Trawling

So, I've read a few more books recently and not mentioned it here. I finished "Shadows in Freeport", a Goodman Games module written by Rob Schwalb and set in Freeport from back in the 00s, "Vengeance in Freeport" also written by a third party, Ronin Arts, but which is a direct sequel, or coda, to "Madness in Freeport". I've also read Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun and I've almost finished the Savage Tide adventure path. It's my intention that, if not today then certainly tomorrow, I'll finish Savage Tide. 

I wasn't sure what to think of the Goodman Games module. It clearly wears on its sleeve the old school dungeon-crawl style, which I don't usually have much interest in, so I didn't expect to love it. However... I actually do. Although the format wasn't a great one for reading, I'll admit, the actual module looks like it's fantastic. Although structured as an old-fashioned dungeon-crawler, which it mostly is, it's actually quite a clever and well-done expression of a haunted house experience. It lacks (mostly) silly and hoaky dungeon-crawl staples like tons of unbelievable traps and puzzles—there's one of the latter, but it can simply be written out, I'm sure, and while there are a few traps, they mostly represent regular hazards rather than actual traps; weakened and structurally unsound floors, and stuff like that. It also shows that you don't need fancy new monsters; for the most part, the memorable encounters are with pretty standard stuff that's in the SRD; ghosts, allips, babau demons, etc. It goes to show you; it's about how they're used. Execution trumps innovation every single time. And this is excellently executed. If the module kind of springs fully formed without any backstory to speak of like Minerva from the forehead of Jupiter†, that's OK; you can find reasons within your own game to actually engage the module. 

I do like reading adventure paths and more modern modules that propose hooks and backgrounds, but I find that it's hardly necessary, it's just mostly to make the module a bit more readable for the GM. This is a perfect example of how that isn't really needed though. You go to the haunted house because people have been going missing. They're all ghosts and they attack you once you're inside. Put the monster down at the end to stop the disappearances. Beyond that; any GM worth his salt can work that in. As much as I like the stuff that the writers' come up with for modules, I admit that I frequently have to change what they wrote anyway if I intend to actually use their material. 

Next up on the Freeport Trawl would be "Crisis in Freeport." I've often complained that Freeport is often too silly; although I don't think I've ever read Crisis, my understanding is that it swung perhaps too far in the other direction; very dark, serious and edgy, or at least attempting to be, with gratuitous rape and crap like that. Pendulum's are often like that; when they go too far in one direction, the correction is an over-correction. But I'll read it before I judge it. 

(This paragraph is a rambly aside. Feel free to skip.) Because so many of my books on my trawl are books that I have in pdf form, my Sumatra (I prefer it to Acrobat for simple reading) is pre-loaded up with the next one or two for each of my trawls, and I think that I'll continue to do that. So, I've got at least two more Freeport books loaded up; Crisis and "Gangs of Freeport", I've got the next Eberron module, which is next for that trawl, I've still got my Savage Tide fan compilation (it was easier than finding all of my old Dungeon magazines in whatever box they're stacked in in storage), Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Magic of Faerun and The Voyage to Farzeen. But just because I have the next chapter of each trawl loaded doesn't mean that I'm going to read them all equally. For one thing, I'm also reading other things besides my trawl books, and for another, I want to prioritize some over others. Of the books currently on deck or in process, I want to finish (in physical copies) Heroes of Horror, Tales from Celtic Mythology, and the Driz'zt prequel trilogy in the next days (or weeks for the last one; I'll start it when I finish Celtic) and I've got other physical books to add to the list. I'm also listening to audiobooks; I'm probably going to finish At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (I've read it before, of course, but this is my first time in audio) early next week, if not this weekend. I'll also finish Savage Tide within the next 24 hours or so, as I mentioned, and then I'll load up the first of the Rise of the Runelords adventures again. I've read that at least twice before, and played it at least once, but never as part of the trawl, so it gets to go again. Freeport and the Adventure paths are kind of the priority to read first, with Eberron and the Sandy Petersen Sagas next; the 5e campaigns and the 3e Forgotten Realms books are at the bottom. In addition, on the physical book side, I've had a lot of stuff in mind to read, including an undocumented mini-trawl of the 3e monster books (my recent finishing of Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun thus killed two birds with one stone, and I'm almost done with the environmental books too; only two left to read.)

Anyway; the two Freeport modules I just read could be used in an Old Night game easily enough without major alteration, although both of them are kind of non-essential. "Shadows in Freeport" was absolutely stand-alone and had nothing to do with anything else going on in Freeport. It could easily have been set anywhere, and tying it to Freeport in the first place seems kind of superfluous and unnecessary, and "Vengeance in Freeport" was tied very much to the story of Milton Drac; although it could easily be run as a stand alone without that backstory, and the backstory linkages aren't actually important. It's a superfluous coda rather than one that adds or contributes to the ongoing "Freeport meta-narrative" if you will. Neither of those are surprising, given that both are third party additions to the Freeport thread.

† I don't often talk about this kind of thing, but because for some reason I used the Roman rather than Greek version of this story, it sparked in my mind some thoughts. Jupiter, Juno and Minerva are the Capitoline Triad, seen as among the most important three gods worshipped on Capitoline Hill in Rome in the later Roman period, after the Hellenization of many aspects of their culture. That said, it appears that Minerva was borrowed from the Etruscans rather than the Greeks, only later "merging" with Athena. She seems to come almost exactly as is from Etruscan Menrva and the coming out of the forehead story was adopted from the Greeks, as well as (sometimes) imagery associated with Medusa's head shields, but her essential character and her place in the Triad predates the Hellenization of the Romans, and comes directly from the Etruscans instead. In spite of the Hellenization of Roman mythology, it still always retained a lot of its own original character. Mars was never really seen as having the character of Ares, for instance, even though they were often conflated—Ares was an entitled villain to the Greeks, while Mars was a heroic ideal. The Archaic Triad, which predates the Capitoline Triad, was Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, where Quirinus may have originally been a Sabine equivalent of sorts to Mars who was adopted into the early Roman pantheon when the Sabines joined the early Romans politically and culturally. 

My favorite god of Roman specific mythology is Sol Invictus, however, not only because what a cool name, but... well, mostly because it's such a cool name. Sol was an old Roman god, which should be obvious given that his name is a clear cognate with the word for Sun in all kinds of other Indo-European languages, but his worship largely faded during the early Republican times. Aurelian, the Emperor who ended the Crisis of the Third Century and revived Rome's flagging fortunes is the most responsible for bringing the worship of Sol back, now with the subtitle Invictus (he was occasionally called Sol Indiges previously.) There's even some discussion among modern students of Rome's religious practices and mythology if Sol Indiges, or "Old Sol" is even the same deity as Sol Invictus or not.

I don't have pagan pantheons in my fantasy anymore, but if I were to ever decide to use that for a setting, I'd probably use real life mythological gods rather than making them up, and Sol Invictus would absolutely be part of my pantheon, probably replacing Pelor in the D&D pantheon. (4e and 5e did a real number of the specific pantheons of specific settings, and mixed them all up. Pelor seems to have made the cut in the 5e DMG, if I recall, however.) Borrowing other gods from Celtic, Slavic Germanic and Roman and/or Greek pantheons, to the degree we can recreate them, I'd make my own mishmash pantheon. Or better yet, I simply wouldn't define any pantheon at all, and just let players pick whatever gods they want from whatever source that they want. 

But my own characters would be most interested in worshipping Sol Invictus, Cernnunos the Horned King, Perun the Thunderer, (or maybe Taranis the Thunderer instead), Mithras, a martial god, Chernovog, a dark underworld style god, and Veles, a trickster god associated with magic. 

Heck, that's at least 75% of a workable pantheon right there. Add a couple of goddesses; some kind of nurturing/healing chick like Nerthus or an equivalent and maybe a moon goddess like Artemis or Selene or something, and you're mostly good to go. Some tripartite witch/oracle goddess trio like the Norns, the Fates or the Morrigan would fit (I like the Graeae or the Gray Sisters for them) and Nodens, the Silver-handed, who is a god of seas, hunting and fishing. Of course, I could also use Dagon as god of the sea, but that makes the sea altogether much more unfriendly. There would be other gods, but they'd be unlikely to be selectable as "PC gods"; Dagon and other monstrous or "demon lord" inspired gods who inspire dangerous cults would be the equivalents here. Heck, I'll probably lay out this alternate pantheon in a separate post—I don't need it for Old Night, but whenever I actually get back to work on whatever name I come up with for High Fantasy Hack; well, pagan pantheons seem to go pretty hand in hand with high fantasy.