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.

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

New Story Ready to Go! (spoilers don't read if you're a player)

I've got this story Ready to go. It's title for the Heroes sake is Pots!, so as not to give too much away.
That means I finally get to finish off the burrower story as this one's all ready to go. This one is much bigger with some of that fancy "role-playing" stuff we've all heard so much about.
It's got a main story chain and a background story chain just in case they're not interested, plus enough Waytown background so the players can have a bit of fun if they don't bite on the hook.
Here you get the first view of the templates I'm using to create all the new scenarios, some of them only take 10 minutes to set up. an encounter takes no time at all to set up in Lair.

For all of you following along you'll know that this means that the Blind Burrower issue must be following close behind.

It'll be set up (most likely) in a more standard format to other role playing game with Pots! being the first published lair using these new templates.

Exciting times for fans of Lair.

There is a lot of evil sorcery craziness in Pots! ans will lead the way for a sorcery system for the game. We also have a budding sorcerer in the group who will pave the way for all of you. Wish them luck!

~Ripley

Home game...

For those of you in my home game, This next story is fantastic! The demon boards aren't as intricate but the contents are chock full of adventure! And for those of you that really like the multilevel lairs there's a couple of those too in here.

My new templates work great! I'm going to post them after making a few updates. Need to add few things (movement and enemy rank!) as well as moving around a few things from the back to the front and vice versa.

But the main objective of the sheets still holds up. Create a lair in an hour, complete with balanced encounters, multilevel areas, unique areas, enemies and items. Oh and they all have to fit into a larger campaign and each "Lair" must be completely optional to allow players the ability to roam free.

This last bit is really helped out with the story worksheet. Worked great on the first try! I wish I had made these kind of templates up back in my Call of Cthulhu days, would have saved a lot of time.

Once I complete this next batch of Lairs I'll put the files up for download, and I think you'll really like them.

Also for all you OSR people, they could be fairly easily adapted for your own uses. I'll post a version with OSR stat blocks if you guys request it.

May Saturday find you all drenched to the elbows in your enemies blood, or doing yard work, whatever.

~Ripley

How fancy should my Demonboard be?

Just another quick morning post.
More adventures in the Sword and Sorcery land of Kartharka are on the way!
Work on the campaign continues and I hope to get a few more of the campaign update articles up later today (fingers crossed!)
Work also continues on my own game, the roughs are in place, the plots are laid out, the enemies are, so so worked out (it would be quicker if I had already finished the veteran issue as their is a lot of stuff in there on the campaign side of things).
At the moment I have enough that I could wing it if neccessary but should have plenty of time to get everything together for next week.
If I had to calculate xp and treasure I'd be alot farther behind though....
I find myself a little torn when working on scenarios because:

1. I want them to be runnable by anyone with simple at hand materials, with only a few moments notice
2. But I also want them to be awesome, I've got a great pile of blocks, toys, and parts to pull from as well as lots of paints and brushes and a leaning towards such things so I want to do them up in high style!

I think in the end I'm going to end up actually running something that's in between, publishing the version that is most easily run by anyone in the books, and going back after and really prettying up the scenario set pieces for publishing on the website.

I don't want people to get the wrong idea that Lair is about gorgeous and lavish 3d dungeons, quite the opposite, the attitude we actually play with is more like pour out the toybox grab whatever works and get on with the scenario so the players can have fun.

I would suggest this for beginning players of Lair:

First just mark out the grid on some bristol board, do the same on for the card walls, don't bother with painting them just tape them together and get on with the game.

If you find yourself using it alot then think about upgrading to the painted version, It takes a bit more time but looks great.

Then as time goes by start making your demonblocks in batches, maybe 10 at a time. Use them for pillars, furniture, steps, and other features.

As you add more demon blocks to your collection you can start using them for walls as well, I used all card walls for a while and began swapping out more card walls for demonblocks as my collection grew. I love the look of the walls more than the blocks to be honest but the blocks do stay in place better so I bow to my players in that aspect.

More on the campaign and additional rules later today.
~Ripley

Campaign design underway...

Crafting the first linked set of Scenarios for Lair and it's going splendidly.
As we see in the combat rules each scenario needs certain things like: objective, reward, punishment, and special features.
First I write about a pager of notes in a notebook detailing the whole plot.
1 page should be more than enough...
Then I quickly sketch maps detailing roughly how many "rooms" are in each scenario and how they are connected.
Then I quickly turn my notes into a special feature for the scenario.
The special feature will usually suggest a few special places, enemies, and items to populate the place.
I then look to the Ranking system from the upcoming Veteran issue to balance the encounters.
If my special feature or number of combats seem too difficult for the heroes, or if I want to use more enemies than the party number would allow, I will make some followers available to enter the Lair with them.
So last night I sat down, wrote my notes, sketched my maps and wrote up the special features of the first scenario. Took a couple of hours.
Not bad.
I should be able to finish the further special objectives tonight.
I am running into some interesting things in the first one because it takes place in a forest.
I have a few ideas how to represent this using card walls or dungeon blocks but will also likely break out some construction paper to make "trees".
More coming soon!
~Ripley

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