The Seat of Power in the West Kingdom

The seat of government is the King's court, generally residing in the royal castle of Eventide. Eventide is a mighty white fortress that rises high atop the cliffs of Days End on the western coast of the kingdom, overlooking the Twilight sea.

Fairbrook: Key Building Descriptions Done, NPC Template, Wilderness/Lair Location Template

I have completed a general description of Fairbrook, along with that of key locations within the town, notably the mayor's home, the temple, a general store, a blacksmith's shop, a stable, and an inn/tavern.

I'm setting up Fairbrook as a safe zone, though specific situations arising as the campaign unfolds (attacks, infiltrations, etc.) could change that. But in its normal state, it's a haven. So the actual places within the town are fairly straightforward, though I've tossed a special quirk or two into them to add color. However, I intend for most of the interest of the town itself to come from NPCs. So the locations, as such, inside Fairbrook are largely standard fare.

This said, I have also just begun working on the NPCs. To have a starting point for each one, I've created a foundational template:

Name:
Class or Profession:
General Personality [one or two adjectives]:
General Appearance [one or two adjectives]:
Feature or Tic: [one special/unique physical or personality trait]
Allies/Friends/Minions: [name at least one here]
Adversary/Enemy: [name at least one here]
Stats: [class, level, AC, HP, damage, spells, etc.]

I think the most important thing for me, in the template, is the inclusion of one tic, to make each character unique and somewhat memorable, and of at least one friend and one enemy. The latter could potentially become the seeds of conflicts and connections, and thus new story lines (or at least contribute to story lines in some way) further down the road.

I've done something similar with the outlying areas around Fairbrook. Each of the outlying villages has gotten a rough general description, and each wilderness area has gotten a paragraph, that originated (for the most part) with a random wilderness encounter roll to determine a "dominant" inhabitant, to which the following templates were then applied, depending on whether the creature that came up was intelligent or unintelligent:

Intelligent Creatures
Area is lair of/home to: [intelligent race or creature]
Allies/Minions: [intelligent race or creature]
Pets: [unintelligent creature]
Vermin: [unintelligent creature]
Adversary: [any creature]

Unintelligent Creatures
Area is lair of/home to: [unintelligent creature]
Symbiotic creature: [unintelligent creature]
Peaceful cohabitation with: [any creature]
Creature preys on: [any creature]
Creature is hunted by: [any creature]

This too, I think will help me to have some basic, but dynamic relationships already established in each wilderness area from the start, without an exhaustive development of each one. Once it becomes clear that the PCs are going to stay in an area for a while, I can start from these foundations and add more substance and detail. I think these templates could also do double duty for broad stroke outlining of lairs or other small dungeons.

So that's where things stand now. I'm well on my way to completing Tim's six steps, and I think they're working well for me. I just need to finish the notable NPCs (this weekend), and the wilderness areas are all done except for two of them (likely done before this weekend). Then a few lairs/small dungeons and maybe the first level of one substantial dungeon, and some rumors, and I think I could have enough prepped to start by the end of the month.

Some More Maps: The Surrounding Wilderness

Finishing up step one from "Six Steps to Starting a Small Campaign," mapping out the surrounding area. Here's a map of the immediate vicinity of Fairbrook:

And a map of a slightly larger area:

I actually made the map of the larger area first, then cropped and zoomed to make the more localized view. But I expect the more localized view is the one that will get the most use at first, and I'll stick to fleshing out some details on that one initially.

Scraping Away Some GM Rust

For a while now I've been toying with the idea trying run my own fantasy RPG, something I haven't done in many years. I've started playing around drawing maps and such (yes, yes, instead of painting minis...), and my point of departure is an excellent post Tim Shorts wrote over at Gothridge Manor consisting of "Six Tips to Starting a Small Campaign." I read that post quite a long time ago, but it really stuck with me.

There are two things I like about the ideas Tim proposes. First they give a bit of structure, which is something I always need as a baseline to start in anything I do, even if at some point I end up departing from it. And second, by following that structure, I can force myself to keep the project to reasonable proportions, instead of getting too ambitious too fast and then throwing my hands up in frustration.

So here's the result of my stab at the first part of step one, map out a village :

I feel pretty comfortable with this because it's a point of departure I can handle. The last time I GM'd was in college (20 years ago), so there's a lot of rust that'll need to come off. I think taking baby steps from a small start will let me avoid any major up front planning goofs, and I can grow back into it.

I envision the area on the map as simply the town center, where PCs would be likely to spend most of their in-town time – an inn/tavern, the mayor's home, a temple, general store, blacksmith, and stable. Pretty much everything I'd expect a group of 1st-level characters to need early in their careers. Since there is no fixed and pre-defined town perimeter on the map, I can easily expand outward as needed. Other shops and services are presumably there, just over the edge of the map. I can add extensions to the map itself as things develop.

Coming soon . . . the second part of step one: the surrounding wilderness.