Torchlight 3.5

As I've probably shared in the past, the Torchlight campaign setting -- originally known by the more evocative title Woden's Gallows -- was my submission to Wizards for their big contest to create a new D&D setting. (Ultimately, the winner was Eberron. How could anyone top magic robots?!) I'll call that one Torchlight 1.0. 

A few years later, I ended up using Torchlight as the setting for a couple of early 4e campaigns, one in-person and one chat-based. This world was not a great fit for 4e, however, because of the new dragonborn and tiefling PC races introduced in the PHB for that edition. Incorporating those races and their cultures into the world resulted in Torchlight 2.0, which I felt was a pretty boring place. It had lost much of its unique Anglo-Saxon flavor. I didn't use Torchlight at all in the early days of 5e, since by that time my kids were  already playing in the Shattered Realm setting. 

In 2020, when we were all spending a lot of time by ourselves for some reason, I decided to resurrect Torchlight. I did a lot of world-building, but it was not system-specific. I scrapped all the D&D 4e nonsense and got back to the setting's roots in Anglo-Saxon poems like The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer, and, of course, Beowulf. Now I had a great setting again -- Torchlight 3.0 -- but with no real plans to use it in a campaign, primarily because it still just didn't feel right as a D&D setting.

Enter the Cypher System. That was really the (Torch)light bulb moment in which I realized that Cypher was a far better system for this world. It quickly became the default fantasy setting in my growing Front Porch Multiverse spreadsheet that brings together all the (non-Druid Cycle and non-Shattered Realm) campaigns of my gamemastering career. Recently, I felt inspired to flesh out the world even more, adding a whole new continent and hundreds of new characters and locations. It's not a revamp of what preceded it, but there are some pretty big geographical and historical changes, so I'm calling it Torchlight 3.5. I can't wait for an opportunity to bring it to life with players!

Holiday Game Action

The boys and I wrapped up another thoroughly entertaining adventure with our Toronto crew yesterday, but it was the only D&D we've played in quite a while (aside from a brief Shattered Realm episode that I managed to shoehorn into one weekend morning). With all the kids' activities, it seems to be getting harder to find the time to roll dice. Progress on our main Shattered Realm campaign is pretty damn slow, and other D&D stuff we'd like to do -- an Eberron mini-campaign is probably at the top of the list -- seems like it will be tough to pull off.

I'm looking forward to the holidays, as it will give us an opportunity to spend time together and have fun. When the kids aren't playing Xbox with their cousins, we'll dig into some of their gaming-related Christmas stuff. I'll have numerous units to assemble for the Tanks miniatures game, as both boys are now quite interested in twentieth-century military history. On that score, Nathaniel will also be getting a couple of Axis & Allies games. (I only remember the classic -- apparently now there's a whole slew of related titles.) It wouldn't be Christmas for Nathaniel without something 40k, however, so he's also getting the Space Marines codex and the Ultramarines codex supplement. We aren't playing 40k very much these days -- it's hard to find time to play anything -- but he enjoys poring over game rules, coming up with optimized units, playing through solo games, etc. Matthew, meanwhile, is more interested in Xbox than tabletop stuff, but he did ask for a 40k model in addition to the aforementioned tanks. He's going to use the model as a vehicle for his futuristic Shattered Realm hero, so it will be fun to build and paint it together.

Speaking of painting, one of the coolest gifts the kids are getting are their own customized miniatures from Hero Forge. Matthew designed Kai, his sniper from the sci-fi Shattered Realm (and the one who will be riding around in the 40k vehicle), and Nathaniel opted for Demorus, his original Shattered Realm ranger. I'm looking forward to painting the minis and helping bring those characters to life!

Curses!

We wrapped up our brief Eberron adventure this evening, but not before the boys got their first taste of a true D&D classic: cursed magic items. Matthew's fighter put on an enchanted cloak that turned out to be more than he bargained for. Now the objective for our next adventure will be to find someone who can cast Remove Curse. As an alternative, Nathaniel suggested: "Don't worry, my paladin will be able to cast that spell in just five more levels!" Yeah, Matthew wasn't on board with waiting quite that long...

Our Visit to Eberron

Whether as a player or as a DM, I've never participated in an adventure set in Eberron. I must admit a somewhat fraught relationship with that campaign setting. Maybe it's the magic robots, or the fact that the main continent of Khorvaire makes me think of an old-time Chevy, but it's probably the history of the setting itself.

Eberron was created as the result of a contest held back in 2002, when thousands of gamers submitted ideas for the next great D&D campaign setting. Naturally, I jumped on that opportunity as well. The Shattered Realm setting was in its infancy, and the Druid Cycle world seemed too hard to distill into a one-page overview sheet, so I opted to submit the setting now called Torchlight, which in those days was known as Woden's Gallows. For those who haven't seen it, Torchlight is a low-magic, dark fantasy world based on the literature and mythology of Anglo-Saxon England (the focus of my graduate studies). I still can't believe I (and so many others) lost to a setting whose primary "hook" was magic robots, but...whatever.

Anyway, as the boys are crazy for D&D these days, I've cracked open a free Eberron adventure that I picked up years ago. I'm ignoring all the stuff about Dragonmarked houses and whatnot, and pretty much running it as if it's in a generic D&D setting. Even so, the boys want to take a ride on Eberron's infamous magic train, but I told them it doesn't have any stops in the Shadow Marches...