DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 27C: The Saint of Chaos

Now that the half-orc was more of a curiosity than a threat, the crowd that had been scattering in a rapid retreat instead began to draw closer. But just as it seemed as if they had successfully calmed the situation, another man suddenly grabbed at his eyes. Bolts of blue lightning shot out of them, striking several people in the crowd. The thick stench of ozone filled the air. At least a half dozen people collapsed.

Panic erupted once again. In the midst of it, Tee was suddenly struck by the sight of a dark-cloaked man striding boldly down the street and seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him…

Crowds.

In an urban campaign, you find them cropping up all the time:

• on the street
• in a busy market
• at the local tavern
• storming the necromancer’s castle with pitchforks

Handling dozens or hundreds (or thousands) of NPCs individually would, obviously, be a hilariously bad idea. So you generally want to figure out some way of handling the entire crowd as a single entity.

Often, of course, a crowd is just part of the set dressing: You’re in a shopping mall and it’s filled with people. That’s pretty straightforward. At most you’ll want to think about what effect the crowd might have on the actions of the PCs and significant NPCs in the scene. (For example, the PCs might need to make a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to race through a thick crowd; on a failure, the crowd is treated as difficult terrain for them.)

But sometimes the Green Goblin comes swooping in on his glider and starts throwing pumpkin bombs around. Now combat has broken out and the crowd is panicked.

What often seems to happen is that the crowd is described as running and shouting (while having little or no effect on how things play out), and then they completely clear out as quickly as possible to simplify things even more.

But where’s the fun in that?

When I was preparing the riot scene in Session 4 of the campaign, I prepped a full set of rules for handling crowds and mobs in D&D 3^rd Edition. After some refinements from playtesting them, I posted them here on the Alexandrian way back in 2007.

Those rules are useful (with advanced options that help when the crowd is the focal point of the scene), and you could use them as a basic structure for fashioning similar rules in other games:

• What is the effect of moving through a crowd? (A moving crowd?)
• What happens when a crowd panics?
• How can the PCs manipulate crowds?
• What happens when the crowd turns into a mob? (i.e., a crowd that can take focused violent action, whether directed or random)

If you want to keep it simpler, though, I have a few quick rules of thumb for handling crowds.

First, give the crowd some basic characteristics so that it “exists” in the scene. I recommend:

• Making the crowd difficult terrain (or whatever the local equivalent is in your current RPG). As mentioned above, let the PCs make an Acrobatics check as part of movement to ignore this (by deftly weaving through the crowd).
• Having the crowd offer cover to anyone in it.

Design Note: These two factors have a nice balancing effect — the cover encourages a character to move into a crowd; the difficult terrain imposes a cost for doing so.

Second, put the crowd on your initiative list. In D&D, I like putting them at initiative count 10 (so that PCs might go before or after the crowd, depending on their initiative check). This is, if nothing else, a great way to make sure you don’t forget to include the crowd in the scene.

Whenever the crowd’s initiative count comes up, the crowd does something. This might be:

• Just a colorful description (which will help make sure that the crowd is a consistent part of the scene and doesn’t get forgotten about or glossed over).
• A bystander in the crowd being placed in jeopardy.
• A random character needs to make a saving throw or take damage.
• Make a saving throw or get knocked down.
• The crowd moves.

And so forth.

Make sure to have the crowd affect (or potentially affect) both NPCs and PCs.

Third, create a short list of crowd actions. These work like legendary actions in D&D 5^th Edition: The crowd has actions or reactions they take after another character’s action, and they can take X of them per round. (Let’s say three, by default.) The things they can do will be similar:

• Knocking people down
• Interfering with attacks (the jostle the archer’s arm, inflicting disadvantage on the attack roll)
• Making an attack against a character
• Moving

Et cetera.

Keep in mind that the crowd is not a bad guy, so these actions are a choice you’re making as the GM to model the crowd’s behavior. This also means that some crowd actions might actually be detrimental to the crowd. For example, a crowd reaction might be “1d6 bystanders get caught in the crossfire.”

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 27D – Running the Campaign: Trigger & Stitch
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 27C: THE SAINT OF CHAOS

September 7th, 2008
The 15th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Tee didn’t argue with Ranthir. They returned to the Ghostly Minstrel and reconvened with the others, quickly describing what they had seen.

Elestra was more than happy to let the cultists fight amongst themselves. Agnarr, on the other hand, was still urging them to charge in the front door. “We’ll catch them by surprise!”

Tee was convinced that the insectoid creatures were going to be used in some sort of an attack on the Commissar, and their discussion turned to what their primary goal had become: Was it to shut down the project? To protect Iltumar? Or somehow do both?

Tor talked about his plans to take Iltumar out the next day. “If he’s looking for something more exciting, maybe we can offer that to him.”

“But isn’t tit possible he’ll just think we’re trying to control his life?” Ranthir asked.

“That’s right,” Elestra agreed. “Tell a boy not to do something and he’ll do it just to spite you.”

Tee, reflecting on the fact that Elestra was scarcely older than Iltumar, shook her head. “I got the impression that, if I left, I’d be hunted down and killed. Even if we could somehow convince Iltumar to quit, just pulling him out could still be dangerous.”

In the end, they decided to wait until the next day. Tee would take her shift in disguise at midnight. And if Tor could pull Iltumar away so that they could be sure he wouldn’t be on duty, they would try an assault on the complex.

“Without Tor?” Dominic asked.

“I’d prefer to have his sword,” Tee said. “But we need to make sure that Iltumar isn’t the line of fire.”

“Aren’t we worried about the giant insect things?” Dominic asked, clearly worried about the giant insect things.

“They were afraid of a moving curtain,” Tee said. “I’m not too worried about them.”

“If they’re easily startled, I’ve got a cantrip that can make dancing lights,” Ranthir said.

Dominic laughed. “Ah! Lights! Lights! Look out for the lights!”

Tee grinned. “Agnarr! Get away from those lights and hit those things!”

They all laughed. Even Agnarr.

MISSIVE FROM THE MIGHTY

There was a knock at the door.

Elestra answered it and found Tellith standing in the hall.

“Oh, good. Master Agnarr is with you,” Tellith smiled. “I have a message for him.” She held out a piece of folded parchment.

Agnarr came to the door, grabbed the letter, and grunted a thank you. Elestra thanked her as well and then shut the door.

As soon as the door was shut, Agnarr passed the parchment to Tee. She read it aloud to him.

Master Agnarr—

As we have not received word from you in several weeks, we are urgently seeking confirmation that you are not, in fact, dead. If this letter should reach your hand, please send us a couriered response indicating your continued good health.

The Order of Iron Might

Agnarr had no idea what this Order might be, but Tee was familiar with them. They were a guild of warriors based out of the Citadel of Might near the Arena in Oldtown. Tee had never been there, but she understood it to be a hiring hall of sorts for mercenaries, guards, and sellswords. She had some impression that Dorant Khatru, the Merchant Prince of House Khatru, served as the Order’s guildmaster.

“Do you think you joined them… before?” Elestra asked. “You know, when we lost our memories?”

Agnarr shrugged. “It’s possible.”

Links to their missing past had proven few and hard to come by. Tee was particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of following up on this one. She and Dominic both agreed to accompany Agnarr while he paid a visit to the Citadel of Might.

A KNIGHT’S TRAINING

Tor, meanwhile, had training to attend to. He headed into the Temple District. Sir Kabel met him at the entrance of the Godskeep and escorted him to the training field just outside the southern gate. There he was introduced to Sera Nara – a lithe and attractive woman with dark, copper brown skin. She wore her dark hair in a long braid down to her waist. The entire braid was tightly bound with bands of gold, and the tip was capped with a sharply-edged blade of mithril.

“Nara will be your instructor,” Kabel said. “I’ll have to leave Tor in your capable hands, Sera. I have to meet with Gemmell regarding the tourney rosters.”

Kabel went off about his business and Nara got down to hers. She adopted a practical, no-nonsense approach, but was clearly impressed with Tor’s ability with the blade.

“I practiced for many years,” Tor explained. “But these past few weeks it seems as if all that training suddenly makes sense.”

“Of course,” Nara nodded. “Your life has been at a risk. When the blood boils, the blade and body become as one. The heat of battle has made you a warrior. Now we will hone that ability into the skills of a knight.”

They worked hard. The session lasted for nearly two hours. Tor proved to be a fast learner, quickly mastering the rudimentary elements of the Order’s martial training.

“We perceive the world through sight and sound and touch,” Sera Nara said. “But all of us share a deeper connection with reality, as well. If you listen with your soul you can hear the Song of the World – the divine melody which links us all, man and god alike. Through the motions of his blade, a warrior’s body can harmonize with the Song. You will see your opponents without sight; hear them without sound; strike them without thought.”

When the training was nearly complete, Tor became aware that Kabel had returned. The knight stood a goodly distance from the practice field, but his attention was clearly focused on them.

Nara eventually finished. She complimented him again and told him to return to the field in two days. As Tor was gathering up his armor, Kabel made his way over to him.

“Master Tor. How was your training?”

“Exhausting.”

Kabel laughed. “Sera Nara is a demanding teacher. But these are demanding times. I think it’s more important than ever that you become a knight as quickly as possible.”

Tor smiled. “I would like that very much.”

“As would I.” Kabel returned his smile. “Now, a question. Do you know if Dominic has met with Rehobath again?”

Tor shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“That’s to the good,” Kabel said. “Hopefully this dark chapter can be put behind us soon. If all goes well, I will have much to tell you when you return.”

Kabel made his farewells. Tor was curious about his enigmatic parting, but all he could really do was wait.

THE COMING OF TAVAN ZITH

Agnarr, Tee and Dominic, meanwhile, had entered Oldtown on their way to the Citadel of Might.

They had just turned off Dalenguard Road onto Four Fountains Street when their ears were assaulted by sudden screams. They were crossing the mouth of Whipstone Street, and turning that way they could see the tightly packed crowd of the merchant road suddenly surging towards them. There were shouts of “Fire!” and “Run!”

Moments later, a half-orc tore into view. He was completely engulfed in flame, but – despite his own screams and the look of terror in his eyes – the flames didn’t seem to be hurting him. However, when the half-orc grabbed onto a woman near him – in what looked like desperation – the flames did burn her. Badly.

Their crisis instincts kicked in. Dominic threaded his way through the crowd, trying to reach the woman who had been burned. Agnarr, meanwhile, hurled a waterskin at the half-orc. This, however, simply burned away in a cloud of steam without having any effect on the fire.

Tee kept her distance, but shouted at the half-orc to stop. “How can we help? What’s happening?”

But the half-orc didn’t seem to hear her. “What’s happening to me? I’m burning! Help me! For the love of the gods, someone help me!” His voice was tortured with panic.

And then, suddenly, the half-orc’s flames pulsed brightly. Dominic, having drawn near in his efforts to help the woman, was scorched.

Agnarr, seeing Dominic hurt, lost his patience with the situation. He tried to knock the half-orc out. Unfortunately, his efforts only succeeded in making the half-orc even more panicky.

Tee could see that the situation was getting out of control. She ran down the street – getting close to the half-orc and practically shouting into his face. “Stop it! We’re trying to help you, but you have to stop it! You’re hurting people!”

Something in her sharply spoken words – or perhaps the sudden appearance of a lithe elfling directly in his path – shocked the half-orc out of his panic. He looked around the street, seeming to see the scene around himself for the first time. Then he sagged to his knees, his face taut with pain. “It hurts…”

But the flames still weren’t hurting him. Dominic, laid a soothing blessing on the woman who had suffered burns, and then – at Tee’s signal – moved in to examine the half-orc (albeit it from a safe distance).

Now that the half-orc was more of a curiosity than a threat, the crowd that had been scattering in a rapid retreat instead began to draw closer. But just as it seemed as if they had successfully calmed the situation, another man suddenly grabbed at his eyes. Bolts of blue lightning shot out of them, striking several people in the crowd. The thick stench of ozone filled the air. At least a half dozen people collapsed.

Panic erupted once again. In the midst of it, Tee was suddenly struck by the sight of a dark-cloaked man striding boldly down the street and seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him.

He seemed so incongruous that Tee’s suspicions were immediately tweaked. She headed in his direction and hadn’t gotten far before she saw him brush past an older woman in her fifties. The woman almost immediately started floating up into the air. “Help! Help me! The demons have me! They have me by the arms! Help!”

“Agnarr!” Tee called back over her shoulder. “The man in black! I think he’s doing something!”

Agnarr tried to push his way through the crowd, but didn’t seem to be catching up. Finally he lost his patience and bellowed. “OUT OF THE WAY!”

The crowd parted before him, allowing Agnarr to abruptly catch up to the mysterious figure and swing away with his greatsword.

“Oh!” Tee gasped. “But I’m not even sure if he’s actually causing… Never mind.”

With some preternatural sense, the man barely managed to duck out of the way of Agnarr’s blow. Then he whirled, revealing a muffled face, and cried out in an imperious voice, “You dare to molest me, miscreant?”

… but then he caught sight of Agnarr’s imposing figure and apparently decided that flight was the better part of valor. He whirled away and took off running down the street, displaying an amazing agility at slipping through the now near-riotous crowd trying to escape from the chaos in the street. An elf he passed suddenly screamed and collapsed to the ground.

Agnarr was momentarily startled at the abrupt flight. He was even more startled in the next instant to find himself beginning to secrete acid through his skin. It burned sharply, but he gritted his teeth through the pain and ran after the man, ducking narrowly to avoid one of the blasts of lightning scorching through the air with the scent of ozone.

Dominic, meanwhile, was studying the half-orc. The flames weren’t burning him, but there was no denying the pain that the half-orc was feeling. In fact, the flames seemed to be feeding on him in some way – consuming his fundamental vitality in much the same way that a soul-thirsting undead might.

Tee was having some success in following in Agnarr’s wake, but she was losing ground. In frustration she pulled up short, notched an arrow in her bow, and took a shot.

It clipped the dark-clad figure’s shoulder as he ducked around the corner at the far end of the street, still desperately trying to escape from Agnarr’s blows.

Tee renewed her pursuit. As she neared the corner herself, she came upon a dwarf staring at the wall. Globules of black energy poured from his eyes… and a giant octopus appeared half-embedded in the wall, its long tentacles thrashing limply. Tee cursed silently, but decided it was a problem she’d have to deal with later.

Dominic, meanwhile, had figured out how to sustain the rapidly deteriorating half-orc… but his efforts weren’t actually curing his condition, only alleviating it. While he was trying to figure out a more permanent solution, several members of the city watch came running up from Four Fountains Street. Spotting Dominic’s robes, one of the watchmen approached him. “Have you got that under control?”

Dominic looked up. “Umm… More or less.”

Agnarr finally caught up with his quarry. At the last possible instant, the dark-clad figure whirled in an effort to defend himself, but Agnarr’s blade cut too fast and too strong, viciously slashing through the figure’s chest.

Grasping at his bleeding torso, the man doubled over. “You would dare the wrath of Tavan Zith?!”

And then Tee’s arrow took him in the throat. Zith collapsed to the street, his breath gurgling and blood bubbling from his wounds.

THE AFTERMATH OF TAVAN ZITH

But the chaos he had wreaked did not abate: The half-orc still burned. The lightning-eyed man was still firing randomly in all directions.

And the dwarf Tee had passed before was still summoning fell creatures into their midst: A massive hound – standing taller than a man’s shoulder (although perhaps not as tall as Agnarr’s shoulder) and wreathed in living shadow – appeared suddenly at the corner of Whipstone Street. Directly behind Tee. The crowds started running in a new direction.

Tee cursed and ran down the street towards Agnarr.

Before she could get there, however, Agnarr had reached down and grabbed the dying Zith by his hair. Hauling him up he was shocked to discover the features of a dark-skinned elf – just like Shilukar. But the shock didn’t stop him from cutting off his head.

Tee came skidding to a halt next to him. “Agnarr! What are you doing?”

“It didn’t work!” Agnarr, gasping in pain, held up one of his acid-coated hands.

“We needed to question him!”

“And we will.” Agnarr took off the iron collar from Ghul’s Labyrinth and snapped it around the dark elf’s neck. “Dominic should be able to heal this.” He grimaced again at the pain from the acid. “I think you might need to kill me… Maybe that would stop it.”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t love to do that,” Tee said. “But—“

“But I have work to do.” Agnarr nodded. Then he grinned. He turned down the street and ran back towards where the hound of shadows was spreading panic.

Tee, meanwhile, grabbed Zith’s body and stuffed it into her bag of holding.

Meanwhile, back by Dominic, the city watchmen were spreading out. They formed a perimeter around the lightning-eyed man and – before Dominic realized what they were doing – shot him dead.

“For the glory!” Agnarr charged through the panicking throngs. The suddenly flaming sword had a less than calming effect on the crowd, but it caught and tore at the insubstantial flesh-stuff of the shadow hound.

The beast – in terrible pain – threw back its head and howled. It was a sound born from the stygian pits of utter darkness, carrying in its very note a primal terror. It echoed off the buildings of the city. At its passing, a wave of supernatural fear swept over the entire block. People began scattering in complete panic. Even Tee couldn’t resist its effects, joining the screaming throngs in mindless flight.

The dwarf responsible for summoning the strange creatures suddenly leapt onto Agnarr’s back. “No! Leave it alone you! You mustn’t hurt it!”

Agnarr managed to shrug off the frenzied dwarf. Then with a final swing of his greatsword he finished off the shadowy hound. He twirled back towards the dwarf— And found an axe swinging at his head.

He narrowly turned the blow so that it only cut lightly into his armored side and then slammed the flat of his own blade into the dwarf’s face. The dwarf slumped into unconsciousness, his face badly scorched from the flames of the blade.

Back at the other end of the street, the city watchmen had thrown a rope around the floating woman and were pulling her back down to earth. Once her feet touched the ground, her condition seemed to pass. But the half-orc was still burning and his condition was deteriorating rapidly.

Dominic, however, had seen that death seemed to have stopped the lightning-bolts being hurled from the eyes of the other man. He was able to heal the man’s wounds and return breath to his body. And when he did, the condition didn’t reappear.

As he was finishing, the commander of the watchmen approached him. “I know you… You’re the Chosen of Vehthyl.”

“Umm… Yes.” Dominic was already uncomfortable with this conversation and it hadn’t even properly begun.

“What caused this?”

“I’m not… really sure.”

Agnarr came trotting up. “I am.” He quickly explained about the “sorcerer” who had been responsible for releasing these dangerous abilities.

“And what happened to him?” the commander asked.

“He escaped,” Agnarr said without missing a beat. “He ran that way.” He pointed in a plausible direction.

Dominic thought that the only way to cure the half-orc might be to kill him and then bring him back from the dead. The half-orc was terrified by the idea, but agreed. Before Dominic could say anything else, Agnarr thrust his flaming sword straight into the half-orc’s chest—

And a massive explosion ripped its way out of the half-orc’s chest and gouted its way down the length of the entire block!

An unnatural pressure wave preceding the blast threw Agnarr clear of it. He sat up and shook his head. “What happened?”

Fortunately the street had already been virtually abandoned and the members of the city watch had been far enough away that they weren’t injured.

The only thing left of the half-orc, however, was a desiccated corpse… Which, thankfully, no longer burned. Dominic had to work for several minutes – stitching sinew and regrowing skin through the sheer lifeforce of his faith – but he was finally able to restore some semblance of life to the half-orc’s pain-wracked body.

Agnarr, meanwhile, was stripping out of his armor in an effort to prevent it from any further damage. The acid-scarring hadn’t caused any structural damage yet, but his clothes were already badly scarred in many places.

“We’ll have to get you some new clothes,” Dominic said.

“Why?” Agnarr said. “There’s just a few holes!”

“It’s… umm… more about where the holes are located.”

Like the half-orc, Dominic only saw one solution. In a controlled fashion he stopped Agnarr’s heart, killing him. Then he immediately used his skills and divine gifts to revive him.

It worked. The acid stopped oozing from Agnarr’s pores.

TEE RETURNS TO THE SCENE

By the time her head cleared, Tee found herself on High Road, looking down off the Oldtown cliffs towards the sea. She cursed under her breath.

After a moment’s thought, she set off at a running pace towards the Ghostly Minstrel. Once there she barged into Ranthir’s room.

“Mistress Tee?”

Without saying a word she pulled Zith’s corpse half out of her bag of holding and then stuffed it back in. He was on her heels as she turned and headed back out into the street.

They were able to grab a carriage in Delver’s Square. As they rode back towards Oldtown, Tee filled him in on what she’d seen. “We’re not sure what we’re dealing with. I’m hoping you’ll be able to figure it out.”

“I’ll do my best.”

By the time they reached the ramp leading up into Oldtown, however, the watch had sealed the upper city.

It turned out that the bay of the shadow hound had affected a wide swath of the city. And in the tightly-packed confines of Oldtown the effects had been devastating: Riotous crowds and madhouse conditions. There had even been some reports of people throwing themselves out of windows in blind panic.

Tee, however, managed to identify herself as an associate of the Chosen of Vehthyl. Fortunately the guards stationed on the roadblock had apparently heard reports that Dominic had been helping them at the source of the disturbance. They let Tee and Ranthir through the blockade.

When they arrived back at the scene, they discovered that Dominic and Agnarr had already left. Everyone who had been directly affected by Zith’s attack had been quarantined on Whipstone Street. Things were firmly under control, but the watch commander was more than glad to accept Ranthir’s mystical expertise.

After examining those affected, Ranthir identified the effect as an uncontrolled explosion of sorcerous potential. “We all have a connection to the same arcane forces that I use in the casting of my spells,” he explained. “In some that connection is stronger than in others. It appears that in these victims that connection has been exploited. In layman’s terms, it’s been ripped open – power flows through it in a completely uncontrolled fashion.”

This meant little to any of them, but Ranthir was able to confirm that all of them had been fully cured.

But the dwarf kept screaming about the voices whispering in his ears. And the elf who had collapsed was now babbling in what appeared to be glossolalic tongues.

“So what’s wrong with them?” Tee asked.

“There’s no lingering effect of a mystical nature,” Ranthir said. “But whatever happened to them must have broken their minds. Killing them won’t help.”

The commander of the watch nodded sharply and then turned to one of his men. “We’ll send them to Mahdoth’s Asylum, then.”

Suddenly, out of the elf’s mad gibberings, Tee’s sharp ears caught a meaningful phrase: “The lance… The lance is coming…”

She had said something like that herself once, as her mind emerged from madness. The similarity struck her to the soul.

There was nothing else to be done there. Ranthir and Tee returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, hoping to find the others there ahead of them.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Playing to the Crowd – Campaign Journal: Session 27D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 27B: Sights of Venom

Ranthir used his more powerful spell of clairvoyance to peer into the room… and there, standing in the midst of wrecked furniture and miscellaneous debris, he saw two massive, insectoid creatures.

At the sight, he blanched.

As he watched, one of the creatures reached out with its sharp talon and literally drilled the still-drafting curtain into the wall, pinning it in place.

In our last installment of Running the Campaign, we talked about what happens when the PCs miss clues. That actually continues into this section of the session: The project site (i.e., the apartment building controlled by cultists) had been prepped using status quo design. That meant that everything inside the building was basically held in a state of plausible stasis up until the point that the PCs interacted with it.

Once Ranthir cast his clairvoyance spells, therefore, and peeked inside, that status quo was disrupted and events started playing out. One of those events was the argument between members of the Ebon Hand and the Brotherhood of Venom. My anticipation had been that some very important information would get dropped during this conversation (i.e., clues), but because Ranthir was (a) using a spell which only granted sight, not sound; and (b) he couldn’t read lips worth a damn, most of that information was forever lost.

(Well, until the PCs gained it in a different way. Three Clue Rule and all that.)

As you’ll see in future sessions, the decision here to briefly engage the project site (setting events in motion) and then almost immediately withdrawing (“Let’s get out of here.”) had a significant impact on how subsequent events would play out.

But there was also something else the PCs did here that I didn’t expect:

The apartment building being used by the cultists was one of several similar buildings lining Crossing Street. Since Ranthir would only be able to target two specific locations with his spells, they decided to scout out the other buildings to get a better sense of what the layout might be like inside the cult’s building.

This tactic emerged because I have a giant, 8-foot-long map of Ptolus hanging on my wall during sessions, which meant that the players could see exactly what these buildings looked like:

But such a moment could easily arise in any number of ways. The key point here is that the PCs unexpectedly went into a building I had not anticipated them going into.

Now what?

This, of course, is exactly why so many video games nail the doors shut on all the buildings in town.

IN THIS CASE…

In this case, the players’ proposed reason for going into the building conveniently gave me the solution: They hypothesized that the neighboring apartment buildings, although slightly different in size, would have similar floorplans to the project site. I had floorplans for the project site, so it was relatively easy for me to just use those floorplans as the basis for some quick improvisation.

This exact scenario probably won’t crop up that often for you, but the general principle can be more broadly applied: Grab a floorplan you already have prepped — from the current session or perhaps from a previous session — and use it.

Just like these apartment buildings, the similarity of the buildings can be quite diegetic: The world is filled with structures built to a common floorplan.

MAKE IT UP

Obviously the easiest thing for me to say is, “Just make it up.”

Easy to say and great if it works. But improvisation takes practice and, honestly, no matter how much practice you get, there’ll still be times when you come up dry. That’s what the rest of this article is for.

But before we dive into that stuff, a quick word about making it up: Don’t feel like the whole building needs to spring full-blown from your brow like Athena doing Doric cosplay. You can build it up over time, describing only what the PCs need to know at any given moment. As play proceeds, a sketchy understanding of the building will start filling in with details.

A few thoughts on this:

• The first thing you’re likely to need is the exterior of the building. What’s the first thing that pops into you head when you think of the building? Describe that.
• If it’s a tactical situation, a key thing here will be entrances (do more than one) and windows.
• The second thing is to think about why the PCs are interested in the building: They’ll have probably already told you. (They’re looking for the CEO’s office. Or they’re trying to get to the roof. Or they want to hack the mainframe.) Roughly speaking, where is that stuff? First floor? Basement? Top floor?
• Once they pick an entrance, describe the lobby or front room or kitchen or whatever it is they see when they go through that door.
• Once again, think about where the exits are and start getting a sketchy feeling for where they might lead (with some thought for how they might connect to the PCs’ goals).

And then proceed along those lines.

But it also doesn’t have to be that complicated!

It’s very often true that you don’t actually need a floorplan at all.

For example, if the PCs have come here to meet with the CEO, you don’t need to know the whole building. In fact, you can probably just cut straight to a scene in the CEO’s office.

On the other hand, if you do need a floorplan and you need it right now (it’s a tactical situation, you’re playing with a VTT, etc.), then you can…

GOOGLE IT

Just hit up a search engine and type in whatever building type you’re looking for plus “blueprints” or “floorplans.”

This tends to work most reliably with modern buildings, but adding “fantasy” or “science fiction” to the search can often pull up what you need. (More reliably with the former than the latter.) These days if you add “RPG,” too, you’re likely to get a full-blown battlemap more often than not.

BUILD YOUR STOCK

Instead of scrambling with image searches at the table, you can get ahead of the game by building up a supply of stock floorplans for common locations.

• 4 or 5 different houses
• 2 or 3 warehouses
• 3 or 4 offices buildings
• A shopping mall

That sort of thing.

You can make a big push to assemble this in a marathon prep session, but it’s also something you can slowly build up over time: When you prep an adventure with a house, for example, tuck the floorplan for that house into the accordion folder or computer directory where you’re keeping your generic stock of floorplans. Over time you’ll just sort of accrete what you need.

Either way, you’ll slowly develop a sense of exactly what type of floorplans you’re likely to need, and that knowledge can often transfer from one setting to another. (As can many of the floorplans, in fact. Particularly if they don’t need to be seen by the players.)

RANDOM FLOORPLANS

Another option is to use a random generator to create the floorplan you need on-the-fly.

If you poke around a bit, you can find a number of online generators, like this Random Inn Generator from Inkwell Ideas. Collect these links in your digital notes and you can get something like this with the press of a button:

Personally, I prefer a more generic generator that I can use with just dice-and-paper. You can find the tool I use in my article on Streetcrawling Tools. It provides enough of a scaffold that I can iterate the rest, but is generic enough that I generally only need the one tool. That way I don’t feel overwhelmed hunting for precisely the right tool if my stock of generic floorplans doesn’t have exactly what I’m looking for.

It’s sort of the multitool of, “Oh crap, my players just went into a random building!”

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 27C – Running the Campaign: Playing to the Crowd
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

I think we need to start with a little disambiguation. This is NOT a review of Ptolus: City by the Spire, the incredible 700-page city supplement originally designed for D&D 3^rd Edition, recently adapted to both D&D 5^th Edition and the Cypher System, and the basis for my own In the Shadow of the Spire campaign.

This is a review of Ptolus: City of Adventure, an anthology of three adventures each sold separately as PDFs:

• The Doctrine of Ghul
• The Runeblood Blessing
• Return of the Ebon Hand

(Also not to be confused for Ptolus: City By the Spire, the graphic novel by Monte Cook and Caanan White. Although the odds of that error being made are probably significantly lower.)

The adventures are designed with the expectation that you’ll be using them in conjunction with the Ptolus sourcebook, but it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to adapt them to any urban D&D setting.

They are dual-statted for use with both 5^th Edition and the Cypher System. I usually find dual-statted books very awkward and frequently confusing, but Monte Cook Games cleverly uses sidebars and iconography to clearly delineate the two sets of stats. The result is easy to read and easy to use.

SPOILERS FOR THE ADVENTURES!

DOCTRINE OF GHUL

In Bruce R. Cordell’s Doctrine of Ghul, an incomplete manuscript purportedly written by Ghul the Skull-King (an evil overlord from the history of Ptolus) has surfaced and is being promulgated through the city. Those who read the manuscript, however, discover that (a) they are cursed to die unless they finish reading it and (b) it’s incomplete, so they can’t do that.

Whether it’s the PCs who get cursed by the incomplete doctrine, someone they care about, or someone who’s willing to pay them for help, they’ll have to journey into Ghul’s Labyrinth — the vast dungeons beneath Ptolus which once served as the barracks for Ghul’s legions and the laboratories for his arcanists — and visit three locations where the missing passages of the Doctrine can be found.

Truth be told, the metaphysics and background of this whole framing device is a dog’s breakfast. The “Doctrine” is actually a fake, created by a wizard named Alberek who wants to bring Ghul back from the dead. Alberek believes that each time someone finishes reading the full Doctrine there’s a chance that they’ll bring Ghul back from the dead… so, naturally, rather than just sending out full copies of the Doctrine, he’s hidden chunks of the text underground so that people have to go adventuring to read the full Doctrine. (Even though this isn’t necessary and, if you copy out the passages, you can bring them back to the surface and have people read them.) Also the Doctrine isn’t completely fake, it’s based on fragments of text which may have actually been written by Ghul. Also also, each time someone finishes reading the Doctrine and doesn’t miraculously resurrect Ghul, Alberek teleports to their location and kills them. For… reasons?

Bit of nonsense really.

But here’s the thing: This whole framing device is, ultimately, just a way to get the PCs to visit three locations within Ghul’s Labyrinth.

• The Frozen Crypt
• The Breeding Pits of Formless Hunger
• The Galchutt Cyst

Each of these locations is a completely independent mini-dungeon, and they’re all quite excellent. Incredibly creepy ambience, clever encounters, and cool lore make each one a delightful gem of dungeon design.

For example, in the Breeding Pits the PCs will encounter an airborne pathogen which subverts their immune systems and uses them to begin creating a grey goo. As they expectorate or vomit forth the strange substance, it becomes animate and begins joining together to form strange servitors seeking to continue the ancient work of the researchers who once labored here.

That’s the kind of idea which elevates a simple dungeon crawl into a truly memorable experience, and each of these locations are studded with stuff like this.

So here’s the bottom line for me: Jettison the wonky framing device and you’re left with three really great mini-dungeons that you can use to flesh out any journey into or through Ghul’s Labyrinth. That’s a fantastic tool for your toolkit! And makes it more than worthwhile to grab a copy of Doctrine of Ghul.

(Just make sure you read the whole thing.)

Grade: B-

THE RUNEBLOOD BLESSING

The Runeblood Blessing by Sean K. Reynolds is a brilliant example of how to prep and run urban adventures.

The concept is that a sorcerer named Vlenn has perfected a magical ritual that will grant people a blood-red rune that gives them a magical power (like blur or invisibility or feather fall). She offers the ritual for an extremely affordable price, and empowered runeblooders begin showing up throughout the city. It’s the democratization of magic and it upsets the existing structures of power in myriad ways.

There’s just one little problem: Some of the runeblooders are dropping dead.

So many published adventures would take this incredibly cool concept and immediately fail to realize its expansive, transformative potential by locking it into some form of linear structure. Reynolds’ skips right past this potential pitfall by instead providing an adventure toybox for the GM to actively play with.

The presentation of these toys can be a little sloppy in places, but it boils down to:

• A series of background events combined with incidental encounters that allow the runeblood blessing to become engrained into your campaign world.
• An investigation track that the PCs might choose to proactively look into the “runeblood sickness” as it begins to emerge through the background events.
• An investigation into various crimes being committed by runeblood-enabled gangs and cat burglars.
• An investigation into Vlenn’s operation, culminating in a location crawl or raid at her headquarters in the Warrens.
• An otherworldly dungeoncrawl in the Shadow of Ptolus (an evil demiplane) where the PCs explore the surreal umbral fortress from which the runeblood blessing’s power flows.
• A set of three Ptolus “side scenes” that further flesh out the life of the city.

The important thing to recognize is that these are all independent (yet overlapping) adventure elements. What makes The Runeblood Blessing so cool is that there’s not some specific moment at which The Adventure™ begins. There’s not one specific point where somebody shows up and says, “You should go on this adventure now.”

Instead, there is this vast, ongoing event that’s happening throughout the entire city. It’s not happening specifically to the PCs. It’s happening to the city. To everyone. And it’s up to the players to decide if, how, and when they’re going to choose to interact with these events: Do they buy a runeblood blessing? Blackmail Vlenn? Investigate the criminals?

The result will add a deeply rewarding layer to your Ptolus campaign, bringing the city to life and making it feel huge to your players. That scope and vibrancy, in turn, will make the PCs feel incredibly important once they get involved.

Highly recommended not only as an adventure in its own right, but also as a nearly perfect exemplar of how to create your own urban adventures.

Grade: A-

RETURN OF THE EBON HAND

The final adventure in the book — Return of the Ebon Hand by Monte Cook and Sean K. Reynolds — is another phenomenal example of how you can/should design adventures for your Ptolus campaign.

There are two things I love here.

First, Return of the Ebon Hand is a sequel. The adventure assumes that the PCs have already routed the Ebon Hand from their temple, which is presented as an adventure location in the core Ptolus sourcebook. Although it can’t be entirely sure how those events might have played out in your campaign, it offers several options and some guidance on how you can adapt the adventure to make it fit.

This is such a great example of how events in your campaign can/should spark additional adventures as events develop over time. (I might have a soft spot here because, in my own campaign, the PCs routed the Ebon Hand and then also had to deal with the legacy of their actions in a subsequent adventure.)

Note: I’ll also note that you don’t have to run this adventure as a sequel. The published adventure notes the possibility of assuming that NPC heroes or the City Watch had cleaned out the Temple of the Ebon Hand, and that perhaps those events could be used as background events in your campaign. But it would also be fairly easy to tweak things so that both the Temple of the Ebon Hand and the New Temple of the Ebon Hand are active at the same time. You could even put Fulton’s Journal, as described below, in the Temple of the Ebon Hand where the PCs can discover it.

The second thing I love about Return of the Ebon Hand is how it showcases using multiple scenario hooks that all point to the same scenario.

The background of the adventure sees the vestiges of the Ebon Hand flee from the destruction of their temple and eventually reorganize into a new temple built around a Pit of Insanity within Ghul’s Labyrinth. Harnessing this powerful artifact of chaos, the Ebon Hand once again begins experimenting with the human mutations which are the heart of their faith and through which they believe they will achieve transcendence.

Their use of the Pit kicks its chaotic power into high gear, and it begins manifesting strange effects in the city above and the dungeon nearby. This includes resurrecting various dead criminals in the crypts of the Prison.

As with The Runeblood Blessing, several background events are presented to integrate this background into your campaign. Then Cook and Reynolds present three scenario hooks:

• The PCs can investigate the chaotic manifestations, eventually tracking them back to the house that the cultists are using to access their underground temple.
• The PCs can investigate the resurrected criminals (who begin causing trouble throughout the city).
• The PCs can be come into possession of journal written by a delver named Fulton, whose adventuring party explored the area of Ghul’s Labyrinth where the Ebon Hand has now established its temple.

The cool thing is that you can deploy all three of these scenario hooks simultaneously. (The PCs might pursue one of them or they might want to pursue all three of them.) The even cooler thing is that it’s not immediately obvious that all three clues point to the same dungeon crawl!

Each hook not only points to a different problem/opportunity (chaos manifestations, resurrected criminals, an enigmatic journal), it also points to a completely different entrance to this section of Ghul’s Labyrinth. So, for example, the PCs might explore the prison crypts, follow the tunnels back to the lair of the resurrected criminals, and then realize, “Hey! I think these tunnels match those in Fulton’s journal!” And then they might explore a bit more and discover the Ebon Hand cultists that have been making headlines in the newssheets for the past several weeks!

In short, it’s a rich, multi-dimensional adventure environment that I think you’ll find really rewarding in actual play.

There are, unfortunately, a couple of flaws here that should be noted.

First, I found the cartography a little underwhelming. There’s some very nice xandering here (including, but not limited to the multiple entrances), but there’s a lot of “square rooms joined by long hallways.” I would have liked a few more geographically distinctive set pieces and perhaps a greater sense of the purpose for which these corridors were originally made. (This should not be interpreted as a knock on the key, which is studded with lots of interesting rooms.)

Second, Fulton’s journal is a really scenario hook and could be a really cool prop. But the adventure chooses to chop the journal up and print each entry directly next to the room which it’s describing. Expect to do some extra work stitching these together, and then even more work filling in the significant lacuna that you’ll immediately discover. (If you don’t do this, your players will find it virtually impossible to get any meaningful utility out of the journal.)

But these quibbles should be understood as exactly that: Quibbles.

Return of the Ebon Hand is a very, very good adventure that’s also a perfect bookend to The Doctrine of Ghul, nicely showcasing a different facet of Ghul’s Labyrinth.

Grade: B+

Style: 5
Substance: 4

Authors: Bruce R. Cordell, Sean K. Williams, Monte Cook
Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Cost: $29.95 (Physical) / $14.97 (PDF)
Page Count: 96

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