Five Leagues From the Borderlands: The Tale of Reggie's Lads

[Tom]

There's a lot of random generation to start a campaign of 5 leagues so I thought I'd record it here for my own reference and in case anyone else was interested.

We begin with 4 heroes. You can pick their origin but let's start as we mean to go on and do full random table generation. [4d100=53, 72, 23, 6] 2 humans, a Duskling and a Preen.

Humans are, humans. +1 to speech tests and the only origin allowed more than one Will point (expended for minor bonuses during a game).

Dusklings are 'creatures of shadow'. +1 to travelling tests, a brute charge, hate undead and magic. Lots of people proxy dwarves in for them, I may or may not do the same.

Preen are bird people. +1 to crafting tests, liable to get angry in combat, a bit fast but cannot benefit from high ground due to being slight. Good job I've got a Burrows & Badgers bird miniature then!

Next you pick a background for each of them. Well only humans actually get a choice and you can pick one hero (any origin) to have the Mystic background and be a wizard. You then roll on four background specific tables for capabilities, mentality, possessions and training.

My first human will be a Noble I think. Humans are best fitted to being leaders due to their greater capacity for will and a noble lead sounds sensible. This gets him [4d20=18, 7, 20, 11] an agility AND combat score increase (a good roll!), +1 XP, an item and another +1XP. There's a short list of options for the item so I'll go for the Ranger Cloak (+1 to Wilderness and Scouting tests) on the basis of it being a rare item whereas the other options are common.

The second human will be my Mystic. [4d20=11, 2, 10, 8] Casting increase, +2 Will, a mystic item and 1 skill. The mystic item again has a couple of choices from which I pick 3x Mystic Trinket (a consumable that allows casting more than one spell in a turn). The skill is a random roll [1d100=72] +2 to Speech tests, which combines with the human bonus for +3 which is probably very handy. Now comes a big pause while I pick spells. You choose 2 and roll 3. I'll pick Fortune, a minor self buff, as it's a 'simple spell' you can cast without expending any resources. And Heal for obvious reasons, though as a taxing spell it can only be cast once a game. Random rolls [3d100=90, 88, 51] re-rolling a duplicate [1d100=23]
gets me Summon (taxing), Illuminate (simple) and Distract.

The Duskling must be an outsider. [4d20=10, 9, 11, 6] Speed increase (maybe not a Dwarf then), +1 XP, a quality weapon and 1 skill [1d100=59] +2 Scouting.

And the Preen must be a townsfolk. [4d20=19, 19, 13, 12] Agility and Speed increase, +2 Luck (expendable ability to ignore injury rolls, nice), a fine basic weapon, and +1 XP.

You also get some weapons and armour to distribute which I'll think about when I pick models. Of note you're only allowed to start with two heroes holding ranged weapons.

And finally, you get two followers, generic human lackeys with a basic weapon or a staff. If you don't take two heroes with ranged weapons, one can have a bow. They get an entirely fluff background [2d100=10, 59], one is a Brave Villager and the other a Quiet Forester.

Oh, one more thing. You pick one hero to be your avatar. The guy who represents you the player. The human noble obvs. He gets +1 Will and Luck and roll on the history table... [1d100=73] one of his followers becomes loyal.

Time to consider some minis then, including a small creature to be summoned.

[Dave]

Sounds like a game itself! Fun though I’m sure.

Looking forward to your map.

[ErebusMort]

I’m intrigued. I got the feeling it was pretty detailed whilst perusing the five parsecs book and I’ll be following the exploits of the crew with interest.

[Tom]

I spent far too long making these shoddy cards, and in hindsight should have just used one of a million Magic the Gathering card custom makers available online, but here they are! The gang is ready to go!

[Tom]

Creating a map:

Step One, a name. Spinning an online realm name generator a few times, I'll settle on The Eclipse Yonder.

Step Two, population. 1d100=80. 2 Hamlets, 1 Village, 1 Town.
A second roll for each for more detail. 4d100=91, 22, 56, 41.
A Hamlet that is a Trading Hub offering increased amounts of rare goods for some coin (increased from the base none that a Hamlet would normally offer...), clearly some kind of transient travelling market occasionally stops there.
A Hamlet that is a Military Outpost making it easier to recruit from (i.e. as good as a Village and still worse than a Town).
A Village that is a Market Town giving an adventure point bonus the first time it is visited in the campaign.
A Town that is a based around a Monastery, giving a bonus to Study rolls to gain skills.

Step Three, create map. I found quite a funky online editor called Inkarnate. I'll save results for the end.

Step Four, determine threats. Two Foes Within and One Foe Without, four options for each. I'll pick rather than randomly roll these as they rather dictate the models you'll use! Foes Within will be 'The Whispers from Beyond' (Undead and Cultists) and 'The Gnawling Horde' (Goblins and Skaveny things). The Foes Without will be 'The Oldest Kin' (Lizardmen).

Step Five, pick one as the Primary Threat, [1d3=1] The Whispers.

Step Six, more map points. Each threat gets a camp. Also a Delve (dungeon) and an Unexplored Location.

Step Seven, note that each threat also has a hidden Hideout you need to find.

Step Eight, mark your starting point on the edge of the map!

Now witness the power of Inkarnate. This took significantly less time than those crappy stat cards!

[Tom]

Starting Party Resources:
3 Marks
2 Doses Silvertree Leaf (re-roll an injury)
3 Story Points (narrative rules breaks)

World Threat:
Whispers from Beyond 6
Gnawling Horde 5
Oldest Kin 5

And with that I think we're off?

The party arrives at the north edge of the map and decides where to head. Aiming to get the lay of the land and some local intel (i.e. that one off adventure point) Reggie leads everyone in the direction of the village of Stroud.

Travel Event [1d100=18] Uneventful.

Arriving unharried we get a chance for some shopping, but should probably save our limited marks for paying our living costs. Finding rooms at the local hostelry we hear of the threats that face the local area (one off Adventure Point for visiting Stroud), but that on top of that there's rumours of some kind of monster out there making off with cattle! (News Travels roll [1d100=27] to end this truncated initial campaign turn, add a hidden Monster Lair to the map). I doubt we want to tangle with that any time soon.

[Tom]

The first full campaign turn! For my imaginary audience I'll go a bit deeper into mechanics for this one.

The party awake to find that the tavern owner, glad of some heroes in the area, has called around for as much knowledge of the marauding threats as his contacts have (Town Event [1d100=4] +1 Story Point).

Next there are bills to pay, though the hopeful tavern owner seems to want to keep these heroes sweet and only charges a single mark (Upkeep [1d3=1]).

The party get to pick two Campaign Activities for the day. First we'll take advantage of this well of information and head out to Meet The Locals ([1d100=27]) though little of use is achieved. Still, a quiet morning means time for a little Training as the second activity and Reggie gains an XP for doing some combat drills.

Skipping the opportunity for shopping, next we see if any of our connections come up with anything useful [1d100=64] and yes! Clearly putting the word out with locals was more impactful than we thought and the opportunity for a Contract is offered! Time to make some coin.

[2d100=46, 28] The Town Council would like us to deliver some goods for [1d6=4] marks reward. We'd need to pick up a package from [1d4=3] just down the road here in Stroud (how handy) and take it to [1d3=1] The Night Market. We have 4 campaign turns to complete that.

Next step is to Decide Our Adventure for the campaign turn. Getting straight into the money making business and heading for the Night Market sounds like a plan to Reggie so it's back on the road (one travel roll will take you as many hexes as you want to go on the map). [1d100=87] An Obstacle has barred our way! [1d100=94] Oh no! Unnatural terrain, whilst traversing ancient lands we have been attacked by those who lurk there! (It did seem quite a long ride across the map) We must fight a Meeting Engagement with [1d100=21] Giant Bugs in the woods that surround the enigmatic Night Market.

5 of them plus an Unknown Enemy Marker that could be between 1 and 5 more. And also lead by a [1d100=72] captain (?) bug!

Our objective for the battle [1d100=41] is to scout the area. If Reggie and the crew can investigate a couple of randomly chosen terrain features they will have found their objective (clearly the way out of bug town) and can make their retreat safely.

Time to take a pause and find some bugs models.

[ErebusMort]

Sounds like a great start to the campaign, I’m on the edge of my seat awaiting the game!

[Dave]

Nice write up.

I may have missed it, what do you use Marks for?

[Tom]

That's just money. Going for a a bit of a Germanic Warhammer Old World vibe I guess.