5 Lair Ideas

Five Ideas for Lairs in Lair of Sword & Sorcery

I see a lot of you have been downloading the LoSS game on DriveThru RPG. Thanks for checking it out!
By this point I"m sure some of you will be getting to the point of writing your own lairs for the game.
(their are a few free ones to be found here if you haven't seen them yet, on the right hand side under "free lairs to download").

Since the LoSS game is still quite new, with not a lot of published Lairs, it can be hard to get started making your own Karharkan flavored Lairs.

So here's a list of 10 Lairs which would be suitably Kartharkan for your games.

Sneaks and thieves, roguish activities in LoSS

And the work on the next issue of LoSS continues,
Below is another sneak peak of the next issue.
This time it's rules for activities usually relehgated to a thief or rogue class in traditional RPG's.
The rules aren't set in stone yet so feel free to chime in with your two cents in the comments section.

(Also please forgive any grammar or spelling mistakes, this one is again fresh text that hasn't gone through the editor yet)

~Ripley

Sneaks and thieves, roguish activities in LoSS

Sneaking, slipping past guards, staying hidden in shadows, these things can all occur in a game where the heroes are thinking of more than just attacking everything head on.

But allowing Sota roles for all of these things leaves too much up to chance. The heroes could sneak into a fortress with one roll, sneak past the guards with another, sneak up on the main target with another roll and slit their throat. End of Scenario.

But this sort of thing should definitely be allowed in the game. The heroes must be given the option of using these kinds of strategies. Unfortunately in the realm of the Demonboard these kind of actions are extremely limited.

When enemies appear on the board they already know the heroes are there and this highly limits the ability of the heroes to use any sort of strategy that involves sneaking.

The following are guidelines to add this level of play to you games of Loss.

They will be extremely useful to the heroes and Demonlord, especially in the story included with this issue, The Sorceress of Zhaan.

The modifier to the Quickness stat is applied to all Stealth rolls.

Stealth Mode

Initiating Stealth

In the game of LoSS, for the heroes to accomplish anything involving “Stealth” they must first choose to “Initiate Stealth” while no enemies can see them.

This may be while they are in “adventure mode” in a Lair, or before setting off to begin a Lair.

Most Lairs will have a period of roleplaying before entering to allow the heroes to prepare for the Lair.

They can choose to enter any Lair in “Stealth mode”

When initiating “stealth” the Demonlord rolls a Difficult Sota for every hero in the group, modifying the dice roll by any modifiers for quickness.

This roll is made in secret, where the players cannot see.

If all the rolls are successful, than the heroes are considered to be in “Stealth Mode”.

If any of the rolls fail then the heroes are not in “Stealth Mode”, though the heroes will not know whether they were successful or not until they encounter a group of enemies.

Stealth mode

When in stealth mode, any room that the heroes enter will still have their enemies placed in them, but they will not know the heroes are there. Perhaps they are speaking to each other, perhaps they are lost in their own thoughts or perhaps they are doing something which is taking up their attention. When placing these enemies on the board they are placed facing away from the heroes to show that the heroes are still in Stealth mode.

When in stealth mode heroes may attempt to:  move unseen through shadows, assassinate, steal or pick a pocket.

A hero may attempt a missile attack at any time while in stealth mode, at a +6 to their attack roll. This will cause them to immediately leave stealth mode.

While in stealth mode the Demonlord may not move any of the enemies on the Demonboard unless they are marked as “patrolling” an area in the scenario description.

Usually a patrol, is listed as the enemy moving between two points of the Demonbaord back and forth. The Demonlord must move the enemy on this pat the full movement rate of the enemy until the heroes leave stealth mode.

Ending stealth mode

Whenever a hero must open a door to enter a new area they must make a new “stealth” check. A difficult Sota roll. This one is not made in secret as the heroes will know immediately if they have failed or they will be attacked immediately if they were never in stealth in the first place due to a failed roll when initiating stealth.

Only the hero opening the door need make a stealth roll.

If the group of heroes is moving from one area to another without having to open a door they are considered to still be in stealth mode.

If a hero attempts an Assassination, or stealing they must make another stealth check to see if they leave stealth mode even if they are successful. If they fail at any of these activities they automatically leave stealth mode.

Moving Unseen

The hero does not need to make a roll to maintain stealth mode when moving through a room or area with no enemies in it.

If they attempt to move past an enemy then they must make a “move unseen” roll to not be noticed.

There are some limitations to moving unseen.

The hero may no enter the “detection” zone of any enemy. This is the area of squares bordering the enemy.

If the lighting in an area is considered to be “Dimly lit” then the heroes get a +2 to the roll. If the area is not lit at all and the enemy can’t see in the dark then the roll is a +4.

Indoors

If the lighting in an area is considered to be “Dimly lit” then the heroes get a +2 to the roll. If the area is not lit at all and the enemy can’t see in the dark then the roll is a +4.

Outdoors

During the day the area is considered “well lit” and no modifier applies.

During the night the area can be considered “Dimly” lit.

Asassination

Assasination can be considered the killing of an enemy with a single attack.

In terms of Rules it will lower the enemy to 0 endurance and casue them to make an immediate death roll.

If the enemy dies then the assassination would considered to be successful and the hero remains in Stealth mode.

If the enemy does not die they still have 0 endurance due to the assassination attack but the hero has left “stealth mode”.

To attempt an assassination the hero must enter the “detection zone” of the enemy. A missile attack would be too clumsy to guarantee a kill.

The hero must make a stealth roll to enter the detection zone of an enemy, and they may only do so from the rear squares of the detection zone.

If they fail the stealth roll then they leave Stealth mode and play continues as normal.

If the target is sleeping then the hero may make the assassination attempt from any square instead of from the rear squares.

Stealing

If a hero is in a room with no enemies in it, and they wish to pick something up and take it then, while it is technically stealing, it is not considered under game rules, to be considered stealing. There is no roll required to pick the object up and put it in their bag.

Stealing is considered to be taking an object while the owner is present, awake, and aware, without the owner knowing about it.

Stealing on the Demonboard

If a hero is in stealth mode, and there are enemies in the room, and the hero wishes to take something, they must be on a square bordering the object, which does not  lie in an enemies detection zone.

They may then make a stealth roll to pick up the object with no one noticing.

Stealing in a public place or while in adventure mode

When in a public place, such as a church, open air market, or a store, the hero may steal as well.

They must first enter “stealth mode” by making a the usual difficult sota roll with the Quickness modifier.

They must then be bordering the object while not in the objects owners detection zone.

They may then make a Stealth roll to steal the object with no one noticing.

The Lair of Sword & Sorcery Adventure game, I guess it's OSR?

What is Lair of Sword & Sorcery Adventure Game (LoSS)?

I guess it's OSR?

 (I get a little editorial here, sorry)

When I started this journey to make my own game a couple of years back I would have had a very different answer than I do now.

Originally I avoided the OSR definition as I didn't want any of the baggage that a "d&d" type game carried.

I also avoided the "putting" role playing game, into the title, instead calling it an "adventure game".

All of this was to avoid bringing any unwanted feelings or preconceptions to the LoSS game.

I had wanted to create a game that anyone could play, or would play.

If I could have  I would have made a boxed version of the game in a monopoly shaped box, with a card folding Demon board and plastic Demon blocks, with some little plastic figures to represent the heroes and a different color plastic for the enemies. Ideally it would have come with a rule book that was 50 or 60 pages.

I wanted a game that people could whip out on a Saturday afternoon, dust off their heroes and play for a few hours before going out for Saturday night. Without making a big commitment to becoming a "role player" or joining a "campaign".

Hence my adventures are called "lairs". A map, with some objectives for the heroes, and some rules for some interesting differences between this and every other Lair,

Many "lairs" could be strung into a "story" with each lair played out in an afternoon.

I also wanted the Demonlord (read GM, or DM) to have fun. I wanted a game that required no laborious "prep" for the demon lord. Everything could be right there in the scenario on a couple of sheets that could be run after 5 minutes of reading the Lair.

But you know what? After riding this train for a while, I've been coming to an almost terrifying conclusion. That the inventors of D&D (nope not getting involved in who's who debates at this point) had the same kind of thing in mind in the beginning.

The one sheet dungeons of the past are exactly the same. Throw together some rooms with some different interesting features and have at it.
The mega dungeons as well were just born out of running large war game on big tables, and to accommodate giant parties of players and different groups of players at different times.

I think all of this "prep" time got added on people began to become tired of the "same old dungeon" and started going to cities, wandering the wilderness, exploring whole worlds, necessitating more prep time and more rules for all of those situations.

Indeed right in the first edition books it's clear that it was perfectly acceptable to randomly generate a dungeon layout, randomly fill it with contents, roll up some wandering monsters and have at it.

And all of this "character development", min/maxing, endless options for characters, and even leveling up every 2 or 3 games, all comes from people just wanting to do more than take their level 1 fighters out for a romp through a dungeon.

But here's the problem, all this extra "stuff" is for people who have already had their fun. It's for people who have already slain the dragon, saved the damsel, gotten the treasure and gotten all the way to Level 5.

But what about everybody else? There are so many people out there that want to do that, want to jump in and say "I attack!" for the first time.

They don't want a 2 hour discussion about planning their character build for optimal effect at level 8, and they certainly don't want to spend 3 months of their campaign at the court of King Olaf working as diplomats to broker a treaty with the orcs of the Hinterland Fells.

So for me, yeah, LoSS is OSR. It may not resemble D&D in any way other than there are characters with stats but for me that OSR feeling is still there.

Just get some friends together, roll some dice and see what your heroes can do. Sure there's still a ref in the role of the Demon Lord to keep everything on track but he gets to try to take the heroes out too with a fairly determined number of enemies on the board. Sure he'll be thwarted at every turn by the heroes but that's the villains job, and it makes it that much sweeter when he finally gets to take a hero down.

So yeah, I guess it is OSR, it may still say adventure game on the Cover but for me, this is what OSR is all about
For you it may be different, and that's okay, but as I get older and grayer and watch less and less people out there playing roleplaying games I think we all need to take a step back and realize that things have to change, by becoming the same as they were a long time ago.

(And yes 5th edition rocks, I just wish the starter box had a dms booklet and a players booklet with character creation, I mean come on I would have preferred those two books and cheap out on everything else, who needs cardstock character sheets in a starter set?)

Ripley

Sneak peak at the Zhaan issue

For those of you who just can't wait to see what's in the next issue here's a little taste.
Some background of the Limrust family as teased by the Stroh Branoch city map.
Of course you'll have to wait until the issue to come out to find out what really happened to the Limrust family.
Note: This bit hasn't been through the editors yet so it's riddled with typos, enjoy!

The history of the limrust family

In the heaving, churning mass of Stroh-Branoch, life is a whirl of activity, struggle and tension.

Center of the great Mining operations of the east and west Scarp all come together in Stroh Branoch to trade, live, and often die.

Ore flows into the city in the form of half refined Iron Blooms. Here is where the majority of Iron in all the world of Kartharka is bought, sold and traded.

Iron, rarer than gold, but so much more useful, is what brings all these people to the city.

But it also brings another prescence, The Empire!

More than anywhere else in the Winterlands the Emperor’s power is visible here in Stroh Branoch.

The Black caravans, with their armoured coaches and teams of horses charges through the roads in the neverending shipments of Iron from the Winterlands South.

The huge Imperial refineries belching smoke and ash, the Imperial Miners halls, desperate souless places full of the lost and the hopeless.

The endless Imperial checkpoints searching for Platinum and taking the Emperors price in Iron.

It is Iron which pays for the Winterlanders freedom from the Imperial Overlords slavers, Iron pays for the food which the Empire brings from the South without which the people of the Winterlands would starve within weeks.

The Empire demands It’s tax, one half of all Iron  refined in the Winterlands is the Emperors.

The Empires agents swarm across the Winterlands to be sure that they get it.

Checkpoints, raids, audits and seizures are all a common daily occurrence.

In return food and supplies of the South pour into the Winterlands by the Benevolent hand of the Empire.

The Targ maintain this balance. Keep imperial interference to a minimum, conttrolling mining law and distributing southern supplies  to ensure the entire country receives an equal share of goods.

But even with the steadying hand of the Targ tension runs high in Stroh Branoch when the empire shows it’s power.

Limrust arrive in Stroh Branoch

There is one story that is told again and again in the city of Stroh Branoch, a story of the power of the Empire even in the free lands of the North.

Two hundred years ago Helmar Limrust arrived in Stroh-Branoch.

Hailing from somewhere beyond the Garmach pass little is known of his life before coming to the City.

It is know that his people worshipped the Stone Brother of eastern lands instead of the Wolf Brother more known in the Valley of Fangs.

He built himself a shack, as many newcomers do, in the outskirts of the city. He left his sons and wife to guard his home and set out into the wild to search his fortune carrying nothing but his great copper pickaxe accompanied only by his wild takket sled team.

2 moons came and went as the limrust family waited, ekeing a meager living hauling rubbish and clearing roads as many do who have no other option.

In the rising sun of the morning Helmar returned to Stroh Branoch. Gone were his Takkets, his pickaxe, his right hand and Left eye. Behind him a drag sled with one small sack, stained red with blood.

Helmar walked the streets his eyes fixed on the Imperial Essay office. None saw what happened inside but when he emerged it was with two imperial soldiers dragging a sledge full of fine imperial Steel longshanks.

Platinum! Helmar had found it somewhere in the wilds, a hoard of platinum jewelery, enough to earn him a house and a comfortable life  for his family.

But he chose instead something grander.

He deposited his steel with the moneychangers, set his sons to building a large wooden longhouse and set out again.

Begin Mining

Helmar  leadings a team of Takkets and ten of the best free miners the city can offer.

Two more moons rise and fall as the longhouse nears completion.

And again Helmar returns, leading his team of Takkets burdened with some of the finest Iron ore and blooms to ever enter the city.

His men however do not return with him. A sudden collapse, an attack by bandits, their fate is unknown to this day as Helmar never tells what happened on the road.

But he stakes his claim to what turns out to be one of the richest mines of the Winterlands on that very day. More baffling to the miners of the city it lies only two days travel from the city.

Choose to begin refining them selves, very small

Although Helmar returned from that trip with many high quality Iron Blooms he also returned with a great deal of quality Iron Ore. Far better than most seen in the city.

Bringing it both the the imperial Essay office and the Winterlands essay office he was offered the standard price for ore. Insulted he took the ore back to his longhouse and decided to continue refining it himself.

The long house continued to grow as more more stonebrothers arrived in Stroh Branoch.

Helmar begin buying ore from the miners himself, often for a higher price than the imperial essay office would pay.

Soon the growing longhouse became too small.

The limrust empirt begins

The beginning of the great Limrust family empire is marked by the building of the three great buiidings. The Limrust family mansion, the Grand Refinery and the Limrust family tomb.

All three buildings were built by imprted Autumnlander engineers, great square stone structures rising up in defiance of the Empire.

The Grand Refinery was the greatest of them all. Topped by a cluster of giant windmills, a thing unknown in a country where no wheat is grown or ground.

The limrust mines

After the Grand Refinery was built Helmar began buying mines close to Stroh Branoch, mines supposedly empty of any usuable ore, but Helmar continued to carry this supposedly useless ore back to the refinery, and Iron continued to flow out it’s doors.

The limrust refinery complex

Soon the Limrust Refinery was rivaling that of the Empire. To those keeping a close eye on the Refinery, there seemed to be far more Iron leaving the Refinery than the ore entering it could possibly produce.

Imperial law  demanded at the time that one half of all ore or half of the Iron refined from it must be turned over. But it seemed that the Limrust refinery was turning out more Iron than the remaining ore could produce. Rumours started to spreak of Helmar smuggling ore into the refinery without declaring it to the Empire. This angered not only the Empire but other Winterlanders who were following the laws.

Trouble brewing, platinum smuggling

As the LImrust empire grew, more and more rumours began to spread. Helmar was sneaking undeclared ore into the refinery.

Helmar was a Sorcerer, using his infernal powers to summon creatures to refine his ore with demonic magic.

Helmar was smuggling platinum and selling it to mysterious buyer in the Autumnlands.

Helmar had sacrificed his eye and hand to dark gods in return for mysterious powers and dark knowledge.

The mysterious end of the Lirust family

One dark and moonless night, the end came to the LImrust family.

None know exactly what occurred. The empires horse were heard on the streets.

There was a great outcry from the refinery, and then silence.

In the morning the citizens of Stroh Branoch found the refinery destroyed and the family manse empty.

Stranger still the Limrust family tomb was sealed tight.

The empire declared the Limrust family had indeed been smuggling platinum. No evidence was produced but none was needed, in matters of platinum the Targ had no power over the Empire.

This grim reminder of the true power of the Empire has kept the people of Stroh-Branoch in check for centuries with any outcry against the empire followed by “Remember Helmar”

Making Crates for your 3d Dungeon or Wargame

I'm currently working on an adventure and realized I need a bunch of crates and furniture for this one.

I could just cut out a bunch of squares and rectangles out of card but I thought I'd go all out for these ones since they'll get used a lot.

Crates are super easy to make once you know how.

First get yourself a couple of bags of these....

You can get 42 wooden cubes for a dollar at the dollar store! You're already halfway there!

Next paint them all black.

Now you need to make yourself a stamper. You can find out all about making stampers in issue 1 of sword of sorcery, download all the issues here.

This is a fairly simple stamper, just a thin rectangle on each edge, a diagonal crossbar and some more planks on the inside.

Now load up your stamper with a light beige to represent your wood color and stamp every side of the crates. 

Here's what you get!

I undercoated the cubes, made the stamper and got all the sides stamped while watching a movie so they really don't take long at all. If you do enough of them at a time the first ones are dry by the time you loop back around to them to do their second side.

As you can see they look just fine and are a lot quicker and cheaper than printing off cardstock printables and cutting, folding and gluing them all.

I hope you all can find a use for these guys.

~Ripley

Roleplaying in Lair

More adventures are on the drawing table as we speak!

But as I work my way through my pile of ideas and start fleshing them out I started to think how others may run these games.

Specifically where they would include actual roleplaying, you know, as in talking to other people or even people in the party.

It may seem from reading the materials as they are that there is no Roleplaying in Lair, and that's my fault for not specifically pointing out where it occurs.

The people I've played Lair with are pretty good roleplayers. They ask questions, interact with the world, and generally pick their own times to roleplay.

For example, in the Witch scenario, I outline the town in a couple of lines saying the heroes arrive and find the place deserted except for one or two people and leave it at that in the read aloud text.

But when we actually played it 75% of the game happened in that village. The one or two people turned out to be One miner and the innkeepers wife.

After hearing the story about villagers turning evil the party became pretty paranoid and barricaded the inn, and began a house to house sweep of the village.

In one of the houses I decided to put in a basement full of kids but with the doors securely barricaded.

Now they may have been put there for safety, or they may have been locked there by the villagers because they had fallen under the spell of the witch.

Turns out they were evil but the players had to let them out just in case.

They also did some risky scouting in the woods and found a way around the witches encampment directly to her inner sanctum, again, not published in the adventure.

So you can see what seems like a cut and dry attack the witch in her cabin skirmish can turn into a full blown dawn of the dead, fortify the inn kind of game. 

This was because the players were interested in Roleplaying that particular event, the entering of the town.  

If they had wanted to get right down the business and head for the cabin then I would have skipped all that and just told them they talk to the villagers and get the info.

The only thing that is necessary to create "roleplaying opportunities" is to have someone be in the characters line of sight but not actively attacking them yet.  

For example in the adventure I'm working on now,

Story designs in Lair for Roleplaying

The hereos are hired to go on a mission by the a local Targ member. Now they could just head on in under the cover of night and get the job done, but they may want to investigate their target first.

They may want to meet them, or look into their past, or talk to other people who know them. If they decide to do that then it's just fine. There is enough backstory provided to give the heroes if they look for it but it's not necessary to write up every possibly npc that the heroes would talk to.

In Lair I feel that it's enough to have the background story for the Demonlord and they can decide how it comes out. Having each piece of information linked to a specific person means that if they don't talk to that person, they don't get the info.

The only parts I specifically plot and map out is any area where combat is definitely going to occur.

Other things are laid out very simply, like "the hereos arrive in town, the meet the innkeeper in the road, he tells them the town is attacked.

When I actually run this I describe them entering the town and tell them there is a man in the road, they then talk to him, learn he is the innkeeper and that the town was attacked.

But if they wished they could just hand wave the whole thing and get to the adventure. Talking to him however may reveal more of the story depending on what they ask. Or they may make a friend or find a person to help them.

The important thing is the players. Anytime they are not actively on the Demonboard in a Lair they are free to go and do what they like, possibly to improve their odds of defeating the Lair, possibly their hero has some things to do to complete their own goals. Just try to include times between each Lair for them to do something.

~Ripley

Quick trees for outdoor lairs on the Demonboard

Here's something a little different for all you Demonlords.

We're going out into the wilderness now. Outside, away from our dank musty Lairs.

But out in the wilderness we need something other than demonblocks and cardboard walls to define our areas.

Making an outdoor Demonboard for the Winterlands is easy. Just grab a sheet of white bristol board. Draw a grid of 1 inch squares on it with a marker, and you're done.

But all those wide open fields get pretty boring and make combat awful tricky when your heroes are outnumbered (which they usually are).

You can add a few buildings easily using demonblocks or card walls from your demonboard, but what happens when they are out in the wilderness?

So much open space needs to be cut off with something.

And so I present to you...Trees!

Hmmm, that spider looks familliar (click for bigger view)

"Wooden Blocks" and super multilevel encounters on the Demonbaord

And what fresh wonders do I have for you all? Witness below, the power of "Wooden Blocks".

Only $3 at dollar stores when you can find them. You can usually find more expensive sets fairly easily but these ones are perfectly suited to Lair.

Just look at the front of that box. Just imagine some weird monsters all over that thing and it's already some forgotten ancient city.

I've shown you the jenga blocks before but these are something much much bettter

Ramps and Multilevel Lairs with a Demonboard

Hail hearty adventurers and Demonlords!

Above we see a major problem which occurs while designing your Lairs. On your map you have a tunnel which goes above or below another tunnel. But since our Demonboards are flat what you get when you try to lay it out on the Demonboard is shown above. A tunnel apparently going through another tunnel. 

Well we can't have that, so this series is to show you all how to make ramps, so that your tunnels may pass each other without intersecting.

"Jenga" blocks and the Demonboard

Some of you may have been using the standard Demonboard for some a little while now. You may be using it with your games of LoSS (The Lair of Sword and Sorcery Adventure game) or perhaps as a 3d dungeon in your own fantasy roleplaying games. 

Demonboard Doors!

Time for some Demonboard upgrades!

I've been promising a tutorial for doors since the first issue and here it finally is. First lets meet our tools for the day.

Today we'll be using our old friend the basic modelling clay in the silver package. Available at the dollar store. Air dries over night, And at only $2 is a pretty good deal.

Undead in LoSS

Skeletons, Zombies, Undead and Necromancy

Hail my mighty heroes and Demonlords!

A few of you have gotten your hands on the Sorcery issue (if not get you butts over to the store and get your copies now. 

There are pay what you want pdfs available there as well if you still aren't convinced that Lair is for you. I certainly don't mind people downloading the pdf's for free so go ahead and get something cool for free.

Now back to the topic for the day: Undead!

Painting "good enough" miniatures

It's miniature time again. As promised, here is how to paint miniatures (or toys) just good enough to get them on the table. Because let's face it. Taking weeks to paint up a few miniatures is a huge commitment of time to use them for only a few hours on the weekend. But they do look a little cooler so lets see how we can speed that up by just painting them good enough.

I also want to show you that you don't need to spend a lot to paint your miniatures. Really nice brushes cost money, really good miniature paints cost alot now too.

"Campaigns" in Lair of Sword & Sorcery

I'm working on the second string of Adventures for my home campaign.
Hurrah to all in my home group, after the grueling Veteran issue the game is back!

But this is leading me to alot of questions about what the Lair adventure game should be, as well as one big problem: Lair is not an RPG in the classic sense.

Lair of Sword & Sorcery is it's own game

As those who have bought the issues have seen Lair is it's own thing.It's not made for people who have been playing pen and paper RPG's for years, although they should like it as well.

It's for all fans of Fantasy, Adventure, Monsters, and Sorcery. The issues are written from a point of view that the people reading them may have never played an RPG before. It's made for all the people out there who have read fantasy novels, played video games, watched movies, or just thought an album cover with a dragon on it was cool.

It's for those people who have been playing a video game and thought "this is really cool, but what would be cooler would be if I could (insert random action here)".

It's for the people who have played a fantasy boardgame and thought, "that was fun, but what happens to all these people and places next?".

That's what Lair of Sword and Sorcery is.

It has a Demonboard (the playing surface) because regular folks want to see what's happening, because arguing about where a goblin was before they cast a fireball is lame, Because the Demonlord (game master) wants to play a game, not just run a game.

It has specific rules for what a scenario must have, the reward/punishment rules mean that it is clearly defined what the heroes will get and what will be lost if they choose not to enter the Lair. Because a real person gets to choose what they do.

The problem with a being something completely different...

How does this affect my home "campaign". I imagine the average group would be downloading, or buying scenarios, deciding which one they want to do and jumping straight in. That's the great thing about Lair, very little prep for a published scenario, just lay it out and go.

The problem I am reaching for my own campaign though is that I want a system for quick preparation of your own scenario.

I've rewritten the current group of scenarios 4 or 5 times already trying to come up with a system that works. But I was stuck with one big problem that still raises it's head with "traditional" rpg systems.

Railroading

For those of you who aren't rpg people this means an adventure where the heroes aren't given a choice about what happens next. (essentially, I'm trying to keep this short).
The problem with Lair is that it is very, let's say boardgamey. It's built that way on purpose.
The problem is that after 5 or 6 scenarios, the heroes may feel a little constrained. There's a whole world out there, why wait till it's served up by the demonlord on a platter, they want to go to place x now. Or do x now.

Thats cool, I'm good with that, that's the way I like it too. That's what adventure is. Now how to do that in Lair...

The Story system of Lair...

Now I'm going to step into some territory that hasn't been published yet for Lair, it's in the next issue The Lair of the Blind Burrower.

Essentially what I am in the process of doing is Codifying (making rules up) the creation of Adventures and campaigns.What I've found is this:

At the bottom rung is the specific "Lair" the Heroes are in right now, the specific demonboard layout on the board.

The "Scenario" is the group of rules, enemies, objectives, rewards and punishments for that lair.

The "Story" is the plot that links "scenarios" together. The story also has the same things a scenario does, rules, objectives, rewards, and punisments, but they apply tot he whole string of scenarios. It also states the order in which the scenarios happen as well as other event triggered scenarios (if heores do A scenario B happens)

The "Campaign"

This is the meaty goodness I've been working with recently.

Since I have players going from My First "Story" into the next this is the part I've been wrestling with. If this were a standard RPG that thing would be fired up and in the chute in a couple of days but blazing a trail takes a little longer. But I think I've found what I'm looking for in Lair.

Essentially I've written up rules for the Campaign to ensure that railroading can't happen.
It's a quick list of rules in the form of questions for the Demonlord.

It allows any place to become a setting for the heroes to range free in while still allowing adventure and excitement without the restrictions of a "scenario".

Nothing is in stone yet but it breaks down to.

Setting: where the heroes are now, Basic areas mapped out so that the Heros know where they can go. The Stroh-Branoch info in the Combat issue would be considered a "Setting"

Active adventure: this is the main story of the setting brewing at the time. It is codified like any other "Story"

Background: this is the background story of the setting. If the heroes dive straight into the active scenario then they may only encounter rumours or the odd "Encounter" with the background.
If they back away from the active adventure they will encouter more of the background.

Background will have certain encounters that engage when heroes do specific things or they may be time based, say on the second day the characters are in town.

Miscellaneous encounters: these are ones that have nothing to do with either the background story or the active adventure, they are just "things that happen". They may be triggered by going to a specific place (most often), seeking out a specific individual, or time based.

The setting map: each setting should have a map, even if only barely roughing in what area is where and a few interesting places. Some of these places may not have enough detail for a full encounter but if the Heroes go there the Demonlord can make up interactions between the people there and the Heroes.

These may lead to different stories and adventures down the road...

What this means

So we now have a main adventure going on, it's whats prepped and the biggest thing happening in the area, but if the heroes aren't interested in that at all, that's fine, they can see what's happening in the rest of town, see what else is brewing, get involved int he alternate story line that  is running alongside the first. 

Not interested in that either? Well there's a few sights to be seen in town and you can check that out, a few things are going to happen to you, they always seem to happen to heroes, and while that's going on you might have some plans of your own cooking.

A note for regular rpg folks

I also still dabble in "regular" rpgs, I am really digging what the newest edition of D&D is rolling out, still loving the OSR movement and all the great things it's throwing up, don't let all my talk of Lair fool you, I'm still down with RPG's.

The thing is everything I do in Lair in this airy "upper level design" kind of stuff really seems to strengthen the way I think about standard role playing now.My last OSR campaign was built using this kind of method that I'm using in Lair and frankly it worked great. 

So even if you aren't thinking about trying Lair yet, maybe try to drag a bit of the thinking into your own adventure design. 

Oh and build a Demonboard, I used that thing in D&D and it truly rocked there too.

~Ripley

Lair is lookin a little old school...

Rockin the blue Marker!

Just had to post this one. It'll be popping up in the Veteran issue. I wanted to do some marker shading and the blue one was the only one light enough to work. Kinda makes me wish the interior art was actually in colour.

Just for reference here is how it will appear in the issue.

The pencils and inks for the issue are officially done! Off to the old painting board!

So anyone who is working an any art for the current issue you've got probably about a week before the Veteran issue goes to layout. 

I know it's been a long wait but soon you too will be able to spend those precious Veteran points.

For those of you playing now who didn't notice there is a "get you by" veteran points reference in the "Articles of Interest" section so you can start awarding points now and the players can spend them when the issue comes out.

Rock on Crazy Wizards!

~Ripley

The example Scenario, traps, and Sota Changes

Traps in Lair of Sword and Sorcery!

The official Lair of Sword and Sorcery campaign began fairly well.

We began with the example scenario from the Combat issue with the heroes helping a band of Miners defeat some roadside bandits.

They entered and began combat with me going incredibly easy on them. I attempted to focus on getting the sacks of gold out of the room while sparing the heroes and miners. 

The players quickly surrounded the sacks with miners and heroes and began throwing the miners at the bandits with reckless abandon (morale rules are coming with the veteran issue).

They were able to effectively surround the sacks and kill all of the bandits.

They were partially able to accomplish this by quickly running ropes tied to spikes across one of the entrances entrances to the room.

This was deemed a difficult SOTA roll to set up which they were successful at.
I then ruled the at the bandits would need to make a successful difficult SOTA roll to cross it, otherwise they would become tangled and fall, taking damage.

Technically this shouldn't be allowed because the Demonlord's minions may do SOTA.
But we saw almost immediately that this would mean that the heroes would be able to set up all sorts of traps like this effectively stopping all their enemies.

New SOTA rule: Demonlord minions may make a Sota roll to undo the effects of a Heroes SOTA roll.

So my poor minions still can't come up with crafty plans to outwit the players but they may undo the work of the heroes. 

In the next scenario they set up their ropes again but this time my Minions decided to "undo" the SOTA by cutting the ropes. I will point out they still had to make a SOTA roll to do so and it unfortunately took 4 of them 2 turns to do so.

These rules will be added to the Veteran issue as well but I thought that those of you already playing with the Combat issue should be aware of the change.

I'm sure we'll come up with a few more changes as we go along, until then, destroy your enememies with the wrath of the hurricane!

~Ripley

Buying and Selling in Kartharka

Well our band of heroes had an amazing windfall in their first game scoring 28 gold pieces.

A fantastic sum of money in the Winterlands.

In Lair of sword and sorcery once you "buy some arrows" you are assumed to "have enough arrows" for your missions.

Not bothering to track all of these resources means that heroes don't really need to spend a lot of money, which is good because everything is expensive.

Earning a whole gold coin would take a miner weeks of hard labor, and the expense of travelling, living, tools and boarding eat up a portion of that as well.

This means that a gold coin is worth alot.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery does not generally have lists and lists of equipment, detailing prices, availability, weights, and other things.

If a Hero wants to buy something he will generally have to have it made to order. Merchants do not tend to have 30 chairs lying around in stock on the showroom floor.

Merchants tend to trade in raw goods, like metal, cloth, tools, the things you use to make things. 

To get something the hero goes to a craftsmen who will make something for them.

Buying regular Gear

Usually the price for anything will be One gold.

 Want to buy a bronze sword?

(the winterlands are for all intents and purposes a bronze age society)

The price is one gold.

Want to buy a dagger?

The price is one gold.

Want to buy a piece of cloth Armour

The price is one gold.

Then the hero waits for a few days and the item is available.

If the hero is in a rush, or is rude, the price doubles.

If the hero has a good camaraderie score they may get a discount. A +1 is good for a 25% discount, a +2 is good for half price (always round up). It doesn't get any better than half off and the merchants will rarely be willing to trade for "half a gold piece" so it may be a good idea to order a couple of things when getting the discount.

A negative camaraderie will cause problems as well. A -1 will double prices, a -2 will quadruple it. It doesn't get much worse than that but the craftsmen may make them wait up to a week for their items if their camaraderie is worse than -2.

These prices will get them a serviceable sturdy and plain version of the item.

A sword will indeed have a blade and a handle. It will not be pretty but it will work.

The cloth armor will indeed stop a blow But don't ask for it any color but brown and it's going to be one size almost fits all.

When a group of heroes is shopping they may try to elect the one with the highest camaraderie to do the shopping and this will work up to a point.

But if someone is buying Armour or weapons the craftsmen will want to see the person the item is meant for. They need to make measurements, consider the weight and distribution and discuss balance.

This means that the surly and mean fighter is going to have to meet the craftsmen

In this case the hero with the high camaraderie will act as a go between and their combined camaraderie will be used to consider he price.  A +2 and a -2 will cancel out meaning they will pay the normal price.

If the hero with the high camaraderie is known to be part of a group then the craftsmen will automatically consider them to be buying for these less than nice people and will again consider the camaraderie of the group when stating their price rather than just the buyers camaraderie.

Buying special gear

If the heroes have any special requests for their item it will add at least an extra gold to the standard price.

Specifying colors, cuts, special insignia are all considered special requests.

If the hero is asking for something to be completely custom made then the price will skyrocket.

For example if the want a standard sword, 1 gold

Standard molds can be used and their is no customization.

A standard sword with a bronze pommel in the shape of a wolf, 5 gold

A standard mold can be used and the craftsman can make he pommel by hand

A standard sword with an imperial style crosspiece, 10 gold

The craftsman can use a standard mold for the blade but must make a new mould for the pommel

A Hunzar jungle style scimitar with  a Hunzar style pommel and crosspiece, 20 gold

The bronzer will have to make all new molds and will need to consider the balance and mix of metals for this bizarre weapon.

Hiring Help

Hiring some men to travel with you and protect your back is a costly venture.

To hire a standard man whose stats are all zero (except the usual 6 endurance) will cost 1 gold per week.

They will have their own food and camping supplies.

If they are expected to fight more than once per week they may ask for an additional gold piece per fight per week.

The will have one weapon each and 3 pieces of armour.

The hero may buy them additional weapons and armour which they will use during their employment which will be returned when their contract is completed.

Usually these people will be hired in groups. This means that if one of them dies the heroes may not "loot their corpse" the other men in the group will either distribute their belongings or take them to sell and give the proceeds to the dead mans family.

At least they will usually tell the heroes that that is their plan.

To hire anyone with better stats than the average man is a costly process and will often involve hiring from one of the mercenary companies found in Stroh Branoch.

Some Thoughts on Lairs

Was doing a bit of reading yesterday (Where do we find the time?) on the state of D&D in 5e.
I will preface this article with something you may not know from the tone of the site.

I love D&D.
I'll just put that out there along with the fact that I think 5e has the potential to be the best system since the Cyclopedia.
Do the math, look yourself square in the eye, face some hard truths and you'll agree, the Cyclopedia was the best flavor of D&D every produced. If it had been supported in the same way as the boxed sets in the 80's it would never have gone away (instead of being viewed as a gateway drug to "Real D&D")

Today I want to talk about Lairs.
For the last year or so I've been hearing alot of talk about the 5 Room Dungeon, and with 5th edition alot of talk about Lairs, encounters, and experience point Math.

I know these longer rambling posts tend to get skipped over a lot so I'll just put the main point up front here.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery is built from the ground up for "Lair" Encounters.

Those of you who know what that means will be interested enough to read on. For those of you who don't, in a nutshell "Lairs" represent the way people have been playing D&D all along if the DM is doing their job right and everyone is having fun.

History time, skip to the heading about "Lairs in Lair" if you already agree.

Go to your first edition handbooks, look in the Dms guide for how to make up your own Dungeon. Remember back to how we thought of "Dungeons" way back in the day. Not any particular published dungeon but that one that we all have striven for, the one we read about in the comic book ads for Dungeons and Dragons, the ones we imagined when we read the rules for Torch Duration, and when buying Iron Rations.

The massive sprawling, multilevel monster dungeon, where players went in level one, fought enough 1 hd monsters to level up, then went to level 2, fought enough 2hd monsters to get up to level 2 and so on.

Each level increasing in size to have enough encounters to level up again, with parts being added on periodically to keep things "fresh", wandering monster tables, "to keep you from wasting time", 

Huge randomly generated monstrosities with encounters in "30%" of the rooms, oh and don't forget to map everything, even in that massive 70% of barren nothingness or your party will become "lost".

We all dreamed of playing or running one of these behemoths, but the fact is, if we ever sat down to actually play it, it always came off a little pretty poor, unless the Dm really did his job.

And what was that?

In the huge warren of a dungeon you find a door, opening it you find a pile of bedding, a monster is about! Now that the players are on their toes they enter one of the two doors leading from this room, It's a cave with 3 orcs sitting over a cook-pot, interesting,

They kill the orcs, find that the pot doesn't contain anything and so go back and go through the other door, Here they find a fourth orc, about to butcher some poor adventurer for the stew pot. The kill the orc and question the adventurer. 

This brave knight had been on a quest to discover the great lost sword of whosiwhatsit, held by a brave knight venturing here to kill an evil cleric who's run off with the churches jewels. 

Careful searching of the rooms reveals a few coins and a letter from said cleric saying to meet him at the usual place by the well. Wait a minute there was a well just outside this door says one of the players. So they wait, kill the cleric but he does not have the treasure. They follow his trail around the corner to another grouop of rooms.

These rooms are clearly an evil temple, Finding a secret passage near the altar they brave their way to the inner sanctum, narrowly avoiding a fiendish pit trap in the dark.

In the inner sanctum they accidentally release a fiendish devil fromt he pits whom the evil cleric worshiped. 

Luckily they discover the magic circle in the floor which protects them while their cleric using a chalice found in the stolen churches treasure, banishes the demon.

The NPC gathers up his churches belongings, there is of course plenty left over for the players.

They killed some orcs, a mid level evil cleric, and even defeated a minor demon, depending on the system they will get xp for the gold or avoiding the pit trap as well. Not a bad haul.

They got to figure out some clues and the whole string of encounters was wrapped up in a single night, an accomplishment.

What they just defeated was a 5 room dungeon, or what could be considered the Lair of an eveil cleric and his minions. Just because it happened int he middle of a sprawling megadungeon does not change it one bit.

Now say you start that story off with an hour of wandering monster rolls, mapping endless empty corridors, tracking torches and rations on your character sheet, and then do the same thing on the way out.

Would that make it more or less fun? A good Dm would have handwaved all the bit at the beginning and the end saying "You are now at the place you left off last time", and at the end he would handwave again saying "you make it back to town safely".

All well made Mega dungeons are really just a series of  "Lairs" or 5 room dungeons strung together along a theme. The "dungeon" was originally just an easy way to get right to the adventure without having to write alot of backstory why the characters would be encountering this band of orcs and a cleric, "They're in the Dungeon" is all they needed. If this happened in the wild on a road the Dm would have to do alot of story crafting, once it's in a dungeon it's all readily accepted by the players.

Look at all the original modules, you would get a wilderness map which players would tromp through to make the trip to the dungeon more interesting (each dungeon does need a bit of history and backstory) but when you got there it would be a tower with 3 levels with 10 rooms each, half of which were empty, or to look at it another way, three 5 room dungeons each one harder than the next.

Lairs in Lair

In Lair of Sword and Sorcery the players all gather together and play a "Scenario". Every scenario takes place in a "Lair". The lair is laid out on the Demonboard, either all at once (for a "Skirmish" type scenario, ie a pitched battle between two groups) or one room at a time for a "Blind" Lair.

The Demonboard is a fixed size, no single Lair may be larger than the Demonboard.(22x28 squares).

At the end of one Lair they may find the entrance to another but all the action for this lair will occur on this one Demonboard.

The main difference between Lair of Sword & Sorcery and other Roleplaying games is that each Lair has an accompannying scenario which states some basic rules for this Lair (the same Lair may have different a different scenario if the players return to it however)

Each Lair must have the following things:

Scenario Objective:

This is what the players need to do to "Beat" the Lair. They may know the objective when they begin or it may be a secret which they have to discover within the lair.

Reward:

The lair must have a reward for beating it. If the Objective is killing the evil cleric the reward could be something simple like recieving his treasure. Or it may be something less tangible like recieving a blessing from the noble knight they saved, or they may be allowed to stay at his temple and recieve training, or the temple may owe them a favour to be cashed in later.

Sometimes the Reward could be something as simple as not recieving the punishment for failing, which is a reward in itself.

Punishment:

If the characters are not able to defeat the Lair then there will be a Punishment. This is a huge difference between Lair and other Roleplaying games. In your typical dungeon if you don't feel like going in the dank tunnel under the altar to see what's inside you can just leave. Or you can decide to go back to town, get a couple of strong lads and healing potions and come back to defeat the demon.

There is little sense of urgency to pressing forward in the dungeon.

In Lair things are different.

The Players are always in a Lair for a reason. The backstory will usually provide this but the punishment rule reinforces the urgency of the dungeon. The evil cleric may have kidnapped the children of the town and will sacrifice them if the players are not able to stop him first.

The punishment also need not be that dire.

In the evil cleric example above if the players decide to leave the lair without pushing on into the passage beneath the altar the next time they return they will find the passage has been entered by someone else, likely other orcs, and stripped of it's treasure, meaning the Knights temple will never recover their sacred relics. In this case the punishment was the lack of any reward, which is acceptable, though the temple may be a little standoffish to them in the future.

Special Feature:

Every Lair is Sword and Sorcery needs a special feature.

It will usually be tied into the Scenario Objective and possible the reward and punishment as well.

It is the mighty set piece of the Lair and will not have appeared in any Lair before (thought it may be reused later but not as a special feature). Every special feature requires rules for the players to interact with it.

In the Evil Cleric example the Special feature may be the "summoning room" that they enter. The rules would be that when any player first touches the circle the demon is summoned (demons are not special features, the room itself is). Another rule would be that the demon cannot enter the circle so the players are "safe" while there.

The players would not be told this when entering the room, finding out the special features rules is the biggest fun of the game.

Special features may be an incredibly devious trap or lock with many levers to pull, may be a special raised platform the final enemy hides upon dumping boiling oil on the players, a special item, a special creature, anything which the players have not encountered before. 

Ideally the rest of the Lair will be built around and lead up to the special feature.

By specifically stating that each Lair must have a special feature and that each special feature must have rules made up pertaining to it it actually takes a lot of work off of the Demonlord (DM in Lair parlance). Because frankly each dungeon should have something special, something unique, It doesn't have to be fantastically original, the oil dropping example above shows that a simple difference, with some rules attached to it will bring an ordinary encounter up to an epic battle with the players have to come up with whole new strategies to accomplish what would ordinarily be a straight up fight.

Using these in other games

These basic rules, Objective, reward, punishment, and special feature, can be used in any encounter, dungeon or lair in any game system you like. Simply applying these strategies when building your own D&D encounters make the sometimes tedious and boring task of crafting encounters fun again, and the reward punishment system may breathe new life into a campaign grown stale.

Please leave any Comments you may have positive or Negative I'd love to hear what you all think.

~Ripley

What is Lair of Sword and Sorcery?

More content has been added to the "About the Game" section, formerly the "Spirit of Kartharka" section.
It can be found by clicking the big "About the Game" button on the left hand side of the Site,
or you can follow this link: About the Game
Culled from the first issue of the game it gives newcomers more of an idea of what Lair is all about.

~Ripley

The birth of Kartharka

I've just posted a new Article on the lair site appearing from Issue 1.
To read "The birth of Kartharka" head to the "Articles of Interest" section at the bottom of the menu on the left hand side of the site and click on "The birth of Kartharka".
You can also follow this link Birth of Kartharka
The articles section is a new one to keep a permanent list of important articles and posts for visitors to the site.

~Ripley