Friday Encounter: Tournament at the Bridge

Art by Peter Jackson
(Not that one)

This encounter, if you'll believe it or not, is based on a real historical anecdote from 1434. I brought it up way back in my previous post on the medieval tradition of pas d'armes, noting that it would make an excellent encounter at the table. Well, here's one way you could take that.

Background

Sir Ascanio di Tolceda and Sir Michal Klerke are two knights who have long been friendly rivals, with a long history of comparing their heroic exploits and seeking to one-up each other at every turn. Both of them believe in the virtues of knightly valor, and hold that glory in battle is one of the finest pursuits a knight can aim for. To that end, they are firm believers in the tradition of pas d'armes, and they and their followers have been engaged in many a duel before. This time, however, the two knights have arranged a contest far beyond anything they've pulled off yet.

The two knights and their retinues have come to a well-traveled bridge and determined that it shall be the site of a grand tournament. No knight may leave until everyone on each side has fought everyone else in a joust; only then will one be able to determine their men are the greater. All the knights are stoked with the fires of competition, and no one dares to disappoint their liege. They are determined to keep to the tournament and see it out to the end, and will not move from the bridge until it is over.

The problem is, both rivals have shown up with a great host of knights, and the tournament has already raged for several days, with no sign of slowing down. And there are plenty of travelers looking to cross the bridge, only to be held up by the dueling knights. The people are growing restless...

The Encounter

This encounter should be used while the PCs are traveling on a major route that gets a lot of traffic, such as an important trade or pilgrimage route. As they approach a bridge, they notice that the path is backed up with a considerable number of travelers and carts - and they look frustrated and listless. The side of the road is lined with vividly-colored pavillions, where men are polishing their armor and squires can be seen tending to horses. Up ahead on the bridge itself, two knights in full armor are charging at one another along the length of the bridge, lances drawn, while their associated retinues and companions cheer from the sidelines.

If the PCs speak to the travelers, they will relate that the knights have been jousting for the last three days, and this has slowed traffic over the bridge. Some of the travelers have been waiting for hours to cross, but every time one knight is unhorsed, another joust begins. They've tried speaking to the knights, but none of the travelers are of noble class, and the knights won't listen to them, feeling they have no understanding of the demands of chivalry. The travelers request the help of the PCs - maybe they stand a better chance of getting through to them, especially if there are fellow knights among them.

The knights insist that their tournament is a matter of great importance, and they are not willing to put it on hold for anyone, nor are they willing to leave the bridge and admit their cowardice. Besides, they've already set up an extensive camp and it would be a lot of work to move it. If the party tries to ask the knights to leave, they will only hear a PC out if they are themselves a knight or noble, and even then, they had best have a persuasive (or deceptive) enough argument. However, if presented with direct orders from a noble of higher rank (such as a count, duke, or king), they will defer to authority.

The PCs might have better luck if they try to meet the knights on their own terms. If asked, they will be led to Ascanio and Michal, who are serving as judges for the tournament and overseeing the bouts. The two knights will gladly allow the PCs to join the tournament, and will provide armor, lances, and horses for anyone who does not have any of their own, but expect them to be returned at the end of the tournament. The two knights will both encourage the PCs to join their respective team, attempting to win them over with grand accounts of their heroic deeds. Even though they are rivals, they respect each other as knights and will not dare to besmirch each others' honor. They just insist that they are clearly the superior knight to support.

To make things more interesting for the players, both knights are in the possession of a magical artifact that they are willing to surrender to anyone who can best them in a joust. Sir Ascanio has a lance that grants Advantage on all attack and damage rolls as long as the attack is made from atop a horse or other steed, while Sir Michal has a helmet that grants the effect of a set of eyes of the eagle when worn. You may also want to have one or both knights be in the service of noble houses or other factions in your campaign - siding with one or the other may impact a PC's standing with those factions.

You can potentially stretch this encounter out into an entire "tournament arc," with the PCs facing off against multiple opponents. Some of these opponents could be knights they have previously encountered in the campaign or have preexisting relationships with. Furthermore, the PCs might face off against knights in the tournament that could become recurring rivals later down the line. If you want an encounter that you can resolve quickly, though, you can simply have the PCs challenge one of the rival knights directly, and he will agree to withdraw from the bridge if he is bested in a joust. All competitors can be assumed to have the stats of a knight, and use warhorses as mounts.

Several people have written jousting rules for 5e, so feel free to use whatever system works best for your table here. I was going to list a set of my own, but in researching the subject, these rules are pretty close to what I would use anyway, so I'm just going to leave them here.

Alternatively, the PCs could try looking for an alternative route around the bridge. This route, however, may prove to be a deadly and treacherous one, and the travelers may want to come along too to scope it out. This could turn into an escort mission for the PCs.

Suland

The inland reaches of the Eastern Continent are dominated by wilderness, with much of the northern half of the continent split by a large river system. At the center of this is a settlement inhabited by a tribal people Dragon Quest III calls the Soo. They're clearly supposed to be based on Native Americans; when you consider that Japanese is a heavily phonetic language, "Soo" is a transliteration of how they would write "Sioux." Although the region these people inhabit isn't named, for The Saga of the Ortegids, I'm going to be calling it Suland, and its people Sulanders. "Sooland" just kind of looks goofy.

We see some elements of romanticized portrayals of Native American societies in the Soo people. They value honesty and seem self-sufficient, and have been fighting back against Edinan incursions for at least two generations. However, unlike the Great Plains tribes, they do not seem to be nomadic - they have a village of permanent timber structures, complete with farms, shops, and an inn. While this might just be for gameplay convenience, it is compelling from the perspective of a worldbuilder, as it suggests their society is not a mere copy and paste from the real world, and deserves a deeper look.

They don't have a temple, so it seems unlikely they would be followers of the Nine Gods, perhaps instead worshiping the Beast Gods. I'd wager that the Great River they live on likely plays an important role in their culture, given that it would provide easy access to most of the continent - I can certainly see multiple villages in the region trading and fishing along these waterways. Perhaps it may even be venerated as a deity, maybe as part of a greater animistic tradition.

They also have a talking horse. That doesn't really relate to anything, I just wanted to point it out. Why does the horse talk? Who knows! It's never explained. And I kind of like that sort of unashamed fairy tale logic. Sometimes, things in fantasy can just happen with no particular explanation. It makes the world seem fantastic and full of potential when you get the sense that truly anything can happen.

We can also garner some clues from how other people talk about the Soo. A noble in Edinbear describes the people as...something. You see, this is somewhere we need to look into the history of DQ3's various translations. The original NES translation outright calls them "Indians," and the same word is used in the fan translation of the SNES remake, so it seems to be what they're called in the original Japanese. For obvious reasons, and because it's a real-world reference divorced of its context (there's no "India," only Baharata), this won't do. The Game Boy version refers to "the New World of the Soo," but as previously stated, the Eastern Continent doesn't actually seem to be much of a New World - if they fought the Edinans two kings ago, it seems odd to still refer to the area as though it's a newly discovered frontier. The more recent releases, meanwhile, use the terms "barbarians" and "nomads," and this is where things get interesting.

Given how the rest of the Eastern Continent is ripe with pulp sword and sorcery tropes, a tribe of barbarians fits right in. I would argue it wouldn't be out of place to turn Suland into Robert E. Howard's Cimmeria. This is a gloomy land that seems to hold all winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun, with dark woodlands and cloud-piled hills, inhabited by dark-haired, sullen-eyed folk hunting and warring with axe and flint-tipped spear. If the Aliahanians are the historical barbarians of the Dark Ages, with their round shields and chain hauberks, then the Sulanders are the pop cultural, axe-hefting, loincloth-wearing barbarians off the canvas of Frazetta and Vallejo. A basis in Cimmeria would be a closer match to the geography of Suland, which seems far more dominated by forests than the real-life Great Plains, and would explain the more sedentary culture we see hints of in the game. And, in writing this, I realize that there's a lot of overlap with stereotypical Native American imagery here anyway.

Alternatively, you could split the difference and base the Sulanders on Howard's Picts. Certainly the presence of settlers on their borderlands, and their conflict with foreign powers, is perfectly in keeping with some of his Pictish Wilderness stories. It's a big enough area that you could probably even draw inspiration from both with different tribes.

Art by William Stout

Other areas in Suland include:

• Aurhea's Spring: A body of water inhabited by a nature spirit who tests the honesty of travelers who drop their belongings into her pond. I've adapted this encounter here.
• Arp Tower: An abandoned tower to the southwest of the Great River. There don't seem to be many civilizations nearby that could have constructed it - it could be an ancient Aliahanian ruin, or perhaps a wizard's abode. It contains a magic flute which sends out echoes that pinpoint the locations of treasure when blown. To get it, one must climb to the top of the tower, where ropes are strung over a pit, and make a leap of faith from the right location to land on a platform below. This is one of my favorite puzzles in the game, and one I've borrowed for my own dungeons multiple times.

The Eastern Continent

Dragon Quest III had to get creative when it came to adapting the Americas to a medieval fantasy world. There's still plenty of historical parallels to be found in these regions, and some of them are deep cuts indeed, but they're fit into the framework of an earlier time. Most people would consider the colonization of the New World to be decidedly after the medieval era, or at least pushing the envelope on what counts. However, that didn't stop the developers from making it work - and they wouldn't be the only ones to try and fit the New World narrative to a sword-and-sorcery milieu. Some of Robert E. Howard's stories are practically Westerns without guns, and even I have cribbed from the history of the Americas for my own homebrew setting.

In fact, as I'm going to explore in the next series of posts, DQ3's take on the Americas is particularly pulpy. In these lands, you'll find barbarian tribes, roving pirates, and decadent city-states run by tyrannical overlords. If the pseudo-Old World of Erdland is colored by historical fantasy, the New World is where we can put all the pulp fantasy tropes we didn't have a good place for elsewhere. Since The Saga of the Ortegids takes great inspiration from pulp sword-and-sorcery traditions, I'm going to be taking advantage of this.

The pseudo-Americas aren't given any proper name in-universe, so I'll be referring to them collectively as the Eastern Continent. Yes, eastern - the overworld is consistently depicted using what we would consider a Pacific-centric projection, which both helps the map feel otherworldly despite the familiar geography and places Aliahan in the center, supporting the clues as to it once having been the seat of a bygone empire. Notably, there's no real indication that this is a new world. No one alludes to the Eastern Continent as being recently discovered; in fact, numerous NPCs there reference contact with other powers across the sea. This, to me, implies that the major continents of Erdland have known about and been in contact with each other for much longer than those of our Earth, perhaps pointing to a smaller planet (as I've posited before), greater connections via the ancient Aliahanian portal network, or both.

However, much of our pop cultural perception of the Americas is colored by colonial history, and that is reflected in the Eastern Continent. There's a town on the eastern coast in the process of being established by settlers - you can actually appoint one of your party members as the leader of this settlement, causing it to grow and develop over time, in a feature I'm still amazed that they pulled off on the NES. The comparisons to early European settlement in North America are self-evident here, but perhaps in this setting it would be more akin to an ancient Greek colony, or the settlement of Iceland - less a response to newly-discovered land to conquer, and more a case of people fed up with their homeland for whatever reason and going somewhere else (I realize this also applies to a few early European colonies in North America, but you get what I mean). It's worth noting that the founder of this colony actually came from the barbarian tribes to the west, so it is not really a foreign colony.

To see how a setting like this could work in a fantastic context, we need look no further than Beyond the Black River. In The Saga of the Ortegids, this unnamed town would likely look quite a bit like Conajohara; a border settlement in a precarious position jostled up against the western barbarians. More on them in a later post. And by the way, I know what you're thinking, but that's what the game calls them, not me.

Likely, this settlement would be one of several found along the coast of various sizes. Some of these settlements would be independent city-states, but we also know that Edina had a presence on the continent as well, with a history of conflict with the barbarians further inland going back at least two generations. There are likely towns and castles established as Edinan outposts in the same vicinity as the settlers. This, in turn, suggests that Edina is a greater naval power than the limited look at it we get in-game would suggest. It's the closest kingdom to the eastern coast of the Eastern Continent, so it likely has a robust seafaring culture to expand its reach across the ocean and establish frontiers on both shores.

Also in the vicinity is Grimland, a frozen island to the north where Greenland would be. Alas, I once again have to concede to the modern localizations here - very modern, in fact; the name "Grimland" was first used in the 2024 HD release. Before that, the island was consistently referred to as "Greenlad." But...come on, that's not even trying. "Grimland" is a much cooler name, anyway. Regardless, the island isn't home to much of note; its only apparent inhabitant is a hermit wizard. You could put some Vikings here if you wanted them in Erdland, though Norse themes are far more prevalent in Torland.

Zipangu

The various regions and kingdoms of Dragon Quest III's overworld take varying degrees of inspiration from their real-world counterparts. Lancel, for instance, might look like Australia on the map, but has absolutely no allusions to Australian history or culture. On the flip side, the Kingdom of Zipangu is particularly blatant about wearing its inspiration on its sleeve.

Zipangu is quite clearly based on Japan - if you didn't guess that from the name, or the fact that it's located on a chain of islands off the coast of the Asian-equivalent land mass, it's one of the few areas that has its own graphical assets not found anywhere else in the game, complete with a prominent torii gate in the center of the capital. Furthermore, it's an isolationist power with little contact with the outside world, as Japan famously was during the medieval era. There are no inns in town, and a foreign priest mentions trying to introduce his faith to the populace, indicating that they practice a different religion from that of the rest of Erdland. We don't get many specifics about this, but the kingdom does practice one particular ritual that the quest here centers around.

Zipangu's queen, Himiko, has ordered that one the kingdom's women be periodically sacrificed to appease a dragon known as the Orochi that dwells nearby. The twist, of course, is that Himiko is the Orochi in human form, using her status as queen to manipulate the people into following her orders, and the threat of devastation from the Orochi to bring them into line.

If you're as into history and mythology as I am, you've probably caught a couple of references immediately. Himiko was, of course, an early queen of what is now Japan, and the Orochi is an eight-headed dragon that plays into one of Japan's most celebrated myths - complete with demanding tribute in the form of maidens to devour. DQ3 is far from the only game to reference either of these figures. But they do raise some interesting worldbuilding questions for chronic overanalyzers like me.

Art by Maukamauka

Most people, upon seeing a region in a fantasy setting taking cues from Japanese history, will immediately envision something like Legend of the Five Rings - the first thing that comes to mind is the feudal era of Japan's Warring States period. I can admit that there are a number of factors that make this era well-suited for gaming. I've spoken on the storytelling potential of feudal politics before, and the number of competing factions of the era would create plenty of opportunities for players to get involved with one or the other, making allegiances and enemies, and potentially carving out their own domains. That's all fair and good, and if you like it, I can't fault you.

But I am going to be honest. I am utterly sick of samurai.

When was the last time you saw an Asian-inspired fantasy setting that wasn't specifically based on Japan? Well, I guess Yoon-Suin kicked off a trend of Southeast Asian fantasy settings, but aside from that. If you're lucky, you might get something based on China, but even then it tends to have samurai, ninjas, and yokai in it anyway. If Korean, or Mongolian, or Tibetan, or Siberian, or Indian, or Persian, or Turkic, or what have you history is more your thing, well, you're just out of luck. The fact is, Asia is a tremendously vast continent, with hundreds of fascinating cultures, some of which have rich histories going back literal millennia, and that stuff is woefully unexplored when it comes to inspiration. Sure, I like Kurosawa movies as much as anyone, but when every setting plays on the same old tropes, it starts to get tiresome.

Even looking at Japan itself, the country has plenty of interesting history outside of the Sengoku era. And that's particularly notable here, because the Orochi myth was first recorded in the eighth century, while Himiko reigned during the third century AD - both long before the time of samurai. Centering Zipangu somewhere in these eras would create a setting with a very different look and feel from what most people are used to.

If you lean on the earlier side of things, you could have something like the Yayoi Period, with shaman-kings asserting divine right, nobles decorating themselves with intricate tattoos, and the use of bronze bells and mirrors in rituals. If you expand the time frame a little further, you could even get Kofun-era burial mounds, which give you a ready excuse to have dungeons to loot - and angry spirits to invoke curses on you for disturbing their tombs. You don't even have to leave behind powerful regional rulers with a weak central government, as much of society was structured around localized clans at this time, just without a corresponding tradition of an honor-bound warrior caste.

Alternatively, you could look at what Japan looked like just before the feudal era was in full swing, with the Heian Period. Here, the country enjoyed more peace and stability than it would for centuries afterward, with the arts and culture flourishing, but you still had nobles accruing more and more power for themselves in the background, growing increasingly dissatisfied with the hands-off approach of a government with little interest in stopping the ever-present threat of banditry. There might not be any outright civil wars just yet, but it's still an environment conducive to independent adventurers unfettered by the light grasp of the law. Plus, with the authorities having little control over the economy, much commerce was done through barter and gifts - which could provide ways to get magic items into PCs' hands as a reward for completing quests.

Despite all me saying this, if you did want to put samurai and shoguns into Zipangu, I do think there's a place for that. Erdland is, after all, very much a History's Greatest Hits setting that favors the rule of cool over any internal consistency when it comes to historical accuracy. If you wanted to have a setting with giant burial mounds, shaman-kings, roving bandits, and ninjas all at the same time, it would not at all be out of place with some of the other things I've discussed for The Saga of the Ortegids.

There's also the fact that we don't really find out what happens to Zipangu after the events of DQ3, once the Orochi is vanquished. Sure, the dragon demanding tribute from the innocent people is gone...but when you consider that dragon was also a queen with enough power to hold the people in her sway, there's likely a power vacuum left in her place. And surely with any power vacuum comes opportunities for ambitious nobles with big enough armies to try and assert control - and without a doubt there are more of them than the islands have room for...

Saga of the Ortegids: Inspirational Art, Part 2

Following on from last post, the second part of my portfolio of inspirational images for The Saga of the Ortegids - art that was not made for the purposes of promoting Dragon Warrior on the NES, but that still carries a similar tone, or at least matches the same vibe I'm going for in this setting.

A few artists of note included here, in no particular order: Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Michael Whelan, John Buscema, Ron Embleton, Earl Norem. Worth a look if you like what you see here.

Saga of the Ortegids: Inspirational Art, Part 1

A bit of a filler post, yes, but I've decided for the purposes of The Saga of the Ortegids, it would be helpful to compile a visual guide to the look and feel I'm going for for this setting. To start off, a collection of art pieces from box art, manuals, magazine advertisements, and other western materials put out to promote Dragon Warrior I through IV on the Nintendo Entertainment System. There's a lot of this, actually - Nintendo of America really wanted Dragon Warrior to be their next big hit. I cannot oversell how helpful Dragon's Den has been for this - they have probably the biggest library of Dragon Quest material online.

This is an image-heavy post, so check under the cut.

Friday Encounter: The Wild Hunt

This encounter can be dropped in the wilderness, but it perhaps has more utility if the PCs are actively engaged in hunting - whether that's because they're foraging for food, or perhaps because they're invited by a noble they're in good standing with to partake in a hunt. The lore here is pretty specific to the Lunar Lands, but you can probably tweak it to fit another setting by replacing Kerne with a similar god of the hunt, or the stag with a similarly holy beast.

While out hunting, the PCs are suddenly greeted by the sight of a large white stag with a majestic rack of antlers, emerging from the bush. The stag is alone, and it does not appear to notice the PCs' presence. If they so choose, it would be an easy target to move in for the kill - and a most impressive trophy indeed.

However, if it seems too good of an opportunity to be true, that's because it is. At this point, everyone in the party should make a DC 12 Religion check. Any PC who makes a successful check will know that white stags are the sacred beast of Kerne, the god of war and the hunt, and are reserved for he alone to pursue. Any mortal who dares harm one will suffer Kerne's wrath. Clerics or paladins of Kerne or characters with the Acolyte background who belonged to a Kernate order will know all this information automatically. This might seem like an obvious trap to the players, so if there are any NPCs with the party, you could have one of them attempt to attack the stag if you want to trigger the next stage of encounter.

If the stag is killed, the sky darkens with a great clap of thunder, showing that Kerne is displeased. The next day, Kerne will send a party of the Wild Hunt to track down the PCs, consisting of 2d4 scouts on riding horses, 1d6 mastiffs, and 1d4 perytons. As the scouts are Kerne's servants, they have the Celestial type (and thus will be noticed by Divine Sense and similar effects), and appear unusually tall and robust, with radiant skin, glowing eyes, and antlers growing from their heads, but their stats are otherwise identical. The divine hunters will pursue the PCs like a hunter pursues game - they will attempt to stake them out from chokepoints formed by the terrain, use cover, and attack from a distance to wound the PCs before mounting their steeds to ride them down while they nurse their injuries. This could easily turn into a tense situation with the PCs having to throw off the trail of tireless hunters - if you've seen any of the Predator movies, this should give you an idea of what to expect.

If, however, the PCs leave the stag unharmed, the next day, they will be approached by a hunter with a thick hood covering his face. He praises them on their good fortune to cross paths with the Wild Hunt, and even more so for their respect in leaving the kill to them. He will then leave the PCs with a horn etched with scenes of Kerne leading the Wild Hunt on their jaunts into the wilds, and explains that it may be used to call upon them three times. Once per day, the horn may be blown to summon the Wild Hunt (roll for the hunting party's composition as above), who will assist the party to the best of their ability. After the task they were summoned for is completed, the hunting party vanishes. After the horn has been used three times, the huntsman will take it back from the party, insisting that it can only be trusted in the hands of mortals for so long.

Alternatively, the Wild Hunt might invite the PCs on a hunt, if there are honored hunters and/or faithful devotees of Kerne among them. To be invited to such a task would be a great honor to any of Kerne's followers, but the Wild Hunt follows its own agenda. They are wont to carry the PCs into the middle of nowhere, well off their path, and leave them there as they get lost in the thrill of the hunt. And whatever prey they are pursuing might not be as simple as a white stag...