Something I've never really considered but is in several rules is the characters getting powerful enough to have their own domain or home. Rather than hopping from town to town, murder-hobo style, the characters settle down and build a domain or home. This can range from a farm outside of town to an actual stronghold with hundreds or thousands of peasants in your domain.
Mechanically, depending on the world, there are a LOT of options. OSE has some brief notes on that (such as the cleric establishing a stronghold at level 9 with the chance for a 50% off sale due to divine interference). ACKS is specifically set up for that sort of progression, though I only get part of it via the By This Axe book I backed on KS. As that is the only set of rules I have that covers details (well, there may be more rules buried someplace that I've forgotten!), I'll just adapt from those rules, extrapolating as best I can. Of course, it is my game so whatever I come up with is okay.
Interestingly enough, the player who brought it up is playing a druid, and druids don't have that sort of thing at least in OSE. In looking up the grove for a druid, there is no mention of it so anything we do is all us. I did notice that there can only be 9 level 12 Druids, 3 level 13 and only 1 level 14 druid. If he gets to those levels, there will need to be some interesting discussions. The books do note it does not have to be lethal combat.
Our characters are currently level 2, though moving up bit by bit. The druid does not want to live in town - walls and ceilings bother him. The Mycelium warrior probably feels the same way, and really would just as soon have a nice plot of earth to rest in each night. The half-Orc barbarian is likewise probably more comfortable away from the stares of people wary of both is heritage and size. The Halfling kinder thief, with the attention span of a goldfish, is happy as long as there are shiny and interesting things around.
Outside of our little trade town, there is a lot of un-used land. A few days away, south along the path that was once a road across those still-to-be-named southern mountains, lies the salt mines of Crevice Creek, about halfway up the mountain. The Dwinningdales are a small set of villages four days south of Windemere Crossing. They are built in the shadow of an ancient castle known only as Harpystone Rill, so further away than Crevice Creek, perhaps a bit more eastward. I'll have to make at least a generic map of some sort to keep these things straight in my head at least.
But within a day's journey, we can say there are 2 old farmsteads that are no longer in use, with basic buildings that will need work but functioning wells or spring houses. They have cornerstones marking the edges of the properties. Abandoned for years, they do need work to get to livable conditions. If they are not planning on using them as farms and the lands are overgrown with nature reclaiming the lands, one could start up something of a grove there, depending on your definition of what a druid's grove is and what it needs to do. As the OSE version of a druid is one who protects nature from the encroachment of civilization, reclaiming a farm and letting nature back in may be right up his alley.
Anyway, based on the BTA book, a domain starts as small as 2 square miles. Which apparently works out to a 1.5-mile hex on a local map. Which oddly reminds me of the T5 mapping conventions from the world down to the land hex. We'll go with the 2 farms being roughly that sized, maybe 1 is 50% larger, so 1 or maybe almost 2 hexes. The Dwarven definition of civilized, borderland and wilderness does not really apply - those are specific to Dwarves. For our purposes, this is mostly borderland/wilderness. The biggest nearby town of Windemere Crossing has less than 400 full-time citizens, though often dozens of caravanners go through town which may add a hundred or more visitors.
No cost up front, but there will be some taxes to be paid eventually, and possibly some local surveying to check for any monsters. The characters can do this themselves, especially the druid who does not get lost easily. As both farms were deserted, we have to wonder why. We've already fought some undead so do not want to revisit that for a bit. But a survey will allow us to run a semi-random hex crawl around the farms. Well, at least 1 or 2 wandering monsters, something they can hopefully handle. It would be nice to get at least a couple of them leveled up in the next session.
Ann's farm has been going back to nature almost 50 years now. She had been born and raised on the farm, the only surviving child though her parents had tried for years to have children. Mostly corn and feedstock, the farm was barely a subsidence-level farm selling grains to the caravans. Back then, there were not nearly so many as there are today. One year, a recurring caravan master noticed that Ann and her parents were not at that old outpost. Taking some guards, he went to their farm to find it deserted, the buildings intact. The small Grainery was half-full, but there were no living creatures of any sort to be found. The barn was empty of livestock and work animals, the house was neatly made up, but no one was there. Having a bad feeling, the caravan master and his guards left, and continued on westward. The farm has been empty since then. There is a large farmhouse, 2 barns and a well-house up the hill behind the house. The roofs are all in dire need of work, but the walls are strong, and the well-house has pristine water: there is a druid's mark on a stone blessing the spring. This is the smaller of the two farms, about 2 square miles, and perhaps a long day walking south-west of Windemere Crossing. The woods have been reclaiming most of the fields.
Old Man Gellar's farm was abandoned almost 30 years ago: an Orc raid killed the farmer and his family, along with the hired hands in the bunkhouse. The buildings all have damage to them and would require more work than the other farm. But there is almost twice as much land here. There are three wells, two of which are still working but the apparatus for hauling water up will need to be replaced. There are brown splotches on the walls, the remains of the bloody slaughter that happened here. Old Man Gellar grew grains as well as figs and grapes. The farm had been in his family for generations, and they had a small wine press and made their own wines. The grape vines are doing well, as are the fig trees. Though as per Ann's farm, the woods are taking back what was once theirs. This farm is almost 2 days walking south-east of Windemere Crossing, and a couple days north of the Dwinningdales.
Do either of the farms have hidden treasures? Where did the people of Ann's farm go? Are there bad vibes to either place: one has an obvious bad history of being attacked by Orcs, the other is a mystery. While I could spin up a lot of things, I am hoping some player discussion may help determine these things, and we can let the story, if they decide to buy a farm, unfold and let the players fill in the pieces.
Though I really should have a backup in case nothing comes up. And the best part is, this is the night before Halloween so I should make it a scary thing. Perhaps Ann's ghost is still there and has a story to tell. And the players can put her to rest. The farm will have a shrine to Tinma, the God of Plants. Interestingly, Sharn is a follower of Tinma, so perhaps they will meet with an avatar as per that post. In fact, I may have them meet her there if they go to that farm. In fact, Sharn stays here a fair bit, and has been maintaining that shrine. Tinma is not averse to other gods, but should the characters use this farm, Sharn will have one less place she may go to where she feels safe. She does not stay in Windemere Crossing too much as there is some sentiment against Orcs.
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| holy symbol for Tinma |
For the other farm, Old Man Gellar, there will be the ruins of the buildings. Both farms have open vistas to the north, though only Ann's can see the Kalor Desert as the other is further in the woods and though a slightly higher elevation, there are more trees to block that view.
As half our group was unable to play, we ended up just talking the entire time. But I was ready to run the game!
I even had some ghostly things I was going to run, as well as see about helping our druid set up a grove. I am hoping they are not already bored with my game - I do worry that I just do not run exciting games. I have a lot of the concepts down but the actual play never matches what was in my head in terms of presenting the material. Somehow, I need to be better in good, environmental types of descriptions to help the players get into the actual scene. It all goes so well in my head when preparing! Then it all laves my head. Though I have been printing out ahead of time what I need and that helps. If I keep it organized. And that is what that notebook in the picture above is for!
Also working on at least a distance map for the locations. Probably could do this in one of the hex mapping programs I have. OSE (and a lot of games) have a 24-mile large scale map with 6-mile hexes for local stuff. Though I think I like the progression of T5 mapping a bit better but that is in kilometers so not quite mapping to miles readily.
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| distances and relative positions. almost a point crawl! |
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