GYGAX'S FORTRESS

Gary Gygax is probably the best known name in Role Playing Games -- still, nearly 15 years after his death. Considered Dungeons & Dragons’ co-inventor and principal author of most of its early material, “Uncle Gary” was also a tireless promoter of his game and of role playing games as a whole. For the hobby’s ½ century Gygax’s name has been synonymous with it, he shouldn’t need an introduction, but it's still worth taking a close look at his adventure design legacy.
 
Gygax was author of many of the best early adventures for Dungeons & Dragons including: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Vault of the Drow, Village of Hommlett, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Tomb of Horrors and of course Keep on the Borderlands, likely the most played Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time. While some of his adventures, such as Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Tomb of Horrors, were at least significantly the work of others (Kask and Lucien respectively), though Gygax undoubtedly had a hand in them as well. His output was prodigious and his foundational adventures are still well known today. I’d argue that adventure creation, rather than rules of mechanics, was Gygax’s greatest strength as a designer. Yes, his most important contribution to the hobby was likely organization and promotion - and the hobby of role playing games owes him a great amount of credit, perhaps even its existence for his efforts there - but Gygax’s adventure design still stand tall a half-century later, and it's full of useful lessons and techniques.

Gygax &  Design
Like all good designers, especially early in the hobby, Gygax’s design has its own flavor and concerns. For Gygax adventure design is most often focused on the nature of the forces opposed to the players and potential environmental factors or conflict among these enemies that the players can exploit. He was first a wargamer, and his signature adventures are far more “sieges” or “infiltrations” then they are “explorations”, though this is not universal or absolute. Gygax’s adventure writing itself is marked by an relative indifference to map design, and the use of sparse keys that offer the minimum of environmental detail while focusing on the monsters encountered and their military strategies or behavior.

Gygax designed a variety of scenarios over his long career, but the central challenge in Gygax’s best known adventures, at least the ones where he’s clearly the sole designer (again, not Tomb of Horrors or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks) is one of military tactics or strategy. In a Gygax adventure the party will succeed if they can outwit, destroy, suborn, or bypass a hostile, organized force more powerful than them. Examples of these forces include the giants in the Against the Giants modules, the humanoid tribes in Keep on the Borderlands, or the mountain giant and his flunkies in the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. In all cases the party is unlikely to survive a direct confrontation with the forces against them, and instead needs to use schemes, things they discover about and within the dungeon, or subterfuge to overcome them. Often these solutions require that the party access the enemy base/dungeon without alerting its guards, and then conduct a campaign of theft, assassination, and sabotage within.

The siege or infiltration scenario is natural enough, it’s the sort of thing that naturally evolves from skirmish wargaming -- where one wants to justify both a small group of characters and provide their player(s) agency within the context of a larger military conflict. In 2002, during a Question & Answer session on ENworld’s bulletin boards Gygax rejected idea that Dungeons & Dragons had an exact analogue to military siege scenarios, stating that “no actual D&D game module I've ever seen has taken the base, sieges, to the 'commando' raid stage, either in infiltrating a fortress of for breaking out of one to wreak havoc on the besiegers lines.” However, Gygax liked the concept, and claimed to be writing an adventure based on the scenario of infiltrating a fortress during a siege … his rejection of the idea appears more one of exacting terminology than to the suitability of the design itself. Setting aside the context of a strictly military “commando raid”, it’s obvious that Gygax often wrote adventures centered on infiltration as a part of a violent conflict - ambushes, evasion, assassination, and sabotage. While there are elements of dungeon exploration involved, including entire adventures written using other design forms, the infiltration scenario is distinct, and Gygax perfected it, even creating special tools to run it more efficiently. 

When interrogating this style of design, the first thing to notice is that the primary source of tension in a Gygaxian Siege is not supply depletion or the pure risk of random encounters, but the larger risk of an alarm being raised. Once the fortress is alerted the adventure will change almost fundamentally as the enemy forces begin to actively patrol, reinforce each other and gather at choke points. A siege adventure is not usually a race against the steady depletion of character resources like the traditional dungeon crawl, but an effort to get as close to one’s goals before the alarm is raised and the enemy begins to hunt the party.

Mont Sainte Bec

THE LAST ROOST OF THE BEAKED GOD

On the ungovernable border land between the North Eastern Crystal Frontier and the Imperial canton of Blackacre, the jagged Maiden Tomb mountains meet the sea, straggling out into the shallow, dark waters as a series of seamounts and spectacular cliffs. This land is home only to neolithic goat-herders, backwards fishing villages, and near abandoned outposts of various powers: Carceral Templars, the Warlock King’s Court, Imperial Syndicates, piratical Smugglers, and perhaps even the Ghouls of the Mud Isles. Rugged and fog shadowed, there are few reasons to come to this liminal land, beyond escape from elsewhere. Yet even here the hand of humanity has left a mark - a great ruin that constantly draws explorers, plunderers and tomb robbers - the ancient monastery of Mont Sainte Bec.

Built onto and within one of the pillars of rock that jut from the broad bay called the Black Mirror, Sainte Bec has stood from the earliest accounts of the region, a monastery that predates recorded history, devoted to the worship of the antediluvian avian deity … the enigmatic “Beaked God” whose worshippers once held dominion over a great dominion. Now in ruins, only two generations ago the monastery was still a place of opulent wealth, tithed by pilgrims for the cleansing songs of its choir and plied with generous gifts. A “Protected Hersey” under the laws of the Empire, the monastery had persisted, outwardly unchanging, collecting tariffs on sea trade and tithes, gaining a reputation for the power of its militant orders (falcon and ebon knights) and the availability of divine succor from its ancient god for those who could pay a high price.

Crystal Frontier - Ongoing Campaign - The Mud Isles

"Vpon the Seuentene Daye of the Seconde Moneth, that same daye were all ye fountaynes of the greate depe broken vp, and the wyir of ye heauens cast wyde."

- Late added marginalia in the Codex of Lead 7:11

Joseph Grady - The Bank of England - 1830
Imagining One's Capital in Ruins...

When the sky is clear and the rain breaks on the coast of Blackacre a brown smudge beneath dark clouds mars the horizon... The Mud Isles are scant miles away over the Silt Straits and Narrow Sea but they are a lost land. Now only known as home to the raft-borne raiders - bands of dozens or hundreds of “Ghouls” - who crash onto the shores of Blackacre almost every Fall. A watchword for cannibal horror and mindless barbarity, the Ghouls of the Mud Isles worship a vile devoured god beyond the understanding of any in the Empire or Resurgent Kingdom — except as a mirror reflecting the dark years of the Demon Emperors. The Ghouls are anathema, even more than the Blackheart cults they resemble and which still infect the Empire. Yet the the Mud Isles are not the waste of bone idols, stinking sucking mud, and festering midden of chewed bones that most imagine them to be. The Mud Isles were once a civilized place. A kingdom that traded with the Empire in ancient times, noted for its devotion to decorum, mercantile avarice, and delicate decor. Some few and foolhardy … or perhaps those who have made dark pacts allowing them the favor and acceptance of the rulers of the Mud Isles … trade there even now, pulling antiquities and treasures from the sunken ruins of the City of Lead.

Beyond the Crystal Frontier - A Gazetteer of the World

Fabulation, Tall Tales, & Lies.

The gem robbers and drifters of the Crystal Frontier come from every corner of the world, but they are often reluctant to speak of their homelands. It is difficult to learn much in the heat, dust, and desperation. Too many fear their own past: crimes committed, families abandoned, gods profaned, and lives failed. Others simply do not care to remember, living in the present, or in dreams of a future after some final big score. More have lost their memories to drink, lotus, chagga, mad weed, crystal poisoning, or sorrow. Perhaps it is simply the nature of places and times … they race towards change, but even unchanging each looks very different from the vantage point of a different life.

Information about the world beyond the Frontier is always vague, conditional, and disputed. Everyone knows that the Bull Kingdom is ruled by the Warlock King.  That to the South and West it builds his armies. Everyone knows that the port city of Aurum Ferro over the Maiden Tomb mountains is one of the great trade hubs of the world. Everyone has a different idea what all that might mean and everything else, all the detail and nuance is rumor and insinuation.

This doesn’t concern most people, who see five days or fifty miles travel as an epic journey. The roads are dangerous, and strange lands worse still — unknowns, filled with odd people and odd custom. Maps, while common enough in the past are no longer reliable, and the majority of travelers use only itineraries, lists of points along the road. The best itineraries mention rivers to be crossed, landmarks sighted, and the direction of roads ... but the majority are simple lists of easily memorized and often incorrect place names.

Inset is a newer map of the world, allegedly copied from the floor of the Library of Honorable Shipmen in the Capital of the Successor Empire. None have heard of the library, but the Capital has thousands of genteel ruins full of hidden knowledge. More detailed information is also available - usually in the rambling of drunks or from rag paper pamphlets sold for pennies and written with an eye towards the sensational.

1D8 Rumors About the Bull Kingdom

Moebius Drew One or Two Castles

The Bull Kingdom is to the South and West of the Crystal Frontier. Its capital is the great island city of Matricex, or “The City of Orchards” as it is called in the Kingdom’s popular romantic operas. Despite its youth, the Bull Kingdom is a powerful and growing ”Resurgent Kingdom”, led by its Warlock King and his court of sorcerers. While the land is ancient, the Kingdom was carved out from the Imperial Dependency of Kosse Sildar only 60 years ago when its ancient “Silver Princesses” and their military matriarchy were extinguished and overthrown in violent revolutionary upheaval.

1. The Warlock King is a horrific tyrant who rules through fear and dark demon pacts. He turns his enemies and allies alike into demon hosts and murders thousands a day in sacrifices to the Kings of Hell!

2. The Warlock King is a philosopher who cares deeply for the nation. He ended land indenture and opened the military, church, government and sorcerers’ cabal to all. Yes, there were excesses in the past, but the King did not order the massacres and has always regretted them.

3. The mountaineers are still loyal to Kosse Sildar and a secret Princess reigns among their villages, they are not bandits — they are soldiers in a long war to return the Bull Kingdom to just rule.

4. The Bull Kingdom is a place of ancient chivalry, and takes honor seriously. Even the bandits and farmers believe in the code of the duel, the freedom of honorable persons, and standing by one’s word.

5. Magic is tightly regulated in the Bull Kingdom. Wizards and sorcerers must register and pay a bond price. Foreign practitioners risk having their spellbooks confiscated or worse if they are found without a permit.

6. The Kingdom is regimented like an army camp and the Warlock King’s armies are growing each year, he may have given each of his subjects freedoms and universal rights, but he’s also given them a soldier’s pack and a pike.

7. The peasants' ancient gods, The Red Bull of the Earth and the Honeyed Goddess are worshiped again! In the Bull Kingdom, Kosse Sildar’s Earth Serpent is not forbidden, but her church wanes.

8. Demon hosts haunt the Bull Kingdom’s hills, both remnants of the war and escaped from the King’s dungeons. It is always hiring monster hunters and knights errant to hunt them, but is a wild and harsh land without real governance.

1D8 Rumors About the Pyre Coast

Roger Dean

A narrow strip of Terra Nullis beyond Umber Havens. Nominally an Imperial holding it is a blasted land of fry hills that acts as a buffer between the Empire and the breakaway Maritime Province. It is notable as the abandoned battlefields of its Southern reaches are the desolation of Zubrab, a gigantic Sanguine Wyrm.

1. The Pyre Coast is a land out of time, broken, rocky and poor, inhabited only by goat herds with stone tools. Add the wreckage of a sorcerous war and a plague of wyrms and it is nearly as cursed and inhospitable as the ruined Heart Provinces.

2. Zubrab, the Everhungering Wind is a dragon of war, a bloody red wyrm birthed by human conflict, like all wyrms, a curse of the gods. Its desolation swarms with his hideous spawn, some almost as big as their parent. Yet the wyrm also calls to men and women maddened by war, and they flock to Zubrab’s lands. Beware of Red Riders, as they know only cruelty and violence.

3. The coast itself may be ruined, home to furtive herders, but the Pyre Sea is dotted with island ports, where trade flourishes: whalers, fishing fleets, smugglers and the privateers of several nations dart among its islands, all prey to sanguine sea wyrms spawned from Zubrab.

4. The drowned city of Angel Reef, once a wonder of floating squares and delicate spires that climbed from the warm blue sea, was destroyed by the Maratime’s. The wreck that remains, sunken or awash, ghost haunted and home to sea worms is one of the richest ruins in the world.

5. An island in the Pyre Sea is home to a tribe of sorcerous sports: golden skinned, 7’ Giant who heal wounds at an unnatural rate. These people live in hidden splendor surrounded by the luxuries of the old Empire. They seek guides for an embassy to the Capital — they wish to state their obvious perfection and assume the Imperial throne, as is clearly their due.

6. Ruins older than the Empire cover the coast, many carved into the likeness of birds and men. Most are empty, but some few still hold hidden caches of ancient gold.

7. There is something older than humanity asleep beneath the Pyre Coast, some spirit of wilderness and primeval power. It will never wake, but it stirs and dreams now, and its dreams hunt the coast, fel beasts that devour flesh and soul.

8. The people of the coast itself — skin clad, flint armed goatherds, are angry and tired. There are more of them then one expects and they have a leader in the sorcerer Nine Horn, called the Ibex King. A red harvest is coming.

The Underground Maze or Primordial Stack

Crawling Down From 1974
“Dungeon crawl” has entered the popular lexicon as a description of any sort of adventure in an underground or ruinous space. It’s a common way to describe video games and occasionally other forms of media such as a part of novels or movies. Of course it’s most common in Roleplaying games, because the concept comes from Dungeons & Dragons, specifically from the earliest iterations of the game  - 1974's Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. What is it exactly though?

The term derives from the redefinition of the word “dungeon” by Dungeons & Dragons. Prior to the RPG hobby’s explosive growth in the 1970’s and 1980's the term's popular meaning (itself not the original 14th century meaning) of an underground prison was almost the only one. One can offer theories as to why Gygax & Arneson chose to use the word dungeon in both the title of their game and as a descriptor for the primary arena of play*. Interestingly within the first 1974 edition of Dungeons & Dragons, while the word dungeon is used more often than other descriptors for the place where adventures occur, it is largely in reference to the name “Dungeons & Dragons” or the title “Dungeon Master” for the referee. When Gygax & Arneson are serious about discussing the concept of the fantasy space the characters explore they most often use “Underworld” and sometimes “Labyrinth” or “Maze”. Dungeon is the description that stuck, and the word’s meaning is now far more likely to be the one derived from Dungeons & Dragons.

In the context of role playing games for “Dungeon Crawl” is most helpful as a term if it means something beyond a light aesthetic gloss connotation a particular type of D&D-like fantasy (or an element “Gygaxian vernacular fantasy” aesthetic to be more precise): a place of grim stone corridors, screeching not-men to murder, and the occasional treasure chest that bites. This sort of view of the dungeon and dungeon crawl aren’t a problem, it certainly captures something, but it also tends to create a lot of dispute, because it’s a surface definition. A handful of aesthetic cliches, this idea of the dungeon crawl is however immediately and intuitively easy to grasp -- it becomes the first impression of what a RPG dungeon consists of. It’s not especially helpful though, because it says nothing about how the adventure will work with rules or what sort of play it aims for.

To make the concept meaningful, as always I want to look at dungeon crawling and dungeon design specifically from the perspective of how well an adventure encourages or supports “the procedural exploration of a fantastic space”. This is my definition of the “Dungeon Crawl”. It’s what is often referred to as a “location based” adventure, but I would add the additional qualification that a Dungeon Crawl also emphasizes exploration by connecting it to risk mechanics.

Likewise, this sort of design is sometimes considered the product of the early phases of the RPG hobby, especially of early Dungeons & Dragons. To some extent this is true, Dungeons & Dragons started to define this style of adventure design beginning in the 1974 edition, but I would argue that the game quickly grew away from it, with early D&D communities rapidly pushing the rules towards more character and scene-based scenarios such as wilderness adventure and narrative paths as early as the late 1970’s. The Dungeon Crawl was sidelined for some time, and its development has been fairly slow since, or largely about moving away from the granularity of room by room exploration and risk management towards narrative structure or improving tactical combat. One could even say that every edition of Dungeons & Dragons since the first - starting with Greyhawk, has increasingly focused on character and combat options at the expense of exploration - but that’s an argument for a different time. I like dungeons and the Dungeon Crawl play style though, and so I find it useful to look at how they can be written, what past dungeon designers have managed, and how one can better design dungeon adventures today. 

Patterns of Dungeon Design
When I look at Dungeon Crawl adventures, I see a few patterns of design. these are ways that the author of a dungeon adventure chooses to create a space for exploration: the size and "shape" of the dungeon, where its challenges are, what sort of play will predominate, styles of keying and assumptions about how the adventure will be used that are incorporated into the design itself.  While not exacting there are many elements of dungeon design that repeat both in specific authors works but across entire communities and play styles, creating reoccurring patterns or perhaps standards of adventure design.  

The most common patterns in contemporary dungeon crawl adventures are Philotomy’s “Mythic Underworlds” or variants on the idea — large, relatively minimally keyed adventures that are almost always dependent on referencing rules manuals for setting and detail. Another common design pattern is the “Thracian Ruin”, after the style of Jenelle Jaquays, dungeons with layered history and greater internal detail to facilitate player interaction. Both of these design trends, the dominant forms of Dungeon Crawl, come directly from the same source: the advice and examples in the 1974 “original” edition of Dungeons & Dragons (“OD&D” or the “LBBs”).

Yet the Mythic Underworld and Thracian Ruin are quite different design patterns. They may derive from the same source, but obviously Jaquay’s late 1970's reading has very different influences from Cone’s early 2000's one and this leaves questions…

• What is the design advice in the 1974 edition?
• Does any pattern of dungeon design follow directly from the 1974 edition's advice?

Dungeon Skrimishing

TACTICAL COMBAT MECHANICS for Theater of the Mind Dungeon Crawls

Front Piece From the Holmes Edition - 1977

Running skirmish sized combat requires more than a party that can win with limited special abilities (such as a sleep spell or fireball), and must hold players interest by avoiding an endless grind of simple attack rolls. To do this it’s best to introduce some element of tactics. It’s important that, without resorting to true “grid combat”, one has rules for: spacing, ranks, and flanking. With these few concepts one can have simple shieldwall combat that provides both faster and more tactical skirmish size combat while still retaining the basic structure of the rules found in older editions of Dungeons & Dragons or other systems built from the same sources. These rules are also modular, and can be adapted to each table’s time needs, comfort with tactics, desire for combat options and interest in measurement or fine detail … to a degree of course. These rules are still early Dungeons & Dragons combat based on Arneson’s “alternate combat system” and use the same abstracted, simple rounds, initiative and attack rolls every Dungeons & Dragon player is familiar with. A significant advantage for my own games is that this set of additional rules don’t require grid-style combat -- the concepts of line, rank and spacing are largely self-contained, self-relational and intuitive to a degree that with a little practice they are easy to run from even gridless maps or a vague sketch of a random wilderness area. That is, these are “theater of the mind” combat rules.

Simplified and Fantastic Pre-modern Combat. Here is a set of mechanics and a procedure that allow some tactical complexity with the limitations of the fairly simple and abstract combat mechanics of older, exploration focused systems, without the necessity of a grid or measurements. They also badly mimic the basic ideas behind pre-modern combat, based on the shieldwall tactics of classical Mediterranean infantry armies and even more a simplified and vague cinematic interpretation of the warfare between warbands in Europe of the Migration Period and Early Middle Ages. They are undoubtedly incomplete and historically wrong in several ways … but they have worked for me to offer a comprehensible tactical system that doesn’t require a complex grid and token system.

Combat occurs between two lines of armored (and often shielded) combatants facing each other so that each front line fighter limits the number of opponents they face and can avoid being flanked. 
Less well armored combatants either take up positions behind the front line in ranks to attack over their shoulders with spears and polearms, or extend their side’s line in an effort to flank the enemy line.

RANGES AND DISTANCE The dungeon is almost always a cramped place and dungeon combats tend to take place at very short distances compared to field battles. There is no room for cavalry, artillery, push of pike, or even much for missile fire. Because of this the exact measurements or even the grid of a war game are less necessary and estimated “range bands” can be used if they are easier to imagine and remember. As with turn keeping vs. time keeping, remember that the characters and players are unlikely to know or care if their heavily armored foes at the other end of the hall are 42’ away or 37’ — only if they are in range to charge this round. Instead of calculating the 40’ combat movement rate it’s more efficient to consider distance in terms of simple distance categories: Close (grappling or 0’), Melee (in melee strike range or 5’), Reach (attack range for spears and polearms or 10’), Charge/Medium (Distance that can be closed with a charge attack; 10’ - 40’), and Long (beyond 40’ usually outside of torch or lantern light distance, requires a round at least to closer to Charge distance). The referee should estimate distances based on a quick glance at the map (its distance grid can help, but isn’t absolutely necessary), but for it to work the players need to trust and accept the referee’s adjudications rather than argue for advantage.

These range bands still support existing combat mechanics, such as ranged weapon bonuses, the referee just needs to describe ranges and distances in terms of the immediate concerns of the players rather than distances in feet or meters. Explain “What can attack the characters and what can the characters attack” without the intermediate issue of calculating distances. Some detail and granularity may be lost, but for most combats, especially dungeon combats, these estimations are sufficient, far quicker, free the game form grid combat, and leave less room for meta-gaming tiny distances.

MISSILE COMBAT Bows, crossbows and other long range weapons are extremely dangerous to fire into melees and are usually limited to either an initial volley or two as forces close. Thrown weapons can be modeled in a more interesting tactical manner that somewhat mirrors the use of thrown spears in Hellenistic and Roman combat, or hurlbats and francisca by Northern European warriors such as the gallowglass until the 16th century.

Firing into Melee. In an open field battle where opposing forces advance across the field from hundreds of yards, or in a siege long range missile weapons such as bows and crossbows are deadly and effective… in the close darkness of a dungeon, they are rarely useful for more than a couple of shots before melee commences.

Missile weapons can always be used normally prior to melee combat and fired from any rank, but the risk of injuring or dangerously distracting one’s allies is quite high.  When firing into a melee (even at enemies in the second or deeper ranks) a natural attack roll of five or under (modifiers don’t count), will strike the ally nearest the target (or alternatively distract them allowing their opponents to strike them) inflicting its damage on the ally.

Optional Rule: Reactive Thrown Weapons Thrown off hand weapons such as hurlbats, plumbatas, piling, or throwing knives, which can be used in reaction to and attack. Held in the off hand these thrown weapons allow a trained Fighter or Thief a ranged attack as a new enemy moves to engage them in melee.

A Reactive Attack is made just like a normal attack, but interrupts the initiative sequence, and allows the combatant with the drawn thrown weapon to attack prior to an enemy moving into melee.  This attack can only be made immediately prior to the enemy’s first attack or charge, thrown from a foot or two, it is otherwise as a normal attack. Reactive attacks are not allowed as an additional attack on the combatants own action (though the throwing weapon can be used as normal if missile combat is an option). A reactive attack with a thrown weapon does not provide time for the combatant to draw an additional weapon, pick up a shield, brace against a charge or otherwise perform any additional acts prior to the opponent's action.

LINES
Lines are one or more combatants armed with a melee weapon who controls an area and prevents up to two enemies directly in front of them from passing them.  While it’s possible to break or flank a line, an enemy armed with a regular melee weapon cannot pass it or attack anyone except for the 2-4 enemies directly in front of them in the enemy line. In a dungeon skirmish lines are often anchored by a wall or other obstacle, and so become impossible to circumvent (or flank). Each human sized combatant takes up and can protect 5’ of space (or half a map square) (See Fig 1.), unless they are in a doorway, in which case they can cover up to 10’ of space (See Fig 2.)  This means that two defenders are required to form a line across most corridors.

A combatant in a line formation can attack enemies in the 15’  in front of them, including the right or leftmost enemy in the next line segment. This means that the most enemies a combatant in a line will face directly is three (Fig.1) ... well four if they are in a doorway.

FIG 1
Defenders A & B make a narrow line, attacked by 1-5
A is in melee with 1 & 2.
B is in melee with 1, 2 & 3
B has been FLANKED by 5
4 is not in melee combat

For those defending doorways this is significant, the lone defender is able to prevent the enemy from flanking, but still faces multiple (up to 4 plus any from the enemy's rear rank) attacks each round. For larger groups attempting to block an advance it is always better to defend behind the doorway allowing and attack single (See Fig. 2)

Crystal Frontier - Ongoing Campaign - The Forest

“There are many worlds. Some have passed and some are still to come. In one world the Lui all creep; in another they all walk; in another they all fly. Perhaps in a world to come, the Lui may walk on four legs; or they may twist like snakes; or they may swim in the water like fish. Perhaps this is that world already."

 - Woundsmens’ Fable

The deep forests of Blackacre, now known as the Blackwound, are older than humanity, and perhaps older than the world itself. While the Old People of the deep wood are either extinct, mythical, or retreated into some unbreachable fastness within the mountains, the forests are still no friend of humanity. Rough Imperial logging towns and camps of prisoners, heretics, and undesirables under inquisitional and military rule are the limits of civilization, even close to the canal that tenuously connects the province to the Capital.

Along the Grande Gracht canal, noble and merchant dynasts once attempted to build hunting lodges or retreats, usually with the hope of being granted dominion when Blackacre finally “civilized”. Centuries after settlement Blackacre remains a brutal penal colony, despite minimal magical pollution, flowing wealth, and a ecclesiastical zeal. Blackacre, and especially the fecund Blackwound is winning... As the trees spread their gloom, the forest people are losing the trapping of Imperial culture, slinking back into fur clad obstinacy, and mere subsistence as they embrace cultic superstition and invent “old ways”. The province seems doomed to wither before it blooms into the bastion of Imperial faith that the province’s Nuncios aspire to.

The Blackwound resists the dreams of Imperial theocrats, devouring or transforming the young missionaries and curates that the See pours into it each Spring. Even generations of logging have failed to check the forest’s growth and tracts cleared mere decades ago are again choked with tall straight trees. Flash floods in the Autumn destroy camps and mills, ferns erupt among the stumps to devour fields, and in high summer, lightning fires rage through undergrowth to wash nutrients back into the soil allowing the trees to grow taller and encouraging the undergrowth erupt with new vigor.

Yet the Blackwound is simply a forest, perhaps unlike any other, grown on a grander scale grander, where the ferns, lichens, moss, and brambles of the floor often rise to near the height of a man, and the Great Trees sore until they are lost in the permanent green twilight. Entering the Blackwound is entering a hostile universe where paths lead in circles, the mists muffle sound, the trees confound invaders with their scale and conceal sudden obstacles: chasms, torrential creeks, deadfalls, sheer cliffs and bramble basins of wire strong thorn. The forest resents change, resents humanity’s dream of conquest, and resents intrusion.