Author: Lost Lore Scholar

Elven Maid Inn: What a Dungeon Master’s Guide Should Be

January 23rd, 2025
Finely! I said Finely! Emi has come to Jack’s Blog! With that ‘The Rock’ impression, I would like to introduce myself to those who don’t know who I am. I am known on Social Media as Elven Maid Inn, and people started calling me Emi or Elven. I am the creator of Tales from the Tavern Magazine and I do create some homebrew stuff for different games, so give me a follow @elvenmaidinn!

Now, I am here as I promised I would write an article for Jack’s Blog. After many weeks of thinking about what to write, I picked my topic: Dungeon Master’s Guide by EMI or, more precisely, what the DMG should be in my opinion. Initially, when I started writing this article, it very quickly turned into a massive slam-dunk on the 5e DMG and 2024 DMG, and that version went into the bin; it was filled with anger and pain. The new version that you are about to read focuses on what should be included in the D&D DMG.

Let’s get to it.

First of all, D&D EMI’s DMG is a massive book; maybe, in fact, it should be split into two separate books: DMG Basic and DMG Advanced, or at least into three separate chapters. But let’s see what’s inside.

Chapter 1: New Dungeon Master Advices
Chapter 1 is fully dedicated to Dungeon Masters starting their adventure with that role. It will explain how to run a game, how to make preparations for a campaign, what types of campaigns there are, how to use Adventure
Modules, how to use World Settings, how to create encounters, how to create NPCs, how to include players into the world, explain terms like railroading and sandbox, explain the basics of running shops, explain ways to award players with XP or Gold, and explain your role as a Dungeon Master.

I do believe that often DMGs are thrown into deep water. Yes, if you’ve played other systems, you’re accustomed to many of these parts, but if we want our hobby to thrive, we need more Dungeon Masters, and that role cannot be intimidating. At this point, a DM doesn’t need to know that there are six different ways to roll players’ Attributes. This section of the book is a basic explanation of how the Dungeon Master role works and what kind of
preparations you need to make to run a game.

This part of the book should also contain a few guidelines about Safety Tools. Yes, you heard me right, the DMG should focus on informing Dungeon Masters that the best safety tool is to have a conversation with their players,
explaining what the campaign is about, how the tones will be present in the game – there’s no need for X signs or Safety Check Lists if the Dungeon Master is open for conversation with his players. This should be hammered into new DMs’ head – Listen to your players, observe their reactions, and adapt. The DMG should also clearly state that Dungeons & Dragons is not a therapeutic session and that the Dungeon Master is not a therapist. Yes, D&D
can be used for this, but a DM should have proper education about therapy sessions. A normal DM should not play a role they don’t understand as they can do more harm than good, especially when playing with young
people. The DMG needs to hammer that into DMs’ brains.

Chapter 2: Expert Dungeon Master
Chapter 2 is for any DM with experience. You’ve run a few campaigns and are ready to expand your rules. In this section, we will explain how to have different types of rolling for attributes, like 4d6 pick 3 highest for Heroic
Fantasy, or 3d6 down the line for Gritty Fantasy, Point Buy, or any other way to roll stats. We will introduce alternative rules such as flanking, attacking from the side, and many other rules that expand the D&D game. This
chapter will focus on homebrewing your games, how to create new monsters, how to adjust existing monsters, how to create your own race, your own class, your own adventure, your own world. DMs will learn how to craft
unique Boss Monsters and their lairs, how to use the environment in the game – everything an experienced Dungeon Master needs to tailor their own worlds for personal campaigns.

This will be a huge chunk of the book, as DMG Chapter 2 will tackle hundreds of optional rules and guides to create everything from Monsters to Items. The goal is that after reading Chapter 2, a DM will be able to create
Homebrew Material and even their own books, because if the third-party scene is thriving for a system, then the entire system will flourish. I am thinking about what should be tackled in this section other than that, but it’s not easy to decide, so let’s move to the next chapter.

Chapter 3: Expanding the D&D
The last chapter might be the hardest to pull off, but I believe it’s essential to D&D; it’s about expanding the rules of D&D to new horizons. I do applaud the 2024 DMG for trying to introduce Forts, but I must say this is by far their worst attempt at introducing it. I must stop here, but you probably see how my initial version of this article looked.
So, how would I see it?
- Domain Rules – Rules and explanations on how players can rule their own Land, Castles, or Keeps.
- Naval Combat – Rules for Naval Combat, making it fun for every player involved.
- Player Business – Rules for how players can run their own businesses, Taverns, Shops, or Guilds.
- Airship Combat – Similar to Naval Combat but focused on Flying Ships.
- Army Combat – Rules on how to play huge battles, how to maintain units, etc.
This and more would be covered in Chapter 3, in a compact way. With time, separate books for each could be
released, expanding those concepts.
But yeah, this is how I see DMG Emi’s Edition. Let me know how I did!

Contribution by Elven Maid Inn

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Musings: Dragon Age Veilguard and the Subversion of Fantasy

October 29th, 2024

I have recently written an article for Tales from the Tavern issue two wherein I explain the need to remove the ‘poison of politics’ from genre fantasy. Without wanting to re-write such an article I must, at the least, express my feelings on the new Dragon Age: The Veilguard here.

For in this game all of my many pet peeves regarding ideological hijacking of fantasy seem to have been realised. Now, I am not going to be playing DA:VG, as I haven’t the time nor the willpower. I did, however, play Dragon Age: Origins, now a far flung memory. The difference in approach to these two titles in the same universe is stark.

Origins was a dark, gritty, and yet hopeful adventure through a war torn land with a horde of evil nipping at your heels the whole of the way. After your ‘Origin’ you took part in the grand battle of Ostagar and witnessed the death of the King at the hands of the evil Darkspawn, his father’s most loyal friend betraying him at the last and leaving him to die. What follows is possibly one of the greatest video game experiences I have ever had. The characters were incredibly well written, well voiced, and well designed. They felt real. Believable.

The fantasy was that of saving the world. Of writing wrongs, of defeating evil (at least in my playthrough) and of romancing the lovely Leliana. It was the return of the King, his sacrifice to the Archdemon, the end of his dry humour in a blaze of glory. It was playing the noble knight, denying Morrigan her wish to bed me for magical purposes, and failing to slay the high dragon no matter how hard I tried.

And then… then there is Veilguard. A game that boasts ‘top surgery scars’, ugly characters, and whose chief fantasy appears to be winning an argument with your parents about pronouns around the dinner table. A game wherein you can encourage your party members to be proud of their ‘multicultural’ background. Wherein the very modern language of pronouns, of gender identity, and other various left wing talking points continually appear to rear their sparkly heads.

And this, they will tell you, is easily ignored. It is a belaboured point by now but it bears repeating;

The suspension of disbelief is paramount to the experience of a fantasy world. The forced inclusion of political and social ideology serves no purpose other than to drag the vast majority of people out of that fantasy world in order to beat them over the head with the writer’s worldview.

The greatest fantasy for these people is not slaying the high dragon, nor is it bedding the bard, nor saving the world; it is forcing their philosophy on the people around them. That is why these snippets exist. They are attempting a subversion of the genre in order to affect the real world to better suit them and theirs.

No, I say. The genre of Fantasy at its best is one of escape. Lessons may be learned, inspiration may be taken, yet these things are done as the reader allows. The approach of Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not one of seeking to tell a grand tale.

It appears instead to be just another skin-suit for the ideologically possessed to try and force their worldview down our throats.

Jack
Lost Lore Scholar
Musings: Modern Mythology, or Why Genre Fantasy is Familiar

March 9th, 2024

The question has been asked many times; why is it that fantasy is so familiar? Or, to phrase it another way, why are dwarves thought of as mountain dwelling smiths and elves nature loving forest folk? I posit that the reason we resonate with these familiarities in genre fantasy is because they are simple retellings of core mythology from hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years ago.

Sable, one of my wife’s characters, art by the ever lovely Shan

This may seem an obvious thing to state. It should not be hard for anyone to say that Tolkien, the father of the genre, drew heavily from myths and legends. Yet the question is a tad more specific. Why do we as modern people view fantasy as a genre? It could be argued that Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is Fantasy, yet we would not find it listed with Elric and Drizzt. We recognise that the genre has certain mythological elements.

Reading backward through time one might begin to see traces of modern Fantasy’s beginnings in Arthurian legend. Or in the tales of Homer. Or even in the text of the Bible and other ancient religions.

Genre Fantasy is an amalgamation of all of human spirituality and idealism over the last ten thousand years. It puts the unknown of dragons, fairies, and magic back into the world and makes possible again larger than life characters and daring adventures. Dwarves are a mountain folk not because it is a tired trope but because the traditions passed down to us declare them to be so. All of the folk lore of all the world’s people’s can be housed in many forms over varying fantastical worlds.

Fantasy is a universal language. One in which the deepest depths of the human condition may be explored and explained. Grand heroes defeating great evils, or great evils conquering helpless victims, monsters in the dark, and mirth in the light; all of it contained within this one genre in a myriad of forms.

Suffice it to say that Genre Fantasy is a Mythos for the Modern Times. Douglas Adams, the author of a Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once said in regard to religion;

‘Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?‘

Fantasy authors of all creeds and beliefs placed those fairies back in the garden. The garden was much improved.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar

Tweets by LostLoreScholar
Writing Exercise: Woodland Warrior

January 24th, 2024

This piece was written in one sitting with minimal editing.

The music of the wilderness played all about him.

              It had rained for near on two full days. The pattering drumbeats of chill water signalling to him the fast-approaching winter. The north wind blew through the Valwood, shaking leaves of gold and amber from branches of oak and ash alike. The sound whistled and hummed, sheets of rain punctuating its sighs with harsh symbol like crashes as it ebbed and rose. A doe, her flanks shining with the downpour, passed right by him and yet did not take note. She bent low at the far end of the small glade to eat moss from a rock.

              He remained motionless yet allowed his eyes, deep brown and flecked with brilliant green, to flick to the deer for a heartbeat. He caught the white end of her tail as she continued on her way and set his steady gaze back to watching the far tree line. From beneath his weather-beaten hood, he could see the company he had expected deeper in the wood. He narrowed his eyes and focussed his intent.

              They became clearer to him. Like the wind they came from the north. Yet unlike the chill winds of winter, they did not fit the surrounding symphony. His ears twitched. Even from here he could hear their heavy footfalls and harsh grunting breaths as they struggled in their march. It was as if the forest itself was trying to keep them from passing beneath its boughs, as though it remembered the days in the distant past where it had stretched far, far to the south. That thought gave him cause to smile.

              He rose from his concealment, water running off of his cloak as he did. From those drier confines he produced his bow, polished black wood bearing the intricate patterns of vines, flowers, and birds etched in silver. It was strung with a fine white string of Evhanian horsehair, though he had covered it with a wrapping of dark cloth that he now removed. Wet bow strings made for bad hunts. He made a few quick checks of his arrows on his back and his sword on his hip and was off.

              His pace outmatched that of his quarry, light booted and surefooted steps knowing well the quagmire of the forest’s thick natural carpet. Again, it occurred to him that the forest was aiding him in his overtaking of his foe, speeding him on his way to the defence of the southern edge of the wood. His grim smile of satisfaction returned to his face and he offered up a silent prayer of thanks to the spirit of the place.

              Now far ahead of and in the direct path of his enemy, he came to the base of a large oak. Shouldering his bow, he scaled the tree in a few moments, minding not the slick surface of its bark. He alighted on a branch that dipped low to the ground at its far end and waited, an arrow knocked. The group of orcs, seven of the things, were in clear view. Much like all their kind they were a brutish lot, taller than man and elf and more muscle than anything else. Their leader, a pale-green skinned thing wearing a cracked helm of dwarf make, called for the company to halt a stones throw from the oak.

              The bowman, crouched low on his oaken branch, drew back the arrow. No sound did the weapon make as he set his eye to the arrow’s shaft, black and tipped with gleaming silvery steel. He breathed deep and slow, watching as the creatures below him caught up to their leader. The sounds of the rain and the wind fell away.

              The high-pitched scream of an arrow whistling through the air broke his silence. Its thumped into the back of the lead orc’s neck, spraying one of its companion’s in black blood as it drove through the front of the creature’s throat. Before the monsters could realise they were under attack another arrow found its mark in the eye of another of the beasts. As the two dropped, the remaining five began to shout warnings to one another.

              The archer stepped out along the branch and fired again as he did. This arrow caught one of the orcs in the chest and it crumpled to the floor. They had spotted him now, though, and he drew out his sword as he dropped from the downward slope of his perch. He landed on a large root that protruded from the soaked earth.

              “You are not welcome.” He said to them.

              The first of the remaining four orcs roared at him and hefted an axe above its head. It charged him alone. It slipped in the mud and, trying to steady itself, tripped on one of the oak’s roots. His sword plunged into the thing’s gut right to the hilt. Black blood issued forth from the wound as he pulled the weapon free from the squealing thing and allowed it to drop to the side.

              “Three remain.” He said to the trio.

              And three charged. He stepped backward off of his root, noting the struggle that his enemies had to find solid footing. Their charge broke as a matter of necessity and became instead a laboured advance. The first to reach him thrust at him with a crude spear which he batted aside with the flat of his sword from right to left. He used the momentum of that parry to bring the long blade about over his head to strike out at the orc’s throat. It could not cry out as it fell forward, grasping at its mortal wound.

              “Two.” He said under his breath as he danced backward, seeming to find the surest ground with no issue. One of those two remaining had become stuck in the mud, leaving its companion to follow after him. It snarled at him, pointed and huge teeth bared, and swung its own sword at him from the right.

              The ring of metal on metal pierced the hammering beats of the rainfall. Again, the orc struck out, this time in a clumsy overhead chop and again the ring of his parry pushed the attack back and off balance. He sliced his opponent’s belly wide, entrails slopping forth into the muck and mire.

              “One.” He looked up from the two he had cut down and his gaze met that of the last orc. Its black eyes were wide with terror, its knuckles white with panic about its club. It was well and truly stuck with mud up to its knees. He stooped low to wipe the blood off of his sword on one of the fallen and straightened again.

              He took a step toward it and the creature began to try once more to yank itself free of the sodden earth. He sheathed his sword and instead raised his bow once again, setting an arrow to the string. He pulled back. The orc roared at him. The arrow silenced it.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar

Tweets by LostLoreScholar
TTRPGs: Restrict your Party, Kill the Memes

January 18th, 2024

I originally wrote this for it to be in video format. Since I just don’t have time to record I’ll post it here as a blog.

Dungeons and Dragons; the game of swords, sorcery, and an overabundance of multi-coloured tiefling, dragonborn, and goblin player characters.

Before you click away, let me explain;

A few years ago I was a dungeon master for a short campaign for my usual group. Short campaigns for me are about a year long.

The group was entitled ‘the Bravo Company’ and consisted of some very zany characters.

Art by the ever-lovely Shan

There was my wife’s character. Wynn, the charismatic cowboy Ranger tiefling, another tiefling called Kane who was a Warlock, a golden dragonborn sorcerer that hated the colour green called Tirnaal, a short and fluffy tabaxi bard called Curly, an eladrin druid called Thorn that really lived up to being a fae, and a frankenstien’s monster character called, um, Junior. He was a fighter.

Now I had not intended this campaign to be the ‘meme’ campaign, but it very quickly became the meme campaign.

Shan, the lass that played Curly, is quite the artist and boy oh boy did she draw some pretty funny things based on the antics of the Bravo Company. From Curly riding a mine cart with a sling shot shooting kobolds, to a vs splash screen of the company about to fight the green dragon boss of the story.

Now you might be wandering what the problem is, as I’ve just made the campaign sound very exciting.

The problem, friends, is that the characters were all exceptionally one note. Each one a meme and, as entertaining as they were in the moment, they had no emotional impact on the party whatsoever. The green dragon was killed and the campaign sort of just stopped there. The jokes had been made and that was that. Fond memories and chuckles, but little more.

Now, let me paint you a far more compelling picture. The same players, save for one, played through their very first campaign with me as DM just a few years prior to the Bravo Company.

The Reprobates, as they called themselves, consisted of a Half-Elf Paladin of Helm called Varic, a Halfling Cleric of Pelor called Talvor (don’t mind the mixture of pantheons), a half-orc fighter played by my wife called Sable, a Halfling Wizard called Isobel, though she was affectionately referred to as Big Mamma, and an elven ranger called Snake Eyes.

They were tasked with defending a small town from a hobgoblin army that was gathering in the woods to the north. They went on daring missions behind enemy lines to sabotage the monster’s efforts and to procure relics from tombs that might help in their fight.

One particular Hobgoblin Commander by the name of Shognor was quite the foe and Varic the Paladin had to duel him, one on one, surrounded by his friends and Shognor’s goblinoid soldiers. The monster was not ready to fight fairly and so Sable the Half Orc had to step in to finish the thing before an all out brawl for their camp ensued.

By the time they fought their way back to town, they found it in flames. They chased down the enemy responsible and found to their dismay that he had slain a Priest called Veronica that had helped the party a lot.

They took their revenge, fighting an undead Shognor and a horde of skeletal goblins before finally reclaiming the body of their friend and returning to the ruined town.

The next set of adventures were a long, long journey to track down the right spell components to use in a resurrection ritual for Veronica, whose body was being kept fresh by her lover casting Gentle Repose over and over again.

That arc took months, travelling, fighting, side questing, all in the aid of finding a diamond to bring back one NPC that the players had grown very attached to.

Art also done by Shan

Now there are several key reasons as to why the Reprobates had more of an emotional impact on my players than the Bravo Company.

One, I stipulated in the Reprobates campaign that each character must have a reason as to why they were in the town. A few of them lived there, some were frequent guests, and one was in hiding there. This gave each character roots within the world and more deeply connected their players to them.

Two, I stipulated that the players must be good aligned characters and races. No goblins or bugbears, no evil humans. Just good people doing their best against an evil threatening to destroy them and their home.

Three, I took their back stories and changed them to slot them into the world. In Talvor’s case, I asked his player if she would like to be the town’s priest and she agreed that would be good. Her character knew the NPC Veronica very well and it was her character that made that link for the rest of the party later on. Each of my players felt as if the world was their world, their home, their responsibility. And that is why it hurt all the more when I took that home away from them, and felt all the more satisfying when they not only took their revenge on the ones responsible but succeeded in resurrecting Veronica months later.

Four, during the Bravo Company campaign, there were no hard and fast rules for the setting I had come up with. It was a do whatever you want game and, whislt wacky and fun, had no grounding in anything greater than ‘for the lols’.

The key to real story pay offs is to ground the players. Restrict them mightily, so that they may shine all the brighter.

I still play with that same group years later and now they play in my own homebrew setting, with my own lore, gods, histories, and genealogies. I was not going to allow this setting, that I’d spent a decade or more creating, to be turned into a meme. At least not all the time.

And, since I trust my players and they trust me, I hope, I started handing down decrees.

Their race must be consistent with the peoples and cultures of the country and surrounding countries they are playing in. They must tie their character to a location and to a god. They can provide details on family and I shall create NPCs for said family in the area. The majority of players must play a martial class, and more besides.

You may think that such rulings are draconian and uncalled for. Yet the result so far, having been nearly two years into the campaign and only hitting level three recently, have been quite remarkable.

The world I have crafted is not an amusement park for them to visit in fancy dress, but a real and breathing society that they are a part of. Perhaps in due time I shall share some of their adventures, though in truth they have been so lost in the small minutia of their fantastical lives that they have only recently left the first city to do a proper dungeon, with proper treasure, and proper danger.

Next time you are planning out a campaign consider drawing strict boundaries for your players. Insist on deeper creativity over and above the shallow breadth of brightly coloured scales and celestial or demonic ancestries. Make the party live and breathe the world.

You might find the game of your life.
Diatribe: Artificial Creativity

December 18th, 2023

2023 wanes. Within the circles I travel it shall be marked as a grim year, at least in certain respects. We began with the OGL scandal that rocked the TTRPG space and have now ended with the firing of many people at Wizards of the Coast right before Christmas. The brief moment of unity as old Grognards and new Progressives took up arms together to defend the hobby ended almost as soon as their hard fought victory was achieved.

The future of the hobby is at once both bleak and bright. Bright in the respect that the decentralised nature of our tables makes us resilient and bleak in the sense that the firing of many of the creatives at WotC heralds a new threat.

That threat is the rise of Artificial Intelligence, or AI.

With the coming release of Dungeons and Dragons One (which I maintain is a terrible name) we would expect Wizards of the Coast to want all hands on deck, ready to produce new content to go along with their new books. Yet instead they purged their staff right before Christmas in an insidious attempt to cut costs.

I speculate that their cutting of costs shall extend further into the new year wherein their art and written work both shall be influenced in part or in whole by AI.

We saw this year that Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants used AI art. We know that during the OGL Scandal WotC wanted to create AI GMs. And we know that AI, for both images and text, is reaching incredible levels even at this early stage of its infancy.

I shall freely admit to playing with AI when bored. I have generated hundreds if not thousands of images of my characters and used text models such as AI Dungeon as a sort of video game.

I make a solemn vow here for all to see:

Never shall I knowingly make use of Artificial Intelligence in my published work.

It feels much like cheating to me. How could one, in good conscience, claim mastery over their craft (or at least the attempt at it) if one allows a machine to take that mastery for itself?

No. For all the mindlessness that Artificial Intelligence brings, I choose instead to be mindful. Mindful that my work is my own. That it deserves the slow, considered approach of a talented human being to translate my words into works of soul filled art.

J’zari, my Tabaxi Rogue, brought to life after a campaign of trials and tribulations by @Shanwichartist

I have many hundreds of AI images, each generated for next to no cost.

I count them all as worthless when compared to the dozens of well cared for commissions I have made of talented human artists over the years; and I am not a man of any great wealth. I make no excuse. Great art deserves fair payment.

Furthermore, despite having had my share of mindless fun with language models, no AI can replicate the symbolism and soulful intention of a real human author. I shall accept no substitute. Nor shall any technological necromancy of past great minds ever do the men and women they seek to replicate any real justice.

Alas I attempted to write a reasoned and well thought out little piece on Artifiial Intelligence. Instead I simply devolved into an old man, angry at the way the world is changing. I bare no ill will to small creators for employing AI to reduce costs, though warn them of the darker paths it may lead them down.

Those that can avoid the use of AI in their work should.

Those that use it should do so only as a toy, a plaything to take up for a few moments, then put down.

Forget not that a computer is not creative.

You are.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar
Writing Exercise: Arthur in the Crypt

December 13th, 2023

Rather than use AI I have instead opted for a Hero Forge model.

Arthur crept into the corridor of the old tomb and squinted into the dark before him. The sunlight at his back didn’t seem to penetrate more than a few feet into that forsaken crypt. With one final check of the weapons at his sides, he stepped in, and the dark swallowed him.

He placed one foot in front of the other in slow, silent steps, straining his ears against the oppressive silence of the dungeon. He was blind for the moment, going by touch along the side of the smooth stone wall. That is, until the tip of his middle finger on his left hand found an irregularity in the wall.

Arthur stopped, holding his breath, not daring to move. He shifted his feet under him, testing the floor. No give. No pressure plate. He allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief before his nimble fingers went to the wall and traced the outline of a hole with an embossed edge.

A dart trap, he supposed. Likely connected to a pressure plate quite near his fortunate feet. He stayed still a moment longer and reached for his torch.

As the flame sprang to life and illuminated the corridor, Arthur found his guess to be correct. There upon the wall was a hole surrounded by a brass ring of metal – the thing that had tipped him off to the trap – and but an inch before the toe of his right foot was a slightly raised flagstone. A quick sniff near the brass told Arthur that the dart within was likely poisoned.

With the cover of dark now lifted and his chance for stealth severely lessened, the dexterous man hopped the pressure plate and proceeded deeper into the dungeon.

Arthur came to a door at the end of his walk. A quick inspection revealed no traps to the keen-eyed man, though trying the handle revealed it to be locked. He dropped the torch to the floor and produced from his belt two thin pieces of metal.

He slid them into the heavy iron key hole of the door and pressed his ear to it. One hand twisted, the other jabbed in and out, up and down, circled, and then click. A noise came from inside the room and his inner voice cursed.

He stowed the tools and drew out a long and slender sword and a gleaming dagger. He placed his foot on the door and pushed hard.

The approaching monster found itself hurled backward as the door suddenly flung inward on its hinges, catching the thing in the face and sending it sprawling across the floor.

This room was dark too, though Arthur was no stranger to fighting blind. The flickering of his torch light showed him the glint of armour and pale skin rising from the floor before him as he rushed forward, sword leading.

Metal rang against metal, the sound reverberating off of the smooth stone walls and echoing down the corridor from where he had come. The thing had thrown up a gauntleted hand just in time to ward off Arthur’s first thrust, though the second kick caught it in the side of the head.

Arthur sprang back, his foot tingling from making contact with the monster’s rusting helm. It stood, and for the first time, he got a look at it in the flickering dim light.

Pale skin stretched over a skeletal frame, pointed teeth in a mouth that was missing its jaw, and red, sunken eyes. The undead abomination wore rusted armour from a bygone age and held aloft a longsword that seemingly still gleamed as if newly forged.

It was that sword that was now coming for Arthur. He threw up his left hand, his dagger meeting that blade and turning it to the side. He stepped wide, away from the creature’s strike as he did so and used his momentum to swing his sword at the back of the off-balance monster’s neck.

A sickening thud followed by a wet snapping sound told Arthur that he’d struck home and he pushed the blow through. The thing’s head came away from it’s body and dropped to the floor.

The headless form of the monster twitched for a moment and Arthur jumped back from it, further into the chamber, expecting it to simply refuse to die and keep fighting.

His sigh of relief upon its eventual juddering fall was great indeed.

He sheathed his weapons and eyed the shining blade the creature had been brandishing.

Now it was time to get paid.

I think the signature here reads Kevin Davis. I did try to track him down to credit it properly but alas, no luck.

This piece was written as a simple exercise when coming up with a character concept.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar
TTRPGs: On the Importance of Story and Setting, and of the #ZeroPrep Discussions.

December 11th, 2023
Lightning Rail, Eberron, Artist Unknown

Based on the topic of conversation the prior few days here is a poll.

In a TTRPG game, be that Dungeons and Dragons or otherwise, how important is a structured plot and setting to you? To what extent?

This does not imply rail-roading but instead the existence of hand crafted…
— Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands (@LostLoreScholar) December 5, 2023

A poll from Xwitter ran as a result of a few days worth of conversations.

Xwitter has in recent weeks been host to two fascinating topics of conversation for me. Firstly there was the lively debate on Milestone vs XP Level systems in TTRPGs. Secondly came the conversations surrounding Story, Setting, #ZeroPrep, and Rail Roads.

The former was more my comfort zone than the latter if only due to the more established boundaries of the debate. Mechanics are simple to discuss. They tend to be more concrete than than ideas surrounding stories and the role of Game Masters in them. The latter I believe was the more interesting topic, yet the more difficult to frame. Indeed I believe that the Xwitter poll posted above was less than stellar for the complexity of the conversation, hence I now set finger to keyboard here.

I take the position that story and setting are of great importance to a table’s overall gaming experience. Before I begin to write on that I shall attempt to fairly frame the positions presented to me over the prior week. Firstly, to define terms:
- Story
  Story is the result of actions taken by the players interacting with the game world as presented by the Game Master. In other senses it can also be the result of actions taken by non-player characters.
- Setting
  Setting is the overarching theme, plot, population, and lore of the game world prepared by the Game Master.
- Rail-Roading
  The act of the Game Master overruling player decisions and forcing them down pre-determined paths in order to achieve a desired outcome.
- #ZeroPrep
  The style of play in which little to no preperation on the part of the Game Master is needed. Nearly all outcomes are based on dice rolls on random tables found in rule books, from encounters to loot and to locations and NPCs. More of a procedural generation style of play.
- GM Fiat
  Game Master Fiat is the idea that any choice taken by the GM that is perceived as outside the rules is tyrannical and overrules player agency. (This is an accusation that came up often in the Milestone conversation as well.)
Firstly, to frame the position for the #ZeroPrep side of things as fairly and charitably as I can manage;

“In order to prevent the player’s choices from being overruled, a Game Master should make no effort to step outside the bounds of the rules as written.”

In order to back up my understanding of the position I shall quote some of the conversation here also:

GM should be an impartial ref, not chief storyteller. If GM is not trying to tell a story, there is no need for rulings over rules. Unless the GM doesn’t know the rules. In which case scrub should git gud
— Dunder Moose (@DunderMoose) December 4, 2023

You could use the rules.
Perhaps as written, even.
— Brown Wizard Winston (@BrownWizard) December 4, 2023

You should always seek to minimize the role of DM fiat to preserve the integrity of the game world. Things should be occurring because they're "real", not because the DM, or players, think they should broadly speaking.
— Kodiak (@Goblinfights) December 4, 2023

I note that, in most cases of arguing against GM Fiat, the assumption is made that any involvement by the GM is tantamount to tyranny.

Here, my dear reader, I depart from framing and seek to better understand the crux of the debate.

It appears to my eyes that a conflation of terms is being made. Those opposing my point of view are hyper-aware of any and all possible encroachment on their, and their character’s, agency. This is not wrong of them in the slightest degree. In this writer’s humble opinion they are right to be vigilant. Yet they are so focussed on the trees that they miss the wood.

Allow me to sum it up as succinctly as I may;

A Game Master may make rulings outside of written rules that benefit player agency and immersion.

Now I shall be the first to say that one must have a competent and trustworthy GM that knows when to exercise their powers over the table, yet never once in my fifteen years of playing Dungeons and Dragons (even with the worst of my GMs) have I ever seen a GM actually go against a player’s agency.

Indeed, the phrase ‘You can most certainly try’ is common due to GMs worldwide allowing their players to try some truly awful (or awe-inspiring based on your perception) ideas. Most Game Masters will make efforts to accommodate the wishes of their players.

To go further, I remember reading D&D comics and memes in school, all the way back in the 2000s, about players going off in a direction that scuppered the plans of their GMs and forced them to re-evaluate the encounters that the party was going to experience.

And now onto the more interesting part of the conversation;

To what extent is Setting and Story tantamount to Rail-Roading Players?

Now for the meat and potatoes of the discussion, the section that gets away from arguments about definitions of ‘referee’ and ‘arbiter’ and focusses fully on how much Game Master plot is too much.

At the start of this missive I posted a poll that, in hindsight, did not do the best job at separating out and analysing this conversation.

I think this is a poll that will need a follow up, really. Maybe some more framing explaining the conversations that led to it. https://t.co/ZajlrEGlpE
— Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands (@LostLoreScholar) December 5, 2023

Rather than subject the denizens of Xwitter to another version of the same post, I have chosen to explain my position here instead.

Those championing the #ZeroPrep procedural generation style of play have come across quite strongly to me as holding any and all involvement of GM creativity as being a Rail-Roading experience.

I hold that one may easily achieve a sandbox, freeform game without the need for complete reliance on dice rolls. Simply knowing the lore, history, and locations of my world has enabled me to successfully improvise encounters, NPCs, villains, heroes, and whole quest lines on the fly for many years. The advantage of this is that the content I improvise around my players will always be relevant to them, rather than seeming out of place – which is always a risk when rolling on tables.

#ZeroPrep is an odd concept. I appear to be having the exact same results as the the chaps decrying story telling DMs simply by having prepared a setting and knowing what is in my setting. No need for tables to flip through if I can simply improvise based on surrounding…
— Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands (@LostLoreScholar) December 5, 2023

Furthermore the Story of the Setting, i.e the myths, legends, and events of the Game World, should feed into the player’s experience of that world. I bought this up in another conversation on the topic. I, as a player, do not like ‘random’ monsters. Why is this giant in this tiny room a few miles underground? Why is this dragon hanging out with goblins and dire badgers? And why, pray tell, did we just find the kidnapped girl on floor seventy-three of this randomly generated dungeon?

Each thing should exist in the Game World not as a result of near random chance but as a result of cause and effect. The GM defining the series of events that brought a dragon to a place within the setting where it would threaten the players is not a Rail Road. The players are free to deal with the dragon as they wish – yet there is still a dragon to deal with.

Below is a comedy sketch by the channel ‘XP to Level 3’ that I believe is a far greater example of a Rail Road, albeit taken to an extreme.

The existence of a narrative that surrounds the players’ actions does not preclude the party from acting in any way they may wish. For example, my most recent campaign has a plot for the party to pursue – and they have each done so to varying degrees. Yet it moves along without them. It proceeds differently based on their actions.

For many months of sessions the party mainly stuck to the capital city, doing small odd jobs and interacting with NPCs. It was a very hefty RP style of play – and when they desired a change of pace the world was prepared for that. Dice rolls on tables can supplement the party’s experience but I doubt it will result in the same level of depth I know myself to be capable of.

Now, all this being said, I do believe that I should very much like to try the #ZeroPrep style of play as a player. I do not have access to such a group to do so but the experience of the play style may change my opinions to an extent.

I have probably now rambled on for long enough. Suffice it to say that you should run your games in whichever way you wish, whether that be #ZeroPrep or hand crafting. Don’t be afraid to try new techniques to freshen up your table’s experience.

Just don’t Rail Road your players.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar
Musings: The Necessity of Evil Races in Fantasy and the Experiences of Drizzt Do’Urden

December 10th, 2023

Fate of Isildur by Anato Finnstark

Some time ago I found myself as I often do; engaged in a lively discussion on the nature of Tolkien’s orcs. To boil it down; were the orcs pure evil and irredeemable or were they good creatures marred beyond recognition yet still capable of redemption?

Without getting into the thick weeds of Tolkien’s own particular thoughts on the matter I took a holistic view; that the orcs were written to be evil and that is that. Should Eru wish to redeem the orcs then He certainly could, yet we do not know of that. We simply know that the orcs were evil and served evil. They were the vast bulk of Morgoth’s and Sauron’s forces, serving as cannon fodder for the mythical heroes of his Legendarium to slice through.

Since the nature of Tolkien’s orcs is not the main topic of this missive I shall simply leave an interesting video to consider here and move on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEgrgb06rAA
Are all orcs evil? by In Deep Geek

The conversation led me to ponder our modern attitudes to ‘evil’ in Fantasy. The traditional view of evil in the genre is that there are good races, races that comprise both good and evil individuals, and evil races. For the sake of discussion we shall take three races from classical fantasy.

Elves tend to be a goodly race. They are rarely, if ever, viewed as a race that is evil. No doubt this is inspired by Tolkien’s view of them, even if a great many elves in his mythos were far from perfect.

Humans tend to be a mixed race. They are viewed as mostly good though easily corrupted to the side of evil. Again this is likely taken from the Menfolk of Tolkien’s world as he is the grandfather of all Fantasy. It is fair to say that it is reflective of humanity in the real world. We strive to be good and yet so many of us fall so short.

Orcs tend to be an evil race and in most Fantasy settings are purely evil. Attempts have been made in the modern age to provide them with what corporate types will call ‘nuance’, yet the bulk of fantasy thought views them as evil monsters. Rightly so, in my opinion, as the word orc simply means monster.

This traditional view of the Fantasy genre has provided a sort of modern mythos for us. We recognise that there is individuality within racial groups and at the same time we are provided with a framework for navigating the various worlds we are presented with. In my view this is highly advantageous for being able to hop from one mythology to another. I see few down sides to the heroes of a given story in any given world viewing certain racial groups in well defined moral lights.

Yet the more ‘corporate’ stream of thought disagrees. The last book I purchased from Wizards of the Coast was Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons in October of 2021. This book was one of the first examples of the abandonment of traditional alignments in Dungeons and Dragons. Rather than races being aligned as good or evil based on their race, the language became ‘typically evil’ or ‘typically good’. I am told newer releases have continued this trend.

It is quite obvious to myself that this is politically motivated and an attempt to move away from the language of race. I believe the more sci-fi term of ‘species’ is now substituted. This is understandable, I suppose. No corporation wants to be slapped with the ‘racist’ label. Yet it does open up a larger dialogue on the genre as a whole; and one that I think a certain Drow Ranger from Menzoberranzan is most familiar with.

The Legend of Drizzt by R.A Salvatore is one of my favourite series of books. Drizzt himself is an insightful thinker and, between parts, will often speak to the reader directly in the style of journal entries, signing off with the ever comforting ‘Drizzt Do’Urden’.

Drizzt Do’Urden, artist unknown

Without wishing to spoil certain events of later novels, I shall provide here a brief overview of an event or two in Drizzt’s storied career that caused the thoughtful Drow to wonder about the nature of good, evil, and race within his setting.

The Drow, or Dark Elves, are (or were, thank you WotC) an evil race of subterranean elves. Drizzt Do’Urden and his mentor Zaknafein were two shining examples of Drow that were born struggling with the evil society they found themselves in. For they were good at heart yet forced to persist in a society that demanded evil of them. For all of Drizzt’s time in the great Dark Elf city he only knew of two Drow that were good. Himself and his mentor – and even then he did not know of Zaknafein’s same struggles until much later. So secretive they had to be – or risk being killed.

Upon his escape from the Underdark, Drizzt’s first few decades on the surface were spent battling the racial prejudice of the surface peoples against the Drow. Yet for all the pain this caused him, he accepted it. The Drow, his people, would sooner commit all manner of atrocities against the people of the surface than ever consider friendly relations. Many of his journal entries stem from this want to do good and yet struggling to reconcile it with his dark heritage.

He even notes that he knew of one goblin, one singular example of goblin kind, that was good. Just one of them that did not desire the death and destruction of the goodly folk of the world. The whole dynamic of Drizzt’s constant struggle to overcome the evil reputation of his people is a motivating and awe-inspiring tale of a truly exceptional individual sticking to his principles to the point of becoming a legendary hero.

This backdrop of racial tensions, of overcoming reputations of your kinfolk, and of rising to be one of the greatest characters in Fantasy fiction ever, is undone by the perceived need to move away from evil races.

For if there were many good Drow then the exceptionalism of Drizzt Do’Urden is sorely reduced. The reactions of the surface folk to a Dark Elf appearing at their gates would not be as hostile. It would not be driven by a fear of his dark skin and pointed ears. It would simply be the same suspicion that all strangers might receive.

It is a great irony that, in an attempt to do away with racial stereotypes and promote individualism, the ‘corporate’ stream of thought has instead homogenised the genre and the possible stories one might tell within it. They have removed from the genre the character of its modern mythology in favour of bland corporate language.

A greater irony is that it is in aide of the pursuit of profit. Greed, a vice and something quite evil, drives the empty suits of companies like Wizards of the Coast to try and appear good. Not for the sake of goodness do they appear to do good, but for the sake of their bottom line.

I suppose I have rambled on quite enough for today. Suffice it to say that, in your writing or on your table top, be not afraid to have all of your dragons be evil. And be not afraid to have one singular example of an evil creature striving to be good.

It is only fiction, after all.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar
Lore: Of the Dragon Queen and Wraith King

December 8th, 2023

~ An excerpt of the Histories of the Fourth Age, King Folno Mawsawd II

The climax of the Third Age, the Battle of Silver Fields, and the sacrifice of Volim the Great, led directly into the beginning events of the Fourth Age. The founding of the Seven Silvered Spires upon the banks of the Silver River to ward the wounded but continuing threat from the Blighted March and the procession of Volim’s Diadem northward to the newly founded country of Grovgard are two of such well known happenings.

Yet two figures emerged from the dawning of the Age that are less often focussed upon, though their impact upon the world of today is great even a thousand years hence. For they still live, in a manner of speaking. The first draws breath as naturally as she ever did, for she is the great Dragon Queen called Faeulas. The second lives on through arcane force of will, his manner of being befitting his title. The Wraith King of Urumar.

The first, and closest to the Northlands of Varfal, is the great Dragon Queen Faeulas. She was there at the Battle of Silver Fields and witnessed the great fall of the then monarch of all dragon kind, the red wyrm called Hephenistis. She was a young dragon in those days and, upon the death of her queen and the fulfilment of oaths to aid the alliance of the Northlands, she tarried in the Silver Fields. Young, but shrewd, she eventually flew south into the Dragon Vale, named so for her watchful guarding of the land there. She came to nest within a great wood which to all the world is now known as the Realm of Faeulas, but which she and her subjects call Fiodrel.

Now more than a thousand years old, the Dragon Queen Faeulas lies atop a hoard of treasures in the centre of Fiodrel wherein there is a city amongst the trees. Her people, drawn to her majesty and magic, guard her realm fiercely and adore her as a nigh on goddess. For the Queen is majestic. Her scales glitter as a coat of mail made of over lapping emeralds, except for beneath her neck and down to the tip of her tail where the greens become silver. Her teeth shine a brilliant white and her claws are of blackest obsidian. The length of her tail is enough to encircle the whole of her bedchamber and her wings cast a vast shadow on the world below when in flight. The tip of her tail tapers to a silvered spear-like point and her head is crowned with great horns of gold.

The great Queen does not lie upon her treasure naked. Her people have gathered for her much wealth and it adorns her massive form. Huge rings of gold set with many gems adorn her clawed fingers and great bolts of purple silks trimmed in silver threads draped her draconic form. Piercings of jade adorned her head and chains of crystal dangled from fin-like ears. About her long and powerful neck hung a single chain of adamantine links that were so fine as to appear as string. They held an amulet of emerald about her chest, rimmed in gold and aglow with her sorceries. Piles of books and scrolls, manuscripts from every era and place, piled high about her and a grand scrying orb of crystal on a stand of shining brass stood near to her head.

And yet for all the grandeur the Dragon Queen Faeulas of Fiodrel mustered in her private abode, the two most wonderous gems were her eyes. Black they were, as dark as the night sky, and punctuated by slits of green that looked as towers of viridian fire. It is said that these flaming orbs are enough to capture the minds and spirits of lesser folk, enticing them to serve and love her as their true and rightful queen.

Not in malice does Faeulas horde splendours. Her cunning and her magic combined with her physical might guard the Northlands against the scorched Ashlands and keep the beasts of the Calamity from feasting upon the Ever-on Forest at the world’s heart. Perhaps most importantly, Faeulas stands against the second figure of this missive – the Wraith King of Urumar.

For to the south of Fiodrel lies the land of Fingale. And there the magics of Faeulas clash with the insidious powers of Urumar to its west. In stark contrast to the lush and verdant Fiodrel, Urumar lies bleak and desolate. Sparse grasses and shrubs grow along the rocky terrain and few trees take root there. A feeling of dread grips the minds of all who come to walk its crags and ridges, and spirits roam the land more commonly than birds.

To its north lie mountains that in one place split into a pass that leads into the Ever-on Forest and the Heart of the World. To the West of this pass the range reaches southward, culminating in the highest peak in Urumar. The mountain is called Ardoriad and built into its southern face is the bleak tower of the Wraith King; the fortress called Drador.

At the tip of this black-stone spire lies the Wraith-King’s abode. A dark and circular place with no visible means of entry nor of escape. At the centre was a cauldron of black iron stood on devilishly carved onyx feet. From it a sickly blue-green glow emanated, shrouded in a shadowy fog that shifted and swirled about the surface of a bubbling ichor contained within. Torches of black and white flame lined the walls, each set into the relief of grotesque black-iron faces adorned with demonic horns and sharpened pearls for teeth.

The Wraith King, nameless save for his title, appeared as a man though impossibly tall and wreathed in shadow that appeared to slither about his dark-robed form. A great hood covered his head, and a mask of some nameless cold black metal covered his featureless face. It was engraved with flowing symbols, scripts, and runes. Its eyeholes were empty and dark, seeming to absorb what meagre light lay in the room. A pair of tall horns of that same black metal protruded from it and above the rim of his hood lined in a strange red glow and they, too, were inscribed with powerful symbols.

Upon his chest sat an amulet that hung upon a black chain. It was of an evil red and seemed to be a gem filled with blood set into an obsidian relief of a demon’s mouth. His arms, shoulders, hands, and boots were clad in silvery black armour, ridged with flowing spikes and adorned with the same inscriptions as his mask. Upon his belt hung a sword whose pommel and guard seemed to be of black thorns and in his left hand he held a staff of black wood, topped with an orb the same sickly blue-green as the contents of his cauldron.

Where the Dragon Queen shone brightly, the Wraith King skulked in the dark of his fortress tower and wove evil enchantments and spells about the land of Urumar, reaching ever out toward Fingale and his adversary’s verdant lands beyond. For he too had appeared after the defeat of the undead monsters from the east, as if to serve as a dark and veiled personification of the memory of those horrors.

This piece was written some time ago and given very little editing since. Its purpose was to provide inspiration to the artist, @shanwichartist, so that she might better paint Faeulas the Dragon Queen and the Wraith King of Urumar.

Jack, Chronicler of the Northlands
Lost Lore Scholar
My name is Jack and I am a life long lover of Fantasy from England.