I just ran an adventure for Clan Ignitus. To prep the adventure, I decided I would draw five cards from the system-neutral “NPC Portraits Deck: Coastal Townsfolk” deck I wrote for Inkwell Ideas. I started with three cards, and kicked it up to five to give myself some more to work with. (I expected five or six players, and in Axes and Anvils, that’s a major force!) Also, the adventure would take place in the context of the Treaty of Reefs in Trenna, the background for the Coastal Shadows adventure generator (with or without a single GM).

Here are the cards I drew:

• Hara von Belltorque, human aristocrat and hunter. 22
• Mo Mian, gnome (shifted to hillfolk) merchant and information broker. 25
• Fornel Woxler, human carpenter and woodsman. 26 (He is an elderly man who lost an animated statue, and with it his livelihood, so he’s reduced to begging.)
• Sen Fex, human blacksmith and apprentice. 36
• Wenna Nurala, dragonborn (draconian) weaver and shepherd. 41

Looking over the various secrets, needs, and backgrounds on the cards, an adventure quickly took shape. Woxler once had a stone statue that he lost to a noble. I also had a noble with an estate filled with adventuring trophies, von Belltorque. To involve characters, I could use Mian, an information broker; the background of Clan Ignitus clearly shows the clan’s magic involves animating statues, so they would likely take an interest in an animated statue that wasn’t under dwarven control. Since Fex was a blacksmith, I could see him being a dwarven sympathizer in the sleazy village, giving them a good point of contact. I also needed some extra color or options around the Belltorque estate, and it made sense that Nurala could have been brought home by the nobles at the conclusion of one of their adventures.

Using the Draw

Players can (and should) surprise the GM with how they engage with a situation, so I don’t need to lock in how all these characters will be used. I drew the cards to give ME ideas for setting up situations. For sure, Mian draws them in to buy information. That’s what the clan will send the dwarves to do; pay for information then acquire the statue somehow. For sure, Belltorque has the statue.

The rest of the roles are less certain. For sure, Woxler will ask the characters for alms and be pitiable. Maybe that’s it for him. Or, maybe the characters pay Mian a little more to know who the previous owner was, and revisit Woxler. Maybe they get the story of the animated statue from Woxler himself, between complaints. Or maybe they mistreat him and he gets a chance to get them back at some point, possibly by reporting them to the local crime boss and getting criminals involved in their mission (probably looking past them to their objective for profit).

I like the idea of Fex being stressed out and worried as he tries to care for his ailing mother and his two kids, unappreciated at the forge, behind in his work; breaking his gear adds an opportunity for the dwarves to pitch in and help out, showcasing their skills if they want. Also, if he ends up as an ally to the dwarves, I can make the town too sleazy for safe lodging; any neutral or friendly NPC can recommend they talk to Fex (who reveres dwarves, I decided) to get a better place to stay.

I will hold Nurala in reserve to be a bit of local color, or a possible dup to gain access to the Belltorque Estate or fool the Lady von Belltorque. Or maybe she comes to the aid of her benefactor and throws a wrench in the dwarven plans unexpectedly. She could be a guide. Lots of possibilities based on how the players handle the situation and how the pacing is unfolding.

Getting the Statue

The central question I need to solve at this point is designing multiple ways the characters can get at the statue. There’s always violence, killing those who have it; in that case, maybe the statue animates and comes to von Belltorque’s aid. If that happens, maybe they break it open and find the secret was inside it, and that’s just as valuable as the statue when they take it home. There are a lot of dwarves, so to make the violence option tougher, I tuck away a few magical defenses on the property that can activate if needed.

This option is not ideal, as there would be consequences with the nobles in the area, and it’s not a good look. Also, they have lots of other tools to solve problems.

They could sneak in and steal the statue; it’s too heavy to carry, so they’d need the command word. They could get that from Woxler, or from von Belltorque under duress or through trickery. Maybe she wrote it down somewhere they can find it, maybe a servant under duress could guess where. To make that a little spicier, I came up with some spy crows that watch the grounds and report suspicious activity.

Can they trade for it? A boring solution would be to negotiate some kind of price, but none of the dwarves have the authority to enter into contracts on behalf of the clan (at least they don’t yet, as I’m planning the adventure). Also, we will likely need some violence, as it’s shaping up to be a pretty talk-heavy adventure; I can throw in scuffles with ruffians, and the odd encounter on the moor, but with five or six dwarves in the party they are a serious force in combat.

Lady von Belltorque is an adventurer and a hunter, so I decided to have a big predator threat move into the area that she could not tackle (even with hired help). A hydra will do the trick. It has moved into a river cave by the main road. Clear out that threat (she’s responsible for keeping her fief safe) and she’ll give them the statue.

Good to Go

With that, I had the session loosely put together. The story fit into the world as we had played in it so far, and it fit the Axes and Anvils rules, and it fit with the characters. In play, some things were dropped (of course) and others were improvised. Still, I had a great start for my adventure planning by using the NPC deck as a starting point.

Now that these non-player characters are in the world, I can circle back and revisit them. I used the statue as a starting point for this arc of adventures. The cards started off my prep for this session, but it also laid the groundwork for further games.

Here is the adventure!

Using the Coastal Townsfolk Deck

I really like the Coastal Townsfolk deck. You could put all the NPCs in a village, theoretically, but it works better to spread them out across a region. Since I have a coastal region, I can sprinkle them through various settlements. Some won’t work for this setting, but since I have a whole deck, I can easily discard the ones that don’t make sense here.

My favorite parts of the card are the quirks, the needs, and the secrets. A quirk gives you an idea for how to make the character distinct, it is a mental touch-stone; that’s useful when you are a dozen NPCs deep in the adventure and start to slip into one of the 3 modes you have for portraying NPCs. I like the needs because they are an easy way to provoke the NPC to proactively go to the PCs for help.

The secrets work differently. Secrets are more useful for the GM in planning, rather than at the point of meeting the NPCs. Secrets are good for motivating adventures, as the PCs could get involved because of the secret and have to work their way back to the character. Or, if PCs latch on to someone, there’s a little extra depth to develop that NPC.

Anyway, if you are interested in the deck, you can find it here. Now you have had a peek behind the curtain for how I use resources like this!

I’ve been in touch with the high level world-building backers, and I have gotten good response. We have a new rough draft of the setting, and a top-secret forum where some of the backers are really fleshing out their territories with gameable stuff.

The next playtest at my home table will be the last two weeks of April and the first two weeks of May. (That’s when my guest game master is available.) So, that gives me a more stringent time frame to get some things wrapped up to be ready for playtesting. I anticipate sometime in that time frame I’ll put out a pack for others who want to do playtesting and report their experience back to have a chance to participate. Or, just for backers in general to get a sneak peek at the state of the project.

I ordered a copy of the playtest book from Lulu so I could use it at the table and get a sense of its heft, the size of its print, and other utility questions in actual play. Here are some pictures!

The book is slim and unassuming, easily slipped into a bag or notebook folder.

The text is easily readable, the layout works pretty well. I like the Crom font.

The character sheet in its native environment.

I don’t think anyone will photocopy cards out of the back of the book, but I want them to look okay there all the same.

So what do you think of that?

Whew! The playtesting document is out to backers. That is a HUGE step, in my mind. Book I is the core the project is built around, so the more solid and smooth it is the easier it will be to do the rest of the game.

December is dedicated to playtesting, for me. I have three groups lined up, and I hope to get maybe ten sessions. That will help me see the game more clearly through experience rather than theory.

After December my priority will be to first tighten up Book I with what I’ve learned, and then to work with backers on fleshing out the world of Aventyr. Now that a basic history of the area is released, I plan to work with backers who control factions and clans to rough out a revision of the geography. With the geography and history in the background, we can get more specific about some things.

To me, Book I should be self-sufficient. All you need to run your dwarf game, right there. But Book II will help people who want a setting built around the assumptions reflected in Book I. Also, tools to help generate adventures quickly and tinker with some sub-systems and optional stuff that makes some gamers (like me) happy.

I do not plan to share lots of timeline information as far as when various things will be done. Instead, my plan is to work on the project and notify backers and followers when various parts are available for their use.

I hope to see some actual play reports posted, I will link to them from this site! The game is meant to be played, and I expect it can provide lots of fun.

I have Book I ready for playtesting. It will undergo lots of changes in the next month, but for now I can turn my attention elsewhere in the project.

I want to deal with geography, but I am not sure I can yet. Mike did a map of Aventyr previously. I am going to do a version that is less “hexy” and more freeform. However, I think I need to change some things up.

I plan to have a central knot of impenetrable mountains that is the overall clanhome for all the dwarves of Aventyr. Then there are arms of mountains that radiate from that point, along a tectonic fault line and with smaller ranges branching out from there. This will serve as the focus for the main clans. One will be the clan in the center, looking after the most prestigious symbols and territory of the clan. Then others will be based around that point, and each one will trail off down a line of mountains.

Other specialties will be built in, but that’s the root concept. I’m currently leaning towards Clan Stondraeg guarding the seat of power, most isolated from the outside world. Clan Stonebreaker serves as the bulwark between goblin woods (jungle?) and the mountains. Clan Thunderforge along the edge of a desert where saints are purified and the Gods of Ur hold court in a temple compound wrapped in a mirage, or a mountain of power.

If I don’t hear from the other backers, I would likely assign one clan to live in cliffs and have several ports, seafaring dwarves. Another great clan would be specialized monster hunters, guarding the deep and the marsh borders against the ravenous and weird.

I will also be reworking the map so it has some features of interest, and the coastline is not a single lump of land. Give the territory some elbow space.

I also have not heard from anyone who backed at a level to contribute background on the other races. In order for all this to fit together, it helps to have some back and forth. Establish a background for the world (now done) then see how the histories of these people fit into it, and what role they play now.

Geography and history are interlinked. This is important. So before going much further on cultural issues, I want a better sense of how it all fits together.

I am on track for releasing the next playtesting draft to backers by November 30.

It will have about 150 pages at 8.5 x 5 digest book size. At this point there is no art or index. However, there is a LOT of brand new stuff, along with retooled material from the last playtest.

This book is still small enough to fit in a pocket. I plan to keep it that way (for Book I) because I want players to find it easy to introduce new people and get new games started.

I am in a fairly comfortable spot at the moment. I feel I could release the document as it is and it would be great for a playtesting draft, but I’ve left myself some time to look it over, think about it, and make any other adjustments (instead of flopping over the finish line, spent.) I know there will be more changes, and they will be significant; my group is slated to playtest the game through the month of December, and great improvements always emerge based on game experience with a new system.

Here is my initial thinking for structuring the Axes and Anvils project. THIS IS A DRAFT. I am confident it will undergo changes in order and content as the work continues.

I am still thinking through what size book will work best; it will likely be smaller than 8.5 x 11.

Part One will be in its own slim book. This will cater to those who want a pick-up-and-play game, and those who will not look at a book beyond a certain trim page count. Everything you need to apply the system and run games in your own setting or out of your imagination is in Part One.

Then there will be a book with Part One, Two, and Three in it.

The web site will have each tool in the toolbox (Part Three), free online.  The number of tools can be expanded over time. People will still get the bigger book, to have it collected and available, and to get Part Two. Some people want more than the basics, and the collection of all three parts will have some really great stuff in it. I will likely have a blog post for each tool with some explanation and the tool as a .pdf in the post, and link an index to the blog posts. As tools get updated, they’ll get a new blog post, and the destination of the link on the index page will change.

Then I’ve started a list of other, related products beyond the Pt. 1 book and the omnibus.

PART ONE: GAME

1. Rules.
2. Clan Generation.
3. Character Generation.
4. Character Advancement.
5. Clan Advancement.
6. Challenges and Foes.

PART TWO: WORLD

1. Epochal History.
2. Dwarven History.
3. Dwarven Religion.
4. Allies and Antagonists.
5. Gods and Monsters.
6. Flavors and Themes.

PART THREE: TOOLBOX

1. Name Generators.
2. Mission Generator.
3. Dwarven Road Generator.
4. Playing Without a GM.
5. Treasures.
6. Monster Maker.
7. Warbands.
8. Playing Other Races.
9. Enchanting Objects.
10. Weather, Terrain, Natural Hazards.
11. Henchmen.
12. Politics and Heresies.

OTHER PRODUCTS

1. Legend Generator [Card Deck].
2. Short Story Anthology.