Following on from my recent post on the The Pirate City of Milmar in my homebrew world of Argull, one of the comments was from @wanderingmoon who was interested in seeing more. Here's the start, I hope you like it !
The Fighting Pits - view from the east.
All images in this article created in Flowscape by me
How to Use This Module
I originally wrote this for a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition party, but it could easily be modified for other gaming systems and dropped into other settings.
The info below has a lot of fluff, as this was a session with a huge amount of roleplaying and improvisation - hopefully it's enough to be able to describe the location, give a flavour of the place, and cover some of the information players are likely to pick up as they interact with NPC's.
Where I have named a creature in Bold Italic it's taken straight from published D&D official material, and I haven't given a stat-block in order to avoid infringing their IP. For slight variations from a standard creature, I'll just describe the differences.
Many NPC's don't get an actual stat-block, because the idea is that the players aren't expected to get into a fight with them. If they do, I'm sure you can use your imagination to improvise what is needed !
Arrival in Milmar
When my players arrived in Milmar, they had a couple of adventures, getting to third level. As soon as they had the chance for a bit of shopping and downtime, the first question the fighter asked was "Is there a gladiatoral arena in town ?"
He was clearly hoping to show off his prowess, and gain both fame and some cash. It didn't take much asking around in the taverns to be told that the place to go was the Fighting Pits of Faden the Black (whoever he was...). Directions were easy to come by. They didn't seem to be concerned that they were clearly told it was in the seediest part of town (and an already seedy town at that !), where strangers were seen as just holding their money in trust for the locals to take any time they wanted.
The Fighting Pits are located in a slum adjacent to the West Wall of the city. They aren't the glitzy marble gladiatorial arenas players might hope to find. Instead, they are simple stained and sturdy wooden platforms, fenced in with palisades and with two entrances on opposite sides for the combatants. There is just enough sand scattered across the boards to soak up the blood and other bodily fluids from the losers (and sometimes also the winners) of previous contests.
The audience fills ramshackle-looking multi-level wooden stands around the ring, as well as the top of the galleried city wall. The windows and balconies of nearby houses with a view over the Fighting Pits are rented out at a premium to fill the role of VIP boxes, with food, alcohol, drugs and prostitutes available for those who wish to pay for them.
The Fighting Pits - view from above, also used in Roll20
Faden The Black
Faden the Black is the owner of the pits. One of his great pleasures is acting as compere to the fights, introducing the contestants to the crowd using the kind of hyperbole that would put a wrestling announcer to shame. He'll usually mock and belittle outsiders while building up his "pet" local heroes (a great chance for some totally over-the-top improv).
In appearance, Faden is a large man in all respects; over six feet tall, and not far short of that round, with a booming harsh voice (he can drop it to normal levels in polite company, but he's incapable of whispering). He favours flamboyant clothing, usually being seen in a long crimson gold-embroidered red coat over a white silk shirt, and black breeches. Although of the finest quality, he always seems to somehow make them look slightly unkempt and sordid, and somehow seems to acquire spatters of red wine and food stains within moments of putting any garment on.
Despite his slovenly appearance and boorish manner, Faden is in fact highly intelligent (or at least cunning and ruthless), and is actually one of the biggest criminal masterminds in the town. Inevitably, this makes him one of the richest men in town, as well. His house is the large one you can see next to the arena. The balconies may be available to rent as VIP boxes, but his private quarters (where he keeps most of his wealth) are very well guarded, most obviously by a pair of Iron Golems but also with less obvious defenders and magical defences.
But the thing which really keeps Faden (and his wealth) safe are his reputation and underworld connections. If anyone wrongs him, he is likely to hire assassins as well as make it widely known that there is a huge bounty for anyone bringing him the offender (dead, alive, or anywhere between the two states). This means that everyone in the city would be after the target; it's the nearest thing Milmar has to winning the lottery.
Faden employs plenty of servants to tend the arena, act as stewards and cleaners etc. He also has about a score of guards, scruffily uniformed in grey tabards with a black fist embroidered onto them. Use the Guards stat block from the D&D Monster Manual for them, and the Veteran stat block for Mostig, their red-haired Narheimer captain. The guards both act to keep an eye out for any serious outbreaks of crowd trouble, and to cover the entrances to the arena, although this latter role is more for appearance sake.
Faden himself is a Fighter 3/Bard 7. He doesn't get a stat-block, because at the slightest hint of trouble, he uses his Ring of Teleportation to get away from any danger. The ring is as per the spell, and Faden has prepared a number of safe locations with associated objects hidden about his person to ensure accuracy.
The Fighting Pits - view from the west
The Combatants
The fee for a non-local fighter to enter the arena is 100 gold. If you win, you get your stake back and double on top (i.e. 300 gold total). If you lose, you lose your stake, and if you are lucky, that's all you will lose ! If a player wins spectacularly, he or she may also get a golden armband - it is worth 50 gold, but more importantly marks you out as a champion of the Pits, which tends to assure a ready supply of drinks in exchange for tall tales in most of the taverns of Milmar.
Players not directly involved in fights can also earn (or lose) money by placing side-bets. Betting on the results is a widespread activity, and takes the form of private bets among the audience. In most cases, bets are for a few gold - up to about 10 for a headline fight. This can be a fun opportunity for some improvised RP; when I ran this, one of the more enterprising characters ran multiple bets (including some against his own comrades) and by the end of the day managed to walk away with well over a hundred gold.
While there may not be honour among thieves, it is definitely a case that failing to pay up is likely to lead to an immediate and embarrassing lifespan reduction.
It is well known to the locals (but almost certainly not to the players) that most of the fights are pretty rigged in favour of the local champions. There are no particular dirty tricks, it's just a case of setting up uneven matches.
Setting up the fights is a job the DM should do on a character-by-character basis. The goal is to have a fight which will entertain the crowd (and the other players !) but which the character has a relatively low chance of winning. Fights are rarely to the death, but the characters will only be told this if they explicitly ask. A healer is normally on hand to stabilise anyone who goes down, once it is clear they have lost.
In most cases, the characters won't know who (or what) they are going up against. They'll hear the announcement and learn their antagonist's name just before they actually step into the arena and see their opponent for the first time.
Here are a few examples of fights that were set up for some of the characters;
Terry the Terrifying - this one was a light relief comedy fight. Or at least, it was as far as the crowd were concerned. The character, Gritgob the goblin rogue, was less convinced when he saw that Terry was actually a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Cleverly, he worked out that the real goal was to entertain the audience with spectacular near-misses and acrobatics, and to see how long he could stay out of trouble before it all went wrong.
Lady Mina - a fight set up for Xiang'Hua the Tabaxi monk. This was actually a total stitch-up, as she had annoyed some of the crowd previously with a bit too much condescending arrogance. Faden billed this as "the ultimate cat fight". Which it was; Mina was a Weretiger and thus completely immune to the monk's bare-handed attacks. Xiang'Hua totally failed to appreciate that the goal here was to put on a spectacular show, and to accept inevitable defeat with a good grace.
Harry the Huge - this was the headline fight, the warrior Khemet the battlemaster's opponent. Harry turned out to be a Hill Giant with maximum hit points. It was a brutal, bloody fight. Part way through, Khemet realised that his best tactic was to drop his sword and go toe to toe with fists. The fight ended up with the classic duel of punches, as each took it in turns to try to slug the other. Khemet won, putting Harry down with a final punch at a point where each had only a couple of hit points left and the next strike would win. He got a well-deserved gold armband for that one, and dined out for weeks on his reputation as the man who punched out a Hill Giant to become Champion of the Fighting Pits.
Sunset over the Fighting Pits
Very interesting. I look forward to more. 😁
A great post! The Fighting Pits can be a useful for any fantasy setting 👍
Thank you ! It's only when I started writing it up more formally that I realised just how much improvisation had gone into running it. I often work from a collection of snippets and notes when I'm running a session of this type, rather than a formal linear description.
One can see how much effort is going into hosting a session and making a cool experience for everyone at the table. I guess it`s better to have snippets and notes instead of a linear description at the table for more flexibility.
Sounds like Khemet definitely earned that gold armband XD
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This looks amazing! Do you eventually get the chance to use each of your creations in a tabletop session, or do you have more fun creating these environments?
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Thank you ! I do use most of the things I create in Flowscape. I have a feeling there's a lot more in the software that I haven't discovered yet, some of the things people showcase in their Reddit are incredible (but I guess they are true artists, while I'm just using it more pragmatically).
One thing I tend to do is use the "snapshot" feature with a very high camera angle to create battlemaps for Roll20, because I find the isometric view it gives me more attractive than the top-down map mode the software has.
Horizontal snapshots are a great way to create images showing the players the kind of view their characters have, which can really help build atmosphere (as well as being useful on posts introducing an adventure).