always abuzz. The Flytrap has a street entrance and a not-very-secret entrance through the tunnels up from the river. The Fly Traps greatest strength and weakness is the sheer volume of goblin-like flylings eating, drinking, coming and going at all hours. They are seen marching in and out of doors that apparently lead nowhere, along the tops of the castle walls outside, up and down the stairs to the cellar and latrines. Every hour of day and night the lights blaze and the barkeep is slinging their cheapest drinks and serving bowls of their eternal gumbo. Despite, or perhaps because of, the numbers too-ing and fro-ing, the relatively minor disruptions rapidly lead to panic, shrieking, wailing, and chaotic running around.

When the jolly crew enters this pub, roll 1d6 on the table below. If a character’s number is equal to or below the result, they are in the pub right now.

d6 Staff & Regulars
1. Zadu - kenku barkeep, apparently never sleeps wth dreadful memory - actually a pair of equally taciturn twins that switch out regularly
2. Fuzzelina and Zuzabelle, fly-ling barmaids, frenetic, overly cheerful, easily panicked
3. Chestnut the hedgehog-ling cook - focussed on making faux shrimp out of other bugs found about the place
4. Alf - Ratling bard - flashily dressed, works the room being impressed with peoples tales
5. Chiming Zam - flyling godfather - holds quiet court at a back table with other elderly flylings, misses nothing
6. Mahew - human smuggler, permanent stoop from hiking about in the tunnels beneath, tells lurid tales of hazards beneath.

If the Risk Die rolls a Setback while the jolly crew is approaching this pub, roll 2d6 on the table below if approaching by the front, 2d8 if by tunnel.
2. Arguing adventurers with a mud covered tax chest, aggresive if they notice you noticing them
3. Bar regulars hauling in a fresh giant crab, insist on you helping
4. A flood of panicking flyings dashing the opposite direction wailing about spider vampires
5. Cranky locals complaining about missing beer shipment, try to get you to help, payment promises are vague
6. Overly enthusiastic adventurers who rope you into an argument about the mythic past
7. Flying smugglers carting awkwardly large crates
8. Muddy, sunburned travellers just in from the swamp
9. Dusty, frazzled tunnel-divers emerge from depths
10. Flylings loudly discussing the horrors of the lands outside town, from bandits to monsters
11. Frantic looking local with a cloth wrapped bundle they swear is a powerful magic tome they will attempt to sell to you for a handful of silver
12. Wizard antique-hunter prowls around, very interested in anything people know about this place and its surrounds
13. Wrong turn into tunnel labyrinth
14. Teetering crates of a smugglers stash collapse onto the party
15. Conversations echo through the tunnels providing discussing (roll d8 on this table)
16. Dread reliefs, freshly uncovered, speak of the awful cultists that recently inhabited the tunnels

If the Risk Die rolls a Setback while the jolly crew is inside this pub, roll 2d6 on the table below.

2. Giant Crab submersible crashes about the room while the pilots desperately yank on the cables within to steer it
3. Fake Latrine opens into tunnel labyrinth, lingering too long here has people turn up coming or going
4. Spider cultists attempt to tie up a victim and haul them off to their master in the castle
5. Argument between barkeep and regulars about bar tabs and the nature of money - "the level of money in the money pot is right, therefore all is well"
6. Food too big for the pot, mass brawl after the chef demands people eat more to clear space
7. Grim weather outside has far too many people crowd in, tempers flare and pocket-picking fingers wander
8. Grozzle stored too near the cooking fire catches light to much panic and hilarity
9. Local villager attempts to persuade adventurers to take on a completely mundane problem
10. Found relic, being examined on back table of bar, goes haywire
11. Predator queen cultist starts raving about the return of their dark master, half the crowd panics, half starts arguing back
12. Spider vampire appears in a dramatic flash, to screams, running around, panic and chaos.

Signature Drinks for the Flytrap
1 silver coin - Grozzle - mixed fruit schnapps, different every time
2 silver coins - Stilt-town Cider - good, local cider
3 silver coins - Stilt-town Abbey Wine - very good vintage from local holyfolk
4 silver coins - Dwarven ale - from casks brought in with the smuggling
5 silver coins - Swamp wine - dug up bottles of fine elven vintage, perfectly preserved in the swamp
1 gold coin - Labyrinth mead - made from ancient honey stocks from the tunnels

A log of adventures centered around the Flytrap can be found here.