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Welcome to What Follows in Shadow

10:11, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

What Follows in Shadow

What Follows in Shadow

This is the introductory adventure in the Wheel of Time Role Playing game published in 1990. The rules are D&D 3.0 with minor variations to match the setting. The feel is very Old School. The details are based on the books rather than the current TV adaption on Amazon Prime (I have watched it all, but it's not what I had hoped -- see my comments about this at the end of the post).

The Player Characters will all start out as young (Level 1) visitors to Caemlyn at the time Rand al Thor arrives there and sneaks unwittingly into the tree above the royal gardens to catch a glimpse of the False Dragon. It is likely that the PCs are also there to see the False Dragon, but I will accept another explanation for their presence in the city at this time, as long as it makes sense in the context. The PCs do not know one another. It is quite by chance that they are all staying at the same inn on the outskirts of the city.

None of the PCs are residents of Caemlyn -- you all came from somewhere else -- see below for likely home lands



I will consider character submissions for Atha'an Miere or Tuatha'an, but there will be a higher bar for acceptance than more likely backgrounds.

The most likely classes for Player Characters include:




Please note I have used male-centric names for these classes, drawn from the source material, but they are all open to female characters. I will not be accepting male Wilders, however, as they bring along a slew of baggage with the Taint that I'm just not ready to address in this game.

In considering your character's homeland, I will require a very good explanation of why they are here if they do not come from:




* Emond's Field is in the far western reaches of Andor

You are all fairly normal young people gathered in the city at a moment when historic events are unfolding.

While I am hoping the players will all have a certain background knowledge of the setting (it will take a long time to explain who Aes Sedai are if you don't know already, or Whitecloaks, Tinkers, etc.) I'm not expecting you to be walking Wikis. And my telling of the story may be subtly different than Mr. Jordan's. (Hey, if they can do it on TV, I can do it my game!) If you read the books, even as I did thirty years ago, when they were first published, you will be fine. I have reread the first book recently -- in anticipation of the show -- and my hope is to reclaim some of that sense of that world rather than what I have seen so far on TV -- which is just over the top in violence.

Comments on the Amazon Prime series and how it affects this game

First of all, I am relying purely on the books and the published game materials for this adventure. I do not intend to include any of the plot or character changes I observed in the TV series. Having said that, I did like a lot of the setting stuff -- the look of the White Tower, for instance, the street scenes, etc. I was appalled, however, at the level of gratuitous violence. The original stories are sword and sorcery, but they do not focus on loving descriptions of blades slicing people open. Nasty things happen but in a less visceral way. And why I can understand some of the plot changes to speed things up, I don't like most of them. And I hate what they have done to Mat Cauthon's character.

Having said this, I think if you just watched the series but did not read the books, you probably know enough about the world setting to play in this adventure without getting hopelessly lost in the arcane details of the setting. (Image trying to play in a Lord of the Rings game without knowing what Hobbits are!) But I repeat that I will follow the details of what happened and where things are that are presented in the books, not what happened in the show.

Since the game does not directly involve any of the characters in the books or show (they are just offstage) I'm pretty sure that if you've just watched the show, you can follow along with this story without getting too lost. We will be starting in a place that is not mentioned in the show. It's a city called Caemlyn and there are major events taking place there that will be detailed within the game structure.

Hope to see you there!