Reskinning Cuska Castle

Cuska Castle and the Chaos Cuts began their life as B2: Keep on the Borderlands. Both can be easily reskinned by a GM who doesn't have enough time. Just use the Cuska map and mark it up with the inhabitants (and maybe even room descriptions) from the Keep on the Borderlands. To give the place even more life you can add in a few of the better T1 and N1 inhabitants as well, it doesn't matter if you throw B1 and N1 inhabitants into the same building, or even a couple of different N1 inhabitants, as most of these buildings are multi-family dwellings. and this helps create a lively and full place to act as a base of operations for missions into the Chaos Cuts which can easily serve as the starting adventure location for the islands, giving the characters something to do while they get the feel of the place.

Also by reskinning and blending in this way the nature of the actual adventures become less obvious to the players.

Thule Island - [Hex 0102] Cuska Castle

Cuska Castle

The town is surrounded by water on three sides and mud flats on the other. A few hundred yards off of the map are barley and oats farming in all directions. Cuska Castle is best known for adventurers who explore the Chaos Cuts to the North west. The locals do well supporting such adventures but fear the horrors that might be disturbed. Cuska is small enough it wouldn't ordinarily have walls except for fears of things that slither out of the Chaos Cuts.

Cuska with Callouts

[A1] House Caldy - A castle with enough space to house wealthy visitors and a small Chapel to Lough. The keep is decades old but the outer walls (and the town walls) were only completed a year or two ago.
[A2] The Flooded Grave Inn - The inn has a Holy Symbol of Law that was carved on one wall by a Templar during the crusade. The entire settlement burned down except the Flooded Grave Inn soon after. The patrons will not tolerate any sign of blasphemy in front of the symbol believing it has magical protective powers.
[A3] Godwins Public House - A public house favored by locals.
[A4] Farmers Market - The market takes place in a confiscated Temple of Pallas Regina. The market takes place every Saturday.
[A5] Temple of Lough - The temple used by the general population doubles as the Thule island Headquarters for the Sisters of Lough (orthodox) order who sponsor the military order the Sisters of the White Shield based at Ealfa Castle.

[off map] Mill with a water-powered saw. Wagons laden with lumber leave Cuska bound for Beljin's shipyard every week. 

Cuska Castle

Thule Island - [Hex 0203] Bejtun Castle

A Castle that is nearly a small town. Bejtun is the seat of the March Lord. Originally it was a Holy Site of the Old Faith known for its university but the old Oak Grove and University were destroyed during the crusade and most believers in the Old Faith have left. Bejtun is best known as a site for emergency ship repairs. 

Below, the Wards are numbered using A, B, and C because I'll probably add additional numbers at some point and that way new numbers can be added to their ward and not just added at the end of the last number.

Wish blogger was smart enough to have an image size that simply filled the column

Castle Ward

[A1] Bejtun Castle - The Castle acts as the residence for the March Lord when he is in town, it's pretty basic but also pretty formidable. The castle was built by first March lord and is need of a few repairs these days.

[A2] Temple of Lough - This was once a University run by the Old Faith. It was made into a Temple of Lough after the crusade but since construction of the New Temple this temple has been granted to the Military Order Brotherhood of Lough who are best known for being drunken violent garbage these days. They spend more time than they should at the Gatefell baths consorting with the Priestesses. The Temple produces its own Ale which is surprisingly good, but the brothers tend to drink it all so there is none for sale.

[A3] Marshall & Munchis Inn - The inn caters to the teamsters and sailors and other rowdy and cheap clientele. The inn is known for having comfortable rooms and frequent, very loud, entertainment.

[A4] Shipwright - Anne Pinfield  the shipwright has a small army of craftsmen on staff as well as facilities to pull all but the largest ships onto land to work on their hulls. She’s constantly busy, very wealthy, and beloved around town.

[A5] Tentmaker - Benart the tentmaker mostly makes sails these days on contract from Anne Pinfield. His dream is for the town to grow and need a few awnings just for a change of pace. He has has to import the material from the Empire and has a dozen ladies sewing for him.

[A6] Chandler - Emily Hippolyta runs the shop, she has all the expected items for a chandler but makes her money selling tar to the shipswright. Emily is beautiful, yet intensely jealous of shipwright Anne Pinfield who gets all the attention in town.

[A7] Public House - Almer Gruntsworth owns the place. He’s a loud mouth who is constantly in  trouble with the March Lord's men. Despite that the  public house is favored by Imperials and won’t serve Keltoi.

Castle Ward

Town Ward

[B1] Fishmonger - Fredrich of the Merchant’s Guild. He hates being called the Fishmonger and only sees fish as an item to sell, a smelly one at that, but eventually he'll sell other things. Fredrich sells the fish from a stall inside the farmers market.

[B2] Metalsmith - Oswold is not allowed to forge weapons. He is hoping for the contract from the March Lord but so far nothing. He makes metal bits for others and gets by, but 'the real money is in swords'.

[B3] New Temple - A massive temple to Lough.

[B4] Clothiers - Willem is a flamboyant fellow, a member of the Crafters Guild. He is very good at his craft, and more than a little paranoid about everything.

[B5] Baker  - The business has no name but the sign shows a loaf of baked bread. Pertelote the baker is known for fair prices and mediocre bread.

[B6] Fool & Flagon Inn - The inn caters to wealthy merchants. The inn has stables and many of the local templars pay the Inn's ostler to look after their horses. The inn is built from a former church that has entertainment , usually plays and jugglers, most nights down in the (emptied) crypts.

[B7] Merchant’s Guildhall - The guildhall is the most posh building in the settlement. It is said the Guild runs things which is only partially true. The March Lord listens to them but has yet to crack down on all the non-Guild activity in town despite their weekly requests.

[B8] Charcoaler - Old John is a charcoal importer mostly. He runs the shop and sells what he can get from other areas. He's hoping to make enough in the next year or two to buy the ovens required.

Town Ward

Outside Ward

[C1] Temple of Old Faith - Since a fire gutted their old temple the High Priestess has been attempting to construct a new temple but the builders have been having trouble with fires, stolen timber, and other issues that have slowed the construction. The High Priestess suspects the Templar's are involved in the harassment but has yet to to make a formal complaint.

[C2] Farmers Market - Run by Theseus of the Merchant’s guild on behalf of the farmers. The market is inside an old Temple to the Old Faith that was partially burned out. He has made minor repairs but evidence of the fire is still clearly visible.

[C3] Woodcrafter - Galierus the woodcrafter is part of the Woodcrafter's Guild. His work is slow and sloppy but the shipwright has hired all the good woodcrafters so Galierus is the only game in town unless you want to pay double the price.

[C4] Butcher - Melibee talks to his animals and occasionally sings to them to soothe them before slaughtering them. He is an outstanding butcher but was tossed out of the Butcher's Guild for political reasons.

[C5] Leatherworker - Absalon was once a ranger in the Temple of Beslin. Proud and a bit temperamental.

Best of the Web: Everyone's a Thief & OpenDoc OSR

Everyone is a Thief (A Different Approach to skills) by Daimon Games has an interesting idea in which everyone has thief skills at their level. So a 4th level fighter also has 4th level thief skills. Brilliant in its simplicity and it gets rid of thieves as a class.

Nine and Thirty Kingdoms had a trioof posts (B/X is Bad, Mmmkay? Part 1, B/X is Bad, Mmmkay? Part II, and B/X Is Bad: Summary and Conclusion) explaining why he doesn't like the B/X system.

Axes and Orcs has a post BX is adequately good enough supporting all OSR games, they are DIY after all so house rule away your problems. There are no links on Axes and orcs post so I can't tell if he is responding to one or more of the Nine and Thirty Kingdoms posts or not but the timing and specificity of BX suggests he is (I'm not going to twitter to find out).

Anyway I'm not picking sides, opinions are opinions and even negative opinions are useful (I always disagreed with Roger Ebert's movie reviews but could tell by his review if I'd like a movie or not, he hated a lot of the movies I loved as a kid). No, Axes and Orcs position has me thinking of the OSR as a whole. I've seen polls and charts of which games are the most popular but none indicating how much each is house ruled and which bits are frequently house ruled. Do folks regularly house rule 50%? 5%? of their game and do they house rule Classes, spells, ENC and Initiative or is it all over the place?

Back in the 90s Apple, IBM, and Motorola created OpenDoc as an alternate to Microsoft Office. From wikipedia:

The core idea of OpenDoc is to create small, reusable components, responsible for a specific task, such as text editing, bitmap editing, or browsing an FTP server. OpenDoc provides a framework in which these components can run together, and a document format for storing the data created by each component. 

OpenDoc failed but it seems as if that's what is going on in the OSR with house-ruling, and nobody actually planned it that way, it just sort of grew organically which is kind of cool. I suspect the next step would be to determine which rules are often house-ruled and have games break out those bits & pieces (probably in the SRD if one is available) to make them easier to mix and match.

Thule Island - Cult of Lough

Lough (pronounced LAW)

A monotheistic religion that is a nightmare version of the Medieval Church. They speak of peace and love but spawn crusades and inquisitions trying to root out and destroy Chaos. Lough is represented as some kind of ocean deity. 

Followers of Lough believe the dead should be buried at least 6 feet down and they have rituals to ensure the spirit can move on to the next world (often including removing the head). They are obsessed with this and will go to great lengths to 'clean up' battlefields and ensure any remaining spirits are assisted in moving along.

Believers in Lough tend to eat meat, especially pork, and many of the high ranking officials end up with the gout because of the overabundance of meat in their diet.

Parish Church's of Lough - Parish churches are constructed in brick covered over in plaster. They tend to be shaped like a T, with a large statue of Lough sitting cross-legged with a brazier in his lap with a dome above. The brazier always contains burning charcoals or (during ceremonies) a fire. A parish church will also have a statue of a patron saint in each end of the T (the same Saint showing three things they were sainted for.

Great Church's of Lough - The great churches are mammoth cathedrals built of limestone, often with flying arches. Functionally they are similar to Parish Churches except much larger, and with crypts beneath, more outbuildings, and they have multiple patron saints in each end of the T instead of a single one three times.

Nearly a century ago the Cult of Lough divided into the Cult of Lough and the Cult of Lough Reformed.

Cult of Lough - The Cult of Lough has the following Prophets and Saints.

• Gax the Prophet - Co-creator of the Cult. After assisting the Son of Arne in documenting his visions Gax himself started having visions which were documented in a series of books known as the 3 White Books. 
• Son of Arne the Visionary - Co-creator of the cult. He had visions and spoke of them to Gax the Prophet who documented them. Son of Arne had little interest in the day-to-day matters of spreading the word and soon stepped aside.
• Aye the young - Saint Aye was a merchant and financial supporter of the early cult. He died young.
• Arker the esoteric - A scholar who had visions of the Lotus World, the after world promised by Lough.
• Ask the Chronicler - Little is know of Ask but she left a large number of tomes of the temples history.

Cult of Lough Reformed -  The Cult of Lough Reformed revers the same Prophets and Saints listed for the Cult of Lough, but they also worship two additional 'Saints"

• Liams the Splitter - Took over the early Cult and exiled Gax the Prophet. This was after she had achieved Sainthood in the Cult.
• Lume of the Many Faces - One of Gax the Prophets original followers he sided with Liams the Splitter

False/Un-annointed Saints (not "officially" recognized by either but often sworn by)

• Argrave the shadowdancer - Argrave added additional Chapters to the Holy Book that were never accepted as canon.
• Andre the Trollfighter - Andre restructured the book in a way that the Cult felt lost the message. He was best known as a scholar who fought trolls.
• Ledsaw the Overlord - An near-invincible tyrant that made the Cult of Lough the official religion of his City-State, giving the fledgling cult a chance to survive and spread.
• Tafford the scholar or beasts - Said to have documented the world's monsters.  He was one of the first to show signs of the Enlightening.

The Cunundrum with Clerics

The Priests of the Old Faith have always been able to cast spells. The Clerics of Lough have never had the power to cast spells, at least until the Westerness crusade. After the crusade started a number of the purist of Lough worshipers started to show signs of magical ability. Initially the cult hierarchy tried to hide this fact (as it made Clerics without such power appear fake or impure) but eventually decided they were the Chosen of Lough to fight Chaos and convinced/ordered such individuals to Thule Island, partially to get them out of any strife within the Church and partially to stomp down Chaos on the Island.

The interesting thing is that after the Cult of Lough divided, Clerics kept appearing in each branch. Some took this as an indicator that Lough is indifferent to the worldly Church or who was Pontiff, others that the magic came from another source.

Thule Island - Cult of the Old Faith

Old Faith

The polytheistic religion of the Keltoi. Said to have over a hundred deities although most are nature spirits and not actual deities in the normal sense. The religion is based on worship of Nature Spirits but a handful are considered worthy of special attention. Most people incorrectly think this handful represent all the entire pantheon.

There is a single clergy for the Old Faith although Priestess and Priests are assigned to a specific temple or shrine to represent a specific spirit or one of the handful. All of the clergy are female except for those that represent Kanaris the God of War. In the past Kanaris was a second-tier diety but since the invasion of the Empire Kanaris worship has increased drastically.

The Priestess prepare the dead but not for the afterlife so much as to promote the dead ability to communicate with the living. The Priestess feel great knowledge comes from such communications. They have no rituals to assist the dead in moving on. They bury bodies three to six feet deep.  One of the main reasons Lough worshipers detest the Old Faith is the preparation of the dead as the worshipers of Lough believe that unless properly prepared the dead will become unable to move on to the afterlife, something Lough worshipers find unacceptable.

The handful of major deities of the Old Faith are:

• Pallas Regina, Queen of the Gods
• Bestlis, God of the Wild
• Kanaris, God of War & Honor
• Wagos, Goddess of Luck & Trade
• Lustria, Goddess of Love

Believers in the Old Faith are all vegetarians.

Temples of Old Faith - The Old Faith is a rural Cult but in the last century this has changed. They've made a lot of money by 'selling' blessings to merchants and so a number of temples have sprung up in the settlements

Thule Island - Hex Overview

Thule Island
Thule Island is only four partial 6-mile hexes but it is crowded with potential. At some point I will do close-ups of each hex but for now the overview of the island will have to suffice.

Midnight sea - Land drops off precipitously. The water is dark and rough and even the fish don't like the area. A number of ships have been lost sailing north of the islands and now most avoid the area.

Hex 0101

• Dagru - A castle controlled by a Keltoi noble that has pledged allegiance to the March Lord of Thule. Dagru is the hub of most rebel activity against the Imperial presence and the Lady of Dagru has been insufficiently aggressive in putting rebel activity down. Rumors suggest she covertly aids the rebels.
• Fire Mountain - The volcano glows and constantly spews smoke and is visible for hundreds of miles. On the far side a vent allows magma and poisonous gas to vent, peacefully away, releaving pressure.
• Firehammer Chantry - Built on the side of Fire mountain is a fortified complex built by the wizard Oslof Firehammer.

Hex 0102

• Adina, Free City of - The main town on the island, The Free City of Adina has a charter directly form the Emporer so they are outside of the March Lord's control. The town council maintains a nice balance between Imperials and Keltoi, between Lough worshipers and those that follow the Old Faith. There is even an old step pyramid in town where an ancient, and very secretive, cult worships.
• Blood Mountain - Once the site of a famous old faith monastery, now only ruins and legends of lost treasure remain. The mountain was named because the large amounts of iron in the rock have turned the mountain red. Many of the streams and rivers that drain the mountain are also red which has made local legends colorful to say the least.
• Chaos Cuts - A series of limestone sinkholes known to be frequently infested by bandits, chaos worshipers, or worse. Cholson the wicked (one of the Seven Wizards) had a lair in the Cuts to study the chaos, as a result many strange chaos mutations are falsely attributed to his craft.
• Cuska - "The" Keep. Cuska acts as a basetown for expeditions to the Chaos Cuts and serves to protect the Northern land route to Bejtune. 
• Mount Thule - The tallest mountain on Thule said to be honeycombed with limestone caves that have been exploited and enlarged by the underground dwellers.

Hex 0202

• Bad Knob Mountain - A rather dry, windy place best known for the Helpeak complex
• Claw Mountain - A mountain best known for its resemblance to a claw.
• Gatefell -  A temple complex dedicated to Lustria. The temple is famous for its steam baths, and heated and chilly pools and has been called a man-made wonder of the world.
• Helpeak -  The site of a Templer complex. The complex was built by priests of Kanaris but taken over by the Templars during the crusade, they now use the complex as a base of operations as they patrol around the island looking for trouble.
• Mount Boring - A tree covered mountain best known for the Titan Berserk, a large statue on the summit that has drawn nature spirits and thus become a Holy Place for the Old Faith with a temple and everything.
• Mount Tow - A high hill known as the site of Khaz Morni Rukh battlefield. Both Imperials and Keltoi. Spirits infest the site so it has become a minor Holy Site for the Old Faith that have built a shrine on the spot.
• White Mountain - Known for the white rock face that stands out at long distance. 

Hex 0203

• Bejtun - A castle with small settlements that is the seat of the March Lord and thus has only a small Keltoi population.
• Broken Fang - A rather uninteresting mountain except it is shaped somewhat like a broken fang. Ee the Deadeyes (one of the Seven Wizards) built a chantry on the summet, it is believed her tomb was built beneath.
• Ealfa - The mountain fortress home of Lough Templars that defends the settled southern parts of Thule Island from the more rugged north.
• The Sands - The bay is shallow and during the hour or so when the tide is at its lowest one can walk across the bay, at other times it is a navigational hazard. The area is common with cheap merchants that 'beach' their ships on the sands in order to do repairs without a proper dry-dock.