Dungeoncraft

I read through the Dungeoncraft articles yesterday and today, and did a little more planning. It kind of derailed my GM Notebook, but it's good info to get down.

Dungeoncraft has several "rules" to guide campaign creation. These are the important ones:

1. Never force yourself to create more than you must.
2. Whenever you fill in a major piece of the campaign world, always devise at least one secret related to that piece.
4. Always challenge both the players and their characters

I walked through the creation process for the early articles. I didn't spend a lot of time coming up with lots of details, so it's a bit sparse. The rest of this post is pretty brainstormy. I haven't cleaned it up much. Some of this info conflicts with previous brainstorming, and I'll need to reconcile it later.

Setting: Earth-analogue, focusing on the Holy Roman Empire for a Germanic feel.

Home base: Hammerstein, a hamlet of about 250 people, focused around a well-known regional brewery. Residents grow barley and hops locally and sell beer to buy other food. Hammerstein is governed by a burghermeister who is appointed by the local count. Secret: The recipe for Hammerstein Premium Ale has been stolen and is being held for ransom in the form of regular gold payments.

Government: The Empire is a monarchy, but the ruling family has not been consistent, and in times of strife a new ruling family has been elected by the other nobility. The "Empire" is really a collection of culturally similar principalities and free cities with close economic and cultural ties. Secret: The first Emperor wasn't the man who unified the principalities. The unifier was killed by his lieutenant before the Empire was fully formed. The lieutenant blamed enemy assassins and became the first Emperor.

Other areas: Wild and strange Arab-influenced elves to the south. Dark Slavic tieflings to the East. Goblin hordes to the West.

Religion: One of the major LG or LN gods, TBD, is the primary religion. Some other gods have prominence in smaller areas, particularly those in remote and isolated areas. The God of Trade is widespread, but not widely worshiped outside of his knighthood and the merchant class. Yondalla or Ehlonna is particularly worshiped in Hammerstein. Secret: A LE god is growing increasingly popular among the young nobility of the Empire.

(Idea: Map Roman gods onto D&D gods. Attributes, domains of D&D gods, names of Roman. Seems to fit existing 3e pantheon pretty well.)

Names will be Germanic (Hans Miter) or English compound (Blackwood).

Home Base: Local authority will be a Man-at-arms, appointed by the Mayor. The Man-at-Arms organizes the local militia for defense of the town. He also acts as a constable, but the mayor is the local legal authority (judge). Man-at-Arms could be a PC mentor. Secret: the Man-at-Arms is a good man, but his daughter is a criminal (and ran away from home).

Critical Townsfolk: Brewer, Mayor, Man-At-Arms (Warden? Captain?), local Priest, Trading post (run by foreign (slav) Knight of the Trade God)

Fantasy Element: A small tribe of a dozen or so peaceful kobolds live nearby. They scavenge and do menial jobs around town. Their lair is a junk-yard. They are not well-liked by the rest of the town, but tolerated because of small numbers and because they haven't done anything wrong. Secret: One of the kobolds found an object of real value. He hid it in the woods and sneaks off to look at it regularly.

Rumor Mill: The local inn/tavern, the Hammerstein Inn. It's the only place in town, but it's always got the best Hammerstein beer, and all the steins are stamped with the Hammerstein logo. The Inn is also the largest building in town and doubles as a meeting hall. Secret: The innkeeper is in love with the daughter of a prominent townsperson.

Stuff in town: Brewery, Inn/Tavern/meeting hall, Temple, Trading Post and market square, in-town housing for approx 75 people (the rest are farmers), mayor's home.