Session Two All Over

With Session Two concluded we finally put those children of your imaginations on paper.  While the standard group usually consists of a fighter, cleric, wizard or sorcerer and a rogue our noble group shall written in the pages of history through the efforts of a druid (Mike), monk (Donna), paladin (Kevin) and rogue (Tyler). That being said character creation is far from over.  There's still back stories and how everyone in the group knows each other.  The give you some information that may help in this endeavor your first quest begins with all of you meeting in a town at the behest of a friend.  He has an opportunity that he would like to discuss with all of you.  The starting town is primarily human should you choose to make it your home town.  For those of you with gnome characters there are two very small gnome settlement that are about a 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 days travel from the starting town. If you need to see the map again to determine where about your home town may be I have re-posted it below with some added cities and terrain.  I also renamed 2 features.
    

Session Two

     Well session two is right around the corner. The focus of this session will be building the characters and the party.  Unfortunately Kevin will not be joining us due to his school workload.  Hopefully everyone has been thinking about their characters and have a few ideas to work with.  I've talked with everyone and have put together a list of everyone preferred class.

• Tyler - Rogue
• Donna - Monk
• Mike - Druid however he is willing to play anything
• Kevin - Deathknight however this isn't likely to become a reality

    The standard roles that need to be filled, seem to be done so adequately.  Remember when developing your characters to also develop the relations between your characters.  As this is a co-op game it makes sense to build the party as the characters are built.  Also if anyone has solid copies of the PHB and DMG please do bring them.  This session will be at Mikes House for 6:30 on Tuesday.

House Rules

    I've thrown together a few house rules and organized them by relevancy.  These are subject to change but I'll let you guys know when that may be. Not all of these are originally mine, in fact I borrowed quite a few from Jonathan Drain's blog D20 source and you can find his site here.  These rules are meant to ensure fair play, keep the game moving with out spending 2 hours on a basic combat encounter and to add a little more flavour to the the game.

The Calendar and the Holidays

No world would be complete without holidays! I've prepared some information that will further build onto the world your characters live in and interact with.  The year of this campaign is broken into 12 months with 30 days in each. This results in 360 day years and 4 seasons to a year. Days are still twenty for hours, weeks are still 7 days.  To give credit where credit is due some of these month names I took from a list of month names compiled by Shamus Young who runs Twenty Sided which is a fantastic blog for Dungeons and Dragons among other things and is really the inspiration of using a blog for a campaign although Jonathan Drain gets some credit too.  The article of Shamus Young's that lists the months can be found here.  The names that aren't from Shamus Young have been lifted from the Finnish Culture. 

The month's names are:

Month of Winters Heart - Named for the coldest and darkest time of the year
Month of Pearl - Named for the ice coated trees made visible by the return of the sun
Earthy Month - Named for the earth that is finally visible under the snow
Burnwood Month - Named for the wood that is burned as farmers clear land
Newbloom Month - Named for the flowers
Ripetide Month - Named for the month where the fishing is most profitable
Suncrest Month - Named for the month where the sun is highest
Month of  Summer's End - Duh
Month of Lands Blessing - Named for the crops that begin to ripen
Month of Harvest - Named for the harvesting that takes place all month
Deadyear Month - After spring and summer the world turns dark and the year dies.
Wintertide Month - Named for the freezing that occurs in the rivers and lakes ceasing contact with many of the Aquan races that dwell inshore.

Each race has a number of different holidays that the observe.  Below are the holidays and the races that celebrate them.  Most of these were taken from the races of stone and races of wild books.  It should be noted however that these are not the only holidays in existence.  Towns and villages will have their own holidays as will other nations and races.   The few listed below represent the most important holidays in these races life.  I've also made a calender of the year which is posted after all the holidays.  It also lists the 1st day of each season. 

The Co-Op World building was a success

We Finished the world building and here's what we came up with.


WORLD

D is for Donna
M is for Mike
K is for Kevin
T is for Tyler
J is for Jon


Phase One: World Myths
D: Legend: The world was originally vacant and extraterriestials
M: Legend: The world is a pangea
M: Fact: There was a war of races versus gods and the races lost and have lost their status
K: Legend: Water flows off the world and back up into the air and rains
K: Legend: If you fall off the world you may end up on a different plane
M: Legend: The elemental planes were once part of the material plane but the material was too chaotic but they were removed to calm down the material plane.
J: Fact: Dieties take an active interest in their worshipers
K: Fact : There are lines and pools magic in the earth that stem from the center. M: There used to be more powerful magic on the surface but was exhusted durring the war of the gods.
K: Fact: Underdark flooded during the war

Phase Two: The Races
J: Fact: Tallfellows don't exist.
D: Legend: There is a moutains society of outcasts.
M: Fact: Dwarves swallow small rocks to aid in digestion
K: Fact: Auquan Races exists and interact with society
D: Fact: There are societies of intellectual orcs
K: Fact: Most Killeran are predjudice to races that mistreat the earth and hate everything except elves.
M: Legend: Garl Glittergold sent a gnome settlement back in time to build a temple for an event in the future. Fact: In that location there is a dugeon for Garl Glittlergold that no one has reached the bottom of
D: Fact: Elves are hippies except radical splinter groups
M: Myth: Only humans can cross breed with other races
K: Fact: Every race is sufficiently populated cept drow
J: Fact: The drow live in dense jungles and their main base is in a volcano
K: Myth: The drow helped the gods in the war and as a reward live in sunlight
D: Donna: All monks need to go on a quest and bring something back as a passage of adulthood.

J: FACT: Fey live in deep old forests
K: FACT: Fey travel through fey lines which is a much faster than roads.


Phase Three: Local Geography
See map below

Phase Four: The Village
J: Fact: There are no schools of magic in the village
D: Fact: Every young male has to spend a year in active duty.
D: The town is exports pigs trained for truffle finding.
J: Fact: It's a crime to kill a pig.
K: Fact: The town is run by a Duke who answers to a Lord who answers to a King
D: The town is primarily humans with a few other races


Phase Five: Local Threats and Faction
There is a tribe of lizardfolk and a black dragon that lives in a bog.

Churches in largers cities allow worship multiple dieties.

There is a monestary in the cratar of evil monks twisted by the space rock.

Multiple guilds that aren't united.

Forest of Scorn: Legend of a wizard who raised a legion of unded but killed by the legion and the forest is forever haunted.

Cults that are against societies norm.

There is a band of goblins that has been displaying better tactics than goblins normally do.

Fact: There is a secreted sect of fighters that train using the techniques passed down by a demon.
Myth: said demon is still at large in the material plane.



Phase Six: Local Legends
Legends has it that great riches are guarded by a dragon in the bog.

Legend has it that the wizard who raised an army of the undead carried man magical items.

Legend has Jlourns cave is deadly and no one returns

Legend has it formians live under the land and may rise again

There is a wishing well outside of the town.

Derek Mcgrull got a wish at the well and became a powerful wizard and women were attracted to him.

Myth: There is a monster in the southern mountains that is so terrible that any who look upon it perish
.
Myth: The something woods is connected to the feywild, and has much wild magic. Many who stay there for long go mad.

FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE A MAP



Don't forget to think about those character ideas.

Session One

    To those of you who have found this site well done!!  I'll probably be using this blog as an easy means to keep you guys updated on the scheduling of the D&D campaign as well as posting house rules and other things.  I would like the focus of this campaign to be more on role playing than roll playing so do put some thought into your characters and if anyone want to play the stoic dark hero they are going to be really bored.  The setting and theme of this D&D campaign is more of a traditional dungeons and dragons world however the exact nature of the campaign will depend on you guys.

     The first session is planned for this Tuesday at Tyler's house.  For those of you who don't know where he lives his address is Tai's House.  The primary purpose of this session is to build the world.  I am using an a system called cooperative world building, more information on that can be found here http://www.savevsdm.com/?p=129,  to make sure everyone sorta has a say in the world being made and that at the start of your characters lives you all atleast know something about the world.  I ask that you read the article before the session so you have some ideas in your head before we start the world building.  The people who have been invited to play in this campaign are: mischeif prone Mike and attuned with nature Donna Edison,  treasure hunting Mike McCarthy, shrouded in arcane mystery Kevin MacAulay Vacheresse and divine punishment administrating Tyler Jacob.

    I don't expect the world building to take up the entire night so if there is time left over we will be able to make our characters.  As I don't really want to deal with a myriad of specialized classes and freaky races I am restricting playable races to those found in the Players Handbook and classes to those found in the Players Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide.  Your characters will be starting at level 2 as I find level 1 characters are a pain to work with.  If you have anyone questions or comments or want author priviliges feel free to leave comments or text me.

Recap

Session 1 will be about world building and hopefully character creation.  You can read about the cooperative world building system here http://www.savevsdm.com/?p=129.

The Greatest Adventure of all times

I am writing this blog for super fun more  informations after the jump.