Balazar: Provisions and Trade Supply

An important facet of the Lewis & Clark expedition was management of provisions. Related to that is the expedition's stock of trade goods. I'd like the upcoming wilderness campaign to pay a little attention to those concerns as well. (Hmm, I'm tired of saying "wilderness campaign". Let's just call it the Balazar campaign for now, until a better name is thought of)

I precisely mean a little attention. I don't want it to be a bookkeeping chore for myself or the players. Luckily, I found an old blog post at Tales of the Rambling Bumblers that outlines a simple system for tracking provisions.

Based on that post, here is my first draft of the provisions system that the Balazar campaign will use:

The expedition's Provisions Supply (primarily food) can be in one of four states: Very High, High, Low, or Out.

The expedition starts with Very High provision. Each adventuring day, a Provisions Roll is made to determine if the Provisions Supply is reduced to the next lower state on the scale. I'm thinking something like a 10% chance each day, but it might need some tweaking. Maybe traveling through fertile or barren terrain will affect this percentage.

It is assumed that the expedition is always casually foraging for food as they travel, maybe even bagging some small game along the trail. A failed Provisions Roll abstractly means that, for whatever reason or another, not enough food was foraged and some provisions needed to be consumed. Or, a failed roll could mean that some disaster struck the expedition: maybe some natives stole a barrel of salt pork, a sack of flour fell into the river, etc.

There are two ways to increase the Provisions Supply status: hunting and trading. (Well, I suppose you could steal too, but we'll leave that as a special case to be roleplayed).

Hunting generally requires the use of bows and spears, but maybe traps can be effective too. Hunting has a base success rate of 50% (to be tweaked). Factors that affect success are skill of hunter and abundance of quarry. A drawback of hunting is that it requires a full day without travel, with accompanying random encounter and weather rolls. On the other hand, it also means that the area is more thoroughly scouted and searched.

Trading is only possible when a trading partner is encountered. This is most commonly going to be at natives' villages and forts, but occasionally could be a random encounter along the trail. In order to trade, the expedition must have Trading Supply. This too is tracked on a four state scale, same as Provisions. The expedition starts with a Very High status in Trade Supply.

"Why, yes, these blue beads are very rare and very expensive."

Typically, the trinkets and manufactured goods that serve as trade goods are worth very much to poor natives, so it is easy to trade a few small things for a large amount of provisions. When the expedition trades, the Provisions Supply automatically goes up a level, but there is a 10% chance that the Trade Supplies status goes down a level.

It is difficult to raise the Trade Supply level, since the expedition is far away from the cities of the Lunar Empire. One of the few ways to raise Trade Supply while in the wilderness is to find treasure. Any other increase in Trade Supply is likely to require roleplaying a specific plan or encounter.

The Trade Supply is also used as gifts to natives for diplomatic purposes, with a 10% chance of Trade Supply level reduction per diplomatic maneuver. Like with Provisions, a reduction of Trade can indicate a simple reduction of supply, or it sometimes it can mean theft or disaster has occurred.

Do you have any suggestions for this system?

M10

Picked up a M10 Fat Pack yesterday. I like what I've seen so far. The card names and art are a vast improvement over most everything since at least Mirrodin block.

One thing I've noticed about the art is that it seems unusually and intentionally dark in color and mood. Almost as if each piece was given an additional dark filter layer. Sometimes it gets too dark, but overall I'm satisfied with the art. I'll always prefer the art from the Alpha-to-Mirage era, but at least the Tempest-to-whatever era of art appears to be over.

But there are still some stinkers. Worst art in the set: Canyon Minotaur.

"Where is my center of gravity?"

"My canyon brethren are ridiculous."

I like the basic land art in the set:

Philippines?

North Dakota?

I don't buy or play enough Magic these days to think about creating tournament quality decks. For a challenge, I'm gonna build "Core Set only" 60 card decks. Who wants to play for ante?

I built this B-U-r deck out of the the eight booster packs that I have so far. The 40 card pack of basic land that comes with the Fat Pack is handy, but I still didn't get enough land of each color for just a two color deck. So I splashed a couple red cards.

1x Duress
1x Weakness
1x Drudge Skeletons
2x Mind Rot
3x Kelinore Bats
1x Vampire Aristocrat
1x Gravedigger
2x Tendrils of Corruption
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Consume Spirit
2x Vampire Nocturnus
1x Xathrid Demon
11x Swamp

1x Lightning Bolt
1x Prodigal Pyromancer
3x Mountain

1x Ponder
1x Unsummon
1x Zephyr Sprite
1x Ice Cage
2x Essence Scatter
2x Negate
2x Merfolk Looter
1x Illusionary Servant
1x Wind Drake
1x Snapping Drake
2x Clone
1x Mind Control
2x Air Elemental
9x Island

Tarsh, Sartar, and Balazar

I've decided to go forward with the wilderness campaign and file the "Dark as a Dungeon" campaign away for some other decade.

A month or more ago I was thinking I'd be creating the wilderness expedition campaign from scratch. Then, I discovered the Griffin Mountain campaign book. The more I read it, the more I found it fit perfectly with my vision for this campaign. It will serve as "this side of the mountains"...the first half of the campaign. The second half of the campaign..."the other side of the mountains"...I plan to create from scratch, assuming the campaign gets that far.

Griffin Mountain is officially part of the Glorantha setting, for which almost four decades worth of books are available to study. It's quite overwhelming, so I'm ignoring almost all of it for this campaign and just focusing on the Griffin Mountain book. On the other hand, a wilderness expedition without any context is rather pointless, so I've found some material online that describes the PCs homeland and culture.

One of the neat things about the Glorantha setting is that many of the cultures are described in a series of documents called "Voices of Glorantha". They take the form of brief narratives of "What my father told me." and "What the priestess told me." A nice way to get an understanding of the PCs culture. Here is the Voice of the Tarshites.

Next is an informative summary of the Kingdom of Tarsh. This provides useful info on its towns and countryside, its internal politics and conflicts, and its external rivals and enemies.

With those introductary reads in mind, I now describe the context of the wilderness expedition:

The Kingdom of Tarsh is the southern border province of the Lunar Empire. Its situation and location means that Tarsh bears the brunt of angst against the empire: its own rebels, its barbarian neighbors, and beasts of chaos. It stands to reason that, of all Lunar citizens, Tarshites are the least softened by the corruption of prosperity that entrance into the empire has brought.


To the southeast of Tarsh is the Kingdom of Sartar, located in a region of monsters and barbarians called Dragon Pass. The empire has been attempting to conquer and hold this strategically important location for many generations. There is much adventure to be had here in the area of Dragon Pass, but it is not the focus of this campaign.


To the northeast of Tarsh is the primitive land of Balazar, which has long been too poor and barren for the empire to bother conquering it and bringing it into the fold. There is no reliable map of Balazar. Much of Balazar is unknown to the Lunars and unmapped. On the other hand, the natives have intimate knowledge of their realm.

Taking Balazar would provide a long-term strategic advantage against Sartar. Balazar and Sartar are separated by the nearly impassable Rockwood Mountains. The movement of an army over or through the mountains from Balazar to Sartar would be exceedingly difficult. Instead, the empire wants to determine if there is another way over the Rockwoods further to the east. Legend tells of one.

What lies over the mountains that far east is entirely unknown. There are rumors of a fertile land called The Hidden Greens. Surely such a land would hold many riches and be easy pickings. If nothing else, establishment of a connecting trade route would benefit the Lunar Empire. As mentioned above, the ultimate goal is to pressure Sartar from the east.

Enter...the PCs expedition.

Truck Mix Disc: Juan Dela Cruz Band

A couple months ago I mentioned that I was planning to buy some CDs and DVDs in the Philippines. I found most of what I was looking for. Six movies and five albums for cheap. I put together this mix disc of my favorite songs from the bunch.

I don't understand the lyrics, of course, but it's good rak en rol. I usually just ask my wife what the titles mean, but I see that Google Translate can now partially translate Tagalog to English (it didn't do any a month or so ago).

1. Himig Natin
"Our Music". During our last night at the beach resort in Bohol, a pair of guitarists played a nice acoustic set in the restaurant area. I was about to request this song when they started playing it anyways.

2. Panahon
"Time". In Camiguin we were waiting on the beach for a boat to take us to Mantigue island. There was a videoke bar there and I was building up the courage to sing this song for the locals when the boat arrived and we left.

3. Inday
This is a girl's nickname. If I understand correctly, it is also can be used as a generic, and maybe slightly derogatory, way to address a girl. Kinda like "Missy", or something like that.

4. Balong Malalim
Sometimes when my wife feels the baby inside her moving around, she'll sing the first line of this song: Gusto n'yang mag swimming! Which means something like "She wants to go swimming!"

5. No Touch
The hook in this song goes: Sige na! Sige na! It means something like "Ok! let's go!" I had a t-shirt custom made with that lyric there in the Philippines, along with about a dozen other t-shirts.

6. Beep Beep
Whereas in some places of the world beeping your car horn generally means "Watch out, asshole!", in the Philippines it generally means "Hello. Sorry about my haste. Please excuse me. Thank you!" So that cacophony of car horns, bike horns, truck horns, and jeepney horns at every intersection there is kinda like a big friendly get together.

7. Kahit Anong Mangyari
"No matter what happens"

8. Todo Mo Na
This song is just a groovin' jam and every once in awhile they sing out: Todo Mo Na! which kinda means "Don't stop!". So then they keep on jammin'.

9. Rock & Roll Sa Mundo
In Tagalag, like in Spanish, "mundo" means "world".

10. Nakatagong Mata
"Hidden Eyes"

11. Pagod Sa Pahinga
"Tired of Resting" I might be one of the few people ever to realize that this gentle instrumental is exactly the same song as John Hartford's "Presbyterian Guitar".

12. Palengke
"Market"

13. Naglalakbay
"Passing Through"

14. Laki Sa Layaw
"Grew up Pampered" This song popularized the word "jeproks", which nobody seems to know the precise meaning of.

15. Mr. Kenkoy
Hoy hoy hoy. "Mr. Funnyman"

16. Kayabangan
"Arrogance"

17. Tulungan Natin
"Let's Help"

18. Langit
"Heaven"

19. Legs
A member of Juan Dela Cruz later formed Hagabis, a disco band with a sound similar to...The Village People. This funky song largely consists of the band yelling "Legs! Legs! Legs!" followed by various phrases that mean something like "They are blinding me." and "They are melting me." Fun singalong.

Fifteen years...thirty decks: Rith & Crosis

The d30 tells me that the next deck to be listed is...#14. Decks #13 and #14 are closely related, so I'll do both. The Rith and Crosis decks.

The Invasion block expansions encouraged decks of three or more colors. It was fresh and fun. Since then, other expansions have also pushed massively-multicolor decks, but they seem to be just rehashing much of the same innovations that Invasion introduced, so the whole concept has gotten stale from my perspective. But Invasion was great and remains a favorite block of mine.

I believe these two decks were Standard legal at the time of Invasion block, but I never meant them to be competitive. Instead, I made the decks to play with my favorite cards from the block and also as an experiment in designing two decks to be competitively balanced against each other. My brother and I played these decks against each other quite alot five years ago during a trip to the Philippines. The Crosis deck seemed to be a little better at the time, so I eventually retooled the decks to help the Rith side a little.

Fun decks to play. This was also around the time that I decided Rod of Ruin is perhaps my favorite Magic card of all time, so both of these decks sport foils.

Greatest flavor text ever?

The Rith deck (white-green-red):

2x Rith's Charm
2x Thunderscape Battlemage
2x Flametongue Kavu
1x Aggressive Urge
4x Thornscape Familiar
4x Penumbra Bobcat
4x Sunscape Battlemage
4x Shackles
2x Eladamri's Call
4x Armadillo Cloak
4x Fleetfoot Panther
3x Ancient Spider
1x Rod of Ruin
1x Treva's Ruins
2x Geothermal Crevice
2x Rith Grove
2x City of Brass
9x Forest
7x Plains

The Crosis deck (black-blue-red):

2x Crosis's Charm
3x Quicksilver Dagger
4x Lava Zombie
4x Doomsday Specter
1x Spite & Malice
2x Thunderscape Battlemage
2x Flametongue Kavue
4x Nightscape Familiar
4x Ravenous Rats
3x Nightscape Battlemage
4x Stormscape Battlemage
3x Rushing River
1x Rod of Ruin
2x Geothermal Crevice
2x City of Brass
2x Dromar's Cavern
2x Sulfur Vent
6x Swamp
4x Island
5x Mountain

Dark as a Dungeon

I plan on starting a new D&D campaign later this summer and am tossing around various ideas. A couple weeks ago I posted about a wilderness exploration campaign. Here's another, somewhat different, idea.

"Dark as a Dungeon" is a city and dungeon campaign. The dungeon is, of course, the primary source of wealth and glory and most of the action would happen there. But...such newly-discovered riches and power are sure to attract much attention and competition from the nearby city. Therefore, not only would the PCs be in the city to rest and re-supply after a trip to the dungeon, but they can also become involved in intrigues between the competing factions that are also hoping to control the dungeon.

That is the plot of the Glory Hole Dwarven Mine adventure module. Yes, the same module that was used as "Stonefast" in the Zanzer campaign. The Zanzer campaign didn't use the plot surrounding the dwarven mine as written in the module, but instead just used the dwarven mine as a substitute for the original boring Stonefast. The players in the Zanzer campaign experienced less than 1% of the Glory Hole Dwarven Mine, so no big deal if some of those same players would play in this new campaign. Maybe they'd like to take revenge on that three-headed ogre.

(Clarification: This new Dark as a Dungeon campaign would not be connected to the Zanzer campaign in any way. No Zanzer. No Verbosh. No Horny Mandrills.)

This campaign would start PCs at least at level 3, probably higher. Whereas the low level PCs in the Zanzer campaign were to execute a "get in and get out" mission into the shallow levels of Stonefast to rescue Gorgo Kermit, the plot of the Glory Hole Dwarven Mine module encourages the PCs to delve deeper, to clear out, and to maintain control of sections of the mine. Therefore, I think the PCs need to be a little beefier so the campaign can get off to a fast start. I've never had PCs start beyond 1st level, so I'm curious to see how it goes. (For what it's worth, I think the wilderness campaign would also start with experienced PCs.)

Dwarves are prominently featured in this campaign. I've also come across various house rules online that I think would emphasize the visceral and gritty "coal dust in your eyes" theme that I envision:

The Shields Shall be Splintered Rule: Any time you take damage, you can opt instead to say your shield absorbed the force of the blow. The shield is shattered and must be discarded, but you don't take any damage from that hit. Magical attacks can only be absorbed by magical shields.

The Fighter's Chop Rule: When a Fighter kills an enemy, he immediately gets a free attack on another enemy in his immediate vicinity.

The Flagon of Wine Rule: Quaffing a quantity (depending on type) of spirits will regenerate d6 hit points. Repeat as needed. Intoxication rules apply.

Lastly, the name and thematic inspiration for this campaign comes from a song written by Merle Travis and made popular by Johnny Cash called "Dark as a Dungeon". Think of it as a dwarven song...

Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.

It's a-many a man I have seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.

The midnight, the morning, or the middle of day,
Is the same to the miner who labors away.
Where the demons of death often come by surprise,
One fall of the slate and you're buried alive.

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.

I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-diggin' my bones.

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.