Hit this page until you have found inspiration.

Jürgen Hubert

I realize that I should have judged this contest much, much earlier. Nevertheless...

The winner for this contest is jdrakeh with his entry for Kitezh - a great bit of obscure mythology that makes for great gaming!

His entry is also viewable here at the Arcana Wiki - go there if you have any good ideas to add!

The winner will get his $25 gift certificate at the EN Store shortly.

Jürgen Hubert

Among other things, I am trying to develop descriptions of "generic locations" for Urbis - locations which can be found in more than one city-state, as well as descriptions of their structure and purpose.

My current list can be found here. So, what kind of locations am I missing from this list? And what is missing from the descriptions of locations that already have their own entries?

Jürgen Hubert

I'm slowly making progress, though too slowly for my tastes. Regardless, new sections have been ported over to the Urbis Wiki:

* Desert of Thunder - a desert realm whose city-dwelling population is controlled by blue dragon overlords.
* Eternal Storm - devastated by still-prevalent elemental forces, this region attracts brave and foolhardy prospectors in search of fortunes.
* Flannish Cities - the center of modern urban civilization, this young region is currently setting the standards for prosperity and development.

The last one is the single most detailed region - not only does it include the "example city" of Dartmouth, but also Praxus - a huge city which is almost entirely a fan creation (i.e. not written by me).

I hope more people will join tanniynim in writing new material for Urbis.

Jürgen Hubert

For the last year, the setting I have been developing - Urbis - A World of Cities has been hosted on Eruvian.Com. But I have finally been convinced that I need to move it to a new home, since Eruvian.Com seems dead for all intents and purposes. Sure, the material is still available online - but there is next to no activity. And if I get no feedback, staying on this site is pointless for me.

Thus, I'm currently doing what I'm always doing under these circumstances - I'm creating a Wiki. You can find the Urbis Wiki here. I'm slowly moving all the material over. So far, I have finished the following sections:

• Alliance of the Pantheon
• Avareen
• Places of Legend
• Races
• Rothea
• Solar System

I will post updates whenever I have transferred new material. Furthermore, I have also written some new material, most prominently my new take on devils and their home plane of Sheol, which I am rather proud of if you don't mind me saying it.

Furthermore, many pages now have a "Designer's Notes" section where I explain what I had in mind when I wrote a specific entry. Sometimes they also contain significant "spoilers" or setting secrets, such as the Races entry which explains my idea for the origin of the various player character races.

Finally, the wiki setup also allows others to contribute their own material to Urbis. The following steps are needed:

1. Registering at Wikidot.Com.
2. Registering at the Urbis Wiki - which unfortunately requires agreeing to a legal disclaimer, which I need to do since I do plan to publish Urbis commercially, and I really don't want to deal with lawsuits over this setting.
3. Entering new additions to the Wiki. This works pretty similar to other standard wikis, with one significant, Urbis Wiki-limited exception:

All "canon" material in the Urbis Wiki - material either written by me or approved by me - is written in blue. All "non-canon" material - material not yet approved by me - is written in green. Any material you submit to the Urbis Wiki is automatically considered "non-canon" until I approve it.

Thus, you must start any new additions to the Wiki with the following tag:

and end them with:

This will ensure that they are displayed in green, until I get the time to review them and change their status.

Jürgen Hubert

I've used a newly available script to create a Random Adventure Seed Generator for the Arcana Wiki. Essentially, it creates links to three random pages in the Arcana Wiki, and then encourages the user to construct an adventure seed around them.

Please tell me what you think of it - and if you are in the mood, how about submitting an adventure seed of your own?

Jürgen Hubert

It is a sad fact of gaming that sometimes the players within a gaming group play their characters as complete sociopaths. In such cases, they see the whole world surrounding the characters as little more than sources of XPs and loot, and their interaction even with NPCs they were supposed to deal peacefully with can rapidly go downhill as long as the PCs see the opportunity for more loot.

This is not necessary the sign of deep character flaws on the part of the players. People new to gaming often start out this way, and even more "experienced" gamers might act like this if they haven't had a good DM to show them the way. Still, this state of affairs is generally unsatisfactory to most DMs, as just providing a steady stream of encounters without any real plot development is, at least in my opinion, a deeply tedious and boring affair (if you actually enjoy this, then read no further and I wish the best of luck to you and your gaming group). So what's a frustrated DM to do to change this?

Simply acquiescing and giving the players what they want is a bad idea in such a case. Sure, entertaining the players is part of the job of the DM. But think about it - as the DM, you are putting far more work into the campaign than any of your players. You deserve to be at least as entertained by the antics of the player characters as the players are entertained by your campaign. So you need to teach them a lesson - show, not tell them why the behavior of their characters is a bad idea. Trust me, there is plenty of entertainment to be had here - and along the way, your players might start enjoying the act of role-playing as well, and thus enjoy the game without engaging in sociopathy.

However, many DMs fall into the trap of making such "lessons" rather heavy-handed. For example, if the PCs have robbed a tax collector in the middle of a a forest, the militia in the next village will somehow magically know everything about the incident. And they will be led by a 20th paladin for some reason.

Avoid such immediate and excessive reprisals for misbehavior at all costs. These kinds of punishments might work for puppies (and PARANOIA campaigns), but less so for D&D campaigns. They are widely implausible (as in most cases of railroading), and they will only cause the players to see the world not as a "real" place with "real" people to interact with, but as a stage made out of cardboard with NPCs as marionettes which only exist as mouthpieces for the opinions of the DM. In other words, this will only reinforce their view that the game is all about "the PC against the world" - or rather, "the players against the DM". And all role-playing in such a world would be pointless.

You don't want to be seen as their enemy. The message you want to send is that they are their own worst enemy - and thus, maybe, change their behavior. For this, you need to give them enough rope to hang themselves. This only works if they believe that their actions have real, meaningful consequences for the campaign at large - so you need to empower the player characters enough to make their actions meaningful. But how do you do that?

Read on. And bring plenty of rope.

Stage 1: Free Lunch

If you notice that the player characters may have sociopathic tendencies, don't try to take away their opportunities for amoral behavior. This way, these tendencies might be repressed, but they won't be cured.

Instead, offer them opportunities to indulge in such activities. Stage plausible incidents which seemingly allow them to cheat, murder, and steal without any immediate consequences. Make them choose between doing the right thing and the easy thing, and allow them to profit handsomely from the latter.

At the same time, drop hints that their actions do not occur in a vacuum. For example, if they murder another adventuring party in cold blood that had just emerged from a dungeon with lots of loot, the leader of the militia back in town may ask them if they had seen the other party, "since they left in the same direction." But if they lie about this, don't press the issue. Make them think that they have successfully evaded the consequences for their action and that they are free to enjoy their immoral spoils. Watch as they mock the blindness of those around them.

And say nothing. But take notes of every immoral act they have committed for later reference.

Stage 2: Shaming

After a while, it's time to show them that their actions did have consequences - not for them, but for the other people in the world. Let them watch as good, decent people suffer because of them. Show them the people who go hungry or suffer from disease because they robbed a merchant on the way to their town. Make them encounter the destitute widows and orphans of those they have slain. Throw in a few real tear-jerkers.

But don't make the NPCs suspicious of the party yet. Allow sufficient time for the PCs to develop and display a conscience. If they try to make some sort of amends - openly or in secret - then the characters might yet find redemption. But if not, proceed to the next stage.

Stage 3: Web of Lies

At this stage, the PCs will likely have become powerful enough to attract notice as "mighty heroes". The authorities will likely hire them to deal with all sorts of problems - including a few that they themselves have caused. So what do they do when the local ruler wants them to investigate the death and robbery of one of his tax collectors if the PCs have caused that death in the first place? Likely murder and lie even more to cover their tracks.

And their status as "mighty heroes" also means that other people will want to hear more about their "mighty deeds". The PCs might very well revel in the attention at first. But since they need to continue lying to their audience to cover up their crimes, it will soon become difficult to keep their stories straight among all the player characters.

Keep careful track of what which PC said to whom, and take note of any inconsistencies. Over time, it will become harder and harder to maintain their appearances. Give them plenty of opportunities to commit further sins (such as the disposal of inconvenient witnesses and other people who have figured them out) - but all this will only be delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, their web of lies will collapse.

And they won't be able to blame anyone but themselves for it. They had plenty of opportunity to move away from the path of Evil, but they choose not to. What happens in the next stages is entirely their own fault.

Stage 4: Pariah

Once their true nature has been exposed, all their lies will quickly collapse. People will remember all the places they have traveled to, and connect their presence with various nefarious deeds that happened during their stay. They will be reviled throughout the land, and bards will sing songs about their depravity. Children will scream at their sight, and streets will empty themselves whenever they enter a town.

Some players might see this as a perverted sign of "respect", so you need to make sure that their descriptions in the tales are anything but flattering. Add tales of utterly vile crimes to the stories about them that the PCs didn't actually commit. This should be rather frustrating for the PCs as they can no longer control their own reputations. Protesting this is unlikely to work - saying "I didn't poison that village/slaughter those nuns/eat those babies" will sound unconvincing, considering all the evil deeds the party did commit. While they can try to argue with others that they are not responsible for those other atrocities, they will soon sense that others will only agree with them because they are afraid of the PCs instead of any real conviction. They will never be able to clear their names.

For some time, the local militias and guards will attempt to stop them whenever they enter a town. Don't bother to play those combats out. Just tell the players: "You defeat them - they are just a bunch of level 1 minions and a level 3 brute, and thus no challenge to you. Just tell me how you defeat them and what you do with them afterwards." Allow them to plunder the town at their leisure if they want. Soon, the towns and villages along their path will react to them similar to how people throughout the ages have reacted to invading armies - read up on such times for examples. Maybe it will give them pause if villagers commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of the PCs...

Now, the greatest heroes of the kingdom and the greatest champions of Good will seek out the PCs to take them down (possibly with a few choice monologues hurled their way if these people knew the PCs from the days when their cover was still intact). These fights will be infrequent (there aren't that many people around who could be a real challenge to the party), but devastating when they do occur. If the PCs manage to survive through all those, eventually the realm will run out of heroes - and it is time to proceed to the next stage.

Stage 5: Anathema

The PCs are now blights upon the land. With the champions of Good struck down, monsters begin to overrun the land and prey on the population. Civilization begins to crumble. Trade slows down to a trickle, and then stops entirely. The cities begin to starve. The rulers that remain fearfully huddle in their castles, not daring to offend the PCs because of their power. The PCs could likely take over their rule - but there is little left worth ruling over.

Significantly for the PCs, money and gold become pretty much worthless by this stage. Basic goods and services - what little of them are still available - will likely be given to the PCs for free in the hopes of staving off their wrath. But the magic items that the PCs are likely to be most interested in become unavailable now - while they might have had luck finding enchanters on the black market during the previous stage, by now all such people have likely fled to far-away hiding places. The mere presence of the PCs either scares them away, or all of their potential customers. And even if some of them had stayed behind for the PCs to find, where would they find the necessary ritual components for the creation of the items the PCs want? Thus, the PCs are reduced to making use of only the magic items they can loot, and any piles of gold and jewels they might carry with them are nothing more than useless, worthless junk.

There are likely to be some remaining fights with powerful, celestial entities and the like. But they may find that they have unexpected allies in such fights - demons or devils who claim that the PCs represent their lords' "most faithful servants". Being told that their souls are fated for the Nine Hells or the Abyss might give the PCs pause. Any attempts at redemption at this stage will be incredibly difficult, if they even try to make the effort.

Final Stage: Doom

As the PCs search yet another old, crumbling ruin in search of powerful treasures, they come across a lengthy inscription chiseled into a stone wall. It tells of a prophecy about the so-called "Harbingers of Doom" who will lead humanity into a dark age. Deciphering it, they realize that this prophecy is about them, and it includes a lengthy list of their most nefarious deeds. It states explicitly that they have slain all the Champions of Light who might have staved off the coming Darkness, dooming humanity to become slaves of monsters forevermore.

And with this, the campaign ends.


Such an end is frustrating for the player characters, since it makes them appear as being fated servants of Evil with no control over their destiny, and no chance of averting it. Yet the message to the players is clear - they, and only they decided to commit one evil deed after another, and their choices alone doomed the world. Hopefully they will have learned that their choices matter, and that maybe they should choose a different path for their next campaign.


And if not... maybe then it is time to seek a new group.

Jürgen Hubert

My first interview was published!

Jürgen Hubert

Yay! The Arcana Wiki has become Illuminated Site of the Week!

Jürgen Hubert

This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


As I've mentioned in an earlier review, GURPS genre books tend to be extremely useful as supplements even when you don't actually play GURPS. GURPS Horror is certainly no exception. Indeed, it may be the best of them all.

Written by Kenneth Hite of Suppressed Transmission fame, this books dissects the horror genre for role-playing games, and then stiches it together again as an unholy, animate corpse ready to terrify your players. So, what's actually in it? Let's go through it chapter by chapter.


This chapter discusses the common archetypes of horror protagonists - in other words, typical player characters. Some of them will be obvious (the Academic, Clergyman, Detective, and Occultist), others less so (the Artist, Attorney, Child, or Journalist). This is probably the least useful for D&D gamers, since many of the archetypes don't map well to the D&D classes, and all of them have lengthy GURPS templates.


This chapter is still about the player characters - but instead of the nuts and bolts of the rules, this chapter discusses motivations for getting involved in horror scenarios. Why, after all, should any sane man go into the monster-haunted cellar? One of the answers is of course that said man is no longer sane, but there are plenty of other character hooks which can be used by player and GM alike. Whether a Childhood Curse, an Evil Ancestor, or a period of Missing Time compels the character to seek out things which he better shouldn't have meddled with, there are plenty of personal reasons for going into dark places. Equally important is the ability to work with other party members, something that is discussed here as well.


This is the Bestiarium of the book and thus lists a large range of monsters. But instead of listing the monsters depending on their nature (undead, shapeshifter, fey etc.), they are listed by the kinds of fears they are supposed to invoke, an organization as ingenious as it is effective. Starting with Fear of Taint (such Vampires, Ghouls), it moves on to Fear of Nature (Werewolves, Shaggy Ones, Man-Eaters), Fear of Madness (Serial Killers, Psycho Killers, Evil Clowns), Fear of Mutilation (The Ripper, Disembodied Brains), Fear of the Universe (Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, Cosmic Deities, etc.), Fear of the Unnatural (Ghosts, Malevolent Objects), Fear of Others (The Unseelie), Fear of Disease (Killer Virus, Nosferatu), and Fear of Death (Zombies, Mummies). In an inversion of the 4E Monster Manual, far more space is given over to flavor and discussing variants than to actual rules mechanics, as it is assumed that the GM will want to tailor the creature for his own campaign. And even if the GM doesn't want to use the listed creatures, the various sections will certainly get him thinking in the right direction when he wants to evoke specific fears. Furthermore, boxed texts discuss less common fears, such as Fear of the Foreign and Fear of Sex (!), as well as entities that fit into multiple sections (such as Alien Invaders).


The next chapter is all about horror campaign considerations. It discusses campaign lengths (whether one-shots or extended campaigns), narrative structures for the campaigns, who both the protagonists and the enemies represent, and a vast range of other design parameters. It discusses the scale of the campaign - whether it is supposed to revolve only about a few people, or the fate of the entire world. Next comes scope - how much of the world the PCs are actually able to affect. The next parameter is austerity - how much are the PCs held accountible for their actions, including their mistakes? And finally, what are the boundaries of the campaign - does it all take place in a relatively small locale, or will the PCs travel the world, or the cosmos?


Furthermore, this chapter gives advice for high-powered horror - how can you evoke an atmosphere of horror when the heroes are almost invulnerable? It discusses the various sources of uncanny power - whether magic, psionics, or perverted science. Finally, it examines the various genres that work with horror, from the familiar fantasy all the way to science fiction.


This chapter is all about individual horror adventures and how to create and run them. It discusses the elements of horror (uncertainty, isolation, the unnatural), the possible styles (splatter, cosmic horror, etc.) and themes (betrayal, corruption, and so forth), and symbolic settings (the Bad Place and the Invaded House). It discusses how to run such adventures, and how to design them, starting from the story hook and the first hints to the twists and turns, the villain's motivation, and so forth. While there is little in the way of game mechanics, this chapter will be incredibly useful to set the mood of the game.


The final chapter gives three ready-made example horror campaign settings:

• Seas of Dread, Sails of Daring: Probably the easiest to convert to D&D, this setting looks like the Carribean in the late 17th century... but here, the New World is still newly formed out of the primordial chaos, with all sorts of monsters lurking in the depths that threaten to swallow it all, including the newly arrived Europeans and the pirates that move among them.
• Blood in the Craters: A sequel of sorts to H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, this setting takes place in the aftermath of the failed Martian invasion. London slowly rebuilds - but not all of the Martians are as gone as they seem, and they are slowly plotting their vengeance and sending out their servitors to abduct the unwitting humans who try to rebuild their lives.
• The Madness Dossier: In this setting, much of recorded history is fragile. A cosmic cataclysm set the true rulers of Earth - as well as their servitors, now half-remembered as Sumerian demons - to sleep for the last 15 centuries, and humanity achieved an independence it was never meant to have. Now the servitors awaken again and threaten to restore the timeline to what it once was. Only a secret cabal of humans have gained the powers to fight the demons back - but their powers allow them to wreck and alter the minds of humans nearly at will, all in the name of the "greater good" for humanity. This setting could be adapted to a fantasy world as well, with a few name changes and appropriate bonus powers for the player characters.

The book ends with a large bibliography with all sorts of books related to the horror genre, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as comics, movies, and television series.


To sum it up, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to run horror campaigns and adventures. Nowhere else in an RPG publication have I found such an intelligent and concise examination of the horror genre in all its forms. And I don't expect that to change until the author writes a new edition of the book...

Jürgen Hubert

These are currently the top-rated entries in the Arcana Wiki:

1. Black Shuck
2. Brother XII
3. Monte Ne, Arkansas
4. Rat King
5. Technisches Hilfswerk

Please vote for your own favorite entries on the Arcana Wiki to expand this list!

Jürgen Hubert

Continued from here...

High-level NPCs as Patrons

All of this may sound as if approaching high-level NPCs is a waste of time for the PCs. It's not. They can still be incredibly useful for the player characters - but only if they stop seeing them purely as an additional source of firepower. Instead, they can help the PCs in the following ways:

• Information: High-level NPCs tend to have access to huge sources of information (libraries, social contacts, spies, etc.) which the PCs are unlikely to have on their own. If they have gained access to the NPC and established trust, they might volunteer information that helps the PCs with their own adventures - in some cases, information the PCs didn't even ask for (but would be interested in nonetheless), thus triggering further adventures. The NPC patron can save them many weeks or even months of research, making the PCs glad that they have cultivated his trust.
• Resources: Once the PCs have shown their competence and trustworthiness, the NPC is likely willing to give them resources - money, magic items, henchmen, and so on - which will help them complete their goals as long as his own goals are furthered. And what PC ever says "no" to new stuff?
• Connections: Powerful people tend to hang out with other powerful people. Befriending a single high-level NPC might make it possible for them to move in circles normally impossible to reach for them - the aristocracy and other rulers, rich merchant houses, the highest levels of the military, and so on. This opens up a whole new level of opportunities for the player characters - and provide hooks for plenty of adventures revolving around political and social intrigue.

All of these can be incredibly useful for the player characters - but significantly, none of these allow the NPC to "steal the show" from them. The PCs remain active protagonists in their adventures instead of mere spectators, thus avoiding the main pitfall of featuring such NPCs.

On a whole new level

At some point, the PCs will reach high levels themselves. What to do with high-level NPCs then?

• Change the NPCs from patrons to allies.
• Reveal that they have a hidden agenda, and turn them into new enemies to fight (bonus points if the betrayal has been planned for a very long time...).
• Kill them off in a truly gruesome and spectacular fashion. This will make for a nice starting point for the beginning of the final chapter of the campaign, to show the PCs that the situation is really serious.

Whatever you do, don't try to force the PCs into remaining underlings of the NPC (unless they enjoy that status), as this will only cause further resentment. When the PCs begin to eclipse their former patrons, they should become patrons to others in their own right - or at least, become truly free agents who can shape the world according to their own agenda.

In Conclusion

These are my ideas for handling high-level NPCs in a campaign. If you have some ideas and suggestions of your own, feel free to share them!

Jürgen Hubert

Inspired by this thread.

A frequently-cited problem in games like D&D where high-level characters are vastly more powerful than low-level characters is this: How do you prevent the high-level characters from overshadowing the low-level characters - such as the player characters when they are still young and inexperienced? Why don't those powerful NPCs quickly solve all problems of the world before breakfast, leaving nothing for the PCs to do?

The easiest answer is, of course, that those powerful NPCs don't exist in the first place. This is partially true with Eberron, for example. Alternatively, the PCs might start out in a region with few powerful NPCs - a distant frontier province a long way from the capital, for instance, which few high-level characters bother with. And indeed, this is how a great many campaigns, including published ones, start.

But this isn't a workable solution for all settings. City-based settings especially, such as Ptolus, Sigil of Planescape fame, and my very own Urbis assume that very powerful characters live, if not exactly next door, then at least in a not-too-distant neighborhood. So what to do about the high-level NPCs in such places?

I think a good idea would be to compare those people with modern-day corporate executives and major political figures. These people are very, very busy. Time is their most valuable resource, and thus the time they can spend on any one problem at hand is severly limited. The same is likely true for high-level NPCs in most campaign settings. They constantly have to deal with one crisis or other, the schemes of their enemies, and truly countless requests for aid. So unless the PCs can convince them that there is an impending disaster of truly epic proportions, they won't just drop everything they are doing to help out with the current adventure of the PCs.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's look at the issue one step at a time.

Gaining Access

Politicians and corporate executives surround themselves with all sorts of secretaries and flunkies mainly for one reason: To limit access for people who would otherwise waste their time. As I've said, time is their most valuable resource And unless the PCs have made a name for themselves, this means that said flunkies will prevent them from accessing the NPC. Failing to gain access is likely to be a very frustrating experience for the PCs (especially if they think that the renewed hostility of a local goblin tribe should receive top priority), so you might consider showing them how many ludicrious requests these people get every day. For example, before them in the waiting line in front of the secretary's office could be someone who insists that a demonic presence is taking over the logal pigeon population (especially sadistic DMs might make this into an actual adventure seed if the PCs are as skeptical as the secretary they want to talk to). Another possibility would be to show them another petitioner with a request that sounds reasonable, but who is well known as a fraud and a time-waster to the secretary. A couple of encounters like this, and the PCs should begin to understand that they can't just be taken at their word about their problems - they either need to have some real proof, or start schmoozing up to the right people to gain access (which could represent an adventure in its own right).

Even if their stories are believed, it doesn't mean that they will actually get to meet the NPC in question - in many cases, an underling will tell them: "Okay, we will look into that" or "I will tell him about this". Some useful help might actually be forthcoming, even if it's not the direct intervention of the NPC. If they do meet the NPC, make them wait a while until the meeting. He should storm in, clearly coming from some other business, ask the PCs questions (with instructions for being precise and/or brief), and if he believes them, say: "OK, we will look into this" and start rattling instructions to his underlings while storming out of them. The PCs should understand that even this short meeting is a privilege, not a right. Extended meetings will come only after they have gained his confidence and trust, and they should feel truly honored.

Getting Help

So the PCs have convinced the NPC that yes, their situation is serious, and yes, they could use some help with their problem. But does that mean that the NPC himself will accompany them?

Not necessarily. After all, his time is still very limited, so if at all possible he will help them in a way that doesn't take up much of his time. Crawling through dungeons or investigating problems in a province is a rather lengthy affair, and he might have to deal with other problems elsewhere. So he will try to help in other ways - by loaning them magic items which should help with the problem, giving additional money and resources to tackle it (which allows the PCs far greater freedom with solving the problem, which in turn is more satisfying in an adventure), or by sending some of his own underlings with them. These won't be as powerful as the NPC, but they are useful in a fight without overshadowing the PCs. Only if the NPC believes that only someone of his power is able to deal with the threat will be accompany the PCs back - but even then, it makes sense to split the group, with the NPC and his underlings dealing with the main threat while the PCs deal with a related problem that is solveable at their level.

Reasons For Not Getting Involved Directly

If the PCs are upset because the NPC doesn't get involved in person, use one of the following excuses (after all, you don't want the NPC stealing the show):

• Another crisis in another province: There's more than one ongoing crisis right now with which the NPC has to deal. These crises could actually be related (which might only be recognized in hindsight) - after all, if an Evil Cult wants to cause widespread chaos and destruction, it makes sense to attack a number of places at the same time precisely for distracting powerful people. And even if it isn't, the NPC likely watches over a large number of places, so it's not unlikely that his attention is divided at crucial moments.
• Plausible Deniability: The NPC is likely to have many powerful enemies - and even non-enemies who view his moves with suspicion. So if he shows off at a random location and blasts a few dozen goblins (or demons) with fireballs, observers are left to wonder: Was he really merely doing a public service, or did his presence have a more sinister motive? Was he perhaps responsible for the problem in the first place? Think of what conspiracy theorists come up in the real world. Even the most saintly NPC will have people questioning his motives, so it will make sense if he limits his public appearances to avoid giving his enemies rhetorical fodder - which in turn would reduce his political influence and make it harder to get the authorities to cooperate at crucial moments. Empowering the PCs and giving them the tools to solve the problem themselves makes a lot of sense from this perspective.
• It's a trap: Powerful people tend to have equally powerful enemies. The crisis the PCs are trying to deal with might be nothing more than an elaborate trap to lure the NPC into the open and discover his tactics and weaknesses. It only takes a few incidents like this to make anyone wary. On the other hand, the relative weakness of the PCs protects them in such cases - after all, said enemies will hardly waste springing their trap on low-level flunkies (though alert PCs might discover myterious observers lurking nearby - who might become their own enemies in the future).
• The King has requested my services: Even powerful people need help from the authorities from time to time - such when a nation-wide effort to combat a threat is needed. As a result, such NPCs will have to spend a fair amount of time cultivating contacts with the local rulers - attending their social events, advising them on matters within their area of expertise, and so on. Will they truly risk upsetting the King to accompany the PCs on an adventure? Or will they try to solve their problem in another way?

To be continued...

Jürgen Hubert

With only one more day to go for the August Contest for the Arcana Wiki (write about a place out of myth and legend, and win a $25 gift certificate for RPGNow!), let's look at the entries so far:

• Carcassonne by James Haughton (email submission)
• Dulce Base, New Mexico USA by Committed Hero
• Headless Valley by jdrakeh
• Kitzeh by jdrakeh
• Stull Church by jdrakeh
• Tara Hill, Ireland by Committed Hero
• The Mosktraumen by Committed Hero
• Ys by jdrakeh

I'm glad that this contest has so many submissions so far, and I'm looking forward to what next month's contest will bring!

Jürgen Hubert

• No long-term advance planning for PC character development. No longer do players have to worry how precisely to build their characters at first level when they want to take a specific prestige class twelve levels later. Now they can take character advancement one level at a time.
• Easier high-level PC creation. Creating high-level PCs - whether to replace an existing character or to start a campaign at a high level in the first place - is now simplicity in itself. You do no longer have to worry about what choices your character made at lower level - thanks to retraining, it's easy to justify the current character feats, powers, and skills. Similarly, picking magic items is easy - you start with three items with specific levels, and have some spare cash over to purchase weaker items.
• Fighters are now actually interesting. In 3.5, Fighters usually did little more than doing the same attacks over and over again, and their only real tactical choices involved which enemy to hit. No longer - they now have a variety of options as large as that of the other classes.
• Less-complex high-level spellcasters. Once your player characters hit double digits, deciding which spells your high-level wizards, clerics, and druids choose every day became a real chore, and it frequently held up the game while the players of these characters made up their mind. No longer - even wizards, who still can make some choices in that regard, now spend much less time on figuring out their daily spell lists.
• No class is useless in a specific fight. Who doesn't know the frustration of a rogue in a fight that involved constructs or undead? Or of a monk in a fight that involved only monsters with the "wrong" type of damage resistance? Or of a wizard when all the enemies had high spell resistances? Some classes were pretty much ineffective against certain kinds of enemies, leaving their players frustrated when an adventure featured them strongly. This is now pretty much gone, and for this I am grateful.
• Rituals. Separating most of the non-combat spells into rituals was a stroke of genius. Now the list of available rituals can be modified at the DM's leisure without giving a specific class too much power or taking too much power away from it. It also makes it easier for world-builders - they no longer have to take hundreds of spell effects into account when figuring out how magic may have impacted society. Conversely, since you do no longer have to be a high-level member of a specific class when you want to cast specific rituals, it's easy to justify NPCs who can cast individual rituals without making them into powerful combat spellcasters, turning them into "support roles" within the adventure without having to explain why they don't defeat the enemies of the local community instead of the PCs.
• Skill challenges. Skill challenges are a blast to run. They allow the DM to say: "I think these skills would be the most appropriate in this situation, but feel free to convince me of the appropriateness of other skills at well." This allows the PCs to get really creative with their skill uses and gives them a level of narrative control that I was really surprised seeing in a D&D edition.
• Minions. Minions are lots of fun for the DM. They allow me to "swarm" the player characters without overwhelming them, or without making me keep track of the hit points of large numbers of enemies. Back in 3.5, having two dozen enemies attack the PCs at once was a logistic nightmare. Now, it's no problem at all.
• Easier high-level NPC creation. In D&D 3.5, I was so frustrated with how much time I spent on creating high-level NPCs - time I could have used on developing the actual plot of the adventure - that I even created a Wiki to have better access to a large number of NPCs (ironically, the wiki became a huge hit while I soon afterwards abandoned D&D 3.5 for other RPGs...). But now, creating high-level NPCs is even easier than creating high-level PCs. Thanks to the straightforward level bonus, calculating derived stats is a snap that doesn't even involve looking up a variety of tables, and giving them specific powers is a straightforward process which doesn't take up much time.
• Easier monster creation/modification. Building and modifying monsters now is much easier. For my playtest adventure, I built an Aufhocker, a fey creature from German mythology that jumps on the backs of people and frightens them to near-death, and I was astonished how easy the process was. 3.5 sorely lacked such detailed guidelines.
• In-depth discussion on building encounters and monster roles. The chapter on building encounters and monster roles in the DMG is one of the most impressive pieces of GMing advice I have seen in any RPG. The CRs in 3.5 were extremely vague in comparison. Lengthily explaining how different types of monsters interact with each other in a fight, and giving them according roles that they are built around irrespective of origin was a stroke of genius!

Jürgen Hubert