Fallen Empire Campaign Elements Part Five: Macro Rules

The overarching theme in my own quest for the perfect rule set (ha ha) is this: high verisimilitude, low bookkeeping. I don't like to handwave stuff. I like to have simple rule systems for as many possible player action types as possible. They need to be simple so I can write them down and have them at hand because I can't remember anything. The way you sometimes hear it said is "as simple as possible, but no simpler" which is kind of a funny Seussian saying.

A lot of that, I put into my game called Mythical Journeys which draws on elements of 0e, Holmes, BX and BECMI but is not a direct descendant of any of them. If you want to get them, I'll have them up on DriveThruRPG soon and you can bet I'll be banging on you to buy them.But even those rules are a little bit of a straitjacket for the kind of sweeping epic that is suggested by the Fallen Empire. 

Mythical Journeys handles dungeons and wilderness fine, but there's not a lot of meat on it for town adventuring and politics; just the excellent and supremely useful old standby, the 2d6 Reaction Table (my favorite table in all of D&D.) 

But even in the adventuring day, I want to see if I can get a little simpler than that. Mythical Journeys still keeps the same timekeeping, mapping, resource management etc. stuff from 0e that hasn't gotten much better over the course of 45 years. But Brendan over on Necropraxis thought up a different kind of system that makes it way easier to track your stuff and your time called the Hazard System. It's not quite intuitive for me yet though so my homework for myself is 

1. really understand the Hazard System. 

2. rewrite it (version 0.301) to my own tastes

3. decide what parts of the game will be governed by Mythical Journeys and what parts will be governed by Hazard. 

4. Riff on the Pendragon dynastic rules to build a system to generate families.

5. Refit my own domain rules for the campaign in case the players would either rather play that way or if they get to Name level and get their own domains naturally.

On point 3, my sense is that shopping, combat, retainers, magic spells, saves and exploration actions will be handled with MJ while time, distance, encumbrance, resource management, rumors, omens and the major moves of political players will be handled with the Hazard System. But that's just my opening ante. I have no idea how the hand will shake out yet. I may not know even when we first sit down to play.

So that resolves the issue of what rule systems I'm going to be using as a backbone to the game. Again, it's going to require some thinking and elbow grease to get it all to hang together. I'll be back to this when I know more about how it will all work.

On Time and Season

See, this is very important. In my opinion you can't have a campaign where you ignore time. Seasons change and people get older. Holy days are important. The world changes, especially the world inside the city of Port. Things are changing superfast inside the city.

So you've got this dynamic world, which is only possible if time exists. Otherwise it's a snapshot. That's why I love the idea of the Haven Turn from the Hazard System. And on a longer timescale, the dynastic succession in Pendragon. 

My conception is that only one or fewer expeditions happen in one year. Not one adventuring session, per se, but one story arc. Perhaps the players go through A1 within one year of game time, I don't know. Maybe they go through A1 to A4. Whatever feels right.

But what I don't want to do is hustle them off to the next thing before they can catch their breath. After all, weather can turn crappy, people have responsibilities at home, they may have politics to deal with, they may have a job or profession, they will have romance (either on or offscreen), children, and so forth. They will have to craft and buy gear and hire retainers and so forth. They will hear rumors of things in town and out. And simply crossing from one side of the city to the other may require them to traverse the inside-wilderness of ruined neighborhoods and temples. Those wouldn't count against the one adventure per year thing but would definitely feel and behave like traditional  adventures.

Dungeon Adventures

The main dungeon in the game at least to start are Castle Triskelion (downloads and blog) to represent the Prince's old holdings. Functionally speaking, it's arbitrarily large. No play group will ever see it all.

There is also the Catacombs, which is a huge maze underground. There are several entrances which lead to a collossal dungeon filled mostly with low-level undead and some traps. It's not terribly exciting once you get to mid levels, but then below that is a dwarf city and then below that is a real Infernal dungeon.

Finally, in each little neighborhood or patch of ruin, there will be the possibility of a little dungeon of 1-3 levels to explore. 

The Catacombs and these little mini-dungeons will be procedurally generated on the fly at donjon.com which is a pretty darn cool generator. I do know about other generators but this one is perfect for my needs.

Wars

And of course, every summer there is a pointless war. Every. Summer. Because that's how noblemen and guild leaders amuse themselves in the long summer months: putting their men into a meat grinder. As you can see, this system is designed to generate stalemates and unsatisfying results. On the other hand, a single battle doth not bear alone a war. A particular person such as a PC may be able to sway the tide of a particular battle and achieve fame and XP. The idea is, you roll up to 8 times - once per week - and take a step in the direction indicated to see how things progress week to week. 

Or in the case of the big war, 12 weeks, I don't know. I'll think about the exact rules. 

Of course as years go on, the heads of the houses change. And they will change according to the tables in this document: Reign of Kings. It's also useful to determine who they are and what comes of their reign. It's a good imagination aid even if you're not a slave to the dice.

Politics and Diplomacy

What happens in a campaign when the PCs are the heads of a guild or noble house, or all in the same noble house? This one is easy: we will play Diplomacy. It's really an easy one to figure out since the map I'm going to use for Port is actually topologically equivalent to the map of the traditional board game.

Fallen Empire Campaign Elements Part Four: Religious Institutions

I’ll skip the preamble. Here’s the religious situation in Port.

1.       No Druids.

The biggest religious event in the last 200 years is that The Lich blew the kingdom apart with powerful magic.

Link

What I didn’t say, but I knew all along, is that The Lich was a druid in life. She was a powerful druid, higher than the Hierorphant of her time, and she loved the natural world so much that she gave up her own natural life to protect it in perpetuity. She became a lich.

She is called The Lich because as far as anyone knows, she is the only one. I have not decided whether there will be other liches. She lives on a small island in a lake which lies to the far northeast of Port.

But people know The Lich is there and they know she’s a druid. People have always known. There are of course elfs and dwarfs who were alive when it happened and they could tell you.

So it was easy for the old Prince, years and years ago, to outlaw druids in Port and the surrounding countryside. They are Outlaws – with a big O. If someone is found to be a druid, they are put to death. (Or if they are rich, they might get away with being stripped of their wealth. Money talks.) But in any case, you wouldn’t want to be caught being a druid, whether as a devotee of the Old Religions or actual druid character class.

You could still play a druid, but you would have to be really sneaky about it in town or around townsfolk.

2.      Sanctioned Religions

I don’t want to get into reasons why some people eschew clerics or use particular pantheons. I will just say that in the world of Port, the sanctioned religions are much like Christianity in the Middle Ages.

The main point is, they all worship God, the one human god. And although the official priests of each religion are Lawful or Neutral, there are sects of Chaotic clerics as well, but they keep their allegiance to Chaos a secret.

About 20% of people are truly devout and live their lives in harmony with religious teachings. About 60% of people pay lip service and attend church a couple times a year. And about 20% of people are openly agnostic. There are not really any atheists per se because religious magic is everywhere.

The Church of Zenos erects churches with golden-leafed domes. Their reflected glow can be seen for miles. Their priests communicate in Lawful rather than common. Their priests may marry but monks and nuns must remain unmarried and celibate. Their hymns are rich and soulful. Iconography and sensory experiences such as incense and extremes in temperature are important to the church. Experiences of agony and suffering are encouraged. Their holy symbol is a plus sign inside a circle.

The head of the church is Kostas Economou (AL N, Cl 7).

The Church of Stella Solim builds white churches with tall steeples. Their pointed steeples can be seen for miles. Their priests communicate in Common although many of their religious texts are written in Lawful and even Celestial. Their priests, monks and nuns must remain unmarried and celibate. Their hymns are soaring and joyful. Adornment and strong sensory experiences are discouraged by the church, and adherents are instructed to maintain moderation. Their holy symbol is a t-shaped cross.

The head of the church is Evaldo di Motelli (AL L, Cl 6).

De Rukh Ken: There is a clan religion practiced by an enclave of men who are ethnically separate from the main population. It is called De Rukh Ken (The Holy Family) and their holy texts are written in ancient Celestial. De Rukh Ken is neither outlawed nor sanctioned, but practitioners are treated with suspicion by other men.

Their churches have no specific architectural style in Port. There are very few of them and they are ad hoc buildings, since the enclaves are very small. The sexes are segregated inside the church. Men wear a special hat and women must cover their hair in public. Their priests are required to get married at an early opportunity and to have as many children as they can afford. The religion emphasizes industriousness, hygiene, and parenthood. There are many restrictions about what foods to eat at what time of the week, month or year, and many instructions about how to clean bodies, clothes and homes. Their holy symbol is a magic wand with a star on top.

The head of the church is Frederick ben Li-Ron (AL L, Cl 6.)

Again, all three sects worship the God of Men but in different ways. And in each case, their clerics are supposed to be Lawful or Neutral, but there are some secretly-Chaotic ones as well.

While Port is an important city for trade, it is far from the seats of powers of the religions of men. Therefore there are two Bishops, and each heads one of the sanctioned churches. But they’re not like the Pope or anything.

3. Turning Undead for Laymen

One of the interesting things about Port is that it barely has room for all the creepy undead just bursting up from the ground. Of course Clerics can turn undead, but even truly devout laymen can hold them at bay with the appropriate holy symbol! A true believer with a silver holy symbol of his religion can throw against the Turn Undead table as a Cleric of half his own character level rounded up; but those undead are only held at bay at a range of 30’, and not turned or destroyed.

4. A Word About Demi-Men

Demi-Men such as Elfs, Dwarfs and Hobbits worship gods from the prechristian pantheons. Dwarfs worship Norse gods, Elfs worship Roman gods, and Hobbits worship Greeks (and sometimes the God of Men.) Under my own mechanics, only NPC demihumans can cast Clerical spells. Their clerical spellcasters are very rare and won’t be spared by their clans to go adventuring outside of their own realms. You can of course have Demi-Men Clerics but you will have to explain how they were released by their clans to come slum it in the Realms of Men.

Fallen Empire Campaign Elements Part Three: The Major Powers and Demographics

Time to start naming fools and calling them out!

The Prince. 

We already have the name of the Prince. His name is Yaroslav and he is from House Triskelion. He is the youngest brother of three. His middle brother murdered his older brother, who was the prince. Then he tried to murder Yaroslav. Yaroslav, then a boy, went to ground in the countryside. He built a little army and invaded and then put his middle brother's family to the sword. So his family is a big mess.  Was a big mess. They're all dead now.

The Main Guilds. 

There are four main guilds: Weights and Measures who are essentially currency traders but they also certify scales and other measuring devices are accurate; Dock Workers who are the stevedores and sailors. If you're a ruffian or have no skill, you would be a member of this guild. They are bloodthirsty badasses. Sailors and bodyguards and most of the infantrymen are members of this guild; The Royal University, where they keep secrets, spy on people, and train wizards among other things; and the Merchants Guild, who are the people responsible for shipping in and out of town, such as the ship and caravan owners and capitalists who fund expeditions. 

Regulation and oversight, muscle, information, and money: these are the four resources that make up the main power base among the gentry.

So let's think about the heads of these guilds. Who are they and what are they like? In case you're wondering, I'm using this document to spur my imagination when I am stumped. You could use it too.

The head of Weights and Measures is a human woman named Mary-Fraunchounette d'Etremont (Al L, C1). 

She is presents as a nun of the Lawful religion which I have not named yet. She is not young, is plain to look at, is sturdily built, and brooks neither fools nor flatterers. Her bald manner of speaking is off-putting, but everyone always knows where they stand with her. She is a tireless worker and often personally inspects scales and weights along with one or two of her men.

EDIT: Now that we have determined that there are Lawful clerics of each sanctioned religion, I have decided to have her be a Sister of the Church of Stella Solim.

The Old Drinker by Gabriel Metsu

The head of the Dock Workers Guild is a man named Anatoli Gilca, a great soldier who fought for the City in every war for fifteen years (AL C, FM 6.) He is older now and smokes pipeweed and drinks heavily. He is blunt and intimidating, but he can solve a lot of problems by throwing angry young men at them. He is a master psychologist and is very good at inspiring loyalty. 

"Portrait" by Sandara

The head of the University is Matron Bar Sheva Irit-Reiss. She is a small gray-haired woman of some interminable age (AL N, MU 9) and allegedly the most powerful wizard in the Realm due to her long life and great study. She keeps to herself and writes letters to express herself and rarely accepts visitors. Her second in command is a man from the east named Vedha, who is the head of the Starlings. The Starlings are a social club but they are also secretly the Prince's spy network. 

The head of the Merchant's Guild is, (rolling randomly) a Dwarf! 

Eagrin Steelbeard, Dwarven Merchant (AL N, 0-level). He's been in charge of the guild for only just over a year. He's young and "new money." He's very charismatic (for a Dwarf) and even the very closed and traditionalist noble houses are warm to him. He made his money running a very efficient operation overland along the Trade Road from Port to points north over the last fifteen years. Note that this is not a Dwarf-only or even a Dwarf-majority guild, which makes it even more unusual for a Dwarf to be at its head. 

People are not sure whether he's a figurehead placed there due to his popularity or whether there's more to him than it seems and he has been working behind the scenes for a long time to amass personal power. Either way, he seems acceptably competent and people like him. On the other hand, some say he is too young and will be replaced by someone with more gravitas within the year.

The Three Noble Houses.

The three noble houses along with the Prince derive their power and income from owning all the land outside the city.  Succession of leadership within the houses is exclusively through male primogeniture. That is, when the Count dies, the next Count is the nearest male relative by blood. Barring that, the nearest male relative by marriage. 

Each house owns vast tracts of farmland accumulated over time, along with that which was gobbled up after the old King was defeated and the country fell to ruin. The family names of these three houses are Aearcus, Iulus, and Tibulus.

I had some trouble thinking up the names so I used this name generator page for inspiration.

House Aearcus is headed by Count Johannus Aearcus (AL L, FM 3). He is in his mid-30s and athletic. He is a patron of the arts and his court is well-known for hosting the greatest musicians from around the world. His parties are subdued affairs. He is unmarried. However as a young man, his nose was broken on the fields of valor and it is now pronouncedly crooked. His detractors call him John the Crooked. 

House Iulus (pronounced Yulius) is headed by Count Gilles Iulus (AL N, 0-level). He is quite visibly pious and never appears without a trio of priests conspicuous in his retinue.  He is tall, gaunt, and gray. His languid, calm speech presents the image of a man who is in control of himself and his surroundings. 

House Tibulus is headed by Count Charles Tibulus (AL C, 0-level). He is bald on top with a prominent mole above his left eyebrow and a hawkish nose. When dispensing justice to particularly peevish criminals, he prefers to feed them live to alligators he keeps in a special pit in his manor house. Usually the threat is enough to keep people in line. 

Finally, here is a chart of the distribution of 0-levels and characters with classes:

Click to Enbiggificate

NEXT TIME: Religions and Religious Orders.

Fallen Empire Campaign Elements Part Two: Politics

The city has one supreme ruler: the Prince. But it also has a structure of government that is intentionally Byzantine. It was designed to keep any one group from amassing enough power to challenge the Prince, while giving everyone buy-in so that nobody important feels disenfranchised. And for 200 years, this has worked. 

Prince Yaroslav is brutal and vicious and cunning and very intelligent. But he's also an amazing politician and military leader and the people like him because he has cultivated an image of heroism and magnanimity, and kept them safe from invasions. So his grip on power is solid - but like I said he's dying. And worse than that, he had murdered his way into power. All his mail relatives are dead and he's too old to have any kids. Since the city-state is run through male primogeniture, his line is about to go extinct, female descendants be darned. So there's going to be an enormous power vacuum here, both for his personal fortune and for control of the city.

His duties fall in three parts:

First, he is the head of state and the prime diplomat for the city. 

Second, he is the first general of the army and the first admiral of the navy. 

Third, he is a beacon for the people and keeps them loyal to the city first and foremost through clever popular initiatives like calling festival days and official ceremonies of honor, remembrance and celebration.

The second faction of main powers are four main guilds. Remember that this is a port city and the economy runs on trade. So every worker is in some guild and the guilds are the units of political power - rather than individuals, it's guilds and guild membership that grant people their voice. (This is essentially anarcho-syndicalism, but we're not going into the political science of it.) So the four guilds that have the most power are: 

Weights and Measures (they handle currency and bullion as well as enforce trade standards), 

the Dock Workers (strength in great numbers), 

the University (they have spies and a magic college) and

the Merchants Guild (the owners of the ships and caravans.) 

These four guilds wield the greatest power at street level.

There are a total of 96 guilds (the number varies a little over time) and and they come together in a deliberative body called The Peerage.  The big four guilds send many voting members to the Peerage; some guilds like the Farmers or Wax Chandlers send only a few. The Insurers only send one!

The Peerage deals with day to day management of the city and also elects the Mayor who is responsible for executing the laws of the Peerage and the decrees of the Prince.

A third faction of main powers in the city are three minor noble houses. I haven't named them or any of their people or determined their strengths and weaknesses, but the main thing is that they're Old Money and backward-looking. They represent tradition and traditional values and the old ways that had worked for so long. 

The three noble houses appoint people to a second deliberative body called the Senate. They have oversight on laws but no direct power to pass their own laws. They do however have the power of the noble houses and the money they can bring to the table, so they can put personal and extra-institutional power on the Peerage as a whole and on individual members to make corrections to Peerage legislation that they want. 

There are two churches which are sanctioned within the city. I have not named them, but one is Lawful and the other is Neutral (and welcomes Chaotics.) I think these will be named after Dave and Gary somehow because I like that idea. I also think that they will seem somewhat alike to most people and the religions get along in public. Like Catholic and Protestant or maybe like Catholic and Jewish. 

There is a third religion, the old religion of the Druids, but all Druids have been outlaws for 200 years.

These two sanctioned religions have no deliberative bodies, but since the leaders of the guilds are also involved in church leadership, their will is seen to as a matter of course and the churches' values are woven into the society.

The Prince, for his part, leaves the city management to these various groups - although he and his advisors keep a close watch over all of it and push and prod things to their liking. The Prince may personally call upon any of these leaders and make his desires known, and for the most part his will is done. 

But now the Prince lays dying, and the whole system is ready to spring apart like a watch wound too tightly. House Triskelion, the house of the Prince, is about to go extinct. Therefore the three minor houses see this as their chance to advance themselves to primacy, just like the four main guilds do.

While the government is nominally working away and the Mayor is actually keeping things running day to day, the three noble houses and the four main guilds are consolidating their physical territory and martial power and literally shifting to a war footing. There will be diplomacy and war within the city. Ruined areas will be recaptured and put to use and there may indeed be blood running in the canals before long. Everyone is just a little bit on edge.

Fallen Empire Campaign Elements Part One: History and Physical Location

I said I'd go through the elements one by one and talk about each one. Let's start with the non-mechanical stuff.

The setting is interesting because there are a lot of different subgenres of medieval fantasy that work with it. That means you can cater a campaign to any hankering your group has. You could even have a couple of different campaigns with the same folks running simultaneously, either with one Ref or more than one running adventures. 

Part One: History and Physical Location

There are about twenty thousand people who live in the city of Port. But the city at its height had one million residents. Over the last eight centuries, the world has cooled and the land supports progressively fewer and fewer people. Therefore the population shrunk and even knowledge has dwindled as culture, learning and the arts become luxury goods and not something anyone can gain access to. The ancients seem like supermen to the people alive today, although they were in reality just more numerous and more prosperous. 

The first thing is, Port is a city. And it's a city-state. There are vast tracts of land, a hundred miles in every direction, that were laid to waste fairly recently.  It's a big city but it's built in the ruins of a metropolis like the world had never known. So the physical layout is a huge walled in area, like a whole six-mile hex. And there are canals and waterways helping to connect various places in the city and some of it is even built on docks. The main economic engine is that it's the center of trade on this huge inland sea. 

When you get away from the waterfront, there are interior walls too. Because over the course of eight centuries, you go from a city of a million people down to a city of twenty thousand. And as various places fall into disuse because they're too expensive and no longer necessary, those areas fall into ruin and eventually revert mostly to nature. So right inside the city you have this strange sort of no-man's land and wilderland vibe. In these areas you have wild animals but you also have a high concentration of  restless dead (remember it's an old old city) and lycans. Plus a lot of it is swampy. You never know what kind of weirdness any particular patch of no-man's land might hold.

So consider, sometimes just going to a different part of town is going to require men at arms or magic wards or a flying spell or clerical acolytes to ward off danger! And among those ruins are treasures long lost to time.

And under the city are layers and layers of the old city, buried over time. In fact, the underworld of the city is called The Layers. The first layer is a vast crypt with the skeletons of millions of dead Port residents. The next layer down is Dwarftown and the attendant mines. The Dwarves are happy to hire people to keep monsters at bay or map out new areas. And then below that is the mythic underworld - a true path to Hell.

Outside the city walls, Port used to be the capital of a medium-sized prosperous country. But about 200 years ago, the old King crossed swords with The Lich and the Lich won. She performed a ritual that leveled all the buildings and destroyed all the infrastructure. There were massive famines, pestilence, and supreme suffering. Some people lived but the nation is no more. The only part of the country to survive mostly intact is the main trade road from Port to the north, and that was because it was too important for other countries that trade with them to allow it to fall completely into ruin. 

In the center of the city, on high ground, is the big castle. For this I intend to use Castle Triskelion. It's where the old ruler lives. He will die almost immediately when the campaign begins. That means his staff will be dispersed and his family will be hauled off by rivals and probably all put to the sword because the Prince was a real bastard behind the scenes.

NEXT TIME: Politics

Fallen Empire Campaign Elevator Pitch

I'll get to explaining the various elements when I have a better handle on them. For today, I wrote the elevator pitch for the campaign. I also worked on a post about what a Referee should do during his first session with his play group which I will post at some point. But here is the elevator pitch.

FALLEN EMPIRE CAMPAIGN

This campaign takes place in an important port city. It was once the greatest city in the world but over the centuries it has degenerated. So enclaves sit in between ruins where the old city once thrived. New guilds and old noble houses vie for power and - oh yes - the Prince lays dying without an heir. Treasure hunters are looting his castle as we speak. 

Politics, trade, reclaiming the city’s territory and catacombs from monsters, and exploring the decrepit castle on the hill: all these things are happening right now in Port, the City of the Fallen Empire. 

Now after that, I will have a little flier with several specific campaign ideas with varying levels of politics and fighting clearly spelled out. When we sit down to make our characters in the first session, part of that time will be deciding what kinds of adventures the players want to have. I'm really into player-directed action, so if there is at least one guy at the table who likes to take his character's destiny in his own hands, then I'll let them decide. Otherwise I will lead the decision making process and probably go with a low-politics high-fighting kind of game.

Beset By Inspiration

I didn’t set out to be inspired. Inspiration set out to strike me.

(Caveats per usual: Maybe not even a complete post. Sue me. This is free and you’re getting what you pay for, plus or minus a couple shillings.)

BTW this and other map graphics were
automatically generated by this free generator

I'm going to make up a new setting for my play group and call it 

Fallen Empire. 

It's not a source book or anything. It's just for fun at home.

Matthew Colville, an excellent new-school creator and author who does a lot of his work live on Twitch and YouTube, has given me a kernel of an idea: 

a city-sandbox campaign based in a high-politics port city where the Prince is dead. 

His version has inspired me to riff off it and throw in my own stuff to make a campaign setting much different from the Welsh Marches setting. Over the next few days I’ll lay out what I got from him and his brainstorming session and what I’m doing.

On a macro level my setting will look like a straight lift of his, including the map and some major background elements. But the details will be different enough that I am confident I can call it my own.

Major Features

Mechanical Elements:

• Ideal number of players: 3-6 per group, but several groups running simultaneously possible.
• Basic Adventuring Rules to be my own Mythical Journeys.
• Using a lot of Chris Tamm’s great d100 charts including a number of elements of his Shadelport.
• Pendragon style familial generation and dynastic advancement.
• Using only d6 and d20 for resolutions.
• Simultaneous initiative but serial resolution
• Brendan’s Hazard System for time and resource keeping.
• NO THIEVES! But includes Simon’s Ratcatcher class.
• Skerples' Medieval Stalemate Generator Here and Here. Also some of my thoughts here.

Setting Elements: 

• Topologically-equivalent circular Diplomacy game map for the city map
• Seven major powers and many minor powers competing for primacy in the city
• A megadungeon castle in the center where the Prince lays in the throes of death - tomb robbers are already picking it clean.
• A large city set in the footprint of a major metropolis whose glory days are hundreds of years in the past, with the attendant undead and lycan infestations.
• Humanocentric culture and society, but other races somewhat tolerated in small numbers.
• Extensive presentation of the personalities of the guilds and noble houses - if the players choose to go that way. Otherwise mentioned in passing.
• Byzantine politics with many checks and balances meant to keep any one group from dominating the city.
• Binary religious order - law and chaos - plus druids who are outlaws

Campaign Elements:

Several campaign ideas possible within the setting with varying levels of politics, strategy and tactics and high and low adventure.

• Military campaigning
• Megadungeon - castle Triskelion
• Dungeons and Ruins - all around the city and the megadungeon catacombs beneath
• Political - intra-guild or inter-guild; dynastic inside your noble house
• Helping the poor and solving mysteries/Town hijinks 
• Mercantile campaigns at sea
• Mercantile campaigns overland
• NOT piracy since my son is running a pirates game