The yellow moon hangs low in the autumn sky, overlooking the sentinel pines like an engorged reveler at some dark feast. Wisps of thin cloud skid in front of the stars, shadowing the forested land below. The waters of the Whip flow cold and fast between the trees, winding its way back and forth as it goes. It runs beneath the gaze of an old, abandoned castle that looms atop a steep hill, thrusting its jagged towers skyward, its darkened windows like watchful eyes. Further along the banks of this river lies the sleepy town of Grimrose, where a strange thing is happening.
This was the intro text to my new gothic campaign, Yekkislovia. I'm running it using Goodman Games' DCC RPG. Why did I choose this system? Simply because out of all the systems I've tried, DCC RPG works the best with my own personal style. I run better games with it.
The characters have been made via random generation (as expected using DCC RPG). The party ended up being fairly dwarf heavy, and nearly everybody had a blacksmith or armorer of one ilk or another, which is amusing. I think I'll try to work smithing into the storyline somehow.
The main town is Grimrose, a sort of militarized version of Sleepy Hollow. There's a lot going on here, a lot of opportunity for adventure even without leaving the town walls. I have several kernel ideas that need to be popped, but so far I think I really want to make this campaign a map/sandbox based game, with plot threads scattered about that the players can get tangled up in if they want, not unlike Skyrim.
I've a fair bit of world building still to do, but for starters, I'm creating several orders for each game class as an attempt to make the characters part of something with purpose as opposed to just being a warrior or a thief with no social context.
Now to heat those kernels and set those threads so things can start popping and getting tripped.
