Brave New World
My final column wraps up Monte Cook’s World of Darkness. While I didn’t reach 30th level in a D&D campaign, I did finally complete a D20 game from beginning to finale. Despite a crisis or three, it has been really enjoyable as well.
Gallus Gallus 5/13
What lies beyond the Incursion? With supernatural skins and mechs, the PCs were ready to venture into alien territory.
My friend Paul has been buying PDFs of the RPG, Gamma World. Gamma World was the first RPG I ever GMed. After we talked, I pulled out my 1st edition rules and modules and looked them over.
Famine in Far-Go. The second adventure published for 1st edition Gamma World. How interesting that the PCs were traveling to Fargo, ND over twenty years later in my reality.
I decided that beyond the Intrusion lies Gamma World, the wreckage of the World of Darkness if the Intrusion and the Iconnu were left unchecked. I was eager to bring back Gallus Gallus 5/13, the sentient mutated chickens and secondary villains of the module (if you count the crashed asteroid as the main opponent).
It was almost too easy. Supernaturals became Humanoids. Awakened became Pure Strain Humans. I used D20 Future to upgrade the gear found in the adventure but kept the old, crazy chart for figuring out how stuff worked.
I decided that rather than trying to update all the monsters I’d either wing it or use D20 Modern Menace Manual creatures of around challenge rating 13 in their place. I added about 10 to armor classes and chances to hit were based on hit die plus 10.
When the PCs crossed into the Intrusion everything went black. When they woke up, they were children living in Far-Go, Gamma World. Their village was diseased and starving. They were the only hope. And so they set out on the Great Ode to find adventure!
The PCs were very careful when dealing with NPCs, something I had never seen before. They tried to bargain with the Knights of Genetic Purity who were hell bent on “cleansing” the Humanoids. Words failed, weapons clashed, and the knights on podogs fell.
The PCs carried on.
Easter Eggs and Iconnu
Reading Famine in Far-Go brought back many memories. One of the first artifacts of the Ancients recovered was a credit card like key with the initials E.G.G., president on it, a tip of the hat to Gary Gygax who wrote the first module for Gamma World, Legions of Gold. Items of the Ancients included a Best of Dragon, Vol. 57. I guess we won’t be seeing that in our world any time soon.
What really amazed was how fun the adventure still seemed. While the set up appeared to be pure railroading (you are children, you must go on a quest to become adults) it really didn’t work out that way. If the PCs wanted they could have just wandered off in any direction. The map and random encounters could be used to handle that option, however if they tried to return to Far-Go they had been warned they would be killed. They were warned off possible consequences but still had to make the choice themselves.
The other interesting thing about the module was that the PCs were given a quest within a quest. They simply had to go on a journey to become adults. However, they would learn of a way to stop the famine in Far-Go along the way. Again though, acting on that information was up to the PCs.
It was a great way to allow PCs true freedom in an adventure while keeping an overall storyline intact. PCs who didn’t follow the adventure could do so, but they would lose a home base by making that choice.
In the end, the meteor from the sky was in fact the Intrusion itself. The PCs removed the threat of radiation and by proxy shrank the size of the Intrusion by half.
A Werewolf, a Vampire, and Cthulthu Walk into a Bar
Once the PCs removed the meteorite, they returned to the present time. They had reduced the size of the Intrusion by half; Minneapolis was completely freed and could now be rebuilt. Before the PCs could go home, however, they wanted to rescue three NPCs who were caught in the Intrusion.
I statted up the NPCs as possessed: one a vampire, one a werewolf, and one a mage backed up by an Epic level mu spore, a version of the Iconnu. The PCs had to fight to free all three of their friends and attempt to defeat the mu spore.
With the mu spore’s demise, I planned that it would seize the mage, Mrs. Howard the wife of the PCs’ mentor, and tried to seal the gate to our world with her death. Nanuq, a werewolf, would have the opportunity to sacrifice himself to save her and seal the gate, hopefully forever, and free his world. Nanuq’s player asked for this ending and I’m going to try to give it to him.
World of ‘Griffon
I can’t sign off without mentioning my next world building projects. World of ‘Griffon is a 4E points of light campaign set in the ruined former capitol city of Nerath and the surrounding lands. I’m using a great map of the city of Greyhawk that has no legend for the city of ‘Griffon and am creating a large hex map of the world.
Here’s the info I sent the players:
Two hundred years ago, the empire of Nerath dominated the world and Anbegriffon, her capitol, existed as the world’s greatest city. Anbegriffon was built on the ruins of previous cities of fallen empires. Nerath was an empire not of swords and conquest but of ideas and cooperation.
Nerath encouraged all subject kingdoms to work together for mutual defense, exploration, and survival. Dragonborn, dwarves, eladrins, elves, half-elves, halflings, humans, and tieflings lived and worked in harmony together.
Attacks from evil forces based in the Temple of Elemental Evil devastated the empire. As Nerath reeled from assault after assault, the ruling nobles of Anbegriffon reached out in peace to the shadar-kai of the Shadowfell. On the day the shadar-kai were to forge an alliance with Nerath, a cataclysmic event devastated the northern third of the city. To this day no one knows why it happened, only what did happen.
The Shadowfell shifted and collided with the known world in that quarter. In the Shadowfell, the location of Anbegriffon was not a thriving city but an ancient, cursed battleground, home to terrible weapons and terrifying undead. The northern third of Anbegriffon was destroyed, transfigured into a graveyard of crumbling mansions and haunted boulevards, and with it the rulers of the empire of Nerath.
Leaderless, Nerath fell to goblin and demon attacks. Anbegriffon herself never recovered from its loss. Now simply called ‘Griffon, the city erected a mighty keep to replace its lost castle. To this day the keep’s garrison struggles to keep out the undead and prevent those who wield dangerous magic and weapons from attacking the rest of the city. The keep on the Shadowfell.
Sacrifice
If you see the novel Sacrifice by Charles Dunwoody in bookstores in the next couple of years, please buy several copies. I’m finishing the second draft of a major rewrite of my first fantasy novel. I very much want to finish it and read it to my wife. And after that, I will have some friends look it over. If all goes well I will then submit a query to agents and see if I can get one of them to try to sell it for me. After that, it will be up to a publishing house to decide if it sees print.
While Sacrifice takes place in yet another fantasy world I’ve created, the book is really about the main characters especially a young untried priest and a burned out half-fay soldier. I’ve come to care about these characters and hope others will someday get a chance to meet them.
I have five more novels in my head that could follow after Sacrifice. I very much hope I get a chance to write them. I very much hope you will get the chance, and will have the desire, to read them.
See Ya!
I hope someone reading this column takes over and starts a column of his or her own. If you want to get better at writing, having a monthly deadline to produce 1,000 plus words is a good place to start.
Thanks to everyone who posted responses to the column here. I’ve enjoyed communicating with all of you.
See ya!
Charlie
