Warning: This game WILL contain themes related to early 1400s historical era thinking! This means whores, slaves and drug trafficking all have the possibility of being brought up during game play or being integral themes to story points! If these themes are disturbing or bother players, this may not be the game for you! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Their are monsters at the edges of the maps, things like Kraken, Serpents, Selkies and Mermaids. New land masses are being discovered every year, the world is growing; becoming stranger and more wondrous with each expedition. Boundless treasures seem to lie at the crest of every horizon for those willing to take the risks, both plunder from distant lands and the local aristocrats offer coffers heave with reward. Strange winds have begun to blow how ever with the discovery of a land which seemingly goes on for ever to the west beyond the sea, ungodly creatures and strange goings on have become the gossip in local taverns, replacing the previous vapid rumblings of the drunkards. To the south archaic practices occur on the dark continent, the local inhabitants invoking strange works which seem most unholy to the over lording church. This has not stopped intrepid ship captains, both of reputable and dubious origins from traveling there, bringing back holds loaded down to the waterline with with spices, rare woods, metals and slaves. Such bounty does not come without a price how ever, poor luck seems to follow those who visit these strange lands in most all persuites not related to the continent. Eventually, all those who find wealth from this disturbing land inevitably fall in their attempts, claimed for their avarice and inhumanity towards the locals. The map of the world only seems to grow larger, and stranger. Far from every piece of land has been found, not a fraction of the mysteries of the places known uncovered. The world is an oyster to those willing to risk everything, a boat their knife. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We've all seen the Pirates of the Caribbean movie(s), a series of films following the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow in a semi-low fantasy 1800s, this is an excellent example of the style of setting this campaign will take place in, though certainly not the direct one (The campaign takes place closer to the early 1400s). Magic is, first and foremost, slightly more prevalent in this campaign than in these films, though far from understood, common or trusted. Most magical relics or items either are extremely specific in what they do or come with some drawback ( see Curse of the Black Pearl for an example of a magic item with drawbacks ). This said, don't expect to pick up a dagger of +1 Siren Slaying, be glad you managed to pick up a quality saber from that ship you routed; magic is more prevalent the further out you go, how ever. As well as their being a dearth of magic, it's extremely rare for their to be magic users; while the players may find themselves coming in contact with magic users in deeply wooded areas or mysterious islands, even become some-what magical in their adventures, you'll more than likely never throw a fireball from your hand or levitate a cow over a gorge, your flint-lock and sword will be your main method of dealing out pain; and how very effective they are. This being said, starting out as a magic user in this campaign is prohibited, though after level ten (as per the rules of Dungeon World) it may be possible for a character to begin studying arts most unnatural. (Druid, Cleric, Paladin and Wizard prohibited as starting classes) Being a low fantasy game and set in an alternate-earth style setting, players choice in race is limited to humans only, though your place of heraldry can most certainly offer a chance for some serious diversity in characters. A player whos character is from Essex may be as different as a gnome is from and elf to a character whose character heralds from the southern continent. We will be playing on Saturdays at 8PM EST when we have a full group of 3-5! Home brew tastiness! Most games poses some element of Home Brew, this game of course won't be any different! I'm including a number of varying rules from rules for players to craft items properly and balanced to actually needing rations for long trips. This being said, lets get down to it. Crafting: Each time i play or run a game, their's one thing that comes up quiet often, "We didn't get anything for that" or, "That's all this person had on them?". Far be it for me to deny the players in this campaign in particular the chance to walk away from each session with some kind of token. Crafting has been notoriously difficult for role playing games to balance to fairness and sadly this campaign will most likely hit some snags in regards to this as well. That being said, Crafting is largely a narrative experience for players with with a reward at the end of either a usable item, an piece of new equipment or something which could be sold. Everything in the world is made of component parts, your pants are cloth with several yards of thread to them, a barrel is a number of wooden boards with nails and iron hoops etc etc. These are wholly narrative aspects to the crafting of items, as long as what you're doing makes logical sense and your character has the required tools on his person previously, you can do it to greater or lesser extents. Whether these actions make sense is largely agreed upon by the party, you're not going to be pulling apart a sword with your bare hands, but putting nails in a piece of drift-wood to create a make-shift club would be more than amiable to most. Now for some balance to this possibly over-powered skill everyone poses-es and a little bit of randomization. When pulling apart an object the player making the action would roll a D4 for each material they're attempting to recover - rolling a 2 when gathering nails from a chair would yield only two usable nails for crafting, a 3 being rolled for boards rewards the same number of that material etc. The typical Dungeons and Dragons weapon-die charts apply, though the same die used to roll for damage is used to determine how much of each material used to create the weapon I.E rolling 1d6 and getting a five requires five of the associated material, more materials used to craft require more rolls of the same die. This relatively balances the creation of such items to an extent, but will of course require some serious balancing after experimentation. Making items for sale is a different and simpler matter, rolling 1d4 for a tiny, 1d6 for a small, 1d8 for a medium, 1d10 for a large and 1d12 for a very large item for sale would seem reasonable for making such items, followed by 1-5d20 depending upon the size of the item to find the subsequent price of the item created. 1D4 is rolled to see how many full in-game days is required to determine how long it takes to create the item. This rule is highly susceptible to change after being further tested and most likely will! Travel: This rules is significantly simpler than crafting, yet offers a better money-sink and a reason to budget ones finances. Each player characters drinks 8 oz of water and eats three pounds of food per day. These are entirely flavor-centric items and do not inhibit the players for having them in bulk, but an RP penalty for not having either or both is levied. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can purchase the Dungeon World rule book at RPG Drivethrough for ten dollars
