The City of Iron

Spelljammer!

2012-01-31T21:50:00.001+01:00

I never played this back in the day, or even looked at the books, but I always thought it sounded kinda cool. I think it sounds even cooler now, so I had a look on ebay. Luck was on my side, and I now have a very cheap copy of the books winging their way to me (albeit without the box -- which I'm not particularly bothered about).

I'm even thinking about running a Spelljammer game at the local con here in Berlin this year. Would be fun to crack out the proper AD&D 2e books again :)

Anyone got any experience / memories of Spelljammer they'd like to share? It's not something I hear mentioned very often...

April A to Z... an idea

2012-01-30T08:37:00.000+01:00

After the fun I had with last year's April A to Z, and the nice collection of spells which resulted from it, I've been thinking recently about 1: if I'll do it again this year, and 2: if so, what will be the theme?

Early on I ruled out doing another A to Z of spells, and had the idea that I wanted to use the alphabetic inspiration to put a bit more flesh into my Labyrinth Lord campaign somehow. A gazetteer of some kind? Descriptions of some inns and taverns in S'raka, the great city where the adventurers are based?

Yesterday an interesting idea came to me. I've had this concept that clerical spells aren't easy to come by. That you can't just walk into any old temple and request a raise dead or remove curse or whatever. The idea is that each spell can only be provided (and then usually as a long-winded ritual) by a temple or shrine whose patron is in some way connected to the effects of the spell. The only practical example of this in the campaign so far was when the PCs got one of their number extracted from his incarceration inside a magical book by visiting the temple of Griselda, lady of pacts and bindings, and getting a dispel magic cast.

So, I thought about maybe making an alphabetical list of all clerical spells, and for each one making up a few details about one or more temples in S'raka where the spell might be available. I reckon this would result in a very nice campaign resource, which would bleed over into adding a lot of detail to the various city districts, and to greatly fleshing out the multitudinous cosmic powers which are worshipped in the place.

I had a look, and there are no clerical spells (in Labyrinth Lord) beginning with the following letters: J, M, O, U, V, X, Y, Z. I'm not sure what I'd do about those yet. Perhaps also make up 8 new spells to fill the gaps... (I could probably also find suitably named cleric spells in AD&D 2nd edition.)

AD&D 2e kits as character inspiration

2012-01-28T12:08:00.002+01:00

Just reading Daddy Rolled a 1's post about AD&D 2nd edition, where he mentions how one thing he really liked about that edition was the "kits". I played a lot of AD&D 2e, but never used kits at all. But it got me thinking about them again, and I looked a few up.

My feeling about them now is that while mechanically I don't like them (they depend on the proficiencies system, and seem to add a lot of complicated abilities and mechanical bonuses to things, which I find too fiddly), I do like the flavour of them. I've often thought it'd be nice to give players a list of inspirational ideas for character concepts per class, especially in an old-school game where there are only a very limited number of classes, with no "options" at all.

So here are the kits for fighters, thieves, clerics and magic-users (the latter two aren't particularly imaginative to be honest). There's actually a complete list of them all in wikipedia, for further reference!

Fighters:
Amazon
Barbarian
Beat-rider
Berserker
Cavalier
Gladiator
Myrmidon
Noble Warrior
Peasant Hero
Pirate / Outlaw
Samurai
Savage
Swashbuckler
Wilderness Warrior

Thieves:
Acrobat
Adventurer
Assassin
Bandit
Beggar
Bounty Hunter
Buccaneer
Burglar
Cutpurse
Fence
Investigator
Scout
Smuggler
Spy
Swashbuckler
Swindler
Thug
Troubleshooter

Magic-Users:
Academician
Amazon Sorceress
Anagakok
Militant Wizard
Mystic
Patrician
Peasant Wizard
Savage Wizard
Witch
Wu Jen

Clerics:
Amazon Priestess
Barbarian/Berserker Priest
Fighting-Monk
Nobleman Priest
Outlaw Priest
Pacifist Priest
Peasant Priest
Prophet Priest
Savage Priest
Scholar Priest

The Sentient Races of Old Aalia

2012-01-22T19:03:00.002+01:00

Here's a little summary of the main sentient races that have featured in my LL campaign so far, mainly for the benefit of the players.

Humans (any alignment)
The usual deal.

The natives of Old Aalia are olive-skinned, like the people of the Mediterranean. Pale, blond-haired northerners, and dark-skinned southerners are also seen from time to time.

Mongrel-folk (any alignment)
The strange radiations which permeate the vaults of the great city S'raka have caused the accelerated and haphazard evolution of those down-trodden people who inhabit the region. Mutations, ranging from the completely debilitating to the potently novel, are rife among this folk.

Rat-folk (any alignment)
Rat-folk, sometimes called "halflings", are another race which has evolved in the warping influence of S'raka's vaults. They are half the size of humans, and appear to be a 50/50 cross-breed between humanoid and rat. Most rat-folk spend their lives in the vaults of S'raka, where they live as scavengers. A few of the more gifted members of this race sometimes venture to the surface, and may find a way to make a living as adventurers or business-owners. They are generally regarded as vermin, in the same social class as beggars or mongrel-men.

Dwarrow (typically LN, N, NE)
The dwarrow are a race similar to the standard D&D duergar. They live underground in labyrinthine cavern complexes which they constantly expand and mine for minerals. Dwarrow have jet black eyes, and skin that is gnarled like old tree roots and coloured in hues of earth or stone. Although they are important trade partners, the dwarrow are seldom trusted by humans -- they are exceptionally avaricious and scheming, regarding all forms of precious metal and gems as the sole property of their race.

Dwarrow are known for their contempt towards other races, and are fond of slavery. Kobolds are commonly kept as mining slaves by Dwarrow -- the fortress city of Minitol, in particular, maintains a very large population of the creatures. The Dwarrow of the Glaarm mountains in the far north of Old Aalia harbour a hatred and resentment of the race of Kobolds, with whom they have been at war since a slaves' revolt succeeded.

Swine-folk (typically CE)
Sworn enemies of human-kind, the swine-folk of Old Aalia are a detested race of carnivorous beast-men created centuries ago by a demented god. Wherever the swine-folk go they leave destruction in their wake.

Kobolds (typically L)
A diminutive race of snivelling wiry-haired dog-men, kobolds are equally at home underground and on the surface. They dwell primarily in the forests in the east of Old Aalia, though some kobold settlements are known to exist in the deeper vaults of S'raka. They are also often found in the company of dwarrow, who keep them as slaves. When left to their own devices, kobolds tend to roam around in large packs, and generally show little respect for other races, though among themselves they have a rigidly structured social hierarchy.

Forest Gnomes
A meek and homely race who live in burrows and caves among the roots of forest trees. They are friends with burrowing animals such as moles and badgers, and primarily enjoy the pleasures of a quiet life in a cosy home.

Svirfneblin (typically L or N)
Subterranean relatives of the forest gnomes, svirfneblin are a pale and almost hairless race who make their homes deep underground wherever gem deposits can be found. The race is so rarely seen (except by dwarrow, who encounter their communities in the course of their own delving) that rumours abound about their nature and their existence. A common conception among humans is that the svirfneblin cosmically manifest around mineral deposits.

Elves (typically N or C)
Tall, thin and ephemeral, elves are a fey race native to a magical dimension which exists in parallel to the world of men. They are of diverse appearance, being basically similar looking to humans, but always have one or more unusual features that mark them as obviously non-human, such as: pointed ears, silver or violet hair, cat-like eyes, sharp pointed teeth, extra fingers, etc.

Often Neutral in alignment, elves are fickle, mysterious and mischievous. They enjoy music and song, as well as fine food and drink -- but all their pleasures have a strange otherworldly quality, which other races can find both intoxicating and eerie. They have a talent for magic, and many individuals have some degree of innate magical potency.

Although they seldom co-habit, elves and goblins have a mutual respect for each other. Their kings perhaps have some kind of alliance.

Goblins (typically N, NE or CN)
A mischievous fey race, goblins are of diverse appearance. Typically they are half human size, hideously or comically ugly (by human standards), and have black or dark green skin. Though they seldom have any regular or organised contact with other races (apart from elves), they have a habit of appearing out of nowhere, causing trouble, and then returning to their own dimension via whatever subtle path they arrived by.

Album + Book + Artist = D&D Campaign

2012-01-22T14:02:00.000+01:00

Jon Anderson's Olias of Sunhillow

+ Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea

+ Patrick Woodroffe

Character Generation on Carcosa PDF

2012-01-17T10:02:00.002+01:00

I just finished compiling my Carcosa / Mutant Future character generation rules into a PDF.

Check it out it!

Note that these rules assume the use of the Mutants & Mazes section at the end of the MF rulebook. So we're talking D&D style characters (with 1HD at 1st level, not CON HD), possibly with mutations from MF.

Also note that in the end I decided to make the ability to learn and perform sorcerous rituals a special skill -- that is, not available to all characters. It kind of seemed to make more sense that way.

Carcosa -- Mini campaign map

2012-01-16T09:50:00.000+01:00

So now I've got all the chargen rules for my Carcosa game sorted, I've started having a bit of a think about an initial adventure, and whereabouts on the large campaign map it'd be set. The obvious place (I thought) is in the vicinity of hex 2005, as that has already been described in greater detail in the Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer adventure. So I chose hex 1905, one hex to the north-west of 2005, as the starting point.

To get things going, and to kind of orient myself in the setting I've created a basic map of hex 1905 and the six surrounding hexes. For now it just shows the points of interest which are described in the Carcosa book, with some names I've made up and a road drawn in between a few of the settlements. Seems like a good start... I'll add more details as I go.

(The hex PDF was courtesy of mojobob, by the way.)

Alternative halflings

2012-01-15T10:13:00.000+01:00

As I first read the Labyrinth Lord rule books, and began to conceive the campaign I'd like to run, one of the first decisions I made was to ditch hobbits and to reskin the halfling class / race as rat people. This simple change has worked out marvellously, and has really helped to add a bit of unique flavour to the setting.

I've been thinking recently about the word "halfling", and its possible use for a whole swathe of other half-sized folk, some of whom could quite possibly be adventurers.

Similarly, I thought that the standard halfling class or race could easily be used for these other races, perhaps with a slight tweak to give each of them some unique ability. So, mechanically speaking, the halfling races have all the abilities granted by the standard LL halfling race or class, apart from the hiding ability, which is replaced by a unique racial ability as described below. I have also given them all infravision, as they usually dwell underground.

Rat-folk: Humanoid rats, complete with fur, tails and twitchy noses. Actually do have the hiding ability (as per hobbits), which works 3 in 6 in any environment.

Kobolds: A diminutive race of snivelling dog men. Tend to hang out in packs. Kobold adventurers have the ability to track with their excellent sense of smell. In my campaign, kobolds are a wretched and cowardly race, although intensely loyal to their companions. Although their respect for other races is minimal, among themselves they tend towards lawful alignment. Their societies display the full range of good and evil, similar to any human culture.

Goblins: In my campaign goblins are a fey race (the same as elves), meaning that they originate from a parallel dimension, where they typically spend most of their time. Some however may become adventurers and choose to explore the physical world. As a special ability they know additional languages (the tongues of fey elves and pixies), can identify dimensional portals, and are 90% immune to charm effects. In my campaign, while goblins are mischievous and tend towards chaotic alignment, unlike the standard D&D goblins they are in no way inherently evil.

Deep gnomes (svirfneblin): Yet to be specifically encountered in our games, but having been referred to, this race dwells in deep subterranean caverns, and are sometimes encountered by the dwarrow as they delve for metals. They have the ability to know their depth and orientation underground, and to detect sloping passages. These abilities work 2 in 6 of the time. They also speak the tongue of the dwarrow.

Forest gnomes: A meek and homely race, unlikely to produce much in the way of bold adventurers. Nevertheless, if such an individual were to exist they would have the ability to speak the languages of burrowing animals, and a 2 in 6 chance of detecting decrepit or unstable structures underground.

Note that all of these races have the standard restrictions of the halfling race, as regards to minimum / maximum ability scores, and level limits.

Carcosa -- rituals

2012-01-12T21:23:00.001+01:00

The last phase of my Carcosa / Mutant Future chargen rules, we come to the learning and use of rituals. As previously discussed, I've decided to reduce the number of available classes to 1, effectively removing the sorcerer class as presented in Carcosa. However, this doesn't mean that rituals are an NPC only thing. On the contrary, any PC can learn and perform rituals (or at least try). The concept I'm going with here is that when adventurers "find a ritual", they've actually (in general) found a complete description of everything involved in performing it -- including any esoteric theorems or such like which might be needed as background.

So taking a leaf from Call of Cthulhu, the main difficulty with rituals... well, the main difficulty in addition to the moral and logistic problems inherent in most Carcosan rituals, is the time required to study all that weird text and understand and learn it well enough to be able to perform it properly. I think I'll say 1 week per attempt to learn a ritual. As with other "skills", learning a ritual will have a 2 in 6 chance of success, modified by INT, and can be retried over and over, if a PC wants to.

In addition to having a high INT, two other factors are relevant. Jale Men get a +1 bonus, as do those with the arcane lore talent.

Other than that, all the rituals in the Carcosa book will operate exactly as described therein.

Now, the second point of interest is that I want to also allow all the rituals from Call of Cthulhu to be (potentially) accessible to PCs as well! This was an idea that struck me as I was reading Carcosa -- how I also have this other book on my shelf (CoC 30th anniversary edition) which has loads of cool creepy rituals which would fit right in with Carcosa. They're a lot lighter on the human sacrifice, but their effects are generally less far-reaching as well. I thought that the two types of ritual would nicely complement each other.

The only trouble is that D&D (or Mutant Future, in this case) is a different beast than Call of Cthulhu, mechanically speaking. Conversion time!

(CoC veterans, please forgive and correct my ignorance if anything I write here is totally wrong! I'm just going from having read the CoC 6th edition rules, but never having played a game with them...)

Here's what I was thinking:

When a ritual specifies a loss of magic points, this translates to a loss of hit points. A nice simple system, which fits well with the D&D trope of PCs gaining more hps (and thus being able to use more magic) as they go up in level. I also like the idea that by using some types of magic you are actually risking your own life.
Rituals which specify a loss of sanity result in an equivalent (but temporary) loss of WIS. WIS lost in this way would be recovered at a rate of 1 point per day or week or something.
Rituals causing a loss of POW (which is permanent, as far as I gather) result in a permanent loss of WIS.

WIS, then, is being seen as representative of a character's sanity, which is a system I've heard mentioned here and there before. It has the nice side-effect, I think, that loss of WIS makes a character more susceptible to magical forces -- i.e. to having his or her mind blasted and taken over by otherworldly entities. Nice.

Other than that, I think the CoC rituals should work pretty much as written in a D&D environment.

So, that concludes my Carcosan chargen rules. Mix that lot in with Jeff's "what went wrong" doc and I think we have a nice old-school system mash-up on our hands!

I'll probably put all this together into a PDF at some point, for use in my planned Carcosa session(s), and for the reference of anyone else who decides to go down a similar route!

ps. That was my 200th post on this blog! Crikey, that went quickly!

Carcosa -- Classes, skills & talents

2012-01-11T09:21:00.002+01:00

So, next up in my Carcosa / Mutants & Mazes chargen rules is choosing a class. In Carcosa it is suggested that there are only two classes of adventurer: fighters and sorcerers. I have decided to reduce this even further and have only one class, making the whole concept of classes redundant. Thus there are no classes.

All characters progress as fighters, in terms of hit points, to hit rolls, XP, saving throws, etc. They can all use any weapons and armour. (Probably... I am also considering a simple weapon proficiencies system, where each character is proficient in like 4 weapons, and suffers -2 to hit with others.)

What differentiates characters (apart from their randomly determined race and any background / personality traits which the player might imagine) is a choice of talents.

Before going into what the talents do, here are four standard skill rolls which players can make. You will notice these are based on the standard "adventuring actions" of D&D. All skill rolls have a base 2 in 6 chance of success, modified by specified attribute (minimum 1 in 6 chance, maximum 5 in 6).

Move quietly (DEX) - penalised by 1 per point of AC below 8.
Search - one turn per attempt. (Note that you stand a better chance of finding things if you describe specifically what you're doing.)
Climb (DEX) - 30' per roll, penalised by 1 per point of AC below 8.
Smash stuff (STR) - usually makes a lot of noise.

Ok, pretty simple, and you can see how characters with high DEX, for example, could choose to wear light armour in order to take on a thief type role.

So, the talents. Each player can choose 3 of the following for his PC. As currently conceived, these are a one-off choice -- it's not possible to learn new talents as a PC advances. Again, many of them are based on a 2 in 6 chance of success, possibly modified by an attribute.

Lockpicking (DEX) - one turn per attempt.
Pick pockets (DEX) - target notices on a roll of 6.
Tracking - make a search roll to find & follow tracks.
Languages - know additional languages per INT score.
Climb sheer surfaces (DEX) - automatically succeed at climbing, roll to climb sheer surfaces.
First aid - spend one turn up to 1 hour after a battle to heal 1d3 hp.
Move silently (DEX) - automatically succeed at moving quietly, roll to move silently.
Weapon specialist - +1 to hit with specialised weapon.
Heavy armour specialist - 25% less encumbrance from metal armour.
Slayer - +1 to hit & damage against special enemy.
Tech lore (INT) - one turn per attempt to identify tech items. +2% to use artefacts.
Arcane lore (INT) - one turn per attempt to identify magical effects or creatures. +1 bonus to learning rituals.
Awareness - +1 bonus to searching. Only surprised on a 1.
Poisons (INT) - use poisons safely, one turn per attempt to identify substances.
Backstab - +4 to hit, double damage.

It's probably clear that that list of talents contains a large proportion of the class abilities from traditional D&D, and even some from AD&D. Obviously the cleric's abilities aren't in the list, but that class doesn't fit at all in the setting, so things like turning undead were deliberately left out.

It's a nice, quick, simple system, but I think it should provide enough choices and variety to make characters interesting.

Next up: rituals! (and that's where Call of Cthulhu will also enter the mix :)

Dungeon stocking -- it's all about atmosphere

2012-01-10T22:42:00.001+01:00

Just finishing a very pleasant dungeon stocking session, and thought I'd share a nice atmospheric photo of the surroundings. DM prep is best done by candlelight, I find :)

5e -- why should I care?

2012-01-10T10:11:00.000+01:00

Yes, the obligatory 5e post ;)

My reaction is: I have a kind of theoretical interest in what WotC might get up to with D&D 5e, but otherwise:

Why should I be interested in a new "version" of D&D?
I have the Labyrinth Lord books which I use to run my games.
I also have loads of AD&D books.
I also have all the important AD&D 2e books, for that matter.
If I really need it, the important bits of 3e (the SRD) are freely available online.
I also have free downloads of any number of other rule sets (S&W, OSRIC, LOTFP, etc) available.

Basically I have far more rule books than I will ever need, and the ability to house rule stuff together to cover bits I don't like or feel like modifying. So why should I be interested in a new "version" of D&D?

I just don't really get it... what do WotC want people to be interested in here? (And I'm not just talking about us OSR grognard types... same goes for people still playing 3rd edition, Pathfinder, 4th edition...)

I guess they're just relying on gamer ADD, the search for something new and perhaps "better".

Maybe there is a good reason why I should care about 5e, that I've not thought of yet. But for now, I'll stick with the plentiful gaming material I've already got... no reason to change.

As to what I would be interested in seeing WotC produce, well, personally nothing. I just don't tend to buy gaming materials apart from the rulebooks I use to run games. But I know lots of people like to buy campaign settings and adventures.

To be honest it surprises me that they think what people really want is another set of rules! Strange.

Carcosa -- Attributes & mutations

2012-01-08T09:47:00.000+01:00

Continuing my planned house rules for creating characters in Carcosa, up next is attributes and mutations.

Attributes will simply be rolled 3d6 in order. Quick, traditional and fraught.

However, as a slight twist, every attribute rolled which is below average (i.e. 8 or lower) grants the character a beneficial mutation from the lists in Mutants & Mazes. Scores of 7 or 8 grant a class 1 mutation, 5s or 6s grant a class 2 mutation, and 3s or 4s grant a class 3 mutation. Where applicable (class 2 & 3) there's a 50% chance of the mutation being physical, and a 50% chance of it being mental.

For ease of reference I've compiled mutation tables which include the experience level at which each mutation becomes active. For mutations which first activate at 2nd level or higher, I think I'll create a list of pre-active variations, so that the mutation has some use before its main effect "goes live". For example energy retaining cell structure, which is fully active from 3rd level, would perhaps allow a 1st or 2nd level character to discharge a minor shock (1d6 damage) once per day.

Class 1 Physical Mutations

d10	Mutation	Level
1	Aberrant Form	1
2	Dwarfism	1
3	Echolocation	1
4	Epidermal Photosynthesis	1
5	Gigantism	1
6	Night Vision	1
7	Prehensile Tail	1
8	Spiny Growth	1
9	Thermal Vision	1
10	Ultraviolet Vision	1

Class 2 Physical Mutations

d00	Mutation	Level
01-11	Energy Retaining Cell Structure	3
12-22	Fragrance Development	1
23-33	Increased Balance	1
34-44	Increased Physical Attribute	1
45-55	Increased Sense	1
56-66	Natural Armor	1
67-77	Optic Emissions (bright eyes)	5
78-88	Shriek	1
89-95	Toxic Weapon	5
96-00	Unique Sense	1

Class 3 Physical Mutations

d12	Mutation	Level
1	Chameleon Epidermis	1
2	Complete Wing Development	1
3	Density Alteration (Self)	7
4	Dermal Poison Slime	1
5	Dual Headed	1
6	Energy Ray	4
7	Metamorph	7
8	Optic Emissions (gamma eyes)	5
9	Parasitic Control	7
10	Quickness	5
11	Reflective Epidermis	3
12	Regenerative Capability	1

Class 2 Mental Mutations

d12	Mutation	Level
1	Ability Boost	1
2	Acute Hyper Healing	3
3	Combat Empathy	1
4	Empathy	1
5	Increased Willpower	1
6	Intellectual Affinity	1
7	Know Direction	1
8	Mental Barrier	1
9	Mental Phantasm	5
10	Metaconcert	1
11	Mind Thrust	1
12	Neural Telepathy	3

Class 3 Mental Mutations

d00	Mutation	Level
01-04	Accumulated Resistance	1
05-08	Ancestral Form	11
09-13	Body Adjustment	5
14-18	Control Light Waves	5
19-22	Control Weather	10
23-26	Damage Turning	5
27-32	Density Alteration (Others)	7
33-36	Disintegration	11
37-41	Dual Cerebellum	1
42-46	Flight, Psionic	5
47-50	Force Screen	7
51-54	Force Screen, Greater	9
55-58	Killing Sphere	10
59-64	Neural Telekinesis	9
65-69	Plane Shift	9
70-74	Possession	9
75-78	Precognition	3
79-82	Mind Reflection	7
83-86	Quick Mind	7
87-92	Teleport	9
93-96	Temperature Control	5
97-00	Vampiric Field	12

Carcosa -- Racial determination and benefits

2012-01-07T10:31:00.001+01:00

So, as I mentioned in my mini-review of the mighty Carcosa supplement, my thoughts turned immediately to using the book in play. As the book comes with no assumed rules set (it's broadly D&D, but could work with any edition really), this inevitably led to the question: which game system to use to run it? What came to mind is three things: Labyrinth Lord (for the D&D base), Mutant Future (to further emphasise the pulp sci-fi / post-apocalyptic elements in Carcosa) and Call of Cthulhu (for more rituals -- more on this another time).

What I ended up deciding on is a mixture of all three! The base is Mutants & Mazes, the LL-MF integration described in an appendix of Mutant Future. I've come up with a very simple custom character generation system, which I'll post here in sections over the coming days.

The first topic is race. The Carcosa book describes the 13 different races of Men who inhabit the planet, but doesn't mention how a PC's race should be determined, or any differences between the races apart from skin colour. So I thought a random table would be in order, including some little mechanical differences for each of the races.

d30	Race	Benefit
1-2	Black	+1 bonus to saving throws versus poison or disease
3-4	Blue	+1 bonus to unarmed attacks
5-6	Bone	+1 CON
7-8	Brown	+1 bonus to saving throws versus magic
9-10	Dolm	+1 bonus to melee attacks
11-12	Green	+1 STR
13-14	Jale	+1 bonus to learning rituals
15-16	Orange	+1 INT
17-18	Purple	+1 WIS
19-20	Red	+1 bonus to missile attacks
21-22	Ulfire	+1 CHA
23-24	White	+1 DEX
25-26	Yellow	+1 bonus to saving throws versus fear or psionics
27-28	Roll again	Gain a mutation*. Additional rolls of 27-28 stack.
29-30	Roll again	Gain a psionic power. Additional rolls of 29-30 stack.

* For racially determined mutations I'll probably use the table in the appendix of Carcosa. Obviously, as I'm planning on using Mutant Future, the beneficial mutations therein will also come into play.

ps. For players in my Labyrinth Lord campaign: don't worry, your PCs are not about to be mysteriously warped to Carcosa! Haha. I'll probably run it as a one shot / occasional sessions, just for fun.

Carcosa!

2012-01-06T10:45:00.000+01:00

Having received the new LOTFP edition of Carcosa in December, I sat down last night to have a first proper read of it (I'd just flicked through it previously). And, wow! I was really impressed.

To give this mini-review a happy ending, as I'm indeed very very happy with Carcosa, I'm going to describe a few minor gripes I have with the book, before going into the things I love about it.

Firstly, I do question the unusual choice of Armour Class system -- ascending from 12 -- as this system isn't used in any traditional or modern version of the game, meaning that the vast majority people who use this book will have to come up with some kind of conversion table or formula. I presume the base 12 ascending system is used in James Raggi's LOTFP RPG, but I think AC either descending or ascending from 10 would have been a better choice in this respect, as those are far more familiar and more easily usable to most people. But that's a very minor quibble.

Secondly, I got the feeling that the book is written with a certain amount of knowledge of the source material (especially the writings of H.P. Lovecraft) pre-assumed. I've personally only read a smattering of Lovecraft, and found myself a little confused by the unexplained references to things like Old Ones, the Great Race, Primordial Ones, etc, and the relation all these beings have to Carcosa. A very small introductory passage, describing what these Mythos races have been up to on Carcosa (similar to the section describing the races of Men on Carcosa), would have been much appreciated. As it is, the book launches straight into a section on "Technological Artifacts of the Great Race", before any mention has been made as to who or what the Great Race are.

Lastly, despite the physical beauty of the book, I wonder how practical the A5 format is for use at the gaming table. It's not possible to lay it flat open at a page, for example, which is possible with traditional full-size RPG books.

So, those minor issues aside, here's why I love it!

Firstly, purely as a physical artefact, the book is beautiful. It's definitely the best looking gaming book I own. The artwork, layout and quality of construction are all top notch. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into these things, and it has really paid off.

Secondly, as an RPG sourcebook, it did what good examples of such books should do -- made me want to play! Reading through it, the mind is filled with so much amazing imagery, and presented with so many interesting situations, monsters, encounters and treasures, that one cannot help but immediately think about how awesome it would be to use this stuff in play.

Aside from the vividly described details of the setting, one thing which really struck me as well was how usable and flexible the content is. It is fairly light on mechanics, meaning that it'd be easy to use with any version of D&D (or clones), and a good number of other RPGs as well, no doubt. Completely unexpectedly, I was eager to use Carcosa not only with Labyrinth Lord (my D&D flavour of choice), but also with Mutant Future, and even Call of Cthulhu! In fact, I pretty much concluded that I'd use an unholy hybrid of the three to run games in Carcosa (more on this another time).

As to the controversial ritual sorcery, it is very horrid. To be honest I can't really imagine running a game where the PCs were the ones doing this kind of thing. But from the point of view of flavour it really adds a lot to the setting, and even if the PCs only come across others performing these rituals, or encounter them in old tomes or libraries, the presence of such magic would weigh heavily on the mood.

In conclusion, this is a first class RPG supplement, and may perhaps gain the honour of being the first pre-written setting that I will actually make any use of!

2011 retrospective

2012-01-02T17:00:00.001+01:00

2011 was the year I properly launched myself into the OSR. On Jan 16th I DMed my first game of Labyrinth Lord, and that, as they say, was that -- I've not looked back since.

As some others in the blogosphere have been doing, I thought I'd kick off 2012 with a look back at what I got up to in the previous year. Just looking through the posts I made last year, I've picked out one or two each month, which for me are defining moments.

In January, I played old-school D&D for the first time in many years, and put the finishing touches on my Tome of the Spider Mage.
In February, I published a PDF of my Elementalist class for Labyrinth Lord, and wrote about psychoactive substances for adventurers.
In March, I wrote some nice illusionist spells dealing with prisms.
In April, I participated in the A-Z challenge, which ended up in the publication of a PDF with a load of new spells: An Arcane Alphabet.
In May, I decided to run my first game at a con, and wrote an amusing little historical piece about orcs in my campaign world.
In June, I decided to write a book!
In July, I won something.
In August, I published a PDF of my Necromancer class for Labyrinth Lord.
In September, I didn't do that much, but I did name the book.
In October, I had an idea for an online collection of old-school monsters, which Alex Schröder kindly realised during the night, while I slept! It unfortunately hasn't gotten the attention it deserves, so go and check it out right now!
In November, I finished the draft version of my book, and had some amusing conversation about what happens to playerless PCs in a dungeon.
In December, I didn't do much, but I did draw a funny picture.

All in all 2011 was a great year for my old-school gaming activities! Looking forward to more this year -- including, of course, the completion and publication of Theorems & Thaumaturgy!

Happy 2012 everyone!

Doing without the cleric class: Blessings & pacts

2011-12-18T10:40:00.000+01:00

[Players in my Labyrinth Lord campaign, don't worry, I won't be changing anything, as we've already agreed you can use the cleric class as written. This is just musings, but actually is more in line with how I would see such things working in this setting.]

The cleric class is one which I've never been that keen on. I think in the right setting -- one in which militant and hierarchical religious organisations are very influential -- they can be great, but somehow none of the settings I tend to be attracted to have much emphasis on such institutions, making clerical adventurers an odd fit. Actually, in general I tend to baulk against all classes which come with some kind of built-in moral imperative or social background (clerics, druids, assassins, rangers, paladins... even sometimes the humble thief!), preferring to stick with a more neutral tone where adventurers can simply be adventurers, without having some exterior agenda. Given this, I sometimes find myself musing about how some of the important abilities of the cleric class, such as healing and turning undead, could be maintained in a setting without clerics as a class of adventurer. My latest musing have led me to something like the following.

Cosmic Blessings
Any character can visit the myriad temples devoted to weird cosmic powers which exist throughout the world. Many of these temples have priests who can perform various rituals, channelling the power of their patron to bring about miraculous effects in the physical world. It is also possible for individuals to make offerings to the patron of a temple or shrine in the hope of receiving a blessing.

Blessings take the form of imbued clerical spells. Any PC can be imbued with a single 1st level clerical spell, and those with higher WIS can receive additional blessings according to the normal chart for extra clerical spells. (Characters with low WIS may also have a percentage chance of not receiving a blessing when making an offering.) Once a blessing has been received from a cosmic power, it is imbued in the character until used / cast.

Naturally, all blessings come at a cost. I imagine something like 50gp for a 1st level spell, then 100gp per spell level for 2nd and higher level spells.

Also note that each blessing must be attained from an appropriate temple -- for example, cure light wounds from a healing power, spiritual weapon from a deity of battle, and so on. This could lead to interesting campaign possibilities, where a journey to a shrine in an attempt to receive a specific blessing could become an adventure in itself.

Cosmic powers are fine with general promiscuity of worship -- they are quite happy to bless someone who has already been blessed by several other powers.

Cosmic Pacts
Another option, again open to all characters, is to make a pact with a specific cosmic power who patronises an appropriate area of influence. Such a pact is regarded as lifelong, and monogamous -- a marriage, so to speak, of a mortal soul with a cosmic power.

This is the point at which my musings get a bit fuzzy... what exactly would be the benefit of a lifelong pact? Possibly one or more (appropriate) clerical spells "for free" per day, and possibly even using some kind of spell progression based on character level or something else.

There would, however, also have to be some kind of downside -- the cosmic power is going to want something in return. The only thing I've specifically thought of so far would be the mortal's soul, to be claimed immediately upon death (making PC resurrection difficult or impossible). This would be a fairly severe option, but would lend an appropriate weight to such pacts, and would make it an interesting and somewhat risky choice for PCs to make. The choice of which power to make a pact with would also be an interesting roleplaying opportunity, as each power would, presumably, grant completely different abilities to its followers, perhaps domain-specific abilities like I've discussed before here and here.

If anyone has any further thoughts or ideas for such a system please feel free to comment!

Underworld sketches -- Dungeon Welcome

2011-12-12T14:05:00.000+01:00

I'm off work ill today, laying around in bed, listening to music. And from somewhere the inspiration to draw something struck me. I've not drawn anything just for the sake of it for many years, decades in fact. But I find the result rather charming, and it was, obviously, D&D related. I present the sketch for your amusement. I imagine this monster to be some kind of weird dungeon welcome committee.

Spells of the god of gold -- part 1

2011-12-11T10:26:00.001+01:00

I previously developed, in collaboration with one of the players in my Labyrinth Lord campaign, a set of new spells available to clerics of the god of blades. Now there's a new cleric in town (/ in the party), a fellow called Obadiah, who is a staunch follower of a cosmic entity known as "Assedh, god of gold and precious metals". So we've been putting a bit of thought to some special spells for worshippers of that god.

Here's what we've come up with for the low level spells. (One is, obviously, a Labyrinth Lord adaptation of a classic from AD&D.)

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Assedh's Pick
Level: 1
Duration: See below
Range: Touch

This spell has two possible uses, which may be chosen as it is cast.

Firstly it may be used to enchant a pick for 2 rounds per level of the caster. The weapon gains +1 to attack and damage, and is able to harm beings which can only be affected by magic.

Alternatively, the spell can enchant a pick as a cosmically enhanced digging aid. The enchantment lasts for 1 turn per level of the caster, and enables a 5' cubic area of earth to be dug out in one turn.

Deeppockets
Level: 2
Duration: 12 hours, +1 hour per level
Range: Touch

This spell places an enchantment on a specially constructed garment, allowing its pockets to contain an increased capacity. The selected garment must have at least a dozen small pockets sewn into it, and must have golden thread woven into it, costing at least 100gp. When enchanted, the garment's pockets are collectively able to contain up to 100 pounds of weight (1,000 coins) as if it were only 10 pounds. In addition to the weight reducing capability, the enchanted pockets show no visible bulge, even when completely full. Items larger than 1 cubic foot cannot be placed in the pockets.

If the spell ends (either due to its duration expiring, or due to being dispelled) while there are items inside the pockets, the wearer of the garment must make a saving throw versus spells. If the save succeeds, the items in the pockets are dumped at the subject's feet. If the save fails, however, the contents of the pockets are lost in some alternate dimension.

Locate Precious Metals
Level: 3
Duration: Instant
Range: 120'

Upon casting this spell the cleric becomes instantly aware of all quantities of precious metals within range. The caster gains an approximate knowledge of the value of precious metals present, as well as a precise location in terms of distance (for example "30' north, 20' east").

Underground, this spell only detects metals on the same dungeon level as the caster, thus it cannot be used to detect treasure on higher or lower levels.

Theorems & Thaumaturgy proofreading

2011-12-06T08:25:00.001+01:00

Hello people who were interested in proofreading my book of spells!

I've noticed that in the past I've had some trouble with emails from my account being ruthlessly junk mailed by some email providers, so I just thought I'd check... I sent emails to Bob, Quibish and Jim Pacek a couple of weeks ago and haven't heard anything back yet, and just wanted to check you guys received the mails. No worries at all if you did receive the mail but haven't had time to look at it yet, I just wanna make sure everyone who offered to help has got a copy of the book now.

If you could drop me an email / comment here to let me know if you did / didn't receive the book that'd be great.

Also if anyone else reading this would be interested in a spot of proofreading, just let me know!

Thanks everyone!

Labyrinth Lord PDFs updated

2011-12-04T11:15:00.001+01:00

I recently discovered that the file for the souvenir font which I've been using was somehow corrupt -- it had a few weird artefacts on certain characters when I printed it on my printer at home, but I assumed this was a problem in the printer or the driver, not in the font itself. However one of the players in my campaign found that printing one of the PDFs caused three different printers he tried it on to crash with firmware errors! This led me to track down a new copy of the font, which now works on all known printers*.

So I've re-exported all the PDFs in the downloads section on the right. As a result, the Esoteric Equipment & Urban Activities, Expanded Thief, and the Necromancer documents have had a content update as well, to the latest versions that we're using in the campaign.

* Based on a sample of 4.

Adventure Log PDF

2011-12-03T11:28:00.001+01:00

I thought I'd share this very simple adventure log sheet which I've just knocked up for my Labyrinth Lord games.

Get it here.

Musick to play in the dark

2011-12-01T22:49:00.001+01:00

I just received a CD of one of my favourite albums today, which I've only ever heard on mp3 before -- "The place where the black stars hang" by Lustmord. A dark ambient classic.

A short poem in the CD insert caught my eye / imagination, and revealed a previously unthought connection between Lustmord and Lovecraft:

Not stars but suns
or these alone
noxious shrouds of flame
form a universal dread
of abnormal formless spawn

Nethermost abnormal son
that lies beyond the sun
eternal, dark
undying
answerable to none

There is a place
where the black stars hang
and the strangest eons call
that amorphous mass
unknown, immense
ambivalent to all

Pick pockets results charts!

2011-11-26T09:58:00.001+01:00

I've been doing a spot of musing lately on what sort of things could result when a PC thief attempts a bit of petty pocket picking on the side in between adventures. This comes up every so often, especially now we have three thieves in the party, and I'm never properly prepared for the event. Unprepared no longer!

I present my lovingly crafted pick pockets results charts! (Players in my campaign, please don't look at the charts, unless you love spoiling fun that is ;)

This is the second draft of these charts. The initial version I came up with included a lot more extreme results -- including being able to pilfer some pretty valuable items, and the accompanying possibility of severe punishment (incarceration or execution!). After some discussion with the players we decided that, while this was realistic, it wasn't much fun. So the final tables have been kind of smoothed out. Items of moderate wealth can be stolen, and moderately bad consequences of failure may occur, but nothing at either extreme.

I hope some other DM out there might also find these charts useful!

Theorems & Thaumaturgy update: writing finished (!?)

2011-11-19T21:29:00.001+01:00

Yes, I can hardly believe it when I type it, but I think I finished the writing of Theorems & Thaumaturgy today! That means there are no more TODO notes to myself in there, all the spells are finished, and all sections finalised.

There's still some way to go, of course: proofreading and artwork. The people who kindly volunteered to do some proofreading can expect to receive an email from me rather soon now. Artwork is under way -- no illustrations done as yet, but with three artists gearing up for it.

Phew! What a project it's been, so far... I can't wait to see the end result lying on my gaming table and being consulted by a motley crew of necromancers, elementalists and fey elves! :D

One interesting thing that I noticed is that the last little bits of finishing up on the book involved quite a few decisions to remove stuff. You know, some of the TODOs had been lying around in there for months, and I got the feeling that some of them just weren't going to happen, or at least not in a way that'd really do the idea justice. So I thought it better to just remove them, rather than do a half-hearted job. I found that an interesting process.

DM info sheets: Specialists

2011-11-19T09:36:00.001+01:00

I've recently been putting a bit of thought into the kind of specialists living in a big city which PCs might want to consult or hire. As a result of this I've knocked up some simple info sheets to print out and fill in the details of such characters, which I thought I'd share, in case they're useful for anyone else.

They contain a very small amount of mechanical information, and are otherwise just convenient tables with blanks to fill in.

So far I have: Sages, Magic-Users, Shrines and Alchemists.

New monster: Taxidermic Basilisk

2011-11-17T09:40:00.001+01:00

Inspired by an incident in our game last night involving stuffed animals, may I present the taxidermic basilisk...

(Also added to the old-school monster wiki.)

This post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Basilisk, Taxidermic
No. Enc.: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 90’ (30’)
Armor Class: 3
Hit Dice: 6 + 1
Attacks: 2 (bite, gaze)
Damage: 1d8 / taxidermify
Save: F6
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: XVII
XP: 570

The product of a bizarre magical warping of the average basilisk, these creatures may occasionally be found in the lairs of mad wizards and the like. Slightly smaller, more lithe and more serpentine than the normal basilisk, the taxidermic basilisk has scales of a dark green colour, with scintillating pearlescent eyes. The gaze of this creature carries a deadly curse – any who look into its eyes must save versus polymorph or be instantly transformed into a stuffed version of themselves. In combat, characters who avoid meeting the creature’s gaze attack at -4 (-1 if using a mirror). Creatures which fall victim to the taxidermic basilik’s gaze can only be returned to their normal form via obscure magic (which may be in the possession of a magic-user who would create such a creature) or powerful spells such as limited wish.

What happens to a PC in a dungeon whose player is not present?

2011-11-14T09:17:00.001+01:00

A game session is halted in the middle of a dungeon or other weird supernatural locale far from home. When the subsequent session comes around one or more of the players who were there last time are unable to attend. What happens to their PC(s)?

Some initial ideas:

Disappear in some freak act of teleportation
Turn to stone
Miniaturized
Turn into a figment –cannot interact with anything, cannot pass through solid objects
Kidnapped by shadows,demons, imps, etc
Absorbed into theground
Fall into a faint and cannot be roused

(All these effects are, of course, intended to be temporary. When the player returns the character will recover / reappear.)

Please provide further ideas... if we could build it up to d20, d30 or even d100 that'd be awesome!
(The concept is that the missing PCs should not be able to function as normal party members, or to help the PCs of the players who are present. The assumption is that in mythical realms like dungeons, the laws of normal reality are weakened and weirdness holds sway. So, pretty much anything goes.)

Continued...

Character is turned into a frog by pixies. Another character must carry them for the entire session.
The character turns out to be a doppleganger. The real character is back at the tavern tied up and naked in the storeroom.
The character turns out to be a doppleganger. The real character is held by monsters somewhere in the dungeon!
The character was a hallucination of the other others and wasn't with them in the first place.
Character and all equipment is transformed into a pink mule, complete with (empty) saddle bags.
Turned into a gold coin that has fallen into the treasure when no one was looking.
Abducted by scientists, via a time travel/teleportation device and subjected to annoying, tedious and ill-informed questions about "the past," then finally returned to his own time.
Kidnapped by Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus, who needed a last minute date for a swanky party in Nessus.
As above, but it's an intime soiree and the PC gets to sit at a dinner table with the Big Man himself.
PC falls into a rupture in time-space and is immediately deposited at the time and place, most convenient for the DM.
PC is abducted by aliens, probed, then returned.
The gods decided to put mankind on trial. Guess who got to appear and testify for the whole of humanity.
PC is whisked away to a dimension where they are fed midnight tomatoes by beautiful women, lying on a chaise longue.
Character transformed into an incredibly lifelike tattoo on one of the other PCs.
Character disappears and is replaced by a sheet of paper covered in stats describing their abilities and equipment.

The personal diary of Weebrian Jig -- part 1

2011-11-13T10:03:00.001+01:00

Play report after our first session of AD&D 1st edition. Written from the point of view of my character Weebrian Jig.

The personal diary of Weebrian Jig, Prestidigitator of the Illuminated Order of Mesmerists, Servant of the 7th Angle.

12. Readying 579CY.

Called as a representative of the IOM on official guild business to the Guildhall of Verbobonc. Met one Alderman Crow, the chairman of the town council, and the venerable Mellium, sage of Verbobonc. Also present were an unusual group of warriors (mostly of orcish blood, I remarked) and a druid of Gnarley. It was requested that myself, the warriors and the druid travel to the village of Hommlet, some two days' journey south of Verbobonc, to surreptitiously investigate the uprising of banditry in the area. It was suggested that we had been chosen for this task as we were relatively unknown in the region, and were to conduct our investigations under the guise of a travelling band of adventurers so as not to rouse fear in the village. It was hinted that this may have something to do with events 10 years past in the area involving a "temple of elemental evil" which was defeated. We were told that Lord Rufus and Lord Burn in the village know of our planned arrival, and may be spoken to in confidence.

After the meeting I invited my companions-to-be to the Rusty Nail, which, bearing in mind their "unusual" racial stock as well as the fact that they were outsiders to Verbobonc, I thought would be a safe place to take them in the city without risking any trouble. One of the warriors, a brutal looking chap, but who apparently had some noble heritage in addition to his orcish blood (must remember to inquire after this), initially refused to enter the tavern, deeming it in some way beneath his station. Tis indeed a homely establishment, not intended for nobility, but I make no excuses for having taken them there, as I had good (aforementioned) reason and besides know nothing of upper class establishments. In any case another of the warriors, a strikingly beautiful young lady, apparently a follower of St Cuthbert, persuaded this haughty nobleman to join us.

Unsure whether the orcish heritage of my companions bodes for ill or good.

13. Readying 579CY.

None of my travelling companions reported any unusual dreams, or any dreams whatsoever, despite my request. My own dreams were tranquil and featured (several times) the unusual image of a unicorn eating potatoes.

Was pleased to note that Wilstan, one of my warrior companions, performed an augury upon the morn of our departure, casting the entrails of a chicken upon the ground. However as I stooped to interpret the divination he thrust his boot into the guts and requested that we should all do likewise. Naturally I refused, somewhat mystified at his intent. I believe he is a follower of Rao, although I have not previously heard of such strange customs among the worshippers of the god of Reason & Serenity.

With horses provided by the city of Verbobonc, we set off upon our way, with grey clouds looming overhead. Leaving the safety of Verbobonc, I wisely clad myself in a plain black cloak, covering my IOM regalia so as to blend in with the everyday travellers of the road. Intended to reach the village of Etterboek by the afternoon and to overnight there. Along the road we encountered: Dwarvish merchants heading north to Verbobonc, a horned beast of some kind (spotted in the distance by the sharp eyes of Kazhireh, a female warrior, also of Gnarley), a thunderous rain storm, soaking us to the skin.

Stayed in the Golden Cockerel inn in Etterboek. An adequate, although expensive, establishment. No specialty desserts were offered, disappointingly.

14. Readying 579CY.

Set off early, on a clear windy morning, hoping to reach Hommlet by nightfall.

The road was not busy. The only people we encountered were two laden caravans escorted by two guards, apparently in a very great hurry. They briefly informed us that the road was safe and clear. This proved to be very much mistaken. I wonder now if they were lucky, mad, or treacherous.

I believe today I experienced my first taste of this "adventure" which my master has enthusiastically recommended to me. I remain unsure of the merits of this lifestyle, but am pleased to note that my training proved adequate to meet its challenges. Here is what came to pass.

As the road passed through a region of boggy ground, we reached a point where a huge tree had fallen across, blocking easy transit. Madrak, our half-orcish escort from the distant north, went ahead to investigate it, at which point a confusion of arrows rained down upon us. I believe Madrak was gravely hurt by this initial volley. I leapt from my horse and called Rotter to guard, and I too received a glancing blow from one of the missiles. After this initial volley, our attackers (who were quickly observed to be a band of orcs) charged at us, presumably believing us to be near finished. We were greatly outnumbered. My warrior companions fought well, obviously trained for this sort of eventuality, and the tide of the battle turned in our favour. I myself was forced to wait in hiding amongst the frightened horses, with the patterns of the chromatic orb and the spook phantasm urging to be released from my mind as I have never noticed them doing before. As the orc brigands rushed towards us my chance, and the test of my training, came. Launching Rotter to savage one of them, I focussed on another, and advanced boldly towards it uttering the syllables to conjure the nightmarish phantasm. The brute turned on his heels, fled and was soon decapitated by one of my companions. I was very pleased to observe the spell's remarkable effects in the heat of battle. A second orc proved an easy target for the chromatic orb, as he stumbled towards me. The light of the pearlescent orb hit him full in the eyes, blinding him and allowing me the opportunity to cast darts into his face, causing him to fall to the ground. I now understand why my master insisted that I spend such long hours playing the game of darts with the halfling patrons of the Rusty Nail. The practice has proved unexpectedly useful.

I am thankful for the presence of Rotter, who has proved his worth as more than just a sleepy beast of watch. I shall consider attempting to acquire further such hounds, as they prove faithful and vicious if correctly trained.

Subsequent to the battle, we gathered ourselves together and set about searching through the bodies of our fallen assailants (three of whom, unfortunately, managed to escape, despite the pursuit of Alric and Kazhireh). We discovered a total of 20gp in small coinage, a pouch containing 5 gemstones, and a sack with 8 pieces of silver jewellery decorated with gems. I am unsure what exactly we are required to do with this kind of loot, as surely it has been stolen from reputable merchants and locals to the area. I think that perhaps we should hand it in to the local constabulary, although I remember my master gleefully mentioning the riches he has gained from "adventuring", so perhaps there is some right for members of the Adventurers' Guild to keep possession of items acquired in such manner. I shall have to reread my contract of guild membership, and perhaps inquire at the guild quarters in Hommlet, if such an establishment exists.

It was also noted that the emblems on the orcs' shields identified them as members of the "vile rune" clan, a name which bears little significance to me.

Hurriedly we finished our journey to Hommlet, bearing with us a single still-living orc, whom Wilstan had wisely captured. I look forward to perhaps being able to test the worth of the hypnotism spell on the brute, if we get a chance to interrogate him. I think it may also be wise to "soften him up" first with an application of the spook phantasm. I have read that its effects can be particularly spirit-crushing if the victim believes he is unable to escape.

After several more miles of travel we reached Hommlet, and head straight to the chapel of St Cuthbert on the outskirts of the village. The resident clerics were glad to heal my companions' wounds, and Chryseïs (our St Cuthbert devotee) offered them one of the pieces of jewellery as thanks.

Theorems & Thaumaturgy update

2011-11-12T10:51:00.001+01:00

I've been pretty quiet on the book front for a while now, but progress has been happening (slowly but surely), and the text is really very close to completion now. I just put the finishing touches on the section of magical tomes this morning, and all that remains now is to finish up a couple of appendices. Very exciting!

It's clocking in at 72 pages at the moment, and that's without any sort of artwork, so it should be a decent sized book, which I hope will sit nicely alongside Labyrinth Lord & the AEC.

One very cool thing that graces the book, which I've not mentioned before, is a complete index of all spells in the game -- including all the new spells in Theorems & Thaumaturgy in addition to the cleric, druid, illusionist and magic-user spells from the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion. I hope this will prove useful to anyone using the book in play!

I would hazard a guess that the people who kindly offered to do some proofreading should be receiving the initial finished copy of the text some time in the next few weeks.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the book in its finished printed form, and to get using it at the gaming table! (Especially as there are now three players in the campaign who are using new classes in the book -- we have a necromancer, an elementalist and a fey elf.)

The devil is in the details - Many Fey, Some Fey

2011-11-06T21:43:00.002+01:00

Some time ago I created (and posted) a set of tables of random racial characteristics for Dwarrow and Ratfolk characters in my campaign. Following last week's PC massacre, there have been some new character being rolled up. Among them are two Fey (not coincidentally, as the party was decimated by ghouls, and Fey are immune to their paralysis!). So this morning I came up with similar tables for Fey (including a few entries from the original Elf "Devil is in the details" article in Fight on!).

Many Fey

Have an unusual number of fingers (roll 1d6 + 2, re-rolling if you end up with four!).
Have hair which animates or changes colour depending on their mood.
Lie as a matter of course.
Are 90% resistant to sleep and charm person.
Guard their true name with their lives.
Have the attention span of a gnat.
Feel a great affinity to one type of animal.
Love games of chance.
Apparently sprang into existence fully formed, having no memory of a childhood or family.
Have an irrational hatred of one specific thing (gnomes, horses, moonlight, etc), and fly into a rage when encountering it.
Love all forms of art, especially pieces which other races would regard as incomprehensibly convoluted.
Find humans and dwarrow endlessly boring.
Are terrified of spirits and undead.
Refuse to have anything to do with cosmic powers, including acceptance of cleric spells being cast upon them.
Only have a 1 in 6 chance of needing to sleep each night.
Carry an array of small charms to protect against all manner of things.
Have a 30% chance of reflecting sleep or charm person back onto the caster.
Are prone to addiction, and start play with a penchant for: 1. alil, 2. fine spirits, 3. yellow powder, 4. exotic pipe-weed.
Have silver, gold, or violet hair.
Suffer from fits of insanity (10% chance per day, lasting one day, roll on the table in the DMG p.83).
Can detect subtle psychic impressions in objects, getting a feeling of the appearance and mood of the last person who touched the object.
Actually physically disappear when they sleep, vanishing to a dream dimension.
Have an imaginary friend (though of course they claim it is real) with whom they converse.
Find water distasteful and will only drink wine or fruit juices.
Can generate minor electrical shocks.
Have eyes of an unusual colour (violet, pure white, silver, etc).
Are able to cast a single 1st level spell once per day, selected from the list of fey sorcerer spells.
Have a deep love and respect for the ancient line of fey nobility.
Find humour in almost anything, even at totally inappropriate moments.
Are deeply superstitious, having a long list of things which are supposed to bring good or bad luck.

Some Fey

Have a sadistic bent.
Have almost no concept of self-preservation, making them completely reckless.
Speak to themselves in a private language which only they understand.
Will not die from ageing.
Insist on things (people, items, plans, etc) being assigned numerical values.
Harbour the desire to mate with a being of another (perhaps unusual) race.
Have detailed memories of a past life (possibly as another race).
Are incredibly avaricious, but only seek wealth of a very particular kind (emeralds, pearls, platinum, gold rings, etc).
Are completely hedonistic and do not care a whit for the future.
Prefer to not enter the fey dimension, for reasons of their own.
Have a habit of pronouncing personal names backwards, and will not reveal the reason for this.
Both fear and desire to know the deep places below the earth.
Value logic and rationality over all else.
Breed new animals in pursuit of a singular vision.
Can detect the influence of cosmic powers, as a cleric. If successful, become terrified, enraged or sick (equal chance).
Find books and writing to be delightful curiosities.
Have a twin which resulted from a spontaneous division. The two twins' personalities are usually radically at odds.
Refuse to use a personal name of any kind.
Shower friends with gifts.
Will only dress in a specific colour.
Study an ancient spiritual text which is written entirely in indecipherable code which generations of fey have failed to crack.
Have star-shaped pupils. The number of points on the star is deemed auspicious.
Are fascinated by light, and will spend long hours gazing into prisms or beams of sunlight.
Are strange and silent.
Study a complex system of astrology which can only be applied in retrospect.
Are unaffected by all but the most extreme changes in temperature and weather.
Trace their ancestry to another world.
Are haunted by animals of a certain species, which they believe are spies.
Cannot conceal their emotions.
Will swiftly die if imprisoned.

Slippy's adventuring log -- in memorium of a near TPK

2011-11-04T08:02:00.000+01:00

DM's note: I've not run a session (yet) where a true TPK has occurred. I have however "participated" (shall we say) in the almost complete destruction of two parties of adventurers. Once was a group of 1st level scummers who perished battling lowly fire beetles. One character escaped with his life -- Slippy the ratman. In our game two days ago it happened again. This time with a more competent and experienced party, who met their doom at the hands of a co-ordinated attack of ghouls and gnolls. Again one character escaped with his life, and again it was Slippy the ratman.

Following are Slippy's notes on this grisly occurrence. The facts are, in places, grossly exaggerated, but as he says "a truer telling of the events that transpired there today will never be heard".

Written by Yves, Slippy's player.

Slippy didn't speak a word to the gatekeeper Olob when he returned to Lembde in the late afternoon, clad in his dented plate mail which seemed to be missing a few pieces, his trusty bowler no longer on his head at a jaunty angle. He pushed by the guards inquiring about his fellow travellers and made for the village tavern. Roughly throwing open the doors he flung some silver pieces in the direction of the bar and sat himself down at the nearest table while shouting: "Inkeeper! Ale for everyone!". He then looked around the tavern, his gaze shifting from one Red Man to the next, and then started yelling to no one in particular: "Gather round ye folk, for I have a tale of woe and sorrow to tell, a story of the bravest companions a ratman ever did lay his eyes upon." Without waiting for the Red Men to react he continued: "The story of Skarr, a finer ratwoman the sewers of S'raka haven't produced; of Blade, a fine and goodly fellow, blessed in the sight of men and gods; of Hjalhir too, a clever, scholarly man, brother to the great warrior Beomir of whose exploits even you must surely have heard; and Tal Copperhand the Dwarrow, known as Deepingdale to his friends, and to some as the drunken fool of Dreg. Employed by the Imperial Cartography Guild were we, as you well know, and for the greater glory of the Empire did we go to the cursed place known as the Chasm Deeps. We ventured far, ignoring the risk to our own lives, coming across such marvelous sights as the statue of Breets, and such bizarre spectacles as the magical mirror, undoubtedly the work of the treacherous Yellow Men, when we reached a large room, a barracks or dormitory it might have been, seeing as it were filled with bunk beds.” Here Slippy paused, for added dramatic effect as well as gulping down the pint of ale the innkeeper had put in front of him.

„It were in this very place we came upon a rough barricade, thrown up by vile Gnolls to bar our further exploration and mapping. While the warriors among us took up defensive positions, my good companion Tal the Dwarrow threw down some flaming oil, were it to frighten away the Gnolls or to deter their approach I do not known, for at that very moment much confusion arose and all hell broke loose. It was that fine fellow Blade who first spotted the roaming band of Ghouls - even more despicable since they were once Yellow Men - who caught us by surprise in the back. Blade was quickly beset by them and succumbed to the paralyzing nature of their cruel claws. At this moment yours truly nocked and loosed an arrow, but due to the shoddy craftmanship of the bow - which he purchased here in Lembde and for which he expects the bowyer will provide him full compensation, seeing as by this first event everything that followed transpired, and if the man can live with four deaths on his conscience and keep my gold then my hat is off to him, what a black soul he must have - anyhow this bow lost its string and fell to the floor. The Dwarrow rushes forward, taking no heed of the danger, to protect his scholarly fellows, while my brave halfling friend Skarr also unleashed a volley, unfortunately to little effect. Our scholar Hjalhir meanwhile kept working on his maps, because that's what he does, and nothing else, especially not accursed magicks. The fight turned sour quickly, my companions one by one succumbing to the Ghouls' crippling touch, which left your narrator on his own, warding off three Ghouls with naught but a dagger.“ Slippy continued, as he gulped down the remainder of the second flagon.

„Fortunately Blade, blessed he be, as I have mentioned earlier, by divine intervention recovered his wits and set about reviving the others of our little group, and it seemed the tide of the battle had turned in our favour. 't was around this moment however that fate spit us squarely in the face, for a group of ravenous Gnolls then entered the fray, jumping over the smoldering remains of the barricade. Your faithful Ratman took it upon himself to engage these vile curs, allowing Blade to see to the fallen. By very selflessly sacrificing a very expensive gold necklace I bought us preciously needed time. Then the story admittedly takes a slightly odd turn, as for reasons not entirely clear to myself - though I suspect the combat fatigue and large breakfast I had this morning to be the culprits - I fell soundly asleep, which my foes seemed to think was a very excellent idea because three Gnolls followed my lead.“ Slippy paused, cleared his throat and emptied the third pint before moving on.

„Next thing I remember I was being dragged away by one of the Gnolls who didn't feel quite so nappish, looking around to see, to my dismay, my companions once again struck down, being torn apart by the remaining Ghouls - at this point I should note there were probably a dozen of them, of which we killed perhaps ten, six of those I did in single-handedly - and my Gnollish captor continued to drag me off while yapping gleefully. Waiting for the most opportune moment, I then broke loose of his grasp, and, seeing that my comrades were in dire peril indeed, became so ferociously enraged that the Gnoll thought the better of it and set to running for his life. In my bloodlust the recollections have become a bit of haze, but I distinctly remember grabbing a long sword and tearing up their dung-covered lair, decapitating Gnolls left and right while I strategically beat a retreat to the exit, as to alert the rear guard which remained behind to look after our mules. According to them at least three Gnolls ran out of the cave with me in hot pursuit until I lost track of them, and collapsed quite exhausted, physically but mostly emotionally, struck by the loss of my equipment and also those guys I told you earlier about. So in short, as a truer telling of the events that transpired there today will never be heard, let it be recorded for posterity and recounted throughout the ages, the tale of brave Henry Slippums! Cheers!" And with that Slippy drank deep of his fourth pint of ale and he felt a whole lot better for it.

My AD&D character

2011-11-01T10:24:00.000+01:00

I got the illusionist I was dreaming of! (Not that hard with Method I -- 4d6 drop lowest arrange to taste...)

I decided to go for a human, and I have named him Weebrian Jig.

From memory, his ability scores are:
STR 13
CON 13
DEX 16
INT 16
WIS 13
CHA 14
COM 14 (yes we're using Comeliness!)

My master (randomly selected) is a gnome called Blasphemy Rumtum. He's taught his apprentice well, and I have a good selection of spells. The only thing sadly lacking is the illusionist's staple and all-round useful phantasmal force. Something to look forward to though.

Now I'm just trying to ascertain from the DM if it's possible to get a bodyguard hireling whom I could equip with a weapon and a shield. The other alternative is of course one or more war dogs, though at 25gp each they don't come cheap to a 1st level magic-user!

I'm considering using the classic prodigal sorcerer as his "character portrait", and am trying to come up with a title for him. Something suitably arcane sounding like "Weebrian Jig, Prestidigitator, servant of the 7th Angle". He's LN in alignment.

I'll continue to post news on his exploits...

Playing AD&D!

2011-10-30T09:14:00.001+01:00

I'm very excited, as a friend here in Berlin is starting up an AD&D (1st edition) campaign! We're starting tomorrow evening with character generation. (I'm hoping for an illusionist.)

The really cool thing for me is that, though I've owned copies of all the AD&D 1e books for years, I've actually never played it! I've played loads of basic D&D (Mentzer / Labyrinth Lord), and loads of AD&D 2e, but never the Gygaxian masterpiece.

Very much looking forward to it. Maybe I'll post my character when he's made :)

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 9

2011-10-29T09:31:00.005+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members Present
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief Rear Guard*
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard Rear Guard*
Blade, 2nd Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale (Tal), 2nd Lvl Dwarrow
Skarr, 1st Lvl Female Ratfolk Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter Rear Guard*
(*Absent)

Starting and ending locations: The Chasm Deeps returning later to the Red folk’s village of Lembde, 2 hours east of the Chasm Deeps (5 miles).

Session 9 (26/10/11)
After cleaning ourselves up after the fight with the spider, Hjalhir decided that he was in no fit state to continue and so we escorted him outside to join Venser, Stig and the mules at the camp that they had set up in a small hollow in the cliff face, just around the corner from the entrance (hopefully away from prying eyes and noses). The remainder of the company apprehensively returned back to the deeps. We returned to the spiders room and after listening, John the animated skeleton opened the door opposite on the northwest wall.

This lead into a large room 40’ x 55’, which was both strangely and quiet disturbingly, very clean. Immediately Deepingdale became a little anxious about possible traps, but after an extensive search, nothing could be found. 3 other doors lead off from this room, one on each wall. We decided to move north first and when John opened the door it revealed a dark corridor ahead. Cagliosro’s animate undead spell ran out at this point and John collapsed to the floor, his work done for now. As the Necromancer started to collect up John’s inanimate bones and return them to the coffin which he strangely carried on his back, suddenly out of the dark, shot a web thread and entangled Johns ulna (lower arm bone). Before Caglisro had a chance to grab it, the sticky web thread shot back into the darkness along with John’s lower left arm. Caglisro, in fear, quickly shut the door in front of him, thinking that another giant spider was about to do the same to him. The party quickly assembled with Deepingdale acting as a shield guard at the front and Scarr and Slippy with bows with Blade with his Glaive set to receive. We cautiously opened the north door and peered into the darkness. All along the corridor ceiling hung a deep blanket of dusty old spiders webs. At this point Caglisro heard a wooden creaking sound to the south of us and we closed the north door and prepared for our visitor.

Scarr had the plan to surprise however was sneaking up on us and we pretended to leave the room back to the east, but instead stood still very quietly and waited with weapons poised, but nothing happened. 10 minutes later we decided to proceed through the southern door to investigate. Using Deepingdales brute strength he managed to wrench the door off its hinges when trying to open it. This would prove a problem later. The room to the south entered into another large oblong room 60’ x 30’ with a large 20’ stone statue of a frog in the centre of it within what was once clearly a fountain. A number of double doors lead off from this junction hall. The doors to the west and south where both slightly ajar and spots of fresh blood lay on the floor leading through the western door. A strong smell of dogs (gnolls?) hung in the air. The doors to the east hung off their hinges and through these we could make out day light from the entrance. Deep looked through the doors to the west and could see a carcass of a dead deer lying on the ground.

An additional door lay on the northern wall leading back into the dead spiders room. We decided to check this first as another door which we had not opened yet lead to the east and looking at our map we wanted to know if this room contained gnoll guards as the smell seemed very strong from this area. After hearing nothing, we opened the door to reveal a small 20’x20’ room, its floor seemed to look exactly like the nights sky, brilliant black with shiny stars that looked up at us. Deepingdale asked Cagliosro to check it out and the Necromancer started casting a detect magic spell. Whilst he did this, from the door way Deepingdale dropped one of his stone marbles onto the floor into the room. For a moment the marble rolled around and once it settled it disappeared through the floor. Deepingdale then took out his 50’ rope and dangled 3’ of rope into the room. The rope settled on the floor, then like the marble, slowly sunk into the floor and disappeared. Deep was unable to retrieve the rope and began cutting the section off with his knife. It is at this point that the party came under attack and Cagliosro's spell was detect magic spell was interrupted.

From the room to the south with the Frog Statue in it, we saw a grey humanoid hand push open the door on the southern wall. Scarr who was standing guard shot at the hand with his bow, but the arrow embedded into the south door and the hand quickly withdrew. Perhaps this was our earlier stalker we thought. Deep dropped his knife and the rope, withdrew the Azure Serpent Sword from his scabbard and quietly moved into the room behind him to see what the fuss was. Slippy and Blade joined Scarr and at the same time from the east we heard a terrible humanoid dog like cry and from the corridor charged two 7’ Gnolls carrying large spears. Slippy and Scarr let loose their arrows and Blade attacked with his Glaive. The Cleric of Hegg and the Ratfolk soon dispatched the foul dog men and just when we thought all was safe, from the door to the south three ghouls charged in. Scarr managed to leap onto the Frog statue just as an undead red man ghoul leapt up at him clawing with both hands and biting with his teeth. The little rat women was badly scratched in the back, but managed to resist the diseased paralysis from the ghouls dirt ridden claws. In a state of shock and surprise, Scarr’s arrow missed completely.

Deepingdale, Slippy and Glaive prepared to receive the three ghouls. Combat was chaotic and confused. Deepingdale skewered the Ghoul in the back who was leaping up at Scarr, but before we knew it, despite managing to strike the Ghouls with Hjalhir’s magical dagger, Slippy lay on the floor paralysed from the unclean claws and bite from one the Ghouls who was now lying on top of him trying to eat him. Deepingdale was also hit, but his Dwarrow endurance was no match for the filth of the ghouls and he took nothing more than a small flesh wound. Blade then tried to cast a sanctuary spell to rescue Slippy, but just before the spell incantation was complete, a ghoul scratched him and disrupted the spell. Despite this, Blade bravely tried to pull Slippy from under the attacking ghoul but instead was bitten and clawed himself and ended up also lying paralysed next to Slippy near the door. Deepingdale seeing that the situation was turning dire, backed off, retreating slowly to the north east door and stood over the two paralysed bodies of his colleagues defending them from the ghoul claws eventually killing his own assailant, but not managing to do anything more. Scarr in the meantime shot arrows down from his safe vantage point. After failing to earlier cast control undead on the attacking ghouls, Cagliosro at this point managed to successfully cast an animate dead spell and raised the dead spider and the two Gnolls who proceeded to enter the battle just as another 4 ghouls appeared through the south door. The undead gnolls and spiders made quick work of the last two ghouls before their comrades could join them to reinforce their attack. Meanwhile, Cagliosro managed to drag our paralysed companions back into the dead spiders room and summoned a new John the skeleton from a scroll to support the ensuing combat.

Unfortunately it was now becoming very clear that with only three remaining party members left in combat, one of which was seriously injured and potentially cut off from the rest of us, we decided it was time for a fighting retreat (or running for our lives). Deepingdale opted to prepare burning oil to try to dispatch the four new ghouls who had entered the chamber, but through the pressure of battle he lost the initiative and ghouls poured in and pursued poor Scarr as he leapt down from the frog statue just before one of them jumped up at him narrowly missing Scarr. Scarr ran like the wind through the broken door to the northwest, into the clean room, pursued by ghouls. The undead gnolls and spider helped Cagliosro to carry our paralysed colleagues towards the exit. Meanwhile, through the south door we heard the howling cry of more Gnolls. Deepingdale tried to attack the ghouls who were now chasing after Scarr. Whilst watching the door to the south, Deep slung the flaming oil flask into the room with the ghouls, but it went in too far, missing the undead. Recognising that the situation hung in the balance Deepingdale ran to join Cagliosro in the dead spider’s room, just as the Ghouls were trying to force the door open to the west. Deep managed to spike the door shut, but the door to south now burst open with more Ghouls and something else behind them. The party then ran for their lives and headed for the exit and daylight, with the angry sound of pursuit we did out best to carry our colleagues to safety. Fortunately, as we emerged into daylight we noticed that we were no longer being pursued.

We joined Venser, Stig and Hjalhir in the camp by the cliffs and quickly packed away our stuff and fled to the village to rest. Again, fortune shown on us as we encountered nothing during our return trek and after two hours we arrived safely in Lembde to be greeted by Olob, our friendly gatekeeper.

Deepingdale enquired about possible sources of healing and we were directed to the village herbalist, Meerka, where we were able to purchase some non magical balms and tonics to help speed up natural healing process and assist in removing ghoul paralysis. We then retired to the inn to rest and recuperate after a lucky escape. Praise be to Assedh

It lives!

2011-10-25T00:08:00.000+02:00

Alex & I have been on a frenzy of creativity, and the result is the shiny new Old-school Monster Wiki!

So far all the monsters from Labyrinth Lord + the AEC are in there, all tagged up by creature type.

All it needs now is:

More monsters! Get in there and add your crazy home-brew monstrosities! (Alex is looking into how to import more monsters from various tomes automatically...)
More tags! Get in there and get tagging... wilderness environments especially needed at the moment.
Spread the word :)

Enjoy!

A database of old-school monsters?

2011-10-23T10:03:00.000+02:00

I've recently been musing on the possibility of creating encounter tables for specific dungeon environments -- in the same way as there are tons of tables for various types of wilderness environments, from swamps to arctic tundra, I thought it'd be very useful to have tables for things like fungoid caverns, volcanic rifts, lost tombs, etc. There's loads of prototypical dungeon environments which could easily have their own table.

I had in mind using these tables as an aid while stocking dungeons, for which I often use the normal dungeon encounter tables. I tend to find these a little limited and generic though, hence the idea of different tables for different types of dungeon.

But: I just had what seems like an even better idea, and one that could be immensely useful for all sorts of things.

An online old-school monster database, with tags.

The tags are the important thing. The fact that monsters are usually only indexed by name is what makes coming up with suitably themed collections of them tricky. I realised this when looking at the extensive monster lists in the AD&D Monster Manual II. There's this huge list of monster names, sorted alphabetically or by hit dice or by wilderness environment. But to use the lists successfully you really need to know what the monsters are like, just from their names. For instance, I came across quite a few stumbling blocks in the list of 1st level dungeon monsters: rothe, vilstrak, vulchling, tween...? A lookup in the fiend folio and I now know what these things are, but it's slow work.

But what if there were a database where you could just search for monsters of 1 to 3 HD with the tags "fungus" or "whimsical"? Such a tool could be used to whip up encounter tables in a jiffy, or to get quick inspiration for encounters of any sort. I think this could be a seriously useful tool, if set up right.

So, a couple of questions:

Does anyone know if anything like this already exists? (I've never heard of anything like it, but you never know... I imagine possibly a resource like this may exist for 3.5th or 4th edition.)
Any thoughts on what software / system would be good for something like this? A freely available, easy to use, multi-user, wiki-style, online system would be perfect, but something that works as a database as opposed to a page / post based wiki or blog.

I'd imagine including a foundation of monsters from the OSR clone books (LL, AEC, S&W, OSRIC), supplemented with links to any freely available old-school OGL stuff that could be found online. (Possibly also stuff from the AD&D monster books, though that's not freely available.) The idea is that at the beginning it'd simply be a list of all the monsters (their names, hit dice and source -- either a url or a page reference in a book), but that then people could add tags to them, gradually increasing the worth of the database.

Any thoughts?

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 8

2011-10-22T09:53:00.002+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members Present
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief Rear Guard*
Cagliosro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard
Blade, 2nd Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale (Tal), 2nd Lvl Dwarrow
Scarr, 1st Lvl Female Ratman Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter Rear Guard*
(*Absent)

Starting and ending locations: City of Bolaar (Yellow Men area of Chasm of Nayellem), proceedings down the river west to the village of Lembde and then on foot via the old road to the Chasm Deeps.

Session 8 (19/10/2011)
After considerable carousing in the yellow mens city of Bolar, in the Chasm, Deepingdale eventually managed to train up to gain warrior hood (2nd lvl Dwarrow). Henry and Venser had an eventful few days, meeting a strange Frog Cult in Bolar and after getting considerably drunk they managed to glean some information about the whereabouts of three of the Breets Relics, the Aquamarine Raven, the Blooded Shield and the Eye Stone. All three of which are said to be found in the Chasm deeps. However, what did Henry and Venser offer the Frog Cult in return for the information, we all wondered the next morning in the sober light of day, only time will tell?! Our mage Hjalhir is still not well and although the herbs from the Rim help with his concentration, it is clear that sometimes he is unable to cast his spells correctly. Before our departure we were unsuccessful in finding a suitable temple in Bolar to heal him. Our inquiries about a temple of Hegg were met with disbelief. These are a godless folk or are they? We have decided to travel under the guise of a group of Imperial Cartographers (Clever idea of Henry’s), Venser and Hjalhir forged some suitably important looking papers with fake wax seals and the spell casters will act as our scribes and the fighters in the company as security. After finishing our preparations, we regrouped and managed to get passage on a river barge for 8gp each, travelling west for 5+6 hours through the forest of Lensirrik (apparently it’s old name, now called Lensk). Before catching the barge we were warned by the yellow men to disguise or spell casters as the Red Men are very warlike and hate all spell casters and see them all as witches.

After an uneventful river journey, the barge dropped us off on the river bank near the last human habitation in the Red Mens area, a village called Lembde on the far western edge of the chasm forest. The earlier advice from the Yellow men was well served and on our arrival at the gates to Lembde, a small fortified village, a large yellow painted eye (the witch eye as it is known by the locals) looked down on the company. On introducing ourselves as the Cartographers Company from the Imperial Cartographers Guild, we struck up a conversation with one of the gate men, a trusting fellow called Olob. The village had never been visited by outlanders before. After some charm from Henry (aka Slippy), he told us that this was the domain of King Mab, beyond imperial control and the deity Mox, watched over the Red People checking for any witches and that the Yellow men were their most despised enemy who they had warred against for years, although now an uneasy peace has lasted between the two peoples for the last 100 years, but they were still very weary of magic users or witches as he called them. Olob also warned us of the numerous ferocious Owlbears in the forest of Lensk. A pleasant enough chap, despite his bright red skin and blue hair, he was welcoming and granted our group entry into the village and directed us to the inn, he also suggested speaking to one of the local hunters, a man called Boleg, known to have defeated an owlbear and familiar with the monsters ways, he could perhaps offer some advice with our mapping.

Caglistro, Venser and Stig remained outside the village, the Necromancer, not convinced by the warm welcome, refused to enter and instead set up a small camp beyond the stockade. On entering the village we spotted a 20 foot tower, at the bottom of which was a large cage with 3 ferocious looking Owl Bears inside it and some men stood around, clearly their keepers. On enquiring we were told that the Owlbears were the villages “Protectors”. When Hjalhir passed the cage, the Owlbears became very aggravated!!!

On entering the inn (and several beers purchased for the locals and 10gp later), we quickly made many new friends and many friendly locals contributed to correcting our apparently, very out of date maps that the Dax women and the one that Mol had provided us with. The Cartography Company proved to be a great cover. We also had a very useful talk with the Hunter Boleg, who reassured us that we were unlikely to encounter any Owlbears, as they mainly stayed in the forest and our journey by foot, west of Lembed towards the Chasm Deeps was on the old road that lay beyond the woods. But he said our main concern should be for the large group of gnolls who inhabit the area west of the village, near the cairn and chasm deeps. A few beers later, Boleg also told us about the chasm rifts, a poisonous volcanic area and finally, he then shared with us the tale of the legendary chasm Dragon, Meerka, who he described as a large black shadow who in the past had attacked the village and is still seen flying overhead at least once a month. Meerka has been present in the Chasm area for many years and is thought to live in the chasm cliffs above the chasm deep. Finally, Slippy enquired about Boleg’s facial scar and his own run in the Owlbears, we bid Boleg fair well, with the challenge of returning with an Owlbear beak, in return for a free night on the ale!

Buoyed up by such expectations and with our adventuring juices flowing, after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, we set off early in the morning, down the old road into the west. The first thing we came across was a huge run down 20 foot stone cairn with an inscription at its base, in imperial common (which Slippy couldn’t read, much to our hilarity) “Sacred Eye of the Overseer Breets the Great”. The Sacred Eye was marked on the Dax map as relic number one, however, despite our meticulous searching; someone had already removed it from the Cairn.

We continued on, encountering nothing, seeing steam rising, probably from the chasm rifts that Boleg described, off to the North about 1 mile from the old road and eventually we arrived at the farthest west end of the chasm, where a entrance fronted by two large stone pillars, decorated in memory of past overseers, greeted us, along with a pile of old bones and a strong smell of dogs and fresh blood coming from the cave entrance (Gnolls?).

Stig and Venser kindly offered to wait outside with the horses and mules. The humans lit their torches and bows were drawn and we cautiously walked forward. Ahead of us lay a 40’ wide entrance which eventually narrowed to 30’ and a 60’ long entrance hall with 5 stone columns on each side, also carved depicting the overseers. This hallway lead into a large 80’ large cavern with natural corridors leading off to the north, northwest, west, southwest and south. Again, a pile of bones greeted us along with the sound of frogs from the Northwest passage. Scarr scouted ahead and noticed the smell of dung coming from the northern passage. After considering our options, we decided to try to avoid being attacked from the rear by laying marbles and caltrops at both the northern and western passage way entrances. From the western passage a strong smell of blood and dogs emanated. The company, especially our Necromancer, was interested in the frogs, so we headed up the northwest passage where another passage lead off to the east. Scarr, Deepingdale and Slippy went off to explore, the little rat women thief crawled up the wall of the natural passage way which lead into another small cavern, suddenly from the darkness we head a scream and Scarr suddenly disappeared into the cavern ahead of us. Nightwing the owl reported that a large creature was devouring the rat women and so we cautiously entered the cavern to find a giant toad had swallowed Scarr. Hjalhir failed to cast his magic missle and battle ensued, the toad spat Scarr out, who was fortunately saved at the last moment by a healing spell from Blade. The giant toad was dispatched by arrows, slings, pole arms and swords. Scarr removed the giant toads tongue, she thought it might come in handy one day!?

We returned to the passage after finding nothing of note in the giant toads beautiful stalagmite adorned cave and headed into the frog room, a circular 30’ room with an ornate pool in the centre. Surrounding the pool were 8 statues with carved frogs on top, from inside each stone frog came the sound of real frogs. The statues were hollow and we thought they were connected to a passage way below, where the sound was coming from. In the pool lay crystal clear water, with no apparent source. Scarr decided to take a quick bath in the pool and was very refreshed and whilst we waited for Scarr, Slippy had a quiet religious moment. We managed to convince Caglisro not to piss into the pool as it may be the only source of clean drinking water available to us.

A passage way lead off to the west, which 20’ later opened up into a large oblong man made hall 20’ wide by 80’ long with a 20’ high vaulted ceiling. Directly opposite the entrance to the hall on the west wall was a wooden door with an iron ring door opener. As we entered the room, Deepingdale and Scarr moved forward to listen at the door opposite and the keen eyed Scarr spotted a shadow shifting in the vaulted ceiling above us. On careful further examination we could make out a large spider’s web and behind it sat a giant spider. A single bulls eye shot from Deepingdales heavy crossbow downed the beast and before it could stop twitching in its death throws; Scarr had removed its poison sacks, fangs and any other useful type ingredients that rogues find useful in their strange trade.

On examining the hall, we could see that at the southern end on the southern wall another door and a final door at the southern end on the eastern hall. In the middle of the east wall lay a large pile of rubble, old broken furniture etc. Using our company, non-extendable (Patent pending) 10’ poles we found a yellow man skeleton with a small leather pouch with 90sp in it. At this point we decided to rest and collected our comrades from outside.

Here, have a dungeon

2011-10-21T10:07:00.000+02:00

Spoiler warning: Players in my campaign, this is the map for a dungeon are you may explore at some point. Best not study it...

For everyone else, here's a blank map I recently drew, which I quite like and thought others may enjoy too. Do with it what you will, if you will.

A dungeon level: Part 1

2011-10-17T22:26:00.000+02:00

Spoiler warning: Players in my campaign, this is the map for the dungeon under the old oak tree, which your characters long explored. I guess you most likely won't go back there, but still I'd suggest not looking at the map, and especially not reading the key, as I think this would spoil some of the magic, so to speak.

Inspired by a comment from Brendan on an old post of mine where I shared a dungeon map I'd drawn, I thought I'd post another map, and the accompanying key for it. The map you see is actually the first level which leads down to the map I posted previously. The latter was only partially stocked, and the party never ventured into it, so it remains unfinished and unexplored. The 1st level was however almost fully cleared out, explored over the course of probably almost a dozen play sessions -- I'm really surprised how long it lasted!

So here's the map, and the first part of the key, typed up from the notes I used to run it. The notes are very rough, so a dash of imagination is required while reading! Still, I hope it proves entertaining, interesting and / or useful for someone. I'll post the rest of the key as I find time to type it up.

The Dungeon Under the Old Oak Tree
1. A large glade in a forest. Huge oak tree in middle, hollowed out. Shaft leads down. Sides of shaft covered with tree roots, like ladder. 1 in 10 chance to fall. Sandy floor at bottom, walls still riddled with roots. One root has "NOLLY'S KINGDOM" carved into it.

1a. Roots covered in moss, crawling with worms & insects. Old leather glove laid over root (left). From east comes whooshing sound. Faint glow and warmth from south.

2. In passageway tree roots reach out to grab items from PCs as they pass. If anyone fails a DEX check they lose an item. Can be recovered by cutting the roots -- at which an ominous rumbling is heard.

3. Muddy floor, mossy walls (glowing). Three 5' deep nooks. One has cosy cloaks & coats (in pocket of one is key to 28). One has a portrait of a gnome-like creature. One has a hat stand with red & purple felt hats.

4. Low round roof. Round cobblestoned floor. Neat wooden table & chair. Small bell and plaque "PLEASE RING". Walls still mossy & rooty.

5. Bookshelf full of nonsense. Sack of bones behind bookshelf. Two comfy upholstered chairs. Chairs attack if touched: AC 7, HD 1 (5, 6hp), Att
2 x 1d3 (clawed arms). Books fly out.

6. Cute kitchen. Sheep-headed faun called "Ramius". Acts all Mr Tumnus but tries to feed PCs sleep tea (save vs spells) and then eat them. AC 6, HD 2 (12hp), Att butt 1d6, knife 1d6.

7. Ramius' lair of horror. Skulls & bones. Chest with fresh human remains and 87gp, 192sp, 202cp, sapphire worth 400gp. Four sheep skulls which Ramius can command: AC 8, HD 1 (4hp each), Att 1d6.

8. Cobblestones. Round roof. Door carved with tree motifs. Large red patterned rug, concealing magical circle. Teleports to 32. 2 in 6 chance of stepping on rug by chance.

9. Stone walls. Small table with glass jars. Inside are tiny dead people (1" high). Two scrolls -- one of MU spell reduce, one (written in fey tongue) a page from a story about a journey to another world of micro-people.

10. Stone. Statue of two dogs and their master, a hunter. Mirrors on west & east walls, anyone looking in sees the hunter's face instead of their own, mad look in his eyes. Hear barking and a horn somewhere distant. Each turn 2 in 6 chance of being attacked. Hunter: AC 6, HD 2 (10hp), Att 1d6 + 1 (axe). 2 x dogs: AC 7, HD 1 (3, 5hp), Att 1d6 (bite). Hunter has a pouch of ancient silver coins (300sp), worth five times normal value to a collector.

11. Archway formed of serpents. Giant crab spider lurks. AC 7, HD 2 (8hp), Att 1d8 + poison, 1-4 surprise.

12. Decrepit statues of ancient kings. Old leather boot rests behind one (left foot). Chalk arrow drawn by south-east door. Rotten stench coming from 13 / 18. (There may be a troglodyte in this room.)

13. Three troglodytes. One is bigger then the others and bullies them. Fish hanging from ceiling. Piles of fish bones. Never sleep. Either here or at the river or prowling in 12. AC 5, HD 2 (12, 7, 8hp), Att 3 x 1d4, F2, 1-4 surprise, stench. Secret doors: buttons hidden in giant gawping face carvings.

14. Giant fish skeleton hanging. Pile of trash -- clothes, leather, rusted weapons. Small wooden chest (trapped, save vs poison or die in 1 turn), contains: 492gp, 1017sp, 128ep, silver bracelet (200gp).

OSRIC player's guide

2011-10-16T17:53:00.001+02:00

I just downloaded the OSRIC Player's Guide from RPGNow. I've only scanned through the first dozen pages, and so far it looks great, as expected. What I wanted to point out was that, as James also mentions, the artwork is really something -- the piece on page 3 is a special favourite so far, laugh-out-loud funny!

Well worth a download.

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 7

2011-10-11T20:56:00.001+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Deepingdale, 1st Lvl Dwarrow Fighter
Skarr, 1st Lvl Ratfolk Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter

Session 7 (28/09/11)
After a restful night sleep in the ruins of Caan, clarity and the wisdom of Assedh seemed to take hold of the situation. It became apparent to Deepingdale that Stig was behind the business with the Silk Merchants horses and after convincing Stig to take him into his confidence, Stig revealed that he had been quested by the deity of despair to wreak havoc in the surrounding area, as a result of his temple visit in Yelleth. This explained much as Stig had not been himself since that day, what with the sacrificing of one of his hounds and his general strange demeanour, even for a man folk. Kallac the Merchant needed a lot of convincing not to take the matter into his own hands and after some reassurance and a promise that Blade would heal the horse, the matter was closed. Blade and Deepingdale agreed that Stig should in turn make a contribution of 100 gp during the first opportune visit to a temple of Hegg.
The party then preceded, without further occurrence, to travel to Rim, the strange Fey town on the edge of the chasm of Neyellem. The town was a weird mixture of stark basic black wooden buildings, tall and narrow, with narrow and few windows. As Stig intelligently observed, these were clearly a people not wanting contact with sunlight. As for the Rim themselves, they appeared tall and thin, with any unclothed appendages covered in bandages and each wearing an ornate wooden mask. The party was escorted with other merchant caravans to a large simple barn as night fell. After talking with some of the more experienced caravan hands who had made this trip before, it was clear that at night, the Rim were not to be seen, literally disappearing, perhaps like the Fey Goblins we had encountered in the Forest of Harln. One of the merchant baggage handlers had explored the small town, but found no one around, all of the buildings where empty and he had a strange sense of being continually watched.

Clearly, with no options for a pint in the very much absent inn, we settled down for some well earned rest after being paid by Kallac for our services on the outward stretch. A few games of cards were underway amongst the merchants however Skarr had other ideas and tried to make a fast buck the easy and unlawful way, through light fingers. Caught red handed, a brawl ensued and Skarr narrowly escaped the barn alive.

The next day we checked out the wooden items the Rim sell (tourist crap, unlike their own masks). Hjalhir tried ESPing one of them but this gave him the paranoid sensation of being watched continuously so he broke it off. Stignarr bought various herbs from the Rim in an effort to help Slippy recover faster (with some effect). Cagliostro paid a guard to go up and down the lift into the chasm, which proved to be uneventful but the Rim charge per person/animal for use of the lift. We then all went down the lift, going westward through the canyon, passing a statue of a long dead human overseer of Nayellem City (whose name I can't recall at the moment). We also learned that Breets was the first of these overseers, back when humans ruled over Nayellem. Eventually we reached the small town of Giw, another Rim settlement like the ones at the top and bottom of the lifts. After a meagre dinner of smoked fish we rented a barge to go to Nayellem City by river, as the surrounding area just consisted of treacherous swampland.

Nayellem City is the largest town in the chasm, with heavy fortifications and walls, guarded by, as far as we've seen, the puce men. The party then split up to explore the city of Nayallem, carousing, rumour gathering ensued. Considerable information was gathered on the different factions in the chasm and some information too on the whereabouts of three of the Breets relics, Slippy and Venser, during their carousing and asking around about the relics & so on, met an old man who took an interest in them. He seemed to know quite a lot about the relics, and told the pair that the aquamarine raven, the blooded shield and the eye stone were all taken into the chasm deeps (a network of caverns which lie at the far western end of the chasm) when the last overseer was killed and the wars started anew.

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 6

2011-10-11T20:53:00.000+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard
Blade, 1st Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale, 1st Lvl Dwarrow Fighter
Skarr, 1st Lvl Ratfolk Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter

Location: Road to the City of Rim, North West from the City of Yelleth, near Chasm of Neyellem, Encounter point: ruined City of Caan in the desert of East Riding.

The company completed its business in Micmar and proceeded to head North West along the well used commercial road towards the City of Yelleth where we hoped to join a caravan to Rim. Considerable party funds were used to purchase expedition equipment, mules, from the Dax advance and wages for the salvage of the Breet relics. Before our departure a small band of Dwarrow security guards from Deeppockets Bank arrived with Stignarr in chains, they had found him at Uncle Nori's request and returned him to me. Fortunately for Stig, I was able to release him from my charge after he revealed that he had the chalice from the Sunken Palace on him, this fetched a pretty coin at the market in Micmar and the 400gp that he got for it was enough to repay his dues to the bank. Stig has decided, of his own free will, to stay with our company and join us to travel to Rim.

A final discussion with Mol, the learned Sage of Micmar, revealed further information about the chasm and its inhabitants, plus a further detailed map of the whole chasm. Visits to the sage are money well spent. Mol explained that three human factions exist in the chasm, constantly at war with each other, the yellow folk, the puce folk and the red folk. The Rim seem to have established a neutral relationship with all three factions and openly trade with all of them. Mol knew nothing of the relic of Breet.

Our Acolyte priest of Hegg, Blade, managed to progress with his studies and reach the rank of Adept before we departed from Micmar. I long to complete my training and progress from Veteran to Warrior, hopefully Assedh's gold will shine on me and our travels to Rim will enable such good fortune.

The company travelled safely for just over 2 weeks to Yelleth, the closest city to the chasm, here we sought merchants who needed a security entourage and we were fortunate to meet Kalac, a silk merchant who was in such need. Henry managed to strike a good deal with him (70gp each) for the outward journey, half paid upfront, half on his caravan's safe arrival at the City of Rim on the eastern edge of the chasm. As we ventured further from Micmar, Hjalhir's health seemed to take a turn for the worse, he appeared preoccupied at best and at worst, drugged!

From Yelleth, ahead of us lay a 10 day journey, accompanying two horse drawn wagons, two drivers and Kalac the silk merchant. Both wagons were apparently laden with tonnes of silk, ready to be sold to the Rim. On the 5th day we reached the ruined desert city of Caan and it was here that we met with mixed fortune. As we entered the city, Kalac warned us to be on our guard and explained that the ruins were dangerous. To our left on the opposite side of the fast flowing river of Mallong, a ruined tower rose up as a high point in the deserted city and as we approached a large swarm of what looked like black birds, rose out of the towers broken roof, followed by two giant birds. The birds proceeded to fly towards our scouts, Venser and Skarr. I managed to mount Hjalhir's horse and ride with him towards the attacking birds, it was only when we approached them that we saw that they were in fact a swarm of stirges and the giant birds looked like Rocs. Battle ensued, I dispatched the first Roc with a bolt from my heavy crossbow and the second, when it had landed, I removed its head with the Azure Serpent Sword. We were to have less luck with the Stirges. Aside from Venser and Skarr, our scouts and Stig, how remained back at the wagons with Kalac, every member of our company was set upon by the blood sucking stirges, in a matter of minutes our situation turned dire and Slippy (Henry), despite being one of our hardier company members, succumbed to the stirges blood sucking attack. It was only due to Cagliostro's intervention that he didn't die.

For myself, I was lucky not to also suffer a similar fate. Whilst I was able to dispatch two stirges with the help of Blade, I received terrible wounds from the damned creatures. After what seemed like an age, we managed to turn the tide, again with the aid of the Necromancers dark magic and a few arrows and darts from our scouts, we managed to slay the remaining creatures.

The return from deaths door spell, although successful, seems to have permanently aged Henry and he is lucky to still be alive. It is a shame that the same can't be said for Cagliostro's familiar, Jack the Raven, only three weeks old, sadly killed by a stirge. The Necromancer's brief attachment, seems to have caused him considerable pain.

Once we recovered from our wounds, thanks be to Hegg, we proceeded to explore the nearby ruined tower and low and behold, at last our efforts were rewarded. Clearly these beasts have be praying upon caravan companies for sometime, we retrieved a chest, a large bundle of silks (with Kallac's mark on them) and several pouches of gold (323gp). Within the chest, we found 10 ingots of gold (1,000gp), a scroll tube (Haste and Dimension Door) and a magical potion flask, yet to be identified.

After some magically assisted bargaining, Kalac kindly agreed to buy the salvaged silk off us for 400gp. All in all, despite Slippy's bad luck, the money, 1,723gp and the items have made up for our trouble.

On regrouping, it now looks like perhaps our misfortune is not yet through with for today, mysteriously one of Kalac's caravan horses, whilst sheltering from the combat in the ruins, has had its let badly cut by what looks like a knife. Suspicion within the company, strangely fell upon Stig, who was supposed to be guarding the caravan. It is unclear at this point what the motive is, or whether these suspicions can be proven. Stig pleads innocence and points the finger at the other caravaneers, however his past record is not one that can be trusted and I am yet to decide, but not yet quick to judge. I hope we can get to the bottom of this before we reach Rim. We have enough to contend with, without trouble from within our own. With the extra gold, my goal of reaching Warriorhood is now in my grasp and I will be glad of the extra training before we descend into the chasm. Time to rest after another narrow escape.

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 5

2011-10-11T20:48:00.000+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard
Blade, 1st Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale, 1st Lvl Dwarrow Fighter
Skarr, 1st Lvl Ratfolk Thief

Location: Ling (West from Forest of Harln, Old Aalia)

Prior to the social events, Hjalhir returned and tried to identify the magic prism, the Azure Serpent Sword and the Fey Goblin Horn. After failing on the prism, he successfully confirmed the Azure swords water breathing and magical sharpness (+1 to hit and damage) and also identified the horn as being heard in both the real and Fey dimensions. Not sure yet how this item will be helpful. Cagliostro failed to write up the Necromancers spell copied from the Sarcophagi from last weeks jaunt. Both the mages managed to summon familiars, a Raven, Jack, for Cagliostro (very appropriate) and an Owl, Nightwing for Hjalhir.

Supplies were restocked in Ling and the company had a rare respite from dungeoneering this week, a social date to attend the funeral of Hjalhir’s brother, Beomir, a past company member, killed by an Ogre in the Dungeon of Garm. The funeral took place in Ling, west of the Forest of Harln. Good ale and ox was had by all and the event was attended by some past patrons of the company, Xathania of Dax, a local well-to-do Merchant, rumoured to also be a sorceress, who past company members (Slippy and Hjalhir) had run errands for. In addition, a mysterious Wizard, Maxanimus, with his Fey vallet Vex. Due to previous business dealings with the Dax women, Hjalhir had a run in with the Wizard, after being paid to successfully steal his hat. It looks like its payback time for Hjalhir! After suddenly disappearing at the funeral (he was magically transported by Maxanimus into a void), Hjalhir was forced to take a strange yellow crystal powder as part of a bribe to force him to search the Dax women's home for two of the Serpentine Swords, in order to copy the inscriptions of the swords for the wizard. In addition, the Wizard was also interested in the inscription on the Azure Serpent Sword which I have in my possession.

Fortunately for Hjalhir, an opportunity arose to visit the Dax home. Before the run in the wizard, Skarr and I tried to avoid arrest by some imperial guards who turned up at the funeral looking for the dropped Prism from last weeks encounter. Apparently, after Hjalhir used ESP on some bloke with a detecting wand, it looks like the prism was something important belonging to the Archprismists. The guards forced us to hand it over. Probably best for all of us, who knows what trouble we would have got into if we would have managed to keep it!

The company was invited to meet with the Dax women, over at her swanky mansion in Micmar. She made an interesting business proposition to the company, asking us to explore the Chasm of Nayellem near Yelleth (two weeks N/E from Harln), in order to retrieve several relics (7 again!). She has offered to provide us with a treasure map of the area and to pay us 4,000gp for each of the retrieved relics and a further 500gp up front for travel expenses etc. Xathania’s father is apparently a relic collector. Note to self, we need to find out more about this family before we blindly do their bidding. Knowing that the very people looking to kill me are from the Chasm, I was initially put off by the idea. Since then, perhaps getting closer to this place isn’t such a bad idea after all. I will write to my Uncle to seek counsel on this matter.

We explained to the Dax women about Hjalhir’s predicament, she seemed not to care and denied any knowledge of the Serpent Swords in her possession and felt that her previous payment of 900gp for the hat job released her from any responsibility for Hjalhir. It is all a funny business and I have a bad feeling that we are pawns in a bigger game. My colleagues don’t seem to care, expect for the promise of gold in their back pockets. Gold is no laughing matter, but I ain’t no cat and I have used up two of my 9 lives already!

After the visit to the Dax mansion and failing to find the swords, Hjalhir seemed to weaken and pale, we think he has been cursed by the Wizard. The company seems hell bent on finishing our business at the Dungeon of Garm and heading straight for the Chasm with Xathania’s fathers map. I am not in such a hurry and feel led by my nose. Slippy’s money lust is clouding his judgement.

I will use my remaining time in Micmar to write to my Uncle and try to find out as much as possible about the Dax family, Maxanimus the Wizard and the Chasm of Nayellem, perhaps the Sage, Mol in Micmar can assist me. Only Assedh knows who we can trust!

It has only just crossed my mind that this whole thing could be a lure by the Dark Fey to get me to come to them!

Encounters: Imperial Troops
Treasure(less): The magical prism was retrieved from us by the guards.

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 4

2011-10-11T20:42:00.000+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Blade, 1st Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale, 1st Lvl Dwarrow Fighter
Skarr, 1st Lvl Ratfolk Thief

Session 4 (07/09/11)
After disastrous carousing in Dregg, I lost 200gp and gained no experience due to over confidence in gambling and too much ale, I now have a reputation as a drunken fool! So much for listening to my Uncles advice about keeping a low profile. The party, minus the Wizard, Fighter and Thief set off, along with a new companion, Skarr, an acquaintance of Slippy’s, for the dungeon by the old oak tree in the Magic Forest of Harln for more salvaging. The Necromancer is intent on copying the text from one of the sarcophagi, he believes it contains the formula for a powerful spell. I am happy to accompany him, it is the least I can do to return the favour for his last actions.

On our way, I tried the Goblin Horn, it has a residual of Fey Magic. It seemed to summon a strange large disc in the sky along with some Ariel beasts (A Giant Eagle and some half mixed flying beasts) mounted by people who seemed to fight each other. The disc was bigger than a ship and made a terrible din and passed overhead. Our new companion, Skarr spotted one of them who dropped an ornate leather satchel containing an apple, a bread roll, a small purse with 16pp and a magic glass prism.

This time we took a different route through the dungeon, as recommended by the Gnomes and Slippy showed us a strange room with a tilting floor and a large rolling bolder. In the centre of the room was a stone pillar with six levers, some of which triggered either the floor to move or a strange magical experience (The Cleric of Hegg apparently swapped consciousness with John the Skeleton for a short period). It is unclear what our random pulling actually achieves and the local Forest Gnomes warned us not to mess with such things.

We headed directly to the sarcophagi with the magic runes and left the Necromancer to copy down the spell. On exploring nearby rooms, previously unchecked, we found several more sarcophagi, one of which, when opened seemed to trigger a magic ward which stunned all the party members except for myself. After some time my companions returned to there old selves. We need to be more careful in the future, especially when we are such a small group. This sarcophagus also contained some runes on the lid. The other 3 sarcophagi contained 3 zombies and with some good tactics from Skarr, we managed to burn and slay them before they could attack us.

As we ventured further, along corridors which we had previously been missed, we came across a long narrow passage with an archway, on further examining and using my Gnomish Stone Trickery skills, I spotted a possible drop trap.

Again, the smart thinking of our new companion would later help us avoid being trapped. On proceeding, we were set upon by a giant, spiky scaled lizard. We were able to slay it with the mighty Azure Sword and some burning oil and well placed arrows. Time to collect our Necromancer and return to Dregg to replenish supplies before our luck runs out. We also need to identify the magic prism that was dropped from the air.

Encounters:
Giant Fire Beetle x 1
Skeletons x 2
Zombies x 3
Giant Tuatara Lizard x 1
Magic glyph paralysed party (except Deepingdale & Cagliosro)

Treasure:
16pp
Magical Prism

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 3

2011-10-11T20:33:00.000+02:00

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard
Deepingdale, 1st Lvl Dwarrow Fighter
Bozan, 1st Lvl Human Cleric of Demogorgon

Session 3 (24/08/11)
Bedridden for two weeks, recovering in Micmar from my serious wounds from the Snake poisoning and Wight energy drain attack. After recovering fully and avoiding constitution damage, I purchased some exotic equipment (Flaming oil and tonic) and a new set of Full Plate Armour (no thanks to the lack of generosity from my tight arsed family), traded in old suit of chainmail. Hopefully, the investment will avoid my future demise!

On the way to the dungeon, visited Sage in Micmar (Mol), to identify the Magic Long Sword. The Sage provided extensive background to the blades history, identifying it as the Azure Serpent Blade, one of Seven blades created by the High Priests of Garm to defeat the Reptile Sect 500 years ago. The blade has an Azure Glow and Reptile Script which is an exert from a poem describing “A watery dark, underground”. Afterwards we experimented with the water breathing ability, clearly it only works when holding the hilt and for one person. 1 sword down, 7 more blades to collect! The others are Yellow, Red, Black, Green, Blue and Purple.

Whilst on our way to the dungeon, in Harln forest we encountered two humans, clearly some sort of travelling tradesmen or merchants, with a small cart. They had been ambushed by a large gang of Fey Goblins. One man was already dead, filled with arrows and the other, a rather heavy set chap, was tied up and hung from a tree. A ill conceived plan eventually led to us releasing the fat chap and receiving a small reward. However Bozan the Grumpy Cleric died of wounds from the Fey Goblin attack and the party was saved by Cagliostro’s animate dead spell (and my Azure Serpent Sword). Slippy almost bled to death, we were lucky to kill so many. The rest of the goblins disappeared, literally. With reduced numbers, we decided to return to Dregg to await our missing companions.

On our return to Dregg, the Party decided to formally come together as a company. A constitution is yet to be formed; although some lose agreements were discussed around sharing loot and distributing magic treasure based on the items ability and the needs and skills of party members and establishing a war chest to cover usable items like flaming oil and tonic/healing potions.

Encounters:
Fey Goblins x 12 in Harln’s Magic Forest attacking traders’ wagon

Treasure:
Small gold reward from Traders
Goblin Horn (Fey Magic)

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 2

2011-10-11T20:29:00.000+02:00

Deepingdale's adventuring logs 1

2011-10-11T20:26:00.000+02:00

Deepingdale's adventuring logs

2011-10-11T20:20:00.005+02:00

Some time ago I posted a couple of session reports from the very beginning of my Labyrinth Lord campaign. I enjoyed writing the reports, but to be honest, when I sat down to write something game-related, session reports were at the bottom of the pile of things to do, so I didn't keep it up.

Recently a wave of new players have joined our group, taking us from a meagre and somewhat tenuous count of 3 or 4 to a mighty sum of 8 or more! One of these new players, Steve, has been writing some excellent campaign logs from the point of view of his character, Deepingdale, 1st level Dwarrow.

So I thought it'd be nice to share these logs here, for anyone who enjoys reading such things. I don't know how many session passed between the last log I wrote in January, and Steve's first log, but I'd guess maybe in the region of 8 to 10.

I'll post the session reports as individual posts, beginning with a catch-up batch for the last 7 sessions, and hopefully to be continued in the future as Steve (or otehrs) write more...

Mapping idea: dungeon quarters

2011-10-06T07:40:00.000+02:00

I just had an interesting idea for how to manage the map & key for an evolving dungeon. The assumption is that each time a bunch of adventurers go in there and cause trouble, a substantial number of facts about the dungeon (e.g. what monsters live where, what treasures exist, and so on) will be altered. Traditionally I've had two separate things: 1. the dungeon map with numbered rooms, 2. the dungeon key, describing what's in each of the numbered rooms.

I've found that two problems arise with this system of separate map and key. Firstly, the simple issue of having to flick back and forth between various sheets of notes, and of having to correlate the map to the descriptions. Not a huge deal, but there might be an easier way. Secondly, the problem of what to do when things change in the dungeon -- treasures are looted, monsters killed, etc.

So the idea I had, which should help with both these issues, is the following: make a dungeon map as usual, but without numbering the rooms. Then scan the map and divide it into four quarters. Zoom each of these quarters up so that it fills a whole page, print these. So you'll end up with one large scale map (at a normal scale of 10' per quarter inch, or whatever), which is the one you can stick to the back of your DM's screen for an overview of the level as a whole, and four zoomed in quarter maps.

The descriptions of what's in the dungeon should be written straight onto the maps of the dungeon quarters, in pencil so it can be modified as the place is demolished by zealous adventurers.

Here's an example dungeon quarter map I scanned in and quickly stocked to see how it works out. I wrote the key on this one digitally, for the sake of speed, in 12pt text (I think it's reasonable to be able to write legibly at that kind of size by hand). Of course it depends how much detail you want from your dungeon notes, but I find that for a self-written dungeon most of the work is done in the imagination, and I could totally run this example dungeon quarter purely from the minimal notes it contains. Note that there's also loads of blank space on that quarter, for more detailed descriptions if needed.

I reckon this'd be a really nice way to work with dungeons, would enable quick & easy restocking / modifications to the dungeon in response to PC actions, and would encourage an anti-perfectionist attitude where the dungeon is a living play-aid, rather than a publishable document. I'm definitely gonna try this out for my next dungeon!

(Another way, of course, might be to just map in the first place at a greatly zoomed-in scale. I guess I'll try both methods and see which works out best for me.)

The vivimancer is finished!

2011-09-27T08:59:00.003+02:00

After many months of gradual work, I'm finally happy with the spell list for the vivimancer -- my new nature-warping magic-user class. Here's the final spell list (including over 50 new spells), and a couple more spells for your perusal. I'm going to keep the rest of the spells under wraps until Theorems & Thaumaturgy is finished, to maintain some element of surprise ;)

1st level

Detect poison
Edibility (reversible)
Entangle (D)
Jump (MU)
Natural weaponry
Read magic
Reptilian metabolism
Skin transformation
Sleep (MU)
Speak with animals (D)
Spider climb (MU)
Spore cloud
Summon familiar (MU)
Vitality surge
Yeast growth

2nd level

Accelerated immune system
Accelerated metabolism
Divide body
Drone
Fungal growth
Infravision (MU)
Life energy protection
Polyvorousness
Staunch blood flow
Symbiotic familiar
Venom
Water breathing (MU)
Warp wood (D)
Web (MU)

3rd level

Accelerated healing
Cannibalize
Feign death (MU)
Fly (MU)
Hibernate
Hold animal (D)
Insect swarm (D)
Natural weaponry, improved
Neutralize poison (D)
Plant growth (D)
Repel vermin (D)
Spore blast

4th level

Hive mind
Hive sight
Hold vegetation and fungus (D)
Immunity to disease
Plant metabolism
Plant symbiosis
Polymorph others (MU)
Polymorph self (MU)
Speak with plants (D)
Swarm transformation

5th level

Animal growth (D)
Anti-plant shell (D)
Devolution
Divide mind
Immunity to poison
Insect plague (D)
Regeneration
Transfer pregnancy
Wall of thorns (D)

6th level

Anti-animal shell (D)
Charm plants (MU)
Impregnate
Life cycle
Reincarnate (MU)
Repel wood (D)
Transformative pupation
Virus

7th level

Egg of life
Meld
Mutate
Parasitic implantation
Regeneration, greater
Replicate lifeform
Vats of creation

8th level

Clone (MU)
Explosive growth
Mass devolution
Regenerative pupation
Shape change (MU)
Survival of the fittest
Xenogamy

9th level

Artificial intelligence
Creeping doom (D)
Extraordinary regeneration
Extinction
Genesis
Mass mutation
Temporal stasis (MU)

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Cannibalize
Level: 3
Duration: Instant
Range: Touch

This gruesome spell enables a vivimancer to magically consume the living tissue of other creatures and transmute its energy to regenerate damage to his own body. The caster's touch inflicts 2d6 points of damage, which manifests as a visible reduction in the volume of the victim's body – chunks of flesh or limbs may be ripped off, the target may become emaciated, and so on. The caster instantly regenerates an equal number of hit points to the damage taken by the target.

A successful attack roll is required, unless the victim is willing or helpless. The damage inflicted by this spell can generally only be healed by magical means.

Plant Symbiosis
Level: 4
Duration: 1 day per level
Range: Touch

The caster is able to meld his physical body with nearby plants. While in this symbiotic state, the caster can survive without food or water, being nourished purely by the root systems of the host plants. At the caster's option he may meld his body completely so that it disappears inside the plants, may leave sensory organs exposed so that he can still see or hear while in symbiosis, or may choose to leave larger portions of his body outside of the host.

This spell may be used to target a single intelligent plant-based creature, providing it is of at least twice the caster's volume. The creature is allowed a saving throw versus polymorph to resist the symbiosis, but if it fails it is affected by a charm (in the same way as charm person) while the caster remains in symbiosis.

The caster can choose to end the symbiosis at any time during the spell's duration.

Hex mapping

2011-09-18T12:29:00.003+02:00

I usually just draw maps freehand, but somehow, as I sat down today to do a bit of mapping, the urge for hexes came upon me! A quick google search for hex paper later, I was disappointed to find that what I had in mind wasn't quite as easy as it at first seemed -- I couldn't find A4 size hex-gridded paper with a per-hex number anywhere!

On the way I did find some very useful websites, which I shall share for others on a similar mission:

Some very nice pre-made PDFs of hexes and others, including grids with small hexes overlaid with larger ones: http://mojobob.com/roleplay/props/mapping.html
An online gridded paper generator! Very cool, but unfortunately doesn't do numbered grids: http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
An inkscape extension for generating hex grids: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~perni/iboardgameexts/

I ended up using the latter, which is an extremely and easy to use flexible tool allowing you to generate hex grids exactly to your own specification. I'd really recommend it. One tip, for anyone who does use it: the default grids it generates include a dot in the middle of each hex (apparently some games require this). For D&D mapping this was unnecessary, but it took me a while to work out how to remove it (there's no option for that in the tool's dialogue box). The secret is that the tool actually generates four layers, one of which is the dots. So you can just delete that layer.

Here's the PDF of my hex paper anyway, so you can see what I ended up with.

Addendum: I just started filling in those hexes, probably for the first time in 20 years -- what a joy!

Old Aalia map decriptions -- part 1

2011-09-10T09:41:00.000+02:00

Here's some more descriptive info around some of the locales depicted on the campaign map which I posted previously. Locations which are marked with a star on the map are listed with the corresponding number.

The sunken palaces of Garm (1). In ancient times the city of Garm, located in the middle of Harln, the magical forest, was the seat of a powerful kingdom ruled by sorcerers. Five centuries ago a cult of lizard and serpent gods emerged in the forest, spread like wildfire, and soon became a dominant force in the region, threatening to overrun neighbouring states. Legends are unclear on whether the city of Garm itself was dominated by the lizard cult, but it is well known that a great war ensued and that the city perished at this time, sinking into the great lake around which it was situated. This is presumed to have been as a result of some mighty magic, but none now know the truth. Rumours persist of great riches which lie untouched within the sunken palaces of the ancinet city, and of a secret entrance somewhere in the forest.

The dungeons of Thraal (2). Before it was the seat of the Imperium, S'raka was ruled for several generations by a line of vicious tyrant kings and queens known as the House of Raelle. Their kingdom encompassed the area for a hundred and fifty miles around S'raka, as far as Lope in the south, and Micmar in the east, and covering all of the North Riding of Old Aalia. King Thraal, the last in this line, who was known and reviled for his especially sadistic nature, conceived and had built a series of underground prisons to the north of S'raka. The prisons, constructed initially with the aid of the Dwarrow of Minitol, were intended to bring hell on earth to those poor souls who were cast within. King Thraal lived to the extraordinary age of 126, and his dungeons saw many decades of use and constant expansion. Upon the coming of the Emperor to S'raka, the gates of Thraal's dungeons were opened, granting freedom to any prisoners who wished it. Not all wished for freedom, however, as over decades of suffering a certain contingent among the incarcerated had become twisted by dark forces, and chose to remain in the depths of the dungeons. Over the two hundred years since the dungeon was opened, it has become a stronghold of evil, home to a vast array of monstrous beings, and a legendary goal for adventurers, who hope to retrieve the loot which has, so rumours say, been accumulated in the vast underground complex.

The Eld tree (3). Situated in the middle of the forbidden forest of Gong, the Eld tree is the legendary settlement of a people known as the Meng. Few souls have ventured far along the accursed paths of that forest, and only the most fanciful tales mention the city of the Meng. What such tales describe is a great tree, hundreds of yards in height, which the Meng worship as a deity. The tree is rumoured to grant strange powers to its worshippers, who were once human, but who are now transformed into something other, having the ability to see into the future and the past, and being immune to the ravages of disease and aging. Tales also tell that the wondrous abilities posessed by the Meng are not without a price, and that they send out strange calls to lure the unwary into the eaves of the forest in a lust for human sacrifices.

The fastness of the giant king (4). The preponderance of the race of giants in the regions of the Barrier Peaks around the pass of Oregonn is well known. The giants extract heavy toll from all who use the pass, and hunt and enslave those who dare to seek an alternate route through the jagged mountains. Seventy miles east of the pass, and visible looming above in the high peaks on a cloudless day, stands the great citadel of the king of the giants. Such is the strength of the giants that they are known to take carefully selected captives from time to time, in order to ransom them as political prisoners. The elite of the cities of Lope and Varnmeet have suffered especially at the hands of the giants, but the might of the giants is unassailable to those cities, and the Emperor fails to hear their pleas for action to be taken. Aside from this oft-discussed political tension, other stories tell that the treasure vaults of the giants are beyond the wildest imaginings of men, and of the bold few who have ventured there in search of their fortune.

Grbla, city of the swine-folk (5). Standing on a plateau at the centre of the barren plains of the East Riding of Old Aalia lies the great, sprawling city of the swine-folk. No human has ever visited this city and returned, and the region is shunned by all with a glimmer of sanity. The scant reports from those who have strayed near to the plateau tell of a grotesque meeting place for the roaming tribes of the swine-folk, where humans are kept as slaves to be sacrificed to ancient demonic gods.

The realm of the Ja (6). In the depths of the ancient and tangled Braggling forest which forms the north-western bound of Old Aalia, the fey race called the Ja are known to dwell. Stories say that the Ja are beings of mist and shadow who haunt the ruins of a city of unknown antiquity. The gates and cellars of this city are said to lead into the fey realm of the Ja, wherein can be found a vast winding network of dark tunnels which border on the world of shadows and dreams.

The chasm of Nayellem. Seventy five miles from end to end, and almost a mile deep, the vast chasm of Nayellem lies in the featureless expanse of the East Riding. Very little is known about the chasm, as access to its depths is strictly controlled by a strange fey people who call themselves the Rim. The city of Yelleth, in the closest civilised region to the chasm, conducts sporadic trade with the chasm, via the Rim, and reaps bounties of emeralds and ensorcelled wooden items therefrom. The traders tell that the Rim will allow travellers to enter the chasm, for a price, but that the peoples who dwell in the depths are so savage and ruthless that none dare to descend. Among the inhabitants of the chasm itself are known to be several tribes or factions, which, it is said, are continuously at war. The Rim have managed to maintain a position of complete neutrality among the factions, and are thus able to conduct trade among them.

Divide and conquer!

2011-09-09T09:02:00.000+02:00

A glimpse into my on-going development of the vivimancer class, here are two new spells hot off the press :)

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Divide Body
Level: 2
Duration: 1 turn per level
Range: 0

This spell causes the caster to physically split into two identical copies, which can be controlled individually.

During the first turn of the spell's effect, the caster undergoes a horrific process of transformation, during which his body swells and mutates. At the end of this period a second body splits away, leaving the caster with two separate and identical forms.

Each body can be controlled completely independently of the other, and both may engage in speech and spell-casting, sharing all knowledge and experience. As the two bodies share one mind, they effectively have a continuous telepathic link, experiencing everything which the other does.

However, the two bodies must share the caster's hit points, having half of his current total each. If either body is killed while the spell is in effect, the remaining body must make a saving throw versus death or fall unconscious for 2d6 turns.

When the spell comes to an end one of the two bodies (chosen at random) weakens and dies. The hit points possessed by the dead body are not regained, and must be regenerated by natural or magical means.

Divide Mind
Level: 5
Duration: 1 turn per level
Range: Touch

This spell allows the caster to imbue a fragment of his living consciousness into another being. The target must be touched, and is allowed a saving throw versus spells to resist.

Once the mind fragment is imbued, the caster experiences everything the target does, in addition to the perceptions of his own body, and is able to communicate telepathically with the target.

The caster can also attempt to control the target's body, overriding the mastery of its own mind. Each round the caster has a base 50% chance of being able to control the target's body, modified by 5% per point of difference in INT scores. It is only possible to control the target's body in this manner – the caster has no access to the target's mind, and it is thus not possible, for example, to force the target to reveal information or to cast spells.

If the target dies during the spell's duration, the caster must make a save versus death or fall unconscious for 1d6 turns. If the caster's own body is killed while his mind is divided, he must make a saving throw versus spells. Failure indicates that the mind fragment imbued in the target also dies. If the save succeeds, the caster's mind takes refuge in the target, and continues to exist beyond the normal duration of the spell. In this case the caster's mind may be retrieved from the target's body by spells such as magic jar or limited wish, and will automatically return to the caster's real body if he is raised from the dead.

It has a name!

2011-09-02T08:27:00.000+02:00

I wasn't sure whether to "announce" this formally yet -- or at all -- but what the hell. My heretofore untitled book shall henceforth be known as...

Theorems & Thaumaturgy
Advanced Arcana for the Discerning Magic-User

I like it. And I'm very pleased to have got both alliteration and an ampersand in there! What's more (according to google search) it's not a name that's been used before in any context -- which I find somewhat surprising, but ideal.

Thanks to Quibish for the oblique inspiration... I didn't end up using any of the titles or words you suggested, but somehow your ideas pushed me in a new direction where I was able to find something. (And I managed to slip the word "arcana" into the sub-title :)

Spells of the god of blades

2011-08-28T12:25:00.000+02:00

One of the players in my on-going Labyrinth Lord games is playing a cleric, and has chosen to be a follower of a deity called Hegg, the god of blades. He asked me if there were any special spells which he could use as a follower of this god, and, not having given the deity much thought beyond the name, I suggested that maybe we could come up with say one new spell per level, to give devotees of Hegg a little bit of unique flavour. I think that's a pretty nice system for clerics, that would give followers of each cosmic power their own noteworthy abilities, without getting into the realm of making up whole new spell lists for them all.

Here are the spells we've developed for the god of blades. (Note: in my campaign clerics have no weapon limitations, so these guys are quite able to use the bladed weapons they're enchanting!)

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Bless Blade
Level: 1
Duration: 6 turns
Range: Touch

The cleric touches a bladed weapon, which becomes enchanted for the duration, granting +1 to hit and damage. The blessed weapon does not count as magical for the purposes of striking foes which can only be hit by magical weapons.

Conjure Blade
Level: 1
Duration: 6 turns
Range: 0

The last salvation of the god of blades, this spell brings forth a bladed weapon from thin air. Any normal type of bladed weapon can be produced.

Anoint Blade
Level: 2
Duration: 6 turns
Range: Touch

This spell imbues a single bladed weapon with divine energy, making it temporarily magical. The weapon gains a +1 magical bonus, and an extra +1 for every four levels of the cleric above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 (so, +2 at 7th level, +3 at 11th level, +4 at 15th level and +5 at 19th level). To enchant the blade, the cleric must anoint it with a vial of holy water, which is consumed.

Protection from Blades
Level: 3
Duration: 12 turns
Range: Touch

While under the effects of this spell, the subject is completely invulnerable to damage from normal, non-magical blades.

Sword Guardian
Level: 4
Duration: See below
Range: Self

The cleric gains the protection of several magical, glowing swords (one blade per two caster levels), which hang in the air by his side, ready to strike any who engage him in melee. Every time the caster is targeted by a melee attack, one of the magical swords will strike back at the opponent, hitting automatically, and dealing 1d8 damage. The target must also make a save versus paralysis or be stunned for 1d4 rounds. Once a sword has attacked it vanishes. The magical swords last for one turn per level of the caster, or until all of them have expired.

Blade Barrier
Level: 5
Followers of the god of blades can use this spell one level earlier than normal.

Subtle Knife
Level: 6
Duration: 1 day
Range: Touch

The cleric enchants a knife, giving it the ability to cut the fabric of reality separating parallel worlds. Using the knife, the cleric can cut open a doorway to another world, including, at the Labyrinth Lord's option, the various planes of existence. A single doorway can be created per use of the spell, and it remains open for one day, allowing access in both directions to any who come across it. However, the dimensional doorway cut with the knife is difficult to detect, being only visible as a thin tear in the fabric of space. Those who know its location can easily pass through, but others must make a normal roll to detect secret doors in order to find it.

Holy Sword
Level: 7
Duration: See below
Range: Self

Swearing a mighty oath before his deity, the cleric is granted a holy avenger sword (see the AEC magical items section) for the purposes of fulfilling an epic quest. The sword is only granted if the quest is deemed of great import to the cleric's deity, and if such a powerful weapon is truly necessary. If the quest deemed worthy, the sword will last until the goal is completed. During the quest, the cleric gains the advanced benefits of the sword (usually only gained by paladins) while wielding it directly in pursuit of the goal.

Such an oath is not without downsides, however, as the cleric is sworn to complete the quest with all haste. Any delay or retreat causes the sword to lose its powers, and the cleric will come under the effects of a curse, in a manner similar to the quest spell.

If the cleric dies with the quest unfinished, the sword remains and may be taken up by another, who must also swear an oath before the deity and take over the cleric's role, gaining all the benefits of the sword and the urgency to complete the quest.

When the quest is successfully completed the sword vanishes, its purpose fulfilled. The victorious cleric is usually granted some boon by his deity in this case.

Book of magic progress

2011-08-27T10:20:00.000+02:00

I've not mentioned it for a while, but my still-unnamed book of spells, magic-user sub-classes and miscellaneous esoteric bounty for Labyrinth Lord is coming along nicely.

Things of note:

There are now over 200 new spells in the book!
The necromancer and elementalist classes are finished.
The "nature mage" (now tentatively called the Vitalist) is nearing completion.
I've decided to add a bonus section on d30-based wild magic, which I'm rather pleased with and includes (so far) about 15 spells only usable by wild magic-users (which can include sub-classes such as wild elementalists or wild illusionists!).
There are also a bunch of new monsters (for various summoning spells), and magic items (especially to add some necromancy-themed items, which are strangely missing in the core LL books).

ps. If anyone out there would be interested in helping out by giving the book a quick proof-read when it's finished, please let me know :)

The devil is in the details – Some Dwarrow, Some Rat-People

2011-08-26T22:24:00.000+02:00

Continuing on from the other day's post about "Many Dwarrow, Many Rat-People", here's the remainder of the characteristics of those races. Each PC exhibits one of these.

Some Dwarrow

Are completely hairless.
Carve hideous statues in honour of the gods of the fathomless darkness of the earth.
Are sickened by acts of kindness.
Are loyal and courageous to the point of foolhardiness.
Find the feel of cloth unpleasant, preferring to always wear metal.
Are wider than they are tall.
View Law and consistency as the most important virtues, even unto death.
Have a twisted sadistic streak, and make excellent torturers.
Spend one month of each year in a state of deep slumber.
Have more than one father.
Have replaced all their teeth with metal replicas.
Pity and try to guide other races, who are weak-willed and lacking in purpose.
View the giving and receiving of gifts as ultimately debasing.
Have the patience of a rock.
Become students of history, coveting scriptures and records from ancient times.
Have seen awful things in the deeps of the earth, which they are at once terrified of and lust after.
Are sterile and unable to reproduce.
Apparently do not age.
Live by an odd conception of time, often mixing up past and future.
Have no imagination.
Can detect subtle vibrations in stone, warning them of approaching or recently passed creatures.
Are members of a rebellious sect which proposes tenets such as “kindness”, “equality” and “generosity”.
Spend their whole lives preparing an elaborate crypt for themselves and their descendants
Play a droning, melancholic music on horns and pipes.
Secretly plot treason against their kin with the hope of becoming a great ruler.
Have one true purpose in their lives, which was determined at birth.
Keep their soul in a rock.
Feel no kinship with their own people, becoming wanderers looking for a home.
Are terrified of magic and those who use it.
Will gladly die defending their home and people.

Some Rat-People

Have a spiteful malicious streak.
Intermittently experience pre-cognitive dreams.
Speak in rhyme and riddle.
Can grip small items with their tail.
Have sinister red eyes.
Are incredibly impatient.
Can use their sense of smell to follow recent tracks.
Suffer from a hunger which is never sated, and risk become obese.
Refuse to eat the flesh of domesticated animals.
Believe in reincarnation and that all talk of an “afterlife” is a deadly spiritual trap.
Will only wear clothing of a specific favoured colour.
Memorize elaborate family histories.
Dream of sailing to unknown lands.
Find sunlight distasteful.
Never forget a face.
Follow a mysterious spiritual path of renunciation of material wealth.
Are captivated by the moon, often spending long hours gazing at it.
Feel an irresistible urge to delve into the deeps of the earth.
Are experts on gourmet food and fine wines.
Become infuriated at the sight of waste and decadence.
Find the touch of stone unpleasant, preferring the warmth of earth or wood.
Have beautiful silver fur.
Can live to be over 200 years old.
Are equally at home creeping on all fours as they are standing upright.
Have a lust for gems and silver which rivals that of the Dwarrow.
Can grip with their feet.
Are of the opinion that a cosy home is the highest achievement in life.
Experience a waxing and waning between extremes of personality.
Are so excitable that they can rarely sit still or sleep.
Give personal names to inanimate objects.

The Necromancer - a new class for Labyrinth Lord

2011-08-16T22:05:00.000+02:00

It's been brewing for some time, but is finally finished: my take on the necromancer class. It's a class that's seen many, many interpretations over the years, in all different versions of D&D, so making my own version was really just for fun. And fun it was.

The class is designed explicitly for Labyrinth Lord, though of course that means it's trivially compatible with any other form of pre-d20 D&D or clones. It's worked as an equal to the standard magic-user, having the same XP and spell progression, all the way up to 9th level spells.

You can download the PDF here. Over 50 new spells can be found within (including a couple of re-writes of spells of yore).

One of the players in my on-going LL games is playing a necromancer at present, and the class is playing out pretty well so far, and seems well balanced in comparison to the standard magic-user. The PC is only 2nd level though, so we've not had a chance to test out the higher level spells yet! As usual, if anyone ends up using this class or any of the spells, I'd be delighted to hear how they worked out. And any feedback of any kind (well, ideally constructive ;) is also most welcome.

The devil is in the details – Many Dwarrow, Many Rat-People

2011-08-15T09:19:00.000+02:00

Inspired recently by the "devil is in the details" concept developed by Kesher in Fight On!, I decided to start creating these tables of random racial features for my Old Aalia campaign. First up are two d30 tables which describe some of the most common traits of Dwarrow and Rat-People. The concept is that each newly created character of these races should roll for three of these traits.

Many Dwarrow

Have only three fingers.
Stretch their ear lobes by hanging pebbles from them.
Smoke a sweet smelling pipe-weed which is intoxicating to humans.
Find humans physically repulsive.
Believe that Dwarrow are the rightful possessors of all metals and stones.
Have no sense of taste.
View avarice as the highest emotion.
Can subsist by eating gravel alone.
Have thick, slow-oozing blood.
Worship Ogremoch, lord of the dark, cold earth, whom they view as the creator of the world.
Are driven mad by the sound of music.
Follow an ancient creed of 111 rules known as Bag-Hran.
Dream of conquering and ruthlessly enslaving other races.
Hate and fear water.
Eat enormous quantities of bland food, apparently without pleasure.
Carve likenesses of themselves in stone.
Do not sleep but just go still for precisely 8 hours.
Like to mock other races openly.
Become obsessed with hoarding a certain type of item.
Have a black tongue.
Practice the art of counting, internally maintaining an increasing count through their whole lives.
Will only sleep on bare stone.
Participate in ritualistic orgies.
Believe that one who eats a diet of gold will live forever.
Feel a kinship with a specific type of stone, determined by the auspices of their birth.
Keep a small book in which they write in code.
Are covered in warts and lumps, which they are secretly ashamed of.
Never sweat and have completely odourless bodies.
Are of the opinion that the human conception of the soul is a laughably childish attempt to mask the grim truth of reality.
Have extremely long names, and up to 17 secret names reserved for specific rituals.

Many Rat-People

Happily eat food which is well past its prime.
Are trained in a craft of spiteful pranks to be applied to the arrogant and vain (often involving needles and irritating poisons).
Superstitiously carve little animal figurines from bone and wood.
Delight in clockwork.
Are expert swimmers.
Can speak with rats.
Excel at poetry and riddles.
Abhor the concept of slavery or service.
Try to remain neutral in all disputes.
Love to keep pets, which they groom and adorn with ribbons.
Brew a fish-wine in odd stills made from guts.
Practice a unique craft, something between sculpture and smell-art.
Find humans' religious and philosophical opinions endlessly funny.
Do not view theft as a crime, seeing it rather as a joke to be played on the stupid.
View writing as a pointless arrogance of the “tall races”.
Believe that their folk descended from the moon.
Awake instinctively at dawn.
Adorn their tails with rings and bells.
Have no concept of marriage.
Love dancing to music played on pipes and flutes.
Protect their possessions obsessively and elaborately.
Cannot keep a secret.
Have an acute sense of smell, and make no differentiation between pleasant and foul.
Find humans incredibly attractive.
Bury valuable items.
Have no understanding of the concept of nobility.
Shave spiral patterns from their fur.
Have a detailed and on-going alternate life in their dreams, in which they are usually slaves.
Practice a wide array of fortune-telling techniques.
Believe that it is an honour to bestow equal favour and disfavour upon others.

Old Aalia - players' map + adventuring locales

2011-08-12T08:26:00.000+02:00

Ok so as planned I've finished off the annotations on the campaign map, and added some sites of special interest. These are represented by numbered stars on the map.

Here's what they denote:

The sunken palaces of Garm.
The dungeons of Thraal.
The Eld tree.
Fastness of the giant king.
Grbla -- City of the swine-folk.
Realm of the Ja.
The desolation of Orb.
The scintillating peak.
The sphere of Agk-H'ral.
The caverns of Jib.
The breachlands.
Feremhaal -- City of statues.
Shadda's dominion.
The pillars of prophecy.
The tower of death. (With thanks to Carter Soles ;)

More details on these, and the other locations on the map, to come!

Old Aalia - players' map

2011-08-11T09:37:00.000+02:00

Here's an almost-finished version of a new campaign map I'm working on. The original was drawn in coloured pens, then scanned in, cleaned up in Gimp, and vectorised and text added in Inkscape.

The next step will be adding some more "sites of interest" to the map. I have a list of about 15 unusual locales (potential sites for adventures), which I'll probably add to the map simply as numbered stars or something like that.

Finally I need to write up snippets of info about each of the cities and adventuring locales to give the players some hints as to what's what.

The map I posted previously, of the Harln-Halladan region, can be seen just to the right of the text "Old Aalia" in the new larger scale map.

Looking for a random table

2011-08-09T22:18:00.000+02:00

I just remembered an excellent post I saw somewhere ages ago, but which I now can't for the life of me track down. It was a method of fleshing out a campaign world and simultaneously producing nice bits of interesting background for characters. The idea was that for each race you have a set of tables like "most halflings X, Y, Z", "some halflings A, B, C", "rarely halflings J, K, L", and so on. That's the gist of it, I just can't quite remember the details.

If anyone knows where to find it, please do let me know!

Fun with body parts

2011-08-08T08:28:00.000+02:00

A fun little 4th level necromancer spell for your entertainment...

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Detach / Graft
Level: 4
Duration: See below
Range: Touch

Casting this spell and touching a body part causes it to detach from its owner, who can then control the part as an independent entity. Thus hands may crawl around, legs may hop, and even heads can be detached and rolled. The detached body part can be controlled for up to 1 turn per level of the caster, after which it must be retrieved and reattached to the body (which happens automatically). If the body part is not reattached during the spell's duration it dies.

Using the reverse version, graft, body parts lost in any way may be replaced either by reattaching the missing part or by grafting on replacement parts cut from another living or recently dead creature. The graft is permanent, but the recipient (which may be the caster himself) must make a transformative shock roll. If the roll fails the graft does not take, and will wither and fall off in 1d6 weeks.

Victorian London guidebook

2011-08-06T08:33:00.000+02:00

A little recommendation for anyone interested in running games in Victorian London: I've just been doing a bit of research on sourcebooks for the period, and discovered the wonderful looking "Baedeker's London and its Environs 1900". It's a hardback facsimile of a real guidebook from the time, and is readily available from amazon etc. And it's 512 pages, so I imagine it's pretty comprehensive!

Originally I was looking for something specifically RPG related, possibly the out-of-print "Cthulhu by Gaslight", but really I just want a book with detailed maps, and information about notable places, where one can buy things, and so on. It looks like this book will be perfect for the job! I just ordered it, so will post further information as to its RPG-worthiness when I receive it.

Look what I got!

2011-08-05T09:47:00.000+02:00

Just received in the post yesterday...

The really great thing is that I've only played CoC twice, and both times the d20 version, so this majestic tome is all new to me!

Horror in Victorian London here I come :)

Thoughts on wild magic

2011-07-30T13:46:00.000+02:00

Though it's not a class I've ever seen used in practice, I've always been smitten with the idea of the wild mage -- a magic-user who lives on the dangerous and unpredictable side of the arcane. The only place I've actually seen a wild mage class presented was in the AD&D 2nd edition Tome of Magic. The class didn't appear in AD&D 1e (as far as I know) and also seems to have never made it into the later versions of the game (again, as far as I know -- please correct me if I'm wrong here).

This lack is something I hope to remedy by including guidelines for wild magic in my work-in-progress book.

My initial thoughts are going along a different track to the ToM wild mage, which presented a d100 table of (fairly extreme) wild surge effects, with a 1 in 20 chance of a wild surge occurring each time the wizard casts a spell. Personally, I'd like a system where wild surges are more common but less extreme. And instead of the fixed table of effects, I'd like to design a system which taps the endless (d∞!) creative potential of the DM & players. So here are the beginnings of my thoughts on how this might work.

The basics

Any magic-user can choose to be a wild mage. Usually this choice would be made at character creation, and could never be altered, but existing MUs may be allowed to opt to be wild mages if the DM introduces the option in the middle of a campaign.
Magic-user sub-classes like illusionists can also opt to be wild mages (or wild illusionists, in this case).
Whenever a wild mage casts a spell, the player must roll 1d6 & 1d12. The d6 determines whether a wild surge occurs, which is indicated by an odd number. If a wild surge does occur, then the d12 indicates what happens.

Table 1, 1d6

Wild surge, consult table 2.
Spell works as intended.
Wild surge, consult table 2.
Spell works as intended.
Wild surge, consult table 2. Spell remains in memory (can be cast again).
Spell works as intended plus stays in memory (can be cast again).

Table 2, 1d12

Spell functions as if the caster were 1d4 levels higher than normal.
Spell functions as if the caster were 1d4 levels lower than normal. (If effective caster level ends up less than one then the spell has no effect.)
Spell has normal effect plus the effect of a randomly chosen spell of the same level.
Spell has normal effect plus another randomly chosen memorized spell is activated unwillingly.
Spell manifests as intended and a randomly chosen spell of the same level appears in the caster's mind in its place. (The caster is able to cast this spell, even if it is not one that he usually could.)
Spell fizzles with no effect.
The spell's target or area of effect (where applicable) changes.
Randomly chosen spell of same level activates instead.
Randomly chosen spell of one level higher activates instead.
A randomly chosen spell of level d8 manifests instead of the intended effect.
Cast another memorized spell instead. (If the caster has no other spells memorized, then nothing happens and the spell remains in memory.)
The caster loses the ability to cast spells for 1d4 rounds or 1d4 turns (whichever the Labyrinth Lord deems appropriate).

So the main creativity of the system comes when the intended effect is replaced by a randomly chosen spell. This would require a lot of quick creative thinking on the part of the DM, which I reckon would be a lot of fun! For example, what happens when a sleep spell surges and is replaced by hold portal?. The intention is that the DM wouldn't have to follow the random spell's description to the letter, but could simply use it as a creative kick-start. In the example of sleep transmuting into hold portal, perhaps there are no doors close by, and the DM could interpret it as locking shut the mouths or eyes of all creatures in range.

As I say, this is all just a beginning, so I'd be very interested to hear anyone's thoughts on what I've described or on wild magic in general.

Wow I won something!

2011-07-30T09:06:00.000+02:00

The only thing I recall winning in my life up till now was tickets to go and see a theatrical version of "The Hobbit" in about 1985, which I won (as a kid) by entering a competition to colour in a picture of Smaug!

However I can now add to that esteemed colouring-in accolade... I just checked out the results of the Fight On! random tables contest and discovered that I've won an "Elite Honorable Mention" for my Magical Research Results table, and won PDFs of all back-issues of Fight On! magazine plus their short stories compilation Roll the Bones! I'm super pleased about this, especially as I don't think I've ever read a single issue of Fight On! before (but have of course been very interested in it), so will now have a glorious quantity of new D&D related reading / material! I think I'll get them all printed and bound into one monster book for my reading pleasure (if they'll fit -- I guess it'll come to hundreds of pages!).

Big thanks to everyone who organised and judged the contest -- you have one delighted elitely and honourably mentioned here :)

I can't wait to see the compilation of all the entries -- there are some extremely intriguing sounding names in there!

Quick & easy classless Labyrinth Lord

2011-07-26T21:38:00.000+02:00

This rather oblique thought emerged unbidden from my mind this morning and planted itself on a piece of paper. I shall now transcribe it for the edification of the curious.

The basics:
A system which allows one to play Labyrinth Lord with build-your-own classes.

(Note: I'm not particularly a fan of such systems, and don't plan to use it, but I thought it was worth recording for posterity.)

Ability scores rolled as normal.
All characters progress using the fighter XP table (for the sake of simplicity).
Players get 12 points to spend on the options below.
Race & class are separate, as per the AEC.
I guess multi-classing is out.
Saving throws? Not sure... probably just use the chart which seems to fit best.

Fighting ability:
Basic (0 points) -- Magic-user attack chart, d4 hit dice.
Moderate (2 points) -- Cleric / thief attack chart, d6 hit dice.
Advanced (6 points) -- Fighter attack chart, d8 hit dice.

Combat techniques:
Heavy armour (2 points) -- Gain full benefit from shields and heavy armour. Without this technique, characters can't use a shield and have a max AC of 6, whatever armour they're wearing. (Plus it's assumed that armour interferes with magic and thief skills.)
Heavy weapons (2 points) -- Use two-handed weapons, heavy crossbow, longbow competently. Without this technique characters suffer -2 to hit with these weapons.
Two-weapon fighting (2 points) -- Fight with two one-handed weapons. Without this technique, two-weapon fighting is not possible.
Backstab (2 points) -- Damage multiplier when attacking someone from behind by surprise.

Skills:
The standard thief skills plus any extras allowed (1 point each).

Arcane magic:
(Includes the ability to make scrolls, potions, etc.)

Slow advancement (4 points) -- Slow spell progression table (not included), starting from experience level 2.
Medium advancement (8 points) -- Standard magic-user spell progression.
Fast advancement (12 points) -- Standard magic-user spell progression, plus bonus spells for high INT.

Divine magic:
(Includes turning undead.)

Slow advancement (2 points) -- Slow spell progression table (not included), starting from experience level 2.
Medium advancement (4 points) -- Standard cleric spell progression.
Fast advancement (8 points) -- Standard cleric spell progression, plus bonus spells for high WIS.

Example 1: fighter:
Advanced fighting ability (6)
Heavy armour (2)
Heavy weapons (2)
Two-weapon fighting (2)

Example 2: thief:
Moderate fighting (2)
Backstab (2)
8 skills (8)

Example 3: magic-user:
Basic fighting (0)
Arcane magic, fast advancement (12)

Example 4: cleric:
Moderate fighting (2)
Heavy armour (2)
Divine magic, fast advancement (8)

Example 5: paladin:
Advanced fighting (6)
Heavy armour (2)
Divine magic, medium advancement (4)

Example 6: ranger:
Moderate fighting (2)
Heavy armour (2)
Heavy weapons (2)
Two-weapon fighting (2)
Skills: move silently, hide in shadows, climbing, tracking (4)

Example 7: bard:
Moderate fighting (2)
Heavy armour (2)
Skills: move silently, hide in shadows, pick pockets, read languages (4)
Arcane magic, slow advancement (4)

Nature mage

2011-07-24T08:43:00.000+02:00

So I'm back from holiday, twas very nice, albeit rather rainy, but such is the lot of the British Isles.

Firstly, I wanted to post the spell list as it stands for my nature mage class. It needs more work, especially at levels 6 & 7, and I also want to go through and compare it (and the new necromancer spell list) against the existing illusionist and magic-user lists, to make sure the balance of attack / defense / misc spells is OK, and that the lists don't contain too many spells which sound really cool but are actually very unlikely to be used in the average adventure (transfer pregnancy? ;) It was inspired by the film Beast Master, by the way).

Secondly, if anyone has any ideas for a name for this class please make suggestions! "Nature mage" or "biomancer" are the best I've come across so far, but I feel like the latter sounds a bit too cyber-punk for D&D, and I'd really like a one-word name, rather than "X mage" or "Y wizard", if you know what I mean.

(D) denotes druid spells and (MU) denotes magic-user spells, all from the Advanced Edition Companion.

1st level

Entangle (D)
Jump (MU)
Natural weaponry
Read magic
Reptilian metabolism
Skin transformation
Sleep (MU)
Speak with animals (D)
Spider climb (MU)
Summon familiar (MU)
Yeast growth

2nd level

Accelerated immune system
Accelerated metabolism
Drone
Fungal growth
Infravision (MU)
Polyvorousness
Staunch blood flow
Warp wood (D)
Web (MU)

3rd level

Accelerated healing
Feign death (MU)
Fly (MU)
Hibernate
Hold animal (D)
Insect swarm (D)
Natural weaponry, improved
Neutralize poison (D)
Plant growth (D)
Repel vermin (D)
Spore blast
Water breathing (MU)

4th level

Hive mind
Hive sight
Hold vegetation and fungus (D)
Immunity to disease
Plant metabolism
Polymorph others (MU)
Polymorph self (MU)
Speak with plants (D)
Swarm transformation (Necromancer)

5th level

Animal growth (D)
Anti-plant shell (D)
Devolution
Immunity to poison
Insect plague (D)
Regeneration
Transfer pregnancy
Wall of thorns (D)

6th level

Anti-animal shell (D)
Impregnate
Reincarnate (MU)
Repel wood (D)
Transformative pupation

7th level

Egg of life
Mutate
Regeneration, greater

8th level

Clone (MU)
Explosive growth
Mass devolution
Regenerative pupation
Survival of the fittest
Xenogamy

9th level

Artificial intelligence
Creeping doom (D)
Extraordinary regeneration
Extinction
Genesis
Mass mutation
Shape change (MU)
Temporal stasis (MU)

Necromancer spell list & holiday

2011-07-11T08:42:00.000+02:00

The work on my necromancer class for Labyrinth Lord is progressing well, and it feels like the spell list is nearing completion. As a little teaser I thought I'd post the list as it currently stands. I'll probably flesh out the mid to high levels a bit more, but you should be able to get an idea of the kind of things the class is capable of. By the way, I think I didn't mention it before, but all the new spells, classes, monsters, etc in the book are going to be open gaming content.

(Also, I'll be on holiday for the next 2 weeks, from tomorrow, so no posts will manifest during that time.)

(C) denotes cleric spells, (MU) denotes magic-user spells and (I) denotes illusionist spells, all from the Advanced Edition Companion.

1st level

Cause light wounds (C)
Command dead
Command undead
Darkness globe (MU)
Detect disease
Detect undead
Dying words
Exterminate
Haunting
Locate remains
Pass undead
Preserve dead
Ray of enfeeblement (MU)
Read magic
Scare (MU)
Shadow touch
Skeletal servitor
Summon familiar (MU)
Unseen servant (MU)

2nd level

Choke
Corpse visage
Death recall
Drag from death's door
Feign death (MU)
Ghoul touch
Lend strength or fortitude
Ray of pain
Resist turning
Seal tomb
Speak with dead (C)
Spectral hand
Summon swarm
Zombie servitor

3rd level

Animate dead (MU)
Cause disease (C)
Fear (MU)
Hold person (MU)
Skull sight
Skull speech
Summon undead I
Unhallow
Walking dead
Zone of sinister stillness

4th level

Cause serious wounds (C)
Charm undead
Curse (MU – reverse of remove curse)
Graft
Mummy touch
Summon undead II
Swarm transformation

5th level

Cause critical wounds (C)
Death spell (MU)
Defy death
Gaseous form
Magic jar (MU)
Summon shadow (I)
Summon undead III
Zone of creeping terror

6th level

Contact spirit
Curse of undeath
Harm (C – reverse of heal)
Knowledge of life
Organ transference, lesser
Spiritwrath (MU)
Summon undead IV

7th level

Death geas
Destruction (C – reverse of resurrection)
Drain energy (C – reverse of restoration)
Necrosis (C – reverse of regenerate)
Summon demon (MU)
Summon undead V
Undead regeneration
Zone of weakness

8th level

Clone (MU)
Organ transference, greater
Power word blind (MU)
Skeletal army
Summon undead VI
Symbol (MU)

9th level

Power word kill (MU)
Raise dead (C)
Reinstate spirit
Steal life force
Summon undead VII
Zone of death

Dungeon map

2011-07-10T20:55:00.000+02:00

Spoiler warning: Players, this is the next level of the dungeon you'll be playing tomorrow! Shield your eyes!

I've never posted any of the dungeon maps I've drawn before, as I have no idea if anyone's really interested in seeing that kind of thing, but I just finished drawing one today and was quite pleased with it so I thought I'd share it.

It's intended as the 2nd level of a dungeon, and is keyed with areas 53 to 123 (so, 70 encounter areas). It could of course though easily be used as the 1st or any other level of a dungeon.

The main entrance is at the top left, via a set of slippery handholds in the rocks by the waterfall. Two stairways lead down to a deeper level, one in the middle of the map, and one in the top right corner. The whirlpool in area 53 also leads down to the third level.

You may note my use ungridded paper, which I find allows for a nice free-form feeling while drawing, and the unusual red / purple colour scheme. I did this once by accident while drawing in low light, and since then have taken it up as a tradition of sorts.

If anyone wants to use this map for their own purposes feel free!

A few new necromancer spells

2011-07-09T19:26:00.000+02:00

I just felt like sharing a few of the new spells I've come up with in the process of creating the necromancer class which will feature in my book of magic (the only working title I have so far!). Of course necromancers have been rehashed endlessly in various editions of D&D, so some of the spells in the class' list are fairly familiar, but I'm also making an effort to come up with some original stuff to give it a bit of different twist. Here's a few of the new ones which are (as far as I know!) original.

(Note that while corpse visage was a spell in AD&D 2e, the version below shares only the name -- the effect is quite different.)

(Note 2: command dead is intended to be quite powerful for a 1st level spell -- the equivalent of the magic-user's sleep or charm person.)

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Command DeadLevel: 1
Duration: 1 turn
Range: 60'

This spell allows the caster to control up to 2d8 HD of recently deceased creatures, reanimating them as undead for a short time. The reanimated dead are mindless and are fully under the caster's control. They fight using their normal stats, having 1d8 hit points, and can be turned as zombies. When the duration expires the deceased fall immediately back into the grip of death.

Corpse Visage
Level: 2
Duration: 1 day per level
Range: Touch

This spell allows the caster to take on the facial appearance of the corpse of someone recently dead (within one week). The caster's face reflects the exact state of the corpse, and will decay as it decays. Nonetheless the spell is often enough to achieve the desired deception.

Walking Dead
Level: 3
Duration: Special
Range: Touch

When cast upon a character killed in combat this spell causes them to rise again and continue fighting. The affected character must have died within the last 5 rounds. The risen combatant is not considered undead, and is not controlled by the caster, maintaining their own goals and personality. They will attack to the best of their ability, being immune to fear and possessing an eerie strength, granting +1 to melee attacks and damage.

The spell lasts either until fighting stops or the affected character reaches -20 hit points. At this point the character drops to the ground, truly dead. Characters reanimated by this spell suffer a -10% adjustment to their chance of surviving resurrection.

Esoteric Equipment and Urban Activities

2011-07-02T10:41:00.000+02:00

I've just finished putting together a document for my players of all the "esoteric equipment" (stuff like drugs, poisons, healing draughts, and so on) that they currently have access to, and some rules for living expenses and various things they can do in towns.

I thought I'd share it here, feel free to download the PDF and check it out if you like.

(The poisons list, by the way, matches up with those in the Labyrinth Lord AEC, but gives them names and descriptions, rather than just a number.)

Weird nature spells

2011-06-28T10:10:00.000+02:00

So I've started to work more seriously on my "nature mage" class (still looking for a better name than that!). I've decided that the class will indeed be going in my book of magic (also in need of a name!), so I have a lot of new spells to write for it. It has a foundation of spells shared with the AEC druid, and some shared with the standard magic-user (clone, for instance), but largely it's a completely new spell list, which is a pretty fun project!

Here are a couple of spells I came up with last night for the nature mage. They're both quite weird and witchy, and not the kind of spells that you'd end up using in a dungeon :) But they give a bit of a feeling for the flavour I'm going for with this class.

(By the way can anyone spot the cinematic inspiration for one of them? It's probably fairly obvious...)

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.
Impregnate
Level: 6
Duration: Permanent
Range: Touch

This spell provides a strange arcane means of bypassing the norms of sexual reproduction. The caster must first select the female who is to be impregnated and the male who is to be the sire. The pair must be of the same species, or of close enough species that they could normally reproduce. Neither of the pair need be willing participants in this spell, and no saving throw is allowed.

The spell must be cast twice – firstly on the male, and again (within one week) on the female. In both cases the spell takes the form of an hour-long ritual, during which the target must be within touch range of the caster. The ritual requires the use of rare herbs and ointments costing 500gp per casting.

Transfer Pregnancy
Level: 5
Duration: Permanent
Range: Touch

This sinister spell effects the transference of an unborn child from its mother to the womb of another female. Females of any species can be affected, and both the original and the receiving mother must be present as the wizard casts the spell. The casting requires an hour-long ritual, and the expenditure of 500gp of rare oils and incense.

Embarking on a self-publishing venture!

2011-06-23T10:28:00.000+02:00

For some time I've been thinking about the possibility of making a book compiling all the new spells and magic-using classes I've been coming up with. So the other day I cut and pasted it all together into a single document, just out of interest to see how much content I have already. And, to my surprise, it came to almost 40 pages! This has galvanised me to complete the project.

After a bit of preliminary organisational work, I've decided that I'm going to compile a book with the following content:

The elementalist class (available here). Possibly expanded with some additional spells.
The necromancer class (which I've been working on for a while "behind the scenes", and which already has about 50 new spells).
The fey class (available here). Also possibly expanded with some additional spells.
The expansion of the illusionist class which I've been working on.
Edit: Just maybe the hypothesised nature mage, if I feel really inspired. I think it'd be a very cool class, but I'd only include it if I thought I'd be able to do it justice.
A selection of magical tomes (each containing a bunch of new spells around a specific theme -- including, for example, the tome of the spider mage).
Any other random bits & pieces relating to arcane magic which I feel like throwing in!

Everything will be specifically compatible with Labyrinth Lord, but of course that means it's equally usable with Swords & Wizardry, B/X D&D, AD&D, etc.

Primarily I'm doing this for my own pleasure. I think it'd be totally cool to have an actual properly printed book of my own classes and spells to use in my games! But of course, once I've gone to the effort of writing, compiling and laying everything out, and then publishing it on Lulu, then it'll certainly be available to other people as well.

I don't have a name for the book yet, and no idea what to do about artwork! As it's purely a hobbyist thing, I don't really imagine investing any money in this venture (i.e. to pay artists), but it would of course be nice to have at least a good-looking cover (I'm imagining old-school style black & white illustration to go along with the LL books). If any artists reading this are up for drawing some stuff, please let me know -- I could probably offer you a print copy of the book if all goes well!

Any thoughts or suggestions most welcome!

My first experience running a con game

2011-06-19T14:29:00.000+02:00

So, yesterday was my big day -- running my first ever game at a con :)

All in all it was a very interesting and positive experience, and I'd definitely do it again. I thought I'd write a bit about a few of the points which stood out the most.

Random Chargen
After some indecision, in the end I made the choice for fully random character creation (rather than getting the players to choose from a selection of pregens). Random chargen is such a big and (I find) fun feature of old-school D&D that it seemed a shame to not showcase it. To ease the process I'd created a few spell books for potential magic-users to choose from (see here), a very simplified list of cleric spells, and a quick-pick equipment selection.

I usually find that as a DM I can knock out Labyrinth Lord characters in 15 minutes or so, whereas generally players tend to take significantly longer, due to, I suppose, being a bit less familiar with the system, and probably thinking more about the various choices. So I was very relieved that yesterday it all went very smoothly, and, thankfully, quickly. The one point which threw me slightly was what to do if a player rolled up a character with really crap ability scores. This did happen (I think he didn't have anything above 10), and in the end I said he could have a 13 in a score of his choice, just to give him a +1 to something. I think perhaps it might have been better to just let him roll completely again, or maybe to get each player to roll two sets of attributes and choose their favourite. A minor point, anyway.

Character Connections
I made sure each of the PCs had a specific connection to one of the others, by getting them to roll on a random table ("you owe another PC lots of money", "you're a sibling or parent of another PC", etc). This was a tip which Samwise7 gave me in a comment to a previous post, and it was excellent advice.

In practice only one out of the three randomly generated connections actually had any impact on the game (that the thief character was a hired bodyguard of the magic-user), but it really helped to give the players something to riff off, so to speak, right from the beginning.

Playing with Strangers
This was one of the main things I was anxious about beforehand. I'm used to playing with a regular group, where we all get to know each other's tastes, personalities, sense of humour, and so on. I had fearful visions of sitting at a table with six strangers looking at me in a kind of stony silence, only broken by the occasional pitiful die roll. Haha. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. A friend and player in my regular game came along to the con and gave me moral support, which helped a lot (I'd definitely recommend that new con DMs try to drag a friend along!), and the other players were really friendly and enthusiastic, which was a huge relief. I mean, it's obvious to me now that, looking at it realistically, people go to a gaming con to play games and have a good time, so the vast majority of them are, I suppose, going to put something into the game they've signed up for!

This was a very good experience for me, anyway, to be able to run a game with strangers (albeit a small group), and feel confident that they were having a good time.

Tone
That brings me nicely to the next point -- the tone of the adventure. I tend to favour weird and wacky, bordering on the surreal and nonsensical at times. Much as I love this type of play, I am certainly aware that it's not everyone's cup of tea, and it's not necessarily what people are going to expect when they sign up for a game at a con. So, as I was writing my far-out sci-fi / fantasy dungeon crawl I was, at points, aware that some elements of it may be too much. The malfunctioning dimensional toilet and the sewage-elemental, for example. I personally found these kind of elements so beguiling that I just couldn't make myself remove them or tone them down, and just decided to go with it and see how the players took it!

In retrospect I think it was too much. If I'd clearly stated in the description that the game was going to have a far-out gonzo kind of vibe to it, then fair enough, but I didn't, and I think the players who didn't already know me were a bit taken aback at points. However in general the session went well, and the more nonsensical elements weren't on the whole too overwhelming.

Adventure Mission
This is another point which I'd seriously reconsider next time. The game I ran was a straight up dungeon crawl -- here's a dungeon, there's rumoured to be treasure inside, in you go. Again, I'm not sure if it was due to player expectations (though I did state in the session description "an old-school dungeon crawl"...), but I got the feeling that something a little bit more plot-based might have worked better, and kept them more engaged.

It's interesting, when I think of the big AD&D cons back in the day, I always imagine they were playing straight up dungeon crawls, so I guess that was where my inspiration came from. I have no idea if this is really how it was though.

The End
Time ran out and we didn't finish the adventure. This is, of course, far from ideal! There were several possible endings (apart from a TPK), and unfortunately we didn't reach any of them. I guess there are a couple of factors here, one being the mission of the adventure, as discussed previously, and how easy it is to reach a conclusion, and of course another being just the actual real time restraint on the session as compared with the length of the adventure.

This was something I'd considered when I was writing the adventure, and had just kind of blindly hoped I'd got it about right and it'd work out. I mean, I think everyone had a good time, which is the main thing, but I guess a really memorable session needs a feeling of conclusion somehow. Definitely something I'd consider at greater length if I do it again...

A few new illusionist spells

2011-06-18T06:34:00.000+02:00

I was just thinking about my idea some time ago of expanding the illusionist spell list to include 8th and 9th level spells, and remembered that I actually had quite a few lying around which I'd meant to post here but forgot about. So here they are: firstly there's a low-level variant of invisibility, which will probably be quite useful, followed by several high-level spells, some of which are Labyrinth Lord re-workings of classics.

So far, here's the spell list I've got for 8th & 9th levels:

8th level

Illusory abode
Memorium
No way
Prismatic beam
Prismatic sphere

9th level

Alter reality
Dream travel
Upper hand
Weird

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Invisibility, Lesser
Level: 1
Duration: See below
Range: Touch

This spell functions in the same manner as the 2nd level spell invisibility, except that the subject is only invisible when immobile. The subject becomes visible whenever he moves, and invisible when keeping still. The spell's duration, as with the standard invisibility spell, only ends when the subject makes an attack.

Memorium
Level: 8
Duration: See below
Range: 50'

When this spell is cast in a location where a specific event is known to have occurred, the caster and up to one companion per two levels are drawn into a vision of the past, re-experiencing the event in question. The event which is the focus of the spell must be known to the caster, and can have occurred up to 100 years ago per caster level.

In the vision the caster and his companions take on the perspectives of individuals who were present at the historic event, perceiving what happened directly from the point of view of those involved. If an insufficient number of sentient beings were present at the event, additional companions of the caster will perceive a vague retelling of the event as if seen from above.

The duration of the vision is seldom more than an hour, with longer events being reviewed in a kind of "highlights" form. While immersed in the vision the caster and his companions are in a trance state. If any of them are harmed the vision is broken immediately.

Casting this spell optionally ages the caster 3 years.

It is rumoured that an enhanced version of this spell once existed, allowing not merely the viewing of the past, but also the power to alter the flow of history.

Prismatic Beam
Level: 8
Duration: See below
Range: 100' per level

This spell allows an illusionist to create an intensely focussed beam of strobing light energy which can have one of three effects (chosen as the spell is cast).

Firstly, the beam can be used to cause 1d6 points of heat damage per caster level to a single target in range. Secondly, the beam may be used to disrupt matter, functioning in the same manner as the magic-user spell disintegrate (including a saving throw versus death). Thirdly, the beam can be used to exert a powerful pushing force onto a target, causing it to move at a rate of 200' per round directly away from the caster.

The first two uses of the spell have an instantaneous duration, while the third use lasts for one round per level of the caster.

Alter Reality
Level: 9
Duration: See below
Range: Unlimited

This spell, the pinnacle of the illusionist's art, enables the caster to bring forth into reality whatever he can imagine. It works in the same way as the magic-user spell wish, including the (optional) aging effect on the caster. The one difference is that an illusionist must first create an image of what he wishes to become reality, using other spells of illusion. He must then cast alter reality, which causes the created illusion to become absolutely and irrevocably real.

Dream Travel
Level: 9
Duration: See below
Range: 50'

This spell conjures a semi-real vision of a large vehicle of some kind, typically a mighty sailing ship, which the illusionist and up to 100 others may enter. The caster must be conscious in order to cast the spell, but all others to be taken aboard the vessel must be asleep. Unwilling passengers may make a save versus spells to avoid being taken into the dream vessel. In a manner similar to the 8th level spell illusory abode, the dream vessel may take on a recurring appearance if the caster wishes it, and the enhancements to spectral force and major creation apply inside the vessel.

The passengers enter a shared dream of travelling a long distance aboard the conjured vessel through an imaginary landscape, with the caster in control as the helmsman or navigator. The journey usually appears to span several days, and may sometimes even feel like weeks of travel, though the exact amount of perceptual time elapsed is never clear, as is typical of dreams.

While the dream vessel travels through an imaginary landscape, it is actually moving through real space at an incredible rate -- up to 100 miles per hour can be covered, completely unhindered by any real terrain. The spell lasts as long as the caster remains awake and conscious and the passengers remain asleep. This means that generally the duration is approximately 8 hours, but it may be extended by various means (for example if the passengers are in a prolonged, drugged or enchanted sleep).

During the journey the DM should make random encounter checks as normal, and should feel free to come up with bizarre dream-like creatures and happenings along the way. Indeed, the casting of this spell could easily provide material for a whole game session. If any of the passengers is harmed while aboard the dream vessel, he or she will awaken immediately, ending the spell and unceremoniously dumping all passengers in the real world at a point somewhere along their planned course.

Casting this spell is not without cost. It requires an oil distilled from a powerful astral, psionic or dream-related monster, which is consumed during casting. The oil must usually be obtained through adventuring, but may be available for purchase at exorbitant cost. It is possible to cast the spell without use of the oil, but there is a 1% chance per hour of travel (in real-time, not dream-time) that the vessel will become lost in the dream world and never return.

Weird
Level: 9
Duration: 1 round per level
Range: 5' per level

This spell functions in a similar way to the 4th level phantasmal killer, except that it affects all creatures in range (with the exception of the caster, who may simply observe the effects). The phantasmal nemeses created attack as monsters of half the caster's level.

Spell lists for con game

2011-06-11T00:18:00.000+02:00

In preparing for the con game I'll be running next weekend, I've been going back and forth on the issue of whether to make pre-generated characters, or whether to get the players to roll their own. Obviously the former would make the intro far quicker, but I feel like random character generation is such a feature of old-school games it'd seem a shame to not let them roll those 3d6s!

So I want to come up with ways to minimize the lengthy parts of character creation, which are mainly buying equipment and choosing spells.

The first thing I've made is a selection of spell lists for potential magic-user characters to choose from. (See image, click to make much bigger!) As the PCs are all gonna be 4th level, I've just prepared three choices of memorized spells (two 1st level spells & two 2nd level spells), meaning that up to three players could be magic-users and have their own unique spell list. No choosing or leafing through books required! Also note that I'm using a house rule that magic-users get to memorize extra spells if they have high INT, these spells are also included on the lists.

A pretty neat solution, I think!

Blogger stats explosion anyone?

2011-06-10T21:10:00.000+02:00

My blogger stats, starting on the 8th of June, have increased roughly tenfold... I can't think of any reason why the popularity of this blog has suddenly sky-rocketed, so I'm assuming it's some kind of back-end problem at blogger.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

Thoughts on how it feels to read RPG books

2011-06-04T13:48:00.001+02:00

I just noticed this morning, as I went to look up a spell description in the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion, how I love reading the LL books and that the feeling I get when reading them is close to the feeling I get looking through my old AD&D / basic D&D books. It's not quite the same, as there's obviously not the same nostalgia as actually handling the originals, and you obviously don't get to experience the Gygaxian genius that is distilled in AD&D, but it's close. And for me that's actually a really big deal. All other RPG books I've read, those for more modern systems, have a kind of "dry" feeling to them, somehow lacking in magic.

So I'm glad to realise that the LL books, the ones I'm using in my game at the moment, have that "special something" as well. I know it's a totally personal thing, but it's important to me to have that special feeling about the games I'm running.

I wonder if anyone else has a similar feeling?

3 new random tables: Stuff to do between adventures

2011-06-02T09:40:00.000+02:00

Note: Players in my game, you'd better not read these tables!

In my Labyrinth Lord game I've wholeheartedly adopted Jeff's party like it's 999 carousing concept. My take on it has been as follows:

After any session a character can choose to go carousing.
The PC can spend any amount of gold they want, and gains that much XP in return. (Of course, the usual limit of not being able to gain more than one experience level in one go still applies!)
They also roll a die (any type). If it comes up odd, then the DM rolls on the carousing results table, which indicates a noteworthy event which occurred during the character's boozing. Some of these are beneficial, some are detrimental, some are funny, and some may lead to adventures.

I've mainly adopted this rule as a means to speed up character advancement a bit. As you can see I've modified it a bit from Jeff's original version, in that there's no randomness involved in the amount of money the PC spends. It just seemed simpler this way, and the carousing results table contains enough entries forcing the PC to spend more than they intended.

In addition to using this system for carousing, I've offered PCs two more ways to turn gold into XP: by making sacrifices to cosmic powers (deities, demi-gods, devils, demons, elemental princes, etc), or by engaging in magical research. (The latter is, obviously, only open to magic-users, and probably requires a laboratory or at least a home base.)

Of course, these activities also needed some interesting tables of random results. I've just finished writing up the last one, so I thought I'd share what I've created. Here they are as PDFs:

The carousing results table is obviously heavily inspired by Jeff's original, but I've altered some entries, and expanded the whole thing up to a d30 table.

The sacrifices table contains entries suggested by kelvingreen, anarchist and Daddy Grognard. Thanks guys!

Hope someone else finds them useful / enjoyable!

A comparison of old and new D&D

2011-05-29T19:09:00.000+02:00

I was recently asked by the guy who's organising the con I'm running a game at if I'd like to write something about old-school RPGs for their blog. At first I wasn't sure what to write, as I'm not the great philosopher type, but then I thought I'd simply write about my own experiences with various editions of D&D, and the things I prefer about the older style. For the interest of readers of this blog, here's what I wrote!

(By the way, I just realised that this is probably my first ever "OSR philosophy" post on this blog! ;)

Back to the old-school!

A comparison of old and new D&D

As a long-time D&D player who has returned to playing a 30 years old version of the game, I thought it would be interesting to write a bit about my experiences with the venerable game, and why I'm now so much happier to be playing a very early incarnation of it.

A bit of background to my experiences with D&D: I started playing in the early 1980s, with the Basic / Expert sets. AD&D was also around at this time, and while I did buy a couple of the books I found them a bit overwhelming at that young age, and only got into AD&D when the second edition came out. I played "2e" a lot during my teens, and then gradually drifted away from roleplaying in my twenties.

When I returned to the hobby several years ago, D&D 4 was the big new thing. I duly tried it out, and also tried out the 3rd edition, and Pathfinder. The games I played were fun, sure, but somehow I found that none of these versions of the game really had that spark which the older editions had.

So here are a few thoughts on the differences I've found between the older and newer styles of D&D, and why my personal preference lies with the old. (I'm sure a lot of people prefer the newer style, and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything here, just expressing my love of “the old ways”.)

The defining factor seems to be the terseness and sparsity of the older D&D rules, especially if you look at the original version of the game (OD&D) or the basic game which was released during the late 1970s to early 1980s. They don't cover very much, and rarely go into much depth. Later versions of the game progressively filled in these gaps (whether with the minutiae of AD&D, or the systemic rationalisation and "core mechanics" of D&D 3 / 4). However the early game solved the issue of "how to determine what happens in situation X" in a very different way: make something up on the spot! Need to know if a character can jump over a pit (there's no jumping skill)? – the DM has many options: just say yes, just say no way, roll vs DEX, give a 2 in 6 chance, etc. Completely dependant on the situation at hand.

There are many things about this system (or lack of system!), which create a play experience which I personally enjoy very much.

This is not a game of rules. The lack of specific rules and reliance on the DM to make improvised "rulings", rather than relying on pre-defined "rules", brings home an extremely important feature of old-school RPGs: the atmosphere of the game is far more immersive and mysterious if the players are thinking in terms of being their character, rather than in terms of what they're allowed to do by the rules. That's why in AD&D, for example, the players handbook only has rules for creating characters. All the other rules of the game are in the dungeon masters guide.

Improvisation. One of the things I enjoy most about the roleplaying hobby as a whole is the act of making stuff up on the spot with a group of people. It's much more fun than looking things up in books :)

Growing characters vs character builds. When the procedure for character creation is as simple as: 1. roll ability scores in order, 2. choose a class, 3. buy equipment, there's no room for the mechanical tweaking which has come to be known in later editions as "character builds" (which is, I believe, something of a game in itself!). This further brings home the fact that this game is not about rules and mechanics. Your character is differentiated from others by how you play him / her, and what experiences you go through with the character in the game, not by what numbers you have written on your character sheet. In effect you're growing or "building" your character as you play.

Less is more. Another effect of this lack of mechanically stated character options is that it actually in practice tends to give characters more options, flexibility and creativity. Characters are free to try things which, in more rules-strict editions of the game, they just wouldn't bother with, due to perhaps not having enough ranks in a certain skill, or not knowing a certain feat. As a result the game tends to feel a lot more open and free-form.

Saying yes. The lack of specific character abilities, in terms of “skills” or “feats”, has another, perhaps surprising, side-effect: it allows the DM to simply let characters do cool stuff, when appropriate. Can my wizard read the ancient magical script of the Zagdobar people? Of course he can! (As opposed to: well, let me see, how many ranks do you have in read languages?) Can my fighter do a spinning attack and try to hit the three temple guards surrounding him? He can try for sure! – make a DEX check, and if you succeed you can make an attack roll at -2 for each of them. (As opposed to: well, let me see, isn't there a feat for that?) This point can be especially relevant where success at a certain action is important for the progression of a story.

Saying no. Of course, the other side of the coin is that if a player hasn't got specific abilities written down, then the DM is equally likely to just say “no way”. Common sense generally prevails.

Making the game your own. When the "official rule book" is ambiguous and vague, DMs have a chance to interpret as necessary and as they see fit. This can give each campaign a unique flavour, as rules are interpreted in different ways.

Rules where necessary. The lack of specifics in the rule books allows the DM to expand them, if areas come up during play which are important enough to demand further rules. The end effect is that you're starting from a very rules-light system, and expanding it if needed, rather than trying to comprehend or cut down a very rules-heavy system. For example, the "official rules" for wizards creating magic items say little more than "it's up to the DM how much it costs, how long it takes, and what components or equipment are needed". If a particular group feels like this is too vague, then they can come up with something that suits their campaign. (Though I feel that this system is absolutely perfect as it is, as it allows the DM to suggest something completely tailored to the character in question.)

So that covers, in my experience, some of the big differences in style between older and newer editions of D&D. If anyone also finds this kind of style appealing, I'll be running a Labyrinth Lord game at BurgCon 20, come and join in!

Old-school t-shirts: Resurrection

2011-05-29T09:14:00.000+02:00

Yes, I've been at it again! I like this one a lot -- simple but effective ;) It's sort of a secret code word which is meaningless and unremarkable to "those who do not know", and yet immediately recognisable and evocative to those who do.

(By the way, I did toy with the idea of using one of the new OSR logos, which I like a lot, but which don't have the same quality of recognisability that the old TSR logo has.)

Collaborative dungeon creation

2011-05-22T14:18:00.003+02:00

To players in my Labyrinth Lord game: feel free to read this post, but probably better not look at the dungeon itself, as your characters may well find themselves in its cruel grasp at some point.

Just a quick note to alert people to the collaborative dungeon creation game which is underway at the Goblinoid Games forums. Dyson has provided one of his awesome maps for the dungeon, and the idea is for people to take it in turns to key the next free room. It's a bit like a kind of exquisite corpse for dungeon creation. It's a lot of fun.

Come and join us if you like making dungeons and/or having fun :)

Running a con game!

2011-05-22T14:18:00.001+02:00

I'm excited to report that I just signed up yesterday to run a Labyrinth Lord game at a weekend RPG convention next month here in Berlin (BurgCon 20). I've never run a game at a con before, and I don't think I've ever run a game in that sort of "in public" environment even...

I've decided to use yesterday's idea of a Manic Miner themed dungeon for the con adventure. It shall be entitled "Beneath the Radiant Dome", which I thought sounded suitably old-school :) And with rooms called things like "Skylab Landing Bay" and "Return of the Alien Kong Beast" it's clearly going to have some kind of sci-fi influences!

Manic miner dungeon

2011-05-22T11:15:00.000+02:00

Somewhere from the recesses of my mind came a vision of the classic ZX Spectrum game Manic Miner. I loved playing that as a kid, even though I never got that far (I think I never progressed past The Vat... ah the good old days before games allowed you to save your progress!). One thing that especially sticks in my mind now about the game is the brilliant titles of all the levels.

Thinking about it again, it just occurred to me that it'd be amazing to make a dungeon where each room was inspired by the name of one of the levels from Manic Miner! Some of them would be pretty sci-fi, but no one seems to mind a bit of sci-fi with their D&D these days ;). Here they are:

Central Cavern
The Cold Room
The Menagerie
Abandoned Uranium Workings
Eugene's Lair
Processing Plant
The Vat
Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast
Wacky Amoebatrons
The Endorian Forest
Attack of the Mutant Telephones
Return of the Alien Kong Beast
Ore Refinery
Skylab Landing Bay
The Bank
The Sixteenth Cavern
The Warehouse
Amoebatrons' Revenge
Solar Power Generator
The Final Barrier

Community random table: Sacrifices to cosmic powers

2011-05-15T10:16:00.000+02:00

Spoiler warning (at the top this time ;) -- players in my Labyrinth Lord game are advised to not read the table entries.

In my Labyrinth Lord game I've been allowing the use of carousing as a means of gaining additional XP (using a system based on Jeff's party like it's 999). One of the players in particular (and notably the only character who's made it to 2nd level thus far) has been making a lot of use of the carousing option, and it's worked out really well so far.

I've always had in mind that another way for characters to gain extra XP by spending gold is to make sacrifices to various cosmic powers (deities, demi-gods, demons, devils, etc), the idea being that the favour of the power in question aids the character (which equates to XP). But of course, very different events can occur while gambling & boozing to those which can occur while supplicating oneself to a deity -- we need another table! Here's a few ideas to start things rolling, but any community input would be awesome! I'm hoping for a d30 table in the end, with some beneficial and some not so beneficial side-effects. By the way, I'm assuming that most cosmic powers are vain, selfish, and weird, so pretty much anything goes!

1. The cosmic power grants the character an additional blessing -- the one-off ability to cast a 1st level clerical spell.
2. While in the temple, a priest tells the character that he has seen him / her in a dream and that he / she is destined to become a powerful instrument of the cosmic power. (If this ever manifests, and where it may lead, is up to the DM.)
3. The character becomes obsessed with the cosmic power, and will make an equal or greater sacrifice the next time he has sufficient funds.
4. The cosmic power sees fit to transmute the character into a more pleasing form (depends on the power's whim) for the next 1d4 sessions. Save vs polymorph to avoid.
5. The blessing is great -- gain 1d6 hit points during the next session.
6. A quest is placed upon the character.
7. The cosmic power is "not available", or some astral wires have got crossed, and the blessing -- roll again -- is provided by a different power to the one intended; in most cases, this will be an allied or friendly power, but there is a 1 in 6 chance that the recipient will be an opposed or at least mischievous entity. (kelvingreen)
8. For the next week, animals will be terrified of the character. (anarchist)
9. For the next d30 days, all worshippers of the cosmic power will be unable to look the character in the eye. They will not be aware that they are doing this. (kelvingreen)
10. For the next d4 days, the character can see in the dark. If they could do so already, there is no effect. (kelvingreen)
11. For the next d8 days, the character will hear an angelic choir at all times. If the character understands the language of these angels, they will discover that the choir is narrating -- in song -- the character's actions as they take them, in a suitably bombastic manner. No one else will be able to hear this choir, except for a cleric of the cosmic power, if they roll under their level on a d20. (kelvingreen)
12. The character acquires the company of a cat which will follow them everywhere. It will hiss at and urinate on anyone who, in its opinion, is not showing the character due deference and will bestow +1 on all saving throws for the character and anyone conducting themselves in a sufficiently obsequious fashion towards its new-found friend. Should anything 'happen' to the cat, the character will begin to manifest feline behavioural traits (up to the DM to decide) until he/she has made sufficient contritional sacrifices at the temple. (Daddy Grognard)
13. The ground is now not holy enough for the character to be in contact with and he/she will consequently hover about 2" above it at all times. (Daddy Grognard)
14. Women of childbearing age will become driven by a strange desire to bestow gifts of fruit upon the character. (Daddy Grognard)
15. Some time during the next 1d4 sessions, the character receives a visitation from an emissary of the power. If the character is a cleric of the power, the emissary will test him / her in some way. Otherwise the emissary will "suggest" that the character should swear an oath of loyalty (whatever this may imply) to the power.
16. The character awakes the next morning to find a holy symbol of the cosmic power on his or her person.
17. The character acquires the ability to bring back the dead to life merely by being nearby (range is at DM's discretion). This of course means everything that has died, including the meat and fish in the kitchens, the animal skins that nobles wear around their necks, the inhabitants of local graveyards, who might have been enjoying their eternal rest... (and if the DM wants to be particularly annoying, leather boots and armour might start going Mooo....) (Daddy Grognard)

Old-school t-shirts, the return!

2011-05-14T08:06:00.001+02:00

I posted some time ago about my mission of creating a bunch of old-school RPG inspired T-shirts. I've been gleefully wearing my AD&D Players Handbook T-shirt since then, but the concept kind of sputtered out after the printing place told me that the dungeon map I'd prepared for my next effort was no way printable on a T-shirt. Too many complex little twisty bits, apparently. So I could have gone back to the drawing board and re-worked something much simpler, but I was kind of disheartened and gave up.

However, my girlfriend recently gave me this -- she'd secretly taken a dungeon map I was working on and turned it into a T-shirt! Amazing! I have been wearing it with geek pride :)

The interesting point came up that most "normal people" (i.e. non-gamers) probably have no idea what the image on the shirt is, and indeed have no concept of what a dungeon is, poor fools!

ps. To players in my Labyrinth Lord game: maybe don't study this image too closely, as your characters will probably find themselves in this dungeon at some point, and we wouldn't want to spoil all the surprises would we! ;)

S'raka and the Imperium

2011-05-07T21:26:00.000+02:00

Continuing the series of campaign background / flavour posts, here's a bit of information about the city of S'raka, which has been mentioned in passing, but which hasn't actually played a role in any of the game sessions so far. The halfling race of rat-people call S'raka's vaults home.

S'raka
The mighty city which lies at the centre of Old Aalia, home to millions, built upon the remains of a city of unknown antiquity. S'raka is a city of many layers -- from the deeps of the catacombs, to the vaults which lie at its foundation and the wretched castes of humanity who dwell there, to the bustle and filth of the lower city and the destitute ruins and slums at its perimeter, to the bourgeois plateau of the upper city, to the fastness of the noble city, carved from the solid rock of the great spire, to the level of the crystal city, which can be glimpsed glinting at the summit. And above even the crystal city, veiled in clouds, suspended on a beam of scintillating light -- the Imperial Palace.

Imperium
S'raka is the seat of the Imperium, and abode of the Undying Emperor of the Earth and the Seven Spheres. Two-hundred and twelve years ago, the Emperor, whose name is forbidden knowledge to those below the level of the crystal city, decreed that the Imperial capital should be moved from its previous location far in the east. The construction of the crystal city and the arrival of the Imperial Palace, descending from the heavens in a cacophony of rainbows, are facts of both history and legend.

The Order of Prismists
Among the many servants of the Emperor, this order of magicians are one of his most trusted and powerful instruments. Having unlocked the mysteries of light, they are masters of information and motion. Legends say that the Imperial Palace itself is held aloft by light emitted from a vast crystal controlled by the Arch-Prismists.

The Fey Court and the Cold Prince
S'raka is a city of two sides -- in addition to its famed place as capital of the Imperium, it is co-existent with a fey city of great size, import and perplexity. In fact, S'raka is the fey name for the city, which has been adopted by humans to refer to the whole. The peoples of the two cities intermingle freely, although the true depths of the fey city are unfathomable to human cartographers. The fey city appears to also be of great political importance, as exotic delegations of fey creatures are known to visit from afar to consult with the fey court and the Cold Prince who rules it. Very little is known about the Prince, aside from his name.

European old-school blogs

2011-05-06T08:34:00.000+02:00

I'm starting a little collection here... If you turn your gaze to the bottom of the "widgets" column on the right, you will see a new section entitled "European Old-School Blogs". Something I've noticed recently is that most of the blogs I read are, as far as I can gather, written by people based in the US. There's a few Canadians in there too (notably James Maliszewski), but I find myself wondering how many people writing about old-school RPGs there are in Europe.

As a European (a Brit living in Germany, in fact) I thought it'd be nice to build up a bit of a picture of who's in the local(ish) vicinity. To start it off I've added a few old-school related blogs that I know of, which are written by people living in Europe. (Note that this specification includes people of non-European origin who call this continent home, such as James Raggi.)

It's a pretty small list at present, but I'm sure that is due to my ignorance, rather than a lack of extant Euro old-school blogs. Further links and suggestions most welcome!

I guess if the list grows gradually and lots of non-English blogs get added I might split it into one list per language, if that becomes necessary. We'll see...

The swine-folk of old Aalia

2011-05-04T07:46:00.001+02:00

I thought I'd start writing a series of posts giving snippets of background info about the world my Labyrinth Lord campaign is set in. I've not explicitly invented much background info so far, aside from a few rough maps and some daydreamed ideas, but I thought the campaign and the players would benefit from some imagery. So, first up, a new twist on an old enemy.

The Swine-folk of Old Aalia
The wide and prosperous kingdom of Aalia was remarked for its proliferation of animal deities. Indeed, the capital city of Allam, in the south of the kingdom, was known more for its vast complex of temples than it was for the royal palaces and courts from which the country was ruled.

The temple complexes of Allam were aptly named -- complex. The animal gods demanded a bizarre, shifting pattern of observances, feast days and rites, including the constant and seemingly random shifting of the location of the various temples. Thus a high priest of Lax-Manna, the jackal mother, could awake one morning to the presence of his deity, and the instruction that a shifting of dominions in the spirit world meant that her nexus of power now lay in the temple of the serpent god, and that the temples must be switched with all haste. Such occurrences were common and completely unforewarned.

The priests were adept in making the arrangements with the required stoicism and swiftness, but inevitably mistakes happened on occasion. One such mistake led to the downfall of the kingdom of Aalia.

The feast-day of Babu-Ham, lord of pigs, fell on the fifth day after the sixth new moon of the year -- a benevolently regular date, by the standards of the animal gods of Aalia. To this day it is unknown whether the pig god himself demanded a bizarre new rearrangement of the temples on the very morn of his feast-day -- some believe, in retrospect, that a trickster god was at play. But whatever the impetus, the priesthoods of Allam were in thrown into a maelstrom of action that morning, as practically every temple in the city was decreed to be moved.

It so happened that during the shifting of the temples, a visiting prince from the far north of the kingdom had seen fit to make a great and noble sacrifice to the raptor god Had-Kallat -- the slaughter of six hundred fattened and anointed pigs. It also so happened that the temple of Had-Kallat had been decreed as the new location of the temple of the pig god. Thus, as the pig lord manifested at the altar of his new temple he was confronted with a sight the likes of which no pig-god should see. (Bizarrely, the priests of Babu-Ham had, through great cunning, deceived their god for centuries, hiding from him the fact that pigs were routinely kept as beasts of slaughter in many parts of the kingdom.)

The rage of the god was great. His vengeance was greater. Few had suspected the power he held, in fact, and even fewer lived to tell the story of the massacre of Allam by the cosmic forces of Babu-Ham. His wrath did not end in Allam however. An army of pig-demons swept across the whole of Aalia, burning settlements, and roasting their inhabitants on the flames, to be eaten in hideous orgies of violence and gluttony. The kingdom was crushed, and its human inhabitants reduced to a scattering of wanderers.

Needless to say, Babu-Ham has never trusted humankind since that day, and the few ruined shrines devoted to him which can still be found are places of danger and fear. His final act of parting, on the day of the desolation of the last city of old Aalia, was the creation of the race of swine-folk. He decreed that pig-kind should never again be kept as slaves, and spontaneously all domesticated pigs in the kingdom were transformed into a humanoid shape, so as to be able to defend themselves from the wickedness of human beings.

That was some centuries back, and the kingdom of Aalia is no more, existing now only as a name and a huge number of crumbling ruins in the great plains of its former expanse. The swine-folk have remained, however, and roam the plains of old Aalia in great numbers. Wherever they are found, humans make themselves scarce -- the animosity between the two races has not abated. And, in a twist of vengeance, the favoured food of the swine-folk is human flesh.

The swine-folk are known deridingly as 'porks', by men who like to brag about their battles and encounters with the beings.

An arcane alphabet

2011-04-30T21:54:00.000+02:00

Well, that was that for the April A to Z challenge!

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I'm pleased with the end result, looking back now at my post list for April! I did, of course, find the incessant onslaught of posts rather hard at times, especially with some of the challenging hypothetical spell names I'd set for myself -- some of them were really really difficult to come up with anything for in practice (laughing gnome, tessellate, zoetrope!?).

To wrap it up, I've created a PDF of the whole lot, which you can download here: An Arcane Alphabet.

A to Z: Zoetrope

2011-04-30T09:12:00.000+02:00

This post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Zoetrope
Available to: Magic-users (chronomancers)
Level: 9
Duration: Permanent
Range: 10'

This powerful spell creates an area of space where time is warped so tightly that a single moment is repeated over and over for all eternity. The area affected is a cylinder 10' high and 10' in diameter. Any creatures or objects in this area when the spell is cast, or anything subsequently entering the area is caught in the time loop. From the outside, the time loop appears to be a spinning column of light, wherein can be seen, semi-transparent and phantom-like, the last few seconds of normal existence of everything trapped inside.

The zoetrope is an extremely powerful dweomer, and is unaffected by dispel magic. A wish is sufficient to release a single creature or object from its confines, but if magic ever existed which could undo this spell entirely, it is now lost.

The casting of this spell carries a certain risk to the chronomancer, who has a 10% chance of accidentally being sucked into the zoetrope and trapped.

A to Z: Yeast growth

2011-04-30T03:19:00.000+02:00

This post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Yeast Growth
Available to: Druids (myconic)
Level: 1
Duration: Instant
Range: 5' per level

This spell causes the radically accelerated and greatly augmented growth of all naturally occurring yeast organisms within range. As yeast exists virtually everywhere, the result is that all creatures, objects and surfaces in range are rapidly engulfed in a slimy mass of frothing yeast. The yeast itself is normal and harmless, and can be wiped off with some effort. However all affected creatures suffer a 1 in 6 chance per round of slipping over, and a -1 penalty to attacks until they are free of the yeast.

This spell can also be used to accelerate a process of yeast fermentation, such as that used in beer brewing or bread making. Such processes can be completed instantaneously with an application of this spell.

Contemplating nature wizards

2011-04-29T22:09:00.000+02:00

Inspired by a suggestion some time ago from Kelvin of Brighton & Hove Roleplayers, I've been musing on the possibility of a nature mage class. I've always been a bit non-plussed by the AD&D druid, who, I guess, is really a bit too clericy for my taste. (Which is fair enough, as it is supposed to be a cleric sub-class, but that's just not really my thing.) So originally I'd not thought there was much room to expand on this already existing list of nature-oriented spells, and that a nature mage class would end up borrowing so heavily from the druid spell list as to make it not worth doing. However, the X spell from yesterday (Xenogamy) gave me a vision of the kind of class I would like to create -- a branch of magic based on manipulating the impartial forces of nature.

Inspirational keywords: parasites, swarms, hive minds, evolution, symbiosis, reproduction, disease, decay, survival of the fittest, birth & death, hibernation, stasis, cocoons, growth & withering, cycles.

I see this hypothetical class as a kind of counterpart to the necromancer in a way. Where the necromancer deals with the forces of death and undeath, the nature mage deals with the forces of life & nature. And those forces can be equally as cruel and twisted as they can kind. So the nature mage is absolutely in no way a protector of nature, like the druid is supposed to be. I want to create a bunch of spells which invoke the creepyness and weirdness of the natural world, the things which are considered normal to non-human members of the animal & plant kingdoms. Praying mantises not being able to reproduce unless the male's head is bitten off. The freakish mutations which can emerge suddenly from a gene pool. Fungal parasites. You know the stuff.

So, it might just happen... I had a mini brainstorm this morning, and came up with some spell concepts. For now here are some names:

Hibernate
Polyvorousness
Extinction
Reptilian metabolism / mammalian metabolism
Transformative pupation
Regenerative pupation
Artificial intelligence
Hive mind
Drone
Accelerated metabolism
Accelerated immune system
Accelerated regeneration
Swarm transformation
Chimera
Impregnate
Mutation
Aging / reverse aging
Immortality
Homing instinct
Contagion
Pair bonding
Compound vision
Skin transformation
Echo location

And a few spells from existing spell lists (LL / AD&D) which would fit in for sure: polymorph self / others, shapechange, clone, creeping doom, summon swarm, water breathing, spider climb, sleep, entangle.

A to Z: Xenogamy

2011-04-29T02:44:00.000+02:00

This post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Xenogamy
Available to: Magic-users (nature mages)
Level: 8
Duration: Permanent
Range: Touch
This spell enables the caster to create an infinite variety of bizarre creatures by a process of genetic melding. Two living creatures of any species must be selected and contained within a laboratory for a period of 2d4 weeks. During this period the two creatures gradually begin to merge into a single being. Each week there is a 10% chance that the hybrid creature will die. If the process is successful, the resulting creature will have qualities and appearance reflecting both of its 'parents'. The Labyrinth Lord should determine which qualities are retained from which parent.

If intelligent creatures are melded with the spell, the resulting monstrosity has a 90% chance of being utterly insane.

A to Z: Whale speech

2011-04-28T00:19:00.000+02:00

This post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Whale Speech
Available to: Druids (aquatic)
Level: 3
Duration: 1 hour per level
Range: 100 miles per level

In addition to giving the caster the ability to communicate with whales, this spell, when cast underwater, allows him to send messages through the aquatic medium, which can be received and understood by a single recipient somewhere within the spell's enormous range. The recipient must be someone whom the caster knows personally, or has met at least once.

Thoughts on thief skills and competency

2011-04-26T18:02:00.000+02:00

I recently played a d20 based game (Call of Cthulhu, in fact), and found myself amused and frustrated by the fact that our 1st level characters, who were supposed to be experts in one field or another, did nothing but fail our skill checks for almost the whole session. My character was an 80 year old expert on the occult, and, due to unlucky skill rolls, I think I barely came up with a single piece of useful information about any of the occult mysteries we were confronted with! Given several thousand experience points (if level advancement still works that way in CoC d20, I don't know if it does...), and a careful allocation of skill points and selection of feats, I'm sure my character could gradually have worked his way up to being the expert which he conceptually was. But not at 1st level.

As a contrast, the other two game systems I've played recently are Savage Worlds and old-school D&D in the form of Labyrinth Lord. In Savage Worlds this phenomenon is not an issue at all. It's easy to create a beginning character who is very good at at least one useful thing. Meanwhile, in Labyrinth Lord / early D&D, the only character to have skills which require checks to be made is the thief. Characters of most classes can just do their thing -- fighters wear armour and wield weapons, magic-users cast spells, clerics heal wounds and turn undead. They may not have the most stupendous abilities at 1st level, but what they can do, they can do fairly reliably. Except the poor old thief, who can climb walls pretty well, but is really wiser to forget any of his other very cool abilities (like removing traps and moving silently) until he's at least 5th level.

And the mechanic for thief skills is exactly the system which was taken and used as one of the core elements of D&D 3rd edition -- skill checks -- leading up to my poor beleaguered occult 'expert'.

Alongside my recent re-experiencing of and reflections on the d20 system, I'd noticed that not a single player in my Labyrinth Lord campaign has expressed any interest in playing a thief. (Actually, one thief was rolled up, but he only had 1 hit point, so was sort of discarded.) I've always thought of thieves as a very cool class, but taking a look at their percentage chances of success at all the things they're supposed to be good at, I can understand their undesirability.

And then I read JB's post on auto-success thief skills. Brilliant stuff. As a player you totally want your character to be good at something, to be able to do something that no other character can do -- and all of the time! Not 14% of the time.

So, after a bit of reading around (including the Jovial Priest's very interesting take on the matter), here's what I'm thinking I'll offer to thief characters in my campaign. Not a rules change, but a simple re-interpretation of what the numbers mean and when the rolls are necessary.

Pick locks: Attempting to pick a lock takes 1 turn. If the roll fails, the thief is free to try again, spending another turn. However, time is often of the essence.

Find & remove traps: As per pick locks. The thief's find traps percentage can also be used to find secret doors, if it is better than the standard 1 in 6 chance.

Move silently: A thief can always move quietly. The % roll is only required when he needs to move completely without sound. Usually in the middle of a battle there is enough noise being made that this roll is not necessary to sneak up on an opponent who is unaware of the thief's presence.

Hide in shadows: Thieves are experts at hiding, and usually do not need to make a roll to hide from view, except in situations where shadows are the only concealment available. Even then, a thief can always successfully hide in sufficient shadow, given time to position himself (i.e. before the start of a battle). The % roll must be made in order to disappear into shadows in the middle of combat.

Climb walls: Thieves can climb normally without making a roll. The % roll must only be made when climbing up sheer surfaces such as walls or cliffs.

Pick pockets: No change.

Hear noise: No change.

A to Z: Vacuum

2011-04-26T10:05:00.000+02:00

This post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Vacuum
Available to: Magic-users (dimensionalists & elementalists)
Level: 3
Duration: 1 round per level
Range: 240'

This spell causes the instantaneous removal of all forms of gas, including air, from a spherical volume of 5' radius per level of the caster, creating a vacuum. Creatures inside the vacuum suffer 1d4 damage per round due to depressurization, but may move freely. Air-breathing creatures will begin to suffocate if they remain in the affected area. Sound is also prevented from propagating through and from entering the vacuum, creating an area of absolute silence.

When the spell's duration comes to an end, the surrounding air rushes back in, filling the vacuum.

Due to its gas removing effect, this spell is occasionally useful as a defense against spells such as cloudkill.