Dragons of Tirenia

 The crew of the Brazen Nudibranch fled the city of Staglia as quickly as they could. They decided to head inland to Trion, the home of the quicksilver dragons. They hoped that they could learn more about the ritual that had brought the marble and gold dragon to life. It was slow going, however, because very quickly they found themselves pursued by soldiers hunting for them. People said that spies from Staglia, with the help of a traitor (Scelto), had infiltrated the city and attacked a gathering of dragons with black magic. The group posed as itinerant monks to avoid being discovered. Soon they reached the shining Fulgente River, in whose silvery waters an angel was said to have once died. Evangelia grew nostagic as they beheld the glimmering water, for her home city, Medilano, was located downstream on the same river, and the Fulgente was sacred to the silver dragons. Avoiding a boat, because of the soldiers checking passengers, they made their way along its banks until they reac...

The bronze dragons of Staglia were planning something. Their war against Selenizia had ground into a bloody stalemate. After years of contant warfare, their resources were stretched to the point of exhaustion. And so their troops received the order to hold their positions, while the dragon generals were all recalled to Staglia for an emergency meeting. Meanwhile, surprise attacks were launched against the marble quarries of Camarma and the surreal ruins of Larisa, only to withdraw again. The quicksilver dragons of Trion, the alchemists and inventors of Staglia's war machine.  Something big was coming. And Captain Uberto meant to find out what it was. The crew of the Brazen Nudibranch were dedicated to fighting against the draconic imperialists. It was vital that someone should infiltrate Staglia and discover what the bronze dragons were planning, before it was too late.  The first step in the Captain's plan was to lay anchor at Monte Mamiliano. This small island was a haven of...

Capitano Uberto (she/her): Human Rogue (Swashbuckler) Daughter of a disappointed merchant from Panormo, Uberto ran away to sea at the first opportunity. A small-time operator, dedicated to Clumsy and best-known for getting drunk and falling off the dock, Uberto is idealistic and inspiring, and her crew would follow her anywhere. First Mate 'Zeph' Zephyros  (he/him): Aasimar Barbarian Zeph's mother claimed that his was a virgin birth. Indeed, young Zeph's golden hair and supernatural abilities led many to whisper that he was blessed by San Iacopo, the patron of sailors. He has always lived on the sea, and the sailors who serve on his ship he takes under his dedicated care. Maria Fiore, Ship's Doctor (she/her): Human Artificer (Alchemist) Maria was a high-placed member of the Apothecaries' Guild of Fiumenze, until her vocal opposition to the de' Fisici dragons led to her expulsion. Her ideals have led to her joining the Brazen Nudibranch , even though she is ...

 In 2020, during the lockdown, I did a lot of work developing Tirenia for Kickstarter. It soon became apparent that writing an entire campaign guide in that time frame was too ambitious, so instead we produced a Dragons of Tirenia introductory guide, with a short overview of the setting (virtually all obsolete at this point, as I continue to develop the setting), an adventure and a promised impending full Kickstarter - which never eventuated, for a variety of reasons. My wife and I decided that our indie games company Sky Bear Games would rent a stall at Armageddon Expo convention to promote her computer games and my roleplaying games. To really sell the product, I decided to run the most complicated promotional campaign possible: The Siege of Medilano. We made maps, posters and stickers and got people to earn points for the two warring factions, the bronze dragons of Staglia and the silver dragons of Medilano. Every day, I ran hour-long introductory Dungeons & Dragons adventur...

  With one of the players from The Ruins of Auromia returning to Auckland briefly before moving overseas, we had a catch-up game where we revisited what those characters were up to now! We did, however, run out of time, so the end of this was extremely rushed. Two and a half years had passed since a group of adventurers defeated the arch-fairies who had pretended to be gods in Auromia, and Sorrel Acetosa had become the new genius loci of Auromia. In that time, Dova the cat-head had become first mate on the Coral Claw  under Capitano Giuseppe la Fenicottero (a flamingo-head wizard) sailing with the pirate fleet of Capitano Giovanni Bramare, a brass dragon. The three ships under his command fought against the imperialist bronze dragons of Staglia and the capitalist red dragons of Selenizia. Recently, a Staglian fleet had stopped at the island of Santa Severina and demanded its surrender, and then plundered the port when it was refused. The Coral Claw  and the other ships se...

 Given the recent changes to the Open Gaming License by Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast, we have decided to remove all Dungeons & Dragons references from Tirenia. I will be revising the world to remove any D&D-isms from it, and also to bring it in line with a Future Project that we are working on! Image: 'Aeneas Flees Burning Troy.'  Federico Barocci, 1593.

 I've been having a break from Tirenia, but I had a strange thought and wanted to get it down. What are dinosaurs? Dinosaurs were created in the War of the Host as living weapons. They were meant as living weapons. Eventually, they led to the creation of dragons, when some bright spark demon had the idea of putting a soul inside one and giving it wings and innate magic. (This also means that in Tirenia, birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, and might in fact pre-date them! What a strange thought...)Who are these angels and demons who enjoy flesh-shaping so much? What happened to the dinosaurs since then? Doubtlessly there are still some hidden away in the remote places of the world in the remote places. Perhaps some fairy or demon will bring them forth again as part of the Tirenian Wars! The Primitive World . Adolphe Pannemaker, 1857.

 Dragon Princes now has quite a complicated storyline! With every game influenced by those that came before it, and influencing those that are yet to come, there's a lot going on. You don't need to know the story across the multiple games to appreciate what's going on in your game, but if you're interested, this is a quick summary of the entire thing so far. As more games get played, I'll update this post! 1015, Summer The mercenaries of the Company of the Wolf stop the bronze dragon Generale Corragio from conquering the Salassi Valley in north-western Tirenia.  (The Company of the Wolf) 1015, Autumn The Company of the Wolf discover the ancient system of monoliths designed by the last gold dragon emperor to channel magic and destroy it before it could fall into the hands of the red dragon Rubina. Rubina and the company are killed in the explosion. The fall of the monolith network sends a surge of magic throughout Tirenia.  (The Company of the Wolf) Rubina's skul...

  Recently, I had to run a very session of D&D over Zoom for patrons of the library. It would have been easy to do something generic; instead, I decided to do something a bit more complex. I present: The Giant's Tomb. In the winter of 1017, Cercius the Sibilant, a snake-head priestess, was disturbed by bad dreams. She realised that the dreams were prophetic: that Ahiman the Giant-King was stirring from his slumbers. Long ago, a group of humans had studied the meta-physics of the world, and figured out the secrets of draconic power - how to reincarnate sequentially in their own body, and thus grow in power and stature as dragons do. Ahiman was the philosopher who made this discovery, and shared it with his race. They used it to establish mighty powers, to create life, and to enslave the world around them. Only a coalition of heroes and dragons of the ancient times, and the rebellion of their created servants, was able to bring an end to their power. Seeing his end coming, Ahiman...

After two years and two months, we finally finished The Ruins of Auromia ! I notice that I've been lax I writing up session reports, so this will be a general overview of what happened, where the characters wound up, and how the world has changed going forward as a result. In Session Eleven, the dead characters went through Purgatory. They confronted their past lives and managed to process some of it. They also met some of the Fairies living in Purgatory. In Session Twelve, the dead characters returned to life with new fairy powers and united with their allies in Baraccoppoli and amongst the free fairies. They attacked the ghost armies of Bellona and found the gold dragon vault where the last artifacts were hidden. They also were warned about their former employer, Aurelian the undead gold dragon. In Session Thirteen, the players fought the servants of Bellona and rescued Tellaia from captivity. They convinced her to help them destroy the fairy relics at the Temple of Morta. Bellon...

 Hi everyone - I'm putting this blog on hiatus while we're in lockdown. I've got an idea for a new RPG article series, which will start when lockdown levels drop and stress levels drop!  Stay safe everyone! Image: 'Doctor Beak.' Paul Furst, c. 1650.

Giving players control over the story has always been a great interest of mine. Like many of us, I was raised on games like D&D which have a strict division of authority: one player creates the world, while the other players interact with it. However, over time I got to try different, more indie systems which distribute narrative control more widely. I played games like Doctor Who, which uses story points to give players limited control over what happens, and gives weaker characters far greater narrative agency than powerful ones for the sake of game play. There are games like Fiasco, which dispense of the narrator rule entirely, making all players equally responsible for what happens in the game. I decided that I wanted to try some of that in Tirenia. In the first Tirenian campaign, The Company of the Wolf,  I tried taking a page from Doctor Who. The players were part of an elite mercenary company who were routinely hired to do the impossible. I let them use Inspiration, gaine...

It's an odd thing to admit, when you're making a game about the Renaissance... that there's really no such thing. The popular conception of the Renaissance is that in the 15th Century, starting in Florence and then spreading across Europe, there was a time of great art and culture, as people looked back to Roman times to begin developing again after the squalor of the Middle Ages. Everyone can name some of the great artists, if only because they're named after Ninja Turtles: Leonardo da Vinci, Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, Raffaelo Sanzio da Urbino, and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.  The problem is that none of this is really true. Well, it is true that there were some great artists named after Ninja Turtles, and that they have really amazing art. But the Renaissance stretches over a truly immense time period: some people include Dante Alighieri in the early 1300s, to William Shakespeare in the early 1600s. It presupposes that there was no art or cultu...

 This weekend, I'm going down to ConVergence in Hamilton to run The Fall of the House of Della Squama! I thought that I'd take this opportunity to talk about the genesis of the adventure and how it evolved over time. The Fall of the House of Della Squama  is set in the city of Verrazza, heavily inspired by Verona. The red dragons of Selenizia are advancing inland, and your city is in the firing line. However, you've just discovered that your dragon Prince has died, and, furthermore, was never a dragon in the first place! Now you've got three hours in real time during which you have to keep up the hoax and either defend the city or escape it with enough money to settle comfortably somewhere else. One of the early problems that I found when creating Tirenia was that there were far more awesome Italian city-states than there were dragons to go around. I knew that I could always have the same dragons in multiple cities, but that never seemed like a good solution. Verona was...

5th Edition D&D is the first edition that has mechanics for roleplaying! I'm not counting alignment here; alignment was on your sheet, but it's always been vague, with no mechanical consequences and often ignored by players. No, I mean the personality traits, bonds, ideals and flaws which every character has, and which can earn a player inspiration for acting in accordance with. The only problem with them? They're so utterly anemic! I've played in many store games where players haven't even bothered to fill them in. For good role-players, they can be triggered so many times as to be overwhelming; for indifferent role-players, the reward they offer, advantage on a single dice roll, is so minimal as to be not even worth attaining. Some aspects of them, like bonds, are often never relevant; other aspects may be hammered. In one game I played in, we were given inspiration for acting to our self-detriment because of our ideals, leading to characters acting like idiot...

Now that I've got a couple of Tirenian campaigns under my belt, and another about to wrap up shortly, I thought that you might find it interesting how I go about writing a Tirenian campaign! I prefer to run shorter games with a strong story arc running through them. with multiple mini-campaigns building towards the larger story. I'll use my Carnevale  campaign as an example. During Session 0, I'll hash out the idea for a story based on what I'm interested in doing and what the players are telling me. I'll be upfront with the premise, which might be as simple as just the setting for the adventure, or a simple scenario. Once we've negotiated the premise and the players are happy, they can create their characters, figure out how they relate to that initial pitch. For the session 0, the high pitch was just 'it's Fantasy Italy.' Nice and broad. The players liked Venice, so we set the game in Vanzenia (which has since been renamed Selenizia - Vanzenia was ...

Dungeons & Dragons  usually cover a very small spectrum of human activity. There are, officially, three 'pillars' of activity - interaction, exploration, and combat. Two of the pillars (exploration and interaction) have fairly minimal rules, but there are exhaustive rules for killing things you don't like, and the vast majority of abilities improve your abilities in a fight. As I talked about last time, there's a place for that, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all like many adventures would have you believe. I can understand why there's this focus though - fighting has the highest stakes, your character's life, so it's the one that everyone needs to be good at. But then if everyone's good at it, it becomes the preferred option. When you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. One of our goals for Dragons of Tirenia  is to have a wider range of genres and experiences in our adventures. One of the first ways I'm movi...

 I remember when I first read The Lord of the Rings. I was blown away by the elves. Ancient and ethereal, majestic but humble, wise but sad. I feel like Dungeons & Dragons  (and not just Dungeons & Dragons!)  sometimes loses that sense of wonder. An elf or a dwarf is no longer different, mysterious and mythic - they're your neighbour, and they're either a racist stereotype or a human with plastic surgery. When a dragon-man sells you apples in the morning, how special is it to meet a dragon-man? When Doctor Dolittle  came out in the 1920s, the idea of a man who could talk to animals was fantastical. Now, Speak With Animals  is just a minor spell that many character optimization guides say isn't even worth taking. Fantasy as a genre is all about showing us wonders that are different to the world as we know it. If we travel to the great torus-shaped city of Sigil at the centre of the planes, what is our base-line expectation? For the players who've been wor...

 I don't like fighting in RPGs. Heresy! How can I play Dungeons & Dragons , a game all about hurting strange animals with sharp implements, and not like fighting? I have a couple of reasons why I don't like fights. For the first thing, traditionally many fights were for very low stakes. The orcs are in the room, and you want to get past  the room. The bandits want your money, and are terrible at threat assessment. The owlbear is hungry, and you're made of meat. None of these have any sort of emotional heft. You're further incentivized to violence because your enemy has two valuable commodities - experience points and treasure. Experience points in particular led towards multiple 'disposable' fights, since you had to get enough of them to go up a level. In the move towards milestone levelling, this part of the problem is starting to go away, at least. Furthermore, many of the alternatives to fighting aren't very well developed. You could make a Persuasion...