Reality check

Realism, in an RPG, is mostly a mirage. Even if the dice could do more than broadly approximate probabilities in the real-world, most players – and GMs – would not want to subject their characters, for example, to the actual risks of death and injury in a medieval battle.

Some groups aim for genre emulation – heroic fantasy, anime, pulp, horror, and so on – as a touchstone. But genre is a literary and narrative construct, and so it can lead you to try and meet the expectations of the story rather than find the story by playing the world.

In the fictional worlds of the games I play, I aim for _verisimilitude_, the appearance or sense of being real, which comes through consistent and believable details that emerge from real-world experience and expectations. Verisimilitude creates the impression that things are plausible without trying to accurately simulate the precise parameters and probabilities of any given event, like a sword-swing or a hike on an icy mountain path.

So in pursuit of verisilimilitude, it's a good thing to check your expectations against the real world. Over the years, I've gone into dungeons (like the catacombs of Paris), castles, towers, and recently the bunker forts of the Atlantic Wall, and each time I'm reminded of some useful, and grounding, facts that we can apply to our fantasy adventuring sites.

Passages, chambers

Passages in fortifications tend to be narrow – and cold. In your dunqeon designs, the corridor space is often less than 5 feet across, and ceilings are low. 

In game terms, there's often no room to swing a blade. Slashing sword attacks and similar strikes will be at a severe disadvantage. Dungeons favor thrusting weapons.

And in a chamber, the roof is rarely flat. It's likely a vault or an arch. Even so, there's often not a lot of headspace, and you're unlikely to be able to manage a down strike, or shoot an arrow or thrown spear very far without hitting the ceiling.

In game, missile attacks are limited to close range.

And stairs

Towers are great settings, but stairs, especially circular stairs tend to be extremely steep and narrow. Climbing is tiring, and the risk of putting a foot wrong on the narrow steps is considerable if you're under pressure: attacked or in a hurry. 

In game, climbing stairs under pressure should require a dexterity or fatigue check. And defenders have an advantage striking down. Consider also how missiles and objects thrown down stairs can create serious hazards!

Darkness and light sources

The actual underground is absolutely dark. Without light, players are effectively blind, and almost blind a very short distance from the entrance.

In actual pre-modern contexts, lights such as lanterns, candles, lamps, rushlights, and torches, only effectively illuminate a few paces in advance, or a small chamber. And if they're knocked out of your hand, they're likely to go out instrantly.

On the other hand, even a dim light is visible to observers from a long way away – effectively in line of sight.

This means that the most effective scout will move forward in the dark towards an unknown light source, rather like Bilbo Baggins sneaking up on the trolls' bonfire.

Used well, the effects of undeground darkness and low light can help create a tense, engaging situation for players, and keep them on edge as they explore unknown spaces. But many games, including current editions of D&D, forestall these options by making many character backgrounds adept at seeing in the dark, or with magical or other options for lighting available throughout the dungeon complex. If you like your encounters to effectively play out in well-lit arenas, so be it. But to add back some of the danger and uncertainty of low-light conditions, consider restricting those "night vision" abilities to situations where there is at least minimal incidental light, or applying other restrictions (for instance, low-light vision is greyscale only).

And while we're at it, lamp oil is not the basis for some kind of medieval Molotov cocktail. Fire, on the other hand, is potentially a great hazard in structures built with wood, with many wall-hangings and flammable materials.

Ramshackle rules and roles

While tinkering with the free-form Fighting Fantasy rules, it strikes me that the simple trio of characteristics and basic tests can be adapted with relative ease and speed for a wide variety of worlds. Here's one such adaptation.

Ramshackle

The vast, labyrinthine structure, from Gormenghast to the Hayholt, from the citadel of Nessus to Mampang, is as important a part of fantasy as the underground dungeon. Here, I’ve adapted the Fighting Fantasy rules for playing in places that tower as far above as descend below, anything from immense ramshackle piles to sprawling cities.

Adventurers

Our adventurers use the attributes:

• ABILITY (like Skill, begins at 7)
• ENDURANCE (like Stamina, begins at 1d6+6)
• COURAGE (like Luck, begins at 1d6+6)

Courage works just like LUCK in FF. It represents bravery, resolve, and the character’s readiness to take — and dodge — extreme risks. Courage is worn down by every danger the character encounters, but restored by significant victories, small acts of grace and kindness, and fortuitous choices.

Character standing

One's position, or social standing, is a critical part of your background in the convoluted and sometimes archaic society of the ramshackle pile. 

Choose, with GM approval, or roll a die on the list and take +1 initial Courage for accepting the risk!

1 - Lowly: a scullion, scullery maid, or apprentice.
Staring equipment is shoddy or makeshift. Weapons such as a knife, club, hammer, or pick (1 damage only on.a roll of 1-2). Kitchen staff have access to plenty of provisions.

2 - Servant: footman, maid, valet, gatekeeper, guard.

Have access to workaday but sturdy equipment, Weapons such as dagger, staff, spear, halberd, if their duties permit. Guards may have common armor (1-2 chance of -1 damage).

3 - Staff: Senior or trained household retainers, such as butler, tutor, officer of the watch, falconer, artisan, cook, bailiff, apothecary. Equipment, suitable to the profession, and specialist weapons (swords, muskets).

4 - Household Companion: professionals, usually close to the family and part of the gentry, such as tutor, archivist, chaplain, sorcerer, astronomer, knight errant, duelist, surgeon. 

Well-made professional equipment and specialized weapons that require special skill (rapiers, great-swords, pistols, well-crafted armor).

5 - Scion; part of the ruling family or clan—noble, heir, gentry, magistrate.
Has access to the best equipment, weapons, and armor (improved damage or protection), and considerable personal wealth.

6 - Outsider: an explorer, wanderer, or even a monster; any individual from the outer world (if there is an outer world).
Equipment at the GMs approval, possibly rare, exotic, magical, or dangerous (or all of these).

Missions in the ramshackle halls

Through vast labyrinths, halls, cloisters, galleries, adventurers will find themselves on many missions, often driven by the needs and rituals of the place itself as much as the inhabitants, who are, after all, merely temporary.

Roll a die:

1 - Fetch

Go and recover for her ladyship a bunch of the lost copper roses from the ruined conservatory among the Ash Towers. Beware the argumentative and senile sphinxes that guard the approach.

2 - Hunt

Two wild hippogriffs are hunting in the western galleries. Track and eradicate or drive off the beasts. Ensure his lordship comes to no harm during the hunt.

3 - Deliver

Take this impossibly fragile crown constructed from the bones of extinct birdlife to the Catechist of Ethrain, in the Ninth Ward. Of course we can't tell you what she looks like: she wears a mask at all times, and it's impertinent to ask.

4 - Discover

Find for us a certain volume of impious prophecies concealed in the lower shelving of the Gaunt Archive. Never mind the literate rats or the mummified librarians; it's the crow-headed researchers you need to avoid.

5 - Guard

Secure the crumbling Oblique Tower from the intelligent were-ferrets and their demented pine-martin shock-troopers.

6 - Capture

Retrieve the phoenix tapestry the House of Kellin recklessly purloined from our drowned treasury. They have no idea what will happen if the wrong threads are tugged.

Lurking creatures

1 - Vermin

1–6 Giant Rats ABILITY 5 ENDURANCE 3

2 - Pests

1–3 Crow-folk ABILITY 6 ENDURANCE 4

3 - Prowler

1–2 Were-ferrets ABILITY 6 ENDURANCE 5

4 - Hazard

Ghouls ABILITY 7 ENDURANCE 6 (infected claws)

5 - Marauder

1–3 Gargoyles ABILITY 7 ENDURANCE 8

6 - Hunter

Hippogriff ABILITY 8 ENDURANCE 10 (flies, pounces for 4 damage on first attack)

The old, old world

It has been remarked that Arihmere, like the rest of the Harrowmarch, has a patchy and chaotic history, subject to the rise and fall of empires, and the whims of kings, raiders, and would-be conquerers. Sometimes, glimpses of an even older history can be caught, necessarily partial and sometimes contradictory, a patchwork of legends and surmise.

Elemental Age

Elementals, the titanic primal forces, carve the world out of the First Matter. Many of the more elaborate pantheons mark out their myths of origin at this time.

Serpent Age

The Eldest Serpents rule and squabble over a primitive world. Notable creatures of this era are massive and reptilian: wyrms, drakes, serpents, and so on.

Ourgarth Hunts

Honed to ferocity in the shadow of the greater wyrms, the Ourgarths (giants and trolls), worshippers of darkness and strength, march out to rule the world. They herd massive aurochs, stalked by dire wolves and long-toothed lions.

Fae Domains

The otherworldly and magical creatures collectively known as the fae overcome the ancient rule of the giants and carve out their own domains. The fae claim to have learned magic, amidst their endless quarreling, from the dreams of dragons, which merely shows how little they may be trusted on any matter.

Others say that spirits, severed from the Earth during the Elemental Age, creep back across the borders of the world with the help of the Fae.

Fae Wars

The normally feuding fae raise their war-banners against the Ourgarth, betraying an uneasy peace and beginning a long series of wars.

Circle Builders

Ancient human clans (now remembered only for their enigmatic stone circles) join the battle ranks of the fae in confronting the Ourgarth. Human claim to have learned magic from the fae, in return for the mastery of iron, but the fae assert that their arts were stolen.

Rise of Marass Grim

A Dark Lord of the fae betrays his lineage and joins with the giants. The simmering war turns into an epic confrontation.

Arak Amay

Loosely interpreted by all sides as "The Battle Lost by Winning". The Fae-Garth War ends in disaster. The fae shelter within their  fortified mounds and the deep forests, while the giants and trolls sulk in the Unterdaerk.

Elder Folk

The human survivors of all the above found kingdoms around the seas, river plains, and northern forests. They are later known as the Ellfolk.

What follows is loosely called history, from the austere and wolvish empires of Earduath and Kees, to the campaigns against the Reaver Thegns, to the various struggles of the Sundering Wars. Occasionally, a beast or monster out of one of the elder ages slithers into view, but only the dragons know the whole truth of what went before, and they are not inclined to share.

The Darkness in the North

The Withered Lands in the north-east are where Arihmere takes a dark turn, a region of wilderness and ruins held by the deadly and enigmatic Fell Lords, servants of a usurper who many believe was slain decades ago and revived by his scheming wife. These lands are the perfect setting for a gritty, or gothic, adventure, oriented towards exploration, treasure-hunting, and avoiding (or stumbling upon) old evils. The terrain would fit the open-ended possibilities of a "West Marches" style campaign or sequence of joined adventures. One could even imagine a campaign to reclaim a ruined manor and surrounding lands, in the style of "Darkest Dungeon".

Begin with an outpost:

• A mere cross-roads, with a broken and enigmatic sign-post
• A ruined manor-house, haboring grim secrets, and with a view of the cursed fens
• An embattled city, the last to be recaptured may be the first to fall to the Fell Lords
• An outpost around a ramshackle keep

Then there is the terrain. Start building and detailing the campaign map, situating both perils and rare treasures among the moors, fens, overgrown pathways, and tangled woods:

• Tottering watchtowers, where sly grimelocks and lumbering grolls lurk. These monsters raid the borderlands and return to hide behind a multitude of crude traps.
• Deep ravines (ideal for hiding treasure), infested by wyrms and naggs.
• Spider-haunted woods, the perfect retreat for a half-mad witch.
• Battlefields, haunted by sorrowful wraiths, where every unbroken blade has a name and a story.
• And the decaying piles that once belonged to any one of the Fell Lords...

As the characters uncover and meet more, you might introduce one of the Fell Lords as an antagonist or hovering threat. These are powerful characters, corrupted by their service to an undead tyrant, living an unnaturally extended life and warped by their service. Their ultimate number and identities are a matter of speculation, as are their plans and true powers, but the unique nature of each of the Fell Lords subtly informs his or her domain:

• The Necromancer: a sorcerer on the threshold of life and death, served by wraiths and shadows
• The Sword: a fearsome warrior, and the tyrant's most hated enforcer, served by faceless armored warriors
• The Intriguer: a spy and informer, served by crows and traitors
• The Rider: the swiftest of the Fell Lords, served by spectral horses and their swift riders
• The Artificer: the smith and craftsman, served by strange mechanisms and guarded by subtle traps
• The Poisoner: a master of assassination and poisons, in his service are vipers and spiders of all kinds
• The Hunter: a stalking terror, relentless in pursuit, served by wolves and other predators, mistress of the wild places
• The Equivocator: the Fell Lords' spiritual advisor and preacher, master of guile and deception (you will never guess who your real enemy is)
• The Prowler: a withered dwarf, the Fell Lords' tax-collector, greedy and clever, offering bribes with one hand and stealing with the other, and served by treasure hunters and ghouls

Ready to explore? Then grab some rules of your own or try the nameless d20 adventure game, and set to it.

Adventures in Garedaron Vale

Scenario seeds for adventures in Garedaron Vale

Roll a die, or simple select an interesting scenario element for motivating a journey into the valley of tombs.

A character:

1 - A houseless, and near penniless, nobleman, seeking to restore an old property.
2 - A seemingly pious cleric with a taste for forbidden magics.
3 - An (apparently) scatter-brained antiquarian with a garbled collection of notes and maps.
4 - A pompous merchant with designs on a derelict noble title.
5-6 Any combination of the above characters and motives.

Seeking:

1- A vile heirloom, such as a blood-stained blade.
2 - A piece of massive jewellery – only a occult scholar can decode the inlaid map.
3 - A key, to another tomb: always the return to the dark.
4 - A casket of mouldering scrolls.
5 - A neglected and inaccessible shrine – did we not mention the sacrifice?
6 - Discourse with one of the dead – try to keep it civil.

Complication:

1 - Respectable tomb-robbers, whose guild rules do not permit interlopers.
2- An archaic order of guardians to a select set of tombs.
3 - Adventurers, like yourselves, led by a character, as above.
4 - Treachery: your patron has no intention of fulfilling the bargain.
5 - Terrors: you couldn't very well not expect to alert some ancient evil, could you?
6 - Vagrants, with no interest in the tombs but lurking nearby to hide or pick up easy loot: brigands, outlaws, or vermin such a gallyjaws.

Garedaron Vale - mini-scenario

No one knows which reign or empire it was began carving tombs out of the Garedaron Vale. The mouth of the vale faces West, and the setting sun strikes the end of the valley once a year, on the eve of High Winter. There's a road, also, faced with black stone, in which the weeds never grow. The hillsides are full of cracks and holes, where the cold rivers flow out from unknown paths in the dark.

Some say the first true tomb conceals a path into the mountains which leads to the realm of the dead, but what of that? Tomb-robbers have journeyed to the vale for many years. Some bring out treasures, and some come back shaken and with a dark tale; some don't come out at all, and some speak of rare finds slipping from their hands at the end of a dark hole.

Off course, there are taemsprits and parson-hawkes lurking in the scattered tombs and barrows, but the worst of it (the old thieves say) is what the vile curses of the sorcerer-priests do to living things that shelter all unknowing in an enchanted crypt. What of a spider and toad and rat all blended together, hungry and foul and half-dead?

Barrows, tombs, monuments, caverns and ossuaries, they're all there to see by daylight, but after dark, what looks down on you from the valley walls?

Arihmere

Arihmere, sometimes called the Wolves’ Lane, stands at the western end of The Copper Road. Falling into the Arrant Sea, with the Withered Lands of the Fell Lords to the north and the Sundering Wars simmering beyond the southern marches, it is a domain of wolf-haunted forests, wild moors, hedged manors, watchtowers and haunted tombs, ruled by grasping lords and sly wizards.

Arihmere is one of the more disreputable kingdoms of the Harrowmarch; nevertheless, its confused history of warring realms and tottering empires has left it with many respectably terrifying ruins and guarded treasures. The old heaps and pits are still inhabited by vile creatures, and only the most cunning and well prepared can meet them and survive.

About

Arihmere is a setting for fantasy gaming. It's suitable as a background, a suggestive sketch, or just a hazy collection of concepts. Future posts will begin to map it and fill in the blanks.

You can adapt it to your own fantasy adventure system, and also use it as the background for the Pick-up And Play rules on the tab above.