The Hydra Campaign Flavour – Mmm Cheesy :)

Brief Notelet of Introduction

Shock-horreur – here’s a brief summary of the campaign setting that Hydra operates in as per a recent request from the Nth Doctor Nathan. Don’t say I never give you anything Mister!

Where is our campaign set exactly?

I decided to run our new fantasy rpg system Hydra in the world of Fritz Leiber – Nehwon – where he set his fantasy novels largely about his cult characters Fahrd and the Grey Mouser. The rationale behind this decision was blogged about very early on here.

Where can I found out more about this place?

I recommend the Scrolls website (see my off-site linkage list thing) if you want to know more about Mr Leiber’s world. Yes ‘Nehwon’ is indeed ‘Nowhen’ backwards. Fritz obviously had one of those Dylan Thomas type whimsical humours when it came to his fantasy novel writing. In case that means nothing to you Dylan Thomas quite famously made up rude place names for his writing- like Llareggub (bugger all) for example – by reversing words.

Is your campaign setting the real McCoy then? Leiber through and through?

I wouldn’t say that our version of Nehwon is particularly authentic. I’m inspired by the works of Leiber rather than constrained by him. So our Nehwon is considerably more liberal. My source materials are the 2nd Edition AD&D City of Lankhmar source material, and indeed the City is the starting place and focus of our gaming activity at the moment. I have played to my strength having found that I thrive as a DM upon city settings. It’s the constant opportunity for skullduggery, politics, and socialisation that makes my DM-ing tend to liven up when I’ve played out games in cities. They make good jumping off points for my games.

Which bit of this Nehwon world are you in? What’s it like?

And what’s not to love about Lankhmar? It’s a city of thieves – where Pratchett is alleged to have got a lot of ideas for his Thieves Guild and city based writings. It’s a murky, misty, seedy underbelly of a sort of place. It’s also a fantastic sort of place in our version of the game. It isn’t overly wrought with magic, but it’s not magic starved either. I’ve upped the magic quotient I suspect over what a true Leiber advocate would care to see. I’m also not being too shy about littering the place with non-humans. Oh, the PC’s are human (although I have no doubt that will change in due course just as soon as I’ve finished the relevant creation system chapters), but why should everyone else be so constrained? I’m using a combo of AD&D, some RQII and other more esoteric sources to inform my non-human species generation. There’s a strong touch of whimsy about my NPC’s as well.

How are you growing it?

I’m sowing the seeds of future scenarios by making the City as rich with legends, stories, big characters, and back-story as I can manage. I’m fairly junking it up with rumours and tales or derring do and people best avoided. Scattering the old myths and wives stories about. Some of this is coming from Lankhmar based material and other bits I’m stealing wholesale from sources like Greyhawk and my fetid brain. I’ll happily weave in components and variations of such things that the players come up with as long as they don’t violate the growing hopefully shared vision for the immediate world the players inhabit.

Is that all we get to know about?!

Yeah – I’m bushed and this writing malarkey takes brain energy (maybe a whole watt to write!). That’s a few broad strokes of the brush for you to give you some clues as to what we are up to – if you want more, well read the game session entries in the session journal category. You’ll get a game by game account of how our plots are unfolding. Any more specific questions – just chuck ’em my way. You know where the comment link is I’m presuming.