Journey to Cauldron

My name is Elwin. I'm a halfling orphan originally from the Free City of Greyhawk. In my desire for adventure I have traveled to the Sea Princess territory and now I come to find myself on the road south to Sasserien . Many refugees from the northern strife are also bound south. I have met a likable dwarf named Snorri, and an elf type scout, (maybe a half-elf). We converse during the long days marches. Also traveling with us is Brak a very large human Cleric. He spends his mornings exercising, and the evening chopping wood and praying to his god. We come upon a woman on a mule. She says her name is Leena Darkwater from Darkwell. She has wonderful stories to tell and requests only that we also tell her ours. She was apprenticed to the enchanter Lord Arbendor in the city of Monmerg. The Lord worked extensively with the local Nobility. During Needfest past, a group of assassins attacked these nobles and systematically exterminated them one by one. It seems that the Leena’s master was visiting one of the nobles during the attacks and was killed along with his acquaintance. The Scarlet Brotherhood was suspected, but the local inhabitants showed no inclination for accusation. When hearing of this, she grabbed up everything of value to her that she could carry, climbed on the mule and fled. She now finds herself sharing the road and her stories with us.
We arrive at Sasserien, and as we seem to enjoy each other’s company, decide to travel on together. In Sasserien, we hire ourselves out to the Sommerglen Merchant Company as caravan guards. The caravan is traveling south to the city of Calderon. The city sets on a mountaintop in the bowl of an inactive volcano. We travel on a Forest road for about 7 days. The forest here is menacingly dense and misty. We finally reach the edge of the forest line and begin our ascent along a mountain trail leading to the gates of Calderon. During the day we pass many refugee travelers. We come to a halfway road-inn called the Lucky Monkey. Carved all around the two-story inn are various scenes of acrobatic monkeys. There are many travelers resting here, many choosing to rest in the overcrowded common room. Before deciding on a place to relax, we must divide the duties of the caravan watch. The dwarf and I will bed in the stables and take our turns on watch. While eating at the inn we hear that the while the city of Calderon is relatively safe and clean there have been some kidnappings lately reported. Some of this is blamed on the local thieves’ guilds. Also we are warned of the banditry south of the city. Snorri comes to relieve me and tells me of an arm-wrestling contest Brak has organized. Our powerful priest has defeated all comers and won the grand prize. Snorri says he has lost early, but I suspect that he is more interested in the ale. We leave early next morning. Mid morning we come to a cross-path. South route goes to Red Gorge and to the South Gate. North route goes around to Kingfisher hollow and bypasses Calderon. Our east route leads to the East Gate of Calderon. We continue east past several caravans and finally arrive at the circular city of Calderon. At customs we learn that the wealthier inhabitants are on the top tier of the city. As you travel to each lower tier, the social standing decreases. Finally, at the bottom level, lay the docks surrounding a small lake, and the lowest social group of the city. The Disarming Letter tavern, an orphanage, and several run down buildings are arranged around the lake. We receive our tax stamp, move on to the warehouses, and are paid. 7 gold pieces each with 3 different emblems… the Sea Princess, Cauldron city, and a strange Jester emblem. We decide not to part company here, and take rooms at the Drunken Morcoth, a nicer inn on the customs level of the city. I check on the local Guilds, and find that there is a Halfling protective society. This seems a good organization to ally with, It seems the local thieves guilds here are now engaged a deadly conflict. Snorri and I get settled and decide to travel to the Disarming Letter inn. I stop by the Orphanage run by an oldish Halfling lady named Gretchen Tashek. I am relieved of two gold pieces rather quickly by the wily Gretchen. Charitable contributions she called it. I return to Snorri and his cheap ale.
Gretchen has told me the Jester gold is from a rather dangerous thieves guild within the city. We return to our inn. Leena tells us that there is need for investigators into the turmoil at the Red Gorge area. Also caravans need guards as they travel back and forth along the mountain passes. These sound like decent jobs for now. She has also located a possible rental location. The flood of refugees will be increasing, and finding a place to stay is important for us. The location is on Magma St. above a gem cutters business. Rory Tricklebrook is happy to have us as his tenants. After settling up with the inn and the gem cutter, Brak, Snorri, the scout and I decide to resume our employment on the caravan route. Leena will stay and watch our newly rented space.

Welcome to Cauldron

As suggested, a new blog site has been created for the Friday night game. I am adding the information from the primary handout describing the game to this site. Hopefully, Tom or Randy will update the blog with information from the game and maybe we will get some comments as well.

Friday Game: Cauldron

Setting and Background:

I will be running a campaign style game with the players choosing through play the campaign they are willing to pursue. The players will be based initially in an urban environment but may choose later to relocate based on the campaign they follow. You will have received formal training in your initial classes through some form of apprenticeship away from your families and have been cut off from them as a means of support permanently. The initial environment will be a city located on the southern shores of Jeklea Bay, south of the Hold of Sea Princes whose eastern shores were recently overrun by the armies of the Scarlet Brotherhood. As part of the character background, all the characters will in some way need to tell the story of their refugee status due to this recent turmoil and how or why they are cut off from their family. By no means do you have to be from the Hold of the Sea Princes, it is simply the place where you were visiting during your apprenticeship or serving as part of your apprenticeship.

This means you’ll be the hard on his luck looking for adventure type. The campaign will require both combat skills and the means to avoid combat as well. A skirmish team is definitely better than frontal assault, but isn’t that true in all cases. You may want to discuss with each other which archetypes you wish to take to fill any gaps, although you’ll have at least one NPC in the group so that I have a character if anyone wants to run something as an in between.

Rule Set:

Core Rules and WOTC 3.5 Splat Books only items appropriate for the Greyhawk setting. Third party products will be accepted on a case by case basis.

Ability Scores:

Character build is on a standard 28 point buy. Use the guidelines from the DM’s guide.

Races:

All PH Races are available in Greyhawk. In addition, ECL races such Planetouched, Drow and the Half-Races are also available but please no lycanthropy. I will use the standard level adjust until you meet the experience requirements to gain a class method or I am willing to accommodate the savage species ECL by level method being used in the Sunday game as well. You need to choose the method that you want to use.

Deities and Alignment:

Deities are not required in Greyhawk but you might find it difficult to not align yourself with some deity. Any non-evil alignments are acceptable, but please remember, either campaign that you choose will require some subterfuge, and an alignment that does not allow for it may be difficult to accommodate.

Hit Points:

All characters will receive full hit points at 1st level and either by public die roll or half the die + 1 at subsequent levels, player’s choice.

House Rules:

Die Roll Conventions:

In all instances of a die roll 1 is a failure and 20 is a success.

In combat situations, a 1 requires a second roll; if the second roll is a failure a critical miss has occurred causing the player’s next round action to be only a partial action.

In combat situations, 2 20’s in a row is considered an instant kill.

Leadership:

Cohort level limits and maximum level will be as the rules. Cohorts will only be able to earn half experience.

Awards other than experience:

I will be granting action and reputation points as additional awards for experience. Action points can be used to make any die roll a 20 when used. Reputation points can be used to find an un-findable item, reduce the cost of purchase or the craft time on an item, gain access to a prestige class not found in play or get information not normally accessible. Players should be creative in suggesting how they wish to use these awards.

Training:

Because this will be a calendar based game, training costs will come in the form of time spent. The cost for training is 1 week per level and can be paid in advance. The example would be that the 1st level characters spend 6 weeks training and on their first adventure or two can three levels without having to break to train again. There will be no financial cost to training except for standard cost of upkeep as described in the DM’s guide and any special materials required by the class i.e. spells for mages.

Magic Items:

Magic items in Greyhawk are uncommon but not rare. Non-reusable items such as potions and scrolls are the most common item. However, the commonality is based simply on the state of the economy. Thus the wealthier you are the more likely the item can be found. The majority of common people do not have access to any type of magic.

All reusable items will be named in the setting. These items could be a family heirloom or bear the mark of the wizard and/or craftsmen who made the item. Regardless the items will be identifiable by the standard means or through the use of Knowledge (History) or Bardic Knowledge.

Magic item creation will be modified to utilize power components instead of experience points. The standard method of creation will proceed as follows:

1. Research the item for creation. This will require access to a source of knowledge as well as a Knowledge (Arcana) check to understand it. Characters will need to keep a log of the items they have researched to avoid duplication.

2. Gather the materials. The components for creating an item will be determined during research. Once a list is compiled the needed materials will have to be obtained. These items depending on their rarity can be purchased or found.

3. Create the item. The item creation ritual will include the combining of the materials and casting the necessary spells also determined during the research. Once performed a spellcraft check will be done to determine the level of success. Someone involved in the creation must physically do the casting it cannot be done by scroll.

4. Only spell casters with the appropriate item creation feat will be able to carry out the creation and the time needed to produce the item will be 1 day per 100gp value of the final item.

Spell Casting:

All casters both arcane and divine will be working from a modified spell list and will be using spell points as described in UA. The system is simple, casters memorize or pray for the daily spell list based on the number spells they can have per day plus bonus and rest for spell points to use any spell in their list. Healing spells for clerics never have to be prepared to compensate for the cleric’s ability to always substitute a healing spell for some other spell.

In addition, metamagic feats will follow the same UA guidelines where each feat grants the spell caster 3 uses of the feat per day, limited only by the level guidelines listed by the feat.

Combat:

I will be using the following modified rule sets from UA. Please review these items before building your character.

• Weapon Group Feats
• Class Defense Bonus
• Armor as Damage Reduction
• Combat Facing



Finally, I will provide all of this information in the form of handouts for you to use, including background information on Greyhawk and base information for the house rules from all sources.