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...

 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...

 The Siege of Medilano was a giant experimental campaign that I ran at Armageddon Expo last year. It was about the battle between the bronze and silver dragons. Players could sign up for one side and earn points, and play in daily 1-1.5 hour games, with a different story per faction per day. The results of the choices made by the players each day, and the points scored per day, influenced the day-by-day outcome, and the ultimate course of the war. It was a very cool game, but a lot  of work - ultimately, there was no way for one Dungeon Master to reach the amount of people I'd need to in order to make it a success. Because multiple groups ran each scenario each day and made different decisions and named their own characters, it's impossible for me to give a really definitive 'this is exactly what happened' account. As a result, this is a little vaguer on the specifics than a lot of the session reports. Here goes! The great and fair silver dragon city of Medilano was sur...

 I am behind on the times! We've had two more sessions of The Ruins of Auromia  since my last post. (I'd hoped for more, but scheduling got difficult over Christmas and we had more lockdowns with which to contend.) As a result, the summary of these ones is going to be a bit briefer... Forza had drawn the sword of the faerie 'goddess of war' Bellona and become fully possessed. They now turned on their former companions. Ilaria tried to buy the group's freedom by offering her cat to Bellona as a new host. For unknown reasons, this enraged Bellona beyond measure, and she slew Ilaria, before turning on the others. She summoned her vulture-headed griffin, which Noke slew at the cost of his own life. Sorrel tried to channel the power of her floral crown to summon Tellaia to fight for her, but the nature 'goddess' did not want to challenge Bellona at this time. In desperation, Sorrel drank the vial of liquid moss she had found, but rather than helping, it wound up ...

Pressing deeper into the overgrown city, the group soon discovered an ancient mercantile district by the foot of a hill. There was a cave in the side of the hill, with a dim light coming from within. Outside, a statue of a noble woman stood. It was covered with moss and vines, giving her a living green dress and a crown of ivy leaves. The group entered the tunnel. It stretched deep inside, further than the size of the hill would suggest possible. Flowers grew from all the walls and the floor of the tunnel, and Sorrel plucked some and made a floral crown for herself. At the end of the tunnel, a young woman wearing a floral crown like Sorrel's and an ancient tunic sat in front of a fire, singing to herself. The fire cast shadows over her face and over the wall. She greeted the explorers without seeming to recognise them: it was Pia, who had been taken by the city what seemed like an age before. Pia gave them all an ancient wooden goblet of dark red wine to drink from before they coul...

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 sku...

The walls of Auromia was crumbling and covered in moss, but still impressive. They stretched fifty feet tall, and the wide cobbled road stretched through open gates into the heart of the city. Inside, the buzz of insects and the chatter of birds reverberated from inside the eldritch forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was into the forest that Accluso, Dova, Forza, Ilaria, Noke, and Sorrel were bound now, to find the Temple of Morta inside. Once they had passed the city walls, they found the way difficult: trees had pushed through the road, thick roots made the path uneven, and in some cases the trees had even grown through buildings, shattering them. With the thick forest canopy overhead, only the occasional rays of light dappled the path ahead of them. As they picked their way through the undergrowth, they became aware of a woman gesturing to them from an upstairs window. Noke sent his sparrow companion Tiu to investigate; it appeared to just be a commoner wearing ...

After the battle at the Temple to Bellona, there was a celebration. When Accluso, Dova, Forza, Ilaria, Noke, and Sorrel returned to the Cigno that night, they were all very drunk. That did not stop the strange dreams of the forest from returning again. Dova's dreams were more intense that night: she dreamed of blood and murder, and awoke to find herself sleepwalking, standing over Forza with her arms outstretched - whether to seize the magical sword he had retrieved from the Cavaliere Rosso, or to strangle him, she did not know. When everyone awoke hungover the next day, it was nearly noontime. They went into the common room for breakfast. The publican Ignazio was helping Bartolomeo and Carlotta, the owners of the local home-brewery, to unload a cask of beer, so his partner Valentino served them while they studied an old map of Auromia and planned their next move. Today was the day of the weekly market, so they were keen to visit it as well. Ilaria wanted to gather the ritual mat...

Stripped of their badges, Chiara, Donatella, Heidini, Ilaria and Lia retrieved Davide from the roof where they had hidden him on the roof of the taverna. What were they to do now? They decided that they could not abandon their investigation, nor could they abandon their new friend. They had two leads remaining: Bartolomeo's mistress Angela, whose cameo they possessed from Bartolomeo's rooms, and his apprentice Giulia. They decided to go to the marketplace and see if they could find out anything about Angela. On the way to the market, the group ran into a gang of six men with sledgehammers. They were workers from the Basilica, led by the foreman Fabrizio, and they had been riled up by Fra Gottifredo to find Davide and destroy him. After failing to negotiate with them, the group made a distraction and fled. Heidini used some of the fairy tricks that gnomes still possess to help throw off their pursuers, and after an hour or so they had left the angry mob behind. The group was...

Finally, another session! Averroes' player won't be joining us again, and Donatella's player was absent. Hopefully she'll be back with us again next time. Guests screamed, or gasped, or clapped, as the statue of Davide came to life. The loudest voice belonged to Fra Gottifredo, who loudly denounced the statue as heresy and called on the  sbirri  to destroy it. Ilaria, Heidini, Chiara and Lia decided to take the situation under control before the priest could arrange a lynch mob. Ilaria convinced Emiliano Brasco to give them control over the situation, and the mercenaries were happy to avoid taking responsibility. Chiara bonded with Davide over a joke, and the  sbirri  took the statue into another room of the villa for questioning - after wrapping him in the fallen curtain like a makeshift toga. As they left, Fra Gottifredo cornered them and threatened them with going to their superior, the Gonfaloniere di Giustitia, if they did not destroy Davide. He honestly felt ...

Recently, my book club members expressed an interest in trying D&D! I started writing a new adventure for them set in the marble quarries of Camarma, but the silly season is a busy time! Then I realised that I had an adventure already: Fiumenze Nights, about the death of the artist Michele di Lodovico. I've given up on finishing that game (sadly - it was going in a very interesting direction!), so it seemed the logical choice to play it with a new group and maybe reach the end at last! This first session covers the same basic ground as the first two sessions of the previous play-through, although a few details have changed. In Fiumenze, it is the dury of the sbirri  to maintain public order. They are the city guards who defend the people - since most of the guilds and the wealthy merchants maintain their own personal forces, which are better paid and equipped. They report to the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia,  a public official selected by lot who serves for two months at a ...