Player Handout Curiosities

A mysterious page bearing the words of the "Oringor" and a map to "The Pit."

I love the concept of player handouts because it somehow makes the fantasy even more tangible, sort of like reaching beyond into the liquid silver veil of a mirror and pulling out a bauble or souvenir. Here then is a curiosity, a player handout from years ago. It's hand drawn of course. I used the handout to begin a new phase in my Kingdom of Erunn campaign.

(Yes, this item was in my "game drawer" when clumsy met a can of "Big Red" soda.)

This is the "Kingdom of Erunn" in my original homespun game world.

I've also re-posted my primary campaign map because the town of "Palistikos" can be located thereon, another puzzle the players had to figure out. I changed the town's spelling on the handout to give it a more historical feeling, like time had passed since the days of the dead cult I wanted the players to brush up against.









The goal of these handouts, which was successful, was to get the party to a place called "The Pit" (Dungeon Magazine #17). This was a dark and foreboding adventure, requiring a weird "dead cult" and "dark god" feel so the handouts helped accomplish that too. (My eventual description of decayed flesh rejoining bone also didn't hurt.) The effort turned out to be pivotal to the campaign.

Maybe I'll post the game-master-only 'letter replacement' code sheet or a translation sometime...