A Cup of Coffee
Finally got an electric kettle and I am able to drink coffee again. This is a huge improvement in my quality of life. I am using this kinda like a little journal. If you ever wondered how the sausage is made, here we are.
Before I post to Substack or Medium, I come here to write out my thoughts. To gather my thoughts be they short or long and create the beginnings of finished work. This is the workshop.
I am currently playing around with a new adventure. A strange and beautiful adaptation of the old Keep on the Shadowfell from 4e D&D. Kaleril the Vile was defeated long ago in a ruined dark tower near the village of Greengrass. A group of children from the village has disappeared into the ruins in an ill fated attempt to be adventurers.
They kids are currently in the clutches of some Orcus cultists who will sacrifice them in three nights when the New Moon rises. The PC’s will learn this from a girl named Calliope who escaped the cult and ran to town for help.
The town militia is currently fighting off an incursion of bandits, so the witch hires the PC’s to save the children. 20 gp for each child safely returned. This is a good, solid little adventure. You don’t need a tremendous amount of story for any good TTRPG scenario.
You can sum up the entire plot as follows:
What? Save the children from the cult.
Where? The Dark Tower on the edge of the Boar Forest.
When? Before the kids are sacrificed.
Why? The witch is paying good money for the rescue.
Who? The Cult Leader is Lareth the Beautiful (Yes the guy from Village of Hommlet but made into a cool, deeper character.)
Let’s look at Lareth. He is a beautiful young man, around 25 or 26 years old. He has long black hair and looks a lot like a young Antonio Banderas. He is quite amorous. He was the younger son of a noble family in the capital. He has become a cult leader because Orcus promised him immortality. He is brilliant and cool but he has a master.
Who is Lareth’s Master? A beautiful woman of course. An elder vampire named Shoshana. She isn’t important to the current adventure so we can just safely leave her lurking in the background. If Lareth succeeds in making the sacrifice, she will turn him into a vampire. Thus fulfilling Orcus’s promise to Lareth.
Ok so we have Kaleril, an ancient lich who built the tower. We have Lareth the low level bastard. We have Shoshana, the vampire manipulator. She is much more powerful than the PC’s at low level so she remains in the background.
Lareth has the ear of Rolf, the leader of the local bandits. Rolf is a failed revolutionary. He tried to overthrow the parliament and the Emperor.
Ok so now we know our setting has a constitutional monarchy and that the land is vast. Greengrass is located inside the empire but the land is huge and the Emperor doesn’t have enough soldiers to keep the peace. So the Empire has grown too big. The expansionist military is on the fringes, the interior lands grow increasingly lawless.
Well then here we have some fine pieces of world building. I have pulled from various sources and remixed them. And it all started with a proper cup of coffee.