If you’re familiar with the Alexandrian Remixes – e.g., of Eternal Lies, Dragon Heist, Descent Into Avernus, etc. – that’s not what we’re doing here. For better or worse, I’m not currently planning to do a full remix of Call of the Netherdeep.

This article is more of a How To guide: If I were to do a remix of Call of the Netherdeep, this is how I would do it, with tips and tricks for your own campaign along the way.

You may want to check out How to Remix an Adventure. I’ll also be largely assuming that you’re familiar with Call of the Netherdeep, so if that’s not the case you may want to start by checking out my review of Call of the Netherdeep, which includes a summary. I’ve also written a few other articles about Call of the Netherdeep and will be referencing those where appropriate.

In terms of a broad overview, we’re going to start by looking at campaign-wide elements:

• Running the Rivals
• Revelation List: Campaign Agendas
• Revelation List: Lore of Alyxian
• Ruidium

Call of the Netherdeep is a linear campaign (Jigow → Emerald Grotto → Bazzoxan → Ank’Harel → Cael Morrow → Netherdeep), so once we’ve looked at the campaign-wide structures, we’ll largely just be walking through the campaign from beginning to end.

Of course, no battleplan survives contact with reality. So if you start digging in here and discover cool tips, tricks, and/or alternatives, make sure to come back and let the rest of us know!

RUNNING THE RIVALS

A primary feature of Call of the Netherdeep is the rival adventuring group: Ayo Jabe, Dermot Wulder, Galsariad Ardyth, Irvan Wastewalker, and Maggie Keeneyes.

I’ve previously written Running the Rivals, which provides a detailed breakdown and analysis of how the Rivals can be tweaked and used to best effect in Call of the Netherdeep. I’m not going to repeat all of that material here, but the core concept is that the Rivals should be debating the agenda with the PCs:

• Where should we be going?
• What should we be doing?
• Why are we doing it?
• How should we do it?
• Who is Alyxian and what should be his fate?

And the key to running them effectively is the Principle of Opposition: Whatever the PCs think the right course of action is, the Rivals take the opposite opinion.

The Rivals thus help to define the shape of the campaign, and push the players to (a) think deeply about what they’re doing and (b) make meaningful choices that reflect the values and experience of the PCs.

But in order to make meaningful choices — and certainly if you’re going to actively debate those choices! — you first have to understand those choices. Which brings us to…

REVELATION LIST: CAMPAIGN AGENDAS

Because Call of the Netherdeep is a linear campaign, its structure can be understood as a series of agendas — i.e., the sequence of goals that move the PCs through the campaign.

In the campaign as written, unfortunately, these goals are generally underdeveloped, vague, and merely procedural. For example, when the PCs are sent to Bazzoxan they aren’t given a true, actionable reason for going; instead an NPC just tells them to go.

This is a missed opportunity. We’ll be looking at some of the specific agendas in more detail below, but in order to build any of them you need to start with the foundation. In order for the players to understand the agendas and make meaningful choices, they’ll need the context provided by answering three campaign-wide questions:

What is the Jewel of Three Prayers? Specifically, the PCs should be able to figure out that it was empowered by the gods to aid Alyxian three times; that shrines were erected in those places; and that they need to find the shrines in order to fully reactivate the Jewel.

What is ruidium and what should be done with it? This obviously includes the properties of ruidium itself, but it should also become clear that ruidium is appearing at sites associated with the Apotheon.

Who is Alyxian the Apotheon? Answering this means piecing together the details of his story and framing the ultimate question of the campaign, which is whether he should be helped, freed, or destroyed. (You may also discover that understanding what’s at stake if the Apotheon is freed is an important and distinct revelation.)

In practice you can break the answers to these questions down into a revelation list:

• Properties of the Jewel of Three Prayers.
• The Jewel of Three Prayers was empowered by the gods three times.
• Shrines were erected near each location where the Jewel was empowered.
• The Jewel can be fully reactivated by visiting the shrines.
• Properties of ruidium.
• Ruidium is appearing in sites associated with the Apotheon.
• The Lore of the Alyxian (which we’ll look at in more detail below.)

Each revelation should, of course, be supported by the Three Clue Rule — e.g., for each conclusion you need the PCs to make, you should include three clues pointing at it. Here’s some general advice you might find useful as you place these clues throughout the campaign:

First, the PCs should ideally have been able to piece together at least a general understanding of what’s happening before they get to Bazzoxan. If not, you’ll likely get stuck in a situation where the scholars from Ank’Harel are just dumping tons of exposition on the players.

On the other hand, you don’t want to dump so many clues into Jigow that the players have everything figured out before they hit the road. Call of the Netherdeep should be driven, in part, by the desire to unravel these enigmas. If the PCs get all the answers right up front, it will have a negative effect on the campaign.

You may, therefore, want to carefully consider further splitting and layering the revelations. For example, maybe the PCs can figure out very early on that the shrines are associated with the Jewel of Three Prayers, but they won’t be able to find any clues revealing that it’s because the gods empowered the Jewel at these locations until later.

As you’re thinking about sequencing the revelations, it may be useful to think of it in overlapping phases. You don’t need to, for example, put all the clues regarding the three shrines in Jigow and then all the clues revealing that the gods empowered the Jewel in Bazzoxan. Instead you might put a couple of shrine-clues in Jigow and another in Bazzoxan; then put a couple of gods-empowered-clues in Bazzoxan and another in Betrayers’ Rise. The sequencing remains likely, but isn’t rigidly locked in. More importantly, this gives you a lot more flexibility in designing and incorporating clues in a way that feels natural and organic.

Finally, if the players are engaged with the campaign, it’s quite likely they might try to figure out how to do some direct research to answer these questions. You may have an impulse to stymy them. Don’t.

But, by the same token, you also don’t want to just dump all the answers on them. (Because (a) you are still trying to pace the campaign appropriately and (b) the whole point is that the answers here are obscure and difficult to obtain.)

A good technique for this is to have their research reveal where they can go to get more information, rather than just dumping the information. In other words, the research provides an action instead of an answer.

For example, consider the transition from the Emerald Grotto to Bazzoxan. If the PCs choose to research the strange Jewel they’ve obtained — no matter how they might go about doing that — you just need to explain why the answer they’re looking for is in Bazzoxan:

• You discover that there’s a painting on the wall of Betrayers’ Rise which depicts the Jewel.
• Here’s a journal of one of the explorers who delved too deep and awakened the abyssal gate in Bazzoxan. The end of the journal trails off into mad gibberings, but it includes a vivid description of a figure that resembles the one you saw in your vision.
• It seems that the leading expert on this is [insert one of the three scholars]. Ank’harel would be a very long journey, but you’re in luck: Recent reports suggest that they’re on a field assignment in Bazzoxan.

You can repeat this same logic at any other point — and for any other structural link — in the campaign. (You learn that the answers you seek are in Betrayer’s Rise / in Ank’harel / in Cael Morrow, etc.)

LORE OF THE ALYXIAN

In talking about campaign-wide revelations, I want to take a closer look at the lore surrounding Alyxian the Apotheon, in large part because it’s absolutely vital for the campaign’s conclusion.

When the PCs reach the Netherdeep, they are confronted by an extraplanar extrusion of a demigod’s traumatized mind. As they explore the physical space of the Netherdeep, they are simultaneously delving into the mystery of Alyxian’s past (and the trauma he has suffered).

This is a really cool dungeon, but in its current form the Netherdeep is doing most of the heavy lifting for both establishing a mystery (What is Alyxian’s story?) and then also solving that mystery. If you want to elevate this material, then you need to pull some of this amassed lore backwards so that it appears meaningfully earlier in the campaign. (All the way back, in fact. From the Emerald Grotto if not earlier.) What you want is for this enigma (Who is the Apotheon?) to be much more front-and-center throughout the campaign, so that by the time the PCs get to Netherdeep the players are fully engaged with the mystery and trying to figure it out. The Netherdeep should just be the focused resolution, as they fill in the gaps and realize some deep and terrible emotional truths.

The result will be much more satisfying, and feel more like the culmination of an entire campaign, instead of just another procedural step.

To understand what I mean here, let’s consider one small, concrete example: In Area 24 of the Netherdeep, the PCs encounter Perigee the Deva. This celestial actually fought with Alyxian during the Calamity centuries ago and remains, ruidium-corrupted, by his side even now.

This could be a really incredible moment: The PCs get to meet this legendary figure out of myth!

… but it really only works if you know who Perigee is before you walk into that room. And in Call of the Netherdeep, you don’t.

Imagine that you went on an adventure in the dungeon beneath the hill where King Arthur is buried, fated to rise in Britain’s hour of greatest need. As you journey through the dungeon you encounter some of his knights: Galahad, perhaps. Percival. Guinevere.

Those are cool moments because you recognize those names: “Holy crap! It’s Guinevere!”

But you don’t get that moment with Perigee because… well, who the heck is Perigee? No one at the table cares.

But if you establish Perigee earlier in the campaign — she appears in a mural in Betrayers’ Rise; she’s mentioned in a scrap of poetry; she has a statue in Cael Morrow or the Emerald Grotto — then you CAN have the moment of, “Holy crap! It’s Perigee!”

You just have to put the work in.

Check out Getting the Players to Care for various techniques you can use for doing this. There are already numerous opportunities throughout the campaign for including this lore, you just have to take advantage of them:

• Establishing the Calamity during the Festival of Merit.
• Murals in the Emerald Grotto prayer site.
• The first vision.
• What the Elders of Jigow know.
• What basic research in Jigow can uncover.
• Lore in Betrayers’ Rise.
• Lore held by the Bazzoxan researchers.
• What advanced research in the libraries and lore-stocks of Ank’Harel can uncover.
• More material seeded in Cael Morrow.

What you want to do is flip to Chapter 6 in Call of the Netherdeep and make a list of Apotheon-related lore that should get pre-established for maximum effect. That’s your revelation list. Now you can just apply the Three Clue Rule by seeding lore into the opportunities listed above (plus any other clever ideas you come up with).

In doing this, remember that your goal is to maximize the payoff in the Netherdeep. Don’t reveal enough? The players won’t be engaged in trying to figure it out. Reveal too much? You’ll undermine the revelations of the final act.

You’ll know you have the balance right if:

• The players already have strong opinions about Alyxian before ever reaching Ank’Harel (and, ideally, those opinions are varied and shifting); and
• The players have big questions about the Apotheon that they talk about and clearly want answers to.

This will allow the Rivals to challenge those opinions and to join in the discussion hypothesizing what the answers might be. But, even more importantly, the desire to answer those questions will motivate the agenda of the campaign.

RUIDIUM

RUIDIUM METAMAGIC: Ruidium — the crystalline residue of an ancient power that corrupts its users — is a really cool riff on a primal fantasy trope.

The mechanics for ruidium corruption (CotN, p. 10) seem really cool. There’s a nice pacing to them and a very flavorful progression of symptoms erupting across the victim’s body.

Because it’s so cool, I’d really like to see a greater temptation for the PCs to meddle with it. The existing mechanic is:

RUIDIUM SPELL COMPONENTS

One ounce of ruidium can be substituted for 500 gp worth of any material component needed to cast a spell. A creature that casts a spell using ruidium as a replacement component must succeed on a DC 20 Charisma saving throw or gain 1 level of exhaustion after the spell is cast. If the creature isn’t already suffering from ruidium corruption, it becomes corrupted if it fails the saving throw.

To this, I recommend adding:

RUIDIUM METAMAGIC

Ruidium can also be used to increase the effectiveness of a spell. Any spellcaster can use ruidium while casting a spell to duplicate the effects of a metamagic option (as per the sorcerer’s class ability), expending a number of ounces of ruidium equal to the number of sorcery points that would normally be required to use the metamagic option.

When using ruidium metamagic, the caster must make a DC 20 Charisma saving throw for each ounce of ruidium used, or suffer the consequences listed above.

Ruidium can only be used to add one metamagic option to a spell, although a sorcerer can still apply one of their metamagic options to the spell normally (as long as it is a different metamagic option).

RUIDIUM LORE: A fairly large logic hole in Call of the Netherdeep is the motivation for the Ank’harel scholars to come to Bazzoxan. According to the book, they’ve come to study a site associated with an “unknown hero who wore the Jewel of Three Prayers.”

But… why?

They’re all interested in ruidium and its sources, but there’s nothing in Cael Morrow to point the researchers at either the Jewel or the Betrayer’s Rise as being related to ruidium.

You could solve this by adding Jewel-lore to Cael Morrow. That way, the researchers could connect the Jewel-references to Bazzoxan (just like the PCs do coming from a different direction). But given the importance of ruidium in the campaign, I think it’s actually more effective to introduce it earlier. So what I suggest is adding ruidium to the Emerald Grotto and Betrayer’s Rise. In other words, ruidium is manifesting at all of the sites associated with the Apotheon.

The scholars can now follow leads to this other source of ruidium, and will have come to Bazzoxan in an effort to figure out the connection. This also means that the PCs have potentially valuable information to trade with the scholars if they’ve previously identified ruidium in the Emerald Grotto.

This fixes both the logic of the campaign and foreshadows the importance of ruidium.

If you want to go even further with this, I recommend extending the history of ruidium: Trace amounts of it have been found in the area around Ank’harel for generations, requiring painstaking efforts to gather enough of it serve as a reagent. Alchemical studies have revealed a connection to the light of Ruidus, with various theories postulating that some specific condition results in the moon’s red light “precipitating” the substance. When recent explorations of Cael Morrow revealed huge outcroppings of the stuff, it precipitated the current arms race.

This background provides a context in which the PCs can research the strange red crystals and learn more about them.

It also means that you can use an interest in ruidium to motivate the PCs’ trip to Bazzoxan, Ank’harel, or both as the opportunity presents itself.

REMIXING CALL OF THE NETHERDEEP
Part 2: Jigow
Part 3: Emerald Grotto
Part 4: Road to Bazzoxan
Part 5: Scholars of Ank’Harel
Part 6: Betrayers’ Rise
Part 7: Cael Morrow
Part 8: Faction Missions in Ank’Harel
Part 9: Netherdeep Wrap

COMPLETE PDF COLLECTION

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 29A: Wraiths and Wards

The pedestal was made of stone and carved with a variety of tiny symbols. Atop the crystal, clutched in a claw-like sculpture of brass, was a purple-red crystal, glistening ever so slightly with its own inner light.

Tee crossed the chamber. She quickly estimated the value of the jewel-like crystal to be several thousand gold pieces at the very least. She set to work meticulously inspecting the claw-like sculpture and quickly discovered a pressure-operated trigger, designed to activate some device within the pedestal if the weight of the crystal was removed.

She had only barely started to disable the pressure trigger when a second wraith came screaming out of the crystal. As it passed over the top of Tee’s head it struck her twice – once on each shoulder – chilling her entire body and leaving flaming lacerations in its wake.

In this session, the PCs have an encounter with a malignant crystal which sustains purple wraiths: Whenever a wraith is slain, it is regenerated by the crystal. The only way for the PCs to “defeat” the encounter is to figure out where the wraiths are coming from and then destroy the crystal. If they don’t destroy the crystal, the wraiths will just keep coming.

Let’s call this clever combat. It refers to any combat encounter that the PCs can’t win (or can’t easily win) unless they do something clever. For example:

• There are stormtroopers firing through a one way forcefield. The PCs will need to figure out how to shut off the forcefield before they can defeat the stormtroopers.
• The goblins have a large crystal that can project a death ray guarding the entrance of their fortress. A frontal assault is technically possible, but it’ll probably be easier to figure out another way in, use an invisibility spell, or find some other clever bypass.
• It’ll be a tough fight against these cerberus spawn… unless the PCs realize they can break the dam and wash the hounds into the river.

D&D trolls are actually the OG clever encounter: Until you figure out that they need to be damaged with fire, they are absolutely terrifying. (This has been largely blunted in these latter days, where it seems this lore has seeped pretty thoroughly into the popular consciousness.)

Not every encounter needs to be a clever combat. In fact, they almost certainly SHOULDN’T be. It’s far better to deploy this sort of thing as a way of spicing things up from time to time.

The greatest thing about using a clever combat from time-to-time, though, is that it will condition your players to get clever in every encounter, even — perhaps especially! — the ones where you didn’t prep anything clever.

The only thing you need to do to encourage this is to not get in their way: If they come up with some clever way to upset the odds or peremptorily sweep an entire combat encounter off the board without breaking a sweat… For the love of the gods, LET THEM. The result will be far more memorable than slogging through another vanilla fight, and it will encourage them to keep coming up with more clever ideas in the future.

On the other hand, you can also flip this around: A typical group of PCs is a formidable foe. What clever ways can their enemies find to make handling them easier?

(The really great thing is that this tends to reflect into an infinite loop: A clever foe creates a threat that the PCs will, in turn, have to be clever to overcome.)

Campaign Journal: Session 29B – Running the Campaign: Abandoned Dungeons
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 29A: WRAITHS AND WARDS

September 20th, 2008
The 16th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

“Should we go upstairs or finish clearing this level?”

“Finish clearing the level,” Ranthir said. “You should always finish clearing the level.”

They returned to the rune-encrusted door in the entry chamber. As they passed through the door, however, Seeaeti balked, whining slightly. Agnarr decided to stay back with his hound. From there he could also serve as the rear guard.

Ranthir heard a small, sweetly feminine voice. “I don’t like this place.”

“… I think I’m hearing voices.”

Ranthir looked around with a rather worried expression on his face. But after a moment he realized it was Erinaceidae – his familiar. The bond between them had apparently grown strong enough for her to speak with him.

And the chamber beyond the door was making her very nervous. She scampered off Ranthir’s shoulder and clung close to Elestra’s light.

The only other exit from the chamber was an arch on the far side of the room. Tee approached it carefully, checking the floor for any traps or other protective devices that might be triggered by their presence.

She didn’t detect anything. But it didn’t matter: As she reached the arch, a purplish-red wraith swept out of the next room. Tee barely managed to roll out of the way. Elestra shouted for help. Agnarr came running.

The silence with which the wraith attacked was eery. But it proved to be easily dispatched. Once Tor and Agnarr had engaged it, it only took a few sweeps of their magical blades to destroy its ethereal substance.

They passed through the arch. The next chamber was nearly identical and equally empty, with another arch on the far side. They passed through this second arch and entered a third chamber.

This chamber was nearly as stark as the first two, but there was a pedestal standing on the far side of it. The pedestal was made of stone and carved with a variety of tiny symbols. Atop the crystal, clutched in a claw-like sculpture of brass, was a purple-red crystal, glistening ever so slightly with its own inner light.

Tee crossed the chamber. She quickly estimated the value of the jewel-like crystal to be several thousand gold pieces at the very least. She set to work meticulously inspecting the claw-like sculpture and quickly discovered a pressure-operated trigger, designed to activate some device within the pedestal if the weight of the crystal was removed.

She had only barely started to disable the pressure trigger when a second wraith came screaming out of the crystal. As it passed over the top of Tee’s head it struck her twice – once on each shoulder – chilling her entire body and leaving flaming lacerations in its wake.

After that first soul-searing scream, the wraith became as eerily silent as its predecessor. But it was just as easily dispatched, this time with a single swing of Tor’s sword. A moment later, Agnarr came running in.

“It’s okay,” Tor said. “It’s already dead.”

“If everything in the Banewarrens is this easy, we won’t have any problems down here,” Elestra said.

“Not if they keep coming,” Tee said.

“You think the crystal is creating them?” Tor asked.

“Or regenerating it.”

As they talked, Tee finished disabling the pressure device. But what should they do with it? Try to sell it?

“We can’t sell it if it keeps creating wraiths,” Tor said.

“True,” Tee said. “Ranthir, can you analyze its magical aura? Figure out if there’s some way—“

Another wraith tore its way out of the gem. It thrust its hand through Tee’s face – leaving five claw marks and a deep chill that left her soul-shaken in its wake (and suffering from a rather vicious migraine).

Agnarr, who had returned to the rear guard at the rune-etched door, came running. While the others dealt with the third wraith, he ran past them and swung at the crystal. The fragile gem shattered in a cascading wave of glass that swept down the entire length of the chamber. At the gem’s destruction, the wraith screamed in rage and whirled towards Agnar… who ripped it apart.

For her part, Tee was incensed at the loss of the valuable gem. (“And then… he broke it… He broke it! I couldn’t believe it… I just… Ah!”)

THE WARDING GENERATOR

They headed west through the entry chamber, passing through the door and entering a large chamber. In the center of the chamber a huge metal device like an iron tower topped with a brass sphere rose at least 30 feet into the air. A spiral staircase of wrought iron on the far side of the room led up to a catwalk of crosshatched grating encircling the device.

The central tower was a cylinder with a 10-foot diameter. A number of jointed metallic extensions, like the legs of an insect, extended out from the tower and connected to the ground or simply jutted out into the air at all angles. The sphere on top of the tower was approximately fifteen feet across. A series of curved, brass plates formed the skin of the sphere, with each plate bearing a single arcane rune etched into its surface. Here and there a few of these brass plates were missing, exposing an inner grid-like support network of metal bars. The missing plates gave the entire structure the appearance of something unfinished or perhaps damaged.

There were no other exits on the lower level. However, four halls – two to the north and two to the south – led away from the chamber on the catwalk level. Directly opposite the passage through which they had entered was another door, also on the catwalk level, which was similar to the rune-etched door leading to the wraith chambers – but larger and more finely detailed. Laying on the catwalk before the door were the dead bodies of several goblins.

While the other hung back, Tee did a sweep through the chamber to make sure it was safe. The goblins appeared to have been killed in combat, their wounds having been inflicted by the blows of a sword. But there were no visible threats in the room now.

Once Tee was satisfied that the room was safe, Ranthir moved in and began investigating the machinery. While she worked, the others moved into defensive positions around the room – watching the various entrances and exits with wary eyes.

Ranthir spent the better part of half an hour examining the device. Then he moved to the rune-etched door and spent nearly as much time there, before spending another few minutes cycling back and forth between the two. Once he was satisfied he called the others over to the door.

He started by pointing at several large runes arranged in geometric patterns across the surface of the door. “These runes, like the runes we saw before, are warding runes. But these runes—“ Ranthir pointed to smaller, more detailed runes that were worked into the larger pattern. “—are arcane resonance points. Like the ones we saw on the exposed walls, except these are actively resonating. But they’re more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen, and they’re interwoven with the warding runes in ways I don’t fully understand.”

He moved to the railing of the catwalk and indicated the device in the center of the room. “The entire tower is a technomantic device. More complicated than anything I’ve ever seen. I’m not entirely sure how it works or what it’s supposed to do, but it’s not working. As far as I can tell, it was never completed. If it was working, however, I believe it would function as a kind of warding generator – activating the arcane resonance points.”

“But I thought you said the resonance points in the door were already active?”

“In the door, yes. I suspect that there’s another warding generator on the other side of the door. The warding runes on the door are attuned to that device. And the effect is to make the walls and the door of the next section of the complex virtually impervious. I think this warding generator is attuned to the walls in this section of the complex.”

“What would happen if we activated this warding generator?”

“The arcane resonance points built into the walls would activate.”

“We’d be trapped?”

“Not as long as the hole we came through is still open.”

“What would happen if we activated the generator and then repaired the wall?” Tor asked.

“Then the complex would be sealed.”

“Couldn’t they just break in again?” Elestra asked.

“I don’t think so. I think the only reason they could break through the walls in this section of the complex is because the warding generator isn’t working.”

“So we need to fix the generator and repair the wall.”

Ranthir shook his head. “It’s not that easy. You have to understand, I can barely comprehend even the most basic functionality of this device. And it’s not just broken. There are pieces missing.”

“Wait a minute,” Elestra said. “Come look at this.”

Elestra had been watching the northeastern hallway leading out of the chamber. Down this short hall she had seen a room. A number of curved brass plates, similar to those forming the brass sphere at the top of the warding generator, lay on the floor. There were other oddly-shaped devices formed from strange metals laying on various work tables or hanging on the walls.

Ranthir spent several minutes studying the contents of this room. “I think it’s likely that these are the missing parts. And possibly various tool that would be required for installation. But there’s no way to know if all the parts are here. And it would probably take me weeks of study before it could be repaired.”

They opened the door leading to the next room. It was filled with broken and rotting crates. Between the stacks of crates a heavily armored man with long silver hair knelt beside the dead body of another man. As the door swung open the armored man looked up at them with eyes filled with rage.

“Who are you and why have you come to this evil place?”

Running the Campaign: Clever Combat  – Campaign Journal: Session 29B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

We resolve actions in RPGs by making checks, right? I’m not actually a master swordsman, but I can use my attack bonus to slay dragons. And I’m not actually a master thief, but I can use my Pick Locks skill to open a door. So even though I’m not as smart as my wizard with Intelligence 20, I should be able to make an Intelligence check to solve a riddle, right?

But, if so, why does that feel so unsatisfying?

Broadly speaking, it’s for the same reason that we don’t “solve” crosswords where the answers have already been penciled in.

We can also think of this in terms of the Czege Principle:

When one person is the author of both the character’s adversity and its resolution, play isn’t fun.

In the case of a riddle or puzzle, the resolution is, of course, figuring out the answer. If the interaction at the table is:

GM: Like the sun in a snowstorm, I must be broken before I can be used. What am I? Give me an Intelligence check.

Player: 18.

GM: The answer is, “An egg.”

The player has been excluded from participating. (And this largely remains true even if we muddy up the middle step a bit by, for example, requiring the player to say, “I’ll make an Intelligence check.”)

In The Art of Rulings, I propose three thresholds for making a ruling:

1. Passive observation is automatically triggered.
2. Player expertise activates character expertise.
3. Player expertise can trump character expertise.

If you apply this metric to riddle-solving, you generally end up in a similar place: Player expertise activating character expertise means that “the characters don’t play themselves.” The players have to make some meaningful input in order to activate their character’s expertise (e.g. deciding to search a chest for traps in order to activate their character’s mechanical Search check), and in the case of a riddle or puzzle the only meaningful input is figuring out the solution. (Which, of course, obviates the need for the check.)

To put this a different way: The only meaningful part of solving a riddle is the LAST step. So if you reduce the solution to a mechanical check, you have taken all meaning away from the player.

Engage the players through their characters. If you’re ONLY engaging the characters, then the players are no longer playing the game.

BUT I WANT TO CHECK!

But let’s say that you (or your players) WANT to make the Intelligence check. This is generally due to one of two reasons:

First, the PCs are stuck and they need a solution to the riddle or puzzle in order to proceed.

Second, the players wants to play a character who is smarter than they are. Just like some players want to play a character who can win a heavyweight title bout (even though they absolutely cannot do that in real life), you’ll have players who want to solve riddles and puzzles that would be impossible for them in real life.

Fortunately, there are some techniques you can use without making riddles and puzzles meaningless.

NON-ESSENTIAL RIDDLES

The first thing you can do is make the riddle non-essential.

For example, consider the riddle of Moria’s door in The Fellowship of the Rings.

‘What does the writing say?’ asked Frodo, who was trying to decipher the inscription on the arch. ‘I thought I knew the elf-letters but I cannot read these.’

`The words are in the elven-tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days,’ answered Gandalf. ‘But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only: The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. And underneath small and faint is written: I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.’

`What does it mean by speak, friend, and enter?’ asked Merry.

‘That is plain enough,’ said Gimli. `If you are a friend, speak the password, and the doors will open, and you can enter.’

‘Yes,’ said Gandalf, ‘these doors are probably governed by words. Some dwarf-gates will open only at special times, or for particular persons; and some have locks and keys that are still needed when all necessary times and words are known. These doors have no key. In the days of Durin they were not secret. They usually stood open and doorwards sat here. But if they were shut, any who knew the opening word could speak it and pass in. At least so it is recorded, is it not, Gimli?’

‘It is,’ said the dwarf. `But what the word was is not remembered. Narvi and his craft and all his kindred have vanished from the earth.’

‘But do not you know the word, Gandalf?’ asked Boromir in surprise.

`No!’ said the wizard.

In order to open the door, they have to figure out the password! There’s only one solution!

… but that’s not the only way to open the door, is it? Particularly if it was a D&D group:

• They could break it down.
• They could trick the lake monster into breaking it for them.
• They could prepare and cast a knock spell.

It’s also not the only way into Moria. They could, for example, try to climb the mountain and enter through one of the windows or ventilation shafts.

Plus, they technically don’t need to get into Moria at all:

• They could go back and try to cross Caradhras again.
• They could go south through the Gap of Rohan.
• They could abandon their overland journey entirely, retreat to a western port, and sail to Gondor.

This is similar to the Three Clue Rule: If there are multiple paths to the goal, then a puzzle the players can’t figure out rendering one of them inaccessible is not a critical problem. So if the only reason you were making the check was because you felt compelled to force an answer on the players, making sure that the riddle or puzzle isn’t a single point of failure for the scenario (and being open to player suggestions for how they might route around it) sidesteps the problem.

ROLLING FOR CLUES

Speaking of the Three Clue Rule, let’s put a spin on our earlier example of unsatisfying play and consider a different type of puzzle:

GM: Lord Arthur D’armount has been murdered! Give me an Intelligence check.

Player: 18

GM: Bob did it.

That’s clearly absurd, right?

But nevertheless, a murder investigation scenario will almost always feature players using their character’s skills to search for clues and identify the ash as coming from a Trichinopoly cigar in a moment of Holmesian brilliance. Why does that work?

The difference is that these checks (or other mechanics) are delivering clues. It’s still the players who use those clues and take the rewarding final step of figuring out what they mean.

And when someone playing a super-genius character like Sherlock Holmes or Reed Richards or Wile E. Coyote wants to make an IQ check to solve a riddle, we can do the same thing: Instead of giving them the solution, we give them a clue.

When we’re talking about a murder mystery, this distinction between clue and conclusion can feel fairly obvious. If we’re talking about Myst-like puzzles or Gollum-style riddle battles, on the other hand, it can be a little harder to figure out clues that aren’t just the solution.

This is often more art than science and will be heavily dependent on the specific riddle or puzzle, but a trick I frequently find useful is to break the riddle or puzzle apart conceptually and then give clues that only make one part of the riddle or puzzle more explicit. For example, let’s look at the simple riddle we used at the beginning of this essay:

Like the sun in a snowstorm, I must be broken before I can be used.

We could look at the first part of the riddle (“like a sun in a snowstorm”) and say, “You’re pretty sure the ‘sun’ and ‘snowstorm’ are referring to colors.”

Something else we can learn from mysteries is that you can also deliver clues to riddles or puzzles diegetically. Like Henry Jones, Sr.’s journal in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the PCs can piece together lore and rumor, and perhaps investigate the area around the puzzle, for hints to the puzzle’s solution. If there are a bunch of large stone pillars, each etched with a strange rune, for example:

• Researching the runes in a library might be useful in identifying which runes are related to each other.
• Searching around the pillars might discover scrape marks on the floor, indicating that they’ve been moved around.
• A giant-slayer’s journal might describe the relevant rules of Brobdingnagian chess.

And some of these, of course, might also be things that a successful Arcana or Giant Lore check would recall.

We’ve previously discussed how religion in D&D has long defaulted to “modern Christianity, but with a pagan god slotted in for Jesus.” This is, of course, because the religious experience of most people playing the game and writing for the game is limited to Christianity (with a smattering of Greek or Norse mythology).

What may be slightly less obvious is that basically the same thing is true for D&D nation-states.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “D&D has queens and dukes and stuff! That’s not modern!”

Sure. But much like you’ve got cruciform churches filled with priests and bishops worshipping Zeus or Crom, so, too, are the kings and duchesses of D&D often just a patina of medievalism draped across a nation-state which is fundamentally structured according to a modern, post-Treaty of Westphalia understanding of what a nation looks like and how it operates.

Here are a few things you might recognize in “medieval” D&D kingdoms:

• standing armies being large and common;
• a “city watch” that looks just like a modern police force;
• “feudalism” in which literally everyone is a free citizen;
• neatly drawn borders that precisely account for every scrap of land.

Now, to be clear, you can look back at history and find a variety of antecedents for each of these things. And D&D, of course, is not literally medieval Europe (with plenty of reasons why it logically shouldn’t be). So there’s nothing inherently “wrong” with this synthesis that not-so-coincidentally looks just like the modern polities you’re familiar with, and you could justify it in any number of ways.

But what IS true is that this synthesis is incredibly limiting, particularly if you’re just subconsciously defaulting into it as a straitjacket because it’s the only way you know the world to work.

DRAW FROM HISTORY

Obviously the first thing you can do here is broaden your palette. You won’t be trapped in the structure of the modern nation-state if you learn about a lot of alternatives. Here’s a completely arbitrary list I’ve personally found useful:

• Roman Hegemony. Republic, Imperial, or Byzantine. Going with all three will also give you the benefit of seeing how structures of political power can shift over time.
• Renaissance Italy. In many ways, of course, this is just an extension of Roman government along a different branch. But looking in detail at the myriad ways in which the Italian city-states experimented with government form and function (including the Vatican) is a great way to really understand how mutable government can be, even within societies which are otherwise broadly similar (in terms of culture and technology).
• Feudal Japan. Also known as the shogunate. For me, personally, this was the historical deep-dive that taught me a lot about feudalism by looking at how a different-but-similar system worked. (But you need to find a source that won’t just draw direct, vapid parallels with European feudalism, which can be a common trap here.)
• Incan Empire. And, if you’re willing to dig a little deeper, the pre-Incan civilizations that initiated the use of khipu (knotted cords) for the recording of debts and transactions. Spanish colonizers crushed this civilization, but it’s a fascinating window into a very different way or organizing and thinking about society.
• Ancient Greece. Somewhat similar to Renaissance Italy, in that its city-states provide a bunch of directly juxtaposed examples. While you’re mucking about in this era, you might also want to take a peek at the Persian Empire as another alternative to the Roman-style of hegemony.

For this to be effective, though, you’ll need to really dig deep into the actual political structures of these societies. Probably deeper than many general histories will provide. (Although something like a Cambridge History will probably get the job done.) And there’s no clever shortcut here: You just have to do the research.

FANTASTICAL STATES

The other limitation here, of course, is that this historical sampling — whatever form it takes for you — will only be looking at governments and nations as they exist in the real world. There’s nothing wrong with copy-pasting from history, but it can certainly be a lot of fun to embrace the fantastical nature of a setting and invent societies that have never and perhaps could never exist in the real world.

Some questions to think about:

• What happens when your political leaders can live for centuries or even millennia?
• If the gods can literally speak to you (or even walk among you), what effect does that have on temporal political institutions?
• What does “monster power” look like? In other words, what effect does it have for a dragon or lich to rule a nation? Perhaps even more interesting would be to ask what it looks like for multiple dragons or liches to do so.
• How does the underground nature of a dwarven nation affect their understanding of political power?
• On a similar note, in the real world the territory of a nation has been assumed to be not only the surface of the land, but everything beneath it. How do the many layers of the Underdark affect the perception of the nation-state and the application of political power? What are the conflicts that result when there are different opinions about this?
• What affect do magic and/or fantastical technologies have on the organization and application of power in a nation-state? For example, could readily available teleportation lend itself to a proliferation of non-contiguous states?

And so forth. Once you really start digging in here, you can find all kinds of marvelous ideas that will makes your setting utterly unique and special.

THREE FORMS OF DOMINATION

When playing around with ideas like this, it can be useful to have some sort of theory or framework that can organize your thoughts and maybe give you some dials and levers you can experiment with. For this purpose, let me quote at length from David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity:

Does that mean that property, like political power, ultimately derives (as Chairman Mao so delicately put it) “from the barrel of a gun” — or, at best, from the ability to command the loyalties of those trained to use them.

No. Or not exactly.

To illustrate why not, and continue our thought experiment, let’s take a different sort of property. Consider a diamond necklace. If Kim Kardashian walks down the street in Paris wearing a diamond necklace worth millions of dollars, she is not only showing off her wealth, she is also flaunting her power over violence, since everyone assumes she would not be able to do so without the existence (…) of an armed security detail.

But let us imagine, for a moment, what would happen if everyone on earth were suddenly to become physically invulnerable. (…) Could Kim Kardashian still maintain exclusive rights over her jewellery?

Well, perhaps not if she showed it off regularly, since someone would presumably snatch it; but she certainly could if she normally kept it hidden in a safe, the combination of which she alone knew and only revealed to trusted audiences at events which were not announced in advance. So there is a second way of ensuring that one has access to rights others do not have: the control of information. (…)

Let us take this experiment one step further and imagine everyone on earth drank another potion which rendered them all incapable of keeping a secret, but still unable to harm one another physically as well. Access to information, as well as force, has now been equalized. Can Kim still keep her diamonds? Possibly. But only if she manages to convince absolutely everyone that, being Kim Kardashian, she is such a unique and extraordinary human being that she actually deserves to have things no one else can.

We would like to suggest that these three principles — call them control of violence, control of information, and individual charisma – are also the three possible bases of social power. The threat of violence tends to be the most dependable, which is why it has become the basis for uniform systems of law everywhere; charisma tends to be the most ephemeral. Usually, all three coexist to some degree. Even in societies where interpersonal violence is rare, one may well find hierarchies based on knowledge. It doesn’t even particularly matter what the knowledge is about: maybe some sort of technical know-how (say, of smelting copper, or using herbal medicines); or maybe something we consider total mumbo jumbo (the names of the twenty-seven hells and thirty-nine heavens).

(…)

In terms of the specific theory we’ve been developing here (…) the three elementary forms of domination — control of violence, control of knowledge, and charismatic power — can each crystallize into its own institutional form (sovereignty, administration, and heroic politics). Almost all these “early states” could be more accurately described as “second-order” regimes of domination. First-order regimes like the Olmec, Chavin, or Natchez each developed only one part of the triad. But in the typically far more violent arrangements of second-order regimes, two of the three principles of domination were brought together in some spectacular, unprecedented way. Which two it was seems to have varied from case to case. Egypt’s early rulers combined sovereignty and administration; Mesopotamian kings mixed administration and heroic politics; Classic Maya ajaws fused heroic politics with sovereignty.

We should emphasize that it’s not as if any of these principles, in their elementary forms, were entirely absent in any one case: in fact, what seems to have happened is that two of them crystallized into institutional forms — fusing in such a way as to reinforce one another as the basis of government — while the third form of domination was largely pushed out of the realm of human affairs altogether and displaced on to the non-human cosmos (as with divine sovereignty in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, or the cosmic bureaucracy of the Classic Maya).

And, in case it’s not clear, the thesis here is that the modern nation-state generally finds a way to institutionalize all three forms of domination.

(I do recommend grabbing a copy of The Dawn of Everything and reading the whole thing. It’s an excellent book.)

What’s particularly useful here are the three pillars:

• Violence / Sovereignty
• Information / Administration
• Charisma / Heroic Politics

To create a new nation, all you need to do is broadly explain how it asserts control over one or more of these pillars. With the broad outline established, you can then drill down into the details at your leisure. This makes it very easy to craft bespoke societies. Fantastical societies, of course, simply flow from the expedient of making one or more institution based on the magical elements of your world:

• The vampire princess who monopolizes violence through her slavish spawn. (What are the formal ranks of the spawn and how are they determined?)
• The magocracy whose bureaucracy is built around the nine arcane colleges. (Over which spheres of temporal life do each college wield control?)
• The wyrmling warlords who feud and compete for the loyalty of dragonborn clans. (By what feats is the greatness of the wyrmlings judged?)

The possibilities, of course, are limitless, and even moreso as you begin combining pillars in different combinations.

The really great thing? You can use these three pillars as a cheat code for creating novel societies even if you’re only passingly familiar with historical nation-states. All that research we talked about? It will still be invaluable if you do it. (Knowing more stuff never hurt anyone when they set out to create new stuff.) But the three pillars of domination are a functional shortcut for worldbuilding.

One final thing to note is that describing a first-order society is not to say that the other elements are completely absent from society: Charismatic military leaders are likely common in a sovereign state of military clans. Heroic wyrm-kings will have scribes. What we’re looking at, however, is when those forms of power become institutions.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION ON HEROIC POLITICS

Of the three pillars of domination, the first-order societies which seems to be most alien to modern Westerners (i.e., almost everyone reading this), is heroic politics. So let’s take a moment to clarify what those look like.

Useful touchstones here might be Beowulf and the Iliad. These are “primitive” societies which crystallize around charismatic leaders who prove their “worth” through deeds – venturing forth on profitable raids, hunting mighty beasts, boasting and drinking, engaging in formal duels, competing in games, offering sacrifices, etc. (This sort of thing seems particularly relevant to pulp adventure games like D&D, where this is just the sort of thing PCs are frequently doing.)

The “selection process” by which these leaders are chosen can range from the informal (e.g., Robin Hood drawing merry men into Sherwood) to the extremely formal (e.g., democratic elections carried out in accordance with a formal constitution). Similarly, the traits which are seen as “desirable” will vary by society and circumstance.

THE INTERACTION OF SOCIETIES

Your world will likely see a mixture of first-, second-, and third-order societies. For example, there might be a hub of well-established civilization filled with third-order societies (institutionalizing violence, administration, and charisma), but as you journey out into the frontiers you’re likely to see less formal first- and second-order societies.

Historically speaking, you may also see a third order society (e.g., the Roman Empire) collapse or contract, leaving first- and second-order societies in its wake (e.g., King Arthur emerging through heroic politics as Roman sovereignty in the British Isles breaks down).

These first- and second-order societies may be referred to as “barbarians” by the writers of “civilization,” but they’re probably doing the same thing to other third-order societies, too. Your tribe is always doing things in the best way possible; the other person’s is a bunch of superstitious, unenlightened bumpkins. (The reality, of course, is more complicated than that.

In fact, “incomplete” first- or second-order societies are often balanced by another society in the region based on another of the three pillars. To quote, again, from Dawn of Everything:

Throughout much of history, grain states [second-order sovereign administration states] and barbarians [clan-kings; i.e. first-order heroic politics] remained “dark twins,” locked together in an unresolvable tension, since neither could break out of their ecological niches. When the states had the upper hand, slaves and mercenaries flowed in one direction; when the barbarians were dominant, tribute flowed to appease the most dangerous warlord; or, alternatively, some overlord would manage to organize an effective coalition, sweep in on the cities and either lay waste to them, or more typically, attempt to rule them and inevitably find himself and his retinue absorbed as a new governing class. As the Mongolian adage went, “One can conquer on horseback; to rule one must dismount.”

Often these choices of society are deliberate — simultaneously an embrace of your own way of life and a rejection of the other way of life. (“Lowlanders are all soft! When the shadows return, they will be plucked just like the ripe fruit of their orchards!”)

In addition to regional proximity, these societal forms can also oscillate through time. For example, when sovereignty would break down in Ancient Egypt, the political organization would swing towards the heroic politics of local warlords who would continue overseeing the complex administration of society.

These kind of frontier societies and/or periods of societal breakdown are, of course, the perfect environment for the points-of-light/pulp adventure of a typical D&D campaign.