World Building

 Picking Spells

In the last post, when I created my Five Leagues from the Borderlands warband, I hadn't yet chosen spells for my mystic.  Mainly, I wanted to re-read the rules and spell descriptions.

In 5LB, spellcasters are mainly support.  There are no fireballs or other attack spells.  Instead, they can help their allies, hinder their foes, and alter the battlefield.  I've always liked this kind of wizard, but it does leave me with "everything is cool" syndrome.

I only get to pick two spells, and then get three more randomly.  After some consideration, I'm taking "Heal" as my first spell.  Even though it is limited to one cast per combat, anything that can help keep warband members alive a bit longer is a must-have.

The second spell I went around and around with, but I settled on "Barrier."  Being able to create cover wherever it is needed sounds amazing to me.

Now, the random rolls... 

(01) Antidote makes a warband member immune to poison and venom for an entire battle.  Situational, but probably very useful when appropriate.

(06) Barrier... er, reroll (46) Heal... bah, reroll... (100) Weaken.  Makes some enemies easier to deal with.  Another very situational spell, it looks like.

(43) Guidance.  Allows an ally a reroll during the next round.  Powerful if done at the right time, but tricky (or impossible) to know what the right time is.

At any rate, I look forward to seeing how this works out.  Having a mystic definitely allows for some creative play instead of just "run at the enemy and hope dice work in your favor."

Settlements

The next part of setting up a 5LB campaign is to start making a map of the area.  I'll draw something up later, but to start I need to know the major features that are in the area.

Rolling on a table gives me 0 hamlets, 2 villages, and 1 town.  Each of these gets a special trait.

The village of Ree turns out to be a nomadic camp, while the village of Mahn is a trading hub.

The larger town of Kethra is a market town.

I'm imagining a synergy between these three places.  Mahn is the closest to more civilized lands.  It serves as a gathering place for adventurers heading into the area, and also accumulates loot from those same adventurers.  It is the primary place for goods to come into the area, and treasures to head out.

The people of Ree wander in search of fish and game.  Anything they find beyond their needs gets taken to Kethra, which is connected to Mahn via a river.  In that way, the nomads can barter for goods they can't manufacture themselves.

Threats

There are three major groups threatening the area.  While there is the option to roll randomly, for this first campaign I'm going to pick based on models that I already own (and some of which are painted).

There are two "foes within," which lurk within the human realms.  I choose "The Ruin Within," which means bandits and brigands, and "The Whispers from Beyond," for fights against undead and cultists.

For "foes without," I go with Duskling Warbands.  While previously I said that dusklings reminded me of dwarves, I think I'm going to use orcs for these enemies.

I'm going to make the dusklings the primary enemy of the campaign (threat level 6), and both of the foes within will be threat level 5.  The goal of the campaign (which I highly doubt I'll achieve) is to reduce all three of those threat levels to 0.

Each of the three enemy groups will get both a camp and a hideout on the map.  The camps' locations are known, but the hideouts will be hidden and have to be discovered later.  I imagine that we have heard rumors of the general area where the groups are based, but we'll have to investigate and search to actually find the places.  That is a problem for future Garrick, though...

Other Stuff to Find

A few other interesting locations need to be added to the map.

There is a "delve," which is a multi-level tower/dungeon that can be explored.  In the past, there was another town in the area, called Lorba.  It grew to the point where hygiene was a serious problem, and the residents attempted to start a sewer system.  While digging, they broke through to a cave system.... and the inhabitants didn't take well to being disturbed.  Foul things decimated the town, and retreated back underground.  Rumors tell that the town coffers were full before the attack, and that coin has never been found.  

The map will also have an "unexplored location," which could be anything from a monster lair to a magic woods to a lost community.

Next up is to put all this stuff onto an actual map.  The map is mostly fluff, since you get from any location to any other in one "travel action."  Still, it adds to the immersion and makes it feel more like a world.  Once I get that drawn, I'll make another blog entry for it.