DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 25A: The Second End of Ghul’s Labyrinth

They stepped forward into Elestra’s sanctuary. The wall closed behind them, transforming itself into a fireplace with a crackling fire already lit. Directly above the fire, a mirror was hung.

“What is this place?” Tee asked.

“A secret,” Elestra said, looking around with a sense of vague familiarity overwhelming her. “I think I’ll be able to open a doorway to this place no matter where we might be. We should be safe here. No one can see the entrance from the outside.”

Elestra is an urban druid.

The seed of this custom class came from an article in Dragon Magazine #317, but although the original packet of photocopied pages are still nestled away in the player’s folder, we’ve made any number of alterations to it over the years.

The original impetus was that Elestra’s player was interested in playing a druid, but it didn’t seem like a good fit for an all-urban campaign. She proposed playing the urban equivalent of a druid instead and I was able to pull the Dragon Magazine article from my archives.

Which, I suppose, is the first lesson when you’re looking to customize the game: See if somebody else has already done the work for you.

Actually, as we’ve continued customizing the class — modifying it to reflect both her vision and my vision of what an “urban druid” should be — most of what we’ve done is basically the same thing, with the only twist being that I’m frequently re-skinning material to achieve the desired effect.

“Re-skinning” something in an RPG system just means that you’re taking a mechanical element designed to model one thing in the game world and instead using it to model something else. For example, in this session you can see an example of how we’ve re-skinned a rope trick spell with a flavor conducive to the urban druid (i.e., opening the walls of a city and literally crawling inside them).

I’m a big fan of re-skinning. In fact, the very first RPG article I ever published was about re-skinning magical spells. (It appeared in an electronic fanzine distributed through the old Prodigy online service.)

Until recently I had a vague memory that I’d been introduced to the concept via an entire article discussing it in Dragon #162 (which was my first issue of the magazine). But upon going back to verify that, I discovered it was actually just one sentence in an article about roleplaying intelligent undead by Nigel D. Findley:

Finally, a lich fascinated with the aesthetics and nuances of magic, rather than its eventual outcome, might have eccentric versions of familiar spells: magic missiles that look like multicolored sparks, or fireballs that explode accompanied by a musical tone, for example.

I think I may have been conflating memories of the fanzine article that I wrote with Findley’s off-hand suggestion, but this is still a great re-skinning technique. And I’ll actually employ it on-the-fly when running NPCs: I’ll see that they have some vanilla spell in their spell list, but then describe it with radically different special effects in actual play. (In some cases, the players have then made a point of seeking out the enemy spellcaster’s spellbook so that they can learn the intriguing variant.)

The versatility of re-skinning becomes even more apparent when you realize you can also make small changes while re-skinning: Grab a goblin stat block and give it +2 armor to model a humanoid ant. Or a fly speed and stinger attack to model a humanoid bee.

At a certain point while doing this sort of work, you’ll probably realize that the difference between re-skinning and homebrewing something from scratch is much more of a spectrum than it is a sharp distinction: Using existing elements of a system as a touchstone for how the new thing you’re designing should work is more of a necessity than an option. The nice thing about straight-up reskinning is that it essentially lets you homebrew in the middle of a session without missing a beat.

As a final note, for some reason when I talk about re-skinning mechanics, some people become confused and think that this somehow means that the mechanic is dissociated. The argument seems to be that if a mechanic can model two different things in the game world, it must mean that it’s not associated with either of them. But this is not true: Just because we resolve an attack with a sword and an attack with a mace using the same rules for attack rolls, it doesn’t follow that your character doesn’t understand what a sword or a mace is.

I mention this mostly because I think the sword/mace distinction can be useful for grokking re-skinning: There are some RPGs in which there may be some slight mechanical distinction between a sword and a mace, but even the most detailed RPG is still an incredibly abstract model of the “reality” of the game world. One should not be surprised to discover, for example, that a tree, a crumbling wall, and a cliff face might all be described as a DC 15 Athletics check to climb.

PUTTING THE MYSTERY IN THE MAGIC

The other thing you might note here is that I use the re-skinning of Elestra’s rope trick to further deepen the meta-mystery scenario of the PCs’ amnesia: Her spell creates a place that they both remember and do not remember.

This technique is consistent with Putting the “Magic” in Magic Items, in which I wrote:

All of this advice can really be boiled down to a simple maxim: Life is in the details.

The difference between a cold, lifeless stat block and a memorable myth is all about the living details that you imbue your game world with.

If you let something like a rope trick spell exist in your campaign as a purely mechanical construct, then it will generally have only the blandest of utilitarian function. But when a spell truly lives in your campaign world, it can become an expression of personality, a clue to a deeper mystery, possess any multitude of meanings, and form any number of vivid memories.

And re-skinning can help unlock all of that potential.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 25B – Running the Campaign: Player-Initiated Vectors
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 25A: THE SECOND END OF GHUL’S LABYRINTH

June 21st, 2008
The 12th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They stepped forward into Elestra’s sanctuary. The wall closed behind them, transforming itself into a fireplace with a crackling fire already lit. Directly above the fire, a mirror was hung.

“What is this place?” Tee asked.

“A secret,” Elestra said, looking around with a sense of vague familiarity overwhelming her. “I think I’ll be able to open a doorway to this place no matter where we might be. We should be safe here. No one can see the entrance from the outside.”

Ranthir, too, was struck by the familiarity of the place. Following some instinct he turned suddenly towards the mirror above the fire. Touching it, he was surprised to see the mirror’s surface suddenly frost over. When it cleared a moment later, it was a transparent window looking out into the hallway they had just left. They could see the ghulworg skeleton crouched there, waiting patiently for their return.

“What did you do?” Dominic asked, looking slightly alarmed.

“I don’t know…” Ranthir said contemplatively. “It just seemed like the right thing to do…”

“Well, at least this way we don’t have to worry about getting ambushed when we decide to leave,” Agnarr said.

Dominic started poking at random things around the room. “If it worked for Ranthir it might work for me…”

Tee smiled and took over where Dominic left off, giving the room a quick and cursory search without turning up anything of particular interest.

Tor, meanwhile, had counted the beds. There were just enough. “Well, at least I won’t have to bunk with Agnarr again.”

EXPLORING EVERY CORNER

(09/13/790)

The next morning they returned to the stairs and headed down to the second level. There was still one small section of the complex that they had not yet explored: The hallway beyond the torture chamber from which the undead horror with long, blood-sucking claws had come.

There they found a long hall containing a table of black stone and massive, yet elegant, high-backed chairs. There was also a large aubrey of preserved oak containing a large number of silver goblets and three bottles of ancient orcish bloodwine – all perfectly preserved by one of the many preservation spells which had been laid on these halls.

Unfortunately, these preservation spells had turned the next chamber – an office of some sort – into a rather gruesome scene: The large desk on the far side of the room had been smashed into two pieces, which lay upon a once-luxurious carpet which had been horribly stained and soiled… and so laden with blood that it squished beneath their feet.

Fresh blood made them nervous, so Agnarr was nominated to check it out. He found the desk to be nothing but splintered wood, but has he backed away cautiously he suddenly gasped in pain as a sharp blade lacerated his ribs from behind.

A black centurion had silently entered through the far door and taken them all by surprise as it lunged out of the flickering shadows cast by the flames of Agnarr’s sword. There was a moment of fear at the sight of such a deadly opponent… but then they realized that they were still being followed diligently by the ghulworg.

Agnarr backed away from the centurion, carefully parrying its blows. And then the ghulworg leapt in, smashing it to bits in mere moments.

Pushing through the door the centurion had come from, they discovered a small complex essentially identical to the one in which they had fought the other centurions. In fact, several more centurions were already in the process of activating. But their numbers made little difference: The ghulworg made short work of them.

In fact, the group showed such little concern over the matter that Tee was already searching the blood-soaked office before the last centurion fell. In the floor, under the oozing carpet, she found a hidden safe.

A safe meant there might be something particularly valuable. So, with a fair degree of excitement, Tee quickly broke the combination and spun the door of the safe open.

She was somewhat disappointed to discover that the safe was almost entirely empty. The only thing it contained, in fact, was a heavy roll of parchment. Unrolling it she discovered a text of thick, reddish-black Orcish characters. Despite being written in Orcish, the entire document appeared to be elegantly scribed. Near the bottom of the page an immense black seal had been set and impressed in the wax was a familiar skull-shaped sigil. A piece of black-and-gold ribbon had also been attached to the wax.

Tee handed the scroll to Ranthir, who quickly deciphered it using a quick bit of legerdemain:

By the divine hand of Ghul – Skull King, Banelord’s Heir, Sorcerer’s Get, and Blue Lord of the Arathian Stock – Ulthorek tal Yattaren is thus set down as the Chieftain of the Laboratory of the Beast. Within such domain, he shall rule by the Hand of Ghul.

Ghul the Skull King

“Interesting,” Elestra said. “Is it worth anything?”

“If that’s actually Ghul’s signature and seal, it might be worth quite a lot, actually,” Tee said… although she was doubtful that Ranthir would be willing to part with it. (In fact, he had already slipped it into one of his many pouches.)

They were now confident that they had mapped out every corner of the complex (with the exception of whatever might be inaccessible behind the various bluesteel doors they had discovered), which meant that there were only a few loose ends left for them to investigate.

They started with the vault they had unsuccessfully attempted to break into before. The four iron rods, each topped by a ball of brass, still stood in the corners of the room – menacing only because of their vivid memory of the electrical bolts which Agnarr had triggered twice before.

While the others kept to a safe distance, Tee tried to access the vault door using the magical properties of her new ring… but this failed spectacularly, and she only narrowly managed to dodge the worst of the electrical bolts she triggered in the attempt.

With a shrug, Tee got to her feet and left the room. A few moments later, the ghulworg had smashed down the vault doors (although many of its bones were visibly blackened from the electrical storm it suffered in the process).

They were very disappointed, however, to discover that their painful efforts had been in vain. The walls of the iron-shod vault were lined with numerous shelves both large and small, covered with small, carefully-crafted niches which were each clearly designed to hold some unique item. But all of the niches were now empty.

BACK TO THE CLAN CAVES

Which left only the seemingly bottomless pit at the center of the massive, silvery-grey pool.

Using her boots of levitation, Tee “walked” her way across the ceiling above the pool and then dropped down to the walkway circling the pit. Behind her she could hear Elestra trying to convince the others that they should start prying out the glowgems on the ceiling, She shook her head in exasperation and made her way around the edge of the pit, carefully keeping her distance from the familiar brass-tipped rods of iron positioned around the walkway.

Halfway around the perimeter she noticed that a line of pitons had been driven ladder-like into the wall of the pit. Even with her keen elven vision, Tee couldn’t see how far down they might go.

She called out to the others, telling them what she had seen. They decided to see where the pitons might lead. Elestra transformed into a hawk and flew the boots of levitation back and forth, allowing the others to safely cross the pool one at a time.

They climbed down the pitons. After more than a hundred feet, they ended at a narrow fissure that cracked the otherwise smooth sides of the pit.

There was still no bottom in sight below them. Tee, who had taken back her boots of levitation, used them to descend another 500 feet and still couldn’t see any end to the sheer shaft.

She returned to the others and they decided to pursue the path of the pitons. Squeezing through the fissure they worked their way through a series of tight caves that gradually widened as they delved deeper. For awhile they were able to walk in a rather cramped fashion, but then the caves narrowed again and they found themselves crawling for a long while.

At last, they crawled their way out into a larger passage that – as they stood up, brushed themselves off, and stretched – looked rather familiar. Turning to the right, they quickly confirmed their suspicions as they entered a cave with a familiar message written in Goblin upon the wall: “These caves belong to the Clan of the Torn Ear.”

They were surprised, however, to find that the holy symbols of Vehthyl and Itor had been written on the wall directly beneath the familiar greeting.

They were still discussing what this might mean when a goblin entered the cave. They didn’t recognize her, but she certainly recognized them. She told them that she had just come from the fungal farms, but she would be more than happy to take them to Crashekka and Itarek.

Passing through the siege gate, they entered the Great Hall of the clan. Crashekka sat in her place of honor at the far end of the hall, and Itarek stood beside her. They greeted the heroes with wide, toothy grins.

“Welcome, heroes of the world above!” Crashekka said. And then Itarek strode forward and shook their hands, a custom that they had inadvertently taught to him.

Tee carefully asked them about the holy symbols they had seen, not certain of what their reaction might be. But Itarek seemed more than happy to explain. “Our tribe has been touched by the gods of the holy man,” he said, gesturing towards to Dominic (who fidgeted nervously). “I was the first to receive their visions, but many have dreamed their words. And there are greater wonders, too.”

He took them to the maiden’s chambers where Dominic had saved the lives of the tribe’s woman. There he showed them newborn goblins, each bearing a sigil of one of the Nine Gods.

Dominic’s brow furrowed. “Does this mean I need to stay and teach them?”

“I don’t think so,” Tee said, but she couldn’t really keep the concern out of her voice. She wasn’t sure what any of this might mean.

When the question was put to Itarek, he shook his head. “No. I know you have your own path to follow in the world above. And we shall have to find our own path to the Gods’ Truth.”

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Re-Skinning – Campaign Journal: Session 25B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

You’re running a scenario. The PCs have a fistful of leads telling them where they’re supposed to go next. (If you’re using node-based scenario design, they might have a fistful of clues pointing them towards multiple places they could choose to go next.) But instead of doing that, they head off in a completely different direction.

And there’s nothing there.

Maybe they’ve made a mistake. Maybe they’ve made a brilliant leap of deduction which turns out not to be so brilliant after all. Maybe they have good reason to look for more information in the local library or the newspaper morgue or the records of the local school district, but there’s nothing to be found there.

It’s a dead end.

And dead ends like this can be quite problematic because, once they have the bit in their teeth, players can be relentless: Convinced that there must be something there, they will try every angle they can think of to find the thing that doesn’t exist. In fact, I’ve seen any number of groups convince themselves that the fact they can’t find anything is proof that they must be on the right track!

Not only can this self-inflicted quagmire chew up huge quantities of time at the table to little effect, but once the players have invested all of this mental effort into unraveling an illusory puzzle, their ultimate “failure” can be a demoralizing blow to the entire session. The effort can also blot out the group’s collective memory of all the other leads they had before the wild goose chase began, completely derailing the scenario.

Fortunately, there are some simple techniques for quickly working past this challenge.

IS IT REALLY A DEAD END?

First things first: Is it really a dead end?

Just because they’re doing something you didn’t explicitly prep, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. In fact, the principle of permissive clue-finding means that you should actually assume that there is something to be found there.

So, start by checking yourself. Is it really a dead end, or is it just a path you didn’t know was there?

Maybe the players thought of some aspect of the scenario that you didn’t while you were prepping it. (That can be very exciting!) And even if something is a wild goose chase, there can be interesting things to be found there even if they don’t immediately tie into the scenario the PCs are currently engaged with.

(This is also why I’ll tend to give my players more rope in exploring these “dead ends” during campaigns than I will during one-shots: The consequences of doing something completely unexpected can develop in really interesting ways in the long-term play of the campaign, but don’t really have time to go anywhere in a one-shot, and are therefore usually better pruned. Also, if the scenario runs long because you had a really cool roleplaying interaction with Old Ma Ferguson that everyone enjoyed — even though she has nothing to do with the current scenario — it’s fine to hang out the To Be Continued shingle in a campaign and wrap things up in the next session, which is, once again, not an option in a one-shot.)

If it’s not really a dead end, then you should obviously roll with it and see where it takes you. If you don’t feel confident in your ability to improvise the unexpected curveball, that’s okay: Call for a ten minute break and spend the time throwing together some quick prep notes.

Although you don’t need to announce the reason for the break, it’s generally okay for the players to know that they’ve gone diving off the edge of your prep. Most players, in fact, love it. The fact you’re rolling with it shows that you creatively trust them, and they will return that trust. It also deepens the sense of the game world as a “real” place that the players are free to explore however they choose to, and that’s exciting.

FRAME PAST IT

But what if it really is a dead end? There’s nothing interesting where the PCs are heading and, therefore, nothing to be gained by playing through those events.

Well, if there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there.

At its root, this is a problem of pacing. And, therefore, we’re going to turn to The Art of Pacing for our solution. In short, you’re going to frame hard into abstract time, quickly sum up the nothing that they find, and then move on.

For example:

• “You spend the afternoon asking around the Docks for anyone who’s seen Jessica, but you can’t find anyone who saw her down here.”
• “You roll up on Jefferson Sienna, haul him down the precinct, and grill him for four hours. But you come up dry: He doesn’t know anything.”
• “You drive over to Mayfair to see if the library has the book you’re looking for, but their selection of occult books is pretty sparse.”

The most straightforward, all-purpose version of this is to simply tell the players, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. This isn’t the solution, there’s nothing to be found here, and the scenario is in a different direction.” But this direct approach is usually a bad idea: You know all that stuff I said about how much the players love knowing the game world exists beyond the boundaries of your prep and that they’re truly free to do anything and go anywhere? Well, this is basically the opposite of that. Even if you don’t strictly mean it that way, the players are going to interpret this as, “You can only go where you’re allowed to go.”

The distinction between “this isn’t the right way, try something else” and “you did it and didn’t find anything, now what?” might seem rather small. But in my experience the difference in actual play is very large.

(I suspect the difference is partly diegetic: One is a statement about the game world, the other is a directive from the GM to the players. But I think it’s also because the formulation of “you did it” still inherently values the players’ contribution: I didn’t tell you that you couldn’t do the thing you wanted to do; I was open to trying it, you did it, and it just didn’t pan out. It’s a fine line to walk, but an important one.)

The key here, once again, is to quickly sum up the totality of their intended course of action, rapidly resolve it, and then prompt them for the next action: “What do you do next?”

A good transition here can be, “What are you trying to do here?”

This pops the players out of action-by-action declarations and prompts them to sum up the totality of their intention. You then take their statement, rephrase it as a description of them doing exactly that, and then move on.

Player: Okay, I’m going to drive over to Mayfair.

GM: What are you planning to do?

Player: I want to check out the library there, see if they have a copy of My Name is Dirk A that hasn’t been stolen yet.

GM: Okay, you drive over to the Mayfair library to see if they have a copy of the book. But their selection of occult books is pretty sparse. It doesn’t look like they ever had a copy for circulation. It’s about 6 p.m. by the time you pull out. The sun’s getting low. Now what?

It’s a little like judo: You just take what they give you and redirect it straight back at them.

ADVANCED TECHNIQUES

Where appropriate, further empower the players’ intention by calling for an appropriate skill check: Streetwise to ask questions around the Docks. Detective to interrogate Jefferson Sienna. Library Use to scour the stacks at Mayfair Library.

The check can’t succeed, obviously, since you already know that there’s nothing to find here: Jessica wasn’t at the Docks. Jefferson Sienna isn’t involved in this. Mayfair Library doesn’t own the book.

Calling for the check, however, is part and parcel of allowing the player to truly pursue the action they want to pursue and resolving it truthfully within the context of the game world, while also letting the player know that this is what you’re doing.

If the group is currently split up, you can also “disguise” the simple judo of this interaction by cutting away once they’ve declared their intention and then cutting back for the resolution.

GM: Bruce, you find Jefferson Sienna smoking outside of his club. What are you planning to do here, exactly?

Player: I want to haul him down to the precinct and grill him about the missing diamonds.

GM: Great. Give me a Detective check. Tammy, what are you doing?

[run stuff with Tammy for a bit]

GM: Okay, Bruce, you spent the afternoon grilling Jefferson Sienna in Interrogation Room #1. What did you get on your Detective check?

Player: 18.

GM: Hmm. Okay. Unfortunately, you come up dry: He really doesn’t know anything. What are you doing after you cut him loose?

SCENES THAT DRIVE INTO A DEAD END

Sometimes it’s not the whole scene that’s a dead end (whether you planned it ahead of time or not): Jefferson Sienna wasn’t involved in the heist, but he’s heard word on the street that Joe O’Connell was the one fencing the diamonds. That’s an important clue!

… but then the PCs just keep asking questions. They’re convinced Sienna must know something else, or they’re just paranoid that they’ll miss some essential clue if they don’t squeeze blood from this stone. The scene has turned into a dead end.

Now what?

First, you can give yourself permission to just do a sharp cut: If the scene is over, the scene is over. Frame up the next scene and move on.

However, if the PCs are actively engaged with the scene and trying to accomplish something (even if it’s impossible because, for example, Sienna doesn’t actually know anything else), this can end up being very disruptive and feel very frustrating for the players.

You can soften the blow using some of the techniques we discussed above. (For example, you might cut to a different PC during a lull in the interrogation and then cut back to the PCs who were doing the interrogation while framing them into a new scene. You can also just ask, “What’s your goal here?” And when they say something like, “I want to make sure we know everything Sienna has to tell us,” you can judo straight off of that to wrap up the scene.)

But we can also borrow a technique that Kenneth Hite uses for investigative games: When the characters have gained all the information they’re going to get from a scene, hold up a sign that says “SCENE OVER” or “DONE” or something like that. The statement cues the players to let them know that there’s no reward to be gained by continuing to question the prisoner or ransack the apartment or whatever, while using a sign is less intrusive on the natural flow of the scene (so if there’s something they still want to accomplish of a non-investigative nature, the scene can continue without the GM unduly harshing the vibe).

You can adapt this pretty easily to other types of scenes, too. You’re basically signaling that the essential question the scene was framed around has, in fact, been answered, and you’re inviting the players to collaborate with you to quickly bring the scene to a satisfactory conclusion and wrap things up.

Then you can all drive out of the dead end together.

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 24D: The Second Hound of Ghul

Everyone fell silent. Impossibly, the shadows seemed to deepen. And then, out of the darkness, the second hound of Ghul appeared: It was a bony, undead thing. At its shoulder, it stood nearly twice as tall as Agnarr. Four interlocking, razor-sharp sabered fangs punctuated a jaw of jagged teeth. Its claws were nearly as large. Its bones were thick and at the end of a long, sinuous tail was a bulbous ball of bone twice the size of a grown man’s skull.

“By the gods…” Elestra murmured.

In this session we see the dawn of one my favorite RPG in-jokes of all time, as Tithenmamiwen tells the illiterate Agnarr that “C-A-T” is the elvish word for “faithful companion,” leading the barbarian to name his new pet dog Seeaeti. I think every long-running campaign develops these shibboleths that are only meaningful to the players, and this one has been part of our group for thirteen years now. (And will probably remain so until we’re all dust in our graves.)

Speaking of Seeaeti, if you’ve been following In the Shadow of the Spire you know that getting a dog has been a major goal for Agnarr as a character. I’ve previously talked about how other milestones in this quest including important character crucibles that permanently reshaped the course of Agnarr’s life (and the entire campaign).

When I was designing the Laboratory of the Beast and included the dog-soon-to-be-known-as-Seeaeti, I did suspect that this particular hound might become Agnarr’s. In fact, would I have included the slumbering dog if Agnarr hadn’t been looking for a dog? Maybe not (leaning towards probably not).

(At the table, though, there was a moment when I thought Tee was going to kill the dog before Agnarr even had a chance to see it. Given my previous comment about a thirteen year shibboleth, it’s really weird to think about that alternate reality.)

Later in the session, the group runs into an undead dog and Ranthir uses a spell to enslave it. For awhile there, it actually looked like this dog would also become a permanent addition to the group, but (as you can see here) it ended up getting destroyed instead.

Ranthir, of course, did not have a long-standing goal to get a dog and the ghulworg skeleton wasn’t something that I had anticipated becoming a “hireling.” So you can kind of see both sides of the coin here: Elements that we bring into the narrative because they’re long-standing goals of the players/their characters and elements that emerge out of the narrative.

We saw a third sign of this coin (thus irreparably rupturing our metaphor) earlier in this session, when Tee reached out to the Dreaming Apothecary and arranged to purchase a magical item that she particularly wanted. (With the twist that rather than just getting the magical lockpicks she wanted, the Dreaming Apothecary delivering a cool lockpicking ring.)

A few years ago there was a big folderol about magic item wish lists. I’m not actually sure what specifically prompted this advice fad, but it seems to have faded away a bit, along with the controversy that surrounded it.

Basically, the advice was that players should prep a wish list of the magic items (and other stuff) that they wanted for their characters and give it to their DM so that the DM could then incorporate that stuff into the campaign.

The controversy arose because many felt that this pierced the veil and ruined immersion, “Oh! I’ve always wanted a +1 flaming ghost touch dire maul! It’s so wonderful that we just coincidentally found it in this pile of treasure!” It also reeked of a sense of privilege and laziness: “Here’s my shopping list, Ms. Dungeon Master, please have it delivered to me as soon as possible!”

Personally, I think the controversy mostly misses the point.

First, one simply has to acknowledge that many people are playing in linear and/or railroaded campaigns. I can talk endlessly about why that’s a bad idea and that there are better ways to run your campaign, but unfortunately that’s still not true for a lot of people. Probably most people. And when a GM runs a linear/railroaded campaign, one of the many problems they create for themselves is a massive responsibility for everything that happens in the game: Since the players don’t have any meaningful control over what happens, the GM needs to ensure that every challenge is correctly balanced; that everyone has the appropriate spotlight time; and on and on and on and on.

Within that broken paradigm, for better or for worse, the magic item wish list provides the players with a method for communicating their desires as players, and it’s also useful to the GM who has, unfortunately, made themselves completely responsible for everything that goes into the game (particularly if they’re not using random methods for stocking treasure). It’s good for everybody involved. It’s good advice.

But, in my opinion, the magic item wish list has utility even beyond that linear/railroaded paradigm. It’s really just a specific subset of the wider concept of players clearly communicating what their goals (and the goals of their characters) are. That expression can be done diegetically, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it being directly communicated in the metagame (via a character’s background, a frank discussion, a wish list, or whatever). And although I’ve seen some who feel that it’s not “realistic” for a fantasy hero to say, “I really need some magic lockpicks!” I just don’t see it that way. They live in a world filled with magic and they use that magic in their daily lives to accomplish their goals. It’s no different than me trying to figure out what tripod I need for my teleprompter.

Here’s the key thing, though: The perception is that the magic item wish list makes the players passive; that by expressing their desire to the GM, it automatically follows that they’re just going to sit back and wait for the GM to deliver what they want without making any effort on their own part.

In my experience, this isn’t really the case. With a “wish list” in hand, there are still three core techniques for how it can be fulfilled:

• The players can take initiative. (Tee ordering her magic lockpicks. Or Agnarr’s earlier efforts in the campaign to find a stray dog.)
• The GM can seed their goals into their adventure prep. (Putting a sleeping dog into Ghul’s Labyrinth, which the PCs are exploring for reasons that have nothing to do with the dog.)
• The GM can seed the opportunity to achieve their goals into the campaign world. (For example, by having them hear a rumor in a local tavern that the legendary +1 flaming ghost touch dire maul of Leeandra the Nether Brute might lie within the Tomb of Sagrathea.)

Understanding what the goals of your players and their characters are will allow you to use the full plethora of these techniques to enrich the campaign. Achieving that understanding can come in a number of different ways, whether it’s a wish list, a character background, session post mortems, or diegetically framed campfire chats.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 25A – Running the Campaign: Re-Skinning
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 24D: THE SECOND HOUND OF GHUL

June 21st, 2008
The 12th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

A few minutes later, the dog was following Agnarr and the others down the hall towards the far side of the first level. (After a brief discussion they had decided to break through the crudely blockaded hallway they had discovered near the fountain decorated with the statues of three strange-looking hounds, and thus finish their explorations of this upper level.) Agnarr was busily trying out different names for his new dog.

With a wry grin and a wink at Ranthir, Tee said, “What about an elvish name?”

“I’d like that!” Agnarr said.

“Well, C-A-T is the elvish word for ‘faithful companion’.”

And Agnarr promptly named his dog Seeaeti.

The blockade was formed from large chunks of rock, furniture, shelving, and the like. It had all been stacked in a great, jumbled heap – completely blocking the corridor and clearly designed to either keep something out… or keep it in.

Looking at it again, a fresh debate arose about whether this was a good idea. But, ultimately, their desire to completely explore every nook and cranny of the complex decided the issue for them.

It took Agnarr and Tor, working together, the better part of an hour to clear a crawlspace. After considering its narrow expanse – and thinking back to the disastrous rope-induced bottleneck in Morbion’s oozy lair – they spent another hour widening it so that two of them could go through it together (which would hopefully speed any necessary retreat).

Tee was the first one to crawl through. As she emerged into the hall beyond, she suddenly became very aware of the dim light pouring through the narrow opening behind her… and the dark, impenetrable shadows that lay beyond its reach.

Agnarr squeezed through behind her, and his flaming sword extended the light’s reach, but Tee was already moving down a side corridor that lay almost immediately to her left. (She wanted to make sure that any side chambers had been cleared before they pushed down the length of the main hall.)

The corridor emptied into a small, empty room. Another narrow hallway left this room and paralleled the main hall that she had left behind. There were tiny pieces of debris scattered thickly across the floor.

Tee stooped low. Tor was coming up the hall behind her now, and by the light of the torch that he carried she realized that she was looking at fragments of furniture and other fixtures… all smashed almost to the point where they had become indistinguishable.

She straightened suddenly and whirled, looking down the length of the second hall: Something had moved down there, just at the limit of her elven sight and heading towards the main corridor. Something large.

Back at the crawlspace, Seeaeti began to growl – his hackles rising even higher and his long neck bunching tautly. Elestra, just pulling herself through the barricade, hissed at Agnarr to keep the dog quiet. But all of Agnarr’s focus had followed the hound’s. His grip tightened on the hilt of his longsword as his gaze attempted to pierce the shadowy depths of the corridor.

Tee, meanwhile, had motioned Tor to silence and headed back down the side passage towards the others. But she had barely opened her mouth to whisper what she had seen than her head whipped around: A heavy, tapping, clacking noise had echoed ever-so-softly and ever-so-distinctly down the hall.

Everyone fell silent. Impossibly, the shadows seemed to deepen. And then, out of the darkness, the second hound of Ghul appeared: It was a bony, undead thing. At its shoulder, it stood nearly twice as tall as Agnarr. Four interlocking, razor-sharp sabered fangs punctuated a jaw of jagged teeth. Its claws were nearly as large. Its bones were thick and at the end of a long, sinuous tail was a bulbous ball of bone twice the size of a grown man’s skull.

“By the gods…” Elestra murmured, utterly taken aback.

With a roar, Agnarr charged. But the hound’s tail lashed out and the bulb of bone smashed into his side, hurling him into the wall. With a groan, Agnarr slid to a crouch on the floor, trying to find his bearings.

Tee and Tor came running around the corner, skidding to a halt at the sight of the skeletal hound. Elestra fumbled for her crossbow. But the creature was drawing closer to Agnarr now; its maw gaping wide; its fangs reaching out for the throat of the staggering barbarian—

“STOP!”

They all turned to look at Ranthir – perched halfway through the crawlspace with one hand stretched out towards the skeletal hound… which had now frozen in mid-stride. There was a moment of perfect silence, and then Ranthir lowered his hand and scrambled the rest of the way out of the crawlspace.

While the others watched with some mixture of amazement, confusion, and bemusement, Ranthir walked down the length of the hall and stopped near the creature, examining it closely. “Hmm… Interesting!”

“What did you do?” Elestra asked.

“Hmm?” Ranthir turned to look at them. “Oh! Well, it’s a rather simple necromantic creation. It’s mindless… or nearly so, at any rate. So I simply took control of its ley lacings and—”

“What is it?”

“It’s the skeleton of a ghulworg. Or, at least, I think it is. They have long been thought to be either extinct or legendary. They were either related to the worgs, created from worgs, or the ancestors of modern worgs… the lineage is rather confused. If this creature were still living, the blood in its veins would be boiling hot – protecting it from fire and making it immune to cold. It is even said that the blood could scald attackers who were foolish enough to attack it. But if you look here–” Ranthir gestured lightly and the ghulworg skeleton snapped its jaws shut and lowered its head to him. “You can see that it’s bones have been laced with adamantine. That could only have been done after death.”

RAMPAGING THROUGH THE LABYRINTH

“We should kill it now!” Elestra said.

“Wait a minute,” Tee said with a thoughtful look. “Let’s not be hasty. How long can you keep this thing under control, Ranthir?”

“At least a day,” Ranthir said. “And I could always prepare the same spell again tomorrow.”

“So you could keep it under your control indefinitely?”

Ranthir nodded.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Dominic said, eyeing the ghulworg warily.

They thought it was a great idea.

Just down the hall there was a door that even Agnarr’s stout shoulder couldn’t open. They had the ghulworg smash it open. Inside they discovered nearly a half dozen orc corpses and the half-rotted remains of a barricade.

“They must have locked themselves in here to escape the ghulworg,” Agnarr said, moving between the skeletal remains with his sword drawn.

When the undead orcs began to rise up from the floor a few moments later, they beat a hasty retreat and sent the ghulworg in to smash them to sepulchral dust.

Around the corner they found a large room filled with a shallow pool of blackish, brackish liquid. After a brief examination, Ranthir determined the liquid was the diluted remains of necromantic fluid. Although the pool still radiated with the faint traces of necromantic energy – and would have once been a powerful tool for creating undead – it was now no more than a curiosity.

There was a side-chamber overlooking the pool which proved of little interest, but everyone’s attention was immediately arrested when Tee discovered a secret passage leading away from the pool room.

The ghulworg was barely able to squeeze into the passage, but with Tee and Ranthir leading the way it followed loyally behind.

Halfway down the passage, they found the broken remains of a black centurion hanging from its rack of machinery. The centurion didn’t stir at Tee’s approach, but they all had dark memories of their last encounter with these constructs. Just to be safe, they used the ghulworg to batter it to pieces.

The far end of the passage ended in what appeared to be the back side of another secret door… but Tee wasn’t able to figure out any way of opening it. With a shrug, she had Ranthir bring the ghulworg forward and smash through it.

The door opened into the chamber where, a couple weeks earlier, they had discovered a chamber rigged with dozens of arrows that fired automatically. They had been somewhat puzzled to discover that the arrows would strike everything in the chamber except the person who had triggered the trap, but now Tee was able to unravel the mystery: One of the arrows was designed to hang loosely out of the wall and pulling that arrow would have opened the secret door. She theorized that the trap must have been built as an escape route: Someone fleeing down the hallway could trigger the trap, kill their most immediate pursuers, and then escape through the secret door.

“Does anyone else find it disturbing that someone felt there was a serious chance they might need to run away?” Tor asked.

“Given what I’ve seen, I want to run away,” Elestra said.

Ranthir had the ghulworg squeeze his way out into the hallway and the rest of them circled up to discuss their next option. They briefly considered the idea of taking the ghulworg down to the lower level and using it to smash open the sealed vault. (“And then we could take it and smash open the Hammersong Vaults!” Elestra joked.) But they eventually decided it was too risky… the ghulworg might be destroyed by the lightning rods!

Instead they returned to the construct laboratories on the second level and used the ghulworg to haul up the heavy loot they had been forced to leave behind – the adamantine-edged Drill of the Banewarrens; the workshop tools; and the construct elements.

They stacked all of this material just inside the bluesteel door leading back to the bloodwight complex. (If nothing else, Tee was more comfortable with the idea of having hired laborers potentially lugging it up to the surface from there, rather than trying to lead them deeper into the dangerous and unpredictable complex.)

Although the ghulworg had made moving the material possible, all of them had taken part in the labor one way or another and now they were beginning to feel their exhaustion. They discussed returning to the surface, but Elestra thought she might have a better option: Turning to the nearest wall she sung softly under her voice, calling on the Spirit of the City to open one of the hidden ways to her.

The bricks of the wall turned upon themselves and twisted back to form an open arch. Beyond the arch there lay a circular chamber of worn stone, furnished with a variety of couches and chairs in the center of the room and curtain-veiled beds around its circumference.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Magic Item Wish Lists – Campaign Journal: Session 25A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index