A Dragon Age Campaign in the City of Kirkwall

  ((I had ideas for this session. I was certain the party would want to (1) use the house deed to put the building in their name, and (2) head to the mason's guild to get the hole in the wall fixed. They did both of those things, just not in the way I expected.)) The party split with Deorum, Felin, and Lulia heading to Oldtown and Fisher, Revas, and Dardin'an heading to the Mason's Guild. Deorum posed as a noble interested in getting the house put in his name. He first inquired with the City Guard who to speak to, then traveled to the city Archives and waited 2 hours for documents on the house to be brought up. It turns out that about 50 years ago, the owners of the house mysteriously vanished. No next of kin was found, and the city itself had no interest in claiming the house. Deorum then traveled back to the Keep to seek an audience with the Vicount. He met Seneschal Bran , who (after some very successful roles) was willing to escalate the case to take care of the house n...

 Adapted from Ptolus: City By the Spire. Note that a lot of the names in Ptolus are middle eastern in nature, so I changed some to more fit the culture of Kirkwall. Other names I kept just because I liked them. ALBRECHT – A mercantile family that firmly believes wealth is power. They are not well regarded and serve as examples of the saying that wealth breeds contempt." Dered Albrecht is the very old head of house that many are simply waiting to die, though he has yet to name a heir. (I have decided he is bitter about his failing body and funded Quintin 's research in the hopes of restoring life to his old limps.) As the PCs rise to wealthy status (after Bartrand's Expedition), Dered may at first try to incorporate them into his Household. He would also offer investment opportunities to expand both the PC’s wealth and his. He would certainly take an interest in how their wealth. He would definitely back the Delver’s Guild (which does not yet exist), and might even be the o...

  This is the fourth campaign I've ever run, and I think I finally figured out the secret to balanced combat -- you balance it during gameplay . The Dragon AGE rpg core rulebook has advice for making adversaries tougher (adding extra health and giving them more focuses and ability points). In practice I've found these guidelines pretty useless (sorry Green Ronin) unless you are wanting to use adversary stats for quick-building NPCs. Then actually, they are great. When it comes to combat, there's only a few factors that matter: Enemy hp, defense & armor - how long can it last against the party? Enemy attack & damage - how much can it hurt the party? These are really the only factors a GM needs to keep in mind for designing an enemy for combat. If you want an enemy to last longer against the PCs, then you can up it's health (how many rounds it will last), defense (how hard it is to hit), and armor rating (how much damage it soaks - at least in the AGE system). If ...

Last we left off, our party was split with half in Hightown and half recruited to Fisher's boat. Fishing isn't going well in Kirkwall due to all the boat activity from the influx of refugees. So, Fisher goes looking for work at the end of last session and finds a couple help-wanted posters on the Chanter's Board. Fisher heads to Midtown to investigate a potentially "haunted" house. He meets with a woman named Loretta who explains there's been some unusual activity around a decades-vacant home at the end of the street. Neighborhood cats have gone missing. A neighbor, named Phineas, thought he saw movement within the house, went inside to investigate, and never came back out. People have heard strange noises - moans, screams, growling. The neighborhood boarded up the house and went to the Templars. The Templars told them animals and people disappear all the time in the city - often due to gang activity - and that strange noises and shadows are not proof enough o...

As a Blood Mage, Deorum's player requested the ability to summon demons. I really didn't care how lore accurate this ability was. It's something my player wanted to do, and as a GM, I love the Rule of Cool. Ultimately, there were 3 avenues I considered. Summoning Demons into corpses: I didn't write this up because it didn't  feel  cool to me. But it could definitely work AND is the most lore accurate. The specialization would allow a blood mage to summon a demon into a dead enemy in combat and then get to control it. The corpses would take on the stats of the Enraged Corpse (Rage Demon) and Devouring Corpse (Hunger Demon) from the Adversaries section in the rulebook. Each level of the Specialization would allow access to different demon types and the summoning of multiple demons on the field (up to three). 2.  Demons as Spell Delivery Systems : Looking at other Mage specializations in the rulebook, most of them give access to specialized spells. I decided a blood ma...

I have a player in my current game who is basically playing a female rogue version of Fenris. This has gone down a bit of rabbit hole as we've discussed Fenris's abilities and how to work them into the Dragon AGE Green Ronin RPG system . One path is to have a player simply specialize into both the Reaver and Spirit Warrior specializations, as these come close to a lot of Fenris' abilities. However, they may not quite have the flavor a player is looking for. I first made Talent rules for Fade Step . I tried to make them both Mage and non-mage friendly as I saw some people online wanting Fade Step for mages as well. It's also important to note that this version of Fade Step is only available for use during combat as the ability to turn spectral and phase through solid objects is too powerful for exploration. We then started talking about Fenris's " Spectral Grasp " ability and how it might work mechanically, so I made a talent for that. This went through a n...

  Showing off my Dragon Age TTRPG laminated paper minis! I'm quite pleased with how they turned out! Anyone wanting easy access to images for making such beauties themselves can find the Dragon Age paper minis image stash here.

Time to get into some logistics of the campaign! I am using the Dragon AGE RPG ruleset as developed by Green Ronin. I am also using Ptolus: City by the Spire as a source book for expanding Kirkwall and going deeper into its various districts, factions, and secrets. See my previous post for more info about what that looks like. House Rules - Welcome to FrankenAGE I made several modifications to the rules in the Dragon AGE RPG. Here's a link to the doc with all the specifics , but you can get the breakdown below: Nat 1's and Nat 20's exist (triples 1's & triple 6's, respectively). Rolling triples gains players a bonus die of the same value. (Rolling triple 4's gets you another +4). The bonus die on triples can be used on extra stunt points or banked in a party stunt pool, if you passed your roll. Rewrote the Backstab rules for Rogues to work for range. Followed leveling in the Fantasy AGE rulebook (class abilities are near identical, just shifted around so ...

 Upon conception of the campaign, I knew I wanted to expand Kirkwall beyond what we see in the game. I wanted a greater understanding of the districts, noble houses, and various factions at play. For anyone wanting to run a campaign in Kirkwall, I would recommend looking up any pre-made city RPG in any system. I settled on Ptolus: City by the Spire because upon finding it, it seemed to have everything I was looking for. But that doesn't mean it was my only option. Waterdeep and Freeport RPG cities are two that immediately come to mind. (Also, the Waterdeep City Encounters book is excellent, and I am totally stealing ideas from there). Ptolus vs Kirkwall Using Ptolus (an adventure designed for D&D) as a source book for Kirkwall means having to reflavor a lot of things. For instance, one of the noble houses in Ptolus are literally dragons who live as humans. They even have dragons openly playing on their lawn. Everyone in the city KNOWS the family are dragons, but to suggest su...

  The goal for session 2 was to bring the PCs together to form a party (we didn't quite hit that yet). I had discussed with Fisher's player beforehand since he was the one already living in Kirkwall, and it was he who suggested needing a crew for his boat. The Road to Kirkwall We open with Deorum and his elven companion and bodyguard Lulia walking the road from Minrathous to Kirkwall after the assassination of Deorum’s parents. It is a long and somewhat miserable trek, especially when it comes to sleeping outdoors, as the two don't have a tent. They are also both ignoring the pain of the trauma they have just experienced. Fenlin is making the same trek, but sticking to the forest to stay out of sight. She does however make point of keeping the road in view as she does not know the area, and she needs the road to make sure she is going in the right direction. A farmer driving a cart of cabbages stops along the road and offers Deorum and Lulia a ride. They accept. Fenlin noti...

 Our first session involved final character creation, going over house rules, and general session 0 discussions. We had enough time to do some individual PC background roleplay. So I'll introduce our heroes: Deorum -- A blood mage and the son of a Tevinter Magister who is forced to flee his home when assassins set upon his family. With nowhere else to turn, Deorum heads for Kirkwall where he believes distant relatives of a Noble House will take him in. Fenlin -- A female rogue "Fenris" character. Slave to Danarius, Fenlin was hand-picked as a small child after a series of rigorous tests to act as Danarius's bodyguard. She has been a slave her whole life and does not remember her family. After enduring the painful ritual that imbued her skin with Lyrium and losing control of her new power that resulted in the death of innocents, Fenlin flees to Kirkwall where she hopes to blend in with the refuges. Dardin'an -- A Dalish Scout of the Sabrae clan who is in love with ...