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...

The Other Precondition

If "The Mists of Lamordia" does indeed come to a satisfactory end by the end of June, I will consider running another campaign, after a sufficiently long break. That said, I have one other precondition for doing so: I need to come up with a campaign.

Right now, I have several half-baked ideas for a campaign, but nothing that immediately grabs me. I know I want something shorter in scope, something much more episodic, and also something low-level and easy to run. But I'm yet to hit on something that really inspires.

And that's what I need: a solid premise for a campaign that I want to run, plus a suitable "side dish" to both make the campaign stand out and also give the characters something to do beyond just killing things and taking their stuff.

Another Week of No Games

The session of "The Mists of Lamordia" intended for today was cancelled due to several no-shows, meaning that this is another week of no gaming. Because of several holidays, the next session is planned for the 28th of April.

Meanwhile, "A Quest for Memory" has missed several weeks including this week. We're scheduled for next week, and after that we're looking at the 20th of April.

All of which is unfortunate, but not disastrous. That said:

• I estimate that "The Mists of Lamordia" has about six sessions. I'm thinking that if we don't get though it by the end of June, that's a sign that the scheduling is just too difficult, and it's time to call a halt to the Work Game - that is, there won't be a next campaign.
• If "A Quest for Memory" doesn't resume by the end of April, I'm calling it a day on that one, too. I'm also thinking it's time to bring that towards the endgame, regardless.

A Thought About Halflings and Narnia

I was musing about halflings the other day, and one of the random thoughts that popped into my head is that they'd be an ideal way to model all the various animal-folk that populate the Narnia stories - Mr Beaver, Reepicheep, and so forth. Amongst other things, that would solve the perennial problem with strength scores and small characters, since so many animals are proportionately stronger than humans.

That said, I'm disinclined to change the depiction of halflings in Terafa at this stage (as I'm broadly happy with their story there), so I'm not entirely sure where, if ever, I would use this idea.

Another One for the List

A couple of weeks ago "The Mists of Lamordia" reached the milestone of 10th level. It's likely that this will be the final time the party levels up this campaign, though it's just about possible that they might once more. Either way, this means that this campaign can be added to the very small list of campaigns to reach double figures - and it's the first 5e campaign to make the list.

As a reminder, I believe there are now five campaigns in this category:

• There was a very old Dragonlance/Spelljammer 2nd Edition campaign that ran to 15th level.
• My first full 3e campaign made it to 12th level, I think.
• The highest level I've ever run to was "Shackled City" in 3.5e. The characters were 18th level in the final session, and would have reached 19th had we tallied the XP at the end.
• Also in 3.5e, "The Eberron Code" ended with the PCs at 15th level.
• And now, "The Mists of Lamordia" is a 5e campaign that has reached 10th level.

After the Mists Part

With "The Mists of Lamordia" coming to its end, I've started giving some thought as to what comes next. I must admit, I'm sorely tempted to call it a day at that - hang up the mantle of DM and walk away. But the players seem to be really keen to keep playing, so maybe...

Three  things are pretty clear though:

1. I'll be taking a lengthy break before starting the next campaign. Certainly until we're back in the office, and probably a good bit beyond that.
2. We could really do with some additional players!
3. The next campaign needs to be a good bit simpler, or at least more episodic, than either "The Mists of Lamordia" or even "Storm King's Thunder" - both of those campaigns just had too much lore and too many moving parts for players to keep it all straight.

Assuming we do play on, I have some stuff concerning character generation to put forward:

• We'll generate our own "standard array" during character generation - basically, we'll go around the table rolling 4d6-drop-lowest once each until we get 6 stats, and then everyone will have those to use.
• We'll need to expand the options of class and subclass quite a bit, allowing the Artificer and probably all the subclasses from Xanathar's and Tasha's. With the Bard and the Sorcerer, in particular, we've kind of done the PHB options to death.
• I'd really like each PC to have a different class this time! Having two FIghters in the first campaign and two Sorcerers in this has not been ideal.
• I'd also really like each player to choose a race they haven't used before (with the exception of human - that's always an option) and a class they haven't used before.

But none of that answers the biggest question: what to do? Something different, I feel, but what?