Building Better Villages for Greyhawk: How Bellwright’s Beta Brought Life to the Viscounty of Verbobonc DND Greyhawk Campaign

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By 3orcs If you're like me, crafting an immersive fantasy world means digging deeper than stat blocks and encounter tables. It means knowing where the bread is baked, who tends the goats, and what the smith drinks after dusk . That’s why I want to talk to you today—not about dice, but about a game that’s become an unlikely but powerful source of inspiration for my Greyhawk campaign: Bellwright . Currently available as a beta on Steam , Bellwright is a medieval survival village builder meets RPG-strategy hybrid . And if you're a Dungeon Master running something as iconic as Temple of Elemental Evil , I highly recommend checking it out—not just for play, but for inspiration . What is Bellwright? Imagine this: You’re not just scavenging or surviving in the woods. You’re building a village , defending it, managing its farms and hunters, recruiting people to your banner, and slowly building a network of settlements that owe you their lives. Bellwright is about liberating th...
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Project Update: Otis’s Smithy & Stable – Location 2 of the Village of Nulb

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Hey folks, David here from 3orcs. Just wrapped up Location 2 for the Village of Nulb module—Otis’s Smithy and Stable—and wow, this one took me the entire day to get right.

This one-page entry might look simple on the surface, but if you know Nulb... nothing ever is. Writing this location pushed me to really dig into the tone and flavor I want for this module—gritty, pragmatic, and lived-in. I’ve been drawing heavy inspiration from Glenn Cook's Black Company books (big fan, read 'em all multiple times), and trying to channel that same stark, no-nonsense energy into the village. It fits Nulb’s dirty, dangerous atmosphere perfectly.

What’s wild is that in the original Temple of Elemental Evil module, the smithy is mentioned—but there’s no mention at all of it being a boarding stable, or even pricing for shoeing, feed, etc. So I decided to expand that myself. Makes sense, right? People riding into this bandit swamp will want to leave their horses somewhere. I added stable services, grooming, and gear repair into the daily offerings, and grounded it with in-world pricing.

Now, Otis himself? He’s going to get his own full-page entry in the NPC section of the module—he deserves it. There’s a lot going on with this guy behind the forge. Let’s just say: he’s not your average horseshoe-wrangler. 😏

Oh—and yes, Nulb does have another stable listed in the expanded version: Martel’s Stables. That’ll be its own separate location later in the book. But for Otis’s place, this is the hidden anchor of the town. A quiet piece of law in a lawless hole.

Anyway—more coming soon. Thanks for following the Verbobonc Campaign Guide 576 CY project. Onward into the swamp!

—David

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