Hello fellow adventurers,
as readers of my other most recent thread (Talents / Skills for Wizards) know, I am a huge fan of narrative games, tinkering and Frostgrave.
For some time now I had the idea that I would like to write a lore- and fluff-heavy non-commercial supplement for my Frostgrave gaming group. It will still use an abandoned city but use a different setting which I will try to continuously establish.
The new setting could best be described as low-magic-dark-fantasy (as far as I have yet thought of it, there are no elves allowed, but who knows). Think of it like something along the lines of Ravenloft, meaning that it uses the D20 systems but has very little connection to your typical round of DnD.
These plans so far had not been concrete, a mere shower-thought of the type of "
Wouldn't it be great if...". Thinking some more about potential traits, items and exploration options for Frostgrave now has nudged me into giving it a go trying to write a purely unofficial, non-commercial Dark Fantasy project based on the Frostgrave rules.
I will probably end up tinkering a lot, changing some parts, adding others. In the beginning it will probably still look very much like a repaint but it will change over time (I for example intend to make the existing yet so far not included in the main rulebook Blackpowder Weapons a common feature). Vast exploration tables are a given and a slight restructuring of the phases could also be happening (no wizard phase, any unit can act at any given times).
Although the setting is not Felstad, I do hope that it is still okay to post my project in this part of the forum as I am using the Frostgrave ruleset as a starting point / point of reference and I also think that this project could be interesting to fans of Frostgrave intending to play the game they love in a different setting. Frostgrave 2nd Edition will surely become one of my main game-systems and I hope to get inspired by the tales told by playing it.
I do hope that this is okay with Joe (who I hold in very high regard - he and Frostgrave basically reignited my interest in tabletop gaming) and would not only value his opinion very much but also of course devise a different skirmish ruleset from the get go if he were to object to me writing something fan-based. I would absolutely understand, no questions asked!
My aim is to provide my players with a very specific backdrop for their games and maybe even an evolving storyline. Bear in mind though that this project has only just leapt onto the page and I have literally been hammering the Introductory Text into my keyboard this afternoon. Having sat enough in front of a screen for today, I present to you without further ado:
Raubvogel - being an inofficial Dark Fantasy supplement using the Frostgrave Ruleset
Before the fall of the Empire of Splendor there began the tale of Aloisius Raubvogel, the sinister individual which in time would lend his name to the entire city which he once chose as his home and base of operations. His story begins, as most stories do, with youth and ambition, a keen intellect not at peace with the world-that-was and bent on shaping it to its will. Rarely does the world tolerate such ambition and in the case of young Aloisius it was the same. The havoc he would create during his presence in our world of dust would resound for centuries, his very name a cipher for sinister deeds, darcke magic and places belonging to the shadows.
Many summers have passed since the last sighting of Raubvogel yet peasants and high-folk alike still whisper his name in fear if at all. Some wish he better totally be forgotten and washed away by the tides of history. Eradicated from the world and from memory. This fate however is unlikely as no map of the former Empire could be drawn in which there could be no mention of his former residence and even though some choose to leave this place on the map blank or blackened the mere absence of it all enhances the enduring presence of the man, the myth, the city. Raubvogel, the City of Ash, endures. A place of whispered warnings, of strange allure and most of all danger.
A Place Untouched by ManNobody knows what befell the city and led to its abandonment. Hardly any survivors remain and those who are still among the living and said to have witnessed the events with their own eyes refuse to even speak the name of the city yet consider recollecting their experience. The whole matter of this ominous place remains and mystery and as all mysteries evokes all kinds of folly known to man – burning curiosity, the ever seductive for desire for glory and that one companion to all sentient beings greed. All dark tales told by caring nurses can not extinguish the powerful drive these follies offer and so it comes to be that to this day adventures, rogues and madmen of all kinds venture into this most dreaded of places.
Some of them even return, if only for a time as the lure of the city grows ever stronger, and what they relay sounds more outlandish and strange than any tale of horror could be: The City is mostly intact, time and a few maybe natural disasters, of course having chipped away at it. Some buildings seem as if struck by lightning, some as if hitten by the raging power of the sea just beyond the horizon, some crumbled as if crushed in the grasp of a giant. For the most part however the many alleys, most houses and structures lie undisturbed, an eery silence broken by the cawing of crows and skittering claws in the dark.
There must be treachery behind this peace however as with every moon spent in the deserted city, men go missing. Some by all accounts snatched by rival adventuring parties to be questioned, hired or sold into servitude. Some however seemingly snatched by the city itself. The tales of hard-minded mercenaries leaving the camp in the middle of the night beckoned by some dark call to never return or to come back as raving madmen are numerous. One of the chief problem also being that the teller of these tales tends to share the same fate some time after.
Yet the mercantile ingenuity of men knows to even turn horrors into ventures and the lands surrounding the cursed place are now well populated with camps in which these unlucky souls prepare for their journey into peril. These camps are rife with men and women who never intend to set a foot unto the forlorn street but instead suffice themselves with providing food, shelter, gear and entertainment for the hunters of fortune.
Some fear that these activities might engender the wrath of the city itself constituting a danger beyond compare but so far no authority domestic or foreign has been strong enough to shut down these semi-spontaneous settlements. Some of these for lack of better word villages have even become somewhat famous themselves, priding themselves on dark occurences, strange sightings and tall tales about their dark neighbour.
The most eminent of settlements surely is the place which its inhabitants aptly and defiantly named Mauseloch. Having been established almost ten years ago by some foolish men and women lost to history it now numbers in the hundreds and boasts some ramshackle administration with, Gunther Krummnik, the first magistrate of Mauseloch having been put into office just last year by having first put a dagger in the back of the most vicious and feared raider around. So far the reign Krummnik the 1st as he is – never to his face - jokingly named in the taverns and brothels has been uneventful with only the regular amount murders and internal pillaging.
Although hardly a bastion of civilization, Mauseloch comes as close as it gets, standing tiptoe right next to the abyss. Whatever order and mercy is to be expected, whatever deals are to be brokered in advance to the journey into darkness, Mauseloch is the place to see it happen. The more witty and pompous among its citizens are already claiming that though other people refuse to put Raubvogel on a map it simply should be known as “this place next to Mauseloch” – that is until the wind howls outside their widow, the candles in the room begin to flicker and against any resistance the tales of horror reassert themselves in the dark corners of their minds and reasserting the claim of the true nature of Raubvogel – A Place Untouched by Man.
All the best
Historiker
PS: I just realized that without block text and formatting the text looks hideous. Does this forum allow any other option to present. text / tables?