Inspiration for Greener Pastures

With the recent release of the first volume in the Sword’s of Kos campaign setting, Kos City, I felt it made sense to explain the process I went through when writing the place description for Greener Pastures, a livery stable just outside of Kos city’s west gate. My goal here is to show the kind of thought and effort that has gone into just one small, thousand-word section of the book. That same thought and effort has gone into every other entry and is, in part, what makes the Swords of Kos campaign setting and its first volume Kos City such a wonderful publication.

The need for the Greener Pastures livery stable is straightforward, cities where horses are used for transportation need a place to house those animals. Livery stables are commonplace in fantasy settings and so I wanted to make sure that Greener Pastures wasn’t just-another-stable either. I started off with the name, being a fan of puns I settled on “greener pastures” because of the play on horse pastures and Kos city’s Green chariot racing faction. With a name picked, it became obvious that the stable’s owners would have to both be entrepreneurs and affiliated in some way with the Green racing faction.

Rufinus and Abeselom are a retired head groomsman and wainwright of the Green Racing faction, I decided, and knowing their skillset helped me decide how I would make Greener Pastures a little bit different. Just like Kos city is a real world city with a fantasy twist, my stable had to have a twist too. Greek mythology is full of flying chariots and so it made sense that the stable’s owners -- obsessed with fast horses and fancy chariots -- would try to build one.

To ensure game compatibility I used the pseudo-scientific method of pulling numbers from the OGL srd; it turns out a Pegasus can carry up to 900 pounds and a carriage weighs 600 lbs. Better yet, a carriage made of darkwood weighs half as much, leaving plenty of room for a party of adventurers. Odds are that the mechanics would work out in other game systems too, but even if they didn’t, not all entrepreneurs end up being successful!

Greener Pastures is just one of 50 fully described places that you will find in Swords of Kos Volume 1: Kos City. It can be downloaded here or purchased in print at the Skirmisher booth at the upcoming Dallas Comic & Pop Expo.