Posts Tagged ‘Campaign-Setting’

Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 2

This entry is part 2 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done over the next few months. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time – or be so distracted that Campaign Mastery will suffer. I’ve chosen to do the […]

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 1

This entry is part 1 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done over the next few months. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time – or be so distracted that Campaign Mastery will suffer. I’ve chosen the former course… […]

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Shades of Sky Blue: Variations on U.N.T.I.L.

A book on the structures and natures of different governments within our world got me to thinking anew about perhaps the most seminal creation within the background of the Hero System – U.N.T.I.L. Specifically, thinking about who the organization is; how they fit into the policies, principles and charter of the United Nations; what’s wrong […]

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The Longex Dextora (The Hinterlands)

This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Having given Campaign Mastery’s readers (and myself) a break from the series, today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign, once again in more detail than even the players have seen it before… Metagame Origins A ‘Hinterland’ is technically a region behind a coast or rivers, i.e. separated from the main […]

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Deus Ex Machinas And The Plot Implications Of Divinity

Wikipedia defines a ‘Deus Ex Machina‘ as a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. It can be roughly translated, they say, as “God made it happen,” with no further explanation. They also state that the […]

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The Ineodolus Imperascora (The Traders And Commerce Empire)

This entry is part 6 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. This one isn’t quite as developed as the others (but the last time I said that, I wrote 11300 words and it became one of the most developed of the Kingdoms. I don’t expect history to repeat itself, but you never know…. Postscript: […]

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Therassus Amora, The Centre Of Attraction

This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. So far, these have appeared in exactly the same order as they were presented to my players in the initial pre-campaign briefing notes apon which these articles are being based. With this part, that changes; the next item on the agenda, if that […]

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In Someone else’s Sandbox: Adventuring in an established setting

I’m sneaking in after the deadline for last month’s blog carnival, hosted by Dice Monkey… The benefits of an established setting There are a lot of obvious benefits to the use of an established campaign setting. Because I expect a number of other carnival participants to have weighed in on this aspect of the topic, […]

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Causa Domasura, The Home Of Reason

This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. My players will be examining this one carefully for any additional nuggets of additional information that I include because this particular group are tied up in their current in-game situation. They think they know who’s responsible and have a working theory – are […]

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Bher Yuralvus, The Home Of The Endless Library

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

* This article was updated on 23 Sept 2012 * Metagame Origins & Status Bher Yuralvus is one of the least-detailed of the Shared Kingdoms. Several Paragraphs of information concerning it appear to have gone missing during the editing process of the House Rules, so that what little remains is full of non-sequitors. As a […]

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The Shared Kingdoms: A Premise from the Shards Of Divinity campaign

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Here’s where we’re at: In order to complete my series on Names, I need to deal with non-human languages; and the best – in fact, the only – approach that I have found for explaining the procedure that I’ve come up with for the creation of such languages is to describe how I do it […]

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Turning Reaction into Proaction – plotting techniques to get your players moving

A number of my recent articles here at Campaign Mastery have been derived from conversations with other GMs on Twitter (yes, readers, we GMs do actually talk to each other – and no, it’s not to find better ways to screw the players, well usually not.) Today’s article derives from just such a discussion between […]

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