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After spending a short rest recuperating from the battle with the Queen’s mutated daughters, the group ventures further into the vault. They soon arrive at the treasury.

The room is mostly bare, with a few piles of treasure and equipment. As the group moves in to investigate, two statues flanking the room come to life and attack. While the party fends them off, a door on the opposite end of the room opens, and Mallah, the Grand Vizier’s bodyguard, steps out.

Ignoring all other enemies, Dryder leaps over tables and boxes, rushing to attack the abomination. His slash results in an eruption of ichor, which blinds him. The rest of the party, following his example, soon rush to assist, focusing on Mallah and swiftly killing her. The two golems are soon destroyed.

After collecting their

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A convention of D&D campaign worlds and much fantasy fiction is the great metropolitan capital, the focal trade-city and hub of the continent, which is often a nation unto itself. This only somewhat reflects reality: there are many great cities in the world but few tend to be city-states, which predate the medieval periods D&D bases itself on. Large cities tend to be a rarity in the medieval world, having size limitations.

And yet every D&D setting has some large city. Greyhawk takes its name from the central Free City of that setting. Dragonlance has Palanthas, the Forgotten Realms has Waterdeep (and others), Eberron has Sharn, and so on. Planescape has Sigil. The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories have Lankhmar and the Discworld novels

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Most editions of D&D have been very neutral in terms of world lore. Races might receive a small assumption of flavour but this is very easily altered, and most classes make no assumptions regarding the type of fantasy world the DM is running. All save one: the cleric. The cleric makes a pretty huge assumption that is going to drive this entire blog.

Before I say my say, there are a plenty of good resources already on the web for creating fantasy pantheons. In a 30-second Google search I found this site and this site, but there are many others (Edit: such as Lord Archon's here). Feel free to check them or do your own search.

This is the seventh part in a series on fantasy world building.

Chapters

Below are links to the other chapters in this series.

Introduction

Part

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One sputtering candle illuminated the small basement. The five of them, along with Nanda Shatri and a young girl, a slave, made the chamber somewhat cramped and a little claustrophobic. Nearby, the sound of running water could be heard beneath the sound of Nanda and the girl’s quiet conversation.

“She says that your friend saved her,” Nanda approached them. “He stood up against the Sorcerer King alone so that she and her companions could escape. He was captured by Tectuktitlay.”

Katrie immediately stood up, heading for the stairs that led up to the building above.

“Well, let’s go. He needs help.”

Nanda shook her head, “We must wait, at least until the storm dies down. I can get you through the city unseen, but going up there now, while the

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The crystal skull, mounted atop a self-built artifice of stolen corpses, was surprised as the party took about half a minute to disassemble it.  It sprayed poison, it caught Ungarth up in its coils, it shed bodies to make zombie allies - all for naught.  Once more, it found itself in Pik's hands, and all its temptations and threats were nothing to the druid.

The group took care of the jewel-encrusted contraption choking the Tree of Life by smashing it to pieces.  The central component was a staff topped with a large shard of crystal, which Pik used to smash the skull to pieces.

The Tree thanked the party as it managed to grow unrestricted, breaking apart the walls and ceiling of the tomb complex with the aid of the still slightly adrenaline-filled party.  It showered fruit...

The wind howled, pushing him forward. Ahead, he could hear the shouts and pounding feet of his group. But between the blowing sand, the chaos of the routed defenders, and the weight of his armor, Gundrek was falling behind.

Turning a corner, hoping that his companions had turned here as well, Gundrek was nearly trampled by a group of people running in the opposite direction. Rubbing the sand from his eyes, he noticed that the majority of them were either slaves or Unclean. Pushing his way forward, he pulled out his Kraghammer.

Ahead, he could see shapes approaching in the blowing sand. He could hear laughter and screams of terror as he approached.

There were three of them, enemy soldiers, laughing as they surrounded a young girl. One of the soldiers was pulling out a pair of shackles.

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After a brief skirmish with one of Draj’s expeditionary forces, the party decides to further assist with defending the city. Gundrek spends some time assisting with training the very green conscripts who will be helping to fight off the attack. Mela assists with morale and finding places to convert areas of the city to make-shift hospitals. Dryder does what he can to find out the political climate of the city, trying to determine of the bodyguard of the fake Abalach-Re was truly the power behind the throne. Kratas and Katrie travel to the outer planes, looking for the Githzerai they assisted months ago.

This was a series of skill challenges that the entire party rolled remarkably well for. The results of their success aren’t apparent to them just yet, but in the next few sessions,

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All stories are driven by conflict. Fiction is driven by narrative conflict and games are driven by the conflict between either the players at the table or – in the case of most RPGs – between the GM and the players, be it directly or indirectly.

This is the second chapter on a blog series on World Building.

Chapters

Below a links to the previous chapters in this series

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Part 6: Room for monsters

Part 7: Deities

Part 8: Cities

Part 9: Factions

Part 10: History

Part 11: Economics

Part 12: Culture

Part 13: Starting Zone

Part 14: Player's Guide

Conflicted

In D&D, much of

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The cairns didn't appear to be too interesting, moved into the room from the garden outside for some reason.  Karas wandered further into the chamber, noticing a large door in one wall, the only part that wasn't covered in creeping ivy.  He didn't have much time before an eyestalk emerged from the foliage and the plant wrapped him up in vines and dragged him out of sight.

The rest of the party didn't have time torush immediatelyto his rescue, and from the cairns three zombieladrin and a hulking corpse clawed their ways from the cairns to attack them.

Ungarth was snatched up by the hulk, which began draining his life-force as it leaped around the room.  The barbarian stabbed holes in it and Pik joined in, the vicious poking of his staff finally deflating the shell to reveal ...