Garthmound is a medium-sized fishing village located on the major trade road between two large cities. At first only an emergency stop for those seeking a nice fish dinner, it has grown over the past two decades into a legitimate trading hub full of local vendors. However, the fisheries have also continued to grow -- pitting the major players against one another as they jostle to control the river.
When it comes to designing a town for your table top role playing game (TTRPG), there are some questions that will come up on a regular basis that -- if you haven't thought them through in advance -- could trip up the flow of your game as you fumble for the answers. In this article, I'd like to present the ten things you need to have in your fantasy village, town, or city design in order to make sure that the people who live there don't die a horrible death.
Many game masters complain that there is no variety in the sources of quests in a table top game because most people hyper focus on the various non-player characters (NPCs) they meet in the world. As a bonus post today, I want to talk about alternative sources of player quests and then specifically list the types of quest givers -- both sentient and non-sentient -- that a party of adventurers may find as they play the game.
The arch-mage Nephros Caromb sought immortality. His plan was to channel his soul into an object -- a gold pendant that hung from a thick silver chain -- convinced that leaving the object back in safety as he went forward into battle would grant him immunity from harm.
However, as he worked to accomplish his goal his greed consumed him and he attempted to add power to his soul by amplifying it through a cracked seer stone. The experiment ended in his death and his soul was fractured into four imperfect pieces, imprisoned within a golden cell.
Fenwald Griswick, Keeper of the Lore and librarian to King Ludwig Ormandy, is known throughout the land as one of the wisest of scribes. He works in the private archives deep within the bowels of the royal palace at Castle Hardstone. These extensive stacks stretch for hundreds of yards and sink down into the sub-basement dug deep into the limestone cliffs that support the generations-old stronghold. There is also a secret exit from the castle way in the back known only to the King, Griswick, and his assistants.