Astrophysics of Krynn, part 1

One would assume that, by default, Krynn would be a Earth-like planet.

Not so fast...

The Sources

There are conflicting information around. One, from the Atlas of Dragonlance, gives a 4-hours offset between the Tower of the High Clerist and Silvanost. Another, using a globe of krynn, instead gives a 2-hours offset for the same locations.

I choose the last source, because it would roughly make Krynn twice as large as the first one would make.

Also, to measure distances, I used Sean Macdonald's map of post-Cataclysm Ansalon.

Using the Globe and the Map

One interesting detail in this globe is the following line:

Indeed, this line is 50° long over the globe, and is situated at the latitude -30° (which is the same, for all our current purposes, as +30°)

And if we look at Sean Macdonald's map, it does from Mount Nevermind, to the very eastern edge of the Misty Isle, which is a distance I measured to be as 1,796km (sorry for the imperialist, I will be using international units system, here).

And with all that information, and a bit of geometry, I can calculate the radius of Krynn.

Let's do it.

Using Geometry

Assuming the following...

From the Mount Nevermind to the right edge of the Misty Isle:

• On Sean Macdonald's map, I measure 1,796km. Let's call this length SMD.
• On the 3D globe, I count 5 longitudes (each longitude being 10°), at lattitude -30° (which is the same than at lattitude 30°)

This means, the perimeter of the globe at lattitude -30° is:

P(30°) = SMD * 36 / 5

P(30°) = SMD * 7.2

What I want, is the radius of the globe at lattitude 0°, because it will be the radius of the sphere itself.

So, first, I need to transform the perimeter into a radius, which is done with the formula:

R = P / 2π

So:

R(30°) = P(30°) / 2π

R(30°) = SMD * 7.2 / 2π

R(30°) = SMD * 3.6 / π

Now, I want R(0°), which can be deduced from R(30°) because:

R(30°) = R(0°) * cos(30°)

... with cos(30°) = (3^0.5) / 2

So we have:

R(0°) = R(30°) / cos(30°)

R(0°) = R(30°) / (3^0.5) * 2

R(0°) = SMD * 3.6 / π / (3^0.5) * 2

R(0°) = SMD * 7.2 / π / (3^0.5)

We then replace the variables/constants with their values:

R(0°) = 1,796km * 7.2 / 3.14159 / 1.73205

R(0°) = 12,931.2km / 3.14159 / 1.73205

R(0°) = 4,116.13km / 1.73205

R(0°) = 2,376.45km

So, the Radius of Krynn is 2,376.45km...

That's small...

For comparison:

• Earth: 6,371.00 km (mean radius)
• Krynn: 2,376.45 km (radius)
• Luna (Earth's moon): 1,737.4 km (mean radius)

I mean, Krynn is barely larger than Luna (Earth's moon).

In the next part, we'll calculate the radius of each of Krynn's moon orbits.

And  yet, it changes nothing...

Apart from less space to put continents and seas (Ansalon is the same size as Western Europe...

Yeah, it's centered on France. Deal with it... 😝

... or 4 times the surface of Ukraine)...

... it doesn't really change anything because it is clear in the novels our heroes are dealing on a 1G gravity planet, which means Krynn's mass is the same as Earth's mass.

In other words, to have exactly the same gravity as Earth, if Krynn is smaller, it is also much denser.

And for the next physics calculations, this detail will make things much simpler.

P.S. Does it really change nothing?

From the simple calculations I intend to do later, it changes nothing.

First, if Krynn is more dense than Earth, then it makes sense its core is much more dense than Earth's core. We can imagine exotic metals, instead of the mix of nickel and iron that is the inner and outer core of Earth. Dragonmetal? Starmetal? Denser material would mean heavier than iron, which means, probably, more radioactive material than on Earth. Fun fact, the radioactive material of Earth's core is what gives the planet its heat. Would Krynn be warmer?

Also, from storytelling perspective, this changes a lot, because there isn't a lot of room on Krynn. It becomes a "small world", and relatively, it makes Ansalon larger, and thus, more important. Remember that the gods of Krynn seem obsessed with Ansalon, up to the point of sucker-punching it with a meteor.

If you are building a campaign where only the 2 first trilogies, it means the rest of Krynn can be explained as you want, and you won't need to spend a lot of time on it, because the overall surface is small. And it might be easy to repurpose the other continents (e.g. Taladas and Adlatum) into very exotic continents.

For example, one might be a land of dinosaurs, where the dragons reign supreme. Another might be a land of chaos, ravaged by the Graygem, where inhabitants are monstrous mutant-like creatures (this would let us repurpose the fiends, and more particularly, the demons, to inhabit this continent).

Another might be a wasteland where life isn't possible anymore, having been ravaged eons ago, and possibly the destination of my players a few campaign by now, to discover the first apostasis. Who knows?

😉

Sylvyana, the Ghoul Queen (Dramatis Personae)

Lady, by Yao Rong

As a dark elf, most, if not all, original writings and accounts on Sylvyana have been destroyed. Surviving documents are rare, and can be, at best, considered as unreliable.

History

Born in the Moons' Shadow

Sylvyana Moonshadow, of silvanesti House Mystic was born during the Third Dragon War, owning her surname to the fact she was born during the Night of the Eye (when the three moons are full and in conjunction, taking an eye-like appearance in the sky). While never taken seriously, this omen would shadow all her life within Silvanesti.

Even as a child, her talent for the arcane arts was undeniable, and the masters of House Mystic challenged her intelligence and mastery of the Art, at every opportunity, preparing her for the Test of High Sorcery. For, without her knowledge, she was being groomed by the masters of House Mystic to become one of the archmages of the silvanesti, their ambition none other than having her become the High Mage of the Conclave of High Sorcery.

That is, until the Speaker of the Stars laid his eyes on her.

With her charming blue eyes, her long waving black hair, and her mysterious smile, her beauty struck the young speaker, who fell madly in love for her.

Her dedication for the Art didn't matter. Her ominous birth didn't matter. The ambitions of House Mystic didn't matter. Her close friendship for the human druid Waylorn Wyvernsbane didn't matter. She had to be his. So he did what was necessary.

Some would tell later that she had willingly used her beauty, and even magic, to charm the young Speaker of the Stars. Others would simply discard such notions, as having them falling in love with each other doesn't need any more explanation than them being young and healthy.

It was also said Sylvyana resisted the speaker's affections. Perhaps because she knew her role as the speaker's wife to hurt her dedication to the Art. Perhaps because the speaker's love was unrequited. Perhaps the rumors of her and the human druid being lovers were true. But in the end, probably because of a mix of sense of duty towards her people, and naiveté about what the prestigious role of Queen of Silvanesti entailed, she relented, and accepted the speaker's offer.

Queen of Silvanesti

Becoming the Queen of Silvanesti changed Sylvyana's life: Leaving House Mystic to join House Royal, she also had to abandon her studies of magic, and learn the art of diplomacy and etiquette. At first, navigating this new world was fascinating, but she soon found she longed for the magic. But of course, she wasn't authorized to practice the Art anymore: Her loyalties were now to her husband, and to Silvanesti. And her responsibility was to provide heirs to the throne, and certainly not risk her life by taking the Test.

Elves are patient. But even elves can get bored. And Sylvyana started doubting her choice. She felt she was nothing but a glorified art piece owned by her husband, to be shown at ceremonies in public, or to satisfy his desires in private. She felt she was just a traditional tool, with all expecting her to become pregnant.

She felt powerless.

The Speaker of the Stars, while not really understanding the despondency of his wife, felt something was wrong between them, and slowly detached himself emotionally from her. Their love grew cold. Perhaps this is why she never became pregnant, instead of being sterile as was later claimed by her political enemies. In the end, it didn't matter: Both husband and wife grew apart.

Sorceress of the Red

In secret, she restarted her studies, and asked the Head of the Conclave to let her pass the Test. She was already too powerful and the Mages of High Sorcery had to make a choice, between risking her becoming a renegade, or having such talent join the orders, even if in secret.

She succeeded her test. And if it scarred her, nothing was really apparent to her husband. Perhaps it could be explained by the fact he had been attracted to another, to a young elf maiden, more pliable than Sylvyana was, so he barely though about his wife. Similarly, her own dalliances with the Art had her neglect her husband even more than before.

Anyway, it was plain for some councilors that she would probably never bear the speaker's children, and that the speaker was now actively pursuing another. The scandal would tarnish the speaker's reputation, and future children, so a solution had to be found.

Then, they discovered the young maiden was pregnant. And just like that, Sylvyana's fate was sealed.

Dark Elf

The councilors' spies were very thorough, and soon enough, they had proofs of her "betrayal" of silvanesti's values, as well as of the speaker's trust (see P.S.).

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Stars had wondered how to solve the delicate situation he was now in. So, when his councilors shared with him the "proofs" of Sylvyana's betrayal, he secretly welcomed these discoveries, claiming that he had indeed been betrayed by the evil sorceress, that he had been charmed, but that he was now free of her influence, and feared for his life.

Arrested, bound and gagged, she was brought to the Tower of the Stars for a public trial. The proofs of her crimes and betrayal were shown to the people of Silvanesti, who turned against her. She who was once the beloved queen of the Silvanesti, was alone now, as even her family, friends and servants denounced her.

Given no opportunity to defend herself in any way, she ended being, by order of the Speaker of the Stars, declared a dark elf, stripped of her clothes and given black robes representing her black heart instead, and exiled from Silvanesti forever, to never return, under pain of death.

As she was escorted to the borders of Silvanesti, under the gaze of the people now hating her, all known records of her existence were destroyed.

Exile

Without any possession, and believed she had been betrayed by the mages, she reached Waylorn Wyvernsbane's haven and begged for his help. The druid welcomed her, giving her time to get her bearings. The next years were painful for the former queen, despite the affections of the human druid: Waylorn Wyvernsbane's tower was within sight of Silvanesti, and the druid received news of the elf nation, including the birth of the speaker's child, and his marriage with a young maiden.

Sylvyana was hurt by these news: She longed for the trees of her youth, and couldn't forget she had sacrificed the Art, and then was denied her of her privileges for practicing magic, and some made-up crimes. And now, the Speaker of the Stars had replaced her with his new mistress. In fact, he had replaced her so fast it was suspicious.

Waylorn Wyvernsbane saw the bitterness of the former queen increase, and, one night, he couldn't bear his own guilt anymore, he admitted to her he had spoken to envoys of the speaker, who he now realized might have been his councilors' spies. While he assured her he hadn't told them anything relevant, he now realized they had probably been reading between the lines, and guessing the information.

Outraged by what she perceived to be his betrayal, and realizing the accusations were actually a conspiracy against her by her own people, by her own husband, and that the mages had nothing to do with it, she left the druid behind, vowing revenge.

Necromancer of the Black

A few weeks later, she was at Wayreth, asking for the help of the orders. Given quarters within the towers, she started her studies of magic, soon both teaching students, and unearthing the more complex secrets of the Art. As if to spite the white-robed silvanesti elves she felt (rightly) has betrayed her, she donned black robes, then focused her research to necromancy, a field of magic that had, until now, borne little results beyond animating mindless corpses.

Understanding medicine and biology, she successfully created necromantic rituals that, if still unable of rivaling the miracles of divine magic, were able to offer the semblance of healing. Indeed, she discovered and contributed many spells, and among them Chill Touch, False Life, Gentle Repose, and Vampiric Touch.

As a debate rose within the orders about the ethics of exploring necromancy (some, most of them white robes, believed it had to remain a province of the divine), her ambition grew, seeing opportunities.

But for that, she needed to get rid of the interference from the most hostiles of her peers, which were slowing her down with peer reviews, debates, and so on.

Queen of the Wyverns

She moved away to Qualmish for a very specific reason, near the green shores of the Angolen River, to be able to explore this new branch of magic without interference.

Using her magic to gather power over the humans and ogres living around her chosen site for her tower, she then searched for faithful guardians to guard the tower she had been slowly constructing through magic.

First, she found a large pride of Wyverns. With a variation of the ritual used to bind griffons in Silvanesti, she successfully bound them to her through her blood. Then, discovering a colony of Kyries, she recruited six of them, which would become known as the Raven Witches. Last, but not least, she focused on her studies of necromancy, keeping contact with the Towers of Wayreth and Palanthas, to exchange ideas and research with her peers.

The Speaker of the Stars grew uneasy as news of her growing powers reached him, through House Mystic. Mistaking her ambitions, he feared she would try to poison him, his new wife, or their child. His councilors sent assassins to bring her down, but they failed miserably. Worst, if he was right about her taste for revenge, he was wrong about her aim: Sylvyana was not building her own realm in the arid mountains of Qualmish: She was gathering the means of her conquest of Silvanesti: She would reclaim what she thought was rightfully hers.

Arch-Necromancer of Ansalon

Sylvyana had escaped multiple assassination attempt, including one poisoning who would have been fatal to her if she hadn't been so skilled in necromancy. This actually made her think about her own mortality: Fearing, even as an elf, she could fail due to poison, but also to disease or old age.

Unable to secure from Fistandantilus his secret of immortality, she increased her efforts to study necromancy beyond the ethics limits she had previously agreed upon, profiting from the isolation of her tower near Mount Brego, and her subjugation of the people living around: While suspicious, none of the many visiting mages found her secret laboratory.

It was at this time she offered a classification of the undead creatures, a classification that is still used in the modern ages by mages and clerics alike, based on their corporality, their need to feed, their intellect, and their anchors.

White Mages, back at Wayreth started to worry such research would lead to a catastrophe, and wanted her to stop, or be declared renegade. Mages of the Red and of the Black begged to differ, and continued to welcome their visits and correspondence with Sylvyana, and her own frequent visits to the Tower of Palanthas.

The Ghoul Queen

Her experimentation finally led to the greatest necromantic breakthrough since the ritual to lichdom: Ghouldom.

Ghouls were both able to retain part of their intellect, defeat death and disease. They were certainly not perfect: To remain active, they had to feed from flesh, preferably their own species' flesh. Failing to do that would be both painful, lead to an uncontrollable ravenous rage, and lead to some kind of hibernation until smell or taste of blood would wake them again.

Also, they were able to create more of their own, by poisoning mortals: Should a victim die because of their necrotic poison, their body would mutate, and they would raise again, as ghouls.

Self-reproducing undead would be considered an irresponsible and immediate danger by the Orders of High Sorcery, and Sylvyana didn't doubt, if they learned about it, they would would make sure to shut down permanently her experimentations.

So, unlike what happened with her previous experiments, she never shared any of these results with anyone.

Instead, she knew she now held the power she needed to conquer Silvanesti: Under her control, every victim of a ghoul might raise up as a ghoul themselves, increasing their ranks at the expense of their enemies.

Chemosh

The god of undeath had been particularly interested by the research made by Sylvyana, and made sure, through agents (mostly his own priests), that any meddling cleric or agent of good investigating the region would be discovered before they could reveal anything problematic to anyone.

The god even once visited her under the guise of a black mage, to discuss necromancy with her. He was so impressed by her knowledge of the subject, the passion with which she did her research in this field of magic, and the potential of ghouls, that he decided she had to continue, no matter what.

Also, she found about his true identity, and the two became passionate lovers.

Last Preparations

Sylvyana was intelligent enough to know her own limitations. She needed a general to plan the details of the offensive against Silvanesti, someone both with a life-long experience, and with a capacity to adapt to the variant rules that would lead that war.

That someone was already dead, killed during the Kinslayer War, as Ergoth had tried to invade Silvanesti.

But Chemosh did her a favor, and had his priests bring the ergothian general back from the dead, as an undead warrior, a form suitable for his new role. Together, they planned an invasion from within.

While Silvanesti was without doubt, by now, expecting her to wage some kind of aggression upon them, they knew she had to traverse the whole continent to do anything substantial.

Little they know that she knew of two ancient portals that could be linked together. The first one was within Silvanesti itself, the Portal of Shalost. The second was actually the reason she had come to Qualmish the first place: It was near her Tower at Mount Brego. Her plan was to reopen the portals, secretly move there during the night, and plant ghouls in various villages around Shalost, waiting for her undead army to grow, while keeping her wyverns, humans, ogres and goblin behind the portal, waiting for the moment Silvanesti would send a sizeable army for her to surprise.

The War Against Silvanesti

The war started very well, undeath slowly spreading around Shalost. It took the silvanesti elves three days to realize something was amiss, and two days later, the first army of wildrunners were surprised when caught between ravenous ghouls on one side, and human, ogre and goblin soldiers on the other.

The war turned ugly as the silvanesti sent their best against the army of Sylvyana, blood pouring from the skies as wyverns fought against griffins, and pouring into the earth, as elves fought humans, goblins and ogres. Worse of all: For some reason, elves who had died during the combat were seen rising back to unlife, and fight alongside Sylvyana's forces.

Desperate Counter-attack

By all accounts, she would have won the war.

But the elves launched a desperate attempt to kill her personally: A commando who had stealthily gone through her lines, buying every mile with the blood of their kin distracting the ghoul queen armies.

In that commando, a knight of the sword, Dereg Raynhold, and her former lover, Waylorn Wyvernsbane had only one mission: Kill her so her armies would disperse. It was a dangerous, desperate mission, but the Silvanesti had no other hope.

While the elves tried to contain the forces of Sylvyana, the group of adventurers stalked her, found her, and attacked her at noon. The battle was bitter, but the knight, armed with the mythical sword, Darkstar, went through her spells without difficulty, and hurt her, mortally.

Fearing the blade that had cut through her flesh with so much ease, Sylvyana ran through the Portal, and closed it behind her, leaving her armies.

The Fall of Sylvyana

But she would not be able to rest: It took less than a day for the mages of House Mystic to reopen the portal, and Sylvyana was, again, surprised. Trying to rejuvenate herself, she had ritually killed her elven servant, and was devouring her still beating heart, when she saw Waylorn Wyvernsbane entering her chambers.

Furious, Sylvyana was about to kill Waylorn when he tried to appease her, telling her he was there to join her, that they could flee together, and hide somewhere, and live in happiness together.

Feverish, in pain, overcome with despair and longing, she believed him... and was struck by his dagger. She barely had the time to throw him against a wall when she was pierced in the back, again by Darkstar, the sword of Dereg Raynhold.

She fell on her knees.

She would never know Dereg had seen the horrors conjured by Sylvyana, and in horror, fear and anger, had decided to sacrifice his honor and leave nothing to chance, and had struck her by surprise.

The Death of Sylvyana

Thus, Sylvyana died, a dagger blade burrowed into her side, a sword blade emerging from her breast, piercing her heart, and her dying words drowned by the blood she was coughing out.

The Ghoul Queen was dead, her allies dispersed, her tower being sacked and prepared to be burned to the ground.

Looking at the burning tower, Waylorn Wyvernsbane had known from the start Sylvyana had to die, and he was not sure they could have succeeded in a fair fight. So he had agreed to distract her. But this didn't made the guilt easier to bear.

Dereg Raynhold himself felt the brunt of his act, feeling the curse, without being able to decide if that curse came from Sylvyana's feeling of betrayal and last words, or by his own betrayal of his knightly vows. In the end, it didn't matter, and the knight would leave, starting a holy quest to atone for his sins.

Still, fearing she could rise again as a banshee, a vengeful spirit known to rise from the restless spirit of the betrayed, the adventurers paid their respects to her corpse, and gave her proper funeral ceremony, to insure her soul would not linger among the living.

Then they buried her near her in nearby grounds consecrated by Waylorn Wyvernsbane himself, using his druidic powers, and then planted the seed of a tree from Silvanesti, hoping this would be enough to finally bring peace to her soul.

It wasn't nearly enough...

Once every year after, Waylorn Wyvernsbane, would come back to the ruined tower, and mourn on the grave, thinking about all the things he could have done, all the things he should have done, differently.

Sylvyana had made her choices. While there were many reasons justifying her feelings, her actually putting her words into action, and waging the worst war against Silvanesti since the Second Dragon War, with such horrendous soldiers, with so despicable magic...

And yet, he felt he had somehow failed her. By having not done nearly enough to soothe her pain. By inadvertently betraying her. By being complicit of her execution. And how he had profited from her feelings for him to stab her by surprise.

Year after year, he came back. The tree grew. Grass grew around and on her grave. Time passed.

Then, one year, everything changed.

Traversing the ruins of a village, the bones of its inhabitants laying on the ground, he realized something dreadful had happened.

Galloping towards the ruined tower, his darkest fears were confirmed.

To his upmost horror, he found the grave upturned, and empty, under a tree that had suddenly withered.

The Undeath of Sylvyana

Unknown to Waylorn Wyvernsbane, the previous Night of the Eye this year (and the magical radiation from the three moons), combined with Sylvyana's interrupted ritual, and the divine magic of Chemosh, completed the transformation and regeneration process that eventually brought her body back to unlife, ready to be inhabited again by her restless soul.

Sylvyana first rose up as a ghoul, any trace of her genius intellect, or even ambitions, buried under an indescriptible hunger that consumed her thoughts. By the time she had reached the village, she had already killed an animal, and eaten its heart.

It was only when she bit the still beating heart of a child that she became herself again, and realized the full horror of her situation. All around her, so many dead, so much blood, and torn flesh... She almost broke down, but her memories of how she had been betrayed came back to her, and with it, the outrage, the anger, and the ambition to make all things "right" again, no matter the cost to others.

As the first ghouls were rising around her, submitting to her will, and as the first wyverns arrived, their blood called by hers, she fled the region.

So, having seen her empty grave, having no idea about her whereabouts, and knowing Sylvyana would rest and outlive her enemies, Waylorn Wyvernsbane decided to do the same, and enter a magical sleep inside a tower built upon the ruins of the portal she had used to invade Silvanesti.

This way, he would hunt her, and make sure she would stay dead, forever...

Bidding her Time

The Age of Might soon became quite hostile for undead, evil and neutral races and organizations, so Sylvyana kept a low profile, evolving from a cannibalistic ghoul eating flesh into a more refined vampire feeding on blood, and discovering her new abilities, and hide among the living, something all the other undead, including her own ghouls, couldn't do without heavy use of magic.

Keeping in the shadows, she influenced Salius Ruven, a black robe who had "unearthed" her secrets "by accident", to use necromancy and raise an army of undead to conquer Istar. He almost succeeded, but failed at the last moment when the Solamnic Knights came to Istar's rescue. Of course, istarians and solamnics blamed the orders of high sorcery for their non-intervention, and no one ever suspected her involvement (including Salius himself).

Despite Salius' failure, the experiment was a success to her, showing her that another war against Silvanesti would fail, again, no matter how many undead she raised to fight in the frontlines.

With the forces of good becoming more and more prevalent, all she could do was to bid her time. So she went back to torpor, and thus escaped the worse of the Kingpriest's inquisitions.

The Cataclysm

Sylvyana was in torpor, in a crypt under Xak Tsaroth, when the Cataclysm struck, and like half the city, her crypts were pushed underground with the earthquakes and the sunking under the New Sea.

It took her more than a century to wake up, and extract herself from the drowned ruins.

It took her some time to realize this was now a world without gods. The constellations were still in the skies, but the people had turned away from the old gods, and worshiped new, seemingly powerless gods. Sylvyana believed this was an unique opportunity to act, but a warning from an otherwise silent Chemosh advised her to keep a low profile, for the Dark Queen was moving her pawns, and would not tolerate any interference.

Instead, the god of undeath had other plans: Unlike the other gods of Evil and Balance, Chemosh had devised a way to avoid the worst of the Kingpriest's inquisitions, by converting most of his priests into undead mummies, to sleep inside long forgotten tombs deep under the ground. Waking his (un)surviving agents up had taken him too long after the Cataclysm, so he had to let the Queen of Darkness go first...

... But he had no doubt the conflict, no matter who won, would bring him a lot of corpses to reuse...

War of the Lance

The Queen of Darkness would have been furious if Chemosh, or any other evil god, had interfered with her operations, and the god wisely stayed away, hoping for Takhisis and her enemy, Paladine to weaken each other up to the point Chemosh's plans could start without their interference.

Instead, Sylvyana was tasked to build the Order of High Necromancy, an organization of renegade, purple-robed, necromancers whose leaders would be undead liches and vassaliches. At first, she led the Purple Robes.

But in 349 AC, the Red Dragonarmy attacked Silvanesti, which distracted Sylvyana from the mission given to her: She considered Silvanesti hers to the taking. While she was amazed at how the war went astride, when Silvanesti was taken over by a Dragon Orb and the dragon Cyan Bloodbane, she was even more interested by the colossal Mindspin spell affecting the whole forest.

But she was unable to design a suitable reaction that would not attract the Queen of Darkness' attention to herself. Instead, she infiltrated the native Kagonesti elves, and the now exiled refugees of Silvamori, in Southern Ergoth, knowing she would need the contacts, later...

Obsessing over Silvanesti

Meanwhile, despite her having the favor of Chemosh, the god was furious with Sylvyana because of the lack of progress on her side, clearly due to her unhealthy obsession about Silvanesti.

Ardhalox, Sylvyana's first convert, and the most of ambitious of the vassaliches, appealed to the god of undeath, who accepted his claim of leadership.

Sylvyana was furious... until she realized the god, knowing of her focus on Silvanesti, had knowingly given her less responsibilities so she could focus on her aim, leaving Ardhalox to focus instead on the missions of the Purple Robes.

Thus, Sylvyana remained a free agent who focused on building her secret influence on key Silvanesti elite, and on experimental research, much to the irritation of Ardhalox who wanted nothing else than the full focus of all the Purple Robes, including Sylvyana herself, to find a way to take over the cursed Tower of Palanthas.

Her plans to take over Silvanesti were taking form, and when a group of heroes had succeeded in conquering the orb, and forcing the dragon to flee, she was pleased to see that Lorac's Nightmare remained: From 351 AC on, the Silvanesti was overwhelmed with monstrous creatures, some of them undead, and years, if not decades, would be needed to reconquer the city.

Years she would use to plan her own reconquest.

After the War

At the height of their power, the Purple Robes had three missions at the same time:

• Counter the Curse of Rannoch, so they could take over the Tower of Palanthas
• This task obviously would fail when Raistlin Majere will successfully become the Master of Past and Present, and took possession of the tower.
• Chemosh would be furious against Ardhalox for failing to take over the tower, and Ardhalox would be furious against Sylvyana for not helping the Order of High Necromancy.
  
• Devise the ritual to create a Death Knight
• This task would secure Lord Soth's loyalty, as he had plans of his own
• Find a way to distilate the residual divine energy in the black rock that had composed the now destroyed Temple of Neraka

Sylvyana, while keeping in touch with each missions' evolution, was mostly interested in the last one: The black rock of the Temple of Neraka emitted necrotic energy, energy she could harvest and distilate, both to help in Chemosh's plans, and to help in her plan of taking over Silvanesti before the elves could muster the resources to conquer the land back.

This is why she can be found either in Southern Ergoth, weaving her web of intrigues, and gathering followers in secret, or in Neraka, profiting from the power vacuum to study the crater.

The Future: The Sylvyanesti

To Chemosh's frustration, Sylvyana's obsession with taking over Silvanesti will make her not actively participate directly in his plans, but the sweet promise of dedicating the elven realm to him helps him remain patient with her.

Indeed, the silvanesti elves are so impatient to retake their forest they are actively asking the help of the qualinesti (and kagonesti, with or without their consent). This mixing of the races and culture irritates the more conservative among the silvanesti nobility, who feel thousand years of racial purity ought to give them more patience. And the rumors of a marriage between Alhana Starbreeze and Porthios Khanan, uniting both nations, seems to be the last straw for them. This is where Silvyana weave her first web of intrigues over the people of Silvanesti, offering herself as a pure-blood silvanesti elf, and much more legitimate than the daughter of the failed speaker, Lorac Caladon.

Among her plans is the ascension of the silvanesti elf into a more pure, more perfect race, using her own blood to power the process. With these sylvyanesti elves becoming the new nobility, her power would be cemented by loyal and powerful subjects.

Also necessary for her legitimacy as a queen of Silvanesti, she needs to subjugate the forest itself, and its creatures (animated trees, dryads, etc.). This is why she needs to unearth the secret of the black rock of Neraka, as she feels that, mixed with her blood, and ritually dispersed on the forests and the rivers of Silvanesti, the substance could help bind the forest and its creature to her.

Last but not least, the Miceram: With the Crown of Power in her possession, no silvanesti elf would deny her legitimacy, no matter their feelings against her. Indeed, few in Krynn would have to power to go on the offensive against her.

Chemosh, who had been focusing initially on Nightlund, could be help but be seduced by the idea of Sylvyana taking over Silvanesti, with its nobility becoming what amounts to a perfect fusion of the living and the unliving. So he's willing to accommodate his own plans so she can further her own.

Character Traits

Psychology

Sylvyana is charming, intelligent, daring, curious. She is also passionate, cruel, ambitious, and a racist (as in "silvanesti elves" need to keep the purity of their blood), feeling (without any hatred or xenophobia) that other races are inferior by design, no matter how charming some individuals can be.

As a vampire, she enjoys collecting persons as personal toys in her collection, in a growing "harem" of people being in turn followers, servants, agents, and lovers, depending on her whims.

Her relationship with Chemosh is a mix of "friendship with benefits", mutual respect and an irritation growing with each day they spend together, which is why most of their communication is through written form (more on that later).

Her ambitions are more related into governing her people and her lands into growing into something better (at least, according to her view). Should she become ruler of Silvanesti, she would not be tempted by further conquests. Instead, she would further diplomatic relations with other realms, from Solamnia to Neraka to Mithas, and even Qualinesti (she is very open). As long as they recognize her legitimacy.

Of course, under her rule, the forest and people of Silvanesti would change in ways that some would find intolerable. She couldn't care less, as long as they remain outside Silvanesti, and do not interfere.

In the end, she ambitions to become Silvanesti. As someone else wrote in his journal: "I am the Land, I am the Ancient..."

Virtue: Hope

Sylvyana has a constant optimism about her destiny, and never give up to despair. Nothing is impossible, as long as she continues striving for it. This is because of this virtue that, after centuries, even thousand years, she believes becoming Queen of Silvanesti is always within her grasp. This also means she will always believe she can convince others to join her cause.

Vice: Pride

Sylvyana was born under the three full moons in conjunction. She was destined both to be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) archimage of Krynn, as well as rule as a beloved Queen over her beloved lang and people of Silvanesti. She is part of the elite, and most others are, well, normal. This doesn't translate into contempt for others. Instead, she makes it a point to explain to others why they are wrong and she is right, why they will lose and she will win. In Tropes terms, because of her hope, and of her pride, she can be manipulated into explaining her plans.

Attitude: Architect

Sylvyana wants to build a lasting legacy. She believes that, under her rule, her Queendom of Silvanesti (or will it be Sylvyanesti?) could become, under her leadership, the greatest realm on Krynn.

She has so many plans...

Nature: Monster

No matter what she has been in the past, Sylvyana is now a monster who enjoys witnessing the cannibalistic urges of her creations, sometimes even reveling in such urges herself (even if she usually prefers the more "delicate" blood drinking)

Description

During the Age of Might, when she was queen of Silvanesti, she was a beautiful elf, with a strange, mysterious charisma that would fascinate any onlooker. This made her appear distant, inaccessible, majestic. She was obviously the ideal of the elf queen, with her gray-blue eyes, long black hair, oval face and the always-there, mysterious and enchanting, smiling on her lips, as if she always knew something no one else knew. She loved white, red and black, and true to her birth, she always wore these colors in some fashion.

In the Age of Despair, Sylvyana has barely changed, with the following exceptions: Her skin is much paler, and her eyes are now of a vibrant purple, and in the right lighting, her hair can seem dark purple. These traits are amplified under the otherwise invisible light of Nuitari. She has such fine control over her charisma that she can one moment appear like a bland and clueless, if beautiful, elf-maid, and, in one blink of an eye, radiate a subtle, but overwhelming magnetism that leaves no one unaffected. Sylvyana usually wears clothes that are adapted to her current situation, but these are always of the finest quality.

Notes

• Sylvyana loves the purple color, and absolutely loves gold.
• Her relationship with Chemosh can be best described as respectful and lustful strife: Both are fascinated with Necromancy, and respect each other for that. In addition, both feel a similar and violent lust toward the other, usually fueled by the regular quarrels, usually caused by jealousy, arrogance, and need to outsmart and challenge each other.
• Sylvyana is obviously a renegade mage. Any respect she had for the Orders of High Sorcery as an organization has been snuffed away by her dedication to Chemosh.
• As there is no one alive remembering her, and as every portrait, even even most writings about her, has been destroyed, she walks on Krynn incognito, using her charms to build a network of allies, willing or otherwise.
• Unless she is actively working to repress it, a slight contempt can always be heard in her voice. She knows she is superior to anyone talking to her, and that arrogance can be heard in her tone, or her choices of words.
• Sylvyana feeds from humanoid (if possible, elf) blood, either from a cristal glass if the subject is common, or directly from the subject's throat, or wrist, if the subject's appearance attracted her attentions. But what she particularly loves is to eat the still beating heart she just extracted from its living (until now) owner. As a vampire, despite appearing otherwise normal, her teeth are sharp enough to cut through leather. She can also grow fangs, and she can even dislocate her jaw (as would a serpent) to bite something large.

Differences with Canon

Krynn Ghouls

• The original experiment used wyvern's blood, as well as Sylvyana's
• Interestingly, this makes all ghouls (and anything evolving from ghouls) susceptible to her suggestions or commands
  
• Unlike in other settings, elves are not immune to Krynn ghouls' poison and paralysis
• Krynn ghouls need to feed from flesh, ideally from their own original species, or something similar
• Krynn ghouls can evolve so they need only feed from blood, essentially evolving into vampires
• Krynn vampires are a more refined version of ghouls, with a much better ability to hide among mortals
  

What about Wichtlins?

Let's ignore these things for my campaign: Sylvyana is the Ghoul Queen, not the Lady of Floating Eyeballs.

What about Sylvyana and the river or time?

Let's ignore this, too. Moving forward in time is infinitely less problematic than moving backward in time, but that seems a bit out-of-topic with something that is supposed to be very necromancy/undeath-oriented.

The best way to move forward in time is to survive the passing of time. And using something like the vampiric torpor/hibernation seems more appropriate for such "jumps in the future".

P.S. What did the Councilors unearth?

During their investigations, the councilors of the Speaker of the Stars gathering any information that could be even remotely credible in order to prove her guilt:

• She was a Mage of High Sorcery.
• She had (as befitting to her birth, her love of mystery, and her curiosity), joined the Red Robes, which was considered a crime among the elves, who tolerated only their own to join the White Robes.
• She was still in contact with Waylorn Wyvernsbane

From there, they posited that:

• She had probably bewitched the Speaker of the Stars with her magicks
• She was probably the lover of a human (Waylorn Wyvernsbane), and any child she would bear was bound to be his
• She was practicing necromancy, probably in attempt to bear children that could be considered heirs of Silvanesti
  
• She probably had planned the corruption of the moral values of the Silvanesti, after reducing the speaker to a mere puppet, or killing him if he was to free himself

Necromancy in Krynn

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how in my campaign, I replaced the River of Souls with the Cycle of Souls, and how two different, but related, concepts, needed to be defined: Souls vs. Spirits.

Here, I will focus on what Necromancy means to Souls, and to Spirits.

Necromancy and Souls

To be short, Necromancy cannot affect souls.

To be perfectly clear, nothing can affect souls. No magic, no gods, no fiends, nothing. Only spirits, when they die, and are absorbed back into souls for them do digest the spirits' experience, and evolve from it.

Necromancy and Spirits

Spirits, which are the personalities of mortals, are mostly immune to everything, too.

One can't usually destroy a spirit, or even absorb it.

But, being strongly tied to the physical universe (i.e. mostly everything, including outer planes, the astral or ethereal plane, etc.), by their perception, their physical forms, spirits can be affected through these ties. It usually goes down to experience (mostly, how the mortals experience their life), but there are ways, through these ties, to actually damage the spirit.

Miscellaneous ways to affect a spirit

Spirit Reminiscence

When the physical form of the spirit dies, the spirit starts the process to join back to its soul, and be absorbed. But in the process, the spirit still exist for a specific time (during this time, for example, the spirit can still be contacted through magic, or even resurrected).

During this time, the spirit might remain near the physical universe. It is usually the case for dead mortals who join the realms of the gods they have an affinity for, enjoying a (time-limited) afterlife where they slowly fall asleep and lose their identity, as the soul inevitably absorbs it.

Spirit Damnation

Let's say you are a goddess who is very, very furious, against one specific spirit. At personal cost (and baring interference from other similar powers), that goddess could damn this spirit (which would essentially make it an undead), stopping it from fully dying, and joining back its soul and being absorbed.

By damning the spirit, the god can then inflict countless torments upon it, as vengeance, or as a way to corrupt it so little or nothing remains for the soul to absorb. For the poor spirit, the experience can be excruciating, and can even seem to last forever, even if the actual torment will, sooner or later, finally "kill" the soul, which would enable what remains to join back the soul.

To be fair, this is a very specific necromantic way to affect a spirit...

The Bloodstone Pendant of Fistandantilus

The infamous Bloodstone Pendant of Fistandantilus enables one spirit to actually absorb another, more or less resulting in the merge of the two. The absorbed spirit is as good as lost to its original soul, while the absorbing spirit is enriched (and will enrich its soul once absorbed back by it).

Mostly, the absorbed spirit becomes passive: It has no control over the absorbing spirit, who remains "in command", but it is not unheard to have the absorbing spirit showing traits known to have been the absorbed's. And it is theoretically possible that an absorbed spirit, if it is has more willpower than the absorbing one, actually takes over, either right on, or gradually, through time.

To be fair, this is also very specific necromantic way to affect a spirit...

Spirit Ascension

Similar to the damnation, the spirit is precious enough for a god (or gods) to "remember" it. This effectively makes the spirit ascend into a higher state, which could be described as angels, demons, devas, etc., depending on the god (or gods).

These are not technically undead, but outsiders. And sooner or later, then, like the reminiscent or the damned, they will fade away as they are absorbed back by their respective souls...

It is believed spirit ascension might be the final stage of a soul: Instead of being absorbed by its soul, the ascended spirit merges with the soul, who takes its place, and awakens to some kind of divine form.

Necromantic ways to affect a Spirit

In addition to damnation and the bloodstone of Fistandantilus, there are many known ways to affect a spirit through magic, and this magic is Necromancy.

Most of them will either bind the spirit to a physical form (which might be a ghost form), rebind it back to its original body (assuming it has been repaired), or reshape the spirit.

Resurrection

Any kind of resurrection has a pre-requisite of rebuilding the original body (or a clone) of the spirit, before rebinding the spirit to it.

Undeath

This is similar to resurrection, but instead of the spirit being bound to a living body, it is bound to either a dead one (the process making that body undead), or some other physical object of great significance (or power). This might be a fallen knight becoming a death knight because of a damnation, a mage becoming a lich to continue its existence, a mortal becoming a ghoul, or a vampire.

Another type of undeath happens when a spirit, whose will to continue to exist, or even their trauma, makes it come back, again, into some physical form, usually an object important to them, their own (dead, soon-to-be undead) body, or even as a ghostly manifestation (e.g. a wraith, ghost, banshee, etc.).

Necromancy as Arcane Magic

A necromantic aura has a very specific set of colors:

• cyan: related to the spirit and ghostly forms
• red: related to physical bodies animation (and unlife)
  
• purple: a mix of the cyan and red and/or unrefined necromancy magic
  

This means a sword inhabited by a ghostly spirit might radiate cyan-colored light, while the contaminating blood of a vampire might register as a deep, saturated red.

Animating dead would most probably register as purple, as it is usually unrefined necromancy, unless the wizard is trying to raise a ghoul, or a vampire, which are actually "living undead" because their bodies have a physiology (e.g. they need to "eat" to be active).

Anyway, by interfering with a "natural process" without the benediction of a god, arcane necromancy is usually considered as against nature, and at the very least, frowned upon, if not outright forbidden under death penalty.

Conclusion

I hope this clarify the relations between spirits, souls and necromancy and undead.

 😊

Solo Adventures For the Win!

Last year, I have been working on five D&D5 Dragonlance solo adventures, one for each of my players.

This solo was important, as it had many aims:

• Take characters from the 4th level to 5th level
• Give character a solo experience so they could shine without being overshadowed by another player character
• Create an adventure dedicated for the target character, so they can build more background, and come back to the group with an interesting story to tell (or not)
• Give them an opportunity to meet with iconic Dragonlance characters, like Raistlin, Gilthanas, or Crysania.
• Give them an opportunity to make a decision or an action that would impact them, their group, or even Ansalon.

If this seems like the Infellows' five year separation to you, then you would be right: To be fair, I realized this much later in the process.

But the initial aim was to have the mage to pass his Test, and I didn't want his Test being solved by the group. So it had to be a solo.

But doing a solo for one player meant I had to do something similar to all players.

And there's no way I would design a full-fledged adventure for each one of my players to enjoy alone.

My Inspiration

The video game Pathfinder: Kingmaker actually gave me a solution to this.

One of the minigames was a Make Your Own Adventure-style series of choices and test rolls. They didn't even bother to make a full game quest for these "situations": Just a few lines of text, choices, rolls, and monochromatic illustrations over sepia-colored parchment, as in the following screenshot:

What if, instead of using the sandbox approach of describing a situation to my player, and then let them decide, them describe the consequences, I tried the approach of describing a situation and a handful of choices that we both know will have different but meaningful impact in the adventure?

In exchange for accepting a moderately limited set of choices, the player knows these choices will have an impact I, as their game master, carefully designed into the adventure.

This is a win-win.

(Of course, there's a caveat: I warned my player beforehand that if they found another choice, that was different from the ones I proposed, they could chose it, with the understanding I might need to pause the adventure to deduce the impacts for the whole adventure).

Let's do it!

So I went for it.

Google Drawings to the Rescue!

This kind of choice can be designed with any vector-based drawing app, but Google Drawings is more than good enough for that:

So, for each player, I designed a graph of events/choices/tests that would represent their solo adventure structure. This enabled me to see if their solo adventure was meaningful enough.

For example, here is the structure of the full solo adventure of one of my players:

(Sorry, it's in French...)

Please note that this isn't new. I'm quite sure every video game (or even paper module for a RPG) had similar tools/structures in place (most probably better designed, more complete, etc.).

I mean, the equivalent for BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy must be insane!, as you can see in the following video from Story Mode:

Anyway: this takes time, but it makes it easy to see how the adventure will go, and if the choices are meaningful.

Also, multi-rolls!

Do you remember the multi-rolls I wrote about in the last post?

Yeah, I used that, too, to make sure one single roll wouldn't ruin my player's experience during their solo.

An example...

For example, one part of this scenario (with the light red background) was how the character infiltrated Lemish to find the secret information (i.e. the macguffin of this scenario).

For reference, this scenario happens around 354 AC, which is two years after the end of the first trilogy.

The problem is: The character's contact was discovered as a spy, and executed (this solo is very grimdark, but I won't go into the details). The player character can investigate (rolls! rolls!), and then realize that the information has been moved to Sanction.

But by visiting Lemish, the player character saw how cruel the Dictator of Lemish was (think Ramsey Bolton, from Game of Thrones), so I let the player the opportunity to do something about it. Or not.

So, one of the possible decision was for the character to infiltrate the dictator's fortress (I won't go into details... again, grimdark, but the character being a mix of an unwilling spy/assassin, some hard choices had to be done), and surprise the dictator at the right time and place, when and where he was vulnerable (this was a small series of dice multi-rolls, not a full fledged infiltration/combat). The player went for it. And succeeded. Then, resumed the course of the adventure toward Sanction.

This seems like a non-choice, as the character would go to Sanction anyway. But this choice had later consequences that I made very public when sharing lore information with all the players:

The Dictator of Lemish had been assassinated by an unknown party, and now, Lemish was in disarray, which both removed a source of pain for the knights of Solamnia in their campaign against the remainders of the dragonarmies, but also, Kyre (the adopted "home" town of the players) was now free from Lemish's aggressive interference (this has been a recurrent problem in past adventures).

Long story short: A player choice during his solo had changed the course of the campaign.

What I learned from this?

Again, I'm sure this is the basics of the typical experience of a game designers, but I did make mistakes along the way. In fact, the first solo I did was so plain when compared to the last one, I called back the player so we could add a chapter.

Beware of railroading

One easy solution is to have a linear series of scenes, each one being given a choice between two outcomes that would lead to the same next scene.

This is railroading, and this is something that players may resent, as their choices are rendered meaningless that this structure.

Choices should have consequences!

Beware of too many possible outcomes!

While it seems cool at first glance, giving a choice with many possible outcomes is counter-productive.

If you try to make these choices meaningful, then you have a lot of work to do, because each choice needs to have different consequences, and may lead in the end into a combinatorial explosion, creating a tree graph of scenes... Most of them ending to never be seen by the player!

That's a lot of work for so little payoff in the end (there's a way to mitigate that, in some cases - see below).

Beware of the BioWare Ending Coloring Solution

To avoid that, one could then be tempted by making gradual changes between outcomes, but this can easily result into falling into the infamous Mass Effect 3 Colored Endings problem:

... which is an elaborate form of railroading.

For what is worth, as a player, I hated that Mass Effect 3 ending. But as a storyteller, it makes sense: In the end, the outcome of Mass Effect would always be related to victory or defeat against the reapers.

And by providing a graduated response (related to how much the galaxy is prepared to the war, which is dependend of your previous choices in the trilogy) and an orthogonal choice at the end on how to try to end the the reaper thread (destruction, control, synthesis), and by providing a video of segments that would show the same moments as they occur depending on the choices the player, you might think everyone would love it.

But no: The differences between the outcomes were either too small, or simply colored, which revealed the technique to the players, who then suspected lazyness or incompetence from BioWare, without realizing how complex the whole trilogy was in term of choices and consequences.

BioWare fixed that partially (the Catalyst remains a crappy idea, as does the Crucible, and the eternal conflict between artificial intelligence and organic life) by providing an expanded ending with vignettes describing what happened to each squad member, which was an excellent idea.

So, what's the solution?

There's no universal solution, but for me, what seemed to work was a mix of the techniques above, which boils down to the following pieces of advice, assuming your adventure is composed of segments:

• Each segment should have one important choice, with different outcomes
  
• Reduce complexity by having different segments leading to the same next segment, but make sure at some point there will be a major divergence
  
• Make each roll and each choice important, and record its outcome
• Invest your creative efforts in choices that have meaningful consequences after the ending of the solo
  
• The last choice can be as bananas as you want, in terms of outcomes, as you'll deal with only one of them in the next adventure
  

These pieces of advice are contradictory, but your job is to combine them.

Examples

The Dilemma of the Apprentice

In one case, the apprentice had the possibility to reveal he had discovered a centuries-old contract between dwarves and mages that would give a fortress back to the dwarves, should the owner mage's lineage was broken (and thus, having to mage inheritors). This led, at the conclusion of the solo, at either...:

• ... the Orders of High Sorcery blaming the apprentice for poor judgement/lack of loyalty and the dwarves being friendly with the character
• ... the Orders of High Sorcery being satisfied with the apprentice loyalty, and the character living with the knowledge he had willingly lied to his dwarf allies

The Dilemma of the Knight

Confronted with the zombie of his princess/love interest, the knight (a fighter) could either succumb to despair, and die, or defend himself, and kill the zombie, which freed the soul of the princess, at which point she actually decided to stay on Krynn as a ghost, out of duty for her people. The knight could then either...:

• ... convince the princess to let go, and rest in peace, which she would accept, and then he would mourn her final death
• ... help her stay (either out of despair, or to respect her wish), which would tie their destinies together
  

The first choice would lead to the character to go back to the kagonesti elves leaving nearby, and become a ranger (and possibly start a possible romance with heartbroken Silvara, hiding among the kagonesti).

The second choice would lead to the soul of the princess to anchor itself into the sword of the knight, the sword then becoming magical and intelligence, and the two joining to fight for her people and hunt the undead who had zombified her back to unlife. The knight would then become a paladin whose divine powers were tied to the ghost of the princess.

As you can see, the outcomes are very different, leading to a change in class of the character.

The Fame of the Faithful

In one case, the faithful, being one of the first clerics on Krynn since the Cataclysm, had their actions and choices impact the status of his own faith, as well as the perception by the population of the clerics of good.

This means that most minor choices and rolls actually added up into a "status" score among knights, among clerics of good, among some characters, and among the population, the final score defining the relation of the faithful character with them (which is how he almost ended up with Crysania despising the faithful for his failed attempt at social interaction being mistaken for a crude attempt at romance)

At the end of the solo, these statuses were acknowledged, and will affect the character from now on.

The All-over-the-board Ending of the Spy

In the end, the spy/assassin could, depending on past choices, a current choice, and a multi-roll, end up in very different outcomes: Interrogated by Kitiara after being discovered hiding Sanction, the spy could end up...:

• dying by suicide
  
• dying under torture
• being freed by the shadowpeople, and leave Sanction
  
• joining back the order of shadow assassins the spy had left and work for the baddies
• offering a deal to Kitiara, exchanging her life (and health) for information she had on one of Kitiara's lieutenant's betrayal, and leave Sanction
• dying under torture by lord Soth, and being brought back as a the fourth of his banshees, now condemned to serve forever the undead knight's unholy appetites.

Of course, some of these endings were definitive and would result into the player either changing character, or playing a traitor.

And some of them would have consequences later. For example, I'm sure the players would have been shocked to meet an overly bitter and aggressively hostile banshee who would be revealed, mid-scene, to having been once their ally.

One Last Advice: Tell the player some of the choices and all the possible outcomes

It might be interesting, after the solo, to discuss back the choices (and rolls) done by the player, revealing what could have been the outcomes.

This has two beneficial effects:

• It reveals to the player how much the solo was tailored for them, and how impactful their choices had been
• In specific cases, if you are okay with that, give the player the opportunity to rewrite history, i.e., retcon some roll or choice, and fast-replay the solo adventure
  

The second effect is more beneficial than you might imagine: This solo is for the player and their character. It's their moment to shine, and this character development is something all the players will share after, and that will have consequences after.

So, yeah, I let the player of the spy character know what could have been the different endings for the spy, and another player was able to retcon part of his solo adventure so we could continue forward with his character following a specific narrative arc that satisfied both of us.

What about the Apprentice?

As already described in a previous post, Philosophies of the Wizards of High Sorcery, one of the point of the test was to determine which of the three philosophies, Vigilance, Curiosity, or Ambition, the apprentice was more attuned to.

And much to his surprise, his decisions showed that he was more of the "curious" archetype, than anything else!

Fun fact, my player had chosen for his character the following art from Woong Seok Kim:

Royal Researcher, by Woong Seok Kim

... which is awesome, by the way. Of course, Krynn being Krynn, there's no way I would have allowed him to just go around with some kind of brown/black/white clothing (even if the black/white constrast was, in itself, interesting).

So I had a bit of fun playing with GIMP, and showed him the following...:

 ... then told him, if he wanted to, he could "rewrite history", make different philosophy choices, and thus, join another order. Of course, the mages, after announcing they advised him to join the Red Robes, let the final choice to the character.

The player appreciated the choice, but decided to stick with the story as already happened: After reflection, he realized that his character, with an "arcane archeologist" penchant, was indeed more curious than ambitious or vigilant.

He thus joined the Red Robes.

Conclusion

I'm quite sure I am not the first one to have this kind of experience, or find these solutions.

Here, all I wanted is to share them, just in case...

😋

Multi-rolls: More engaging Ability/Skill/Save Rolls

Last year, I have been working on five D&D5 Dragonlance solo adventures, one for each of my players.

I will add more information on the structure of these solos in a subsequent post, but the important part is that I needed to have some crucial choices to be done, and their successes measured. And instead of playing multiple rounds of combat, I wanted to test abilities and skills.

And I needed these rolls to be simple and enjoyable, for both me and the player.

The problem with the current ability/skill/save rolls

You roll a d20.

If the result is higher than some difficulty, then you succeeded. Else, you fail.

The End.

That is the most boring, frustrating thing ever. Because it's binary. If you get a high result, then you can imagine the action was a tremendous success. Or not. Because again, the roll is a simple, binary success/fail test, as shown by the graph below:

Of course, you can add some nuance to the process. For example: If you get a result 5 points higher than the difficulty, then this is a tremendous success. Or if you get a result 5 points lower... You get the point.

But again, it's one dice roll, and it's instantaneous.

My Solution

In this scene, Nolan, the mage apprentice player character, as well as Jenna and Dalamar, have been arrested in Solanthus because of a magic battle and a fireball thrown in the middle of a market. The three apprentices needed to convince the knights of Solamnia that they were the good guys, and that the other purple-robed wizards were the one sowing destruction around them. I asked my player to attempt a Persuasion (Charisma) Roll, with a DC of 10... but I asked him to roll two dices, and tell me how many successes he had, then looked at my scene description:

• 0 successes: The group failed to convince the knights, and remain under arrest
• 1 success: The group succeeded in convincing the knight they are innocents, and are freed
• 2 successes: Not only the group succeeded in proving their innocence, but they also convinced the knights the purple-robed renegades were a danger to the population: The knights gave the group an escort of 3 knights to help them in their quest.
  

Did you see what I did, here? 

By rolling multiple dices, I did many things indeed.

Failure/Success becomes a scale, instead of a coin toss

Instead of having a binary failure/success, I have multiple steps in-between.

Of course, I can have it by by looking at the difference between the result, and the DC, but it's math-y and I find it less intuitive.

With my method, I decide how many separate steps I want to define, and then ask the player to roll as much dices as this number of steps, minus one. In the example above, I had three steps (critical success, success, failure), so I told the player to roll 2 dices.

The bonus is that the more dices you use, the more steps you have, and also the more the average steps are likely to occur:

• With 2d20 and a DC 10, you essentially have 20% chances of a failure, 50% of success, and 30% of critical success.

• With 3d20 and a DC 10, you essentially have 9% of critical failure, 33% failure, 41% of success, and 17% of critical success.

• With 4d20 and a DC 10, you essentially have 4% of critical failure, 20% failure, 37% of barely success, 30% of success, and 9% of critical success.
  
• etc.
  

(Of course, changing the DC will tweak/bend/warp the probabilities toward success or failure.)

Bad Luck is less impacting

I introduced an overall bell-curve randomization. Which means that the "average" is much more likely than the extreme. This is important because the more dices rolled in one session, the more opportunities for all kind of successes and failures. This reduces the impact of streaks of bad rolls in the overall session. Less player/gamemaster frustration.

This is an objective effect that can't be denied.

But there's another effect, that is more psychological: By rolling multiple dices, the player does accept the result more easily: Indeed, if all the dices failed, then the player naturally accepts this is some kind of critical failure. In the other end of the spectrum, you have a critical success you, as a gamemaster, can easily jump unto to describe the extraordinary success by the character.

This is a subjective effect, but I've seen it in action (sometimes, the player rolls the dices one after the other, to enjoy the gradual unveiling of the result of the roll!), so...

This is actually the main reason I adopted this alternative dice roll.

You can even tweak the roll further

One thing I introduced in the solos was the usage of Inspiration: Each time a player rolled a natural 20, I gave them Inspiration, which essentially gave them the possibility of re-rolling one dice.

The fact Inspiration does not stack influenced the player to use that Inspiration as soon as possible (but not too soon).

And you can even use that natural 20 to give the player the satisfaction of a critical success, similar to Matt Mercer's "How do you want to do this?", which I mainly used to describe players critical successes in a way they didn't imagine possible, and yet, made their characters appear amazingly cool.

Of course, if there are natural 20 + awesome critical success description, you can also add a natural 1 critical failure. In this, I'm usually lenient, rarely giving something more than a malus to the next roll, unless I find a particularly satisfying narrative to describe this critical failure.

It's like combat, but for non-combat situation

Indeed, combat is a succession of d20 rolls. In a 4-rounds combat, you can expect a player to do 4 attack rolls, and usually, they will do an average number of successes.

And players love to roll dices!

So I actually imported a combat-style mechanics into ability/save/skill rolls.

It already exists in D&D5, anyway...

You probably already encountered a version of such rolls. One of my players met a medusa, and the medusa has the following petrification attack, which I summarized as:

The medusa can force a creature to make a DC 14 Constitution saving throw. If the saving throw fails by 5 or more, the creature is instantly petrified. Otherwise, a creature that fails the save begins to turn to stone and is restrained. The restrained creature must repeat the saving throw at the end of its next turn, becoming petrified on a failure or ending the effect on a success.

Yeah, it's two dices rolled for one effect.

(Note: Rolling one dice after the other, instead of two at the same time, might have different result if the second roll depends on the first roll result, as in the Medusa petrification, above)

... and this is how it went:

This roll was awesome because the character failed his first saving throw, and I described how his priest of mishakal, Verath, was now feeling restrained, the color of his skin being drained, to be replaced with a stony grey... and I asked him to roll again, and he rolled a... natural 20!

When he did that, I went overboard with the scene, describing how not only he refused to die as a statue as many did before him, he actually challenged the medusa to do better, staring her right in the eyes. The medusa was so furious she doubled down... and failed to petrify him (he succeeded the save, after all). Furthermore, as she was distracted by this mortal challenging her power (natural 20 effect), she let her guard down, and the guards used that time to position themselves, and fire arrows at her, wounding her, and forcing her to flee.

Verath, the priest of Mishakal, thus impressed both the knights of solamnia escort, and even Crysania (pre-Legends) who was, until then, quite unpressed by the young priest she believed was trying to flirt with her (natural ones in social rolls tend to give the wrong impression...).

The more you ask for dices to be rolled, the more natural 20s will appear, and the more you'll be able to give the player the satisfaction of a critical success, sometimes of epic proportions.

Of course, if natural 20s have a critical effect, natural 1s can, too. Don't ask me what (almost) happened when the same priest of Mishakal rolled a natural 1 in a Medicine roll to help a pregnant woman give birth to her baby...

;-)

Another example:

One character was infiltrating post-War-of-the-Lance Sanction. She knew her way around, having been a double agent for years. And she knew that, to go further, and get anywhere near the Temple of Luerkisis, she needed papers. So she spend some time in a inn, waiting for a suitable victim.

So I asked the player to roll Investigation (Intelligence), DC 12:

• 0 success: The character found no one, and actually stayed too much in one position, and got detected by guards looking for intruders...
• 1 success: The character found a suitable officer, and started stalking him waiting for the right occasion...
• 2 success: The character found a suitable officer, and started stalking her, waiting for the right occasion, but the officer was apparently on a mission of her own...

The player rolled 2 successes, followed the suspicious officer, and discovered she was a spy for the red dragon highlord. This information came handy, a few hours later, then the player character got caught and was able to bargain her life with Kitiara herself, by revealing the information.

Not everything needs to be over-the-top

Despite the two examples above, not all dices were either critical successes or critical failures. Most multi-dice rolls were in the expected "average" range. So a difficult roll was usually barely succeeded, if not simply failed, and an easy roll was usually successful.

And this is good, because you can expect your adventure to follow the most probable, average course, and then profit from the surprising results to branch out and give player an exceptional scene to play (be it a critical failure, or a critical success).

Conclusion

By rolling multiple dices instead of one, you can:

• reduce players frustration when unlucky
• have a multi-step outcome, instead of a binary failure/success one
  
• make dice rolls more awesome, and thus make the action outcome more awesome
• plug in additional options (like inspiration, and critical-roll related descriptions)
  

I did five solos, using these multi-dice rolls, and I've yet to hear of any negative comment about them.

Of course, not all tests need multi-dice rolls. But multi-dice rolls actually help make some important rolls really feel important, and you can use the separate steps to have very different consequences.

But keep in mind they need significant work for the game master, as you need to come up with different steps, potentially leading to vastly different outcomes.

P.S.:

I first learned of this multiple success rolls when playing Vampire: The Masquerade, and I loved it. Porting it to D&D5 was natural for me, and my players.

I don't know if the designers of the Storyteller System came up with this by themselves, or got inspired by another similar game mechanics from another system, but kudos to the ones who brought this to role-playing games. 

P.P.S.:

Yes, I did write an HTML/JS/CSS app to display me the curves, as shown in the screenshots above. The thing is not perfect, but it will help me design my next multi-rolls for my players.

😁