Beyond the Wall, Further Afield, threat packs and new characters for the game.

 I finally did it, I picked up a PDF copy of  Beyond the Wall, Further Afield from Flatland Games, downloaded from DrivethroughRPG.com and I am delighted with it, really expanding and adding to the game with rules for creating shared sandbox campaigns, integrating new characters into existing groups, rules for creating magical items and the bit that really interested me, threat packs for dynamic villains and dangers effecting the village and beyond.

Beyond the Wall, Further Afield cover art.

My idea had been to use Beyond the Wall (BthW) with the Bay of Sprits setting by Roan Studios, (my first solo BthW adventure was with a group of young characters hailing from Winterton, a village in the Bay of Spirits), whilst at the same time creating a campaign setting from scratch for D&D 5e, however, the more I looked into the Bay of Spirits setting and the more I read BthW Further Afield, the more I began to lean towards swapping things around, 5e or perhaps a OSR DnD clone for Bay of Spirits and BthW RPG using my own setting.

There are several reason for this dramatic, (well, dramatic for me), change of direction.  First, in hinterland, a guide to the wilderness it says that the Bay of Spirits is a land of druids, that they excelled in this setting 'above all other classes', so they will play a big part in the campaign.  BthW doesn't really do Druids, sure its not impossible to create a Druid type for BthW but other systems offer druids as a class or at least a sub class.

Secondly, I sat down the other night to create some 5e characters for my own campaign world and discovered that I was just creating the same characters as I had done for my BthW games, I had rolled up a Cleric which was my BthW devout acolyte, a Fighter same as Hugo my would be knight, a ranger like my young woodsman, a bard to mirror my local performer, and an Elven Sorceress which was effectively my Fae Foundling in my BthW game.  To stop myself from just running the same characters with different names in a different setting, if I swapped things around I would come at character creation from a different perspective and make a more interesting character selection, focus more on druids for DnD, and a little more diverse selection for BthW.

And that brings me to threats,  There is no reason why I could not use threats in a Bay of Spirits campaign but it would have meant either altering the ability scores of my five existing characters which I felt uncomfortable doing, or creating some new characters anyway.   On top of that, I felt I could integrate the threat packs I wanted to use in a brand new, built up from the bottom campaign easier than in a ready made campaign like Bay of Spirits. I would also be able to run my BthW game in the way it is designed to be played, creating the setting as the characters are created.

(Note: the section in Further Afield dealing with threats states that if you introduce threats into an existing campaign you simply ignore the roll which would change the characters ability scores).

Before I start to create new characters and the campaign world, I need to decided which Threats I will use in the campaign.  There are 4 threats in the Further Afield book and further threat packs in some of the supplements, I chose three, 
    a:  the Risen Dead threat from Across the Vail supplement booklet.
    b:  the Grey Prince from Further Afield.
    c:  the Imperial City from Further Afield.

Choosing three threat packs is not recommended but if the campaign starts in autumn or winter then the Imperial City threat will be dormant for the first 3 to 6 months and I have this idea of the Imperial City in the south coming into conflict with the rulers of the lands to the north, the characters home village being on the border it will see plenty of unwanted visits from outriders and soldiers of both sides.

With the threat packs chosen I can now begin to think about my characters and which playbooks I will be using.  I am going to make 6 characters, I may not use them all at first but, as happened in my first BthW game, it possible that the solo system I use may force me to introduce a new character to the game, and if I have them pre-rolled with a connection to each other it should be easier to fit them in to the adventure.  

The playbooks I plan to use are
    - The nobleman's wild daughter (this means there will be a castle somewhere near the village).
    - The elven ranger (there are elves, dwarves and other fae in our setting)
    - The knightless squire (second character from the castle and a good fighter for the group)
    - The self taught mage (every party needs a magic user) 
    - The adventurous tradesman (because he starts with a cart and a mule)  
    - The local performer (because I like bards)

In my next post I will set about creating the characters

Update - 15/09/21 - The PDF for Flatland Games 'Through Sunken Lands RPG was discounted on drivethroughRPG and I could not resist,  it comes with details of Jundarr the Impossible city and brief notes on the rest of the sunken lands, so my plans have now changed a little, and for now I am going to play a few swords and sorcery style games using the rules and setting contained in that RPG along with Further Afield.  I may then look again at what to do with the Bay of Spirits.  Yes I am fickle.