Campaigns, Settings and Time

After some long thought, I am scaling back my gaming and sticking to just a couple of campaigns and settings. There is just not enough time to have multiple settings going at the same time.

One Fantasy, One Sci-Fi

I’m sticking with just one fantasy campaign–the Middle Lands–and one science fiction campaign–Far Jewel. I came to this conclusion because I found I was just not making as much progress in developing any of my settings as I wanted.

As much as I wanted to do solo roleplaying in a swords & sorcery setting (Middle Lands), a high fantasy setting (Ealdun) and a much smaller scale/focused setting (Vales), I realized I could just not keep it up. I was spreading my creative juices between those three campaigns, and not doing enough to game in any one of them. It was just a matter of too many ideas and not enough time to more completely flesh them all out.

Also, the reason I settled on the Middle Lands is because it has the feel that I wanted most, and had the most room to be a long-term campaign. I could run a solo campaign with a swords & sorcery/dark fantasy feel, but with the space to play for years. It also had the scope to include all of the ideas I was coming up with.

On the other hand, I got back into gaming after laying off for years because I wanted to play a sci-fi campaign. That is where the Far Jewel campaign came from. I still plan to keep that one going, too–just at a lower priority than the Middle Lands for now. I really love what I have built there, but I want to keep the fantasy campaign first and foremost.

Gathering Ideas

So to follow this new path, I am gathering my favorite ideas from the Ealdun and Vales settings, and repurposing them in the Middle Lands. In the past, I always wanted to come up with new ideas for each setting, and not duplicate them in the others. Now, I can steal ideas from the settings I am archiving and roll them into the one I’m that keeping.

These include ideas about particular factions and religions, but mostly places and NPCs. I had made a lot of progress in developing the town of Tirbreth Hold in the Vales, and a lot of that content can be reused in the city of Mahmude. That includes many NPCs that had some great quality detail to them.

It also includes some ideas for monsters that I very am glad to roll into the Middle Lands. In particular, that includes my concept for dragons in the Vales. I am using that for "sea dragons," creatures that will play a future part in the campaign.

I am also including my concept for giants and trolls. That was a cool concept that I was able to build upon to replicate the idea that all creatures have a particular element and even patron god. Being able to reuse these ideas gave me some satisfaction, to be honest.

Moving Forward

What am I doing moving forward? In addition to gathering content from the Eladun and Vales settings, I had started a Gygax ’75 Challenge on the Middle Lands setting–but had not finished it. Well, I’m doing that now. The content from the other settings is helping tremendously, but I still have some work to complete.

After I finish the immediate needs of the Gygax ’75 Challenge for the Middle Lands, I want to start running a solo campaign there, based in the Yengzhi highlands city of Mahmude. The reason I am sticking with my fantasy campaign as my primary one is because of the magic rules Jeff Vandine and I have come up with for Blades & Black Magic. I want to use them in an actual campaign.

After that, once I have an adventure or two run in the Middle Lands, I want to pivot back to the Far Jewel setting and play some sci-fi gaming. I don’t think that will ever be my primary campaign, but I still want to keep it around and play in that world.

What does all this mean to you, gentle readers? Mostly it means that I will still be writing about fantasy topics, but not science fiction ones. That is just a byproduct of where my mind is at the time. But I am also more energized about fantasy gaming as well.

So stay tuned, folks… this is going to be fun!

Marko ∞