Lohwand: The Lormyrian League

The Lormyrian League

This region is intended to be my Greek City State/Trojan War area. I had thought initially that I would call it the Ilmioran League, but then I remembered that I should let the stats determine that:

The Stats

Looking at these I decided that Lormyr was a better choice for the head of the League. Ilmiora has "lack of imagination" for both past and future which doesn't say "leadership" to me. However, "Duty" for the present implies that they might back a league with perhaps Lormyr at its head. Lormyr also has "lack of imagination" for the past, and "shallowness" for the present, but its virtue is "Recognizing the Larger Problem" - which in my mind is Tharkallan aggression, so that puts them on top, IMO.

I should note that when thinking things out I had already decided that Nemedia was the first of these city states to fall under the Tharkallan yolk. So there is a threat, even if it is not immediate.

The green highlighted areas are ones where the results imply possible conflict. In the case of Ilmiora I think I highlighted it because of the soldier/duty reference. I've since changed my mind andI don't think that this means Ilmiora is currently at war. There is "peril" as a virtue, which might mean that the Tharkallan conquest of Nemedia has awakened them to the need to do something.

The other two instances are Sylila and Kroy, which are adjacent to each other; you might have already guessed that Kroy is my version of Troy. And - straight up, no fudging by me - "destruction" is part of Kroy's past! And the fault is "energy sapped". Sylila on the other hand, has "war: great effort" as its fault and its past is "energy". 

My interpretation is that Sylila and Kroy have recently fought a war, ending with the sack of Kroy, which is now a client state of Sylila. Furthermore, Corlay has a fault of "decline" with "inexperience" in its past and "weakness" as the present, but with "rebirth" as its virtue. So my reading is that Corlay is related somehow to the Krojans and that probably survivors have taken refuge there, hence the rebirth. I am also tempted to also categorize Ossary as a related nation as well, but their stats were so lackluster as to suggest they had first failed to aid the Krojans and then  probably turned any away that showed up at their shores. I do note that Ossary's future is "recognizing the larger problem" so perhaps they will support the league. Sylila's future is "indulgence" which I think means they are riding high after their victory and are likely to give the league short-shrift, even if they do nominally support it; Kroy's future is "nuture", which I take to mean that they are licking their wounds and no doubt plotting their revenge. Their virtue of "ceasing fruitless labour" seems to reinforce this view.     

Lohwand: a First Look at the Southlands

The Southlands 

(unfinished)

Here is a look at the unfinished Southlands map. I decided to expand southwards because I wanted to expand Haradwaith and Stygia a bit, and also because I had places - and ideas for factions - that I hadn't used in the Northlands map. The Isles of the Ethereal Bells, for example, originally from the Judge's Guild "City State of the Invincible Warlord" maps ("Wilderlands of High Fantasy").

Its not finished. I need to expand that eastern mountain range southwards, and add some more major rivers, among other things.

I've also started "drilling down" - or "Zooming In" - and doing detail maps of regions, adding national borders. 

The Atlan Confederacy

(unfinished)

The Shield Lands

(unfinished)

Like Tony Bath, in his Hyborian Campaign, I am mixing eras, but I am also adding a bit more fantasy and allowing magic. Also note that, per Arthur C. Clarke, and in regards to early gunpowder weapons: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

On the large map "Baradur - the Cannon Cult" is shown. This is straight out of Greg Stafford's Glorantha (and Dragon Pass board game). In that the Cannon Cult is one of The Dwarf's gifts: a sect of human servitors who worship their great cannons as gods, the massive guns being drawn by blind cave-oxen. In my campaign, the Cannon Cult is a mercenary unit that can be hired out to various factions. The massive cannons all have names like Hellmouth, Deathspitter, Hellroarer, and similar. Baradur is also the source of the arquebus and jezzails used by some factions (in strictly limited numbers, of course.) These are all considered magical units in the campaign.

Regarding the mixing of eras, the Shield Lands is a series of Medieval kingdoms. Their principal adversaries are themselves, Thule (Vikings) and the barbarian tribes that ring their territories. A related faction, Dol Amroth does indeed have Swan Knights, which under my interpretation are something like the Knights of St. John. Maybe I will get a chance to do the "Siege of Malta" at some point! :-)

Ologog, Oronin, and Oraya comprise the Atlan Confederacy, and are Amazons. They were set up to be my primary "good" faction to fight the Tharkallan Empire, my primary "evil" faction. However, being "limited by the counter mix" the conflicts are probably going to occur elsewhere first, as I build up my forces. 

Also, per the Everway cards, the initial conflicts are pre-determined to a certain extent. Subject to my interpretation of the card results. For example, that snapshot of my spreadsheet (see below) shows the results for the Confederacy:

Everway Fortune Card results

I did a reading for the Confederacy as a whole and then for each country. The cards predict "War with Honour" in the Future, presumably with the ever-expanding Tharkallans. Oronin has "Destruction" in its Past, and the Present is "The Soul Prevails". I think I am going to interpret this as a civil war which tore the country apart, but has now been resolved. I'm thinking this was probably as the result of some dastardly Tharkallan intrigue. It also means I have a justification for using amazon allies - the losing faction - with possible Tharkallan forces in the upcoming war. I also note that the Present for Ologog is "Treachery"; what's that about I wonder?

This is why I really like the Everway Fortune deck: so much a source of inspiration. 

I suppose one might use a typical tarot deck, but I suspect the Everway deck has been slanted specifically towards gaming. Another example: the results for Umbar, which in my mind is my version of Carthage, shows its Fate as "Destruction"! I swear I did not fiddle the results in any way. This is straight up how it turned out!

Lohwand: Using the Everway Fortune Deck 2

Lohwand Campaign - The Northlands

Here is the latest iteration of my campaign map, showing the "Northlands". I've almost finished the "Southlands" map but it still has some tweaking to do so I won't show it yet. I've also started "zooming in" and showing areas close up with borders, minor rivers, and eventually cities, towns and a road network. The latter depends upon how I want to handle things; I might just stick to area movement, and not try to get too tactical.

Last post I went on about the Everway Deck, and how I was using it. I now see that I've repeated myself. Follow the "Everway" tags to find my previous posts on the subject. I had looked for those before, at least I thought I had, but I guess I must be blind or I was looking on a different blog, my Heroes of the Age blog, probably. Anyway, my earlier posts say the same thing, only different words.

Moving forward, the next step is to use the Everway Deck to generate a result for each Nation or Faction. Or any entity, really. If you scanned my previous Everway posts, you will have seen what I mean.

Basically, for each entity, the Everway deck is used to generate a "Past", a "Present"  and a "Future", as well as a "Virtue", a "Flaw" and a "Fate". As I put it previously:

The Past, Present and Future results serve to describe the overall tone for each of those time periods for each entity. 

The Virtue and Fault results describe strong characteristics about the entity. 

The Fate result describes the end result for the entity in very general terms.

Example:

The Kingdom of Olokand
Past: 3-1 = The Griffin, Valour
Present: 4-2, reversed = Nature, Energy Sapped
Future: 2-6 = The Fool, Freedom
Virtue: 5-2 = The Smith, Productivity
Fault: 3-4, reversed = The King, Tyranny
Fate: 6-2 = Trickery, Deceit
Result: The Kingdom of Olokand has long stood as a bulwark against the forces of darkness. Its people are strong, brave and industrious but the long struggle has left the nation spent and the coffers empty. The current ruler is a ruthless tyrant who is squeezing the people dry. In the future a rival within his court will rebel and release the people from his oppression.

(Note that this is not the result for the Kingdom of Olokand in this current iteration of Lohwand.)

 The next step was to set up a spreadsheet to record the data. That ended up looking like this:

As you can see, the headings list the Past/Present/Future, Virtue/Flaw and Fate characteristics with the Entity listed down the left hand column.

The numbers, shown 3 - 2 - 1 for example, are the D66 roll (3 - 2) followed by the even/odd roll. Instead of rolling all the dice myself, I used Random.org to generate a row of 18 6-sided dice results at a time which I then read off in order and filled in the table that way. I then went back and added the Everway meanings for the numbers.

3D6 in Order

About this point I also realize that there were 6 categories and by using 3D6 I had essentially a means to generate D&D stats for the leaders of each nation or faction. This I have also added to the spreadsheet. By leaders I mean starting i.e. current leaders.

I have had a lot of inspiration from Tony Bath's book "Setting up a Wargames Campaign" in which he describes his famous "Hyboria Campaign", an iconic part of wargaming history if there ever was one.

His book provides other ways for detailing rulers, and the Pendragon RPG will yield other ways. I think having D&D style stats will complement those methods.

I might, for example, be able to use INT or WIS tests to determine what a ruler does, and a CON test to see how effective that poisoned ale was...and so on. Maybe some sort of opposed CHA test, ruler vs Ambassador when doing diplomacy?

Lots to think about!

Lohwand: Using the Everway Fortune Deck

Fantasia

If you are familiar with the Everway RPG then you will know it used tarot cards, or something very similar to a tarot deck, to enable game play. I can't say exactly which because I am not that knowledgeable on tarot, though I do know people were using tarot decks in D&D long before Everway came along. There is more to Everway than that, of course, but this post is not about the RPG but about using its Fortune Deck to aid in wargame campaign design. Specifically the current iteration of my Lohwand Campaign that I am building, albeit slowly.

The Everway Fortune Deck consists of 36 gorgeously illustrated cards, each with a name and a descriptive phrase, and like a tarot each has a reversed meaning as well. I've always liked the deck because it such a pretty little thing, and the magpie in me is just drawn to it. I've used it before to generate previous Lohwand campaigns. Now I find that the actual deck is on walkabout, that is, not lost as such, but somewhere - in a box, or pile of stuff, or down behind the radiator - somewhere where I cannot lay my hands on it. Somewhere Else.

So, what to do? I'm stymied. I went online and the only references I could find were scribid sources, and I avoid that place. Then I remembered that I still knew where the box was, and maybe there was a list or something in there. Sure enough, in the Everway box - high graphic arts value all round was Everway - I found the handy little "Guide to the Fortune Deck".

From the guide I was able to get the names of the cards, their meanings and the reversed meanings. Not having the deck I decided to use a D66 table to generate the results. Actually a modified D666 table in the end result, to account for the reversed values.

For those that are unfamiliar with the term D66, it refers to the use of two 6-sided dice to generate numbers from 1-36. The dice are rolled consecutively, the first die being a control and the second the place-holder. (Not sure about those terms, but them's the ones I'm going with!) So one gets 1, 1-6; 2, 1-6; 3, 1-6; etc. giving 36 permutations. My so-called modified D666 table adds a third die which I just read as even/odd, with 'odd' indicating the Reversed meaning of a particular card. 

My final table looks like this:

Everway Cards

Even:
1/1 Autumn: Plenty;
1/2 The Cockatrice: Corruption;
1/3 The Creator: Nurture;
1/4 Death: Change;
1/5 The Defender: Safety;
1/6 The Dragon: Cunning;

2/1 Drowning in Armour: Protective Measures Turn Dangerous;
2/2 The Eagle: The Mind Prevails;
2/3 Fearing Shadows: Unnecessary Fear;
2/4 Fertility: Growth;
2/5 The Fish: The Soul Prevails;
2/6 The Fool: Freedom;

3/1 The Griffin: Valour;
3/2 The Hermit: Wisdom;
3/3 Inspiration: Creativity;
3/4 The King: Authority;
3/5 Knowledge: Truth;
3/6 Law: Order;

4/1 The Lion: The Body Prevails;
4/2 Nature: Life Energy;
4/3 Overlooking the Diamond: Failing to See Opportunity;
4/4 The Peasant: Simple Strength;
4/5 The Phoenix: Rebirth;
4/6 The Priestess: Understanding Mysteries;

5/1 The Satyr: Indulgence;
5/2 The Smith: Productivity;
5/3 The Soldier: Duty;
5/4 Sowing Stones: Fruitless Labour;
5/5 Spring: New Growth;
5/6 Striking the Dragon's Tail: Underestimating the Challenge

6/1 Summer: Energy;
6/2 Trickery: Deceit;
6/3 The Unicorn: Purity;
6/4 The Usurper: War with Honour;
6/5 War: Great Effort;
6/6 Winter: Maturity;

Odd:
1/1 Autumn (Reversed): Want;
1/2 The Cockatrice (Reversed): Recovery;
1/3 The Creator (Reversed): Abandonment;
1/4 Death (Reversed): Stasis;
1/5 The Defender (Reversed): Peril;
1/6 The Dragon (Reversed): Blind Fury;

2/1 Drowning in Armour (Reversed): True Prudence;
2/2 The Eagle (Reversed): Thoughtlessness;
2/3 Fearing Shadows (Reversed): Recognizing Safety;
2/4 Fertility (Reversed): Decline;
2/5 The Fish (Reversed): Shallowness;
2/6 The Fool (Reversed): Lack of Connection;

3/1 The Griffon (Reversed): Cowardice;
3/2 The Hermit (Reversed): Isolation;
3/3 Inspiration (Reversed): Lack of Imagination;
3/4 The King (Reversed): Tyranny;
3/5 Knowledge (Reversed): Falsehood;
3/6 Law (Reversed): Treachery;

4/1 The Lion (Reversed): Weakness;
4/2 Nature (Reversed): Energy Sapped;
4/3 Overlooking the Diamond (Reversed): Recognizing Opportunity;
4/4 The Peasant (Reversed): Lack of Vision;
4/5 The Phoenix (Reversed): Destruction;
4/6 The Priestess (Reversed): Impracticality;

5/1 The Satyr (Reversed): Moderation;
5/2 The Smith (Reversed): Evil Effort;
5/3 The Soldier (Reversed): Blind Obedience;
5/4 Sowing Stones (Reversed): Ceasing Fruitless Labour;
5/5 Spring (Reversed): Stagnation;
5/6 Striking the Dragon's Tail (Reversed): Recognizing the Larger Problem;

6/1 Summer (Reversed): Exhaustion;
6/2 Trickery (Reversed): Subterfuge Revealed;
6/3 The Unicorn (Reversed): Temptation;
6/4 The Usurper (Reversed): War without End;
6/5 War (Reversed): Effort Misspent;
6/6 Winter (Reversed): Inexperience;

So, that's that. What does one do with it?

More on that next post...