Green Pass Campaign: Realm Creation Example

This is a continuation of the previous post, describing the process of creating a realm for the Green Pass campaign. I've selected a cleric (named Dermot Bac Kellag, for a vaguely Celtic-isle flavor) as my ruler. He's starting with 310,000 experience, which puts him at 10th level. His exceptional stats are WIS 13, CON 15, and CHA 15, which all provide a +1 bonus to various mechanics. Rolling his health gives 40 hit points, which is pretty durable in this system (a 10 HD adult dragon would have around 45). I also assign some useful proficiencies (i.e. feats and skills) that provide domain management bonuses. I take three ranks of military strategy, and one each of command, leadership, and diplomacy.

Now I need to spend out my 240,000 gp budget on realm assets and personnel.

First, I'm going to buy my sailing ship. The "large sailing ship" description is a bit vague, probably to allow it to flexibly cover both ancient and medieval settings. I'm visualizing this ship as a carrack from the Renaissance era. It costs 20,000 gp and can ship 30,000 stone of cargo, or about 64,000 gp of freight. Even if I can only turn a 10% profit on this each month, it's still going to earn me about 6000 gp. So I can envision this paying me back in just a few months, and then becoming a reliable generator of income. A large ship can also mount three small catapults/ballistae for defense, so I need to remember to buy some of those too.

Magellan's carrack, the Trinidad. (Cutaway by Stephen Biesty.)

A ship needs a crew, so I'm also going to buy a complement of 12 sailors, 2 navigators, and a captain. The total cost of putting this crew on retainer (their pay needs to be backdated by 6 months) is another 6*222 = 1332 gp.

I'll purchase 5 medium ballista (80 gp each) for 400 gp, and 200 ballista shot (2 gp each) for another 400 gp. I'll stick the extras in some of my castle towers.

Next up: Mundane gear. I'm buying a standard assortment of clothing, armor, and weapons. I'm assuming I just need to buy gear to wear in the battlefield, and that my normal household expense budget (0.5% of stronghold cost) covers daily wear. I buy about 200 gp of basic equipment (plate mail, shield, mace, tunic, cassock, boots, robe, and a holy symbol), and then another 280 gp for a medium warhorse, saddle, and saddlebags.

Now I'm rolling for my magical items. After a bunch of rolls to check how many random items of each type I'll get, I end up with 5 items, 2 potions, and 5 scrolls. I'll exercise the option to swap out some items for formulas, at a 2-to-1 ratio. Now I have 3 items, 4 item formulas, 4 potion formulas, and 5 scrolls. Note that every item also gives me an extra formula for that item (i.e., a formula can be reverse-engineered from a found item), so I'll be able to easily manufacture those too.

Here are the results of rolling these on the treasure tables:

• Items:
  
  •     Sword +1
  •     6x Arrows +1
  •     Sword +1, +3 vs Summoned
• Formulas:
  
  •     Staff of Healing
  •     Crossbow Bolts +1
  •     Scale Armor +1 and Shield +1
  •     Eyes of Petrification
  •     Potion of Undead Control
  •     Potion of Growth
  •     Potion of Invisibility
  •     Potion of Climbing
  •     Scroll of Insect Plague & Sticks to Snakes
  •     Scroll of Protection from Evil & Find Traps & Detect Magic

This is mostly generic stuff, which isn't necessarily bad. Basic +1 items will allow me to arm henchmen and a personal guard without breaking the bank, and having the ability to damage elite monsters (like demons) that are immune to normal weapons is always helpful!

My wand - so expensive!

The most interesting item on the list is the Eyes of Petrification formula. The d20 SRD specifies that these work for 10 rounds/day, but the ACKS rules allow for creating items with a wide range of use restrictions from "single use only" to "N number of charges" to "unlimited". Of course, unlimited use items are wildly expensive. Making an unlimited version of the Eyes of Petrification (a la Jadis of Narnia) would run me something like 75,000 gp, and take a couple of years of work to finish. And that's just for a chance to make a crafting check, which might fail. It's probably a more sensible idea to scale it back to a few uses per day, or even per week.

I can also attempt other items without a formula, but the chance for success is lower and it takes twice as long and twice as much money. Typically a formula is something literal like "the hides of a dozen basilisks and the blood of a blue dragon", but clerics have the option to create items based on raw divine power if they command an entire realm of worshipers, bypassing the need for material components. Oh, and I'll need a magical workshop for my projects. That's another 6000 gp.

So much for items. Next I'll construct my castle. The size of my castle will determine the size of the domain under my control. In a civilized part of the world, each 15,000 gp of stronghold value gives me control of a 6-mile hex. The maximum domain size is 16 hexes, corresponding to a 240,000 gp stronghold.

Bodiam Castle, roughly the size I'm after.

Ordinarily this would be too expensive for a new ruler, but clerics (as their special perk) get a 50% price cut on strongholds as well as a free garrison of starting troops. So I'll build a max-size stronghold for 120,000 gp. This is enough to get me a central keep, a barbican (gate with towers), a filled moat (200' long), a 40' high wall (also 200' long), and 4 medium towers. I might spread out a couple of the towers into other hexes as watchtowers, rather than include them in my main castle. (Note to self: Write some house rules that justify this!)

The castle comes with an automatic garrison of "followers" (a concept dating back to the original 70s-era release of D&D!) After rolling 5d6x10, I end up with 190 soldiers, which are assigned ten at a time from another table. I end up with (effective gp value in parentheses)

• (240)        40x Light Infantry
• (240)        20x Heavy Infantry
• (600)        20x Light Cavalry
• (450)        10x Medium Cavalry
• (1800)      30x Heavy Cavalry
• (750)        10x Cataphract Cavalry
• (450)        30x Archers
• (180)        30x Slingers
• (100)        4x 1st level clerics

The cavalry force is pretty strong, but I'll need more archers and infantry.

Finally, I need to hire personnel. This will include (1) mercenaries to round out my force, (2) some armorers to keep them in good repair, and (3) henchmen to act as battlefield lieutenants. I end up hiring an extra 90 heavy infantry, 60 longbowmen, 15 horse archers, and 30 more heavy cavalry. That should amount to a respectable field army of about 10 platoons. My ruler can only command 6 of those platoons personally (in one division), so I'll need a 3rd level fighter to act as my lieutenant (for a second division).

Henchmen are free, but leveling them up at the start of the game will cost an amount of gold equal to their intended level. This will require rolling up some additional stats for each of them. After creating five characters (using 3d6 but with no wildcards), I get one character with a +1 bonus to STR, CON, WIS, and CHA, a sensible for a fighter. There's a lieutenant! I'll try to find uses for the others later, maybe as security on my trade ship, which will let them slowly level up. But for now, I'm going to sink 4000 gp into raising the fighter up to level 3, to command my second division.

This just about spends out my budget. I have about 15,000 gp left, and some of that will go toward equipping my lieutenant. The rest will be for purchasing my first cargo of freight for my trade ship.

Next time, I'll show an example of a totally different starting character: a master thief with a crime guild.