In my Aurikesh campaign, I have players using the Sorcerer and Warlock classes released in the 10-8-12 playtest packet. These classes were cut from the more recent packets, and enough of the other rules were rearranged to make it difficult to play these classes alongside up-to-date versions of the others, […]
In LARPing, there is a playstyle (not exactly a character archetype) defined by deep engagement with the setting lore and ardent pursuit of its mysteries. This area of gameplay is of particular interest to me; my first long-term character, in Shattered Isles, was a dedicated scholar, and the enjoyment I […]
In order to give the players in my Aurikesh campaign a range of options suitable to the setting, I have created two new “deities” for clerics to choose at character creation, and one new spell (as I was dissatisfied with the extant options in the playtest packet). I place deities […]
As I continue to flesh out the Aurikesh setting for what I hope will be its first adventure in the coming week, I am also working on getting comfortable with design inside the rules structure of D&D Next. Especially for magic items, they’ve created two really interesting hooks to hang […]
Sometime within the next month or two, I plan to start up a new campaign, now that my Mage chronicle of a year and a half has ended. There are a few other short-run games that we’ll play first, which means I have a bit more time to plan both […]
The map below, created in Paint.NET, shows the names and locations of the fifteen domains on the continent of Balioth. Each domain is a separate layer in the initial file, so sometime soon I’ll divide these into their provinces and post them domain-by-domain. At that time, I’ll probably also brainstorm […]
Recently, James Hutchings of Teleleli and several other blogs contacted me with a request, probably common for bloggers of more note than I, but new to me: he asked that I review his anthology of poetry and short fiction, The New Death and others. I’m hardly alone here – there’s […]
In gradually continuing to develop the Aurikesh setting, I’m working in no particular order – I’m just writing about ideas as they come to me. My focus is on defining and exploring the setting’s aesthetic. I am particularly interested in making it clearly different from the other two settings I […]
I realize that relatively few readers are interested in Aurikesh, but I have fun writing about it. For this post, I will create a list of seven dungeons or dungeon-like locations in Aurikesh, all famous enough that players could start play knowing about them, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that […]
A long while back, I posted a comparison of the treatment of religion, divine magic, and worship in seven different settings. This is relevant in that today I want to talk about the problems I have with clerics in fantasy gaming, particularly the various editions of D&D. These problems, I […]