The Kynthiad: How many gods?

From the very first, The Kynthiad was never intended to be exclusively derived from Greek mythology, though that would be the primary source. The Bronze Age Near East was chock full of competing cultures and religions, such as Egypt, Canaan, and the Hittites, and it would be unrealistic to ignore them all. (I realize that "unrealistic" is a slippery word when you're talking about a fantasy setting featuring monsters, gods, and magic. I simply mean that Greece did not exist in a bubble.) My research also suggested that the most likely dates for the historical basis of the Trojan War and the Hebrew Exodus roughly coincided with the long reign of Ramesses II. Or close enough to make for a very interesting background to the game, without resorting to the violent mashing of timelines that, say, Xena: Warrior Princess regularly indulged in.

One of the first issues I had to address was how many of those other cultures, and their pantheons, to include in the game. To start with, Egypt was irresistible--it seemed as old and exotic to the "heroic age" Greeks as it does to us now. The Hellenistic Greeks' attempts to syncretize their gods with the Egyptians' raised some relevant questions for the game: Were different cultures' gods actually the same gods, or truly distinct and separate pantheons, or some combination of the two?

For the purposes of the Kynthiad, I decided early on that the Egyptian and Greek gods would be two separate pantheons. I did choose one point of overlap, inspired by the Greek story of Typhon, a terrible monster who almost overthrew the gods. One late version of this tale claimed that the animal-headed gods of the Egyptians were actually inspired by the Olympians, who had fled in fear from Typhon and disguised themselves as animals to hide in the far south. Typhon is equated with Set in this version of the story, and many English translations of Egyptian myths use both names interchangeably for Osiris's brother. For my game, I decided that Typhon and Set were indeed the same entity. Kynthia has recently learned during play that it took the combined might of both the Greek and Egyptian pantheons to stop him. This is a secret that both families of proud gods would prefer be forever forgotten--but with our heroine experiencing visions suggesting that Typhon is working free from his prison, it's one they will not be able to ignore for long.

The world of the Kynthiad is full of fictional lands drawn from Greek mythology, such as Ethiopia, Hyperborea, the Amazons, and Cimmeria. Because of their literary origins, these regions usually worship the same gods as the Greeks--or a subset of them, at least. Most seem to prefer the Olympians, but some honor Titans, Winds, or other gods instead. (Kynthia has found a second--or third?--home among the Amazons in part due to their shared reverence for Artemis.)

In other regions, such as Scythia and the Tin Isles [modern Britain and Ireland], the exact nature of the local gods is not always so clear cut. As Kynthia travels through foreign lands, I occasionally provide names and portfolios for gods worshiped in the area. I try to leave some mystery about whether those gods can be mapped to the Greek pantheon. or to any other. Very few of those gods will ever play as critical a part in the story as the Greek and Egyptian gods do, so definite answers are unnecessary for now. And for those that will, Kynthia will learn more in due time.

The Kynthiad: Solo adventures in the world of ancient Greek mythology

I have been a fan of Greek mythology since early childhood. I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology before the end of elementary school and Bulfinch's Age of Fable during high school, and took a Classical Mythology class early in my college career. Between that and my passion for game mastering RPGs, it was inevitable that I would eventually run a campaign based on these myths. The surprising part is that I didn't start planning such a game in earnest until my 30s.

In the early 2000s, I mentioned to some of my gaming buddies that I wanted to run a mythology-based game. At the time, GURPS was my system of choice for anything that wasn't D&D, so I started working on ideas using those rules, and my wife Erika and another friend even started working out character concepts. However, that campaign never happened, in part because I couldn't settle on a coherent focus or frame for the story. (Classical mythology covers a vast body of texts, many of them blatantly contradictory!) 

A few years later, Erika and I became parents, and having two small children greatly curtailed our gaming schedule. Erika requested that I run some kind of solo game for her, so that she could get her RPG fix more often. I realized that this would be an excellent opportunity for me to finally run a Greek myth game, without any of the potential headaches of scheduling a full-sized group and balancing spotlight time for multiple PCs. 

We decided against GURPS as being too crunchy, and chose Big Eyes Small Mouth instead. BESM was designed as a rules-light system allowing play in any genre of anime, which means that it also works well for most genres of non-anime gaming, too. A few years before, I had run a successful medieval fantasy mini-campaign using BESM Second Edition, and now (in 2007) wanted to try out the newly-released Third Edition. 

The campaign was set in the Bronze Age Greek world, circa 1200 BC, during the first couple years of the Trojan War. Kynthia began play as an acolyte in a temple of Artemis in Colophon, one of the many smaller cities along the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. This city appears in the Iliad as one of many cities sacked by the Achilles to collect supplies for the siege of Troy and weaken any potential allies to that city. During the first session, a group of Greek ships attacked the city, and Kynthia joined the defense of the goddess's temple. She experienced intense headaches just before the raid, which only grew as the Greeks broke into the sanctuary itself. Kynthia prayed to the goddess for protection--and the ground shook, dropping pieces of the roof upon the intruders and frightening away any Greeks who were not instantly killed. The priestesses were saved, and the city was spared a full sacking. 

Up to now, Kynthia had been an indifferent acolyte--one of many who assumed their parents would find them a wealthy husband before taking their final vows--but this miracle demonstrated that Artemis had other ideas for her life. And so began "The Nine Journeys of Kynthia," AKA The Kynthiad. Our heroine would go on to become a world-traveling seeress and champion for the goddess, and--after performing her first few quests--formally becoming Her priestess. 

We've had a few hiatuses along the way--the longest being prompted by our cross-country move a couple years ago--but the game is still going strong many years later. In fact, one week from today will be the 8th anniversary of our very first session--and we've just recently passed the 200 mark. 

Emmy Rossum, cast as our heroine, Kynthia of Colophon

Now that I've posted this introduction, I intend to write more about this campaign in future columns. This campaign has far too much history to try to chronicle it all here, but it does provide plenty of material for discussing various challenges and decisions I faced in preparing and running the game. Some of the topics I plan to touch on include:

• Combining mythology with real-world history to create a consistent and authentic-feeling fantasy world.
• Portraying the gods, who interfere constantly in the myths--and deciding how many of them to use, in a world with many different cultures and pantheons.
• Reference works and other inspiration for background, characters, and plots.
• Casting characters using real actors, to provide a convenient photo reference. 

TBT: Character Background Questionnaire

Here is a questionnaire I shared with my players when I was starting a new campaign quite some years ago. At the time I was inspired by my friend Anne Cross, who had created a background questionnaire for the players of her Earthdawn campaign. 

I also distilled many of these questions from Central Casting, by Midkemia Press. This book--which was long out of print even when I was using it a decade or two ago--was designed as a system for randomly generating backgrounds for medieval fantasy RPG characters. Leaving everything to chance would often produce rather bizarre, unwieldy characters, but the book was a rich mine of ideas to pick and choose from, and the life events tables doubled as a generator for downtime events and adventure ideas (by design). I no longer own the book; the closest equivalent in my present library would probably be the background and downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign (for the Pathfinder RPG).

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The following questionnaire is being provided to help players develop and organize background information for their characters. You do not need to answer all of these questions, but the more of them that you can, the more clear the character will be in your mind, and the more possible hooks your GM will have for connecting your PC to the campaign world.

Note: This questionnaire is designed for a medieval fantasy campaign. In all of these questions, "you" means "your character."

Appearance

1. Describe yourself as someone meeting you for the first time would see you. Race? Gender? Age? Size? Coloration? Attractiveness? Dress? Do you try to emphasize or hide any of these features?
2. What other details would someone notice on a closer look? Do you have any distinguishing marks (birthmarks, scars, etc.)?
3. Do you have a distinctive way of speaking? Any mannerisms or other memorable behavior?

Birth & Family

1. Where and when were you born? Do you know your exact birthdate? Did anything unusual (storms, accidents, deaths, etc.) happen about the same time, with which some people might still associate your birthdate?
2. Who are your parents? Names? Occupations? Social class? Were they married? Are they still alive?
3. Do you have any siblings? How many? Gender? Older or younger? Are they still alive?
4. Do you know any members of your extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins)?
5. How did you get along with your family?

Education & Work

1. Did you serve an apprenticeship in order to learn your current profession? For how long?
2. If you were not an apprentice, how did you learn your trade, skills, etc.? Formal schooling? Informal teachers? Self-taught?
3. Who was your master or teacher? (Race? Gender? Appearance? Personality?) Is he/she still alive? How were you treated? Are/were you on good terms with your master?
4. Did your teacher have other apprentices or students? Who were they?
5. Are you literate? How important are letters, books, etc. to you? Do you carry any writings and/or writing materials with you on your adventures?
6. Do you have a job other than "adventurer"? Who do you work for? (Or are you self-employed?) How much of your time does this job require?

Friends

1. Who were your friends as a child? As an adolescent? As an adult?
2. How many of these people are still alive? How many are you still friends with?
3. Who is/was your best friend? What is the most memorable thing that the two of you ever did together?
4. What do you look for in a friend?
5. Have you ever been in love? Was it recriprocated? Do you have (or have you had) a boy-/girlfriend, a lover, or a spouse? More than one? Are you looking for one? What do you look for in a romantic partner?

Attitudes & Beliefs

1. What are your beliefs about religion and the afterlife? Do you follow any particular god or gods? What appeals to you most about this religion? Least?
2. Where do the spirits of nature, the elements and the dead fit into these beliefs?
3. What gods, religions, or priesthoods will you have nothing to do with?
4. What is your moral code? Under what conditions will you kill? Steal? Lie? Do you have a personal code of behavior about violence? Magic? Sex? Dealing with evil beings?
5. How committed are you to seeing through something (a task, quest, bargain, etc.) that you have started?
6. How important are the following to you?: Power? Wealth? Fame? Honor? Family? Friends? Love? Knowledge? Religion? Your job? To what lengths would you go to acquire or preserve these things?
7. How often do you remember your dreams? How much attention do you pay to them? Do they inspire you? Guide or warn you? Frighten you?
8. What is your attitude towards magic? People who use it? Fearsome monsters? The unknown in general?

Edges & Flaws

1. What is you especially good at? What sets you apart from the rest of the world? A skill? An unusual knack? A certain flair of style or wit?
2. What flaws do you have? Bad habits? Obsessions? Terrible (or embarrassing) secrets?
3. Do you have any enemies? How much trouble do those conflicts cause you?

Likes & Dislikes

1. What do you love? (People? Places? Creatures? Kinds of food? Activities? Subjects?)
2. What do you hate? How do you typically react to these negative stimuli?
3. What do you fear? What is your worst nightmare?

The Other Player Characters

Note: Many of these questions are best answered in collaboration!

1. How did you meet the other PCs? How did you become adventuring companions?
2. What were your first impressions of the other PCs, and how has that impression changed (if any) since then?
3. What is your relationship with each of them like? What bonds keep you together?

Miscellaneous

1. Describe your first encounter with a nonhuman monster. (Not counting player races, animals, etc., that you grew up with--but feel free to mention them, too.)
2. If you are a spellcaster, describe your first experience with using magic. What were the circumstances? Were you expecting it?
3. If you have an animal companion or familiar, describe how you acquired it. Describe this ally's personality, and its attitude towards you (loyal unto death, mischievous, lazy, etc.).
4. If you have any unusual personal possessions, describe how you acquired them. Is their value practical, monetary, sentimental or some combination of these?
5. If you wish to add any pre-game history that is not already covered by the questions above, please do so (especially if you are much older than the default starting ages).

TBT: Blue Rose Freeport

This week, Green Ronin Publishing launched a Kickstarter campaign for Blue Rose: The AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy. This new edition will translate the World of Aldea setting from the True20 System (first designed for Blue Rose in 2005) to the Adventure Game Engine (first designed for the Dragon Age RPG). The game reached its funding goal within hours and has been blowing through stretch goals all week. If you're a fan of the sort of character-driven fantasy written by authors such as Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey; a gamer who wants to see a setting that addresses issues involving gender, sexuality, and human rights in a positive, inclusive way; or even just a fan of intelligent psychic animals or the art of Stephanie Pui-Min Law, then Blue Rose will have a great deal to offer you!

Once of the newly unlocked goals is a subsetting by Jeb Boyt, "Game of Thorns," detailing the Pirate Isles and protagonists of a less savory sort than the Sovereign's Finest. Reading this news reminded me of some thoughts I posted online some time back (10 years this week, to be exact) about mixing Aldea and Freeport. I fully anticipate that Jeb's work will make much of this column woefully obsolete, and I'll welcome that. Nevertheless, I've decided to share these old ideas here as my own personal way of celebrating the resurgence of Blue Rose.

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Placing Freeport in Aldea

There appear to be two possibilities for locating Freeport within Aldea:

1. The Scatterstar Archipeligo: Freeport is located within an island chain, but the Scatterstars seem to more extensively settled than is really appropriate for Freeport.

2. The Leviathan's Teeth: This evokes the Serpent's Teeth name, plus Jarzon's coast is known to be difficult to navigate, making this a probable pirate haven. But the core book doesn't describe this specific area. 

[The World of Aldea sourcebook, released later, provided much more information about both these regions, including a number of pirate groups operating in the Scatterstar Archipeligo.]

Blue Rose Backgrounds in Freeport

Freeport has the staggering variety of races common to most d20 games; Blue Rose does not. Certain races common in Freeport translate easily to the backgrounds given in the Blue Rose core book: orcs and half-orcs (and probably hobgoblins) become night people; elves and half-elves become vata; merfolk and nereids become sea-folk.

Dwarves, gnomes, and halflings have no equivalents in Blue Rose. Either remove those races and characters from Freeport, change NPCs of those races into humans (or possibly vata or rhydan?), or convert these races' abilities into True20.

Freeport has limited precedent for the presence of rhydan as hero characters. Druids and rangers' animal companions and paladins' special mounts might be replaced with rhy-bonded companions. Dolphins are an obvious option for an aquatic campaign (especially as allies of sea-folk). Beyond this, intelligent animals without humanoid companions do not really fit into the Freeport setting as written. GMs are free to modify these assumptions, of course!

If using the backgrounds in Blue Rose, humans in Freeport would most likely be Aldins, Islanders, or Jarzoni. Others would be rare, but possible. (And Freeport almost certainly has one or more backgrounds unique to itself.)

Using Blue Rose Gods in Freeport

From the start, Freeport was designed to be inserted into any campaign world with minimal effort, by leaving the background fairly generic: few specific details of geography outside the immediate islands, most gods identified by sphere rather than name, etc.

I've recently reread the history chapter of Blue Rose, and decided to figure out how the gods mentioned in Freeport would match up to those of Aldea. Freeport itself has four favored gods, those of Knowledge (NG), Pirates (CN), the Sea (N), and Warriors (N), plus a host of other gods with much smaller followings.

Gaelinir (Light) is god of both learning and the sea, while Braniel (Twilight) is associated with the element of water in general. There are two possibilities here: 1. Gaelinir has separate temples to two of his aspects, or 2. He is the Knowledge God, while Braniel is Freeport's Sea God. (The former fits Gaelinir's portfolio better, while the latter fits their respective alignments better.)

The Warrior God is likely Anwaren (Twilight). The Warrior King also has an aspect related to madness, which could more closely tie this god's followers into the secret cult wars afflicting the city.

The Pirate God, Harrimast, does not have an obvious match. As suggested in Freeport: The City of Adventure, he may be Freeport's unique aspect of a better-known mainland god. If this is the case, he may be related to either Braniel or Anwaren, or possibly an Exarch of Shadow in disguise.

Two gods are given greater detail in the Freeport Trilogy and Freeport: The City of Adventure: Yig and the Unspeakable One. In Aldea, Yig is likely an aspect of one of the Gods of Twilight, perhaps Maurenna (civilization) or Selene (arcane arts). The Unspeakable One is either an Exarch of Shadow, or something even more alien.

Other gods mentioned in the Freeport line include (but are not limited to):

• Death: Most death gods would be aspects of Selene.
• Justice/Retribution: Aulora. Alternately, this could be a sect of Jarzon's Church of Pure Light, which would fit well with the fact that this temple of crusaders has had a difficult time operating in a pirate city.
• Luck: Athne (good fortune) seems to be the closest match.
• Magic: Selene.
• Murder: This could be one of many Exarchs of Shadow, but most likely Tyrexxus (wrath).
• Orcs: Krom is almost certainly an orcish [night people] interpretation of another god, perhaps Anwaren (war).
• Rogues/Trickery: This may be a Shadow-perverted cult derived from Selene's (secrets).
• Smiths: Goia.
• Sun: Hiathas.

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Afterword

At that time that I originally composed the notes above, I didn't continue my thoughts to the point of answering a few critical questions that would be necessary for actually running a Blue Rose Freeport game. The foremost of these was how to adapt the serpent people to Aldea. Green Ronin partially solved that problem themselves a few years later, when they released a version of Death in Freeport that used the True20 System rules set that succeeded Blue Rose. 

Well, if the new edition and "Game of Thorns" stop short of introducing Freeport's unique brand of Lovecraftian pirate horror into Aldea, then I may just have to tackle converting the serpent people into AGE myself. Ye be warned, 'lubbers...

More thoughts on D&D 5E Freeport

In previous columns, I converted the Freeport "iconic" characters to D&D 5th Edition. This time, I'll be offering some thoughts on creating your own 5E characters suitable for Freeport.

Races: The various Freeport Companions and the new Freeport: The City of Adventure (FCOA) book for Pathfinder point out that Freeport is the crossroads of the world, so theoretically any race can be encountered there, no matter how rare. In fact, all races and subraces in the Player's Handbook (PH) have appeared in past Freeport products, except for dragonborn. In Freeport, dragonborn are likely to be confused with the hated and feared serpent people, which could pose an enduring threat to such a character and their associates.

Freeport also has a few new races unique to the setting. For crag gnomes, the forest gnome subrace seems the best match, except for those inventors, like Kolter, who are clearly rock gnome tinkers. For azhar, use the fire genasi, described in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion (available as a free PDF). Island trolls have no equivalent in the handful of 5E products that I've seen so far, so you may wish to simply ignore them or replace them with another race (possibly goliaths?) if you don't want to convert the race from scratch.

Classes: Likewise, all PH classes and archetypes are available in Freeport. Some of the new classes presented in Freeport sourcebooks can be approximated using various combinations of classes, archetypes, and backgrounds. For example, assassin is a rogue archetype in 5E; noble is a background usable with any class; and a corsair or freebooter can be easily built by giving a fighter or rogue the sailor background.

The warlock class is very well-suited for unhinged cultists (including cult "priests" with the acolyte background). Use the Fiend patron for demon and devil cults, and the Great Old One for Lovecraftian gods like Yig, the Unspeakable One, and the Crawling Chaos. For investigator-heroes in the vein of Call of Cthulhu, a warlock could also represent an academic who has unlocked secrets of magic from studying Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, and uses that knowledge to combat such menaces while she desperately tries to hold onto her remaining shreds of sanity. (This was the concept behind my first 5E character, a tiefling sage, who I will surely babble about at some other time.)

Backgrounds: All PH backgrounds are available in Freeport. The charlatan, criminal, sailor, and urchin are especially common throughout the city.

Gods: FCOA gives the most comprehensive list of gods worshiped in Freeport. Assigning domains from the greatly reduced list in 5E is fairly easy:

• Death (DMG): Gods of Death and Murder
• Knowledge: Gods of Commerce, Knowledge, and Magic
• Life: Gods of Healing and Life
• Light: Gods of Justice and Sun
• Nature: God of Nature (and possibly Life?)
• Tempest: Gods of Sea and Storms, plus Dagon
• Trickery: Gods of Luck, Lust, and Thieves, plus Oona and the Unspeakable One
• War: Gods of Strength, Valor, and War, plus Abaddon

A few gods are a little more complicated:

• The Crawling Chaos: Death, possibly Knowledge and/or Trickery
• God of Penitence: (no obvious choice, possibly defaulting to Healing?)
• God of Pirates: Trickery, War
• God of Retribution: Death, War
• God of Roads: (no obvious choice, but Knowledge seems a good default)
• Yig: Knowledge, Trickery (Hitthkai sect); War (Sskethvai sect)

Skills and Languages: All skills are available. For checks regarding "forbidden knowledge," use the Arcana skill (for obscure magic and other planes) or Religion skill (for deities and secret cults). History may be more appropriate for more general details about lost civilizations such as Valossa.

Add Valossan to the PH's language list to preserve the uniqueness of that culture within the setting. DMs may wish to add some of the foreign human languages from FCOA, depending on how much those cultures are featured in his or her game.

Now, go out there and grab all the swag you can!

Time of the Tarrasque: Lands of the Sun teaser

As promised a few weeks ago, I have more information to share about my upcoming "Lands of the Sun" game. The campaign blurb appears below, and the public information for my players can be found here, on the "Time of the Tarrasque" wiki.

Lands of the Sun

The region known as the Dragon's Wing is dominated by the coastal Sultanate of Asasor and the Lokoran Desert of the interior. Asasor is a subtropical nation of dark-skinned humans and halflings, ruled by the priests of the sun and moon gods. The sultan claims the borders of the Lokoran, and this frontier serves as a buffer between his realm and the sun-adapted orcs of that desert.

The Dragonspire Mountains, beyond the Lokoran, were once home to the evil hobgoblin empire of Rizagarn, but that nation's power was broken by the alliance of northern nations who founded the Shield. The hobgoblins' territory once extended as far as Asasor's borders, and the surviving eastern tribes remain a thorn in the sultanate's side. Fortunately, the hobgoblins and orcs hate each other as much as they do humans and halflings, which keeps their numbers from growing too great. But one of Asasor's greatest fears is that a charismatic warlord will arise among one of those races and undo the precarious balance along the frontier. 

The priests of Asasor are also vigilant against the cult of Asmolon, the evil god of darkness and undead. This cult was responsible for the destruction of the halflings' ancestral homeland across the southern sea, and the sun god's champions try to prevent another such catastrophe by finding and destroying any evil they can uncover. They are also wary of the Cult of the Tarrasque, which has numerous adherents among the orcs, who zealously guard sacred sites in the desert where the beast has appeared in the past.

"Lands of the Sun" will initially focus on the hills and deserts of the frontier, with the heroes dealing with threats from orcs, hobgoblins, and death cults. Most adventurers here are humans, halflings, or half-orcs, but the other core races do visit and live within the sultanate in small numbers.

Tales of the Blue Swan: My college AD&D campaign

I've been GMing regularly since I was in 8th grade, but college was the first time I ran a truly long-term campaign. I ran AD&D 2nd Edition every other weekend during my sophomore, junior, and senior years at Denison University. During this time, the PCs went from 1st level to around 6th or 7th. With this being a college group, turnover was high, but we always had at least a couple players who continued into the next school year--and exactly one who was in the party for all three years. (When he and I reconnected many years later, he informed me that he ran a D&D game of his own during his senior year, using the setting I had created. Music to a world-builder's ears!)

Our original players that first year included two that I had played with in another DM's game the previous year. Kevin was a fellow fantasy and SF fan and long-time gamer, a junior who I'd originally met during my prospective weekend and remained close friends with throughout college. He played a human mage who had devoted his career to learning enough magic to adequately protect himself and his scanty, precious hit points.

The second was Gail, a biology instructor doing a two-year stint at Denison while she completed her doctorate. She was relatively new to gaming, but enthusiastic and eager to learn more--and she helped us get use of a meeting room in the Biology building for our sessions. She played a halfling thief largely based on a character from a TSR novel she had enjoyed.

We had one other female player: Carol, the daughter of a professor at Denison. She had recently finished her bachelor's degree and moved back home while looking for full-time employment. She had the most gaming experience of the group, and she and Gail were the two players who put the most effort into the role-playing side of the game. (I was sorely disappointed when they both moved out of state the next year. We never did manage to recruit another woman into the group, and were sadly diminished for it.) Carol played a half-elf bard, and was content with being a lore-seeker in a supporting role. Her character carried a backpack full of every little piece of mundane equipment she had ever found useful in a previous game.

Ed, the three-year veteran, played a human thief who spent much of his time trying to show off how sneaky he was. He and Gail frequently concocted schemes that got both their characters into entertaining scrapes.

Hassan was a Muslim who felt strongly about playing a character who embodied his own beliefs. He found a suitable match in playing a cleric of the god of light and healing. He didn't socialize with the rest of us outside of game, and I regret not getting the chance to know him better.

Scott was an athlete whose sports schedule also didn't give me much time to see him outside of game. (I ended up living across the hall from him a year or two later but, ironically, he had dropped out of the group by then.) He played an elf ranger, specializing in archery. With the high minimum ability scores required for AD&D rangers, he was the most consistent damage-dealer in the group, at any distance.

The final member (but one of the earliest recruits after Kevin and Gail) was Aaron, whose many geeky interests soon made him inseparable from Kevin and me. In fact, he and I became roommates the next year, and the only reason he didn't play for the campaign's full run was because he transferred to another school after two years. He played the party tank, a human fighter. Unfortunately, he tended to have long runs of bad dice luck that resulted in him being the least effective combatant in many important battles. Even at his most flailing, however, he and his heavy armor could be counted on to draw attention away from the less tough members of the party. His fighter and Gail's thief were good friends--she kept him well-supplied with booze to show her gratitude for him being a living tower shield, as well as a convenient tall thing to climb whenever bugs were around.

Now that I've introduced the Company of the Blue Swan, I'll share just one brief anecdote from that first year. Half of "D&D" is "dragons," so I threw one at them for their final adventure near the end of term. The PCs were all 3rd-4th level by then, so it was a very young black dragon (only 8 HD, IIRC), but it provided a very challenging hunt and fight for the party. As the dragon lured them further into the swamp, I built up their sense of paranoia with a number of eerie sounds and false alarms. When they reached a large stream that they needed to ford, they linked themselves together with ropes so that the stronger members could keep the weaker ones from going under. The dragon chose that moment to double back and attack. Most of the party made it safely across by the time the dragon reached them, but Aaron's fighter brought up the rear and so was out in the open when it made a strafing run. His usual dice luck held true and he badly flubbed his saving throw, taking full damage. Luckily, he was at full HP, which was just a hair above the maximum damage I could have rolled, so he survived--while getting the greatest scare of his life. His dice just rubbed it in by easily making the save for his platemail to avoid being melted. The party directed all their firepower at the dragon and, a few rounds later, emerged victorious without losing anyone.

The aftermath of the adventure, when they skinned the dragon and brought the hide home, was a golden opportunity for the party to show off their many quirks. Carol's bard was the only PC who had enough cash to pay for making dragonhide armor, and eagerly commissioned a suit. With such a young dragon, the armor was only as good as leather, but to a bard, its use in getting people to ask for the story was well worth the loss of 1 point of AC. Aaron's fighter had a shield made from the largest remaining piece, and some other members of the party commissioned smaller items with the rest. Ed's thief spent all his available cash on acquiring dragonhide boots and gloves, and dragonhide pickle tongs. Why pickle tongs? Well, why not? And it had never been done before.

I may tell more Blue Swan war stories in future columns, though few of them are as clear after all this time as the dragon fight. At the very least, the origin story of the world I created for that campaign, and later recreated in highly altered form for a couple other campaigns (using GURPS and D&D 3.0/3.5) is worth a column.