Our current Curse of Strahd campaign is about halfway over, we expect 6ish more sessions before we wrap it up and that means it's time to start deciding on what to play next. I like to do this way ahead of time so that I can get excited about multiple things and see what really sticks with me or what potential campaign excitements come and go. I have a few bucket list campaigns that I want to get to eventually and this time I have decided on a campaign set in Mythic Britain heavily inspired by my love for the Last Kingdom TV show and the books that inspired it, the Saxon Stories.
It will be set during the time of Alfred the Great, before becoming England. The year is 890 AD, and the Danes have begun to journey into the various kingdoms of Britain to plunder for silver and Alfred has dreams of a unified England. The "mythic" part of this will come into play as I am adding in Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs (and not all Danes are Orcs. All races can be all cultures). We will be using Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy for our rule set and we will be starting with In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe by Jacob Fleming as our starter adventure.
- Warriors get the Mighty Deed Die from Dungeon Crawl Classics
- Experts get Bonus Actions from 5e
- Priests always have access to all their spells, but they have to roll-to-cast like in Shadowdark/DCC
- Magic-Users cast spells like usual for their first casting of every spell slot but can attempt to cast spells of the same slot again by passing a roll-to-cast check similar to Priests, but only get access to the spells they prepare each day.
I am aware that OSE:A doesn't have class groups, but I am going to let the players pick a class-group when they pick a class that best fits their play-style. A fighter might pick up the Expert class bonus to have a more quick and nimble play-style while a Magic User might pick up the Warrior class bonus because he knows he wants to train in the sword down the line. It's fluid, it's not balanced, similar to the map it is just to serve my group and have fun.
We also will be using 3d6 Down the Line's Feats of Exploration XP rules and replacing the concept of XP with "Glory" inspired by Pendragon. Characters will gain glory in many of the ways they traditionally gain XP, but Glory will directly correlate to reputation in the game. They can gain glory through fighting valiantly in battle, amassing a horde of wealth, taking down a magical beast, exploring the ruins of Camelot, being a sword-warrior but gaining the ability to cast spells, forging a new spell that no one has ever seen before and so much more.
Also, we will shift the rarity of coins to reflect the time period, we will be on the silver standard. Many warrior types will actually wear their wealth as silver arm rings to show off their glory and battle prowess. Another topic I want to address is religion. None of my players are religious, so I won't be stepping on any toes with this, but in this version of fantasy history, the Christian Church has already split into those who believe Jesus rose again at midday and those who believe he rose again at midnight. The Church of the New Dawn is the source of all divine and clerical magic, while the Church of the Pale King is the source of all Arcane magic. The pagans worship the Court of Stars, which are the traditional Norse Gods, and they are actually the constellations that can be seen in the night sky. Everything revolves around the worship of the different celestial bodies.
No comments:
Post a Comment