Enchanted Nimbus #7
October Issue
Welcome back aboard the Enchanted Nimbus! I hope everyone has had a good October! Fall has started to set in here. October was another busy month for me, but I hope to have some more time at home before the holidays start to kick off at the end of the November.
This month’s newsletter has a blog on Treasure Signatures. A call-for-questions to celebrate Earthmote being 1 year old. A round-up of latest OSR-style news, blogs articles and videos from other creators. And lastly the continuation of my recent reads & listens!
Q&A Request
Earthmote turns one year old at the end of November! In celebration of the milestone, I am planning to do a Q&A video and release it around the 1 year anniversary. So, if you have any questions (RPG related or personal) for me, now is your chance to ask them! I can’t guarantee all will make the cut, but I’ll see what I can do. If there are lots of good ones, I could save some for a future video.
If you have any questions please leave them in a comment on this post. Or, watch out for my community post on YouTube (as of Enchanted Nimbus #7 publication, not yet posted).
Feature: Treasure Signatures
I enjoy worlds that have depth. Like most worldbuilders, I think its cool to have history in your setting. Now when I say history, your mind may jump to paragraphs of texts documenting thousands of years that no one cares about (except the creator). And that is a fair assessment. It is often why history gets a bad rap in campaign setting design. But that’s not what I focus on when I’m talking about history.
I like using history to add supplemental bits and pieces of flavor to the world. This sword belonged to the last captain of the Dragon Riders of Karath. Who are the Dragon Riders of Karath? Does it matter? I’d guess probably not. Not until a dragon acts favorably the wielder of that blade. Flavor-based history have the effect of making your game feel lived in. Someone else important wielded this blade. That’s cool, and the players may try to learn more about its story. **It can also add “depth” to your world. By stating that the Dragon Riders of Karath were a thing, you are showing your players an element of the setting.
Now, how many words/paragraphs you have behind supporting that element can be surprisingly thin. One to three sentences probably does the job until the players show interest in that historical element. Then you can flesh out the details a bit more as they engage with it. This just-in-time preparation saves the Game Master a lot of time. And it keeps your focus on the game elements that your players are currently engaged with.
One of my favorite ways to share these flavor bits is through treasure signatures.
What are Signatures?
Signatures are ways that you can identify treasure. They add flavor to the treasure by providing some sort of theme that helps unify them with other-like treasures. This helps in two ways. First, it simplifies your design work as a GM.
Lets say you choose to divide your magic weapons into categories. Taking a look at Dolmenwood for inspiration, we see that they divide magic into: Arcane, Fairy, and Holy. Each of these weapon themes have different abilities that are associated with them. As a GM doing your design work, if you have similar tools you can easily make an Arcane Spear that’s going to have some thematic elements that align closely with other arcane weaponry. That saves you a lot of prep time if you decide to templatize a bit.
Secondly, it helps your players make connections between items (treasure) they are finding. If all dwarven magic weapons have runes, then when the players find a weapon with a dwarven rune on it, they know something about the item’s theme. This is great because you are providing information to your players about the setting. And your players will engage with your world more when they start to pick up on these flavor-bits that are interconnected with one another.
Signature Types
When I am using treasure signature games in my world, I like to focus on two types: stylistic themes and artisan signatures.
Stylistic Themes
Stylistic themes are like what we see with the Dolmenwood example. These are templates that we can use to make treasures easily and have them be related to other treasures populated in the world around them. Stylistic themes work great for cultures and/or time periods. This lets you layer in treasures that were developed through the ages. They might be found in ruins from that specific time period/culture. Or a hoard may have collected treasures from a multitude of stylistic themes. This provides a sense of how long that hoard has been accumulating. Or at least a sense of the breadth of its accumulation.
Stylistic themes can be mechanical in nature: divine weapons do holy damage. Or they can be artistic: sylvan statues are graceful and implement flowy natural elements into the design. You can implement one or both choices into your treasure design.
Artisan Signatures
Artisan signatures are for specific historical figures in your campaign setting. It could be a master weaponsmith that crafted a series of swords. Or a brilliant artist that created series of highly sought-after paintings. Rather than making sweeping generalizations of your treasure (a dwarven shield) you are making a very granular specific type of treasure (a Morgantha shield).
This implements a “collectible” side quest into your setting. Can the players find more of Harkoon the Wise’s works or not? I find that players engage with this sort of stuff. If items are collectible that means they are well known. So when your players start carrying around some of these signature items, people will remark about it. They may react in certain ways in its presence, they may offer to buy it, or they may resort to unscrupulous means to gain it.
I also like theming artisan’s works too. Maybe the rune smith only made swords. Or the Harkoon the Wise’s items all have to do with teleportation. These are highly specialized and skilled craftsmen. In most cases they probably have a particular area of focus similar to sages’ specializations from the Advanced D&D’s Dungeon Master’s Guide. Of course you could have jack-of-all-trades that are sought after Artisans too, like a Leonardo Da Vinci types.
Signatures of History
The possibilities with signatures are endless, but I’ve found they add a bit of history to your world without being a lore dump on your players. Having the treasure tell the story is one of my favorite ways to get players to engage with the setting. When players find treasure, you have a few moments of undivided attention as they listen in on “what they got” from their treasure haul. Providing them with cool descriptions and unique elements that help build on your campaign setting by showing rather than telling is a big win.
Articles
Joel at Silverarm Press discusses Engaging Players by Having Them Build Your Setting and he shares his collaborative worldbuilding process.
Over at d4 Caltrops ktrey shared **d100 - Monster Special Defenses/Other Abilities** and d100 - Magical Axes.
The Alexandrian breaks down what a Role Playing Game is.
W.F. Smith shares some taverns from his latest Barkeep Jam for use in your own game.
News and Sales
Castle Grief, fellow Substacker has released their game Kal-Arath a 2d6 OSR system designed for solo, co-op, and group play. Castle Grief has also put out two expansions for Kal-Arath at the same time: Valley of the Black Ziggurat and Lords of the Pit.
DriveThruRPG has a Halloween Sale going on:
Gourdin Konbo Club has released The Illustrated Bestiary, a collection of monsters for Cairn. The monsters were written by the author of Cairn, Yochai Gal and illustrated by Oozejar! The Illustrated is PWYW and also available in print on Lulu.
The Painted Wastelands by Agamemnon Press, a psychedelic hexcrawl is now available on DTRPG! Dive headfirst into a strange hexcrawl set in a bizarre world teeming with desert weirdos, ravenous ghouls, and teeth-stealing dream-beasts. The land is a vibrant kaleidoscope of rainbow-colored sand and crumbling ruins. Only the PDF is currently available while the physical product is still fulfilling on Kickstarter.
Necrotic Gnome is launching an Old School Essentials Playtest aimed at making some ‘minor tweaks’ to the Assassin, Barbarian, Knight and Ranger classes in future printings of Old School Essentials.
Recent Reads & Listens
Fiction:
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (Audiobook)
The Kings of the Wyld is a D&D story at its heart. Literally. Its about an adventuring band that gets back together for “one last job”. The band “Saga” is a bit past their prime, but they are out to show why they were the most famous adventuring band of their time.
The book is filled with tons of references to D&D monsters (Owlbears, Grimlocks, Orcs, Goblins, Manticores, Dragons and so on).
Its action-packed. Its hilarious. And the story had me gripped from beginning to end. Definitely recommend.
Rating: 10/10
The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany (Audiobook)
Lord Dunsany appears on the the famous Appendix N. The King of Elfland’s Daughter (KODE) is one of his most famous fantasy works.
The magic and enchantment that pervades the KODE is unique and nothing like we see in modern works. The veil between the fairy world and the mortal world is thin. When the people of Erl demand a magic lord to rule Erl, the lord sends his son into Elfland to find a bride. Alveric ventures forth in his quest for the King of Elfland’s Daughter and deals with the ramifications of his plan for the rest of the book.
I also had interest in the book because Gavin Norman lists it as one of his greatest influences for the creation of the Dolmenwood setting. I can see a lot of choices that that directly play out in Dolmenwood that come from KODE:
Fairy rune magic (and the enchanter class)
The hunter class
The emphasis on hounds as companion animals
Much of Winter’s Daughter adventure was clearly inspired by KODE.
Rating: 9.5/10
The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories by Lord Dunsany (Audiobook)
Enjoying KODE, I decided to give Lord Dunsany’s short stories a listen. They are relatively quick listens on audiobook (30-40 mins per story max).
There were several stories that were quite evocative and full of fun adventure potential: The Sword of Welleran, The Kith of the Elf-Folk, The Fortress Unvaquishable were all fun reads (listens).
There we many very short stories (5-10 mins in listening length) that were a mixed bag.
Rating: 9/10 for the short stories I called out, 6/10 for the rest
Videos
Daniel at Bandit’s Keep talks about Downtime in D&D:
Harmony Ginger discusses the entrance to Stonehell Megadungeon:
Ben at Questing Beast shares adventures made by his viewers:
Seth reviews Pirate Borg:
Aboard the Earthmote, I discussed D&D’s implied setting and ways to change up your random encounters: