Category: Intermission

Intermission #6 Contents

The Results of the Learning Checks

Trying Out a New Token Paradigm

In previous The Bleak + The Pearl Intermission (#5) I talked about taking the main storyline and putting it on a semi-hiatus as a way to focus on some new characters, get back to a purer dungeon delving experience, and just slightly rest up from what had been a kind of intense story building learning experience. This week's post will combine some of the progress on that as I plan to (next week) launch into the first of these new delves.

A slightly minor aspect to this hiatus and soft- | hard- relaunch is that I wanted to go back to the days where I was using a homebrew virtual table top setup to explore the dungeon mixed with hand-rolled dice and both virtual and handwritten notes. While looking over my assets for this, I found a stack of tokens I had made using John Kapsalis art originally designed for or around Advanced Fighting Fantasy and while I love JK's art and look forward to using it again in any AFF endeavors into which I might dive, I also wanted to give a good strong think about the aesthetics of this new era.

To remind you, this is what my original set up looked like.

Four heroes on a fantasy map face off versus 3 zombies and a berserk cultist.

The Blue Delve Boys face off against a berserker cultist and three zombies.
(Art by John Kapsalis, Dyson Logos, and Crypto Cartographer - arranged by Doug Bolden - used here for personal use but all rights are reserved by original creators).

Dyson Logos (or other) map, JK art, a GIMP template using some token borders I found (after digging through my files, I am 98% sure I was using "Character Token Portrait Frames for VTT" by Crypto Cartographer at least as base), and then a few other pieces here or there. Monsters were freqently "close enough" selections. Characters were "close enough" with some matching more than others. I would use text boxes to mark changes on the map and would often use a fog layer to update the map as I went to show explored areas and such. Over time, it made a nice digital artifact. You can see an example at the top of my recap for the "The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur" dungeon.

There are a couple of problems with the set-up that are not quite actual problem. The two biggest (outside of a potential rights thing and tracking down credits for multiple sources every screenshot I might share) are that the characters/monsters never quite fit my mental vision and each token tended to involve a multistep process. I had to dig through my dozens of JK token packs, find the one I wanted. Snip it out from the whole. Import it into GIMP. Possibly trim or mask out portions of it to make it pop out better. Pick a frame fitting whatever mood or need I felt worked best. Export that out into a PNG. Upload that into my VTT. Then, when another encounter would show up, either reuse a "close enough" token or start back over.

As I have explored more and more with tools and aids that I like, one thing I have come to use a lot for some of my element is the CC-BY 3.0 tokens/icons at games-icons.net. It takes a little bit of practice to get used to what tokens are or are not there. As you get used to their selection, though, you start to get generate some ideas about how you could creatively add them in. At least I do.

This lead me to a new sort of idea. Find some broad "iconic representations" of the characters—Grusk can be represented by his axe, Bloodlust, while Tom might be lockpicks—and then use the icon customize option to add in a few colors, cut a few pieces out, and generally make icons not really meant to be precise tokens to the characters but stand-in elements that allow me to keep up my own mental map of the characters while also being clear enough that I am not confused about who is who. For monsters, a few basic icons can do heavy lifting: basic corporeal undead types, insect types, cultist types, spirit types, demon types, etc. Then when I come across a gnoll I do not have to find a gnoll token that is roughly the right shape and equipment but instead I use the mid-level humanoid beastman generic token. Save the tokens in such a way that I keep the symbol name, the artist, and the rough representation in the file type.

Here is what the above scene would look like using these more generic tokens. I'll add in a "web spell" effect and a few more enemies to demonstrate.

Tokens on a fantasy map. Undead icons are attacking axe icons while some more like cultists are pushing up from the south.

Three zombies attack Grusk while an enraged berserker cultist attacks Inar. Three other cultists are being trapped in Rance's Web spell. Two dead cultists are in the previous room.
(Map by Dyson Logos. Icons by Delapouite, Lorc, and GamerAce135 from games-icon.net [CC-BY 3.0])

While the old art definitely had its charm, I really like the "board-game aesthetic" of the new art. I also like how it frees me from trying to describe a scene with my token choices and instead gives me more freedom to represent a scene and encourages a bit of creativity with colors and themes. I also like adding the spell effects and such to better track the status of things, backed up by some text.

Re-Introducing the Blue Delve Boys and Learning Rolls

In that light, here are the Blue Delve Boys and their current tokens. These might change over time depending on factors but for now, here's what they look like.

An axe with blood red blade, a hand with fingers crossed, a set of lockpicks, and a hand casting a spell.

As I was making up icons and working on the "Lighthouse 8" (see below) I came across a line in the Kelsey-made Bard write-up: "Add 1d6 to your learning rolls." I realized I did not know what that meant. I found out that I had been missing a whole mechanic that is exactly the sort of reason why I like to play Shadowdark. As I said in a recent post, Shadowdark tends to allow characters to have more fiction than other OSR and OSR-adjacent games. "Learning" is precisely what I am talking about. While the Carousing rules got a fair amount of discussion during the build up to SD's release, I found that I had overlooked it's first cousin. Instead, you can have your character attempt to learn a new skill or general knowledge during downtime instead. It is described as such on Page 91: "Learning enables you to do new actions or gives you advantage on certain checks." You work out what you want to learn and can learn with the GM, then start out making a INT DC18 check. The next time you try to learn it, you reduce that by one step—i.e., DC15, DC12, DC9, etc—until you learn it or give up trying.

Over the course of these months of adventure, there have been a fair amount of downtimes. If I was playing a more traditional campaign, maybe four-ish. With the more story-heavy style campaign, maybe eight-ish. I will cut that into the middle and say six downtimes for six months of playing. Maybe high, maybe low. I don't know. It's complicated.

There were two carousing checks. This leaves four attempts to learn.

Grusk and Tom are going to want to learn Bleak navigation for sure. Then, if they pass that, then Grusk would want to learn more about delving while Tom would learn hunting. Inar will first try for first aid. After that, he will try for sneaking around. It is not really allowed for him to learn the full thief ability kit but since halflings have a natural sneak and he is prone to trying to stay a bit back to help once people get injured, I figure this is kind of a extending of what he can already do [and I have never really used his halfing invisibility properly except maybe once]. Finally, Rance will definitely start out learning the Ancient language. After that, he will work on improving his "monster lore" abilities since he seems to have that inherent based on how I play. Finally, he will being working on learning how to operate and repair automatons based on Jonias's notes.

Let's see how this goes...

Making the Rolls and the Outcomes

Grusk, learning Bleak Survival (at -1 to INT): 7 vs DC18, 6 vs DC15, 13 vs DC12. Grusk (on the third attempt) gets Bleak Survival and advantages to rolls related to navigating and surviving the Bleak, including a broad sense of what level of Bleak they at.

Grusk, learning "Delving" (at -1 to INT): 9 vs DC18. Not yet, but he will continue.

Tom, learning Bleak Survival (at -2 to INT): 13 vs DC18, 3 vs DC 15, 3 vs DC 12, 10 vs DC9. Tom (on fourth attempt) gets Bleak Survival with the same as Grusk. No time to learn Hunting just yet, but that'll be next.

Inar, learning First Aid (at +1 to INT): 19 vs DC18. He gets it on first attempt. He will get ADV to first aid rolls while trying to stabilize others. I'll also say this can be used to generally do things like identify wounds, give a rough prognosis, identify poisons/diseases he might have some experience with. Generally the kind of stuff that might be helpful in a non-magical, non-specialized way.

Inar, learning Sneaking (at +1 to INT): 13 vs DC18, 9 vs DC15, 11 vs DC12. Next time he will be against DC9.

Rance, learning Ancient Language (at +3 to INT): 15 vs DC18. 20(!) vs DC15. Rance not only learns Ancient on his second attempt but we'll say he is good at it and gets ADV to reading Ancient Text.

Rance, improving Monster Lore (at +3 to INT): 14 vs DC18. 19 vs DC15. His final learning attempt nets him ADV to identifying monsters and will allow him to make deductions about Bleak altered creatures. He will next turn to using his Ancient Language skills to translating Jonias's notes about the automatons.

Background for the Lighthouse 6

Behind the scenes, I created the initial four heroes while learning Shadowdark and only spent a somewhat short while making them. I gave them only a thin backstory—they were in The Pearl, they were orphans raised at a monastery (which got the name "The Blue Delve" from somewhere, probably some random table), and one of them had nightmarish dreams of something going on in the Bleak—that picked up elements like a snowball rolling downhill. They quickly became the reason for the campaign and so had developed a kind of necessary plot armor. If one of them died, it would sort of be weird to continue the campaign as it was going. Part of the reason for the reset is to build up some other characters, personalities, explore some extended materials, and effectively remove the plot armor a bit. Things can get more tense as it goes.

In terms of The Bleak + The Pearl's world: 300-years ago, Jonias Grunkheart enlisted the lords and ladies of the four other Grunce leading families to enact an incomplete version of a great plan. This is the Lighthouse, a rebuilt Ancient technology that takes the energy of The Bleak and uses it against itself to push it back (while generating both visible light and also The Light, the neutral energy power source of all Ancient technology).

The Grunkhearts provided the technology and planning. The Mariuses provided materials and wealth from their shipping. The Bittermolds provided magical assistance and expertise on darker truths. The Harcurams provided legal and administrative support. The Mistameres provided physical strength to build the Lighthouse and protection for the workers constructing it.

After the Lighthouse was completed, and the Monolith carved underneath (more a monolith symbolically, implying all the people of Barthus were one), the families continued to rule Grunce (the Grunkheart family estate, semantically decayed from "The Grunkhearts' Land"). Other people from all over Grunce filled the city to the brim and other great houses from other cities were not content to be left out. Various power struggles occurred while the Lighthouse went from being well known technology to something increasingly forgotten, a background artifact shining light into the distance. The Grunkhearts remain with some power but other families have virtually pushed them out. Cal Grunkheart, nephew to the current ruler of the House, has taken on the goal of fixing and expanding the Lighthouse. The Mariuses have done marginally better but have given up their seafaring ways, focusing entirely on money trading. The Mistameres lost their family land and combined as a family with the Harcurams for form House Mysturam. And the strange, weird Bittermold House retreated into the Bleak and have largely vanished besides various small manors and estates all laying claim to the name.

[Doug's Note: Mistamere is a reference to the Frank Mentzer created dungeon found in the red box Basic Dungeons & Dragons because running that adventure was the first time I ever played a tabletop RPG and I thought it might be fun to convert to Shadowdark. The name remains Mentzer's though this family is quite different. Bittermold as a family name is a reference to Cursed Scroll #1 and was created by Kelsey Dionne. Unlike Mistamere which is 99% an original creation with a naming-shout-out, the Bittermolds are more directly influenced by their source and will soon show up when that module is run.]

Meet the Lighthouse 6

As our heroes have been risking it all to support Cal Grunkheart and the Lighthouse Keepers, Cal has come up with the plan of tasking his cousin Gryffin Grunkheart (possible future Lord Grunkheart) with gathering up members of each of the other five families to begin reclaiming Grunce and protecting the future of Barthus. Possibly even pushing The Bleak back and retaking the land.

A lighthouse, a lyre, and a dragon skull in gold and blue.

The leader of the Lighthouse 6 is Gryffin Grunkheart, the middle son of Lady Moreena Grunkheart (and technically third in line of succession, including his mother). His family protests him entering The Bleak since this precludes him from fathering heirs but he considers Cal to be the true Grunkheart lineage. Served for time as a minor captain of the city guard before aggreeing to help the Blue Delve Boys to deliver an anti-magic cloak to The Pearl. Here he met Boris Loo and decided to dedicate his life to adventure. He is a Human Ranger. His shares the Grunkheart symbol of a Lighthouse as his personal crest with Cal. He is a loyal leader and often will risk his own safety to protect his crew.

[Doug's Note: Rangers were developed by Kelsey Dionne and released along with the Bard as a special supplement. Speaking of...]

Louis Harcuram is one of the few "true Harcurams" left. His branch of the family is much poorer and he was raised a fisherman before taking up performing and traveling as a minstrel. In the Sofron Desert, he met Ronick Mistamere and enjoyed the irony of partnering with a Mistamere due to the long family association. When he and Ronick received the call to join with Gryffin, they both took the chance and headed to Grunce. He is a Human Bard and his symbol is a lyre.

Ronick Mistamere is a Dragonborn Pit Fighter. Not all Mistameres agreed with the plan to merge and settle down running warehouses and stores. Those went west into the desert where they took any chance they could to reclaim the militant might of the Mistameres of old. Ronick's branch combined themselves with desert dragons and attempted to lay claim to the desert. Beaten, they instead settled for being mercenaries and pit fighters. Ronick's great strength and fearsome appearance (with bronze and lapis lazuli scales) earned him a fierce reputation, which was enhanced by Louis acting as hype man. The two are great friends and both look forward to working with Gryffin. His symbol is the skull of one of his desert dragon kin.

[Doug's Note: "Dragonborn ancestry" in this case is derived from Unatural Selection with breath (and electricity immunity) from the desert dragon as given in Shadowdark, itself. Pit Fighters are from Cursed Scrolls #2.]

A crossbow, a deer head with multi-color antlers, and a velociraptor head crossed with a ninja turtle.

Dhelia "Del" Marius is the maybe-mad descendent of infamous Mad Del Marius. While the Marius family has officially given up the family tradition of sailing the high seas, this new Del has reclaimed it in style. Sort of. She mostly just swept up a lot of other, better, sailors’ vomit and trash. Once the chance came to prove herself, she requested a boat from her distant cousin, Lady Varren Marius, who granted it because Lady Varen had already pledged to support Cal after the return of the family spear by the Blue Delve Boys. Del is a Human Swashbuckler and has her own ship thanks to her reluctant cousin. Del's symbol, and the name of her ship, are both "The Crossbow."

[Doug's Note: The Swashbuckler class being used here is from Letters from the Dark VI: Scallywags.]

Ada Bittermold is probably an actual Bittermold. The lost family had a complicated family tree involving humans, halflings, and less savory entries. Ada looks more human than most of the current members except for the fact that she has deer antlers and deer hooves and lower legs. Whether demonic or Bleak-touched is unknown by her at this time. She tries to offset this by dressing in bright colors to show she is friendly, but the overall effect combined with her odd sense of humor and weird moods makes her look more like a poisonous tree frog than anything else. She is a ??? Witch and her symbol is a deer's head with multicolor horns and eyes.

[Doug's Note: Originaly, she was going to be a Tiefling as outlined in Unnatural Selection but after I was working out how to make Boris (below) I decided to make her a bit more unique instead. 3/day she can talk to plants or fungus (though plants are not great conservationalists and mushrooms are worse). The Witch class being from Cursed Scrolls #1.]

Boris Loo is a Teen-aged, Bleak-Touched, Ninja Chelonian. He comes from a long line of gentle chelonian fisherfolk but his parent's vessel was swept off course and shipwrecked off the shores of Barthus. Forced to travel through The Bleak to reach safety, his mother gave birth to Boris only to find her son was different. Rather than the soft curve of the sea turtle's head, he had the head of a snapping turtle. What's more, he was less concerned with gentle fishing and self-taught himself the ways of "the ninja" even as his Bleak-induced mutations made themselves more and more evident. The family tried to hide him belowdecks to act as the ship's cook. Once the Loos helped Gryffin get to The Pearl, Boris met the young Grunkheart and immediately adopted himself as Gryffin's hyperactive younger brother. His symbol is his own face, wearing his traditional green mask which match's Gryffin's cloak.

[Doug's Note: Boris started out as gentle, turtle monk NPC meant to be additional backstory to the Blue Delve but I realized the potential TMNT joke and sought to figure out how to accomplish it with Shadowdark. He is the Chelonian ancestry from Unnatural Selection and then a reskinned version of the Ras-Godai class from Cursed Scroll #2. In his case, it is not the Black Lotus that gives him his powers, but being exposed The Bleak while still an unlaid egg. There has always been the potential for more Bleak-touched characters but I have not really worked on figuring that out until now with him and Ada.]

Gryffin and Louis have already showed up, albeit somewhat briefly, in the game. Technically, Gryffin was the start of the whole Grunkheart clan and the drama with the Lighthouse and is the one who introduced everyone to Cal, but the basic structure of the Lighthouse was already created before Cal and Gryffin were created.

The Potential Others

There are already four potential other characters to fill in gaps in any of the ten existing folks die, retire, etc. I won't delve too much into them (pun!) until it's a better time to bring them up but effectively:

A Garfolk Thief who was found by Cal in the Monolith
A Mycellan Priest who befriended the thief and joined him on his adventures
A Forest Elf Ovate who met and formed a relationship with Rance after a night of carousing (currently spending some time working with the city guard)
A Salamander Slayer who has dedicated his time after meeting Grusk to learning how to fight devils and demons.

Each of these are a shout out to a previous adventure or two and are mostly a thin sketch which can be built up if the need arises.

The Bleak + The Pearl Intermission #5: A { Short | Mid | Longish | Un- } Hiatus from the Mainline Plot [Shadowdark + SoloDark] [Meta]

By Doug Bolden

On 2024-12-15

In Campaign Design, Intermission, ShadowDark, SoloDark, The Bleak and the Pearl

Above is a glimpse into how this campaign started six months ago. Dyson Logos maps (or dice drop point crawls) imported as backgrounds on Google Presentations; John Kapsalis art (almost always, with some games-icon icons when nothing else made sense) made into tokens using GIMP; map adjustments and such typed directly as text fields on the map; and a few notes and details typed into a couple pages of a Google Doc file. This still persisted until the Monolith got going enough it was easier to switch the whole campaign to Theater of Mind and blog-format first.

Bonus: You can see which Kapsalis heroes and monsters I picked to represent our main four heroes. Spotted Tom was just one of the goblins that caught my eye. Rance was a contemplative blue mage (maybe an elf, don't recall) token originally used as Haig Raven in my Barston Bakersfield campaign. Inar is a silly little hafling with a staff (he wears pretty sturdy armor in the main campaign and has a crimson-red mace). And Grusk was depicted as shirtless and got his signature axe because his token had one. With the exception of Tom, the other three names were from when I tried to make the campaign in Roll20 to start and I just literally used the default random names generated. I actually kind of forgot that's what the characters looked like.

Too Long; Didn't Read Summary

In short, the campaign started as my "just dungeon, don't story" campaign and got immensely Doug-ified on the way so now requires pages of lore and while it still has some fun, usually quite short "dungeon" dives it has lost a lot of its initial anti-campaign focus (the exactly opposite of that, really). Since there are possibly months of main storyline left, using a natural break in the storyline coming up to go ahead and declare it time for a couple of months of side-quests and introduce several (at least six) new characters to make a kind of second team that will join the main one here or there in various ways. Will eventually shift back into the main storyline after everyone gets a few levels higher and we can move into the higher level, more domain-level of play.

Or, How a Campaign Changed Over Time

According to my notes, I launched this campaign, The Bleak + The Pearl, around the middle of June 2024. At the time, there were only a few basic lore truths:

There were two vast islands that combined were a complete continent.
The western island was "The Bleak" and was dark and foggy and grimy and full of ruins. This island was originally Barthus and for centuries had been the site of a great kingdom but now was mostly just skeletons of old buildings and smaller settlements. It was to be the setting of the more "grim" sessions.
The eastern island was "The Pearl" which was a wild and green place with huge mountains, ancient barbarian keeps, dragons, and much more of a "large scale, mid-magic fighters-in-leathers tackling giants" kind of vibe. This was "The Silt" and was the place the ex-Barthics took refuge. This was to be the more "Frontiers of Adventure" style setting with less undead and more, you know, dinosaurs.
The islands are separated by a five to twenty miles of ocean called "the Gray Channel". Whatever caused "The Bleak" has yet to find a way to cross it.
The initial heroes were refugees raised in The Pearl who are now going back to The Bleak because one of them keeps having dreams about a light fading, darkness spreading, and things getting worse.

There was, effectively, two meta-truths:

This campaign was going to be dedicated to pretty much straight dungeon delving and hex crawling with a few interrupt "city/society" scenes to act very nearly purely as dressing.
Around half of the sessions would be played in pre-existing maps while the other half would either take Dyson Logos (etc) maps or just do a dice drop and use existing tables to find out content as I went.

It was the second (not posted to this blog) session where a drunken night turned into meeting Cal Grunkheart and deciding to help the Lighthouse Keepers which ended up becoming the meta-reason behind the campaign. This part is fine. It was initially going to be a mini-arc of sorts but over time morphed into a much bigger part of the campaign. Still fine.

As the mini-arc took over, there showed up a a mini-mega dungeon that was the cornerstone of this part of the campaign and a series of quests to the other dungeons and sites were going to be required to fix it up. This was fine. The "about 10 sessions to complete" was a lie but that's ok. We were still playing.

Prior to even starting to make the dungeon, I ran a couple of sessions in a pre-existing map, The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur, tweaked to have elements from the campaign. Almost an entire month later, after spending way too long semi-agonizing on how to blend the more meta-elements with that initial intention we got the first entry into the Monolith.

Over the next few weeks, I entered into an era I've talked about before but it represented me dealing with the stresses of solo-play. It felt less and less like fun and more and more like a difficult puzzle to solve. On the positive side, this led me to work out my more multi-phase style that is a staple for this blog (see: The GLOW for perhaps the most elaborate variation of it). I've seen other solo players do similar things but the distinct GM-phases where I build up information and player-phases where I test and break down that information (along with lore, interjections, and other elements) is a fairly Doug-Unique style of solo-play, one that has influenced even the play I do off this blog.

However, on the more negative-or-at-least-neutral side, I essentially lost the ability to sit down and play with a couple of colorful tokens and some varied dice rolls and had to spend increasing amount of times fact checking and considering long term impact of any and every decision.

Around three weeks from the start of retooling this campaign more and more into "Save the Lighthouse, Save the World," I got to an encounter that effectively derailed and forever altered the entire The Bleak + The Pearl: The Grunkheart Golem. I had one room left off the starter/main branch of my dungeon and when I rolled the contents I got a boss monster. I suck at the sort of OSR-style play where rooms next to each other to have completely different contents/encounters so I wanted to come up with a reason a boss-level monster could be a few feet from the main entrance. The Golem was a solution to this and it changed quite a bit.

Ancient Technology was actually some blend of high, science fiction technology with a much more refined magical system.
After the Ancient society collapsed, there were hundreds of years before Barthus showed up and established itself in the ruins.
Jonias had a more extensive appreciation for Ancient Tech than thought and had not died but instead went off to a lab in something called "The Everburning Forest" and not returned (I mean, he might have also died, we still don't know at this time).

These seeds grew and sprouted a bit. After one intermission where I came up with a general layout map of the forest, I had another intermission that finally sat down and figured out what the Bleak and the Pearl were. No longer just the name of two different fantasy tropes, The Bleak was a corruption of some primal energy inherit in the western island (in the Ancient tongue, it was The Becoming). Ancients had used it as part of their vast engines (along with The Pearl's "Being"). The fall of the Ancients was basically due to them using up too much energy and draining it. Now, several centuries later, it has returned and it is changing people and causing buildings and landscapes to mutate though there are "shallows" where it has little to no impact and many settlements drifted into those shallows while traveling between them is basically an invitation to body horror.

This led to a fight with a fight with an oddly mutated cyclops around two weeks later and then a full month after that I finally hit a stride with playing as the entered into the forest and encounters and mechanics were a lot more normal. Over the past couple of months they have pushed through the forest, found the old lab, and realized things are a lot weirder.

While all of these shifts and dynamics have been broadly fine it still is a much different campaign than intended. For one, there has not been a pre-built dungeon/adventure since June (6 months). For two, roughly half of the session time has been dedicated to building up the world and establishing dozens of new World Truths.

I adore the four core characters. I love Cal Grunkheart and his doomed mission that might just succeed. I like the whole trope of science-fiction world becomes high-fantasy world becomes weird body horror world.

BUT, this was meant to be the campaign where I did not have to spend quite so long building up dungeons and where I could spend a lot of time just flipping through shopping lists and throwing a few fun monsters at people while checking for random encounters. It is just very hard to swap back to that without there being the sense that I am giving up on a lore I have spent four months honing and perfecting.

To sum up some changes: A simple world to allow both "grim" and "dark" styles of fantasy play with only a vague storyline to justify it >> a "short" meta-quest that requires some more storyline >> the storyline becomes entirely about the meta-quest which starts dictating exactly which kind of adventures can be played >> dungeon delves start taking a backseat to more complex encounters >> virtually every post is as much about lore building and campaign design than any sort of proper dice rolling >> where we are now.

Taking a Hiatus from the Mainline "Jonias Grunkheart Legacy" Quest

That's why I am going to take advantage of plot developments in the world where it will take months of in-game time for Cal and his crew to move into the lab, learn the Ancient language more completely, and just get out and do some dungeon delves with pre-built or quick-built dungeons.

The "main four" will still be part of this. However, I am about to introduce a "second six." There were Five Great Families that came together to build the Lighthouse. The plan is to have a member from all five families join in. Some of the second six will be a tad weirder than the "four default" classes. A bard and a ranger. A pirate of some sort. A dragonborn pit fighter. A tiefling witch. I also have a silly idea for a turtle monk. The ranger will be second level and a character already met in the campaign. The other five will all be brand spanking new.

This allows a few things. First, I can a couple of low level adventures again and those are always good fun. Second, it gives me a chance to build up a few back-up characters just in case one of the mains gets taken out or needs to spend months crafting spells or running a kingdom, etc. Third, it gives me a chance to build up a few alternate parties and combinations since those can be fun. Fourth, it just allows me to use a lot of supplements and zines I have paid good money for and I am itching to see how other classes and races work.

Finally, it gives me a chance to go back for a bit to the OG campaign design: dungeon delves with minimal story requirements. An anti-campaign again, only this time backed with months of story that shapes some truths.

Folks show up at a dungeon entrances, they go and grab treasure and experience, and then get drunk afterward.

Being Spoiled for Choices and Return to Recap

Part of this is just because I currently have three very "talky" campaigns: The GLOW (which has at least two more mini-arcs I'd like to do, and it will likely spawn more), The Bloody Hands (the Stone Crack'd mini-arc likely has four to five more sessions at least, and a lot of world building is going down there, and I want to run another mini-arc soonish dealing with one character's hidden illness and a hidden benefactor plotline from near the start), and Eustace Delmont (which is on pause, technically, because I have no time to play). There are also a few one-shots and playtests brewing or on-going. All told, I spend between eight and twelve hours a week playing these solo campaigns. I get lots of NPC interactions and world building time.

I like the idea of taking a few maps, importing them into Google Drive, playing with some digital tokens and spreadsheets, then spending maybe half an hour a week writing up some of the fun things I did. This new arc will be back in recap style with a more OSR-style balance and less seriousness. A lot more braindead than I tend to solo-play. In balance is joy...

The "side-line quests" [I'll call it something like The Gathering of the Families and Sundry Adventures] are a way for me to play with some of my absolute favorite solo characters, add in some more funky folk that will either be fun to play or get kicked off the team, and reduce lore from multi-paragraph continuations to maybe a short passage about why an Inn is called "The Screeching Duck" or something equally silly and funny (to me). Eventually Cal will have deciphered some stuff and we'll be ready to get back into the main questline again. The Bleak is still there so hex crawls can have unexpected results, for sure.

In fact, a couple/three of the planned adventures are actually going to be from the original story bank of adventures intended to tie into the Monolith (though now low enough level I would have had to redesign them or tweak them a bit for balance and content only now I can just drop a newbie team into them and play as is). The very first one I plan to play will be a different crew going after one of the fuelstone relics. Maybe also the second. So it's less a hiatus as a bunch of side-quests presented in a different way until I feel like it is time to get back into the deep lore and two pages of conversation again.