DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 45C: Long Reign of the Sun

Ranthir was examining the magical guards laid upon the plug. Eventually he concluded that their initial suspicions had been correct: Only at night could the plug be opened. The spell was ancient, but still potent – only a powerful wish would remove the plug.

“So when we get the wish spell from Rehobath do we use it on the sealed door at the Banewarrens?” Elestra asked. “Or do we use it here?”

“I think we need to use it at the Banewarrens,” Tor said. “We know how to get through this plug. We just have to wait for dark. But there may not be any other way through the sealed door.”

“Except the key,” Tee said.

“A key that may not exist any more. Or that we may never find.”

They debated staying until nightfall and then going into the tomb. But there was trepidation about staying in the Necropolis after dark without proper preparations.

And then Tee realized that they couldn’t stay: The note they had discovered in the Temple of the Rat God describing some sort of shipment at Mahdoth’s Asylum was dated for midnight. They couldn’t afford to be trapped inside the Necropolis while that kind of known activity was happening.

A dynamic I’ve found it can be difficult to understand if you’re only familiar with linear forms of play is the mixture of pressure and opportunity created when the PCs are pursuing multiple agendas.

At the beginning of this session, for example, the PCs had just barely managed to escape from overwhelming opposition at Porphyry House. In a linear campaign or scenario, they would’ve needed to immediately turn around and attack Porphyry House again. If they were clever, they might find some new way of tackling the problem, but ultimately this would be the one and only thing available for them to do.

In this case, however, the PCs have a bunch of irons in the fire. To mix idioms a bit, they’re free to let Porphyry House simmer for a bit while they pull a different iron out of the fire. It’s a powerful dynamic because it prevents the campaign from slamming to a halt when it meets an unexpected roadblock. By exploring other options, maybe the PCs can find resources or opportunities that can remove the roadblock. Combined with something like node-based scenario design or xandered dungeons, the PCs might find some way of routing around the roadblock. When you’re playing in a system like D&D where the PCs can become much more powerful, they may just level up to a point where the roadblock ceases to be an impediment.

On the other hand, at the end of this session, the PCs are forced to put a pin in their plans to explore Alchestrin’s Tomb because they have other agendas that are demanding their attention. They need to prioritize their goals and figure out the most efficient way they can be pursued with the time and resources that they have.

Linear adventures and single-threaded campaigns, of course, can be designed to include some form of time pressure. (“You have to rescue the princess before the blood moon rises!”) What’s most notable about the multi-threaded campaign, though, is that the GM doesn’t actually have to plan this stuff. At no point in my prep, for example, did I ever say, “Ah! I’ll schedule the shipment to Mahdoth’s Asylum so that it arrives at the same time they’re checking out Alcehstrin’s Tomb!”

Because, among other reasons, I had no idea when the PCs might actually go and check out Alchestrin’s Tomb. There’s another version of reality where their assault on Porphyry House didn’t turn into a clusterfuck. In that other world, the PCs might have spent the whole afternoon burning through resources while clearing out the whorehouse, only to reach the evening and realize that they would need to deal with whatever was happening at Mahdoth’s while being severely depleted by the day’s events. Or maybe they’d realize they couldn’t shoot both barrels into Porphyry House and instead pull out early (puns intended) to conserve their resources for Mahdoth’s. Either way, those are also compelling strategic choices and consequences!

So if I’m not planning specific pressure points or forcing specific choices, what am I doing to make this happen?

1. Any time there’s an upcoming event in the campaign, whether the PCs know about it or not, I make sure to assign it a specific date and time.
2. I keep track of the passage of time.

That’s it.

When scheduling events, I notably don’t really think about how they interact with unrelated events in the campaign. I don’t need to. The various scheduled events and the actions of the PCs will naturally combine and interact with each other during play, and pressure will simply emerge organically from the mix.

This principle is a good example of how, in my experience, loosening your grip on the campaign, empowering the PCs, and actively playing the game world is actually a lot easier for the GM than trying to force a single-threaded chain of events. Partly because you don’t need to force it. Mostly because you’re no longer solely responsible for everything that happens.

The other effect of multi-threading like this, of course, is that stuff will tend to hang around. The PCs first learned of Alchestrin’s Tomb in Session 35. They tried to visit in Session 36, but got waylaid by a false crypt. Then they got waylaid by other pressing concerns for several days, only returning here in Session 45. And it won’t be until Session 48 that they can come back and actually get inside for the first time.

Can this be frustrating? Yes. But it’s a good frustration. It’s the frustration of solving a puzzle or plotting out the perfect turn in a board game. And, of course, it’s not like nothing was happening during those other sessions! During that time, the players were pursuing and achieving other goals that were important to them.

But even as they’re doing those other things, the sense of anticipation is building. Content isn’t being chewed up as soon as it’s introduced. It naturally endures, weaving its way into a more complicated narrative. It was a full year of time in the real world from when they heard about Alchestrin’s Tomb to when they actually entered into the tomb. Which meant that entering the tomb felt momentous.

Which, in turn means, that the feeling of reward when these long-lasting goals come to fruition is also greater.

This dynamic also has an interesting effect on things like the Principles of RPG Villainy. Extending the players’ relationships with villains over time just naturally gets them more deeply invested in that antagonism. The agenda pressure that naturally emerges from multi-threaded campaigns also means that truly memorable villains also just kind of naturally develop themselves. (As do relationships with faction, NPCs, and other facets of the campaign.)

Campaign Journal: Session 46A – Running the Campaign: TBD
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 45C: LONG REIGN OF THE SUN

October 31st, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

After several long minutes, the homunculus emerged from the cloud of black pollen that blotted out much of the hill. They waited the better part of half an hour for the last of the poisonous vapor to blow away.

Mounting the hill again, they easily reached its apex. Set into the ground at the center of the stone circle they found a large iron plug etched with bronze and set into the earth. The bronze etching detailed Alchestrin’s sigil. Around the perimeter of the plug was an inscription written in characters Ranthir identified as ancient Arathian. With the aid of a spell he was able to translate the passage:

Forevermore shall the sun be my foe.

From its light I pass forever.

The doors of my realm shall not open as long as its reign lasts.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” Tor asked.

“That we can’t get in unless it’s night?” Tee said. “Yeah. I think so.”

Indeed, the plug wouldn’t move. Ranthir tried bathing the area in a magical darkness and they experimented with other coverings to block the sunlight, but none of it worked. Elestra then tried to send her homonculus down into the ground, in an effort to circumvent the plug, but they weren’t able to clearly communicate with it or determine if it had found anything.

Eventually they hunted down a shovel from a gravekeeper a fair distance away. Returning to the hill they dug down around the edges of the iron plug, only to find that it was set into a smooth-faced iron shaft that also resisted their efforts to penetrate it.

Meanwhile, Ranthir was examining the magical guards laid upon the plug. Eventually he concluded that their initial suspicions had been correct: Only at night could the plug be opened. The spell was ancient, but still potent – only a powerful wish would remove the plug.

“So when we get the wish spell from Rehobath do we use it on the sealed door at the Banewarrens?” Elestra asked. “Or do we use it here?”

“I think we need to use it at the Banewarrens,” Tor said. “We know how to get through this plug. We just have to wait for dark. But there may not be any other way through the sealed door.”

“Except the key,” Tee said.

“A key that may not exist any more. Or that we may never find.”

They debated staying until nightfall and then going into the tomb. But there was trepidation about staying in the Necropolis after dark without proper preparations.

And then Tee realized that they couldn’t stay: The note they had discovered in the Temple of the Rat God describing some sort of shipment at Mahdoth’s Asylum was dated for midnight. They couldn’t afford to be trapped inside the Necropolis while that kind of known activity was happening.

“We were just deputized, after all.”

Running the Campaign: Agenda Pressure – Campaign Journal: Session 46A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 45B: On a Hill of Corpse Flowers

Several stone sarsens jutted up from the ground, forming a rough and imperfect circle. Each of the sarsens bore the sigil of Alchestrin and were worn with age and crept-over with moss. The grass had grown tall around them, and here and there even taller plants had sprung up with broad, shiny leaves and brightly-colored flowers. More disturbingly, they could see the corpses of small animals scattered here and there around the sarsens.

A faint whiff of pungent decay wafted down the hill towards them, but they decided to brazenly ignore the animal carcasses and head straight up the hill towards the sarsens. As they drew near the circle, they could see in its center a large iron plug etched with bronze and set into the earth….

In my experience, it’s difficult to take a simple environmental hazard and turn it into compelling gameplay at the table. Not impossible. The same principles that make for compelling traps can also apply to natural hazards. I just find, without the element of human ingenuity behind the construction of a deliberate trap, that it’s harder to justify those principles.

With that being said, this session demonstrates a fundamental design principle that I find incredibly useful: If you have an environmental hazard, you can add almost literally any creature to the encounter and you’ll instantly make both the hazard and the creature more interesting.

If I had just added corpse flowers around the entrance to Alchestrin’s Tomb, it would have taken, at best, a trivial effort by the PCs to burn them away. Similarly, if they had found nothing except a coldsnake curled up on top of the iron plug, the result would have been a pretty perfunctory combat encounter. Either way, it would have been a pretty forgettable experience.

But put the two together and… Presto! You’ve got a unique experience.

This principle works, in part, because it can:

• Force target selection. Which problem are the PCs going to deal with first? (If they only have one target — or their targets are indistinguishable — then there’s no meaningful choice. As soon as you have multiple options, however, there’s an opportunity for tactical choice.)
• Create weird and unexpected interactions and/or synergies, potentially giving a fresh spin to even familiar abilities.
• Offer tactical opportunities that can be taken advantage of by either the bad guys, the PCs, or both.

You get similar results from combining multiple monsters of different types into the same encounter.

Fortunately, Tee – trying to suppress a cough that seemed as if it would rip out her lungs – spotted one of the tall, brightly-colored flowers turning towards them with an almost sadistic purpose. Making an intuitive leap she realized that the flowers – not the serpent – were the true source of the noisome plague. She shouted out a warning to the others while lurching towards the nearest flower, but her weakly-swung sword failed to produce any effect on its thick, armored stalk as she collapsed.

In this case, I hadn’t actually planned for the PCs not to realize the source of the poisonous malaise afflicting them, but it’s exactly the sort of thing that can just spontaneously emerge from encounters like this.

LOOTING BESTIARIES, REDUX

I’ve previously discussed how I’ll systematically loot bestiaries as part of the development cycle for a campaign. In this case, as I prepared Alchestrin’s Tomb, I went on a mid-campaign survey looking for stuff that would be cool to plug into the adventure:

• Corpse Flowers are from Creatures of Freeport.
• Coldsnakes are, unfortunately, from a disreputable publisher I won’t direct you towards because they scammed me.
• The iron plug and its riddling inscription is taken from the brief description of Alchestrin’s Tomb in the Ptolus)

I love RPGs with lots of high quality adventures, because those can be plugged directly into a campaign structure. But even better is an RPG with tons of modular material that can be plugged directly into scenario structures and scene structures (i.e., encounters). It’s just so much fun to go browsing through these toys, grabbing the coolest ones that catch your eye, and then seeing how they can be combined into cool stuff.

Campaign Journal: Session 45C – Running the Campaign: Agenda Pressure
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 45B: UPON A HILL OF CORPSE FLOWERS

October 31st, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

HOMUNCULI OF THE CITY

They wanted to get an early start the next day, but Elestra was still immersed in her meditations. And Tor had his training at the Godskeep. On the way there, Tor spontaneously decided to stop and purchase a bull whip. He had a few ideas for how it might come in useful.

While they waited for Tor to return, Tee grabbed the morning newssheets. The Columned Row Killer had struck again, but this time it had been seen in the act: A “tall, muscular creature with blue-black skin, glowing yellow eyes, and lanky black hair” had attacked a merchant passing through the Old City Gate. The creature had been driven off by the city guard, but not before leaving its victim in paralytic coma.

With a sinking feeling in their hearts, they recognized the description: It was the troll-spawn that had been freed from the Banewarrens. An evil that had been locked away for centuries now walked the streets of Ptolus.

Agnarr was also able to pick up the mage-touched chain that Hirus had been working on for Seeaeti. While the others discussed the troll-spawn, he took Seeaeti out near the Minstel’s stables and spent some time training him in the wearing of the mail.

Around noon, Tor returned to the Ghostly Minstrel and they went upstairs to check on Elestra. They found her missing: Her communion with the Spirit of the City had taken her on a walk-about through the streets of Ptolus, collecting bits of brick and rough cast which she eventually took to the heart of Midtown and there assembled into a geometrically fractal cairn. This final act of symbolic linkage complete, the cairn had risen up as the animated extrusion of the Spirit itself: A homunculi of the city.

Elestra returned to the Ghostly Minstrel and introduced the others to her new companion. They gathered in the common room for lunch and then left for the Necropolis.

POLLEN PLAGUE

With the information Ranthir had retrieved from the Administration Building on the 22^nd they found the tomb easily enough. Near the apex of a gently sloping hill (which Ranthir’s papers named Darklock Hill) they spotted several stone sarsens jutting up from the ground, forming a rough and imperfect circle. Each of the sarsens bore the sigil of Alchestrin and were worn with age and crept-over with moss. The grass had grown tall around them, and here and there even taller plants had sprung up with broad, shiny leaves and brightly-colored flowers. More disturbingly, they could see the corpses of small animals scattered here and there around the sarsens.

A faint whiff of pungent decay wafted down the hill towards them, but they decided to brazenly ignore the animal carcasses and head straight up the hill towards the sarsens. As they drew near the circle, they could see in its center a large iron plug etched with bronze and set into the earth.

Before they could actually enter the circle, however, Agnarr spotted dark scales slithering through the grass – marking the passage of a massive, coal-black serpent with scales that glimmered like black ice beneath the stars. In its wake, it left a thin veil of frost upon the grass. At nearly twenty feet in muscle-rippled length, it must have been wrapped around one of the sarsens to escape their notice. Now it reared up, gaping a mouth from which issued faint plumes of glittering, icy mist.

Tor and Agnarr moved forward to meet the serpent, but as they did so a sudden nausea settled over the group. The serpent must have been exuding some sort of disquieting aura or perhaps noxious fumes. The effect only seemed to intensify as it focused the gaze of its coal-black eyes upon Nasira, locking her in a paralytic gaze that stopped her stone cold.

The nausea, which sent Tor reeling, disrupted their concerted attack and Agnarr – although largely unaffected – found himself getting bound in its icy, limb-numbing coils. Before the serpents’ tightening curves could draw tight, however, Agnarr was able to stretch his mighty thews and break free, sending the serpent spasming away.

But then the real panic set in as Tor started coughing up black blood and oozing black blood from his eyes. The symptoms of the others were beginning to worsen as well, and with only Agnarr fit to face the serpent, it seemed unlikely that its threat would be ended before they were all unconscious or dead or worse.

Fortunately, Tee – trying to suppress a cough that seemed as if it would rip out her lungs – spotted one of the tall, brightly-colored flowers turning towards them with an almost sadistic purpose. Making an intuitive leap she realized that the flowers – not the serpent – were the true source of the noisome plague. She shouted out a warning to the others while lurching towards the nearest flower, but her weakly-swung sword failed to produce any effect on its thick, armored stalk as she collapsed.

Ranthir and Elestra, meanwhile, managed to retreat to a safe distance. Near the foot of the hill they discovered that they were beyond the plague-pollen of the flowers. With her lungs almost immediately alleviated, Elestra sent her homunculi to start hauling people to a safe distance.

Then Agnarr managed to finally plunge his flaming sword down the icy throat of the ebon snake. Wrenching his blade free he swung it towards the nearest corpse flower, but as he hacked it apart the flower exploded in a massive cloud of poisonous vapor and pollen – a visible blackening of the air that seemed to cling to skin and eyes, clawing its way through mouth and nose and down into the lungs.

Agnarr (at the heart of the explosion) and Ranthir (caught unexpectedly in its edge) collapsed. Elestra, in a panic, rushed in to heal the badly wounded Agnarr… and promptly collapsed from the pervasive pollen of the remaining flowers.

Thus all of them were unconscious upon the flanks of the hill, their bodies being slowly consumed by the plague pollen.

Fortunately, the homunculus continued carrying out its last orders: To carry the unconscious to the base of the hill and out of the pollen cloud. Several of those who were hopelessly ill before managed to recover once they were taken far enough away from the flowers and they were able to tend to the rest.

Once everyone had been restored to at least a semblance of health, they backed off to an even safer distance and then sent the homunculi to kill the rest of the flowers.

Running the Campaign: Monster + Environment – Campaign Journal: Session 45C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 45A: By Commissar’s Decree

“I’m glad you could come here today,” Carrina said. “The Commissar appreciates all of the work and sacrifices you have made for this city.”

“Happy to oblige,” Tor said.

“As your recent actions in the Temple District suggest, you’re already familiar with the recent surge in cultist activities within the city,” Carrina continued.

“Intimately so,” Tee said.

“Just so,” Carrina smiled thinly. “That’s why the Commissar has chosen to deputize you to investigate the cultist activity.”

“We’re already doing that,” Elestra blurted.

“Then it should be no great hardship to do it in the Commissar’s name,” Carrina said. “You will each be paid 75 gold pieces a month, with additional bonuses to be paid at my discretion for tangible results.”

One of my favorite things to do as a GM is having powerful and important people – the people in charge – recognize and acknowledge what the PCs have been doing in the campaign. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes it isn’t. Often it’s a little bit of both. But either way, this is almost always guaranteed to excite the players.

Focusing on just the good stuff for the moment, recognition in my games have resulted in the PCs being:

• Recruited to exclusive organizations
• Featured in news reports
• Invited to exclusive social events
• Deputized to solve a problem
• Given a spaceship
• Granted lucrative contracts
• Knighted
• Given noble titles

Sometimes this acts as a kind of reverse patronage: Instead of having someone rich and powerful offer them payment up front, they instead materialize after the fact and give the PCs a monetary or material reward for something they did for completely different reasons.

An earlier example of recognition as reward in this campaign was the Harvesttime party at Castle Shard. In that case, the social event reward also served as a way to advance several threads of the campaign, introduce new NPCs, and drop a number of clues.

Similarly, in this session, the PCs are getting deputized, giving them official recognition and a small stipend for doing the thing they’re already doing (investigating the chaos cults). Deputization is also an example of the techniques I talk about in Random GM Tips: Calling in the Little Guys, where the official response to the PCs calling the cops (or the local equivalent) is to say, “Wow! Yeah! That’s definitely a problem! Can’t wait to see how you resolve it!” So, in this case, I’m kind of preemptively taking “let’s go to the authorities!” off the table: Yes, the Commissar would definitely be interested in stopping the chaos cults. Rather than letting that potentially sideline the PCs, let’s instead seize the opportunity to put them in the spotlight!

In other words, delivering recognition as reward can often serve multiple purposes at the same time.

As such, no matter how positive the immediate recognition, it’s also almost always a double-edged sword: Being recognized as important also means painting a target on yourself. You’re an important superhero? Then supervillains may want to preemptively take you off the board. You’re known to have the ear of the crown prince? That makes you a target for grifters, conmen, and others who see the PCs as a means to their ends. (This is also what happened when Rehobath schismed the Imperial Church.)

To flip this one last time, though, the reason recognition attracts negative attention like moths to flame is specifically because the PCs are burning so bright! Even without a formal position (like becoming deputies), recognition can be as empowering as any magic item. Often moreso. Having the ear of the crown prince isn’t just really cool, it also lets you do things that would otherwise be impossible.

This not only enhances your current camapign. It’s also a signal that you’re ready for a new kind of adventure.

Campaign Journal: Session 45B – Running the Campaign: Monster + Environment
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index