D&D Crusade Setting Guide
A Crusade can be a integral part of a campaign, quest or setting, it can act as a very historical filler, a way to bridge the gap between Epic and high level as players obtain large amounts of renown among a kingdom and its nobles. Crusades with PCs involved can become a memory and sometimes it might become an emotional killer as the PCs become related to colorful characters of the Crusade.
What's A Crusade in D&D Perspective?
A Crusade in general is when an entire Kingdom that swears fealty to its King is called to arms in order to prepare for a holy war against enemies of their beliefs and way of life. The event of a Crusade causes fathers, sons and sometimes even wives and daughters to be conscripted into a levy force and given high military grade weaponry they don't have any training for. This army is sent off on a journey across the lands to invade the opposing faction that is dubbed as the 'Heretics' Many trained soldiers are sent along too as every man and woman is needed.
How Do I Start A Crusade As The GM?
Starting A Crusade requires you to distinguish who is enemies with the PCs allied faction, have the Drow of the underdark tried spreading their dark beliefs of Lolth in the lands? The King calls a Crusade to wipe the corrupt scum from existence! Maybe a united army of Goblin and Hobgoblin Warbands are approaching and seek only destruction, the solution? A Crusade to meet them on the field of battle before their engines of war reach the populace! Has a Demon Lord or Pit Fiend grown tired of the trivialities of the Nine Hells and decided to move to the Material Plane? The King declares Kingdom wide emergency as a Crusade is called to save the very existence of the civilization! Another Human Kingdom that shares much different beliefs has called a Crusade to purge the PCs kingdom for religious intolerance, In response you must ready the defenses and provisions for the defense of the Kingdom as you prepare to meet them on the field of battle!
How Do I Get The PCs Involved?
Designing interesting and possibly very important characters that are detrimental to some PCs goals, maybe the blacksmith who is the last member of a dwarven order that remembers the recipe for a ancient but strong weapon or armor becomes conscripted and the PCs must protect him. PCs who have gained relations with the King or any Authority figures may be invited to join the Crusade but as an officer of their own legion. Maybe even offered the reward of their own estate or even fortress to call home along with a levied regiment of soldiers.
So The Crusade Is On The Move, What Now?
Now is the time to develop relations with your PCs and between NPCs you have tailored together to be unique and different in everyway, there are very many possibility. Maybe a father who fears for his life as his family expects him home, maybe a young boy who believes he can take on the world but has never seen a man brandish a sword at him. The possibilities are endless and you can use as many of these characters as you want, designing certain scenes where the PCs might find themselves chatting in a group circle with all your NPCs, talking of hardships and the fight to come, becoming close friends and learning of all their lives and backstories in a swift exchange of friendly words. This time is a time for you as the GM to make the players remember these characters, make sure that they will want to be with these characters. What's that? Rogue being an asshole and doesn't care for their lives, maybe one of them has a rich family background and his father promises fortune to those who bring him home safe in their arms. True Neutral Knobhead being an emotionless bastard? Powergame that one of the NPCs might be in the same Bloodline as him, that they might be brother or sister or even old childhood friends. Have him produce a cloth with the emblem of a certain family house on it, this symbol could link to that PCs bloodline.
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The Battle Has Begun
A brutal fight is about to begin, count the numbers of crusaders and then count the numbers of opposers, as the first charge ensues have fights split out among the battlefield. Make sure to keep NPC characters always within Convenient sight of the PCs so that the daunting feeling of that characters presence is there, if you play tabletop do fake rolls and then state that arrows or an arrow flies pass the PCs heads, miraculously missing them to increase the tension. Maybe one of the NPCs is slain infront of the PCs and there was nothing to be done about it but make it appear as if it was the PCs fault. For every 3-5 enemies the PCs slay calculate how many soldiers have been lost to both sides. If one side is gaining the upperhand use high dice multipliers for that sides losses inflicted, for every advancement the PCs make, e.g slaying officers, legion leaders, or large bands of enemies even causing enemies to route give them temporary multiplier boosts on the next battle calculation. Instill a morale system where the PCs gain penalty rolls for seeing important NPCs die in front of them, you want your PCs to feel like it is a legitimate battle of the hundreds, maybe thousands. This battle should stop when all PCs are in-capped or when one side begins to sound the retreat, retreat should occur when one side is ¾ larger than the other and only ¼ remains of the original force of the retreating side.
The Crusade is Lost
So maybe the Crusade wasn't as effective as you had planned but the PCs survived, right? Quickly you will want to do a 50% roll, probably with a 20 sided on all NPCs to see which ones survived, those who survived will meet up with the PCs and those who died will be seen sprawled into the bloody mass of corpses and mud. If the opposing force was Hobgoblins or Drow have them roll a 50% chance on whether they captured any PCs as prisoners of war. Now the enemy march onwards unchallenged towards the home city of the PCs. If you want to be a little less unforgiving you could roll a 10% chance roll with a d20 to see if any PCs died amidst battle or were trampled upon.
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The Crusade is Won
You crushed your opposition and now you march onward to their civilisation, now you will want to prepare for a brutal siege of the populaces main city, it will be brutal and much blood will be shed, but it's for the king and the people! Usually fortresses or outlying strongholds would contest but being a Crusade there would be little force left in these forts to even remotely threaten the Crusade and besieging a fort would be a waste.
Mapping Out The Siege
Generally this applies to both sides, when one of the crusades reach the opposing factions homecity they will begin to desolate nearby forests and villages for supplies in order to support the war efforts. Depending on the severity of the Kings orders your crusade may not take any prisoners whatsoever. After some preparation time over the coarse of days the crusading force will initiate the siege, however before doing any of this make sure you take the original army number, half it and make that the populace, then take the retreating forces survivors and add them onto the populace number. Once the siege begins either place the PCs in a Siege Tower or have them sap into the sewer system of the city and attack from below with a surprise force, if someone so desires they may be catapulted into the city if there is a lake within the walls. There is generally three stages of a siege, The fight for the walls, the Pillaging of the outlying buildings and houses and the fight for the inner walls, then the final assault on the hold begins. PCs can speed this up by forming a smaller group once in the city and by trying to sneak into the main hold, even if the king is slain still do casualty calculations since from a role-play standpoint the soldiers outside the hold will be unaware of the defeat of their king. In mass battles soldiers are sometimes given different sounding horns, if you want to avoid damage calculation on the populace any further have a PC blow a victory horn from atop the hold. This will save you a lot of un-necessary number crunching.
The Spoils of War Are Ours...
If victory was the PCs then the entire populace is subject to looting and killing...oh? Don't you remember? The point of the Crusade was to obliterate the opposing faction, now is that time, if you don't want to participate in the slaughter the PCs could head home early or intervene and try and prevent the killing of civilians by assuming leadership positions.
Now you're done.
Good job, you succesfully took the PCs through a hardened Crusade and (Hopefully) they survived it, now they must take what they want, return home and receive their knightly rewards for their services, don't forget any promises made by NPCs. On the way back have NPCs interact with the PCs to strengthen the bonds they have formed, you want them to always be reminded of these NPCs until they get back and depart. Maybe one of the NPCs might help the PCs in a future quest or adventure?
Hope this helps with setting a Traditional Crusade Setting or quest-line,.
In the meantime I'm going to be working on the Pathfinder and D&D Deities which may take awhile.
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