This has been the first week of my Newsletter, the Duckslayer Post. I’ve picked up a few subscribers this week, so thankyou to all 8 of you for thinking I’m interesting enough to follow! We’re at 12, let’s see if we can hit 20 by next week! Now, let’s Ponder the Orb…
What a week it’s been! Those of you in the UK will need no further comment to understant this one, but I’ve been without power for almost 24 hours at the house now (and I had just restocked the chest freezer for December!!!), playing board games by candlelight and listening to 75mph winds doing their darnedest to hammer in the windows, so this is going out a little later than originally planned!
My first ever newsletter, Monster Mondays: Treestorks, sparked some conversation and I hope it will go on to terrorise some players in the future!
Then Worldbuilding Wednesdays: Introducting Arenstar brought you all into the world I am making for my campaigns, which has a few happy customers already - and hopefully you can all start to see why over the coming months!
Folklore Fridays: The Tale of Malth Borla was my first pure-fiction post on here, where I aimed to show my writing without all my sarcastic comments and my unhelpful footnotes*. It’s only gotten 6 views so far, but I hope that the 6 of you enjoyed it!
What else has been going on this week?
Well, I’ve been prepping for the upcoming travel section of my campaign. The party are flying a Flyorite ship north from the town of Steepfield to the monastic land of Lei'Thengran, where they hope to recruit an army to help them to fight the Frost Giants of Ormnir. And I appreciate that there’s a lot in that sentence that will mean nothing to you, but the main thing is that I am preparing their travels north, which will take them over hostile and wild territories which were left behind with the almost-extinction of the Dragons**.
I can’t go into details on what’s coming as I may have my party reading this, so instead, I will start chronicling each week where the campaign has been!
The Cheese Chasers, Chapter 1 - Introductions.
The campaign started with the running of the Steepfield Cheese Chase, and has been running (at the time of writing) for 2 years and 2 months, over 54 sessions, averaging 4 hours per session for around 216 hours of D&D. The players were hooked, and so I was set the task of making a sequal oneshot. It’s still going - so technically, I only half succeeded!
The party returned to the village of Steepfield at level 8 - having completed the Cheese Chase at level 5. This was the starting point for the adventure. Oh, I had such an adventure planned for them! But first, let’s introduce the characters.
The Barbarian
Grizz, son of Grizz; a half-orc werebear, son of the union between a war-god (who is actually himself) and a bear. The innocence of his youth was cut short when a group of hunters slew his mother (the bear) and then Grizz slew them - all but one of them. He swore to avenge her, and so began a time-loop - Grizz lives his life in pursuit of his mother’s killer, and when he fails - as he has done every time - he begins his life again, to suffer the loss anew, and to try and succeed where before he failed.
Grizz is an 8-foot tall Half-Orc, who wears thick boots (for kicking) and a kilt made of the tanned hides of the 3 hunters he killed. His weapon of choice is a great-axe, and his method of choice is sheer bloody violence. He’s a keen taste for cheese and a love of all things edible, which is a longer list for him than it is for most people.
The Warlock
Marva D’ark is a shadar-kai elf, lost to the shadows of the Raven Queen. She dresses in dark clothes, speaks with a sharp tongue, and laughs at dark jokes. Her story is a mess of murder and vengeance, and turly began when she was rescued from freezing to death by the Raven Queen, who saw potential in her, and opted to make use of her prowess rather than simply claiming her soul. Marva is haunted by her past, and is embroiled in a bitter struggle between burying it forever, or confronting it.
Marva has pale skin, and dark clothes. On her shoulder rests a white raven named Karn, and she rides a huge wolf, named Jeffery. Her weapon is a curved rapier, left to her by her mother. She wears the Light of her father - a jewel which grants the Elves immortality (stay tuned for folklore explaining this on the 20th!)
The Cleric
Zavorash Silverhood is a dwarven cleric dedicated to the life god Bahamut, the platinum dragon. Zav’s soul is bound inorexibly to Bahamut, and each time he lives and dies, he is reborn with the following, tragic rules: Firstly, he is born always to a noble family of Dwarves. Secondly, the family is always beset by a tragic and horrific fate shortly thereafter, leaving Zav an orphan. Bahamut sends always agents to collect him, and to look after him. In this life, Zavorash was born 200 years ago, and is adventuring with the group as their healer. He bears a Cygnet Ring which he doesn’t know the meaning of, a trinket from his childhood.
Zav is stocky, with a thick beard and kind eyes. He has a Pony named Chastakan, which we establish early on is so well trained as to moonwalk into the stables.
The Monk
Miradan Dralth is a high-elf monk from the far-off monastic land of Lei’Thengran, far*** to the North-West of Arenstar. He has trained in the nomadic monastary of Drei’Neith, a dragon whose teachings encompass the 5 elements. He is travelling with the group searching for clues regarding the visions he has been suffereg - visions of the world being plunged into ice, and then drowned beneath the sea.
Miradan travels with a silver Drake mount named Zorgrak, who is fiercely loyal to him.
The Palaficer
Charles “Thunderbrand” O’Lee is a paladin-artificer, and also happens to be the son of Thor - who calls him Magni. Charles was cast out of Ysgard**** in a war and fell to the material plane, and there was taken in by Brock and Cauli O’Lee, two halflings who lived in (and ran) a tavern on the outer edge of Steepfield called the Fallen Demon. Charles grew up in Steepfield, and when he came of age, was visited by Thor, who told him of his origins, and presented him with Ysgardian Steel, with which he forged a suit of armour. Charles had struck the killing blow in the Cheese Chase, and was firmly living up to his Folk Hero background.
Charles has flowing blonde hair and wears a suit of sapphire-blue armour, and wields a glaive. He sometimes rides a steed, a giant goat named Spitter, who was a gift from his Father. He can summon & dismiss Spitter with the Find Steed spell.
That’s the Party.
That’s the heroes of the campaign - a slightly rag-tag group, who begin their campaign travelling back to Steepfield, to see another of their festivals - for the Halflings love their festivals - the Steepfield Cattle Drive.
And that is what I will talk about next weekend!
As for this week…
This week coming is the shorter half of my bi-daily***** schedule - we’ve got Trinket Tuesday, where I will be talking about a magic item called the Sun Blade (which Miradan has in our campaign!), and Third-Party Thursday, where I will be showcasing a supplement which lets you play as a new race - a Faerie Dragonborn!
In the future, I have had my first review request in, so I will be reviewing a very exciting module called No Time for the Wicked, which I hope to have reviewed in time for the next Third-Party Thursday - on first impressions, it looks really good - full battlemaps, timeline tracker and lots of info on running it, so I 'look forward to having electricity again and having a proper look!
Be sure to subscribe if you want to see more, and to read about the group above - there’s so much story for me to give you - and comment if you want to talk about anything! Thankyou for reading, stay safe out there, and happy Slaying!
*Like this one, which despite being quite long and looking like it is full of meaningful information, is actually devoid of anything useful, and frankly is little more than a mildly entertaining waste of time.
**Slain by a historical character called Olbanor the Traveller - more of him coming up in Folklore Fridays!
***Did I mention how far away it is? Because that’s where they’re going now!
****Subtly inspired by “Asgard”, home of the norse gods, but it’s different, because I changed a letter. So there.
*****or is it duo-daily? Once every other day. If there’s a better term, put it in the comments!