Forbidden Lands

I compiled all the maha signs into one table. those included in the rosary have a box around them, so your players may figure out what some of the signs mean while experimenting with the rosary. It may not be neccessary to solve the Pelagia riddle, but I found it weird not to have them shown on the rosary.

I'm about to start a new campaign this week. I was curious to know your experience when it comes to trading, and earning/ spending treasure overall.

Do you tend to have PC's selling for 50% of the PHB price and buy for the full price? Is there any advice to avoid breaking the game's economy overall?

Hello folks, I must admit I’m finding lemmy a bit awkward but I really like that there is a forbidden lands thingie here. Have been running a campaign and putting something together to run on the side at gamehole con

Given my linguistics background, I always disliked the fact that beast races/ creatures are capable of full speech. This is physiologically impossible, and it's always broken immersion for me in fantasy games, where I still expect some form of verisimilitude.

However, I was delighted when I read about Orcs and their speech impediments, as well as Saurians having their own speech limitations with limited vowels and different consonants. Not to mention the "dragons can talk only in legends" bit, which I absolutely loved, given the unreliable narrator factor in Forbidden Lands.

In this vein, there's something that bothers me, which is Wolfkin as a playable kin. At some point I can read that they communicate between one another through howls and such, but there's an awkward omission on how they, as playable kin, would communicate with other kin. Not to mention that they despise other kin anyway.

So my first thought is to ban this kin from being payable at my table outright, unless all the party plays as Wolfkin.

Just wondering what is everybody's opinion on this. Full disclaimer, I am still halfway through the GM's handbook, so there may be some stuff I am missing.

Maybe you're here because you're already a fan, maybe you are doing some research wether FbL is right for you. Below are my, totally biased impressions and summary of Key features and why you should play it.
I may edit this initial post depending on the comments below in order to deliver a community-driven overview of this game.

1. The rules. They are both easy to understand and apply ingame and flexible enough to allow for a fine granularity. In a group of GMs we discussed if there was a "best weapon". We could not agree because each has its usecases - not bad for a system with 2 weapon stats and some tags on them.
2. The lore. It's a fantasy classic with a surpising twist to it here and there. Without spoilering too much, halflings are all jolly and merry and friendly but behind closed curtains they hate each other, are alcoholics and beat their children. As a GM, you receive a treasure trove of background, legends, events, but from the perspective of the uncertain narrator, so there's a wealth of room for your interpretation. Not two worlds will be the same and if you are playing on two different tables, you will most likely still be surprised quite often.
3. The campaigns By the time of writing there are three official campaigns available. Broadly speaking, they take well established elements of the lore (the "Bloodmist" that isolated villages for 3 centuries) and lets the players discover their reasons. And of course, save the world and/or carve out a good piece of it for the players themselves)
4. The flexibility & preparation required: Of course, if you're not so much interested in the campaigns, you can play Forbidden Lands as a pure hexcrawl / dungeoncrawl. With little preparation required by the GM. The mechanics for travelling and resource management are excellent, the random encounters and tables to generate adventure sites provide you with enough tools to keep you and your players entertained for month.

Combat is much quicker resolved (and, as stated above, much more streamlined and fluid than pathfinder or DnD). A character has at most 6 Hitpoints (his strength), and losing those points makes him weaker (because they use strength to do melee attacks as well). At the same time, becoming "broken" takes you out of the fight and you receive a critical injury, possibly, but not necessarly, death. Call it - more dangerous, but less deadly.

What do you think? Why do you love it? What's missing in your opinion?

What modules are you all using when using FL in Foundry? Using v11, but I'm happy to hear other versions in case I'm missing something big.

So usually I would post this into the link collection, I just recently discovered more cool features that I like to share. If you are the author of this tool or know who it is: receive my gratitude and respect.

How to have online charactersheets & group overview:

1. go to https://www.forbidden-sheets.com/?lang=en

2. in the addressbar of your browser, notice the id=xxx... bit. This id leads to your unique character! anybody using this link will be able to see & edit your character; That's why you should:

3. backup your character by "Export" - you'll receive an ".fsjson" file that you can "Import" should anything break with your character. I recommend saving regularly.

4. go to https://groups.forbidden-sheets.com/ and enter a name for your crew. Choose wisely, as you won't be able to change it later. It does not have to be unique though.

5. at the bottom, paste the url to your character and click "Attach". repeat until done

6. Voila! you have an overview of your group and a shortcut to your characters. (mouseover a character card, "open full sheet")

7. Add sebedius, a helpful bot to handle inititive & dicerolls, to your discord (https://github.com/Stefouch/sebedius-myz-discord-bot) and you're good to play online.

Here's the place to upvote and discuss your favourite AP and find the next for your watchlist. I haven't watched all of them, so please comment & add what I left out.

i made a weather macro for foundry that takes the tables from BR & BOB, unifies them and makes weather a bit more predictable and dependent on the region & season (and how much fuss you want to have with weather in general)

https://www.mediafire.com/file/wd2r21c41qwu3iz/forbidden-lands-myweather_v0.1.zip/file

Intro:

“MyWeather” is supposed to give you a simple mechanic to generate some reasonable weather to spice up your journeys without taking up too much game time and brainpower. It works for all climate zones and seasons, from the frozen peaks of bitter reach to the scorching deserts that are not even discovered yet.

Weather is structured into temperature, clouds and wind which are all tracked individually. Clouds and Wind range from calm to storm and clear to dark clouds in 4 steps, the temperature from biting cold to scorching hot in 7 steps. You decide, based on region, season and infinite knowledge only a GM can have, what weather you expect, a “clear sky with mild breeze” for minimal negative effects on adventuring, “freezing temperatures with dark clouds and storm” during the dramatic search for the mountain pass in bitter reach, you name it. A table with inspiration will be provided. Expectations may be between two steps, during spring the expected temperature may be between cold and mild etc.

Once the expectations are set, you may roll a d6 for each weather element to see if it deviates from the expectation. Usually you roll once per day, but if you find the weather should change more or less often, feel free to adapt. We suggest you use three differently colored dice for the three elements and roll them together, white for wind, black for clouds and red for temperature. If the die shows a 6, the weather moves one step away from the expected weather, clouds and wind towards “more”, temperature towards colder. On a 1 or 2, the element moves towards the expectation or not at all, when the actual weather is already at expectation. In case the expectation is set between steps, the actual weather element will flip to the other side. In the example above, the actual temperature will alternate between mild and cold.

A table for the actual mechanical effects a weather phenomenon has is also provided. You are now all set to present your players with the added challenges your weather brings to the table

Coming up with good dark secrets is hard sometimes. If that is the case for you, the following alternative might be interesting for you:

During character creation, you will be required to select a virtue and a vice. These should be single-word attributes (refer to the examples below), followed by a brief description of how these qualities are expressed in your character. If your virtue or vice becomes relevant in a scene and leads to detrimental consequences for you or other characters involved, you will be awarded one experience point at the end of the session.

Example Virtues: Honest, Conscientious, Pure, Modest, Serene, Patient, Industrious, Benevolent, Devoted, Compassionate, Optimistic.

Example Vices: Addictive, Arrogant, Greedy, Lustful, Wrathful, Hedonistic, Lazy, Envious, Jealous.

It may prove useful

Time to stock up on those dice. Maybe we get a new print for Melified Mage? prettyplease? https://mailchi.mp/frialigan/free-league-summer-sale-2023-h26g10adoc

Of course, there are some awesome tools out there to help you as a GM. This is an unordered collection, vote for your favourite ones in the replies below:

the infamous yxans klagan:

• https://yxans-klagan.vercel.app/

smoke raven has some really powerful tools collected, I'm especially amazed about this one:

• https://www.smokeraven.com/forbidden-lands-hex-traveller

For the ultimate number-nerds:

• https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/

other Random generators:

• http://wyrmtales.net/?
• https://perchance.org/fl-session-generator

Onepage dungeon generator:

• https://watabou.itch.io/one-page-dungeon

For all who use Obsidian here is a session template I use to start all my note taking. I use several addons to achieve the map and embeds look for leaflet.

Title: {{title}}
Date: {{date}}
Time: {{time}}

Last Session:

#
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# Session Information

### Weather:

### Players:

### NPC's of Interest:

### Locations:

### Session Notes:

### Possible Encounters:


#
***


# Random Tables/ Map

## World Map
![[World Map]]

## Random Tables

<iframe src="https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/weather/" width="100%" height="500px" frameborder="0"></iframe>


## Yxans

<iframe src="https://yxans-klagan.vercel.app/session/" width="100%" height="500px" frameborder="0"></iframe>


## Wyrm Tales

<iframe src="http://wyrmtales.net/" width="100%" height="500px" frameborder="0"></iframe>




#
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**#Below are posts for the various adventure sites I have created or worked on. More will be added as time goes on. **

#Chill Touch Mausoleum

Background: The elvish priest sought to assist orcs in fleeing prosecution and attempted to help them find an afterlife to a god that no one knew. Unfortunately they were found out and buried alive by the elves and dwarves of the past.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TRPKaoFlLdP1G3EtqGd3Mg8ivvHbjazY?usp=sharing

##Fortress of the Iron Mountain

“The fortress of the Iron Mountain is a massive, sprawling complex, built into the side of a towering peak of solid stone. It is a formidable defensive structure, with high walls, fortified towers, and a deep moat filled with sharpened stakes. The main gate of the fortress is a massive, iron-bound door that can be raised and lowered by means of a complex system of gears and pulleys. The gate is guarded by a unit of heavily armed dwarven warriors, who are trained in the use of weapons and tactics that are best suited to the cramped, twisting passages of the fortress.”

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19VvLE7WRr10L7x1tDGk6xdybGyROhOYN?usp=sharing

##Oak Crossing Fortress:

The legend of Gustav Goldfist tells the story of a greedy merchant who lived many centuries ago. Gustav was known for his insatiable hunger for wealth and power, and was willing to do whatever it took to accumulate more riches.

A Troll by the name of Thunk now resides here.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lqRwYQZPnRlsLrVKNWFBhQ1j6g0xt1CI?usp=sharing

##The Castle on the Tides:

Once a magnificent structure, perched on the edge of the ocean and overlooking the waves. Now a site of steam and mystery, Words are spoken in the taverns of villages by traveling merchants that if you need something, anything this is the place to seek it. Just make sure to plug your nose.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IJEqgOQBIDL5YjFaX6v5ZkXxsLRs6ADI?usp=sharing

##Wolf Mound Blockhouse

Overview: The Blockhouse is an ancient prison ran by a sadistic merchant jailer turned death knight. He seeks to have the assistance of the party in getting a valuable necklace off a noble in the basement dungeon. The twist is the merchant gets his power from a wolfkin demon he has locked deep in the dungeon of the blockhouse.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Bn33fyMoAPOaZbzZbP4XAXzBPJYC-nFe?usp=sharing

"place them where you want", they said. But if you want a consistent world, not every placement will make equal sense. Find thoughts and inspiration on where (and why) to put the Raven's purge sites.

Beware:

What is your current favourite player character? Tell us about their Kin/Profession, what makes them special? Bonus points for Prides/Dark Secrets. Your next character might be inspired from a post here.

post your questions concerning rules or lore here. If in doubt, use