The Great Secrets

I've never written these down anyway, so in order that they don't get forgotten, here are the three great secrets at the heart of my home setting of Terafa:

• The Dragonborn origin story doesn't fit with the creation myths of the other races, and indeed with the known age of the world. The reason for this is that they're not from the past of the world, but rather from the far future - the devastation their seers foresaw was actually the end of the world, and their "Return to the Egg" saw their elite using flawed technology that actually cast them far back in time.
• The origin of the split between the elves and the drow was actually due to the latter choosing to share the secrets of magic with humans. Everything since then is propaganda. Unfortunately, so pervasive has become the propaganda, and so much bitterness has grown up that the drow are now enemies of all surface-dwellers.
• Choriam, god of rulership, is actually a usurper. The true god of rulership is trapped in the Fastness of the Divine, with all knowledge of him erased by the death of Memory, the lost deity. This is also why the pantheon in unbalanced, and why the dominant mythology all feels 'off'.

But, of course, it's all subject to change if I ever get back to it!

Every Story I Want to Tell

This post was originally going to be about the campaigns that I would like to run but am now never likely to, but it changed. It changed for one very obvious reason: there aren't any. There are, certainly, campaigns I could run, and concepts I could readily work up, and there are campaign structures I'd be inclined to explore more and build upon if there was a need for a new game.

But in terms of a campaign I actually want to run? No, there's nothing. I'm actually in a really good place to be taking a hiatus right now.

About "Tales of the Valiant"

In the past year or so I've backed two Kickstarters for "Tales of the Valiant" - the first was for the development of the system itself (a 5e near-clone with some nice enhancements), and the second for the Gamemaster's Guide (which looked very nice). In backing the second I actually broke one of my cardinal rules with Kickstarter, which is to never back a second project from a team until the first has delivered - but I mitigate that by noting that Kobold Press have never let me down.

Anyway, both Kickstarters have now delivered everything I signed up for, which tragically comes just a bit too late - I'm unlikely ever to even read any of the books (PDFs) they have sent me as I just don't have use for them at this time. (Plus, I now have two 5e near-clones, the other being "Level Up", and there's a third available in the form of D&D 2024.)

But that's a "me" problem rather than any sort of a problem with the product, and the Kickstarter was pretty much impeccable in its delivery. And Kobold Press routinely do great work, so I have no hesitation in recommending them as a company. Just a shame that it's come a little too late.

"Isles of Dread" wrap up

A rather belated post - the "Isles of Dread" campaign actually ended in July. However, the end remains somewhat fresh, and so in the spirit of completeness, here are my thoughts:

• This was intended as a short six-month campaign to pass some time, and ended up running for almost two years. That's largely a scheduling issue - with so few players we really struggled to get to a quorum. And that, in turn, is why I've called time on this particular group.
• That said, near the end of the campaign I took that view that we were essentially going ahead no matter what, and that actually worked much better. I should have done this throughout. And, actually, I think that may be a lesson for even "regular" campaigns - better to fix a slot and go ahead come hell or high water, and if you find yourself regularly struggling for a quorum then that's a sign to call a halt.
• I was very proud of the way the campaign was structured, prepared, and presented - I've posted about this separately, but the work put in did pay off, mostly.
• The extended duration of the campaign did, however, mean that some key callbacks never paid off. I suspect that would have gone better had things been fresher in minds. Or perhaps not. Either way, nothing vital was missed, so that was okay.
• The campaign structure, which I cribbed from "Lost Mine of Phandelver", was great. I highly recommend this for any sort of "beginner" campaign.
• I never did get an "inventory" sheet put together. With the release of new books, and since I'm now not gaming, I'm not sure it's worthwhile any longer. But it's definitely something that I've been missing.
• The rerolls worked slightly better. One enhancement was that characters now received a number of rerolls per level equal to half their Proficiency Bonus, rounded up. That seemed to make them a bit less of a scarce resource, and so they seemed to get a bit more use.
• For the first time we saw a feat being used (Lucky), but alas it wasn't great, largely because that one served to duplicate the effect of those same reroll tokens.

And that's basically that. A decent campaign, although not a classic, and a reasonable way to close out gaming with that group. I'm a little sorry that this campaign seems to also be the one to close out my career as a gamer, but so be it - ultimately most things end badly, or they wouldn't end at all, to better to wrap things up on my terms (even if in a suboptimal manner) than otherwise.