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Showing posts from March, 2025

Crusaders of the Amber Coast - Part 1: The Raid - Dominion Rules RPG Play Report

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Here's the first report of my solo game set in the Baltic region during the early 13th century using the Dominion Rules RPG  (A free fantasy RPG that suits historical or gritty Sword & Sorcery settings) and an adventure from the campaign in the source book  Crusaders of the Amber Coast . I will 'railroad' myself through this first adventure, and possibly the next couple of scenarios, in order to set up NPCs, factions, character motivations and MacGuffins. I find that setting up the world in this way makes it easier to interact with and helps bounce off of what's already happening. Once there is momentum I can take more control. My reports will be written in a bullet point format. Enough to give you an idea of what's happening, a little bit of descriptive flavour, but not a fully fleshed out piece of fiction. I will record all the dice rolls including any oracle rolls. My preferred gamemaster emulator rules are  Motif Story Engine  and tables from Ironsworn ,...

Dominion Rules RPG character for a Baltic Crusades Solo RPG Game

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A Livonian Brother of the Sword A while back I had the idea of playing a solo game in some kind of 'Dark Fantasy' setting. Something gritty and low magic. The tone I was thinking of was Solomon Kane crossed with the Witcher and the X-Files. While toying with the idea I created a character using the Dominion Rules , a free game that came to my attention through the solo RPG channel Me, Myself and Die:  MM&D S3 Dominion Eps 1: Stranger in a Strange Land . The system looks like it suits historical or gritty Sword & Sorcery settings with a more detailed combat procedure than most fantasy RPGs. Then I started discovering resources for the Baltic area during the Middle Ages and decided that would make for a great setting ( Resources for a Baltic RPG Campaigns ). It's a time and place where I can dance on the edge of historical realism and fantasy. It so happened that the character that I had already created pretty much matches a Crusader for this time period. See the stat...

Resources for Medieval Baltic RPG Campaigns

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Note: While I take inspiration from the real history of the Northern Crusades, I am ultimately just playing a game and nothing you read on this blog should be taken as factual. Neither should anything I write here be taken as an endorsement of what happened during this time period. I'm giving myself permission to explore history but will change or add whatever I want in order to make it interesting to me. After finishing my  6 Mile Hex Map of the Baltic Area  I've started thinking about running a solo game in this area. I initially became interested in this setting through the source books:  The Medieval Baltic, Volume I  and The Medieval Baltic, Volume II  but since then I also discovered the RPG  Baptism of Fire  (set in 11th Century Poland) and the Basic Role Playing campaign setting  Crusaders of the Amber Coast . At the moment the early Middle Ages is more interesting to me because I don't want to deal with firearms and cannons....

6 Mile Hex Map - Baltic Region - Worldographer v0.9

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I finished the 6 mile hex map of the Baltic area. To my satisfaction at least. I've linked to a PDF version of the map below. It works in the current, latest version of Worldographer which at the time of writing is the Beta version:  https://worldographer.com/download/ Download the Worldographer file here:  Baltic-6miles-0.9   Download the PDF version (The first five pages are the top row from top left to top right, 2nd five pages are the middl row the last five pages are the bottom row, again from from left to right).  Download the PDF version with no names, no grid, no numbers:  Baltic-6mile-Hexes-No-Names-No-Grid-No-Numbers Download the PDF version with names, no grid, no numbers:  Baltic-6mile-Hexes-Names-No-Grid-No-Numbers Download the PDF version with names, grid, numbers:  Baltic-6Mile-Hexes-Names-Grid-Numbers This is how I formatted the PDF for export in Worldographer. If anyone has a request for different formatting let me know in the comments...

Pangea Ultima - Central Peninsula - 6 Mile Hex Map

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Here is a 6 mile hex map of an area of Pangea Ultima.  Pangea Ultima is a proposed supercontinent that will form in about 250 million years when the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas merge.   It's also known as Pangaea Proxima, Neopangaea, and Pangaea II.  If my memory serves me the peninsula is roughly the same length as Italy. You can download the Worldographer file here.  Pangea Ultima - Central Peninsular - 6 Mile Hex Map This map is partly based on an abandoned project (lots of maps for wind directions and climate types) found here:  Civilitatem Resurrectio ~ A Pangea Proxima Worldbuilding Project  as well as the map below. While this area is right in the equator I'm imagining that at some point in the future a now long dead civilisation employed some geo-engineering in order to lower the temperate of the planet by a couple of degrees. In my imagination the climate is somewhere between Tropical and Sub-Tropical even Mediterranean on t...