Update on the Paid Tier

It might take a little more time...

David Foxfire

May 13, 2022

Trigger Warning

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About the Paid Tier

Now that I got a dozen articles in my belt. I have a decent-sized buffer. I got some stories going. I have some assistance in the editing. And the reception, though minimalistic if at all, is not entirely negative. Some people might won-der what is worse, having all negative feedback or none at all, but if I had to choose, I’d choose the latter. At the least, it gives me the notion that I’m still doing something to occupy my time. What I’m doing is keeping myself out of trouble with the local cops. Not quite paying the bills, but in some days, I’m grateful just to have that.

But I prefer to have more readers. Readers who want to keep reading. Read-ers who could manage to keep seeing this Substack and like what they’re seeing enough to pay money for some of it. I’m not there yet.

There’s also a thought that I’m being very far ahead of myself on the Paid Tier since I really don’t have that much to put in the Paid Tier yet.

I wanted the Paid Tier to sell adventures, compilations, and anthologies set in Penumaria, which I’m still working on. I can hear the “Too Soon, Davey, Too Fsking Soon!!” from here.

Right now I have the idea of three different starter campaigns. I’ll list them below. The first one will remain in the Free Tier because I want to show what Paid Tier will look like, which is where the other two will go. Because of this, I’ll be moving the start of Paid Tier further into the future until I’m ready.

Item: Ko-Fi Page

Until then, I’ll have another, more manageable, and appropriate, way to crowdfund Tales of Penumaria. Ko-Fi is a crowdfunding site meant for donat-ions and small-amount commissions and contributions, with the basis being someone giving someone else a cup of coffee. Something I can get behind. I can go a long time on a single cup of joe, and there’d be nothing like a good supply of ‘black liquid sunshine’ to keep me going.

If you wish to send a cop of coffee toward me, first off, you have my thanks. Second, you can do that at https://ko-fi.com/talesofpenumaria . This link is also in the template I use for this and all future articles.

Item: The Campaigns

At this time, the campaigns in Penumaria will be remixes of various existing campaigns. Some of them can reuse some of the maps and monsters from the original material in a Springboard fashion. This will eventually lead to more original campaigns as my worldbuilding continues.

One of these campaigns is from a recent compilation. One is a combination of two ‘Red Boxes.” And one is a conversion from a previous edition.

The Sunken Fortress

The first module takes after The Sunless Citadel from Tales of the Yawning Portal, a classic dungeon crawl that gets grafted into Chronicla and deals with the after-effects of the time it was a Ravenloftian Domain of Dread. The Gulthias Tree found itself in the mountains southeast of Chronicla Castle, near a logging town of Oakhurst, and in a ruined keep that plunged into the mountainside. The party might be called upon to investigate the site for a mining opportunity, but when the party gets to Oakhurst, they find something far worse.

The Sunken Fortress will incorporate some parts from the previous worldbuilding documents as I adapt the module to its new setting. This adventure will remain in the free tier.

The Phandelver Mining Company

The campaign in the Starter Set for Fifth Edition has been worked to death by now, it needs some changes to make it more tolerable for seasoned players. This might start off as the campaign of the [original] Starter Set, and there’s already a Phandalin set in Refugina, you’ll see parts of the Essentials Kit in there, which also involves the region south of Neverwinter. I heard that there’ll be a new Starter Set in the future. Hopefully, it’ll have a new campaign.

The Phandelver Mining Company campaign will throw a lot of new wrinkles with the venerable Lost Mine of Phandelver with not just parts of Dragon of Icespire Peak, but also the three subsequential adventures: Storm Lord’s Wrath, Sleeping Dragon’s Wake, and Divine Contention. And then there’s a different wrinkle in the form of some randomization. All of the important locations can be in any of more than a dozen possible locations, and all of them are drawn at random by the Event Deck long before Session Zero takes place. This will ensure that Phandelver Mining Company will never be the same campaign twice.

The Phandelver Mining Company will be part of the Paid Tier.

Keep of the Border

Those who know of Fourth Edition…you don’t have to raise your hand, you know who you are…know of Keep of the Shadowfell. It’s the one that was available for free and included the kickstart rules of 4th Edition. It’s a module that is begging to be converted into Fifth Edition…but even though the previous incarnation of Dungeon Magazine had a way to place this campaign in the Forgotten Realms, there is no place in the 5th Edition worlds to put this campaign, outside of the original setting abandoned by Wizards of the Coast.

Penumaria makes a place for its version of Keep of the Shadowfell, which will be converted to 5E and have a remixed storyline and locales. Not only will this become part of the Paid tier, but it would also provide ample reason to expand my worldbuilding beyond the Chronicla region.

Item: What you get in a campaign

The Swifttail system, my customized fork of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, does more than just alter the text and change some of the terms used. (Personkind instead of Humanoid, the addition of various checks and saves, different methods for Legendary characters, and so on.) Swifttail also has plenty of other tools for Storytellers (Swifttail’s term for ‘Dungeon Master,’ for why is that term Wizards of the Coast product identity?) that will make their lives so much easier in the planning and running of a campaign in Swifttail. Of course, they’re still being tested and worked on…and there will be some assembly involved on the storyteller’s part…but it’s Swifttail’s philosophy that the Storyteller gets everything they need to run the game without having to buy any more extra material than they have to, especially the basic material they can get from a big box store.

In fact, the most expensive piece they need is something they might already have: A computer with a working printer. And maybe a Microsoft 365 subscription (as a recommended option,) for one particular reason:

The campaign is on OneNote

Swifttail campaigns will come in two forms: A PDF and a OneNote format. The standard version is the OneNote version, which takes the whole cam-paign and puts it all in one place. I swear by Microsoft OneNote whatever I’m planning and running a campaign, thanks to how it reduces page-turning to a mere few clicks, and you can Control-F to find what you need. And with OneNote, you can add your own notes, expand on the locations, add char-acters, make your own lists and tables, and expand on the campaign so that it’ll be unique to you and the players.

While it is not necessary, it is recommended that the storyteller subscribes to Microsoft 365 and downloads Microsoft OneNote 2016. OneNote 2016 is the classic program version of OneNote which is downloaded at https://www. onenote.com/download, and can be installed on your hard drive. It works very well with Microsoft Office and if you add the subscription, you can even import OneNote books on your local hard drive. It’s not necessary, however: It is possible for a non-subscriber to import a OneNote Book into a One Drive and use the OneNote for Windows 10 app, and instructions on how to do that will be included.

The campaign will be sold/purchased/acquired as a complete ZIP file which is meant to be downloaded and unpacked on your local hard drive, and they’ll be easy-to-follow instructions on how to set things up.

About the OneNote Book

You know of my Four-Dimension Spreadsheet where I go by People, Places, Things, and Other. If the document is set in a regional location, I add a sec-tion on the Maps on top. This runs counter to a published adventure from Wizards, where it starts at the front and progresses like it’s a story, going chapter by chapter with each location. That’s okay if you want to just read the adventure, but when you’re on the table and running the campaign, ha-ving it in this format is more complicated than it should be. Especially when you’re frantically flipping pages or, even worse, digging into other sourcebooks.

That’s why Swifttail campaigns are in Microsoft OneNote Books. Everything’s nice and organized, you can search for what you need and get to what you need in a few clicks, and things can be easily added, changed, taken out, and whatnot.

I expand on the Four-Dimension Spreadsheet I’ve been using even more when I get to this point. Here’s the summary of the sections involved:

Adventure Section. This is the general description of the adventure or campaign, with all the storyline, and flowcharts to show the many parts of the adventure and how they connect, all the major scenes, and other important things. It is here where the storyline of the adventure is placed, with references to the other sections when they come up.
Maps Section. If there is an overland map, they’d be here. If there’ll be a Regional higher scale map, they’ll go here as well. Often, they’d just be one overland map that will link the rest of the module together. If there is an important village or major dungeon, it would be here. Any map that will connect the four sections afterward will be here.
People Section. All of the major NPCs will be here, with detailed descriptions stat blocks, and suggestions on portraying them on the table. Expect plenty of notes on their history, how they got here, and possible plans for the future.
Places Section. All the important locations, all the related maps, dun-geons, buildings, homesteads, battle grids, and what have you, will be listed here. Also, if there’s a room or an area that is part of a previous map (especially one in the Maps Section) that needs more detail, it’ll be here as well. If any event takes place in a specific location, it will be here.
Things Section. All the magic items. All the key items. All the books and puzzles, all the things to get, and everything of note and interest, will be listed here. If an item has an extensive list of lore or a detailed backstory, it’ll be included here as well.
Other Section. Everything else. This includes all the stat blocks for the cannon fodder, the reminder of all the mechanics, specific background or subclass or any new character option, or anything else, they will fall here.

Event Deck

Swifttail uses a different tactic when it comes to rolling on a table. Instead of dice and a whole lot of tables, a deck of playing cards is used. A standard deck of poker-sized playing cards, to be exact. In fact, Swifttail’s goal is to have everyone playing the game get everything they need from a big box store.

The random tables in the Swifttail system (which Penumaria uses) use what is known as an Event Deck. The Event Deck is constructed with parts of that deck of playing cards, the instructions for both its construction and its use are included with the table. The deck could be placed in a row, set on a grid, incorporated into a map, or just put on a stack and drawn one by one.

The concept of the Event Deck is simple: A black card means nothing comes up for the party. A red card means something happened, which is designed on the table, each event assigned to the number of that card. Face Cards (Jacks, Queens, and Kings) represent key events in a particular scene, Aces being the most important event or the goal of the scene, and Jokers designated the end of a scene or an exit.

Each event deck will have its own page, with instructions on its construction and tables on the events that happen there. While there will be instructions on how to fill random events, some pre-generated tables will be made available.

The Vault

Even with the goal of making the game not just easier to play but also chea-per, there will still be the need for props, cards, handouts, and whatnot. There are always some things that you can’t just put keep in the Theater of the Mind. Some items really need a visual aid or a reference or something to put in the player’s hands. The hard part is to make it.

This is why the Beadle & Grimm’s Boxed Sets are so popular. Those sets include a whole lot of props, maps, cards, handouts, accessories, a DM’s Screen in some cases, and anything else you need. They’re well worth the money…if you could afford them.

Most of us, and I’m including myself in this group, can’t. Some of us need something considerably closer to our budgets. And I’ve found an answer to expensive Beadle & Grimm’s Boxed Sets to a version that, even though it needs to be printed out, cut up, folded, and taped together, is included with the campaign.

Enter The Vault. A directory full of numbered PDFs that requires the storyteller to do just that. Print out on their computer, cut and fold and tape, and put in storage until the sessions. But it has all the maps, tokens, cards, handouts, clues, worksheets, and what have you, all included in the ZIP file that came with the campaign. Of course, easy-to-follow instructions are provided and having something that says ‘some assemblies required’ is a paltry price to pay for having something that would get a price tag upwards of $1000.

All you’ll need for the Vault is a working printer that can take Card Stock and enough ink to work it with. Assuming that you have a computer, that should-n’t be a problem. Then fetch a pair of scissors, a roll of Scotch tape, and an edge to make sharp folds with. That’s all you’ll need.

Vault Starter Set

Further developments on the above four items will be coming soon, but by the time you’re reading this, I have by now set up the Paid Tier and all of those who wish to support Tales of Penumaria can do so ahead of time. You’ll have my enduring thanks and maybe even something extra for your subscribing now.

But until then, there is a need to have available a couple of PDFs that the fault will always have. Since you can’t always depend on having the right token for a battle grid, a meeple to mark where the party is, or even a checkerboard to plop down in the eventual pinch, I thought I provide you with this PDF that has generic tokens, markers, grids, a character sheet, and anything else that you would appreciate having around the table.

Hence this Vault starter pack, which I’m making available for free. It basically has a bunch of generic tokens, numbered with colored suits. And of different sizes to boot. It will also include a twelve-by-twelve blank square battle map known as the Instant Action Grid. If you need to have something to put tiles on but don’t have a battle map ready, you can just plop the grid on the table, put the party on one side, the opponents on the other, and just go ‘Roll for Initiative.’

I’ll also include markers for various conditions which you can slide under the token in question to denote who’s under what, and to sweeten the deal, I’ll even throw in a character sheet that you can print out en masse and let the player fill out.

You can now download the starter pack at this address. Everything is included in the Self-Extracting Executable Archive, which I’ll take steps to ensure that it’s safe to download and execute on your computer. Put it in an empty folder on your hard drive and run it to unpack all the files in that directory.

You can download the file at: https://1drv.ms/u/ s!AjNYReLtj6OIoBjijTIlqvIqCw7w

In the next article

In the next coming weeks, I’ll be putting up articles on The Sunken Citadel. But for the next article, I will talk about the next part of the Inspiration Series: Group Patrons.