Sessions V and VI: Meanwhile, back in the sewers ...

Our Party
Azok - Silver Dragonborn Barbarian
Harrod -Half Elf Paladin
Grog -Half-Orc (Ogren) Fighter
Scruffy - Blue Dragonborn Paladin
Stephen - Halfing Bard
Peter -Human Thief

The party handled the last section of the sewers and the 'Ratomancer' (their name for him) who had stolen Grixby's amulet without too much trouble. In fact they smashed Skabies the Ratling Warlock so fast I didn't even have time to get a spell off. After that it was just moping up the rest of the giant rats, collecting the 'Irradiant Amulet' and heading back to the Storm Crow Tavern. So ended the introductory part of the campaign.

The next session picked up the next morning. Coaltooth, the owner of the Storm Crow had been so happy to have his basement free of giant vermin that he let them stay in a spare room. Two players were absent, so Azok and Grogt spent the morning  sleeping off the previous night's celebration.

The remaining party split into parts to explore the city district known as The Ashes, so called because of the large Crematorium that looms over to the east. The smoke that billows from the great smokestacks slowly coats everything in the district like a grey snow.

Harrod and Scruffy went off in search of  a furrier, and to see if they could track down any clues as to the young girl who had approached them in the bar. Peter and Stephen went to return Grixby's amulet, and then wanted to visit the Midnight Star Saloon, an old hang-out of Peter's.

This was the first test of my large-scale maps and NPC standees and I'm please to say that it worked out better than I’d hoped. The kids liked exploring the ‘board’ and it helped everyone keep track of their characters and locations. Carathon is based heavily on Lankhmar (and Sanctuary, the City State of the Invincible Overlord and a generous dash of Ankh-Morpork for good measure), so much so that I am using the map from the TSR supplement as the base map of the city. I found maps of the generic districts that comes with the book, blew one of them up so that it covered six pages and printed it out.

I decided early on that I wasn't going to run the game in any established D&D world, though I would never rule out a trip to Planescape, Darksun or Al Qadim. I made a few attempts at building the world, complete with cities, legends and such, but quickly realized that I didn't want to do that either. It felt too much like I was hemming myself in. What I have is an idea for an overall story arc that should carry the party to about level 5, but how it plays out, or even if it plays out, will depend on the actions of the players and their PCs.

I started by opening up the city map and told the kids that I haven't planned out every building in the district. If they had an idea for a shop or tavern to let me know. Now the district has an 'Adventurer's Guild', which is really just a run down storefront run by an old Duck veteran named Drake Mallard (Drake is a title, not a name) who brokers jobs for mercenaries.

My gameworld now as Runequest Ducks.
Deal with it. 

They party even suggested that the Midnight Star was not friendly towards non-humans. I already had a sub-plot ready about a band of drunken slavers who had taken over the place, so this dovetailed nicely, especially when Stephen the Halfling snuck in, tried to talk to the toughs and (delightfully) rolled a 1 on his Persuasion roll. Never had a Halfing been flung so far, so quickly. Peter's player even decided that his Criminal Contact was a hostess there, and that he had history with the Slaver boss, so this place, which was a quicky idea based on my favourite Western movie, is quickly becoming a focal point to the game.

Since that had been a success I decided to get the players to help me design the overall gameworld. At the end of last session I asked them to think about the land where their characters had come from. They can choose not to participate if they want, or they can give me as much detail as they want. I may not use all of it, but I think it will help them keep invested in the game and save me a shit ton of work I don't really want to do. I'm looking forward to them keeping me on my toes.