Alive and Well

17 juillet 2025 David Skelector Fantasy, Nature, Travel Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

I’m back from a trip to Nova Scotia with the wife and kids. It was great. We travelled along Northumberland shore with many great stops with view on the Atlantic ocean (the gulf of St-Lawrence to be more precise).

We survived going near Malignant Cove (awesome name, will steal it for an elfgame along with Folly Lake). We then went to the eastern part of the province in Cape Breton, where the locals were a bit confused with our french pronunciation of it (unwanted history lesson: Breton stands for France’s Bretagne), I’m not complaining really, the Nova Scotians are great folks, polite and welcoming Canadians through and through (a lot more than over here in Quebec I must say).

And we did the rightly famous Cabot Trail. My wife says that the Skyline trail is a bit overrated though, and in truth we all preferred our visit to the wetlands where we could see thousands of carnivorous pitcher plants among other things.

An artist view of me saving her from an excess of curiosity.

Beautiful and Gnarly. 100 yo and + trees.

I ate as much seafood as I could (and took a few pounds for it I think) but we also ate the best fire-grilled steak ever at Mother Webb’s in Antigonish. Thank god there’s no Mother Webb’s in Quebec City as my wife would be there 5 times a week I think!

We also nearly got all killed when we got stuck on the highway between a large, slow-moving farming machine and a non-slowing (down a slope) truck full of huge tree trunks, followed by another truck, but thankfully the truck’s driver reacted properly and got pass us full-speed in the gravel roadside. That was pretty frikkin close.

But hey, we’re still alive and unless you begin to think that I’m doing a travel blog, and as someone afflicted with GMS (Game Master Syndrome), whatever I do, wherever I go, I must find gameable content instead of, y’know, enjoying myself in the moment.

And so, I think Cape Breton would make for a great island, or small continent if upscaled maybe. The Bras d’or Lake is not really a lake in fact as it’s salt water and linked to the surrounding ocean in three places. A wonderful and impressive inner Sea with several strategic locations.

The name itself, Bras d’Or, Arm of Gold, is a bit incongruous but I think it has a feel of Lady in the Lake going on for it or something.

Well, come to think of it, that’s about all I have to say rpg-wise. I suppose I did enjoy myself!

Next D&D session prep – tropical waters

22 Mai 202324 octobre 2025 David Skelector D&D 5e, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Homebrew, jeux de rôles, Nature, Roleplaying Game, RPG, session prep Olung river, tomb of annihilation

Next session won’t be sooner than next month. Summer is Garden Time and my already sparse gaming schedule always take a big hit. Anyway, I’m still doing some prep in advance.

The PCs will be going south on the Olung river. They’ll have a few river encounters en route, one that is set with the events of last session (can’t talk more about this for the moment!). They are on board of the Inexorable Barge, a magical boat that can cross the steepest of riverfall without a sweat, so they’ll advance at a steady pace without having to do perilous portage.

One major site that can be found along the way is the Gardens of Nangalore. It’s a location that comes from Tomb of Annihilation, one of the good ones, that I’ve modified/expanded a lot (still working on this). The PCs know that explorer Castigliar lost his life while exploring the site. They also know that there’s some kind of powerful demoness or sorceress at the heart of this place. They don’t need to go there. They do have a few incentives to explore it though, we’ll see if they will be tempted…

They’ll eventually reach Lake Luo and from there, they’ll have to find the Star Princess airship or its crew kept captive by pterafolks, or both.

Does the river look like this?

It’s not very clear from the ToA book what the Olung (or any other rivers) look like.

Or like that?

A tendancy that I’ve seen often in rpgs is to downsize things just so they’ll fit a hex map or a decor prop. There’s moments when Theatre of the Mind is the way to go, but you have to first visualize what you’re gonna describe to the players!

Here’s a link that I thought was very useful:

(saw this on reddit, posted from user RaRaAcererak)

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/06-rainforest-rivers-lakes-swamps.html

I’ve learned that a section of the Congo river is called the « Gates of Hell », a « 75 miles long canyon of impassable rapids ». That’s pretty impressive. Another case of Nature being more awe-inspiring than fantasy.

Which is one reason why I’ll be gardening instead of gaming. See ya!