Village Book I

We have our fort. We know that the fort is ruled by Ka'Taka, an evil (well, chaotic) anti-cleric and her half-orc minions. We know that the fort is located in farmland. It seems to me that means that the fort is surrounded by a farming village. Last week I named it the village of Konpoke. But what else do we know about it? Nothing.

Judges Guild comes to the rescue again. This time with Village Book 1. We’ll use that to generate our village.

Just like the last series of articles was also meant as a "working review" of Frontier Forts of Kelnore, this post will also be a working review of Village Book 1.

This is one of those books where Judges Guild throws a lot of tables at you with no explanation where to begin. We have to wing it.

Step 1: Wall Sections

The tables in this book are not numbered. Reading top to bottom and left to right, this is simply the first table we come to. It determines the “number of wall sections.” The lowest number possible is “2,” which is weird. Maybe that would be for a “D” shaped village?

Also weird to me is that there’s no roll to see if a village even has a wall. I guess every village is assumed to have one. In a realistic medieval world, this is silly, but maybe it makes sense in Crowfield. With water being such a valuable commodity, maybe everyone walls their oasis.

Finally, this table can generate some big numbers. The largest value is “72.” How big must your village be to be surrounded by 72 wall sections?

I roll a “1.” The means “2-12 wall sections.” A 2d6 roll tells me Konpoke has 3 wall sections. 3? A triangle maybe?

Step 2: Wall Thickness and Type

There’s no indication whether this should be rolled once for the whole wall, or once per wall section. I’m going to assume the former.

This is what I call a “cascading table.” A wall is considered earthen, and you roll a 1d6 to determine the thickness. If you roll a “6,” however, the wall is wooden and you roll again. If that’s also a “6” the walls are brick. In total there are 6 different wall materials, but the chances of making it to type 6 are just under 1:8000.

I roll a “6,” so the walls are wooden. The second roll is 4, meaning that the walls are 4 feet thick.

Step 3: Wall Height

A note tells us that wooden walls are 4 times as high as they are wide. No roll needed.

Our walls are 16-feet high.

Step 4: Wall Length

Finally another note says “To determine the length of each wall section multiply the wall thickness by 1' to 20'.” Again, is this once per wall, or once per wall section? The idea that every village is always a perfect polygon seems overly silly, so I’ll roll once per section. I’m glad I’m not rolling 72 times!

I roll a 2, a 12 and another 2. That means the village is a triangle that’s 8' × 8' × 48'. That’s beyond silly. The entire village would fit in the courtyard of the fort!

I strongly suspect that whoever wrote this garbage never even tried it.

I’m ignoring this note for obvious reasons.

Step 5: Wall Characteristics

This is things like “arrow slits” or “tower both ends.” Seeing that a wall has more than two ends, I’m assuming this means to roll for each wall section. Again, imagine if you had to roll 72 times!

I’m skipping this.

Step 6: Wall Defenses

Things like catapults and cauldrons. I assume this should be by section as well? Again, I’m skipping it.

Steps 7 - 9: Streets

This is a series of tables that pretty much mirror steps 1-4 but for streets instead of walls. You determine the number of streets (I rolled 17 streets), then for each street¹ you determine its type (trail, gravel, stone, etc) and width. The width determines length. The only substantial difference is that roads don’t have a height.

I’m not going to bother with any of this. Having details of 17 streets is still kind of useless if it gives no guidance how to arrange them. Plus, I don’t really play towns like big dungeons. I don’t expect the PC’s to do a street by street exploration.

Step 10: Shop Types

The next section in the book is “Shop Types.” But that section says you need to know the population first. It doesn’t tell you, but the population chart is three sections later, because organization was optional in the 1970’s.

Real Step 10: Population

I roll on the population chart. My roll is “57” which tells me that Konpoke has a population of 210 and can support 5 shops. What it doesn’t tell me is whether that’s 210 households or 210 individuals.

Step 11: Back to Shop Types

Now that we know the population, we go back to the “Shop Types” section. Now it tells us that we also need to know the village’s technology level. Even though it’s mentioned after population, the tech level chart is actually the section before the population chart.

I’m sure glad Judges Guild never published recipes.²

Real Step 11: Village Technology Level

Tech level! That might make sense! Is the village trapped in the stone age, or are they magically advanced beyond the local tech–

Oh, wait. This isn’t that at all. Instead the results from this table are mostly type of governing, like Anarchy, Democratic, Tributary, Oligarchy, Republic, etc.

Not only was organization optional in the 1970’s, so was proper word usage.

Whatever. I roll a “7”–“Oligarchy.” That fits in. The small ruling class is Ka'Taka and her half-orcs. It also tells us that there will be 3 government buildings.

Step 12: Shop Types, Finally

Now that we’ve determined the population and the government type “technology level,” we can finally return to the Shop Types section. Oh, but we don’t actually do anything in the section.

Real Step 12: Village Shops

The next section reads “…roll on the chart in the technological level indicated. Roll for no more than one-third of the shops in that category. The remainder shall be rolled for from the lower technological levels.”

So we have 5 rolls to make. Only 1/3 can be from the Oligarchy table. The rest mast be from lower tables. But there are 6 lower tables, and no guidance how to split up the remaining rolls.

Instructions were optional in the 1970’s.

So one third of 5 is 1, I guess. So I’ll make one roll on that table: I get a 10: “Body snatcher’s.” A Body snatcher’s shop? What is that?

Descriptions were optional in the 1970’s.

I’m going to guess that it’s a grave robber’s shop where they sell body parts? (To who?)

So four more rolls, with 6 tables to chose from. I’m going to make a roll, read which shop is on each table for that roll and pick the one I like.

1. Rolled 15. The Anarchy table has a spear maker, and the Religious table has “Religious symbols shop.” I’m picking the latter, because I can use it to let the players know that most the inhabitants of the village are neutral rather than chaotic.
2. Roll of 17: The Tribal chart has a Fur Trader listed. I often talk about the treasure value of various pelts. This could be a place to actually sell them.
3. The dice say 6: I pick “Goldsmith” from the Tributary table.
4. I rolled 20. The Agrarian table has “Horse Trader” for that roll. I can see the players wanting to buy horses. Or camels. Or whatever. I’ll pick that one.

Step 13: Government Buildings

The next set of tables are for government buildings. Unlike the shops, there’s no note to say only one third comes from the appropriate tech level, so I’ll take all three on the Oligarchy table.

1. Bathhouse
2. Marketplace
3. Sentry station

Step 14: Name the Village

A big set of charts to name the village. You roll a prefix and a suffix. They say that there’s 386,000 possibilities.

I know the name is “Konpoke,” but that’s an orcish word. What would the village name be in English? Let me make some rolls.

Five rolls later produces the name “Boxwater.” Not great, but it’s good. I’ll use it!

Steps 15+: Building generation

There’s 7 charts left that let you randomly generate a building. No need for this, but it might be fun to play with at some point.

Final thoughts

I think Frontier Forts of Kelnore is a brilliant work. Village Book 1, however, is a steaming pile of trash. It’s hard to believe that they were produced by the same company.

Still, I think I’ll use most of the work above for the village.

I'll add some details: The village is populated by orcs that have no particular love for Ka'taka. Ka'Taka views the villagers almost as slave labor. Most of the villagers are farmers, and they grow grain that Crowfield could desperately use.

Ka'taka will freely trade grain to the players at a good price. Does that make the player morally complacent in the villagers treatment? On the other hand, defeating Ka'Taka will be difficult. Does the necessity of feeding Crowfield take precedence of the treatment of a bunch of smelly orcs? Plus it’s not like Ka'Taka would be nicer to the orcs if the players weren’t buying the grain.

Maybe the player will try to lead the orcs to rebel against Ka'Taka. But then the prices might go up for Crowfield…

So much role-playing potential.

What do you think?

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1. I guess for each street. Maybe you roll once and all 17 (or however many) streets are the same.↩

2. Except for this one.↩