The Black Campbell

We opened this week’s Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition game with the party on the other side of the Limes Germanicus — the series of walls and berms that separate Germania Major (Roman territory) from Germania Magna (where the Alemmani barbarians live.) They have entered these lands close to where modern-day Mainz is, at the conflux of the Rhine and Moenus (Main) Rivers and are pushing east into the lands of the Chatti.

A recap of the characters and their mission: they are led by Legate Quintus Marcellus, a former legionnaire who has been asked to act as an envoy for the empire by the Augustus, Gratian — the 16 year old heir to the throne who is battling for the same against the machinations of his largely Frankish and Alemmani general staff. He was, a few years ago, the boy’s mentor while they were on campaign. Next is Decurion Carrus Zwergi, a dwarf of the Jurazwergi tribe in the mountains near lake Constance. Known as Carrus the Goblin or Vandal Killer, he was given a commission leading the troop of irregulars protecting Marcellus on his mission. The are aided by a priest, Aurelius Augustinius of Hippo (know to our world as Saint Augustine) who apparently is under the protection of Apollo, as is the senatorial-class bard/brat Marcus Calvinus — both of them magic users empowered by Apollo. There is a former anchorite monk, an Aasimar, named Icio Zaccharius, who is being led by the archangel Michael to find and destroy a tiefling looking for some kind of powerful magic-user to aid the Adversary. They are joined by several Roman auxilliary troops and a satyress named Carona, whose people were destroyed by this tiefling, known as “the Seeker.”

Their first stop of note was a small trading town on the other side of the border, where they got their bearings and spoke with the elder of the town about the situation on this side of the wall. This is an area of foederati — treaty-bound Alemmani, mostly Chatti and Matteucci tribes, but further are the Vangiones…also currently allied, if only marginally, with Rome. they were told the area was safe to Romans, and press on to the Chatti “capital”, Stragen, (after a fashion) to speak with their King Pilenses.

On the road through some forest, however, things go awry when the party is attacked by a group of what they think are bandits…these guys, however, are skilled and led by an assassin. The fight was vicious, with most of the PCs catching some form of injury, minus the Cavlinus and Augustinius, who were far enough back to not be directly in the fight until near the end. The characters were generally doing poorly with their rolls, while the bandits were wracking up a surprising number of criticals. Fortunately, most of them were at disadvantages thanks to the bard’s “vicious mockery” and bad terrain.

Eventually, they were able to take down the bad guys, with Carona dropping two by using her “ram” advantage and hitting them with her horns. The assassin, on the other hand was holding up despite an onslaught of multiple characters, before trying to escape. He was put to sleep by the bard.

Now captured, the bard and satyr interrogated the men — she used the “frighting strain” as per the Monster Manual. (I built a Satyr PC race for the Fight Club 5 app using the MM data, but made her a bard and for her spell slots gave her all the alternate spells from the “Panpipes” sidebar.) Terrified, they got a disadvantage vs. the bard’s high charisma and spilled it: They had been hired by one of the tribunes that had been against the mission, and had thought elevating a simple Roman like Marcellus (who left the legion under a cloud, but mysteriously with a military diploma and his retirement land and pay…) to a senatorial rank was folly for the new, and not quite yet, emperor. Trying to kill a legate is  treason under Roman rule, and Marcellus has the ability as a legate and commander on detached duty to render judgment. Carrus then executed them with his axe.

But, wait…these guys are supposed to be “good!” That’s their alignment — Marcellus is lawful good, and did everything by the rules; Carrus is neutral good and these guys were “all bad”, to quote Harry Tasker in True Lies. This is another instance where the moral issues and legal issues of the Roman period clash to a point with the typical D&D alignment system. Is it possible for something to be “good” or “evil” by our standards, but the mores of period would say differently? Slavery is “evil” today, yet until 1792, it was normal and ubiquitous around the world. People would even willingly enter into slavery to have a job/housing/security. Executing traitors or assassins without a real trial might seem “evil” today…but it was the law, and most would have considered just, in 375AD.

Eventually, they get to Stragen, the seat of King Pilenses, where after some tense introductions — What are the Romans doing showing up out of the blue? Did he bring a legion with him, and if so, why are they not here..? — they were able to sound him out about the goings on in Germania Magna.

They found out that there is a lot of migration of tribes from the East, moving ahead of the Ostrogoths and a group of Sarmatians that appear to be led by someone called Aiton (the Seeker.) They have heard that traveling with them is some kind of horror which has been destroying whole villages. The main troublemakers for Rome out here are the Lentienses, a Celtic tribe (elves) who are trying to win the Alemmani tribes over to their side. Led by King Priarius and based south near the Danube, they are claiming to have the means to stop Aiton. It is convincing a lot of those tribes not wedded to peace with Rome to consider his offer. Even Pilenses has been courted by these Lentienses.

The key, he thinks, is the Vangiones tribe of the Alemmani. They hold Locoritum, once a large Roman town on the Moenus, about three days travel through the river valley and the heavily forested Spettus Hills. The group stayed the evening and the next morning were planning to set forth.

Some of the character beats included Carrus getting lucky with Carona…then the bard, Calvinus, getting lucky after a night of debauched music-making for the Chatti king. Now the dwarf is confused, angry, and jealous. Also, she had given them presents for saving her from her attackers…most of it lifted from some people (like the set of figurines of the Greek gods for Augustinius and the lovely gold beard bands for Carrus), or paid for with money she’d pickpocketed from people (like the new lute for Calvinus.) There’s no way this could go wrong…right?

The next volume of our Dungeons & Dragons campaign opened with a “talking about our feelings” sort of episode…okay, it was more of an expository, set the stage for the action episode.

We started the night with Icio the monk waking in the middle of the night. He slips out past the sleeping Aurelius the cleric in the tent they are sharing, knowing it was dreadfully cold but not feeling it. Drawn by a sense of purpose, he winds up going through the light conifer  patch to the Saravus (Saar) River, where Michael — the angel that speaks to him — is waiting to inform him that the creature he seeks, now calling itself Aiton (seeker), which killed his mentor, is looking for someone. A person of great power. He will have to be ready to accept help from an unexpected source, one that will challenge his beliefs and prejudices.

Aurelius Augustinius wakes in the middle of the night to a raven’s insistent crowing. He slips past the sleeping Icio and is led by the bird to the river’s edge, where he sees Icio kneeling before the angel. His old, dead girlfriend — her brown eyes glowing a gray-blue — tells him that Michael is Icio’s master, and that his faith might come between them…but that he will be a loyal and helpful companion. There is a powerful creature of titanic capabilities out there and forces are seeking it. If they find and turn this creature to evil, it will be a threat to man and gods; if turned to good, it will provide a bulwark against dark forces that are stirring.

The angel and the…whatever…is using the vision Aurelius’ girlfriend to put him at ease see each other: Michael informs the creature he should not be here. The creature informs him that they are not so different, and their goals coincide. He also tells him in no uncertain terms that Aurelius is “his…his gifts are from me, not your master.”

They both wake in the morning. Neither left the tent. They somehow coexisted in a dream.

The party has finally reached Augusta Treverorum as the news of Emperor Valentinian’s death is rocking the area. Apparently, the emperor — a foul-tempered man — died of a fit of apoplexy while “negotiating “with the Quadi tribe. They present themselves to the local prefect with the dispatches of their endeavors against the Vandals. After a short wait, they are ushered into the presence of the augustus or junior emperor, Flavius Gratianius…or Gratian. He is overwhelmed to see Marcellus, the former legionnaire, again, and the party learns that he was once the bodyguard/mentor of the young man when he was six or seven. He remembers Marcellus fondly, and they are all rewarded for their service to Rome with 5 solidi — the equivalent of a centurion’s pay for a year.

They also figure out there is more going on that means the eye. The young augustus’ general, the French king Merobaudes, seems to have a great deal of sway over the young man. There’s something not quite right.

After a bath and change of clothes, Icio visits the Vicar of the town, where he find the priest has been somewhat successful in converting the locals, and is currently working on an amenable Gratian. He is shown the church’s Bible, just brought from Ireland, and for the time, the monk is able to hold a completed copy of the Scriptures.

Later, they are at a social dinner with the finest of the city. This includes Calvinus the bard’s uncle, to whom he was sent after he refused marriage to a politically connected Christian girl in the hopes he could work his silver tongue on Eastern Roman Emperor Valens. He gets to tell their tale and impress the company. Meanwhile, Gratian clues Marcellus and Carrus the dwarf in on the political situation: The frontier is in turmoil despite a new treaty with any of the Alemmani (German) tribes. However, the Lentienses tribe is trying to browbeat other tribe into joining them against Rome in the wake of the emperor’s death, and the retirement of one of their most important generals, Theodosius.

They have no really sense of the land beyond the Limes Germanicus (the German Border) and they need someone to suss the lay of the land and try to strengthen the backs of Rome’s allies in the territory north of the Danube. He offers Marcellus a commission to re-enlist as commander of a small band of speculatores (scouts) who will ride into Germania and try to do just that. He will have the rank of legate — an ambassador — and Carrus, who s very popular with many of the tribes, will serve as his decurion (centurion for cavalry.) For Marcellus this is a two-fold win: he gains a senatorial rank! and he washes away the stink of his early release from the military (with full honors) for aiding in stopping his commander from a mutiny. He’s a snitch.

He takes the commission, and his companion all join the mission with him. We left with them getting ready to fill the rest of their ranks for the trip over the wall and into barbarian territory.

Nights like this there’s not a lot of “kill the monster, get the treasure”, but it was good set-up for the characters. We got our first look at Michael the angel and his obfuscation while directing Icio; we also got the implication on Aurelius’ apparition that he is a son or a hero of Apollo (hence the raven.) What is dangerous enough to pull the Christian and Roman gods together? We got more background on Aurelius — his dead girlfriend and an attempted forced marriage by his family caused him to run to Europe, similarly that’s why Calvinus is in exile. Marcellus is a loyal Roman, but a snitch with an elven common law wife in Britannia and possibly a kid…and a friend to the new emperor-to-be. Only Carrus didn’t get much fleshing out because the player was out for the night.

Not every night have to be about hack and slashing. So far, our heroes greatest rewards have been a handful of gold coins and a sword or battleaxe. Focusing on character development and story moves the game away from the more traditional (and in my opinion, lazy) dungeon crawl toward something much more interesting. The only sticking point, really, is the abundance of magic 5th Edition wants to throw at all the characters. The cleric, bard, and monk all have a certain bit of magic to them — the latter because of his aasimar heritage; the more gritty, alternate history version of the game is occasionally hampered by this, so the explanation — thus far — has been that these are all extraordinary people brought together by divine machination for an important purpose.

So far, so good, considering I haven’t run D&D since high school, 35 years ago.

Man, I’m getting old…

So, we were down two players but decided to press on, as it gave one of the new players some more screen time, so to speak. We opened up on the cleric, who was split off from the party because the player was away doing a birthday dinner with his wife (Really! Some people’s priorities! chuckle…) Aiding the Prefect of Ariolica and their main force of 80 Vigiles from the city, with another 60 or so dwarves from the Jura Mountans — Jurahold, home to one of the PCs, Carrus Zwergi (aka Carrus the Vandal Killer, aka Carrus the Goblin Killer…)

The Romans meet the goblins of the Vanhalis clan of Vandals on a snow-covered foot path a few hundred yards from the abandoned dwarven town they’ve been renovating — or rather their captives taken from Timo’s Ford have been renovating — and Augustinius the Cleric tries to help Prefect Abrecan convince them to give up their hostages and leave the area. The task is made harder by the angry dwarven contingent, that want their leader, Smaigo Zwergifuhr — killed just before the introduction of Carrus and two other characters — avenged. The goblins know they are on the back foot here, but Augustinius’ Insight test gives him the realization that with their women and children only a few minutes away, these Vandals are going to fight to the death if they think they can find a way out of this.

They try to defuse the situation but a runner from the village comes bearing news of the raid the other characters conducted the game session before. This led to a battle between highly unmatched forces…but big ones. So, what to do to manage a mass combat sequence in Dungeons & Dragons? A fight like this is generally outside the tropes of the game, at least at the most basic level. My first thought was “Crap, I’ve got to cobble together some mass combat rules!” My second thought was — “Why can’t i just manage this like a swarm? There are swarms of rats, bats, insects, etc..why can’t we have a big swarm, like a “force” with stats like a creature and just have a player roll for the Roman force, and another for the Vandals?” (I still think this is a viable idea, by the way!)

Then I bothered to google “D&D 5e mass combat rules” and found a quick and dirty set of mechanics from the Unearthed Arcana setting. (Here you go.) The basic idea is to have a “leader” and use his challenge rating plus a modifier for the number of folks. This is your Battle Rating. This gets added to your attack roll on a d20 and based off of the failure or level of success, you find out if the other force is routed or destroyed, etc. There is a morale system (the Romans started with a +2 for steady, and the goblins +4 for “highly motivated”) which adds into the commander’s initiative test and for whether the forces hold or break. It’s simple, it’s quick, and it does suggest that you zoom in periodically to let the characters do their stuff — in this case, the cleric got to throw a few spells around, but the Vandals quickly were overrun and chased back to their village.

Meanwhile, the other portion of the party planned and executed an excellent feint to draw the last of the Vandal warriors into the back door of the cavern the bad guys had been holding their hostages, where they could winnow their numbers down. The heroes then bashed them up with aplomb. I really am shocked by how effective even 1st level characters are in 5th Edition, but by Level 3, they are positively lethal, especially the fighter (including the spell-less ranger class that Carrus is) and monk classes. Magicians are pretty effective, as well; cantrips are now useful, rather than pathetic. (Lookin’ at you, Mage Hand.)

With the Vandals vanquished, our heroes rejoined the Roman and dwarven forces in the village. the women and children were chained and taken by to Ariolica for the slave markets, even though goblins are considered lazy and untrustworthy laborers. Which brought up a thing consistently raising its head — alignment. What’s “good” and what’s “evil?” Icio, the Christian monk has some pretty strong opinions on that, including the worship of false gods…but his fellows are “good” and worship other gods. Lawful is pretty straightforward — slavery was legal and a form of punishment (as was simply killing everyone and razing the village…but these are good guys) in Rome (and until 1792, save for the occasional experiment here and there, legal and normal in almost every country.

So what’s good and evil? If a follower of Satan, or Loki, or Dionysus, for that matter, does things that are “godly”…are they good? A similar conversation on this can be found in Plato’s The Trial and Death of Socrates, if you want to read about a fat old blowhard that pissed off a  town enough they made him drink hemlock.

Since I wanted a game that wasn’t the usual high fantasy shtick, I’ve found myself with a campaign in which moral and religious questions are central, and the heroes might not be all that. It also meant that raiding a goblin village where the bad guys had been on the run from other worse guys meant no magical items and not bags of loot randomly dispersed about the premises…their reward was in good dispatches to the emperor, in the good will of the people around them, for the monk the conversion of a village, and some coin here and there. The biggest rewards were a warhammer made by the finest blacksmith in the hold (Carrus’ father, actually) and a similarly excellent gladius for the former legionnaire, Marcellius — a +1 to hit for their great balance and workmanship.

That brought the first volume of our D&D game to a close. We left off with the characters deciding to head north for Augustus Treverorum with the dispatches of the action for the emperor. But even on horseback, with the snow the best speed they can hope for is 10 days to get there…and a lot can happen in a week.