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Inside the Rookery
I’m proud to be a part of Rookery Publications along with fellow veterans Andy Law, Lindsay Law, Mark Gibbons, and Andrew Leask. Between us we have over a century of experience developing award-winning tabletop roleplaying products for some of the biggest and best publishers in the business, and now we’ve decided to go out on our own. One commentator called us “a roleplaying supergroup”.
We have some great things planned for our ground-breaking, system-agnostic*, modular** Coiled Crown line of tabletop roleplaying products. But that’s not all we do.
Every week, we do a streaming show called “Inside the Rookery”, which goes out live on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube. We discuss topics related to gaming in general, we have guests on now and then (and there are some great ones lined up for the rest of September), and we let you know how things are progressing with The Coiled Crown.
The streams are open to all. They are live every Saturday at 7 pm UK (2 pm Eastern, 11 am Pacific), and past shows can be found on our YouTube channel.
To help support our weekly streams, Rookery Publications just launched a Patreon campaign. Please take a look and support us if you can. Rewards include our undying gratitude, special status and exclusive channels on the Rookery’s clamorous Discord server, patron blogs and more!
Want to know more? Watch as Andy Law and Lindsay Law give you a tour of the Rookery’s Patreon offering, along with a peek at our vibrant Discord community!
*That’s right, system-agnostic. Whatever your game of choice – even if it’s not even fantasy – we show you ways to incorporate our products into your games.
**We like to think of our approach as like LEGO sets. You can use everything as given, to create an absolutely awesome campaign with a stunning setting, a staggering plot, memorable NPCs, some terrifying original monsters, and an array of optional adventures. Or, you can pick and choose what works in your games, change the order, mix it up with other things to make something completely new that no one even thought of before. It’s yours to do with as you please – well, that’s true of every roleplaying product you’ve ever bought – but the difference is that we know it, and we’ve planned to support you in however you choose to use it!
Return of the Bling
Here are a few more images that Pinterest threw my way. Apart from Jewish bridal rings, I did not know that rings in the shape of buildings were a thing, but here is an interesting selection.
I’ve thrown in a few thoughts about what these shapes might mean for magical rings in a fantasy game.
Note: All images are copyright their original owners, at the urls indicated.
The Castle
The castle is a symbol of safety and protection, so this ring might give its wearer a significant boost to armor protection, or protect in some more subtle way.
The Palace
The palace is a place of power and authority, so a ring in that form might give its wearer a boost to their social status and accompanying skills, making others treat them as powerful nobles even if they are not.
The Temple
Like the portable shrine ring from an earlier post, this ring might give the wearer the same protection as being on consecrated ground, or it might give their prayers greater efficacy, perhaps even granting limited clerical powers to a non-cleric.
The Tower
Towers are usually associated with wizards, so this ring might enhance a wearer’s magical abilities, possibly allowing them to cast spells at a higher level than normal or making their spells harder for targets to resist.
So there are a few ideas to play around with. For more buildings, search for ‘architectural rings’.
It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Bling
If you like this kind of post, you’ll also want to see these:
Armillary Rings: Handy for astronomers, astrologers, and navigators.
Compartment Rings: Hide your true allegiance, or carry a secret message.
Poison Rings: An old classic.
Gun Rings: Add more punch to your punch.
Eye Rings: Protection, divination, gaze weapons, and more.
Miscellany: No theme, but lots of possibilities.
Let us Bling: A Ring for Clerics that unfolds into a portable shrine.
Let Us Bling: A Ring for Clerics
I haven’t put up a bling post for a while, so here’s something that Pinterest randomly threw my way: a ring that unfolds into a tiny portable shrine.
Clearly, any cleric in a fantasy rpg would want one of these (with the iconography of their own religion, of course), but what might it do? Here are some thoughts:
When the ring is opened and the wearer is praying – including casting divine magic and using other clerical abilities – they gain any benefits from being at a shrine or temple. These vary from one game to another, but when a game allows them they often take the form of a bonus to prayer rolls and/or a boost to the effectiveness of spells and miracles.
Extending this thinking, the wearer might also gain the benefits of being on consecrated ground while the ring is open. This is equivalent to a protection spell against evil creatures, demons and devils, undead, and servants of the deity’s rival gods.
Opening the ring takes a full action, and is a delicate process. If the character is wearing gloves, or is being attacked or is otherwise under stress, a Dexterity check might be required to open the ring. The test can be repeated each round until successful, but a critical or other serious failure might damage the ring, rendering it useless until it is repaired and re-consecrated. The ring might offer some lesser protections when it is closed, and when it is worn by a character who is not a cleric.
In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition, this kind of ring might have the following effects:
Open or Closed: Armour 1 (Divine) against attacks by any creature with the Daemonic or Undead Traits.
Open Only:
+1 bonus to Bless and Invoke (lore of the ring’s deity). If the wearer lacks either or both of these Talents, it is gained with a score of 1.
+10 bonus to Pray Tests addressed to the ring’s patron deity.
Fear 2 to followers of Chaos and other enemies of the ring’s patron deity.
It’s possible to design variants for a specific deity, which offer specific abilities and protections according to the deity’s particular interests.
It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Bling
If you like this kind of post, you’ll also want to see these:
Armillary Rings: Handy for astronomers, astrologers, and navigators.
Compartment Rings: Hide your true allegiance, or carry a secret message.
Poison Rings: An old classic.
Gun Rings: Add more punch to your punch.
Eye Rings: Protection, divination, gaze weapons, and more.
Miscellany: No theme, but lots of possibilities.
Architectural Rings: A building on your finger.
The Devil Eel, a New Monster for WFRP4
A little while ago, I came across an intriguing story online. Someone in Australia caught a very odd-looking fish with no eyes and an almost human-looking face. I immediately thought it would be just the sort of thing that might be encountered in Chaos-affected waters, such as the River Reik below Castle Wittgenstein.
Sadly, this inspiration came too late to include the creature in the Director’s Cut of Death on the Reik or the Death on the Reik Companion, but with the second instalment in the Enemy Within campaign about to be released as a PDF, now seems like a good time.
Devil Eel Swarm
Where the waters of a river or lake are polluted by the influence of Chaos, small freshwater eels may be mutated into Devil Eels. With no eyes and a bestial face, they are a disturbing sight, though few get to see them. Gathering in swarms, they attack any prey they can find with mindless savagery, and it is said they can strip a carcass to the bone in mere minutes.
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 4 | 45 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 35 | 45 | – | – | – | – | 5 |
Traits: Aquatic (see below), Bestial, Bite +0, Corrupted (Minor), Fast, Frenzy, Hungry, Immunity to Psychology, Night Vision, Painless, Size (Tiny), Swarm
Optional: Infected, Mutation, Territorial, Venom (Challenging)
New Trait: Aquatic
The creature can breathe underwater, and moves at its full Movement rate in water. It cannot move on land.
More Like This
Zoats: From Warhammer to 40K (and back again)
The Ambull: From 40K to WFRP (again)
Viydagg: A Forgotten WFRP Monster
Mardagg: A Forgotten WFRP Monster
Mabrothrax: A Forgotten WFRP Monster
Jabberwock: A Forgotten WFRP Monster
Gargoyle: A Forgotten WFRP Monster
The Toad Dragon: An Old Citadel Miniature Described for WFRP4
The Spectral Claw: An Old Citadel Miniature Described for WFRP4
The Mud Elemental: Two Old Monsters Combined for WFRP4
Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos: A Very Old Citadel Miniature for WFRP4
Leaping Slomm Two-Face, Another Old Citadel Miniature
Zygor Snake-Arms, Another Old Citadel Miniature
Independent Daemons for WFRP 4th Edition
Chaos Snakemen – A Forgotten Warhammer Race
Menfish – Another Lost Warhammer Race
Golems in Warhammer
Monday Maps #13: A Quick Tutorial on Caves
Happy Monday! I hope you and yours are all staying safe.
I haven’t posted a Monday Map in a little while, but I came across this YouTube tutorial that is worth seeing. If you’re like me and the only things you can draw are a breath, a bath, and a conclusion, invest 1 minute and 14 seconds of your time and take a look.
Hammers and Dragons has a Facebook page here with links to a free downloadable maps, including this one. Of interest to Warhammer and WFRP fans will be the Skaven temple posted on May 7th. Here’s a small-scale preview:
One of the things I especially like about Hammers and Dragons is that artist Tomasz Ratajczak is teaching himself to draw, so he’s not presenting some lofty masterclass that makes the rest of us feel like idiots. And yet, his simple techniques produce results that would not look out of place in a professional publication. He’s only just getting started, but I’m looking forward to seeing more from him.
Links
Hammers and Dragons YouTube Channel
Hammers and Dragons Facebook page
Monday Maps #12: Castles
Castles are a huge and complex subject. The European castles that inspire those of the Old World developed over a thousand years or more. They vary widely in size and shape, according to the time and place when they were built. They have a dizzying array of parts and features with strange-sounding names (this article is an excellent introduction) – but don’t panic.
All castles, whenever and wherever they were built, share a number of key characteristics, and when you understand those, you can design a castle of any size, in any place.
Concentric defense is the watchword. All castles are built around a fortified tower called a keep, which houses the family. The keep is an island, able to hold out against attackers even if the rest of the castle falls. In early medieval castles of the motte and bailey type, the keep stood on an artificial mount called the motte (not to be confused with “moat”).
The keep of Rochester Castle in England.
The keep is surrounded by a curtain wall, which is fortified with several towers. The area within is called the bailey, or ward. In the center is an open courtyard that can act as a killing zone, with attackers exposed to fire from multiple towers as well as from the keep. Around the edge of the bailey are non-essential buildings like the chapel (there is normally a private family chapel in the keep), the kitchens (even in stone castles, these were separate to minimize the risk of accidental fires spreading), as well as stables, a smithy, kennels, and the like. There may also be a postern gate, a small and sometimes hidden rear exit.
The bailey was entered through the gatehouse, which was the most heavily fortified part of the castle. Town and city gates, which were covered in an earlier post, had a similar design and function. A heavily-fortified gatehouse, or barbican, could become a small castle in its own right.
Goodrich Castle, England. Borrowed from British History Online; click for link. The keep is against one side to take advantage of the cliff. The barbican was built to create a killing zone by the adjacent cliffs
Larger castles may have two or more sets of curtain walls, creating an outer bailey which acted as a first killing zone where enemies assaulting the inner curtain wall would come under fire.
This castle is large, but has a simple design. It would probably have at least one more ring of fortifications. Notice the steps leading to the keep entrance: as well as looking impressive, they make it harder to use a battering ram and they limit the number of attackers who can approach the door. Image borrowed from TurboSquid. Click for link.
High ground is a good place for a castle, as Schloss Neuschwanstein in Germany demonstrates.
Water also provides a useful defense, whether it is natural, as at Olavinlinna Castle in Finland. . .
. . .or artificial, as at Bodiam Castle in England. Note the lack of a keep: the wide moat takes the place of a bailey and curtain walls, so the whole castle is effectively a keep.
Moats around castles were less common than movies would have us believe, and comparatively few were routinely filled with water. Instead, they were broad, steep-sided ditches intended to hamper attackers’s attempts to bring up heavy equipment to attack the walls and trap them in yet another crossfire zone as they tried to approach.
The dry moat at the Château de Vincennes in France has been lined with a vertical stone wall, making it even more challenging.
Castles are large building complexes, and a GM may feel intimidated when setting out to design one for the first time – but there’s no need. Once you understand the basic principles of how they work, a castle of any size is easy to lay out.
If you’ve enjoyed this, click here to check out the other #MondayMaps.
Have a good week, and next Monday I’ll be back with another map, or possibly something else.
Oh, and if you’d like a re-usable castle plan for WFRP, the 4th edition adventure collection Rough Nights and Hard Days includes a chapter set in Castle Grauenberg, overlooking the mighty River Reik.
Monday Maps #11: A Forge
Today’s #MondayMap comes from the ArtStation page of the very talented Guillaume Tavernier. Unlike some of the building plans I’ve shared in recent weeks, his work is all fantasy, and ideal for gaming. Use the following links to check his work out and support him:
Copyright Guillaume Tavernier. Use the links above to support his work.
Guillaume’s map keys are in French, but we Anglophones can figure them out with a little help from Google Translate or a French-English dictionary. For example, the key above reads as follows:
- (Main) room
- Foyer (possibly a typo for fourneau, “furnace”)
- Storeroom
- Stables
- Smith’s bedroom
- Storeroom (although réserve can also mean “sanctuary,” so perhaps this private balcony is the smith’s relaxation area)
- Apprentices’ rooms
A forge or smithy is a common location in fantasy adventures, where Our Heroes might go to have equipment repaired or to have some custom piece made. The village smith was a respected member of the community, and can be a useful friend to make. He (or she – there were plenty of female smiths in history, and there should be even more in fantasy settings) will know plenty about what goes on locally, and can provide introductions to everyone important in the local area.
And of course, it’s not just player characters who engage a smith’s services. Here are a few ideas for adventure hooks, and I’m sure you can come up with more. If you do, why not share them with the other readers by dropping them in the Comments section at the bottom of the page?
- The villain’s evil plan requires an unusual piece of equipment, and the local smith has been engaged to make it. Designs, prototypes, and work in progress are clues that may help Our Heroes anticipate the plan and take steps to thwart it.
- The greatest smiths in most fantasy worlds are the dwarves, and they are very protective of their secrets. Stolen designs or techniques could make a human or halfling smith rich, and the local dwarven community very angry. Adventurers might be hired to find stolen manuals, materials, and designs or other evidence in advance of a court case or some more direct punitive action.
- Medieval guilds defended their members’ rights fiercely – or, to look at it another way, they established a closed monopoly of their particular craft or trade in a city, town, or county. The same could very well be true in a fantasy world, especially a low fantasy setting such as the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. A smith’s forge could become a battle zone if he had the support of the local community and either refused to join the guild or refused their orders to shut down. The guild might mount a campaign of harassment or hire rogues to sabotage the illicit forge. If matters come to a head, the PCs might find themselves involved in a Seven Samurai style defense against a mob of hired thugs.
Whatever the story may be, a forge is an interesting place to stage a combat, full of unusual hazards and weapons of opportunity such as shovels of hot coals. For inspiration, watch the forge fight scene in the 2003 movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
I’ll be back next Monday with another map, or possibly something else. Until then, have a good week, and may you and yours stay healthy.
Monday Maps #10: Bridge and Toll Houses
The Enemy in Shadows Companion for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay includes a chapter on the Road Wardens who protect the Empire’s highways and collect tolls. Road travel can be an entertaining and challenging part of adventuring in almost any fantasy world, and toll houses are an interesting class of location.
They are hybrid buildings, partly accommodation for the toll keeper and their family and partly a stronghold built to withstand attacks by bandits and others who want to get their hands on the cash inside. In heavily-frequented areas, they can be the size of small castles, able to house a garrison or to act as a waystation and supply base for local forces, perhaps including a cell or two for arrested miscreants on their way to the local town for trial and execution.
Toll houses are most often placed in strategic locations such as road junctions or river bridges. Here is one from 19th century Germany, on one end of a bridge. Click the image for a larger version.
From the Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität Berlin, via Europeana.eu
Some toll houses may incorporate arches over the road like city gates, which I covered in an earlier post. Here is a more rustic-looking building:
By Park Hwanhee, via Artstation.
Some may form part of a city’s walls and gates, like the Monnow Bridge that protects one of the entrances into the Welsh town of Monmouth. This arrangement makes a perfect customs barrier, although it may lead to serious delays at busy times, such as a market day when nearby farmers bring their crops and livestock to market.
An encounter at a toll house can take many forms: here are a few ideas, but I’m sure you can think of many more.
- Heroic outlaws might try to liberate taxes wrung from the oppressed local peasants, or lawful adventurers might help the beleaguered officials fight off an attack by bandits or monsters.
- Perhaps bandits have already taken the place over, added some improvised upgrades to its fortification, and started imposing their own “unofficial” taxes on all who pass by.
- Someone might need to be rescued from the cells.
- If the toll keepers are corrupt, a second set of books would provide proof and help Our Heroes restore justice – if they can be found and brought to a sympathetic magistrate or local lord.
- Perhaps the toll keepers are prejudiced, overtaxing those of a particular race, nation, or other class, and the PCs have been sent to investigate after complains were made to the local lord.
- Cultists might have intercepted a vital treasure on the road and turned the toll house into a makeshift temple for an unspeakable ritual.
I’ll be back next Monday with another map – or something else. Have a good week!
Monday Maps #9: A Town Hall
Across most of medieval Europe, the towns and their guilds won a long fight for independence from the feudal nobility. As trade began to drive economies and the merchant class grew richer, some towns were able to buy royal charters from the king, exempting them from the feudal pyramid and placing them directly under royal jurisdiction. Instead of a feudal lord, these towns were ruled by a council made up of senior guild members, and instead of a ducal palace, the grandest building in town was usually the council house, also known as the town hall.
Just like a ducal palace, a town hall was designed to show off the wealth and power of its owners – in this case, the town council and the trade guilds that underpin it. Tall towers and lavish architectural decoration are the order of the day.
A medieval town hall by Francois Beauregard, from Built4Ever on DeviantArt.com. Click to link to the Deviant Art page.
Within a typical town hall one might find to expect two council chambers, one large and open to the public and one smaller and private. There would be offices for the council members, each with a couple of smaller adjoining offices for their clerks and other staff. The town’s archives would occupy a good-sized room, part library and part document store. A lobby and reception area would be staffed by one or more doorkeepers who act as a first line of defense, telling visitors that they need to make an appointment and directing those with appointments to the appropriate office. The town’s bureaucratic apparatus can be expanded as necessary, with more offices in proportion.
In most small to medium-sized towns, the town hall also accommodated the town’s courts and judiciary, with one or two courtrooms, judges’ chambers, offices for the clerks of court, an archive for the court records, and perhaps even a couple of cells. “A Day at The Trials,” the second chapter in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement Rough Nights and Hard Days, includes a map of a town courthouse.
Town halls and town councils can be important in urban adventures,presenting Our Heroes with a web of politics to negotiate as they seek the necessary authorization or information to pursue whatever adventure has brought them to town. Small-town politics can be every bit as vicious, corrupt, and self-serving as those of a nation, which is why I have always found it grimly satisfying that the German word for council house is “Rathaus.” True, “Rat” does mean “council” rather than “rodent” (deriving from the same ancient root as the Old English word “rede,” meaning advice or discussion) – but even so….
Tune in next week for another #MondayMap – or perhaps a Monday Something Else Entirely – and follow my blog so you are automatically notified when a new post goes up.
Have a good week!
Monday Maps #8: A Noble Mansion
Many games present players with a mix of challenges, and a noble’s mansion can be as rewarding – and as dangerous, in its own way – as a dungeon or wilderness.
A mansion usually falls into three parts.
The public rooms consist of a foyer, a ballroom, a formal dining room, and one or more lesser reception rooms. These are almost always on the ground floor.
The family’s apartments are upstairs, and the suites belonging to senior family members usually include a dressing room and closet as well as a bedroom and an anteroom or study in which visitors can be received privately.
The third part of the house belongs to the servants. Servants’ quarters are usually on the very top floor, whose roofline is often constructed so that there is no sign of a floor there. A separate set of stairs communicates with the basement level, where the kitchens and storerooms are located. Hidden doors, or very discreet ones, give access to the other floors.
This 19th-century drawing, from the Architecture Museum of Berlin Technical University, is labeled Jagdhaus, or hunting lodge, but it would do very well for the country seat of a minor noble family or the town house of a major one. Only the ground floor is shown in plan view, but this is sufficient to show the load-bearing walls. Other floors will use the same basic plan, with additional dividing walls to create smaller rooms: cosy and private on the family’s floor, and cramped in the servant’s quarters. The small spiral staircase in the north-west corner will do very well for a servants’ stair.
Many more drawings from the Architecture Museum’s collection, covering a wide range of buildings, may be found on the Europeana Collections web site. Some are more useful in a fantasy game than others, but browsing through is interesting and can inspire all kinds of ideas.
This 19th-century lithograph, and a small selection of others, can be found at the Normany Then and Now web site, and give some other examples of how a house like this can be laid out. Search terms like “historic mansion plan” and “fantasy mansion plan” will find you plenty of others. Good hunting!
Graeme Davis 