Homebrew: Urban Scrawl

The campaign I am calling “Paper Chasers” has the PCs as ‘retrieval experts,’ who are hunting down ancient texts and artifacts for the archmage Silence Frost. The players requested an episodic game with minimal overarching plot and a dash of monster-hunting along with the Indiana Jones-ing. Their patron is going to be the archmage, Silence Frost.

Since the number of people visiting this site is minimal, this is a post thread from  Bluesky arranged in an essay format.

Silence Frost is a character created for a Sword Noir adventure—Winter’s Silence—and I liked the concept—more specifically the name—so decided to use that. He is one of a handful of the most powerful spellcasters in the world that I’m calling Whyredos. His rival is The Many-Eyed (yes, an homage to Ningauble of the Seven Eyes), who has their own retrieval expert in “The Wren.” The Wren is intended to be in friendly rivalry with the PCs as a nicer version of the Indiana Jones-Baloch relationship.

Silence Frost and The Many-Eyed are the nicest of the spellcasting masters in Whyredos, and both are trying to protect themselves from the others, as well as get ready in case there’s a throw down. That’s actually the overarching plot—one that the PCs and players don’t need to worry about.

I’ve finished writing the first adventure in the campaign. It’s going to be an urban adventure, which isn’t exactly de rigueur for D&D, but I thought it’d be fun. The PCs will be sent to the far north, the edge of the ancient fallen empire that is a key part of the history of northern Whyredos. They’re looking to retrieve a set of scrolls from an ancient necromancer, but someone has got there first.

The next adventure will have its dungeon-crawl, as the scrolls reveal the general location of a powerful magical item—and the monster guarding it.

As an urban adventure, and given my interest and affection for hardboiled noir stories, most of the obstacles are going to be the criminal gangs since one of them is working with the current owner of the scrolls to sell them. There’s the possibility of violence, but I would expect the PCs to talk their way out of those meetings. Not to worry, there’s a subplot that provides the violence that is so crucial to D&D.

Yeah, I think violence is essential to D&D. I’d argue that you know what a game considers important by the rules and rewards it provides. D&D’s main mechanic is for combat, and the vast majority of its magic is for the same.

You can get a look at one of the first of the obstacles as the stat block for Torger, the Gnoll Street Commander is up on Sword’s Edge Publishing.

I’m not going to write more as the group hasn’t embarked on the adventure yet. Let’s hope it goes well.

Given my lack of graphic skills, I am relying heavily on the work of Dyson Logos, whose Patreon I support. That has been an excellent investment. I have some city maps for different points in the world and a lot of good dungeon maps. I use Dyson Logos’ output both for my family game and for this one. If you are in the market for maps—or just love a good dungeon map—I can’t recommend the Patreon enough.

You can join Dyson Logos’ Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/c/dysonlogos/about