Machodor Domain Report (April 2022)

The Puglins are holding on to their secrets this week, so the April report it is! These were the results for the April period of encounters on the "Inhabited" table;

• Week 1
• Bandits (160)
• Pilgrims (40)
• Merchants (50k gp)
• Week 2
• Trollops with Merchants (10k gp)
• Giant Rats
• Dervish (280)
• Week 3
• Brigands (110)
• Merchants (60k)
• Anhkhegs*
• Week 4
• Killmouli
• Merchants (60k)
• Pilgrims (80)

Suitable Encounters

Trollops

The Trollopulous campaign has very few demi-humans running about, so, after finding large numbers of them with my Domain encounters the DM has changed the encounter table to replace them with Trollops (ed. the Gnome King is not pleased). Trollops are usually found with 'Men' and so a further roll is made to determine which kind, in this case Merchants. I'm sure it is just a coincidence that this group of merchants is practically broke with only 10k gp in goods.

Merchants

Four groups of Merchants this month include the one with the Trollops.  With a total of 18 rolled that becomes 180,000gp in goods which breaks down to;

• Duty at 2% = 3600
• 10% Luxury Goods Tariff at 5% = 900
• Sales tax of 10% = 18000

For a total of 22500 gp. 

Pilgrims; One group of Chaotic Good and one of Lawful Good. This meant a number of sorely need Rangers were recruited, along with more Paladins for the various orders springing up in Minas Mandalf.

Citizenship fees were sparse this month coming in at around 2000gp, however there was another source of income this month as well.

Gold Macho

This month saw the first fruits of new currency of the realm. As per DMG page 90, players who bring foreign currency from dungeons and the like need to convert the coinage, with 10% going to the Domain. Not something to overlook when planning the finances!

Unsuitable Encounters

The Bandits, Brigands, and Killmouli missed out in favour of the Anhkheg for the monthly unsuitable encounter.

The village of Santxol's Folly, was newly constructed on the site where brigands had foolishly botched an ambush at a rocky prominence with commanding views of the region (you might remember this from an earlier domain report). Surrounding the town is rich loamy soil which should be ideal for farming. The inhabitants were to find that the soil was a bit too ideal, and attracted the attention of Anhkhegs with a taste for farm animals, and farmers!

A party of stout adventurers found and eliminated the threat, but not before most of the town's garrison was defeated in an Aliens-esq debacle below the foundations of the church. The Adventure proved to be successful without further loss of (human) life.

Note here that the reward includes training, in the form of a training voucher like the one below;

There are a lot of high level NPCs in Minas Mandalf now, working for the Macho King, so this is a way for him to reward adventurers without dipping into his spell research funds.

Elsewhere, the continuing scuffles between the Hobgoblins and Tharks had turned into a full on siege. Machodor's scouts were all over this, and forces were ready, awaiting the right time to strike.

And, how could I almost forget? April saw the public debut of the Machodor Psicorps! Springing from a not so innocent question from the DM regarding Machodor's anti-psionic defences, these guys might need their own post.

Machodor Domain Report (March 2022)

March saw Machodor project force well beyond its borders, while adventurers helped secure the south east. 

These were the results for the March period of encounters on the "Inhabited" table;

• Week 1
• Assassin Bug
• Merchants (50k gp in goods)
• Dervish (270 base)
• Week 2
• Pilgrims (90)
• Berserkers (90)
• Nomads (240)
• Week 3
• Wolves
• Goblins (300)
• Bandits (80)
• Week 4
• Pilgrims (100)
• Goblins (400)
• Pilgrims (90)

Suitable Encounters

Merchants

Just one group of Merchants this month. At least it was a pretty well stocked group with 50,000gp in goods which breaks down to;

• Duty at 2% = 1000
• 10% Luxury Goods Tariff at 5% = 250
• Sales tax of 10% = 5000

For a total of 6250 gp. 

Dervish; Joined their brethren in the ranks of Machodor's defenders as the 7th Dervish Brigade. Almost immediately they were called on to deploy to Hobgobiton in the far west to take on Hobgoblins and Tharks in the wake of their previous Mr Wargaming battle. With them went a variety of of units including Dragoognomes.

Pilgrims; All 3 groups turned out to be Lawful Good. As planned, Minas Mandalf is now a beacon for the forces of law and goodness in this land.

Nomads; because nomads are of neutral alignment I make a reaction roll to see how the negotiations work out. I also generate the personality traits (DMG pg237) of the leader to help me work out what happens. In this case the Nomad leader, Mustafa Bighorse, had a personality that suggested to me he would leave the bulk of his tribe, including his beautiful wife, some safe distance from Minas Mandalf and proceed to the negotiation with his warriors and treasure in excess of 60,000gp. I noted down the location where he left his tribe at this point.

The Citizen ship fees for the above totalled about 10,000gp (though some later had to be refunded, see below)

Unsuitable Encounters

The berserkers, assassin bug, and wolves lost out to the double helping of goblins.

Goblins; the vast number of goblins in two waves turned out to be in the same area as the nomads, arriving just a week afterwards. This combination lead me to come up with the mission below to resolve the monthly encounter.

This mission turned out to be somewhat controversial and reduced by some commentators to 'A Patron offering 20,000gp for taking on Goblins'. However, recalling that Mustafa had a lot of money and obsessively loves his wife and his people (although the latter to a lesser extent) I figured this amount was quite reasonable since it was not even half of his fortune, plus there was not much for the party to go on. From a game point of view, it takes a significant prize to get a party of players to set out for a reward several sessions in the making. 

The party chose to travel part way along the road up to the tower sited on the former location of the goblin city of Nilbog. This tower is now home to a huge & ancient Copper dragon called Nummi along with some forces from Machodor that can withstand his dragon fear aura. The party travelled south from there and after a few encounters found a fissure in the hills within which was a goblin settlement.

In the end part of successfully returning Mustafa's wife required the party to deal with two ancient & huge white Dragons, so it was by no means a walk in the park. Alas, the remainder of the tribe was apparently sacrificed to Nurgal, part of a continuing shadowy mystery in the campaign. Now Mustafa is staying in Minas Mandalf with the remnants of his tribe and has taken on the head Fighter Trainer role at the Adventurer's Aid Society.

I hope you enjoyed this month's domain report, in the next post I intend to explain the background behind the "Puglins of Machodor" before returning to the April domain report.

Machodor Domain Report (February 2022)

Hopefully better late than never, I've decided to resume my posts detailing the running of the Domain of Macho Mandalf. This series will cover encounters along with the income and adventure prospects generated from them.

February was a very wild and interesting month with a number of unique encounters.

These were the results for the February period of encounters rolled on the "Inhabited" table;

• Week 1
• Dervish (250)
• Merchants (10k gp in goods)
• Merchants (50k gp)
• Week 2
• Brigands (180)
• Brigands (60)
• Brigands (120)
• Week 3
• Werewolves (10)
• Gnomes (360)
• Gnomes (240)
• Week 4
• Pilgrims (10)
• Elves (180)
• Merchants (40k)
• 
  

Suitable Encounters

Merchants

Three groups of Merchants this month. Once again, the d6 result for their base number is also multiplied by 10,000gp to derive the value of their goods. For simplicity I note down the value of their goods in the table above. With a total of 10 rolled that becomes 100,000gp in goods which breaks down to;

• Duty at 2% = 2000
• 10% Luxury Goods Tariff at 5% = 500
• Sales tax of 10% = 10000

For a total of 12,500 gp. 

Gnomes; The huge number of new gnomes, under Gnome King Inkle IV, settled into Gnomesville; but soon made waves in the domain (see below).

Dervish; this group added their number to the forces of Machodor. The first combined units saw action for the first time, north west of Trollopulous.

Pilgrims; this Lawful Good group, though small, was carrying a very special item with them protected by Paladins.

Elves; using my 1-10 Elf sub type of table I came up with the rarest breed, the Broldor.

Total citizenship fees were around 10,000 gp

Unsuitable Encounters

Week 2 was a bit of a disaster with all 3 encounters being Brigands. Since they arrived in the same week I would have counted them as one encounter of 360 and prepare to meet out justice, but now there was a twist; a DM mediated agreement between Minas Mandalf and Trollopulous now sees such men sent to that benighted city rather than allowed into Machodor. 

This had the effect of turning the main encounter of the month into a huge battle between the newly bolstered Gnomish forces and the conventional forces of that Trollopulous aided by the darkest of magic.

Thanks to Mr Wargaming you can see how that turned out (spoiler, not too bad for the good guys (Ed. Strategic victory for the Gnome King!)).

Almost overlooked were the 10 Werewolves. This encounter could have been ignored since they were not part of the main monthly encounter, but I decided to use it to generate a player adventure opportunity. I randomly allocated a location within Machodor then compared with other encounters and goings on to come up with the mission below;

This simple bit of advertising attracted some adventurers who found "The Dungeon of the Were-Cementaur" the depths of which are still to be fully plumbed! Note that giving out this information is all I do with this sort of thing, the DM takes it from there if and when the PCs (which might include one of mine) take an interest. Like the Manticore problem from a previous period, the real story may be quite different from appearances.