Campaign intro: "In the Fiefs of Zengi"

It is 1136 AD.

The First Crusade has ended, and the Second Crusade has yet to begin.

Zengi the Mad, Zengi the Cruel, Zengi the Warlord is ascendant in Syria. His fiefs are Aleppo and Mosul (in Iraq) and all the fiefs between.

To his west lie the Crusader Kingdoms -- Antioch, Tripoli, Jerusalem, and Edessa.

To his east the Turko-Persian princes vie for ascendency over their father's empire.

And Zengi has his cruel, mad eyes set on Damascus, but not on his own lands; not on a lonely keep at the edge of the Waste; not on the road that leads from that keep to the ruins of an ancient city.

Zengi's troops march away and leaves his lands unwatched and unpoliced. The lonely keep is undermanned and turns away no sell swords, and the ruins in the desert hold a vast treasure, guarded by evil magic, Shayatin, and the Dragon of the Southern Desert.

The time is ripe, adventurers.

tunnels and entrances

desert edges

halls in the waste

Diary Entry October 15, 2012

Dear Diary,

I write to amuse you, my dear old book.

I left my Volcano ship to hover over the Pond of Liquified Eyes and strolled passed the Grove of Femurs to the home of my old comrade Mithras, a demon of the pit! He is well, Diary, and still tending to the eternal torture of his captives -- The Souls of Mortals Killed by Wizard Magik!

We sat for a smoke, and after, descended to the pits. On the Rack of Ages lay a pathetic bunch: a thief, a cleric of the Lords of Kobol, several men of arms, and a novitiate of the arcane. To the side I found a work of imaginative fiction, written by one of the captives. Between torments, Sir Loin, of Beef, had written an account of their deaths, form the view point of his trusty mule!

Here it is, Diary:

It’s not a bad life, thought the mule. Now that those idiots are gone. Always heeing and hawing about who knows what. I may be tied to a tree but at least I have my priorities straight. Won’t catch me running off into someone else’s barn.

He grabbed at some dried grass with his large teeth. Awful lot of dried grass around here, he though. A little burnt tasting though. He chewed, a resolutely neutral look on his face. I could really be here all day, he thought, if it weren’t so loud.

The door of the tower slammed open with a thud barely audible over the lighting cracks. The mule huffed irritably as the man practically threw himself down the stairs.

What’s he look so upset about, thought the mule, he’s not the one who’s going to miss out on all this fantastic grass. They way they run is so comical, with their forelegs flailing and their eyes bulging, squeaking and whimpering like blind foals.

The mule flicked his ears at a particularly resonant crash of electricity. Ten paces in front of him the man lit up like hay in a bonfire and with a frantic yelp crumpled into a chunky pile of dust. Another flash of light slammed into the ground and the pile settled into the dry earth, exposing a blackened skull.

With a snort, the mule trundled back towards the tree to which he was tethered.

Idiots, he thought. All of them.

I'm so happy this fool became an adventurer -- for he would have surely failed as a bard. Its no Battlefield Earth!

-L. Ron Hubbard, PlanesTraveller

Diary Entry Sept 23, 2012

Dear Diary,

I write now to record a strange happening: In the heat of the day I sat in just my trousers by the edge of my cave. Over the cliff edge and past the treetops I saw down into the plain. The man-drakes waddled earnestly down a hill to where a red beam of light shone onto the orange dust. By the red spot on the ground lay a red, quivering form. Before I could determine the gender or note any sign of its origins the man-drakes arrived and fed, though the meal did not satisfy: the smallest man-drake was devoured after, and then they departed.

I've seen amateur teleporters before, and I believe the red form must have been from another plane. For a moment I held the foolish thought that I might encounter some man of high-science or some interplanar merchant with supplies. But, no. I checked the ridge for signs of predators, and then returned to work on my VolcanoShip.

It has been 18 days since my teleport engine malfunctioned on this plane, but my food supplies remain near-full, and I am determined to finish these repairs.

I do hope that my followers on Terra have made progress in eradicating the Thetans which so plague their species.

I shall write again, Diary.

--L. Ron Hubbard, PlanesTraveler

Why are you here?

From things that came up at my place during and after last session, there seems to be some confusion, at least among the newer players, as to what the point of the game and ultimate goals are. So, let me give the short answer and my take. Firstly and lastly, the goal is wealth. The whole point of the game is to get filthy rich, and there are two game reasons why you want that. First, wealth enables you to live out your medieval fantasy dreams of building a castle or tower or hidden lair and commanding great power over those lower than you. Second, the value of the treasure that you find directly translates into how many experience points (XP) you receive, which determines how your character grows. So, if you want to be able to cast new spells, to swing your axe with greater ability, to sneak around and disable traps more successfully, then you need to gather wealth in order to progress your character.

Now, you may be wondering, "what about storytelling and glory and involved role playing and all those great things that I love?" Well, you can fit those things into a game whose explicit goals are not to them. You can always create great stories of your adventures, even if you're not out destroying every living creature within the known world.

If you happen to cleverly trick some dragon into leaving its lair while you empty it of its treasure, that's all the better than risking your nice un-charred flesh to kill some fire-breathing terror. Also, while folks in this fantasy world may praise you for slaying some awful beast and freeing them, your tales will fade with their memories if there is nothing tangible to remind them of your greatness. So build a freaking castle and show everybody how awesome you are when they have to trudge past everyday, shit-covered, and hoping they can sell their last goat in order to pay for the funeral of their children who died of the stanky leg plague. Show them how awesome you are when you build a tower and then cast it and the countryside around it into the sky, where you float around the world terrifying ignorant peasants and powerful kings alike.

During all of this, you can create whatever sort of personality you would like for your character, but one part of it must include a reason and need for adventuring. If your character wanted to earn an honest living, we could play "Mud Farmers and Apprentice Craftsmen." While I think that Rio Grande could create that game, I don't think I'd want to play it.

In short, if you are playing D&D, then you must like solving puzzles, medieval fantasy,  role playing, socializing, or just eating Doritos. For any of those reasons that you like playing related to the game itself, you need character wealth to win. For those related to hanging out, well, you're already winning by just being there.