Gamefest 2025 - The War of Var Nion
It is the 820th year of the Third Dynasty, the 33rd year of Emperor Tacitus VII's reign. For four years Cassutus, Duke of Kathfeld, has led a revolt numbering in the tens of thousands in an attempt to create a new kingdom - the Eidermark - after his cousin, Anselm the Brave was coronated king of Sironen. Now, his influence wanes and he has led his armies north from Sironen into the Kingdom of Calennor. Alights-in-Snowfall, King of Calennor, once marginally allied with his cousin-in-law to the south has become determined to put down the rebellion. You are lords and ladies, sirs and dames, in service of King Alights-in-Snowfall. He has tasked you with recovering the Shield of Var Nion from Cassutus, which is said to have belonged to a great chief in the ancient past and is a mark of legitimacy. There are certain codes and forms that prevent King Anselm from doing this, but Alights-in-Snowfall has no such reservations. You must maneuver your armies through the rugged terrain and either capture Var Nion or destroy the would-be king.
In about a month I'll be running a sandbox hexcrawl game of WWN, starting at noon and going until they kick me out, centered on the above premise. Last year, I ran my little pet dungeon, the Archives of Dawnkeep University, and this year decided I wanted to step away from the dungeon and try something a little different.
As I stated in the dramatic introduction, this game will feature essentially a vertical slice of domain play. The players are tasked by their Emperor to hunt down and kill a rebellious duke, or at the very least capture him and his magic shield, which is something like Excalibur in that it denotes a sort of Divine Right to rule.
The actual rules I'm using are Worlds Without Number for the man-to-man interactions and An Echo, Resounding for the battles and troops. I also thought it would be fun to introduce an element of PvP, so each pregenerated character will have a reason they would want to betray the others, as well as reasons to form alliances. I originally had thought of trying to run a Chainmail retroclone, but I wanted to focus on roleplaying as noble houses. There's really not much I have to prepare in the way of plot, since I'll be using the campaign map I already have, and I've figured out a way to abstract out dungeon crawling 1 with a sort of betting system. I'll be randomly generating encounters 2 and weather each day. Communication will be key, especially if the players all go off in different directions - some of the more high ranking nobles have messenger birds, but not all. As it stands, I am currently still working on things a little bit, and knowing myself I will find out that there was something I should have prepared ahead of time but didn't. This will be the most open-ended game I've devised yet, so I'm curious to see how it goes. I'll be packing my copy of Shadows Over Camelot just in case it ends a bit too fast.
My hope for this game is that someone will take me up on an offer to play as Duke Cassutus himself! There will be some serious perks to doing so 3 but it will be challenging to face off against so many rival players at once. Securing alliances with NPCs and other players will make or break the war effort for either side. And, just like last year, this game will directly impact my upcoming campaign, The Third Dynasty. However, unlike last year, this game is set in the exact same area as the campaign, a mere four years before the start date. I'm very curious to see how it turns out, and if you are too make sure to check back in next week for my play report!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Bluesky or on Discord at zeroth.law. With all that said and done, thank you for reading, and if I don't see you at the convention - keep your eyes on the skies.