My Liege,

While the plan from the previous post is still in effect, the timeline is not. I'm happy with what I've written for the adventure so far, but I've contracted a touch of writer's block. I've learned my lesson and won't be estimating completion dates for creative work again.

On the other hand, I've had a burst of ideas for feudal domain management, and they're starting to cohere into a set of rules that can overlay any RPG that uses the traditional six ability scores or close analogues.

These rules are central to the vision I have for The Red Ledger of Brechewold, so it allows me to make progress on that front. However, since the rules do seem to be flexible and robust, I think I will publish them in their own right, sooner than later, entitled My Liege, (comma intentional).

The central conceit is that everything must be done through vassals - construction, diplomacy, espionage, and warfare. The PCs issue orders to vassals twice a year: once for the Spring and Summer ("Campaign" season) and once for the Fall and Winter ("Harvest" season). The DM resolves the orders by rolling two ability checks for the vassals: a "primary" and a "secondary" ability depending on the order, and consulting this chart:

	Primary passed	Primary failed
Secondary passed	Order succeeds	Order fails with a silver lining
Secondary failed	Order succeeds with a complication	Order fails with the worst-case scenario

So the vassals need ability scores, and the DM should play them so the PCs have some idea of their strengths and weaknesses.

I defined primary and secondary abilities for a bunch of common orders, but DMs can resolve any order the players can think of by agreeing on what the primary and secondary abilities should be to accomplish the thing. The exception is warfare, which works slightly differently. I'll discuss it in a future post.

The PCs receive taxes in abstracted units that I'm calling Crowns for now, and they can gain even more wealth by ransoming captive enemy vassals or by pillaging. They pay some of this wealth in taxes and use the rest to issue orders.

The other currency for the domain to track is Favours. This is their concretized standing with other feudal courts of similar rank. It is gained by subordinating warbands, opening trade routes for luxury goods, and feasting.

The main mechanic addition is the Court Turn. Twice a year, at the start of the aforementioned Campaign and Harvest seasons, the PCs hear reports of the previous season's orders, petitions for this season (the domain equivalent of random encounters), collect taxes, and issue orders.

The whole thing is very high-level and more about delegating power. I didn't want to create a micro-management sim where players are worrying about every granary. The only real economic management is luxury production, and the political economy centers around feasting and warfare. These are deliberate choices to put the players in the mindset of feudal nobility.

I will be back before too long with more as I make progress here.

How a Brechewold Campaign Works

I have been delinquent in letting you know that Brechewold has been available from the LotFP US web store for some time. If you’ve been waiting to save on shipping, now’s the time. If you live outside the US and want a physical copy, go here, and if you want a PDF, go here.

I was never that interested in writing a book about sitting in class. I suppose I could have cracked the code to making fantasy school interesting, but I think most high school fiction agrees with me here. I’m sure there are ways to do it, but here’s the thing: school is kind of a railroad. If the focus of the game were the classroom, then everything would already be predetermined. There are far more student-directed educational models, of course, but I didn't want to convey that kind of vibe with Brechewold. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It would also necessitate entirely different mechanics, and I wanted to make a dungeon game. I could certainly imagine a guided-dungeon-as-lesson type thing, but for some reason that rubs me the wrong way. "Today's quiz is the flying axe puzzle room, students." I think the guided nature would run counter to the sense of discovery, my favorite part of D&D.

No, I'm far more interested in the "we're not supposed to be here" feeling. So here's the engine of the campaign I did write: PCs select courses at the beginning of the term, but their main function is to impart secrets that will hopefully entice players to investigate further. I like to think of the course catalogue as an a la carte rumor menu that should align with player interests since they picked the courses themselves. Each term will have one major investigation, so there's a ticking clock in the background: after four years (eight terms), the PCs graduate.

The courses also act as a way for PCs to begin building relationships with the professors. There's a web of intrigue going on behind the scenes, and in my experience players tend to side with the professors whose courses they've most selected. You'd be surprised how much loyalty picking an imaginary course from a list can create.

For a long time in my playtesting, I was using milestone experience. I don't think I'll ever use it again. It seemed like the obvious choice: at the end of the term, PCs pass their classes and level up. Graduating is about the closest real-life analog to leveling up most people experience. But it provided no incentive to explore and take risks. Even worse, it seemed to rob my players of forward momentum - they asked me several times, "So, what are we supposed to do next?"

So I went back to the old standby, XP for GP. It might not be the flashiest or most innovative reward system, and yes, it prioritizes greedy accumulation, but boy does it just work. I tried to put a little twist on it - PCs only earn XP for treasure they use to decorate their common room, hopefully evoking a feeling of a frat house full of junk that all tell stories of past glory.

This will be my last navel-gazing Brechewold post for now. Up next: what does the future hold?

Design Notes for Brechewold's Big (Not Mega) Dungeon

At its heart, Brechewold is a failed megadungeon. Actually, it began life as this post, a way to quickly generate wings of a magic school. However, I’ve come to see random generators as best for smaller dungeons, where the results can be made coherent more easily. In a larger environment, especially where the generator must be repeated, things tend to take on a bland sameness, no matter the creativity of the random tables.

I set out to turn the original post into a completely keyed megadungeon. In my naïveté, I thought this might end up being a short pamphlet that I could put up on DriveThruRPG. Well, I got to 101 rooms, got tired, liked the symbolism of the number, and stopped. That’s big, but to me “mega” should evoke feelings of endlessness and incomprehensibility. We can argue over how many rooms it takes to create that feeling (300?), but I don’t think I hit it.

Still, I do think the dungeon is big enough for my purpose. It supports many delves and is dense enough to require several trips to the same location to explore it fully.

So, the center of a Brechewold campaign is the big ol’ dungeon below the castle in which the school resides, representing older, abandoned parts of the school and previous inhabitants of the site. It has seven levels. Do I need to say that if you read on you could spoil something for yourself?

I. Cellars - This is the most conventional dungeon, with a few booby traps, some neat tricks and boons, and an avoidable boss monster ghost. It’s training wheels for Brechewold and aimed especially at people who are new to old school play (most of my players).

II. Aviary - An experiment in building a concentric dungeon - in this case, concentric bird cages. There are helpful birds, dangerous birds, and birds in between. Most importantly, there’s a game of snakes and ladders - as in, you’re actually supposed to play the board game. There’s also a disgraced professor in hiding who could function something like a merchant, but the real secret on this level is the hidden armory of crazy staves, inspired by the scene in if…. when they find all the military-grade weapons and turn them on the teachers.

III. Orrery - This has the first of four secret sub-levels, a castle on Mars reachable by a magic carpet. It also contains a big anti-gravity orrery that clever players could use as an ambush, and two secret rooms: one that holds an item that makes the “end” of the dungeon considerably easier, and another where the eponymous Yellow Book resides.

IV. Antiquities and Alchemy - I’m pretty proud of the Dream Vault sublevel here, where some characters need to act in the real world while others act in a parallel dreamland to unlock a magic item. It’s the most Zelda part of the book. The alchemist’s laboratory is full of my favorite kind of dungeon shit: stuff the players know their characters shouldn’t mess with, but they can’t help themselves.

V. Archive and Ruins - This is where the school starts to give way to older inhabitants of the site, like a dwarf fortress and the tomb of a Celtic chieftain. There’s a dwarven gate to other dimensions operated by binary, which to me feels very logical for dwarves to do. Not sure how easy that will be to figure out. There are also some goblins running a diploma mill, of course.

VI. Demonium - I’m also very proud of the way to get into this level: you have to let your character be killed by an evil doppelgänger, which is some Metal Gear Solid type shit. This is where the dungeon really starts to take on a metaphysical Mythic Underworld character. There’s a gate to Hell, natch.

VII. Crystal Cave - This is where Nimue is guarding Merlyn trapped in crystal. You didn’t think he was really gone, did you?

Interconnectivity: One of the most important ways to make a dungeon really sing (and feel disorienting) is to provide lots of connections between levels. On the first level alone, there are less-than-obvious ways to get to every other level. In fact, there is an extremely easy way to get to the very end of the dungeon - It just requires a (literal) leap of faith and will hopefully feel obvious in hindsight.

I’ll be back next week with more about the book’s other components. On sale now at Gen Con, booth 2930.

The Yellow Lamentations of the Brechewold Princess

Jesus, it's been too long. Has time truly progressed to this late date?

Here are my excuses:

1. Had a baby.

2. Any surplus energy has gone into Brechewold. Happy to report it is now done.

The Yellow Book of Brechewold will be published imminently by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. How imminently? If you’re going to Gen Con, James will sell you a book tomorrow. Sadly I will not be in attendance (see: baby). For the rest of us, it will be available on the lotfp.com web store August 11.

So what is it?

First of all, I think it may be the tamest and most trad-D&D book in the Lamentations catalogue. There are elves in it, for Christ’s sake. This makes me feel a bit inadequate, while at the same time filling me with a perverse sense of satisfaction.

Nevertheless, I think it was this description that sold James on the project: it is what would have happened if Jack Vance had written Harry Potter as a sequel to T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. There is a magic school founded by long-gone (?) Merlyn full of amoral scheming wizards and deep dungeons beneath. I think of the surrounding enchanted forest as a sort of medieval British Disneyland, with knights in shining armor, merry men, and the like. Hopefully Monty Python references are still cool in 2023.

I’ll be back with more Brechewold coverage later in the week. For now, check out the table of contents:

Tales of Brechewold

 A few stories:

1.

One of my Brechewold groups has discovered a hoard of golden items in the dungeons: furniture, dish wares, decor, etc. They are the results of Ina the Alchemist’s experiments with the Fool’s Stone. However, they revert back to their original material when touched - a “reverse Midas” situation. They’ve already made good use of it. 

The Empty Knights (enchanted suits of armor) that guard the dungeons can be befriended if one places a literal heart of gold in their opened chest cavity. Upon hearing this, my players asked if there were any taxidermied animals in the gold collection. Of course there were (how could I say no?), so with a combination of an Unseen Servant, a little dissection, and some broom slap shots, they made some new friends.

This group also wants to use the magic forge in the dungeons to make magic weapons out of a troll’s iron heart, and it turns out that the troll most powerful in the forest in Autumn is Miser, who eats gold and silver. Well, they’ve swept some gold nicknacks into a bag, and are off to bait a troll trap.

2.

Another group is more interested in forest economics than dungeon delving. They have secured a Series A round of funding from the lord of the nearby town Ygraine to start a guided tour company with noted local travelogue writer Steve Ricks. They have also convinced the bees of the Llewyn Family Meadery to unionize. They’re simultaneously bringing capitalism and socialism to Brechewold forest. The Merrye Bande of Merrye Outlawes, a group of anarcho-syndicalists, is therefore keen to make their acquaintance.

3.

My third group has recently found out that Merlyn imprisoned a white dwarf star on Mars as a heat source to forge a replacement for Excalibur. The star is (understandably) disgruntled, and the group has convinced themselves that it poses them an existential threat. They are therefore considering their options to deal with it. Currently in the running are finding the gate to Hell in the dungeons and engaging in some demon negotiation, or recovering the elven relic the Jade Warning Bell, currently trapped in a dream dimension. It is said to be able to match the natural frequency of any matter, granting power over it.

—

Two thoughts: first, my friends and family rule at playing D&D. I’m consistently dumbfounded by the energy and creativity they bring to my simple play tests. Second, I’m really starting to think this book is shaping up nicely. You’ve been warned.

Advertising!

 

The Only DM Advice in Brechewold, I Swear

A subject fraught with peril, to be sure, but I gotta admit I'm feeling good about this lil nug I wrote as part of the Brechewold intro:

This book does not present a plot. There is neither a predetermined conclusion nor a set path to follow. When DMing, I resist the temptation to think of myself as a storyteller. I am not telling a story. I am creating the conditions for and participating in a game of imagination structured by weighted chance. “Story” is what the players will tell when the game is over. I haven’t discovered a truly useful analogue to the role of a DM. Though it shares skills with storytellers, traditional game designers, teachers, theatrical directors, psychologists, and architects, it is a unique thing.

So, do not prepare a plot. Set the scenario. Provide enough information for players to make informed choices for their characters. Become familiar with the goals and personalities of the book’s NPCs, and then pay attention. Pay attention to possible conflict or convergence between players’ choices and NPCs’ goals. Pay attention when the players ignore certain undercurrents and allow NPCs to pursue their goals unhindered. Advance the scenario, updating the players with new information as their characters would learn it.

Above all, respect the players’ agency. They must be free to make any choice allowed within the confines of the setting and the comfort and fun at the table. Do not move things around in the imagined world to render their choices meaningless. The NPCs are allowed to be deceptive, but the DM is not. Err on the side of providing too much information if players are unsure what to do, but let them make the choice. Let them surprise you. Let them create chaos. Shed your preconceived notions and allow the imagined world to react naturally to players’ choices.

Some Brechewold Forest Spots

 

These are a few hexes that will be part of the preview chapter of The Yellow Book of Brechewold.

B1. Waterfall Mine and the Crone

• Landscape: wet, pool-filled foothills leading to craggy mountains; the River Slither finds its source here

• The River Slither is thin here but leads back to a pool into which a tall, slender waterfall empties

• Barely perceptible, a set of narrow, overgrown stairs is carved into the cliff up the side of the waterfall, leading to a rough-bored mine entrance behind the falls

• Entrance: moss and lichen crust the rocky opening, mist and mottled light from the falls. Ahead, a rickety ladder pokes out of a wide hole. Ten feet above the hole, a round trap door is mostly obscured by a layer of moss

• Hidden Cache: 

• Descent: an old wooden ladder leads down a 60 foot shaft with about a foot of water at the bottom; 1-in-20 chance of the ladder breaking on the way down, increasing by another 1-in-20 for each additional person who uses it

• Mourning Ghosts: a swirling collection of 1d4+1 elf ghosts dressed in ancient garb, from the time fairies lived on earth. They mourn the death of King Mountain-Fears-the-Rain, not realizing that they themselves have died. They encourage others to join in the mourning, and will attack guests who try to leave

• Elf Ghost: AC 6 [13] HD 1 HP 4 ATTACKS 2 (Hobbling touch: save or take d4 Dexterity damage, Distended jaw: save or take d4 Constitution damage (plus any change in HP)), immune to non-magic damage

• Altar: a large rectangular slab of quartz ornately carved, on which rest offerings of flowers and candles occasionally left by questing fairy knights; anyone of fairy blood may leave a meaningful offering in return for ancestral guidance on a big decision

• Elf-Silver Seam: an unlit old gold lantern (1,000 gp) hangs from the ceiling. If lit, it will illuminate a large seam of rare elf-silver, as strong as iron but may be used by elves

• Tunnel: a rotting wooden catwalk leads the way over the waterlogged tunnel; 1-in-6 chance of breaking through a board and plunging into the water, which is infested with hallucinoleeches

• Hallucinoleech: AC 9 [10] HD 0 HP 1 ATTACKS 1 (Bite: +3 to hit, save vs. poison or believe you are in your favorite place, never wanting to leave the water: -1 HP per turn spent there motionless and leech-covered)

• Flood: The low chamber is flooded completely with glassy water; the ornate stairs and just-visible statues of griffins peeking above the water hint that this place is very different from the rest of the mine. In the center of the room is a chest with some of the king’s effects: elf-silver idols (2,000 gp), ceremonial gold headdress (3,000 gp), barbed whip, tinder that will light a fire even underwater (400 gp)

• Tomb of the Warrior-King: the mummified remains of King Mountain-Fears-the-Rain are entwined in roots which have grown around him as a sort of sarcophagus. His shield is at his side (bronze, grinning sun motif). Before him is a stone pedestal carved with bell imagery with a neatly folded note on top: Had to nip in and borrow this, chaps. Return it in a flash. ~M. This is the true resting-place of the Jade Warning Bell (The Crystal Cave, p. )

• Perched on an impossibly high peak is a little chocolate box of a cottage on chicken legs. This is the home of Mim the Crone of the Maiden, Mother, Crone coven

• Fat, wrinkled, with wild hair and warts, she is nearly always naked; speaks like a sweet old lady in a Monty Python sketch until stressed, when she flies into a histrionic rage

• She rides a somewhat uncooperative copper pot through the night, looking for children to cook and eat

• Resources: elf-silver, hard as iron but won’t burn elves

C1. Bargaz and Saint Ophrenia the Only-Lightly-Singed

• Landscape: a marshy, sandy, and desolate estuary

• Bargaz, a cave-dwelling giant, is a mass of scarred, knotted sinew with raptor eyes and crooked teeth. He is naked save the large key he wears around his neck and drags a shillelagh behind him

• The key opens the Smoking Mountain. His father was contracted to build the mountain, but took the key when the Knights of the Round Table refused to pay a pagan savage

• Bargaz is one of three giant brothers who live in the forest, along with Balam (A4, p. ) and Bancroft (see Random Encounters, p. ). Each takes a different approach to humanity. Bargaz lives as little more than a wild predatory beast, believing that any semblance of civilization is mere pretense and a denial of the world’s true nature

• The shrine to Saint Ophrenia, patron saint of third degree burns and disfigurement sits half-buried in sand among the rushes along a tributary to the River Lethe

• The saint stands peacefully, holding a sword before her, sculpted to be wreathed in stone flame to commemorate the warrior-nun’s battle with the Dragon of Dyfed Mawr

• Blessing: Those with grievous wounds earned in battle, particularly burns, may present an offering of vanquished foes in return for healing and making all your scars look really cool, giving you a mysteriously magnetic aura (+1d4 Charisma, up to 18)

D2. Watchtower and Saint Fagan the Unwise

• Landscape: rocky crags, twisted oak and scrub pine

• A ruined watchtower sits atop a rocky outcropping

• A partially-intact stained glass window depicts Arthur and Guenivere presiding over feasting knights

• Thanks to a rift in the fabric of this enchanted forest, once per month the house of the Fates teeters precariously on top of the tower in the light of a waning gibbous moon halfway between full and half

• The Fates go by Orddu, Orgoch, and Orwen in this part of the world. They sit at three looms, hopelessly trying to weave a single tapestry which covers every surface in the house, bunching and fraying in many places. They frantically attempt to coordinate, but are hopelessly confused. They may appear as wild-haired old women, radiant maidens, or any other form

• They will each take one question, but their harried, distracted answers will only direct the questioner to a certain fold in the weave of Fate. Examination requires a save against magic. 

• Fail: temporarily blinded and insane for d4 hours after glimpsing the incomprehensible underpinnings of the Universe 

• Pass less than 20: the Fates have directed you to the wrong part of the tapestry, and what you see does not help you 

• Natural 20: you find your thread weaving its way into the future and work with the GM to answer your question. Additionally, on one future roll that directly affects you (rolled either by you or the GM), you may choose the number rolled and reveal that you spied this in the tapestry

• The Shrine to Saint Fagan the Unwise sits in the center of a set of stones placed in the River Lethe as a crossing. Fagan is the patron saint of doomed enterprises

• His statue exudes youthful exuberance and overconfidence. It faces a waterfall, behind which is the old lair of a troll he attempted to convert to Christianity. He succeeded, but could not stop the troll from eating him anyway

• The lair is strewn with piles of gnawed-on bones and coins, jewelry, and weapons worth 120 gp. 50% chance of finding one of the forest’s trolls rooting around (see Forest Encounters)

• Blessing: for an offering of a valuable object acquired foolishly, the supplicant may choose to pass a roll with a 20% or less chance of success. Mark one use of the blessing. The next time the character wishes to use the blessing, they must roll above the number marked on a d4 or automatically fail the roll

Brechewold Preview Chapter Cover

I’m nearing a full draft of The Yellow Book of Brechewold. I’ll post more excerpts soon. Once I’m happy with the words, I’m going to work on the layout of the surrounding forest chapter as a sort of proof of concept and preview chapter that I’ll put up on DTRPG or something.

A huge chunk of the art is also done. I still have the maps to do, and I think I will have to wait until I’m far along in layout to know if I want to do any more watercolor illustrations. The covers for both the preview and the final book will be digital, bright, and simple. Here’s the preview cover:

Knight Errant Generator

This is from the upcoming Yellow Book of Brechewold. I'm thinking about putting out a zine of just the enchanted forest section while I finish the full book. The heraldry is a stripped-down version of this post to make it manageable with dice.

One of my illustrations for the book

Roll one die of each type d4-d12 and three d20s to generate a knight. The knight’s HP is equal to all the even numbers you roll added together, and the attack bonus is the first even number you roll. Assume AC is equivalent to plate + shield. Have one or two knights pre-generated as random encounter rolls.

Heraldry

d4 Metal

1. Argent (silver) field, coloured charge (symbol)
2. Coloured field, argent charge
3. Or (gold) field, coloured charge
4. Coloured field, or charge

d6 Colour

1. Azure (blue)
2. Ermine (white with black spots)
3. Gules (red)
4. Purpure (purple)
5. Sable (black)
6. Vert (green)

d8 Charge (symbol) *see following tables*

1. Ordinary
2. Two ordinaries
3. Beast
4. Two beasts
5. Bird
6. Sea creature
7. Plant
8. Object

d10 Ordinaries

1. Chief
2. Bend
3. Fess
4. Pale
5. Chevron
6. Saltire
7. Cross
8. Cross botonny
9. Cross crosslet
10. Cross flory

d10 Beasts

1. Lion
2. Wolf
3. Bear
4. Boar
5. Horse
6. Bull
7. Hart
8. Hound
9. Hind
10. Fox

d10 Birds

1. Eagle
2. Martlet
3. Peacock
4. Pelican
5. Swan
6. Cock
7. Crane
8. Dove
9. Duck
10. Goose

d10 Sea Creatures

1. Pike
2. Perch
3. Salmon
4. Squid
5. Octopus
6. Dolphin
7. Cod
8. Eel
9. Whale
10. Seashell

d10 Plants

1. Fleur-de-lis
2. Rose
3. Trefoil
4. Thistle
5. Grapevine
6. Oak
7. Pine
8. Pine-cone
9. Aspen
10. Willow

d10 Objects

1. Sun
2. Crescent
3. Moon
4. Star
5. Key
6. Constellation
7. Ship
8. Tower
9. Crown
10. Clarion

Characteristics

d12 Fighting Style

1. Uses shield to steamroll opponents
2. Only fights from horseback
3. Stoic and defensive with greatsword
4. Graceful duelist with sword and dagger
5. Uses long flail to toy with opponents
6. Berserker with two handaxes
7. Jumpy with crossbow
8. Bruiser with huge warhammer or battleaxe
9. Hidden weapons all over body
10. Claims sword has a mind of its own
11. Only fights in by-the-book jousts or duels
12. Invents ever more elaborate reasons not to fight

d20 Personality

1. Dour, joyless
2. Pompous, thinks everyone is a fan
3. Droll, always amused
4. Monomaniacal about quest
5. Jaded, disillusioned
6. Adheres to chivalry to the letter
7. Generous and rare champion of the oppressed
8. Insufferable warrior-poet
9. Quick to take offense
10. Boisterous bully
11. Ambitious schemer
12. Tight-lipped and suspicious, always considering worst-case scenarios
13. Sarcastic to hide insecurity
14. Mirthful, spontaneously bursts into song
15. Constantly complains, especially of ill-fitting armour or undergarments
16. Believes quest is beneath him
17. Easily bribed or otherwise distracted by mead
18. Is aghast at people less educated and well off than he
19. Plays trombone (which he invented) to ease the stress of battle
20. Hears whispers that others do not

d20 Quest

1. Save maiden from controlling father
2. Test self discipline and resistance to temptation
3. Seek holy relic
4. Slay a giant or other eater of Christians
5. Track a beast entangled with family history
6. Save lost, enchanted love
7. Win the heart of a cold fairy princess
8. Deliver dying wishes of king or queen to relative
9. Search for lost heir to a throne
10. Rescue noble baby stolen by fairies
11. Protect last child of a murdered royal family
12. Duel old rival
13. Capture and return villain to face trial
14. Seek advice from old hermit
15. Hide the child of a lady’s affair from her wrathful husband
16. Recover the Mourning Veil for a noble who wishes to deal with the Fairies
17. Forge a sword of iron troll hearts in Brechewold’s forge Belcher
18. Find a vizier at Brechewold to bring back to court
19. Gain entry to the Smoking Mountain
20. Find cure for a dying maiden

d20 Name: Sir...

1. Lionell
2. Bors
3. Kay
4. Tristram
5. Gareth
6. Bedivere
7. Bleoberis (woman in disguise, true name Elaine)
8. Lucan
9. Palomedes
10. Lamorak
11. Pelleas
12. Ector
13. Dagonet
14. Degore (woman in disguise, true name Laudine)
15. Brunor
16. Alymere
17. Uwaine
18. Aglovale (woman in disguise, true name Viviane)
19. Fergus
20. Morganore

Welcome to Brechewold

Saints preserve us, I'm writing a book. The map I posted the other day is from that. I don't quite know how to feel about joining in on OSR oversaturation and commercialization except to say that I don't feel this is a play for "relevance" or "hype," and certainly not for "money." I just think it's a good idea that I can do well.

It is called The Yellow Book of Brechewold unless I can think of something better. It will detail a small campaign setting: a school for magicians (the titular Brechewold) and its environs in post-Arthurian western Britain. It will include:

1. A completely keyed big (what's the cutoff for "mega?") dungeon: the school and abandoned, haunted levels beneath including tombs, a zoo, a body farm, a giant orrery, portals to other planets and fairy pocket-dimensions, a goblin diploma mill, seniors growing drugs, and more!
2. Detailed faculty with personalities and goals, and a more sparsely detailed student body
3. A small keyed enchanted forest surrounding the school including knights, giants, witches, elfs and other fairies, a unicorn, a relic from the Last Supper, religious hermits, anarcho-atheist bandits, &c
4. A chapter on the conflicts between factions and individuals to facilitate sandbox play
5. A chapter summarizing the treasures found elsewhere in the book, for ease of reference
6. Full color player-facing maps and illustrations, black and white DM-facing maps and illustrations
   
7. As many of the best practices of OSR design as I've been able to absorb

Here's a portrait of the headmaster and the introduction. It will be ready when it's ready.

1. Introduction

You may have heard, old chap, that wizards are wise. This is untrue. Don’t let their robes, beards, or pig Latin fool you. Wizards are lazy, greedy, vain clowns who would rather spend a lifetime in a library looking for shortcuts around reality than do a single honest day’s work. The only thing worse than a wizard is two wizards, and the only thing worse than that is a damned college of them. Welcome to Brechewold.

The first wizard who got it into his head to teach magic on this rock in the woods was that hoary necromancer Merlyn. Yes, the Merlyn who made a right mess of England because he thought he knew best of all how to pick its ruler. I’m not saying I would have done better in Art’s place, mind you, but I am saying that I’ve never slept with my sister.

Merlyn, knowing as he did that his time among the men of Albion was nearing an end, hung a sign on the old Celtic fort at Brechewold Promontory that anyone who wished to learn a few tricks and incantations in defense of the realm was welcome. A nest of knaves coagulated, and the old boy left this world to let the living sort out his mess.

A brief scuffle for succession followed, and Gertrude Malory of Newbold Revel became the school’s first headmistress. As the years stretched into centuries, the school grew like a layer cake into the current Brechewold Castle. Wings now exist which have lain unoccupied for decades. The castle squats like a great cephalopod above Lake Hart, its lower tentacles fallen into disuse.

Meanwhile, in the Woods...

The DM-facing hexmap from a double-secret project that I hope will only be single-secret before too long. I stole the concept from Matthew Adams.