Symbols are vital to marketing, propaganda, religion and way more in our real world, and in Greyhawk that might be even more so. Every ruler, cult and faction needs to brand themselves appropriately using the means available.
In a medievalesque world the options are more limited but the basics are still the same, a recognizable design that send the message you want effectively across. Since our games are for us to have fun they need to be an inspiration for our games as well!
Tonight's legend & Lore Show on the https://www.twitch.tv/lordgosumba channel @8pm EDT will be about Languages, Expressions & Glyphs so I wanted to add some stuff to the discussion, so here comes a selection of symbols I have cooking for my games. Mostly cultish and other more nefarious types, but not all.
Lets start in old Flan lands with Count Dahlvier.
In my campaign the lich was once a Flan lord who fought against the Oeridian invaders and succumbed to using some of the worst of methods and kept on the fight beyond death even. The design of his symbol are, according to some of his many enemies, either some sort of fiend or an example of what he does to his enemies, or a combination of the two.
Next up is Keraptis who we don't know that much about so I kept it simple with a rune of a person reaching everywhere at once.
as a part of his career Keraptis ran large part of the old Flan world from Tostencha using, according to legend, some pretty harsh methods and needed a symbol to keep the masses subdued.
Simple Flan design with a symbology what are mainly lost in history.
A modern use if the flan tradition are the servant of the Old One, Waquonis with his own rune showing his ability to change.
Now it is time to look at a someone that are held in much higher regard the master of Swords Kelanen. He is actually playing a small part in my current campaign so I needed a symbol for him.
I might need to tweak it, but it's a start..
Next up is a faction I invented for my campaign. The Daughters of Aegwareth. Aegwareth was the druid who Keraptis killed in White Plume Mountain. His spirit survided and he persist in some strange form and in my campaign he had a daughter who wowed to revenge his death. She started a cult to go after Keraptis, each time he are reborn. The daughters have a symbol made up of a set of runes, see if you can figure out which..
They also have a a more prominent holy symbol, a dark Beory with a burning interior..
Time for the BBEG's Fist out is my favorite Fiend, Graz'zt. Who in my campaign have been a sponsor of a lot of bad things for a long time in the Flanaess. His most notorious symbol are a six fingered hand, here in silhouette.
and here in a painted version...
Graz'zt is also known for his mastery of swords and his huge curvy demonic blade that has lots of powerful propeties.
Here is a painted version..
Another major evil that might need some more symbology in Greyhawk are Orcus. I made this rune based on the scare his has some of the WotC illustrations.
It is a combination o his sword and his horns. Here is a silhouette symbol of his used to scare and impress..
and a full color version for the places when he really want to show off..
The concept for Orcus head and Graz'zt sword are made using Midjourney, without mentioning any artists in the promts and then lots of Photoshop and illustrator editing. the other illustrations are made using Illustrator and Photoshop, without any AI involvement. I know it is a contentious topic and I want to be open with it.
After a way too long prep and learning phase my GIS project is well under way. I took the decision to migrate my Greyhawk project to use GIS technology as its base over five years ago, and now after lots of reading, watching videos, consulting people who are professionals and have worked on similar projects, I have something to show.
I've been a long time user of GIS maps in my former life both professionally and as a hobby, but I have never produced them. Understanding the basics of how something works in the reals world only takes you so far trying to implement said technology on a fantasy world. The key difference is that you can't go out and measure the world, or use data already collected and processed, you need to create and refine the data from scratch which is the big part of the work. Back in May I posted the first look at my GIS project, georeferencing the planet and its continents. This time it is much more into the weeds, looking at data entry from large to small.
One key part of this project is to convert my existing Flanaess & Hepmonaland map into GIS, and the other is use GIS t make detailed regional and local maps. The test area for this local bit are Critwall and its surroundings. First step is to geo-reference the detailed terrain map of Critwall so it matches my Flanaess terrain and the surrounding terrain.
Next is to set up layers, its databases and the styling and start adding stuff to the map. This is the most fun bit, to world-build and create my version of Critwall. Its main quarters, called wards from its religious roots with a cleric or paladin assigned to be the protector of each. The Oeridian empire builders who settled this area in the 100's where emerging empire builders, and after a century the Old Ward wasn't big enough for their ambitions. A new ward was created on slightly lower plateau sough of the old town dating back to Flan times, and it became the New Ward. It was designed to house at least 10,000 people, and more if you included the new Harbor Ward to the west.
The Southward was added in the 200's when the Great Kingdoms ambitions peaked. The intention was to turn Critwall into the main bastion of the north west and a base for further conquest north. This is when Rauxes started to have problem closer to home and the anticipated influx of settlers and soldiers from the Great Kingdoms core lands never materialised. The southward instead became a walled in area for the well off, military training facilities and a large tournament and fair ground.
Here is a work in progress preview of Critwall:
Again I have to remind you that this is my very first map done in QGIS, but I'm enthusiastic for the possibilities. Things will get better from here and take less time to do as well!
When it comes to the bigger picture I've added all the Metropolises and all the Cities and was about to start on the Towns when I screwed up with my database management and managed to delete all the city data, a couple of days work gone. I store stuff in Dropbox, or so I thought, but QGIS store so called "sidecar files" in C:/User/%USER%/Documents..sigh. Found that out the hard way, and now I have change that setting and turned of the sidecar files and works with integrated data until I export it. You learn every day in this job...lol. It was a lot of anger management for half a day, but now I' coming back to it again, placing labels in Critwall was a great way of liking my job again.
It is a lot of tedious work but will be more than worth it in the long run. The potential of this in endless!!
Housekeeping
Patreon have screwed up a bit on their own this past month. They changed payment processor and the new one was according to rumours in Ireland and lots of US banks declined the card charges, in my case it was about nearly 40%, hopefully they will have that sorted out to next month. They sent out an email apologizing, but without going into much detail which is understandable. Being away for a bit over a month also takes time come back from so it affected me when I deserved it..lol.
I just lost a friend and long time former colleague which is always hard, and not being able to attend the funeral (it is not possible to go back to Europe again so soon) feels really depressing. I'm sorry for the delays in my projects and communication that this have caused. I'm getting over it, just need to be careful so I'm not spreading negative vibes.
I plan to do an overhaul of my Patreon and its tiers this fall. Patreon are changing lots of things and I need to adjust on my end as well. Lots of the changes are for the better I hope, want to make things simpler and a bit more straight forward. More on this soon.
Merch
NobleDwarf now have a lot of stuff with my graphics on it, posters, t-shirt, mugs and more with my maps, heraldry and logo on them!
https://www.nobledwarf.com/collections/anna-meyer
The price is for the cost of the print, I don't get a cut of the sticker price. This is so I'm, hopefully, staying compliant of the WotC Fan Creation Policy. There is a tip option in checkout, where you can ad a few bucks that will go to me. The exceptions are t-shirts and mugs with my logo only, there I will get a bit of the sale since there are now derivative Greyhawk art on them. I hope you find something you like!
I will be back with an in depth look at Critwall soon.
Thank you again for your support, it means so much, especially now!!!
It has taken 20 years of hesitation, half-assed attempts, a few fast made commissions and lots of trials and error, to get this point where I have found out how to create city maps that are both useful and pleasing to my eye. Please understand me wrong here, fantasy cartography are full of fantastic looking city maps. After dungeon maps they are probably the most common type of map in TTRPG publishing, and despite looking great they often missing key parts I'm looking for in visualizing a settlement.
May main missing feature are the surroundings, a city is a feature of the surrounding landscape, a landscape that are usually the reason for its existence and determines its layout and spread, omitting it makes it really hard for me to understand the place. Another vital part are elevation, a settlement on flat lands are fundamentally different from one with huge height differences. A proper map need to make this apparent, strangely this can be harder to do well when the elevation differences are smaller but still significant.
Level of detail is another key aspect of a map, especially for a place where text and images are the only way we can get to know the place. Fantasy mapping are less about finding the way and more about discovering the journey. At a distance things like color and shading give away clues to the lay of the land, big structures like city walls and the biggest buildings. Contrasting colors between buildings and streets work to give hints to the basic layout of the city even at a glance from the distance. Porta Potty Scale works well to show an overview of settlements and their surroundings, and to use to navigate around town, point out places of interest and calculate travel times.
The final map and its data need to fit into my grander scheme of setting mapping, both in accuracy, data compatibility, and style. The data bit is the often overlooked part, I want to be able to re-use as much of my work as possible, and when I update something the update should be applicable across all maps using the the same data. Good maps are so much more than pretty pictures. All the separate layers of textures, shading, masks and things like occlusion data can be very handy when it comes to make different types of maps, like a grey overlay to show the sewers for example.
I've used my trusty World Machine, Photoshop workflow for this one and I'm starting to feel comfortable with both the process and the results. It is tedious and even "treacherous" at time with many pitfalls, but overall the best possible at the moment. There are a few things with large scale water drainage that I need to iron out, but I have ideas on how to fix them better. Who knew that drainage would be such a big part of my life, I never even though much about it until I started moving into virtual terrain creation, and now I study both geology and python to get a grip on the topic!
Half of the process still requires a hands on approach using Photoshop, this is both a pain but also a source of artistry and a chance to get to know an area intimately. It is also important for me to have lots of hands on in in the city design process, things need to be figured out gradually with a tow step forward one step back kind of way. Trying to imagine what the place would be to live in, when and how was it constructed, by whom and who made the decisions. Towns and settlements rarely form instantly, but it might happen in a fantasy world, they grow over time and their history are an integral part of how they are designed. Taking time to let all this evolve when I work on settlements makes it possible to come up with lots of cool little details.
Next phase in mapping Critwall is to bring it into QGIS for labeling, which is something I'm very much still a newbie at. The final presentation represent a whole new set of challenges with, fonts, size colors and more. More on that in a few days...
Here are a new version of my Campaign Map depicting the situation at the start of 599 CY.
https://easyzoom.com/image/441637
Lots of caveats comes with this map. First it is very much a work in progress and things that are changed and added as my campaign progress, and I also change things outside the scope of the current campaign to prep for future adventures. This makes some areas way more detailed and others left more barren. This doesn't mean there are nothing there, it just means I haven't developed that are much yet. This campaign map is both a snapshot of my campaign and an overview of my personal take on Greyhawk.
My current campaign are set in Shield Lands which means that I've added a lot of detail to the Shield Lands and neighboring Furyondy.
Eazyzoom let you download a copy of the map as well, a warning is that it is a huge map. It is over 30,000 pixels which will cause problems for some tools and viewers. You can resize it to just under 30,000 pixels and it should work.
My campaign have come to Critwall just in time for the 599 CY Needfest celebrations, which will play out in the upcoming game sessions. In order to help out my players I have put together a cheat sheet about some of the most prominent guests, their titles and a few notes about them. Some of the juicier stuff is not here, it will be for the players to find out during the sessions.
These NPC's are a mix of published sources and my own creations.
His Eminence - Count Paralen Isenben, Royal Ambassador to Mitrik
A cousin of Belvor IV, and a close confidant maintaining the Kingdoms affairs in Veluna. His job is to keep Veluna happy and close to the Kingdom even if Belvor designates an heir that is not from Veluna.
His Lordship - Baron Tidrus Derwent - of Eragern
Baron of Eragern, Luther Derwent is his uncle. Seen as a lightweight, is in fact the kings eyes and ears in Luther's court. He plays light hearted but is in fact both intelligent and wise, and staying loyal to the king. His job during the festivities is to stay close to Luther and be part of the discussions.
Tidrus gives cover for Mauritian to conduct military action across the border on Iuz occupied lands, focusing on economic, cultural and mediate between Luther and the King.
Sir - General Mauritian Declenn - Lord of Eyeberen
A good friend to both the king, Katarina, Janzipir and Tidrus Derwent, who's support secured his lordship of Eyberen. He is a capable warrior who organize and conducts raids inside Iuz lands with the help of Katarina and Janzipir.
Sir - Janzipir - See'er of Eyeberen
A diviner that serves as the eyes and ears at Castle Eyeberen. He is taking huge risks and has paid for it with an eye and lots of other damages, but he is determined to take the war back to Iuz lands. He is very close to Mauritian and able to provide valuable information.
His Noble Grace - Earl Xanthan Butrain of Willip
A key noble in the kingdom who have been struggling a bit lately, mainly due to his only son and hair who lacks both skill and ambition, and a brother who is disloyal and somewhat of a political pariah. With two intolerable successors his political future looks fraught, he is hoping his niece Annise Butrain can turn this situation around.
Her Lordship - Baroness Annise Butrain of Gor
She is the daughter of Gregen Butrain, who is the brother of Xanthan Butrain. Gregen is seen as a unreliable and villainous force in the Kingdom, so it was with trepidation everyone saw Xanthan make young Annise a full baron in her own right. She has taken to the position with both skill and strategic thinking, eying to replace Xanthan in leu of his son William. She is young but full of charm, and more importantly ambition paired with a good heart.
Her hand in marriage will be a trophy for who ever can claim it, and Annise is seen as brave move by her uncle Xanthan. By elevating her and giving Annise his support, he has sidestepped Gregen, and given Willip more political currency. There are rumors of interest between Annise and Milon Uwilsvale.
Grand Councilor, Celestial Dame - Ubica Darmen Imperial Envoy of Ahlissa
Leading Zilchus Priest from Kalstrand, diplomatic envoy to Greyhawk specializing in business relations. She has practically invited herself to the festivities, by sponsoring it, to see if the rumors of a new push against Iuz and reports of major powers being involved. She is very curious to confirm who is backing Katarina financially, giving her the means to spend like she is, and what she is spending her resources on.
Rumors of Belvor deciding a new heir soon is of huge interest to Ubica and her realm.
Sir - Milon Uwilsvale - Holder of the Heart, Commander of Redoubt
Milon is one of the best warriors of the Kingdom, and a loyal servant of both Heironeous and the King. He has a friendly rivalry with Katarina determined to stay out of her way (and bed) and focus on military matters rather than politics. Annise has more than an eye on him, and there are rumors.....
His Royal Highness - Commander of the Heart, Marshal of Chendl, Protector of Ferrond, Lord of Fairwain, King of Furyondy -
Belvor Stinvri IV.
Belvor attends to festivities to reconnects with his close friend and ally Katarina, plan the fight against Iuz, and show everyone that he is not shying away from visiting the front lines at times. He is also taking a risk by giving his public support to Shield Lands at this time when the rumor mill is focused on his succession. This accents his appointment of Artur Jakartai, giving one of the most important positions to a Shield Lander, what else could he be up to?
Her Noble Grace Lady Commander - Katarina Walworth, Earl of Walworth, Commander of the Shield, Marshal of Furyondy
The hostess of the festivities, and a powerful actor on the political scene in the part of the Flanaess. She is dedicated, charming and spends resources to further her goals. She had many friends and allies, and equally many enemies. Rumors states she is in fact secretly negotiating with some on the Iuzian side. The number of Iuzian clerics she has killed keeps her above suspicion, by most, for now. She leads from the front and shares burdens with those who fights with her, which makes her a very popular commander.
Her social life is both enigmatic and surrounded by rumors, she has no official partner and is known to be both old and not even human. This has led to speculations and rumors, but few are those who dare to say anything. Katarina are one of the most capable warriors in the Flanaess and have proved it many time, and she has the favor of both Heironeous and Belvor.
His Noble Grace - Arthur Jakartai - Marshal of the Shield, Lord of Grabford, Marshal of Furyondy, Count of Crystalreach
A knight of the Shield, the ruler of Crystalreach and the main organizer of the fight against Iuz. He is a 7' bachelor who has devoted himself to the fight rather than family and politics. Had a fell out with the old leadership of the Knights of Holy Shielding, but he and Katarina became good friends, rumors say more, during the campaign against Iuz.
Sir - Arlen Pirtena - Knight of the Heart
Sir Arlen is the current personal aid and a protector of King. He is a Heironeous devotee and very capable warrior. He has good relations with Katarina who had his position many years ago. Arlen hasn't realized it yet, but he is an up and coming star in Furyondy politics. Being the Kings aid is a very good spot to launch a career in Furyondy politics. Arlen is still new on the job and focused on the security and wellbeing of the king, which is seen as a plus by Belvor.
His Noble Grace - Luther Derwent - Protector of Free Borough, Lord of Gorsend, Count of the March
Luther sees himself as central to politics of the realm. The King and those around him has the duty to run military matters and other day to day business, Luther's main interests are economy and succession. He is in fact not that smart and the King keep him close to make sure he is not turning into an enemy. His sons are still to young to be in play politically, but his daughter is the hope of Luther. He talks up her virtues endlessly as the biggest price in the realm. Luther and the Derwent family are rich, but lacking inventiveness and charm, which harms Luther in his ambitions.
Grand Councilor, Lord - Telemmand - Grand Council Representative - County Scribe of the March
Luther's representative at Noble Council is the scribe Telemmand, an expert procrastinator who refuses to make any decisions until he has discussed matters fully with his dour, pragmatic liege. Sharp tongues say that Luther uses Telemmand's presence to appear less unappealing.
My MeyerHawk House Rules Project is progressing and here comes a first look at Combat Actions. It is a classless system which means I have to base who can do what on something different than class. I've based it on Skills, Proficiencies and Exertion. Exertion is a resource that was invented by EN Publishing for their Level Up - Advanced 5E.
In this daft I've listed 56 actions which are a lot of them. They will be grouped into basic (everyone can do them), mounted etc.
I've attached a PDF exported from Obsidian. The format is simple at this stage, and no real editing. The final rules will be edited and published in several formats like PDF, Markdown, HTML.
It took me a little while to get over to my native Sweden, two days with cancelled and missed flights, forest fires, and a day in Munich. Now it is time to get some work done again. First out is a look at the traditional ring dwellings of the Shield Lands in my campaign.
Shield Lands is a realm where the new (read Oeridian) have been replacing and merging with the old for half a millennium, and this is clearly visible in how people live. Since the old Flan days this have been a dangerous and wild part of the world, where shelter could often be harder than enemies to find. It is a predominately open landscape with few places to hide and seek shelter, and the soil is not fertile enough to support a dense population. Ingenuity and make due was, and still is, the mantra for these hardy folk who call the Shield Lands home. Instead of building large towns and cities and seek safety and prosperity in number behind think walls, the flan who settled the plains here choose a different strategy. Small settlements that blended in with the surrounding terrain, and still provided some protection.
It was common to find a low hill made up of tough soil, dig out the center and a surrounding moat. Use the dug up soil and stone to construct walls battlements, and reinforce the outside of the dwellings. Sizes varied from a few families up to a several hundred, and in rare circumstances all the way up to town size with a thousand or more. The sketch shows a more typical size with living for 100-200 people and they livestock. Life inside the dwellings was cramped and dense, but people lived outside with their sheep, goats and cattle most of the daytime, so being cramped at night, or when danger was lurking was accepted.
An important aspect of this design was the proximity of similar settlements, key was to spread out risk instead of center it. The distance between these dwellings where usually a few hundred yards up to a quarter of a mile, and always within signaling distance, using horns, flags or smoke. This forced the enemy to attack only a single dwelling or spread out their forces. Neighboring settlements could quickly come to aid those attacked. Most adults in this realm can both fight and are able riders. A settlement only have to be able to defend themselves for a short time before they can count on help from their neighbors.
This way of living was the norm until the Oeridians came and wanted to modernize and upgrade the ancient ways of living in cramped dens not much better than a hole in the ground behind a small wall. They built proper houses with defenses, but often spend more lavishly on living standard rather than defense capability. The Oeridian idea of defense was a much bigger castle or keep that was designated to guard a much larger area, often many square miles. The defense installations where a deterrent for the thugs of the old bandit lands, but woefully inadequate when the well organized terror of the Horned Society and later Iuz came. Maybe a spread out much more nimble defense would have fared better, that we can only speculate in. But a lot of the lowly squires hailing from the rural part of Shield Lands who survived the onslaught swear that the only reason they made it was mobility and mutual aid.
Here in my Critwall map you can see the area outside the wall still being dotted with small settlements that have been, to a varyingly degree, converted to more conventional standard.
Architecture and especially settlement design are often overlooked in fantasy so for my Shield Lands campaign I wanted to take in this aspect in my campaign planning and cartography. It can add a special feel to the campaign, and making sure it feels a bit special and more believable.
I haven't written a blogpost going over the different tools I'm using in a while so lets go over my toolbox, both for my map making as well as my gaming,
Cost: Indie $119, Professional $299
World Machine is my main tool for terrain creation for a decade now, and despite its shortcomings and the arrival of new cool tools in the field, World Machine are still ahead in certain key aspects. The ability to work on really large maps and the way it handles river systems are still the best in the business. This doesn't means it is perfect, but it works, and this is too often the case when it coms to 3D terrain tools. The biggest use for tools like world Machine are for the video game industry and so far their need for large terrains and realism have been very limited, so far, but there are lots of signs that this ai about to change which makes me somewhat hopeful for improvements in the future.
World Machine is based around a visual programming interface, and understanding how data flows and being processed are the key aspect for using it. This is not for everyone, but great for me, gives me the power of programming and procedural data processing combined with visual presentation. World Machine is a VERY powerful tool but it has a steep initial learning curve.
World Machine has a free, very limited version, which is a good way to see if you like work with this kind of tool.
Free Alternatives:
Wilbur
http://www.fracterra.com/wilbur.html
A great tool for randomly creating whole worlds with heightmaps rivers and more. Old clunky UI and of limited use if you want to make maps recreating a specific terrain.
Blender
https://www.blender.org
Have some of the basic features creating and editing terrain data
-------------------------------------------------------------
Cost: Indie $99 (one time), Professional $199 (one time)
The new kid on the bloc and a very capable and promising terrain creation tool. Gaea's fractal, erosion and vegetation are by far the best I've seen and it comes with a sleek, easy on the eye, dark, modern UI. It still lacks a bit when it comes to tiling and rivers, but it is catching up, and might very well earn the place as my go to terrain application soon.
Free Alternatives: Same as World Machine
---------------------------------------------------------
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html
Adobe Creative Subscription $21/month (Photoshop only), $55/month for all Adobe Creative Apps
The industry standard image editor with more features than you can throw lots of sticks at. It is the best tool if you need to handle huge images and have the hardware to run it. I use it for texture editing, combining and touching up all the renders from world Machine and Gaea, adding things like roads building etc. It is the only tool that can reliably handle images larger than 32K which is sometimes needed for me.
Free Alternatives:
It used to be a clunky and difficult tool, but the lates versions have modernized the UI and brought it up to modern standards. Very capable and has almost the features a map maker might need as long as you don't try to work on images that are too big. Great tool for the price.
Krita
https://krita.org
A free tool that focus on the creative side of things, with a ton of smart nifty tools that rivals even Photoshop. A tool every fantasy cartographer should have in their toolbox.
--------------------------------------------------------
https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator.html
Adobe Creative Subscription $21/month (Illustrator only), $55/month for all Adobe Creative Apps
Adobes workhorse for vector art and Illustration. I use it for map labels, symbols, font creation and more. A little bit clunky and inconsistent with Photoshop, but overall the best tool in its field by far.
Free Alternatives:
Inkscape
https://inkscape.org
A feature rich alternative to Illustrator, but lacks the ability to work on large cartography.
Blender
A 3D creation tool that is growing and expanding into a fully featured workhorse in the 3D creation world. I'm new to it and still learning the basics and so far it seems to be both capable and reasonable to work with.
Filter Forge
A toll to create and render textures. It comes with a huge library of textures which is what I use. You create textures using a visual procedural workflow, very similar to World Machine which have made me realized that you can create all of it using WM, I use it to get access to all the cool textures that other users have uploaded to the Filter Forge library.
Free Alternatives:
There are several free alternatives that seems to have most of the features, except a well organized library of textures. One of the best are https://neotextureedit.sourceforge.net
-----------------------------------------------------
https://qgis.org
Free
It is the open source standard of the GIS world, used by lots of professionals and enthusiasts all over the world. A bit clunky but very capable. It is my GIS tool of choice for learning GIS and to try and keep the maps editable without having to use expensive tools.
This is my Campaign and Rules manager, and a tool I love. It is an open source general information management tool based on markdown and locally stored files. This means that all the work I put into my lore, rules and adventure are kept locally on my computer in a standard, and human readable, format. This is critical for for me, I don't want to loose my format because a company stops developing a tool, fold or decide to shut down their webservice. Obsidian plays well with cloud backups like DropBox and One Drive, so by keeping my data in my DropBox I both get it backed up and can use Obsidian on my laptop, phone and tablet.
A ecosystem of RPG plugins (all free) gives Obsidian an impressive range features for us tabletop roleplayers. Statblocks with rollable dice, initiative trackers, maps functions and more. Add in world class data management functions and it is, in my humble opinion, the best tool for the job. The UI is the ebst I've ever seen and it you can style it to suit your needs.
Javalent Plugins
https://plugins.javalent.com/home
Javalent have created a set of plugins for Obsidian that are fantastic, and they are free.
Josh Plunkett Tutorials
https://www.patreon.com/JPlunkett/posts
https://www.youtube.com/@JoshPlunkett
Free
Josh teaches how to use Obsidian for RPG's
Tables Generator
https://www.tablesgenerator.com/markdown_tables
Free
A great tool for markdown table generation and data conversion
------------------------------------------------------------
Owlbear Rodeo
https://www.owlbear.app
Free (very limited) $4/month or $7/month for more storage
A simple and easy to use Virtual Tabletop Tool that concentrate on the essential functions, displaying maps, tokens and fog of war. It has a dice roller and a simple initiative tool, but no other automation and rules integration. The killer feature for me is the "endless canvas" that lets you place maps next to each other to cover large areas, perfect for my style of play. The only VTT I've found, so far, that can easily do this.
The lack of rules integration and automation is a plus for me, I use Obsidian for that. Having to manage rules, lore ad all my other notes in a single place is a must when you run complex long term campaigns. I might look into foundry VTT (or another VTT) if they have a solid markdown integration and can handle huge maps, but I don't see that happen anytime soon.
VTT Token Maker
https://thefatefulforce.com/battle-resources/token-creator/
Free
A simple to se way of creating tokens for VTT's
These are the tools I regularly use and that give me the ability to create maps, run games and have fun at a level I could believe would come true until a few years ago. I hope they can be of use to you as well!
I will spend a bit over a month in Europe this summer, to reconnect with family and friends that I haven't seen for years. Leaving on June 6th so I have three weeks to get everything ready and get as much heavy desktop work done as possible. When I'm gone I will have my laptop, and when necessary remote into my desktop. Internet access are good where I will spend most of my time, so I expect to be able to stay in touch and do some things while I'm gone as well.
The last few weeks have been a concerted effort renewing my Green Card so I can get back to the U.S. again in July and getting a new Swedish Passport, mine had expired during covid. Even with good contacts and adequate language skills the bureaucracy can be daunting, which is by design. Most countries takes immigration and passport issues very seriously, both for control and also as a form of deterrence. This can be used in your next roleplaying campaign, make borders an encounter with traps, economic ruin and a chance to gain both foes and allies...
Getting my laptop up to speed also an undertaking, making sure all my applications work, USB hard drives with all essential files and as much as possible synced. The borders I aim to cross are friendly, no need to wipe my drives and make clean installs to make sure personal information stays safe. Installing QGIS and testing it out now, and it seems to work well.
Wrapping up the special "Sea of the Black Sun" map I'm doing for BlueBox RPG. It is an alternate version of the Sea of Death for the Greyhawk Awakening Campaign. My first desert scape since I did the Southlands for Kobold Press almost 10 years ago, and deserts are both easy and hard. Easy due to their lack of vegetation and water which makes their complexity much less, you have fewer features to play with which makes it harder to create interesting variation.
Overall I'm happy with this map, the variation, color and lighting are the best I've done so far which tells me my skills are improving. I'm also able to create a map of this size and scope much faster than I've been able to do before. This are also testament to the importance of having a powerful computer, the previews I can generate in mere seconds are better than the full renders I could do 5 - 6 years ago. This makes it possible to both experiment and advance much faster.
After more than 5 years of using World Machine 3 I have now moved my work over to World Machine 4. It is not an enormous difference, it is more like two steps forward and one step back. The killer feature that made me take the plunge was Ambient Occlusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_occlusion) and other forms of material and texture rendering, much improved mesh export and slightly improved layout generation.
The main drawbacks are less support for real world units, which means more math to figure out things like snow line altitude, and elevation dependent texture distribution. Irritating but manageable. Now I need to go back and re-render both my Shield Lands and Altimira maps. Will take a few days but it will be worth it, the results are so much better.
I also have a idea of how to generate more realistic river systems even when using tiled terrains. Tiled renders are a big problem in World Machine, drainage gets calculated individually for each tile with sometimes bad results. I will try and us the river mask generated using a low resolution render of the same area as a drainage mask for the high resolution tiled render. It should work, in theory, which means it might work in reality. It would be great if it did, except that it would be almost impossible for me to resist the urge to go back and re-redo both the Shield Land and Altimira work I've done so far.
Altimira is only a small area that will be used for the TLG boxed set, so it will be good enough as it is. My Shield Lands campaign stuff was more experimental and could really benefit from a redo, and I will do that before finalizing it. Critwall and its immediate surroundings are, just like Altimira and for the same reason, good enough. It is the interior of Shield Lands that needs to be redone, so the rivers flow the right way, if my idea works that is. Sometimes having a good idea that works means a lot of extra work..lol.
My GIS mapping is starting to get underway, the first milestone reached when I georeferenced all existing Flanaess and Hepmonaland terrain. I'have installed and tested QGIS on my laptop, and it it can handle all the georeferenced terrain. This means I can spend time on entering stuff from the current maps into QGIS using only my laptop.
City maps, and detailed area maps are another big category going forward, and I'm working hard to have the Critwall terrain ready to bring with me to get up to speed on this type of maps as well. The terrain are not fully rendered yet, its only previews but they are accurate and at full resolution so they will work well to test out GIS mapping at a detailed level.
City mapping is surprisingly fun, I love to work on maps this detailed makes the world come alive for me in a way I haven't really experienced when working on continent scale maps. The downsides are the sheer amount of tedious work needed, and also the lack of detail in the published lore at this level. Almost all the settlements, buildings forest and almost all of the terrain features are things that I think should be there. Porta-Potty Scale demands detail and that means I need to use much more of a creative license in order to fill them. Having fully layered files means that features like roads, building etc can fairly easily edited to suit your campaign.
Local- and settlement maps needs to fit seamlessly with interior and dungeon maps, which have taken some trial and error. I would love to be able to use one of all the cool fantasy mapping tools to help out with this, but I haven't found any of them that works for me yet. Not giving up, will have another go with Inkarnate, haven't tested it in several years, and never used the full version of it. The feature I'm especially interested in are the ability to upload a high resolution image to use as a background/guide image. DungeonFog has this, in a way, but it is only as a guide and the background textures are repetitive and washed out . Stairs are another troublesome thing with it, I know I'm picky but finding a flow is very important for me.
Tools that gives me the pleasure to work in a kind of rhythm without hiccups and annoying interruptions are worth a lot to me. This is a surprising trait for me that can spend many hours doing visual programming, but that is an almost intellectual pursuit. When I'm working in Photoshop I want to doodle without using much intellect at all. Mixing the two are the most difficult bit, I really hope I will find GIS mapping as fun going forward as I have in the beginning. There are hope, I usually like things more and more as I master them. World Machine took me a year or two to get along with and QGIS seems to be a quicker love that that.
Altimira will get a Ambient Occlusion upgrade, which means I have to redo the World Machine Files a bit and re-render most of the files again. Then I'll bring the Photoshop files of the city and the immediate area with me to Sweden so I can work on roads, buildings and such during the summer. My Critwall work has been a rehearsal for this, and now I know way more what I'm doing. For example I have figured out how to mimic the leveling of the ground that often are done when you build houses and construct roads, at first I just added the height of buildings and painted roads on to the texture. Now I level the base of the buildings and can have roads that are dug into hillsides and run on built up fill on other places.
I've taken a bit of time off from heraldry to work on Altimira, Bluebox and GIS stuff. More heraldry is coming, and here is a teaser, the Malgari. An old knightly order from the Sheldomar Valley and the LG campaign
My House Rules Project is an attempt to create my own version of D&D to work well with my playstyle. I know, everyone and their pet imps are doing it now. To my defense I started this project two years ago, before the OGL and before it became fashionable. My problem is that I haven't really felt I have had a set of rules that I can rely on and work with properly since 3.5 and the early days of PF1. Part of it is my decision to go fully digital a decade ago, the other are related to Pathfinder becoming more Golarion oriented, and WotC locking in 5E in tools that are not for me.
I'm basing my rules on Level Up - Advanced 5E from EN Publishing. I have posted the goals and a first look at the basics for mid tier patreons. Next up are a look at how I intend to structure the abilities, feats, skills and other things characters can learn. The XP cost, options for learning like milestones instead of XP. I'll dive in a bit on combat proficiencies and actions in combat. This is something I can doo on my laptop so it will be a good thing to work on when I'm away from my desk.
My tweaks to magic and spells are another main part of my house rules, things like magic conduits, strains and fonts will enter alongside schools. Monster Types will be more inline with 3.5/PF1, and I'll add rules for how divinity works. Most of this are what I would label "GM Rules", meaning they mainly affects how I prep and run things, and affect very little for the player. Spellcasters can learn and cast spells as usual, in most instances, but if you go to another plane, enter a place under the influence of a demon lord, things might be a bit different, for some magic.
This is a pet project of mine, to try and depict what banners, flags, battle standards and other forms of insignia might look like across the Flanaess. I'm braking new ground here and moving out of my comfort zone a bit, but I really want to so I'm taking the risk. Below is first test I did trying to depict a Shield Land banner.
This is very much in early days, and I have a lot to learn, but I feel confident enough to start working on it. I know have the Photoshop skills to pull it off, and it is a lot of fun. Just like heraldry it is also a naturally bite sized type of project, well suited for a few hours of distraction in between bigger things.
Thank you all for your support!!
Getting rid of classes have become one of my main House Rules conversions for several reasons, the first is to emphasize the "setting view". Meaning people in Greyhawk would not think or talk about themselves as having a "class" as in the rules, people would describe their jobs, position and what they can do. You can be a warrior, a knight or the Order, or fight for something, but that is not something that should be constrained in game mechanics.
The other reason to abandon classes are players and stories. When you start playing a character and you want to be able to cast arcane magic, so you start playing a Wizard. Twenty sessions later your interest in arcane magic might have vaned, the story taken new turns, and you want your character to develop in new directions to follow along, or to thwart a villain using other means.
The premise is that characters can learn anything, they just need to devote themselves to it and overcome the hurdles of learning, use there inherent talent, learn from experience, find a tutor or rely on luck. Trying to make this into game mechanics is not easy but I'll have a go at it.
XP Cost
The first is to limit access and force the player to choose, creating a budget for how much the character can learn. Thankfully D&D comes with one already built in, XP, which I will try and use as the "currency" used to acquire feats, skills and other things characters learns as they advances.
In a classless system you can't be sure when in an adventuring career a player decides for his character to try and get a certain skill or feat. This means that XP's need to be valued the same across the levels, and not used as a balancing mechanism it was used as in early editions. So a level progression with equal steps between all levels seems to be the way to go. This is nothing new, it's been around since 3rd edition, then to facilitate easier multiclassing. My idea is to take it a few step further.
The next part is to set the price for the things to learn. Part of the price need to reflect the benefit of the feat, skill etc. Each category, like feats for example, are designed to be reasonably equal in power level or usefulness. Balancing between categories will be harder, and require looking at how things are gained by various classes. For this I will look mainly at the base classes, cleric, fighter, rogue and wizard, which covers almost all rules aspects.
Prerequisites
An important part of the equation for advancing a character are to set prerequisites . What prior knowledge, skills and/or other things are needed before you can even try to learn something. In the standard class based rules class level are the most common prerequisite, I need to come up with replacements. There are several to choose from: Character Level, Proficiency Bonus or Hit Dice are obvious ones. Character Level and Proficiency Bonus stand out to me as the most interesting candidates. They are both increasing with advancement, the difference are their granularity - Level going from 1 to 20 and Proficiency Bonus only going from 2 to 6. Level seems to be way too granular to be practical. So many things have to be assigned a prerequisite and to choose at which of the 20 levels to allow it would be unnecessary complicated. Proficiency Bonus is the one I will start out using for my first version of House Rules.
Prerequisites will create feat-tree like progression, which is by design. In order to be able to cast arcane spells you need to have grasped Knowledge Arcana, and in order to cast 2nd level spells you need to have mastered 1st level spellcasting. This makes things logical and as long as it relies, at least to a large degree, on a "setting perspective" when determining the prerequisites. This will be most seen when it comes to religious matters and things like languages, certain academic pursuits and special types of weapons. If you know modern day Baklunish only then might you master the ancient variety.
Difficulty and Time
The next key aspects of the way your character learn new things are, how hard is it, and how long does it take? This can be tricky and I'm less sure of how to try and implement this aspect. Lets start with the first bit, how hard is it for your character to learn things. My instinct tells me that it depends on several factors, how talented is the character, how experienced is he in the matter, and what it the influence of luck. There are other factors to that might be important to factor in, like the circumstances, can you learn during adventures in harms way, at a campfire or do you need to be in a safe haven away from the stresses of adventuring life.
The first part with talent is quite straight forward from a mechanical perspective, add the appropriate ability, skill or other modifier from what the character already know and base a bonus on them. This ties in to prerequisites as well, like proficiency bonus, ability bonus etc.
The next bit with experience is crucial but maybe not as straight forward. I can see this as a fluctuating modifier on the ability to learn. for example to learn Arcana without having anyone to teach you ought be be a daunting task indeed. Having seen and interacted with magic should make it a bit easier. Having a skilled tutor should make the process almost guaranteed. I'm toying with a d20 Learning Roll ranging from DC 15 to DC 30 or even more for really difficult things.
One way of implementing the Learning Roll is to have the player stating what he or she what their character to learn, make a Learning Roll each day they have at least 8 hours of Downtime and are not affected by a debilitating condition, curse or similar ailment. This way you let luck play a significant role, making a few bad rolls severely affect character advancement. A way around that is to just look at the odds and say it takes a day for each difference between the target DC and 10 + modifiers the character have on its rolls. You can also add a +1 for each day the character tries, they are learning from their efforts. Subtract 1 if they roll a natural 1 can also be used. Another way it sot simply state how long it takes to learn certain things, which can be based on the XP cost. A combination of the above, is also possible. A character can always learn by taking the time measured by the DC modifier difference, but at the same time make a Learning roll attempt each day to see if you can do it faster.
Certain things should be really difficult and take time, like becoming an expert (and gaining an large expert die) in something esoteric or dangerous like the Abyss or liches. Adventuring knowledge should be a key experience in acquiring certain knowledge, like having been to the Abyss or dealt personally with liches. Some things should be straight forward to learn, other should take way more effort. This can, and should be handled as part of adventuring. If your character takes part in lots of combat, she will have an easier time to learn combat related things. To go with the flow here can save time and effort, but you still need to spend the XP, so there are still a choice to be made.
5E introduced Proficiency Bonus as a way to handle skill (and other) progression, and made it go from +2 to +6. Proficiency Bonuses was tied to the different Tiers (+2 level 1-4, +3 level 5-8, +4 level 9-12, +5 level 13-16 and +6 level 17-20). This gave even low level characters and tangible edge in the things it was proficient in. My classless approach is a bit less rigid so I'm going to try and skip the tiers and try be more gradual by staring my Proficiency Bonus with a modest +1 at first level and then add one more per three levels. Below is my level progression table.
Base HP at level 0 are based on size plus con modifier. A medium sized character will start with 8 + con bonus HP, a small one with 6 and a large with 12. These extra hit points given at the start of an adventuring career means a lot in the beginning, but doesn't add much to the power of a high level character, and will hopefully not unbalance play too much. Characters are also proficient in using Simple Weapons.
This progression kind of creates a 0 level tier where a character toughen up, gain ability points and basic skills, and then at 3rd level is more ready to take on bigger tasks. The XP numbers are set to be evenly distributed but the numbers can be lower or higher and be adjusted in the rewards. The key bit here is the balance between Proficiency Bonus and Hit Dice, with my version is more front loaded when it comes to Hit Dice, proficiency comes a bit later. With this I hope to extend the sweet spot a bit by making the characters able to take a bit more of a beating before they get ridiculously proficient. Extending the low level play a bit longer with added survivability, without introducing too much power creep.
I'm trying my best to move away from the term race, and I will instead use the terms Ancestry and Culture taken from Advanced 5E - Level Up. Ancestry is your Biology and Culture reflects the conditions your character grew up under. Together they give the character certain abilities and other aspects, like senses and innate magic.
The way I'm going to try and implement this is to give them XP cost as well. If the player what the character to have them spend the XP and no time or Learning Roll required, it was something your character was born with or have enough experience to learn. This also include things like languages and skills. If you grew up among the Wegwuir, you know Survival if you spend the XP on it.
This way I hope different characters can have a reasonably level playing field given the same XP budget.
I want to reward exploration, creative game play, and have a system that feels fair. My initial rules will have both group and and individual XP rewards. Group rewards are for adventuring and dealing with hardship and encounters, and dealing with can mean a lot more than combat. Avoiding a fight with a dragon should be awarded, as well as killing it, even talking to it should be awarded.
Each day adventuring should be awarded depending on the danger involved, safe areas only a few XP and deadly areas (like the Abyss) can earn you 100 XP or more. Encounters and other challenges I treat the same way, easy ones only a few XP and near TPK ones 100 or so. Everyone in the party gets the same amount of XP for this part.
Individual XP can be given for good ideas, inspiring gameplay, and fumbles. Rolling a natural 1 in combat or on a vital skill check will teach a character more that a success, they are given an inspiration point that can be used to reroll or converted to XP.
This was a first look at my ideas around character progression. More details on individual skills, feats abilities etc will come soon. That is something I will spend time with on my laptop when I go to Europe in early June. I will spend 5 weeks visiting family and friends in Sweden, Norway and maybe more places, my plans are not final yet. This means I will rely mainly on my laptop, and only have access to my desktop remotely. This means more light work and less heavy lifting in World Machine. So more rules, heraldry and light Photoshop editing.
Future post in this series will be about combat, spells and faith, monsters and more..
Thank you so much for all your support.
