Drow: An Alternate Take

I was mulling over the notion of an alternate "army list" structure for D&D - as I've mentioned before, way back in the day Alignment was essentially that structure (before it morphed into the cause of a million arguments), but actually Good vs Evil makes for a bad thematic conflict (since there's an obvious 'right' side). That being the case, I was pondering the major players in such a structure and how they'd fit together.

I started with the Elves and Dwarves, who are both considered 'good' races but which are nonetheless in opposition: Elves are associated with nature while Dwarves are associated with industry. And the 'obvious' notion would be that both these races would be considered allied with humans.

But...

What if it were Drow, not Elves, who were allied with humans?

Indeed, what if the ancient feud between Elves and Drow wasn't the classic "good vs evil" yawnfest, but instead something else?

Specifically, what if Elves (including Drow) were the first practitioners of Arcane magic, and it was the Drow who gifted the secrets of it to the first human wizards (in the manner of Prometheus and fire)? This caused a major schism in the elven race, leading to the drow being driven out and underground. (And Lolth, for her part, was cursed by Corellon with her current form, and so on and so forth.)

The upshot of this would be that elves then are not the exemplars of good that D&D seems relentlessly determined to portray them as, which can only be a good thing in my opinion. It also means that drow are probably not the exemplars of evil that they've similarly been typecast as - they're the losers in an ancient war that was actually not simply good vs evil.

It does have the advantage that drow can then retain most, if not all, of their current design - they remain subterranean elves, they can remain associated with spiders and the like (since, although many people have phobias, spiders aren't actually forces of evil), and so on.

It does mean that Lolth needs a new portfolio, and it does mean that both elven and drow society need overhauled from their previous depictions, but that's probably no bad thing.

(It isn't even necessarily the case that humans being allied with drow means that they must be opposed to elves, due to the way the web should be constructed. It's possible for one force to be allied with two others that are themselves opposed.)

All that said, I suspect this would require a whole new setting to be grafted into D&D, and I'm not inclined to change my minds about not using drow in my own campaigns, so...

A Big Fat Nope

Last week WotC announced a bunch of upcoming products, including Spelljammer. I must admit, I was very surprised to see this, as Spelljammer was always a very niche product, especially compared with Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or Planescape. Still, it was always a favourite, albeit very odd, setting and so something of immediate interest.

That interest was then ruthlessly stamped out. I have three issues:

They've adopted a new product format - three 64-page books in a slipcase. This means that this setting gets only 3/4 of the attention paid to Ravenloft, and 3/5 of that paid to Eberron. Given the need to introduce a whole raft of D&D physics, lots of ship types, vehicle combat rules, and a whole setting, that's just not enough. And when you also consider that one of those books is an adventure, it is even more punishing.

With the new format they're also significantly increasing the price. So, more money for less material? No thanks.

Truth be told, though, neither of those are deal-breakers - I would probably have arranged to get the set as a Christmas present or something. Unfortunately, they've also reimagined the setting, and my immediate reaction to the changes is a big fat "nope". And given the abject failure of "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft", I'm not inclined to give the benefit of any doubt.

Which is all very disappointing. I've been very much a fan of Eberron, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and Dark Sun. But of these, only Eberron has a 5e take that I've enjoyed, and that came about mostly by the expedient of not making any changes.

The Ends are Nigh

My return to the office has been scheduled, and LC's return to work is likewise scheduled, meaning that as of the end of May I'll have less free time (somehow!). As a consequence of that, I've started moving "The Quest for Memory" to its endgame - we'll run one final adventure and then need to call it a day.

Similarly, "The Mists of Lamordia" have come in to their endgame - the party are off to the Isle of Agony to confront Adam. Defeat the Dark Lord and they will have opened the triple lock, allowing them to escape Ravenloft and go home. If they want to, that is...

The upshot of that is that I now expect to bring both campaigns to and end in the next couple of weeks. Which will be good.

Blades in the Desert

I think I have my new campaign. Back when I was planning "The Mists of Lamordia" I put together the skeleton of a desert-based swashbuckling game, "Blades in the Desert". I'm inclined to dust that off, modify it quite a bit, and go from there.

Originally, the campaign was to be set in Calimsham, but I'm going to shift it out of the Realms entirely. Instead, the campaign will be set in an undefined desert region - that's something I need to work on.

The structure will more or less follow that of "Lost Mine of Phandelver" - an initial adventure, then some urban mini-quests, then some mini-quests in the larger environment, and then a finale against one of the big bads.

In terms of the "side dish" I'm going to focus the campaign on the factions, of which there will be seven - five 'normal' campaigns, one opposed to all the others, and the PCs acting as a wild-card. The factions are as follows:

• Acolytes of the Dark Tide: Currently the dominant faction, the cult of Olhydra, the Princess of Elemental Evil Water, holds a monopoly on the supply of clean water, and consequently have a stranglehold on temporal power. They are allied to the Silver River and the Foundation, and opposed by the Crocus and the Desert Angels.
• The Crocus: Rogues and swashbucklers dedicated to the service of princess Saffron, this somewhat wild faction is held at a distance by their patron for political reasons. They are allied to the Silver River and the Desert Angels, and opposed by the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Foundation.
• The Silver River: An alliance of merchants and traders. They are allied to the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Crocus, and opposed by the Foundation and the Desert Angels.
• The Desert Angels: A tribe of wemics obsessed with honour and battle, this nomadic group rarely ventures into the town but their influence extends everywhere. They are allied to the Crocus and the Foundation, and opposed by the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Silver River.
• The Foundation: Descendants of the dvergar who built the town, this faction controls much of the illicit activity in the region. They are allied to the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Crocus, and opposed by the Desert Angels and the Silver River.
• The Carrion Claws: A loose alliance of gnoll tribes, these fanatics serve Yeenoghu with unmatched zeal. They are opposed to all the other factions.

As a consequence of this, PCs will gain XP in the following ways:

• They will gain an award for each encounter completed. As always, it does not matter how an encounter is completed. A partial success will, as always, give a partial award.
• They will gain an award for each quest completed.
• They will gain a quarter award each time they change the balance of power between the factions. This should encourage them to seek out and engage with the factions.
• They will gain a quarter award each time they exhaust a temporary magic item (except a potion of healing). (Note that this is a larger award than in my current campaigns. I tend to think that's better.)

Of course, all of this assumes that there will actually be a next campaign!

The Challenge

Over on ENWorld, someone posted an interesting challenge to pick any three of the big 5e adventures, mash them together, and thus make a new campaign. I'm not doing that, but it did remind me of a previous, similar challenge I'd seen before to grab a random issue of Dragon magazine and see how much gameable material it can inspire.

My synthesis of these two ideas, then, is to grab a random issue of Dragon (110), a random issue of Dungeon (117), and a random issue of White Dwarf (231) and use those to populate a campaign.

The results have certainly been interesting - the issue of Dragon has given rise to a quest about a necromancer (and there's more, but I haven't stripped it yet), Dungeon has given me the notion of a literal criminal underworld for my setting (which will be a desert town constructed by enslaved Dvergar - their descendants now control that underworld), while White Dwarf is giving rise to all sorts of odd stuff (since it is unconnected to D&D, the inspiration is much more offbeat, which is definitely a good thing).

Also, I'm reasonably sure I have a notion for a campaign coming together...