Jürgen Hubert, juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network

Good point - there have been similar types of metafiction, although I don’t know any where the focus was on folk tales.

Hmmm… I bought that, but I didn’t read it more closely. Maybe it might help me for the GURPS Shadowrun conversion I’ve been fantasizing about since forever.

I particularly like the “Black Schools” of GURPS Cabal.

“Like Hogwarts, but we cheerfully acknowledge that we are evil, privileged bastards!”

The idea would be a custom fantasy world, starting with continental outlines and working my way inwards to focus regions.

And I would use QGIS.

Yeah, if I were to do this, I would use QGIS.

Pathfinder 2E has a very similar power curve as D&D 5E. In fact, it might even be worse for Brancalonia as characters basically get their level as a flat bonus on everything.

Ouch! That sounded rough. But I’m glad you learned some valuable lessons from it.

The closest I can think of is the “Earn Income” downtime activity, but that’s not exactly the same as what you pay NPCs.

Here is a neat bit of ancient technology: A qanat.

A common problem in arid regions is how to get enough water for your irrigation needs. Digging wells is one possibility, of course, but the water table might be far beneath the surface.

However, the neat thing about the water table is that it runs parallel to the surface - so if the terrain rises up and forms a mountain, the water table will rise up beneath the mountain as well. Thus, you can tap the water within the mountain simply by digging a tunnel into the flank of the mountain.

Which isn’t exactly a trivial undertaking, of course. Still, some qanats in the Middle East have been in use for several thousands of years.

And for #TTRPG , such qanats represent a good entrance to the “Underdark”, or whatever the local “Realms Below” are called - or vice versa, and monsters might emerge from them. And what happens if a qanat suddenly ceases to bring water? Naturally, some daring adventurers have to go in there and solve the problem, or else an entire community might starve!

I particularly like the monastery - we need more places like this as adventure locations!

Another candidate: The Centralia Mine Fire, an underground coal seam fire that has been going for sixty years, and which could continue to burn for 250 further years!

I wonder how dwarves or other subterranean civilizations would deal with something like this?

Another one: The "Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe" in Kassel, Germany.

This is a masterpiece of Baroque landscape architecture, and the Hessian landgrave at the time was only able to afford it because his father sold of Hessian subjects to the British so that they could put a stop to those pesky rebels in the North American colonies. The park is built across a hill slope (and covers an elevation change of more than 250 meters). Its highlights are the “Wasserspiele” ("Water Plays"). On every Sunday and Wednesday during the warmer seasons, water is released from a vast cistern at the top, located beneath a giant bronze statue of Hercules. Over the course of 75 minutes, this water flows down a series of artificial waterfalls and channels until it powers a giant fountain close to the bottom of the park.

Beyond that, the park has all sorts of other attractions - a fake ruined castle, a fake ruined Roman aqueduct, and a series of miniature temples to assorted Roman gods. This park makes a perfect setting for all sorts of cinematic adventures and/or occult weirdness!

I took it from Wikipedia, which says that it is from the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica.

Truly, a scenario to warm the shriveled heart of any veteran GM.