The Setting

Looming before you on a small rise nestled between two towering mountain peaks, the ruins of Castle Falconflight stand ready for you to plunder. It's builders dead for hundreds of years, it has succumbed to the ravages of wars long forgotten. The cold grey walls are crumbling in places. In others you can see different repairs that have been made over time. Directly in front of you stands the Gatehouse, three stories of arrow slits and murder holes made all the more intimidating by the chilling fog rolling down from the mountains.

Above is the first bit of canned text that the players will hear when they approach the ruined castle. As a side note, I am not a huge fan of canned text, so I will probably just paraphrase the text when game time rolls around.

The Setting
The setting for Spiderweb in the Corner is pretty generic. It is a medieval/fantasy setting.  The campaign will take place in just a small number of locations.

The Town
 The home base for the game will be the river town of Megetrs. I found the map through a random Google search. It is a good fit for my game for a few different reasons.

1. The town is large enough to support the commerce the PCs will bring in.  The river trade will allow for merchants in the city to buy and sell a bit more freely. 
2. THe town has a place of higher learning. This will help the PCs out by providing sages and scholars for them to consult with.
3. The river will also allow for NPCs to come and go.  THe town is used to people staying only a short time, and pays little heed to strangers. This will be handy if/when a group of rivals or other treasure hunters show up.
4. The background that was laid out in the blog post that I gleaned this from is pretty neat and may come into play if the players seek out regular contacts, etc in the city.
5. The large number of Inns on the map allows me to set different levels of upkeep for the players. Some will want to stay in the low cost areas of the city, while others may want to stay at the finest hotel the city has to offer.

The Inn

While I have allowed for the PCs to stay where ever they like in the city, I am going to make The White Wyvern Inn a very attractive choice. I have had the map for some time and never had a great chance to use it.  I dont know if it will get a lot of use in this game either, but I figured why not throw it in.

Out side of the Inn, the Tree of Sorrows serves as a memorial to fallen comrades.  Adventurers returning to the city, where ever they may have come from, leave a token of the party members who did not come home.  Over the years as the tree grew many of the items left, shields, tabards, holy symbols, etc have grown into the tree itself. A Dragon Magazine cover served as the inspiration for this idea, rather than a trophy rack for a dragon, the tree is a living memorial to friends lost.

The Dungeon

Since I know some of my players are reading this blog, I wont go into a lot of details.  The dungeon itself is under  a ruined castle. The dungeon has several entrances, lots of tunnels and rooms  on many different levels filled with big scary monsters. and maybe a little treasure.

Like I said, the setting is pretty generic. Once the PCs start to explore and learn more, I will share what I can here.

Prep work update:  I just found out that I wont beable to start teh game until the 5th of December. school concersts and the Thanksgiving holiday will prevent us from getting together. This is kind of a mixed blessing.  I love to get as much ground work done as early as I can, and this delay will allow me to get a lot more done.  However, I am excited to get rolling.  I have orcs just chomping at the bit to kill some treasure hunters!