Fallen out of Legend

Or- ‘The Getting Along Campaign’ which garnered much interest on my TikTok about how to teach players with out ‘teaching’ them to be good tabletop participants.

This is D&D 3.5 based game. It is mechanic heavy, and relies on the game master to regulate, keep track of and alter the minor and major plot points exactly to character actions. The goal of this three shot (or ambitious one shot) story is to illustrate the importance of player action versus character justification. That good stories do not have to be about good people, but people working together.

This is an example of the kinds of worlds I build for the stories I tell.

The Set Up

The Setting and Culture is built around certain values- the values that are at the center of what is the main conflict between the people at your table or the conflict that you wish to explore. The model values I designed were for a philosophically sound argument- meaning that these were true as the world made them.

1-  Nothing shall harm or injure the life of a thing in any way

2-  The culture and the establishment of these- place and people will seek to co-exist with everything. 

3- Minds and behavior exist in harmony

4- The hierarchy is that there is unity, mutual respect and tolerance.

The changes might be unsettling, uncanny or horrific, and the description and aspects will need to adhere to a bridged uncanny valley. Essentially, everything that people fear as a lack of ‘freedom’, the attachment to struggle, will produce the conflict which will be reinforced with what Arboria’s problem really is: They no longer have the access to the strongest of these elements of Harmony because they’ve been ‘happy’ for too long and no longer have the challenges that would produce any real meaning to these aspects needed to confront the overspill of their opposite.

The player’s presence should change these aspects over time with their actions, words, thoughts. It’s easier to start from a more drastic place. As soon as their comments introduce ideas they will live. 

Several ideas revolve around not a single thing has been taken from a living thing to be used for means of another's survival. The people have found other ways of living. 


The Story Outline

Milestones

  1. Hook, Line and Sinker

In which the rules of a new land are made clear, and the premise is accepted and interrogated.

  1. Invitation

  2. Arrival

  3. Vignettes

    1. Exploration

    2. Exposition

    3. Rest & Dream Sequence

  4. Festivities of the Sun Raising Festival

  1. Into the Forest

Decisions are to be made after things are investigated. The players are confronted with the possibility of failure. Unless they work together and discover the true nature of the Weave Magic they face.  The players must enter the forest in search of the abilities that would allow them to fight against the awakened Celestial Moon.

  1. Declaration of intent

    1. Last chance for Exploration and Exposition

    2. Preparation

  2. Path into the Darkened forest

    1. The Monster (and Mercy

    2. The Crumbling Bridge (and loyalty

    3. The River Serpent (and compromise and generosity

    4. Inalienable Fear (and courage

    5. The Mountain Slide (and honesty

    6. A still pool (and faith

  3. Abandoned Ruins

    1. Puzzles 

    2. Interparty conflict or resolution

2. Out of the Woods

Abandoned Ruins, where Shadow Weave magic raises the dead for the players to battle. DM chooses to accept any missing pieces of the puzzle shown in battle. 

1. Change Outcome

  1. Acknowledge, Unite and Banish Shadow Magic

  2. Free Heavenly Skies and Celestial Moon

  3. Sun is Raised, Reward Party

  4. Return or Stay

2. Status Quo Outcome

  1. Unite, and Banish Celestial Moon

  2. Free Heavenly Skies

  3. Sun is Raised, Reward Party

  4. Return to material plane

3. Evil Outcome

  1. Encourage Celestial Moon

  2. Lock or kill Heavenly Skies

  3. Moon is Raised, no reward party

  4. Cannot Escape Plane

4. That’s...certainly a thing you can do Outcome 

  1. Rip holes in the fabric of the Universe and tear the plane into the Material one forever plunging a heavenly utopia into the Prime Material plane

  2. Rule the world as petty over lords

  3. Restore mortality and de-essence the Princesses

  4. Restoration and government planning

  5. Accepting absolutely no responsibility- explore a bit, eat, and leave- go back to being terrible.

Make It

The World

 

  • Rolling mountainous foot hills, gentle slope valley into plains. Beyond the thick forest are planar zones where the pocket plane comes into most contact with the nearby orbiting planes. So there are landscapes that are harsh, deadly and dangerous. Sometimes there are great monsters that make it to the valley, but it’s rare. Adventurous types are not particularly common, but they’ve decided Home is the place to be. They may help re-direct, protect or solve the problem of a monster and might not be totally ignorant of how to hurt.

    Light, Walking Speed, Encounters:

    Temperate Mountain

    Temperate Plains

    Coniferous Forest

    Boreal Forest

    Flowers are not abundant in Winter. In the forested areas it is warm and wet, mildly tropical during the summer months but the sun is never directly overhead.

  • Weather is not based on the weather of the campaign your characters were in. It is based on the Lands festival. Choose the Winter Solstice or the Summer Solstice.

    The weather is mild. The Castle area never gets below freezing, and never reaches above 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The weather also is on a planned schedule, so if there’s a light shower of rain or snow they are informed prior.

  • All basic needs are met, each person can do a job as they please. This means that conflict is primarily around what will happen the next day, who gets the honor of planning what, and what kinds of things will occupy leisure time or the next big project for planning.

    Committees decide things, based on who attends, then they wait for the next round of another group. Again, no sense of immediacy. If there is something truly wrong, they call in an expert who is deferred to. The Princess is a figurehead who deals with things that are scary, potentially harmful, or on a grand scale like the Sun Raising Ceremony.

    Otherwise, the ‘palace’ which they refer to as the center of light, is a park, a place to explore things that are not simply present, and each person is welcome there.

    People who are of a different ability, or behavioral tendency are tended to and given everything that they wish or ask for.

    There are no ‘laws’, there’s only precedents for rehabilitation. The enforcer of the rehabilitation is the community. However, if there is a threat, as sometimes there are ‘monsters’ that come up out of the elemental plane touched areas- it is Heavenly Skies ultimate duty, though she does have a cadre. Normally, these challenges are enough to instil some aspects of harmony. Arcanists and Artificers distill and keep them for the ceremony- thereby lessening the emotional impact of the person who experienced this. It is usually a choice except in the circumstances where the other person poses a danger to others or themselves.

  • Careful arrangement of surprising pairs that aren’t found in the wild, textures, trying to encapsulate moments of joy, artful ways of decorating the body. Beauty exists but it does not gain you any benefits in their social order.

    Recently though, there has been an uptick in art that speaks of danger and death in a way that isn’t fully understood. Like a theatre show might put on ‘war’ but after injury, they’ll get back up again and be friends. Or a ‘plah- gooway’ (plague) might happen and people are cured at the end of the day but people are sad for a bit.

    Things to eat for the mouth feel might resemble real life plants or animals and it’s a heated discussion because some people are horrified that you might eat an egg or a bird even metaphorically.

    Songs and poetry might be something on strong feelings when things aren’t always perfect, or to reach an encapsulation of perfection. They may use scent boxes, video or illusion- but not shadow boxes.

  • Houses are more or less seen as items of shelter if necessary, or literally extensions of art. They don’t really need shelters. Their environment doesn’t lend itself to scarcity or protections from harshness. The buildings are designed to co-exist with the land, designed for community groups, not family units, based on collective activities or solitary practices. There are places in which people can go to be alone, but they’re usually not remote. Because they don’t need to eat, they don’t need to forage, so they don’t need to move- but that doesn’t mean they aren’t built to be disassembled, changed or shaped in new ways.

  • Speak with Animal and Speak with Plant is a constant magic effect here. It takes some time for the players to obtain this 2-3 hours or when they pick a flower or eat a plant. The wizard, depending on how many people in your party either Alouicious or Kore Puscular, added the language Comprehend Language as they anticipated language may have changed. Some words may not have a direct translation because of the missing ideas- most curse words, or concepts that are around anger and harm.

 
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