Here’s a new project – I’m fascinated by prep, in all its forms – one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. My own and others. A quick check online leads me to believe lots of you are, too. So, I’m going to showcase this on the blog. I can’t promise every session I’ll share my prep notes, but I’ll try and do it where I can – and I’ll offer a variable amount of commentary. These are also going to be 50% patreon exclusive – half of them will never be released to the public – so spread the word, and let me know if you’d like to share your own prep and talk to me about it.

Continuing our series focussed on prep, I thought I’d share my development of a 13th Age Glorantha one-shot I ran recently for the channel. I think because I had designer Jonathan Tweet in the group, I over-thought it a bit and went through a few iterations of prep. This is natural! I hope you find this evolution interesting even though it probably makes this a bit harder to run yourselves.

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I’ve left my original notes here, with my revisions below each scene – the last set of revisions was done by hand on a printout of this, because I was at the actual convention as I did it. All references to monsters are from the 13th Age Glorantha rulebook.

3 Players

1.5 Hours

Ran face to face at The Kraken gaming retreat in Germany – recorded here on Unconventional GMs.

Stinking Forest Sojourn

Pitch

This was the game description I put in, well in advance of the convention, long before I’d prepped it.

The Stinking Forest was a bad place. It’s got worse now. Densely packed treetops over dizzying ravines, full of mean trolls and even meaner elves. Only fools venture there. But the hero Crontas has told you there’s a fortune to be found, and a clever trollkin who has the key to unlocking the magic of the Troll Ruins. Looking for a single trollkin in a vast haunted forest is like finding a needle in a haystack; but your mis-matched band are just the team for the job, right?

A 13th Age Glorantha game for 2nd level heroes. We’ll be using a mish-mash of 1st and 2nd edition 13th Age rules, so don’t look too closely.

I ended up using 1st ed rules almost exclusively, and running at 4th level – it gave a bit more interest to the characters and let me cut loose a bit more with the opposition.

PROLOGUE – Crontas the Hero

You sit around a fire, strange incense burning, a craggy old Duck telling you what you fear – that there is  a Trollkin in Sticking Forest, Novgor who can unlock the magic of Troll Ruins.

Why do you need the massive magic  triggered in Troll Ruins – even though you enter the forest to find it?

He then tells you of the terrors of the Stinking Forest – angry elves, tusk riders, strange beasts – what does he tell you that you fear the most?

Okay, I cut this out entirely. It just felt a bit weak when I went back and edited it, and felt a bit like we were starting with “make something up out of nothing.” Instead, I began with telling them they needed to harness the Troll Ruins magic to bring strength to their clan – the Silverwinds – and giving them a lead amulet that would point in the direction of the Trollkin.

Scene 1 – Tusk Riders

You’ve been tracking Novgor with the magical amulet for a few days – and so far you feel hopelessly lost. Bearings are lost easily in this maze of trees and twigs, and you’ve spent too long avoiding the elves. But you see a hillock up ahead – a clear area, where you can get your bearings! 

Why don’t you notice the Tusk Rider ambush?

You must fight three Tusk Rider bandits – this should be an EASY fight 

I gave a bit more detail to this question in play – “Why, despite having this magical amulet and being mighty heroes, haven’t you noticed the Tusk Rider ambush that’s about to happen?” This sort of hard scene framing is a great way to start a one-shot, by the way. Oh, and I renamed the Trollking “Torus” – it was a better name, and I’ll change it in these notes from this point forward.

Scene 2 – Bickering Elves (RP challenge) bickering over the trollkin

You can see Novogr Torus up ahead – he’s held captive in the centre of an elf camp, with two tribes of elves apparently fighting over him. He’s tied to a wooden cage in the centre of the clearing, and doesn’t look too happy

Sneaking in requires a series of DC20 background checks; failure on each of these causes them to take 2d8 damage and if a majority fail, they must then fight an elf party who track them – the Podlings are normal elves, the Orc Tuskers are elite elves. For 3 PCs, face 10 Podlings and 2 Tuskers.

Once freed, Torus is a chatty and personable trollkin, who claims he observed the annual rituals the Trolls use to reawaken Troll Ruins. The ceremony is in two days though, they’ll need to enter the hero plain and face the Trials of the Trolls in order to get there in time!

I fleshed out the elves a bit here, to the following “factions” –

The Cedar Elves, with spiky green hair and spiky personalities, led by Jasobase.

The Ash Elves, all floppy leaves and softness, led by Ellurella.

I didn’t inflict damage on the failure, either – we just did it as a skill challenge sort of thing with a potential fight with some elves as a failure condition if more than 1 player failed.

Also noted down “Torus’s Story” which is this –

The Tusk Riders have been seen dealing with a pair of Dark Trolls that seek some sort of ritual at the ruins. The elves know about this as well, and are concerned not just about the magic, but that the trolls will try and eat a few elves as they pass through.

ENC 4 – Montage through Troll Ruins

The trials of the trolls include facing all the worst things in the forest.

I ran this as a Montage through the secret, and magical, Troll Paths to the ruins.

ENC 5 – Big fight! Fight the cursed Trolls who guard it!

There’s 3 Dark Troll Warriors, here to start the ritual (level 5 fight)

And a Tusk Rider leader (Tusk Rider Warrior)

I replaced one of the Dark Trolls with 8 Battle Ready Trollkin, which made for a bit more of interest in the fight. Given that they’d only had one (fairly easy) fight, this wasn’t quite as hard-hitting a combat as I’d hoped, but it still went well. As they appeared, the ritual was in progress, with a vast darkness rune hovering about the great stone surface of the Troll Ruins stones and the dark trolls eager to use the PCs as sacrifices.

I ended the game, as I often do with one-shots, with a scene for each character showing how they celebrated their victory, and what the channeled magic would do to their clan.