DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 34B: Webs of Ambush and Betrayal

Tor, scarcely slowed by the lightning that had seared him, reached the spider-like creature. He cut a gash along its other side, causing it to cry out. “Gavele! Help me!”

Gavele shook her head. “You’re on your own Ibulli!” She slammed the door shut – thwarting Tee, who had just bounded back to her feet once again.

“Damn you, bell bitch!” The spider-thing skittered up the wall of the tower.

In most RPGs, the players form a team that works together to overcome the challenges that the game world presents to them. The world, of course, is created, controlled, and played by the GM.

This means, of course, that there’s a fundamental opposition between the players and the GM at the table. Yes, the GM is also acting as a neutral arbiter. And, yes, there are other layers of interaction in which the GM and the players are all cooperating towards a common end.

But this doesn’t mean that the opposition doesn’t exist. It just means that, like a high-grade steel, it is tempered and alloyed.

Of course, when the opposition is NOT tempered and kept in balance, all kinds of bad stuff can happen at the table.

One of the most dramatic examples of this is the antagonistic GM or killer GM, who believes their job is to crush, mangle, and destroy the PCs in the name of “challenging” them. This doesn’t work, of course, because the GM controls the world, making it trivial for them to destroy the PCs if that’s their goal.

But there are subtler traps that this fundamental opposition can trick us into as a GM.

For example, it’s quite easy to accidentally transition from GM vs. players to world vs. players.

But the game world, of course, should be more fractured and complicated than that. All of your NPCs may have their actions masterminded by a single puppeteer, but they don’t know that!

I’ve previously talked about how you can place your PCs into a nest of friendly factions, but you can get equally interesting play by making sure your enemies are factionalized, too. (And the difference between friend and foe, of course, may be anything but clear.)

Having enemy factions working against each other can provide a rich engine for generating new scenarios in your campaign. For example, think about how a police force needs to respond to a gang war. Or the opportunities for created for shadowrunners during a hostile corporate takeover. Or the infinite skullduggeries unleashed during a political campaign.

The friction between factions also provides all kinds of grist for the roleplaying mills, as can be seen in the interaction between Gavele and Ibulli above. PCs can obviously also be drawn into these interactions, whether to choose a side, negotiate a peace, or simply try to weather the storm.

Even better, PCs who learn about these divisions and rivalries will have the opportunity to take advantage of them! Dominic, for example, does so in a rather blunt (but nonetheless effective) fashion:

The charge came close to routing them, but then a ratling and a ratbrute emerged from the building. The ratbrute was unslinging a greatsword of leviathan proportions while the ratling lowered another of the dilapidated dragon rifles and—

“Two hundred gold pieces for each of you if you attack the dwarf instead!” Dominic was still struggling in the goopy web, but he shouted out the offer in a voice laced with sincerity.

The ratling hesitated. Then he turned to his companion with a sly grin. “I never liked that dwarf anyway.”

The ratling started to lower his rifle and turned back towards the building.

“TRAITOR!” the ratbrute cried in a thick, lumbering voice. It brought its greatsword crashing down towards the smaller ratling, who barely managed to turn the skull-crushing blow into a merely laming shoulder wound.

The ratling stumbled back, shooting at the ratbrute with his rifle. The shot went wild, but a second shot – coming from the interior of the building – struck the ratbrute in the chest. The stench of burning rat fur filled the air.

As can also be seen directly in this session, adding faction-based play to a dungeon can deeply enrich the experience, adding whole new dimensions to your scenario.

Along these lines, you may also want to check out Keep on the Borderlands: Factions in the Dungeon.

Campaign Journal: Session 34C – Running the Campaign: Ornate Chokepoints
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 34B: WEBS OF AMBUSH AND BETRAYAL

January 5th, 2009
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

A hideous, spider-like creature with a human-like head and face dropped onto the floor next to Agnarr. It landed softly on its skittering legs, then raised its front claws and sent a bolt of lightning lancing across the cavern – scorching Tor and Dominic, who had just begun to charge across the cavern.

The creature turned back towards Agnarr, but it had underestimated the barbarian’s speed. Agnarr’s greatsword opened a gash along one side of the creature.

Tee, recovering from the enchantment that had been laid on her, stood up—

And the door behind her was swung open. Before she had a chance to turn, a sword sliced painfully into her side and sent her spinning to the floor in pain. Turning she saw Gavele – the cultist she had seen breaking up the fracas over Reggaloch’s corpse – pulling back her blade with a grim smile.

Tor, scarcely slowed by the lightning that had seared him, reached the spider-like creature. He cut a gash along its other side, causing it to cry out. “Gavele! Help me!”

Gavele shook her head. “You’re on your own Ibulli!” She slammed the door shut – thwarting Tee, who had just bounded back to her feet once again.

“Damn you, bell bitch!” The spider-thing skittered up the wall of the tower.

Tee activated her magical boots and began floating up in pursuit, but Ibulli – seeing her – shot a gob of web at her, pinning her to the wall. A few moments later, Ibulli slipped away through a hole near the ceiling of the cavern and disappeared into the tower.

THROUGH THE TOWER

Meanwhile, below, Tor threw himself against the tower door and burst it open. The inside of the tower was bereft of interior walls with a floor of sandy, hard-packed dirt. A broken staircase wound its way around the inner wall of the tower, up to a trapdoor in the ceiling above.

By the time Tor burst in, Gavele had already crossed the entire tower (with seemingly preternatural speed). Tor and Agnarr raced to catch her, but she managed to wrench open the far door, slip through it, and slam it shut behind her.

But only a moment after the door was shut, Angarr was at it. Seizing the heavy metal ring, Agnarr ripped it open. Gavele – who had been trying to hold it shut while slipping a key into the lock – was wrenched off her feet. Tor, who was only half a stride behind Agnarr, cut her down where she stood.

Tor positioned himself in the open door, keeping a watchful eye on the large chamber beyond. This chamber had seemingly been formed by excavating the space between the tower and another ancient building. The excavation was incomplete, however, with only part of the lower building exposed from the wall. Several passages led away from the chamber – two to the north and one to the south. Flanking one of the northern passages were two statues carved to look like humans in robes but with translucent, smoky grey glass spheres in place of heads.

Everything within seemed still and quiet.

While Tor kept watch, Agnarr went back to help Tee. Stuck as she was, she had managed to get a rope out of her pouch, tie it around her waist, and drop it down to the floor below. Agnarr was able to climb up this and used his flaming sword to burn her free (giving her a little pain here and there as he did).

THRALLS & QUASITS

Once the web was burned away, it was an easy matter for Tee to safely levitate both of them back to the cavern floor below. They joined the rest of the group in the tower.

Before they had a chance to plan their next move, however, two venom-shaped thralls leapt from the roof of the partially excavated building and landed on the ground about twenty feet away. These were large, more muscular, and less recognizably human than their brethren above – clearly suffering from a more advanced form of the askara-induced mutations, which seemed to continue apace even after the victims had emerged from their cocoons.

Tor rapidly backpedaled through the door and slammed it shut.

“Agnarr!”

Agnarr quickly crossed the tower to Tor’s side.

And at that moment, Agnarr and Tor were suddenly filled with a supernatural terror. Agnarr managed to shake it off, but Tor – with a horrible scream – ripped open the door again and ran through it.

The thralls, perhaps surprised at the sudden going-and-coming, swung wildly at Tor ran past them and missed as he fled down an excavated tunnel to the northeast.

A high-pitched, cackling laugh filled the tower. Whirling to see its source, the others spotted two small, winged demons sitting on the staircase.

These quasits were laughing almost helplessly at the sight of Tor’s flight, and Agnarr – with a single bounding leap across the tower – cut one of them down before it had a chance to react. Tee took a shot at the other, blasting a large hole in its wing.

Whirling hate-filled eyes towards her, the quasit gave a sibilant hiss of pain and rage… and vanished.

Tor, meanwhile, had disappeared from sight. It was impossible to follow him, because the venom-shaped thralls were closing rapidly on the open door.

Agnarr stepped into the breach… and things turned frenetic. Blows of fang and claw came quicker than the eyes of the others could follow, but Agnarr turned each of them – deflecting some, absorbing others with cunning angling of his body and armor.

And then the seemingly impossible began to happen: Agnarr was driving them back, using their long reach against them by repeatedly stepping in close to their bodies.

Once there was enough of a gap, Seeaeti slipped around the thralls and, with the dog nipping at their heels, Agnarr was able to start landing some blows of his own. The others prepared to follow his lead through the door and engage.

THE RETURN OF IBULLI

But just as the tide was turning, a beam of purplish-black energy struck Agnarr in the back and the strength drained from his limbs. Ibulli had returned – slipping through the trapdoor at the top of the tower.

While Agnarr continued to hold the line against the thralls, the others – still within the tower – fell into a confused response. Tee fired, sending the spider-thing skittering across the ceiling. Ranthir backed away, but prepared to counter any more spells it might attempt. Dominic shouted out a warning to Agnarr.

Elestra raised her dragon rifle… and got a face full of web. Tee moved to assist her and found herself, once again, webbed in place.

The thralls, meanwhile, had become weary of Seeaeti hounding them and one of them turned towards the dog. Agnarr was out of position to defend him and he could only shout in outrage and concern as Seeaeti’s back was ripped to shreds. With a whimpering whine, Seeaeti twisted away from the thrall.

Dominic, hearing the hound’s howl, darted through the door. At the touch of his wand, the wounds on Seeaeti’s back slowly knit themselves back together. Seeaeti happily bounded back to his feet, turned towards Dominic, and licked him happily on the face.

THE RETURN OF THE QUASITS

Elestra started cutting her way out of the web. She’d only managed to free one arm, however, when the surviving quasit reappeared behind her. It clawed its way up her legs and back, leaving a trail of bloody puncture wounds that burned with a painful venom, before burying its fang-like teeth in the back of her neck.

Elestra cut at it futilely with her rapier, but it leapt away and – chittering with malevolent laughter – vanished again.

Dominic was still wiping Seeaeti’s slobber from his face when he heard Elestra cry out. He ran back into the tower. But, as he passed through the door, he, too, found himself stuck fast – another victim of Ibulli’s web.

Elestra was trying to finish cutting herself free, but the pain spreading from the quasit-inflicted wounds was growing more intense. The wounds themselves were rapidly inflaming with an intense, searing heat, but there was also a chilling shake spreading through her muscles. It was poison.

TOR TURNS AROUND

In his flight, Tor had emerged from the first passage into a roughly circular chamber. Into this chamber an underground stream flowed, pouring down into a large circular pit in the center of the chamber. He passed through this chamber and down another passage, finally coming to a stop – as his mind cleared – a short distance from an iron door.

Cursing loudly he turned and ran back towards the fight.

Running the Campaign: Faction v. Faction – Campaign Journal: Session 34C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Table of Contents

Looking over our options, it’s clear that there are A LOT of different directions the end of our campaign could go. Trying to come to grips with this myriad complexity — particularly if we tried to imagine doing so as a set of linear or branching paths — may feel like a daunting or even impossible task.

But we have a couple of advantages in our favor.

First, we don’t need to fully commit to anything specific until we know a lot more about what the specific group of PCs in our campaign is going to do: Are they going to ally with the Harpers and hunt giants? Ally with the storm giants and squash the many-headed giant rebellions? Lead a draconic crusade? We don’t need to worry about all the details of the stuff they don’t do; we just need to focus on the fallout from the actions they actually take.

Second, we don’t need to prep this stuff as linear plots. In fact, we definitely don’t want to do that. In a campaign as wide-open and far-flung as Storm King’s Thunder, that would lead us down a maddening and almost inconceivable rabbit hole of hopeless contingency-planning. On the other hand, we also don’t want to just leave the entire end of the campaign a blank tabula rasa with the hope that it will all magically work itself out.

Instead, what we want to do is prep the situation, creating a set of toys that will let us flexibly respond to whatever path the PCs choose to take (even if it’s a completely unexpected one that they forge for themselves). To do this, let’s step back and take a broad look at all the options we’ve considered for the final act of the campaign and identify the core mechanisms used in our imagined paths.

DESTROY THE THREAT

• The PCs will wage war against the giants, smashing their strongholds.
• To do this, they will need to form alliances that can help them defeat the giants.

PATH OF CONQUEST

• The PCs will form an alliance with a giant faction.
• The PCs will help them wage war against the other giant clans.

A DRACONIC CRUSADE

• The PCs will form an alliance with a giant faction.
• The PCs will help them wage war on the dragons.

LEAD THE FUTURE

• Likely after beginning to follow one of the paths above, the PCs will gather allies, forming a faction that will eventually rule the new Ordning.

Broken down like this, it’s immediately obvious that there’s a common structure here, and also what that structure needs:

• Details on the various factions in the campaign, along with a structure by which the PCs can forge alliances with the factions.
• A structure for waging war, allowing us to pit these factions against each other.

This is our toolkit, and if we set it up properly then these tools will allow us to easily and actively respond to whatever the PCs do, no matter what path they decide to take.

Go to Part 5D: Making Alliances

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 34A: In the Dust of the Old City

You can assure Reggaloch that additional slaves will be sent to him within the week. We have become very interested to discover what our Brothers of Venom are doing that requires such a constant flow of common flock. We have asked Illadras, but she has told us not to concern ourselves with it. Be cautious, but discover what you can.

Urnest

Sauron and Saruman.

The similarity in their names — and the confusion it’s engendered in generations of book-readers and film-watchers — is often held up as a cautionary tale to writers: If character names are too similar to each other, it will make it difficult for your readers to differentiate them.

In the specific case of Sauron and Saruman, the confusion was so feared that, infamously, Saruman’s name was changed to Aruman in Ralph Bakshi’s animated version of The Lord of the Rings.

The questionable wisdom of Bakshi’s decision aside, this is nevertheless advice also well-heeded by GMs.

This confusion of names is actually something I ran afoul of in this session. In brief:

• Urnst is the name of the Commissar who rules the city of Ptolus.
• Urnest is the name of a chaos cultist based out of the Temple of the Rat God.

So when my players encountered this note from Urnest, the entire group was suddenly filled with dread: Oh, no! The Commissar is in league with the cultists!

… and this was despite the fact that they’d already made this mistake once before.

In that older installment of Running the Campaign, I talked about how and why you can maneuver your way out of that situation, but I wanted to approach it from a slightly different angle today: While acknowledging the logistical challenges that can be created by similar names, why would you want to nevertheless have similar names?

First, if you’re dealing with a sufficiently large cast of characters (which is not unusual in a long-running RPG campaign), it can simply be a matter of necessity. For example, you’ll sometimes hear the Sauron/Saruman rule given as, “You should never have two character names with the same first letter.”

Except that would mean never including more than twenty-six characters, and then only if you’re willing to include some exotic X’s and Z’s and the like. (Although this is quite a bit easier in your typical fantasy fare.)

Second, there could by any number of practical reasons for doing so. Tolkien, for example, may have chosen the names deliberately for their similarity and the thematic resonance it would have in the book. Or, because the names were ultimately derived from the languages he had created from Middle Earth, the linguistic world-building may have been the most important factor for him. (He never commented on this issue, so we don’t really know if it ever occurred to him.)

Similarly, in the Ptolus sourcebook there are two more characters named Urnst: Vladimir and Taltos Urnst are alchemists operating a shop in the Undercity. Unlike Urnest, however, the similarity of their names to Commissar Igor Urnst is not a coincidence, as they “claim to be distant cousins of the Commissar…”

When you have similarly named characters, though, there are a few things you can do to help your players (and maybe even yourself) keep things straight:

• Keep the characters in different spheres of the campaign from each other — different locations or different factions, for example.
• Is there a different name that they could be referred to? (A first name or nickname, for example.)
• Give one or more of the characters a title (Lord, Chancellor, Empress) and use it consistently to distinguish the characters.
• Provide context reminders to help nudge your players’ memory (e.g., “Tessa, who you meet at the tavern last week…”).

Some of these tips are a good idea even if the character’s name ISN’T similar to anyone else!

Campaign Journal: Session 34B – Running the Campaign: TBD
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index