Context
I haven’t written anything for the past couple months as I have been doing travel work and out in the field, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been active. Three D&D sessions a week, Three huge braunsteins, and my home campaign has three sessions left before it moves on to the next saga. I will have articles coming on all of these things, but today I will talk about the weekly AD&D game I ran for the mighty Living Urf Gaming Club™ and how I set that up.
Confines
I have been playing in the Bloodfall sessions as Gunnbjorn leader of the Ogresmashers for a few months now, and it was decided I would run out of the northern coast where the largest city in the region, Svarthold, resided. Bloodfall has a loose Viking flavor and is aimed at low level characters. This region is run by the ever stalwart Brigandine and features “THE FIST” dungeon. If one heads north of Svarthold, far out to sea, through the mists and and iceflows, they could find the Isle of Brozer. The sessions here, called Aftermath, took place in the wake of running BROZER: Isle of War and Winter. Characters started with 10,000xp and it is run by the storywarrior Crom. With myself in the middle I wanted to bridge these two games in the same campaign. There is more going on to the south, regions where FolderBloat was running his Windsor sessions, and the capital of Emergence which is inspired by Amber.
Concept
Bridging the gap seemed a perfect role for me, I believe strongly enough that you should be able to easily move characters between your friends games that I got “The Astrolabe of the Vasty Deep” added to the ACKS II Treasure Tome. I also took three courses on 9th-12th century Scandavian history, and the Norse Sagas for my History Minor while in college. Alright, so we are going to lean deeper into the Viking theme, and be a bridge between games. Sounds great.
The more you read the AD&D DMG the more it is clear Gary had an idea, that at some point, the players would start mixing genres and travelling to other worlds. He mentions several other TSR games and has conversion rules for Boot Hill, Gamma World, and Metamorphosis Alpha. Alright, that is really cool! I am a big fan of Boot Hill and Traveller so it would be great to bring in some of those. Living Urf has Norazona and Livingstone which are Boot Hill, and at home I run a game in a region called the Plains of Dartain. Joshua and Snuffkin are working on running some games for Traveller, and that is what I am going to be my primary game from August - December. It would be sick to bring in characters from those games or run some Space Vikings.
If we are doing all that there is one more concept that fits in perfectly with the milieu of Urf. After Amber Diceless, DunderMoose’s character walked the Pattern and ended up in a Starwars game. Well, in addition to the Vasty Deep, and the Pattern I have two more methods of inter-world travel I have used in my games before. Ring Gates for sci-fi, and an interdimensional bar called “When Pigs Fly.” I could use these to bring in characters from, or more importantly have the players of Urf go raid, other Bro campaigns. How cool would it be for Svarti vikings to crash into Trollopulous, fight alongside the dudes of GI Bro, or hire themselves out as mercenaries in the Dragon Wars of Sav’Mon. The warriors of Urf would become legendary.
Alright, so world bridging Vikings will be my theme, make sure to lean more toward the overland pulp adventure feel to not overlap with Bloodfall’s mudcore dungeon crawling, work into plenty of mass combat, and have powerful patrons sending these PCs on missions. Seems to be falling together, now lets make it.
Creation
Urf is relatively compact as far as settings go, a day or two travel and you can end up in vastly different regions. On the map I had, Svarthold was surrounded by swamps and plains. After some consideration I decided that the North Coast would be best used as an area that the Bloodfall boys and my session could share; where the crossover happened, and in order to maximize the Scandinavian feel I would create an island off the coast which you could sail to and back in a day.
Using the DMG I fleshed out the coast a days travel East and West of Svarthold. Using the random encounter tables, and cool ideas from my head, I populated two hexes outside of the city. The random generation process also created several thorps, two new cities, and a castle with a high level ruler.
I then set to making the Isle of Gulleyja with a tiny little island to the NE (off map). On the tiny island I placed a thorp, in the east there was a thorp, and on the west was the main town of Honnisborg. I was using a previous article, for the BroXT about Svendr’s Seven Shadows, as the inspiration for Honnisborg. I put a Mountain in the center, some woods, and then began to populate the hexes. I created 5 unique magic weapons for the characters to quest after all with ridiculous JRPG names. Finally, I decided that I would add one rule to bridge Aftermath and Bloodfall, to make the region more humancentric to maintain the Viking feel, and allow for escape from the mud: Humans in Gulleyja will get to start with 3,000xp. Roughly Level 2.
Cool Hooks
Before the weekly sessions started I decided to write a whole host of hooks for the players while on one of my plane flights. These hooks will allow the players a glimpse into the milieu before even playing and help them decide what direction to lead the players in.
Jarl Hastiens cares little for the plight of Bloodfall and is protected by an elite team of rangers known as the Liyamoth Coulav.
A growing number of elves have been gathered in Svarthold trying to make aliyah to the Emerald city. A ghetto called the Svarti-gettoið has been constructed to house them.
None of the local sea captains have yet to find passage through the iceflows and mists to Brozer, but are trying.
In the swamps south of Svarthold are a band of draugr known as the 9 Ancients. It is said, with their magic blades and warrior prowess they alone were as mighty as an entire army.
Survivors of Comall tell of raiders loading up an arcane ring 15ft in diameter from the ruins of the sacked city.
Primary Town on Gulleyja is Honnisborg with a fishing Thorp on the eastern coast and another on a small island to the NE,
Several nobles have fled Honnisborg to Svarthold, claiming "The seven shadows rule now."
It is said that Haarlök captain of a black dragon headed ship named "Dark Odyssey" lives on the island. His crew claim to have sailed not only to the Isle of Brozer, but worlds yet unknown.
On the northern side of the island, past the hall of the frost giants, near the Mother Glacier, lays a gravesite where psychotronic lotus grows on the corpse of dead legends.
Atop the mountain temple, a spear of solid bronze anchors an ancient evil, immovable except by one who has gazed into the eye of the Allfather.
The warrior Cliftam Daul, slayer of the great bird known as the Winter Sun, resides in a sky castle on the edge of Gulleyja. Locals claim he wields Heavy Millennium, an adamantine ball and chain covered in runes capable of smashing castle walls. Others say he has some relation to Emperor Marcus Phoenix.
A field of barrows lays within a sea of fog upon the moorlands north of Honnisborg. They are ripe for plundering.,
Many areas of Honnisborg have gone vacant, or are filled with ruffians and harlots, except in the quarter near Lord Ulrich’s manor.
A new mead is being served at the upscale taverns in Svarthold. Said to be made from the honey of giant killer bees, it is quite tasty.
Svarthold locals talk about a strange tavern, when they enter it will be a sign with no name, just a golden winged pig, but when they leave they can not return and are outside a different establishment such as the Boar's Head, Green Griffon, Paddy's, Wild Goose, Prancing Pony, The Silver Eel, the Vulgar Unicorn, The Broken Drum, etc. It is always filled with strangers from foreign lands.
Giant winged lizards ridden by men have been spotted along the river south of Svarthold.
Captain Freyrik Fairhair is calling all leaders of men to Svarthold for the big raid. It will take 2-4 weeks to get back. Cuts are by ship. If you can supply 20 men in Chain you get your own ship
That’s more hooks than Bass Pro Shops right there.
Call of the North
We then began weekly play. Each week I worked in a new idea or aspect, another lead on the world hoping and weird fantasy crossovers. Many things were generated at the table via random encounters. We had a new gang of Italian mobsters from Gangbuster who offered the PCs protection in Honnisborg for a 2% cut and a lady of the night every time they were paid. We fought grizzlies, wolves, and a shit ton of Giant owls. The PCs went bar hopping to find When Pigs Fly, and succeeded, meeting men from many worlds. They recruited men at arms and went a-viking with Captain Fairhair.
They aided Blisspoint Meadery with the capture of bee honey only to found it was on the other side of a teleportation pad to The Warden! On the Warden they met Kerry Abaguard and John A Mik. As they tried to heist the alien honey I ran AD&D and Traveller simultaneously, it went great. It sure was hilarious when they found out guns don’t work on Urf. Too bad it was when they were attacked by yet another Giant Owl!
The character Egil couldn’t roll for crap, but his actions put him on the fast track for some main character energy as he sought to join the crew of Dark Odyssey under Captain Haarlök and voyage with him to other worlds. At one point Egil was greeted with by the Norns with visions of his fate. They warned him he would encounter 3 Witches as he sought to find the passphrase for a magic item he had obtained. This would ultimately lead him to the Witch of the Woods.
The players set up with Captain Fairhair, and Jarl Hasteins to go on a much bigger raid in the future. In the meantime Egil recruited their guide Torfinn as a ranger henchman who ended up with the best stats I have ever rolled in my life. They once more headed out to where the forest meets the mountains to seek the final witch. On their way they were again assailed by giant owls. This time the owls were more organized, laying traps and executing minor tactics. After forcing a morale that the owls failed they made camp outside the woods, but another encounter roll determined MORE OWLS. The survivors were back! A brutal fight left a few men dead, but the PCs were victorious. It seemed every fight with these owls went down to the wire. Not only that, but they are noted as having their own language and being Very Intelligent. Were these just the forward scouts? Is there a kingdom of giant owls on the other side of the mountains?
Conclusion
What a great time. A little bit of prep ahead of time, and then let the actions of the players and roll of the dice create an emergent narrative. Moving forward unfortunately, many things are going to have to change, but it was fun while it lasted, and though Gulleyja might sink to the bottom of the sea, contaminated by unUrfly campaigns, the PCs will still remember, it in their dreams.
Hit the gym, read a book, have a great week.
~J
Excellent synopsis. Looking forward to Aug 2nd!
17 hooks on a dead man’s chest, plus an emergent conspiracy of giant owls. There’s proof that someone has been reading books by Jeffro in this post.