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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 4380036" data-attributes="member: 11760">Bufer's trip to Baraj Al-Aswad, the Black Tower, was my first chance to give more meaty details to where the kobolds live, what Glangirn is like (inspired by the description of 0one Games' dwarven fortress maps) and how Gax conquered the dwarves.When I sketched out the idea for the campaign, I knew that one of my favorite fantasy stories of all time was The Hobbit (my first memory of my father is him reading me the opening of the book, in fact), and I liked the whole "dwarves in exile" thing. But I didn't want Midwood to be a Hobbit retread, so I've had to chart a parallel but separate course. A dragon swimming into an undefended dwarf fortress while the armies rage outside seems like a good variant and also highlights that Gax was, in many ways, way smarter than the dwarves who trusted that a glacier lake would be enough to protect them.I also wanted to make it clear that the kobolds are a real threat. There's a tendency in old school gamers to treat them like a joke (a high level NPC later in the campaign embodies this attitude, much to Tucker's exasperation) and more recent gamers tend to think they're just adorable cuties. (I find myself in both camps, to be frank, thanks to the great picture of Ceatitle fireballing kobolds in the 1E Rogues Gallery.)And yes, I've got a fetish about including classic D&D name references. Most of my players are newer, so I don't know if they catch all of them. Hopefully, even if they did, they would enjoy this sort of Ultimate D&D Universe approach to things instead of finding it lame.</blockquote>

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