How Is Your Party Connected?

The dread necromancer Elara Shann, wreathed in funerary black. Kurdack Deadhand, a hulking orc-blooded brigand that's Wanted in seven nations. Litana Veil, Voice of the Queen of Shadows. Vor, the red-skinned devil speaker born from the ancient Rite of Conjunction beneath the darkened moon. While each of these characters might be interesting on their own, each with their own backstories like what you'd find in The Small Legend, it's important to ask how it is they all know one another, and what brings them together in this endeavor?

Because that knowledge can make your campaign go a lot more smoothly... and sometimes it can be funny as hell!

It has been some time, my old friend. I suppose I have one more adventure in me.

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

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Who Are You Adventuring Beside... And Why?

Campaigns take a wide variety of forms. From glorified bank heists, to tracking down dangerous bounties, to fighting cults and stopping ancient prophecies, so-called adventurers tackle all sorts of deadly tasks that are beyond the skills of any single individual. The question you should ask, though, is when you need to deal with a dragon problem, or root out a roost of manticores, who are you going to ask to come along on this errand with you?

Because that can be an interesting story all on its own!

Ragnar, you old sot! Remember that favor you said you owed me...?

On the one hand, we can have the vague, fill-in backstories to justify the party coming together. Perhaps a local lord put out the word for adventurers to deal with an infestation of the undead, the party were all taken captive by slavers and they band together to free themselves, or they all happened to be in the local tavern when something happened that required them to leap into action. And if the players around the table are willing to take the plot hooks dangled in front of them, this can work fairly well.

But consider what additional story could be made by creating the bonds between the characters in order to create extra context and story. For folks who don't usually try this method, the best way to do this is by examining what things the characters have in common, or what things might act as a bond between them.

As an example, consider a party where all the characters have a missing father. Maybe that was done intentionally, and maybe it wasn't, but it's a commonality with them. Is it possible that all of them have the same father, and they're looking for him? If you want to play into a silly stereotype, said father might be a wandering bard who moved on from town before realizing his previous partners had fallen pregnant. And each of his children has a very different tale to tell, from the half-elf wizard whose mother described him as learned and quick, to the half-orc fighter whose was told her father was a fierce champion with a battle cry that could banish fear and a rage that couldn't be matched, to the farm girl paladin who was told her father was the most handsome man who ever graced the village, and that he'd sung the dead back into their graves when they wouldn't lie still. Each tale is true, in its way, but each paints the man in a very different light... and when the siblings find each other, they have a chance to find more than just their absent father. Bonus points for him being the BBEG of the game!

Come my children... join me, and together we can rule!

Things don't have to be so explicit and overlapping, of course. Characters might have an individual connection to one another, and it becomes a game of tag along. For instance, one character might be a noble born wizard, and when attacks from raiders harry the border of his family's lands, he's bound by honor and duty to go stop it. However, he knows going alone is a death sentence, so he asks his father's Mistress of The Hunt to come with him. The ranger understands the danger, so she reaches out to a warrior she served with in the army. The fighter has a bit of a limp and several scars, but he agrees to come with on one condition... the wizard gets a pardon for his half brother. The half-elf rogue has been rotting in jail for months, but jumps at a chance at freedom, even if it's a dangerous one... and his partial sibling will be keeping an eye on him the whole time.

In this scenario, all the characters are still highly motivated to deal with the problem that's been presented, and each of them has a connection to at least one other player character that's strong enough to solidify them as a member of the party. However, this still allows them to form impressions, roleplay organically, and come together as a closer group by the time the initial challenge is done with... and that bond likely means that when they uncover a deeper threat, or a new problem rears its head, the party will saddle up once more to handle business.

This Is One Of The More Fun Parts of The Game

A lot of players don't go through this stage of the story, they just create their characters in a vacuum and expect them to come together when it's a necessity... but a lot of the time this leads to friction and problems because players had different ideas and visions for how the game was going to go. That can all be avoided by sitting down and adding a little extra polish to the story.

For instance, does one player have a barbarian character who loathes spellcasters, and another player is bringing a sorcerer? Well, figuring out a way to make that less of an issue before the dice hit the mat can be an interesting challenge. For instance, does the barbarian believe the sorcerer was touched by the gods because he was there when their bloodline manifested, so that character is an exception in his mind? Do both characters want revenge on the same person, so they've agreed to work together until that goal is achieved before they settle their differences? Are they actually related, and no matter how much it twists the barbarian's gut, it is dishonorable in the extreme to slay one's own kin?

Getting your table into these little story writing sessions, and finding answers that gets everyone excited for the game, is a great way to start off your first session with a bit of momentum, and I highly recommend folks at least try this method out if it isn't a part of your Session 0 setup yet!

Lastly, if you'd like to check out some supplements of mine that can help with chiseling out the details on your character, consider taking a look at:

- 100 Character Goals and Motivations: Picking a direction and putting gas in the tank, this supplement helps you figure out what they want, and even why they want it.

- 100 Questions To Ask About Your Characters: Everything from what their favorite food is, to what kind of partner they'd like to marry, and even how they want to die, there's a lot of questions in here!

- 100 Dark Secrets: If your character is holding something close to their vest, something that could change the way people perceive them, this supplement can get your imagination flowing.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or the dark sci fi saga of The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Monstrous Appearances - Symbolism and Story

Iconic creature design sticks in the imagination, and can create an undeniable mood among players. However, while it's easy to just throw in shock for shock's sake, monsters (and even characters) can be far more impactful if you take some time to ask what their appearance actually means, and why it is the way it is. Because while not every monster is a metaphor, those that are tend to linger in the imagination long after an encounter is over.

Ask what the monster represents, and how that manifests.

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Examples of Symbolic Design

Sometimes a monster is just a monster, like a shrieking goblin, an animated skeleton, or a hungry land shark. However, monsters whose appearances, or even their abilities, are part of their lore and story tend to be significantly more flavorful... and the same rules apply for your characters as for the things they might have to fight.

For one of the most iconic examples of symbolism in a terrifying creature, consider the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol. Marley is often played for laughs, but take a moment to consider him. He's twisted, broken, still dressed in the rags of his funeral finery, and bound with chains whose burden he can never escape. Chains that are not just a physical weight, but an ectoplasmic repository for the guilt, pain, and shame he must carry for his afterlife, giving him no respite from the harm he caused.

It's simple, it's straightforward, and with the right description, is terrifying. But if you add a few details (perhaps a belt of dangling, bloody coins around his waist, each one a slug for a person whose death he caused, or mentioning the fine watches, gems, and sacks of coin tangled in the chains that he coerced from people out of greed) the torture can become personalized. Not only that, but if it's turned into something concrete, then that knowledge leaves players taking in the big picture of just how heavy the ghost's burden is, realizing the sheer amount of harm he's done no matter how pathetic and wailing his cries are now.

This kind of symbolic thinking and description can add weight to your bestiary, your encounters, and even to characters (if they get to play people who have been altered, such as in Changeling: The Lost).

Rather than just listing more examples, though, I'd like to draw your attention to two properties that have done this rather well.

First on the list is Silent Hill. While the series on the whole at least tries to put symbolism into its monsters (since they're meant to be direct interactions with the psyche of those who witness them), the second game is really the one most people think of when it comes to the high bar. From the horrifying, unstoppable force of Pyramid Head (a stern, ultra-masculine figure here to punish the protagonist for his transgressions), to the nurses (the hideous face atop the sensual body speaks to guilt, confusion, and mixed needs of the protagonist), to the twisted bed monster (something representing intimate abuse as it twists together sex and violence into a horrifying whole), the creatures are universally unsettling. What really makes them sink into one's memory, though, is the fact that they're not just random design elements thrown together to be weird, but they are manifestations of particular traumas.

All the best monsters are just mirrors showing us the worst parts of ourselves in ways we don't expect to see them.

As with Silent Hill, Fear & Hunger is a horror game with disturbing visuals and horrifying monsters. In the second installment of the franchise (a terrifying take on this setting's first World War), the characters find themselves contestants in a terrible game of death. Even worse, the grinning moon is twisting those caught in its light into terrible, monstrous versions of themselves... horrible forms that represent their dark secrets, personal fears, or which twist them out-of-true.

The child soldier becomes a horror known as the Weeping Scope, a terrible creature with an organic weapon for a head. He is molded into what he tried to avoid; a living weapon with a gun for a face that destroys whatever it looks at, unable to have purpose beyond bringing death. The boxer who is afraid of what might happen if he loses control of himself turns into a terrible giant, his hands fused into pummeling pistons, unable to think or speak, lost to the pure brute fury that always bubbled inside of him. The wheelchair-bound academic is twisted into a biomechanical horror referred to as the Mechanical Dance, a stiff, machine-like horror resembling an iron maiden, representing the human trapped and bound within a thing that was supposed to be her aid, but which has become her prison.

Whereas the monsters in Silent Hill are pure representations of twisted psyche, the moonscorched of Fear & Hunger begin as humans with their own histories, flaws, and stories, and we see how they're warped and changed. This gives us a unique look at who they are as humans, before their inner selves (or at least their struggles and private horrors) are manifested by the moon god (or the other forces at work in the dark festival). The ability to follow the path of transformation can really drive home the horror, and how something so monstrous can represent turmoil and trauma in a way that's unsettling, but understandable when one thinks in terms of symbolism.

It Can Take Practice (And Won't Be For Everyone)

Symbolic monsters, threats, and even player characters are not going to be to everyone's tastes. There will always be players and Game Masters who want things to be more straightforward, and who aren't interested in adding extra layers of meaning to the game. This is a matter of matching the right table to the right game, and ensuring everyone is onboard, and looking for the same kind of experience.

Everything else just comes down to practice.

But what does it mean?

Whether you're designing creatures from the ground up, or merely deciding how to present them, take a moment and ask what their appearances and abilities might mean, and what unnatural reflection one might find in them. Perhaps it's a demon with eyes and claws like mirrors, representing its ties to pride or envy. It might be whipstitched flesh golems that were purposefully perverted into walking horrors, each representing a different facet of the maker's personality. It could even be a sorcerer with a scaly hand he conceals beneath a gauntlet; something representing his infernal bargain that grows and grows as the darkness within him tries to consume him physically, as well as spiritually.

However you choose to mold your monsters, ask what story these visuals are telling. Because even if players don't want to dig beneath the surface, symbolism can often stick with us even if we can't put into words exactly why it clings to our memories.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or the dark sci fi saga of The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

What Is Your Character's Signature Equipment (And What Does It Say About Them)?

One of the major parts of any RPG character is their equipment. Whether you're sailing the stars in the sci-fi future, chasing mysteries down the dark back alleys of the modern day, or you're raiding tombs and crawling dungeons in an ancient fantasy setting, the gear you bring with you is going to make a big difference on your adventures.

But your equipment might be more than just a useful toolbox for you to dip into to solve problems; it can also tell someone a lot about a character. Which is why you should take a moment to think about your character's signature equipment, what it means, and the messages it might send to someone in the know.

A man should have his portrait taken with the spoils of his wars.

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Telling A Silent Story

I touched on this concept a while back in What Is Your Character's Everyday Carry (And What Does It Say About Them)? as well as in Reveal Details About Your Character Through Flavor-Based Skill Checks. However, this week's post is sort of combining these previous suggestions, and turning them into something different. Because the things we carry are a part of our story, and it can be worth thinking about when you ask what aspects of a character's history, background, etc. can be silently filled in by someone who recognizes what they're wearing or carrying... and doubly so if that item appears to be something that never leaves the character's person.

For very long, at least.

The blade has a long and bloody history.

The key for making a piece of signature equipment for a character is to make sure it has a meaningful story to tell, and to be sure there is some way for that story to be conveyed to other characters. Whether that's other PCs rolling a check to recognize the symbolism of a given item, or an NPC who recognizes it and reacts to it, at the end of the day what matters is that the clue adds into the character's story.

So what might that look like? Well, consider some of the following examples:

- The silver skull ring that marks someone as a member (or former member) of the Silver Wraiths necromancer's guild (found in Cities of Sundara: Moüd for Pathfinder or DND 5E)

- A battle banner with a roaring green lion that they unfurl during charges. Is it the sigil of a lost noble house? A defunct mercenary company? Such as those found in A Baker's Dozen of Noble Families, or 100 Mercenary Companies?

- Does their shield bear the remnants of an ancient oak tree with silver leaves, marking the liege lord they once served? What happened to them? Why do they still bear the mark?

- Do they wear a legionnaire's long coat, marking them as someone who completed a tour of duty as an officer in the 117th Coranthan Expansion?

Whether it's subtle or obvious, and whether the character keeps the item hidden or flaunts it, the point is that it should be something they will keep with them, that is important to them, and that it has an impact on the characters they interact with. And, ideally, this item should be something that isn't just going to get tossed aside as soon as an upgrade presents itself. Because you don't want to put a bunch of story into the blade they took from their father's dead hands that they've sworn to wield in the service of noble causes, only to immediately replace it as soon as the character finds a more powerful sword to swing.

There are a couple of ways around this. One is to use something like the Weapons of Legacy book which came out for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. The idea was that a character's weapon would grow and change along with them, remaining a constant companion for the entire adventure. Alternatively, ask if there are parts or pieces of the old equipment that can be merged with the newer items that have been found. For example, if you find something like a powerful wizard's robe, could you turn it into a lining beneath the character's battered leather duster that they wore when they were still an officer in the legion? Do they keep their old scabbard for the new weapon, merging their old life with their new one? Or does some strange magical effect leave a stamp of the character's history on their new weapon, such as the pommel's shape shifting into their old family crest, or engravings taking on the form of their personal sigil to represent their new bond?

Whatever form the story continuity takes, a character's signature equipment should be a physical representation of where they've been, who they are, or something they've experienced. And it should be something that stays with them in some way, shape, or form, showing that no matter what they experience going forward, they're still carrying a part of their past... even if it's also grown and changed with them.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or the dark sci fi saga of The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

The Difficulty of Destined Heroes and Fail States

We have all been in those games where destiny takes a hand in the plot. Perhaps our heroes are chosen by the gods to act as their direct representatives in a spiritual proxy war (a similar setup to what I called The Cold War of The Gods). Maybe there was a prophecy that foretold them rising up to challenge a great power. Or this just happens to be the trope the GM is leaning on because it was difficult to find an organic way to get such a disparate group of killers, thieves, and liars to all come together to accomplish a shared goal.

However, there is nothing more likely to result in a clash between rules and plot than something going wrong in a destined hero game. Which is why, before you gear up to run one, you need to think through how you plan on dealing with a fail state.

The dragon warriors were supposed to free us all... but then they died. To one lucky goblin.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

How Does Destiny Manage To Weave Through Failure?

We've all read a story where a hero or heroes were destined to do something, and while things might have seemed bleak or hopeless at times in that story, the characters always seemed to make it through in an interesting way. Which is why if you're playing a game where the plot device is that your party have been chosen by fate, the gods, or some other higher force, you need to take a moment to ask how you're going to keep the game going if bad luck stalls out the story's progress.

The gods are not so easily denied, small one...

Let's start with the obvious... what happens if one or more of the characters get killed? They've been chosen for this great destiny, and they're on their way to fulfill it, when an orc ambush goes a little too well, and the party goes down. Now you've lost the champions of the plot... what is destiny going to do now?

Well, I have a few recommendations for how to handle this.

Firstly, if you're going to run a chosen one plot, wait until the PCs have gained a few levels before you start throwing around that kind of language and making them officially chosen ones. The major advantage of this is that it gives your players a couple of levels to get into the groove of their characters, and to get past the point where one good critical hit can spell an unlucky game over. The secondary advantage is that it gives the party time to become cohesive, and for players to get really attached to their characters. After all, a player wanting to bring in a completely different PC can screw with the whole destined heroes plot just as much as a character death.

However, even waiting until the PCs are a little beefier doesn't guarantee they won't meet with an ignoble end. That's why it's a good idea to have some kind of force in place to give the characters a way to survive at least 1 death. However, as I mentioned recently in both Undercutting Death Can Undercut Your Story, as well as Villains Can Cheat Death (Without Taking Away Your Players' Victory), it's important that this doesn't feel like you're just throwing your players a bone. Overcoming death should come with some kind of cost or hardship, or it should be uncertain in some important way. Perhaps a divine being must stand in the place of a PC in the Underworld until they complete their quest, or they have to make some kind of bargain with a powerful outsider.

You can even have a whole separate part of the campaign happen in the land of the dead if you want to bring in a game resource like The Black Ballad, which is all about running campaigns that take place partially (or even entirely) in the hereafter. Alternatively, you might find some inspiration in I'm Back! - 25 Reasons For A Villain's Survival.

Resurrection can be a finnicky thing.

Lastly, and this might sound counterintuitive at first, you should try to come up with fail states beyond death for the PCs.

I've talked about this before, but when it comes to a destiny-style game, consider the implications of death in the ongoing power struggle. Will killing the heroes of the prophecy actually stop the prophecy from coming true? Or will this just allow the divine essence to slip away, where it will empower a different, unknown hero that the villains will have to find and track down all over again? Do the villains want to steal the PCs destiny, but they can't do that if they're dead, so they have to be kept alive and captured? Are the PCs themselves a necessity for the villain to win, whether it's by turning them away from their current path, making allies of them, or getting them to somehow renounce the quest laid before them?

It's your game, so you're the one who gets to decide how the prophecy, destiny, or driving plot force behaves. However, providing multiple fail states, or a way for players to fail-forward is a good idea. For example, have the villains been given explicit instructions by their master to take the PCs alive at all costs? If so, then they should find themselves held prisoner in the enemy's fortress when that was where they were going anyway... the difference is that now they have to engineer a jailbreak instead of just sneaking in. Alternatively, perhaps they're in a race to acquire magical artifacts, and the fail state for that arc of the quest is not being killed, but rather the enemy acquiring the items first, which puts the PCs at a disadvantage they need to recover from in the next arc.

And so on, and so forth.

To wrap things up, I'm not saying that games where PCs are the chosen ones, or where they're fulfilling some grand destiny, are bad. Far from it. After all, everyone likes to be special from time to time. However, if that is the trope you're using as the main thrust of your campaign, it's important for you to have off-ramps and work arounds in the event things don't go according to plan.

Which every Game Master will tell you is basically guaranteed to happen as soon as you hand the reins over to the players, and the dice start hitting the table.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my additional audio dramas over on The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Villains Can Cheat Death (Without Taking Away Your Players' Victory)

I recently wrote a post over on my sister blog The Literary Mercenary titled Undercutting Death Can Undercut Your Story. And while I wrote this from the mindset of an author, there were quite a few references to RPGs and comic books about how introducing mechanics that render death mutable or reversible can have a major effect on your story's stakes, and with how seriously we take death as a consequence.

And this week I wanted to elaborate on this a bit for the Game Masters out there... because while it's true that what's available to the player characters is available to their enemies, if you're going to bring back a villain after they were killed then you need to do so in a way that doesn't feel cheap, or undermine your players' success, and which adds to the ongoing story.

Also, a shout out to Adrian Kennelly's supplement I'm Back! - 25 Reasons For A Villain's Survival for Game Masters who could use a bit of a kickstart on this topic.

It's a delicate balance... but you can manage it.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Should You Bring This Villain Back?

Its happens to all of us. Your players get lucky, and they sink a critical hit at a bad time. Or maybe you forgot about an ability on their sheet that stripped away your villain's exit strategy. Or for the first time in recorded history one of those one-hit-kill powers actually worked, and it dropped your big bad instantly. Well, you had plans for this villain in the narrative going forward, but the numbers made it clear that your players won this round, and your villain is dead.

First and foremost, ask yourself why they shouldn't stay that way. Aside from the fact that it would make your life easier as the GM, who in your ongoing campaign has a vested interest in that villain remaining on the mortal plane? And, perhaps even more importantly, what role are they supposed to actually serve in the ongoing narrative?

You had one job, Crassus... now go do it!

Take a moment, and ask who this villain is. Are they a hired mercenary who was just working for the real villain? Are they a servant of a cult, who might have access to relics or rituals that can bring back their servants? Or does this villain serve a dark god, or powerful necromancer, who might decide their minion has skills and abilities that would be too hard to replace at this stage of their plans? Did they make a deal with someone, or something that isn't going to let them out of it so easily?

All of that context matters. Because if your villain was just some guy who had a certain set of skills, but not a particularly rare one, then they shouldn't be resurrected unless the circumstances of their death were genuinely up in the air. If they fell off of a cliff and into a rushing river, then maybe they could survive, for instance. But if the PCs stabbed them to death, dismembered them, and burned their body, that villain is dead for sure. In that situation it's better to bring in a new villain who will take their place, and who might be looking for vengeance on those who killed that original bad guy. Maybe it's an old war buddy, an enraged father, a vengeful mother, an even more evil twin... someone who fills the role nicely, and who shows the party their actions have consequences, and what they do affects the story as it unfolds.

However, if this villain was truly difficult to replace either because of their unique power level, or you really wanted to build up more of the personal antagonism between them and the PCs, then consider using any of the absurd methods you have on-hand for resurrecting them. For example, could their parts and pieces be reassembled with dark technology, or terrible magic into some kind of angry cyborg a la Darth Vader, or an evil Robocop? Could they be truly resurrected by a patron, or a deity, who marks them in some way to remind them they have failed (perhaps removing a finger, like a Yakuza soldier, or marking them with terrible brands, taking an eye, etc.)? Or are they resurrected with a template added onto them, perhaps as a powerful undead, or some kind of horrible demon hybrid creature?

Or are they operating under a curse, like those who wield the Widowmaker, a terrible, corrupt weapon found in The Blade Itself for Hunter: The Vigil?

Give it a look if you haven't yet!

Now, the key here is that for this villain to come back it can't feel like you just hit the undo button behind the GM screen, and invalidated your players' victory because it was inconvenient to the narrative. This resurrection should clearly have come at some kind of cost to the villain, and it should be uncertain as to whether it will happen again. Even if you want to use resurrection or reincarnation as a kind of power for this particular enemy, the challenge will then become finding the thing that truly kills them for good so they stop coming back. But it should never feel like a victory (hard won or otherwise) is just being handwaved away because you couldn't be bothered to draw up a fresh villain, or to modify a story because you were operating under the assumption that this particular bad guy would be present and un-murdered for what comes next.

Remember that you can get creative with this! Just be sure that your resurrection feels well thought-out, appropriate to the story, and that the cost of it undercuts exactly how far the villain is willing to go to thwart the party... especially because their new lease on life may very well depend on them succeeding where previously they failed!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my additional audio dramas over on The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Game Masters, There's Nothing New Under The Sun (So Don't Stress About It)

There is a fear I have seen among a lot of writers out there. In short, it's a desire to make something genuinely new and different the no one has seen before, which is driven by a fear that someone will accuse their work of being derivative, or of simply being too similar to other stories that have been told before. And, for some reason, this fear seems to affect Game Masters (particularly newer Game Masters) to an even greater extent. They worry their players will guess their twists, figure out their inspirations, or that once they get a bit of insight they'll be completely uninterested in the game because it won't be new or fresh anymore.

Now, I don't often turn to the bible in situations like this. Not my faith, not my book. With that said, though, I'd recommend Ecclesiates 1:9 for advice. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

I'll be damned... it's right in the book.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Seriously, Just Embrace It!

There are a lot of Game Masters who likely laughed, shook their heads, or rolled their eyes at the introductory paragraphs. I've lost count of the number of people who are all too happy to list the books, movies, and even other RPG settings they've stolen their ideas from, talking about the various NPCs, locales, and plot arcs they've snagged from other places to make their own Frankenstein creatures to serve up to their players.

And in some cases the GM had wider, deeper, or older tastes than the players, so nobody realized the campaign, world, etc. wasn't spun entirely out of whole cloth. However, most of the time realizing that a Game Master took inspiration from a particular property (or even an entire part of history, for those who know that Game of Thrones is based on the War of The Roses) doesn't ruin the experience for the players... because it's not about being utterly and completely unique in a way that no one has ever done things before. It's about providing your players an experience that's unique to them and which has your signature style on it.

Put another way, think of your campaign as a grilled cheese. Everyone knows what a grilled cheese is, and everyone has probably had them dozens of different ways over their lifetime. Now, you might make yours in a slightly different way that some people (maybe your cheese is spicy, maybe you use mayo instead of butter to ensure the bread is toasty, perhaps you like to put bacon bits in it, whatever it is you do), but others are going to take one bite and it will be instantly familiar to them. That doesn't mean they stop eating the sandwich, especially if you prepared something they like in a way that is fresh, delicious, and which is served up on a platter to them.

Case in point...

I've got plenty of examples in my own catalog where I embraced the inspirations for a particular project. My elevator pitch for The Curse of Sapphire Lake is, "The love child of Beowulf and Friday the 13th," after all. And fans of classic action movies will quickly recognize the inspiration behind my Army Men mission module Assault on Outpost 13, since even the title is an homage to the film Assault on Precinct 13. My Sundara: Dawn of a New Age fantasy RPG setting completely does away with the convoluted multiplanar structure used in Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons, opting for a simpler, more streamlined system of the material world and the Prim, which I explained in Gods of Sundara... and it's going to look very familiar to any fans of the Warp in Warhammer 40K as far as structure goes.

Hell, even my World of Darkness supplement Evil Incorporated just looked at historical atrocities (and modern ones) committed by corporations and billionaires. The introductory fiction even has a veiled call-out to the owners of Hobby Lobby who (at least allegedly) paid a ridiculous amount of money to terrorists in the Middle East to purchase stolen relics which they kept in their own homes.

Now, I'm far from unique in this aspect. Zon-Kuthon, from Pathfinder is clearly heavily inspired by the cenobites of Hellraiser, but not only that, the nation that worships him is steeped in winks and nods to Melnibone, the nation from the Elric novels by Moorcock. The same can be said of the supposedly cursed kingdom of Valyria from Game of Thrones, for the record. There are references all over our games to works by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, to say nothing of Tolkien. And that's before we get into the copious use of world mythology, and great works of fiction like Arthur and his knights of the round table.

So while a particular game might have a different flavor, or a unique twist on things (such as a medieval fantasy game where you have to investigate the Cthulhu Mythos, or recreating the Trojan War as a starfaring space battle using mech combat), the inspirations are going to be present. There is always going to be a story that came before you, or a character someone else has seen, that bears some similarity to what you're doing at your table. More importantly, if you spend all your time focusing on what you don't want your game to be, then you're going to define it by what it isn't, rather than what it is.

I'm not saying you should shamelessly copy someone else's homework and just change a couple of the names around (I'm looking at you, Games Workshop). However, if you're tying yourself into knots worried that your players are going to figure out that your particular order of cavaliers is based on Lancelot, or that they're going to guess the plot twist for the traitorous noble because he's basically Count Dooku with a bastard sword, don't sweat those kinds of things. Instead, focus on the presentation and preparation for your game.

Everyone has had a grilled cheese before. Just make sure the one you serve them is perfectly crispy, melty, and delicious, and everyone will probably enjoy it!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Campaign Building - A Single Novel, Or An Episodic Story?

Campaigns are how we describe our stories in RPGs. And while it's true that not every game you play is going to follow the level 1 to level 20 format, the idea of a story where characters gain resources, skills, abilities, and experience to become more formidable than they were until they hit the final confrontation and the story gets a crescendo is the basis of how most games work. However, there is a question that you, as a GM, should answer when you start putting the next game together.

Do you intend to run a game with a single throughline the way you'd read a novel, or are you going to run a segmented storyline that's more episodic in nature?

It's all connected!

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

The Structure of Your Story

Whether you're writing your own adventure, or you're using a pre-written campaign like Storm King's Thunder or Kingmaker, the structure of the story you're telling still boils down to one of these two major styles. So I wanted to talk about them, and about the pros and cons, to try to get some of my fellow Game Masters actually thinking about these campaign styles, and why they use one or the other for a given campaign.

The Novel

From page 1, all the way to the end.

The novel is, essentially, when you have a long-running campaign that will have the same characters all the way through from the beginning to the end. However, the trademark of the novel is that characters are also involved in a single, cohesive story for the entire campaign. This is a lot harder to do than it sounds, particularly in games where you want your players to grind up their levels before you throw heavy stuff at them. However, there's two ways to maintain this single story cohesion all the way through.

1. Write a complex storyline that, from level 1, has your players hooked into the ongoing narrative and setting up the final endgame. For example, they act as a squad of mercenaries sent to deal with orcs attacking a borderland town. They defend the town, discovering members of a cult who were backing the orcs in their attacks. Through this, they find the town is actually safeguarding an ancient relic that had been forgotten. The party escorts the relic to the regional governor, and end up having to uncover a conspiracy where several nobles were members of the cult. This failure of the minions draws the eyes of the cult's leaders, who then begin attempting to take this item. The party has to find the rest of the relics in the set so they can finally end the undying lord of the Unseeing Eye for once and all.

The idea is that each segment of the campaign feeds into the next, with the plot growing in stakes and danger, and all of them are connected. Every aspect matters, and it is all part of the same story.

2. Start the game off at the power level you want for the "interesting" part of things. This is a far easier approach, and it often means you dispense with any filler or level-grinding parts of the game to get the PCs up to snuff for when the main plot starts really rolling. So there's no low-level quests like clearing out goblin caves, or dealing with bandits on the highway just to solidify the party and get some XP on their sheets... you just start at level 5, because that's when the main plot of an undead army attempting to claim the nation would have started to unfold.

This does, of course, mean that your game isn't going to run as long as it otherwise might. That is either a feature or a flaw, depending on your outlook, as some GMs (and players, too) might want a tighter game where they play for 6 months to a year and focus on the "good part" of the game, without all the faff and chaff of the unconnected side quests, monster hunting, and grind that can often show up in a game.

The Episodic Story

As we rejoin our adventurers...

An episodic story is, well, episodic. There are smaller stories that each have their own arcs, and these stories are added to over the length of a campaign to create a complete chronicle of the characters' adventures. While some of them might be connected, many of them won't be.

Perhaps the best comparison for this kind of campaign is reading a collection of short stories about classic sword and sorcery heroes like Conan or Solomon Kane. Because while the stories feature the same character, and there might even be a loose kind of timeline involved, the events of one story aren't necessarily going to impact the next except in references made, or perhaps in a call back somewhere in the text.

An episodic campaign might have an eventual end goal, but not all the parts of the campaign will be bent toward that singular goal. For example, level 1-3 might deal with the PCs routing out a bandit encampment, and bringing down their leader Three-Fingered Galt. Then level 4-7 might involve trying to find a buried relic in a recently-uncovered castle in the deep desert. Level 8-10 might involve them challenging the Warlock of Black Mountain, and ending the threat he poses. And then, once they've really hit their stride, they spend until level 17 getting involved in the struggle over the Aqualine Throne... will they choose a successor, topple the kingdom entirely, or will they become the rulers of the nation's next age?

Episodic stories give you a lot of freedom, but more importantly they offer you off-ramps. So if someone wants to switch characters to try something new for the next arc, or your table is getting kind of bored, you can end the game at the end of a given episode, and try something else. However, there is that question of whether or not you want to stick with the same characters for their entire journey, and just how interconnected that journey really was.

Consider Your Structure

There's no objectively superior campaign version. You can do a full 1-20 campaign with a single, interconnected plot. You could do short arcs put together. Hell, if you really want to you could run a bunch of individual one-shots and just have a game that feels almost like a TV show (which is, incidentally, sort of how pick up games of my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic would run). But it's important that you ask what kind of story you're looking to tell, and what your players are interested in experiencing, before you start putting together the blueprint for your next campaign.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

How Does Your Character Want To Die?

The warrior dragged the whetstone along the length of his sword, first one edge, then the other. He moved slowly, methodically, dripping oil onto the steel at regular intervals as he maintained the weapon. Jasper looked over at him, and the halfling frowned as he watched this ritual the same way he had practically every night on this journey... every night there had been a fight, at least. Which had been most of them.

"You know, people in your profession rarely live to see their elder years," Jasper said.

"Good," the warrior replied, dragging the stone along the edge once more.

The halfling took his pipe out of his mouth, frowning. "You afraid of being old enough that your strength leaves you?"

"I won't have the luxury," the warrior said, laying the stone aside and tapping his chest. He coughed, then turned his head, and spit. "Lung rot."

Jasper suddenly realized he was still smoking, and tapped out his pipe. A sardonic smile quirked the corner of the warrior's mouth. The halfling frowned at him.

"You could live a lot of years with that sickness, if you cared for it," Jasper said.

"I could," the warrior replied. He lifted his sword, and looked along its length. Satisfied, he slid it back into its scabbard. "But I don't want to."

Some of us would rather die young than infirm and in bed.

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

One of Life's Two Certainties

Everyone pays taxes, and everyone dies. While RPGs often hand wave that first one, the second is very much a part of most games. While danger is a part of every storyline, and there's no telling if your character will die at the hands of an insidious booby trap, in the jaws of a dragon, or on the receiving end of a dire spell, the question you should always ask is if they were given the choice, how does your character actually want to meet their end?

Death can come in many ways.

For example, does your character want to die in battle, believing that is a noble end for a warrior? Or do they want to die that way because their faith tells them warriors ascend to the highest of heavens? Do they believe they have committed some great wrong, and they will never stop fighting until they are slain in open combat? Or, as with our introductory story, do they know they have a limited time in this world already, so they throw themselves into danger in the hopes that something other than their degenerative disease or awful curse will kill them?

Alternatively, does your character wish to live a long life? Do they have too many places to go, and too many things they want to do, to cut their life short so soon? Do they fear death, and they're hoping to find ways to prolong their life during their adventuring career? Or do they simply wish to die in a way where they'll never know it happened, such as peacefully in their sleep?

Whatever your character's attitude toward death is, it matters because that will shape not just how they approach an adventure, but also how they respond to danger. It can also lead to serious moments of character growth.

For example, a character who is looking to die gloriously leaping into battle against overwhelming odds is completely expected. However, a character who fears death, or who has always done what they can to save their own skin taking that kind of action is a mark of someone facing a serious fear. Additionally, a character who was wanted to die in service to their god so they can be reunited with their loved ones in the afterlife allowing themselves to be raised from the dead to help their companions is a mark of great loyalty, and shows that they are growing beyond the singular desire to leave this world to enter the next.

If you're looking for more ways to get insight to your characters, consider grabbing some of the following supplements that I put together for just such occasions:

- 100 Questions To Ask About Your Characters: If you're looking for additional ways to get a slightly better grasp on who your character is, or to discover unexpected things about them, these 100 questions can give you some surprising insights!

- 100 Character Goals and Motivations: It's important to know what your character is hoping to achieve, and in some cases whether a particular death for themselves is actually on that list!

- 100 Dark Secrets: Whether it's a shameful past, a terrible disease, or even a curse, many characters have secrets they hide even from those closest to them... and it might be the very reason they put themselves in such danger.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!