Isle of Merci - Trignolles Part 1: The Dormitories, the Inn and the Student House

This is the first of a 3-part series that summarily describes the village of Trignolles, mostly through the NPCs that inhabit it. I didn't plan anything fancy for the buildings themselves, so feel free to elaborate where you feel is necessary.

1 – Old Tara's Dormitories

One of the first places the party is likely to visit. A long building with a ground floor built in stone, and the dorm above made of wood.

TARA PRADEL is an old renter who rents beds in a dorm for travellers. It's expensive and uncomfortable, but it's all there is. She never leaves her rocking chair and bosses her helping boy around. She has a kind heart but categorically refuses to show it.
Quest : Her only son Noris works for Olain Ordegal of the merchant guild. He left on an expedition to the alchemist's house three days but hasn't returned, and she is worried sick. He'll be easy to recognize if they meet him : he's young and strong and beautiful and has the most amazing moustache.

Secrets : Tara has not one, but two sons, though no-one else knows this in the village. Her eldest, Lug, who never leaves the backroom on the ground floor, is a half-ogre whose father is the terrible Mignon himself (see the Bad Guys section below). She'll do anything to hide Lug in order to protect him. Also, she has to feed him a baby each year, which she arranges to steal from either Trignolles or the goblin village up in the mountains. Although she hates the situation she's in, she doesn't actually regret her fling with Mignon. She may never be seen to leave her rocking chair, but she can walk perfectly well.

NORIS PRADEL, Tara's son, has gone missing three days ago. He's a handsome young man with a moustache of legendary panache who works for the merchant guild, the Amalgam.

Secrets : He's dead. He was killed by giant beetles on his way to the alchemist's house in the jungle.

NIMI FLIMM is the nine years old son of the the blacksmith. He helps out at Tara's dormitories for modest pay. He does practically everything by himself and almost never talks, except to ackowledge requests or give curt answers to questions.

2 – The Blue Lobster Inn

A quiet tavern, neither regal nor squallid, but well-maintained. Beverages are average, food is mostly roasted slugs from the goblin highlands and cabbage, and there are no rooms to rent.

TAM GAMELON is the innkeeper. A rather bookish little man with spectacles, dutiful and polite, who insists on being called Mr Gamelon. He hates this place and longs to resettle in the city, « where people have education». He enjoys the presence and conversation of the visiting students, and makes everything he can to make them feel welcome. He'll act the same way towards adventuring scholars or wizards.

Quest : Mr Gamelon is the only one who has noticed that each year, one baby disappears on the island, on the same date. Others don't make the connexion, because they don't consider goblin or kobold babies to be on an equal footing with humans, but Tam is rather open minded on this subject. He's a snob, but not a racist, and is actually on very good terms with the other humanoid communities. He's rather shy and will only mention this observation to adventurers he has learnt to know and respect. He's not sure something is amiss, but just in case, would the party maybe patrol the town on that night, to make sure ? Nolli Adelan, Captain Adelan's widow, just had a baby girl... (this quest leads to the Ogre Mignon, and to a circle of refined cannibals. For extra effect, mention Nolli's baby, but also allude to the kobolds in Lower-Trignolles as having many children every time the party walks by. On the fateful night, it's a kobold baby that gets stolen. Do the PCs care?)Secrets : He is besotted with Cassi Elenn, a fiesty student of archeology and architecture who often uses the tavern as a place of study.

SOLIA NINN is the only waitress in the Blue Lobster. She wears the traditional grey leather mask of a faithful of Ialoun (the patron of servants) that hides her face completely. She is comely, demure, and overly eager to help all the time. She's like a whirlwind of efficiency around the clients, helping them to their seats, wiping tables, refilling drinks, dusting off coats, polishing boots, even giving shoulder massages, almost without being noticed. If addressed, she always responds, calmly, demurely, and to the point. She is absolutely honest, is very loyal and always refuses payment, as she claims service is its own reward. Ideally, PCs should feel just a little uncomfortable around her. Too nice. Too helpful.

Secrets : Solia originally came from Ulbinia, where she was a wanted thief. She still has the skills, but has genuinely turned to Ialoun and now considers service to others (not servitude, mind) the most virtuous of activities. Nobody in town knows this, but if her special talents came to be needed for a good cause, she could volunteer her help.

Information : Solia can tell you all about Ialoun (there'll be a post on him specifically), and that he has a small following in Trignolles. In fact, Ser Galavon, the local lord himself, fervently follows the precepts of Ialoun. She knows everything that is publically known about the villagers, but since she never pries, she doesn't know anyone's secrets.

3 – The University House

This is the house researchers and students from the university of Ulbinia use as headquarters when in Trignolles. Only two students stay there now, since an expedition of four scholars recently disappeared in the jungle. A third student, Martan Grinn, is regularly seen about town, but must have his own sleeping arrangements, since he never stays here.

CASSI ELENN is a serious young woman who studies archeology and architecture. She has quite a temper and some villagers are a bit afraid of her, since she'll shout at or insult anyone who doesn't answer her questions quickly or accurately enough for her tastes. She works extremely hard and is very talented, but resents Martan's easy genius and is annoyed with Agnan's laziness, and the unfairly patriarcal structure of academia in general, so she avoids their company when she can. She can usually be found at the Blue Lobster Inn, being sarcastic and dismissive.

Quests : She'll pay anyone who brings her precise information on the location of ruins on the island. Then she'll pay more to be escorted there in person. She never willingly offers to share the information she gains this way.

Secrets : Cassi knows full well that Tam Gamelon is in love with her, and is quite happy to take advantage of his attentions. She is actually grateful for his sincere admiration of her work, but considers that her work comes first, always. Cassi has the potential to become quite the villain, should she be lead to the forgotten lore in the depths of the island. She'll stop at nothing to gain knowledge. Nothing at all. And knowledge means power. And power means more power. Hmm .

AGNAN VISCAT is an average young man in every way. Unremarkable physically, neither stupid nor brilliant, pleasant but not very interesting. He studies archeology and biology and came here to hunt for artifacts and new fauna and flora. He is in fact quite passionate about these subjects, but lacks the energy and courage to go after them himself.

Quests : Agnan would be immensely grateful if he was brought artifacts to study. He can answer most questions about flora and fauna if they figure in a book somewhere, and will always offer to pay in information, as he is quite poor. He isn't as good in languages as Cassi, but will grudgingly direct them to her if he is truly stumped by a translation, although he'd rather keep any finds for himself, since he knows he's not likely to get his hands on many more.

Secrets : Agnan made a deal with a group of smugglers who used to steal artifacts during the archeological digs to sell them in Ulbinia. He managed to contact this group and buy one artifact off them – just a trinket really, since money was always an issue : an acorn carved out of stone, perfectly realistic and etched with runes. He has become fascinated by it and desires to acquire more, but communication with the smugglers stopped abruptly. Desperate, he decided to come to the island in person, but is now at a loss about what to do. He hasn't managed to contact the smugglers, if they're even here anymore, and doesn't dare to venture into the jungle himself. Unbeknownst to him, the real secret of the stone acorn is hidden inside of it. Break it open and it will reveal a single seed. Plant this seed and water it, and an entire forest will grow out of it in a litteral explosion of greenery. It could destroy the village or condemn an entire dungeon.

MARTAN GRINN is a student of medecine who specializes in exotic diseases. He tries very hard to talk to no-one and hasn't set up a practice in the village. He presents a well constructed facade of sarcasm and arrogance, but any who pays close attention (and not many do) may detect a soupçon of something darker underneath : fear. It's unlikely you'll meet him if you're not looking for him (unless you've entered the mine, in which case an awkward encounter is almost inevitable).

Secrets : Martan is not just a student of medicine : he has been called the most promising medical genius of his time. Unfortunately for him, his inevitable rise to fame in the ranks of the university got cut short when it was discovered that he had pushed past the boundaries of conventional anatomy into the unsavoury esoterism of necromancy. Although he bravely argued that the study of death is essentially the study of a specific and crucial part of life, he was exiled on the spot and has kept a low profile ever since. He is in fact now in the direct service of Ser Galavon, who needs workers that are not affected by poisonous gas to work in the mine. So Martan provides him with undead workers, and in exchange he gets decent pay and discreet lodgings in the mine itself (accessible through an old ventilation shaft hidden in the woods near the village). He also gets to practice vivisection, surgery and other medical experiments there, mostly on animals. Treat him as a doctor first, scientist second, and master of the arcane last. Necromancy is a means, not an end. He's the only person in town who may be able to treat lingering injuries or serious illnesses. He is not purely evil or scrupleless, and only animates the corpses of people who agreed to it while they were alive. Fervents of Ialoun have proved a fertile recruiting ground (keep helping out even after death ! Hurray !), and some others have been persuaded to sell their skeleton in advance. PCs can sell theirs to Martan for a hefty 100GP (that he never carries with him, Ser Galavon secretly provides him with the funds). Martan will not hesitate to reveal that he works for Galavon if he feels his life is in danger, in an attempt to put himself above reproach.

The Isle of Merci - Introduction

I am currently running a homebrew campaign that I enjoy a lot. I plan on posting some bits and pieces of it here - setpiece encounters, elements of structure, some background tidbits that I like, stuff like that. This first post is simply an outline of what I've been aiming for so far.

Note of intention

This is what I've been telling each party of players before we started:

- We're playing DnD 5e.
- Human characters only. I actually plan on opening up character creation to other races later on, but I want them to discover how those races might be subtly different than what they imagine before allowing them to interpret them in this setting.
- The game takes place on an island. If your character leaves the island, that's fine, but he or she will be out of the game until he or she returns. You may of course play another character in the meanwhile.
- I asked everyone to roll up two characters from the start, to emphasize that it's actually fine to lose a character. (I never plan on killing characters, but I do believe in keeping things dangerous. Two have died so far.) Having two characters ready also allow me to have the same players interpret a second group of adventurers elsewhere on the island, which can do wonders for storytelling purposes, as the web of intrigue is pretty tightly woven and seeing multiple small bits of the big picture out of sequence helps create a feeling of interconnectedness.
- This is meant to be fun and lighthearted, high adventure, action-packed, with plenty of space left for social interactions and roleplaying. I have a penchant for the ridiculous and the absurd, as long as it fits inside a coherent frame. 

General setting

In the far north their is a city called Ulbinia. Travel a few days past it and you'll make it to the coast, which in these parts are mostly high cliffs covered in ice. If you know where to go, you'll find the largest bridge in the world. It is three hundred meters high and over two kilometers long, built across the dark waters of the northern seas, where icebergs roam and strange things lurk in the deep. No-one knows who built it - scholars mention an ancient civilization of giants who came from the south, but scholars will tell you anything. The bridge leads to an island called the Isle of Merci. For reasons unknown, the weather here is tropical and jungle covers most of it. There was a big rush of enthusiasm about the island when it was first discovered about 50 years ago - a merchant guild and the university of Ulbinia both sent teams and funds to plunder the place for all it was worth, and for a while things were good. Adventurers rushed in to get their share of glory and gold. It captured the imagination. Imagine! Bananas, growing in the north! These days, though, no-one really goes there anymore. Too dangerous, they say. People have died. Accidents happened. Sure, there was plenty of riches to be had, plenty of knowledge to unearth, plenty of things to kill, but the risks outweighed the rewards. And now, only the desperate go there, hoping to get the looting machine running again, and get the lion's share of the profits.

At the end of the bridge is a vilage called Trignolles. It serves as a gateway to the mine and the jungle - the two sources of revenue for the locals.

And that's it.

It's a simple setting that smacks of pulp and adventure, is cliché enough that it will immediately bring vivid images to the mind of the players, and is located in a remote area that is both specific and nicely generic, so that neither the players or me have to learn about tons of background. 

Now to make something fun out of it.
 

Structure

I started by spending some time gathering inspiration and ressources. It's crazy how much great material you can find online nowadays. I'll probably soon post a quick list of websites I have plundered for inspiration, random tables, general advice and GMing tools.

Then I settled on a scale for the campaign. It's not going to be epic. I suck at epic. It will all take place in one small area (a few square miles - call it a hex, if you will), will not feature large armies, battling gods, demon invasions and ancient dragons. It will get big, and very messy I'm sure, but on a local scale - and should the forces of evil one day threaten to pass the bridge into the rest of the world, it will be up to the PCs to stop them before they get there. Not many will know of their deeds, but those in the know will do more than admire them as heroes - they will love them as family.

The next choice was style and structure. I went for sandbox, because I find it easier to set up and more rewarding if done right. I do want to avoid the risk of having a directionless party spending an evening going nowhere, so I made sure that I had plenty of material for them to stumble on. The island is small, but packed with possibilities. I also make sure they always have something obvious to do, but that they know they don't have to do it. It's going to be pulp adventure, with colorful descriptions and fast moving action. Combat will be theatrical and over-the-top, proper swashbuckling stuff, chaotic and vivid. I hope to get them involved in the life of the village at some point, but that has yet to happen.

I focused on creating a series of situations with storytelling potential rather than a structured plot. This gives me plenty of advantages: first, I don't have to memorize much, which is great, cause I'm a bit shit at memorizing things. Also, it makes it easy to let players take agency. They are objectively much better at creating plot twists than I ever could be, and it's more satisfying for them, and entertaining for me. So far, I have been very, very surprised, in great ways.

On the other hand, I do enjoy coherence and depth in my campaigns, wether I play them or run them. So I did create a few underlying plots that I can hint at as they call the shots. And I do have an idea of where this is all going to lead to eventually. After all, if they can't leave the island, they will have to deal with what lurks inside it at one point or another... 

I make a point of keeping track of small things the PCs do, in order to make them pop up later on. It does wonders for a sense of continuity. 

I like to pay close atention to which NPCs they spend most time with, and try to make them at least a little intriguing. If a NPC survives the session, I might write up an actual character sheet for it. That way, if a PC dies, I can quickly suggest that they start playing a character they already know and appreciate, is already connected to the story, and we can keep playing in a coherent fashion without missing a beat.

I'll leave it at that for now. More soon.

Big Al

I discovered the Adventurers' League soon after I moved to Montreal and instantly developped an intense fascination for it. After playing in it for a few months, I can say that the fascination has gradually morphed into a quietly bubbling cauldron of boredom and respect. Obviously, any entity that commands such conflicted feelings about itself deserves examination, if only to be used as inspiration for creating a memorable random encounter later on.

Which is exactly what we'll do.

So without further ado, let's take an incomplete, biased look at what makes AL great, why it sucks, and devise a functional stat block for it.

What is excellent about AL ?

It is easy to find. A quick Dungeons and Dragons google search will lead you to it eventually. When I moved to Montreal and wondered how I was gonna track down that elusive beast, the Regular Gaming Group, it took me all of half an hour of probing the interwebs to discover the league and subscribing to my first game.

It is reassuring. I've met many new players in AL that had never played any kind of roleplaying game before, and didn't know anyone to introduce them to the hobby. Yet here they were ! I think for this only, AL deserves some heartfelt praise. Rpgs have always been kind of niche, and although in the last few years visibility and public image has grown considerably better through media coverage, popular web series and web comics, and a general shift in the perceived sexiness of geek culture, finding a (good) place to actually start can still be a harrowing task. AL has a streamlined process to getting ready for and starting a game that takes away some of the more esoteric aspects of getting started and helped the community grow.It is available. More so than most players with professional lives and families. There are games most nights, in most North American cities at least, and since you can take your character from one table to the next, you don't have to commit to one group or one night of the week. You can stop playing for a month or six and pick your character sheet up again and start playing as if nothing had happened.

It is balanced. Bit of a love/hate relationship with this one, but then that's the whole point of this little article, so whatever. I personally tend to think that balance and fairness in rpgs get in the way of creativity and immersion, but have learnt to recognise and respect the satisfaction that comes with a character sheet that makes your character meaningful within the system. It's reassuring in a good way, letting players enjoy the game knowing that they can't fail due to their own creative or interpretative qualities. No one plays to get judged, after all.

I haven't encountered yet a race/class/feat combination in 5e that was so powerful it overshadowed all the others, the modules generally offer encounters of appropriate challenge and offer some reasonable options to adjust to the party level, and the rewards are distributed equally to all present adventurers. Essentially this means that you can't make a truly mechanically terrible choice while creating your character, that shy players get an equal chance to shine and get rewards, and that you can more or less trust the dice to give a clean failure-to-success ratio.

What's so horrible about AL then ?

It uses the word « legal » a lot. It really does.

It is rigid. AL doesn't play well for characters who want to drive the action themselves. Modules are generally more about reacting to situations than creating them. Which makes the game « safe » in the sense that you can't get lost, but can be boring, cause you can't go wherever you want to. You can't keep anything you find unless specifically specified in the Treasure sidebar. You can't take the powerful artifact for yourself cause then your character would become hunted by all the factions and become « unplayable » (but who doesn't want to play the idiot who stole the powerful artifact and is hunted by all the factions?). There are some unexplainable limitations in character creation (kobold characters can only be faction members of the Emerlad Enclave ? Seriously ?). PHB +1 is good for balance, but can seem contrived when it prevents someone from building a flavorful build that doesn't break the game.

More insidiously, one of the strengths of AL as stated previously, its flexibility when it comes to switching groups, creates a pressure on the gameplay that can limit your options both as a player and a DM. If you don't finish a module in one sitting, you're back to organising a group of people to meet again or never finishing the scenario (since you can't play a module twice with the same character). So time becomes an issue. And the modules usually have enough material in them to start with to make them last way longer than the 2 or 4 hours they advertise, so that means less time for exploring and roleplaying, and more rushing it.

Now, I have nothing against clear goals and a predetermined set of obstacles to victory. Railroading is a tool to build fun just like any other. And there are ways around the extensive railroading that occurs in most AL modules that should have its own article sometime. But over time, one might feel like a little more freedom could be welcome. I know I do.

It is self-centered. That is essentially what AL is, after all : a massive effort to get more people to play DnD 5e, buying as much WotC stuff on the way as possible. It gives intangible rewards to DMs to motivate them to get people to play their game rather than any other. It's a rather brilliant marketing scheme. Blaming it for that is just silly. But it does dissociate its purpose from one I hold dear, which is getting people to play not only more, but in more ways. AL is good at getting people to play a roleplaying game. It's not in its nature to open up doors to other roleplaying experiences. That's something that AL players should, I think, bring to the table themselves, especialy regarding new players, who might not know that there is more to RPGs than d20s and beholders.

It is incoherent. It is perfectly legal to play in Chult on Monday, in Phlan on Tuesday, back to Chult on Wednesday, and in the frozen wastes of the North on Thursday. Gods know where you might be next weekend. Equipment you pick during an adventure will simply vanish at the end of the session if not specifically written in the Treasure sidebar. Befriend an NPC at one table, she might not remember you if you meet her again at another DM's table.

It is not concerned with the fluff. Consider the DM rewards : they apply to DMs who DM a lot or post on social media. You get no mechanical incentive to strive for immersion and atmosphere. A lot of tables I've played, DMs didn't ask for anyone's descriptions or backstory, just class, level, passive perception.

That should do it. We have an incomplete, biased look at AL, now lets delve into the crunch.

Big Al

Huge Construct, LN

AC : 14 (12 for a Very Weak Party, 13 for a Weak Party, 15 for a Strong Party, 16 for a Very Strong Party)

Hit Points : 80 (60 for a Very Weak Party, 70 for a Weak Party, 100 for a Strong Party, 120 for a Very Strong Party)

Speed : 30ft

Str 14 Dex 6 Con 18 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 20

Saving throws:

Damage Immunities : Poison, Psychic.

Condition Immunities : Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralysed, Petrified, Poison.
Senses : Big Al can only « see » in their entirety things that are in direct contact with itself, and is otherwise blind. It can hear normally, but everything sounds like far away whispers to him, even if shouted right in his ear.
Languages : Common, Undercommon. Big Al likes consensus, not specifics. His favorite topics are what is legal and what isn't, and he tends to punctuate conversations by statements of « Epic, man, epic... ».

 Actions:

Attack (Melee): +5 to hit (+4 for Very Weak or Weak parties, +6 for Strong, +7 for Very Strong), 1d6+2 (add another d6 per Tier above the first, so 2d6+2 at Tier 2, etc.)

Special:

Big Al is easy to find : You can always find someone who knows where to find Big Al if you start looking, no matter where you are in the multiverse. It'll turn out to be quite nearby, too. This has numerous implications – if your party of adventurers can't make use of something that can always be found nearby, by anyone, anywhere, anytime, there is no hope for them.

Big Al is reassuring: All creatures in a 60ft radius around Big Al have advantage on saving throws against fear effects. The only people not affected seem to be soldiers toward the end of their carreer and other veteran adventurers, who think that Big Al is just a liiiittle too nice to be true and didn't live this long by not being afraid all the time, anyway. Anyone with the Mercenary Veteran background also feels naturally inclined to criticize Big Al Incessantly.

Balance : If you fight Big Al, he will automatically match his CR to your APL by adjusting his HP and attacks as shown above. Fair is fair.

Incoherence : Anything Big Al gives you disappears at the end of the current adventure. He won't remember you next time you meet him.

Secret agenda : Big Al is always at the service of the wizard who created it and tries to further this person's goals. He never helps adventurers, but always tries to get adventurers to help him. He'll motivate them by handing out any equipment that could convince a party of adventurers to go on a level-appropriate quest for him. These rewards all disappear at the end of the adventure. Treasure found and experience made during the quest remain as normal. Principled construct : Big Al always keeps his word and always does things by the book, if there is a book on the subject that it's aware of. It talks a lot about how things should be done. It's always polite and courteous. It dislikes divergent opinions intensely. It'll casually tell people « You can't do that. » It's also a bit of a racist, stating that of course, goblins can't be swashbucklers.

Too big to care : If Big Al is targeted by the Vicious Mockery cantrip, whoever cast the spell is immediately affected by three simultaneous Vicious Mockery cantrips himself.