Cormyr Campaign: Session 2

Cast of Characters:

 

Sir Bryndan Lowman of White Forks - Human, Fighter, 1st level.  A hedge knight from the nation of Cormyr.  His family squandered away all of his lands and holdings so all he has left is his title.

Kylar - Elf, Ranger, 1st level

Clangar - Dwarf, Fighter/Cleric, 1st level

Sylana - Human, female, Bard, 1st level

Cory - Elf, Cleric/Mage, 1st level

 

This session picked up right where the first left off.  The party just managed to dispatch a group of goblins in the stonelands who attempted to ambush them on a small trail.  It was late afternoon on Mirtul 8th, and the party decided to set camp there at the ambush point.  Myst and Maverick decided to head back to Tilverton to do some information gathering (there players were not present due to real life stuff.)  At this point, the party consisted of Sir Bryndan, Kylar, Clangar, and Sylana.

 

During the night, Clangar was on watch and heard the sound of a screaming girl off in the distance.  He woke the party up, and Kylar set out to investigate while the others prepared their gear.  About 200 yards away from the camp, Kylar caught glimpse of 4 human bandits on horseback pursuing a girl in tattered rags.  He engaged the riders and within a few rounds was soon met with the rest of the party.  The non-humans used the pitch black darkness to their advantage against the human bandits taking them out from a distance, while Sylana moved up to aid the girl.  After dispatching the riders, the girl revealed that she had been a slave taken captive by the Red Hand bandits, but had managed to escape.  The bandits managed to track her down finally and were about to capture her to return her to their camp when the party came along.  She mentioned that there were several other slaves at the bandit camp including her 8 year old brother.  After some questioning, specifically if she knew of the tunnel location into the Tilverton sewer network from the Stonelands, they agreed to aid her.

 

Kylar set out that night to locate and scout the bandit camp while the rest of the party remained behind to question one of the bandits they'd taken captive during the encounter.  Kylar found the camp, which sat in a circular depression about 10 feet deep.  After taking out a couple of the camp guards, and nearly losing his life in the process, the bandits were alerted to his presence.  Kylar used his infravision as a tactic against the human's inability to see in the dark, jumping from boulder to boulder hiding (these large mishapen boulders are scattered throughout the Stonelands) and attempting to make a tactical retreat.  Eventually he heard the party coming behind him and pointed them in the direction of the camp.

 

Bryndan charged in with his horse, while Kylar moved back to the lip of the depression.  He was able to identify one of the bandits who seemed to be ordering the others around during the chaos.  He took a shot at the leader from his vantage point, taking him out with a massive arrow strike.  The bandits were thrown into chaos.  Sylana moved along the edge of the camp, with the slave girl in tow.  Clangar moved into the camp on foot behind Bryndan.  

 

As the party moved in to attack, the noticed a large ogre cresting the far side of the depression.  He charged in on Bryndan and Clangar came to aid.  The two fought the ogre for most of the battle, while the bandits surrounded them attacking as well.  Kylar dispatched several bandits and identified a mage within the camp standing behind a tent.  He moved along the outer edge of the depression until he got line of sight with the mage, who was unaware of his presence.  Finally the mage saw Kylar coming along, and cast a grease spell in the area.  Oddly enough the ogre disappeared in thin air.  Kylar took a shot and managed to kill the mage.  Sylana moved in behind near the mage and was attacked by a bandit, who dispatched her.  After the battle she was revived by Clangar.

 

The remaining bandits were easily taken out, while Clangar decided to keep one alive for questioning.  After defeating the bandits, the party released the captives and the slave girl was reunited with her brother.  Among the captives was an elf who identified himself as Cory.  The party measured him up figuring him to be a magic user of some sort, and after a bit, asked if he'd be willing to join them to which he agreed.  The party spent the rest of the night looting the bandits and seeing that the slaves were given food and comfort. 

 

Clangar searched the bandit leader's tent and discovered the journal of a now deceased cleric of Lathander from Tilverton.  In the last journal entry, the cleric had fallen victim to a mortal wound from a gnoll's spear.  In the entry he identified that he and his adventuring party had been in the Stonelands on a mission of great urgency.  They were seeking out a horn, being carried under the guise of a merchant caravan with the standard of a red sun emblazoned on the side of the crates.  The cleric mentioned that the horn was bound for Tilverton to be delivered to a death cult devoted to the dead god, Myrkul.  The horn would give the cult the power to raise the dead, which the cult intended to use to raze the city.

 

The party put things together realizing that the man who hired them was the merchant in question, which explained his urgent desire to retrieve his wares (since they contained this horn.)  The party knew from the previous session, that the last known location of the crate was Tilverton, and in fact were searching for a way into the sewers from the Stonelands to intercept it on its way out.  They questioned one of the bandits and decided it best to take him with them at first light, as he knew the location of the sewer tunnel entrance from the Stonelands.  He warned them they'd need gold to get in because "Lady Alundra controlled the entry point."

 

The next morning at first light, the party prepared a cart for the now freed slaves, and gave them supplies including the bandit weapons.  Bryndan instructed them to head for Griffon's Hill where they could gain aid from a knight he knew there.  The party set off from the camp, with the captured bandit in tow, on horseback headed to the tunnel.  After a few hours of travel, they found the tunnel entrance.  Upon entering they noticed a large chamber with two life-sized stone statues, one of a paladin in full livery with his sword coming down to strike, and the other depicting a mage in the midst of casting a spell of some sort.  They approached carefully, and entered a more narrow tunnel where they saw a closed portculis sealing the tunnel, and a door in the wall to the tunnel.  They knocked on the door and were greeted by a blind man.  After some rather poor haggling, the blind man agreed to let them pass in exchange for 200 gold pieces.  Clangar advocated smashing the man's head in and prying the portcilus loose, but the party managed to calm him.  They paid the blind man the coin, and he raised the portculis to allow the party to pass.

 

Thus the session ended.

 

 

Reflections on the Second Session:

 

One of my players decided to make a new character entirely.  His other character had been captured by the Rogues of Tilverton in the first session, and although we managed to play out his escape, we thought it best to start him with another character.  There were several reasons for this, not the least of which being mounting frustration at the table from the other players with this particular player's style, which is to often split from the party and do his own thing.  In an effort to keep everyone's minds on the game and adventure itself, I thought it best if he just create a new character.  So Solaris has gone on to be NPC material while Cory the elven cleric/mage enters the picture.  After having to sit out most of the first session and most of this one even, due to being captured, I think the player got the message that his actions can have consequences as a player, and he might not get to enjoy the fun by splitting off on his own.

 

I introduced the players to the d30 rule, that being once per session they can opt to roll the d30 for any game activity not counting character creation/leveling.  Kylar's player cleverly looked for the bandit camp leader, and hit him with an arrow, to which he picked up the d30 to roll for damage, knocking him for 24 points.  That's 3 times as much as a normal arrow will produce.  It was quite epic.  The mage used an Improved Phantasmal Force to produce an ogre to distract the party while the bandits attacked.  None of the party members managed to realize this, even after Clangar rolled a d30 for damage against the ogre, which would have effectively killed the real thing, they never thought to disbelieve the illusion.  The mage spent most of the battle behind cover to maintain concentration on the illusion.

 

Overall, I thought the session went very well.  The players were engaged throughout, and anxious to keep playing.  They never broke their focus on the game at all, which was quite surprising for this group.  There were some close calls, but I was particularly impressed with the way they handled the bandit camp.  Kylar's player did exceptionally well, and was rewarded as such with some additional xp.  Now, the party is entering the long winding tunnel system leading into the sewers of Tilverton, and who knows what nasties they'll find in there...but they'll know soon enough.

Dreadrock Level 1-2 is Coming...Soon

I've been pretty busy the past couple of weeks, but I have not forgotten about Dreadrock. I have sections 1-2 and 1-3 mapped out already. I am currently working on keying 1-2, which is taking a bit because of the density of the rooms. There must be 50 rooms in this one, many of which are simply empty, but the map is big, so it's taking me a little longer to get it done.

This quadrant will be a bit more gonzo than 1-1, and will feature a scavenger hunt of sorts including finding a dead dwarven adventurer, a demonic looking stone golem, and a hobgoblin king. Oh yeah, there are Carrion Crawlers too...or whatever the OSRIC term for them is...carcass creepers I believe. But it is coming, and very soon. Probably within the next week. I'm currently prepping for my monthly table top Cormyr AD&D 2e campaign, which I'm running tomorrow night. But for those curious, no I haven't forgotten Dreadrock, it's just taking a little longer than I'd hoped. Soon though...very soon.

Friday Links Around the OSRsphere

Some interesting links from the past week or so from around the OSRsphere.

 

Raggi lists out a set of submission guidelines for creators looking to submit adventure material for LotFP.

 

Tim posted a blog marathon asking gamers to show off their dice (which I participated in as well.)  Lots of cool dice out there.

 

GenCon is in full swing, and the OSR has a booth.  If you're at the Con, swing by booth 1541 and have a look at some old school greatness.

 

Trollsmyth has been working up an excellent series of posts on hexmapping.

 

There's a pretty interesting an in-depth examination of traps and their uses/design over on BX/Blackrazor

 

Jeff Rients has a great article with some advice on running an OSR game at your FLGS.

 

Not to toot my own horn, but I spent a couple of days this week working up a very rules lite weird fantasy RPG in pocketmod format similar to the layout used for Weird West.  Check it out and download it for free.

Inking Dice: A Rite of Passage?

Yesterday, Tim over at Gothridge Manor had a great marathon post up calling for gamers to show their dice. I posted a pic I took of a few of my own a while back in response. Yesterday when I got home I was pleasantly surprised to find my latest set of Gamescience dice I'd ordered had arrived a little earlier than I anticipated.

I ordered these dice uninked so I could do it myself. Back in the day, when you bought your D&D boxed set, these same dice were included along with a crayon to color the numbers in.

It's been a while since I colored my own, and the first set of gamescience dice I ordered came inked (I know...heresy.) I found this little orange set online for dirt cheap and couldn't resist.  I spent about 45 minutes or so last night meticulously inking them with my ultra-fine sharpie pen. Having done so for the first time in many years, I was happy to have accomplished this rite of passage, or at least what I perceive to be a sort of rite of passage in the OSR.

Dice are important instruments to the table top gamer.  Many of us remember our first set of dice. Some like me still own their first dice set and still use them, years later, worn edges and all.  Like some sort of shaman casting runes, we become attached to dice. Sure, many of us, if not most, own hundreds of dice, but we all have our favorites.

This probably sounds insane to the uninitiated, but there is something to be said about the connection that is established between your dice and yourself when you ink them on your own. It's the nerd equivalent of a jedi constructing his own lightsaber. Having experienced this again, I can say now, that where these little orange dice arrived as a set of blank ugly pieces of plastic, after inking them, I look at them differently. The sort of personalization that comes with inking dice changes this, I believe. They are no longer just a set of brutally ugly orange dice. They are my dice now.

It is my belief that every old school gamer, or anyone interested in claiming themself as such, go through this ritual. Yes, this is somewhat hyperbolic, but true nonetheless. At least, that's how I feel about it anyway.

Gaslite RPG is Here - Pocketmod Download

Gaslite RPG is a weird, fantastic RPG where mutants roam the streets, assassins and rogues skulk in shadowy alleys, airships float along the city skyline, and wizards strike deals with ancient demonic forces.  Quite simply, Gaslite is whatever you want it to be.  It is an intentionally rules lite system designed to be limited only by the imagination of the GM and his players.

This game is presented in pocketmod format similar to Stuart Robertson's Weird West, and is available for you for free to download, print, and share.  If there is significant interest in this, I'll include further supplements in pocketmod format including more spells, a monster list, and an urban setting for the game.  Those items may require a small contribution to download, but the basic system itself is, and will remain, free.  I hope you enjoy.



Download the printable PDF pocketmod version of Gaslite RPG here.
Download the digital friendly version here. 

Folding instructions for the pocketmod version can be found here.

Gas-Lite RPG - Weird Science Fantasy Roleplay

What did you do at work today?  Me? I spent my day at work designing an incredibly rules light RPG (the title is an intentional pun) I'm calling Gas-Lite. It's designed as a weird fantasy game with some steampunk elements thrown in. There are basic rules for three classes: Explorer, Sorcerer, and Technologist.  I also developed some really light rules for combat, some weapons, and a few spells to get those sorcerers right in the mix.

Still not sure how I want to go about presenting it. I would like to make it a small book somewhat in the scope of Weird West, but sadly I think I would have to scale back some of what I have already (which isn't a lot as it is.)  Then again, I might just post the rules here on the blog and let people click that little pdf button on the bottom to print copies out.  I'm going to edit what I have tonight, and hopefully post it up this evening. If there is significant interest, I may further develop certain areas like added spells, creatures of myth, airships, and possibly a campaign setting. 

The game itself is bare bones, but there are significant options to customize it to any style game be it high fantasy, sci-fi, or horror. Personally, I am looking at it as a combination with more of a focus on the weird.  We'll see, but I'm anxious to get input.

**EDIT** - Gaslite is now here in 2 forms: A mini pocketmod version for printing and a digital version for convenient viewing on your mobile device/computer.

Download the printable PDF pocketmod version of Gaslite RPG here.
Download the digital friendly version here. 

Folding instructions for the pocketmod version can be found here.

**EDIT** Thanks for the heads-up there Ohio. Name of the project is Gas-Lite as of now.

Share Your Dice

Tim over at Gothridge Manor posted an entry asking other gamers to post their dice in a "show me your dice" marathon. Here's a pic of some of mine.  My d30, a couple of 20 sided d10s, and some of my gamescience dice.

Fight On! #2 Available for Free for a Limited Time

Thanks to There's Dungeons Down Under for the head's up. Fight On! issue 2 is available for free for a limited time so head on over to Lulu and get it while you can.

Table of Contents:
Dedication to Dave Arneson…………………………….1
The Tower of Birds (Gabor Lux)………………………..3
The Devil’s in the Details (Kesher)……………………....6
The Penguin as Player Character (Patrick Farley)………...8
The Dragon-Blooded (Calithena)……………………….12
Knights & Knaves (Karen Collins)……………………...13
The Monster Machine (Vincent Baker)…………………14
The Darkness Beneath (Hackman)…………………..….19
Tables for Fables (Age of Fable)……………………..…26
The Seven Swords (Jacob “Badelaire” Boucher)……...…27
Shields Shall Be Splintered (J. Brian Murphy)………...…28
Panicked Mounts and Falls (Geoffrey O. Dale)…………30
The Entourage Approach (David Bowman)………….…31
Ye Olde Magic Shoppe (Jeff Rients)……………………32
Unusual & Magical Spirits (Max Davenport)……………35
Random Inn Generator (James Edward Raggi IV)…...…36
Adventure Flowchart (Dan Eldredge)………….……….44
Education of a Magic User (Douglas Cox)…………...…45
The Outdoor Map (James Maliszewski)……………...…46
The Wilderness Architect (Victor Raymond)………...…52
Barbarian Magic Items (Baz Blatt)…………………...…58
Handgonnes & Cannons (L. William Schneider)……..…59
The First Dungeon Adventure (Greg Svenson)……...…60
Dave Arneson, Blackmoor, & Me! (Robert Lionheart)…62
Interview with Dave Arneson………………………..…63
The Red Gem of High Cartography (Edsan)………...…64
The Magic of Mistworld (Steve Marsh)…………………82
Oceanian Legends (Del L. Beaudry)………………….…84
Finish the City! (Andrew Reyes)…………………...……86
Creepies & Crawlies (Jeff Rients)…………………….…87
Artifacts, Adjuncts, and Oddments (Gabor Lux)……..…88

Skype Gametable Dread Rock Game Recap

About a week ago I asked a few of the players in my group if they'd be interested in running a skype game using some type of virtual table top system, to which they expressed a lot of interest.  After testing out a few different free virtual table top programs, I eventually settled on Gametable.  I simply found it had the lowest learning curve, and was the easiest to use to me.  Last night was our first session.  I told the players I would like to use OSRIC for the game, to which most of them reacted positively.  One of my players, who had stated he would play earlier, decided to drop out once the notion of 1e AD&D came up.  He's an old school gamer, but is more interested in running newer stuff like Pathfinder.  He barely tolerates 2e in our regular table top game, and only does so because it gives us all a means to socialize, so when it came to going further back for a skype game, he simply wasn't interested.

 

My group is only mostly vaguely familiar with 1e.  We only played it for a brief time nearly 20 years ago before switching over to 2e.  I sent them the PDF of OSRIC, and we spent some time working on character creation, and then installed gametable with some added tiles and pogs, and we were off and running.  The party consisted of a human fighter, a half-orc fighter, a dwarf cleric, and a human magic user (which I was running as a NPC) all 1st level.  I was a bit concerned going into Dread Rock with only 4 characters, coupled with the fact that they didn't want to spend the time or money to get hirelings.  They are veteran players, however, and so they are mostly capable of making the right decisions in the dungeon environment in order to stay alive. 

 

It took a bit of time doing pre-game stuff combined with the fact that for some odd reason, gametable did not save the map I drew up of the part of the dungeon they were starting in, which was about 3 hours of pre-game work out the window.  Luckily the practice of laying out the environments and playing with the pogs wasn't a complete waste, as it allowed me to recreate the dungeon as they explored without too much delay.

 

As to the game itself, it didn't last long, as we got a late start before actually delving into the dungeon.  For those who may be familiar from downloading the first quadrant, the starting area in the dungeon is relatively empty and quiet.  This sort of fits to set the mood as further exploration results in more encounters and more danger.  They managed to get through a few empty rooms, before squaring off with a group of orcs in areas 3 and 4.  They also discovered a dead kobold on a torture rack in one of the rooms, so they know there are kobolds in the dungeon, but they don't know what their role in the ecology is just yet.  After slaying the 6 orcs, and looting them, they went into the hall where we stopped the session.  The next one will open up with a roll for a random encounter.

 

I liked a lot of what gametable had to offer.  I told them up front they'd need to map the dungeon out because as they moved from room to room, I was going to "fog" out the areas they'd been in previously and make them unviewable.  After a bit of exploring, it's easy to get lost in Dread Rock if you don't map it out well enough.  Laying out the area was quick and simple for the most part, and the players soon saw after moving around a few cooridors, how easy it could be to lose your frame of reference with the other areas being "fogged" back out. 

 

The program has some built in dice macros, but you have to make some of them up, which is easy enough.  I trust this group well enough to allow them to simply roll real dice at their computers and tell me their rolls.  Besides, we all like to roll real dice anyway right?  Gametable has some nice looking pogs built in for characters and monsters, but I made some custom pogs to add.  Installation is simple.  You just copy the image file into the pogs folder on Gametable in program files and you're good to go.

 

Overall we had a good time, and the group was really getting into exploring the dungeon and trying to discover its secrets.  I had a lot of fun running it as well.  I'm anxious to see how the group reacts to some of the more challenging sections of the dungeon specifically if they decide to free the kobolds who will aid them in overthrowing the orc tribe.  The plan right now is to play every two weeks on Sunday nights for a couple of hours, as that is when our schedules fit together best.  They are excited about playing again, and I'm even more excited about running the game.

Q&A with Freelance Wizards of the Coast Designer and Author Scott Fitzgerald Gray Part 2

Picking up where we left off, Mr. Gray and I discuss more gaming, world building, writing, and his new book "A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales."

Click here for Part 1 of the Q&A.

RC: So, being a freelance designer/editor, I'm sure you are involved in various projects here and there.  Can you tell us a little about some things you're working on right now?


SFG: I'm doing more editing than design work for Wizards right now, including having worked on the upcoming "Neverwinter Campaign Setting", "Heroes of the Feywild", and Logan Bonner's adventure for the D&D Open Championship at GenCon next month: "The Fires of Mount Hotenow". I was also one of the designers of "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium", which i think most people know was pulled from the schedule last year but has since reappeared (and is due out in September). As far as "right now" goes, you'll find that anybody doing work for Wizards has to stay mum on the topic, as we're not allowed to even discuss the broad strokes or titles of projects until those projects have appeared in the product catalogue.


RC: And in addition to editing/writing RPG material, you're also an author.  Your latest book, "A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales," is currently available.  Tell us a little about it, and how one could go about picking up a copy?

SFG: "A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales" is an epic-fantasy/sword-and-sorcery anthology that collects six short stories, a novella, and the eponymous short novel "A Prayer for Dead Kings". It's being published first as an ebook, and is live now on Amazon and Smashwords (and coming to Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and the other usual places in the next couple of weeks). The trade paperback edition should be available in late fall.


The book is one whose various pieces I've been working on for a while now (the novel "A Prayer for Dead Kings" actually started life as a film project more than ten years ago), and all the stories have strong connections to the legends and history of my own campaign world. However, it's not important to be of a gamer's frame of mind to enjoy the book, because you won't find any fingerprints of rules from one particular edition or another within it. Rather, the stories in "A Prayer for Dead Kings" try to capture the sense of heroic struggle that's always seemed to be the point of fantasy gaming for me -- the idea that in facing the challenges of a dark world, everyday characters are driven to take up the mantle of heroism. 


I personally think that the best fantasy fiction is that which comes with a huge helping of what Faulkner famously called the human heart in conflict with itself. "A Prayer for Dead Kings" is an attempt to try to nail down a balanced mix of epic-fantasy world building, sword-and-sorcery action, and real character story. In addition to the Amazon preview (which contains all of the first story in the book, "The Name of the Night"), Amazon is also carrying a free preview of the story "A Space Between", so people are welcome to check both out and tell me whether i've succeeded or not.


[Links:

The book at my site: http://insaneangel.com/insaneangel/Fiction/Books/PrayerForDeadKings.html
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005C2CKN6
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/72886

A Space Between: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051OR1FM





RC: I understand you've been rather adamant about assuring readers this is not gaming fiction, and I must say I agree.  I equate it more closely to sword and sorcery, which was truly the fictional genre of fantasy which inspired D&D, and thus future fantasy RPGs.  In terms of your fiction, which authors in the genre would you say have been your biggest influences?  What authors/books are you reading presently?


SFG:Thanks for that, and I think I'm mostly interested in just making sure that the label "gaming fiction" doesn't make people assume that the book is one thing as opposed to another. I think there's been some excellent fantasy fiction written under that rubric, but it's easy for fantasy fans to assume that gaming fiction is more about the world than the characters. For me, the fantasy fiction I love as a reader pushes to the limits in both directions, and so that's the same balance I try to find when I write.


As far as influences go, Tolkien is at the top of the list, as he is for many people lucky enough to make a living through fantasy. Although I've been known to talk about how "Lord of the Rings" isn't necessarily a great novel (in terms of the specific definitions of the kind of character story a novel tells), it's an extraordinary book nonetheless, and one that I reread every few years (most recently, last summer). I'm a huge fan of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, and I suspect it's pretty much impossible to attempt to write in the sword-and-sorcery genre without being influenced by both. In terms of fantasy authors who truly nail down the kind of character story i love, George R.R. Martin, Guy Gavriel Kay (particularly "Tigana" and the Sarantine Mosaic), and Mary Stewart (for her Merlin trilogy) have all been huge influences.


My fantasy reading list right now includes Martin's "The Mystery Knight" (in the "Warriors" anthology; it's part of the "Dunk and Egg" series of novellas that all Song of Ice and Fire fans should try to track down if they don't know them), a re-read of Howard's Kull stories, Jack Vance's Lyonesse series, and Michael Stackpole's "At the Queen's Command."



RC: In the stories in your book, your characters seem to face a lot of personal adversities and inner conflicts.  It's quite different than archetypical heroic fantasy, although I think we're seeing a lot more of these darker undertones starting to show up in the modern fantasy genre, which hearkens back to writers such as REH and Moorcock.  Why do you think we're starting to see a shift away from epic high fantasy in the vein of Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks back to a more gritty and darker version of the genre?


SFG: I think that as with all things, fantasy runs in cycles, so that on some level, it's simply the case that if everyone is writing X, readers will get tired of X eventually, which increases the appetite for Y and Z. Michael Moorcock has famously acknowledged Elric's inspiration as being at least in part  a negative reaction to Tolkien's vision of fantasy (or at least to the success of that vision). Beyond that, though, i think that much epic and high fantasy (especially in the Tolkien mode) concentrates on world-building to the exclusion of characters. And that's not to say that a series like Wheel of Time or Shannara doesn't have compelling characters, or that Jordan and Brooks can't write strong characters, because i think both series and authors do just fine in that department. But at the end of the day, the wondrous scope of the incredible worlds that all fantasists love to create can overwhelm a narrative if an author isn't careful.


I'm definitely not a literary scholar, but just from my own perspective, i make the obvious observation that fantasy is shifting toward dark and gritty because we live in fairly dark and gritty times. Each generation's fantasy reflects the aspirations and disillusionment that are dominant in the world at the time, i think. For instance, Tolkien writing about the rise of benevolent rulers to overthrow darkness was the perfect narrative for readers in the 60s and 70s looking for moral leadership from an increasingly corrupt political status quo. However, many readers of the current generation have grown so disillusioned with the political process that they no longer hold out any hope for a metaphorical return of the king. Thus, we embrace narratives like Martin's that reflect the chaos we feel threatening our world, and which focus on how the individual chooses to stand against that chaos, and on the way that every action, however small, has the potential to shift the precarious balance of life and death.



RC: You mentioned that a lot of the details of the setting of your book grew from your own campaign world.  How much world building did you do before actually writing the book?  And as far as the writing process goes for something like a novel, do you like to work with an outline, or do you have a general idea of what story you want to tell, and just start working on the first draft?


SFG: Short answer: A lot. However, it would be tough to quantify the specific number of hours that goes into the world building, simply because as an ongoing, organic project (as campaigns tend to be), it spins out over way too much time. (Every DM knows of what i speak...) A better way to look at it might be: If I dig into all the notes and outlining that underlies "A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales" (including specific backstory and details for the individual stories, plus the details of the larger world, the fall of Empire, et al, that the book reveals) it amounts to about 85,000 words. (The book itself is 135,000 words by comparison.)


I think I've kind of answered the second part of the question already: I outline like a maniac. I outline religiously. I love outlining, which I know puts me in a minority among long-form fiction writers. I know that everybody has their own way of working, and some writers like the vague-starting-point-and-here-I-go approach, and that's cool. For me, though, that approach never worked. When I teach writing, I do so from a perspective that we call "writing" is actually two very distinct and sometimes contradictory arts -- the art of words, and the art of story. Notes, world-building, and outlining is the art of story. It's the shaping of raw story on a level below the words that will eventually carry the story. For me, it's a distinct phase and process that's just as enjoyable (and in some ways, even more rewarding) than the writing of the words that come after.


RC: Yes, I remember reading a few articles some months ago by Jim Butcher in which he talked about writing being just as much a craft as it is an art.  I imagine it is very helpful to have notes from a campaign setting in which to reference, because much of the world building work has been done already.  I think that's why Steven Erikson has had the success he's had with his Malazan books, because the setting he used for his series was already well fleshed out beforehand as he used it as a RPG campaign setting.  How long would you say it took you to write the novel portion of your book from outline to first draft?


SFG: I think you're absolutely right, because it's not always just a matter of depth and details. A writer might spend endless hours putting together a fantasy world that still somehow never feels "real", because it's only ever existed in that writer's imagination. It's never been fully field tested. A well-wrought campaign world has lived in a number of different imaginations, all of which ultimately shape its authenticity in a kind of call-and-response process. A good campaign world feels real; it feels "lived in", because it truly is.


"A Prayer for Dead Kings" (the short novel that anchors the anthology) was about  a month-and-a-half from outline, with that month-and-a-half spread out over three months or so, in between other work and time spent editing the other sections of the book.



RC: And talking about world building, without giving much away from the book, tell us about the features of the world of "A Prayer for Dead Kings?"


SFG: Man, never ask a DM to talk about his campaign world... :-)


In the big-picture sense, "A Prayer for Dead Kings" (and all of my other epic-fantasy fiction) takes place in a world called Isheridar -- a supercontinental land mass that was conquered and held by the powerful high-magic Empire of the Lothelecan (literally, "The Commonwealth") for more than fifteen hundred years. The Lothelecan was nominally a benevolent empire (though plenty of its subject peoples had other opinions), and the height of its rule was a true golden age of peace, shared knowledge, and prosperity. Then some eighty-odd years before the present time frame (though the stories in the book aren't all in the present time frame), an arcane cataclysm destroyed the Imperial capital of Ulannor Mor, leaving a plain of ash and black glass in its wake three hundred leagues across. In the aftermath, the Empire shattered to become the Endlands -- a world standing on the brink of the end of days as the Lothelecan's former client states fall into strife and chaos. In some places, people try to cling to the benevolent Empire's model of peace and enfranchised rule. In others, folk vow to destroy all remaining remnants of the Empire's hated autocracy. In many areas, longstanding racial and political conflicts held in check by the Imperial peace have exploded once more into all-out war. In others, the unfettered spread of the most powerful magic (once held in check by the Empire and the Lotherasien, its Imperial Guard) threatens not only the political order but the balance of life and death itself.


The stories in "A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales" take place in one specific area of the overall world -- a subcontinental region of five great nations known as the Elder Kingdoms. The last lands to fall to Imperial dominion, the Elder Kingdoms maintained a fierce cultural independence that erupted to war in the aftermath of the fall of Empire. Structurally, the world of the Elder Kingdoms and Isheridar isn't all that different from a lot of other epic-fantasy worlds. Philosophically, however, Isheridar is a world in which the conflict will always be rooted in the struggles of individuals as they react to fate and circumstance -- not in the machinations of gods and ultra-powerful entities manipulating the flow of events from behind the scenes. The conflicts that fuel the stories in "A Prayer for Dead Kings" are driven by the complete and utter breakdown of civilization, against which characters must fight to determine what new order will ultimately take the place of the old.

From the promo preamble to the book:

"A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales" follows a disparate group of heroes and villains caught up with the dark history -- and darker destiny -- of nine weapons of ancient magic, lost to time and mind.
In the aftermath of the fall of Empire, magic is the ultimate force for tyranny and freedom in the lands of the Elder Kingdoms. Magic defines the line between right and wrong, life and death that compels countless characters to take up a mantle of heroism they never expected to wear.
However, in the world of the Endlands, even the tales of heroes seldom end as expected...

And oh, yeah -- we've got maps: http://www.scribd.com/doc/59748479/A-Prayer-for-Dead-Kings



RC: That map is quite amazing, as is the background of the setting.  Have you considered possibly using one of the open gaming licenses to publish your campaign setting for RPGs?  It sounds like not only an amazing backdrop for fiction, but a great place to play some D&D.


SFG: Thanks much. Publishing parts of the overall world (including the Elder Kingdoms) as a campaign setting has always been in the back of mind, as I suspect it is for anyone who creates a home-brew setting. However, though I'm very happy with the dramatic and fictional possibilities that the setting presents, I'm not sure that the Elder Kingdoms is all that profoundly different in a gaming context to the many other settings that are already out there. I suspect that for the time being at least, I'll probably try to focus on developing the setting in fiction. However, on a related note, my overall goal is to use the setting as a shared world at some point -- initially with a few writers I'm close to (some of whom are working on Endlands projects that will hopefully see the light of day soon), but eventually opening it up to a wider range of authors who might want to play there. It's not a well-known fact, but J.R.R. Tolkien's original conception of Middle-Earth was as a world where he would provide the cultural framework and others would eventually write the tales and songs built on that framework. And while I'm certainly no Tolkien, I love the idea of trying to do something with a fictional fantasy world that's akin to what the OGL did for D&D -- creating a common foundation on which others can build.


RC: Yes, that shared worlds concept is definitely an intruging one, for fiction and for gaming.  I'd like to touch on the self-publishing process.  Obviously markets like Kindle and Nook are changing the way readers can obtain content, and also putting a lot of the power back into the hands of the author and away from the big publishers and agents.  What are your thoughts on the self-publishing market in this regard?


SFG: I'm in full agreement with a lot of authors much more important and successful than i am -- there's never been a better time to be an author than right now. For my part, "A Prayer for Dead Kings" was a perfect example of a book that makes sense as an independently published work, because it's the sort of book that doesn't make sense in the traditional market. Anyone who knows anything will repeat the conventional wisdom that anthologies don't sell as well as novels, and that anthologies by a single author (as opposed to collections where you can maxmimize the name value of the contributors) sell even worse. People will tell you that somewhat dark, character-driven fantasy is a non-starter in the marketplace, and it does no good to point out the gazillion copies of A Song of Ice and Fire that put the lie to that. In short, this is a book that likely never would have been able to be published, marketed, or sold traditionally, and the fact that I can make it available to people is pretty cool to me.


The business of writing is in the midst of the most profound shakeup since Gutenberg, and it's great to be in a position to take advantage of that. Having said so, however, it's important to point out the "business" in that last sentence. Writing is difficult. Writing is wondrous. Writing is a holy thing for those of use crazy enough to pursue it, but publishing involves a whole hell of a lot more than just writing. If you're a writer looking to take advantage of the potential of the new marketplace and the leveling of the playing field, you stop being just a writer and start being a publisher. And this means understanding the publishing process -- the importance of having your work independently edited, of working with proofreaders, of having beta readers, of revision and more revision. It's now amazingly easy to publish a book that isn't ready to be published, but you do so at your peril. It's only slightly easier than it used to be to publish a book that is ready to be published, because the work involved in getting ready for publication hasn't changed. It's just that writers are now in a position where we can -- and, i think, must -- take responsibility for that work ourselves.


RC: I imagine that self-publishing also entails a greater amount of work for the author in terms of getting his/her novel/story collection out there to the masses.  In the past, and still today for those fortunate enough to get a book deal, that was handled by the publishers and agents.  How has your experience been promoting your work?  What tools and methods are you using to get your work out there for people?  Obviously there are things such as our interview here, but what else are you doing to promote it?


SFG: That all depends on who you compare to, and most authors (genre fiction authors in particular) will tell you that many publishers are doing a lot less promotional work than they used to. I've heard it said that the only authors who can depend entirely on their publisher or publicist to handle all their marketing are the ones already so famous that their publishers and publicists don't need to bother. Especially in fantasy, many authors recognize that even if they do have the benefit of an agent and/or a traditional publisher backing them up, a lot of the promotional legwork falls to them. One of the great things about electronic publishing and the web is that it gives every author the chance to put the ultimate marketing tool into the field -- the work itself. Amazon and Smashwords both offer prospective readers a free sample of any book, creating an immediate connection between authors and readers. For "A Prayer for Dead Kings", I've also posted an additional preview story ("A Space Between") to Amazon as a free ebook that's been downloaded a little over three thousand times in the last month and a half. 


For me, that's the ultimate marketing -- getting the work in front of people who might be interested in checking it out. I'm not really into the massive carpet-bombing philosophy of self-promotion, as I don't see a lot of point in trying to sway people who probably won't have an initial interest in the type of stories i'm telling. I'm looking more to find people in the same kind of crossover place wherein my fantasy fandom resides (background in gaming, loves the classic sword-and-sorcery tales, but also likes books with a strong foundation of character story, et al). I likewise don't believe in the promotion-as-con-job approach to marketing, wherein people sometimes try to oversell or ingratiate themselves in an effort to establish themselves. I try to make sure that my online presence (such as it is) has something of interest to people who might come looking for me, but an author's online presence should be built around honest dialogue, not trying to suck up to people. I enjoy talking about what i do and why I love it -- and at the end of the day, I hope and trust that some of the people who like the same things I do will be interested in checking out my work.


Doing interviews like this one are a big part of that, because even when gamers disagree with each other (as we so often do), I think many of us maintain a common shared experience of wonder. I've said this elsewhere (possibly even in this interview already...), but it bears repeating because it's important to me. My primary goal when i write fantasy fiction is to try to capture the sense of wonder that lies at the heart of the gaming experience for me. Not the mechanics or the lexicon or the subtle details (though all those things can be fun to work with), but the feeling of being caught up in world-shaking events bigger than you are, and of having to decide how to move forward when it seems like all hope is lost. That to me is what great fantasy is all about.
    

RC: Okay, one last question. In all of the years spent gaming as both a player and a GM, what is the most favorite moment you've experienced in a table top RPG?


SFG: Well, I'll need to seriously fudge my answer because I honestly don't think I can narrow it down. In no particular order: The first D&D I ever played, without dice or rules (talked about above). The first D&D I DMed for my daughters, twenty-three years later. Playing "Twilight's Peak" (Traveller), and feeling like I'd suddenly become a character in one of the best books I'd ever read. Coming up to the gates of the Keep on the Borderlands and engaging in real roleplaying for the very first time. The last time we stepped through the gates of the Tomb of Horrors, having suffered disastrous losses on our first incursions, and knowing we were going to beat Acererak this time or die trying. (Spoiler alert: PCs 1; demilich 0.)

The weird thing about gaming (and quite possibly the most annoying thing for non-gamers) is how many seemingly mundane campaign moments are still rich with meaning and memory so long after the fact. I'd be hard-pressed to accurately remember any specific day of my life in eleventh grade. But if I close my eyes, I can be back on a hillside overlooking the Caves of Chaos as the sun rises. I can be back in a bookshop in Regina starport, opening a battered volume marked with a mysterious octagon. I can be back at the entrance of that very first plain-paper, no rules dungeon that started it all for me.

RC: Spoken as a true gamer. Thanks for taking the time to let me pick your brain a bit, and I wish you continued success with your gaming projects as well as with the new book.

About Scott Fitzgerald Gray: 


Scott Fitzgerald Gray is a specially constructed biogenetic simulacrum built around an array of experimental consciousness-sharing techniques — a product of the finest minds of Canadian science until the grant money ran out. Accidentally set loose during an unauthorized midnight rave at the lab, the S.F. Gray entity is currently at large amongst an unsuspecting populace, where his work as an author, screenwriter, editor, RPG designer, and story editor for feature film keeps him off the streets.

More info on Scott and his work (some of it even occasionally truthful) can be found by reading between the lines at insaneangel.com.