From the lodge over the Aros Castle ruins

I’ll be spending the next couple of days in Mull, a wonderful island in the Hebrides, as my s/o wanted a nice treat for her birthday. Anyway I brought over just my dm notebook with S&W whitebox inside, hoping to put something on paper in the idle moments of wake while s/o sleeps. In the notebook is a postcard my parents gave me years ago, with a nice map of the island. it looked like an awesome place to host a campaign.
But I came here and ispiration did not. While it’s not really needed to write if you have method, it’s a great help. So I cracked the guidebook open.
Wow!
Like, the island has:
– standing stones and stone circles, great for pagan sacrifices and odd rituals – burial cairns, for your favourite adventurer pasttime (looting tombs and having levels drained by angsty undeads)
– Magnus Barelegs, a viking, plundered the island. Would be nice to recover what he and his bunch of raiders stole
– island castles, or what’s left of them. They were owned by the Maclaine clan: Duart Castle, Moy Castle, Aros Castle, and by Loch Spelve is Dun Ara, overlooking the clan’s fleet of galleys. Somebody told me castles might have dungeons and treasures. I’d check just in case.
– the Lord of the Isles fought against his illegitimate son: the maclaine clan fought on the Lord side and lost the Battle of the Bloody Bay. Battle of the Bloody Bay is probably the badassest thing I’ve read in a long while.

Anyway, I guess I’ll set my next campaign here. I wonder what players will think of it. Interesting times await.

A bunch of new players, a single new game. Possibly…

After a longish hiatus here I am, a thousand miles away from last post, writing soon-to-be lost papers again.

Anyway, I’m about to start running games for a number of players, having diverse qualities:
Some of them are expert players, a few of which have played with me. Some other never played D&D or haven’t played in years. Some strong affiliations exists between the bunch, of the friendy, political or romantic kind. Oftentimes all of them combined.
Most importantly, none of them attended the Old School. Which might not be a problem as they’re either willing to try or completely unexposed to any idea of how RPGs are meant to be enjoyed.
My first thought was to take the campaign I ramble about now and then on this very blog and continue it, turning old PCs of note into NPCs and, well, capitalize on existing work. Another option would be to start with a new, better design for the campaign, developing earlier a multi-plot system and not waiting for when players are done with early dungeoneering, when they realize that actually the “outside world” has good opportunities to grab fame and fortune too, some of which don’t involve a particularly gruesome death.
Anyway, given a so diverse bunch of players means having to cater to diverse needs, but I’d really like to have an “open table” where anyone can turn up, be welcome and have fun.
I’m about to go to Oban and Kerrara for a few days… let’s see if Western Scotland is good for inspiration 😉