I’m trying to prep for the game next week and I keep getting distracted while my wife keeps asking “are you making good progress?”
It’s hard, good prep can’t be commanded, or at least I cannot command it.
The good kind of prep is when I start with a one page dungeon or something similar, add monsters, roll for treasure, get inspired, start scribbling, run out of space, add more paper… let the dungeon flow!
The table, with scribbles and notes and dice and rule books
Well, this was my prep for the last adventure.
Next week I’m going to run an incursion into the plane of Concordant Opposition also known as the Outlands. The neutral plane in Planescape. The idea is this, prompted by fellow co-referee in the AD&D campaign we run with a bunch of others: In order to win a recent sea battle against the lacedons, the rulers of Elredd had to build a mighty artefact to boil all those underwater ghouls. They got the help of a powerful priest who, unbeknownst to them, was in fact a devoted servant of the demon lord Graz’zt. Now, Graz’zt doesn’t care about the undead so he’ll be happy to help if it gives him a chance to get some of his evil plans a chance to blossom. So help is given, the priest comes back with the necessary stuff to build that Ark of the Elredd Covenant against the lacedons, we fight that battle using Chainmail with @hasran on my side running sea elves, @ghoul running the lacedons, and @phf running the storm giants. My people reject the offer of the giants for their help in exchange for betraying the sea elves and in the end we barely make it back after dropping the ark on the lacedone dome.
Aus dem Wasser hob sich eine grün-blaue Gestalt, ein Wasserelementar mit Haaren aus weissem Schaum und brüllte eine Antwort. Dann tauchte sie unter die Galeere und schob sie zurück zum Hafen von Elredd während aus dem Dom hunderte von toten Lacedonen an die Oberfläche trieben. Dort unten kochte die Bundeslade. – 2022-11-20 Die Schlacht gegen die Lacedone
2022-11-20 Die Schlacht gegen die Lacedone
Ok, so for next week, there’s demon lord fallout to look into. Seven young women from noble families had to dance and sing songs at the ceremony to power up the ark and now, after the battle, they all seem to be pregnant. The moon council of Elredd is concerned and moves them to a remote monastery. I offered three options:
Players picked the first option. You can guess some of the non-player characters involved on this side of the gate. I need to make up some stuff for the far side.
All right. Wikipedia! What have you got for me? I needed an Egyptian god of the moon as Elredd is run by a moon council.
Khonsu (Ancient Egyptian: ḫnsw; also transliterated Chonsu, Khensu, Khons, Chons or Khonshu; Coptic: Ϣⲟⲛⲥ, romanized: Shons) is the ancient Egyptian god of the Moon. His name means “traveller”, and this may relate to the perceived nightly travel of the Moon across the sky. Along with Thoth he marked the passage of time. – Khonsu
OK, Deities and Demigods? Nope, no can find Khonsu. But there’s Thoth… Look at this!
True Ankh: This magical device, carried by all of the gods of the Nile at one time or another, enables them to raise any dead creature fully (as the spell) as long as all of the body pieces are present at the time of the raising. The device will kill by fire any non-divine being that touches it. It is about one foot long, with a cross shape, having a loop on the top. It is usually bright blue in color. There are only 7 of these in any given plane at any one time.
OK! So we’re going to switch from Khonsu to Thoth. And we’ll use the great wisdom, knowledge and power of Thoth as the deity involved in the exorcism ritual in that remote temple, and the stealing of the True Ankh is going to be the hook for the non-paladins… All I need now is some more actual adventure material.
Time to pull out Planescape! Sadly, I love the idea of Planescape, but the execution is very flawed. It’s all “feeling” and no actual adventure material. Sometimes I feel like the art is the best part about it.
Just look at it:
Thoth’s realm is a big one. It’s a collection of several villages and towns that dot the banks of the Ma’at, that rises out of Semuanya’s Bog and flows through Thoth’s realm. A basher’s got to watch out for crocodiles and crocodile-like creatures here. At the center of the realm is Thebestys, the great city of Thoth, and at its center is the Great Library. A cutter is supposed to be able to find the answer to anything here, if he can just find the right scroll. The petitioners are a normal lot, living ordinary lives along the river. – Planescape Setting box, Sigil and Beyond, p.18
What have we got?
I… I don’t know. I doesn’t feel like a lot.
So, let’s start at the beginning: I have a remote temple. Let’s add monks. Let’s use the old rules about higher level monks, so we have the White Master of Dragons up here, together with a following of four first level monks. AD&D is harsh!
We have seven pregnant young women with four servants each, so 35 normal humans.
We have a grand inquisitor Gwalchgwyn (”Gaulgawain?”) and the non-player party: 3 fighters and a magic-user (sleep, magic missile, knock), all of them first level.
We have the result of the unhappy pregnancies, a devilish plot to smuggle a Babau demon out of hell in seven parts. As soon as the women give birth, the parts will assemble and unleash this seven foot demon who will take over these mountains.
As the party decided not to help the women, nor to help the inquisitor, the default events will be:
After the game, we’ll figure out how the party stands in relation to the various factions:
Also: what to do with the Ankh? The grand master is not stealing it for Elredd, nor for Ra, nor for the demon lord, so… Looking at the notes I was given about Elredd: there are also temples of Mystra, Morrigan, Hecate, Math Mathonwy and Apollo. Four gods and goddesses of magic and two sun gods! That is so weird. Well, if Apollo is also a healer, then perhaps Hecate is trying to one-up him. Quarrelsome Greek gods! So that’s it: she has sent Teiddwen and he is obeying because she’s going to intercede on his behalf with the moon council… oh, right: Hecate also has a moon connection. Maybe I should have picked her instead of Thoth? Too late now! This also works: Teiddwen needs the help of the moon council to release his brother from terrible punishment. Some super high-level thing that we don’t need to know right now. In any case, that’s why he’s going on this crazy mission and that’s why he is not going to sell the ankh to anybody else.
If the party keeps the ankh, the wrath of Hecate will follow them for sure. She likes hell hounds. Hell hound knights! All right, I like it.
Anyway, this is how I prep my games. I’m guessing I’m a third done and wasted time writing this blog post but writing it down also helped me focus so it’s OK.
Next up: encounters in the Great Library and Guardians of the Ankh of Resurrection → 2022-12-09 Map drawing and monster picking.
2022-12-09 Map drawing and monster picking
#RPG #Prep
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This is a great post! Thanks for writing it
– Paul 2022-12-05 16:59 UTC
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Thanks! 😄
– Alex 2022-12-09 17:39 UTC
