In the North of every Man's Heart

Talking about RPGs, I was always fond of tiny, simple stories! Short adventures, small worlds, few lines of background. They are my favourites. Why? Well, partly because I am a lazy player and a lazier DM. Give me too many details, too many things to remember or to take into account, a world too wide to stage my stories in, and I feel thin like butter scraped over too much bread. But also because I love filling in the blanks to make the gaming world mine. I love going in depth rather than in width.

I am not talking about width in a geographical sense; I like adventures presenting several changes in scenery. Adventures that let you travel from deserts to mountains, from plains to seas, from ancient crypts to forlorn battlefields. But I want them to be nothing more than sceneries; I want them to show me only things that are relevant to the game action. I need no more. I want no more.

That's why I wrote Tales of the Wolfguard, a tiny setting, beautifully illustrated by Alessandro Paderi, but full of secrets, things to discover, places to go and stories to tell. I wanted to build a world with the narrative depth I always longed for.

At first, in Blizzard Vale there was the town of Ysvindur, the Wolfguard and the clan of Elves only. I envisioned a narrative dynamic where most of the adventurous and dramatic action stemmed from the conflict between the civilised people of Ysvindur and the barbaric Elves, with the Wolfguard playing an uneasy peacekeeping role. Then, my friend Giuseppe Rotondo pointed out to me it was a world too narrow to tell; above all, there was no wow, as he said to me, no sense of wonder, no surprises. After all, it looked too much like a Wild West border town, whose settlers conflict with the neighbouring natives and where the Wolfguard plays the role of a sort of Indian Agents.

He was right. The first draft of Tales of the Wolfguard was too narrow in scope. Tiny as I wanted my setting to be, it ought not to mean the adventure opportunities should have been just as tiny. So there came the Ikaryas, the dungeons of Urizen, the Scorpion Milk and the secrets of Ysvindur only the Imperial Legate knows. There came the wurm-riding cultural tradition of the Elves.

As I edited and revised the module and gave it the last few touches, I felt that wind that blows in the north of every man's heart.

The wind of adventure.

The Halls Of The Damned: How I Did It

The Halls Of The Damned is my brand-new dungeon for the SWADE OSR supplement Gold&Glory by Giuseppe Rotondo. It has been published on DriveThruRPG a few days ago, and I received some messages from friends and G&G fans asking me how I got to design the dungeon and whence I drew inspiration for its gothic-fantasy features.

Let's start from the beginning.

Some months ago I bought Gold&Glory: Seven Deadly Dungeon. I was immediately struck by its simplicity and consistency, and by the way it smoothly integrated with SWADE's rules and game dynamics. So I wrote on my blog an enthusiastic review of the product which drew Giuseppe and SpaceOrange42's attention. Giuseppe thought I captured G&G's spirit and asked me if I was interested in writing a dungeon template for a row of new entries that were about to be published.

Needless to say, I eagerly accepted!

For some days, I thoroughly studied the manual's seven dungeon templates, trying to capture the scripting logic and asking Giuseppe for some advice. Then I started writing.

The gothic-dark fantasy is, by far, my favourite nuance of the genre; so I decided my dungeon would have told a grim horror story with tropes from the classic gothic literature (the haunted castle, the family curse...), some inspirations from old horror fantasy videogames like Castlevania and Diablo, and a splash of cthulhoid nightmares. For instance, I drew inspiration for Casterly's traditional rhyme about the Halls from a famous quest of Diablo's first instalment (The Halls Of The Blind) and, subsequently, for the dungeon's title too!

More than anything else, I was intrigued by the possibility to squeeze a story, along with some secrets and lore, within the template's procedural format. I did it by introducing these elements in the Rumors and Books&Chronicles sections of the book, along with a couple "subquests" within the encounters. My goal was not to develop a full story of the disgraced Ravenwood family but to leave faint hints and give the players the illusion of an underlying background, leaving the rest of the work to the competent hands of the GM, or to the players' imagination in a GMless run of the Halls. As it turned out, and as Giuseppe himself remarked, the result is a story which works well also in a Victorian setting, like Rippers Resurrected.

And that's all, folks! I do really hope you'll enjoy playing several runs within The Halls Of The Damned searching for the Ring of Yore and the truth about the doom that befell the Ravenwoods! And please, also enjoy Matteo Ceresa's wonderful and dashing graphic layout. In my humble opinion his art gives the G&G series a distinctive hue few other fantasy products have.

The Halls Of The Damned

The landlord nervously stares at you.

«You talkin' seriously m'lords? Nobody goes to the Halls Of The Damned!»

A young wench passing behind the landlord drops her tray, spilling beer all over the floor.

«You little walking disaster! — snarls the landlord — Clean this mess! At once! Any more beer at your table, m'lords?»

«Yes, please. What about the man who entered the ruins a week ago?» you ask.

«Well, he looked well-manned and stalwart. But he nevertheless did not come back. I've outlived many winters now, and the few people I saw coming back from that accursed place, all had their lives changed. Forever.

«For better or worse, I guess.» you gingerly observe.

«Noe, m'lord. For worse only. Ah, here's your beer. Enjoy!»

«One last question — you press a couple shillings on the landlord's hand — this morning we heard a nanny sing a strange lullaby to her baby. It seemed to mention the Halls Of The Damned. Do you know it?»

«Who doesn't?»

«So, please. Would you mind?»

The landlord reluctantly yields with a sigh:

Don’t you dare to walk alone
in that ghastly, cursed dome.
Family blood drops down the tree,
tears are there where hope should be.
Be life spurned, be light banned
from within the Halls Of The Damned!

Then, uttering some more words you can't quite make out, the man leaves.

Barovian Sketches: Baratok Tribesman

Here you are the third entry in the Barovian Sketches series.

This time round we introduce the Primal Path of the Baratok Tribesman: fierce barbarian tribes who dwell the northern icy wates of the Baratok Mountains of Barovia. You can find it at the Homebrewery.

Please enjoy, and share if you like!

Barovian Sketches: Ratchet Hound

The second entry for my Barovian Sketches is the Ratchet Hound: a bounty hunter Rogueish Archetype.

Please enjoy, share if you want, and let me know what you think of it.

You can find the Ratchet Hound Archetype at the Homebrewery.

Barovian Sketches: The College of Tears

It's some months now I'm running the astounding Curse of Strahd adventure module for D&D 5E. I’ve never been a huge fan of D&D, but I fell in love with the fifth edition; and the mournful lands of Barovia with their gothic mood stand up as one of the most rewarding experiences as a Dungeon Master I’ve ever had!

The gothic Curse od Strahd module not only shines out for the enthralling story it presents to the players, but it can also be regarded as a geographical sourcebook, with several eldritch locations beautifully designed and mapped.

For these reasons, I started wondering about the creation of a set of Class Archetypes especially designed for Barovian characters, with the idea of using them in a Barovian setting, aside Strahd’s storyline.

The first entry for these Barovian Sketches is the bardic College of Tears: a gloomy clique of professional mourners.

You can find it at the Homebrewery.

Enjoy, share if you like, and leave a comment to let me know what you think of it!

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you the merriest of Christmas and the happiest of New Year, I couldn't miss my yearly gift to all the blog's readers.

This year's Christmas gift is a quick-and-dry porting of the D&D 5E's feel to the Fate Accelerated system. The porting assumes you're already familiar with both games. If not, please refer to the FATE Accelerated SRD manual, and to the D&D OGL content.

Thank you so much for being over there in the internet, and for following my works and Hellwinter's (scarce) posts!

Cheers!

A Necessary Merry Christmas!

This Christmas, as a gift for my dear heroes of Hellwinter, I post this new unofficial Character Sheet for Necessary Evil; in my humble opinion a most endearing setting for the Savage Worlds RPG.

Basically, I've added the Wounds/Fatigue Chart, and I have rearranged and supposedly rationalised the sheet's sections.

Enjoy!

Clic to download

The Gates of Hellwinter Revised

The Gates of Hellwinter was the first adventure scenario I wrote for the Fighting Fantasy Role-Playing Game back in 2010. Since then, for some strange reason, I had the opportunity to story-tell it over and over again to various groups of role-players, more than any other adventure I ever wrote.

In its original form, this scenario was meant for the basic Fighting Fantasy RPG, only slightly modified by some house rules of my own. But now, thanks to the interest of Stuart Lloyd (a fellow devourer of Role-Playing Games and Game-Books) it has been revised for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG 2nd Edition ruleset, and revamped to the actual version which, I hope, stands as a decent fantasy module that will grant some merry hour of good gaming.

If you want to share any thought about this scenario, please feel free to leave a comment.

Improving the Basic FF manual

In my opinion, the Basic Manual for the Fighting Fantasy RPG represents the state-of-the-art of simplicity and playability in a Role Playing Game.

I've always shunned the Advanced version, for I deem it unnecessarily complicated, with too many Abilities, too many Magical Spells and too many Character Classes hindering the real strength of the FF game which is its neatness.

After all, if one desires a more complex RPG he'd better look after other titles, were they new ones or OSR.

However, it must be said the rules provided in the Basic Manual are decidedly too meagre to ensue a lasting play. Four or five adventures are generally enough to spoil the game of any involvment, leaving the Players with Characters too similar to each other.

So, here you are a small set of additional, yet simple, rules which represents a slight improvement of the Basic Manual without putting too many irons in the fire.

The Storyteller should choose which ones to embed in his game from the following.

You swear revenge!

Navigando per la rete, lungo rotte poco battute, ho trovato questo vecchio volantino pubblicitario che reclamizza i primi due numeri della serie di LibroGame di Lupo Solitario: I Signori delle Tenebre e Traversata Infernale.

La pubblicità fa riferimento anche a una versione in cassetta per home computer, non sono riuscito a capire se dei due libri o del gioco Mirror of Death. Questa versione digitale era disponibile per Sinclair Spectrum 48k e si trovava solo in uno speciale cofanetto regalo che conteneva i primi due libri, evidentemente all'epoca ancora concepiti come una mini-opera autoconclusiva. La qual cosa mi fa supporre che la cassetta contenuta nel cofanetto non contenesse Mirror of Death.

A Neverwinter adventure

Questo brevissimo ma simpatico scenario che pubblico di seguito, dal generico titolo A Neverwinter adventure è disponibile per la gratuita diffusione. La versione che ho io dello scenario non riporta il nome del suo gentile autore, che quindi non sono in grado di citare, ma che certamente ringrazio per il suo lavoro.

Il regolamento di riferimento è quello di OD&D.

a neverwinter adventure

the beginning
While in Neverwinter or a similar medium-sized town with a forest surrounding it, the PCs hear of strange goings-on in the forest, specifically the local wildlife is diminishing. The local rangers are very concerned, and are looking for an adventuring party to try and discover the cause of the disappearances. The PCs are asked by the local rangers to find out what is happening to the wildlife and to stop it if possible. If the PCs decline, the rangers will be very disappointed and may pester the PCs until they comply or leave town. If the PCs accept the mission, they are taken to the town’s head ranger, and are told the specifics of the mission. It will go something like this:

Thank you for offering to help us stop the strange disappearances that have been plaguing our forests. For the last month, animals have been disappearing from the woods surrounding Neverwinter. We suspect that someone is taking the animals by force or by magic. Our best rangers have been sent out to try and discover who or what is behind this, but so far we have found naught. The situation is becoming worse every day, so we needed to take action as soon as we could. So we hired you. We hope that you have better luck than we have. We can give you no guarantee as to your safety, since we do not know what the nature of the threat is. If you manage to end the threat, then you will be greatly rewarded.

Something about Razaak

Prima che venisse spento, non so per quali motivi, c'era in rete un bel sito intitolato Advanced Fighting Fantasy: the biggest unofficial home of the FF phenomenon.

Forse in virtù di un'oscuro presagio, o forse per mania dell'accumulo in hard disk, sta di fatto che all'epoca salvai in locale diverse pagine di quel sito; ed in particolare quelle che contenevano spunti per avventure e campagne e delle simpatiche biografie dei principali personaggi dell'universo di Titan.

Non credo quindi di far torto a nessuno, ed anzi penso di rendere omaggio ai suoi autori, se pubblico di seguito la biografia del Negromante Razaak, insuperabile arcinemico di Crypt of the Sorcerer.

The Three Beggars

Di seguito pubblico un'avventura in inglese che ho scritto un annetto fa per il Gioco di Ruolo Fighting Fantasy.

L'avventura usa un set di home rules che non sono spiegate nel testo, ma che potete trovare cliccando qui e qui per il sistema di Punti Esperienza.

Questo scenario è il seguito di The Gates of Hellwinter.

the three beggars

Adventure synopsis
This scenario assumes the adventurers have accepted Baron Bedivére Grayson’s task to guard the borderlands of his feud, thus receiving the investiture as new Wardens of Hellwinter. The party will take on the quest of a dying Elf Knight in order to recover the legendary Staff of Hamaskar, a powerful artefact of times past.

The adventurers will have to travel north through the Crystal Mountains, facing many perils, to the long forgotten Temple of Hamaskar. There they will have to confront and thwart the evil plans of the undead Necromancer Tulsidas, who wants the staff for himself.

The Art of Madness

Rendo disponibile per il download un vecchio modulo di avventura per il Gioco di Ruolo de Il Richiamo di Cthulhu, da tempo ormai libero da copyrights e quindi liberamente fruibile in formato digitale. Si intitola The Art of Madness, scritto da Terry White nel lontano 1987, ed ambientato tra Londra e il Norfolk nell'ottobre del 1922, in un arco temporale di cinque giorni.

Si tratta di uno scenario piuttosto lineare, diversamente dalla maggior parte dei moduli di avventura di Cthulhu, diviso in 10 capitoli che i personaggi sono chiamati ad affrontare uno dopo l'altro.

È un modulo molto ben scritto ed appassionante, ideale per i Narratori alle prime armi che possono proporre ai giocatori un'avventura lunga e divertente ma facile da gestire.

Buon divertimento!

Hellwinter Journeybook

Facendo clic qui è possibile scaricare la versione web dell'Hellwinter Journeybook che contiene tutte le informazioni e le regole per lanciarsi in un mondo di incredibili avventure in viaggio per le Middle Lands.

Dragon Warriors Character Sheet

Experience

The Fighting Fantasy system presumes your adventuring party to be membered by seasoned warriors and mages, each with his full share of past experience. However, especially when long adventuring, some players may find themselves a bit frustrated by the sheer fact that their characters are not destined to improve their Statistics nor their Feats, if not by magical or exceptional means.

If such is the case, the Storyteller may choose to award the adventurers at the end of a scenario 1 to 3 Experience points in order to reward the adventurers for their efforts and good role play.

Testing Skill & the Feats

For the Fighting Fantasy Role Playing Game™.

In many occasions the adventurers will have to Test their Skill to see whether or not hey have completed tasks diverse from hacking and slashing trough monsters. In such occasions the player has to roll two dice: if the result is less than or equal to his SKILL score, then the action has been performed correctly. But if the result is greater than his SKILL score, however, something has gone wrong.

The results of these tests may be influenced by some Feats the adventurer may possess. During the character creation phase, the player chooses four Feats for his character from the twelve available: Animal Kinship, Athletics, Brawl, Camouflage, Courtesy, Healing, Hunting, Lore, Robbery, Sixth Sense, Tracking and Weaponskill.

Una mappa di Sheol