Still working

So, I haven't really gotten more done with my Kowloon City. I did print out the lined map and I started sketching areas on it. I've laid out the above-ground and subterranean topography on this as well.

This next one shows all the odd paths from the map I found earlier. Donno what the green dots are originally, but I'm going to use them as a reminder for where to put the lizard man nests.

Last one is just a rough side view to help me mesh everything when stacking it.

Mapping with cashews and fried rice.

Starting out with this meant getting a bit of background and perspective.

“Kowloon Walled City was a densely populated, largely ungoverned settlement in Kowloon City, Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898. Its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. By 1987, the Walled City contained 33,000 residents within its 2.6-hectare (6.4-acre) borders. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by Triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, and drug use. In January 1987, the Hong Kong government announced plans to demolish the Walled City. After an arduous eviction process, demolition began in March 1993 and was completed in April 1994. Kowloon Walled City Park opened in December 1995 and occupies the area of the former Walled City. Some historical artifacts from the Walled City, including its yamen building and remnants of its South Gate, have been preserved there.”  – Wikipedia

In addition to this I dug into the history and stories surrounding this place. Definitely going to be fun! Well, for whoever is running it...

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Anyway, as I mention in my first post, this is going to be subsurface, with a cenote for the large court yard. It'll be 11 "stories" high, with a "ground"level, a couple of worn down buildings up top and three "subsurface" levels. I'll leave it up to other GMs to sub levels if they want. 


So I started with this map:

After cleaning up the edges in GIMP, I then started looking at the current site, I twisted what I had to match. Matching it topographically will only come into play for the surface location and environs, and how the underground rivers flow. After that I slapped another layer over it and pencil lined all the building. After wards I capped the streets and filled them in. And that leaves us here:

I'm going to print this out with out the filled in roads and start tracing it. I think I know where to find a light box that'll make tracing go alot faster. If so, I'll scan it in and let ya'll see.

Right now, my hands a bit cramped, so I'm calling it a night.

Why I'm doing this to myself.

No longer having a job -sorta- gives me a bit of free time. Having a few ideas for some adventures/dungeons/campaigns and needing an outlet which would force me to work on them, I started this blog. Doubt I’ll ever truly be finished with having gaming ideas and some might never get past a post or two, but it’ll be fun to get them out of my head. Hell, maybe they’ll inspire someone. Or if I ever get settled into another group, they’ll fear the sesions that I run something from this blog!

And so without further ado:

- Drawing up a dungeon based off the Kowloon Walled City that used to stand near Hong Kong. Most likely this will be setting/system agnostic, because it could be a purposefully built underground city, ala Derinkuyu, or as a sunken city from an ancient culture or post apocalypse culture. I’m going to keep an Asian flavor to the levels, with a few foreign enclaves, and maybe some subterranean footholds in the deeper areas. I’m planning on making the large courtyard into a cenote style lake with several waterfalls coming into it. Maybe make the roads underground rivers or streams.

- A Norse-ish campaign set in a post Ragnarok world where the players are heading out into the wider world in search of adventure and fortune. This would be magic lite, with pretty much no healing magic of any kind. Runes would be used for a mix of fortunetelling and empowering items (to a point). I’ll need to dig up and either whole cloth copy a resource system or modify it so they can set up an outpost away from home. I also kinda also need to pick a system to run this in… I was thinking of and started planning with Pathfinder, but I might go with Fantasy Age now that my sister has introduced me to it. I need to read the rulebook a bit more and see. I could possibly run it in FATE, but I need more practice with the system to make sure it doesn’t go sideways.

- A Star Wars D6 campaign, set right after the Rebel Alliance destroyed the first Death Star. This might be the second most contentious of my campaign ideas, because I’d throw out the prequels/Clone War stories, Stormtroopers would truly be the crack troops their said to be (though to balance things Imperial Army Troops would be rather mediocre), and finally [SPOILERS REDACTED BY ISB]! Turn things on their head a bit, to keep things fresh and interesting. I devoured the old EU books, so I’m going to keep how things ended up in them (I loved TFA, but it’s not how I see the things going) as an idea of how the campaign will evolve. It’ll start in medias res, with barely anyone really knowing one another, a slight Rebel hook, and I’ll just let things go from there for good or bad.

- Getting a good Dungeon Crawl Classic campaign frame work laid out. I’d like to use the existing world and pinpoint where the various DCC modules are at, so as to let the players find adventures themselves while being the little murder hobos most players like to be. I have The Chained Coffin box, so I might start them there and let them branch out into the world. Might be a bit before this one starts; I packed my rulebook into storage in anticipation of the new printing getting to me later in the year. So this can be a good slow burn.

- Also getting a good Metamorphosis Alpha campaign frame work laid out. I’m thinking of making the ISS Warden a couple levels bigger than what is shown in the rulebook. With a few subsection modules for areas that are high risk/danger. They’ll be jettisionable, so bad rolls might just wipe a party out! I’m thinking the players would start as villagers in a mixed normal/mutant village, with a small bit of flawed information about their world. I thinking of setting it up like Megaton from Fallout 3, but the reason for the nuclear device sitting where it’s at is up in the air for now.

- Converting MtG’s Slivers into some nasty little DCC critters. I was reading an old copy of Shadis (only bought for the extra that came with it!) and of course it had old game ads from the late 90’s, which got me all nostalgic and reminiscing. Back in the 90’s I was in high school, where I played ALOT of Magic and had several decks, all of which eventually got traded to friends for Star Wars CCG cards. One of my funner decks, when it worked, was a Sliver deck. The more of them you have out, the more abilities they get. From +1/+1 to Trample to Regeneration to spawning 1/1 Sliver token creatures, they could get annoying quick. So perfect as a DCC creature! I imagine them as a kind of failed interplanar magical/psionic experiment. They’ll be a recurring monster of the week, with maybe a source that can be stopped, leaving rampaging nests all over the world.

And for me, the BIG KAHUNA of them all:

- Making a semi sandbox adventure path out of Dragonlance’s DL 1-10, 12-14! I’ll probably dig out the Dragonlance Classics volumes, the 15^th Anniversary book, and the 3^rd Ed books to see how each area and event is handled differently.

Dragonlance will always have a place on my shelves because it is what got me into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which got me into roleplaying games in general. Before reading the Legend of Huma, I had really only ever read science fiction. Star Wars, Starship Troopers, Hammer’s Slammers, and anything similar my father handed me. I had only dabbled in fantasy through the Lone Wolf Adventure books. Not finding anymore LW books, my trying-to-be-helpful mom just glanced at a few books on the sci fi/fantasy shelf of the used book store we frequented and pulled The Legend of Huma down*. But it was the hook fantasy needed, and what got me reading the Chronicles Trilogy. And the rest as they say is history.

Now, I’ve read a lot of the criticisms leveled at Dragonlance over the years, Tolkien rip-off & railroady being the most used, and not being a literary critic, I will stick to dealing with the campaign railroad problem.

First off, the players will have to want to play this epic adventure. No sense in forcing it on them.

Second, they are going to be the good guys. Raistlin style antihero maybe, but no outright bad guys.

Finally, all Kender are not like Tasslehoff Burrfoot. He IS off his ADHA medication and I feel rest of the Companions knew this, and as such kept him in check. So PC kender are not going to be sticky fingered children that can do no wrong. Oh hell no! No, everyone knows they aren’t kids, and will treat them like a thief if they act like one.

As for the actual campaign it won’t be a railroad, but more of a boat on a river at the bottom of canyon. Sometimes the canyon is really wide and you can wander a bit on bank or into the bushes past that. Other times it’ll be shear walls. I might cut the extreme side quests off and if possible fit a heavily modified version into the path either earlier or later. Or maybe treat them as one shots. I’ll deal with them when I get to them.

Anyway, I think I’ve prattled on for enough for one night. There are enough ideas here for me to work through for a bit. 

 *I still have that dog-eared copy in my books somewhere. I’ve read it about a dozen times. I might read it again just to get back into the world of Krynn.