Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Stonetop RPG - Session post-mortems
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8927560" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>I just wrote this post for another thread, but it’s relevant to here and I haven’t posted any content here in a long while so I figured I’d drop this in from our last session:</p><p></p><p>[HR][/HR]</p><p></p><p>In Stonetop, the Hagr are sort of the classic Cyclops of Greek mythology but given a few other tropes, a particular Instinct, while also mostly being left for play to resolve their empty space. Their Instinct is to "compulsively shape their environment" with obsessions around collecting and stacking thing to exacting standards. They're also hinted at being former servants of The Green Lords (primordial beings corrupted into The Fomoraij, cast as the co-archvillains of the setting; the other being The Things Below/The Dark Underfoot) who bred these creatures (fae...as The Green Lord bred all the fae into particular service) to build. In the ancient history of this game, the fae rebelled so the Hagr, free of the shackles of The Green Lords would have found a new purpose. Being bred "to build", they would be building still.</p><p></p><p>So our present play has resolved that the current and primary Threat to Stonetop at this point is the retreating of The Golden Oak from this world and into that game's equivalent of The Feywild. We've uncovered that The Golden Oak's role in this setting is to basically hold together the world with its mighty roots and the folk of Stonetop have had a covenant to see to The Golden Oak's material needs annually to ensure that it doesn't retreat. When "The Line of Judges" (a Paladin of knowledge and civilization and harmony/order) was broken a few centuries ago, the responsibility of this covenant passed into history and has been unfulfilled hence. Now the fruits of that lack of labor are on the doorstep of this world.</p><p></p><p>Whenever you set out on an Expedition, the procedures are to establish Requirements and Challenges which amount to relevant thematic obstacles on the way to the Adventure site itself. For this journey, the table settled upon the following:</p><p></p><p><strong>EXPEDITION </strong>- Restore the Covenant of the Golden Oak. </p><p></p><p><strong>OBSTACLE 1 </strong>- The Mark of The Dark Underfoot Haunts Voistek and Tooth. </p><p><strong>OBSTACLE 2 </strong>- Agents of Darkness Putrefying the Way. </p><p><strong>OBSTACLES 3</strong> - Find Danu's Causeway Through The Grove of the Savage Giants. </p><p><strong>OBSTACLE 4 </strong>- Bring The Forest Folk Out of Hiding. </p><p></p><p>The PCs are journeying north through The Great Wood (the forest that is home to the fading Golden Oak). They planned to stop at an enclave of Crinwin (small, typically wicked and vicious, bee/wasp humanoids that the PCs befriended very early in the game). The Hagr are unknown to the Stonetoppers as (a) no one ventures even this deep into The Great Wood (a "mere" 3 days) and (b) the depths from which the Hagr customarily come - where The Golden Oak resides - is entirely unknown to Stonetoppers for many generations (since the breaking of their covenant). </p><p></p><p>So when they PCs arrived at the Crinwin enclave they had befriended (for their 3rd day Make Camp), the hive-in-trees along the verdant, alpine ridge was being assailed by a pair of Hagr who were sundering the buttressing branches for select pickings to meet their, now very confused, obsessive purpose; "to build."</p><p></p><p>The PCs defended the Crinwin enclave and slew these mysterious, massive fey giants. What are they? Why are they here? The Judge Cullen's player decided to make a Know Things move via his Well Read playbook move with the help of the (recently secured) Follower Voistek:</p><p></p><p><strong>WELL-READ</strong></p><p>When you <strong>name the source in which you read about the matter at hand</strong>, roll roll +WIS to Know Things instead of +INT.</p><p></p><p><strong>KNOW THINGS</strong></p><p>When you <strong>consult your accumulated knowledge</strong>, roll +INT: on a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the topic at hand; on a 7-9, the GM will tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful; either way the GM might ask, “How do you know this?”</p><p></p><p><strong>Voistek - Scrivener of Eratis </strong></p><p>Long-lived, Flesh-flayer, Chronicle-wise </p><p>HP 8; Armor 1 </p><p>Longspear; d6 (reach, piercing 1 due to Prosperity) </p><p>Instinct: To invest his last breaths with purpose. </p><p>Cost: A pupil to share his knowledge with.</p><p></p><p>Cullen and Voistek get a 10+ result so I'm obliged to tell them something both interesting and useful (meaning actionable with respect to present goals, instincts, situation et al).</p><p></p><p>So presently, OBSTACLE 1 & 2 above are resolved. So the PCs are working on <strong>OBSTACLES 3</strong> - Find Danu's Causeway Through The Grove of the Savage Giants. </p><p></p><p>Danu is the deity of nature (and all related; tooth and claw and preservation and beauty and barrenness). Play had sorted out that her causeway is a mystical secret path deep into The Great Wood, known only to Danu's initiates and the fey and the ancient Stonetoppers, that lets you transcend this world into the equivalent of The Feywild beyond where The Golden Oak is retreating. </p><p></p><p>So its settled upon that these Hagr are in fact "The Savage Giants"...that their chosen task after their rebellion freed the fey from The Green Lords was to build and maintain Danu's Causeway. Now with The Golden Tree retreating from this world, they have lost their purpose. Confused, they travel indiscriminately, carrying out their rote obsession "to build." So these slain giants cannot lead them to Danu's Causeway. But perhaps they could reverse engineer their shambling journey here via tracking and reading the collateral damage to the environment. </p><p></p><p><strong>Interesting and Useful (and the outgrowth of an emergent, creative play process)</strong></p><p></p><p>There are other examples of this in the Blades game I'm GMing, the 4e game (particularly the present Astral conflict on The Dread Star Caiphon) I'm GMing, and the Dogs game I'm GMing. But this one is a solid enough example of the paradigm.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 8927560, member: 6696971"] I just wrote this post for another thread, but it’s relevant to here and I haven’t posted any content here in a long while so I figured I’d drop this in from our last session: [HR][/HR] In Stonetop, the Hagr are sort of the classic Cyclops of Greek mythology but given a few other tropes, a particular Instinct, while also mostly being left for play to resolve their empty space. Their Instinct is to "compulsively shape their environment" with obsessions around collecting and stacking thing to exacting standards. They're also hinted at being former servants of The Green Lords (primordial beings corrupted into The Fomoraij, cast as the co-archvillains of the setting; the other being The Things Below/The Dark Underfoot) who bred these creatures (fae...as The Green Lord bred all the fae into particular service) to build. In the ancient history of this game, the fae rebelled so the Hagr, free of the shackles of The Green Lords would have found a new purpose. Being bred "to build", they would be building still. So our present play has resolved that the current and primary Threat to Stonetop at this point is the retreating of The Golden Oak from this world and into that game's equivalent of The Feywild. We've uncovered that The Golden Oak's role in this setting is to basically hold together the world with its mighty roots and the folk of Stonetop have had a covenant to see to The Golden Oak's material needs annually to ensure that it doesn't retreat. When "The Line of Judges" (a Paladin of knowledge and civilization and harmony/order) was broken a few centuries ago, the responsibility of this covenant passed into history and has been unfulfilled hence. Now the fruits of that lack of labor are on the doorstep of this world. Whenever you set out on an Expedition, the procedures are to establish Requirements and Challenges which amount to relevant thematic obstacles on the way to the Adventure site itself. For this journey, the table settled upon the following: [B]EXPEDITION [/B]- Restore the Covenant of the Golden Oak. [B]OBSTACLE 1 [/B]- The Mark of The Dark Underfoot Haunts Voistek and Tooth. [B]OBSTACLE 2 [/B]- Agents of Darkness Putrefying the Way. [B]OBSTACLES 3[/B] - Find Danu's Causeway Through The Grove of the Savage Giants. [B]OBSTACLE 4 [/B]- Bring The Forest Folk Out of Hiding. The PCs are journeying north through The Great Wood (the forest that is home to the fading Golden Oak). They planned to stop at an enclave of Crinwin (small, typically wicked and vicious, bee/wasp humanoids that the PCs befriended very early in the game). The Hagr are unknown to the Stonetoppers as (a) no one ventures even this deep into The Great Wood (a "mere" 3 days) and (b) the depths from which the Hagr customarily come - where The Golden Oak resides - is entirely unknown to Stonetoppers for many generations (since the breaking of their covenant). So when they PCs arrived at the Crinwin enclave they had befriended (for their 3rd day Make Camp), the hive-in-trees along the verdant, alpine ridge was being assailed by a pair of Hagr who were sundering the buttressing branches for select pickings to meet their, now very confused, obsessive purpose; "to build." The PCs defended the Crinwin enclave and slew these mysterious, massive fey giants. What are they? Why are they here? The Judge Cullen's player decided to make a Know Things move via his Well Read playbook move with the help of the (recently secured) Follower Voistek: [B]WELL-READ[/B] When you [B]name the source in which you read about the matter at hand[/B], roll roll +WIS to Know Things instead of +INT. [B]KNOW THINGS[/B] When you [B]consult your accumulated knowledge[/B], roll +INT: on a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the topic at hand; on a 7-9, the GM will tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful; either way the GM might ask, “How do you know this?” [B]Voistek - Scrivener of Eratis [/B] Long-lived, Flesh-flayer, Chronicle-wise HP 8; Armor 1 Longspear; d6 (reach, piercing 1 due to Prosperity) Instinct: To invest his last breaths with purpose. Cost: A pupil to share his knowledge with. Cullen and Voistek get a 10+ result so I'm obliged to tell them something both interesting and useful (meaning actionable with respect to present goals, instincts, situation et al). So presently, OBSTACLE 1 & 2 above are resolved. So the PCs are working on [B]OBSTACLES 3[/B] - Find Danu's Causeway Through The Grove of the Savage Giants. Danu is the deity of nature (and all related; tooth and claw and preservation and beauty and barrenness). Play had sorted out that her causeway is a mystical secret path deep into The Great Wood, known only to Danu's initiates and the fey and the ancient Stonetoppers, that lets you transcend this world into the equivalent of The Feywild beyond where The Golden Oak is retreating. So its settled upon that these Hagr are in fact "The Savage Giants"...that their chosen task after their rebellion freed the fey from The Green Lords was to build and maintain Danu's Causeway. Now with The Golden Tree retreating from this world, they have lost their purpose. Confused, they travel indiscriminately, carrying out their rote obsession "to build." So these slain giants cannot lead them to Danu's Causeway. But perhaps they could reverse engineer their shambling journey here via tracking and reading the collateral damage to the environment. [B]Interesting and Useful (and the outgrowth of an emergent, creative play process)[/B] There are other examples of this in the Blades game I'm GMing, the 4e game (particularly the present Astral conflict on The Dread Star Caiphon) I'm GMing, and the Dogs game I'm GMing. But this one is a solid enough example of the paradigm. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Stonetop RPG - Session post-mortems
Top