(This blog was written by Shawn O'Leary, co-author of Risen, to provide his take on the project and the paths under his watch. Enjoy!)

Game design offers some unique opportunities and the crux of it all is the ability to create something wonderful like a game world, rules that help define it, or simply a compelling story.

I've been a creative writer for many years, and I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons in its various incarnations for nearly as long. Much time has been spent creating just for my own games. I love to create stories, and I love the fantasy genre best. I've always dreamt that I would get to share my work with others and bring it to a larger audience. Thanks to Emerald Press I've done that, but I'm not finished. This is only the beginning. I have too much to tell and much more to share. Having said that, below are some thoughts on how I arrived where I did writing for EP's latest project Risen.

The Wrath of the Irish - The Cuardach
The cuardach, at its heart, is a heritage idea. I am of Irish descent and felt it would be a novel idea to interject something as deep and cultural as Irish myth into a paragon path without saturating it. I didn't want to add too much. It needed to be generic enough and simple enough that a DM could use it in his own campaign without too much work. So I kept it simple. I always start with a simple idea, and attempt to work around it and flesh it out. To find the name cuardach, I simply researched a few Irish Gaelic words and came up with the title of the paragon path. It’s not an exact translation but fits for what I wanted. Secondly, most games revolve around sword and sorcery, good against evil, and true heroism. Nothing wrong with that, but you rarely hear of the hero's tragic beginnings or how he's vowed to reunite with his kidnapped love. Usually it’s someone else’s daughter, king, son, etc., that needs rescuing, so I tied them together and made it personal for the caurdach , an important aspect of the paragon path. Irish mythology is also steeped with faeries, elves, and their fey realm. Tying the path together with the realm of faerie added enough flavor and color to be as magical as any Irish tale while holding true to simplicity for GMs to use. The GM is free to add as much or as little as he likes if he has his own mythical Emerald Isle in his games. I also wanted to present the potential for truly dramatic and memorable role playing. Love, an emotion not touched upon a great deal during games in my experience as a gamer and DM, does this.

Rising from the Ashes - The Sword of Heaven
The dramatic tension in a story should be present in a game as well. A player should feel like he is a part of the story. I tried to achieve that with all of the paragon paths that I crafted and the easiest, perhaps, was the sword of heaven. He is a hero much like the paladin in many ways with one major flaw: he didn't start out truly righteous and pious and, of course, he has to die first before his career can begin. That origin alone I hoped would spark the kind of characterization you see in epic stories. A paladin-like character was an easy choice for me. I’m all about the good guy. Too much emphasis is placed on the "good monster", and today’s movie and novel market is oversaturated with this trope. Take, for example, all of the vampire novels and movies, and the ubiquitous dark elf hero. Even the 4E Player's Handbook presents a morally questionable race and a class named after witches. Every opportunity exists for those kinds of heroes in roleplaying, but I wanted to go with an "I'm mostly a good guy with a few problems" rather than "I am the only shining beacon of light amongst a black hearted race." Of course the paragon path is open enough so that you could still be a member of such monstrous races, but it was the traditionally white knight in shining armor that sparked the idea. I wanted the sword of heaven to be a force of reckoning in the world, achieved by making hard moral decisions and always working toward a strong goal: redemption. The sword of heaven has a chance to avert the nether realms and earn a place in the heavens. It’s basically the second chance we all wish we had at one time or another. This paragon path is all about morals and ethics, and the poignant differences between not only different cultures and nations but even amongst players. Ask your friends how you should play a paladin and what it means to be lawful good and you’ll get a different answer nearly every time.

Fused with Raw Power - The Primordial Ravager
The third paragon path I envisioned came to me late. I had initially only developed the first two, and even then I wasn't finished with them. But in discussions with Todd, it struck me. We discussed at length what I had created for Risen and also what he had written, and bounced ideas off of one another in what I called our "First Business Meeting" which amounted to an online discussion about in what direction we needed to take Risen. I really liked his idea of the firebird and its connection to the Phoenix. The paragon path resonated with me on a whole new level. I was thinking about how the Phoenix is a powerful symbol and great force of nature, as well as a story that everyone knows the world over. The paragon path also granted some limited elemental power and that got me thinking of primordials. And that’s when it struck me: what if the Phoenix was a primordial, one of a small few that actually sided with the gods during the Dawn War? To top it off, the power that was the phoenix decided to bond with a few mortals after death. Great stuff! I decided to take it a step further. Primordals are great beings and the few examples of their power is only hinted. What if a number of the primordials that spawned the universe had been killed in the war but were not really dead, just splintered into many parts because they couldn't truly die? But they can still dream and still seek revenge. In order to exact their revenge and gain power they must bond with mortals who have recently perished. It was then that the primordial ravager was born. The story I wrote for this path was the easiest to write because the moment inspiration hit me all of the other ideas came running. I wanted it to be different and unusual, and so it is. To explain some of the ideas I had come up with required t a reasonable explanation for the bonding with mortals. The idea came to me when I thought about the chained primordial and Bane's influence and leadership during the Dawn War. Afterall why did they chain the primordail and not kill it? As a final note, I based the fire bull primoridal on Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn. If you’ve read or seen it you'll know what I’m talking about. I saw it as a primordial chained by a mad king. If you haven't experienced it, you should: it’s a great tale.

That’s it. I hope this has been insightful and enjoyable. I thoroughly enjoyed writing my part of Risen, and intend to use the wonderful opportunities it presents in my own Dungeons & Dragons games. I hope you do the same.

EP

The time has come once again to reveal a little more about Risen, that 4E book you’ve heard so much about from friends at Gencon. You remember it, right? It’s the one that’s all the rave right now, the much discussed splatbook bringing your favourite characters back from the dead with new powers and path features unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

This month’s preview offers something traditional and something way off the beaten path. The firebird draws its resurrection from the phoenix, a staple of regeneration in fantasy and mythology, while the chaostician uses the bizarre Far Realm to warp your character’s body at a genetic level.

Let’s begin.

Wrath of the Firebird
When a phoenix dies, it bursts into flames and a new body rises out of the ashes. This is not immortality by the truest definition of the word, but a defiance of death and its strangehold over all living creatures.

The idea for the firebird actually came from my girlfriend. I was trying to conceive a primal-based resurrection path merging a resurrected character with a legendary beast: unicorns, pegasus, even dragons. When she came into the office and asked what I was up to, I told what I was trying to come up. “Something really mythical, ya know?” “What about a phoenix?” she asked. “Don’t they come back from the dead?” And so our one fleeting moment of sharing D&D came… and went. (She’s not a roleplayer and I’ve given up all hope of even a drunken night of curiosity. Pobody’s nerfect.)

The phoenix wages a personal war against its primordial brothers and sisters, abhored by their desire to destroy the gods’ creation with vengeful rage. Firebirds carry on this quest in their honor. They seek out primordials scattered throughout the Known World and beyond to make sure they never rise again. Chosen for their dedication to the gods or merely fallen victim to a primordial’s wrath, the phoenix endows a fraction of its power to the firebird and returns him or her from the dead in a powerful new form.

There are three facets to a firebird’s powers: fire, healing, and flight. That’s right, flight. Beginning at 12th level, the firebird has a limited ability to hover and can eventually fly for a short period of time. Aside from a resistance to fire damage, the firebird distinguishes a unique mark across their chest of fiery wings growing in size as the character reaches higher levels and can provide healing surges to his allies in battle. Yet these were just physical features designed to mimic the spirit of the phoenix. When it comes down to it, it is the passionate defense of life that gives the firebird its drive and ambition to live once more. For a better tase of the firebird, check out the bonus preview in CA12.

The Many Forms of the Chaostician
This path was a last minute addition to the mix and I wanted to design something crazy. Something with powers and path features far beyond the norm that would make a player cry out “It does what?!!” Amazingly enough, the chaostician was the easiest resurrection path to build.

After dying on the Far Realm, the chaostician’s soul merges with the chaotic plane and takes on a new, improved body. More importantly, it assumes a morphing form capable of extending its reach, slipping through tight spaces by convering solid bone into transmutable goo, or phasing through walls as a ghost. Tossed in with powers to disrupt opponents with an upsetting aura and brief teleportations to the Far Realm, the chaostician thrives on breaking the mould of most heroes. I’ve always thought of him as the hero who looks like a villain.

My personal favourite is the extended reach and I’m hoping it’ll be a fan fave too. Picture your character standing just out of reach of a pit fiend. If you stand adjacent to the devil, you’re burned in the hellfire covering its body while the fiend has a reach of 2. No problem. With your sword still in hand, your arms instantly stretch out to twice their normal length and strike the pit friend across the temple. Better yet, picture the look on your GM’s face when he suddenly remembers you have that ability.

The real catch to the chaostician is the life quest: he or she has sworn an oath to use these bizarre powers to fend off the approach of the Far Realm. Many wizards and planewalkers theorize the plane is a sentient being, consciously seeking to claim the lawful, organized multiverse as we know it through unprotected portals and its minions, such as the infamous mind flayers. Witness to the horrors of the Realm, a chaostician will use everything in their disposal to prevent this armageddon.

For Our Last Installment…
Next month will feature my co-author, Shawn O’Leary, talking about his inspiration for two of his additions to Risen: the cuardach and the sword of heaven. These are rather unqiue spins on a more heroic translation of resurrection paths and the cuardach is one of my personal faves. We’ll have more previews, teasers, and other goodies coming throughout September and October until the official release in PDF and POD, so stay tuned.

Todd Crapper (that's right) is the Head Honcho for Emerald Press PDF Publishing and author of the upcoming 4e adventure, The Key of the Fey (releasing December 2009), and co-author of Risen: The Guide to Resurrected Characters (October 2009). He wrote this blog because there was no one around to stop him, not even those meddling kids and their mangy mutt.

EP

Sigh.

It's another year without going to Gencon.

It's hard to gripe about this in public and the most sympathy you can get out of anyone (save other gamers) are loved ones who just humor you to some degree but don't really understand what the big deal is about. It sounds like an excuse to wear your dice bag around your neck for four days straight like an engineering pimp of some kind.

Most of us outside of the Wisconsin area spent good portions of our youths dreaming of attending Gencon. And if you didn't, just play along because that's the angle I'm going for. To be surrounded by thousands of like-minded people with the same passion for D&D as you. To not be ashamed and feel as if you've wasted your savings on a plane ticket just to be here. Your fellow gamers are not here to judge and you will run into a least one person who performed sexual favors just to be there.

I went to my first con around 1994/5 in Peterborough (Ontario... Canada... we're in North America) and Ed Greenwood attended. I wasn't into Forgotten Realms, even though the guy I went with was and I had played numerous adventures in the Realms, I really knew nothing about it. When Ed came out as Elminster, I remember looking around at the faces of the people gathered there. Young men, the middle-aged with shades of grey tinting their beards, and a surprising number of women (to me, at the time). There was one guy in particular: if he never played football, it was a missed opportunity. This guy was HUGE and built like only steroids could build. He looked like he had come to the con to shout out "Nerds!!" in a foaming frenzy, but he stood there before Elminster, dumbfounded at the sight of his hero in the flesh. And he asked more questions on the Realm than anyone else there. It's that expression and sentiment I saw on that day which remains with me to this day. I want to have a fraction of that smile on my face when I walk into my first room and gaze around at the plethora of sights. I want to get dizzy with anticipation at which booth I'm going to first. I want my voice hoarse at the stories retold to my fellow players and friends when I get back. Then when my loved ones see that look of satisfaction on my face when I return, they'll know why it's so important.

So for now, there is no Gencon. Yet. As one more year passes, my determination grows. One more year until I attend Gencon.

Or two. Three tops.

EP

In my early days of D&D, I died. A lot. And by that, I mean every time my character stepped onto the map. I’ve had more resurrections performed on a single player than anywhere else in Eastern Ontario as far as I’m concerned and I’ve never forgotten that. I call it post-character stress disorder.

So needless to say I have an affinity for losing your favourite character and the missed roleplaying opportunities you were looking forward to. All that background material drifting to the heavens as your PC journeys into the afterlife; your discussions with the DM about a character spotlight adventure taking you back to your lost homeworld; and those new abilities already plotted out five levels in advance… gone.

We’re working on a new 4E product designed to counter just such a problem and even expand your character in new, dramatic ways. Risen: The Guide To Resurrected Characters (due out October 2009) presents a series of seven paragon paths (called resurrection paths) designed to bring your PC back from the dead and reinvigorate them with new powers and a life quest to incorporate in the campaign. In short, Risen provides a way to make use of your PC’s death and redirect him or her in new and exciting ways without having to draft up a new character or drastically alter your original design.

With three months to go until Risen lands on the front page of your nearest OBS site, we’re starting a three part preview and behind-the-scenes look into the development of the resurrection paths from initial concept to final design. Aside from myself, we’ll also hear from my co-author, Shawn O’Leary, on his contributions and tackling the design of the cuardach (one of my personal favourites) and the sword of heaven.

From Revenant to Haunt
Anyone remember Combat Advantage #9: The Revenant? Anyone? It contained the initial preview of Risen and a first draft of what was then called the revenant. As can be expected, the revenant is a character returning from the dead to avenge his death. This path converts the PC into a true undead (complete with as much – or as little - rotting flesh as you would like) and a fiery temper fuled by visions of the attrocities committed by those directly involved with his or her death. More importantly, the revenant was the perfect example for developing a “life quest.”

Life quests are the key reason for a resurrected character’s return to the world of the living. Actually, it is the sole reason for their return. Various powers in the multiverse are provided throughout Risen to account for these characters returning from the dead and the revenant was risen by the power of the gods. As he shambles across the land seeking revenge, the revenant gains additional power against those connected to his or her life quest, detailed in the form of haunting visions. Very much like The Crow, a huge inspiration for this path with some mechanical loans from previous conceptions of the revenant from D&D history.

Since the release of CA9, we hit a bit of a snag in the revenant. Wizards of the Coast came out with their own version of the rev as a player race. I won’t provide a complete listing of every curse I uttered, needless to say that I’m pretty sure I used all of them in a variety of combinations. Regardless of any legal wrangles with having a second version of the revenant for players, I didn’t want there to be any confusion between theirs and mine. We needed to tweak the revenant and make it something new.

After a couple of weeks of name searching (including a lot of German variants between Shawn and I, which is ironic because I don’t think there’s a lick of German blood in either of us), we settled on the haunt. Same concept, but now more gruesome in appearance than before and a greater display of mental anguish. Think of it as a mixture between the revenant and a ghost in physical form.

The Importance of a Life Quest
Haunts may be the perfect example for life quests and it’s for this reason I’m introducing this series of blogs with this path. Life quests not only provide new and exciting roleplaying opportunities for your character, but introduce new powers designed for use with your life quests.

For example, you’re playing a haunt. As you arrive in town, your hood drawn tightly over your head and a scarf wrapped over your neck to disguise the deep gash from your death, a vision flashes before your eyes. The trio of horsemen to your left are suddenly standing on a hillside, standing watch over the valley where you were killed. They laugh maniacally from the top of the hill, waiting for their comrades to finish their job and meet back up with them. As your mind returns to the conscious world, your anger rises and your power grows. This triggers your Horrible Memories path feature, granting the ability to automatically mark these scoundrels at the beginning of the encounter and inflict +1d6 damage with a single attack per target every round. Without that connection to your character and his or her life quest, this feature does not function.

But not every encounter is going to involve your life quest and not every adventure will have these villains around the corner, so there are other non-quest based features and powers as well. Overall, this grants each resurrection path a wider variety of powers and features for all sorts of encounters. By seperating these abilities through their connection to your life quest, you can develop your character’s personality in combat encounters as well as social encounters. It also gives you a clear cut means of using combat to develop the storyline as your DM brings you closer and closer to completing your life quest as the campaign closes. This, in turn, embraces your character’s death and bonds it with the campaign. No longer must you feel shame in your death, but pride!

Next: The Firebird and the Chaostician
That’s all for this time. There’s still more to be done as we wrap up all designs on the paths this month, but there will be more to come soon. Consider this little teaser for the firebird in the meantime…

A phoenix and the Far Realm.

Todd Crapper (that's right) is the Head Honcho for Emerald Press PDF Publishing and author of the upcoming 4e adventure, The Key of the Fey (releasing December 2009), and co-author of Risen: The Guide to Resurrected Characters (October 2009). He wrote this blog because there was no one around to stop him, not even those meddling kids and their mangy mutt.

EP

Who would have thought it would have been harder to write an adventure for evil characters?

I know I didn’t, at least not as difficult as it has been. The principle seemed easy enough: simply find a way to get neutral and evil characters to work together, kill monsters, and claim treasure. The killing and claiming pretty much go hand-in-hand so there’s no real issue there. Working together is simpler than I expected and it all comes down to the players. Good players always understand the needs of the game over the desires of their characters and can always adapt to the situation, balancing the twisted desires of their wicked sorcerers, barbarians, and necromancers with the pursuit of the story. There are several threads here on EN World attesting to this fact, to my great relief. Problem solved. Let’s write an adventure.

Uh, no. There’s one more factor to account for. Motivation.

I’m taking a break right now from completing the latest draft of The Key of the Fey, a 1st-level mercenary adventure for 4e. By “latest,” I mean fourth and by “draft,” I mean complete re-write. The concept is simple: mercenary adventures are written for any non-good party willing to do anything to get paid. Matters such as reputation, dignity, and money are the primary sources of motivation for these types of adventures but the levels to which you can offer vary greatly. Unaligned characters are in it for themselves yet retain a value system and ethical code; evil characters will pretty much do anything to get what they want and their morals are limited only by their players. There are ways to handle this and the answer is one of those classic “easy to say, tricky to do” solutions.

Over the course of writing Key, I’ve found the answer is variety. Good-aligned heroes are simple to provide for – you need a victim. Someone must be in danger, whether it’s one lone villager kidnapped by orcs or an entire city under threat of a demon prince summoning an army of fiends to lay seige and slaughter all in sight. Toss them some coin and XP for their efforts and your adventure is under way. Mercs need a little more. They need a “why.” Why should they save the city? Why don’t they offer their services to the demon prince? Why do they even have to pick a side? Why not play both sides? In asking these questions, they consider alternate possibilities and go for it. They are not held back by the ethics of good. Everything is possible for mercs and the adventure has to account for that, making it one of the best reasons to play a merc.

RPGs are about freedom, from where I sit. Unlike video games, books, and any other media, you can attempt anything you can think of. In a sense, the story should be just as flexible as the rules – they are a guide and nothing more. Every one of us has played a game where something happened out of the blue and without expectation. Out of nowhere, the 1st-level wizard creates a puddle of grease under a hill giant’s foot as it stands on the edge of a cliff and sends the behemoth over the side to his death… with the key to the dungeon the PCs need to get inside hung around his neck. The game never stops. The players climb down the cliff face to retrieve the key from the hill giant’s splattered body, the GM allows a quick Perception check to notice the key dangling from the giant’s belt before pouring the grease, or the hill giant grabs onto a thick tree root to stay alive just a bit longer, or whatever else it takes to keep the story moving.

Mercenary adventures follow this same principle to a higher level. Their motivation can change to suit their latest employer. While they need a good reputation to keep working, they only have to worry about what their employer finds out about their performance and the rumours spread about their exploits when it’s all done and over with. Different alignments create unique obstacles to overcome as well and there’s a good possibility of a mixed-alignment party. The evil mercs will stab anyone in the back so long as they still get paid (or get paid more) and the unaligned mercs gave their word to their original boss. You need to account for these factors when designing (and particularly running) a merc adventure or campaign. And when it works, it’s incredible. You’ve just pulled off one of the greatest balancing acts in gaming and your players become a significant part of the game. Their decisions affect more than just the number of bodies left behind and the story evolves in new directions by the start of the first chapter.

Morals must be considered and the balancing act for any alignment in your party can be tricky. I think it goes without saying that Key is not recommended for noobs or any group getting together for their first game. If you know your players and have already begun to blur the line, Key is for you. I’ve always been able to fall back on a game of Wraith back when it first came out as a guideline for merc adventures. Our group had played together nearly five years and was the original group for all of us (sharing one AD&D Player’s Handbook between the five of us before branching out to try new systems). We had a new player join up and he created a skinhead. Whether or not he used that character as a excuse to spit out his own slurs and speak openly because he was “just in character,” it was a problem. No one wanted to play with his character (and with the player, as it turned out). As soon as we kicked out the skinhead and his equally tolerant player, we enjoyed the game. Roleplaying gives you a better look at the person sitting across from you, a gaze into their imagination unbound. Good players work with their comrades and great players can start fights with party members without affecting the group. Let your players worry about how far is too far and you can focus on crafting the story with little worry or concern for the cohesion of the group.

Everything is just over a week away from getting to the playtesters and we'll find out if this is the one that works. My own group had some fun with it and filled it with surprises (I had no idea just how deviant a pharmacist could be) to make it a good venture into something a little different. Here's hoping you'll be able to enjoy it to when it hits your local online shelf.

However, I think my next adventure will be about fuzzy bunnies and fluffy teddy bears collecting as many hugs as possible before all the boys and girls around the world start to feel sad. That will be much, much easier.

Todd Crapper (that's right) is the Head Honcho for Emerald Press PDF Publishing and author of the upcoming 4e adventure, The Key of the Fey (releasing December 2009), and co-author of Risen: The Guide to Resurrected Characters (October 2009). He wrote this blog because there was no one around to stop him, not even those meddling kids and their mangy mutt.

EP