Midnight Map

Email 6-8-2006

Hi,

First of all sorry for the number and size of the attachments.

Luckily I got very positive reactions from most of you, so I consider this as a go on Midnight.

First of all a request, I know it is very tempting to go out on the web and try to find stuff about Midnight. However, for now I ask you not to do this. Midnight itself is for a large part based on a constant threat of the unknown, a bit of paranoia and ignorance. I have created from the official campaign guide something I call a player handbook which I edited to contain more or less the information the average human would know of this world and what you need for character creation. Keep your information with the stuff I get you. Depending on your character class and background I might offer more specific info the other players don't know. When we have become more familiar with the setting and played some adventures you can of course have a look at the other stuff.

Secondly about a party and character backgrounds. As you might understand the world of Midnight is not a meet-in-tavern-and-go-out-dungeon-delving type of world. Any band of travellers, especially insurgents/rebels/opposers-to-the-darklord, would have reason to be where they are and confidence, if not trust, in each other. This means your backgrounds would need to be in line with a party concept/background. Play will start at the capitol of Erenland, Alvedara, or it's surroundings. This is a really big city which draws in crowds (read slaves/orcs/legates) from all the conquered lands. If you are not native to the city (Sarcosans or the Erenlander) you are most likely to serve there as a slave.
Besides the background it is also advisable to have a balanced party, and to know in advance the risks you are going to take. A defender is less at risk than a fighter (the defender can go around unarmed and thus doesn't break the law of the shadow). A fighter on the other hand is less at risk than a chaneler, since carrying weapons is "only" punishable by enslavement while the casting of magic means death (usually without a mock trial). So it is important to consult with each other for a certain amount of "risk management". Midnight offers some unique possibilities which used in combination with other players offer a real advantage. Thijs mentioned the Spellsoul heroic path which offers a player spellpower to magic users without being a magic user himself. Equally the Tactician can offer assistance in combat to other players etc. I included a character sheet I found on the web designed for use with Midnight.

Third, I created the blog you are currently reading. As soon as you create an account send me an email and I will add you to the member list. Only members can add comments and posts. The blog itself is open to the public so be careful not to post emailaddresses and personal information. I asked Leendert to keep a diary at this blog so we can keep our act together and discuss the ongoing campaign

Fourth, about a date. Leendert, Magdalena and I were planning for next weekend anyways since last week was Leenderts birthday. Thijs wants to come too but has an appointment either on saturday or sunday. Since I have no plans for the entire weekend I don't care to do character creation either sunday or saturday. I would like to have a bit of time so maybe agreeing on the early afternoon would be best so we could continue into the evening. It is a bit up to you people when and at what time we'll play. Location is always at Leendert and Magdalena's place since they have a kid :).
So far I have not heard anything of Alex, please let me know if you want to join or not. I will try to call you again sometime next week.

Fifth, besides a first level character I'd like you to create an "npc" version of yourself based on the DMG rules for NPC classes. Depending on your background you may belong to the aristocrat, commoner or warrior NPC class. Slaves and peasants also belong to the commoner class. You get only 1 NPC classlevel. I'd like the first one or two sessions to play as average citizens just to experience what life in Midnight is like for the weak. During those sessions we can tune out differences in backgrounds to become a party. We could end up for example as an aristocratic household, a band of peasants from the outlying hamlets, a group of slaves brought together in servitude of a master or any combination. Depending on the background the party chooses next weekend, I will write the first one or two sessions.

Sixth, important in Midnight is the fact that there is no working economy. There is very little use for gold pieces (you can't eat them) and everything works around barter trade. Weapons, armour, arrowheads and the like are illegal to posses and create and other equipment like lampoil or food is simply very hard to get. In other campaigns I have always assumed you automatically restock on torches, oil, arrows/ammo, food and stuff. Not so in Midnight, I truly want you to keep good track of your possessions and the state of maintenance of your equipment. It might be wise to look for ways to produce/create barter goods in order to replenish you stock.

Finally, Leendert I have attached the highest resolution midnight campaign map (which is not really a high resolution file to begin with). Could you have a try at work to plot this thing at a reasonable scale? If not, nevermind, I just thought it would be cool to have anything like a map.

Let's get things on the road again

Gertjan

Email 30-7-2006

Friends,

as you may understand, due to my current situation I doubt we will ever finish our Conspiracy X adventure. For a time I was thinking about giving up on roleplaying and storytelling entirely but when someone pointed me towards a very cool new D20 campaign setting designed by Fantasy Flights I was quickly hooked.

The setting Midnight to me is a dream come true. It has a very well designed and coherent theme, a great story, powerful and rare magix and most importantly it has the fresh feel of surprise to it. Midnight has a very strong Tolkien flavour in names, races and general feel. Imagine a Middle Earth where Frodo was captured, tortured and subsequently killed. The One Ring returned to the dark one's hand and Sauron covering all the lands in a second darkness. Midnight is a true fantasy setting only the bad guy won. Better yet, it is dark, strange and dangerous without it automatically becoming gothic. I promise it won't be white wolvish, no vampires, no Doctor van Helsing's and no firearms. You will enter a world which knows no longer other divine forces than that of the Dark God, Izrador, the Shadow in the North. His might is in his millions of orcs and other foul minions, his power revealed to the scattered, broken peoples by his Chosen, his clergy, the Legates. Izrador rules all, and will tolerate no challenges to his authority. Magic is outlawed. Weapons and armor are outlawed. Possessing any of these will get you killed on the spot. If you are up to the challenge of playing an elf or dwarf? Don’t let an orc see you – or any of the subjugated humans, either, for that matter – your kind is killed on sight, with rewards (food) going to those that turn you in...

Into this bleak and foreboding world, your characters can try to eke out an existence. Survival is not easy, especially when one of your biggest problems is where your next meal will come from. Will you be one of the last of the Fey, an elf, hiding in your forest, while your people fight and die on its borders against the ever-encroaching forces of the Shadow? Will you be a Dorn, Sarcosan, or Erenlander – humans of different nationality, who have lost hope and lost their cities to Traitor Princes from within? Or will you play a Halfling – a member of an entire race that once knew gaiety and magic, descended from the Fey like the elves – now subjugated to the last as slaves for the Shadow’s armies, mines, and Legates? Will you die, your corpse rising as one of the growing number of Fell - soulless undead horrors that crave living flesh?

Hope is not lost entirely, however! Each and every Player-Character chooses a Heroic Path when they begin, and as they rise in level, more powers and abilities become theirs to wield. The blood of heroes, kings, even dragons, flow through the veins of some, while the lineage of Outsiders and Elementals manifests in others. Who knows what could be dormant in the body of your PC?

With this email I have attached a file with an extract of the introduction to the world of Midnight: its setting, history and lands. It is as far as I have currently read it myself. I am in the process of designing a couple of adventures which might eventually become a full campaign. As campaigns go I'll try to do this as 'project-based': adventure modules of several sessions. This has the advantage for people who only want to play for a couple of weeks, do something else and join again with a later module.

However, before proceeding - this is the work of a lone saturday -, I'd like your input. Would you people enjoy this setting? If so, would you enjoy it enough to spend game time with me/us? If not, since all of our lives are getting more and more demanding, no hard feelings. If it's up to me I'd like to play regularly but not weekly. Maybe biweekly/monthly if we could arrange someone to keep notes (so we won't forget where we were). If these could be emailed before the next session the time we have together can be used for playing. As such besides a storyteller (which would during the first couple of modules be me) I think a party herald/scholar may come in handy.

On character design. Read the attachment. For a beginning party I'd suggest we keep to playing humans (maybe a gnome) but I demand good alligned heroes This is just for starters, we can go more exotic as time passes. Make up something that resembles a character sketch (background story, general feel on class, future development and such) and I'll send you the material necessary for character creation. We'll start play at first level, basic d20 rules. Keep in mind that there are different core classes: Barbarian, Channeler (wizard/sorcerer), Defender, Fighter, Rogue and Wildlander. PC's have a huge amount of feats, heroic paths and prestige classes to chose from in order to tinker your character into what you want him to be.

Eventually the rewards of heroism are not fortune and fame. In this age of shadow, you character will fight only to guard the last lights in a darkening world and to preserve the glimmer of hope that the long night will pass.

With this I bid you goodnight as it weirdly also happens to be Midnight.

Gertjan