Forgotten Runes

Old school Assassins (Rant but short)

2012-01-23T19:00:00.000-05:00

Ever since their appearance in Blackmoor,Assassins have been problematical. Their all-or-nothing instant kill is anathema good role playing, and fits poorly with the rest of the rules. Second edition was right to remove them. In my opinion "Blackmoor" was the rules supplement which revealed that just because it was "Official" didn't mean it was either fun or a good idea.

Skyrimic Sandbox Roll-up Chart

2012-01-23T18:59:00.000-05:00

Yes Alduin is dead! Now I can spend a little time on my long neglected blog. Thumbing through my Skyrim clue book (I learned long ago that good clue book can turn a game from a frustrating few hours to several months enjoyment) I encountered a little table with seemed to cry roll-up chart so here it is (roll d20 whenever your sandbox generator calls for habitation):

1. Hunter Camp
2. Lumber Mill
3. Military Fort
4. Military Camp
5. Mine
6. Orc Stronghold
7. Town
8. Animal Den
9. Bandit Camp
10.Dragon Lair
11.Dragon Priest Lair
12.Draugr Crypt
13.Dwarven City
14.Falmer hive
15.Forsworn Redoubt
16.Giant Cam
17.Hargraven Nest
18.Spriggan Grove
19.Vampire Lair
20.Warlock lair

Be warned this chart is very old school in two respects. One, the putzy Hunter Camp is the same chance as the high level Dragon Priests Lair. Two, the exact details of what each encounter means are left to the DM (I may to flesh out the encounters a bit more later). Well that's it for now, I am back to the conundrum of how to rise to the top of the assassin's guild without slaughtering a lot of innocent people.

Skyrim the RPG?

2011-11-29T00:13:00.000-05:00

Like many people I suspect, I spent most of Thanksgiving playing the new Elder Scrolls computer game Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls has always had an interesting skill based system that I thought might make a good paper and pencil RPG. This time they have boiled the stats and skills down to the mere essentials. Only three stats Magicka, Health, and Stamina. Eighteen skills broken down into three categories
Combat: Smithing, Heavy Armor, Block, Two handed, One Handed, and Archery
Stealth: Light Armor, Sneak, Lock picking, Pickpocket, Speech, and Alchemy
Magic: Illusion, Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, and Enchanting

I think 5 schools of magic much more wieldy than D&D traditional eight, and most of them seem to be well balanced in power. I need to remap the spells into a more d20 format.

I like that each of the paths has its own route for making things. I think the alchemy part is the one system I enjoy most although its a lot of book keeping for a pen and paper game, perhaps I just need to pass out reagent points as treasure. Enchanting runs a close second, although I'd just give out charge soul gems as treasure rather than having to charge them. I have yet to put together the evil little axe I used in Morrowind to conquer the world, it gave the damage it did back as health for me, the Gaulador Black blade seems similar but it does only 10 health per hit, and is constantly running out of charges. Smithing is O.K. but maybe not as powerful as the other two (or perhaps I haven't got the knack yet). I do wonder who makes all the pots and pans, clothing, wooden bowls, cups ecetera since all you can make is armor, perhaps I'll go back to 3rd editions craft. I will NOT be using 4th edition's "yeah you can make that, just mark of the gold you would spend to buy it" system.

Rather than use a check every time you use a skill (due bad experiences with Runequest) I think I'll go with using experience to buy skill levels. Skill checks will be done by rolling a d20 and adding you skill to beat a difficulty (not sure how the computer does it). I have to reserve judgement on the skill perks system until I understand it better. Playing my traditional battle mage wearing heavy armor and swinging a one handed axe, while throwing spells with the other I ended up with my perks scattered all over the map, including a few throw into enchanting and smithing. A more optimal character would be focused in a few skills and just buy stuff from NPCs, but who'd make the Fortify two handed while having 13% weakness to frost, and 4% barter increase potions then (Strangely enough the NPC seem to pay extra for the extra properties, and I'm more than happy to sell it to them 'cause I sure as heck ain't drinking it). Well I think the big computer is done rebooting, so its back to the land of Nords for me again. Unfortunately, either the graphics card or the sound system is a bit unstable cranking out the horse power needed for Skyrim, so its save early, save often and reboot as necessary. Fortunately I have played many such games before and am patient, I figure its just the computer saying "O.K. its time for a break to do other things".

Every man a once and future King

2011-11-08T21:59:00.000-05:00

Finally made it through King Arthur the truth behind the legend by Rodney Castlon. I have had an interest in the real King Arthur since writing my high school research paper on it, using a different book by Geoffry Ashe for most of the facts. Chock full of interesting facts and tid-bits. Chapter one boils the hard evidence down to two mentions in the Easter Annals. Chapter Two is a very thorough going over of the literature we do have, including stone markers, genealogies of Welsh and Irish Kings, and poetry, as well as books. An 1120 manuscript is the source for both The Easter Annals and Nennius's Historica Brittonum. Although Nennius wrote his part in 830 A.D it is proposed that the Easter Annals were added later, about 960-970 A.D. Nennius draws from several earlier documents and has been somewhat discredited in that he already including some of the more mythological elements in his descriptions of Arthurs life. Gildas's Book of Complaints written about 540 AD does mention the battle of Badon, Arthur's victory over the Saxons, but fails to mention Arthur. Even more troubling is that Arthur may actually be a nickname (Welsh for bear = arth). Gildas does mention one of his contemporary kings as "the driver of the chariot of the bears stronghold". The Anglo-Saxon chronicle written by the other side is most notable for a lack of much expansion during the 50 years of the supposed time of the battle of Badon. It of course fails to mention Arthur or even the battle of Badon itself. All of this may seem like skimpy evidence, but given my experiences with histories of this time period I am inclinded to give Arthur the benefit of the doubt (After reading an interesting book on the battle of Caane, you know the famous battle battle where Hannibal whipped the Romans, which points out the main record we have of it is a history written 80 years after fact by the grandson of one of the generals, I am inclined to examine ancient history with a lax view to the documentation). The rest of the book dispenses with trying to further verify the existence of Arthur and launches into a description of what we do know about Sixth century Briton. She-who-must-be-obeyed has promised a battle map of one of the hill forts proposed as a location for Camelot complete with hall (know from the post hole pattern). Unfortunately since Camel is Briton for windy, there are a lot of river Camels in Cornwall and Wales. There are also a great many kingdoms, apparently the Britons didn't have mayors, sheriffs, or village elders, just kings. Gildas points out that if the Briton kings had spent less time fighting each other, they might have done a better job of beating the Angles and Saxons. One of my favorite parts of the book is its description of Tintagel, part Castle, part Christian Church, and part pagan ritual site. I especially like the carved foot print in the rock, that book speculates was used by ancient Kings to swear allegiance to the land. There is also the tunnel carved in the rock leading nowhere, a grave that is purported to change size periodically, and numerous other oddities. All in all an interesting dive into the historic Arthur. The back has a bibliography of numerous other books on the historical Arthur, apparently British scholars have been at this subject a while.

Zatoichi versus Yojimbo

2011-10-12T19:59:00.000-04:00

***Warning Spoiler***
Re-watching one of my favorite samurai flicks "Zatoichi versus Yojimbo". I keep thinking the'res got to be a D&D adventure in there somewhere. Zatoichi after a harrowing escape in the rain decides to head for a peaceful village of the beaten path, which he remembers for the smell of plum blossoms, the babbling brook, and the cool breeze. When you see the dead body floating in the brook that Zatoichi doesn't see being blind, you know things aren't going to go well for Zatoichi (they never do). Turns out some crumb bums are stealing gold by clipping coins at the Shoguns mint, and hiding it here in this out of the way village. Unfortunately it seems that every villain within a hundred miles has heard the rumors. Plot is driven by strong characters: Zatoichi the blind swordsman who keeps trying to do good, but usually ends up cutting everyone to sushi. Yojimbo who pretends to be a drunken mercenary, but is actually a secret agent for the Shogun, and then there's the third guy who's sent by the Shogun to see whats taking Yojimbo so long, he's got his own secret army and a two shot pistol for when he doesn't feel like slicing people in half. The main plot problem I encounter for samurai flicks is of course rather than working as a team like a good D&D adventuring party the main characters end up squaring off to see who's the better swordsman. Zatochi and Yojimbo both draw blood when fighting but avoid killing each other. Unfortunately Yojimbo kills pistol guy so no sequel for him.
"Incident at Blood Pass" is another of my favorites with a somewhat similar plot, but this time the gold is just passing through and no blind swordsman, only the drunken samurai. How about you? Ever figure out how to convert a samuria flick into an adventure? How'd it work out.

P.S. One thing I like about samuria flicks not many reoccurring villians. Once the two guys draw swords, usually only one of them is walking away.

Mega Dungeon Format

2011-09-19T08:01:00.000-04:00

Comments on the Megadungeon format question posed by a fellow blogger at Grognardia a few weeks ago:

My favorite megadungeon format the "Ruins of Undermoutain" boxed set:

Large poster map for the dungeon

Book of special keyed encounters

Book of random role-up encounters to fill in the rest

It's pretty close to all you need.

My least favorite megadungeon format "Return to Undermountain"

Everything in one book so you have to flip back and forth between the maps and the encounters

Map arted up to make them unreadable and CROPPED!?

No non set piece encounters, as matter of fact everything off the linear railroad plot blocked off with rock falls to ensure no "sandboxing" ever

As my friend refers to this module "a little tiny crappy piece of Ruins Undermountain"

The second edition large boxed sets remain some of my most favorite adventures the "Ruins of Myth Dranor" is a close second to "Ruins of Undermountain" although it is not a classic megadungeon. The one thing Myth Dranor adds to the repertiore is the mini-dungeons on cards which gives the DM some flexibility, however I recommend against printing the key on the back as this leads to a lot of card flipping.

Ultima Underworld 2

2011-08-27T06:37:00.000-04:00

So I have lost a month playing an old computer game. My son quite frequently decides that we need to play '90s Dos games, and we had a two-for sitting around which included both Ultima underworld (which we have played a great deal already) and its companion Ultima Underworld II (which we have not played much). So of course we got the dosbox and dfend out (two great little programs for running '90s games which do a much better job of handling the weird memory gyrations of '90 dos than Microsoft) and began to play. Since my sons approach to playing involves slaughtering everything that moves and letting Dad figure out the clues and puzzles. I have long ago swallowed my pride and realized that the way though most games is to use the cheats and walk-throughs available on the Internet (This is especially handy when all the creatures who were supposed to give you clues are dead, or angry at your attempt to cut them to pieces). So I have been spending a lot of time listening to this German guy as he works his way through.

The Ultima underworld series still has my most favorite set of skills for roleplaying. I am totally stealling it for my roleplaying game (don't hold your breath kiddos, I have been writing my own roleplaying game for over years and not published anything yet).

The Grid, the Grid

2011-07-10T16:02:00.001-04:00

The nice map posted at the City of Iron got me thinking. You see Gavin, the artist, decided to draw his map free hand without a grid, and that got me thinking. If your going to show to the players when I don't see a problem of no grid. If you need to sketch in on a battle map, or describe it verbally for me at least a grid is quite useful. Of course these days drawing the map and adding a grid later is pretty simple (It could be done in the old days but required gridded chartpak and some skill with an x-acto). I usually tried to grid the room floors and leave the walls blank, the opposite of the artists at the White Dwarf and Judges Guild who tended to grid the walls and leave the floors blank. I'll not comment on his choice of red lines with purple shading,as that is a matter of personal preference. Although, if you are running "Old School" and not showing the map to anyone else, I would not spend a lot of time trying to make the map look "pretty". I would however grid it for the reasons already mentioned.

Substistance Farming and the Man

2011-07-10T13:50:00.000-04:00

As a complement to my map of village densities in 11th century England, I have been working on a map of village densities in the Old Northwest territory (which Ohio were I live happens to be part of) during the 18th century. I have nice map of village locations in 1759 courtesy of the Atlas of Great Lake Indian History, Helen Hornbeck Tanner ed. University of Oklahoma press 1987. However, I have run into to issues. First, the Old Northwest territory is too big to map comfortably with five mile hexes. Second, after over 200 years of warfare and smallpox, village densities are measured in hexes per village rather than villages per hex. As such I had set this project aside for a bit.

My recent posts on the Aztecs have let me back to thinking about Native Americans once again. While researching Aztec farming techniques at the library, I peaked over at the Native North American section right next door and obtained The Miami Indians of Indiana, Stewart Rafert, Indiana Historical Society. The Miami, a small tribe, feature prominently in Atlas of Great Lake Indian History for their control of the portage (now Fort Wayne, IN) between Lake Erie and the Wabash River (a substantial short cut to the Mississippi River if you are traveling by Canoe). Since Miami Indians of Indiana was an easy read and allowed me to procrastinate further on the turgid but important sounding Cultivated Landscapes of Middle America on the Eve of Conquest I read it cover to cover. One of the most fascinating parts of it is the tribe continuing to live its lifestyle of the men hunting and fishing, and the women growing a little corn and a little squash on a mere 10 square mile reservation IN INDIANA from 1847-1872 (a population of roughly 148-250 people over the time period). I am a bit surprised since 10 square miles (6,400 acres) is only a little bigger than one our modern factory farm which will have 10 people living on it if the farmer has a big family (not sure how many people it feeds I'll have to look that up). The legal manoeuvrings which allow them to stay in Indiana while the rest of the Native Americans forced west at gun point are also quite interesting (a lot of it has to do with the local non-native American tavern owners and lawyers liking the tap into the yearly U.S. Government hard currency (silver dollars) payment the tribe collected as a treaty settlement. It unfortunately also lead to only the Miami who moved to Oklahoma being recognised as a "tribe" by the U.S. Government. In 1873 the reservation was broken up into 63 farms and divided amongst the residents. Many Miami being brave soles prompt tried their hand more conventional farming. Unfortunately this involved borrowing the $1,000 from the bank to equip a conventional farm and selling the farm to the bank when the inevitable "bad year" hit and bank could not be paid. The 1994 U.S Government wrangling that the guy who ruled in 1895 that Indiana Miami were no longer a tribe was wrong, but since it had been too long (mostly because the Bureau of Indian Affairs ruled in the several lawsuits since the ruling that because the Miami were not a tribe no lawsuit could be brought) is also a prime example of why people of my generation have a great distrust of government (also known as "the Man). There is an interesting corollary between the treatment of Native Americans and the "screw job" conducted by the enclosure of 16th century England, as well as the Oklahoma farmers during the dust bowl, but this post is long enough already.

Swag from Origins

2011-07-04T12:25:00.001-04:00

Living pretty close to Columbus, a trip to the Origins dealers room is a family ritual. Not a lot of swag for me as She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed blew one chunk of the budget on Warhammer bits (well technically the Orc bits are for my army), and my son is equipping the 7th Federation fleet (not sure where the battle star will fit in it, but it was cool so we bought it too). Got some free RPG day leftovers as free was definitely in the budget (mostly WoTC, but Goodman's Dungeon Crawl Classics Starter as well). Limit on free RPGs was two per customer, but this is where having a wife and son with me paid off (my son used one of his picks for something a space ship on the cover). Picked up the new hardbound Arcanis (enjoyed the beta test version I picked up at Gencon last year so thought I'd give it a go). I'll post a full review sometime soon. Was severely tempted by the Hackpedia of Beasts pre-order, but gave it a pass. I am glad it is all in one book, unlike the book 1 A-C, book 2 D-F, etc of the previous edition (I gave up about L). However, I remembered how unimpressed I was with the monsters in the previous edition (suffered from me-too-ism by re-replicating all the monsters in the d20 SRC with little change). I also don't really need to be buying books just to throw in the box of Hackmaster rules gathering dust in the corner (Hackmaster and I don't see eye-to-eye on taking the core d20 rules and making them more complicated). And finally the real find of the show, White Dwarf 34. I have been after this bad boy ever since She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed ran me through the Starstone adventure in 1983, and we saw the note that White Dwarf 34 contained another module by the same authors "Trouble at Ember Trees ". Five pages of old White Dwarf microprint (I did have to use my scanner to enlarge the print, as my eyes can't handle microprint any more) goodness with FOUR maps and SEVENTY EIGHT encounters. They just don't write'm that way any more. Heck, five pages will barely fit ONE fourth edition encounter. And where did I find this gem? Was it in the glass case at Crazy Egor's (Talisman Timescape another on the "how did I miss that" list was, but the price was too dear)? Was it got from the Troll and Toad auction after some fevered bidding war? No, it was in the $3 bin of old junk we want to get rid of at the Comic book vendor booth. WOHOOOO! some days the collecting gods smile on you.

Curiouser and Curiouser

2011-07-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

I am looking at my blog stats and being a bit bemused. My blog had over 9,000 views last month versus a mere 1,000ish the month before. So in a month which due to business travel and the nephews graduation I posted almost nothing I get a ninefold increase in traffic. Whats my most viewed post? A blank piece of notebook paper!

Now thats a Map

2011-06-29T23:48:00.000-04:00

Part picture book, part map the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 is an Aztec artifact from 1540. It was for painted the Lords of Cuauhtinchan to show the Spanish their claim to the territory they ruled. The first part starts with the emergence from the the lords ancestors from the cave of Chicomoztoc (legendary origin point of the Aztecs and several other tribes) and follows their journey to found the town of Cuauhtinchan. The second part shows the environment around Cuauhtinchan. The map is analyzed extensively in the book Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 edited by Davíd Carrasco, and Scott Sessions, UNM press 2007. You can also listen David Carrasco's lecture at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe New Mexico here. Among other things he explains rediscovering the map in a kitchen drawer of a wealth patron. Now I return to my monastic cell to further contemplate Mesoamerican Agriculture (unfortunately Cultivated Landscapes of Middle America on the eve of Conquest has far less interesting maps and a vocabulary that requires a Dictionary close at hand) and the vagaries of web pictures and copyright. There is a good argument to be made that a photo of a map drawn in 1540 isn't really copyrightable. However since I appreciate the work the book editor is doing, and part of the book sales support his work, I elected not to post my scan of the whole map, and merely link to the picture he uses to promote his lecture tour instead.

Spanish Victory for Cortez with help from Friends

2011-05-15T10:06:00.000-04:00

One of my commentators to the previous post is certainly correct about the Spanish needing help from native allies. Unfortunately I think that worked out better for the Spanish. The book on pre-Columbian agriculture, I picked up highlights the precipitous collapse of the native population and a shift in farming from using all the varied habitats to just those suitable for planting with a plow or raising cattle. The collapse can be attributed to old world diseases (Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book on this subject), but the lack of recovery may be more due to the shift in farming. It also interesting that New world seems to have several cultural collapses including the Maya in the 10^th century, the Anasazi in the 13^th century, and Teotihuacan, about 25 miles to the north of Tenochtitlan (and probably a bigger city as well) abandoned in the 5^th century. The Spanish spend some time hiding out in Teotihuacan after being thrown out of Tenochtitlan, before hooking up with the Tlaxcalans for the final defeat of the Aztecs. Central America is certainly a more populous and complex place than the new world campaigns I have run in the past. However, when I try to add complex and interesting large civilizations to my campaign, I am roundly booed by the players for interfering with their exploration and looting of ancient ruins. Perhaps the loudest complainer is She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed who does not see the same drawbacks in her urban based Medieval European campaigns. More on this in another post.

Tenochtitlan another City of the Pyramid

2011-05-14T20:48:00.000-04:00

I am afraid last months posting of my City of the Pyramid has thrown me into to research mode. Although I have known the of Cortez's conquest of Mexico since my youth, I had not appreciated the size of the city. According to my sources it was a city of 200,000 souls at a time when the largest cities in Europe, London and Venice, were only 100,000. Seville the largest city most of Cortez's had seen was probably only 60,000. To conqueror it with only 600 men took some cojones, definitely not first level fighters. Above is a woodcut from 1524 based on the conquistadors descriptions. Below are a couple of more contemporary illustrations from Wikmedia based on the archaeological evidence.

City of the Pyramid

2011-04-23T14:01:00.000-04:00

At the junction of the great causeway and the great underway lies a nexus of great power. After the fall of the elves during the Golden age it was here the golden ones came to build pyramid temples to their dark gods. Seven tiers for the Burning One, Five for the Breaker of Hope, a mere two for the Mistress of the still pool, an unimportant goddess worshiped only by females and pondlings. Still her pyramid is required to balance the fearsome dread of the uncounted tiers of the underpyramid of the Drowner in Darkness. The Treader of the Secret Ways required no pyramid, stealing his worship by masquerading as the other gods. Once the pyramids were complete the Sorcerer Kingpriests focused their energy to forge the Great Artifact. During the catastrophe the Great Artifact was split into to the sphere, the cube, and the tetrahedron. As the artifact was split into three so were majority of the golden ones, into the kobolds, lizardmen, and weygn. Their ensuing battles to reunite the Artifact soon destroyed the city, and the inhabitants dispersed into the black swamp which broke the canal walls and swallowed the city whole. Their descendants still squabble, fight, and dream of reuniting the artifact to restore the glory of the Golden age. A mere half days journey from the newcomers Clerics Post on the Great river, the ruined city still lures adventurers to doom and glory. The lizardman "people of the turtle" will lead you there for a few trinkets, but warn that the "people of the shark" who inhabit the ruins proper are not as friendly, and are only fond of strangers as barbecue. Below is the mosaic in the chamber of the map showing the city as it was in the Golden age.

Note: The City of the Pyramids served as my anchor dungeon for my great river campaign of the early '90s. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed still remembers this campaign with fondness.It was a bit of a breakthrough in style for me as well as I replaced my megadungeons of the past with little 3-5 room mini dungeons which could be completed in a night or two. However most of the mini-dungeons remained connected by the Great Underway a 30' wide straight barrel vaulted corridor leading on for miles leading god knows where (although one was bound to stumble on to a secret door leading to the next mini-dungeon just in time for the next session). Due to its connection to the Great Underway my wandering adventurers found themselves in the City of the Pyramids more often then they would have liked.

A is atmosphere, F is for flame on, Z for zzzzzz (loud snoring)

2011-04-19T08:34:00.000-04:00

Ok I have completed the complete alphabet in a single post, can we move on. Maybe is the fact that its tax day (as usual I did just enough to make sure Uncle Sam owed me money and pushed it off to October), or maybe its the fact that the stats show that a blank piece of note book paper has shot up to my third most popular post (someone on stumble-on though it was cute), but I feel the urge to complain about the mindless A-Z meme that has inflected my Old School Renaissance. Most blogs are luckily if they can get one post out a week, but it is usually from the heart and thought provoking, but the A-Z meme has led them to believe they can up their production to one a day with some meaningless trivia. Most of them are sputtering out about O, so soon things will be back to normal, and I can stop skipping over posts at greater than the normal rate. I of course did have to look at P is for Prostitute at Appendix N (little imredave wanted to see it, however he was disappointed). Appendix N does point out that "Old School" it should be H is for Harlot. It did bring back memories of a certain adventure in She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed running of the city of Karse. We had turned down an alley way into a small square, and encountered a lizard woman in fish net stockings leaning up against the wall near the entrance to the bar, clearly indicating we were no longer in the high class neighborhood. Since we were in desperate need of a certain substance from a certain alchemist shop across the square we pressed on. We were also not surprised when the 1st level got shanked (We were surprised later to find out it was one of our party members who shanked him). She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed later reviewed her notes to find out a little more about the lizard lady, and discovered that all it actually said was "Rough Bar". Such is the power of imagination. Well its time to go to work, so this rambling flame must end. Next time something of substance.

Multipurpose Wilderness/Dungeon Planner, DM Reference, and Char Sheet

2011-04-02T20:33:00.001-04:00

What we used for wilderness and dungeon planning, dungeon master reference notes, and character sheets, and many other purposes
Old School:

My little joke for April 1st, but also true.

Dungeon in the Raw

2011-04-01T21:35:00.000-04:00

Here's a dungeon I call "Palace of the Dragon Prince". I sketched it out a couple of weeks ago in hopes of cleaning it up and entering it into the one page dungeon contest. Unfortunately business travel and a nasty computer virus on the computer with the scanner intervened. Everything is back under control, but I ran out of time to improve my entry. I thought about sending it in "as is". However, without clean-up it is unlikely to win, and in order to enter since they want real names I would have to reveal my "secret identity" for all the world to see. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed says she thinks its "cute" the way it is, so I am posting it on the blog. Be aware that even the way it is, it more than sufficient for me to DM it, because that's the way we do it OLD SCHOOL.

Crimson Blades of Ara Review

2011-03-15T16:39:00.001-04:00

My friend Carter Soles over at The Lands of Ara has graciously posted the game system he and and friend Dave Miller wrote in 1989. You pick up the rules for "Crimson Blades of Ara" over at his blog. Although the author claims these are rough notes they are a dam site more impressive than my pencil scribbles on lined paper I call notes. As with many youthful endeavours it is chock-a-blog full with novel ideas and concepts, despite Carters claim that he was reinventing Runequest without knowing it (actually about all that Runequest and His system share are a use of a list of skills to determine abilities and percentile dice to resolve actions). Actually his character point chart with its exponential increase cost as skills move towards 100%, solves one of the great shortcomings of Runequest. Runequests advance system based on dice rolls against skills you use rewards lucky rather than skillful play, and results in great silliness amongst the power gaming crowd of continual weapon switching and trivial skill checks. All in all I was quite impressed, although I have not completed my analysis of the combat system which seems to exude a strong preference for some weapons over others. I am unlikely to attempt to run the whole game as written, but will likely borrow pieces for my homebrew rules. The crown jewel of these rules are the skill and trait level cost chart. I also enjoyed the eastern school mages who cast spells by "the creation of small,
animated beings called golems"; Orge player characters which are immensely strong but forced take quirks to compensate; and the two strikes per round combat system which allows you the ability to drop your chance to parry a opponents blow and counter attack instead. I thought having the agility stat determine who goes first, while dexterity and strength determine (for the most part, longsword is agility based) your chance to hit was wise; Fantasty trip and its successor GURPS put dexterity on both who goes first and your chance to hit biasing their games to uber dexers with nothing else. I am intrigued by the concept presented of different weapons having different caps on how much skill one can apply to ones attack, but I'll want to finish my math analysis before I can say I am in favor of it. A big thanks to Carter and Dave for sharing. Pick up a copy and check out for yourself. If you are unhappy you can always ask for your NO MONEY back.

World of Bad Neighbor Mountain

2011-03-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here are several maps of the campaign I ran from 1982-1985. My Regulars have already seen the detail map of Bad Neighbor Mountain from this campaign. I started this map by tracing coastlines out of my Altas and combining them. The bottom of this map is a backwards outline of Finland combined with the tip of India (Note: I ignored scale for the most part). I then placed the outline on a hex grid which I filled in with mountains, lakes, rivers, and settlements. The hexes are 25 miles across. Note the concept behind this map was to place it in the southern hemisphere, so the climate gets warmer as one moves towards the top of the map. The southern tip I envisioned as glaciated lake country similar to Minnesota or Finland.

Once I had the large map done, I took it to the copy store and made several copies to start laying different aspects of the campaign out. Below is an inset of the political divisions. Orange is the Anvan empire, a once great power slipping into decline. Light green is the Free city of Lirpan. Dark green are the Dwarven Holds in the mountains. Light blue is the southern elven forests. Dark purple are the towns of the sea raiders. Finally magenta is the Valley an area of small feudal states, where most of the adventures took place.

After laying out the political map on the southern tip. I noticed some issue with the map as I had drawn it. First the entire continent was completely mountainous. Second the terrain north of the lake country was completely the same repeat of mountains, rivers and towns BORING!!! So being the creator, I took the part I liked ,used a pair of scissors to cut that part away from the rest of the map, and taped it back down on a blank piece of hex paper which I then redrew as below. Now north of the valley is the Sea of sand.

Finally, I copied the map again using the enlarge function on the copier to give me a bigger map of the region I was most interested, used a light box to trace the map onto a blank piece of white paper, and worked it over with colored pencils to produce the map below, which I used as my map to show the players.

Of course almost all these steps can be done much easier with a computer graphics program these days (although I am still fond of the look and feel of my colored pencil work).

Piasa Bird

2011-02-25T15:25:00.014-05:00

Aldorbans post of his picture of the Piasa bird sparked old memories which precipitated another dive down the internet rabbit hole. I have a certain fondness for the Piasa Bird, the Piasa bird trail patch being one of the coolest patches one could get by hiking with the Boy Scouts in '70s Illinois. Believing it to be an Native American petroglyph I was shocked to discover that not only that the current Piasa bird was painted in the 2000's, but the previous one I admired as Native American rock art was painted in 1934. The original petroglyph was quarried away in the late 1800's for limestone.

First description is from the French Explorers Pere Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet traveling the Mississippi River in 1673. Jean Jean-Bapiste Louise Franquelin drew the following from their description.

First known picture is from someone who saw it was John Caspar Wild's Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated, page 136. Unfortunately the scan on the internet is not a very good one, the description in the text is better. I downloaded the image from the internet and enhanced the contrast to bring the very faint image in the original scan out.

A better old picture is from Henry Lewis's Das illustrirte Mississippithal although it does not look like a Native American petroglyph.

The current painting at the rock is below (from Wikimeida commons)

This link here is my favorite Piasa Bird, not being fond of the garish colors most paintings use. Note: I have not posted it here as I am unsure whether the owner has placed it in public domain.

P.S. O.K. I must post now having wasted far too much of my precious "snow" day on this post. Although it has a curious relevance to a map I was planning to post later.
P.P.S. I have spend so much time on the Piasa bird I am now listed on page two of the google search. This of course necessitates posting of even more of the pictures I have found.

City of Caen

2011-02-19T08:57:00.000-05:00

Here is a map drawn from a 17th Century Panorama of the French City of Caen. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed has re-imagined it back to the Middle ages by pulling out the star forts, horn works, and bastions, and has also converted it to a top down view. Enjoy!

Hexes and Villages

2011-02-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

The little brown book's Underworld and Wilderness adventures explains that a barony can clear hexes up to 20 miles away and that within that area there will be 2-8 villages of 100-400 inhabitants (Other editions dodge this bullet by not even addressing Baronies in the core rules).This has always seemed a bit skimpy to me. With my newly created hex overlay and H. C. Darby's Domesday England, Cambridge University Press 1977, I decided to check the village density of Norman England. To this purpose I have created the following 5 mile to the hex map. Please note that Wales and Scotland were not surveyed, so are blank:

As you can see the village density in most places far exceeds 8 villages in a 20 mile radius. Densities of 10 villages or more per 5 mile hex are not infrequent. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed who did the shading of the hexes by density says I should use this information to make a new roll-up chart, but that must wait for another post.

Bad Neighbor Mountain

2011-02-08T23:18:00.001-05:00

Here is a map from my graduate school days in 1982. Since the new Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master Guide suggested using 25-50 mile hexes that's what I mapped the world in. However I found the hexes at this size lacking in gamable detail. As a solution to this I hit on the solution of drawing a detail map of a single hex on one piece of paper. Here is my detail map of one of the Mountain Hex near the city of Anva

Of course I couldn't draw such a beautiful map and not show it to the players. However I wanted key for where the monsters lair that players couldn't. The solution an overlay of tracing paper with the DM's key on it. Here's the map with the overlay in place on top of it. Note trying to get a piece of tracing paper to line up in the scanner is not an easy task, the key is slightly off, you can spot if you look closely at the crosses that mark the mountain peaks next to the numbers giving the mountain heights.

:Here's the key for the numbers

1) The village of Telgrin; Major attraction "Ye Olde Magic Shop" Fireworks and novelties; 10th level Illusionist

2) The Earls Hunting lodge; 3rd level fighter acts as grounds keeper

3) Hermits hut, burned and ruined

4) Goblin camp: 14 goblins 4 wargs, Hermit 16th level cleric held prisoner will not harm anyone not even goblins

5) Ruined castle

6) Ruined castle

7) Trail to the lost city

8) Wachtower, lost city can be seen from here

9) The dragons roost

and here's a little adventure I wrote (the point of drawing the map to begin with). A brief aside this adventure follows the infamous plague dungeon She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed wrote and DMed in my world after reading A Distant Mirror, If I can cajole my way into the secret notebooks I may post more on that dungeon.

Going after Carsolar

Trin is in plague trouble again. Anva has volunteered Carsolar the mighty cleric to help. But where is Carsolar? Rumor has it he is up in the hills looking for the Snic-ker-snee the famous blade of legend.

Carsolar is of course the 16th level cleric being held at 4

Throw in a few wolves on the road into to town to start things off

a brief inquiry in town leads to directions to the hermit hut 3

battles with wandering warg riders leave trail back to the goblin camp

a battle in the goblin camp frees Carsolar

leading to a triumphant return to Anva to collect the ample reward

Remember this is Old School, none of that purple prose to clutter up the adventure, just some notes to myself to remind me of the theme them improvise the rest, springle liberally with random encouters to liven up the slow spots and throw some curves to delinerize the plot and I'm good to go.

Plan B

2011-02-07T20:45:00.000-05:00

Well there I was working away on hex gridding over the map of Doomsday England, a pet project to try and figure how many villages actually fit in a five mile hex (from the overlay it looks to be 7-9, you can read more ideas about division of land at Redwald). Suddenly it occurred to me it was probably in poor taste and perhaps a violation of copyright to publish a map taken from a couple of figures from someone else's book, even if I had smashed them together and overlaid a grid upon them. Although the book author seems unlikely to be checking my web site, my status as a someday want-to-be author and game publisher always leaves me leery of violating intellectual property rights. After all, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you want to check out the base maps look on pages 38-39 of H. C. Darby's Domesday England, Cambridge University Press 1977 (I have the 1986 paper back edition. Its a reasonable read for a scholarly introduction to the data in the Domesday Book, a Norman survey of the land and loot they got when they took over England {for tax purposes of course}). From the book I gleaned Redwalds division into Hides, Tithings, and Hundreds leaves out many other land divisions in use in near Anglo-Saxon times including wapentakes, ridings, lathes, and rapes. Real life is seldom simple. Never-the-less I am no longer planning on posting my five mile hex map of Domesday England this week. I will not be posting my Domesday map until I find a source for the basic information in open source. As a result this weeks offering to the web will be a bit later than my usual target of near the weekend. I am working on a fine old map and adventure from the 1980's (Hope to have it done later today or tomorrow).

Montgomery's Tower

2011-02-01T21:47:00.000-05:00

Here we have today another piece of Jerry's World, Montgomery's Tower. Montgomery decided, that rather than go through all the fuss and bother of clearing his own Barony, he would just live in Henrich Barony. But he build his own tower in the mountains next to Henrich's village number 5. Take a look at Henrich's Barony here to see where. While your there take a look at the revised World map as well. I mentioned that some commentors were less than satisfied with the colors to She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed and she worked furiously on recoloring it until her arthritis flaired up (being old is not for sissies) and she declared it FINISHED. I suggested she might add a key so you could tell what was what and had to make a hasty exit from the computer room (purple is Mountain, grey-brown hills, blue water, green forest, orange desert, and mottled yellow-green swamp). I suggest if you have any further comments on the world map you keep them between between you and me. So without further addo here's Montgomery's Tower (It even includes the costs in case you want to build a duplicate for your OD&D campaign).

Hungarian RPG now in English!

2011-01-24T21:10:00.000-05:00

Good news! Gabor has published a rules light translation of his Hungarian role playing game Kard és Mágia which I blogged about here. Now I can take that long standing backburner project off the stove entirely. You can get Gabor's translation from here. I am sure Gabor did a much better job than I could, after all he actually speaks Hungarian ;)

Henrich's Barony and the World

2011-01-23T23:49:00.003-05:00

Some more stuff from the first Campaign She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed played in so long ago. First is the wilderness map surrounding Henrich's castle. Henrich's castle is the crown near the eastern edge. Numbers are villages and mines. One of the numbers is Montgomery the Mage's tower (I'll have to ask She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed which one some time. You''ll see more about Mongomery's Tower in a future post).

Next is the Map of the entire Continent stitched together from several maps of different scales. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed informs me that since she had to draw the maps by borrowing Jerry's Ref maps while they were playing the area they played the most (the NW quadrant) has the least detail. Luckiy she had some detail maps of the area near Henrich's castle. She also points out that the islands NW of Henrich's castle weren't there originally. However, when one of the players complained that there were no islands left for him to put a castle on, Jerry the DM said "I can fix that that!" pulled out his pens and then there were islands NW of Henrich's castle. **Note: Revised Map posted 2/1/2011***

Mapping the World with Hexes

2011-01-15T09:13:00.001-05:00

****** Warning this post contains mathematics and computer science ******
Working on my old world maps has raised some interesting questions once again, long neglected by real world cartographers like:
How wide are the Rocky Mountains?
How many real world cities fit in a 5 mile hex?
The first step to answering these questions is to lay out the real world on a hex grid. Since the world is really big we need hex which really small, which is the first step.

Pixelating the Hex
After scanning my current 10 hex to inch hex paper into the computer and wasting two hours trying to clean the smudges by repainting the image pixel by pixel I concluded there had to be a better way. I started to work on laying out the smallest pixel pattern I could create which would preserve a hex shape. The hex shape can be build from a 30 60 right triangle. The geometry of this triangle such that if longest side is 1 the shortest side is 0.5 which is quite nice. However, the other side is the square root of 3 over 2 an inconvenient irrational number about 0.866 to three decimal places. All computer scientist know an irrational number is very hard to draw in pixels because one can only use an integral number of pixels per drawing Luckily for me I discovered that the ratio 6/7 (0.857 to three decimal places) is very close (99% of 0.866). I therefore proceeded to lay out a pixel patten for a grid based on the 6/7 ratio. Here is the result

A pixel pattern 12 squares high by 20 squares wide. Note: the bottom line is part of the next pattern I just left it in so I could see the hex. A little jagged you may say but take a look at in the next picture (Original is at 140 ppi, your ppi may vary depending on your screen). It really looks like hexes.

Here's an 8.5" by 11" sheet gridded at 20 hexes to the inch. Use with caution! To quote She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed "I wanted to look, but I wish I hadn't". Perhaps it is less headache inducing in a different color. Feel free to experiment yourselves. I am going to use it mostly as a digital overlay for other things.

Finally as the penultimate goal of our project, here the grid superimposed over a nice Dymaxion world map in public domain. I like Dymaxion maps because they are based on mapping the world to a d20 and are composed of equilateral triangles which fit nicely with hexes. You can read more about them here and here. The map is 2008 pixels wide which for a d20 is half the circumference of the earth or roughly 12,450 miles. This works out to 6.2 per pixel, or at our 12 pixels per hex, 74 miles per hex. Enjoy!

P.S. Future projects may include reworking the map to 50 miles per hex; getting height and vegetation maps to more accurately find mountains, forests, and deserts; scaling portions up to a 5 mile per hex resolution. However this is about all the math I take for now.

Errata: When I posted this morning I had claimed 7 pixels per hex or 43 miles, My pixel grid is actually 7 pixels per side and 12 pixels across or 74 miles per hex.

Henrich's Fortress

2011-01-08T10:22:00.001-05:00

My posting of my River kingdoms maps brought some memories back from She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed. She has the following to say about Castles and wilderness campaigns:

The first campaign I was in was under the original D& D rules. Wilderness was new then and our ref had bought nine pieces of heavy weight hex paper, each measuring two feet by three feet.

When we met to play he would lay them out on the carpet and we would sit on the floor to play. It was an impressive graphic which added a lot to the atmosphere of the game. But we liked the map so much we did not go into any dungeon. “We found another treasure map? I sell it to the npc.” Our ref despaired. So once one of my characters made fifth level he persuaded me to found a barony. The thinking here was that it would make me poor and force me to go adventuring in the dungeons to keep solvent. He also had some untried roll-up charts about finding mines in your barony. Long story short the mines made me wealthy and I never did set foot in a dungeon while in his campaign.

I remember asking about trade. I had to include an existing road and buy a company. My notes include comments about making and selling carts at 100 gold each and buying cart horses for 30 gold each from another player. I had seven villages, five of humans, one of elves, but the one village on the road was composed of dwarfs. After that every cart driver we encountered was a dwarf.

This campaign is the only one I have played in where I created a stronghold. I had to not only draw up the fortress but also compose a coat of arms for my character and keep the monthly books. My mage decided to work a deal with my fighter so he could put up a tower within the patrolled land and not need to go through the agony of clearing land, keeping troops or making me keep more books. I also had a cleric and he settled next to my friend who played the dwarf king up on Frog Island. The king (and his army) graciously accompanied my cleric while land clearing. When the ref rolled up the races in my villages his bemused look attracted our attention. “They are ALL dwarfs.” He told us.

And here's a picture of the fortress her fighter Henrich build with the money from the mines:

New Blog Layout

2011-01-08T09:10:00.003-05:00

Yeah you caught me. I've been playing with blogger rather than writing cool posts. Now back to work...

Wilderness Map River Kingdom 1

2010-12-31T19:29:00.002-05:00

The heart of the River Kingdom. Proud Vassa (7), the capital of the River Kingdom, plies its ships on the Narrow Sea. Rhys (1) on the isle of Anton would rival Vassa but the Northern Ocean is often too rough for trade. The hill baronies (3)(4)(11) and (12) are notorious for backing the Duke of Rhys against Vassa in disputes. Vassa makes sure the Griffins teeth (5) and (6) are manned by Barons loyal to Vassa. Notice the interlocking patrol zones between the Castles of the River Kingdom. Not all areas are completely patrolled though. There is lots of unpatrolled country in the Coast Hills in the North, and the Crag lands to the South, and the Griffins Leg marsh near Vassa, and who knows what dark secrets lurk in that little grove between (12), (14), and (19)

P.S. This being a sandbox era campaign I usually let the dice determine who lived in what castle when the party knocked on the door. Unfortunately those notes are rather sparse.

Wilderness Map River Kingdoms 2

2010-12-26T15:51:00.004-05:00

Here is the wilderness map just East of Blyron. Edge Hexes overlap previous map. This map marks the end of the Northern forest and the beginning of the River Kingdom proper. Patrolled zones on the Eastern edge are the start of the interlocking castles that protect the River Kingdom from wandering monsters.

Happy St. Stephens Day!

2010-12-26T15:22:00.006-05:00

Well I didn't quite have enough time on Christmas to get on the blog and post, what with the mother-in-law coming over for diner and the house needing cleaning. Total Christmas swag painting for 12 goblin spider riders I already bought, a sweater, an encyclopedia of signs and symbols, and a check. I guess I didn't get my request for the fabled lands adventure books to Santa soon enough, although I did get a promissory note for more to come from my sister who sent me the sweater. My last minute search for fantasy Christmas images free-of-copyright did produce some interesting images, but none suitable for the PG rating I try to keep this blog at. My search for St. Stephen, patron saint of Hungary, did far better. Here is Emperor Franz I of Austria in the robes of the Grand Master of the Royal Order of St. Stephen. Ermine trimmed red hat with the jingle bell on the end remind you of anyone?

Forgotten Runes for the Forgotten Runes

2010-12-18T12:55:00.002-05:00

In honour of increased traffic and a free Saturday (She-who-must-be-obeyed is out Chrismass shopping with the Mother-in-Law), I have added a new banner to the website. Background (courtesy of Wikipeda Commons) is from the as yet untranslated Codex Rohonc , a manuscript found in the western Hungarian town of Rohonc. The symbols seem to be in the style of Old Hungarian runes but there are far too many different symbols. Truely forgotten runes.

Old School Dungeon Links Page

2010-12-17T21:12:00.003-05:00

Having recently been adding stuff to my posts of the Dungeon and Campaign I ran from 1976 to 1979, I though it might be a good idea to post a page of links to my posts on the subject. So here it is.

Dungeon Maps

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5

City Map

Blydron

Wilderness Map

River Kingdoms Map 3

Layout

Overlay and Cutthroughs

Blydron Environs Map

2010-12-17T20:55:00.004-05:00

Wilderness map of the environs of Blydron at five miles to the hex flat to flat. Blydron is the river crossing labeled 1. To the southeast you can see the start of the Great Gorge and the Great Glacier in the mountains beyond. To the north you can see the lakes and swamps of the Northern Wilderness. Red lines indicate patrolled regions around towns and castles. According to the interpretation of the rules we played by then one could clear up to 25 miles distant from ones stronghold so red lines are a maximum of 4 hexes out from the center. I marked most of the smaller towns and hamlets as not patrolling that far.

Hex grid courtesy of that pad I got from Game Designers Workshop in 1975.

Old School City Dungeon layout

2010-12-11T16:50:00.008-05:00

This diagram shows the Tower and Bridge from the Old School City map overlayed on the first three levels of my old school dungeon. The City is in black, outline of first level is in blue, outline of second level is in green, outline of third level is in red.

*** NEW IMPROVED DRAWING COURTESY of She-who-must-be-obeyed ***

Here's two dungeon cut throughs as well. Top cut through is from East to West; bottom cut through is from North to South.

Old School City

2010-12-11T15:56:00.004-05:00

Blydron, the last River Kingdom outpost. Gateway to the Northern Forest and the Great Gorge. This is the City I started to draw to go over the top of my Old School Dungeon. Note: SE corner was never drawn. Overlay map of the City and Dungeon as well as Dungeon Cut-through to follow.

On combat systems

2010-12-11T11:04:00.005-05:00

My surfing of the blogosphere led me to discuss critical hits. This got me to discussions of combat systems in general and brought back some thoughts about contrasts in style that I had during the early days of role-playing. When Runequest first came out I though it was cool due to it's hit locations, damage reducing armor and blocked shots. It seemed way more realistic than the d20 to hit d8 damage of AD&D. However, as I actually played the Runequest combat system, I realized most fights consisted of large quantities of misses, followed by a combat ending critical where some vital component of the unluckiest combatant went flying. I also noticed that even the smallest trollkin has the potential of slicing off your Runelords head. I quickly realised it is a combat system completely incompatible with the Conanequese hero versus the 30 pirate scum style combats I like to run. Even if you discount the critical problem, no one enjoys waiting for me to roll the five rolls per attack needed to find out that all 30 pirate scum have missed. Don't even get me started on the hours required by Runequest to roll individual stats for each of the pirate scum. I reverted back to good ol' AD&D and have stuck with it's various incarnations ever since (although 4e is pretty close to failing the Conanequese test as well). Every time I feel the itch to tamper with the combat system (being mathematically inclined I am capable of devising five new combat systems before breakfast) I remind myself of my Runequest experience and conclude the AD&D system is pretty solid and not really in need of replacement. Besides, it gives me time to daydream up new magic systems instead.

Rural Longhouse Plans

2010-12-05T12:29:00.002-05:00

A couple of house plans based on historic buildings. Just right for that creepy farmstead, or abandoned warehouse, you know you'll be needing. Courtesy of She-who-must-be-obeyed.

City of the Dragon Lords

2010-11-27T10:11:00.004-05:00

A little Turkey day bonus post (btw a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all). Here's a concept sketch I did while waiting for the turkey to cook, after spending the night before looking at maps of Crater Lake. It's the fabled City of the Dragon Lords (read my Dragon Armies posts for more information) where commands for the Dragon Armies issue forth. My players have picked up a teleport card to this spot while raiding the Fortress of the Black Dragon pirates. Therefore I need to be prepared before some fool ranger decides to bring matters to a head by launching a frontal assault on many thousands of spawn of Tiamat backed by dozens of dragons on his own.

Cliff Top Battle Map

2010-11-27T09:20:00.004-05:00

The next battle map. This is the top of the crashed earth mote. It connects to the stones map via the slope in the lower left corner. Key terrain features include the octagonal pyramid, the sinkhole, the rope bridge to a still floating earth mote, and a 40' high cliff on the north end. Assess to the cliff top is via the large boulder in the upper right. The map was also to include trees but these are not marked as I have a very nice set of plastic ones from GW. One tree is of course close to the cliff to provide an alternate route to the top of the cliff

P.S. I left the dragon minis I used as paperweights in this time so you could see them too :)
P.P.S. The tree have become legend, after several sessions of She-who-must-obeyed saying "Did you bring the trees"and me saying "No, you didn't pack them for me". We finally brought the trees to a session, at which point I criticaled three times in a row. Now the current player response is "Oh no! Not the trees!!" so of course I have to bring them every time.

The French connection

2010-11-15T20:09:00.006-05:00

*** UPDATE/WARNING weekly spyware checker turned up the main page for world of Selandia as a KNOWN BAD WEBSITE. I am not sure the spyware checker is right and it does not explain itself further, but as a favor to my followers I have taken the imbedded links down. Good artwork,Bad people *sigh* ***
Was catching up on my geomorphs over at dysonlogos where he reminded me of Pascal Faeriss' blog which I forget to check because it is not a Google blog which links to my dashboard. Once again I decided to life on the edge and give my High School French a whorl. After a brief detour where I discovered that jeu de role means roleplaying game and some French sites sell their stuff for cash just like us Americans, I stumbled on a site for the world of Selandia. The language of jaw-dropping artwork for maps is universal. Pascal has even written a few modules for the setting, which I downloaded even though they are in French. C'est bon!

P.S. working on translating the key to Locnerac (on the french side of the site), but since I am to entry 5 of 212 after 1.5 hours don't expect it anytime soon.

Ancient Temple Plaza Map

2010-11-13T16:51:00.004-05:00

Ancient Temple Plaza within the ruined city of Imrataxi. An evil temple which controls the characters minds combined with a Elder Brown Dragon lurking in the sand. The buildings surrounding the Plaza filled with the dragons lackey minions as well. Rock pile in the North East corner is the start of the Stones Map. Not as much color as the stones map (Hey, what can I say? my hands get tired these days). Should have colored this one first, since it was where most of the battle was fought. If I'd have known someone was bringing a Swordmage who could not only chase down a dragon from 21 squares away, but teleport them both back to where the Swordmage started as well, I'd of planned different. I brought encounter 2 in as reinforcements. When we started to run low on time I brought encounter 3 in as reinforcements as well. A real donnybrook and great fun, but one that only used one of the three battle maps I'd drawn as well. As they say the plan seldom survives first contact with the player characters.

Stones Battle Map

2010-11-09T21:17:00.004-05:00

I used my 27"x34" gridded flip chart paper and colored pencils to draw a huge pile of boulders from a crashed earth mote. Starting at 30' high and rising to over a 100'. Sprinkled with some monsters that push people off ledges. Of course my players sneaky gits that they are bypassed it with fly spells and teleports.

Battle maps coming soon

2010-11-06T23:23:00.002-04:00

Sorry no old school maps this week. I have been hard at work cranking out battle maps for my 4e 14-17 adventure this week and have not had time for much else (well maybe a little Starcraft 2). I think the rock jumble is one of my best ever. I'll try and get a picture of it up after I see how it plays tomorrow.

Ruins of Thetra Mage College Lower Levels

2010-10-29T22:01:00.003-04:00

Just enough dungeon to connect all the stairs slopes and trap doors from level 1 and outdoors. Numbered but not populated. C' connects the sloping passage from B14 with the trapdoor from B2, and the hidden staircase from B15.
D' connects the long staircase near B16 with the staircase from A4, and the open area off of B9. E is reached by a secret door in the trunk of the Tree in D3. Had intended to expand these levels as play on level B progressed. However the TPK on level A, followed by a lifetime ban on this dungeon from She-who-must-be-obeyed, rendered that effort moot.
P.S. for an interesting corollary of the problems this dungeon encountered read this review of Death Frost Doom .

Unfortunately, sometimes even the best sounding dungeons on paper do not click with the players in the field. This dungeon did teach me a lot about player-DM interaction. Most of my modern dungeons are a lot less scripted and adapted on-the-fly to suit the players motivations. Good for playing, bad for producing a module for publication and universal appeal.

Ruins of Thetra Mage College level 1

2010-10-22T22:23:00.004-04:00

As promised, key below the map.

Level 1

1. The walls of this room are covered in soot. There is a large pile of burned timbers in the southeast corner of the room under the stairs Mixed with the timbers is a 3’ metal rod. The rod is a wand of secret door and trap detection. It has only 9 chares left. If it is picked up it will glow indicating the secret door to the south.

2. Trapdoor drops any who stand on it 20’ to the second level

3. On the North wall are five plaques. On each plaque is a name, two dates, followed by many mystic runes and symbols. The first is labeled Gnithil 101-228. Opening it will fire five magic missiles into the party. There is nothing inside. Next is Dloc 228-354. Opening this tomb will release a blast of cold air. The inside is lined with frost. A vaguely human form can be seen in the bottom. Anyone reaching into the tomb will feel intense cold. Anyone persisting in holding their hand in will take 1-6 points of damage per round. Underneath the frost is the body of an ancient man. On the body are a jeweled ring and a pouch of 5 gems. The third is Kesom 354-463 after opening dense black smoke will pour out. The smoke will drive all from the room. The fourth is labeled Powane 463-561. A pair of animated swords will attack the openers of this tomb. The swords attack as fifth level fighters and are not harmed by normal weapons blows, although anything capable of destroying a normal sword will destroy them also. The magic of the swords be disabled by grasping one sword and striking the other with it (roll under half your dex to grab the sword: sword is AC 4 for purposes of hitting). After the swords strike each other both will crumble in flakes of rust. Inside the tomb is a skeleton in rotted robes. Along side the skeleton is a red hide scroll case filled with rotted parchment and a box holding four dry bottles with crystals on the sides. The scroll case is of salamander hide and impervious to fire. The bottles contain the remnants of potions; filling the bottles water will restore the potions to operating condition. The last is labeled Rothi. Inside are a copper crown set with a topaz and a long sword. A voice will warn of dire fates to befall any who touch the items except the “rightful” owner. In this case possession is 10/10ths of the law. All tombs will be found resealed after the party leaves the area though any item removed will not be found there again.

4. 10 beds line the walls of this room: 6 on the west, 4 on the east. The remains of two more are piled in the south-east corner of the room. In front of the of the second and fifth beds on the west and second on the east, there is a large trunk. In the bottom of the trunk in front of the fifth bed is sack with two gems. In the ticking of the third bed on the east are 185 gold pieces. The whole room is infested with giant rats. The rats will not be readily apparent but anyone looking under a bed will be attacked by 1-6 rats. There are 24 rats in this room, but they will only attack all together if all party members are wounded.

5. On the south wall is a painted mural of blue sky with clouds and sea gulls. In the northeast corner are 5 silk, feather filled pillows mostly rotted. The mural on the south is enchanted. Anyone staring at the mural for long periods of time must save versus magic or fall asleep. Underneath the pillows are two sleeping giant centipedes.

6. In the center of the room is a round oak table. On the table sits a large silver bowl studded with gems. Seated by the table is a human skeleton with both elbows on the table staring at the bowl. The skeleton wears ragged robes and a peaked hat. Anyone touching the skeleton will cause the skeleton to collapse into a heap of bones. Inside the cap is a scroll case strapped in with leather thongs. Inside the scroll case is a magic scroll. Back to the bowl. Anyone looking into the bowl will see a dancing blue flame and must save versus magic or be entranced by the flame. Entranced persons will do nothing but stare into the flame until the flame is extinguished or blocked from their sight. The flame may be put out by any normal means, but spread to any burnable item touches.

7. This room is filled with broken furniture. In the back of the room is a large chest. In front of the chest are a scattering of silver pieces (47). The chest is filled with 2000 silver pieces. While the party is investigating the room two large spiders will drop from the ceiling over the entrance arch and attack the party. Hidden in the le of a broken chair is a scroll

8. In this room 12 rats are chewing on a body in the northwest corner. Strewn round the room are the bones of various creatures. Closer inspection of the body will reveal that it is a human adventurer. Its backpack has been emptied and its belt pouch slit. Hidden in the body’s boot is a magic dagger +1, +2 versus smaller than man size. Note: the door to room 9 is locked and has a spy hole.

9. This is the lair of two wererats. Furnishing the room are two beds and a table with two chairs. Normally one wererat will stand guard while the other sleeps. If there is a fight in room 8 both will be up and ready to fight. If the wererats are alerted and the party continues on to room 10 they will set up an ambush in room 8. Their treasure is in a small box under one of the beds. The small box is trapped with a poison dart which will fire at the opener. Inside are 20 platinum, 5 gems, a gold broach and 2 potions

10. Nothing

11. Trying to open this door will cause three spears to drop from the ceiling. One is +1.

12. In the center of this room is a large pillar. On the pillar sits a pillow with a large gem sitting on it. A curtain covers the northeast corner of the room. Behind the curtain is a mural of a man dressed in black whose face is totally devoid of features. Anyone removing the gem will disappear. Following this what appears to be that person will step from behind the curtain. This is actually a doppelganger. The party member will be found with the gem in room 13 Underneath the pillow is a small scroll with the following inscription.

“Canst thou face the faceless man? Seeke ye the light of day while thou still can. See the once proud tower almost gone. Sit ye there and wait for dawn. Underneath the Sun the key does rest. Bring it hence and place it in the place that’s best.”

A small keyhole will be found in the face on the mural

13. In this room is a pile of 3000 gp, a magic sword and a scroll. A small stream of water trickles down from the southwest corner. On the wall is the inscription “Canst thou eat gold?”

14. This room holds 8 skeletons. Two of these stand guard at each exit. Although the guards can be clearly seen from the entering corridors, none will attack until the party members attack or try to pass the guards

15. This room is the same as 14 except there are 11 skeletons

16. The ceiling of this room has collapsed. It is filled with broken rafters and sand. A minimal amount of digging from the west door will uncover a suit of +1 chaimail.

Death 4e Style

2010-10-14T20:57:00.004-04:00

Well it actually happened! I actually killed a character in 4e, and not some low level but a 15th level wizard. Here's how how it happened:

For some weird reason all my friends highest level characters seem to be wizards. So here they are running through one of the new second season Living Forgotten Realms high level modules (to those unfamiliar with LFR it seems after getting their feet wet with softball mods the LFR writers have stepped it up a notch with killer mods) with a party composed of three wizards and a druid/assassin. They are in the last encounter fighting a solo elite with a couple throw-away 100 hit pointers (against the wizards 100 hits will last about a round and a half). Luckily the solo elite has a few trick up his sleeve, like an interrupt that teleports players attacking allies next to him, a recharge on a 4,5,6 6d10 encounter attack, and a +4 vicious weapon that does an extra 4d12 on crits and action points (Trust me an actual 15th level player swordmage is going to have all this and more). So after the wizard attacks one of the 100 pointers, the elite solo whip the wizard out to the center doing a bit of damage, and hits the wizard on his turn with the encounter, at which point the wizard is down to 2 hit points. Being the kind of DM I am and having played 4e long enough to know that most players can come back from 2 hit point to maximum in a single round, what do I do? I action point. What do I roll 20!? Well the wizards not dead until minus -42 so there's still a chance as crits base damage is only 36, but then the extra 4d12 get rolled 1 point, 2 points O.K. so far but then a 9 and a 12 for a total of 60 points. Game over! Of course 4e players are not used to death so the player storms out of the room complaining about viscous DMs, Evil adventure writers, and claiming he's selling all his 4e books on e-bay never playing again, before his fellow adventures can explain they have a scroll in their pocket that will bring him fully back, or the druid/assassin can crank out three 100 point crits in a row to bring the elite soldier down.

I think I played the encounter as the rules allow and the writer intended, but having angry players always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. So what do you think? Should I play the dice as rolled , or fudge the damage so he is at -41 unconscious but still alive, or not have used the action point in the first place? She-who-must-be-obeyed points out that since a mere 3 points would taken him out the crit would have been far better spent putting 60 points on the druid/assassin and represents a total waste of 57 points, but that's just the way she rolls.

P.S. Due to the fact that this is the weekend for Con-on-the-Cob, level 1 of the Ruins of Thetra Mage college may not appear until next Friday.

Ruins of Thetra Mage College: Above Ground Key

2010-10-09T10:52:00.003-04:00

As promised here is the key to the map posted earlier this week. I am afraid the mountain lion encounter is what gave this dungeon it's killer reputation. He's a bit more than a first level fighter can handle.

The Ruins Above Ground
General: The ruins of Thetra lie half a mile east of the village of the same name. The whole area is covered by drifting sand. Taking the road which lead west from the village, the party will round a large sand dune and come upon a ruined wall with a 20’ wide opening in it. The road leads through the opening.

1. 10’ high walls crenelated though many of the merlons are missing with a walkway on top. Generally in a bad state of disrepair

2. Large courtyard paved with flagstones

3. 30’x30’ one story stone building with a pyramidal shaped roof of slates. In each wall there are 3’ 6” tall 6” wide arrow slits.

4. Staircase leading 15’ down to a set of oaken doors studded with iron spikes. The doors are shut and appear to be barred from the inside

5. Ruins of a large tower wall ranges from 10’ to 15’. In the SE corner 10’ up is a 3’ wide 5’ high arched window. The top of the arch is broken off. Next to the window is a staircase going down. The sill of the window contains a secret compartment with a large iron key and a small gem

6. The trapdoor will drop a person stepping on it 20’ into a corridor heading N and E

7. Bones of some large reptile, probably a dragon, buried in the sand. Underneath the dragon are the skeleton of a man, some pieces of chainmail and a broken corroded sword carved with strange runes thrust into one of the vertebrae.

8. A great gnarled tree. Around the base of the tree will be found the bones of wild animals. Occasionally a freshly killed animal will be seen hanging in the branches. There is a secret door in the trunk which leads to a ladder going down.

9. In this depression are the burrows of a band of 18 desert foxes. One of the burrows leads to first level. All of the burrows are large enough for a small man to crawl through, and can be enlarged fairly easily. There is a 1 in 10 chance of finding the right tunnel without the foxes help and the 8 adult foxes will attack anyone who tries.

Encounters (roll a six sided die)

1. Old man with a sieve sifting sand. Old man is a 9th level MU. He searches for the ring of the netherworld. If the party helps him there is a 1 in 100 chance a party member will find it.

2. A party of 7 men, 2 dwarves, a mule and a camel collecting dragon bones. Men are a 4th level mage, a 3rd level Cleric and five second level fighters. Dwarves are 3rd and 6th level fighters.

3. 1-4 foxes. These will run off towards the west (see 9)

4. Mountain lion lurking in the oak (8). He will attack anyone who investigates the oak too closely

5. Large beetle crawling across the flagstones of the courtyard. The beetle is metallic blue with a faint outline of a face on its back. The beetle is a polymorphed 8th level magic user.

6. Nothing

Ruins of Thetra Mage College

2010-10-05T22:10:00.005-04:00

The infamous killer mini dungeon. Outside in the sands. Key Fridayish. Level one next week

Notebook Doodle Dungeon One

2010-09-25T11:14:00.004-04:00

A dungeon level doodled into my spiral bound science lab book. I particually like the large areana in the center whith the illusionary wall marked with dotted lines on its right side. Athough there are slopes and staircases this is the only level of this dungeon drawn.

Reactions to Essentials edition

2010-09-12T15:14:00.005-04:00

Well I picked up my copies of the Rules compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Land. Although I am still reading my way through them, I thought I would post some quick reactions. I liked the selection of contents for the Rules Compendium I think I actually could carry this book, instead of the Dungeon masters guide and Players guide. However I am not impressed with the 320 pages they used to do it. I guess its back to boiling the rules down to four 8.5x11 inch sheets that will fit in my interchangeable Dungeon Masters screen. She-who-must-be-obeyed pointed out the new format does not lay flat and without the hard cover may get ground to shreds in the backpack. Mr. Minmax pointed out on Thursday that although the new character builds are simpler they have lost a lot of power of the old characters, most egregious is the lack of marks for the fighter. If I wasn't addicted to free mods from Living Forgotten Realms I could go back to pushing for old school play. Oh well, at least the rules fit in my nifty new red box.

Addendum: After throwing the Rules Compendium in mt backpack and using it for awhile, it occurred to me that I missed one of the important features in my review. It actually has a DECENT INDEX for a change. It has become my new arbitrator for rules disputes.

City of Mystery

2010-09-05T12:58:00.003-04:00

I thought this was a map of Kome drawn for our Gardasiyal campaign. She-who-must-be-obeyed says, how can it be an Empire-of-the-Petal-Throne city when it has no obvious temple district. She ought to know she drew it. Now it's yours for what ever game needs a city.

Red Box

2010-08-27T21:19:00.002-04:00

As the well paid Civil Servant, as opposed to the Gamestop clerks and laid off factory workers I play with, it falls to me to buy the stuff that convinces the Game store owner it's worth having the extra space for games in the shop. As such and because the collector in me must possess one of everything fantasy role playing I am now the proud owner of a fancy red box 4 edition starter box. After all as I explained to she-who-must-be-obeyed it wouldn't be fair to review it on my blog without actually owning it. It's got some nice black plastic dice and a well drawn large double sided battle mat with a road, some caves, and a dungeon. It got some cards in text too small for me even with my reading glasses which might be power cards, even a few which might be new. The fighter at will seem intriguing the rest is nothing to see here. I am sure the min-maxers down at the store will scrutinize them closely for brokenness and transform the most broken in to exploits to post on the WoTC forum like they aways do. I am going to take she-who-must-be-obeyed advice and slap them on the scanner before doing anything else with them. And then there are the two stapled pamphlets in between. I could go with my mothers suggestion "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything" but where's the fun in that? Now pick-a-path adventures can be fun but they usually start with a page labeled how to play. I have been very much against pick-a-path adventures as a way to start characters since Garyisaal (Empire of the Petal Throne) tried it in the '90s. Sure its fun the first time but after awhile it gets old. I searched the second book cover-to-cover for what are character classes, levels, or what are those funny power cards for but never did find them. I find rule sets that bury the rules in purple prose annoying, again may be fun for the first time (although if its bad prose not even then) but just try going back to look up some point the DM and player disagree on. These books didn't need to written, and if they are capable of confusing an experienced gamer like me I doubt they'll be much help to a starting gamer. Even 4e D&D is a simple enough game that most people want to play the full blown version after a single evening of introductory play (This is what doesn't work about the D&D encounters program either). They should just give away a quick start guide for free (like those free computer game demos with the first few levels of the larger game) rather than charging people twenty bucks (Oh wait! They already did that). Well at least I got that cool box and more dice.

P.S. Lamentations of the Flame Princess which I picked up last month has an even cooler box, micro dice, and a little stubby pencil like they hand out in libraries. Perhaps I'll talk about that some time

Old Dungeon level 5

2010-08-21T09:57:00.004-04:00

Lake Level. Last level I drew in college. I am afraid it is somewhat unfinished, doors have not been placed in all rooms and what lies beyond the Lake in the upper right is still a mystery. Includes: (unlabeled but in the bottom right corner) the stairway that appears to go up but actually goes down (2) elevator room to even lower levels (3) the waterfall (4) the room on the sloping passage which is actually flat. In the bottom center a complex sloping passage from level 4 with three exits. In the bottom right a large sloping passage down (I believe this one was supposed to bypass level 6 and head straight for seventh. In the In the top left corner is a large spinning section with a smaller spinning section inside.

Afraid barring my acquiring a specially customized Deloren or a really weird hot tub, this is the last of my mega-dungeon levels from back in the day. Did not much more than mark the entrances for level 6. After leaving college the gaming style had shifted to them newfangled modules and the desire for mega-dungeons wained. Having to get up and go to work really cramped the all night dungeons crawls as well. However, I do have some graph paper with a nice patina....

Back from Gencon

2010-08-14T17:55:00.003-04:00

Well no post last week as I traveled to Gencon instead. A bit bummed this week as the blog-a-sphere is full of people I could have met if I had been paying attention. Was there didn't see a lot of old school stuff but was too busy shepherding my steam punk magic card head nephew to spend much time looking. She-who-must-be-obeyed only bought off on this road trip as an Uncle-Nephew bonding trip. Still cant' work that darn cellphone to surf the blogs and wander the real world at the same time. Actually brought the cellphone, but forgot the charger so it very quickly converted to its normal brick mode. Gave both the Wizards of the Coast and Pathfinder stuff a pass since my local game store gets these items regularly and lets my crew game for free as long as we buy stuff from him. Tried to buy a copy of Deathwatch but it was sold out. Walked away from the booth with "Fantasy Hero" after the guy explained that their 200+ page book didn't contain any actual rules for magic, just suggestions for how to write your own from the 500 page Hero system core book sold separately. Here's the stuff I did buy:

Fantasy Terrain pack from Fat Dragon Games (A good swath of their E-Z dungeon and Dragonshire sets on CD for a discount price [Note: to other .pdf vendors if you are going to spring for a booth at Gencon having something tangible to sell is a good idea])

City of Thieves (A board game set in Cadwallon). I'll probably use the board as dungeon tiles, paint up the plastic miniatures and ignore the game

Arcana (a card game set in Cadwallon). Hey it was next to City of Thieves and not too expensive.

Ink bloom (a how-to-draw art book). By the same artist who helped with "Wreaking Havoc" and "Hell beasts". Unfortunately the previous two titles were more to my liking but at least it's signed

Shattered Empires: Quick launch from the Living Arcanis guys. The guy at the booth had one of the best reasons for writing his own game. He explained he was tired of having to keep up with all the rules updates certain other game companies keep cranking out (those of you who read the comic "Knights of the Dinner table" this month will encounter some biting satire on this very topic) . I also liked the fact that they were scrapping the character class system (I feel innumerable character classes were the downfall of third edition, and are hard at work pushing fourth edition over into the abyss as well).

The Worlds Greatest Screen by Hammerdog Games. Quad fold black with clear plastic pockets like them expensive three ring binders. An idea I wish I had though of. She-who-must-be-obeyed wants one too. Had to retire the Old Master I bought in 1980 last year when the tear along the center line reached the halfway point (I do miss the the intimidation factor of being able to pull out a dungeon masters screen which is older than most of the players at the table).

Burning Wheel Monster Burner and Magic Burner. OK I actually don't like the burning wheel core mechanics or the folksy way rules information is scattered throughout the purple prose, but so many intriguing ideas are scattered through out these books I couldn't pass them up. Probably would have bought the Adventure Burner as well if it hadn't been sold out.

A few Aimee missing from my collection

A few art buttons. I am not up for spending 200+ dollars for a original to hang on my wall (besides the few walls not behind bookcases in my house are already full). I can however afford two dollars for a button, free business cards are also cool.

That;s it for now. Next time another dungeon level

Old School Dungeon the Maze

2010-07-31T14:08:00.004-04:00

Most notable feature is the teleport maze in the south east corner. Also the full complement of sloping passages, spinning rooms, and rooms on an angled grid. Of course there is the infamous staircase that appears to go up but actually goes down. This staircase was very useful for lining up the levels. Those who have been following along may notice it does not appear in the same place on the map. The theory is that it is always in the same place and the dungeon levels themselves rather than being one atop another are offset. I laid out a top down overveiew of how the levels line up. If I can figure out how to scan the two 11x17 sheets I used for it, I may post that diagram some time.

Another note this level is only partially keyed. I am afraid I graduated from college before this level was much explored and the group I hooked up with after starting my new job in a different state were into these new fangled scenarios that Judges Guild and TSR were begining to produce. Another issue the way we played once the party hit about fifth or sixth level the adventures started moving out into the wilderness, so dungeon levels below third more often lurked as dark dreams rather than being explored. Except in the case of my character "Boris the not too bright" who decided that Wizard Mountain would be the perfect place for his castle if he could just get that nasty basement cleaned out. The Dungeon Master folded the campaign rather than face drawing another level for me to bash through. The demise of the dragon guarding the back door to fourth is a legend in its own right, but that is a story for another day.

Old School Dungeon Level 3 the river

2010-07-24T08:20:00.002-04:00

Level 3 the River. I refer to it as the river because the big river is the largest feature on the map. Notice how ever that there are very few places on the map where adventures can actually see the map. Key features of this map are (1) the staircase which appears to go up but actually goes down (2) The bridge with an inivisable section (3) The rotating dungeon section with a staircase: positioned in one of four positions when the party enters it is rotated to another position randomly and (8) a secret chamber only enterable by an under water passage.

This level highlight one of the interesting features of old school dungeoneering. Since the play pogressed by drawing maps on graph paper, DMs would often through things in to make mapping hard, hence the rotating dungeons sections and slanted rooms. Being a fledging rocket sciencist not only did I solve my friends rotating dungeon section but took mine up a notch by putting a staircase in it.Note that because the slanted rooms where done with glue this map is a bit yellower than the others.

Old School Dungeon Level 2

2010-07-17T10:12:00.004-04:00

Here it is level two. My Plan is to release a level a week. The sloping passage to the south due to its proximaty to the stairway which appears to go up but actually goes down was notorious for getting adventurers in over their head. D is the Temple of Crystal Cats. Six foot tall statues of clear adamantium crystal, stomachs filled with jewels, Only access a narrow passage from the throat. They are designed to work like the gourd and rice ball monkey trap. Monkey reaches in; grabs the rice; discovers his hand is now too big to pull out; but refused to let go...

Old school Dungeons Level 1

2010-07-10T10:15:00.004-04:00

Here's level 1 of the Monster Pit I ran my first campaign in. Unfortunately faded pencil is not the best mediun for scannning so the lines are a little light in spots. I have used Paint Shop Pro to fix it up a bit. My favorite features (marked by numbers in circles) of this level include 1) the stairway which apears to go up but actually goes down 2) The double doors leading to the main dungeon with a bar on the entrance side 7) the Balcony overlooking second level 8) the hidden secret double doors to the staricase to second level and the rat tunnels under the floor (denoted by matching pairs of numbers).

Palace of the Vampire Queen Review

2010-06-04T23:33:00.003-04:00

Here are the comments I posted on the Palace of the Vampire Queen on the Dragons foot forum:

Well, I bought Palace of the Vampire Queen mail order back in the day and thought it was pretty ho-hum then. Seriously guys for something to play you could do better in an afternoon with a piece of graph paper and the dungeon random monster tables in the little brown book (although the illustrations in the margins are kind of cool). I think the Dungeon which came with the City State of the Invicible overloard was more interesting (although it is not populated). I keep mine just to prove my Grognard credentials and because I hate trying to sell stuff. If you would like to see it republshed you need to track down the copyright owners. The authors are listed as Pete & Judy Kerestan. Since Wee Warriors published last the copyright would probably reside with either Wee Warriors, or whatever printer they owed money to if they folded.

Note: Further, Further investigation reveals that the copyright was never held by Lou Zocchi [I asked him at Origins, he said no] (A man I hold in high regard for replacing my misprinted volume of Swords and Glory Volume 1 on the spot 10 years after I bought the first one, merely on my verbal description of the misprint)

Comments now moderated

2010-05-01T07:14:00.002-04:00

Due to excessive spambot traffic comments on this blog are now moderated. I know this will make my sleepy little blog even sleepier. However what be must be.

Dragon Armies 17 Rats in the Walls

2010-04-18T16:02:00.003-04:00

So our illustrious ranger puts his clever plan into action. Five drow guards prove no match for our party. After the raid the party returns to the hidey hole to celebrate. Two hours later the drow outpost is manned by 10 guards. The party returns to attack again. However this time as the guards are being overwhelmed, one of them puts a horn to his lips and sounds the alarm. As they retreat towards the hidey hole they are peppered by crossbow bolts from the permanent darkness area that covers their escape route. They charge into the darkness only to be bushwhacked by a black dragon exterminator. A desperate melee ensues. However eventually the party gains the upper hand and retreats to the hidey hole to celebrate again. The next day the dwarves spying on the main chamber report the arrival of a small blue goblin with a flute accompanied by a eight foot tall insectiod creature with powerful forearms and a weird set of four eyes (umber hulk). Once again the party sallies forth, at which point a force of 30 drow led by a priestess of Loth attacks immediately from the darkness. As they battle this set of foes they are charged from behind by drow spider knights. The party eventually turns the tide against the drow at which point the spider knights grab the fallen body of the priestess of Loth and race off to the south. The party decides not to pursue, but retreat to their hidey hole. As they retreat they hear a loud thump as the drow reinforcements trigger the block trap in the drowstopper secret door. However, whats this? To their horror they hear the sound of claws scrapping on stone as the umber hulk begins breaking through the stone block. The party rushes back to defend the secret entrance. As they begin their battle with the umber hulk, the little blue goblin blows a shrill note on his flute and disappears. Eventually the umber hulk is slain, and the drow warriors are dispersed, but what happened to the little blue goblin? As the party starts back the hobbit in the lead has to nimbly dodge a backup block trap which comes thundering down to block their retreat. Slowly the awful truth of where the little blue goblin is dawns on them. More next time (hopefully a lot sooner than last times 6 week gap).

Comments in English only please

2010-04-18T12:23:00.003-04:00

Finally got the Google translate to find out what all those Chinese comments said. I am probably limiting free speach in China by cutting down on their porn site links, but those posts had to go. From now on I will be deleting posts in languages other than english.

P.S. Posts with hidden links in long strings of ...... will also be deleted

Massive Battle

2010-04-08T08:00:00.002-04:00

In addition to being a roleplayer, I also own a number of miniture armies. One of my great joys in DMing is being able to go to the miniture table and put a hundred orcs on the table (I can do too, just you watch me!). It happened again last night as my party using their usual tactics decided that rather than sneak through the pirate capital to free the elvish slaves from the slave pens(yes my adventure log is a little behind this point in the campaign), they would carve their way through the 500 strong pirate band. But somehow after cutting their way from the very secret sumarine base to the central keep of the pirate stronghold (ignoring the secret tunnels and watereways leading towards the pirate town down below). They are supprised to find the outer perimeter manned by 50 Orcish crossbow men. I go to the miniture closet. And heres one of the other great features of using actual minitures, rather than saying you see 48 heavily armed orcs, one guy in leather and two guys in robes, when the party asks if there are any usual people mixed in with the orcs I can say look at the minitures and decide for yourself. The look on the parties face when their opening volley of fireballs is returned in kind, is definately woth it. Of course orcish crossbowmen melt like snow in a rainstorm once the fireballs begin to fly. So after the inital exchange of fire one of the robed men opens a box and the entire tower is enshrouded in mists. When the wind wall clears a portion of the mist the next round the battlements are completely clear, with nary an orc to flick the digitus impudicus (had to use that) at the party. Once the chest beating stops the party finds this was just the cover the blackspawn ninja needed to get up close and personal.

P.S. Read this post on Odysseus versus Achilles for the aplication of the lessons of Greek myth to old school roleplaying. Unfortunately my players are following the Achilles route right. Oh well Glorious Death awiats them.

Chaos et Barberie

2010-02-24T21:56:00.003-05:00

Been plunking away at my translation of Chaos et Barberie from pascal. I have gotten enough into it to see that it is mostly OGL with a few twists. Google translate does a good job on French and my high school can handle the rest (it went a lot better once I figured out "telecharger" means "download" not "insert credit card here"). However some work remains to rework into something that flows smooth in English. Perhaps I'll try focusing on the parts that a little different than stock OGL. Not quite sure about the intellectual property issues either, but I suppose since he is giving the original away for free I should be able to do the same with the translation.

Dragon Armies 16

2010-02-07T13:15:00.004-05:00

When we last left our intrepid adventurers they were enjoying a bowl of mushroom soup in the secret hidey-hole of the last remaining dwarves of Blackstone mine. The dwarves explain that since the drow invasion the Tunnel Brothers have been honeycombing the mines with secret tunnels to spy on the drow, and developed their "Drowstopper special": a secret door, a 16 ton block dead fall trap, and another secret door behind it at an elevation other than floor level. There is usually a secret switch on the dwarven which deactivates the trap, which you can set if you need to go out, but usual the dwarves just use strategically placed spy holes to watch and listen. Having been at this a few months, the dwarves have of course picked up a few rumors.

The dark elves are building an altar to their dark gods

There are over 150 drow warriors in the mines

One female elven priestess seems to be in charge, although she is assisted by two others and accompanied by a male elf in robes.
The dark elves need royal elven blood to consecrate their altar

When the altar is complete it will be usable as a gateway bring dark forces in from other parts of the world

The dark elves have struck a deal with the Black Dragon pirates to use an elven royal the pirates hold captive to consecrate the altar

The altar is nearing completion, the captive will brought soon

Although the lesser treasuries of Blackstone mine have been looted, the great treasury has not been found

When the mines were overrun the master artificer set off an explosion in the workshops which buried the tools and equipment needed for the manufacture of constructs under tons of rubble

Buried in the rubble is a book which explains the manufacture of amanitium constructs and how to control them

They also provided the players with the map below

***Warning not for the faint of heart, my players have rated this map worst player handout ever***

After reviewing the map, and inspecting the amount of rubble in the workshop (a lot!!). The party formulates a cunning plan (unlike the rangers "lets drop down from the secret door in the ceiling of the main hall and kick their ass"). They will tunnel into the sleeping quarters of the high priestess and slay her by surprise. Unfortunately two days into the seven days required for the secret tunnel a band of black dragon spawn shows up to reinforce the drow, and the ranger comes up with an alternative plan "Lets attack the guard post we past on the way here". More next time.

The Wandering Blogger

2010-02-07T12:42:00.006-05:00

Ah yes, where were we gentle reader. I am afraid I have been reading other blogs and neglecting my own for a week or so. I could blog about time wasted on french roleplaying sites (gorgeous maps pascal). Or the hunt for a definitive answer on the banning of the sale of children's books printed before 1985 (its amazing what congress passes when they can't pass Health care reform, Banking regulations, or even appropriate money for government agencies on time. It appears the used bookstores are now marking the pre-1985 books as "collectibles"). Or even that I am glad to see my collage buddy Bruce is still running the blind sniper tournament, even though when I was there I was aways too busy prepping the Dungeons and Dragons Tourney to play. Besides wandering aimlessly for four hours only to be wiped out by someone you didn't even see is not my idea of fun (however, a quick peek at the Judge's master map was always hilarious). But no, you want to hear about Dungeons and Dragons so I'll get to work on that right away...

Dragon Armies 15 Meet the Dwarves

2010-01-27T06:22:00.005-05:00

So after diving through the trap door our Dwarven adventurer winds up in a tunnel network face to face with Yellow Bill. Yellow Bill explains that he and 11 other dwarves are all that remain of the dwavern City of Blackstone Mine. Blackstone mine used to be famous for its adamantium mine, the shrine of the Golden Hammer, as well as the adamantium constructs it made. Several months ago Blackstone mine was overrun by a drow army. After King Hrothgar and his shield thanes fell in battle what few dwarves that remained retreated to the secret tunnels to eke out a meager existence staging hit-and-run raids and foraging the fungus caverns below. One of the raids did successfully recover King Hrothgar's crown and return it to the throne room, but none of the survivors felt they had a good enough blood line to claim the throne themselves. For some reason the drow don't seem to bother the adamantium constructs in either the throne room or the Shrine of the Hammer. However they are hard at work forcing their slaves to build a dark altar of adamantium in the central hall of Blackstone mine. A quick review of dwarven genealogies (only 10 minutes) reveals that the parties dwarf is closer to the Royal bloodline (after all he is second cousin once removed to Kings), but having hung out with "Yellow"(wink wink nudge nudge) Bill too long he decides to decline the offer of Kingship of this glorious city. Yellow Bill has yet one more piece of disturbing news. Although the golden hammer of the Shrine of the Golden Hammer rested within in the shrine until last week, a loud explosion then collapsed part of the roof damaging the guardian constructs. Shortly after this the golden hammer disappeared. Strangely enough, Leather Larry disappeared about the same time. Once the conversations have concluded Yellow Bill and the party's dwarf return to the rest of the party via a secret tunnel which bypasses the throne room. After the party's dwarf vouches for the rest of the party, they are invited back to hidden living quarters off the secret passage for some mushroom soup and some needed sleep.

P.S. I used the above sketch to flesh out character ideas for the few remaining soles of this once proud City. Drawing can be very useful for designing NPCs even if I am not Frank Frazetta or Michangelo. I find drawing figures allows ones brain to process character ideas subconsciously while drawing. Note also although there is a label for Leather Larry there is no picture because he's gone (he likes it that way too!)

Ancient River Palace of Mellorin

2010-01-26T22:31:00.003-05:00

Well I had meant to post another installment of the Dragon Army, having spent the last week by Hungarian RPGs, Haitian pdfs, and other shiny objects. However in my search for my missing notes on the dwarven hold the players have just discovered, I ran across this blast from the past. Above is the first level of one of my early dungeons from the summer of 1976. I have merged the two notebook pages together and tried to sharpen the faded pencil lines a bit. Although the rooms are numbered I have no encounter key, as I did not actually try and run this dungeon. Not sure how interesting the encounter key would be anyways, as what I did at the time usually was to roll up random monsters as the party explored and use the key to note their location for future reference if the party closed the door rather than fight. Enjoy!

By the way I was able to use google translator toolkit to get the gist of the Hungarian RPG. Google produces a text which seems to reflect a decent translation of the words, but considerable effort on style and grammar will be required for it to read smooth in English. Unfortunately it seems to be very close to Swords and Wizardry, so I did not bother going too much further. I can share the translation with someone else who actually speaks Hungarian if they are interested.

P.S. Finally found the dwarven hold notes, but its past my bedtime. More on the Tunnel Twins, Legless Bob, Yellow Bill and the Blue next time.

DriveThruRPG Haiti Relief Bundle

2010-01-25T20:27:00.003-05:00

Well I appologize for being a me-too-er, but I found the Haiti Relief Bundle offer irresitable to an obtuse game junkiee like me. Once I hit the third $20 item already on my wishlist I was sold. Unfortunately last Wednesday everyone else came to same conclusion (afterall $1,400 worth of stuff for $20 is a no brains no brainer!) so my first attempted purchase hung half way through as the DriveThruRPG ground to a halt. However, DriveThruRPG handled the crisis with style and humility, and after a couple exchances between them and me, I able to complete my purchase Friday and had my free .pdfs added to my account today. So I am now happly downloading .pdfs (hope my harddrive doesn't run out of space). You too can help Haiti and get a fistful of .pdfs if you hurry (I think the promotion is over at the end of the month).

Old School Hungarian Style

2010-01-19T21:40:00.003-05:00

Well another trip to the internet deep end. Wandering the blogosphere I came across this Role Playing Game site which is completely in Hungarian. Google translator helped me out enough that I could find the part that was labeled Download. So I am now in the possession of 8 .pdfs and two .zip files completely in Hungarian. Although my Hungarian is limited to "Egan"(yes), "Nem"(no), and "Nem besamy magaryoz"(I do not speak Hungarian), my Dad is much better at it. He also responsible for my love of games having introduced me to chess at age 4. I did finally beat him at chess about 10 years ago, I had to wait for age to dull his wit a bit. However, his interest in Role Playing Games is limited (He says any game with more rules than chess isn't worth learning) so convincing him to translate may be tricky. Anyone know a good method for feeding .pdfs into Google translator?

Sneak Peak Reme

2010-01-15T23:52:00.002-05:00

As promised a look a the map I use for Reme. It is in a lot better shape than when the Party blew through it like a warm Summer breeze. However after finishing the map She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed posed the following questions. Where do you buy riding tack, saddle horses, mules, wagons, medicines, potions, fabric, meat or fish for dinner, a new chamber pot, fuel for your fireplace, dishes for your table, glassware to drink from, perfumes and smelly oils for the bath.

Can you buy a warhorse? How would find one? A reference from the armor shop or a listed stable? Where does an adventurer stable a horse? If you live here do you subscribe to a fuel delivery service? How do you get a hold of them? The fine items for the dinner table are they just at the import market or is it a shop that specializes? Do they weave cloth in this town? Can I buy it from a weaver or the guild hall? Are all luxury items like perfume only at the import market or is there a shop or wandering merchant? Can we buy Jewelry? Gems? Is there a bank in town? Is the adventure supply the only place to buy a healing potion? What about refilling your healing kit? Someplace for a housewife to buy cough syrup?

So many questions! I must admit leaving a stable out might be a mistake. However most of MY ADVENTURERS seldom feel the need to purchase fine china, perfume, fuel, cloth or cough syrup. Given the seven markets in the town one thinks one could find a stall with any of these thing. There are also many houses in the town unmarked which could be shops for whatever. However one ignores She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed questions at ones peril, so I must get busy.

Dragon Armies 14

2010-01-13T23:33:00.002-05:00

So the party returns to the rubble filled breakdown. It turns out the broken automation are easily outrun and don't have much interest in chasing anyone who leaves the magic circle they guard alone. After a trip through a room of magically suspended pillars and another with a continual darkness at the entrance inhabited by shadows (both in the orginal crypt of Yedloon, new stuff after this point). They arrive at a room with four dark skinned gentlemen in chainmail with pointy ears. "Oh? you must be hear to see the merchants. Well take that passage to the south. No we don't care if you go that way we're not guarding that. " After travelling the corridor south for 50' they arrive at a 30'x 50' chamber with a tent pitched at the southern end were they meet three humans who claim to be merchants. The "merchants" are more than willing to show their wares but insist the party enter the tent one at a time. Once the sorcerer entered the tent its true purpose became apparent as the so called "merchant" transformed into the sorcerer's twin and attacked. Unfortunately the sorcerer was better with a dagger than expected and had the sense to scream "Doppelgangers" loudly. The party made short work of the two doppelgangers and the third decided discresion was required and high tailed it out the northern passage. Rummaging the tent revealed it was blocking a passage heading south. Following the southern passage the party arrived at a large chamber with a central pillar surrounded by 12' tall dwarven statues very similar to the automations in the entry chamber. As the ranger crosses the threshold a voice booms out in Dwarven "State your name and purpose". The ranger says "I'm Shawn, and I'm hear to take a look around". This is followed by "You are unworthy, return from whence you came". Of the ranger wasn't going to let a mere voice boss him around but when he took the next step forward and saw the blue flash from the statues he decided turning around was not such a bad idea. When he consulted with the dwarf, the dwarf told him well that's not a proper name and purpose. The dwarf then crossed threshold and on recieving the challenge again spends five minutes reciting his name and linage back to the begining and explains the party quest for the pillar of history and greeted with "You may approach the throne". On rounding the pillar he sees on a raised platform in alcove on the southern wall a throne carved out of a single block of black stone. Resting in the seat of the throne is an iron circlet set with a blue saphire. As he ponders whether to climb the steps to the throne and grab the circlet, a small panel opens in the western wall and a dwarven voice whispers "Hey budy over here!"

Dragon Armies 13 Into the Dark halls

2010-01-12T21:24:00.002-05:00

Well after the Crypt of Yeldoon fiasco a little damage control is required. So on returning to Candololian the elf princess informs the party they have found a interesting notebook hidden in the desk of the lorekeeper and perhaps the party would like to take a look at it (long term readers will remember the party missing this a few installments back). The notebook says that lorekeeper has found a way to open a gate to an ancient dwarven stronghold and this stronghold may be the one with pillar of history which chronicles the history back to the time of legends and may contain clues to the location of the Valley of Ferns. One brief reminder that the automatons looked like dwarven work and the party sets off once more into the breach.

Quick Filler Post Things to Come

2010-01-11T23:57:00.006-05:00

Well I promised myself I'd post tonight. However I ended up writing a long comment to cheer up Blackrazor and get his you-know-what in gear to get his supplement out. Unfortunately I forgot to sign-in and after I did it wiped the comment box. I hate when that happens! But now it is past my bedtime and I have no time write here. Well in the immortal words of Ms. Scarlet tomorrow is another day :(

P.S. The party is about to strike a blow for dwarven freedom soon
P.P.S. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed is tidying up the City map of Reme working towards the day it will be "finished". I'll try and get a sneak peak edition up long before that. She also gave me a fist full of hand written notes on how Cities "ought to be run". I always try and moderate such things with "Have you actually run it that way?" and "How did that work for you?". However I will begin refining the textual ore for the gold nuggets buried within. I also suggested that I could set her up with her own blog if she wishes to present the unedited "TRUTH" to the world. She said she would like to have three to four posts "finished" before setting up a blog, so don't expect it too soon...
P.P.P.S. Hopefully my diplomacy skills have been sufficient I won't be spending too many nights on the couch (At least on the couch I can type on the laptop without waking people up).

Dragon Armies 12 The Sandbox and the Railroad

2010-01-02T20:47:00.004-05:00

***Spoiler Expedition to Undermountain (not that it's not already spoiled)***
In effort to pick up some extra DM points from the Role Playing Gamers Association (RPGA), I decided to try and incorporate some RPGA adventures into my campaign setting. I duly registered my game, downloaded Crypt of Yeldoon from the Undermountain mini campaign. To connect I added added a cave-in to the underdark highway that the Mountain Man card gates to. On game night I issued RPGA cards to the players and had them set out. Well, one look at the arcane magic arcing off the Helmed Horrors in the first room of the Crypt of Yeldoon and the ranger decides well maybe the ice caverns weren't such a bad idea. The party retreats to Candololain for a two hour discussion of what to do next. Then its oh my look at the time it's 11:00 already (did I mention my party plays sloooooow?) we'll pick it up here next time. O.K. so the Crypt of Yeldoon which was supposed to be run in a single four setting on a specific night is now complete (100 ep to the party for peaking their heads into the first room). To add insult to injury the RPGA cards I passed out were too old for the online event reporter to take so I had get every one new cards. Well at least I got a week to rethink this fiasco and come up with a more enticing approach.

P.S. It takes the experienced professionals of the Editions that must not be named to take a sprawling sandbox dungeon like Ruins Undermountain and linearize it into a single track plot hammer railroad. As one my old gamer friends puts it "It should Expedition to a tiny little scrappy piece of Undermountain". In the Crypt of Yeldoon the linearization is handled by the crude expediency of collapsing all the passages which don't lead down the linear track. I can hear my players breaking out the picks and shovels even as I describe it to them. Well at least they finally published maps of all the levels, giving a good 25 pages of useful stuff in 221 pages of text, a better return than many books in the Editions that must not be named .
P.P.S Doppelganger merchants will be borrowed from the Crypts of Yeldoon for the follow-on adventure as well.

Dragon Army 11 A Time of Dwarves

2009-12-28T17:52:00.004-05:00

After their hasty retreat to Candololian the party decided to explore the cards and mirrors more. Using the card from the dragon they land in the back alley of a strange and mysterious City travelling out of the alley they arrive at a street selling various strange arcane items. Asking about the dragon they are pointed towards a palace at the center. Asking about where they can sell magical wares they are pointed towards several shops. A bit further conversation leads to a dwarf capable of reforging the dwarf's heirloom axe into a +2 weapon (remind me never to pass out heirloom weapons again). It was a masterwork weapon which was pretty good for first level.Unfortunately by 6th it was significantly underpowered, but there was no way my dwarf was giving it up. After all as the dwarf said "It's an heirloom, all I have left of the Hold I was born in before the evil army burned it to the ground. The evil army army will pay dearly for that!!! Wrooo!!! Wroo!! Booyaah!!" It takes about 10 minutes to get him to stop frothing at the mouth after that (perhaps I will pass an heirloom weapon again, so much role playing for so little). They then decided that they would explore the underground passage reachable from "The Mountain Man". The dwarf voted for underground passages and no one was going to argue with him.

P.S. They spent alot less time shopping in the City (It's Brigadoon but don't tell the players that the'll run away screaming) than I thought they would perhaps running the campaign cash poor has its advantages
P.P.S No map for Brigadoon yet. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed suggested a maze of streets that rearrange themselves every time they visit. I just may go with that.

Happy Boxing Day

2009-12-26T08:10:00.001-05:00

Well I didn't get the merry Christmas or Happy Festivus messages up so will have to go with Happy Boxing day. Spent the holidays in J.Rients country. Unfortunately the only decent Internet connection is back at the Hotel, so didn't spend much time surfing the blogs. Bought the game stores out of modules I should of put on my Christmas list but didn't. Most of my relatives couldn't find a game store with GPS. However I am still working on corrupting my nephew. Went to see Avatar with my nephew, and one of his other uncles (My Brother-in-laws brother, no clue what the official designation for such a relative is). Sappy plot but "Last Shadow" is definitely showing up in my campaign. "Unobtainium" is real my colleagues use all the time in their conceptual designs, it is very useful for solar sails, space elevators, hydrogen storage and perpetual motion machines. I, myself, prefer the much stronger "phoneybaloneyium". Did get a copy of "Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara" (my relatives are pretty good at bookstores). Maps, Cities, and Dinosaurs; what else could anyone ask for? Yes I am a Dinoholic. Many new beasts will be showing up in the Valley of Ferns. Picked up "Imaginary Realism" by the Dinoptopia author. Unfortunately he very old school which resulted in a lot of that's the way we did it art class from She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed. I don't have time for art which involves practice and hard work. Well back to my quest for "The Lazy Artist's Guide to Creating Masterpieces Without Effort or Hand-to-Eye Coordination." Later Alligator!

P.S. A more campaign oriented post next time.
P.P.S. Any suggestions for sucking a reluctant nephew into the blogosphere?

Dragon Armies 10 Tomb of the Dragon Lords part 2

2009-12-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

Well after two diversionary posts I am back to the main story. When last we left our intrepid adventurers they were standing on a rock bridge in a subterranean cavern. I originally had some ideas about an encounter involving giant bats and people getting knocked off, but we were running late so it got deleted. On either side the cavern drops a 100' to a shallow subterranean pool with no apparent exits. However the hole in the center of the bridge leads to a hidden ledge with a passage leading back under the stone bridge. A 100' along this passage ended in a double iron door of dwarven smithwork covered in runes with a Celtic knotwork dragon on each leaf of the door. The door leaves swing open easily to a light touch. They enter a round chamber with a single door leading off to the side (Battle mat for both this cave and the next shown above, artwork by She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed [unfortunately it was a rush job and not as nice as the previous battle mat]). Again the door is iron with a knotwork dragon, but this dragon wears a crown. This door leads to a large cavern with two stone pillars and a raised stone platform on the far side. On the floor lining the walls of the chamber are six black cauldrons worked with knotwork motifs and handles in the shape of dragon heads. A the iron door is opened a shower of sparks shoot out from the dragons crown lighting a fire in each of the cauldrons. On the stone platform is a two step wooden platform. On the wooden platform sits a wooden throne decorated in (you guessed it) Celtic knotwork dragons. On the throne sits a skeletal form of a robed figure with a golden crown on its head, a golden scepter in his right hand, a golden orb in his left hand, and two gold rings on his fingers. To the left of the throne sits another skeleton on a wooden camp stool dressed in brown wool robes with a dagger made of a 24" long tooth thrust in his belt. A small pouch hangs off his belt as well. To right of the throne sitting on the steps is a skeleton dressed in motley (jester's clothes) with a fools cap on his head, in his right hand is a jester's stick, in his left hand a rubber ball, on his fingers are tied two pieces of string. Further to the right is a large free standing floor mirror covered in black cloth. The party uncovers the mirror at which point the iron double doors in the first chamber slam shut. The party finds the Harrow card The Beating tucked in the mirrors frame. The they hold the card to the mirror and it begins to glow a sickly greenish blue. A bolt of greenish blue energy shoots of the mirror zigzags off every single party member and flies through the single door with the crowned dragon into the antechamber, at which point the single door slams shut. The monk runs over, reopens the door and is confronted by nine adventurers looking identical to the party except for the green glowing eyes, and the gnome who has been replaced by a lizardman. It's roll for initiative time! After soundly trashing their unfriendly counterparts (The party's elven wizard managed to roll high on initiative and get the opening fireball off first), the party investigates the three skeletal figures further and discovers in addition to the merchants belt pouch filled with gold coins, the crowned skeleton has a belt pouch full of gems, and the jester a belt pouch full of rocks and pine cones. Being uncertain what to take they take everything off the three skeletons (Of course nobody bothers to check the cauldrons. If they had wiped the tarnish off of the cauldrons they would have discovered they were pure silver). They retrace their steps to the entrance to the tomb. When they exit the tomb through the rows of pillars in the lake a bolt lighting flashes from the pillars striking the monk who is carrying loot from the jester and the hobbit who is carrying loot from the crowned skeleton. The loot from the king is transformed into a black sword, a black crown, a black orb, a pouch of rocks and pine cones and two pieces of string. The loot from the jester transforms into a golden sword, a golden crown. a golden orb, a pouch of gems, and two golden rings. The old man waits on the far shore to greet them. When they step out from the lake, he asks them for the dagger make from the tooth and they give to him. He then tells them the tale of the six dragon lords, one for each color dragon. He explains when the other five decided to seize control of the world from the elder races (dwarves and elves) how he argued against that course of action. However, the other dragon lords knocked his tooth out and used a magic spell they linked to it to prevent him from interfering with their plans. He points out that now he has the tooth he will be able to unravel this spell. When asked about the other items from the tomb, he explains they will help the party with its struggle against the other dragon lords. When asked about the black sword and crown he suggest caution since they are aligned with evil (they are now stone shaped into the rock in an undisclosed location in the cliffs south of Candololian). He suggests if they have need of him again to contact him to visit him in his city using the Harrow card they just acquired, when the look at the card they notice it has changed into The Keep. He then changes back into his yellow dragon (i. e. gold dragon) form and flies away, mentioning in an oh by the way fashion that the other dragon lords surely have wards around this place and will be on their way to investigate. A brief sound of leathery wings flapping in the distance is more than enough to send the party scrambling back to the obsidian cliffs and through the portal back to Candololian.

Dave and Gary

2009-12-20T12:05:00.000-05:00

***RANT WARNING***
I have been reading the debate on Dragons Foot about who wrote which parts of the Original D&D Blackmoor supplement. Although I find the debate mostly trivial and still consider Blackmoor one of the worst supplements written, in my discussion with She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed she highlighted an interesting statement which I made. She suggested posting it on my blog for posterity before I forgot. I of course said "your wish is my command" hence this post. I dearly love Dave Arnesons work (As I have stated First Fantasy Campaign is one of my favorite supplements). However, on reviewing his work over the years (Blackmoor, First Fantasy Campaign, Adventures in High Fantasy that strange and unplayable role playing game written for lawsuit purposes) I think it took the organizational skills of a Gary Gygax to make the game a success. Not Gygax's writing style (thesaurus shotgun, as I like to call it), but his ability to put things in charts and tables and organize those charts and tables into a coherent flow so that one has a game instead of just random noise. Personally I think the current editions could do with a lot less purple prose and lot more charts and tables (unfortunately as long as game companies pay writers by the word there will be lots of purple prose). There, I have said my piece, please respond and comment.

In too deep on Cadwallon

2009-12-17T23:29:00.000-05:00

OK short post tonight, because I am just back from DMing the shop gamers through Waterdeep 1-5 Lost in the Fog (one of the better living forgotten realms). I was thinking about last night which I stayed up way too late searching the french language blogs for an English translation of Secrets of Cadwallon Two, when I didn't even like Cadwallon and Secrets of Cadwallon that much to begin with (As usual for Rackham the artwork in is glorious, however the rules are obtuse, pretentous and overly artifical; I mean who wants to have to pick what kind of mood the are in just to figure out if you hit the monster or not). There is an english Rackham board with a Cadwallon section here and a link to the artist who drew the Rackham City Tiles here (Warning this site is in French). If you look at the pictures labelled "plateux de jeu" you can see some of the tiles, but not the cavern ones I was talking about in yesterdays post. Well it's past my bedtime again, so see you next time.

Dragon Army 9 Tomb of the Dragon Lords

2009-12-16T22:23:00.000-05:00

OK so back to our story. The party having rescued Candololian from the Mists and picking up a new toy to teleport them across the world, are accosted by a strange old man. After assembling the entire party in the brown hills (and several checks to make yes the portals do work both ways), they inquire what the old man has in mind. He explains that not far from here is the ancient tomb of the Dragon Lords which contains an ancient dragon tooth which he is need of. Unfortunately the magic wards surrounding the tomb prevent him from retrieving it himself, but it should not affect a party of unknown adventurers. He will grant them whatever else they can find in the tomb as long as they return the tooth to him. Smelling an obvious plot hook (I try to make them obvious so the players don't miss them). He also warns them in an oh by way fashion that much of whats in the tomb is not as it appears. Arriving at large tumulus in the center of a shallow lake (illustrated once again with a picture from Mysteries of the Himalayas) they spot a path lined with columns leading to the side of the tumulus. The old man whispers a secret word (open turmeric perhaps) and an archway appears in the side of the tumulus. At this point the old man informs them he can go no further, wishes them well, and reminds them of their promise to bring him the tooth. They enter through the archway into a set of stairs leading down. The stairs end in a landing with a hall leading to the right down the hall in the alcove is a giant statue with the palms of its hands upraised (I used Cartophile #7 from Skeleton Key for this level). Continuing down the passage they enter a large chamber near an oval pool. Half oval risers lead up from the pool to a giant statue identical to the first but with a large stone sword laying on the upraised palms. Quickly figuring things out they transfer the stone sword to the statue in the alcove (they may have had to fight some undead as well my notes don't show it though). A loud click is heard and the bottom of the oval pool falls away to reveal a shaft leading down. Dropping down on a rope they descend into a subterranean cavern of flow stone. This portion of the dungeon was drawn by She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed after staring lovingly at the underground caverns in the Rackham Reversible Gaming Tiles (another out-of-print item for you to lust after). Here is the battle mat. More next time!

Empire of the Petal Throne

2009-12-15T21:07:00.000-05:00

Rather than writing a new blog I am afraid I got sucked down the rabbit hole of a thread on the Dragonsfoot forum. However I'll republish my post on Empire of The Petal Throne here:

Empire of the Petal Throne is one of my favorite "Old School" games. Couldn't swing the $25 for the boxed set in 1975 so I bought $10 rules alone. It's very close to Original D&D but the skills are a definite difference. I liked that the rules are more clearly written than Original D&D with fewer holes. Unfortunately the successor incarnations of the rules have been less successful (or well written). Swords and Glory volume 2 is worth picking up. Unfortunately the most recent incarnation Tekumal was a pale shadow of the original. Tita's House of Games has most of the rules sets and supplements available still. In addition to throwing both the Hlyss and Ssu into my D&D games, I have run several short term campaigns in Tekumal. For a culture as strange and complex as Tekumal the barbarian fresh of the boat start seems to be the best way to go. As always I run the world as my own and don't worry about the canonical setting as given in the supplements. Due to an interesting quirk in the encounter tables most parties started the game wandering the wilderness and only entered the dungeons when they where higher level (the exact opposite of the way we played Original D&D). Little play hint: Don't tell the priests of Thumis you worship no gods, they will know you for the Ksarul worshiping bastard you are.

P.S. I liked the Man of Gold[Novel by M.A.R. Barker EPT author] once I got through the linguistic fluff in the first chapter

Arduin, Bloody Arduin

2009-12-15T00:12:00.000-05:00

Overall
I really wanted to like Arduin having invested 80 bucks and firmly believing that people learn from their mistakes. However Arduin is a baroque, complex, half complete edifice. Its sits like some ruined catherdral to an unknown saint. If you have a fondness for the orginal Arduin Grimoire rules, it is better organized than the orginal nine volume set. However be warned it contains no monsters, no magic items and little campaign setting (buy the World of Khaas for campaign setting). Buy this book if you want to be inspired by strange spells of wonder. Buy this book to raid for unique and novel concepts you would have not come up with on your own. Do not buy this book for clear consice game mechanics, or simple games that are easy to understand

And now to the contents

Introduction
It’s not bad explanation of the book contents. I like the little inset legends (but then you can tell from all the parenthesis in my blog I am just an aside kind of guy [She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed says when I reach the second tier I am over the limit]). I skipped the long winded history of the World of Arduin, it’s a good read but I’ve seen it before. The character creation section is clear and makes it look easy
Chapter 1 Character stats
Arduin has eleven rolled stats:
Adroitness
Reflexes
Strength
Size
Mass
Constitution
Wits
Reason
Essence
Ego
Charisma
What to roll is different for each race which is given in chapter three
Arduin has eight calculated stats
Coordination
Count Factor
Mental Acuity
Body
Aptitude
Leadership
Perception
Hit points

There is also Dodge, Movement, Saves, Defenses, Resists, a Recovery rate and a Healing rate. Whew that’s a lot of math! Considering the stats are randomly rolled I think that averaging them to calculate the values you’ll be using in play is a good idea, but eleven stats is kind of a lot.

Chapter 2 Races
More races than you can shake a stick at including my favorites Deodanth, Praint and Throon (just perfect for wielding my infamous three handed swords). I have yet to determine the difference between Hobbits and Kobbits but I am sure a sharp blow to the knee cap in some dark alleyway will begin my instruction in the finer points. Every race gets to select from a Chinese menu of optional bonuses. If that’s not enough there’s a hundred (just right for rolling a d100 to decide) general bonuses in the back.

Chapter 3 Cultures
Various regions of the world of Khass with various options I’ll try to pursue this in depth later but it’s a lot like other campaign guides

Chapter 4 Professions & Paths
Character classes new ones include Courtesan, Medicine Man, Rune Weaver, Sage, Techno, Trader, Rune Singer, and Star Powered Mage

Chapter 5 Skills
Skills are checked on a d100 and range from 0 to 150. Races learn skills at an average rate of about 7 skill points per experience point 1. However some races are as low as 1 skill point per experience point, so if you want to be a skill monkey choose your race wisely. Most skills are the same old same old, although many have special tricks available as you advance. Skills a little less ordinary include Beast ken, Business, Ceremony, Channel, Entreaty, Gnosis, Lorica, Noetics, and Underworld. One bit of interest are the several martial and caster skills which although similar are based on different stats.

Chapter 6 is missing. Perhaps it contains some deep secrets only revealed in full moonlight. Perhaps it is bad editing.

Chapter 7 Equipment
Stuff to buy. Except for some weird race weapons and armor nothing much to see.

Chapter 8 Faith and Religion
Faith points are apparently accumulated like experience and expended to cast spells. Dogma is a big stick to make you roll on the transgressing table as well as the crisis of faith table. A list of Gods of the Arduin World each with their own dogmas and spell lists. Nobody is spectacularly different from the standard fare.

Chapter 9 Combat
Wow nine chapters in and finally a combat system. Initiave is determined by CF. Those with high CF get extra actions up to 6 for the highest. Note to players pump your CF up or you’ll be dead before you can do anything. If your CF drops to zero all you can do is try and boost it back up. Every one gets one quick action (I’m not sure when because that is not explained. Hopefully it interrupts the attack you’re trying to dodge, block, or parry). Combat is resolved by a d100 roll. Roll the dice add your bonuses, check it against the opponents defense; if it’s higher you hit. Roll your damage dice (usually based on weapon type with stat adds). Subtract your opponent’s damage resist (usually from armor) and voila he loses that many hit points. Grappling is a d100 athletics against defense and can pin, restrain, or slam. Many other combat maneuvers mostly the same old same old, but wield creature as a weapon is kind of cute.

Chapter 10 Adventuring
This chapter is a giant hodgepodge of stuff; including wealth checks, experience, lifting and throwing, overland travel and lighting. This is followed by a collection of martial arts feats which is the longest part of the chapter (perhaps this is the lost chapter 6 it sure as heck didn’t belong here and one had more than enough martial arts in both the professions and skills chapters).

Chapter 12 Social Dimensions
Ah hah the weird martial arts stuff is actually chapter 11 (it’s just not labeled that). Here we get lifestyle, social motifs, contacts and connections. The contacts and connections actually look interesting sort of like a long term diplomacy check

Chapter 13 design and manufacture
Making stuff. Way too short and badly explained

Chapter 14 Schematics
The stuff to make. Laid out like some giant spell book, but probably too techno to make into my fantasy campaign setting

Chapter 15 herbs
Magical herbs! what else!?

Chapter 16 Alchemy recipes
For those who prefer brewing their gizmos rather than manufacturing them

Chapter 17 Spirits and Animate powers
For calling on the forces of nature. Short and confusing

Chapter 18 fetishes
For those who prefer spirit powering their gizmos rather than brewing them

Chapter 19 magik and pychic
Well the fighters got their bonus background chapter in 11 so here’s a pile of extra magic feats and backgrounds for mages.

Chapter 20 Runes
Perhaps it isn’t really just for magicing gizmos instead of spirit powering them. The things runes do seem slight different. I’ll have to pursue this chapter more to know for sure

Chapter 21 Rituals
For those who like their magic slow.

Chapter 22 Spells
The list up to level 20. Each with its own little paragraph of obtuse text arranged neither by level or alphabetically for maximum game slowness and rules lawyering (brings back memories of the old days especially the house rule banning rules discussions after midnight).

Chapter 23 Mental Powers
Like the spells only it’s mental

Chapter 24 Prayers
Spells for Clerics

Chapter 25 GM Assistance
Here’s the place for the stuff they forgot to mention earlier like moving, climbing, swimming, starting age, language, knowledge, handling time between adventures, generating NPC (perhaps the one thing that belonged in this chapter rather than something earlier) and critical hit tables. Not content with critical hits for combat they have added them for skill checks, power checks, as well as fumble tables as well

Bottom Line:
Some great ideas However: Too many stats. Information too dispersed around the book. Too many different ways of doing about the same thing

Imagination 5 stars
Organization 2 stars
Art work 3 stars (4 if you are an affectionato of black and white ink work)
Playability 3 stars (some sections seem quite useable)

Overall 3 stars

Older blog posts updated

2009-12-05T19:15:00.000-05:00

Being new to blogging I am not sure about the proper morays and protocols for updating older posts. However, since this blog also documents my campaign I feel the need to keep the campaign posts accurate and have figured how to post the campaign maps to the blog (also blogger makes re-editing pages easy). Therefore, I have revised Dragon Army 1 and Dragon Army 3 with new campaign maps, and fixed up the rumor list in Dragon Army 2 to be more flashy and easier to read. I have made several other tweaks throughout the posts to satisfy the whims and dictates of She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed, but if you understood what I said the first time (never mind the spelling and grammar) I wouldn't bother going back to read it again.

Dragon Army 8 Rough Night in Candololian

2009-12-05T16:49:00.000-05:00

Most of the party is asleep while the Monk keeps watch by using the throne of Candololian to scrye. Observing the room with the two portals the Monk sees a strange grey four foot long dragon (its a portal drake from the forgotten realms underdark setting) emerge from the lower portal. It sniffs the air as if looking for something winks an eye and disappears. The Monk searches frantically for where it went. A blood curling scream from the bedchamber soon reveals its location. After a desperate melee which wakes the entire party up to rush to the aid of a frantic Magic User, the fell beast is put down. But how did it get in? The sole clue is that the cover has come off the mirror in the antechamber. Whats this wedged in the frame of the mirror? Four cards from a Harrow desk (pazio 2nd adventure path prop) The Big Sky, The Tangled Briar, The Mountain Man, and the Devils Lantern. Touching the mirror reveals the surface to soft and liquid. After sticking the hand and pulling it out a few times one brave soul sticks his head through and notices he is in a pitch black cavern. He hears the sound of dripping water far off, and picks the dang musty smell of wet rock. He looks around his head and notices it is sticking out of a glowing portal similar to the two down in the dungeon. Perhaps the portals are worth investigating further. The party descents to the portal chamber and are promptly jumped by White Spawn who spring from the upper portal, The 12 hordlings go down quickly, the 6 hunters last only a little bit longer, but the chain wielding berserker gives then a decent fight. After the "funny looking lizardmen" are defeated one of the adventures pokes his head through the lower portal and sees rolling hills of reddish clay (Illustrated with a picture from Mysteries of the Himalayas which I had picked up for 5 bucks at Half Price Books) he looks around and sees his head sticking out of the side of a small cliff of obsidian glass. Another adventurer sticks his head through the upper portal and sees a gravel streambed at his feet and above his head Aquamarine light filtering through a ceiling of ice. He notices his head is sticking out from a floor mirror similar to the one in the elven tree house. After the magic user complains about not having enough sleep to get spells back yet. The party returns to the tree house for some more shuteye. Morning finally comes after another tense moment while the ranger uses the throne to scrye another White Swarm patrol which searches the forest in vain (not noticing the secret doors in the trees) and returns back through the portal to their glacial layer. Being severely warned he more sense than to wake the spellcasters yet again. OK time to see what the cards do. Perhaps something to do with the mirror? Holding the Tangled Briar to the mirror switches its destination to a steaming tangled jungle swamp. Holding the Mountain Man to the mirror returns in to the dark cavern it was at originally, risking a light reveals this to be a 30' wide tunnel of natural stone, a rangers practiced eye on the floor reveals a trail worn smooth by the passage of many generations of feet. Holding the Big Sky to the mirror reveals the same red clay hills as the lower portal in the dungeon, in fact there is a small obsidian cliff with a stream of water flowing out from it ab out 100' away. No one feels like using The Demons Lantern. Feeling bold with the mirror tuned to the Big Sky the ranger steps through. He is just about to push back through a liquidy feeling portion of the obsidian cliff when he hears a shrill whistle and a shout of "Hey you". Looking behind he sees a small wizened old man in a sheepskin cloak clutching a gnarled staff. The man beckons the ranger to come towards him and says "Come, Come your already terribly late".

DM Tips

If your DM imagination ranges from sweltering jungles to glacial tundras its good to have magical transport available
Props are cool even if you don't use for what they were originally designed for
Bargain books of photos of strange and exotic locale are a good for inspiring the imagination
Little old men wandering the wilderness are seldom as vulnerable as the they appear

Dragon Army 7 Candololian Part 3

2009-12-02T22:26:00.000-05:00

After pangs of conscience successfully dampen the lusts of greed, players decide to explore the visible door in the library. They open it and discover it leads to a tree limb, not very interesting until the keen eyed ranger spots a well worn train of elven leading out on to the limb. Traveling down the limb they discover the limb of an adjacent tree butting up against the current limb. Traveling up that limb to the trunk they find a secret door to the interior of the new tree. The door leads to an octagonal chamber with a table on one side and a mirror draped with a black cloth on the other side, One side of the octagon is an arch which leads to a circular balcony with two more arches. One arch leads to a bed room. The final arch leads to an alchemists lab. There is also a door on the balcony which leads to a 5' square chamber. Lowering a rope down the central shaft (players of the Elder Scrolls; Morrowwind will be quite familiar with the central shaft style of elven tree architecture) the party thief descends to a 30' by 30' chamber with a large throne carved out of the living wood sitting on a raised dais and two stair cases leading down. Following one of the staircases down the thief discovers that both staircases lead to a 30' x40' muster hall, A quick for secret doors reveals one that leads to the exterior of one of the 50' diameter trees at ground level. Once the thief returns the magic user uses a quick fly spell on the ranger and sends him up the shaft. 20' up is another balcony with three doors. One door leads to a bedchamber, another to a second library, and the third door to a small armoury with a gleaming set of golden chainmail, a golden shield and several masterwork weapons. 40' up the shaft ends in a 30' flat to flat octagonal chamber with a large double bed, two chests and another bookcase. Round portals of stained glass are set in the corners of the room. After the ranger returns he ferries the rest of the party down to inspect the throne. Sitting on the throne the sorcerer discovers something interesting: By focusing his thoughts he can use the throne to scrye areas within a 1/4 mile radius of the throne room. At point the party realizes that they have discovered enough bedchambers that the whole party can get some shut-eye. They promptly assign sentry duty to those nimble enough to use the rope to get up and down to the throne room, show the sentries how to use the throne to keep an eye out, and go to sleep. However, their rest does not go undisturbed. More next time.

Mysteries of Old

2009-12-01T22:42:00.000-05:00

A little break from Candololian. She-Who-Must-be-Obayed has been surveying the blog with her stern eye and correcting my shortcommings. We have added a map of the coast from Reme to Winterhaven to the Dragon Armies 3 post. We'll be posting more soon. Pursuing reviews of Stonehell dungeon (the new "old school" megadungeon from three headed monster), led me to older reviews of the dissappointment that was Castle Zagzyg. It also remined me of one of my favorite supplements of a all time Judge Guild's First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson(rest in peace). Dave had the sense not to try and rework an item from the times of myths and legends into something for modern tastes, but just presented it warts and all the way he wrote and used it. For a look under-the-hood kind of guy like me it suited me just fine. No I can't run it the way he wrote it, but I never run modules the way they are written anyhow. Another thing, the heart and sole he put into it were not edited away in to bland soleless pap with fancy artwork (see Expedition to Undermountain for that kind of trainwreck, although they did finally publish at least a bit of map for all the levels [20 good pages out of 220 total]). I am afraid given the high rate of mortality amongst the old stalwards First Fantasy Campaign may be one of the few glimpess of how the game was played when D&D first began ever to see print. Just get the stuff out there and it will live forever, sit back trying to catch the evermoving target of perfection and take it with you to the grave.

Dragon Army 6 Cadololian Part 2

2009-11-30T20:35:00.000-05:00

After starting blankly at the giant trees and mumbling about "where's the city?" The lightbulb starts to come on. Elven City? Giant Trees? Hey! Maybe the trees ARE the city? A quick thump on the trunk of a 30' diameter tree reveals it to be hollow. A quick search for secret doors finds one in the trunk. Opening the secret door reveals a 15' x20' chamber whoose walls are lined with a wooden stair case leading upwards. After about three complete turns around the staircase (taking them 90' above the floor) they arrive at a chamber with a roll-top desk sitting in the corner. A short 10' flight of stairs takes them to a 20'x25' with three sides lined with bookshelves and a doorway on the fourth. A quick check for secret doors (after all it's my dungeon right?) reveals a pivoting bookcase behind which lie another set of stairs. Up these stairs another 10' is a bedchamber with a chest at the foot of a bed and another bookcase. Jimmying open the desk reveals three small journals. Persuing the book cases of the library reveal many books on practical arts in many languges. The bookcase in the bedroom holds a set of wizards spellbooks with spells up to 5th level. Openning the chest reveals wizards robes of finest silk. Reading the the jorunals (written in elven of course) reveal that this is indeed the redisence of the loremaster of Candololian as well as the history of the long struggle against the green and white dragon armies as well as the fall of two other elven cities. There is also indirect references to a fourth secret journal which may contain the location of the Valley of Ferns. A search for secret panels reveal one on the back of the scroll top desk and a false bottom in the chest. A detect magic reveals something rod shaped in the false bottom and a couple slips of paper with magic writing gluing both the false bottom and compartment shut. At this point the party's ranger launches into a long soliquiy about whether or not this is really the parties stuff to take in the first place and convinces the party not to open either panel. As a consequence both the fourth journal and a nifty magic item go undiscovered. 500 miles of wanton smash and grab but time to grow consience when a 1/4" of oak separates you from your goal it's enough to make a DM cry or tear his hair out (perhaps it is because small slips of magical paper tend to say " By the time you have finished reading this I will already have expl...."). More of Candololian next time

Dragon Army 5 Candololian

2009-11-27T12:06:00.000-05:00

***WARNING RUINS OF CANDOLOLIAN SPOILER***(Aw, Who am I kidding? If you don't read this you won't know anything about Candololian anyhow. Maybe the warning is for later)

So gentle read bear with us as our tale continues. Having avoided certain doom in the Battle of the blue mist (there is a way to escape but its not going to be easy), the party rests in the secret elven watch post. The next day an elven ranger takes them to the graveyard of Candololian which is still outside the mist and shows them the right button to push on the right crypt to reveal a hidden stairway which leads to an underground passageway. After travelling north along the passageway about a mile ( a distance which they reckon puts them well within the mists) the passage turns 45 degrees to the east. Lying on the left side of the passage is an elven skeleton carrying a longbow. Nimbly avoiding the poison spike trap marked by the skeleton they fail to notice the portcullis until it comes slamming down behind them. They continue around a few turns and arrive at a set of double doors. On opening the set of double doors they enter a 30'x30' chamber with a large throne and no obvious exits other than the double doors. Seated on the throne is a skeletal form in black robes with glowing red eyes (old school DMs should recognize this monster immediately). The skeletal form informs them that he can take them further, but once he does there is no turning back, they must conquer all or be doomed to fight for ever. The party, bold adventurers that they are, inform him no thank you and immediately begin to comb the corridor they came down for secret passages. The do find a secret door which leads to a chamber with the windlass to raise the portcullis. They raise the portcullis and "high tail it" back to the watch post. There they consult with the elven princess. She thanks them for returning the skeleton of one her rangers, but informs them she can provide little more assistance than she already has. She has already lost too many rangers trying to reach the center of Candololian, and will not jeopardize the mission to watch Candololian while her liege the elf king still lives. How does she know he still lives, she has an amulet which glows as long as he is alive (this will prove of interest to the party later). She hands them some healing potions, tells them chin up and try again tomorrow. They head back the next day and after hearing the crypt thing's speech again inform them "Yes, yes they are are ready to hazard all". Some get cold feet after the first few disappear in a puff of black smoke, but decide that keeping party together is more important than chickening out, so eventually everyone accepts the crypt thing's offer. They are teleported to several 10' wide 70' corridors each party member to his own individual 10' separated from the next nearest party member by 10'. They establish by shouting that all the corridors are connected. However when they attempt to move back together they discover the true sinister nature of their location the empty 10' squares are all pit traps each with its own spear wielding skeleton warrior (No big shakes for the elven ranger, but it was touch and go for the sorcerer). After dealing with the pits they are able to establish there are four corridors which form a closed loop. In middle of the north most corridor there is a set of double doors which lead to 30'x30' chamber just like the crypt things except here the throne is empty. After various machinations and some grumblings about how long it might take to starve to death, they finally decide to search for secret doors in the pits themselves. Yes there are secret doors in the pits. Where do these secret doors lead? Why 10'x10' chambers with no visible exits. Ignoring one of my newer players stentorian pronouncements "Dave would never put a secret door behind another secret door" the more experienced players ignore him and proceed to navigate the secret door maze (which requires finding FOUR secret doors behind secret doors to get through, sometimes it is very hard to DM with a straight face but such is the cross DMs must bear) and arrive at a landing with a staircase leading down. As usual they cleverly avoid finding the secret chamber filled with treasure so they can continue complaining about what a stingy DM I am. They do however find a magic longbow as well as an additional elven skeleton to return for burial. They descent to a 30' wide by 40' deep chamber with alcoves along the walls. There is a double door on the north, but it is locked. As the party thief fiddles with lock, white spawn ambushers emerge from the alcoves and attack (first indications that perhaps the dragon army is involved with the fall of Candololian). After defeating the ambushers (surprise was not as effective as I had hoped), the party opens the doors to reveal an octagonal chamber containing two glowing portals and a strange device. The device resembles one of those Japanese bamboo fountains where a tube on a pivot gradually fills with water. At a certain point when there is enough water the tube pivots downwards spilling its contents into a pool below (usually with a loud clonking sound as well). Relieved of its load of water the tube swings upwards again to refill and repeat the cycle. The tube in the dungeon is made of iron 6' long and 1' diameter and has a small steel spike in the back from which blue mist drifts upwards through a hole in the ceiling. Water trickles into the tube from a glowing portal 5' above the floor and runs out through another portal behind the device at floor level. Every time the tube dumps its water a big puff of blue mist is generated. The party opens a set of double doors on the far side to reveal a staircase leading up into the blue mist. After some thought the party flips the tube over causing it to be enveloped in its own blue mist at which point it promptly vanishes (not quite the solution I had planned but quite acceptable). They then wait for the mist to clear. Once the mist clears they head up the staircase and find themselves not in a city, but instead a grove of giant trees with tree trunks 30-50' in diameter. More next time.

Interlude

2009-11-26T23:22:00.000-05:00

Still searching for the notes to Candololian, but I promised myself to try and write something as often as possible. Unfortunately the way I ref is not conducive to good note taking. Years ago my wife the artist in the family drew up some miniature scale nice flagstone motif 8x11 sheets with crosses every 5/6" to mark the 5' squares. Frequently while the group is gathering, eating pizza, and discussing world affairs, I am drawing up the dungeon on these sheets with colored pencil. It makes for a nice vicarious experience but sometimes means the dungeon is not well documented for posterity. I am of course able to find the random monster pit I drew when I was 17 and the 3+ worlds whose wilderness maps I drew but never ran. I also ran across the much reviled wizards library (one step on the evolutionary scale from the random monster pit). It was the first dungeon I DMed my wife through and one of my few total party kills. The players were too cheap to stay in the Inn (wife claims they were broke due to rotten rolls on my inheritance starting gold chart, but hey that pig was worth big money she just never tried to sell it), so they camped out in the ruined tower atop the dungeon. Unfortunately they were unable to handle the mountain lion I rolled up as the random encounter for the night. I'll post some scans of these marvels later.

Dragon Army 4

2009-11-24T23:06:00.000-05:00

The players board a boat and head North for Winterhaven. After chasing off a Sea monster and fighting Orc pirates of the coast of Long Island near Cantoon, the party arrives at Winterhaven (I'll post a map sometime soon). Again they collect a page of rumors [Which I seem to to have mislaid for the moment]. The important rumor is about an endless battle which wanders the North woods being demarcated by a blue mist. After carefully avoiding the dwarven mining camp (the sound of blasting was apparently too scary), They encounter Snow Barbarians. They resolve the diplomatic impasse and lack of common language skills by slaughtering all of the barbarians. They then encounter the barbarian encampment and decide, rather than listen to the rangers suggestion of slaughtering the women and child to spare them the agonizing death of starving to death because the are not enough menfolk to provide for them (see prior encounter for what happened to the menfolk), to just sneak past. They then encounter an area of the forest filled with blue mist (see I told that rumor was important). After circling south around the zone of mist (unfortunately the zone seems to be located precisely where they think the ruins of Candololian are) they decide what the heck they'll head in. At which point a stately elf maiden backed by a dozen elven longbow men emerges from the trees and tells them "I wouldn't do that if I were you". She informs them that she is the elf princess left to watch Candololian after the elves fled the coming of the blue mist. She also informs them that the blue mist which normally wanders the forest at random, has remained fixed over the location of Candololian for the last three years. She also informs them that these is a secret underground tunnel, who's entrance is outside the blue mist, that leads to the center of Candololian. Although the ranger elves she has sent to explore this passage have never returned she is certain a party of brave and powerful adventures could succeed in getting into Candololian and breaking the spell which holds the blue mist in place without getting sucked into the eternal battle which occurs in the blue mist above ground.

Dragon Army Part 3

2009-11-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight more rumors. These are from the port town of Reme. The players boarded a ship and headed North for Winterhaven to search for Candololion.

From Town guards:

I got this nice plus two weapon at the price the town asks for a plus one from a man in a wizard hat who came to the town gate from the Tradeway alone at night.
The reason for the truce with the pirates is so they will not need to fight a battle on two fronts when the northern Army arrives.

Folks at The sorcerer’s guild:
I know of a wizard in Cantoon skilled at counter magic. He makes charms to counter various
types of magic. One of his that has been seen at the guild was against illusory terrain. Brave ship captains have acquired some of those charms.
We have an outpost on Long Island where Lord Bruce is now. The Sorcerers at outpost were offered a book written in ancient Elven by some pirates. They report it appeared to be someone’s diary and contained no usable spells so they refused it.
I am is considering buying the information that Gheed is selling about the next appearance of Brigadoon
Lord Bruce of the Sorcerer’s guild was directed by the king to go to Cantoon last month.
Lord Bruce is negotiating a truce with the pirates of Long Island. He has not yet returned.

When you ask about Candolion and the Elves that live near there the St. Cuthbert Cleric introduces you to a smith who is a parishioner: “A former apprentice of mine works now in Wahoon and has these last five years. When I was up there last year he told me some well respected Elves live in Wahoon, the merchants there would never side with the snow barbarians against the Elves, it is the Winter Haven folks that like the snow Barbarians.”

From one or more Elves in Reme:
When the Elves of Candolion were over run by the snow Barbarians they fled on foot
to Winter Haven. When they had all reached the port they hired three ships to take them to Reme. Most of the court, including the lore keeper went on one ship. Only two of the three ships reached Reme. The one missing had the king on it. For the past three years we have been seeking
information about the missing ship. We have not seen it since the storm that hit shortly before we reached Reme.
When we lived in Candolion the lore keeper had many books written in ancient Elvish. He was only able to take a few books with him.
There is lore of an old Elven city named Rivendel.
There is a city named Rivendel south of Wahoon but that city is human.
There is lore of a pass through the coastal mountains protected by magical wards and guards somewhere south of the one we used to get to Winter Haven.
Candolion used to trade with Winter Haven for supplies and weapons. The pass between Candolion and Winter Haven is wide and low and easy to find. It can be traveled even in winter as long as you do not get caught in a storm.
Now that we are not up there I expect the next winter the snow barbarians need food they will attack Winter Haven.

From talking to sailors in taverns or on the docks:
Cantoon on Long Island is a known stronghold of the sea Pirates.
Fierce sea creatures guard Cantoon and the chaotic winds thereabout make the shoals near that town tricky to navigate.
Captain Hedric has a charm against running aground that he got off a pirate captain. He had it identified by the sorcerer’s guild.
The lessening in pirate activity is due to the negotiations Lord Bruce is having with them.

Heard in Taverns in Reme:
Some of the merchants of Wahoon sold weapons to the snow barbarians to use against the Elves.
Some of the merchants of Winter Haven sold weapons to the snow barbarians to use against the Elves. Candolion was the city of the Elves that got sacked by snow barbarians three years ago.
A ship must carry a secret charm to enable it to make port in Cantoon.
The Sorcerer’s guild has a secret proving ground somewhere on Long Island.
Gheed , a man in a pointed hat has been seen traveling the Tradeway at night with a single wagon.
Wahoon is a small port north of Reme and south of Winter Haven. There is a cleft in the mountains near the city that would seem to be a useful pass but when one goes up the cleft you find it is blocked by a fast ,deep and turbulent river. The river comes out of the northern mountain itself and flows south across the valley before turning east down to Wahoon.
Up in the mountains near Rivendale a friend of a friend uncovered an old spell shaped rock with something he thought was written in Elven on it.

Here is a map they bought off an old sailor (courtesty of She-Who-Must-be-Obayed)

Dragon Army Part 2

2009-11-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

Well now it was decision time. Rather than write a dungeon and railroad the party down it. I generated a list of rumors and presented it to the players. We could have role played collecting them from Bards gate, but for my players is usually speedier to hand them a list. I make the rumors sufficiently obscure so no direct information is given away. Here is the list:

Rumors of lost cities:

The Elves speak of the “City of Ferns” believed to be somewhere in the Northern forests. This City is said to be the home of several giant creatures including badgers, frogs, turtles wasps and beetles. The local is said to be a deep valley set within towering crags. In some versions of the story the streams of the valley ran into a lake with a whirlpool, which was its only outlet. In other versions a river ran into the valley and disappeared into a mountain. The last travelers known to have come from the valley died about nine centuries ago. A copy of the diary of these travelers is known to have existed in two of the Elven strongholds that were overrun by the northern army, the fleeing Elves did not bring either copy with them so they now are passing the tale on in oral story.

Another book now lost to the Elves because they had to flee spoke of a city of Mind Flayers in
the Underdark. Many centuries past a horde of Dark Elves succeeded in so damaging parts of the city that the Mind Flayers withdrew to another plane. At that time the Drow came into possession
of several artifacts which even they did not fully comprehend. One of those called a “Plane Cube” is said to be capable of moving a large number of creatures from one plane to another all at the same time.

“The Golden Plateau” was once home of the ancient religious shrine to Corellon Larethian. Only a century ago it was over run by red dragons. The dragons are still using the area for
nesting. It is located far away, beyond the route the Gypsies take. It is
rumored in the Human taverns of Bard’s Gate that a few of the Elves now living
in the city visited the plateau before it was overrun.

“Brigadoon” a city located somewhere in the hills South of Bard’s Gate. Rumored to appear only when celestial objects are in the correct alignment. It is said to be the home of powerful sorcerers who posses lost artifacts. There is a book belonging to a wizard in Bard’s Gate which is reputed to have come from there.

Rumors about known Cities and the routes to reach them:
The trade route over the pass: The gypsies are quoted as saying: ” We are willing to take you the one way but you must make your own way back. There are things up in the pass, which have power over us, we do as they say or we will not be allowed to travel there. We can travel the pass only as long as we can keep the passengers blindfolded through certain parts. If the secrets of the pass are ever revealed to those outside our blood we will not be allowed to go that way again. “ Humans in Bard’s gate agree that those who have gone without the Gypsies have never returned to Bard’s Gate. A few who have gone with the gypsies have come back by way of Port Saskatoon. The merchant Rupert is the best known of these few.

Port Saskatoon lies to the south of Bard’s Gate. It is commonly reached by caravan through hills that harbor bandits. Caravans go both ways and they are usually looking for guards but do not pay very well. It is rumored that if you must take a ship out of the port you should make arrangements to pay off the organization of pirates known as the “ Skull Society “ also known in more polite company as the “Secret Society” or simply as “SS.” The rumor continues that this group can be reached by consulting with the thieves’ guild.

Speculation from the Guards about the Northern Army:
The king’s griffins have made over flights of the northern army that is besieging the Dwarves. They say they have sited a few large probably ancient red dragons in proximity to the army, They speculate that one of them maybe in control of that army.

One of the items carried by the King’s man detected the aura of an artifact in the midst of the northern army. The guards think it was in the possession of one of the Gnoll leaders. The guards
speculate this maybe the artifact known as the Crown of Command or the Scepter of Ruling either artifact could allow its owner to command a very large following. The artifact that made this determination is rumored to be the “Sword of the Rites of St. Cuthbert.”

A massive avalanche was witnessed by the over flight. The avalanche buried many of the army.
The Army was spotted digging in the avalanche, a greater number of undead are now believed to
be in that army. There is speculation that avalanche was the work of the Dwarven high priest Thorwin the Grumbler. Dwarves who have witnessed guards raising a toast to the Grumbler have welcomed the action. One dwarf went so far as to buy a round for the table of guards who drank to the high priest.

News or rumors from the alchemist who works at the Abby:

The Gnome enclave in Reme is working on a clockwork dog to substitute for a riding dog. They are hoping to make one capable of caring a load as large as a Dwarf.

Reakle one of the gnomes who live in Bard’s Gate was given a large pendulum operated clock by his father, Samess before that gnome left with the Gypsies. The use of the clock is that as long as the father is healthy the clock will keep perfect time, if it falters it means he is unwell, if it stops abruptly it indicates he has died. The clock is still keeping perfect time and it has been six months now since the father left. The son is making preparations to follow.

Many Gnomes are worried that the King will not be able to protect the human towns once the northern army turns it’s attention to them. A number of the Gnomes in Bard’s Gate are considering
traveling across the pass to found a new community. Some want to wait for word back trough Port Saskatoon that the trip was a success before going. The gnome Reakle Samesson has promised to
send them a message.

The party caucused and decided to head for the port town of Reme book a boat for the Northern Wilderness and gather more information on the City of Ferns. Not the obvious pick to my way of thinking, but that's why I let the players decide. I think the fact that the party had three elves and only one gnome may help explain.

Dragon Army Campaign

2009-11-21T23:34:00.000-05:00

***WARNING MILD SPOILERS FOR NECROMANCER GAMES MODULES AND PAZIO SCHACKLED CITY***
Way back in 2005 I dragged my players kicking and screaming into the modern area by starting this 3rd edition campaign. In honor of DM lack-0f-time and unfamilarity with the rules I started with some modules. Necromancer games 3e rules 1e feel sounded good and the Wizards amulet is free so I ran that one first. I followed it up with the Crucible of Freya and then the Tomb of Abysthor. Orginal party constisted of 3 players each two playing pregenerated characters from the wizards amulet. I placed it all on a homebrew wilderness map which included most of the key features of the Grand Duchy of bards gate but with some tweeks. It also contains the infamous Rappan Attuk, but the players have not stumbled on it yet (I am not pushing it either cause the traps and the entrance are just brutal). The Tomb of Abysthor is a sprawling multi level dungeon just shy of megadugeon status. So several trips were neccesary just to penetrate to second level. In between they paid several vists to the wilderness encounters included as a download supplement for Crucible of Freya. They also battled priests of orcus and gnolls rumored to be scouts for the massive evil army which had driven the Dwarves out of their moutain strongholds years ago (DM riff on a player backstory for the dwarven fighter). They assisted a band dwarves bring supplies into the last remaining Dwarven stronghold. The Surface route is blocked and swarming with gnolls and worse. The dwarves used a secret passage through the underdark which they refuse to show to the players. However they asked the players to lay a false trail through the underdark to through the hobgoblin trackers off the scent. The players did explore the underdark for a little while but decided after seening the trail lead to a rickey rope bridge with lots of stalagmites for cover on the other side to turn back. They did however solve the gnoll tracking problem by slaughtering hobgoblin rangers and their hynea tracking hounds on the way back out. They also found an abandoned gnomish workshop at the base of the mountain with the underdark which was actually a secret entrance to the lost gnomish city of Jzadirune (from the Pazio Shackled City book). Here they freed three elves from the underdark slave pits beneath Jzadirune (two more players joining in, one with sense enough to run only one character). The illustrious city of Bards gate had finally been published so a trip there was in order. There they hooked up with the temple of Thyr whose ruined temple they had run across previously in the valley in front of the Tomb of Abysthor. The high priest of Thyr hooked them up with a palidin of Muir to return to the tomb and recover some sacred relics which had been lost there. At the end of the mission I decided I had run enough "canned stuff" that I could start writing my own stuff again. More next time.

Lessons learned:

My players play very slow. Mostly because we all work for a living and have many other social obligations. On game nights we usually don't get started until 8 and have to quit at 11

Tailoring modules to your homebrew world is a lot of fun

Necromancer Games is "Old school" the modules actually feel like C. Petersons and B. Webbs campaign. If you look for the downloads you can actually find some of their campaign notes

Most canned modules are not geared for short term play

Players like it better when the game is tailored to their hopes and wants canned modules have a rough time with this

If you listen to your players the world writes itself

Welcome to the Jungle

2009-11-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

Well here goes! After reading reading numerous blogs and forums I have decided to start my own blog. This blog is dedicated to role playing games, their mechanics, ideas for DMs, and whatever else I decide to post. Current role playing games I am playing include Dungeons and Dragons (both 3.5 and 4e) as well torchlight, Ultima Underworld and Ultima Online on the computer. I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons since my Senior year in high school. I have been DMing Dungeons and Dragons since the little white box in the plain brown wrapper came in the mail from Lake Geneva. Strangely enough I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons by a computer game (not the one you think, it was called pedit5 [google that for a blast from the past]). Over the coming weeks I'll try and post some of my wisdom from my years of DMing; Notes and Strategies from the games I am running currently (An ongoing intermittent campaign with folk I have been DMing since 1985, and a monthly rotation running Living Forgotten Realms at the local game store) and games I am playing (Living Forgotten Realms and two different post apocalyptic 4e edition games of grim futures [what is it with kids these days? I don't remember being that gloomy]), I'll also be reviewing games and modules from my extensive collection (Including both Palace of the Vampire Queen and a first edition pre TSR Pharaoh). I'd continue to ramble further but she-who-must-be-obeyed reminds me it is time to do the imbuing (Ultima Online skill leveling work is never done). I'll be back soon