dungeons & dragons

The Most Realistic Simulation Of Combat In A Tabletop RPG: Let’s Talk To Its Designer!

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For some roleplaying gamers, the thrill of the game comes from cautious, dangerous exploration of the unknown with a hissing, hungry beast potentially down every corridor. For some, it’s the “beer and pizza” comradery and casino-like feel of the dice deciding life and death. Many love the unfolding stories, to gather “there I was” anecdotes like they’re candy.

But some of us want some blood and consequences.

Youtube is crammed with advice on how to make your tabletop RPG combat more realistic, but there’s a fellow you’re going to meet here who may have cracked that code with a rocketship of a game from the turn of the millennium called The Riddle of Steel.

So you should know…Jake studied and taught at a leading historical martial arts organization, was co-founder of the Historical European Martial Arts Alliance, and held championship and rank positions in multiple disciplines including the number one position in the United States for the longsword. He’s not just some nerd cranking out dice mechanics, though when we spoke, he shocked me with his depth of RPG knowledge and passion. He’d even heard of Feng Shui Action Movie Roleplaying, which that alone would have made him awesome.

Here he is. Watch this and try not to grin at this guy.

Anyway, today he might be head of the European cybersecurity business for a global consulting firm and a Ted Talk waiting to happen, but why brag about that when you created something many consider as the most realistic simulation of combat in a tabletop game? I sat down with Jake in December to talk about everything from The Witcher to D&D, from the reality of trying to stab someone with a sword to being front-row at some legendary developments in roleplaying games. Our chat was a fascinating tornado of influences and inspirations, and, sadly, I can only present here the heaviest-hitting topics and exchanges to keep the size manageable (puns intended). I hope you enjoy hearing from him as much as I enjoyed our conversation.

Welcome back to our Inspirational Creator Series!

As always, my main interest in hearing from Jake was to understand his inspirations and influences, what drove him to create something in the first place and from what wells he may have drawn as he did so. Before we get into any of that or in any details here, let me hook you a bit on what innovations and experimentation made Riddle of Steel unique.

Riddle of Steel Overview

The game itself (Driftwood Publishing 2001) is a D10 dice pool system, meaning you’re trying to accumulate as many 10-sided dice as you can for various rolls to see whether you get the outcome you want as the story plays out. The setting is a massive continent on a roughly earth-sized world (both named Weyrth) and replicates many familar low fantasy sword & sorcery elements. – though with plenty of room for vicious, deadly combat. And that’s where the system really shines.

Spiritual Attributes: Like many systems, characters receive stats based on their backstory and natures to affect dice rolls. Here, these include Strength, Agility, Toughness, Endurance, and Health as well as Will Power, Wit, Mental Aptitude, Social, and Perception. However, this ruleset also provides for Spiritual Attributes such as Conscience, Destiny, Drive, Faith, Luck and Passion: traits derived from your character’s backstory and which can change over the course of the game. They have mechanical consequences for gameplay but also have a magical way of driving roleplaying and heightening dramatic moments.

Combat Initiative: Commonly, the turn order of combat moves in a roleplaying game is determined by an Initiative dice roll. In Riddle of Steel, opposing players (or the game master rolling for a non-player character) declare a fighting stance up front which can provide stronger attacks and defenses at the cost of predictability and flexibility. Players then simultaneously uncover either a RED or a WHITE die to either ATTACK or WAIT. Imagine two boxers eyeing each other amid their footwork to gauge the next move and size up their options.

Terrain: The ruleset encourages description of and integration with the environment in which the combat is taking place. In fact, page 77 offers Target Numbers to roll against so that things like swampy ground or tight spaces affect gameplay. To me, this opens up all kinds of interesting twists in a fight given the props and surrounding conditions either fighter might take advantage of.

Hit Location Zones: When you make your attack, it isn’t blindly at the opponent so much as an attempt to strike a specific target. It’s part of the attack. Looks like this:

Detailed Damage Tables: I understand this is one of the areas for which the Riddle of Steel ruleset was often criticized as being too clunky and slowing down the game. My take is a bit different though. There are tables here for Cutting, Puncture, and Bludgeoning damage for each Hit Location Zone. Just have them handy and printed separately, man. Doesn’t take long to find what happened And it brings a gruesome and fierce edge to the fight. Honestly, combat doesn’t take longer than a turn or two in this game anyway.

That’s right. You can die in combat in Riddle of Steel. Fast.

Let’s Hear From The Designer!

Jake, What were some of your earliest influences and inspirations? [The actual conversation has been paraphrased and edited for flow and space considerations.]

“I started with D&D Second Edition, kind of a blend of 2nd and 1st Edition because I came in on the cusp between the two. At some point, I also played Shadowrun, and played a pretty healthy amount of Warhammer Fantasy roleplay, which was my favorite of the lot. And fictional inspirations too. I’d read some great novel that I wanted to play in a game. I would look at which of the games that I played would be easiest to hack or home brew.

“I bought a D30 once in a game store as a novelty. What the hell do you use that for, right? So Marvel Studios back in the early 90’s in the heyday of Jim Lee and the New X-men rebranding, they published these cards. You know, collector cards of all the Marvel X-men superheroes with stats on the back. So I used my D30 and those stats to write my first ever coherent roleplaying game. I don’t know. I was, maybe 12 or 13. Then at one point in high school, the whole World of Darkness thing got really huge. So I played some Vampire, some Werewolf, and some of those other spinoff games. And GURPS, this idea of modularity and all that. These were all heavy, heavy points of inspiration for me.”

And The Witcher books?

“Right. I spent a couple of years living and working in Poland and learned to speak Polish. I started reading them before the last one was published. I read Sapkowski’s works while I was in Poland, in Polish, and I was just so energized by them! I thought they just captured my imagination in a huge way! When I got back to the U.S. in late 1999, early 2000, I wanted to play The Witcher. I wanted to do something that had this vibe of really cool combat, right? I wanted to do something where the players are making choices about what the character is doing in the fight. I didn’t want to just say ‘you roll, you hit, you roll, you don’t hit, I attack’ – you know. I wanted some degree of tangible, tactical interaction.

“And around that same time, I was introduced to King Arthur Pendragon by Greg Stafford, which is a master class in game design. One of the greatest games ever designed, hard stop. Just phenomenal.

“Fun little side note on that: shortly before Greg died, a common friend of ours introduced us. I consulted on some of the combat rules for what Greg was planning for 6th edition. I signed an NDA – all that stuff, actually sat down with them at Gen Con. I walked him through a whole bunch of armor research…how it really functions and how it’s really fought in. All these things and then…God save us all…he died. I have no idea if any of that made it into the notes for the guy who actually finished 6th edition. My guess is it didn’t, which just kills me because Pendragon is such an incredible game. To have had my name listed as advisor for Pendragon would have been like a crowning nerd achievement. Anyway, Pendragon. Phenomenal!”

Any others?

“Yeah, I was introduced to a Polish game called Dzikie Pola, which means The Wild Fields. It’s the Polish name for eastern Poland, the Ukraine, during the kind of Baroque period – the Polish golden age when it was sabers and Sarmatians and big furry hats. It’s an amazing period, and there is some amazing fiction and historical stuff out there about it! Anyway, it had this really clever dueling system for sabers, and it was the first time I’d seen this kind of approach where you have a number of combat points – like you’ve got 10, the other guy, 8 or whatever. You pick from a list of maneuvers that cost points. Then you contest back and forth. The game’s second edition took all that stuff out though. I don’t know how functional it all was, but the idea was brilliant!

And John Wick was starting to publish his big games: 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings. John Wick was kind of the rock star of game designers. He’d won the Origins Award for best game two or three years in a row. I was reading some of his games and looking at his tech, the vibe there. But I tried hacking GURPS. I tried hacking Warhammer Fantasy. I just ultimately decided that I couldn’t hack any of these games to be what I wanted.”

So we’re getting into game design choices for Riddle of Steel, then?

“Yeah. I know from playing Shadowrun that it was fun to roll a handful of dice, right? I knew from playing World of Darkness that I hated when you rolled and hit, then rolled for damage and didn’t do anything. I hated that these things needed to be connected. There was no point in even trying to hack D&D at that point. They’d gone to edition 3.5 and I was like, ‘what are feats’? I definitely went through at least a decade, maybe 15 years, when I was “too cool” for D&D. So I started looking at it as a blank slate with some requirements: I needed you to make combat choices all the time you’re in a fight, choices that had to be meaningful. They have to be impactful and interesting enough that the rest of the table wants to watch.

“There were just things happening in these other games that I was playing that were taking me out of the fiction. There had to be a sense of risk, a sense of danger to promote making certain kinds of decisions. I wanted something exciting to watch, with real decisions that had enough flexibility so you could insert some flash into it. I kind of failed at that, to be honest, but it was a major goal in the game design then.”

Flash. Tell me about that.

“I wanted a system where you could create the kind of things that show up in the Witcher books. Geralt fights in a very flashy way. The word ‘pirouette’ shows up a lot, at least in the Polish. He cut a guy in a pirouette: a somersault and a pirouette. And the guy’s head popped off. I wanted a system where you could plug that kind of stuff in.

I started doing research and realized I needed to know more…not just about games. And I started looking at how weapons were used historically and stumbled across what would later be called the Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) movement. It blew my face off! It honestly replaced roleplaying games as the primary obsession of my life for the next 20 years. As I researched, I realized how little we knew as a community about the martial arts of the period. Everything I found out, everything I could glean and pull from that made its way into Riddle of Steel. So I stopped worrying about some of the more cinematic, flashy stuff and started thinking about what happened historically…how do I model that in my game? I got an endorsement from a leading historical martial arts organization at the time because I showed them what I was doing. And listen, man, if you’re trying to recreate a historical martial art, you’re a nerd.”

Let’s talk about the art in the book.

“Yeah. The main three artists in the book are myself, a guy named Rick McCann (who also helped design the original sorcery system), and Ben Moore. My high school buddies, right? I was in the art scene, and they were my artist friends. Rick was by far the more professional artist of us. I think he’s a professional artist today.” [Editor’s note – Rick has in fact taught artists at Dreamworks Animation among other places and is indeed available for contracted art]

I’ve got to ask about this one particular image in there. This guy.

“Yeah. That’s Rick. Rick McCann. Rick was really, really good. Rick did the cover.”

“All the knotwork was done by Ben Moore. All the very clean black and white inked pieces were me, and some of the pencil pieces. And one of the criticisms I got early on like when we first went to GAMA Expo was there was too much art, that I should have used less art and avoided a lot of the lower quality pieces. I guess that’s true. I don’t know. It’s worth pointing out: I just wanted a game for me and my friends to play. I had no intention of publishing. And then I wanted a physical copy because, you know, pdf’s weren’t a thing yet. To get something affordable, I had to print hundreds of copies and so – well crap – if I’m going to print hundreds of copies, I’ve got to sell 299 of them. And so it spiraled like that.”

Fantastic. Just fantastic. Talk about those early days then, as you guys were putting this together.

“I was going to university. Rick and Ben were in art school. I wrote the entire first draft of everything and showed it to these guys. They had some ideas and added to it, then the first large-scale play test of the game was with my old high school D&D group. I went back to visit them. One of the guys in the group – his grandparents ran a doughnut shop. We’d go there in the afternoons after it closed, and we played a whole five-session campaign over a summer week. I was trying to see if my ideas were even going to work at all.

“You look for trends and patterns, what seems to be working. And I went back and designed again. Then the version we originally published, 300 copies, that’s the one we took to the GAMA trade show and to Origins. And when that sold out, we needed another printing, and I found a printer in China or wherever that was affordable, with higher quality print and clearer images.

“It was interesting. Going from the fun part of designing the game and creating this work of art, building it in Pagemaker, putting in the text, picking fonts and graphics, play testing, publishing at the first couple of cons where you’re promoting the game…and there’s so much excitement and energy till you realize you’ve now borrowed more money than you’ve ever had in your life. You’re trying to make this happen, and suddenly it’s a business you’re trying to make money with. And the fun of using it for tax writeoffs becomes not so much fun anymore.”

And you wound up selling it?

“Yes, I sold Driftwood Publishing in 2004, and the rights went to someone else, who then sold it in 2013 to Tavish Campbell of Red Lion Publishing. I haven’t been in contact with Tavish in a decade, and I wonder if he’s not dead!” [Editor’s note: we tried contacting Tavish for this article. We really did. If any of you can help reach him, Jake would like to catch up!]

“But I learned a lot as a designer. As I write a successor game, whatever it winds up being called, I’ve got great stuff. In the event that I ever get around to finishing and publishing it, I understand my priorities as a designer so much better now because I have words that describe things that I simply felt as a 22 year old.”

You said European Martial Arts blew your face off. Give me one concrete example of what you meant by that.

“I think the first thing was – I saw this video of a guy doing what we call a flourish, just swinging the sword around shadow-boxing with an early rapier, something you could cut with. The blade was moving so fast, and it was so lethal-looking. The economy of movement! Up until that point, every time I’d seen somebody wielding a sword, it was an actor performing staged choreography that came from either modern sport fencing or from traditional stage combat (which is meant to be inefficient and safe by design). If you look at the sword fighting even in some of the better films like Lord of the Rings, you can see they’re intentionally swinging at each other’s swords and not at each other. So I saw this guy who was not a stage fencer, moving his weapon in a way that was like – Oh my God, this is fast! It looks lethal. It looks beautiful.

“And the second thing that blew my face off was realizing there are hundreds of books written during that time period that tell you how to use these instruments. The whole HEMA movement was about taking a martial artist and a historical book and slamming these things together. We were actually experimenting to recreate lost arts by taking people who knew how to move and getting them to try and interpret these historical sources and make that come to life.”

If somebody’s reading this and wants to get their hands on a book like that, name a good one.

“There’s a website called The Wiktenauer that contains dozens if not hundreds of these manuscripts. Translated photocopies. All kinds of stuff. My stupid claim to fame is that I named it. I had nothing else to do with its creation. It’s a play on wiki and then the master, Johannes Lichtenauer.”

How does The Burning Wheel RPG fit into all this?

“Luke Crane and I became friends actually. The Burning Wheel and Riddle of Steel approached the same problems in different ways. We had very similar design priorities, and so when we first met each other in 2002 or 2003, we were definitely looking at each other crazy, like, whoa – hold on, are you like a competitor? Are you an enemy? And a year later we were very close friends, and he is still one of my closest friends to this day. I spent many years going to Gen Con as a member of Burning Wheel HQ crew, just quietly being this guy who also wrote this other game.”

All right. It’s time. Let’s have some advice from the designer of Riddle of Steel on how to fight in the game. What do I need to know?

“Dump as many stats as you can to get a high reflex score. The higher the combat pool, the better. The name of the game is not to land a hit; it’s to drain the other guy’s pool and then land a hit. Once you land a hit, press your advantage. But focus on not getting hit first. Pressing and gaining the initiative. If you gain the initiative, keep it. If you throw a WHITE die and your opponent throws a RED, and he comes at you with a small number of dice, parry with slightly more than he did. If you parry with too much, he’ll use the feint.

“The odds are in your favor if he attacks with a lot of dice. Use the counter maneuver when you attack. If you think you’ve got a chance to go for the jugular, go high and throw a lot of dice into it. But if you think he’s going to counter that, you’ll get killed. So get to know your opponent. If he uses a lot more defense dice, then call a feint.”

Jake, you’ve been amazing! Thanks for your time here.

“Yeah, by all means! As you can see, I’m happy to talk about all this stuff. I still enjoy it. Thanks for spending time to hear me rant.”

*

For Grailrunner readers, it may be expensive or at times impossible to find a copy of Riddle of Steel out there in the wild right now. Here’s a link to a Quick Start Guide from Driftwood Publishing by Stephen Barringer that’s publicly available for free.

Hopefully you enjoyed our chat. For me, it was an absolute blast! I’ll leave you with the opening words from Riddle of Steel:

Since the dawning of time, when Triumph the Forger-God pounded out the world from the mists and ores of heaven, mean have sought the Riddle of Steel.

Few have found it.

What is it?

It is invincibility – to strike with all and to be struck by none.

It is understanding – to ask questions and to know the answers.

It is peace – to walk without fear, to know that the end is in your own hands.

It is skill – to feel the elegance found in violence, and to know the beauty found in stillness.

It is Spirit – to gaze into the face of your God and to know him before he comes for you.

What is the Riddle of Steel? Where is it found?

That is the question with no answer.”

Till next time, guys.

A Celebration! We’ve Hit The Halfway Mark!

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Oh boy, has this been harder and infinitely more rewarding than I’d thought it would be!

A few months ago, we announced an exciting new project we’re working on at Grailrunner, expanding our Salt Mystic setting into tabletop roleplaying through a bibliomancy-style oracles book. The core idea is to provide a simple engine for exploring a fully realized science fantasy world with its rich history, colorful people and cultures, and the quirks and dangers of exploration contained in the covers of a book. The innovative twist on standard roleplaying oracles, which typically take the form of dice tables, is it will be constructed in a bibliomancy format.

We’re calling it:

I’m the guy writing it and it’s been life-changing. Seriously. I’ve had to stretch my imagination till it hurts to build out a realistic but fantastical world interesting enough to merit exploring and complex enough to come to glorious life for a solo player as well as for groups with a game master…all while avoiding contradictions with stories and materials we’ve already published.

What is bibliomancy?

It means foretelling the future by interpreting a random passage from a book.

How does that relate to roleplaying games?

In well-constructed roleplaying games like Shawn Tomkin’s Ironsworn or Starforged, there are layers of dice tables you consult to surprise and throw new encounters and situations at a player. Shawn is a master of this, providing a first impression of a person, then a name, then a more revealed aspect of their character as you get to know them. In Starforged, he provides similar layering for a star system, a planet seen from orbit, then more revealed aspects of settlements as you land your space ship and learn more. This randomness and immersion makes magic happen when you’re trying to avoid a blank page staring back at you (if you’re playing solo) or, worse, a table of players waiting on you to be creative.

More to my point today, he also provides “Action” and “Theme” tables intended to set the scene for a new area you’re exploring or some new situation your player is entering. They’re a bit vague but Shawn has described the marvelous imaginative process we follow in consulting tables like this as “creative interpretation”. What he means is you bring your own thoughts and ideas and filters to bear when you roll for these random descriptive words and make sense of them to drive the story forward.

Apologies if you see the I Ching as reflecting a deep reality but I do not and view the creative interpretation process as similarly at work figuring out what a hexagram has to do with a given situation.

So this new book will be a one-stop shop for a roleplaying adventure then?

Yes. I’m being careful to design for use with any roleplaying system (as people are a bit judgey about this) so it can just be an oracles supplement for other systems. However, there are some intriguing things you can only do with bibliomancy mechanics which make it necessary to provide very streamlined rules a solo player or game master can use without any other system (or even dice) at all!

What sorts of new things in the Salt Mystic setting will we see in this?

Wow, it surprises me every week! In another project (called Ruinwalker), we already had designed these massive naturally armored rhinos called “towerbeasts”, bio-engineered for ancient wars but still lingering about. Here, as towerbeasts pop up in various places it struck me that they didn’t have the kind of personality dragons do, jealously guarding piles of treasure and breathing white-hot flames.

So…

In Salt Mystic, we have all these abandoned gates to pocket dimensions of artificial space, inside which can be all manner of wonders. Suddenly, towerbeasts got taller in my imagination, and curious, fond of idly poking at and lingering about these gates. They might even jealously protect them, creating ugly encounters for adventurers looking to take a peek inside.

And I had them hiss lightning too, just to make it more interesting.

Fantastic! What else?

Oh, it’s something cool every week or so. My background imagination is always running on this. Let’s leave it for now.

OK, what is the creative process for this? What are your influences?

I wanted this to be on an epic scale, with shimmering cities in the distance and a long, rich history that gets glimpsed but maybe not exhaustively explained, giving the feeling of a world that’s existed a very long time and in which terribly and mighty things have happened. I’ve been rotating at random through several classic epics and transforming a randomly selected phrase into something that makes sense in this setting.

These, so far:

  • The Iliad
  • The Odyssey
  • The Ramayana
  • The Mahabharata
  • Greek mythology
  • Metamorphoses
  • Lucian’s True History
  • Calvino’s Invisible Cities
  • Dante’s Inferno
  • La Morte D’Arthur
  • The Aeneid
  • Beowulf
  • Gilgamesh
  • The Kalevela
  • Lugulbanda
  • Louis L’Amour books
  • The Persian Book of Kings
  • Arabian Nights
  • Parzival
  • Ring of the Nibelung
  • The Raghuvamsa
  • The Song of Roland
  • Pigafetta’s diary
  • The Lives of Saints

For example, if a phrase or encounter from a King Arthur story has a betrayal and a virtuous knight, I’ll keep the betrayal and turn the knight into a famous carbine gunslinger. Magical objects become abandoned & mysterious machines.

I’ve also recently started flipping to random pages in ImagineFX magazines and to interesting images on Artstation for inspiration.

What about the game mechanics?

I’ve spent a lot of time researching the best mechanics of various games to translate into a bibliomancy implementation. For exploration, there isn’t a game system better than Free League Publishing’s Forbidden Lands. I’ve taken a spark from them and eliminated dice and the map but tried to keep the general feel of how they treat encounters, story fragments, inventories, and experiences while exploring.

Right now, I’m trying to crack the code on a combat mechanic that doesn’t involve clueless bashing and smashing to grind down hit points. I’m super intrigued by an old, out-of-print game called Riddle of Steel, which contains an innovative and brutal set of rules for realistic combat simulation.

I’ve recently gotten touch with the designer of the game, a fantastic guy named Jake Norwood. We’ll be chatting later this month (I’ll write up the interview for our Inspirational Creator series). Hopefully, I can streamline from the spark of what he has there into something easy but with similar tactics and feel that leverages my format.

Anyway, I just wanted to celebrate a bit and catch everyone up on what’s happening here. I’m targeting 60k words for the text of this, a middling sized novel word count. When I crossed 30k words this week, I felt like cheering. It’s fun, but a real stretch.

I hope this intrigues you, and that you’re okay getting the occasional update as things evolve. Till next time,

Top Ten Adventures From Dungeon Magazine (And They’re All Free!)

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In honor of a Dungeons & Dragons movie being released that isn’t terrible (Honor Among Thieves – not perfect, overall fun, go see it to encourage more of that), we thought we would point out some free stuff that you can go grab for your own tabletop adventuring. Enjoy!

What was Dungeon Magazine?

TSR was the original home of Dungeons & Dragons, and throughout their history they maintained two periodicals appropriately named respectively Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine. The Dungeon variety especially warms my heart because it’s practically entirely free on the internet now, and because of the liveliness of its Letters section where some of the most creative and insightful people who ever braved a dungeon debated and tossed ideas about. It ran from 1986 to the end of its print run in 2007 and ceasing altogether in 2013.

I’ve written before here about the important explorations and inspirational content of letters columns. In that case it was the early pioneers of science and speculative fiction in periodicals like Amazing Stories and Planet Stories where those dudes not only helped shape the genre itself, but went on to change the world later in life. And they were largely driven by the ideas and fascinations they found in those magazines. With Dungeon Magazine, it feels much the same to me perusing those missives for recommended modules, suggestions on how to improve storytelling and engagement, and especially to hear what elements attracted them (and which didn’t).

What kind of things did Dungeon Magazine include?

Anybody at all could submit their own adventure modules, in essentially whatever D&D setting they liked. Even Spelljammer makes its appearances, which if you’ve been around here at Grailrunner for any length of time you’ll know is dear to our hearts! Go see this if you don’t know what I mean. Seriously, just grab an adventure that hooks you, clarify any stats you need to for whichever version of the game you’re playing, and go to town!

How did you pick these as the top ten?

Personal preferences abound here – I like a strong narrative element with some kind of twist or innovation, particularly interesting elements to interact with or strong NPC characterization. Locations with some solid, novel development are intriguing to me. Twists on established lore are a plus! I can’t imagine I would ever just play one of these as written, so the inspiration for me was to steal cool ideas for my own adventures, as any good dungeon master should. Extra attention was given to dungeons mentioned more than once in the letters column.

Shall we begin?

#10 The Lady Rose by Steven Kurtz in Dungeon Issue 34

In this adventure, you and your companions have sailed to the trading port of Sandbar to find the elven crafts and wine of which you’ve heard such stories. Unfortunately, the port is in ashes when you arrive, still hot and smoking from the marauding attacks of a “tall black warship of alien design”, that had laid waste to the town in “a hail of destructive magic and incendiary missiles”. The magic-using baron in charge of the town asks for your help bringing these marauders to justice, as through divination he’s learned they are a few miles away in port for repairs.

What’s great about it?

Although the module explains in detail who the attackers are, why they did it, along with everything you need to know about the captain and crew, the mystery and intrigue of their identities and motives fascinates me imagining myself as player. I especially like the blend of nautical adventure and spellcasting, and the stages of this adventure highlight that. The story advances to a climactic boarding of the warship, which seals the deal for me, particularly with the line among the instructions to the Dungeon Master (which I don’t really think is a spoiler here): “If the PCs can somehow manage to capture the Dama Rosa intact, they will have acquired a priceless treasure.”

Now that’s an idea!

#9 Palace In The Sky by Martin & John Szinger in Dungeon 16

Livestock and people have gone missing in the night near the city you’re visiting, leaving traces of the footprints of giants. Strangely though, the footprints begin and end abruptly defying all logic. A fortnight ago, an elven hero tried to bring the mystery to light but died soon afterwards. His enigmatic message sent by pigeon read only “Seek the palace in the sky.”

What’s great about it?

A cloud island to explore with its landing dock, and areas of the cloud called “insubstantial cloudstuff” where you might fall entirely through should you misstep. A detailed cloud castle and dungeon peopled with marauding giants. You have to navigate all that, but the module warns in the beginning that it “isn’t a simple hack-and-slay expedition. It also involves diplomacy and wit; if the PCs attack everything in sight, they may be destroyed.”

I’m a bit of a sucker for airships and floating adventures. This one had me at “palace in the sky”.

#8 Thiondar’s Legacy by Steven Kurtz in Dungeon 30

You’re in the mighty city of Beryl, founded a thousand years ago with its great university, and now a hub of human and elven commerce. The arch-chancellor of the university recently died, and the city is rumbling with rumors and intrigue from the politics of naming his replacement. The half-elf chancellor of the College Of Antiquity reveals to you an ancient mystery signaled by a hidden map and scraps of phrases concealed in the padding of an old shield hanging on his wall. Perhaps you and your companions can follow the clues and discover what happened to elven king Thiondar so many years ago in a mysterious valley…

What’s great about it?

Many of the encounters can be deadly, and to simply bash your way through will get you killed. I really like that about this one. Some wit, a willingness to retreat, and finding clever things to do is the best way to approach the adventure. I especially appreciate the lore-heavy narrative elements hinted at in the beginning, then strung along as you follow the clues. That valley has some terrible and mighty magic and beasts awaiting you. Tread carefully…

#7 Jacob’s Well by Randy Maxwell in Dungeon 43

You are travelling alone in the frozen wilderness, looking for some kind of shelter from an oncoming winter storm. It’s going to be a bad one. When you stumble into an open glade and smell wood smoke, you think you’ve found a welcome place to hide out till the storm passes, a fortified trading post in the middle of nowhere called Jacob’s Well. There are a few other guests there, and as you will learn, one of them has brought a deadly affliction inside the fort that may consume you all…

What’s great about it?

It’s rare for an adventure module to be intentionally designed for a single player and a Dungeon Master, but this contributes to the intentional paranoia and claustrophobia engineered into this dark, creepy ride. It’s basically the movie, Aliens, set in a D&D wilderness. There’s advice in here on how to build a sense of dread and for jump-scares. Definitely a great adaptation of the movie trope to the game.

#6 The Styes by Richard Pett in Dungeon 121

You and your companions have arrived in the run-down port city called The Styes. Once a metropolis and marvelous ocean gateway, with dancing statues and impossible towers, constructed of marble on a man-made island, The Styes now lies practically in ruin. What’s left of the place is gripped in the fear of murders committed by a mystery figure they’ve dubbed The Lantern Man. In the hushed whispers among the alleyways, there are rumors of a Kraken and weird dreams centered on the weed-choked sea. Hopefully, you’ll survive long enough to puzzle out what nightmares are at work in this ruined place…

What’s great about it?

This is basically Cthulhu for D&D. That should be enough to say. Krakens can’t miss with me. Put a Kraken in the story, and I’m in. Add creepy murders, rumors of an underwater city, and a conspiracy of silence with the looming atmosphere of dread…this one is a slam dunk if any of that sounds cool to you.

#5 The Ghost Of Mistmoor by Leonard Wilson in Dungeon 35

You and your companions arrive at the lonely village of Mistmoor, drenched from weeks of rain in this part of the countryside hunting for dragons. A local family fell into ruin years before, and its current young scion is embroiled in debts for some indiscretions with a duke’s daughter. He’s desperately in need of unlocking the mystery of his inheritance, which vanished into history in a terrible tragic series of murders and suicide in the family manor. Let’s hope terrifying spectres and encounters in the middle of the night don’t spook you too much, because you’re going inside, where nightmares and abominations await you…

What’s great about it?

The encounters with various ghosts are well structured, triggered with the timing and mechanics. I like the backstories and defined nature of the ghosts especially, and the encounters are well integrated with the architecture. There is a genius mechanism here provided for the Dungeon Master to create a sense of dread and wild shock that I really don’t want to spoil. Check out pages 55 and 56 to see what I mean. It’s a great, fun spook-fest with plenty of atmosphere and would make for a great time at the table.

#4 Kingdom Of The Ghouls by Wolfgang Bauer in Dungeon 70

You and your companions are following rumors of the taking of mountain strongholds by terrifying creatures who have risen from beneath the earth. Hushed whispers from the few survivors tell of a mighty empire growing in The Underdark caverns, with vile beginnings from a spell gone bad years before that summoned a powerful ghoul named Doresain who stepped from the eldritch portal to either eat or convert the mages to his will. They’re coming to the surface now, to grow their dominions and to destroy anything in their way. You’ll need to be brave and bring torches. You’re going underground!

What’s great about it?

A region of deep caverns, of strange races, ancient civilizations, and lost magic. This one’s a keeper for atmosphere and for something different than your ordinary imperiled village or stone dungeon. I hope this isn’t a spoiler, but there are intentional opportunities among the encounters underground to ally with enemies of the wicked ghouls and form an army of your own. And I’m not sure you can make it out of there alive without an army! I consider the different locations provided, the details and architecture defined in this module, and the robust characterizations and NPCs herein as a master class in a good adventure module. You really should give this one a try!

#3 Ex Libris by Randy Maxwell in Dungeon 29

You and your companions have been hired by the Silvery Moon Vault Of Sages, to find the ruins of an old library and recover any magical tomes therein. Once a temple that fell in a terrifying schism years before overrun by a horde of undead, the library is believed to contain powerful books worth your risking your life there. And that’s very much what you’re doing. Zombies and snakes, giant snakes and centipedes, trapped spellbooks, and crawling claws are waiting in the shadows, though a much more sinister and bewildering threat than any of those beckons as well…a threat from the architecture of the ruined library itself!

What’s great about it?

This is a spoiler big-time, so if you’d care to remain surprised about it, skip this paragraph entirely. It’s pretty awesome, even as a Dungeon Master honestly, though a player could really his mind blown trying to puzzle this one out. Each room is an 80′ x 80′ square with a 20′ foot ceiling, and a starting configuration is provided for the DM. However, at regular intervals, the rooms shift. Mechanics for how to determine the room moves are provided, based on a D4 roll, and it’s silent to the players. They’re faced with trying to find a particular the pages of a particular book to gain control of this madness, which is complicated by the fact that certain creatures from the Nine Hells are bound into the pages of certain books to protect them. Honestly, this mechanic of room shifts is just amazing innovation! I give it third place just from the audacity and novelty of it.

#2 Salvage Operation by Mike Mearls in Dungeon 123

You and your companions have been hired by a down-on-his luck former trade captain whose flagship vessel, the mighty Emperor Of The Waves, which was lost in a storm (and actually turned into a temple by cultic orcs). Its loss ruined him, and he’s desperately hoping you can investigate and regain some of the magical items that were lost with the ship. It may be his only chance to regain his glory, a glory you might be able to share if you’re successful. You’ll be exploring ruined upper decks, slowly descending into the depths of the mighty ship in a nautical dungeon crawl where the compartments are flooded with seawater and infested with the undead. Yet time will become you biggest threat of them all.

What’s great about it?

Again – spoiler on this one. If you’d like to be surprised, you probably shouldn’t be reading some of this. This one’s an easy entry for my top 3 just because I’m enamored with the idea of a dungeon destroying itself slowly as the players race to escape. And once the players are down in the holds, deep in the dark lower levels where there is only cold seawater, choking weeds, and zombies, you realize the ship is sinking. One by one, the compartments flood leaving the players to desperately cast about for a way out. And that’s when the giant squid appears. Come on! That’s genius!

#1 Maure Castle by Robert Kuntz and Gary Gygax in Dungeon 112

Before you lies the enormous, deadly, bewildering Maure Castle. The promises of treasure lie within, but generations of treasure seekers and adventurers have stood where you’re standing and thought what you’re thinking. It’s a maddening, twisting beast of a castle full of images that come to life, attacking fish, an iron golem, cultic demon worshippers, and a lunatic mage. Yet it’s in the lowest levels of this mighty, megaplex of a castle where it is said dark secrets of power lie in the shadows, and where a resurrected demon-handed man searches for them. It’s best you find them first…

What’s great about it?

This one would be number one for the sheer history of it – the origins of Maure Castle lie in a pre-commercial campaign Kuntz and Gygax worked on before Dungeons & Dragons existed, and formed the seed for what became the Greyhawk setting. And Gygax – he’s devious and clever with traps and overall audacity in trying to kill the players. He must have been working overtime with this one. It’s just stuffed with weird encounters and lore and has enough to keep adventurers busy and scheming for session after session. In fact, the adventure takes up the entire issue!

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That’s what I wanted to bring you today! It was a lot of fun digging through these, and I’m glad to have this list and the respective links in one place for my own reference. There are some amazing ideas in here! I can’t promise that I’ve reviewed every dungeon in this wonderful lost magazine, but these gems stood out for me on first pass.

I hope you enjoyed this, and that you get inspired for whatever creation you might be working on.

Till next time,

Let’s Talk To A Fantasy Cartographer! Meet Francesca Baerald.

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Welcome back to Grailrunner’s Inspirational Creator Series where we dig in with some of the most fascinating creators around and ask what sorts of things inspire them, hear about their creative process, and generally just admire people who have very, very cool jobs.

Previous interviews have included a mind-blowing artist and game designer who created the Grimslingers tabletop series of games, a science fiction writer who’s also a professional futurist, a martial arts video game designer who’s studied his craft for over 3 decades but is also a Diagnostic Pathologist, and the influential and intriguing writer who created D&D’s Spelljammer.

Stephen Gibson, creator of Grimslingers
Karl Schroeder, futurist and author
Brock Oliverio, creator of Future Fighter
Jeff Grubb, writer for Dungeons & Dragons, DC Comics, Star Wars, and Magic: The Gathering

This week, we’ll meet a fantasy cartographer, painter and illustrator who’s produced mesmerizing works for clients like Wizards Of The Coast, Games Workshop, publishers Random House and Simon & Schuster, and game producers Blizzard and Square Enix! Her name is Francesca Baerald, and you need to hear from her not just because she’s kind and inspiring and incredibly responsive to her many fans, but because she makes imaginary lands come to glorious, color-filled life with her bare hands.

We’ll be featuring some of her work throughout the interview, so take a look as we chat.

Dragon Age: Map Of Thedas
Dragon Prince: Map Of Xadia
Octopath Traveler: Orsterra

Francesca, welcome!

The breadth of your experience is incredible, representing some of the biggest and most exciting names in gaming and speculative fiction right now. Congratulations on that, and thanks for making time to give us a glimpse into what you do and what inspires you!

Thank you so much! Games were the first thing that started my passion for the job I do today, so as you can imagine it’s incredible for me to have the chance to contribute with my art to games such as D&D, Warcraft, Diablo and books like Game of Thrones.

A year or so ago, I saw a job posting for “Vice President Of Dungeons & Dragons” and thought that was the coolest job title possible. That was obviously before I gave thought to a “Fantasy Cartographer”. As an artist and mapper of imaginary worlds, tell us what you do and why you do it.

Vice President of D&D, that would be so cool (no pressure!). I love my job as a fantasy cartographer. My mother always said that I have too much creativity and this job gives me the opportunity to be creative at my fullest. It’s fantastic to contribute to developing worlds, inventing places and stories. I believe that the role of the cartographer is fundamental in making a fictional setting look real and plausible. I really enjoy immersing myself in new unexpected worlds and do my best to make them real.

You graduated from the International School Of Comics (I believe in Florence), which sounds like a blast. I’m imagining a bunch of wide-eyed artists sketching on iPads at the bases of gorgeous fountains). Sheesh…I had to study calculus and field equations. Tell us about that.  

I graduated in Reggio Emilia, which is not Florence, but nevertheless is a very nice city. Here in Italy you can find inspiration in every corner. Ancient history is on each building and statue. But we also have lovely landscapes to get inspiration from. And the beauty of it is that everything is a stone throw away.

Attending an illustration course was the best choice I’ve ever made. At the time I was working at a warehouse, I knew nothing about drawing. But learning how to draw has always been a dream of mine, so I quit my job and went on this adventure. During the three years of study I encountered many challenges but also a lot of eye-opening experiences.

D&D’s Strixhaven: A Curriculum Of Maps
Warhammer 40k: Day Of Ascension
World Of Warcraft: Kalimbor

So, a thrilled, exhausted Francesca graduated from illustration school and headed off to seek her fortune – I believe your first paying art gig was for an Italian RPG. How did you approach that job and what was that experience like?

When I started the illustration course, transforming my passion for drawing into my daily job never crossed my mind. I was just dying to learn how to draw and express myself. At the end of the course I understood that perhaps I could try to make my way as an artist. So I started to attend Italian conventions, trying to get some commissions (I didn’t even think about international clients at the time). I showed my portfolio to so many publishers! But they were quite skeptical in hiring an artist that used traditional media and with little work experience. I then began submitting my work to online job requests and contests. It took time, but little by little I began to work with more companies.

I started my career as a fantasy illustrator, not a cartographer. I always loved drawing maps in my spare time and once I decided to share one of my maps online. One of my connections noticed it and introduced me to an Italian publisher that was looking for a cartographer. That was my first map commissioned for a published project.

I believe you prefer traditional materials for your artwork versus strictly digital: watercolors, ink, acrylics, and oil. What do you like about that?

As I mentioned, at first publishers here in Italy were very cautious in hiring a traditional artist. But I’m a passionate person that has a strong physical bond with art and creativity. Believe me, when I was looking for work at the beginning and with no job on the horizon, I started to learn digital painting. But I really couldn’t do it, because I wasn’t happy while drawing on a PC monitor. Digital and traditional tools are both great. Digital simply doesn’t work for me. I knew that if I had to make this my daily job, it would have to be with traditional media. The feeling of shaping something with my hands, touching it and loving it even with its faults and mistakes is unique.

Game card Erik’s Curiosa
“Butterfly Effect”
Character Sheet for Hope & Glory

Pick just one of your absolute favorite art pieces you’ve done (apart from maps, we’ll get to that), and tell us what makes you pick that one?

I think that I have a special connection with my painting “The Butterfly Effect”. It’s a self-portrait in some way and it’s the first time that I believe I “exposed” myself with one of my works. I often try to remind what my father taught me: life is special, even in difficult times. And that even a little change can have an effect on life in the long term.

And so we come to fantasy and science fiction maps! What a marvelous job you have. It’s unique and very much in demand. What attracted you to mapmaking?

Playing games while growing up really intensified my love for drawing little maps, dungeons and labyrinths. Diablo in particular and its dungeons were of great inspiration. How I loved exploring! I ventured through every corner of almost all the many games I’ve played… and I know level designers have fun hiding easter-eggs in secret places! After the course I didn’t know that cartography could be a daily job for me. My hope was to find commissions as a fantasy artist and illustrator for games. The opportunity of making a map came by chance and then everything changed. I love painting illustrations and creating maps at the same level. I’m grateful that I can do both today.

Character Sheet For John Carter Of Mars

Can you describe your process for making fantasy maps?

Essentially I “live” my maps. When I start a new map the goal for me is to make those places real in my mind. So I begin by carefully reading the art brief I receive and finding out as much info as possible on the setting. Depending on the kind of map, I take inspiration from publications and nature (inspiration can come from anything) and do my best to mix everything with my personal vision and experience. I start with a first sketch to nail down my ideas. Then I move on with a more detailed drawing and submit it to the client. Once all the feedback changes are done, I start inking and in the end coloring the map.

Warhammer 40k: Sol System
Warhammer 40k Siege Of Terra: Warhawk

Anything you’re working on now is super-secret, but what can you tell us about any projects coming out soon?

Because of NDAs, what artists show you today is probably from a couple of years back! However I’m happy to tell you about a map I’m particularly excited about. And that’s the map I made for the Collector’s Edition of Diablo IV. There are many other exciting new works of mine that will be published later this year, but I can’t talk about them yet. It will be an amazing 2023!

Diablo IV: Collector’s Edition featuring cloth map of Sanctuary by Francesca Baerald

Where can we find more about what you’re up to?

I share all the news about my work on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you’d like to keep updated and see some of my work in progress, you can find me there. I’ve also just finished updating my Artstation page.

Anything else you’d like to let us know?

I’ve seen the world of fantasy cartography expanding a lot in the last few years. This makes me really happy. I’d like to take the opportunity to say to new cartographers to thrive to become the better expression of themselves, to be unique! Because in an increasingly automated world we need to be reminded of our faulty humanity (in a positive way!).

Francesca, it’s been amazing! Thanks so much for making time for us and for the inspiration to get out and make something new. Best of luck to you in the new year!

Midnight RPG: Map Of Eredane
Dragonbane RPG: Misty Vale
Game Of Thrones: Westeros And Essos

Till next time, guys.