The Griffin's Crier

So now that finals are over and the holidays are past, I've started working on this again. Here's what I'm thinking.

Dwarven Imperative:

The party will be called upon to perform skirmish warfare in the Drachensgrab Hills. They will encounter the normal sort of beasties to be found in the Hills plus bands of Orcs/humanoids.

This will be a mostly outdoors campaign. Maybe a few dungeon crawls. But lots and lots of Orcs!


Things I may need help on:

Map of mountains and nearby settlements.
Smaller scale map of Drachensgrabs.

Some themes for adventures:
1. Scouting forces
2. Strike force against enemy encampments
3. Find someone who is missing
4. Escort diplomats/leaders
5. Secure strategic resources
6. Defend strategic resources
7. Find/create staging areas
8. Launch strikes against enemy strongholds


Sound good?

I think we mostly all have characters from 12-15th level. Nate, if you'd like, a knight character would work very well here. He could be a Knight of the Fist or a Knight of the Hart.

One free brain-scrubbing with every mission?

Nah, that was ill-conceived on my part. The feeling that I was attempting to evoke was one of desparate secrecy, of being on your own behind enemy lines trying to establish a secret base of operations.

Putting aside that idea for a moment, obviously, the execution left something to be desired.

Story-wise, this will be much easier on everyone. With the focus of Orcish forces being divided more evenly between Ulek and Domain of OB, more Orcish forces are in the Drachensgrabs. The Dwarves of Khelez-Mar need allies and need help protecting their newly reclaimed stronghold, especially now that the Mithril veins have been re-opened. So most of the adventures will be "start-here-go-toward-the-enemy, kill-what-you-find".

There will also be some joint adventures with the Knights of the Fist, the Army of OB and Kalib and the Cathedral of Liberty. The front with the orcs is pretty long.

erilar wrote:One free brain-scrubbing with every mission?

If there's nothing available I've become decent with Campaign Cartographer. You and I could sit down and make some maps Bob. Or you could draw some rough maps, and I could digitise them for your approval. I have CC2, and have really been debating gettnig CC3. If you'll need me to use it I'll jump on getting it (graphics are significantly better!).

EvilGenius wrote:Nah, that was ill-conceived on my part. The feeling that I was attempting to evoke was one of desparate secrecy, of being on your own behind enemy lines trying to establish a secret base of operations.

Putting aside that idea for a moment, obviously, the execution left something to be desired.

Totally understood - just ribbing you. Another of our classic moments.

EvilGenius wrote: Smaller scale map of Drachensgrabs.

I think we mostly all have characters from 12-15th level.

check the reissue and original of the slavers series for maps of the drachensgrabs.

thorbaldt is 11-12 i think.

Hardcorhobbs wrote:If there's nothing available I've become decent with Campaign Cartographer. You and I could sit down and make some maps Bob. Or you could draw some rough maps, and I could digitise them for your approval. I have CC2, and have really been debating gettnig CC3. If you'll need me to use it I'll jump on getting it (graphics are significantly better!).

I've got CC2 Pro as well, and will be re-installing it soon. I should still have our Pomarj map somewhere. I'll dig around and see what I can find. We should add a "cartography" section to the wiki to hold all our maps. It'd be a good test of the file upload capabilities as well.

I'm thinking of getting CC3 as well -- the maps look good, and the interface has been further improved. Still CAD, but from what I hear, it's still better than it was (and CC2 Pro was an order of magnitude easier to use than CC2).

I've been starting to work with cad software at work again. So I think that will be a big benefit to my mapping. With the two of us we should be able to create all the maps we need. And I agree with the wiki part. They should definitly be there for easy access.

Hardcorhobbs wrote:I've been starting to work with cad software at work again. So I think that will be a big benefit to my mapping. With the two of us we should be able to create all the maps we need. And I agree with the wiki part. They should definitly be there for easy access.

I just checked my Mac, and I've got copies of all my Greyhawk-related CC2 maps there, as well as their corresponding PNG files (well, for most of them at least, but I can always make new ones).

File uploading is disabled in the wiki right now (which I just discovered). Once I figure out how to turn it one, I'll upload a few files. I don't want to dilute the wiki project, since we're concentrating on sagas, but it'd be useful to finally have this information available (and sooner rather than later).

I sent a file of the detailed Pomarj map I got from Canonfire! to your work email Bob... that way you can grab it with your thumb drive

Can you send a copy of that to me as well Nate?

btw, I figured out file uploads on the wiki, but I need to take some time and figure out a system for organizing the maps so it doesn't become an ungodly mess.

I've got CC2 Pro installed. Now I just have to remember how to use it.

setanta14 wrote:I sent a file of the detailed Pomarj map I got from Canonfire! to your work email Bob... that way you can grab it with your thumb drive

I don't know about this map -- it's pretty and all, but it seems like they got *really* stream happy with it. Any idea how big those streams are supposed to be? I envisioned the southeastern portion of the peninsula to by more arid and plains like.

I'm assuming this isn't canon, since I don't think any of the sources get this detailed with regards to water ways.

As an aside, one cool rainy day project would be to roughly map out where the various clans mentioned in the old "See the Pomarj ... And DIE!" article were. I always have to go and dig out my ancient maps to determine that.

I think the humanoid clans are migratory, so they wouldn't be in any area for long.

As far as the streams on the map, they could be seasonal or something. There is one that flows through Brewerton, and I thought one flowed into the lake in Waterton as well.

For the placement of OB on that map, I'll send you a smaller one... that way OB would actually be in a bay, rather than on the end of a peninsula.

NukeHavoc wrote:

setanta14 wrote:I sent a file of the detailed Pomarj map I got from Canonfire! to your work email Bob... that way you can grab it with your thumb drive

I don't know about this map -- it's pretty and all, but it seems like they got *really* stream happy with it. Any idea how big those streams are supposed to be? I envisioned the southeastern portion of the peninsula to by more arid and plains like.

I'm assuming this isn't canon, since I don't think any of the sources get this detailed with regards to water ways.

As an aside, one cool rainy day project would be to roughly map out where the various clans mentioned in the old "See the Pomarj ... And DIE!" article were. I always have to go and dig out my ancient maps to determine that.

setanta14 wrote:I think the humanoid clans are migratory, so they wouldn't be in any area for long.

I think some would be (probably the gnolls and some orcs), but a good chunk would be territorial as well (the goblinoids?)

setanta14 wrote: As far as the streams on the map, they could be seasonal or something. There is one that flows through Brewerton, and I thought one flowed into the lake in Waterton as well.

Seasonal streams would be a good explanation, but we should color them differently in our official campaign map. Having a stream-fed lake near Waterton works well.

setanta14 wrote: For the placement of OB on that map, I'll send you a smaller one... that way OB would actually be in a bay, rather than on the end of a peninsula.

I assumed that although it appears as though its on a peninsula, the actual close-in scale of the city would show that it was in a small bay along the cost. The Greyhawk map is pretty zoomed out. But send us what we've got and we can figure things from there.