SESSION 36A: THE KNIGHTING OF TOR

January 24th, 2009
The 19th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Going downstairs, Ranthir discovered that he had overslept – it was now midmorning on the 19^th. Tellith had yet another letter for them, this one having arrived earlier that morning.

NOTE FROM ZAVERE

I have at least some of the information you requested. Attend me at Castle Shard at your leisure.

                                                                                – Zavere

He returned to the others, who were still awaiting his return in the antechamber of the Banewarrens. While Elestra refreshed the alarm spell on the sealed door, they discussed their plans for the day: They gave up on the idea of tracing the teleport (concluding that too much time had passed for a useful pursuit to be raised), but they still needed to follow up on the letters from both Zavere and Mahdoth’s Asylum. And, of course, Tor was to be knighted.

They decided to split up.

THE KNIGHTING OF TOR

The Godskeep

Tor left the others and rode Blue to the Cathedral of Athor. There, at the doors of the church, he was met by Sir Gemmell. From the Cathedral he was taken to the Godskeep and through its double-gates.

A pavilion had been raised in the square north of the Godskeep. Twenty red-sashed members of the Order had been gathered in two flanking ranks, facing a raised dais onto which Gemmell and Tor emerged. The knights raised their swords in salute, and kept them raised.

Atop the western and eastern towers of the Godskeep stood the great statues of Athor the Father and Crissa the Mother. With the knights of the Order saluting him, Tor watched as priests poured holy water across the feet of the twin statues. This water passed down through channels crafted into the bas reliefs upon the northern wall of the Godskeep and caught in vessels of the true silver, mithril.

Into these vessels were first dipped cups of the true gold, taurum, and these were brought forth.

Sir Gemmell gestured for Tor to kneel. “Squire, will you take the oaths?”

“I will.”

Sir Gemmell dipped his fingers into the water touched by the Father and upon Tor’s brow drew the sign of the Knight’s Cross.

May my purpose be governed by the wisdom of Athor, Father of All Things.

Tor repeated the oath as it was said to him.

Sir Gemmell dipped his fingers into the second cup and drew the Arms of the Mother, Crissa’s holy ankh.

May my service be shaped by the compassion of Crissa, Mother of All Things.

The twin vessels of mithril were taken to the statues of the other gods, and some slight amount of it poured over their feet and into similar cups of taurum. And these, too, were brought forth.

The Sword and Chalice…

May my blade be guided by the honor of Itor, Warrior Unparred.

The Daggered Cross…

May my mind be honed by the cunning of Itehl, that my sight never be clouded.

The Wheel of Night…

May my heart be opened by Sarathyn, that my actions be true.

The Wheel of Light…

May my life be blessed by Sayl, that my service may be long.

The Crescent Moon…

May my soul be resonant with the touch of Tohlen, that my works may nurture.

The Eye of the Veil…

May my fate be true to the will of Bahl, that I take no life in vain.

And in this way, Tor did service upon the Eight Stations and swore the Eight Oaths. The gathered knights lowered their blades and Sir Gemmell laid his own blade upon Tor’s shoulders.

“Rise, Sir Torland.”

A procession was then formed, led by the priests and followed by Sir Gemmell and Sir Tor. They passed through the gates of the Godskeep and then into the inner passages. Tor was guided by a secret way into the basement of the keep itself, and there taken to a chamber where the Statue of Vehthyl stood.

Here the last of the water from the cups of mithril were washed across the feet of Vehthyl and into a final cup of taurum. And from this Tor drank deep.

May I be held worthy in the eyes of silver mastery, that my path may stand as one with those of the Nine Gods and the Church Which Is Their Voice.

And from the wall Sir Gemmell drew down the Sword of the Order and approached Tor to perform the True Knighting.

But as he did, a figure appeared from out of the shadows. “I would be honored if you would allow me to finish this ceremony, Sir Gemmell.”

It was Rehobath. Sir Gemmell yielded the sword to him, and Rehobath placed the blade lightly upon Tor’s shoulders.

When Tor had risen once more, Rehobath smiled at him. “Sir Torland, I am glad to see the ranks of the Order so quickly refreshed. The treason of Sir Kabel has hurt us grievously, and it is good to see one of those wounds begin to heal.”

“Thank you, milord.”

“If there is any favor that I might do for you, name it.”

“There is one thing,” Tor said hesitantly. “I would like my daughters to know that I have been knighted. If word could be sent to them…”

“I will see to it.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, I know that both you and the Chosen of Vehthyl are busy about the business of the Church. And so I shall let you return to it.”

Rehobath left. And after Sir Gemmell and several of the other knights assembled had given him their own congratulations, Tor left as well.

THE THIRD LORD OF CASTLE SHARD

The others, meanwhile, had headed up to Castle Shard. Kadmus, of course, was waiting for them at the end of the drawbridge when they arrived. As they passed through the entry hall, they saw that the bas reliefs had changed once again. They now depicted, on one side, squat figures bearing a heavy boulder and, on the opposite side, winged figures chained to a boulder by chains.

“That’s ominous,” Tee said.

But Lord Zavere greeted them with his familiar smile.

“Have you had any luck questioning Tavan Zith?” Tee asked.

“No,” Zavere said. “He remains quite mad. And uncooperative.”

But Zavere had looked through the archives of the Castle for information on the Banewarrens. Like Jevicca, he told them about Alchestrin, who had once been the Third Lord of Castle Shard. “He became obsessed with the hidden secrets of the Spire and bent all the power of the Shard towards discovering its secrets.

“Unfortunately,” Zavere went on to say, “Most of the actual lorebooks and artifacts he collected are missing from the archives. It’s possible, given the… poor circumstances under which he left the Castle, that he took these resources with him.

“I know little of Alchestrin’s fate after he left the Castle. But I do know that his tomb is located in the Necropolis, somewhere on Darklock Hill. It’s reputedly a rather large complex, but I have no record of where it might lie precisely. However, it would have been marked with Alchestrin’s sigil.”

Running the Campaign: Using Rituals – Campaign Journal: Session 36B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 35C: Ambush in the Banewarrens

“My friends! To arms! To arms!”

“There’s something wrong!” Tee took off running down the hall.

Agnarr and the freshly boot-enhanced Tor both passed her easily in the race out of the Banewarrens. Coming back up the tunnel leading to the antechamber, however, they came up short in front of a wall of seemingly impenetrable darkness. A few moments later, the others caught up to them. Even Tee’s elven vision couldn’t penetrate its unnatural depths. And everything beyond it was eerily silent.

Then Tee heard heavy footsteps approaching them from out of the darkness… but as those footsteps emerged into the passage, there was still nothing to be seen. Tee whipped her dragon pistol up and fired.

The shot missed.

I’ve previously discussed prepping scenario timelines. The short version is that when you have an evolving situation in your campaign and you’re not sure exactly when the PCs will re-engage with it, the best way to prep that situation is often a timeline of upcoming events — e.g., on the 18^th the bad guys will rebuild the south wall; on the 19^th the bad guys will hire mercenaries to reinforce the compound; on the 20^th they’ll hire an assassin to hunt down the PCs; etc.

When the events from this timeline would directly intersect the PCs, I’ll copy the appropriate entry into the Events section of my campaign status document.

Which leads us to the current installment of the campaign journal.

As I mentioned last week in Running the Campaign: Weaving the Background, the events described in this installment of the campaign journal are being driven by this Event:

09/18/790 (11 PM): GQT2 comes to Nibeck Street mansion. (BW Status)

To decode that a bit:

• GQT2 stands for Grail Quest Team 2. The grail quest teams are dispatched by the Pactlords of the Quaan to find the Black Grail (which they believe lies within the Banewarrens). After the PCs wiped out GQT1, the Pactlords assembled a second team to send in.
• BW Status means “Banewarrens Status.” This is a cross-reference to another section of the campaign status document where I’ve collected all of the Banewarrens-related updates, events, etc. (In addition to the GQT2 material in this section, at this time there were also sub-sections tracking the Malignant Crystal, Umber Hulk, and Thought Stalker.)

So this entry is:

1. Letting me know that something is happening in the campaign world that might be immediately significant to the PCs. (Because (a) they have an alarm spell in the Banewarrens and/or (b) they might be in the Nibeck Street mansion, Kalerecent’s cave, or the Banewarrens themselves and directly interact with the Pactlords.)
2. That there’s additional details about this event that I should reference in “BW Status.”

And if we flip over to “BW Status,” here’s the full entry on the GQT2:

GQT2:

9/18/790 (5 AM): [SPOILER] arranges for Kularas’ escape. Kularas returns to the Belfry.

09/18/790 (11 PM): The GQT2 + Kularas goes to the Nibeck Mansion and scouts carefully, trying to determine if the PCs are present.

• If they are, they’ll pull back to the mansion and lay an ambush (which they’ll flee from quickly if it appears to be going badly). If forced to abandon the ambush, they’ll put a watch on the mansion and then go in when the PCs are known to have left.
• If they aren’t, they all attack Kalerecent and move into the Broken Seal area. They’ll stay in the Broken Seal area until late on 9/19/790, trying to figure out some way through the Sealed Door. They’ll check back every two days until 9/29/790, when they’ll return with another wish spell to open the door (which they’ll go through, knowing that Kikanuile has a ring to get them back out).

If they learn of the Banewarrens’ key from [SPOILER], they’ll start trying to figure out where it might be, too. This will eventually lead them to Alchestrin’s Tomb. (With their resources, they’ll actually know that Alchestrin had the key at one time.)

The last paragraph here are, as you can kind of see, just notes I’ve made about potential future actions of the Pactlords. I haven’t taken time to work these out in detail, however, because I think it’s likely that the PCs will interact with the Pactlords — directly or otherwise — on the 18^th, which will change the direction of everything that comes after. (There’s no sense wasting time prepping a bunch of stuff that will just get thrown away.)

So how do you know how far ahead you should prep? Honestly, that’s as much art as science. You’re partly making a best guess about what the players will want to do. (In this case, I think it’s very likely that they’ll be coming back to the Banewarrens sooner rather than later.) And, if in doubt, you can also be guided by how far you think the PCs could conceivably get in the next session. (It’s incredibly unlikely in the In the Shadow of the Spire campaign, for example, that we’re suddenly going to start rushing through multiple days in a single session, so if I have any doubt about how things might turn out, there’s little reason to push a timeline out more than 1-2 days in advance.)

Ideally, though, you’re looking for the event horizon: The point beyond which you know that you can’t see the outcome.

And this session is a great example of exactly WHY you want to find the event horizon: Because the PCs will inevitably blow up your timeline.

BLOWING UP THE TIMELINE

And that’s OK. The reality is that these timelines are designed to be blown up.

In this case, though, I definitely thought I knew how these events were going to play out: I thought it was actually very unlikely that the PCs would be in the Banewarrens at 11 PM when the GQT2 showed up. In their discussions they’d put a little too much faith in their alarm spell to warn them of trouble while they were looking for the Banewarrens’ key and:

• that alarm wouldn’t warn them if Kalerecent was attacked; and
• I already knew they were actually spending most of their time outside range of the alarm

So I figured the outcome here was pretty inevitable: Kalerecent, the lone guardian of the Banewarrens, would be ambushed by the Pactlords, hopelessly outclassed, and killed. Which would be great, because it would leave the Banewarrens unguarded, allowing all the different factions interested in the Banewarrens or about to become interested in the Banewarrens — the Pactlords, the Vladaams, the Church, etc. — to send in delving teams, transforming the dungeon into a dynamic and ever-evolving landscape that the PCs would find altered every time they returned.

I didn’t know exactly when the PCs would figure out that the Pactlords had killed Kalerecent and breached the Banewarrens again (which is why I positioned the timeline event horizon where I did), but I knew where the campaign was headed.

… except, of course, I didn’t.

Because the players looked over their notes, looked at the map of Ptolus hanging on the wall, and abruptly realized what I had realized: The alarm spell has a 1-mile radius, and the Ghostly Minstrel — where they slept at nights — was just outside the range.

They panicked and assumed they were already too late: The alarm had probably already been triggered, Kalerecent was dead, and who knew what terrible things were happening in the Banewarrens.

And so they immediately decamped to go see how bad things had gotten.

Except I looked at my campaign clock: They’d realized their error literally an hour before the Pactlords returned. So they checked in, saw everything was fine, recast the alarm spell, and then… stood around chatting about things.

As a result, they were just a couple rooms away when the Pactlords ambushed Kalerecent and the PCs were able to drive off the Pactlords and save Kalerecent.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

Looking back on this 150+ sessions later, the impact this had on the campaign is kind of mind-boggling to me.

Not only did Kalerecent not die here, as I had felt so sure he would, he’s still alive today. The PCs arranged for other knights of the Order of the Dawn to join him in his watch, and made sure they had the supplies and resources they needed to keep the Banewarrens sealed.

Rather than a multi-party dynamic dungeon crawl (although there’s still a bit of that), the story of the Banewarrens in my campaign has instead largely been a bloody and inventive siege. (With, if I do say so myself, some incredibly clever play on both sides of the table.)

Not only have the defensive forces grown and multiplied, but the decision to bring in more members of the Order of the Dawn tangled the Banewarrens even more deeply into the politics surrounding the schism of the Church.

Eventually some of these knights would actually become PCs played by a second group of players running in tandem with the original group!

Of course, the alternative to all this would have been for me to simply decree:

The next time the PCs come to the Banewarrens, the Pactlords have killed Kalerecent.

A static, linear, guaranteed outcome.

But, honestly, where’s the fun in that?

Campaign Journal: Session 36A – Running the Campaign: Using Rituals
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Table of Contents

Broadly speaking, there are three different types of factions that the PCs could become allied with: the organizations (which the book refers to as factions), the giants, and/or the dragons.

The core organizations are detailed on p. 12 of Storm King’s Thunder:

• Harpers
• Lords’ Alliance
• Emerald Enclave
• Order of the Gauntlet
• Zhentarim
• Kraken Society

In addition to these factions, it’s not hard to imagine PCs opportunistically forging similar alliances with other groups in the campaign. For example, perhaps they could convince the warriors of Citadel Adbar (SKT, p. 78) to march forth to war once more.

The giants, of course, are the primary antagonists of Storm King’s Thunder:

• Grudd Haug (Hill Giants)
• Deadstone Clef (Stone Giants)
• Svardborg (Frost Giants)
• Ironslag (Fire Giants)
• Lyn Armaal (Cloud Giants)
• Maelstrom (Storm Giants)

Additional giant factions could be added by creating new giant lords, several options for which are also described on page 12 of Storm King’s Thunder. (The PCs might even try to seek out these alternatives to the primarily villainous lords found in the campaign, perhaps as viable alternatives for a Path of Conquest or Draconic Crusade.)

Finally, there are the dragons. These are, of course, the ancient foes of the giants, and at least some of the evil dragons have been conspiring to free Tiamat from her prison and return her to the Material Plane, an act which would end the truce forged at the end of the Thousand Year War.

A number of dragons have already been seeded into Storm King’s Thunder:

• Iymrith (p. 225)
• Claugiyliamatar (p. 95)
• Isendraug & Cryovain (p. 155)
• Klauth (p. 95)
• Arauthator (p. 106) & Areivaturace (p. 92, also Rime of the Frostmaiden, p. 105)
• Red Dragons of Tuern (p. 111)

If you wanted to expand the draconic influence in your campaign, a good resource might be the Wyrms of the North, a column that Ed Greenwood wrote for Dragon Magazine from 1996-99. These columns were collected and updated for D&D 3^rd Edition on Wizards of the Coast’s website from 2001-04, and you can peruse that archive here. This included “By Dragons Ruled and Divided,” an overview of the whole series written by Sean K. Reynolds which originally included this map of dragons’ territories:

Each of these potential types of alliances have important distinctions, and we’ll take a closer look at the details of the specific groups later, but all of these alliances can be handled with some common structures that will make it easier for you to streamline and simplify the juggling of so many complicated, intersecting relationships during your campaign.

RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITY

Since our goal is for the PCs to be able to join — or, at least, ally with — each of our factions, you’ll want to create a recruitment opportunity for each of them. If it’s helpful, you can also think of this more in terms of an introduction to the faction.

This is the big, upfront prep task you have to tackle if you want all of this to work. I would often recommend adhering to the Three Clue Rule when prepping content like this — i.e., seeding three different hooks for each faction into the campaign — but given the number of factions involved in Storm King’s Thunder and the structural function we want them to perform, you can probably get away with just having one recruitment opportunity per faction.

A few things to keep in mind:

• There are a bunch of recruitment opportunities already built into the campaign. (Consider how Darathra’s quest on SKT, p. 60 hooks the PCs up with the Harpers. Or Naxene’s quest on p. 52 leads to the dragons.)
• If a recruitment opportunity is proactive — i.e., it’s an encounter that the PCs could have anywhere in Faerun; or it’s actually aimed at the PCs — then it becomes a lot easier to make sure it reaches the table.
• Once the PCs have started working with a faction, either formally or informally, you can use the antagonism between factions as the opportunity to introduce them to new factions. For example, if the PCs are working for the Zhentarim, maybe a Harper agent targets them.
• On a similar note, don’t be afraid to improvise additional recruitment opportunities that arise naturally from the events of actual play.

When it comes to the giants, in particular, note that the structure of the campaign and the remix have already taken care of this: The hooks are framed in an antagonistic fashion, but there’s nevertheless plenty of material designed to bring the players up to speed on all six giant factions, their goals, and their circumstances.

If you did want to prep some other introductions that would show the less antagonistic side of the giants, that would not be misguided, but in this regard you might get a lot of mileage by looking for opportunities to reincorporate characters like Harshnag or Zephyros.

RELATIONSHIP

The next thing you want for each faction is a way of tracking the PCs’ relationship with them.

There are three broad approaches for doing this.

First, you can make ad hoc rulings. Basically, play it by ear: If the PCs have done something that would seem to piss a faction off, then the faction is pissed off and will take appropriate actions to target or hinder the PCs. If it seems like a faction would feel that the PCs have proven themselves or if the PCs have ingratiated themselves in some way, then the faction will take positive actions towards them.

Second, use a pair of progress clocks: One clock tracking the faction’s Enmity towards the PCs; the other tracking their Favor. (For more info on progress clocks, check out Failure for the Beginning DM, Blades in the Dark, and/or So You Want To Be a Game Master. Progress clock graphics and fonts can be found here.)

I recommend using clocks with 4 segments. You tick a segment of the Favor clock when the PCs’ actions or accomplishments are appealing to the faction. You tick a segment of the Enmity clock when the PCs’ actions oppose the faction’s goals, hurt its members, or otherwise antagonist them. (Note that the PCs don’t necessarily need to be working directly for a faction in order for their factions to gain them Favor with the faction.)

When an Enmity clock fills up, the faction takes a hostile action aimed directly at the PCs and/or their allies. Each time a Favor clock fills up, it unlocks one benefit in a progression:

• Recruit: The organization offers the PC(s) a formal position in their ranks.
• Resource: The faction will respond positively to PC requests for Resources (see below).
• Major Resource: The PCs can request significant resources from the faction (e.g., a large strike force or magic item).
• Leadership: The PCs are given a significant position of leadership within the faction. This presumably isn’t Leader of the Entire Faction, but it likely involves command over other members of the faction and perhaps a voice in the highest counsels of the faction, with access to and the ability to influence the decision-makers.

In other words, when the Favor track fills up for the first time, the faction offers to recruit the PCs. The second time it fills up, the faction will grant access to Resources, and so on.

It is possible to have slots ticked in both a faction’s Enmity and Favor clocks at the same time. If the PCs trip an Enmity clock after having advanced significantly through a faction’s Favor clocks, the “hostile action” is likely akin to busting them back a rank. Mechanically, you might model this by emptying their Favor clock, or even forcing them to restart the previous Favor clock.

Third, you can use a relationship meter. Actions and accomplishments of the PCs that are appealing to the faction will grant them an increase of +1 to +4 points on the meter. Actions that oppose the goal’s of the faction, hurt its members, or otherwise antagonize them will inflict a -2 to -8 penalty. (The disparity is intentional: When you burn your reputation with someone, it’s harder to dig yourself out of the hole.)

In order to gain a faction’s aid (see Resources, below) when using a relationship meter, PCs will need to succeed on social skill checks. Their relationship meter will act as a modifier on these checks, and when setting the DC you should consider:

• The scale and size of the request. (The bigger the ask, the higher the DC.)
• Whether or not the request is consistent with the faction’s ideals and goal. (If the PCs are trying to do something the faction agrees with and wants to do, it should be easier to convince the faction and the DC should go down.)

This means that PCs can succeed at bigger asks if they either (a) choose the appropriate faction to ask, (b) figure out how to convince a faction that the course of action they’re suggesting is a high priority, and/or (c) spend time building a rep and relationship with the faction.

For every 4 negative points, trigger a hostile action (as per the progress clocks described above). When the PCs reach 4 positive points, you’ll probably want to treat that as a trigger for the faction to offer membership to the PCs (if they haven’t already).

Whichever system you choose to use, the ultimate function of tracking Relationship is to know:

• Which factions will be opposed to the PCs and the PCs’ goals.
• Which factions will be willing to ally with the PCs and grant them Resources.

Either way, obviously all of this should be reflected in the narrative and roleplaying of the game: It shouldn’t just be numbers ticking up on a tracker.

Note: The relationship meter is quite similar to the Renown system from the Dungeon Master’s Guide (p. 22). The Renown system, however, comes with a curious mix of vagueness and specificity that creates a lot of baggage which, in my opinion, makes it a poor fit for Storm King’s Thunder. It also lacks the ability to track negative relationships with a faction. If you’d prefer to use the Renown system, you certainly can. Alternatively, you can just use the relationship meter described above and refer to it as Renown if you find that convenient.

RESOURCES

Remember that the structural goal of forming alliances with various factions in Storm King’s Thunder will generally be to gain the resources necessary to wage war against the giants and/or dragons. (In practice, of course, there’ll be lots of other reasons for doing this, ranging from the personal to the idealistic.)

Broadly speaking, we’re going to think of the resources a faction can provide as being divided between minor resources and major resources. (The latter obviously being more difficult to obtain than the former.) Minor resources give the PCs a benefit from forming alliances early in the campaign, while major resources will generally be the stuff that fuels the endgame of the campaign.

Equipment: Minor equipment likely includes any mundane, personal items. (Within reason, and the PCs may also need to justify their need.) Major equipment could include an expensive vehicle (e.g., a ship) or magic item. The faction is likely to consider such items to be on “loan” to the PCs, and are unlikely to grant more than one such item per PC.

Strike Force: As a major resource, the PCs can obtain a small strike force (perhaps 4-6 level-appropriate NPCs; or, alternatively, a large number of less powerful NPCs). A minor equivalent of this might be a single guide or some minor hirelings to accompany the PCs.

Run a Mission: If the PCs need something done (presumably because they’re busy doing something else), a faction may be able to run that mission for them as a major favor. (This mission might be resolved completely off screen using whatever method seems appropriate to you. Alternatively, you could do a spin-off one-shot where the players take on the roles of the NPCs. Or maybe other players you know could run the mission for them!)

Provide Intel: Factions can often provide vital intel to the PCs. Sometimes these will serve as scenario hooks (in which case, the PCs may not need to actually ask for the favor). In other cases, the PCs may need some vital piece of information — e.g., the floorplans of a location they’re planning to target with a heist. (“Many Bothans died to bring us this information…”)

GOALS

It will probably also be valuable to make a short list of each faction’s goals:

• What is their long-term objective?
• What are the immediate, short-term agendas they are currently pursuing?
• Are there any disagreements within the faction over what goals should be pursued and/or should be prioritized?

This will help you understand how the faction (and its members) might react to the actions of the PCs and/or the evolving situation in the campaign.

MISSIONS

Finally, when the PCs join a faction, you’ll want to prep missions that they can ask the PCs to carry out. (Some of these missions might also be recruitment opportunities; i.e., they would be opportunistically offered to the PCs even if the PCs haven’t formally joined the faction yet.)

I wouldn’t recommend preparing these missions for every single faction ahead of time. (That’s likely a lot of wasted prep for all the factions that the PCs don’t end up engaging with.) But once the PCs are engaged, these missions:

• Give a de facto relationship between the faction and the PCs.
• Help establish what the faction’s agenda is (and how the PCs fit into it).
• Give the PCs an opportunity to build Favor with the faction.

The published campaign already features a number of these missions for some of the factions.

Go to Part 5E: Waging War

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 35B: Letters of Mysterious Motive

Tor was deeply concerned by the missive from the Order of the Dawn.

“Could he suspect? But if he was going to kill me, why would he send me a note?” Tor shrugged. “Of course, the last time I tried to think my way through this sort of thing, I ended up over-thinking it.”

I use a campaign status document to keep track of the loose threads, NPC actions, faction agendas, backdrop events, and everything else that goes into bringing a reactive and dynamic campaign to life.

This session is a great example of how you can take material from your campaign status document and weave it together into a complex and compelling session for your players. To follow along, though, you’ll first need to understand the various materials I’ve prepped for the In the Shadow of the Spire campaign:

• Campaign Status Document, the details of which we’ll be diving into shortly.
• Scenarios, which are probably largely self-explanatory. The overall campaign structure is node-based (with a subset of megadungeon-structured scenarios), so I also have a Campaign Revelation List which shows how all of the scenarios are connected to each other via clues. (This campaign is old enough that this document is still referred to as the “Adventure Track.”) The scenario notes themselves are divided into the separate acts of the campaign, and Act II into three subsections: Banewarrens scenarios, Night of Dissolution scenarios, and Chaos Cult (I use this division when organizing scenario files on my hard drive. I also have separate three-ring binders for each scenario type — so I have a Banewarrens binder, a Chaos Cult binder, and a Night of Dissolution binder at the table, although I believe at this point in the campaign, the CC and NOD scenarios were still in the same binder.) These scenarios are further indicated by an alphanumeric code, so NOD3 is the Surgeon in the Shadows, for example, while BW05 is the Outer Vaults of the Banewarrens.
• Backdrop Files, which I discuss in the Smart Prep Each backdrop file provides a focused breakdown of ongoing background events that are related to each other. I maintain a number of these for the In the Shadow of the Spire campaign, but the two relevant for the current session are Backdrop 1: Balacazar vs. Killraven and Backdrop 2: Novarch in Exile. (At this point, the latter of these has begun transitioning out of being purely background material because the PCs keep getting involved with church politics.)
• Interludes, which are scenarios unconnected to the primary campaign structures. This is a mix of one-off events, scenarios created by the players pursuing agendas of their own creation, and other miscellanea.
• Subplots, which are long-running series of events which the PCs are interacting with (or expecting to interact with). A lot of these seem to end up being factions. (The distinction from Backdrops is that, due to their interactivity, the Subplots have either mini-scenarios or full scenarios. The distinction from Interludes is that Subplots aren’t one-shot adventures; they’re long-running sequences. Although, again, these distinctions get blurred in practice as PCs ignore subplots, get involved with events I thought were backdrops, or have long-term events spin off from an Interlude.)

It might be worth noting that I’m not super-invested in the Backdrop/Interludes/Subplots division; it’s just what I’ve found useful for organizing my notes for this specific campaign.

Okay, with this groundwork laid, let’s dig into Session 35.

IN THE CAMPAIGN STATUS DOCUMENT

The campaign date is 09/18/790 — the 18^th day of Kadal in the 790^th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty. The PCs have spent most of the day — in sessions 32 thru 34 — engaged with the chaos cultists at, first, the apartment building where they’re conducting their venom-shaped thrall experiments and, later, in the ruins of the Old City below the apartment building.

The result is that a bunch of events scheduled for the 18^th have stacked up, particularly because the PCs spent most of the 17^th throwing a huge spanner into the schisming of the Imperial Church and getting themselves thoroughly tangled up in a city-wide political crisis.

The two most relevant sections of my campaign status document here are the Newssheets (summarizing backdrop events in the city) and Events (which are things more or less “aimed” at the PCs). These are the relevant entries from each section for the 18^th:

NEWSSHEETS

• 09/18/790: Blood in the Bathhouse. A flock of ravens bursts the doors on the Row Bathhouse and drives out the customers. When the ravens fly out again, the baths have been polluted with Blood. (Tavern Row War)
• 09/18/790: Vile Rites Performed in Oldtown! Report on what the City Watch discovered in the Oldtown apartment complex.

EVENTS

• 09/18/790: Ranthir receives a letter from Mahdoth’s. (BW03A)
• 09/18/790: Jevicca uses a sending to contact them. (Jevicca’s Sending)
• 09/18/790: Gemmell sends Tor a letter. (The orc prisoner has escaped with inside help; Sir Kabel was warned. Gemmell is worried that there are traitors in the ranks. But he trusts Tor because he gave him Kabel’s letter.)
• 09/18/790 (8 PM): Meeting with Sir Kabel at Pythoness House. (Meeting with Kabel)
• 09/18/790 (11 PM): GQT2 comes to Nibeck Street mansion. (BW Status)

The text in parentheses at the end of some of these entries indicate that they are pointers, either to a separate document (e.g, Tavern Row War refers to a section of Backdrop 1: Balacazar vs. Killraven) or to a later section of the campaign status document (e.g, BW Status and Jevicca’s Sending are both sections which appear later). This way, these sections of the campaign status document don’t become overwhelmed with so much information that they can no longer serve their essential function.

You can see in the case of “Gemmell sends Tor a letter,” however, that the supplementary info was short enough that I could just leave it in situ. Similarly, the specific details of “Vile Rites Performed in Oldtown!” are something I’m prepared to just improvise as necessary.

In addition to these regular sections of the campaign status document, I’ve also added a special section entitled Tavern Row Events. These are “random” encounters that I prepped several weeks before this session as part of Backdrop 1: Balacazar vs. Killraven. Since the PCs are boarding just around the corner from Tavern Row — and regularly walk up and down the street — I wanted them to experience some of the peripheral shrapnel of this gang war themselves. I’ve transferred the events from the Backdrop File to the campaign status document so that they’ll be right in my face when I’m running the session. (That way I won’t forget about them.)

Usually I would integrate events like this into the regular sections of the campaign status document, but in this case I decided it would be more useful to keep them grouped together. (Particularly because they weren’t keyed to specific dates or times.)

TAVERN ROW EVENTS

Raven Spies: While passing down Tavern Row, the PCs notice an unusual number of ravens roosting along the rooftops — peering eerily down into the streets below. Passersby keep glancing up nervously at them.

• These are Killraven spies.
• Just before the Showdown at the Onyx Spider, the number of ravens will multiply, roosting on seemingly every rooftop.

The Stink Man: The PCs are in position to spot Durant and a couple of Killraven thugs heading into the Old Goose tavern. They’re either there to intimidate Unos (before the 15^th), kill Unos (on the evening of the 15^th), or to threaten Unos’ heir Talia.

Tellith’s Problems: Tellith is harassed by Killraven enforcers: An ogre sorcerer named Fatok and three thugs. They’re demanding a monthly protection payment of 100 gp.

• “Don’t think your delver friends will help you.”

We can now see all the pieces that have been laid in place. These events have built up over time — either from long-term backdrop prep; time events; or consequences spinning off like free radicals from the actions of the over the last dozen sessions. All of these separate vectors have converged to seed the campaign status document with these specific mix of events for the 18^th, and then the PCs actions on the 18^th itself have further shaped how they’ll play out at the table.

RUNNING SESSION 35

You may want to pop open Session 35 in a separate browser tab so that you can follow along as we walk through the events that played out.

Having left the chaos temple in the Old City at the end of Session 34, the PCs kicked things off with some logistical play: Inventorying their loot, identifying magic items, etc. Standard stuff.

They had completed these chores as a matter of urgency and necessity, but now that the dinner hour was approaching, they realized they were still variously caked with sewer sludge, crusted blood, and other various foulnesses. And sothey headed toward the bathhouse on Tavern Row.

One of the reasons for keeping a campaign status document is that it can sit on the table right next to you during the whole session. Throughout the session, therefore, I’m consistently checking the campaign status document; sort of “touching base” to make sure I’m not forgetting anything and/or looking for stuff that I can opportunistically inject into the ongoing events.

Here my players are announcing their intention to visit a bathhouse on Tavern Row, and right at the top of my campaign status document I’m looking at the “Blood in the Bathhouse” event.

So this is pretty straightforward, right? It’s a no-brainer to have them arrive in the immediate aftermath of that event.

I then cross out this event, which obviously helps me keep track of what has and hasn’t happened. In addition, it also makes it easy for me to update my campaign status document between sessions by simply looking for and removing entries that have been crossed out.

With a shrug, Tor and Tee headed into the bathhouse. They found Derra, the proprietress of the bathhouse, being questioned by a watchman. Tee took the opportunity to sneak through the far door and into the baths themselves.

One consequence of having the PCs arrive in the immediate aftermath of the event — rather than hearing about it later through the rumor mill or by reading about it in a newssheet — is that they can choose to interact with it. “Derra” is just an improvised name, but I make a point of writing it down in my notes.

As they emerged from the door, they spotted a raven watching them from the roof on the opposite side of the Row. Seeing that it had been noticed, the raven took off and began to fly away to the south.

Since the PCs are on Tavern Row, it’s also time to trigger one of the Tavern Row Encounters. Here I’ve grabbed the “Raven Spies” encounters. It plays out a little differently than written because of the present circumstances. This is just fine, of course. But I also make the decision to NOT cross out the encounter. This is an encounter that could be easily repeated in any case.

Elestra flew in through the window of her room. The others followed on foot.

But when they opened the front door of the Ghostly Minstrel, they found Tellith being confronted by a large ogre and three thugs.

“—and don’t think your delver friends will help you,” the ogre growled.

“Delver friends like us?” Tee stabbed him in the back.

Elestra choosing to fly the Killraven spy straight back to their rooms (oh no!) has complicated this sequence of events more than I’d anticipated. (My thought behind the encounter was more along of the lines “look at those creepy ravens; they’re very creep.”)

Your thought might be to simplify it back down. Mine, on the other hand, is to seize the opportunity to add even more complexity to it. And since everyone is rushing back to the Ghostly Minstrel, I have an easy tool to do it: The “Tellith’s Troubles” encounter is not only apropos, but will also complicate the group’s desire to reach their rooms and join Elestra.

Tellith thanked them again for their help. While she was expressing her gratitude, she remembered that letters had come for “Master Ranthir and Master Tor, now where did they go? Ah! Here they are!”

Checking in with my campaign status document again, I can see that several letters were supposed to arrive for the PCs throughout the 18^th. Since they’ve been out all day, these have all stacked up.

And this, of course, is a perfect time for Tellith to deliver them.

You can begin to see how all of these separate elements, independently added to my campaign status document (often just one at a time!), begin weaving together during actual play into complex, multilayered scenes and sequences.

THE WEAVING OF TOR

“Nor is that the only treason in our midst. The orc woman you captured in the Banewarrens has escaped.”

“Escaped?” This time Tor was truly surprised. “How is that possible?”

“There must be a traitor within the Order,” Gemmell said. “The truth is that you’re the only one I can trust. You not only gave me Sir Kabel’s location, but you were also responsible for capturing the escaped prisoner.”

Tor valiantly stopped himself from gaping. “I’m honored that you would place your faith in me.”

This is one of my favorite moments in the entire campaign.

It started back in Session 31, when I set up a crucible choice for Sir Tor by having Sir Gemmell and Sir Kabel both send him a letter at the same time: Which letter would be he respond to? Which side would he choose in the schisming of the Church and the Order of the Dawn?

And then Tor blew my mind.

Believing that the arrival of both letters nearly simultaneously was too strange to be a coincidence, Tor concluded that Sir Kabel’s letter was a fake, sent by Sir Gemmell to test his loyalty. So he responded by showing Sir Gemmell the letter, unwittingly betraying Sir Kabel.

That alone was the stuff great game sessions are made of: Tor was going to be completely devastated when he realized what he’d done!

… except the player mulled it over, and realized that she may have made a mistake. So Tor took emergency action and managed to warn Sir Kabel in the nick of time! Sir Kabel escaped just before Sir Gemmell arrived to arrest him!

Meanwhile, in that same session, the PCs had captured an agent of the Pactlords in the Banewarrens. (This was unanticipated, as I’d expected them to kill all the Pactlords.) After attempting to interrogate her, they decided to turn her over to the Imperial Church for safekeeping.

This was even more unexpected!

What the PCs didn’t know is that the Pactlords had a highly placed agent in the Imperial Church, and so the logical outcome of this was that the Pactlord agent would escape from custody.

At this point, Session 31 came to an end and I had the luxury of sitting back and thinking things through at my leisure. I put myself in Sir Gemmell’s position. I thought about what he knew. I thought about what his goals were. I thought about what his fears were.

… and that’s when I realized that from Gemmell’s point of view Tor was the only person he could trust.

Completely and unequivocally.

And, therefore, there was only possible thing for Gemmell to do: Immediately knight Tor so that he would be in a position to help Gemmell root out the traitor in his midst!

I don’t know if this will blow your mind the way it blew mine. But of all the possible outcomes I could have possibly imagined when this sequence of events was set in motion, I literally could not have imagined any of this happening. That’s the amazing beauty and incredible power of a roleplaying game.

And, again, you can see all of these threads weaving together and becoming something greater than the sum of their parts.

Tor was ecstatic at the thought of being knighted. He was so excited, in fact, that he stopped to buy a couple bottles of wine on his way back to meet the others.

The other thing I’ll note is that I’d originally expected Tor to receive Sir Gemmell’s letter earlier in the day. So his meeting with Gemmell  happening at the same time the group was meeting with Kabel is actually another example of events unexpectedly weaving together.

They were glad to see him well, and surprised to see the giddy smile on his face. As Tor was explaining the situation to them, however, Agnarr’s eyes suddenly glazed over and he spoke aloud:

Jevicca requires a meeting. I request an update on your progress and have information for you.

… and we’ll go ahead and weave a little more by grabbing our last unresolved event for the 18^th that doesn’t have a specific time attached to it and drop it into this scene.

With that done, I’ve crossed out all the events on the 18^th except this one:

09/18/790 (11 PM): GQT2 comes to Nibeck Street mansion. (BW Status)

And this one is interesting because at this point I’m assuming that I know exactly how things are going to play out at 11 PM.

It turns out, though, that I’m very, very wrong.

But we’ll talk about that more next time.

Campaign Journal: Session 35C – Running the Campaign: Ambushing Your Timelines
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index