Down in the SW corner is the Vagar River. On the setting map it starts as a forked river in the plains and makes its way NE where it meets Yethlyreom in Hex 1918. Further NE it’s labeled as the Makrono River and joins up just above Yeth with a third river out of the Murklands.

So I’m going to label the Vagar River as everything south of that junction out of the Murklands that seems to be unnamed, I’ll have to get to that as well. After the junction it’s Makrono River all the way up … or down river in this case. IRL when rivers converge the larger of the rivers keeps its name while the smaller loses out at the junction. Which is an interesting little fact that I didn’t know.

Looking at the setting map I see the Vagar river coming from the unnamed plains in that SW pocket without an obvious source. Planning for this I added a few raised areas down in that pocket. Elevated terrain for the rains to drain off of and get the rivers started. I also will stretch them out and take them from off map. That adds to the river and justifies their existence.

Oh, small point. You’ll notice that the background is black for the 1000’ layer. I’ve set it that way to make the rivers more visible. It looks a little strange but its much easier on the eyes.

I’ve added a few branches off the Thunderhome Mountains. It’s a perfect setup for that western slope and I feel that it would have at least one good run across the Oggo Forest to join up.

So the upper courses of the Vagar will start out of the southern side of the Oro Mountains making their way north around several elevations. The tributaries will start to really be felt as it gets through its middle courses before turning north. Finally it will flatten out and slow as it slides into the lower course before meeting the Makrono River and confluencing … the fancy word for merging. Smarty pants word.

Searching the text of the Dwimmermount book the Vagar is referenced only twice in the book. Both times on page 60. An entry under Mercantile Trade mentions that the ‘upper Vagar River is not navigable’. I’m going to take that to mean that the lower is ‘navigable’ and that something along that upper stretch likely starting in 15.28 or 15.29 doesn’t allow for boats bigger than a large canoe.

I’m going to go with rapids for the reason for that lack of navigability. A stretch along those hexes, and infrequently to the north of them, is riddled with rapids that with their frequent changes in elevation just doesn’t allow a vessel to traverse. Plus rapids are cool.

The second mention is under the Civilized entry that says that ‘Civilized areas are found primarily on the banks of the Makrono, Vagar, and Lanis Rivers and in the fertile plain west of the Ogga Forest.’ When I get to the part where I map out the domains I’ll have to make sure that I extend the domains to cover the Vagar river. Which shouldn’t be hard.

Now when pulling the streams out of the Oro Mountains I’m keeping most of the flow into the Vagar from the southern side of the mountain range. The prevailing winds cut almost straight on to the mountains from the SW so the rains will dump pretty deep into the range especially considering the height of the Oro Mountains. The majority of the flows I’m going to dump off the other side into the Murklands. It’ll be interesting having the rain shadow split like that. There’s a few instances of that on Earth so google before the emails start.

Looking at the general area as well I’ve got some text from the Ogga Forest that would let me stream some water from that area to the west. That would help justify the ‘fertile plains’ comment in the text. I’m going to leave that for the moment and come back to adjust it later. It’ll be easier to sketch in afterwards.

Back to the Thunderhome Mountains. I’ve got an interesting lake very near the base in the Ogga Forest. Which was easy to feed from that elevation just beside it. Pretty damned decent sized lake as well.

It also has this neat little feature that I drew in. To be honest I yawned as I was drawing and went the wrong way around the elevation. Once I looked at it I rather liked it. Any GM worth his dice can see that would be an interesting place for a Point of Interest.

Finally here it is. The entire Vagar River cutting off just north of Yeth …

These river articles are more work than I originally thought. Next up is going to be the other side of the Oro Mountains. I’m going to detail the Murklands and related rivers.

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Demon Claw Mountains are next. There’s a lot of spread here. The NE remains pretty tight, referring to that pass that I mentioned above, but it widens up a lot in the south. I like the shape that it maintained some of the shape that led to the name of the range. Not so much in the north but very much so with the center mountain ranges. It worked out to leave a solid series of valleys between some of the ranges as well. The bottom range I extended down to give some justification for the Murklands to the south. All that sloping terrain plus a water source is going to work nicely to make that area happen in a realistic way.

The Ghost Peaks look very similar to the last article just expanded outward to butt up against the Winterpeaks in the NE and the Shield Wall Mountains in the E. There will be just enough of a gap for the Makrono river flowing north and to park Yethlyreom in 19.18.

Moving south we get to the Oro Mountains. I’ve spread them out towards the edge of the Murklands, same as the Demon Claw Mountains, to justify the structure of the swamp. I also expanded the range organically to the east and the SW.

Looking at some of the open spaces I added some terrain where I thought it was helpful for the map. In the south I added a series of elevations to help with the shape that the Vagar river in the south was taking. I want to stick to my goal of keeping the rivers in the hexes that they were shown in on the Outdoor Survival Map. That required adding some terrain in to make it work. When a river moves there is usually a really good reason for it.

Moving west we come to the Shield Wall Mountains. I’ve stuck with the goal of having it right up against the Makrono River in the NW and leaving that narrow pass to access the Starfell. I made a point not to expand too much into the Starfell so that there would be plenty of hexes of open wasteland for travel and adventuring on flat lands for a change. Plus I have cool images of dust storms blowing through the area and I need some flat lands for that to be super cool.

Next, moving west, is the Thunderhome Mountains. The range has stayed tight in the north, its getting to be a very steep and restricted area. It’s an excellent example of what happens when you get several different ranges converging and you have to navigate that nasty mess. The majority of its spread in the SW where it’s started to slope downwards through the Oggo Forest and towards the Vagar River.

With the Barrier Mountains to the south we’ve left the buttes of the 2.5K and 3K ranges behind and extended the gradual sloping of the 2K range down into the 1.5K.

I’ve created a hill for the Lanis river (42.27-44.28) in the NE of the range. It might look odd now but picture a river flowing north between the two. It’s a little something to help guide it. To the S and the W it travels off the the map closing off most of that area. Down in the SW corner I added a few hills to help hold the structure of that lake in place. I was also quite happy with the way the valley between the Barrier Mountains and the Thunderhome Mountains came together. It was organically done and really didn’t need to be forced. A lovely wooded valley.

Next in the rotation is the Hearthstone Mountains. I’ll detail them east to west.

The eastern most of the ranges helps create those valleys on its W and E flanks and to the south it solidly sets the course for the Lanis River.

The second range guides the Lanis on its south and spreads up towards the Westwall Mountains in the North. I wanted to get it up into that gap between the ranges to create some guidance for the Lanis heading north off the map and to bracket the Makrono Marsh. This range really helps determine where that river is going. With taps as compared to the first of these ranges which has the river riding its eastern flank.

The third range is limited because of the terrain that surrounds it and the Makrono Marsh to the north. I was able to spread out a bit in the W to help close off that area towards the Makrono River but its pretty trapped.

Last is the small, compared to what its surrounded by, range that runs W to E just south of the third range. The expansion of it joined up with the Shield Wall Mountains to the south and I spread it out to the SW to help fill in that gap. It also creates an interesting tight pass for the Makrono River in the 26.14/27.15/27.14 hexes. I had the idea for a ruined bridge there. A massive undertaking that was perhaps never finished or collapsed between the ages, an excellent adventure site that is close to Adamas in 24.15

Completing our loop is the Westwall Mountains in the NE corner of the map. The giant series of Karst Mountains continues to slope downwards. It extends into the NE pocket towards the Grey Sea. It also helps create the valleys between the Hearthstone Mountains to its west. Finally in the south it spreads out to slope the land towards the Timeless Forest.

That closes off the 1,500’ range. This band was much easier than 4K to 2K series. I really only had to redo one or two ranges and make some adjustments to account for the rivers that were flowing through.

My next step was looking at the 1,000’ range and seeing just how far it would spread and where I would have step downs into the 500’ ranges. My guess was that it was going to cover the majority of the map in a fairly gentle slope. I started to take a hard look at the multipliers for the spread and the elevations to allow for the Lanis/Vargar/Makrono rivers to flow properly. This lead to my conclusion that the vast majority of the remaining terrain was going to be coming in solidly between 500’ and 1000’.

This makes sense. It allows for local variation of terrain that isn’t covered at this detail level and still lets the rivers flow towards the Grey Sea in the North. Which is good. I like to avoid the ‘A Wizard Did It’ solution. Now the NE pocket was an exception. That needed to slope down to sea level.

There were a few spots that got close to 500’ but I decided to keep them high enough to be able to give some uniformity to the open regions. I had to double check the Murklands and the Makrono Marsh but there are plenty of examples of swamps and marshes at elevation to allow for them to be there. The drainage won’t be too steep for them.

Now the NE pocket … first I added in the 500’ range making sure to allow for the rivers to be able to flow out of the Westwall properly. You don’t want to create a spot for the flow and then see that you didn’t allow for it to track down the slopes in a reasonable manner. Awkward.

Next I stepped down to 250’ and again allowed for the main river to drain properly and to add the guidance for the other small tributaries that will add into it as it heads down to the Grey Sea.

Finally getting down to the Grey Sea I decided that I wasn’t happy with three hexes of ocean. Since I’m carving up the rest of the terrain I should be a little more organic with the coastline as well. So I spread out into 41.01 and 42.02 and 44.02. Then I put in the 0’ feet curves to show the coastline. I left a curve of a coastline in 41.01 just for fun and I made sure to allow for the river mouth and a bit of bay in 43.03 as well.

So finally here it is in all its glory. Minus the lakes, rivers, inhabitants, and all of that.

The next thing I’m going to tackle is the lakes, rivers, marshes and swamps. That should come together fairly quickly since a lot of the work has already been plotted out. If you’ve been playing attention you’ve seen the locations of most of the lakes already. I just need to create the rivers that justify their existences.

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Then I’m moving north to center on the White Mountains. Here we’ve got even more sprawl. Forested areas to the east as the land quickly descends down towards the Lanis River and plains to the west that will much more resemble the High Plains than the ones flanking Dwimmermount that I referenced above. There is going to be a lovely valley that will run south towards towards the Murklands that I’m debating adding a decent sized river in for, I’m not sure yet. So plains to the west descending towards that valley and then back up into the Demon Claw ranges.

Speaking of the Demon Claw Mountains I’m going to move to them next. So here I can see how the Demon Claws have sprawled out. There’s going to be a hilly section, likely with a lot of buttes to the NW of the range. But to the west of the range it’s going to be much more arid respecting the rocky desert and sandy dunes that are in the setting map. There must be a much larger desert to the west of the Demon Claws for that to be present. Those dry winds will start to moisten as they pass through the Claws and the western edges of those passes will start to change into scrublands and finally into forests as those winds get captured by more wet air coming from the south to the north. I’m not 100% happy with how this range works but I think I’m going to have to go with it. It’s an interesting feature and really that’s more important than rearranging the entire thing to make it climate viable. To the east it resembles the descending plains from the Winterpeaks. A little more dry but not enough to make a big different. Also to maintain the look of those valleys I kept the mountain ranges tight as they descended with some sprawl from the last range as it broke up into the hills to the SW.

Now I’m going to change up the rotation and move down to the Ghost Peaks in the south. Here you can see the range broken up into two segments with a thin N/S pass in the west. To the SE of the mountains you can see where Yethlyreom and the Makrono River passes through in hex 19.18. Then to the NE you can see the valley between the Winterpeaks and the Ghost Peaks that feeds travel into Adamas. One of the nice touches of building terrain with this method is that you can see where the trade will naturally pass.

Continuing south is the Oro Mountains appearing for the first time at the 3K height range. This is interesting little place. Fort Oro is in 0931 and this range will help feed the Vagar river to the south. Also I’m going to use it to support the Murklands Marsh just to the north of it as a bracket to help explain why it hasn’t run off or become a lake.

Next up is the Shield Wall Mountains which have spread out quite a bit from the 4K range last article. I wanted to have it right up against the Makrono River in its NW edges, leaving a pass to access the central Starfell in the NE and setting up for that lake at the south. The Starfell will be raised in the middle, off sea level, but that works with my theory on how that area came to be. Also I wanted it to not screw up the entire Starfell just with the downslopes from the Shield Wall and the Thunderhome Mountains turning it into a valley.

Speaking of the Thunderhome Mountains that’s where I end up next in the rotation. I’m past the point of the the broken peaks and the spreading outwards has started. It’s speading a bit to the north and into the Starfell but mostly to the SW. The connection to the Barrier Mountains to the south was obvious and easy to pull off. Plus that makes the Whispering Woods between the two of them a nice easily structured valley. That valley is likely the cleanest part of this entire area.

The Barrier Mountains make their first appearance in the 3K range. They’re unusual in that they don’t have a clear spine like most of the other mountain ranges. This one is much more like the gradual hills and slope of the 2K range and then near the top large buttes spiking up into 2.5K and 3K. It’s different from all the other mountain ranges and I like the idea of how strange that would look while still working in the region. The 2K range of slope closes off the map edge and has a nice spread to the west.

Also making it’s first appearance is the Hearthstone Mountains. Now this range is a collection of four separate ranges. I’ll detail them from eastern to western.

The first is the largest of the four ranges. I went with a decent spine and some sprawl to the peaks so that it would cover a decent chunk of ground into that open area to the east.

On the second range I went with a similar type but I kept them tighter so they hint a spine but leave plenty of passes between them. I spread it to the north in the 2K range to help support the Makrono Marsh to the NW of it.

The third range is a little funky and has a second split to the SW that is actually a second mountain range. I thought that would be more interesting than unifying them. They’re close enough though to treat as a single range for the purposes of this description. Now between ranges two and three is the Lanis River. When I’ve ran this setting before I used the Lanis River as draining out of the Makrono Marsh to the south with the flows added in from the Heathstone Mountains and acted as an economic engine for the southern area. Upon re-reading the source material I noticed this …

Meet? Meet! Well shit. That means the Lanis runs from the south into the Makono Marsh meeting the Makrono River which would have to run north! That would have been embarrassing. Apologies to my other games in this setting. I’ll have to redo that which is awkward but not impossible to fix. Taking a look that it I think that it actually makes plotting it easier. Getting that thing to run south … I was never happy with it. I guess I know why now. Yeah. I’ll go with that.

Lastly I’ve got that little section of mountain that runs W to E south of number three. I’ve got a nice little pass between it and the Shield Wall slopes to the south. This range isn’t mentioned in the text and only in a hex map that I found in the depths of the internet. I went over the collection of maps that I found for the setting in my article The Maps ... Which of The Maps?. I debated whether to put it in or not and ultimately I decided that I liked it there so in it goes. It’s a pretty basic series of three peaks. It does break that forest up nicely and makes some good valleys for settlements and some rivers.

Completing our circuit I end in the NE corner of the map with first appearance of the Westwall Mountains. I like these mountains because they’re mentioned on the map but not in the text. Nadda. The Greenhold Forest to its east, yes. Castle Greenholt in 4004, yes. The Westwall Mountains, no. So creative license it is.

I’ve been itching to use a certain type of mountain for the entire map and I haven’t been able to use it until now. A Tower Karst. The short version is that you get Tower Karsts within a Karst Landscape. Okay, I know. It’s inside baseball. A quick explanation …

A Karst Landscape is when you have soluble rocks such as limestone as a base. That base easily, as far as geology goes, melts away into flat depressions and sinkholes with caves being very common. Within a Karst Landscape you can get Tower Karsts that are the remainder of a large amount of soluble stone melting away and they look goddamned cool. Tell me this isn’t evocative?

So that’s what I’m turning the Westwall into. A big fucking series of Tower Karst mountains that cover the corner of the map and drain off into the NE pocket where the Greenholt forest is. I’ll use some of those run routes to create a lake and the rest can run into the Grey Sea, that’s hexes 43.01 through 44.01, that is just in the corner of the map.

Whew. That’s been a lot of work. I think I redid this series of ranges twice and parts of it three times before I was happy enough with the results to publish them.

The next article in this series will cover the 2K and down terrain. That will fill in the valleys and structure the marshes and swamps. Then will come the work of the rivers with all the tributaries and distributaries. Finally, I’ll be able to drop the points of interest on the map and fill in some of the blank areas where I think there should be more civilization and neat shit.

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Now up to the White Mountains and here we’ve finally started to spread out more. The 7K and 6K bands are starting to move out into the NW corner down towards the Winterpeaks and the forest to the S and SW. I wanted to get that feeling of shattered frequent peaks with twisting valleys and the western edges stretching out into the green areas. Now I’ve got that alpine lake encircled up and I’ve got a few drainage routes picked out for it as well. I like the ‘gore’ of this mountain range. It makes an excellent counter point to the stiffly vertical Winterpeaks to the south.

Now to the Demon Claw Mountains and these will look quite a bit different than last time. I felt that a bit of a plateau was in order at the 5K range so I drew that in and tightened it up for the 4K. We’re going to get more spread in the 3K range the other fingers of the Demon Claw are going to start to pop up. That plateau will make interesting living spaces for creatures that can stand that kind of biome.

Moving down SE we’ve got the first appearance of the Shield Wall Mountains. The NW match to the to Thunderhome Peaks. The Shield Wall Mountains start off interesting. With a 1000’ spread you can have an entire section of mountains that looks pretty uniform on a map while still having significant height differences. So here we’ve got what looks like a unbroken wall of mountains. Unlike some of the others that I’ve broken up I thought I’d keep this one consistent. My view is that since they call this area The Starfall I’m going to assume that it was created from something big hitting, maybe something big that had the ability to retrobrake a bit or at least not hit like a normal meteor. The book text for the area hints at something like that.

I’m using this as justification to break some of the conventual rules for mountains and do something a different with them. Sort of a crater setup with the desert in the middle and the mountains surrounding it from the impact pushing them up. It also kind of explains all the fucked up mountain ranges in this area that make little sense. Kinda. But the map wasn’t designed to any sort of scientific applications so I’m working with what I’ve got.

Drifting to the SE we’ve got the Thunderhome Mountains and these are fairly tight as well. I kept a few of the scattered peaks in the lower ranges along the western edge but most of the work has been done to show those steep broken slopes. The range has spread more to the SW and SE and less to the north. I’ve got that gap between the Shield Wall and the Thunderhome in the NE and SW that I need to content with and leave in some aspect although likely smaller than what the map originally showed.

I didn’t sprawl out as much as I thought I would in the 6K to 4K. Things stayed pretty tight. In the 3K range I’ve got the sprawl started as the Demon Claw ‘fingers’ will start to appear and the open areas of ‘plains and forests’ will start to show themselves sloping away from the mountains. It’s going to be a glorious and interesting mess.

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Now I’m moving north to the White Mountains. The drops in elevation are illustrating the mountains sprawling to the SW. I created a series of lower peaks along the south edge to fill it in and create series of valleys that will make passage through the area possible but difficult. If someone is choosing to travel through this range it means the hexes that surround it, especially off map, may be worse to travel through either because of terrain or encounters or just plain hostile domains.

Shifting west to the Demon Claws Mountains and I’ve got the 7K range to start. It’s mostly tight to the grouping of peaks but you’ll see that I’ve started to spread it out a bit with scattered peaks around the area. When I shift down to 6K you can really see it then. The range really starts to ‘flatten out’ a bit. I’ve scattered more secondary peaks and aimed them down the spur of the main range. They’ll make the upper edges of that spine that’ll reach most of the way down the piece.

I think that’ll try to make the other ‘claws’ the same way. The majority of the top of the ranges being roughly the same height. It will likely compress the valleys in between them a bit but they were way too uniform before in the first place.

Now down to the Thunderhome mountains in the SE of the map. Previously I had placed peaks along the northern stretch towards the ‘central core’ with a few on the flanks. In the 7K range I continued the same work by building them down and added a series of peaks on the western side to indicate the steep broken slopes that I want to put along there. Finally in the 6K range I drew in the core of the top of the northern spur, stretched it to the east and started it down the SW reach. Like the Demon Claw mountains I can see a similar height to this spur as descends into hilly terrain down in the 22 and 21 hex columns.

The next article will cover the 6K to 4K ranges and I’m going cover a lot of terrain. I’ll start to cut into the lower area of the map and I’m going to spread a lot down those mountain ranges.

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Next up is the White Mountains to the north of the Winterpeaks. Here I’ve started to lay the groundwork to sprawl out to the south and to the west, the direction that I want these mountains to flow. So the 8K-11K ranges are reflecting what you’re going to see much more in the 4K-6K range, which you’ve heard before. The valleys should allow for some trade through the ranges although not as easily as the Muntburg-Winterburg passage. In the east I’ve got that lake to deal with. I think I’m going to turn that into an alpine lake. It’s too close to the mountains to put it at a much lower elevation without stunting the spread of the mountains too short for my liking. Plus I really like the idea of a big alpine lake at a decent elevation there. It’s flavorful, accurate and should improve land value around that area. I’ll need to look into that a bit before I decide to up the land value because of the lake.

Then off to the Demon Claws to the west. There’s not too much to see here yet. Just the descending off the higher peaks. There will be more to see when I get into the lower ranges. Then this area will start to look interesting.

Lastly the Thunderhome Mountains in the SE. This is more building off the ice caps towards lower ranges. A few scattered peaks that are mostly along the N/S stretch and a few to the SW and SE.

Finally here’s a sketched in overview of the region. It’s starting to show the direction that the mountains are going to sprawl and the shape of the lower lands. It appears I’m going to end up with a lot of valleys and plateaus in areas where I think people envisioned flat farming land because of the colors of the map. Those broad green areas just seem to make the brain think ‘flat and farmable’. Don’t get me wrong there’s going to still be plenty of farm land but we’re going to have a lot of sloped terrain in those green areas.

The next article should be out fairly quickly. I’m still catching up on what I’ve already sketched in. I should have the next one out by the new year. That will be 6K or 7K to the 8K range depending on just how much detail there is.

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The Wintertop Mountains and Dwimmermount, in 24.10. Since this is the main adventuring area of the setting I wanted to make the mountains impressively high here. Dwimmermount will be the highest peak because well … its Dwimmermount. The other ice caps are much larger and still have impressively high peaks with sprawled out glacier ice sheets which remain frozen due to the elevation. At this latitude those ice sheets are locked in with the temperature never rising above freezing. At lower levels we’re going to see seasonal melt and flows downwards being created. The ice sheets aren’t going to be present in the rest of the map and its an interesting feature.

It’s a great place for a GM to tuck away adventures against creatures that can adapt to such harsh and barren terrain. Wyrms, Frost Giants, Dire Polar Bears, etc. There’s also the interesting challenge in getting there and surviving while there. Point a treasure map or two into these regions and watch in the intensive planning start.

The White Mountains to the North … here there are few permanently frozen peaks but I wanted a couple to reflect the fact that at some point, before the glaciers moved through, the White Mountains and the Wintertop Mountains were likely the same range.

To the NW in the Demon Claws Mountains … only a few here as well to reflect the original map. That same glacier effect that broke the Winterpeaks and Whitetop would have created the unique mountain range that is the Demon Claws. The glacier flows could have been weakened and likely just cut through the weakest stone making the unique shaped passes in the area. At least that’s the best thing that I can come up with for a reason.

Lastly, the Thunderhome Mountains to the SE of the Starfell … this reflects the source material and makes sense with the Starfall’s nature. Whatever hit/crashed there was enough to crush and reform that section of mountain. There are real world examples of impacts of that scale, the Chicxulub Event, Chesapeake Bay impact, and the Nördlinger Ries. As to what I think might have crashed there I’ll cover that in a later article on that region in particular. For the moment it’s an easy place to have a few peaks tosses up by the impact damage and I’ll likely add in a few dead volcanic ranges to represent the big seismic activity from that impact at lower elevations.

Finally here’s a sketched in overview of the highest points of the region … that’s a lot of locked in fresh water and its going to be interesting to see how that effects the area. It’s likely be a nightmare when I get to the lower ranges, ice starts to flow downhill and suddenly things start to not match up to the map.

The next article should be out fairly quickly. I’ve got some time off work so more freed up clock cycles. That next one will cover 8,000 to 11,000 most likely.

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Big Red Orm

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So finally I circle back to what I started back in September 2024 with a small area that was Orm’s centered on #41 Ruins of Azen Kairn and built out a series of Vassals that serve him. In this article I’m going to pull all of that together and see what I’m looking at for a threat staring down at the Borderlands. Using the ACKS style of organic design means that you don’t always end up where you thought you would.

I’m going to start with taking a look at all of Orm’s Vassals and what they’re paying in Tribute up to him. Make sure that my math was close to right when I originally guessed.

Nindukugga, favorite daughter of Orm kicks up 6,500gp/month. That was larger than I originally thought. Her Domain ended up being larger than I thought and much more of a percentage of the threat that Orm’s Realm represents.

Embarra, Fire Giantess pays 3,900gp/month in tribute. This entire domain was bolted in because of the mistake I made with #33 Dragon’s Tor and assuming that it was a full domain. This one ended up being quite fun to write up and ponder on.

Turtak, Ogre Warlord with his starter domain pays 400gp/month. That was an interesting one. A small mixed species starter domain. That’s going to be a fun one to go back and build out into a useable point of interest.

Azen Radokh, the reluctant Dwarven Vassals pay 3,285gp/month. Ah, those poor salt mining Dwarves. The face of Orm’s Realm to the rest of the Borderlands.

So that’s a total of 14,085gp/month. Well, not bad at all. I guessed in the 10K to 20K range and I hit pretty much the middle. The hope was that Orm’s Realm would take in about as much Tribute as Prefect Basilio in Cyfaraun. A check of the Capital on the Borderlands book shows that after paying his own Tribute up the line the Prefect is left with 11,025gp/month. But Orm isn’t paying anyone so there that.

Now since I originally wrote the Orm article I’ve changed my opinion on Personal Authority with Monstrous Rulers. I put Orm at 1/2 of his HD for PA and I’m changing that to reflect the changes I made to Nindukugga’s domain. It’ll be 3/4 of Orm’s HD for his PA so 15HD. The chart on page 348 of ACKS II Revised Rulebook tops out at 14 but its not hard to extrapolate what 15HD looks like. Best guess I think that Orm is going to come in at a TMI (Total Monthly Income) of about 22-25KGP.

Now before I can finish up the realm and see what I’ve got I should take a moment to finalize what I think Orm’s personal statline is since that can apply to how he runs his Realm. This ought to be ugly.

Orm, Red Dragon (Winged Drake): Str 17, Int 17, Wis 15, Cha 17; MV 90’/240’, AC 13, HD 20*******, hp 141, #AT 3 (2 claws 3d4+5 -14+, 1 bite 5d8+7 -16+) or 1 (breath), Save F20, ML +7, AL C, Size C, XP 15,400; SA +2, LA 6, ML +2; Special: Breath Weapon (recharging cone), Clutching Claws, Consume Souls, Counterspelling, Draconic Persuasion, Knowledge: Political Economy, Loremastery, Poisonous Blood, Speech, Spellcasting, Transform, Unflappable Casting, Wholeness of Being; Spells: 5 1st, 5 2nd, 5 3rd, 5 4th, 4 5th; Repertoire: 1st - Chameleon, Counterspell, Discern Gist, Discern Magic, Slumber; 2nd - Dark Whisper, Discern Invisible, Energy Protection, Illusory Duplicates, Physical Protection; 3rd - Deflect Ordinary Missiles, Dispel Magic, Force of Impetus, Invisibility, Spellward; 4th - Arcane Shift, Energy Invulnerability, Physical Invulnerability, Sphere of Invulnerability, Lesser, Telepathy; 5th - Blast Ward, Deflect Ordinary Weapons, Teleportation, Wall of Stone

That’s based on the standard 20HD Dragon, some increased stats, a Special Ability spent on proficiencies and a pair of class powers. Since this is Orm I don’t mind the odd hateful combo. He didn’t get to his position with diplomacy. I also avoided loading him up with ‘battlefield’ proficiencies. I don’t see him in the General role, he’s got people to do that for him. He’s the Supreme Leader for better or worse.

Now I’m not going to go into full horde details because as I mentioned in the first article that Dragon is sitting on a monster horde. Very likely the biggest stash in the Borderlands region. That will be a later article where I look at what Orm’s plans are for the Borderland region. This build is purely to see what might effect the domain building.

Oh in Terrain of the Borderlands III I noted that Orm has a Copper-Cobalt-Iron Deposit in his Personal Domain. He’s got Dwarven slaves to work it and that’s money that generates misery for the Dwarves and that’s a win for him. But running a mine like that draws attention with all the inputs and outputs. I’m going to say that Orm has it shut down and likely won’t fire it up until his final push into the Borderlands. It’s a good source of material but I doubt that the Dragon lacks for trade when he wishes it. He’s got the Dwarves in Azen Radokh for that.

Orm’s income after his expenses works out to 20,810gp/month … pretty decent. At 15HD that gives him a PA of +4 and with that I can fill out the rest of the sheet and see what I’m looking at … well that PA of +4 doesn’t last long when there’s not a lot of other bonuses to tap except the Additional Troops bonus but that’s not carried across his entire realm so that doesn’t apply. He would get the +1 for Realm Adminstration though. It would have been a Base Moral Score of +3 but I put the tax rate up cause … well … Dragon so its a BMS of +2 which isn’t too bad at all.

I don’t have enough detail on what #41 Azen Kairn looks like currently but I’m going to assume that it more than serves as a Stronghold. Hell, it was a Dwarven Capital so even in ruin it would be enough.

In his Personal Domain he’s maintaining a Garrison of 24,300gp per month of troops. I’ve been pondering what they might be. I’ve settled on the classic banana republic dictator’s ‘household’ troops. Orm has a collection, with the exception of Nindukugga, of strong willed monsters for rulers. It would get tiring if he had to fly out and breathe fire on everyone that questioned his orders. Plus he’s got a domain that is Civilized at its core and ringed with Borderland hexes. That requires some control and troops to enforce that control.

I’m assuming that Nindukugga got her love of Ogre Troops from her father. I’m also looking at this in that Orm is not a military genius, he actually has very little battlefield military skill so the troops that he wants are likely not the best troops for him to have. He’s smart but that sometimes just makes you think that you can’t be wrong. So that means something impressive looking but not militarily the best choice.

Let’s go with some big impressive looking troops. Ogres. Namely Heavy Infantry Ogres. These would be the troops to keep order in his domain and look impressive. A company of 60 Heavy Infantry Ogres would be 12,600gp so that’s a good start to the Orm Palace Guard. A second unit of Light Infantry Ogres for 8,100gp. Gives the Light Infantry somewhere to rise to and the Heavy Infantry someone else to look down on. As for the remaining 3,600gp … hmmm … Orm really likes to twist the knife and remind his Dwarven Vassals just who they work for so I’m going to say that he’s spending part of that Garrison money on that. A unit of 120 Dwarven Heavy Infantry A would cost 3,240gp and that would amuse Orm to no end, to make the Dwarves fight for his cause. Plus a traitor unit like that creates interesting divisions.

The next article in this series will be a summation of the military power that Orm can project and a look at his goals and what his reach is in the Borderlands region.

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Counterspell

Arcane 1, Divine 1
Type: protection

Range: 180’
Duration: instantaneous

This spell enables the caster to extinguish a single ongoing spell or spell-like effect that has been cast on a target creature or object. If counterspell is used on a willing creature, or on an object held by a willing creature, the caster can choose which spell or effect to target. If counterspell is used on an unwilling creature, or on an object held by an unwilling creature, the creature must make a Spells saving throw. If the save succeeds, the counterspell has no effect. If the save fails, one random spell or effect on the creature becomes the target of the spell.

Once the target spell is determined, the caster must make an attack throw versus the spell or spell-like effect, treating it as a creature with an armor class equal to the difference in caster level between the creator of the spell or effect and the caster. If this attack throw succeeds, the spell or effect is extinguished. If this attack throw fails, the counterspell has no effect.

Some spells and effects cannot be ended by counterspell. These include spells or effects that are not cast on creatures or objects, curse spells or effects, petrification spells or effects, and quest spells or effects, as well as magic items with effects of permanent duration and diseases caused by spells or effects. Counterspell can be used to extinguish spells or effects on a creature or object made permanent by ritual magic only if the caster is of higher level than whoever made the effect permanent.

Breaking down the spell into the creation formula we get …

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 180' (x1.6), duration: instant (0.5x), targeting: 1 creature (x1), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 10

… otherwise known as no extra room to work with there. So I’m going to have to make adjustments to make some variants. Let’s start with the range first. Going from 180’ to 90’ takes me down to a 1.3x

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 90' (x1.3), duration: instant (0.5x), targeting: 1 creature (x1), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 8.12

Messing with the saving throw is too expensive at a x4 multiplier but I’ve got an idea. Let’s make it a concentration based spell and offset that with the stationary requirement. That’s an even trade between the duration and the duration modifier requirements and I might as well raise the range again with little else to spend the points on.

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 180' (x1.6), duration: concentration (x1), duration modifier: caster must remain stationary for duration (x.5), targeting: 1 creature (x1), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 10

Now the idea of the Concentration based Counterspell is interesting but I don’t think it’s in keeping with what the spirit of the spell is. My thought is that Counterspell is a just a lesser form of the 3rd level Dispel Magic. Concentration as a duration would really just make it a different spell entirely. I’m going to try and adjust it to make it more like a Lesser Dispel Magic.

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 90' (x1.3), duration: instant (x0.5), area of effect: 10x10x10 cube (x1.25), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 10.16

I had to reduce the range back down to 90’ but that gets a 10’x10’x10’ cube that, if you treat it as a lesser Dispel Magic, you can make those attack rolls against all the spells and spell-like effects that can be effected. If you go with a slightly smaller AoE of 10’ diameter you can get the range back up to 150’ …

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 150' (x1.5), duration: instant (x0.5), area of effect: 10’ diameter sphere (x1.1), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 10.31

… or for almost melee range work …

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 30' (x1.1), duration: instant (x0.5), area of effect: 20’ diameter sphere (x1.5), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 10.31

… but at this point you’re just trading range for radius and somewhere decent needs to be settled on. I think the 10’x10’x10’ cube AoE is a good place to settle. It covers a decent area, is easy to handle in a dungeon environment and since Dispel Magic is a 20’x20’x20’ cube well that works out pretty well at half.

Counterspell (1): Protection, Dispel spells and spell-like effects (25), range 90' (x1.3), duration: instant (x0.5), area of effect: 10x10x10 cube (x1.25), saving throw avoids spell effect (.x5), arcane (x1), total cost 10.16

Now unlike my other articles I decided to not build higher level versions of the spell. As I mentioned above if you look at Dispel Magic it is really just Counterspell that can effect multiple targets with a 20x20x20 cube and Anti-Magic Shell is just the 6th level version of Counterspell. That’s one of the great things about ACKS and the way that spells are created. With the spell construction rules as a foundation to build on and tinker with you can learn how the spells relate to one another and how they’re built upon each other.

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Choking Grip

Arcane 1, Divine 2

Type: Death

Range: 45’

Duration: Concentration

This spell can place an invisible grip around the throat of a living target. The target must make a Death saving throw. If the save succeeds, the target resists the spell. If the save fails, the target begins choking. It immediately suffers 1d6 necrotic damage and thereafter cannot take any actions or speak (although it can still defend itself) until the choking grip ends.

When the caster’s next initiative number comes up, if the caster maintains concentration on the spell, then the choking target must make another Death saving throw. If the save succeeds, the spell ends. If the save fails, the target continues choking. It suffers another 1d6 necrotic damage and still cannot take any action. The choking grip lasts until dispelled, the caster stops concentrating upon it, or the target makes a successful saving throw and ends the spell.

The target of this spell must be a living animal, giant, humanoid, monstrosity, or other creature that respirates through a windpipe. If cast on another type of living creature, such as an ooze or vermin, the spell automatically fails.

Now breaking down the spell it comes in two parts. This is the first spell that I’ve broken down that has an Effect, the Choking, on top of the damage. The first part will be the 1d6 damage and the second is the Choking effect.

1st …
Choking Grip (1): Death, 1d6 Damage/Level (33), Maximum 1d damage (x0.1), 1 Creature (1), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 1.56

2nd …
Choking Grip (1): Death, target Choking/Vomiting for duration (x15), 1 Creature (1), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 7.09, total cost 8.65

So the spell is a little tight at first level with only 1.85 to work with but let’s see what I can do with it. If I increase the damage on the first part to 1d12/level the cost goes to 2.83 which when added to the 7.09 for the second part gets 9.92. Daddy Like.

1st …
Choking Grip (1): Death, 1d12 Damage/Level (60), Maximum 1d damage (x0.1), 1 Creature (1), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 2.83

2nd …
Choking Grip (1): Death, target Choking/Vomiting for duration (x15), 1 Creature (1), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 7.09, total cost 9.92

I tried increasing the max damage to 2d and decreasing the damage to 1d4 looking for that 2-8 vs 1d6 but that doesn’t fit. Normally you can’t get 2d of damage on a first level spell so if you allow it then understand that you’re breaking that rule. Let’s see if I can increase the range on both parts to 90’. The first part becomes 3.31 and the second 8.27 for a total of 11.58. Which is too high. Let’s try a 60’ range on both parts … that becomes 3.07 and 7.68 for a total of 10.75 … damn, just too high. So it’s a reset to 45’

There’s not much else I can do with the spell at 1st level without changing the basic nature of the spell. Let’s see what a third level Choking Grip could be …

1st …
Choking Grip (3): Death, 1d10 Damage/Level (52), Maximum 2d damage (x0.3), 1 Creature +1 / 5 levels (2), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 14.74

2nd …
Choking Grip (3): Death, target Choking/Vomiting for duration (x15), 1 Creature +1 / 5 levels (2), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 14.18, total cost 28.92

That’s not bad, the second target doesn’t kick in until the caster is 6th level but still. 2d10 to a single target that is also choking and then two targets at 6th level. I just couldn’t carry the 1d12 over if I wanted to expand it to extra targets which I think is a cool feature.

Now … how about a 5th level version?

1st …
Choking Grip (5): Death, 1d10 Damage/Level (52), Maximum 2d damage (x0.3), 1 Creature +2 / 5 levels (3), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 22.11

2nd …
Choking Grip (5): Death, target Choking/Vomiting for duration (x15), 1 Creature +2 / 5 levels (3), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 21.26, total cost 43.37

Hmmm, really all you’re getting is that additional target. 3 targets at 6th level and 4 targets at 11th level. I could have adjusted the range but 45’ has carried through the whole build and the short range feels like a pillar of the spell. Let’s see if I can’t tweak the damage a little bit …

1st …
Choking Grip (5): Death, 1d6+1 Damage/Level (35), Maximum 3d damage (x0.5), 1 Creature +2 / 5 levels (3), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 24.81

2nd …
Choking Grip (5): Death, target Choking/Vomiting for duration (x15), 1 Creature +2 / 5 levels (3), range 45’ (x0.6), duration: concentration or until target makes save (x1.75), save to avoid spell effect (x0.5), only targets living creatures (x0.9), Arcane (1), cost 21.26, total cost 46.07

I just couldn’t fit a 1d8 in there, at 3d it worked out to 31.29 and when added 21.26 came in at 52.45 which is just out of reach. But with this version you get a 3d6+3 (6-21) vs 2d10 (2-20) an obvious increase which when you add it to an additional target feels more like a 5th level spell. 3d6+3 to 3 targets at 6th and 4 targets at 11th is pretty nasty.

Take that Lord Vader.

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Fan of Flames

Arcane 1
Type: blast, elemental (fire)
Range: 0’
Duration: instantaneous

This spell hurls bolts of searing flame in a fan 40’ long and 20’ wide stretching from the caster’s hands. Each creature of the caster’s choice within the fan must make a Blast saving throw. If the save fails, the creature suffers 1d8 damage. If the save succeeds, the creature suffers half that damage.

The fan of flames can also damage structures in its area of effect. It deals 1d8 / 3 structural damage to wood structures and 1d8 / 10 structural damage to stone structures. (It might deal less if the structure is not entirely in its area of effect.) It causes combustibles (such as military oil or petards) to ignite.

Fan of Flames (1): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 10.237

So Fan of Flames is a product of Minor Experimentation, neat. Not by much but it’s over the 10 points for 1st level spells. So this means I’ve got another 4.7 points or so to max out the spell. But 4.7 points isn’t a lot of points with this spell. Fan of Flames is in a pocket that limits easy expansion. Let me demonstrate with a few builds.

You can up the damage …

Fan of Flames, Improved Damage (1): Blast, 2d4 damage per level (44), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 12.87

… or you can up the AOE of the cone …

Fan of Flames, Improved AOE (1): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 60’ long x 10’ wide cone (x4.5), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 14.175

… but you can’t do both and stay at first level with the spell as is.

Fan of Flames, Improved Damage and AOE (2): Blast, 2d4 damage per level (44), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 60’ long x 10’ wide cone (x4.5), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 17.82

You can remove the Blast save for half damage from the spell and make it a no saving throw allowed spell …

Fan of Flames, No Save (1): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), no save (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 13.65

… but without removing something large from the formula you can’t get several of the above effects in. You could remove the selective targeting, the Fuck Yo Friends option, increase the damage, increase the AOE, and remove the save. All of that gets you this …

Fan of Flames, FYF (1): Blast, 1d12 damage per level (52), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), elemental - fire (x1), target 60’ long x 10’ wide cone (x4.5), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), no save (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 12.48

… which makes for a nasty little spell but removing the selective targeting really limits the utility of the spell. What makes it shine is being able to cast it into a melee and not risk other members of your party. Now let’s see what I can do with a more powerful version of this spell, in the third level range.

Fan of Flames, Improved (3): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 3d damage (×0.33), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 33.78

This is a quick and dirty upgrade. Just raise up the damage and you’ve got a lovely little spell. It’s not Fireball, but most spells aren’t, but it is pretty decent especially with the Elementalism Proficiency effect per die and -2 to saves. You can also make …

Fan of Flames, Improved (3): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 2d damage (×0.25), selective targeting with area of effect (x3), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration instant (×1), no save (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 34.125

… a nasty no save spell as well by sacrificing a die of damage. Speaking of which it just occurred to me that you could make a version of this with a concentration duration by removing the selective targeting …

Fan of Flames, Concentrated (1): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 1d damage (×0.1), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration concentration (×4), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 13.61

… or a third level version …

Fan of Flames, Concentrated (3): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 2d damage (×0.25), elemental - fire (x1), target 40’ long x 20’ wide cone (x3.25), range 0’ (×0.4), duration concentration (×4), save for half spell effect (×.75), arcane (×1), total cost 34.125

That’s a decent breakdown of what you can do with the spell with a few little tweaks. I personally like the concentration version of the 1st and 3rd level Fan of Flames. It’s a flamethrower but the utility limits the effectiveness. It’s a good tradeoff. It also makes a spell that is really useful in a battlefield situation where you can get to the front lines to let it loose.

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The process to transform into a Cacodemon would be an extremely painful process as the body reshapes itself over the 2d6 day process. Likely driving the person mad as their mind is overridden by the Succubus foul desires and alien thoughts. A Cure Disease spell would be sufficient to stop the transformation process but a vicious GM might rule that it doesn’t revert the transformation process. A person cured of the process halfway through might have some attractive features but in an Uncanny Valley type fashion or perhaps only partly reflected, as half of the person’s face was transformed and seems odd when compared to the other side. In extreme cases, perhaps a day or two before the transformation was complete, this could come with reaction penalties when dealing with NPC’s.

From the Incubus to Archfiend categories they are similar in usage. Infiltration creatures that can use their Special Abilities and Spells to sow chaos and destruction by enchanting and charming the most powerful and influential that they can find. At the Archfiend level toppling entire kingdoms into ruin and war.

As far as Treasure goes I’d lean the selection towards jewelry that the creatures would wear to augment their beauty. Coins are good, they can be spend on the finest of clothing, perfumes, and other luxuries. A lair of these creatures would be decorated in a chaotic mix of finery without regard to style. Just pretties layered on pretties.

Succubus of the Spawn to Hellion rank will value magical items that are attractive in appearance but help them infect and kill faster. The later ranks are going to value enchantments, utility items and especially magical items that will help disguise their Cacodemon nature.

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Orm Embarra

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I was scrolling through the ACKS II Monstrous Manual looking for an interesting and suitable creature to rule that region. I thought about just doing a bog standard sort of Orc warlord but I was never satisfied with the idea. Then I noticed that Fire Giants like to settle in the Meniri Mountains. I didn’t want to throw a Fire Giant Empire right on the border with civilization but a version of that appealed to me. What if a warband of Fire Giants crossed that western spine and decided to set themselves up in the region? A Fire Giant is a hell of a fighting force against the average Beastman tribe and shouldn’t have a problem explaining the situation with a 10’ sword blade. One of the Fire Giants rules the Realm and the other giants are vassals. I figure the rest of it is taken up with Orc Tribes that have now found themselves answering to the Fire Giants. Orc, respecting strength above all else, can get used to this.

Because of the proximity of Orm’s Personal Domain I’m going to build this Realm out as what Alex calls a Transitional Domain, they used to be called Chaotic Domains. Basically its a step between Barbarian Clanholds and a proper civilized domain. A solid spot I think for Fire Giants moving in and laying down the law, or chaos, about how things are going to go from this point on. I’m going to say that historically it was a Realm that was started by an Orc Warlord but he was overthrown by the Fire Giants and they’ve continued his work of building up the region. Because to the Fire Giants comfort and slaves are fun.

First thing to look at is where is the Fire Giant ruler going to have their base of operations. I want to keep it within 24 miles of #41 Ruins of Azen Kairn, Orm’s Capital, so I have the option of making it a Civilized hex.

I’m going to park him right in between #26 Azen Radokh and #41 Ruins of Azen Kairn. Right up near the mountain peak, I’m also going to make a note to put some volcanic activity on that range. Which geologically works out too. That will give him a nice warm pocket to rule out of, perfect for a Fire Giant to settle down in. Likely the Dwarves had some mechanism there to tap the magma either for power or smelting. The ruins of that outpost will make a good Stronghold for the Personal Domain.

Embarra, I like that for a name. I’m going to start by building out Embarra so I can see what the best type of domain is. I’m going to keep Embarra mostly stock with a few increased stats to reflect the cream rising to the top and a few proficiences to represent her exceptionalism. So one asterisk for the stats and a second asterisk for the 4 proficiences on her HD and the raise to her XP value.

Embarra, Fire Giant Warlord: Str 16, Int 10, Con 15; MV 40’/120, AC 9, HD 11**, hp 68, #AT 1 (Two-handed Sword +1 -7, 5d6+11) or (Boulder -4, 3d6+4), Save F8, ML +1, AL C, XP 2600; SA 0, LA 6, ML+3; Proficiencies: Adventuring, Combat Reflexes, Command, Kin-Slaying, Weapon Focus (Swords and Daggers); Two-Handed Sword +1, Chainmail

As a combatant she’s pretty tough but not the greatest as a general. A more skilled commander would be able to manipulate her into bad positions on the battlefield. I like that. She’s tough and that made her rise to leadership but she’s not great at leading. Building weaknesses into monsters is just as important as building strengths into them.

So that part is done. The stat block tells us that her military isn’t going to be well organized and like herself it operates on brute force, but I suspect that is going to be a lot of brute force.

A 11HD ruler and I want to fill about 55-65 hexes that’s in between Leagture and Palatinate so I’ll build it out as Palatinate, and see if the numbers line up right.

Using the ACKS II Judges Journal as a guideline Embarra should have a personal domain population of around 1,250 - 1,750 families. Being this is the mountains and the position I’m going to go with my standard of 125 families per 6 mile hex. This also lines up nicely with the maximum families per hex before the half land revenue penalty for exceeding 125 that comes with Transitional Domains.

At the rate of 125/6M I’m looking at Personal Domain of 10 to 14 hexes which is pretty large. I generally keep them tighter than that but what the fuck. Let’s go with the middle of 12 hexes so 1,500 families. That would also mean that the entire Realm population should come in between 5,000 and 9,000. Low but reasonable. Nin’s Realm comes in at just over 20,000 but she does have a fair number of Ogres and that adjusts it.

With that 5K-9K in population that means we should have an urban population of about 500-900 families as well. I’ll put 700 of that urban population in Embarra’s capital and scatter the rest around the Realm.

This being mountains the Land Value per hex is lower at only 2d3 per family per hex so let’s go with the average of 4. She’s got 4 hexes that are River hexes and those come in at 3d3+3 or an average of 7. That brings the average land value up to 5. Not too bad for mountain terrain. So her Personal Domain will cover the below area in yellow, I’ve turned off the surrounding area to make it more clear.

Once again we’re limited by the edge of the map. Three vassals will line up well with the area and with the encounter numbers of Fire Giants. Two of which are going to stretch off the map a bit and the last down in that SE pocket. Something like this …

I was talking before about making it a Fire Giant warband that moved across the mountains and settled down in this region. Embarra in the center and three other Fire Giants as her vassals. The SE pocket is 15 hexes so we’re going to make the other two the same hex count. That’s 57 hexes so that works out with my original estimate. Go Me.

Looking at the population of Mountains in this region I’m going to say that this is primarily an Orc settled region with a little bit of Goblins mixed in.

To hold her Personal Domain Embarra will need 285,000gp worth of Stronghold and each of her Vassals will require 337,500gp. I’ll represent that the same way that I did for Nin’s realm. A primary fortress and 1 or 2 secondary strongholds to represent control points. The Vassal will have 1 Fortress and then a stronghold for each of the smaller Orc sub-vassals with the usual watchtowers, fortified camps and ruins scattered along the borders. Details that can’t really be picked out at this level of mapping.

Since each of the Fire Giant Vassals has 15 hexes I’m going to break them up with a Personal Domain of 5 hexes leaving 10 for 3 Orc sub-vassals on a 4/3/3 split.

So with the Vassals Personal Domains and Primary Fortresses it will look like so …

Keep in mind due to the limits of the Borderlands map I can’t fit all the sub-vassal hexes on the map but the math will account for them being there. At some point I’m going to do a larger map of the Borderlands to take into account the off board areas but that’s a down the road project.

So that’s that Embarra’s Personal Domain, her 3 Fire Giant Vassals and their Orc Chieftain sub-vassals.

Now I’m going to take a look at the population counts so I can fill in more of the Domain Sheet. Each one of the Fire Giant Vassals is ruling 15 hexes, 5 of which are Personal Domain. At a density of 125 families per 6M hex that would be 625 for the Personal Domain and 1250 split between the Orc vassals or 1875 for each Fire Giant vassal. Adding that all up we’re getting a population of … 7,825 families. Again, small but about what I expected. This is a domain that I want hungry for expansion down those slopes towards civilized lands. I’m also not going to put in any roads. Embarra doesn’t seem like the type to look at construction works that aren’t directly military as valuable.

What’s interesting as well is that each of the Fire Giant vassals is ruling a domain much smaller than they could have full control over. That’s going to be a good point of strife and dissension that a GM could put out there for players to leverage. One of the Fire Giant Vassals could be leveraged or convinced to try and take Embarra’s throne from her.

That strikes me as dead common in Fire Giant politics. Embarra will see that coming. She will likely spent some time playing two of the vassals against the other. I think that the 12 headed Hydra’s that come common with Fire Giants are going to be part of her garrison as insurance against her kin. She should have three of them as siege machines and intimidation.

So the domain sheet will look something like this …

Now I’m going to take a look at what kind of military force she can bring to bear. First off those three 12 headed Hydras. That’s not a small force right there. That’s 36,450gp of garrison value and in BR that’s .536 each. Big nasty regenerating multiple attack units. That alone is enough to keep the other Fire Giants in line.

Embarra on her own can field 5900gp of garrison before those nasty 12 headed Hydras get added in. Looking at her position and what make up of troops would be good. Cavalry is of limited use in the mountains, almost less than limited use. So no Boar Riders. That gets quite a bit of infantry and I like it.

At platoon scale that’s 6 units of Orc Heavy Infantry, 10 units of Orc Light Infantry and 10 units of Orc Crossbowmen at a total of roughly 9 BR. At company scale I’d arrange it as 2 units of Orc Light Infantry, 2 units of Orc Crossbowmen and 1 unit of Orc Heavy Infantry at about 5.5 BR.

That’s a lot of Orcs and that’s just her personal garrison. If she calls on her Vassal’s troops with a single Call to Arms she could get another 3,750gp per Vassal for a total of 11,250gp. With a double Call to Arms, the whole Garrison, that’s 7,500 per Vassal or a total of 22,500gp.

So if Embarra brought her forces and a single Call to Arms it might look like …
18 OHI, 30 OLI, 30 OXB at Platoon scale for 39 BR
3 OHI, 6 OLI, 6 OXB at Company scale for 16.5 BR

A double Call to Arms …
30 OHI, 50 OLI, 50 OXB at Platoon scale for 45 BR
5 OHI, 10 OLI, 10 OXB at Company scale for 27.5 BR

That’s quite a few Orcs but with the penalties she’d suffer for a double Call to Arms, or Conscription of her peasants, she’d be looking at serious growth penalties and likely a population demoralized enough with her rule to make a few coup attempts. That’s not taking into account that fact that these are Beastmen and in a war most of them aren’t coming home. That leads to a realm collapse which is also in keeping with these less stable Domains.

If the Beastmen Tribal Traits from the ACKS II Monstrous Manual are being used I’d recommend making Embarra’s Orcs with a Bullying Trait to reflect their numbers and their Domain Ruler’s nature.

If the Beastman Special Troops from the ACKS II Monstrous Manual are being used I’d stick with the 20% cap on Special Troops and make them Berserker Heavy Infantry or Tracker Crossbowmen.

Now back to the Domain. Embarra is bringing in 9,950gp per month and she’s a 11HD Fire Giant. That makes her Monthly XP Threshold 45,000xp so she’s in no danger of leveling up to 12HD without a serious change to her domain’s territory.

Looking at Embarra and what her goals might be. Greed and Ego. She’s going to want more acquisition of wealth and expansion of her Empire. But she’s in a tight zone. To the north is the Dwarven Azen and everyone knows that you don’t mess with Orm’s favorite whipping boys. To the south is Orm’s Personal Domain and that’s a recipe for getting your resistance to fire tested. To the west takes us off the map so its east towards the Borderlands. Perfect.

When, not if, when Embarra decides its time to go to war and take more land those arrows above are her most likely targets. To the north #19 Zelictum, a lightly manned cavalry fort where the Orcs could use the slopes to get close for an assault. To the south #42 Turos Telle, that island fort is not going to be an easy target but it’s close and really that Turos is just waiting for one of multiple forces to roll it up. It’s in a bad neighbourhood. Finally to the east #34 Siadanos, the hardest target of the lot. However, not impossible. If Embarra can form an alliance with Kozzaig, the Red Dragon and Zrazac Bet-Agizul, Chieftain of the Sword of the Dragon Tribe then her chances get much better.

The Sword of the Dragon Hobgoblins aren’t as numerous as Embarra’s Orcs but they have a Dragon and between the two groups they could put Siadanos under siege. However Kozzaig isn’t going to like Embarra coming in and taking territory that he would feel is rightfully his. There’s another one of those excellent dissension and leverage points that a GM can put in front of his players.

This was a pretty large article to put together. If you enjoy these articles give me a subscription below and if you think it’s worth a few dollars then I’d appreciate having them to offset my costs.

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Arcane Armor

Arcane 1
Type: protection

Range: self
Duration: 3 turns

This spell creates a weightless and invisible suit of armor that protects the caster. The arcane armor negates mage missile attacks directed at the caster, and guarantees the caster AC 7 against missile attacks and AC 5 against melee attacks. The arcane armor stacks with modifiers to AC from DEX but not with modifiers to AC from armor, class powers, conditions, magic, or proficiencies. Conditions which improve an opponent’s attack throw against the creatures they affect (e.g., flanked or vulnerable) are not affected by arcane armor.

Arcane Armor (1): Protection, AC 5 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (10), invulnerability to magic missiles (5), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 3 turns (×1.2), arcane (×1), total cost 13.5

This is the first spell I’m working with, and the second spell in total, with a minor breakthrough. That minor breakthrough raises the 1st level limit to 15 points. At 13.5 that leaves just 1.5 points to work with. Tight but let me see what can be done.

The first thing I can tinker with is the 3 Turns or 30 minute duration. That’s nice for a buff that you can set up and run but if I shave that down to 1 Turn I can free up some points. That’s still a solid 10 minutes of protection. Shaving down duration is usually my first go to. It does limit the utility of a spell but its been my experience that most of that duration is wasted. That lets me bump the AC protection up by a point giving AC 6 vs. melee and AC 8 vs. missile …

Improved Arcane Armor (1): Protection, AC 5 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (10), +1 bonus to AC (5), invulnerability to magic missiles (5), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 1 turns (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 15

Let’s keep that duration down and see what can be done with saves. The potential for abuse is there because of the multipliers. Its a Breakthrough spells so a little bit of abuse is expected. Let’s see just how bad it can get …

Future Harrowed here. As I commented below there was an issue with how I did the stacking of multipliers here. So I’ve made some adjustments.

Arcane Armor (1): Protection, AC 5 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (10), +1 bonus to AC (5), Saving throw bonus +3 (20), Saving throw bonus limited to 3 of 5 categories (x0.5), invulnerability to magic missiles (5), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 1 turns (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 23.125

Not down low enough. That’s the 2nd level spell range.

Future Harrowed again. I had a section here on spell creation abuse but as Pilsami pointed out my math was wrong so I’m taking that section out. Ain’t no point demonstating an issue when the real issue was with the writer. Hats off to him for the quick catch.

If you remove the invulnerability to Mage Missiles then you can up the protection to AC7 vs. missiles and melee …

Arcane Armor (1): Protection, AC 7 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (20), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 1 turns (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 15

Nah. That’s an interesting alternative for the character that isn’t expecting to be fighting other mages. But that’s not likely to be common in most games and for only an additional 2 points of AC vs. melee it doesn’t feel worth it. I think the Improved version is pretty good.

Now what about a greater version of the spell. Since the base spell is 1st level a 3rd level version seems like a good spot for a greater version …

Greater Arcane Armor (3): Protection, AC 7 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (20), +3 bonus to AC (20), invulnerability to magic missiles (5), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 1 turns (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 33.75

It looks a little like the more abusive versions above but its a 3rd level spell. It gives 10 AC against melee and missiles. Pretty decent for the Mage that finds himself in a bad situation. But still requires that 3rd level slot.

How about a ‘Supreme’ version at 5th level …

Arcane Armor (5): Protection, AC 7 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (20), +3 bonus to AC (20), invulnerability to 1st level spells (25), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 2 turns (×1.1), arcane (×1), total cost 53.625

Now the AC is the same from the Greater version but now there’s an immunity to all 1st level spells. Which means I could remove the Invulnerability to Mage Missile, don’t need that since Mage Missile is a 1st level spell. Not bad for the Mage that doesn’t want to have to deal with hordes of pesky low level spell casters. Let’s try tweaking it a bit …

Arcane Armor (5): Protection, AC 7 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (20), +2 bonus to AC (10), invulnerability to 1st and 2nd level spells (35), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 2 turns (×1.1), arcane (×1), total cost 53.625

AC drops by a point but now you’re invulnerable to 1st and 2nd level spells. I like that much better. Let’s see if I can get that invulnerability to cover higher level spells …

Supreme Arcane Armor (5): Protection, AC 5 vs. melee and AC 7 vs. missile (10), +1 bonus to AC (5), invulnerability to 1st to 3rd level spells (55), range self (×0.75), target 1 creature (×1), duration 1 turns (×1), arcane (×1), total cost 52.5

Now this I like. AC 6/8 and invulnerability to 1st through 3rd level spells. Nice way to make Fireball not a damned problem anymore. Powerful but its a 5th level slot and its only for a turn.

Looking at magical items we see that Arcane Armor is represented in a Potion and Brooch form.

Arcane Armor in a potion form is rather interesting. It doesn’t limit the user to being a mage. Now that seems like pretty obvious statement but look at what the spell can do and imagine the use cases for other classes. For a Thief or an Assassin that’s pretty potent protection against a spell casting target and you still get your DEX bonuses on top of that. By the time a spell caster figures out that the drinker is immune to low level spells that likely the end of them. But still only 1 turn of protection.

Potion of Improved Arcane Armor
This shimmering blue potion has a savory flavor and stains the lips and tongue a vibrant blue. For the duration of the potion the drinker is protected as if he had cast Improved Arcane Armor. Base Cost: 500gp (Single Charge 1st level effect). Apparent Value: 25gp

Potion of Greater Arcane Armor
This shimmering blue potion has a savory flavor and stains the lips and tongue a vibrant blue. For the duration of the potion the drinker is protected as if he had cast Greater Arcane Armor. Base Cost: 1500gp (Single Charge 3rd level effect). Apparent Value: 25gp

Potion of Supreme Arcane Armor
This shimmering blue potion has a savory flavor and stains the lips and tongue a vibrant blue. For the duration of the potion the drinker is protected as if he had cast Greater Arcane Armor. Base Cost: 2500gp (Single Charge 5th level effect). Apparent Value: 25gp

Now the Brooches. Funny word that. These being permanent items are much more expensive but you’re getting a load of that protection for the money. As a GM I’d watch the Greater and Supreme level items. They’re going to be potentially disruptive but this is ACKS and if you want that kind of immunity you’re going to pay in time and money.

Brooch of Improved Arcane Armor
This silver brooch for fastening a cloak is in the shape of a shield with heraldry detailed in gold wire. The brooch creates a weightless and invisible suit of armor around its wearer, guaranteeing him AC 8 against missile attacks and AC 6 against melee attacks, as the spell improved arcane armor. This protection stacks with modifiers to AC from DEX but not with modifiers to AC from armor, class powers, conditions, magic, or proficiencies. The brooch also renders its wearer immune to mage missiles, whether cast by a spell caster or from a magic item. Base Cost: 19,000gp (Permanent (1/3 turns) 1st level effect). Apparent Value: 250gp.

Brooch of Greater Arcane Armor
This silver and platinum brooch for fastening a cloak is in the shape of a shield with heraldry detailed in gold and blackened wire. The brooch creates a weightless and invisible suit of armor around its wearer, guaranteeing him AC 10 against missile attacks and AC 10 against melee attacks, as the spell greater arcane armor. This protection stacks with modifiers to AC from DEX but not with modifiers to AC from armor, class powers, conditions, magic, or proficiencies. The brooch also renders its wearer immune to mage missiles, whether cast by a spell caster or from a magic item.
Base Cost: 57,000gp (Permanent (1/3 turns) 3rd level effect). Apparent Value: 250gp.

Brooch of Supreme Arcane Armor
This silver and platinum brooch for fastening a cloak is in the shape of a large shield with heraldry detailed in gold and blackened wire. The brooch creates a weightless and invisible suit of armor around its wearer, guaranteeing him AC 8 against missile attacks and AC 6 against melee attacks and invulnerability to all 1st through 3rd level spells, as the spell supreme arcane armor. This protection stacks with modifiers to AC from DEX but not with modifiers to AC from armor, class powers, conditions, magic, or proficiencies. Base Cost: 95,000gp (Permanent (1/3 turns) 5th level effect). Apparent Value: 250gp.

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