Where would you start it? The wilderlands being a big place and all.

And what would you do with it?

RPGPundit

It depends on what you want!

1.  A 'Fafhred and the Grey Mouser' style campaign?  Well, Lankhmar is pretty damn similar to The City State of the Invincible Overlord!

2.  A 'Conan' campaign with lots of 'Lost Civilisations'?  Well, Barbarian Altanis is the place to start.  Ancient ruins, barbarians with mighty thews, etc.  All there.

3.  A 'Corrupt, declining, ancient Empire' campaign (something with a real 'Dying Earth' vibe)?  Hey, Viridistan is your place!  The Green Emperor is the ultimate 'last Melnibonean'.

4.  A Late-3rd Age, 'everything is in decline', Middle-Earth kind of game?  Well, the 'Valley of the Ancients' map is where to start.  The city of Tarsh is a flagging, ancient Dunedain/Numenorean city.

5.  Pirate fun?  Hey, start in Tarantis.

Etc.  :cool:

As good as the ideas in the above post are...

this being a judges guild product and all, shouldn't there be a random starting point table?

Let's see, a d18 (18 maps), a d52 (52 columns), a d34 (rows the odd numbered columns have) and a d33 (rows the even numbered columns have).

I'll just use this to generate the numbers.

d18 = 17, d52= 48, d33 = 14. That would be map 17, the Ghinor Highlands, hex 4814. No description, so lets take a look. Right smack in the middle of the forest of the deaf p. 419). The nearest mapped settlement is Nurenthane, 4415 (p. 431), which is a "frontier town built on the ruins of a fallen dwarf city. Oh, hang on. Ramshadow Castle, 4711, is just about the same distance, and guards the pass of the Ram. Also nearby, the Tower of the Prophets, 4320, Underleaf, 4710, Rastingdrung, 4708, and Prim, 4522. Lots of Dwarves around, it seems.

Decide where the party is from, and what they are doing in the woods, and start off "in media res". Or maybe when they wake up in the morning.

If you get a result in the middle of water, they are on a boat or ship, unless you'd rather have them start off hanging on to the wreckage while sharks circle.

Actually, give me more information about the characters, and I might be able to come up with something.

Anyone else care to give it a try and see where pundits PCs start off?

I always liked the City State. As true a S&S metropolis as they come. Your Greyhawks and Waterdeeps are the palest reflections.

Ooh, only about a million places. I've considered this a few times and i can never really decide; there's just too much goodness!

If pressed, one campaign idea that keeps nagging at me is in Lenap. The PCs are local people, merchants, traders and explorers for new markets. The idea is to increase Lenap's influence and to reclaim its glorious past. Opening new trade routes through the rough interior, maybe even into the Desert Lands where they can challenge Viridistan's hold on the Holy Cities. Plot to restore the rightful ruler of Lenap and depose Kouligan (?) the Grief-Giver, liberating those dissenters locked in the catacombs below the palace. I'd probably run it with Iron Heroes rather than d&d though. Seems like a great fit.

Altanis. Primarily because my main draw to the wilderlands was it's psionic friendliness, and that's where I've found the most explicit mentions of psionics, and perousing the region, I found a number of other sites that have captured my interest there as well.

Ehhh...uh...is -- is there a website where I can, umn, read about this thing?  I know Necromancer Games has a d20 version, but I'd rather read up on the old stuff first.

Come to think, I HAVE a boxed set in the closet.

Hmmm.

Hmmm.

A-Googling I will go, but tell me more.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Ehhh...uh...is -- is there a website where I can, umn, read about this thing?  I know Necromancer Games has a d20 version, but I'd rather read up on the old stuff first.

Come to think, I HAVE a boxed set in the closet.

Well, it was originally a line by Judges Guild (who you may be familiar with from various Traveller items) put out as a third party D&D product. They have a site hosted by necro:
http://www.judgesguild.com/

Word has it they licensed a Wilderlands version for C&C as well.

I was one of the people who worked on the Wilderlands. We used the old stuff in updating it. Much of the original is in the new one, and there really isn't much in the way of d20 mechanics. The entire project was overseen in such a way as to ensure that the essence of original was of paramount importance.

apparition13: I never thought about this approach but... damn, Sir, you are a goddamn genius!

Akrasia: also good. Altanis would be my first pick. Parched wastelands just scream sword and sorcery!

When I ran my one and only wilderlands campaign, my players complained that it was "too big and empty".  

This was coming out of a "Port Blacksand" campaign that they all loved, so I had chosen Altanis specifically to provide a counterpoint, thinking that the city-states would be too similar a campaign.

However, I think I misjudged, and maybe that's exactly what my players would have wanted.

But, I wanted to see if anyone had an idea for Wilderlands besides just the "city state" option or the "wandering through the empty wilderness" option.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Melanapparition13: I never thought about this approach but... damn, Sir, you are a goddamn genius!

[Elvis]Thank you, thank you very much.[/Elvis]
If you liked that...

Ordinarily I would probably make something up based on the PCs, but since we have no details of them, I decided to roll on the "Random Ruins and Relics" table starting on page 11. I was hoping for a location, but got:

Class: 10, artifacts,
Condition: 3, above ground,
Covering: 9, webs and dust,
State: 4, crystallized and petrified,
Keeper: 6, true giants.

Rolling on the artifacts table (p. 13) I got: 3: offensive device, followed by 1: hand.

Alright, the Hand of Vecna sounds a bit extreme for a low level party, but when it comes to this type of random rolling I look at them as imagination aids. I like "hand", but I'm not commited to offensive device. Crystallized and petrified can be either crystal, stone or as written. I think I'll change true giants to a single forest giant (making this up as I go, about 12 feet tall, kind of skinny), druidy and chaotic good, lives in a glade in the forest, and is known to have this hand. The players have been sent to ask to borrow it, which explains why they are wandering about a forest known to be infested with "zombies".

Assuming the PCs are from Nurenthane, perhaps the excavators of the dwarven city on which the Nurenthane is built have found a door that seems to have a handle into which a hand might fit. After consulting with a local sage, it is determined that the hand in the possession of the forest giant is likely to be the one in question. The local big wigs ask their employees (the PCs) "Could you go and ask him for its use? Here's something he has been asking about to give in trade."

If you want to do a dungeon crawl, they (eventually) retrieve the hand, and as a reward are permitted to explore the newly opened city area. Or the giant is missing, and they need to follow the trail. Or the door opens to a library, and something in it is of import to the dwarves, so the party is sent to Underleaf. Again, if the library, the next step might be a trip to the Tower of Prophets.

Upon further reading, Nurenthane seems like a natural starting locale for PCs. It's a not overly large town, populated by outcastes, with a built in dungeon, and the possilbility of war with dwarves who are angry at the desecration of the city of their ancestors.

Obviously this approach won't work if the players have a specific campaign in mind (thief wars in the City State, for example), but I think it's a good way to open up the entire setting.

On the other hand, if you have a specific region in mind, just use that regions map, and determine where they are on that map randomly.

City of Antil is sacked by Barbarian Altanis. Several thousand refugees flee by boat and setup camp near a safe haven built by the Elves of Renth. It is decided that the only way to rebuild is to flee across the Sea of Five Winds and find a new place to rebuild.

Our intrepid group of players are the crew of the Sea Hawk. They are motley group of nobles, warriors, priests, mages, and thieves. There mission to sail across the Sea of Five Winds and find a new land and return within a year.

I would do the campaign as follows

1) The Fall of Antil (ran as a pre-game for each of the individual players)
2) The Gathering
3) An Epic Sea Voyage
4) A New Land
5) The Return
6) The Rescue (What! You think when they returned everything was peachy?)
7) The Colonization Fleet
New Antil

Enjoy
Rob Conley

Quote from: RPGPunditBut, I wanted to see if anyone had an idea for Wilderlands besides just the "city state" option or the "wandering through the empty wilderness" option.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Ehhh...uh...is -- is there a website where I can, umn, read about this thing?  I know Necromancer Games has a d20 version, but I'd rather read up on the old stuff first.

Come to think, I HAVE a boxed set in the closet.

Hmmm.

Hmmm.

A-Googling I will go, but tell me more.

The Acaeum has a great listing of all things JG HERE!. Don't know if you wanted anything more indepth... But all the original Wilderlands releases are listed there, with a brief description.

Fantastic Wilderland Beyonde
Wilderlands of High Fantasy
Wilderlands of the Fantastic Reaches
Wilderlands of the Magic Realm

Quote from: estarCity of Antil is sacked by Barbarian Altanis. Several thousand refugees flee by boat and setup camp near a safe haven built by the Elves of Renth. It is decided that the only way to rebuild is to flee across the Sea of Five Winds and find a new place to rebuild.

Our intrepid group of players are the crew of the Sea Hawk. They are motley group of nobles, warriors, priests, mages, and thieves. There mission to sail across the Sea of Five Winds and find a new land and return within a year.

I would do the campaign as follows

1) The Fall of Antil (ran as a pre-game for each of the individual players)
2) The Gathering
3) An Epic Sea Voyage
4) A New Land
5) The Return
6) The Rescue (What! You think when they returned everything was peachy?)
7) The Colonization Fleet
New Antil

Enjoy
Rob Conley

Brilliant. I've never done one of those "To the new lands and back again" campaigns. But now I'm resolved--I'm going to run a version of this in my homebrew sometime soon. Thanks, Rob!