The RPG Study

The RPG community has, thankfully, had over a month now to move on from the OGL crisis that we faced at the beginning of the year. Wizards of the Coast ended up doing the sensible thing and acted to maintain the integrity of the OGL 1.0a as well as taking the extra step of releasing the 5th Edition SRD 5.1 in to a Creative Commons License.  During the month of January however, there was a lot of focus in the TTRPG community on other games and systems that the GM community specifically was interested in running. A lot of great games were suggested and explored even after the OGL issue was (mostly) resolved. Many of us are still interested in running these other games that we purchased during and after the fiasco, or that we had purchased prior to the start of 2023 and never got a chance to run. Start up Costs There are many challenges a GM faces when trying to play a new system. It can be finding and purchasing necessary game material. It can also be learning and understanding the s...

 S17: The House of Monsters This small private residence is the home of the retired soldier, Drabus Folrin IV. The son of soldiers, he spent his entire life serving in the army of the king. After one campaign in the Great Northern Mountains, he discovered a secret that revealed a more insidious threat to his home. As he learned more about this threat he discovered that the house he now lives in sits above the entrance to where this horrible evil dwells. He purchased the house and moved in an attempt to safeguard the city by himself. Drabus’s accommodations are spartan, as he tries to leave as much open ground for him to fight the creatures that crawl out from the underground to threaten the city. He maintains a small cot and uses the fireplace to make himself meals. Otherwise the building is nearly completely empty, but burn marks and blood stains cover the floors, a testament to Drabus’s skill and commitment to his watch. Drabus is getting on in years though and worries he will n...

  S16: Guard Tower - Top floor The Roof of the Guard Tower is a fairly drab and pragmatic place. Looming high over the District, the guards stationed at the tower top have a commanding view of the neighborhood, the city, and even the sea Four large ballistae are mounted to the crenellations along the perimeter, one in each cardinal direction. They have a 120 degree firing arc, side-to-side and vertically as well, enabling them to shoot down at invaders or up at threats from above. Also located on the tower roof is a small shelter where messenger pigeons are kept. These pigeons are backups in case those in the cities central keep should be lost, and they have generally grown fairly fat and lazy. Lately, since the tenure of the new guard chef Tevan (See S15), birds that get too obese often end up as dinner in the mess one night. Guard initiates are then sent out to by new birds from the merchants in the city. The entire city up to this time:  

S15: Guard Tower - Second floor The second floor of the guard Tower contains the general bunk house for the guards on active duty, where they can take a rest on breaks during their shifts. New recruits are required to live in the Tower for three (3) months before being allowed to find or return to lodging elsewhere in the city. The second floor also contains a mess area. A rudimentary kitchen is constructed around the hearth and a few tables are present for the guards to eat their meals. The mess is run by greenhorn named Tevan. She is inexperienced as a guard but is an impeccable chef. Word has started to get out about her cooking and meal time is busier than its ever been in the mess. The third area of the second floor is a rudimentary armory. The Quartermaster is a positively ancient man named Wellesley Figgis. Wellesley has weathered it all, the Siege of the Remora, the dragon Ancalaxia, and the Rising Tide, and has gained the reputation for being unkillable. It could be due in par...

  S14: Guard Tower - Ground floor The seat of local law enforcement, this round tower is seen as either a bastion of order, or a reminder of oppression and inequity, depending on one's perspective. What is true in any case is that the tower is not only a defensive fortification to protect the city, but is also a barracks for the local guard detachment. This tower is under the command of a jovial individual named Relex Tiberus. They have been in command for the past 7 years and while they are known for having a great sense of humor, they are also known for their intensity. Many guards do their best to avoid Relex’s bad side. The ground floor is a mix of rooms. The front room near the door contains desks and tables for guards to interact with locals who come in with complaints or reporting crimes. The back of the tower contains cells for holding criminals and other prisoners. The cells currently have two occupants. A man named Yelush who hails from a far away city and was arrested b...

  S13: Borden's Folly Borden's Folly is the name of the trading cog currently docked inthe boat house. Owned and captained by one Filbus Borden, it was named in jest as Filbus won the ship in a game of dice in the seaport city of Rillin, but was unaware of it's age, or maintenance needs. He has since poured a small fortune into fixing it, but has nearly made back the expense trading fine silks up and down the coast. Though this sometimes makes him a target of pirates, he has successfully talked his way out of having his ship commandeered, just his cargo stolen. The ship itself is a mix of aged and new timbers. Filbus stays in a small cabin in the aft castle. The ships hold is small, this the reason Filbus trades in high values products. The ships first mate and 3 deck hands sleep in two separate cabins located off of the cargo hold. Unbeknownst to Filbus, the first mate Dreena Zentus has smuggled a powerful magical artifact aboard, hidden in one of the crates of silk. Sh...

 S12: Boat House A large boathouse sits atop the sea wall that marks the transition from the end of the city and the start of the Bay of Telfiras. The boathouse is large enough for two midsize sloops or trading cogs to dock, receive repairs, and load or unload goods. Currently only a single trading cog is docked here, the Borden's Folly. This vessel is an aging cog captained and owned by Filbus Borden (See S13 for more details). The rest of the boathouse is an organized mess of crates, barrels, ropes, anchors, and other equipment necessary for sailing. During the day the boathouse is a hive of activity with dockworkers, sailors, and porters running to and fro. At night is a deserted and calm place, except for when a local gang of wererats known as The Biters uses it as temporary crash pad for the night. Passersby on the streets have reported an incessant squeaking, at an unreasonable volume, coming from inside on rare nights.

S11. Manor House - Library The upstairs library contains wall-to-wall book shelves over flowing with old volumes and tomes. The books cover all manner of subjects from the seemingly mundane 100 Uses for Swim Bladders to historical texts like The Seventh Siege of Stormhold . The book shelf along the eastern wall contains a secret. A small book, located on the very bottom shelf titled The Many Eccentricities of Cornelius Cramblepot , is actually a switch that causes the book shelf to swing open revealing a smaller, secret library. All of the books here are rare and valuable tomes. Among them is a text titled The Bones of our City  and The Temple of the Elements . Offset above the first floor: The entire city to date:

S10. Manor House - Bedroom  The bedroom of the manor house consists of a large bed, located cozily near the hearth. It is separated from the rest of the room by a 7’ tall wooden screen. The remainder of the room consists of wardrobes and dressers, packed full with expensive and ostentatious garments. Secreted at the back of one of the wardrobes is an ornate short sword. The hilt is inlaid with gold and silver and the pommel is brilliantly red ruby, that burns with its own internal light. The scabbard is encrusted in smaller, but no less artfully cut gemstones. The second floor above the first:

S9. Manor House - 1st Floor      The main floor of this large manor house is completely open and sprawling. Twin hearths, on either side of the central stairwell, billow heat and the smell of sumptuous meals. A long table and chairs occupies one corner of the hall, opposite the defined “kitchen space”. Along the southern wall sits a cozy seating area in one corner and a small reading nook in front of one of the hearth's in the other. An the entire city up to this point:

S7: Warehouse - Storage Area      A large warehouse sits near the wharf. Rails lead up to it's large main door located in the middle of its longer side, allowing freight and other sizable deliveries to be easily stored inside. The tracks continue inside and a turntable allows the carts to turn 90 degrees in either direction so that goods can easily be loaded or unloaded from anywhere in the warehouse. The rest of the warehouse is a warren of stacked crates, boxes, barrels, and sacks of a variety of goods and sundries. A small door exits on the North side to a small office space and stairs lead down into the basement. And the entire neighborhood so far:

S7: Herbalist's Ship A cramped working space, this tiny shop is tucked in a small alley off the main thoroughfare. The proprietor, an absolutely ancient halfling druid named Gilroy creates poultices and salves from his vast collection of dried herbs, flowers, roots and other preserved plant parts. The shop has almost no space to move for any creature larger than a halfling. This has become such a problem that Gilroy has begun doing business with larger creatures through the shop's front door. The current state of the neighborhood:

S5: Private Residence - 2nd Floor Burla’s bedroom is a cozy place where she seeks refuge from harsh city life. A large bed dominates the room, but it also includes a wardrobe and small sitting table. Plants are strewn about the room, Burla’s attempt at bringing some more natural scenery to her stone and brick surroundings. Stairs leads down to the main floor. The entire Street Level up to this time can be seen below. I have really been enjoying this process and have been learning a lot about image processing and map making, two aspects of game design that seemed completely inaccessible to me, but after doing the work to read and watch a bunch of tutorials I have definitely started to put together my own workflow. The real hard part now is finding myself style. I've been inspired heavily by Dyson Logos and Mike Schley, two of the best in the business, but the community on Instagram participating in the #Dungeon23 challenge have been churning aweso...