Danarbi Campaign Pitch from 1991

I came across this campaign pitch I wrote for a gaming club I started in college. I didn’t get picked as DM that time, but eventually I was able to run a campaign of Star Wars by West End Games for a couple years.

(Very minor editing to correct compass directions and distance, as at this time the continent map was rotated 180 degrees from the present version.)

“Each of us will tell a story about a quest, and then we’ll decide who’s was the best.”

-DM Selection Procedure, The Hobby Gaming Club, September 24, 1991

My Story: Tell them about Danarbi.

Once, in a far off land at the edge of the world, there was a great empire named Danarbi. Mighty cities grew, and the people prospered.

Then the Emperor died, leaving his two sons to rule jointly over the empire. The moon-goddess Azara, who was also called the Goddess of Strife and Madness, had long sought to bring Chaos and Entropy upon the land. She appeared to the two brothers in their dreams, and told each that the other was plotting to kill him and become sole Emperor.

From that day forth, the sons of Jaki have warred with the sons of Zuwal for mastery of the land. Neither was able to achieve victory, but only caused the people to sink into poverty and misery.

Many years later, strange ships came across the Great Sea, bearing strange passengers. There were the Fair Ones, also called Elves, and the Stout Ones, also called Dwarves. There were also others, called Gnomes and Halflings. They had fled their homes across the sea because of a Great Evil ravaging the lands there.

These peoples moved inland, to the forests, and mountains, and hills and valleys. There they kept to themselves for generation after generation.

Meanwhile, a Great Cataclysm had befallen the remnants of the Danarbian Empire. The land in the east sank, and the sea rushed in to cover all. Then the land rose again, but all was dismal swamp and gloomy marsh. The cities of Jaki and Zuwal were totally cut off from each other, and from the third imperial city of Dalas. In their despair, many of the people began to revere dark forces and evil magics.

Centuries later, more ships came across the Great Sea, bearing new peoples. They had come from the same lands as the demi-humans, but to trade with the coastal peoples and settle on the vast lands. They brought word that the Great Evil had fled the lands of Holothom, and that a new empire had been born there.

A hundred miles from the western shore of the continent of Danarbi lies the trading town of Ludewood. Within a few days ride are the dwarves of the Inkon Mountains, the gnomes of Jumor, the elves of the Nadash Forest, and the halflings of Shunoff. Down the Araki River is the native village of Elar, while upriver is the waste of Bleakand, where Trolls and Giants roam. Across the branch of the river called Elor-ho is the tangled Ludewood Forest, where Orcs, Bugbears, and Lycanthropes rule.

Ludewood is at the center, and it is to that town that brave explorers go before setting off on their journeys.

Somewhere, hidden from mortal eyes, the goddess Azara and the Great Evil watch – and laugh.

Labyrinth Lord Dungeon Monster Tables

Here is something I made up to help me with randomly stocking a dungeon with monsters for Labyrinth Lord, which is a retroclone of 1981 Basic /Expert D&D (available from Goblinoid Games link at top of main blog page).

I had to turn it into an image file to get it to display in a post.

The PDF version can be found here:

Labyrinth Lord Dungeon Monster Tables

The NPC Details table is an aid for quickly determining the
Class, Alignment, Purpose (Motivation), and Condition (Health) of randomly rolled NPCs.

I never got around to making tables for anything past Level One of a dungeon. Although I could if I needed to I suppose.

Tools for Hex Overlay Maps

Recently Dawnrazor at Nerd-o-mancer of Dork asked me how I did the “hex overlay” with bigger hexes over small hexes on my regional maps.

The mapping program I use is Hexographer by Inkwell Ideas.

I used some mapping templates I found at The Welsh Piper.

(I honestly wish I had the chops to make a template file of my own, as I’d like to have a map with a 3rd layer of hexes to zoom down further, but I’ll make do I guess.)

I had to add the RED NUMBERS to the big overlay hexes manually into text fields, as Hexographer only does one level of hex numbering.

Still thinking about how I’m going to handle hex numbering if I zoom in to a 1-mile scale…

The Peoples of Danarbi

(Here is a slightly edited introduction of the main human cultures of Danarbi, originally typed up in 2001 from an older handwritten page. Starting characters might know something of the Ujola nomads, but the Unimokans might be entirely unknown until someone gets to the other side of the continent, or rumors filter back from other explorers.)

Danarbi (“land of the people” in the Unimokan language) is populated by two major groups of native humans, the Unimokans and the Ujola.

The Unimokans inhabit the eastern and north-central regions of Danarbi. The three tribal groupings of the Unimoka are the Zuwal, Jaki, and Dala. They comprise the regional powers that now control the remnants of the Danarbian Empire. The Unimoka constructed large cities and temples to consolidate their control of the eastern half of the continent. Currently, they struggle to retain control over the decaying cities of their ancestors.

The Ujola roam the grasslands of the western and northern regions of Danarbi. They are roaming nomads, with no permanent cities. Two offshoots of the main Ujola tribe, the Tivalean and the Wayglath, have significance to the Holothonian colonies. The Tivalean nomads roam near the coastline, and occasionally trade with the towns. The Wayglath nomads are warlike raiders who have a blood-feud with the main Ujola tribe. They seek to disrupt trade with the foreigners.

All of the Ujola groups hold annual gatherings at a special sacred location. Weddings, trade, and festivals are the major activities during these gatherings, which normally last one entire month (36 days).

[For simplicity I had given the planet Granjor a year of 360 days divided into 10 months.]

Ludewood Region Map (5-mile subhexes)

Did this months ago but life got too busy to keep posting.

Here is the map of the area around Ludewood Town (hex 36.22 on the West Danarbi Map). The map edge overlays the Livrent Region Map on column 34.xx – that column is the same land on both maps.

(The RED labels indicate the continent map hex numbers.)

Ludewood Town & Kwyll Village – subhex 15012
Nofton Village – subhex 15011
Elar Village – subhex 18017
Kublos (ruined city) – subhex 19001
Jumor (Hill Gnomes) – subhex 06001
Jumor (Forest Gnomes) – subhex 05002