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Creature Profile: Bubak

Collected from the Tome of Scarlett Reed: 6113.12.10 - Midday this afternoon, as we were hiking, I heard a baby crying. We followed the voice to a clearing where I found a bundle of cloth beside a scarecrow.  I rushed over to comfort the child, and was stricken from the side and driven away, the Lady Saunders had tackled me to the ground. Furiously, I readied myself for an argument when she held a single finger to her lips, indicating quietness. Against my instinct, I held my words. Silently she pointed towards the bundle. What I saw, was the scarecrow, no longer straight up, but bent over the spot that I had just been, staring straight at me. It's post looked just like a human spine, crawling up to the fake scarecrow's clothes, no doubt harvested from another victim. Hastily, we left the scene and headed towards the nearest town Hawthornsville to regroup. 6113.12.10 - In Hawthornsville- Lady Saunder's is convinced this creature is a Bubak, something native to her homeland of Gesh. It's rumored that some Bubak's were imported from Gesh to Zexen by a corrupt mayor some years ago, although there was nothing more than speculation that I was ever able to find. Beatrice wants us to stay in town until she receives a message back from her grandmother in Gesh, who seems to have had experiences with Bubak's in her past. 6113.12.32 - After weeks, we've finally heard back from Beatrice's Grandmother. She wrote, verbatim: --Tormund Amendment: This very much sounds like a Ward. It's likely that the creature still knows of your presence while you're warded, however, it will actively try to avoid you. Most unintelligent creatures will hide, or run away from those it's warded against, this kind of behavior shows the intelligence of the creature. Although it would likely flee if you attacked it directly while warded, it may be biding it's time hoping your Ward runs out when you're not paying attention. -- The Bubak also carries the name "Bag Man" which became obvious to us when we saw it's first prey. Much like it lured us to it, it created a noise that I'm not entirely familiar with, but that noise was able to lure in a badger. As the badger moved nearer to the bundle, there was a snap. Leaves and twigs flew as the badger was swallowed whole by some sort of a leathery sack that lay hidden on the ground. That bundle that I nearly picked up was the inside of the Bubak's stomach! It's basically a natural version of a net trap. This is possibly the strangest digestion system that I've seen yet. Its stomach seems to be completely external and can be held like a bindle. However, I have to wonder if that stomach would have been able to hold me. Clearly, it would not be able to hold on to Lady Saunders, and I would have been a tight fit assuming that the stomach does not expand too much. Sean, however, would almost definitely into the stomach. I'll have to keep a closer eye on him. 6113.12.38 - The Bubak must have decided that we were too much of a hindrance for it's hunting ground. I can't help but think that the Warding was straining it in some way. Sean, being on guard, was the only one to actually see the creature leave. According to him, it pulled up feet that were earthed within the ground, saying that the post was actually a pair of legs. It also discarded the carcass of the badger, which now seems to have been fully digested. On inspection in the morning, only dry bones remained, absolutely incredible. I would not mind encountering this creature again to do further research. Beatrice, however, said the thing put her on edge and she hopes to never see one again. Knowledge Checks Knowledge Level Information Common The Bubak is also known as the "Bag Man". Common prey for the Bubak is small game and children. Uncommon Bubak's are incredibly intelligent, but they are not sentient. Their stomach is incredibly tough, and resistant to most attacks and magics. Although it can be pierced, it's said to be as durable as dragonscale Specialized The Bubak is known for its ability to mimic different creatures in order to lure in it's victims. This shows some low-level magical or psychic ability. They are very rarely conferentational, and will flee if given the chance Read the full article

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PC Hobbies That Don't Suck

“Whew! That dungeon was rough. Time to get some much needed R&R” - Your Character Everyone needs some time off once in a while, and your imaginary alter-ego is no different. Dungeoneering, exploring, and probably killing everything adventuring is hard work, and after a hard day’s work the characters have got to kick back and relax like everyone else. But what does your character actually do when they relax? Of course they’re going to sleep for their 8 hours, and take that extended rest, but besides that. I mean no character is probably going to say “I’m going to bed guys, wake me up for the next battle.” No, people have hobbies, and so do your characters! The only problem is your characters, most likely, have bad hobbies. Let's give them some hobbies that don't suck! “I’m going to bed guys, wake me up for the next battle.” - The party Barbarian, probably. Okay, Let me clarify before I continue, I don’t think that these hobbies are actually bad. In fact, they’re not bad for characters to have in novels, stories, or RPG’s, but in games you need to think of those hobbies differently. These hobbies are meant to flesh out your characters, and make them more interesting. Usually this isn’t the case, however, and it's because we, as people, like to think of these hobbies as if we were doing them, or how they are done practically. We don’t think about how to make them fun in game. And that’s our fault. Let’s fix it. What makes a good Hobby First, let’s define the aspects that make a good hobby. A good hobby should (almost always) have nothing to do with anything written on your character sheet. A lot of times, a job is a job, and what somebody does for fun is not related to their 9-5. Not only that, it's more interesting for both you and the other PC’s. The second thing a good hobby will have is that it is a social activity. It should always encourage your character to occasionally go forth and talk to other PC’s or NPC’s to create a narrative around it. You can say “My Character plays the lute by the fire”. It does create a nice little picture in your mind, but it doesn’t make your character feel any more complete, and it really isn’t that much fun for everyone. But, don’t fret, with just a small twist, we can give characters with boring hobbies a better one. 1. A good hobby should not be based off your character sheet. 2. Your hobby should encourage social interaction. Here's an example Let’s take Bron the Barbarian. He is seriously lacking in a hobby, so let’s give him one outside of his normal skills: Painting. “Hey, wait! Painting isn’t a social activity, Bron will just skulk off somewhere and paint some scenery.” You have a valid point, my interruptive friend, so let’s give it that twist we were talking about. Bron isn’t interested in landscapes, nor abstract, not even still lifes. No, Bron only paints live models, and being the picky artist he his, he never paints the same subject twice. It won’t take long until he’s painted everyone in the party, which means he’ll need to go out to continue in his trend. Perfect! How about a look at Beatrice the bard, a natural singer at heart. Surely in her downtime she sings to her heart's content, however, this isn’t too much fun for the players. From everyone’s standpoint, we hear a player say “She sings a song”. Nothing to build on here. Now all we have to do is give it a twist by saying, she want to make a name for herself. She’s gotta start getting gigs, and if she isn’t the best with money, it's time to bring in another one of the players as her manager. Primo! John the squire is a PC that wants to start a sports ball team with his other PCs… wait, this is perfect. Gold Star! Not only is that interesting, it includes the other PC’s! (Not only that, your Game Master will be bowing down with a “I am not worthy” for all of the filler and extra stuff that they can now throw in any mod at any time)

Wayne's World The Final Example Now, a look at Hammond the Paladin. Of course a lot of his time goes towards prayer, and upkeep of his equipment, but what does that man that gave up everything do for himself during his off time? That’s the question he asked himself as he wandered throughout the streets. Eventually finding himself in outside seating at an outdoor cafe. That’s when it happened, he tasted the most delicious thing he had in his entire life. Key. Lime. Pie. It was as if he took his oaths all over again! From this point, Hammond became an aficionado of key lime pie. Every town that they stopped in, he had to find and try their delicious limey-ness. Now, that sounds a bit ridiculous right? Well, that actually happened with a character I ran. And something crazy happened from that point, another PC got business cards printed (because those exist in this medieval fantasy world for fun reasons), so the Paladin could hand them out to be proudly displayed at any restaurant he visited with the Pie. At one point or another, each other PC got involved with the Pie shenanigans at one point or another. Even if you’re currently playing a character, have them try something that they always wanted to. Just make sure to involve more people at the table as well. That’s where the real fun of character downtime takes off. Now, go forth! You have a new hobby, of being a Player Character Hobby master! Oh, should I have created a business card letting everyone know that you’re the Hobby master?Now, go forth! You have a new hobby, of being a Player Character Hobby master! What hobbies have your characters had that were fun to play? Agree or disagree, let me know by commenting below! Read the full article

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Cockatrice

Collected from the Tome of Scarlett Reed: 6113.7.7 - Today is the first that we saw a creature of interest since the Phoenix. Traveling in the forests of Zexen was told to be immensely dangerous all but seasoned adventurers. Much like the Phoenix, this was some sort of a bird. Unlike the Phoenix, this creature is large with a strong beak, presumably flightless, and rather awkward looking. Sean, the stupid yet wonderful man that I married, approached the creature from the side slowly, against Lady Beatrice's wishes. Amazingly Sean was able to get close enough to put a hand on this creature. Whatever this creature was, must be extremely docile, we thought. As it meandered away, we were able to follow it to its nest. Littered with stone flakes, and rocks the size of our fist, this was when we came to the horrible realization. This creature is a Cockatrice. The rocks that we found spread throughout the nest were not mere stones, but mice, rats, and lizards all petrified from the Cockatrice's toxin. I called for a hasty, but dignified, retreat in order to regroup. Read the full article

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the Process of Worldbuilding

This article is being posted as a part of the RPG Blog Carnival hosted by Nuketown.  Over the past few months, there have been a number of articles created around the world-building of a new setting, the world of Mitica. Mitica is an independent setting to explore or inspire your homebrew campaigns. However, there is another point for the creation of Mitica are articles like this one. Now we can discuss the process of Worldbuilding as it is created. Starting Your Worldbuilding is something already expertly covered by Tay. Here, we can apply, and expand on some of the ideas expressed in the article.

The World Itself

The first thing that must be done is to look at the shape of the world, the Foundation of the Campaign. In this case, the shape of Mitica is fairly simple. It's a high-fantasy setting filled to the brim with magic, occasionally even defying reason. This was the springboard behind the idea of the Mitican Solar System and Calendar.

End Goals & A Starting Point

Have you ever done a maze backward, and realize that it's easier then going forwards? A lot of times I find that to be the easiest way to choose a starting point for world-building as well. Find the end-goal and move backward from there. Let’s consider you were starting a new campaign, and you wanted your players to share a more friendly hometown, that would be your end goal in the City’s design. In this case, we could have created the City of Bearington, that was loosely based around only this idea. This would be the Now, in terms of Worldbuilding for the RPG table, I’m a Snapshot Builder at heart, which means I usually build worlds from the bottom up. I create the immediate world and expand out from there. without almost any concern for Zexen, the country in which Bearington resides, or especially any other countries. Seeing as these are articles to create a full world, however, it is more important for Zexen to be defined. This is more of the Grand Architect role. I wanted a place where adventurers thrive and flock to. A place that revered adventurers. My solution was to create a decentralized country with many unique small provinces or cities, that have drastically different ruling systems, cultures, and ideals. This one goal created the starting point for how the country would exist.

Expanding the World

A Map of Zexen When you’re creating a World, no matter what, there will always be gaps in the World. Areas that are undefined or unexplored. This isn’t a problem, especially in tabletop gaming or stories. In stories and tabletop gaming alike, you only reveal the world as the players or characters explore it. This allows your world to grow, expand and always have a sense of wonder. The important thing to remember when expanding your world is to make it unique, yet consistent at the same time. There needs to be something that can distinguish one town, from another. In other terms, it needs to feel special. It's uniqueness that is necessary to have one town be memorable from another.

Unique, But Why/How?

Whenever I create a city, magic item, or creature, I always have to ask myself two things about it. What makes this unique? But why/how is it like that? This is the entire bases behind the Journal of Scarlett Reed series. Personally, I find this a fun exercise when it relates to mythical creatures, it speaks to my inner child watching nature documentaries. And don't forget about locations! Consider the city of Bearington again. Its uniqueness is a magical well that dispenses meat instead of water. But how? Twin Magical Trees are planted at the bottom of the well, driving the magical conversion ritual of the well, transferring Currency, or another item, into a food item. This answers what makes this town different from the others around it, as well as provides the possibility of a plot, with just two questions.

Next Steps

The next steps in the creation of Mitica are to continue to take city snapshots around Zexen to create a larger picture. Eventually, another country would be created, followed by more of their cities, creatures, and cultures. In terms of a tabletop, or a story, only create as many are needed for the story and expand naturally. Expand on the cities that the characters can, or will soon be able to travel soon to. The process of choosing a starting point, expanding, and asking why to continue to cycle as the characters explore new lands. Read the full article

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Simple Character Generator

Roll4 is proud to announce a new Simple Character Generator! This Generator is updated monthly with new features or names added. You can use this Generator by going here. Let us know which Character Generators you look forward to seeing! Read the full article

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RPG Design: Creating a Quick-Play is a Must!

Here’s a cry to every RPG Developer or Publisher. A plea to every active member or lurker on r/RPGdesign. It's more than a humble request. Instead, I raise my fist to the heavens and scream: If you’re going to sell an RPG, then for the love of all that is holy, create a quick-play document! “If you’re going to sell an RPG, then for the love of all that is holy, come out with a quick-play document!” - Steve Rakner How am I supposed to know which RPG’s to spend my hard-earned money on if I can’t preview some of the rules, some of the character design elements? How am I supposed to know how rich the setting of your system is?  The simple answer is I can’t know. Previews of the document can take the place of something like this, sometimes, but usually, it only shows the first few pages and leaves out a bit of what could sell me on the system. Honestly, odds are I want to buy your system. But if you don’t have a good preview or sample of any kind I probably won’t. (Well, unless I stumble on it at a game shop or something like that, so I can peruse.) What is a Quick-Play Guide? A quick-play guide is an ultra-concentrated version of the core rulebook! All good Quick-Play guides will have some sort of “How to Play” section, showing you how skill checks are done, and how rolling dice work in the system. Sometimes it will show you how to build characters (even though the options for doing so are extremely limited). Sometimes it will even be a short premade adventure so you can get started with a few premade characters, and really get a feel for the system. What makes a good Quick-Play Guide? Now, there is some debate here based on who’s reading, so to be safe, you need to add a few things to create a good Quick-Play Guide. Lore - It's important to have some information about the setting and the world in the guide. Flat out, if the setting isn’t included well in the system description, you will lose a lot of potential sales. The setting that’s pitched creates the tone of the system, which is what gets most people excited. Mechanics - This is the biggest portion for me. If I don’t know even remotely how the game is played, you probably lost me. I’m not asking for every possible outcome to each scenario, but maybe just a few examples. Show me how to open a locked door, and show me how to attack the guard that sits on the other side of that door. Characters - Don’t give away the best part of any RPG system, instead give them only a taste. All that has to be done is explain some of the stats, and perhaps show a prebuilt (sometimes even incomplete) character concept. You don’t even have to tell them how to create characters here! Why Create a Quick-Play Guide? Sales - Especially if you’re selling online, a guide is a great tool to help you sell more. Unlike in Brick-And-Mortar stores where you can browse through the book for whatever you find more interesting, Online only gives a small preview, and usually only of the first few pages. Now, sometimes this is enough preview to give readers a sense of what’s going on, but oftentimes I find them lacking. Instead, you should give the highlights of how your system is played, with a few examples to get everyone started. Building a Community - A true Quick-Play Guide can be a marketing tool in itself; shared freely between players, GM’s, and other groups. And with a well-written guide, you can add in just enough to get them excited to play the real thing. In turn, this can foster a community for your RPG to grow. Table Resource - In my group, we switch games a lot. Usually, at the end of each campaign, we’ll switch to another system, and after 3-12 months of playing a different setting, we’ll forget some of the finer points of the system mechanics. Don’t get me wrong, this shouldn’t be roll-table on roll-table, but more for the basic rules. How do destiny points work, what happens if you have an advantage, what about skill checks? These are the questions that should be answered. Final Thoughts In the end, it's your game, and you can really do as you please. However, I want to leave you with something to consider. When looking up some Quickstart guides for this article, I stumbled across an interesting one through Drive Thru RPG. Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD Quickstart. I’ve downloaded it and immediately went out to buy it. The only problem is, it’s not even available (as of writing this article). This is the true impact of what a Quick-play document can accomplish. It will get the audience excited for your product, and more importantly, can give the community a resource to share with others. That’s my two cents on the subject. What are your feelings on Quick-Play Guides? Are there any Quick-play documents that you think were particularly well done? Read the full article

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Beginners Guide to Creating a Nation

Nations, states, countries, some sort of principality or kingdom. It comes by many names, but at the end of the day, it is just a place people live. The cities and villages can vary a lot, or there can be such a strong oppressive boot on the back of the people that there is a sense of uniformity.  When it comes to homebrewing, I talk about a lot. Whether it be the campaign, a creative twist to an old setting, or just building it a bit, I do talk about it a lot.  Anyway, as I was saying, when it comes to homebrewing for a new setting, to really introduce your players to the world, you only really need one nation fleshed out. The others can come with time.  Start simple, how much influence does the central or federal government have in small villages? Do they have any unusual laws that the players can incorporate into their backstories? Are they isolationists?  Do they have a mandatory or voluntary military service? These are some simple questions to really kick the thing off. Now, Roll4 has looked at this topic before, but a different contributor, different style, more of an introduction, a launching point.  People tend to think differently, what works well for some, doesn’t work at all for others, so here is the same concept with a different lens.  The early work comes off as more of a listicle, a checklist of things to consider, and to expand from. A good starting point if you are going blind, or unsure of what you are looking for, the minute you start filling in one or two of the sections, it really starts branching out, and making it easier to find the information for the next.  A listicle like that one is great for fleshing out more and more details or things you missed. Back when I was in high school I had a huge list of things I went over, and I continued to refine how I build countries until this point right now. I still have that huge list, and refer to it occasionally, but I tend to think a softer version with less hard lore works better for me.  So, about 10 years of work has gone into the advice I’m about to give, not consciously worked on, but through trial and error, mistakes in GMing, and just correcting it so I don’t have that issue again. Before we really get rolling, I do want to put as a side-I did google a few different phrases looking around for other people giving advice on how to build nations or countries for tabletop gaming. Honestly found them to be very lackluster, or at the very least unfocused, and it is what made me want to revisit this topic.   So let's go, to start with, at least how I start, ask yourself about the problems that face the country, or regions of the country.  It could be arid and hot, limiting the food potential, meaning famines are common. There could be a culture that thrives on the hardiness of those who can live through the tough times, meaning the common folk don’t squander food, they stretch every grain of rice or wheat to the fullest.  Mayhaps, the winters are so rough on them that during the inhospitable seasons, such as winter, there is a ritual of forgiveness for families that can’t handle their children, can’t afford to feed them, and give them to the spirits of the land, and the memories of children that aren’t properly honored, results in, let’s just say a rather sad, and dark plot hook. But the idea of starting from this position is to build flaws inherently into the society, whether it be the honoring of strength, meaning that the strongest is right even when very wrong.  “I can drink this poison, so clearly it isn’t poison!” Or it could be that the pursuit of knowledge dwarfs all other values, safety and life included, “What do you mean why? Why did I make a portal to the abyssal plane of unfunny comedians?  TO SEE IF I COULD OF COURSE!” These inherent societal flaws can lead to a lot of plot hooks, lots of quests for your players to be engaged by, or to include in their own character’s backstory.  A society that is known for having a corrupt king and corruption all the way down would produce a lot of thieves, don’t you think? But you get the idea, you can have any kind of flaw, from dormant dragons below all their castles to something small, like the occasional seasonal flooding.  The next big thing for me after that is asking how the society copes with, or fixes, the problem. If you have a legion of unwieldy scientists running about doing magical studies that result in possibly altering the very laws of nature, perhaps, there are strike financial burdens on those that harm others, or it encourages isolation by the most strange, or maybe, only mayors are entitled to that level, and part of the planks of their elections are the insane experiments they want to run.  “I wanted to vote for Rezog the Reanimated, but, well, the tax break just isn’t worth his promise to bring back all the dead in the city, so I guess I’ll vote Fleming, he only wants to make a super cold that makes you sneeze with super strength.” It could be a society with might makes right has gladiatorial fights, and puts scholarly pursuits on the back seat. Meaning they have to train their strength of arm, for arms and armor.  Selling their nation like mercenaries, and being manipulated by some foreign powerhouse. After that, I like to ask ‘Who is in charge?’  And make an NPC for that. Does he reflect the traditions, or is he a beacon of changing times?  Is he making things better or worse? If he is changing the nation for the better or worse, he can easily be marked for an assassination, and the PCs can be tied up in that political thriller, and that adds more twists and turns, is the assassin from within the nation, or are they a foreign agent?   I won’t dwell too much on that, NPC building could be a fun topic for the future, for now, we will stick to helping create a nation (or whatever you want to call it).  One of the next things I consider is reputation, what is the country known for, is it known for its Silver Mines? Well, it is a real shame those Silver Mines are running out, huh?  Or, the flip side, it was known for Silver a long long time ago, and is still known as the Kingdom of Silver, Ver, but, those mines have been empty so long, that the name seems almost mocking.  Are they known like Sparta was for great warriors? Or maybe Scholars like Athens? A reputation for exploration and establishing occupational garrisons like the England of Old? I also tend to find using comparisons to real world nations helps me get an idea for how I think it should be structured, as well as looking at certain times in history.   Focusing on the nation's reputation can help you plan out some twists and turns, and even get some basic notes on neighboring countries. Keep them short and simple to start with, trade agreements, and things like that. Don’t flesh out a country that may never be visited, or the players don’t care about, have a few interesting tidbits, and offer them a hook or two if they want to go that way, but if they don’t, leave it as a background decoration, like an empty book on a bookshelf, it makes the place look more complete, but it is hiding the truth. Now, this is the key part of what you should do when building a campaign as well, ask yourself this, is this nation important to my plot?  If you are running a sort of free-roam, let the players’ choose their own adventures, it is both yes and no, and you should just keep using their exploration and ideas to build it up.  However, if your plot is all about the spirit world, maybe not so much. You can let a lot of the nation building take a back seat unless it has some particular boon or drawback to the plot.  Like, say it is a militaristic naturalist country who thinks spirituality is asking for great unrest and thus the party’s exploration into that realm makes them wanted criminals, or perhaps, the king has a spiritual guide, and the party can communicate with him through the abstract and often confusing mind-scape.   I won’t dwell on this one too long, as your campaign is your business and tying the nation into it, and see how that shapes the journey the players must walk is something only you can really know, So, I only have one more important thing to say about making your nation.  Lie.  Lie your gosh-dang pants off.  Are any of your player’s agricultural experts?  How about experts on geography or tectonic plates?  Well, if they are, dude, nice skill set, but more than likely, they are not.  And that means, even if your geography for your nation is logically unsound, no one will catch your lie.  If your farming practices or seasons or a little off, no one will notice. If you act as the expert on these things, not to a condescending degree, but enough to give your player’s confidence that this world and society works, they will believe you.  Likewise, mistakes, let them happen, roll with them. If your player suspects something and is building up to the Priest-King of the Holy Kingdom of Eviaries actually lost his faith when his wife died, and has a really solid rationale behind it, lie, say you had it planned from the start.  They won’t know! Also, years later when you tell them you just stole that idea you can share a nice laugh. Anyway, this is more or less my beginner's class on nation-building, a little bit of helpful advice, a bit more focuses on the fluffy lore part of it, rather than the hard facts.  If this appeals to you, let me know, and I’ll be sure to do a follow-up, if not, well, I have a lot of other ideas I want to run through. Read the full article

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Starting your Worldbuilding

We've already built the foundation to launch a campaign. You know what you have to know to get the game rolling, but your players are curious sorts, they like to explore every nook and cranny. They have questions about the lore, and you don’t have all the answers, and you shouldn’t, you don’t even have all the answers about the world you live in. Why would you have all of them about a world you made up for fun? Now comes two options, you can tell your players that you have only thought about the functionality of the world. Just enough to move you forward, to craft the narrative you have all been enjoying. That you heard what they wanted  and brought as much of that into the game as you felt was reasonable for your world, but, haven’t given the far wider world any additional context.  However, now with the questions is to reach out, to show more of the world. Help engross your players (and maybe have them contribute more, this can be the Table’s main world, something you all build on anytime someone DMs.) I find that in approaching world building there are two main camps, there may be more slightly smaller ones, but the two big guys I am aware of, and for lack of terms, I dub them:  Snapshot Builders, and Grand Architects. Now, to be a really good World Builder you will have to wear the badge, sash, and hat of both roles, but you can favor one over the other, I personally am much more of a Snapshot Builder, and I think one of the biggest flaws of most new world builders is the scale at which they start.  To give some more context to the terms: SnapShot Builder: Someone who constructs set pieces of a world and then connects them together, or builds a world by connecting several campaigns to occupy the same place. Grand Architects: Someone who takes a top down look, building every detail as accurate as they can, making accurate timelines from the beginning of time, having dozens of gods already made, nations, a full map, list of dungeons and legendary heroes. I like the idea of building a society and then sort of placing it in the world, like interlocking bricks, allowing them to build off of one another slowly.  In one game, the players could go through a dense forest filled with hassel and spooky monsters, but, quickly leave after going through the tomb of Bella, the mistress of Beasts.  And in another game, the players could start out in a city lost to time, forgotten among the foliage, protected by a fearsome guardian monster, and it would be a lot of fun, for me personally, just to sneak the city into the thick forest the players played in with different characters, maybe even allow them to revisit the Tomb.  In this way, of layering campaigns, and adding details each time, you can slowly create a more rich world every time you run a game. Likewise, if you’re a big snapshot builder, one day while you are casually working out an idea you have, you can just build a dungeon, and keep it in your back pocket and drop it in a world anytime you need it. Sometimes the lines need to be hand waved away, and smoothed out a lot to make the biomes blend, but, I find the way of designing smaller set pieces and cultures and then interconnecting them to be a lot more rewarding, and easier to do then trying to build entire worlds at a time. It also allows for expansions.  Say, the party arrives at a village called Lor’Keth, the shaded village, the humans here have taken on a grey skin tone, are all bald, or nearly so, they are lithe, but not malnourished, and governed by a stern ruling class of no one species, it can be human, or strange Mushroom man, so long as it abides by a firm stance of honor and fulfillment by good works.  But the village is only a small time stop for them. In a latter campaign they could reviest the village that lies in the shades of the mountain, and head into the Empire of Gromdell, and find that this is the cultural norm, that this firm code about self-fulfillment by good works is pervasive throughout the empire, that this change to humanity with the borders, the coloration and hair loss is an effect of some magic water drunken by the devote of the state religion, and more then that it extends to all humanoid creatures. The idea was the one village, and as the players grew to be interested in the village, it expanded, it branched out into the wider world.  It grew, like a mold slowly spreading, feeding off of player’s interest. If the players should show no interest in the strangeness of Lor’Keth, it could be forgotten as a little town tucked into the base of a mountain, waiting to be explored.  You would never build Gromdell, and never worry about it. However, if you are more of a Grand Architect you would have started with The Empire of Gromdell, and named a few prominent locations, maybe a national hero or two to really flesh it out - Give them some special feast or holiday.  Detailed the state religion, decide that the empire has three kings, and an Emperor. The three kings are the leaders of the faith, the chosen heir of the Senate and Governors (often time a hero), and the Emperor’s next in line kin.  When the Emperor dies the Three Kings then must elect from themselves who will be the next Emperor, and their throne of king passes down to the next in line so on and so forth. Probably a few dozen pages of notes, maps, and so on, but once the Player’s stumble upon Lor’keth, they find it unengaging and never want to reviest it.  So now you have notes for a what if in a later game, but you may have wasted time for the game you are in now. You could have spent that prepping more encounters, but instead you build an Empire the player’s aren’t interested in. Now in my opinion, a combination of both positions works best. I say use Snapshots to build set pieces for the game, and intrigue players in stuff, however, if they like it put on your Grand Architect Hat and really get to work. While in Grand Architect mode, you will probably find yourself planting seeds for future developments, such as foreign relationships, immigration and integration, and dealing with foreign merchants. The other thing that I think is a huge boon for fleshing out the world, at least in a fantasy setting which is clearly the bulk of what I was using as examples here (Though, it is applicable to Sci-Fi settings as well) is development. Rather, how a group developed, and how species formed, this one is hugely applicable to any setting that has any outlandish elements, Sci-Fi, Horror, or Fantasy.  Even modern if you want to add some supernatural or paranormal elements. For lack of terms in the general zeitgeist of the table top communities I look at, let me call them this: Tay’s 1st and 2nd Ponderings of World Building, or for Short, Tay’s 1st and 2nd Questions.  Tay's 1st Pondering How did they advance culturally and develop technologically?  There are a plethora of answers that can lead to different structures.  If you are asking this about a culture or group you already made, it may help flesh out more of their society, more of their values. Answers can be things as mundane as the ages of tools, started with stone, went to bronze, then iron, and are now moving towards machinery.  Or it could be that they developed a magic that allows them to sing nature into shape, allowing them to sing trees into houses and fields into growing wheat or pineapples or whatever. Maybe somewhere in the middle, or maybe they worship a living deity that provided what they needed to carry out his instructions. This simple pondering can also lead into spiraling out and creating magical weapons and wonders that suit the society.   Tay’s 2nd Pondering The people in a society come from somewhere, where did these people come from?  Now it seems like a dumb question, but it helps a lot. For one, it posies you to decide on a few things; first and foremost, who lives here. Is it 99.999% one sentient species, or is the demographic a lot harder to nail down due to constant population shifts?  If they are more than one species, can they interbreed? What happens to the half-spawns? If they can’t breed, does society look down on them being together? How did the different species in the society come together? Did they used to be one population of one homogeneous species that took in refugees?  Or was there some sort of magical or scientific accident that altered a portion of the population so much that they are now two separate species? I always liked the idea of a society of two subspecies of Elfen like creature. One that, over generations of magical indulgence, grew softer. The other, more working toilers, growing harder and bulkier. But both still having the anglier and fine features, the sharp ears, sharp noses, and the glassy eyes of an elf. One, well toned and strong of body as opposed to the soft and lithe one an elf normally has.   I hope these help as a more in-depth world building experience, or at least added something. If you want me to give you more questions to ponder about World Building, don’t hesitate to ask. What are your worldbuilding ponderings? Read the full article

[roll4steve-blog]

Insist the four chaos gods are Stabby Sam, Sexy Sam, Sneaky Sam and Sickly Sam. Give a penalty to any player who uses a different name for them.

[roll4steve-blog]

[roll4steve-blog]

Excellent!

Accents 101

So if you’re a dm like me, you probably want to be relatively skilled in some typical fantasy accents for your game to make things feel that much more real. So i’ve decided to throw together a little master post of “how to” videos on some various accents. This is mostly for my own reference, but if you’d like to save this for yourself too, go right ahead. Feel free to add on to this, as well!

General Accent Tips

How To Learn Any Accent (1)

How To Learn Any Accent (2)

How To Do 12 Different Accents

US/UK/Aussie English Vocabulary Differences

One Woman, 17 British Accents

How To Lose Your Native Accent

How To Learn A Different Accent

Fun Tour of American Accents

Scottish

Scottish In Under 2 Minutes

How to Speak With A Scottish Accent

HOW TO DO A SCOTTISH ACCENT

Speaking Scottish 101

Scottish Slang

Gerard Butler Teaches You Scottish Slang

Scottish Insults

English or “British”

How To Do A British Accent

3 Ways to Sound More British

HOW TO DO A BRITISH ACCENT CONVINCINGLY (1)

HOW TO DO A BRITISH ACCENT CONVINCINGLY (2)

HOW TO DO A BRITISH ACCENT CONVINCINGLY (3)

Henry Cavill and Simon Pegg Teach You English Slang 

French

How To Speak With A French Accent 

How To Do A French Accent In UNDER TWO MINUTES

Tips on how to do a French Accent

French Accent Tip

Irish

How to do an Irish Accent

How To Do An Irish Accent

How To Do An Irish Accent

Guide to Irish Accents

How To Do An Irish Accent In UNDER TWO MINUTES

Russian

How To Speak With A Russian Accent 

How to Do a Russian Accent | Accent Training

How to speak with a Russian Accent

How Russians Speak English

How To Do A Russian Accent 

German

How To Have A German Accent 

How to do a GERMAN ACCENT?

Get the Perfect German ACCENT

Me speaking in 12 GERMAN DIALECTS!

How To Do A German Accent

5 Steps to a perfect German Accent

Canadian

How To Do A Canadian Accent

All aboot Canadian accents

How To Speak Canadian, Without Knowing How!!

Is There A Canadian Accent?

The Canadian English Accent

[roll4steve-blog]

Roll4′s first entry to the Blog Carnival.