The Seven-Sided Die

For June's Blog Carnival, Johnn Four kicks it off by asking, "What inspires your games?"

I'm often inspired by images I find online, either because they reflect what's in my head or send sparks of ideas into the back of my brain. There are a lot of good places to find images, and I want to share some of my sure-fire sources.

Pictures speak to me

I am, in many regards, a very visual person. As a roleplayer I am very invested in the aesthetic socket: as a player I seek out wondrous and strange places in the game's setting to immerse in them; as a GM my campaign preparations and inspirations are often a compelling images that I want to realise.

Often enough the images behind a campaign I want to run are just in my head[1. Right now, I have a far-future, post-fantasy, post-technology, apocalyptic setting bubbling in my head that involves a dead sun, radioactive god cadavers, a weird hill where time runs backwards, and soldiers of the god-killer nation in sleek power armour wielding god-cadaver-powered assault cannons. It's such a weird mix of inspirations that it's probably good for a second carnival post.] The inspirations might have their roots in a videogames I've loved or places I've been, but the real driver is an image on its own as it encapsulates senses of place, time, emotion, and theme.

Other times I'm inspired directly by images, or I've found images that come close to what's in my head.

Show your players

The wiki for the one setting I have online, the country Tayel, is peppered with images that I found inspiring or reflected the imagery in my head. The Serpent River slips green and placid through the wood for which it's named. The Swift Valley farmers grow fields of bright red amaranth for their grain, oil, rich red dye, and greens.[2. Amaranth is a real crop, versatile and easily-grown.] The Winter Weald is a frozen forest year-round. The Briarwind Hills are windy forage land below the Sunset Mountains for the hardy shepherds who call it their home. Belying their name, the Spine is a string of low, wooded hills that define the southern boundary of the Swift Valley and offer fertile hunting grounds.

All of those images helped me put what was in my head when I was building Tayel in front of my players. They also serve me as reminders of the particular diversity of the landscape within the small country, keeping me from using mental shorthand and picturing every acre of forest identically.

All of those images are also freely available—every one I sourced from Wikimedia Commons. For example, the representative hill of the Spine is a hill in Aizu, Japan. Although the paddies below the hill are rice in the image, at that distance they serve admirably as amaranth paddies.

When I already know what kind of image I'm looking for, the Search box at Commons is one of the first places I turn to. Usually it will give me some images or categories that are close enough, and from there I can start browsing the categories, looking for the image that will convey the idea I'm looking for.

Feed your creative process

Right now my desktop has this image on it. (Choose a screen resolution below the thumnail and click Download to open a new window with the image full-size. It's really worth seeing at high resolution, and full-screen if possible.)

It's an image of a very tall stone house on a hill overlooking a road and a plot of cultivated yet scrubby trees, with a snow-scrubbed mountains rising above it, glowing (or glowering) under a portentous sky. It's incredibly atmospheric, and makes me want to play that, right now. I don't know what kind of game "that" is, but it makes something primitive and creative thrash about in me. I like that, and when I need inspiration for a location I can tap into that.

I have my desktop wallpaper on a constant cycle, randomly filling it every hour with an image from a selected folder. Any time I want a quick dose of awe, I can just swipe all my windows out of the way and soak in the atmosphere of whatever has been hiding behind them.

The images in my current cycle have all come from one site, Interfacelift. Originally I was simply drawn by the way you could set the image filters to match your screen aspect ratio and resolution, but I was blown away by the number of images that are perfect for feeding the creative beast.

Beaches, mountains, lonely buildings, and bodies of water seem to be very popular with the photographers that contribute daily to Interfacelift, and that just so happens to be exactly the kind of imagery that works for me and my focus on fantasy settings. There's an RSS feed that I've subscribed to as well that keeps my folder updated with the most recent pieces that fit what I find inspiring.

Share your inspirations

The current blog carnival has just started, and we can always use new sources of inspiration. If you blog, share your own sources of inspiration and link back to Johnn's June Blog Carnival article.

If you don't have a blog your inspirations are welcome in the comments here or at Johnn's article.

What gets your creative juices flowing?

For various reasons I've been thinking of doing my very own, personal reboot of the Forgotten Realms. If you're not a fan of the Realms this might be a boring post. Or it might not be—the chief attraction of the Realms for me is the wealth of detail that even just a glimpse can suggest, so for all I know you might find the tidbits below fascinating.

There won't be any Savage Worlds mechanics in here either, so if that piqued your interest I'm sorry to disappoint.[1. For now. I'll probably have something crunchy and Savage Worlds–ish to talk about in a later post.]

I never liked Cyric

Many a seer had visions as the Time of Troubles approached. The visions of one Mirador of Arabel predicted an age of strife ushered in by the ascension of a petty thief to godhood by deceit and murder. Gods fell as if stalks of wheat before the scythe of this new Lord of Murder, until the fabric of the world could take no more and Abeir-Toril as we know it was forever changed in a great magical cataclysm. It is well then that, as I have discovered in my research, this petty thief Cyric was sat upon and crushed to death by a frost giant during an attempted burglary of its clanhome.

— Artoros the Inquisitive

I've never liked Cyric. My introduction to the Forgotten Realms was through the AD&D 2nd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (the "gold box"), so Cyric was a fixture, but to make heads or tails of him and his divine soap opera required reading some TSR novels in which I frankly had not a shred of interest. Also, he's a bastard, and not the good kind of magnificent bastard that you just love to hate. No, I've never liked Cyric.

I'm doing some leisurely planning for the next campaign I want to run, which will be a sandbox focused on the ruins of Myth Drannor using Savage Worlds (with some of the fantasy bits from Shaintar) as the system. I've been trying to settle on a year in which to start the campaign[2. I'm considering either when Myth Drannor's ruins were "opened" to intruders (The Year of the Worm, 1356 DR), or the default "present day" of the gold box (The Year of the Banner, 1368 DR) since that would require less alteration of my 2nd edition material.], and reading events in the roll of years on the Forgotten Realms Wiki brought me inevitably to the original controversial cataclysm that was written just to update the Realms to a new edition of (A)D&D: the Time of Troubles.

The arbitrariness of the changes made during the Time of Troubles never sat well with me, but I didn't have a familiarity with the old edition of the setting (the "grey box") to have a concrete objection. Reading over the events, though, I realised some of what I didn't like were the events that involved Cyric becoming a god and his effects on the pantheons. I just didn't like anything to do with him.

At that moment four things clicked in my head: the Time of Troubles was the fictional excuse for the changes in magic from one system (1e) to another (2e); I was going to be using a different magic system; I didn't like Cyric; and the vague memory of an article on Gnome Stew about using the system-changeover cataclysm of the 4e Realms as an opportunity to rewrite the setting to better suit your tastes:

I recommend that DMs running 4E games take a crack at revising their Realms before the official update, which presumably will advance the timeline and explain the evolution from 3E to 4E magic systems, is published in August.

Why? Here’s a chance to put your own stamp on this storied world.

That advice applies as much to the official update from 1e to 2e as from 3e to 4e. Since I was already going back in time (and busy hating on Cyric), I realised that rewriting the gold box Realms from the Time of Troubles as a Savage Worlds version of the Realms, with my own pet changes as a bonus, would be awesome. The Godswar explained the changes in the Weave to accommodate 2nd edition changes in the magic system, but that was nothing compared to the changes in magic that I will be introducing with Savage Worlds–style magic. I was just going to handwave it and mumble something about the magic in AD&D books never working according to the AD&D rules anyway, but having the Time of Troubles introduce SW-style magic within the fiction instead puts a warm glow in my GM heart.

And, I get to kick Cyric out of my version of the Realms.

Rearranging the gods

With Cyric dead before the events of the Time of Troubles, I can change a number of obvious and not-so-obvious details of the crisis. Cyric's actions led directly to the deaths of Bhaal and Leira and to the ascension of Kelemvor. That gives me a lot to play with already, and if I consider that removing Cyric's influence on events might have many chaotic implications, I could really bring back any dead god who took my fancy.

The other nice thing about this opportunity to re-imagine the Realms and reshuffle the pantheons is to consider how the gods would fit into a world without explicit alignments. Savage Worlds doesn't use anything remotely like alignment, so I don't think I'm going to tag any of the gods with that kind of descriptor in the background material I prep for my players. I like gods that are a little more morally ambiguous than most D&D gods, and having the elbow room to give a follower of an "evil" god some human motivations for their heinous acts is particularly refreshing.

With Kelemvor never ascending and Myrkul killed in battle with Midnight, I think I'll have Jergal resume the role of God of the Dead. He's creepy and dusty, but I admire his devotion as a librarian. I love the thought of the PCs meeting a lich devoted to Jergal who really just wants to sit around and wait until they and everyone else dies so that he can record their passing properly.

I suspect that Leira was killed off mostly because she was the patron god of a class—illusionists—which was remove from 2e. I've always liked the idea of a god of mystery and deception, so I'll reinstate her as-is.

Bane is a fun evil god, but leaving him dead gives a nice power vacuum and also lets me play with the idea of Banites keeping the faith and seeking to resurrect their Lord. That undercurrent was one of the more interesting ones in the gold box, though I never did care for Iyachtu Xvim. He'd be a convenient place to stick the unclaimed portfolios of Bane, though, so maybe the stripling god will be interesting without the opposition of Cyric. That would also mean that, though Jergal will be a bit more prominent, with no gains in portfolios the God of the Dead will be much less powerful than any other incarnation in the past or in alternate futures.

Bhaal, the Lord of Murder, is great. I'm happy to just have him back as a nasty motivation for assassins and brutal thugs. Unfortunately, that means the area around Boarskyr Bridge isn't very interesting anymore—since Bhaal's blood wouldn't have spilt there—unless I come up with some non-fatal reason to have him badly wounded there. However, that's a small price to pay for having a religion terrorising all of Faêrun with weekly ritual murders.

Waukeen disappearing during the Time of Troubles was her own damned fault, so it would be a bit of a stretch to bring her back with an argument about chaos theory and Cyric's absence. On the other hand, since Liira kept Waukeen's worshippers happy and her temples open so that nobody was sure what was going on, I don't think it actually matters whether Waukeen goes missing or was never gone. The gold box leaves the truth of the matter as a secret up to the GM, so I think I'll roll with that and say... maybe.

The final tally

So that leaves just Bane, Myrkul, Moander, and Mystra among the major gods who died during my version of the Time of Troubles. I get to keep some favourites in Leira, Bhaal, and Jergal, and completely change the dynamic around the portfolios of tyranny, strife, and fear during the following years. Mystra's death and subsequent reincarnation as Midnight (who then changed her name to Mystra, just to make things confusing) will be my in-fiction explanation for why magic has changed so very drastically to fit the Savage Worlds model.

And, I get to see Cyric dead under the buttocks of a frost giant. Perfect!

How would you do things differently if you were to reshape the Realms?

A stray comment left on post at Gaming Brouhaha[1. A post and comment which I can't find now, alas.] led me to a gem of the internet hitherto unknown to me: Strolen's Citadel. It's a community where creative GMs and writers can post, comment on, improve, and rate ideas for setting elements, creatures, plots, and everything else that goes into a game except for the actual play at the table itself. The data is categorised and tagged for easy searching, and their user account system encourages people to submit their own things and to comment on others' work, enriching the material there.

I can't emphasise enough how massive is this community-created store of great ideas, nor the evocative quality of the pieces. There is so much that you could create an entire campaign world of impressive richness just by carefully choosing and combining pieces from Strolen's Citadel.[2. This is something I'm actually contemplating doing.]

A few of my favourites so far which I've found just browsing around:

• Pegoran Doors — Round, tricky doors that guard special places and which are works of art unto themselves.
• The Twelve — In a vast plain, eleven indestructible statues to ancient gods are slowly chipped away by criminals and the enemies of the twelfth god who overthrew the rest.
• The Dolmens of Swaiar — Creepy shrines to a forgotten god, with subtly sinister influences.
• The Bastion - A Light Tower — An abandoned, automatic lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, with the lost refuge of a dead race beneath.
• One Hundred and Twenty One Islands! — A collection of uncharted, odd, dangerous, and interesting islands.

There's so much inspiration to be gained from Strolen's Citadel just by clicking around. In that way it's kind of like a deviantart for game masters.

This month's RPG Blog Carnival topic is religion.

Most fantasy settings have particular domains of interest and influence assigned to each god, but very few actually bother to say what the followers of the gods actually believe. It's a strange omission when designing a faith.

I was thinking about this when I was putting together the gods for the Iron Valley region for the Edge of Empire campaign. I decided that each god would not only have the traditional set of domains, but also some basic tenets that define how followers are expected to behave and what the church believes. Here are three ways you can add depth to gods and their followers' faiths in your setting by thinking about the nuts and bolts of belief.

1. Five tenets of the faith

Write down five things for each god that their followers believe or do. These can be prohibitions, duties, articles of faith, details of devotions, or principles of living.

Prohibitions are easy: things like wielding edged weapons, touching dead meat with bare hands, or speaking during the dawn are the sorts of things a god or its church might forbid.

Duties are the flip side of prohibitions. Always making an offering of food before eating, tithing 10% of your earnings to the local church, community service in the name of the god (imagine a weekly stint in the mortuary for a god of death!), never sleeping above the ground floor, and taking a vow of chastity are possible duties.

Articles of faith are what the followers of a faith hold to be true. They might believe that running water is the incarnate body of their god, that they are manifestations of a part of their god's soul, that ritual combat is the only proper way to resolve disputes, or that the world must be prepared for some future event.

Details of devotion are more fine-grained. A church might require its faithful to pray in a particular language. Perhaps holy water of a fire god can only be blessed while boiling. A god might require that a cleric confront incarnate evil by singing.

Principles of living is a catch-all category for anything that doesn't fall into the first four. A principle might be that followers should live in the moment because all things die and are forgotten, that giving to chartiy is for chumps, that followers should dedicate their every action to the greaty glory of their god, or that being soft-spoken is virtuous.

Focus on tying together the tenets with a theme in order to get across what a god is "about", and you might not even need to rely on the domain-of-power trope. Consider throwing in one seeming contradiction to imply greater depth without having to do too much more work. (For instance, followers of the god of death might be cheerful and flighty: they know all things end, so they are instructed to enjoy life before their master claims them.)

Also don't strain to hit each these categories—consider how a faith that has only duties gives it a distinctive flavour compared to a faith that has only prohibitions. The categories really aren't important and are just there to inspire a variety of tenets.

2. Devotion time

The god that has no holy days or times of particular importance is a rare god indeed. Holy days and other times of prescribed honouring add interest to the setting's culture and give priests of a god rites they have to perform. You can roll this into the list of tenets if you think it fits.

Times of significance to the god in particular or to the culture their church is a part of are good choices for holy days. Changes of season, the migratory patterns of herd animals, or the first rain of the year might be marked with feast or fasting days. The anniversary of a god's ascent, the longest night of the year, or the renewal of a pact would require certain rituals. A particular time of day might require meditation.

Events might call for particular devotions. The first birth in a new settlement might be marked with rituals, the coming of the spring floods, the first thawing of the sea ice, or the appearance of a dragon in the sky might call for certain rites.

3. Where is that written?

Gods in fantasy games have a habit of just coming right out and telling their followers what they should do and believe. Most gods are more circumspect, though, or maybe they just have better things to do than to constantly micromanage their followers. In that case, all this stuff needs to be remembered and passed on somehow.

Some cultures and faiths will pass it on from person to person, initiating new members into the rites and tenets of the faith as they prove themselves. These churches keep the details alive in an oral tradition. Others will write it down somewhere. Perhaps there was a prophet who spoke the god's will. Maybe there are oracles wired into their god who do nothing but write into the great libraries of the church.

The details aren't so much important as just figuring out the form these teachings take and how they're taught. A church might keep everything secret, divulging only what is necessary to tend the lay followers. The holy words might be inscribed in foot-high letters on a five-sided obelisk in the centre of the capitol. Maybe it's all written in one magnificent book, or stored in hundreds of yards of scrolls kept safe underground.

Putting it together

I've already mentioned bits of my setting's death god in the examples above. I'm going to give you a look at the Iron Valley's version of Isis though, since she and her church are of particular relevance to the characters at this point in that campaign.

The tenets of the Istan Church are:

1. Nourish and nurture wherever you go.
2. Preserve mysteries, and seek them in your travels.
3. Revenge the destruction of natural beauty.
4. Things magical are the domain of Isis, who knows best how they are kept.
5. Honour Isis with a daily libation.

This isn't a cut-and-dry goddess or church. It's mostly a "nice" church, doing charity work and preserving knowledge. It's also a selfish church, loath to share that knowledge and aggressively seeking out and seizing—by force if necessary—artefacts and items of power. It can unleash a terrible wrath when beauty is destroyed, which is all the more terrible for the gentle face that the church habitually presents.

The written expression of the core tenets of the Church of Isis are recorded and kept by monks in libraries constructed within the sacred grottos inside the Spire of Cantos. The libraries are constantly being expanded as priests seek the depths of the mysteries of their Lady.

The seekers attempt to commune directly with Isis. Devoted for life, these oracles are semi-amphibious and spend their waking hours in trance, floating in the currents of the crystal pools that well up in the sacred grottos. Alien and cryptic in their pronouncements, monks carefully record every word a particular oracle has ever said, and many a monk devotes their entire life to deciphering the larger truths their words reveal.

I will probably give Isis a holy day apart from the daily libations, but I'm leaving that open for now. Likely it will be something to do with the spring planting, as fertility is one of her portfolios.

In a recent comment, Jonathan linked to his collection of articles on Gygaxian Naturalism. Reading ravyn's Ecology for World-Builders from that list, I suddenly understood why the first edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide has so many rolls for random encounters in wilderness forest: prey animals.

I always thought that the number of encounter checks listed for forest travel on page 47 of the DMG was excessive—six times per day-night cycle—especially during long overland treks. However, these present an opportunity for the conscientious world-builder. The typically low-interaction encounters that result when normal animals are the "wandering monster" allows the DM to inject colour and setting information without unduly slowing the pace of the game.

A well-designed, naturalistic random encounter table isn't just full of monsters. Non-aggressive creatures—prey animals—filling many of the Common table slots adds verisimilitude to a game world. Having the party stumble upon a Shambling Mound makes a forbiddingly-described forest more concretely dangerous in the players' minds. In the same way, spotting deer bounding in flight away from the party establishes the game world as a living place with minimal effort.

Encounter a prey animal such a deer can immediately establish a number of assumptions for the players: there is foraging here; something eats the deer; we can hunt if our supplies run low; monsters we fight are the dangerous exception; we can seek deer paths to move more quickly; we are not alone out here. Giving some though to the local predator-prey relationships and reflecting this in an area's random encounter tables can make this effect nearly effortless during the game. Including prey animal encounters, whether random or scripted, also helps set the tone of a game in which players are expected to resolve events in ways other than combat.

Obviously these effects are not limited to systems like D&D that include random encounters. These same principles can be applied to narrative and scene-based systems to good effect, but I suspect that using mundane details to invoke associations and convey colour is somewhat more obvious to GMs and players familiar with the modes of play that those systems thrive on.