Frozen Skies Session Two: Flying Murder Hobos

Continuing on from the last session, our intrepid band of layabouts find themselves lurching from one spot of trouble to another. Along the way they make contact with Alyeska's criminal underworld, get blacklisted from drinking establishments, add a town to their 'never visit again' list and end up in the sky pirate haven of Broken Spires.

Oh, and a possible date with the law in the immediate future.

Job Done...Or Is It?

After completing their supply run to the logging camp at Taran's Bluffs, the crew of the airship Waylander head back to Bowerstead Post to collect their payment of 20 sovereigns (the main currency in Frozen Skies) each. Bowerstead's foreman, Hardwick, says he's heard about the Windryder attacks at Taran's Bluffs and that his superiors are going to be breathing down his neck about operations being forced to cease at Taran's Bluffs. So Hardwick orders the characters to head back to Taran's Bluffs and deal with the problem, offering to pay 25 sovereigns to each character.

Tag and Alex went and tracked down Ardan Gowan in order to speak to him about selling the weapons they'd salvaged from the sky pirate planes. Ardan offered to pay half-price for the guns, round 75 sovereigns, but needed a day to get the money together. Tag and Alex agreed to meet up with Ardan the following evening at Ardan's warehouse. Ardan also mentioned if they wanted some extra work, strictly off the books, then he might have something for them. They also spoke to Hardwick about getting an extra crewman for the Waylander, Hardwick managed to rustle up a guy called Mick who would act as a gunner on the airship.

The following day the crew stayed at Bowerstead, Tag spent the time up-armouring the Waylander to add a little extra protection. Evening time rolled around and Tag got the rest of the crew to drag the weapons to Ardan's warehouse where the exchange went without a hitch. About the job offer Ardan had, he said seek him out in a couple of days. Tag then went to one of the saloons in Bowerstead and hired himself five extra hands and equipped them with rifles and ammo, effectively starting his own merc company.

Back To The Bluffs

Another night was spent in Bowerstead before the crew headed back out to Taran's Bluffs, though Tag brought them to the site of the third crashed plane. Though somebody had gotten there before them; the pilot had been buried, anything of value removed and the wreck put to the torch. Tag just shrugged his shoulders and got back in the airship to continue their journey, though they ended up being forced to detour due to a storm/blizzard (Random Encounter). At the Bluffs they checked in with Mosley, who stated that the Windryders had become wary since the machine gun the crew left had been setup. But they still haven't been able to resume operations and so Mosley would be happy if things got resolved as quickly as possible.

The characters asked about the men who came through the camp just before the attacks sorted, they received description of the men and their plane. It was concluded that the men were probably poachers who'd stolen some dragonhawk eggs, thus angering the Windryders. The characters also learn that some of the workers overheard the men talking about going to the town of Aran Crag to the west. After detailing a couple of their hired guns to stay at Taran's Bluffs, the crew set off once more into the wild blue yonder.

Go West!

Heading west they came across a merchant airship with a fighter escort (Random Encounter again), who exchanged greetings and news. A while later, the salt mining town of Aran Crag came into sight. Leaving Mick and the other three hired guns on the Waylander, the rest of the crew split up to see what information they could find in town about the poachers.

George visited various stores in the town to see what he could find out about dragonhawk eggs. He managed to learn how big they usually are and that 'rich toffs' generally paid alot of money for them. None of the shopkeepers knew whether there were anyone in town with that sort of money, but the only guy came close was a director of the mining company who lived in town in his mansion.

Herbert and Sebastian visited the least rough looking bar they could find. Herbert has the Big Mouth hindrance and soon as they had walked in, Herbert called out "Hi, we're looking for poachers! Is there any poachers here? Does anyone know of any poachers?"

Silence.

Then the scraping of a heavy wooden chair as it gets pushed back and the bar's doorman got to his feet before stomping his way over to the new arrivals. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that Herbert and Sebastian ought to leave. Sebastian did so, dragging Herbert alone with him.

Tag and Alex had better luck at the airfield where, through a generous donation to the widows and orphans fund, they discovered that the poachers did stopover in the town to refuel their aircraft. However, the poachers filed a questionable flightplan but one of the airfield guys did get a glimpse at the plane's cargo and confirmed that it was wooden crates and nets. Heading back to the airship to wait for the others, Tag and Alex spotted a guy hanging around and spoke to him. The guy identified himself as a trader of a sorts called Harold and suggested that they needed to speak to certain members of the crew about keeping their mouths shut. Another sizeable donation to the widows and orphans later, they had learnt where the poachers were most likely heading and took Harold up on is offer of a 'small errand'.

Words were had when the rest of the crew arrived back at the airship and together they set off to a nearby small town to do Harold's errand.

Smalltown Sojourn

Harold's errand involved meeting a guy in a nearby town and picking up some goods that Harold wanted, basically ran the 'Things Never Go Smooth' adventure from the Frozen Skies book. Rolled on both tables so that there were complications both with the guy the characters had to meet and with the goods they were to collect.They rocked up at the town, went into the sole saloon and asked about the guy they had to meet.

They got told he was dead.

He'd been filled with lead a couple of days previously after he got caught cheating at a game of cards, though he owned a small warehouse. With no better option, the crew went and checked out the warehouse but found it locked. Alex had a go at a bit of Lockpicking and the roll he got meant he literally just had to turn the handle. Inside they found some crates, George found one containing what looked like a highly advance but ancient looking technological device (Ancient Terran Artefact). Alex meanwhile rummaged through the officer, looking for shipping records and also emptied the safe whilst he was at it. Sebastian kept watch outside and saw a group of men emerge from the saloon and heading in the direction of the warehouse.

Realizing that they were now on the clock, Tag ordered everyone to check the crates and load anything of value on a motor-truck. Of particular interest was a bunch of rifles, couple of SMGs and a 9mm pistol. Being the only one with the Driving skill (even then a d4), George jumped in the driver's seat and attempted to smash his way through the doors. Two bennies later he managed to avoid absolutely failing and put his foot down, by this time the group of men were right outside the doors as the truck came smashing through them. One managed to jump out of the way, but the others weren't so lucky as the truck drove over the top of them. The survivor ended up being shot by Sebastion (potentially resulting in a very interesting conversation with the law at a later date).

They loaded the crates onto the airship in double-quick time and hurried back to Aran Crag. They handed the artefact over to Harold, who gave them their money back and some advice on getting to Broken Spires. Before leaving, they made another donation to the widows and orphans fund and all records of their visit to Aran Crag mysteriously vanished....

To The Spires!

The route to Broken Spires is long and difficult, involving flying through mist shrounded twisting canyons. Tag rolled three Piloting rolls, though had to spend a benny on the third one to avoid a mishap. Their first glimpse of Broken Spires was described as a town that would give health and safety a heart attack.

On approach to the town, they spied numerous airships that belong to various different sky pirate gangs. They also spotted a skyship which, unsurprisingly, Tag wanted to avoid angering the owners of. After finding some place to dock their airship, they were greeted by a clerk. Tag gave a false name, a small donation and the clerk responded. "Welcome to Broken Spires Mr Smith."

This time they decided to stick together, mainly so that they could ensure that Herbert kept his mouth shut. It was decided to head into one of the better looking taverns they could find, hopefully to reduce their chances of getting into trouble. Inside where a couple of sky pirate gangs; one all-female and the other looking like viking pilots with a white wolf's head logo on their jackets. Tag quickly directed them to the bar, ordered drinks for the crew and spoke to the bartender. The bartender confirmed that there was a gang of poachers in town and they were led by a guy called Travis Perkins.

With the information they needed, Tag directed the crew to leave the tavern. However, Alex had already asked the bartender to take a round of drinks over to the viking pilots and say that the drinks were from the all-female sky pirates. Fearing a bar brawl, Tag got the crew outside where they waited to see what would unfold. The viking pilots let out a cheer at unexpected free drinks, couple of them think to try their luck and wonder over to the all-female sky pirates. Female sky pirates object to the unwanted attention and introduced their feet to somewhere personal before leaving, the rest of the viking pilots started howling with laughter.

Outside, Tag nods at the female sky pirates and their leader returns the nod before her gang walked off down the street. We then finished things there with the characters preparing to visit the poacher's compound.

Thoughts

Think I'm starting to get a feel for what the group is going to do, though they now have a few options to explore.

The incident with the motor truck could cause them trouble later on, but I understand that the characters will be taking steps towards 'damage control' (ie, they're planning on repainting the airship). Herbert's Big Mouth is probably going to get them in trouble again and again, especially if they have a run-in with the law.

Tag starting his own merc army is something that I am going to need to deal with at some point, though the characters' actions so far have given me a couple of ideas there.

Going forwards, airships are probably going to have two different Toughness stats for the gasbag and control cabin/gondola respectively (like in the Pulp Gear Toolkit). Hopefully we'll get some more aerial combat soon, so it'll be interesting to see how that works with the rules ideas I've had.

Update June 2018

Bit of an exciting time at present as Frozen Skies finally comes together. So the main topic this week is the timeline for Frozen Skies' release. Additionally, I'll talk about future plans which include future products, etc.

Frozen Skies
Working through Kickstarter fulfillment at the moment, hoping to get print copies out to backers in the next week or so. Couple of weeks after that Frozen Skies should be going on general release (roughly late June/early July time).

Initially selling through DriveThruRPG/RPGNow, but I am looking at options to get Frozen Skies into stores. I'll post details on this as it develops.

The next book for Frozen Skies will be Skies of Crimson, which'll have a focus on sky pirates and airships. After that, I wish to explore the world of Darmonica in more detail. This means the possibility of other books covering different parts of the setting.

Savage Worlds Black
There is meant to be a new version of Savage Worlds due out later this year, though as I understand there isn't going to be major changes. I may end up doing an errata PDF for Frozen Skies if anything needs updating for the new edition, it just depends on what actually changes.

Other Projects
Ran a poll recently on social media asking what people wanted to see next out of the various setting ideas I had. I've listed the settings below in order of popularity.

Forsaken Space
Darkwatch
Cold War Skirmishes
The Gwentshire Chronicles
Keep The Home Fires Burning

What I'm considering doing is producing demo-kits for these settings, which will most likely be Pay-What-You-Want PDFs. This would allow me to get something basic out for the setting and then see how well each one does. 

Frozen Skies Session One: Getting Airborne

After the 'warm-up' session a couple of weeks back, the group began its first proper session of the campaign. This was where the group got their characters established and how they worked (or not worked) together as a team. It was also interesting in that there was some unexpected aerial combat, though more on that later on.

Welcome to the Outlands

Play started with the characters being established as freelancers working for a timber company called Outland Lumber Co. Description and a little of the backstory of each character was then shared as well as their starting location of the company town of Bowerstead Post.

They were called into the office of the town's foreman and told that they were being given a job to deliver supplies to a logging camp located near a twin pair of hills known as Taran's Bluffs. The list of items was food, medicine, new tools and some mail for the loggers based at the camp. They were also approached by a man, Ardan Gowan, who asked the characters to deliver a small package to a workman called Tolbert. Jack refuses to take the package until Ardan reveals what it is, in the end Ardan reluctantly opens the package to show that it is a small wooden box containing peppermints. Alex decided to do a search based Notice to make sure nothing was hidden in the box, a high roll turned up nothing but the peppermints. 

After they'd finished loading their airship, the characters set off to the logging camp. All seemed to go well until a trio of specks appeared on the horizon...

Dogfight!

The specks soon turned out to be medium fighters aiming to intercept the character's airship. Jack took the airship's controls whilst the others fought among themselves over who was manning what turrets, ultimately George took the front turret, Alex the rear turret and Herbert manning the turret of the Marauder still attached underneath the belly of the airship. Jack threw the airship into a tight bank round, swinging the airship round almost 180 degrees. George fired off a burst from the twin 50-cal MGs in his turret and scored two hits on one of the fighter, though only one did enough damage to inflict a wound. The fighter's pilot failed both their Out of Control and Bail Out rolls, something that would set the standard of my dice rolling for the evening.

Herbert and Alex fired off bursts from their respective turrets, though only Alex scored a hit but failed to do anything more and the pilot just managed to stay in control. One of the fighters tried shooting the airship's engines but missed (will explain at the end), the other managed to do a Jink manoeuvre to improve its Evasion (thus stopped Herbert from doing much against it) but failed to do much with its shooting.

Next round saw Jack throw the airship into a tight turn, causing the two fighters to overshoot. One of the fighters tried doing an Immelmann turn to bring itself back around and failed miserably, but managed to stay in control (as well as burning through all my GM bennies). The other elected to try a much more sedate turn. Both fighters ended up falling victim to a burst of fire from the turret Herbert was manning, both pilots failed to bail out (one completely failed on a 1). Once again it was just the airship and the open sky.

White Wolves

At Jack's insistence, the characters went to investigate and then salvage what they could from the fighters they had shot down. Upon finding the crash site for two of the planes the characters discovered that the planes were Kestral medium fighters, both had a picture of a white wolf's head on the fuselage. The pilot of the first wrecked plane they came across was death from a broken neck, though he wore a pilot's jacket with the same white wolf picture on the back and a necklace of wolf teeth.

Jack and Alex checked out one of the other crashed fighters, finding the pilot still alive, trapped and firing potshots at them with a revolver. Jack managed to duck into cover behind a handy tree whilst Alex ran over, rested the end of his cane gun on the edge of the cockpit and pulled the trigger. Needless to say, the pilot wasn't able to make much of a response after that. Regardless, the characters salvaged the guns and ammo from both crashed fighters whilst noting the location of the third. 

Jack helped himself to a jacket from one of the dead pilots, noting the white wolf picture. The group as a whole didn't seem to be too fussed that they'd been attacked by sky pirates, then again they had shot the planes down with ease. Regardless, they re-boarded their airship and Jack bolted two of the salvaged machine guns to either side of the airship. They then continued back on track to the logging camp at Taran's Bluffs.

Trouble With Windryders

Arriving at the logging camp they found it under a state of siege, barricades set up all around it as well as stockades. They were greeted by the camp foreman. Mosley, who explained that the camp had recently started suffering attacks from the local Windryder tribe. He went to explain that it was unusual and shortly before the attacks started, a group of men came through the camp in a hurry. Mosley asked whether the characters could help and Jack offered to trade Mosley one of the salvaged machine guns with some ammo, eventually managed to barter it for a key and some bottles of whiskey.

Alex went and tracked down Tolbert to give him the peppermints they'd been asked to deliver, receiving Tolbert's thanks and an explanation that the mints was one of the few 'luxuries' he could get out in the wilderness. Herbert went to see whether he could lend any assistance to the camp's doctor whilst Sebastion and George ended up unloading the supplies from the airship.

Once the airship had been unloaded, and despite Mosley's plea for help, Jack decided that the group should head back to Bowerstead Post now their 'job' had been completed. Jack argued that Mosley wasn't 'their' boss and so he could only ask them to help, additionally Jack wanted to get paid. So they departed Taran's Bluffs, leaving a fair number of disappointed people behind them.

Thoughts

For the air combat segment I allowed the players to have an Evasion stat on the airship, Jack's high Piloting skill of d10 meant that the sky pirates struggled to hit the airship (though my bad dice rolling was a big factor as well). Going forwards any and all airships are going to have a TN of 4 like normal Shooting attacks, but I'm otherwise happy with how the air combat went.

Additionally, its looking like some sort of incentive/orders from the boss is going to be needed to get the characters to go on certain adventures. Jack's player is playing the character as being bit of a douche, I just need to be aware of this for the rest of the campaign. Though Jack's player is looking to make more modifications to the airship, some of which I may be able to incorporate into future Frozen Skies related material.

The sky pirates with the white wolf symbol has given a potential plot hook to use later on, though remains to be seen how they handle future 'jobs' from Ardan Gowan.

Frozen Skies: Expanded Airship Rules Ideas

So running a Frozen Skies campaign gives me the opportunity to try stuff out beyond the typical scope of a one shot adventure. One of the ideas that I wish to develop and playtest is expanded rules for airships and combat involving them. This will of course feed into Skies of Crimson, the next book that is planned for Frozen Skies.

Aircraft vs Airship

Mentioned under the Airship Combat rules is that weapons over a certain size are able to hurt airships, meaning the options of an aircraft are pretty limited. Have a few ideas to address this as discussed below.

Called Shots - Basically works the same as normal ranged combat; characters can target specific parts of the airship. This would incur a -4 penalty on the Shooting roll and can target the following locations; Engines, Controls and Weapon Mount. This attack inflicts the effects described on the Airship Critical Hit Table in Frozen Skies for the locations, but it doesn't actually inflict a wound on the airship.

The idea here is that the aircraft would be disabling the airship rather than killing it outright.

Gas Cells - Another idea I'm toying with is something that could allow aircraft to actually hurt an airship; targeting its gas cells.

Targeting the gas cells would grant the attacking aircraft a +2 on its Shooting rolls, though I am toying with the idea of halving the airship's Toughness for these type of attacks. Gas cells would then suffer wounds as per the normal damage rules, additionally the airship will begin losing height at a rate of 1d10" per wound. Also, gas cell wounds inflict a -1 penalty on Piloting skill rolls like normal wounds and this will be cumulative with the airship's regular wounds and other modifiers. The fourth and each successive wound thereafter should be considered as wounds on the airship itself, potentially meaning that the airship will be losing altitude at a rate of 6d10" per round.

This method means its easier for an attacking aircraft to do but it requires a greater effort.

Frozen Skies Session Zero: Taking Flight

Some back I mentioned about running a Frozen Skies campaign, recently had a character creation session or 'Session Zero' if you will. Partially because we had a new player and partial because it had been a while since we last played anything Savage Worlds related, we did a short combat to get to grips with how everything works. So this week's post will be a rundown of the characters and an after action report of the brief combat. Going forward, I'll be alternating between campaign posts and Utherwald Press related posts.

Cast of Scoundrels

We have a crew of five characters who are to brave the frozen skies of Alyeska, complete with their own airship (more on that in a bit). They all hail from a diverse range of different backgrounds and, in one particular case, different countries.

Alex Sondheim - Petty street thug, grew up picking pockets and extorting shopkeepers.

Herbert Schilling - Former doctor's apprentice from Lindun, recently finished national service posting at Calharrow.

George Packer -  Served in the Royal Aero-Marines, now heavy weapons specialist and secondary pilot for the group.

Jack "Tag" Rollews - Mercenary pilot and mechanic, originates from the Coalition.

Sebastion Jones - Sharpshooter.

As stated earlier, they have an airship; The Waylander

She's an old Rover-class scout airship that saw service during the Great Darmonican War and got sold off after the armistice. It sports hooks to mount a pair of fighter-reconnaissance aircraft to extend its patrol radius and for self-defence. Additionally, it boasts a pair of gun turrets armed with twin 50-cal machine guns. 

At present they have a single escort aircraft; A Blackforge Marauder that's been named "Gilias".

Smoke Street Shootout

After character creation was done and the players had sorted out their airship, we had a bit of time to run through a bit of combat. This was partially to get used to the rules again, partially to show how the system works for Herbert's player since he's new to the group and to tabletop RPGs.

The scenario was pretty straight forwards; the group ran afoul of a street gang that outnumbered them two-to-one.

Jack's player got lucky and received a Joker in the first round of combat, but elected to hold their action. Herbert's player ended up going first, got into cover behind a truck and fired off a shot from their rifle. George was next, firing a burst from his machine gun whilst Alex edged closer to the thugs and fired his revolver. Jack and Sebastion broke into a nearby building with the intent of using the upper floor as a sniping point. By the time the thugs went, one of them had been Shaken (and would remain so). The return exchange of fire from the thugs was terrible, so a good bunch of them decided to leap-frog through some cover in order to get to George and Herbert. The thug leader fired his weapon, which produced a beam of light rather than a bullet, at Alex.

Round two saw Herbert getting a Joker and going first again, this time downing one of the thugs. George's efforts with the machine gun put down a couple more thugs. Jack and Sebastion reach the upper floor, Jack then spotted for Seb by using his pair of binoculars. Allow Jack to do a Notice roll, a success and each raise then gave +1 to Seb's Shooting roll (IIRC he got a raise and so Seb got +2 to his own roll). Seb then fired at the thug leader and managed to roll 24 on his damage roll, the thug leader managed to do a Soak roll but was left with two wounds. Alex then moved up to do a melee attack on the thug leader and...failed.

The thugs continued to move forwards, but their shooting was just as ineffective as it was during the first round. The thug leader spent a benny to remove Shaken and proved just as bad in melee against Alex. Due to time constraints we had to call it quits there, though everyone seemed to enjoyed it.

Thoughts: Range and cover modifiers do have a big impact, plus it was nice seeing the players thinking tactically.

Kickstarter Update

OK, Frozen Skies Kickstarter update time.

Right, that magic word...FULFILMENT

We've pretty much finished checking through for typos and errors, now its a case of doing the last few corrections and edits before finalizing the files prior to them being uploaded to DriveThruRPG. There will probably be bit of a delay since the files will be needed to be validated by DriveThru, once they've been approved see can then see about sending out copies of Frozen Skies.

So now would be a very good time to ensure that your Kickstarter details are correct, a survey should go out at some point in the next few weeks so that the process of fulfilment can be done. The focus will be on getting Frozen Skies out, after that we can turn our attention to the rest of the Kickstarter rewards.

Oh, and theres another magic word....FEEDBACK

Released a Kickstarter draft PDF of Frozen Skies via a Backer-only update a few months back, have asked for feedback whether theres any changes needed to be made. Now is the last chance to get that feedback in.

The Gwentshire Chronicles: The Mist-Bound

We're returning to the County of Gwentshire and taking a look at a few ideas concerning the Mist-Bound. This group of entities serve as sentinels, standing guard against otherworldly beings trying to break through the weak point in reality located in Gwentshire.

 

Doing things a little differently this week by having this week's post up on Patreon before it goes live on the blog. 

 

 

 

The Mist-Bound

The Mist-Bound are a group of five entities who guard the rift in the walls between worlds and stop otherworldly beings from slipping through. They are widely believed to have been druids who underwent a ritual to become the Mist-Bound, something that is said to have occurred before the Roman conquest of the British Isles.

 

Normally they are very covert, preferring to conduct their eternal duty away from Human eyes. On the few occasions that they have materialized before a person, there has never been more than five of them and they all appear as cloaked figures surrounded by mist. There doesn't seem to be a clear leader and generally they all seem to be male, though one is said to to be female from the tone and accent of their voice.

 

They seem to have some sort of relationship with the spectral black hound 'Grim Jack'. Its not clear whether the hound is a servant of the Mist-Bound or an ally, but no known hostility between the two has been recorded. Its only on very rare occasions that Grim Jack has been seen in the company of the Mist-Bound.

 

Over the centuries the Mist-Bound's power has been steadily eroded, first by the raise of Christianity and then later by the destruction of ancient sites beginning during the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century. Decline in the Mist-Bound powers has meant a weakening of their vigilance on the Gwentshire rift and greater chances of things being able to slip through. A spite of 'weirdness' in the 1970s was said to have been caused by a housing development destroying a key site, something that forced the Mist-Bound to enlist the aid of mortals.

 

The Neopagan movement has seen a revival of the Mist-Bound's strength and power, thus allowing them to catch more of the smaller beings trying to slip through the crack between worlds. However, Human activity has been a threat to the Mist-Bound is likely to continue to be so.

April 2018 Update

We're over a quarter of the way into the year and its looking like Frozen Skies will soon be ready. Though still a bit quiet on the events front and other big announcements, but there is a little bit of news there. Plus there is other Frozen Skies related news that may be of interest to folk.

Frozen Skies

Some of the backer rewards in the Kickstarter was some extra content in the book; had a couple of people in particular choose the "Create Your Own..." pledges. We've had to chase these people, but we've have now received responses from them and working to inter-corporate their rewards into the book.

Don't like to commit to any firm dates as of yet, though hopefully by mid-May we should be in a position to start fulfilling Kickstarter rewards. It just depends on how quick the artist is and how long file approval takes via DriveThruRPG. As ever, we'll try to keep you guys posted.

Events

Not much to say, going to be another year light on events and staying close to home.

At this year's Diceni in Norwich on Sunday 6th May, print copies of the Frozen Skies Setting Primer can be found on the stand belonging to Trinkety. Utherwald wasn't able to get a place this year, but I know the lass behind Trinkety and she'd offered to stock the Setting Primers.

An event that I'm hoping will have an Utherwald Press presence this year is another local show; NOR-CON on the last weekend of September.

And Finally...

Quite some time back I mentioned about the possibility of running a Frozen Skies campaign.

Seems that will finally be happening in over a week's time, though tad earlier than I had initially planned. General gist of the campaign is that the characters are part of a crew of freelancers working for a logging company, this will give them a springboard to start from and allow them to decide that they want to do. Though I do intend for them to get caught up in....stuff.

Since the players are liable to see this post, I can't give out much more in the way of details. Though I'll try to post fortnightly updates on the campaign.

The County of Gwentshire

As the Gwentshire Chronicles setting idea seems to have been a big hit I've decided to do a follow-up post. Its a general overview of the County of Gwentshire, noting places of interests. It also gives a rough idea of the geographic layout of the county along with little glimpses at its history.

Expect further posts as I explore some concepts for the setting, though people have asked about cross-generational stuff.

The County of Gwentshire

Gwentshire is a small English county located in the South-West of England, close to Bristol.

It is bisected by the River Gwent, which flows north through the county into the Bristol Channel. The county town and administrative seat is the town of Gwentford, straddling the River Gwent in the rough center of the county. Gwentford is home to Moore Barracks, the depot of the Gwentshire Rifles and boasts some light industry. A railway line runs east to west, crossing the Gwent at Gwentford where branch lines split off to serve the rest of the county. Aside from the light industry round Gwentford, the county is rural with flat coastal plains giving way to more hilly terrain the further south you go.

Places of Interest

Gwentford - County town and administrative seat.

Gwentford Castle - Built by the Normans on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon fort. Damaged during the English Civil War and never properly repaired, was used as an army barracks until Moore Barracks was built in the early 1800s. Used as a prison during the latter half of the 19th Century until the so-called 'New Prison' was built in the 1890s. Despite plans to turn it into a museum it stood empty for much of the 20th Century, though was used as a PoW camp in both World Wars.

Potterstead - Main port in Gwentshire and located at the mouth of the River Gwent.

Lombe - Village in the south-eastern part of the county and host to Lombe Hall, the country seat of the Snell family (least up until the 1930s).

Ashenbury - Located south-west of Gwentford, west of the River Gwent and just north of the Weston Hills.

Ashenbury Tor - Sandstone hill close to the town of Ashenbury and nestled in a crook of the River Gwent, site of a prehistoric hillfort that was later used by the Romans.

RAF Ludsgate - Aerodrome built in the 1920s, acquired by the RAF in the late 1930s as part of its pre-WW2 expansion programme.

The Levels - coastal plain and wetland area forming the northern half of the county.

The Weston Hills - Range of limestone hills that dominate the southern half of the county, boasts many gorges and combes as well as a few caves.

Setting Idea: The Gwentshire Chronicles

Whats this? Another Setting Idea and entry on the 'Would Like To Do Someday' List?!

Been toying for some time with the idea of a British supernatural/horror setting, but so far I've struggled with a way of making it stand out. Recently I believe that I've finally cracked it; One location (a fictional English county) but with the option of different time periods.

Basically means that a game in the setting can be set at any period throughout history, from Roman and Medieval times through the Victorian period to the World Wars and 21st Century.

Setting Name: The Gwentshire Chronicles

Elevator Pitch: Exploring the weird, supernatural history of a fictional English county.

Genre: Supernatural horror, historic.

Inspiration: Lovecraft, Doctor Who.

Overview: The Gwentshire Chronicles is set in the fictional English county of Gwentshire, which is analogous to the northern part of Somerset.

This part of England in real life has always had bit of a weird and mystical reputation going back to prehistoric times, stone circles and Glastonbury Tor being the prime examples. Within the Gwentshire Chronicles, the supernatural is going to have a strong and forms a sort of 'mythos' based round the county of Gwentshire. There will be key elements of the Gwentshire mythos thats consistent across the various different time periods, but other elements will change to reflect specific periods. Dark creatures may terrorize lone farms and villages at night, but gradually these creatures will retreat into the hidden and forgotten places as the domain of Man expands outwards.

As for the mythos itself, I have a couple of ideas.

The first is the demonic or spectral entities known as 'black dogs' found primarily in the folklore of the British Isles. Some are said to be harmful, others guide and protect wayward travelers. There is going to be a black dog in Gwentshire known as 'Grim Jack', usually regarded as an omen of death. Though Grim Jack would be known to fight evil spirits, its unclear whether he's good or evil as he does not go out of his way to protect people. He is, however, known to hunt down people who commit crimes such as murder within the borders of Gwentshire and would otherwise escape justice.

The other idea was creatures, or even entities, known as the the 'mist-bound'. Running with the idea that mist is common in Gwentshire regardless of the time of year, generally there is stuff that reside in it. Thinking that Gwentshire is actually a weak point in the wall that separates our world from the spirit world, meaning that things slip through (hence all the supernatural stuff). The mist-bound are actually sort of guardians or sentinels, basically trying to prevent stuff slipping through. Due to human activity disturbing or even destroying certain sites throughout the county, the mist-bound's power gradually gets eroded and so they're forced to let the smaller stuff through so they can focus on the much bigger threats.