tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80388238404729166242024-03-28T23:29:53.515-04:00The Lands of AraAn old-school RPG'ing Blog presenting the Lands of Ara fantasy RPG campaign setting and lots of other stuff.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.comBlogger483125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-57201235441487726962017-12-10T17:27:00.002-05:002017-12-10T17:38:20.467-05:00Harbinger<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since I last checked in I have played some <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> off and on, but not for quite awhile, and <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-online-ll-group-is-treasure.html">my online group</a> has basically fizzled out -- the campaign not quite finished but the momentum quelled by various life things. Maybe this was mostly my fault. I don't know. Creative work often transpires in ebbs and flows, organic cycles that no individual really fully controls. Maybe that great group will yet reunite -- a sequel? a reboot? -- to face and vanquish Lord Needbo IV.<br />
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I haven't gamed in quite some time and am getting the itching to do so. Part of my excitement about this stems from a fun (mega?) dungeon idea that I've been moodling over for a year-plus now. It is called <i>Alaxxx's Pofflesnoo </i>and it is the first idea I've had in awhile that feels properly organic. It is one concrete thing, a simple premise, not some grandiose IDEA transmogrified into a <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> dungeon setting. I don't want to give away much of anything about it yet -- I want to get players adventuring in it and then report on it via their in-game exploits.<br />
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But I am back and my next task is to start contacting a few folks I have gamed with around here before, and see if I can talk them into a session this January.<br />
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Onward!<br />
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P.S. I am greatly looking forward to Daniel Proctor's forthcoming omnibus edition of <i>Labyrinth Lord Basic and Advanced</i>. I'll post when the Kickstarter for this must-have tome goes live.<br />
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<br />Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com141tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-31668381848887234802009-12-06T00:14:00.001-05:002016-06-19T22:02:59.240-04:00Megadungeon Possibilities In Ara<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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[<b>PLAYER SPOILER ALERT</b>: If you are a prospective player in my forthcoming 2010 Arandish <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> campaign, READ THIS POST AT YOUR OWN RISK. It contains information that could ruin surprises I have in store for you.]<br />
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As James at Grognardia <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/10/schrodingers-dungeon.html">has written</a>: <br />
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<i>When I say "megadungeon," I'm talking about what Trent Foster calls a "campaign dungeon," which is to say, an adventuring site so large, open-ended, and dynamic that it becomes a campaign setting unto itself -- a kind of "dungeon wilderness," if that makes sense. [. . .] A megadungeon, by its very nature, [. . .] [is] "impressionistic" and relies heavily on ad hoc adjudication by the referee, as the players explore it.</i><br />
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In the most general sense I have always used this open-ended "megadungeon" concept for my campaign settings, though in my case I have tended to prefer wilderness areas to actual underground dungeons much of the time. I suppose that in theory, the Lands of Ara is my megadungeon, embodying a kind of Wilderness-as-megadungeon concept applicable to the setting as a whole, or to certain regions like the Great Western Swamp, which could be seen as one huge, outdoor megadungeon. <br />
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However, I believe "sandbox" is actually the more accurate term for the Lands of Ara. For information about sandboxes and how to construct one, see <a href="http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html">this extremely helpful post</a> on sandbox construction by Bat in the Attic. <br />
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In terms of more traditional, underground types of megadungeons, I have recently come up with five ideas for megadungeon sites / concepts for the Lands of Ara. I will now elucidate these in broad, "impressionistic" terms.<br />
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<b>Novellan Mountains</b> (Northern Telengard)<br />
These high mountains teeming with bulettes and rock trolls are a possible location for the Vaults of the Hobgoblin King, a rumored underground complex of huge proportions presided over by a super-powerful (and possibly demonically assisted) hobgoblin king. In addition to the hobgoblin king's Vaults, these mountains could serve as an excellent ongoing adventure location, due to the following dangerous attractions: <br />
1. Bulette country, including hunters who pursue bulettes.<br />
2. The nearby dreaded Ghardash Wilderness, filled with high-level monsters and strange, dark wizardry.<br />
3. <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/three-badass-dragons.html">Razgar the Red Dragon</a>.<br />
For more information see <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/telengard-rugged-plains-and-mountain.html">this post</a> on Telengard and/or <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/novellan-mountains-d30-encounter-table.html">this one</a>, a Novellan Mountains encounter table.<br />
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<b>The Spire of Mornlyn</b> (Southern Achelon)<br />
The spire of Mornlyn in south Achelon is an obsidian spire about 300 feet high that sits over an underground chaos node -- a deep node of primordial chaos and evil energy. There has always been much strife in the surrounding area -- for example, the Old War between Achelon and Telengard, plus the many battles over control of the city of Kaladar -- and many attribute this turmoil and violence to the influence of the spike. The Mornlyn Spire is also where Arlon imprisoned the evil necromancers at the end of the Old War, and despite their escape, much of their dark energy is believed to linger in the locale.<br />
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I posit that the Mornlyn Spire is really a negative / evil / necromantic energy conductor, wicking such energy out of the once-sealed prison chambers at its base (and buried sub-levels below. . . ) and projecting that evilness out into Ara's stratosphere. Of course, this negative energy discharge may be traveling out into space and attracting horrible extra-planetary attention to Ara. . . <br />
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I have used Mornlyn as an adventure locale a few different times; in my own Arandish campaigns, it is the "most famous evil place" in the Lands of Ara. (<a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/09/auto-ethnography-of-rpger.html"><i>Crimson Blades of Ara</i></a>'s co-creator <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/09/creative-content-disclaimer.html">Dave Miller</a> tended to favor the Ghardash Wilderness as Ara's most notorious locale -- see Novellan Mountains above.) Yet no party has yet ventured below the first couple of levels, those housing the necromantic prison designed by Arlon. <br />
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<b>Ancient Minochian Underworld</b> (Minoch)<br />
Minoch is small and entirely mountainous country. It is tough to travel to, for its mountains are high and steep, and riddled with rock troll warrens. Furthermore, the weather, particularly at higher elevations, is harsh. Minoch is known for its long, cruel winters.<br />
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The Great Catastrophe of Minoch, in which most of the original settlers of this region disappeared, is thought to have happened in Old Calendar year 787. What few Minochian records survived the destruction of the original Minochian people and their culture do not make clear what exactly occurred. Suffice to say that some force caused the demise of this ancient civilization and scattered the survivors. The last king of the ancient Minochians was Orlannas III.<br />
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Minoch has since been resettled by humans from all over Ara, but most prevalently from mountainous regions like northern Noffel and Telengard, and nearby Mizar. Present-day Minochians most often have mixed Mizarian and either Noffellian or Telengardian ancestry. <br />
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While I have never taken a party to the buried ruins of ancient Minoch under-the-mountains, I know from a brief campaign there run by Scott Peoples that the Great Catastrophe was that ancient Minochian miners dug up some <i>more </i>ancient and/or alien and/or super-potent creature or power, a power / horde / being that consumed them, enslaving them to a bunch of demonic / undead / Shoggoth-type minions. Thus I would treat any venture to Ancient Minoch as a trip into a dark, horrific reality with bizarre aliens / horrors run rampant. Maybe James Raggi's <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/products/death-frost-doom"><i>Death Frost Doom</i></a> would plug in well here.<br />
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If I ran an ancient Minochian megadungeon I might also include some kind of mass hobgoblin and/or demon incursion(s) into the underground realm of ruined Ancient Minoch -- the hobgoblins have burrowed over (on orders from their own demon council) from the eastern Arandish mountains, beyond Mizar and Delzar.<br />
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<b>Ancient Pre-Noffellian Ruins</b> (Komar Peninsula)<br />
The peninsula south of Noffel and the Great Western Swamp is an area ripe for wilderness adventures as well as exploration of a rumored huge, ancient megadungeon -- the last remnant of the lost civilization that predates the ancient Noffellians. The southern two-thirds of the Komar Peninsula (below the swampy northern third) is a tropical rainforest with vast expanses of jungle and many huge mountains -- very difficult travel and probable high density of dangerous and unusual monsters. Strangely, I have never used this region despite its exciting possibilities, although Scott Peoples once staged a campaign Endgame there with all the human armies of the Lands of Ara battling it out with a huge fleet of invading interstellar aliens!<br />
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If I were to use the Komar Peninsula -- called "Rakar's Peninsula" by the rodians, in reference to a much-dreaded race of scorpion-like humanoids called Rakars who dwell there -- as a megadungeon locale, I might use a <i>Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan</i> (Module C1) kind of vibe, starting it with a vast ruined temple and/or city complex, a place inhabited by gods and monsters heretofore unseen in the Lands of Ara. . . <br />
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<b>The Troll-King's Castle </b>(Wild Lands South of Mizar)<b></b><br />
I have always felt that somewhere a good distance south of Mizar there must be a vast civilization of trollkind, presided over by a Great Troll whose powers rival a demigod's. The existence of this Great Troll-King's Castle and its surrounding underground warrens and monster-infested cities would allow for a kind of <i>Keep on the Borderlands </i>setup, where Mizar is the relatively safe home base defended by humans and their allies (i.e., the "Keep"), and the Troll-King's Castle is the variously approachable and infinitely changeable "Caves of Chaos."<br />
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I have never actually taken a party south of Mizar before, but it is a vast plain largely unexplored by Arandish humans. It seems likely to me that in addition to the Troll-King, there is probably a barbarian-king as well, and maybe a bunch of <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/killer-looking-harryhausen-cyclops.html">cyclops</a> and/or giants thrown in for good measure. And of course a race of deadly Rakarian scorpion-men invading and attempting to colonize this region from Rakar's Peninsula (called the Komar Peninsula by Noffellians and the Northern Arandish) across the Bay of Noffel.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-29261472177177368542011-07-10T08:54:00.005-04:002016-06-19T12:23:31.974-04:005 Best TSR Modules Ever (For Now)Here is my list of the five best TSR modules ever. I am deliberately doing this from the hip, not letting myself overthink it, just going with what feels right. <br />
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1. <b>B2 Keep on the Borderlands</b><br />
As <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/03/retrospective-keep-on-borderlands.html">James Maliszewki</a> and <a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1686/roleplaying-games/keep-on-the-borderlands-factions-in-the-dungeon">Justin Alexander</a> have pointed out, Gygax's B2 is a totally classic example of old-school module design, with the Caves of Chaos acting as a kind of introductory megadungeon (in a feat of "implied expansiveness" as Maliszewski puts it) set in a wilderness locale. What is not to love about that? This is an endlessly customizable and modifiable module, thus achieving very high re-playability value. And it has the advantage of being the first module I ever played or DM'ed -- it came in my Holmes boxed set -- so it surely set the tone for EVERYTHING that followed in my RPG'ing career. <br />
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[EDIT: Read <a href="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2011/08/against-giants-review-keep-on.html">this post</a> (and also <a href="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2011/08/against-giants-review-keep-on.html?showComment=1314713082744#c1457155655009661816">this comment</a>) for a really sharp, spot-on deconstruction of the usual assumptions made about B2.]<br />
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2. <b>B4 The Lost City</b><br />
I am so hot to play this one that it will very likely be the first scenario I trot out for the upcoming <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-flbs-games-promotional-blurb-help.html">public Labyrinth Lord Game</a> at my <a href="http://www.liftbridgebooks.com/">FLBS</a> in September.<br />
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3. <b>D3 Vault of the Drow</b><br />
This one has always haunted me, it describes such an evocative and adventure-pregnant place. <i>Vault of the Drow </i>is essentially another sandboxy hexcrawl, with political intrigue, factions, and the like built in to the various locales in the setting. I submit that this module represents the true climax of the G1-3 and D1-3 series, and could easily be used as the central locale for an entire underground campaign. Note that it was somewhat difficult for me to choose this one over D2 <i>Shrine of the Kuo-Toa</i>, another personal favorite, but in the end it is the <i>expansiveness</i> of the Vault itself (and the spookiness of the Fane of Lolth) that gets me.<br />
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4. <b>X1 The Isle of Dread</b><br />
The coolest "lost island" hexcrawl. Badass dinosaur on cover. Lots of replay value since encounters can easily be modified or swapped out. What's not to love? <br />
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5. <b>Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits</b><br />
This last is a controversial choice because I am not really judging Q1 on its merits as a module alone, but more as a demonstration of what an extraplanar adventure can be. As I have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-for-queen-of-demonweb-pits.html">discussed before</a>, Q1 is not so much a module I want to <i>run</i> as a module I want to keep around as a reference and inspiration, to be read, pilfered from, and re-skinned in other guises -- more of an idea generator than a full-blown adventure. Looked at this way, even the map of the Demonweb alone is worth the price of admission! Maybe if we called this publication <i>The Planar Travel Handbook</i> and thought of it as more a sourcebook than a module, people would appreciate it more.<br />
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To be fair, if I were judging the Top 5 <i>only in their functionality as playable adventure modules</i>, I would toss out Q1 and give fifth place to S1 or S2, probably the former.<br />
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<i>Image copyright 2009 <a href="http://www.evilbrainjono.net/blog?permalink=525">Evil Brain Jono</a>.</i></div>
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<b>What I Have Learned</b><br />
The above list tells me that I like sandboxy wilderness hexcrawls, and seem to prefer dungeons that either mimic such hexcrawls in an underworld environment (D3) or else directly provide them (X1, B2). It also shows my age, as I clearly prefer the "old classics" that I grew up with -- all my Top 5 modules were <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/09/d-product-chronology.html">published before 1983</a>. <br />
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Please note that of my Top 5, I have only <i><b>actually played one of them</b></i>, i.e., <i>The Keep on the Borderlands. </i>It is therefore possible -- perhaps even likely -- that some of my module choices here are based upon my <i>desire to finally play them</i> rather than a verified-by-real-game-play knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps my next task will be to connive ways to run and/or play in all of these modules at some time or another in the near future -- or at least the first four. <br />
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<b>The Limits of My Knowledge (and Sample Size)</b><br />
To fully grasp the limited relevance of my current Top 5 list, one must know what a pitifully small "sample size" of TSR modules I chose from in making these selections. I have actually owned, read, and/or played a relatively tiny fraction of all TSR's published modules -- to say nothing of other old-school third-party publishers like Judges' Guild, a company whose work I know hardly at all.<br />
<br />
To remedy the small scope of my current "classic module" knowledge, one of my new projects is to slowly acquire some of the old, out-of-print classics and read them, maybe even play them. Along this line I recently ordered T1 <i>The Village of Hommlet</i> from Noble Knight, and I look forward to finally laying eyes on a module of which <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/10/retrospective-village-of-hommlet.html">James Maliszewski</a> and <a href="http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2009/09/t1-village-of-hommlet.html">Joseph Bloch</a> think so highly.<br />
<br />
But as you will see below, my need to make up for knowledge gaps in this area is rather great -- as I said, the number of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_modules">published TSR modules</a> I have actually used or even read is woefully small. I guess that's what happens when you start world-building: you get lost in your own game-world and use published modules less frequently.<br />
<br />
So: <br />
<br />
<i>TSR Modules I've Played</i><br />
B1<br />
B2<br />
S1<br />
S2<br />
G1-2-3<br />
D1<br />
D2<br />
<br />
<i>TSR Modules I've Read but NOT Played</i><br />
A1 <br />
X1<br />
X3<br />
B3 (both versions) <br />
B4<br />
D3<br />
Q1<br />
C1<br />
I3<br />
I6Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-20518843267422812062011-10-18T08:10:00.000-04:002016-06-05T18:03:10.169-04:00Evil Gods and SummonersI like evil gods. I like them a lot.<br />
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This is, in part, why I am immensely appreciative of James Raggi's discussion of alignment in his <i>LotFP Grindhouse</i> rules, about which I have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/alignment-by-raggi-and-goodman.html">mused at length before</a>. The main idea is that Law and Chaos are palpable cosmic forces affecting the game-world, not just moral abstractions. So almost everybody in the human and demi-human species are neutral. Demons and the undead are aligned with Chaos, as are those who meddle in the arcane arts (which could simply be called "chaotic arts"). All clerics, unless they serve demons or chaotic demigods, are aligned with Law. <br />
<br />
In some ways, this Law/Chaos business all ties back to the presumption of a multi-dimensional universe and the possibility for inter-dimensional travel: Law is what "naturally" occurs in one's home dimension, including its "indigenous" gods, and Chaos always comes from without, crossing into a foreign dimension via the energies of Chaos.<br />
<br />
Again, I did not really make this up on my own, although it makes a lot of sense to me. I am once again indebted to Mr. Raggi, who succinctly describes arcane power thus:<br />
<br />
"Magic fundamentally works by ripping a hole in the fabric of space and time and pulling out energy that interacts with and warps our reality. Various mages have managed to consistently capture specific energy in exact amounts to produce replicable results. Spells.<br />
<br />
"The <i>Summon</i> spell opens the rift between the worlds a little bit more and forces an inhabitant into our world to do the Magic-User's bidding. What exactly comes through the tear, and whether or not it will do what the summoner wishes, are unpredictable." <br />
<br />
[from the <i>Summon</i> spell description on <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/uploads/downloads/GrindhouseRulesMagicFree.zip"><i>Grindhouse Rules and Magic</i></a> pg. 142] <br />
<br />
This description fits perfectly with the core assumptions about <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/arandish-arcana-part-i-of-iii-early.html">how magic works in Ara</a>. We have always included summoners as part of the Lands of Ara setting, and acknowledged in <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?1zef4roupua3t5d">our own original writeup</a> how dangerous Summoning could and should be. Summoning is a major part of what attracts demons -- i.e., <b>Evil Gods</b> -- to Ara in the first place. That is why it is technically an outlawed Art in the Lands of Ara now.<br />
<br />
Yet Summoning surely still persists. Hell, the PCs in my current campaign are hot on the trail of some demonic entities that seem to have access to Summoner-created <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/09/session-42-morags-gate.html">dimensional gates</a> of some kind! <br />
<br />
On a practical note, I wonder if I should technically make Raggi's <i>Summon</i> spell available in the Lands of Ara setting? Seems logical. . . <br />
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Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-46402675028627014562010-07-20T19:09:00.000-04:002016-06-05T11:37:49.632-04:00Belated Session Reports from Innominus' PlayerSince I rather abruptly dropped the ball on providing session reports for the previous two Arandish <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> Campaign 2010 sessions -- which took place back in April before one of our players left town for two months -- I now offer brief updates provided by that same player under the heading of "A Fragmentary Recollection of the Last Couple of Sessions." Thanks to Innominus' player for these recaps!<br />
<br />
[any editorial additions of my own will be placed in brackets, like this]<br />
<br />
<b>4/5/10</b><br />
<br />
I think Carter had this <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/04/arandish-campaign-2010-sessions-10-and.html">recapped on his blog</a>, but this would be the episode wherein we killed some yetis and Uncle Junkal charmed the rock troll. [There appear to be fierce territorial disputes taking place between yetis and rock trolls in the vicinity of the Minochian town of Fortinbras.] Somewhere we picked up a dwarf NPC called Gorgo; I think we picked up 1 or 2 other NPCs, because later my notes indicated we gave a crossbow to “SB” (see 4/14/10 entry) [that would be Steak-Breath, a human fighter hireling]. Hazel and Innominus gathered some info in Fortinbras (correct?) and as we got near to Greystone Mountain we clotheslined a near-dead guy with a map [see below], who’s dying words were “Fucking hobgoblins, man!” Then we got up the entrance of the ["Stony Hell"] dungeon, and after checking out a pool with a weird ball in it we decided to camp out in a cave above the pool, which was hot and steamy, and we managed to notice some goblins going from the magic copse to the ruined entrance to the canyon. I think somebody shot at us, or maybe that was the next night.<br />
<br />
[Here's that map:]<br />
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<br />
<br />
Loot: From the 3 yeti pelts at 40gp each, UJ, H and I have 34gp, 2sp, 8cp; Gorgo’s ½ share is 17 gp, 1sp, and 4cp. The dead guy had 15gp and 37sp; once we confirm how many are in the party we can split up this little batch of crap. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>4/12/10</b><br />
<br />
Much of this session was spent searching around the canyon (Stonehell Ground Level map, <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f1f5660600aba5b3b3149f72e228313e863280695b0f8f443bc2f5fb096bfc396f0fc6501ce88642a34e206ee89dc072">attached</a>) with Hazel growing increasingly impatient about not finding anything to kill or any loot worth talking about. We scoped out a ruined building, a magic copse with evidence of a hanging, a bear cave, a dark entrance that could not be illuminated, and then a non-magic copse that showed another passage in. The magic copse had an arcane scroll and a nautical treasure map (“Borogast’s Treasure”). We went into the entrance in the non-magic copse on the north side of the canyon and found a more or less crappy little ruined guard’s garrison (Map 1, <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f1f5660600aba5b3b3149f72e228313e863280695b0f8f443bc2f5fb096bfc396f0fc6501ce88642a34e206ee89dc072">attached</a>) that was empty except for a rabid raccoon that put up a hell of a fight, if I recall correctly. We searched the whole thing and eventually found a throne room with graffiti and through a secret door we found a stone table with a hollow leg, which had 50 sp in a tube, a vial of liquid, and a brass ring with rainbow hues. The vial is a potion of extra healing, which heals 3d6+3 damage once or 1d6 three times. My notes say the brass ring is magic, but I don’t recall if we ascertained what it does; Hazel kept it. (I also have a note about “30gp Chamber Pot Gold”, but I’m not sure where that came from.) Even with that, the party felt we were just dinking around the edges of something bigger, so we decided to go through the main entrance to the dungeon. <br />
<br />
<br />
The main entrance leads to a large room with a spiral staircase descending down 100’ to the first dungeon level (Map 2-1, <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f1f5660600aba5b3b3149f72e228313e863280695b0f8f443bc2f5fb096bfc396f0fc6501ce88642a34e206ee89dc072">attached</a>). The party worked through a ruined kitchen, feast hall and a burned out room on the NE side of the staircase room, basically turning up nothing of interest. Moving out of the NW passage we passed two ogre-mouth arches and then to a 4-way passage with a sign pointing W towards “The Dragon’s Den”. To the east was a room of filth, and to the west the passage gave way to rough-hewn caverns, where we met with a group of kobolds hauling buckets of bat guano. We followed a passage south past a 60’ whistling well (we may have lowered someone down on a rope to check this out, and then hauled them back up?), past a chamber covered in green phosphorescent moss and then down to a ruined crypt, the doors of which had the name “Molzak” on them (I don’t recall if UJ did some legend lore business on this thing?). Here we had a crappy couple of battles with rats and zombies in two of eight small tombs in the entry way to a larger room with an altar (?) that Innominus determined was magical. Some searching in a desperate attempt to find something non-crappy revealed a secret side chamber where priestly vestments and a coffer were found. We couldn’t open the coffer, so we stuck it in the bag of holding and made our way back out (we fought the zombies on the way out, hoping to find some loot on the way out).<br />
<br />
I believe we then retraced our steps all the way back out to the cliff face to rest for the night.<br />
<br />
<br />
Loot: An arcane scroll (can’t read it); “Borogast’s Treasure” map; 50sp in a tube; 30gp from a chamber pot; potion of extra healing (3d6 or 1d6 x 3); magic brass rainbow ring (Hazel); coffer that we can’t open and therefore can’t get any XP for the loot inside!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>4/14/10</b><br />
<br />
This was an extra special session because we all felt, and especially Hazel felt, that we still hadn’t killed enough or got enough good loot out of this dungeon before the hiatus. So with unprecedentedly large balls in hand, we headed back into the dungeon with the main goal of by-passing random crap and going deeper immediately, down to the second level via the whistling well. Luckily we didn’t encounter anything on the way in, and we all jumped down the well onto a tarp strung up underneath it, perhaps to catch loot being thrown down the well(?). This led us to a diamond-shaped room with passages leading west and east out of it (Map 3-1, <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f1f5660600aba5b3b3149f72e228313e863280695b0f8f443bc2f5fb096bfc396f0fc6501ce88642a34e206ee89dc072">attached</a>). We went west and came into a room with ~8 languid gollum-like humanoids lying around, semi-conscious. We decided to pass through the room without getting them all roused, and the clearest path took us out of the room via a NW passage. Along the walls was childish writing and scribbling. A ways along we ran into spear traps on either side of the passage (don’t remember if we triggered them and they missed or someone detected and disarmed them?). Eventually we reached a room with frescoes of sunny fields, which Innominus took to be a children’s play room, perhaps the scribbling in the passage was related to this? Further along past this room there was a hobby horse at a T-intersection, which Uncle Junkal decided he wanted to ride on ... there’s nothing in my notes about whether we got attacked here or if I just remember that Hazel and Innominus thought we were just asking to get attacked while Uncle Junkal was being a dufus. Or maybe the hobby horse collapsed under his weight? Anyone?<br />
<br />
<br />
Just past that we entered a room full of 8 baths, one of which began to boil on contact (I think someone tested it with a staff). In this one we found a boiled up elf and hauled him out (did we feed him to the rock troll or something? He’s probably hungry.), and he had 700sp and a wand, which we can’t use since none of us are magic-users or elves .... We pressed on into what had been a big dining hall but was now covered in spider webs and looked like a giant black widow spider’s lair. It scuddered up into the webs and we spent a good bit burning oil trying to burn it out, with partial success. After burning up all kinds of webs and crap it eventually fled out of the room, where somebody finally nailed it at another T-intersection (Uncle Junkal with his Double Darts of Doom?). Back in the lair we searched around and found all of 47cp, which was universally denounced as bogus and not worth the encumbrance. Lame loot.<br />
<br />
Out to the T-intersection we were ambushed (or surprised at least) by a trio of hobgoblins, one of which nailed somebody with a crossbow before we entered a pitched battle the details of which I can’t recall. My notes say Innominus unleashed the Sling of Madness (d30) and dealt one of them 9HP of damage, and it was subsequently beheaded by Hazel. After they were all crushed by our awesomeness, we searched them for loot and useful stuff. Collectively they had: 60gp; a voucher, perhaps an IOU, that said “Hort’s Snakes”; 2 battle axes; 1 crossbow, and 3 suits of chainmail. My notes say of the armor and weapons “Given to 2 NPCs – SB has crossbow”. I seem to remember that Gorgo refused to use hobgoblin gear (and also didn’t really need it), which leads me to suspect we had two other NPCs from Fortinbras. Anyone remember the details there? Hazel, Uncle Junkal and Innominus each took their uniform insignias, which looked like a skull and crossbones with a hobgoblin skull.<br />
<br />
With a nice bit of killing under our belts, we then searched a ruined room with a shattered door and presumably killed a giant (or maybe just large) beetle ... I don’t have details on that. In the room we found a dagger which we kept (don’t know if it’s magic or anything), and a scrap of paper with 4 unknown words in the language of an unknown race, not a “learned language”. Retracing our steps past the dead spider we pushed on to another webby room in which we found a nearly dead halfling and pulled him out. We searched the room and found a secret door with a passage sloping down to a stairway leading further down into the unknown. This is as far as we went that day. We fell back into the bath room to sleep and recover from wounds, so that’s where we’d start off from next session.<br />
<br />
I don’t remember the fate of the halfling, whether he just died or did Innominus cast cure light wounds on him before going to sleep? I have noted that he had 20gp, 47sp, a short sword and a partial thieves’ toolkit, but I can’t remember if we had disarmed him before we took him back to the bath room. Was there some distrust since he was presumably a thief?<br />
<br />
Also, I have a little list at the bottom of my notes indicating that we kept the dagger from the beetle room, the wand from the boiled elf, didn’t take the spider lair loot (47cp), and then there’s “Mirror” with an ‘X’ next to it, meaning we didn’t take it. Does anyone remember what mirror this might be? Not the one UJ has from the <i>Death Frost Doom</i> cabin, is it?<br />
<br />
Loot: 60 gp; 700 sp; a wand; an IOU; a dagger; chainmail, a battle axe, and a crossbow for 2 (?) retainers; and the halfling’s stuff if he’s dead.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>A final cartographic note:</b><br />
<br />
As Innominus studied the dead man’s map of Greystone Mountain and compared it to our maps so far, it seems likely that it depicts a portion of the first level that we didn’t explore. Innominus suggests that the room labeled “Start” on the dead man’s map is the room accessed by the spiral staircase, and the passage leading out to the SE (as far as we explored it) bears similarities, with a first side passage off to the east and then a dog-leg turn to the west. If this is correct then anytime we want to kill some orcs or go to the kobold market we know where to find it. Food for thought.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-54799857489741643722011-06-27T18:12:00.002-04:002016-06-04T15:44:01.549-04:00Session 37: Northward To AchelonThis session took place 6/13/2011 and was somewhat special: Spawn of Endra was back from fieldwork in Belize, and Hazel's player was visiting Eugene as well, so everybody except me was in one location! Furthermore, Uncle Junkal's player decided to once again violate his dissertation-related gaming hiatus, so we literally had the WHOLE PC group together: Innominus (Clr 6), Hazel (Ftr 4 / MU 4), Dak (Dwf 5), Yor (Dwf 5), Vivuli (Assassin 4), and Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard 4). <br />
<br />
The first order of business was to follow up with Sawith the Scribe of Kaladar, whom Dak hired at the end of <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/session-36-wizards-cave-and-wandering.html">last session</a> to provide information about some of the recent campaign findings. While Dak initially had thought to ask Sawith about his recently acquired ivory chits called "Morag's Keys," he ultimately opted not to pursue that inquiry, since Innominus had asked Sawith about them <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/03/arandish-campaign-2010-session-8.html">before</a>, to limited avail.* <br />
<br />
So Dak asked Sawith about two other items he found in the saurian demon's pouch: the "fire gems" (and how to activate their powers) and the obsidian key. He learned that:<br />
<br />
1. There are multiple possible commands and functions of the fire gems, of which Sawith was able to uncover two: (a) the command word "shok" causes the fire gem, when thrown, to explode in a fiery blast capable of leveling a mid-sized cottage, and (b) the command work "krok" causes the bearer of the fire gem (and anyone s/he is touching) to be instantly transported to the balrogs' home dimension.<br />
<br />
2. The obsidian key, actually made of an extra-planar substance, is from the home dimension of the balrogs, called in the Arandish tongue "Magmatron." Sawith was unable to deduce what specific locale or building or object the key corresponds to on that plane. <br />
<br />
In the two days it took Sawith to uncover that information, the party conducted some other business in the Free City. Uncle Junkal sold off some extra armor, Hazel paid an Enchanter to recharge her <i>wand of paralyzation</i> (at a rate of 500 gp per charge), and Vivuli ventured outside the city gates in order to do more snake wrangling.<br />
<br />
Then, on day 113 of the party's Arandish adventures -- it is now late fall, only a few weeks until the onset of winter -- the group loaded up the war wagon, mounted their Mizarian steeds, and headed west out of the Free City, headed toward Riverhold, five days' travel [that is, five 36-mile hexes] due west. They encountered no hostile forces along that leg of the route, which was no surprise since the Endyn Trade route is quite well-traveled and -patrolled along that particular leg.<br />
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Eager to reach their destination in Northern Achelon, the group decided not to linger in Riverhold, and immediately turned northward, following the Endyn Trade Route due north six more days to the walled Achelonian town of Holtboro.<br />
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<br />
However, this north-south route is not so well patrolled as the stretch between Riverhold and Kaladar, and the group faced two dangerous encounters as they camped in the woods near the road on their second and third nights [hexes 1311 and 1310, respectively]. <br />
<br />
The second night, the group was encamped and asleep when the final shift's watchman, Innominus, heard some noises up in the trees. He blew on his slide whistle (acquired in Kaladar) to alert the rest of the party, and soon enough the group saw two huge, black spiders skittering through the treetops toward them. A pitched battle ensued, and Hazel and Viv, who each opted to sleep in tree branches, were almost stuck by webs the spiders cast in their direction. But a few tossed oil flasks and melee strikes later, the party managed to kill the two black widows without taking a single hit amongst them. Viv attempted to extract some venom from one of the corpses, but the dead arachnid was too mangled to make such salvage possible.<br />
<br />
On night three the PCs had an even more disturbing encounter: once again, Innominus heard noise approaching the camp during his watch shift, and quickly recognized the five approaching figures as wights. Muttering prayers to Endra, the cleric <i>turned</i> two wights immediately, then set about waking the party and preparing two <i>glyph of warding</i> spells (in their "Blast Glyph" variation -- see <i>AEC</i> p. 35) with which to protect the area around the war wagon. Winning the first round's initiative, the party began shooting missile weapons at the advancing undead, and, after casting his spells, Innominus threw a <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/heres-whats-nihilistic-and-amoral-holy.html">Holy Water Bola</a> at the wights as well. Within a few rounds, the wights were taken down by a combination of magical and steel missile fire, the bolas, and, ultimately, stepping on the Blast <i>glyph</i> inscribed around the party.<br />
<br />
Curious about where the wights had come from, the party proceeded across the road and into the woods, tracking the path of the undead beings back to a small, rural graveyard some distance west of the Trade Route. Hazel cast <i>ESP</i>; Viv hid in the trees; Yor hung back to cover the group's line of retreat.<br />
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What the party discovered in the graveyard was quite strange: seven human men wearing coarse black cloaks were scattered around the graveyard, committing various sodomic acts, mostly with each other; one lone fellow was rubbing an obviously drugged black cat around on his exposed genitals. All of the orgiastic sodomizers appeared to be in a somewhat trance-like state, which was broken when the PCs entered the graveyard proper and announced their presence to the men. <br />
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Upon being so confronted, the cloaked sodomites stopped what they were doing; some of them may have even looked mildly embarrassed. Dak began questioning them about what they were doing in a graveyard in the middle of the night, and their ostensible leader, Bill, explained that they were local farmers from the village of Enhelm who were simply protecting the grave site from grave robbers. However, when Hazel scanned Bill's mind using <i>ESP</i>, she found that he had a recent memory of a black-cloaked figure bathed in sickly blue light, and foul, unnatural beings rising from five disturbed graves. Bill would not speak openly about this memory, though; he seemed unaware of it or unable to speak of it. He further insisted that the Arch-Deacon, a religious leader in Enhelm, would hear of this intrusion. During the verbal interrogation process, Innominus knocked Bill out cold. <br />
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Ultimately, the PCs sent the robed peasants (carrying the unconscious Bill) back south to Enhelm, and searched the graveyard for clues. Innominus cast <i>Detect Magic</i> and <i>Detect Evil</i> and found that the five recently-disturbed graves radiated lingering magical energy, and that two of the graves also radiated very strong evil. Digging in the latter two graves, the cleric found two white gold or platinum coins, inscribed with three strange runes, and the source of the potent evil emanations. He kept them, and the party left the graveyard and returned to their camp.<br />
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Three days later, on Day 125 of their Arandish adventures, the group arrived in Holtboro, and made their way to the ancestral home of Sir Boren, just an hour or two west of town. There they were greeted by Sir Boren's younger brother, Sir Barton, who thanked them profusely for returning his beloved brother's body to Achelon. The family rewarded the party with 10,000 gp and also offered to equip them for whatever venture they had planned next. The party asked for a fully crewed riverboat to take them down the Endyn River to the Bay of Noffel. Sir Barton complied. <br />
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While their riverboat was being readied, the party stayed on at Sir Barton's for five days. There they saw many locals come to the walled manor house to pay their respects to the deceased knight -- the Late Sir Boren had been immensely popular in the region. A small number of the wake's attendees bore the Bee Symbol -- the same as had marked Sir Boren's golden broach -- on some piece of jewelry or as a patch on their clothing. At one point Hazel asked a female noblewoman, Lady Skaren, about the significance of the Bee symbol. The Lady asked Hazel & Co. to meet her at the Boar's Head Pub in Holtboro the next evening, for discussing the Bee symbol in front of Sir Barton simply would not do. <br />
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The next night, the bulk of the party reported to the Boar's Head, where they met Lady Skaren and two other local aristocrats, Morgan the Brave and Sir Eagleton. All three of these folks were "dressed down" in simple traveler's garb, though all of them wore a patch with the bee symbol on it.<br />
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Lady Skaren explained that they were members of a regional group called the Bee Consortium, whose purpose was to prepare the local nobles, families, and residents for the possibility of hobgoblin incursions from the northwest. The local area, lying on the extreme northwestern frontier of Achelon, was potentially vulnerable to such attacks, since the nearest regiment of the Achelonian Queen's soldiery was some weeks away. The members of the Bee Consortium felt that it was upon them to protect and prepare themselves; certain other community members, such as Sir Barton, felt that the Consortium was needlessly alarmist and that the Achelonian military would be able to protect them if hobgoblin armies came raiding from the northwest. Indeed, the PCs learned that while Barton obviously loved and respected his brother, he would not discuss his brother's politics at all and was opposed to helping the Bee Consortium in any way. <br />
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Lady Skaren further explained that the Late Sir Boren's adventure to Stonehell had been a fact-finding mission, to confirm or deny rumors that the Hobgoblin population of the Gray Mountains (some weeks away to the west-northwest) had discovered a substance (presumably the Black Oil) that would allow them to travel by day and survive in sunlight. Sadly, as Gark and the PCs had <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/12/session-23-sneaking-around-south-of.html">learned</a>, this was quite possibly true. <br />
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At the end of their meeting, the PCs requested some carrier pigeons from the members of the Bee Consortium, so that they could get back in touch if need be. This was done -- three such pigeons were provided by the good Lady -- and that is where the session ended, on Day 130 of the party's Arandish adventures. <br />
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--<br />
* Dak's tiles consist of one "horned skull" symbol, one "mountain" symbol, and two "flame" symbols, all from the demon's pouch he pilfered in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/session-35-farn-junction-happenings.html">Session 35</a>. Innominus' tiles consist of one "horned skull" symbol found in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/03/arandish-campaign-2010-session-7.html">Session 7</a>, and one "Five-Pointed Star" symbol found in the mouth of a mounted deer's head in the Death Cult Shrine during <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/04/arandish-campaign-2010-sessions-10-and.html">Session 10</a> [but not mentioned in that session report].Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-4595326217291107862009-10-17T01:27:00.003-04:002016-06-04T15:27:57.611-04:00Noffel – Warrior Culture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Pronunciation guide: Noffel [NAW-ful], Noffelian [naw-FELL-ee-yun]<br />
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As one might glean from <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/pre-history-of-noffel-pt-i-of-v.html">reading Noffel’s early history</a>, Noffel’s economy is based upon iron mining, fishing, and sea trading, and its culture centers upon its fishing villages and its proud military/warrior tradition. Noffellians are most renowned throughout the Lands of Ara for their prowess at fishing and sailing, and their deadliness with the long sword.<br />
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As was noted in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/09/lands-of-ara-brief-area-descriptions.html">a previous post on the Lands of Ara</a>, Noffel is by far the oldest Arandish kingdom, having originated as a tribal fishing culture whose people worshipped Zapar, god of the waters, Minar, god of copper, Aldor, goddess of the wood, and Frey, god of the mountains (plus various local tribal gods now lost to history). In present-day Noffel, Aldor and Minar have been forgotten, but Frey is still widely worshipped and is held to be the principal deity of the Noffellians; Noffellian clerics all follow Frey. Fisherfolk and sailors still pay their respects to Zapar as well, though there is no formal temple to Zapar in the king’s city of Highgate. <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/pre-history-of-noffel-pt-iii-of-v.html">Awra</a>, who is called “the arch-sorceress” or simply “the witch” in most areas of Noffel, is despised by almost all Noffellians. <br />
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In present-day Noffel, there is a mandatory one-year military term for all Noffellian youths of all genders, and nearly everyone in the kingdom is exposed to sword use long before reaching adventuring age. Though the rare Noffellian has strayed from tradition and turned to the ways of magic, there is no official teaching or practicing of arcane magic anywhere in the kingdom of Noffel, and arcane magic use is looked down upon by most Noffellians. Some towns and regions in Noffel even have explicit laws forbidding magic use, under threat of permanent exile. The only thing more despised in Noffel than an arcane magic practitioner is a draft-dodger.<br />
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Given its culture, most Noffellian adventurers end up as fighters or rangers of some sort, and usually swordspersons. Some Noffellian families, especially those with a military history or ties to the Noffellian High Guard, encourage or demand that their youth, to confirm their passage into adulthood, perform what is called a “Sword Quest,” a dangerous mission designed to prove the quester’s worthiness to take up the family sword. These quests can be of any sort, from heroic rescue missions to monster-hunting quests. . . whatever the referee might wish or concoct. Family and community politics can be involved in this, too: maybe a young sword-quester is sent on a mission as a favor to Uncle Leebort in the High Guard, or to make good on some past debt the quester’s father owes to an old war buddy. Sometimes sword-questers find themselves naively caught up in some intricate web of deceit and treachery, wherein their own family members have been manipulated into sending the quester on a suicide mission or a quest that is not at all what it seems. The perceptive reader will note that Noffellian Sword Quests make GREAT 1<sup>st</sup>-level adventure hooks; whenever a player says s/he wants to roll up a Noffellian swordsperson, I start thinking about possible Sword Quests and I swiftly interview the player about whether his/her Noffellian character’s family might demand a Quest and if so, what general form it might possibly take. <br />
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Note that Noffellian Sword Quests are named both (1) for the tradition of passing down the “family sword”—either a purely ceremonial item and/or an actual combat long sword previously belonging to a warrior family member or mentor—to the successful quester, and (2) as a reference to <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/pre-history-of-noffel-pt-v-of-v.html">the Legend of the Crimson Blades</a>, which tells of thirteen Noffellian swords cursed and turned blood-red by the arch-sorceress Awra, a figure much despised in Noffel. During a particular period of Noffellian history (and still in rare cases to this day), Sword Quests were actually missions to find one of the lost “Fifty Swords” and/or the thirteen Crimson Blades. I will return to the subject of the Crimson Blades in a future post. <br />
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Politically, Noffel is ruled by a king, but also has a Senate with power of approval over the succession of Noffellian kings—an innovation introduced to Noffellian government in Old Calendar Year 2229 by <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/pre-history-of-noffel-pt-iii-of-v.html">Ormin, adviser to King Tandar the Beloved</a>. The Noffellian seat of government, including both the King’s Palace and the Senate Hall, is in Highgate, a beautifully kept city nestled in the hills where the King’s Ford River forks, becoming the King’s Ford River and the Blint River. Highgate also houses the King’s Place of Judgment, which is the highest court in Noffel, and the famed Keep of the Noffellian High Guard. The High Guard is one of the most effective and feared military organizations in Ara. The High Guard is made up almost exclusively of Noffellians; some Blintians are also permitted to join, but no one of any other nationality or kingdom would ever be allowed in. Despite this exclusivity, or perhaps because of it, the Noffellian High Guard retains the best longsword users in Noffel and probably in all the Lands of Ara. The High Guard is typically presumed to be fanatically loyal to the king, and its main function is to protect the king and his city. Referees wishing to set a campaign in Noffel could easily brew up some political tensions /conflicts / mutinies between the Noffellian king and the Captain of the High Guard. I also sometimes use the High Guard as a kind of Noffellian FBI, sending its soldiers and agents to places throughout Noffel to investigate wrongdoings and clamp down on violent crime inside Noffel’s borders.<br />
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Some of the most famous historical Noffellians include <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/pre-history-of-noffel-pt-ii-of-v.html">King Tarandis, the First King of Noffel</a>; Silverblade the Stout-Hearted, the first and greatest of the Noffellian crusaders against the undead; and, of course, in our present era, <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/noffel-hokka-and-some-of-his-crew.html">Hokka the Sailor</a>. <br />
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Noffel is a great place for launching missions to the southern (and largely unexplored) Komar Peninsula, the rodian island of Suhl, the Free City of Kaladar, and/or the Great Western Swamp, which lies to the north and west of Noffel. As a referee, I like how Noffel’s culture and law mess with magic-users’ ability to practice their magic openly; wizards traveling to/through Noffel are usually advised by friendly NPCs to conceal their class. In my own campaigns, I have used Noffel mostly as a place to be passed through; the only Noffellian city any of my parties have spent much time is is Jakama. In fact, strangely, I have never even had an adventure party so much as set foot in the Noffellian capitol city of Highgate; though the existence of the seat of Noffellian government and the Keep of the High Guard have always been implied in my campaigns, the city did not even have a name until I named it a few weeks ago!Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-31558074965771339462016-06-02T13:20:00.001-04:002016-06-04T14:56:24.796-04:00Arandish Campaign Sessions 75-79 Log<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This post <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2016/02/arandish-campaign-sessions-70-74-log.html">continues my tradition</a> of documenting the shenanigans of my "home" group of PCs, a party that includes: <br />
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<b>Innominus</b>, human cleric of Endra<br />
<b>Dak</b>, dwarven warrior and Field Marshal in Charge of Demon Eradication<br />
<b>Yor</b>, dwarven warrior and Baron of Rogaland<br />
<b>Uncle Junkal</b>, rodian bard<br />
<b>Vivuli</b>, human assassin / magic-user and initiate of the Kaladarian Murder-Heads<br />
<b>Hazel</b>, human fighter / magic-user
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<b>Session 75 "The Sewers of Kaladar"</b><br />
Date: 8/25/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Uncle Junkal (rodian bard 6) [shows up late]<br />
NPCs: Bo Jangles (Ftr 5) and Flipwayter (Dwf 4) (both follow Dak)<br />
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Dawn of Day 200 six levels below East Lookout Hill in the sewers of the <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-city-of-kaladar.html">Free City of Kaladar</a>. Light to moderate snowfall above ground.<br />
The PCs close the stone cap / plug behind them and ascend five additional levels to the surface.<br />
Dak then checks in at each of three sites -- the Hotel Kaladarian, the Green Dragon Shanty, and Arkus House -- to see if anyone came looking for them in the nighttime. Neither inn reported anything unusual but guards at Arkus House noticed a cloaked watcher across the street in the wee hours but could not apprehend said watcher.<br />
After some healing and tomfuckery, mid-morning the PCs head back down into the sewers. There they meet and fight several sewage shamblers. [Uncle Junkal shows up somewhere in here.] They make it down to level six only to breathe in some deadly poisonous gas. Most of the PCs and their followers resist the vile effects of the gas, but hireling Gary the dwarf's liquefied organs ooze out his nose and mouth. He collapses, dead, sporting a HUGE death-boner.<br />
Uncle Junkal and the dwarves notice ancient Telengardian architecture on this level, and everyone notices the pervasive fish-smell. There are obscene etchings on the walls in orcish. Beastarr tracks a deathlike scent. PCs reach a 4-way intersection, following Beastarr's lead. Find secret trapdoor, descend into vast cavern filled with bones, corpses, skeletons, offal -- stench is overpowering. At far end of cavern are two iron doors -- the left one depicting a skull, the right a spider with a human face.<br />
A ghost attacks! The PCs flee back to above the huge stone cap.<br />
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<b>Session 76 "Mucking Around in the Nethers" </b><br />
Date: 9/15/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Vivuli (assassin 5 / Mu 5), Uncle Junkal (rodian bard 6)<br />
NPCs: Bo Jangles (Ftr 5) and Flipwayter (Dwf 4) (both follow Dak)<br />
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Mid-afternoon of Day 200. Very light snowfall on surface. Temperature rising slightly.<br />
PCs start in the nethers of the Free City of Kaladar, above the huge stone cap in the vertical shaft beneath East Lookout Hill. They head immediately to the surface, seeking maps of the Kaladarian sewers. Apparently, none exist.<br />
Dak sends a message to Zardoz requesting a <i>ghost-dispeller</i> scroll. He asks him to remain quiet about their lead on Morag the Arch-Summoner.<br />
Uncle Junkal and Innominus leave Claude the Ranger at the Temple of Endra to be <i>raised</i> from death. He will remain there two weeks.<br />
Later that afternoon they go see Zardoz at the White Council Guildhall. They tell him they were confronted by a ghost in wizard's robes in the sewers.<br />
Uncle Junkal <i>charm</i>s Zardoz. Zardoz becomes more helpful, dispatching Leonard, his scribe, to obtain a <i>ghost-dispeller </i>scroll within the hour.<br />
The party rests from late afternoon 'till around midnight, <i>the witching hour, when the demons rule.</i> Dak stays at the garrison with his troops rather than at Arkus House.<br />
The party sends a message to the Lady Mayor, telling her that an evil sorcerer, a vampire, or both -- who may even be Morag -- is in the catacombs beneath the city. They also advise her to be circumspect ion her dealings with the White Council, since there may be an informant there.<br />
Then they go back down beneath the stone cap in the catacombs, taking three of Dak's anti-demon squad dwarven warriors, Barfo, Jerry, and Muckley, with them for added security. Dak and Yor take the vanguard. They return to the corpse-chamber and the dwarves begin digging at a place where they're convinced there's a hollow space under the floor. They reveal an 80' diameter domed chamber whose floor is 30' beneath them. Etched into the center of the lower chamber floor is a 20' diameter, nine-segment circle. The two dwarves rappel down and start searching the chamber.<br />
Innominus and Muckley come down next -- then the rest of the party. Dak finds a secret door concealing a second, smaller chamber to the north.<br />
Searching the northwest part of the larger chamber, Dak and Barfo find a stone archway framing a glass-like pane of clear material, through which they see a scene of a windswept hill surrounded by what appears to be a lava swamp.<br />
Meanwhile Vivuli finds a poison needle trap in the secret door, but no one in the party can disarm it. Yor volunteers to open the door anyway, rolls a "1" on his poison save, and dies. Innominus immediately casts <i>neutralize poison</i> (from a scroll) on Yor. Endra must especially favor Innominus -- for the spell miraculously revives the fallen dwarf!<br />
The party goes through the secret door and begins searching the smaller chamber. It's an abandoned study, dust everywhere, moldy remains of a comfy chair, a bookshelf of moldy books, an old cot . . .<br />
Innominus checks out the books while the remaining PCs search other parts of the study. <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/07/beastarr-bobcat-coolest-familiar-in-ara.html">Beastarr the bobcat</a> sniffs out the whole place. <br />
Overturning the cot, Dak disturbs a <i>mold-lich</i>, who instantly attacks the party. Flipwayter flees the room in abject terror, but the rest of the gang eventually defeats the lich.<br />
Dak finds a secret trapdoor in the floor under the lich's resting place -- in a niche in the floor he finds an ornate case containing a longsword bearing Old Noffellian runes. Uncle Junkal recognizes the runes as part of a family crest. The sword, whose name, Mellion, is also inscribed on the hilt, must have belonged to an ancient Noffellian family. <br />
Among the moldy and rotten books, Innominus finds one intact title, a dictionary of <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/alignment-languages-part-2-what-to-do.html">the Demonic language</a>. In his searching of the room, Yor finds (under some semen found in a mold-pile) another Morag's Gate Key: a small bone chit depicting a Grey Flame symbol.<br />
Searching the east wall of the moldy study, Dak sees a gold-tinted holographic scene of a rocky, windswept precipice jutting out over a tumultuous sea at night. Leaning in closer, the dwarf decides that the "water" in the image may actually be red-hot lava. Beastarr smells a sulfurous odor. Dak's face feels sunburned gazing at the image for just a short while.<br />
Meanwhile, searching the west wall, Flipwayter sees a similar holographic image of some barren dunes and, in the distance, a wicked-looking temple featuring a spider-like symbol visible above its sharply peaked roof. Beastarr smells a sulfurous odor near this image too. Uncle Junkal examines the second image and identifies the temple in the background as a Fane of Lolth.<br />
Dak continues looking at the image of the magma-sea precipice. A shape or creature moves slowly from the background into the foreground of the image. As it heads Dak's way. grwoing more visually distinct, the dwarf sees that it basically resembles a <i>magma otyugh</i>. It gnashes its maw menacingly in Dak's direction but does not come too close. <br />
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<b>Session 77 "Finding Needbo's Crypt" </b><br />
Date: 9/29/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Uncle Junkal (rodian bard 6)<br />
NPCs: Bo Jangles (Ftr 5) and Flipwayter (Dwf 4) (both follow Dak) plus dwarven conscripts Barfo (Dwf 5), Jerry (Dwf 5), and Muckley (Dwf 5)<br />
<br />
It's a couple hours after midnight on Day 200, thus technically the morning of Day 201. Down in the nethers of Kaladar, a magma otyugh has just stink-eyed the party through a transparent, gold-tinted holographic portal in a mold-coated study.<br />
Innominus continues rummaging the musty bookshelf, finding a partially intact book of evil spells. He can't read the spellbook's runic language but just looking at the book bothers the reverent priest.<br />
Yor boosts Dak up so he can push his head "into" the hologram of the dunes and the Lolth Temple. Dak gets his head through, then turns to look behind him -- he finds he cannot see the underground chamber from whence he came and appears to be hanging in midair just above a dune. He surmises that the portal may be one-way from the Arandish side. Yor pulls him back. <br />
Suddenly five saurian balrogs <i>gate</i> into the study chamber and viciously attack the party with black metal flaming swords! A fight ensues, during which Yor throws Innominus at a balrog, Innominus grabs the balrog and casts <i>Cure Light Wounds</i>, rolls his nightly d30 for damage, gets a "25." Yor also gets a happy feeling from the sword Mellion as it kills demons. The PCs vanquish four of the balrogs and one escapes via a <i>gate</i>.<br />
Then the party goes back to the first chamber to investigate Barfo's mysterious arch-portal. Uncle Junkal senses the presence of the <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/04/session-51-ghost-and-doppelganger.html">magma-dragon thing</a> he met back in northern Minoch on Day 173. Yor sticks a handaxe through the arch -- it comes back blackened, charred.<br />
Yor notes: "Someone on our world opened the portal!" And wonders: "What the hell killed all the dessicated bodies in the large vaulted chamber above?"<br />
Dak and Yor convince the party to return back to said dessication chamber to the open the left-side "skull" door [found in session 75] and explore what lies beyond. Uncle Junkal investigates the area around the door and finds Old Noffellian runes stating "Here dwells Needbo -- hates all life." The bard takes a rubbing of these runes.<br />
With his immense strength, Yor pulls the door open, revealing an 8' tall, 20' wide cobblestoned passageway. The place smells like a grave into which lots of dead people have been shitting.<br />
Dak stays on a 5' wide, blood-colored cobblestone "path" that winds down the length of the passageway. 30' along his journey he pauses to inspect the walls. They are painted with grotesque mosiacs -- close inspection reveals that the pigment used to render these images is made from vomit, blood, rat urine, and various liquids squeezed from vital organs.<br />
After making this unsavory discovery, Dak continues down the grotesque hallway. A trapdoor drops open and he falls into a 10' deep pit. Yor pulls him out, then hucks him across the pit with a rope. The remaining PCs use the rope to vault across.<br />
They all continue down the foul passage. Near the end At the terminus of the passage (about 170' along) is a large statue of a cloaked man and, to the left, a mysterious mist-filled archway. The PCs search the areas surrounding the statue and archway. Beastarr smells poison gas in the archway. Uncle Junkal inspects the statue itself, deducing that it is a likeness of a six- to seven-generations old member of the aristocratic Achelonian family Needbo.<br />
During the searching period, Dak steps off the blood-colored cobblestone path, fails a save vs. death, and is drained of one life level (to Dwf level 6).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Innominus:</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>We set something off when <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/11/belated-session-reports-20-21.html">we sold </a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/11/belated-session-reports-20-21.html">the <u>Death Frost Doom</u> mirror</a>. </i></div>
<br />
<b>Session 78 "Deeper into the Crypt"</b><br />
Date: 11/10/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 6)<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter (Dwf 4) (follows Dak) plus dwarven conscripts Barfo (Dwf 5), Jerry (Dwf 5), and Muckley (Dwf 5)<br />
<br />
It's Day 201 at 3am and the party is 170' down the entry passage of Needbo's Crypt, in front of a large (7' tall) statue of a cloaked man. To the left is a mysterious misty archway. The PCs begin to retrace their steps back the way they came, searching the walls, floor, and ceiling as they go.<br />
About 20' back, 150' from the entrance, someone finds some loose stones on the left wall, removes them, and finds a concealed handle that apparently turns either right or left. Yor or Dak turns the handle left, which springs open a concealed door opening on a 5' x 5' crawlspace. Leaving Flipwayter in the main hallway, the PCs enter the crawlspace: Dak, Yor, Innominus, then Beastarr. They crawl in a ways, go around a couple bends, then the crawlway dead-ends. The PCs reverse course, searching as they go.<br />
Their search reveals two different compartments concealed behind loose stones in the walls of the crawlspace. Dak finds one containing a human-looking skull. Yor finds a scroll case, which he passes to Innominus -- the priest opens the case to find a parchment written upon in blood, warning the reader to avoid green in the second great hall.<br />
Suddenly Flipwayter hollers the alarm as slate-gray, hard-to-see gargoyle-things armed with whips attack him in the entry hall, screeching sadistically. The PCs fight them, killing all but one, which flees in terror at the sight of Yor's recently found sword Mellion (see session 76). The last gargoyle-demon leaps "into" a wall, vanishing as if into a <i>gate</i>, once Yor brandishes the ancient Noffellian weapon.<br />
Post-combat, Innominus casts <i>detect magic</i> in the main corridor -- the statue of the cloaked figure glows quite intensely, and the two base stones and one capstone of the archway glow. Yor's sword Mellion glows incredibly intensely. Neither the skull nor the scroll case glow. <br />
Then Innominus casts <i><a href="https://ancientvaults.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/new-spell-tale-of-death/">tale of death</a></i> on the skull. The priest sees a vision of the skull owner's death: a handsome-looking cloaked vampire (bearing a striking resemblance to the figure depicted in the nearby statue in the real world) grabs him or her by the head, bites, and exsanguinates him or her.<br />
Yor pickaxes through the wall at the point where the last gargoyle-thing vanished. He breaks through to a chamber full of grotesque statues, including some of the gargoyle-things. The statues start coming to life, a big battle ensues. <br />
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<br />
<b>Session 79 "Emerging from the Crypt"</b><br />
Date: 12/10/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Dak (Dwf 6) [restored to Dwf 7], Vivuli (assassin 5 / Mu 5), Uncle Junkal (rodian bard 6)<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter (Dwf 4) (follows Dak) plus dwarven conscripts Barfo, Jerry, and Muckley (all three Dwf 5)<br />
<br />
Dawn of Day 201, in the "statue room" of the crypt several levels beneath the streets of the Free City of Kaladar.<br />
After killing a bunch of hostile statue-things, the PCs search around in the statue room for awhile and find two sturdy wooden chests, and a silver box. As soon as a PC touches the latter, three lobster-clawed shamblers attack!<br />
After the PCs kill said shamblers, Uncle Junkal studies the silver box and recognizes that the rune etched in its lid represents an aristocratic Achelonian family whose name begins with the letter "N."<br />
[Yor joins the session around here.]<br />
Viv disarms two poison needle traps then the PCs open the chests. One is full of a filth-shambler, which attacks. They kill it.<br />
The other contains human bones.<br />
The PCs return to the surface. By the time they emerge from the catacombs, it is mid-afternoon on Day 201. Moderate to heavy snowfall in Kaladar. The PCs retreat to their suite at the <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-city-of-kaladar.html">Hotel Kaladarian</a> (and Innominus retires to the Temple of Endra) to rest until late evening.<br />
An hour after dusk, Innominus has a dream-vision of the young, handsome vampire (seen in last session's <i>Tale of Death </i>vision) saying: "I curse thee, dishonorable mortal."<br />
Later, Dak, Viv, and Uncle Junkal join Innominus at the Temple of Endra. High Priestess Majesticonica <i>restores</i> Dak's lost life level. The PCs spend the late evening discussing demon problems and how to open the seemingly impenetrable silver box, which radiates strong <i>evil</i>. Majesticonica advises that they <u>not</u> attempt to open the box inside Kaladar's city walls.<br />
They call upon Kaladar's Lady Mayor Annabelle to obtain them a late-night audience with <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-city-of-kaladar.html">Sawith the Scribe</a> . . .<br />
<br />
More to come!Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-53862861763084743172016-06-03T11:28:00.003-04:002016-06-03T12:30:12.500-04:00My Online LL Group is a Treasure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Members of my "home" Labyrinth Lord group in fall 2010. </i></div>
<br />
I recently <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2016/02/dm-burnout.html">wrote</a> about experiencing DM burnout and consequently placing both my Labryinth Lord groups on hiatus. In that post I noted that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
gaming over the internet, for me, is a pale shadow of gaming live, in person, at a table. No matter how good the technology gets there is, for me, a disconnect or a missing piece that rears its head in various ways online: less spontaneous fun chatter and humor takes place, some details get missed or talked over or need to be repeated, to somewhat lessened effect. The whole thing feels like a giant, three-dimensional, full-sensory experience being strained through a small, thin, partial, two-dimensional medium.</blockquote>
In that same post I claimed that gaming over Skype has been a "disappointment" to me. That is indeed how I felt at the time. Yet my DM burnout was particularly intense then. I was feeling grumpy about the slow winding down of my <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2014/09/lift-bridge-game-updates.html">local public game</a>, which dwindled to two regular players late last year, then an unsustainable one this spring.<br />
<br />
No, that earlier statement should be read more as venting than as analysis or plan. It reflected my emotional state and was not meant to condemn the concept of RPG'ing via Skype in general. Most importantly, it was never intended to impugn the members of my "home" gaming group or to devalue the wonderful gaming experiences I have shared with them in the years since <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/01/arandish-campaign-2010-session-1.html">this campaign began in 2010</a>. <br />
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I am quite lucky to have such a wonderful group of gamers and if Skype is the means by which we must reach each other, so be it. We are lucky to be able to keep this thing going in such a relatively simple and straightforward way.<br />
<br />
Our particular group is especially fortunate to include players with a wide array of real-world RPG'ing experience. We have one neophyte player, a couple three with some limited prior D&D experience, and <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/09/auto-ethnography-of-rpger.html">three</a> <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/01/lost-expedition-to-barrier-caverns-of.html">of</a> <a href="http://backscreenpass.blogspot.com/">us</a> who have been playing RPGs (with varying degrees of consistency) since the 1980s.*<br />
<br />
Furthermore, the members of this group are gaming associates and also friends. I went to graduate school with most of them, played in a band with another, have edited essay collections with one guy, co-authored scholarly articles with another, and am generally invested in all or their lives outside of RPG'ing. <br />
<br />
Given that, it is remarkable and exciting that everybody in this unique assortment of folks is willing to make time to play Labyrinth Lord once every four to six weeks or so, despite being of adult age with families, busy careers, etc.<br />
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Most importantly, we all generally get along, in-game and out. There is a supportive, light-hearted, laughter-inducing atmosphere during our sessions. This harmonious vibe shines through, for example, in Yor's player's supportive, appreciative <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2016/06/arandish-campaign-sessions-75-79-log.html?showComment=1464890040229#c5056728075910725417">comment</a> on my last <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2016/06/arandish-campaign-sessions-75-79-log.html">session report post</a>: "Thanks for putting these together Carter." It is, of course, my pleasure.<br />
<br />
I still have a few minor qualms with the gaming-via-Skype format, but those aren't likely to disappear, barring major, Star Trekkian advances in technology. Probably not even then. Live at the table will always be best. But I have a good thing going here. Maybe I can re-tap into some of the feelings I had earlier on, when I wrote <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/11/skype-will-keep-us-together.html">this celebratory post</a> about keeping our campaign group together over Skype: "Skype is our friend!"<br />
<br />
In any case, my "home" Labyrinth Lord group is something very special that I will be sure to nurture, appreciate, and treasure. Thanks friends!<br />
<br />
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<i>Some of the same folks one year later, fall 2011. </i><br />
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<i><br /></i></div>
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--</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
* One of our experienced participants is Carl Nash, who introduced me to the OSR <a href="http://mutagenicsubstance.blogspot.com/">via <i>Mutant Future</i></a> and who is still quite active in the OSR blogosphere. Check out Carl's <a href="http://backscreenpass.blogspot.com/">blog</a> and be sure to purchase his amazing adventure locale, <a href="http://backscreenpass.blogspot.com/2016/03/fungus-forest-pay-what-you-want.html"><i>The Fungus Forest</i></a>, available for "pay what you want" <a href="http://drivethrurpg.com/product/178717/The-Fungus-Forest">here</a> on RPGNow.</div>
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Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-58402506486214512272009-12-20T13:34:00.003-05:002016-06-02T13:39:05.983-04:00The Free City of Kaladar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A great center of trade and commerce even before it became an independent free city, <b>Kaladar</b> is known throughout Ara as the place where practically<i> anything</i> can be bought, traded, hired, sold, or stolen. <br />
<br />
Kaladar began its existence as an Achelonian Fort called Hragdor, and remained an Achelonian city ruled by the Achelonian Queen until Old Calendar year 3020, eighteen years into the Old War between the Achelonian and Telengardian arcanists. In 3020, under the leadership of a powerful summoner named Kaladar, Fort Hragdor declared itself a Free City and elected its first Lord Mayor, Farstan the Deadly. Queen Lossar of Achelon sent a token force to Kaladar to regain control, but the city defenses were impenetrable; Kaladar remained free and declared itself neutral in the Achelon-Telengard War. At that time it was renamed The Free City of Kaladar and began flying the Kaladarian green dragon flag, in honor of its namesake's well-known tendency to summon that creature in battle. Despite this victory, the Achelonian monarchy did not acknowledge Kaladar’s sovereignty for many more decades.<br />
<br />
During the Old War, Fort Hragdor was the site of many bloody magical and non-magical battles; while mostly held by Achelonian forces, Telengardian armies did breach the walls on numerous occasions and even successfully besieged the city for a full two years in 3012-13. More recently, as a Free City, Kaladar has seen its share of conflict and attempts at capture / siege. The most notable of these instances, besides the "three week siege" of <span style="font-size: small;">New Calendar year 60, </span>was the successful (if temporary) occupation of Kaladar by Achelonian forces under Queen Lossar V starting in New Calendar year 889. <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/arandish-magic-artifacts-and-crimson.html">As previously mentioned</a>, the Crimson Blade Balak, Life-Stealer, played a key role in the restoration of Kaladar as a Free City after the Achelonian Occupation of 889-95, becoming the possession of the Achelonian Queen as a condition of the treaty that ended that occupation.<br />
<br />
Every accepted form of human magic has at least a small guild within the walls of the Free City of Kaladar. The Kaladarian magic-user’s Guild, located in the southwestern Dragon's Claw District, is the largest in Ara. Many practitioners of alternative and even forbidden forms of magic are rumored to dwell and operate within the Free City walls also.<br />
<br />
Kaladar has a large and well-trained Royal Guard, probably second only to the Noffellian High Guard in terms of its overall efficacy and reputation for law enforcement excellence. The Kaladarian Royal Guard's training and reputation, combined with the city's location on an island between two wide, rapid-flowing rivers, makes Kaladar all but impenetrable and unassailable (not that many throughout Kaladar's stormy history haven't tried). There is a governing merchant prince called the Lord Mayor who presides over the affairs of the city and who commands his own elite regiment of the Royal Guard.<br />
<br />
<b>Bridges and Ferries</b><br />
The northern river encircling half of Kaladar is called the King's Ford River, named for an Old War-era Telengardian king, Arkon III, who crossed it in a failed yet extremely valiant attempt to take the city by force. The southern fork of this river, as it sweeps around the south side of the island upon which Kaladar sits, is called the South Fork River.<br />
<br />
There are four heavily guarded gates into the Free City, which sit roughly at (and are named for) the cardinal compass points: East Gate, West Gate, North Gate, and South Gate. All four gates include drawbridges across the wide rivers to the mainland. The Endyn Trade Route enters and exits the Free City of Kaladar via the West and East Gates. The North Gate is the least-used of all the entrances to the city, and is mainly frequented by Kaladarian Royal Guard units as they head in and out on patrols.<br />
<br />
A ferry crosses the southern South Fork River. For a few spring months each year, the South Fork rises and floods Kaladar's south gate and bridge, so this ferry -- which costs 1gp per passenger per one-way crossing -- becomes the only means in and out of the south side of Kaladar. <br />
<br />
It is rumored that one can access the lower, underground sewer levels of Kaladar from either the north or south rivers, but the Royal Guard is certainly aware of all such entrances and keeps them consistently patrolled.<br />
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<b>Notable Districts</b><br />
The most opulent dwellings, inns and businesses in Kaladar are located in the center of the city at the top of Lookout Hill. This centrally located and extremely affluent Lookout<span style="font-size: small;"> Hill district is home to most of the local nobles and officials, including the Lord Mayor's manor and the single most famous (and expensive) inn in the Free City of Kaladar, The Hotel Kaladarian -- see below. <br />
</span><br />
There is also a rich (if eccentric) neighborhood, the Dragonwing District, along Kaladar's northwest wall. This is a district largely inhabited by retired Achelonian nobles and affluent wizards of various kinds.<br />
<br />
Kaladar's poor mostly live on the south and southeast sides of the city; the south gate and ferry are thought to be particularly useful for bandits and black marketeers, and there is rumored to be an assassin's guild secretly located somewhere in the Free City's southeastern Green Dragon district.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">As one might expect, within the walls of the<b> </b>Free City there are at least sixteen different pubs and eating establishments with the words "Green Dragon" in their names, but the most famous one is in the Lord Mayor's District in east-central Kaladar, and is called simply The Green Dragon. There are also three separate Kaladarian streets with this name, a fact which can create big hassles for non-natives and first-time visitors. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The North Wall District, in the northeastern quadrant of the Free City, is best-known for the presence of the Arandish Warriors' Guild, and for housing the largest (if not most elite) garrison of the Kaladarian Royal Guard. Given that this sector of the Free City is overrun by fighting men and mercenaries, it should not be surprising that The Greedy Lion, a famous merc bar in the North Wall District, is rumored to be a place to pick up dangerous and not-quite-legal mercenary and courier work. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">The Hotel Kaladarian</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The most famous and expensive inn in the Free City is The Hotel Kaladarian</span>, centrally located atop Lookout Hill in the affluent Lookout<span style="font-size: small;"> Hill district. The Hotel Kaladarian is built upon the ruins of the Queen of Achelon's former palace, having been constructed there shortly after the signing of the Free Kaladarian Decree of New Calendar year 60. </span><br />
Scott Peoples, who created this famous Hotel, centered an entire campaign around it. The adventure party was hired by the kitchen staff of the Hotel Kaladarian to hunt down and bring back rare monster species for preparation by the Hotel Kaladarian's renowned chef, Escoffier. Escoffier plans his exotic and highly expensive dishes months in advance, gives a list of needed "monster" ingredients to his chief aide, and that aide (whose name I forget) seeks out adventurers to hunt down the needed creatures. This is all kept very discreet and quiet, and pays very well. The party I played with first sought out a sea serpent for one of Escoffier's preparations (the same quest upon which we first met <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/noffel-hokka-and-some-of-his-crew.html">Captain Hokka</a>) and were later set after a wide array of rare and dangerous creatures. <span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<b>Sawith, Scribe of Kaladar</b><br />
Sawith [SAW-with] is the wisest "popular" sage in the entire Lands of Ara; like <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/noffel-hokka-and-some-of-his-crew.html">Captain Hokka of Noffel</a>, Sawith's name is known to almost everyone throughout the Lands. There <i>may</i> be a few more knowledgable sages in Ara, at least in certain specific subject areas, but Sawith is by far the most popular and well-informed <em>generalist</em> sage. Sawith inhabits a famous tower and library complex at the foot of Lookout Hill in the Free City of Kaladar. Those seeking his wisdom must come to him in person, and must be prepared to pay a high price for his services. <br />
<br />
Sawith was originally created by <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/09/creative-content-disclaimer.html">Scott Peoples</a>, and in Scott's Arandish campaigns, Sawith charged 100gp per <i>real-time</i> minute for his services: that is, our party paid 100gp, then had <i>one</i> <i>real-world minute</i> in which to ask Sawith as many questions as could be reasonably asked in that time. In my own deployment of Sawith the Scribe, I am more inclined to charge by the question, and to adjust the rate based upon the difficulty in obtaining an answer, the obscurity of the subject, and/or the sensitivity / dangerousness of the knowledge sought. I retain Scott's minimum 100gp buy-in rate -- that's just to get a personal audience with Sawith! -- plus the additional weekly fees given below (much more expensive than the typical "Sage" rates given in <em>Labyrinth Lord</em>):<br />
<br />
<em>To obtain an audience with Sawith the Scribe:</em> 100gp<br />
<em>Easy questions:</em> 800gp per week<br />
<em>Moderately difficult questions:</em> 1,000gp per week<br />
<em>Difficult / politically sensitive questions:</em> 1,200gp per week<br />
<em>Seeking incredibly obscure / powerful / forbidden knowledge:</em> 2,000+ per week<br />
<br />
I would generally rate Sawith's accuracy as being quite high, especially in the easy and moderate categories (85-90% accurate). In the difficult category, Sawith's accuracy may drop to more like 60-70%, but this is still better than most other sages, whom I would estimate as being only (at best) 50-70% accurate in any but their own extremely specialized area(s) of knowledge. It is in fact Sawith's atypical "specialization" as an information generalist -- and his accuracy therein -- that has made him so popular throughout Ara.<br />
<br />
Typically, parties make an initial appointment with Sawith -- for which they may have to wait many days if he is busy -- and then Sawith takes a few weeks or months to gather research, construct a precis, and meet with the party once again. Sawith will usually give a cost estimate and charge his estimated fee for the job up-front; sometimes, if the question ends up being more difficult to answer than initially predicted, he asks for additional funds before delivering the precis. Sawith has a staff of clerks, journeyman sages, and junior researchers, but to this day he still conducts all meetings with in-person clients himself, once an official appointment is made through his scheduling staff.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-91151610134860028172016-02-27T11:29:00.000-05:002016-06-02T12:04:58.090-04:00DM Burnout<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have supposedly been running two simultaneous Labyrinth Lord campaigns for several years now. I say "supposedly" because my "home" game (played over Skype) has really been on hiatus for a year or more at this point -- the last two sessions (numbers 87 and 88) took place in June 2015 (on 6/8 and 6/15) and those came after a break lasting since September 2014. I love that group but I cite two factors that led to me losing steam and enforcing, mainly through inaction, a hiatus:<br />
<br />
(1) I must admit that gaming over the internet, for me, is a pale shadow of gaming live, in person, at a table. No matter how good the technology gets there is, for me, a disconnect or a missing piece that rears its head in various ways online: less spontaneous fun chatter and humor takes place, some details get missed or talked over or need to be repeated, to somewhat lessened effect. The whole thing feels like a giant, three-dimensional, full-sensory experience being strained through a small, thin, partial, two-dimensional medium. It will do in a pinch but sadly I must report that online RPG'ing has ultimately been a disappointment to me. There are, of course, high points and much fun to be had, but also a lot of tiring pragmatics that drag the experience down for me.<br />
<br />
(2) I am experiencing general DM burnout. As evidence of this, just this past weekend I also made official a hiatus for my public Labyrinth Lord game at Lift Bridge Book Shop. The group hadn't met for about a month anyway and "the group" in this case is really down to one guy. Or maybe almost two guys: one player who could show up on time, and another who came for the last hour of each session, unable to come earlier due to his work schedule. Then recently, even guy #1 started missing sessions due to the demands of a new job, so between my feelings of DM burnout and critically low attendance, it was time to give that campaign a rest, at least until summer but maybe indefinitely.<br />
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Meanwhile, somebody else I met through the bookstore -- who also happens to be a bookstore employee -- has started running an after-hours <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules">5e</a> game, which I have joined as a player. I am playing Ur, a dwarven barbarian, and having a grand old time fighting undead and the like. I think it is really crucial (at least for me) to take time to see both sides of the referee's screen. Playing in someone else's campaign is really freeing, fun, and rejuvenating. So thanks Christine for running such a great game!<br />
<br />
That 5e game has been running a couple of months so far and last weekend we had our first session in which only two players showed up. Prior to that, we were averaging at least three players (in addition to the DM) each time. But never fear, the DM was ready -- she had prepared a short one-off scenario using the old TSR <i>Marvel Super Heroes </i>RPG -- the one that uses the brilliant FASERIP system. (If you love that game as much as I do, check out <a href="http://www.classicmarvelforever.com/cms/">this site</a>.) I had a great time playing -- who else? -- Ben Grimm, while my comrade chose Spidey. So fun! <b>It's clobberin' time!</b><br />
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Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-67896431257132894202010-02-02T15:12:00.001-05:002016-03-12T00:50:10.075-05:00Arandish Campaign 2010 - Session 3PCs in attendance at last night's session included Innominus (cleric), Uncle Junkal (bard), Percival (m-u), Barbarella (rodian duellist), and one new character, <b>Lara the Sword-Cleric</b>. Having cleared out the western half of the Hidden Dagger's orc lair (see <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/01/arandish-campaign-2010-session-2.html">last session</a>), it was now time for the party to cross the rope-and-plank bridge across the ravine and explore the east side of the complex. <br />
<br />
The first room the group came to -- still deploying their ruse of having Innominus "wear" the skin of Ug, the orc sentry they killed last session -- was empty. With her limited infravision, Barbarella was able to see a circular vertical shaft opening in the ceiling, which led up at least 30' above, and a spiral staircase leading downward at the far end of the room. The party had previously learned that the orc lieutenant in charge of these caves was in this upper room, so in order to maintain their disguise as a bunch of humanoid prisoners being led by their orcish guard "Ug," the group proceeded down the staircase without dwelling much on the vertical shaft: Innominus simply yelled a couple phrases ("Ugluk sucks!") up the shaft at the orcs above, and they yelled back ("Hey, that's my brother you're talking about, scumbag!") and dumped urine on the "prisoners" as they passed under the aperture.<br />
<br />
At the bottom of the spiral stairs was a barracks with a barred wooden door at the far end. The party wasted no time attacking and killing the five orcs currently lounging around in the barracks. Innominus and Lara made some lousy rolls at the outset of this combat, but Uncle Junkal did well with his knife-throwing and Percival wounded one of the orcs with his <i>magic missile</i> spell before switching to his crossbow. Noteworthy in this session were the actions of two of the party's hireling NPCs, Porkins (the leader of the Vedik villagers, who fights as a Level 1 Fighter) and another fellow named Xork (pronounced "zork"). Xork rolled the first critical hit of the evening, dispatching one orc outright, and while Porkins struggled to succeed during the barracks battle, rolling a critical failure and getting disoriented for a full round, he would redeem himself later once the party dashed back upstairs. The barracks orcs killed one other hireling named Plissken during the fray, but otherwise the party was largely unhurt. They killed all the barracks orcs within three or four rounds (and Barbarella even started inspecting the aforementioned door out of this room: moldy, damp, and barred from this side) but not before the last orc standing finally raised the alarm to his superiors upstairs. <br />
<br />
The party now heard the ruckus of orc mobilization above, and despite a brief suggestion from Barbarella to spread marbles out on the spiral stairs and wait for the orcs to come down to them, bloodthirstier minds prevailed, and Lara and Innominus led the swift charge back upstairs to confront the now-alerted orcs. <br />
<br />
The previously empty chamber was no longer empty: one orc warrior stood at the ready, longsword in hand, and another was just swinging down on a rope into the room from the open vertical shaft above. I had my first decent roll all night when I rolled that first orc's initiative; he beat Lara and got the first attack, which was a hit and brought Lara within 1 hp of death! But she gave as good as she got, striking the orc with her quarterstaff and bringing him, likewise, within 1 hp of death. Innominus, meanwhile, attacked the orc swinging on the rope, missing the first time, but vindicating himself in subsequent rounds as he eventually pounded this orc's head to mush with his warhammer. Speaking of vindication, the next round, Porkins the hireling burst into the room and rolled a natural 20 against his first orc in this chamber, instantly cleaving it in two with his hand axe. <br />
<br />
The orcs were sending warriors down the rope at a rate of one new orc in the room per round; the party and their hirelings were bounding up the spiral staircase in pairs, two new combatants in the room per round. So within a couple of rounds, the orcs were outnumbered, and Uncle Junkal made an amazing critical-hit crossbow shot that dropped yet another orc in one round. During the general mayhem, Lara was able to break away from melee and commence another project: lighting a torch, affixing it to one end of her quarterstaff, and sending it up into the vertical shaft from whence the orcs were coming. This scheme worked beautifully. By holding the lit torch under the hairy buttocks of the next rope-descending orc, Lara prevented that orc from coming all the way into the room, and in fact created some general confusion amongst the orcs in the room above. Innominus (who understands orcish) heard voices upstairs shouting at the ass-burned orc to get moving down the rope or else they would cut it. The ass-flamed orc would have nothing of it and started shimmying back up, away from the reach of Lara's torch-on-a-staff.<br />
<br />
The rope would indeed have been cut by the orcs the following round, but then Uncle Junkal ran to a position just below the shaft opening, lit an oil flask on fire, and threw it straight up into the shaft. The oil flask struck the stone ceiling at the top of the shaft and exploded, spraying lethal flames down on all the orcs surrounding the upper lip of the shaft, as well as the poor orc still on the rope. Uncle Junkal chose to roll his nightly d30 roll for the flaming oil damage, scoring a 20! So all these orcs were instantly incinerated, along with the rope. By then, all of the orcs in the lower room were dead as well, and Xork the hireling was also killed. Things got quiet.<br />
<br />
Barbarella cast her grappling hook up into the shaft and over the upper lip, then climbed up her own rope to the top of the shaft. She readied her crossbow and prepared to peek over the lip, but just then her sixth sense (a Wisdom check) told her someone was behind her. Indeed, the orcish lieutenant was hiding in an alcove on the opposite side of the lip, having miraculously (?) survived the flaming oil explosion, and now he leaped forward and struck Barbarella with his sword, bringing her down to 1 hp with one stroke. Not to be deterred, the nimble rodian leaped up, spun around, shot the lieutenant with her crossbow, hit, and (surprise, surprise) rolled her nightly d30 roll for the damage, which was enough to instantly kill the lieutenant and pin his spinal column forever to the back wall of the room.<br />
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There was one more room to check out, a smaller antechamber off the lieutenant's main office. The door to this antechamber was ajar, and especially given Barbarella's hp status, she was not eager to go running in. So Lara led the others in, only to find a mostly empty room. Searching subsequently revealed 5,000 cp and 2,000 sp scattered amongst the clothes and effects of various villagers and other humans and demi-humans. The party also found a scroll with the <i>bless</i> spell on it, and a vial of some unknown liquid that was quite similar to an empty vial found on the orc lieutenant's corpse. . . Also, after one turn of searching, Barbarella found and opened a secret door in the back corner of this antechamber, revealing a 60' long escape tunnel leading up to the surface. <br />
<br />
Having (to their knowledge) explored the whole orc complex with the exception of whatever lies beyond the damp, barred door two flights down, the party holed up in the orc lieutenant's office for the night, burning down the bridge across the ravine with <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/01/arandish-campaign-2010-session-2.html">the firewood their hirelings gathered last session</a>, posting hireling sentries in key locations, and settling in for some much-needed recovery and rest.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-38160363223793553592011-03-09T11:00:00.000-05:002016-03-11T13:13:54.629-05:00Alignment Languages Part 1: What Came BeforeI have literally never used Alignment Languages in D&D. This is one of those concepts that my 1980s gaming compatriots and I simply ignored; I do not even recall ever discussing Alignment Languages as a concept or making conscious note of the fact that we were omitting them. We just completely disregarded the whole idea, and never looked back.<br />
<br />
But last session (Session 30), the Arandish Labyrinth Lord campaign's newest member (who joined us <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/session-28-vengeance-in-stonehell.html">two sessions ago</a>) asked about the available languages in Ara and specifically inquired about the role of Alignment Languages in our campaign. My initial answer was that we had been ignoring them. But this led to some very productive discussion amongst the members of the group and got me to thinking about reevaluating my position on this matter.<br />
<br />
As I have recently <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/arandish-campaign-house-rules-2011.html">noted</a>, the longer my group plays <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> together, the more we seem to gravitate toward playing it "as writ" -- i.e., our house rules seem to be getting fewer and fewer as we go. This is a good thing for many reasons, not least of which -- as we have poignantly learned, for example, by reverting to once-per-round 1d6 group initiative -- is that <i>the game is actually more fun to play as written</i>, even when some of the rules are abstract in nature and difficult to justify in "real world" terms. Going with once-per-round (rather than once-per-battle) group initiative has livened up combat a great deal since we made that switch a few sessions ago. Could incorporating Alignment Languages have an enlivening and enriching effect on our game as well?<br />
<br />
Perhaps so, and I am intrigued to pursue this. But I have two (possibly conflicting) impulses:<br />
<br />
1. In order for Alignment Language to work within the context of the Arandish Campaign, I want it to have at least <i>some</i> (however tenuous) connection to the history and culture(s) of the game-world, and yet<br />
<br />
2. I do not want to start over-explaining or house-ruling the crap out of the concept before we've even played it. That is, I at least want to <i>try</i> to play Alignment Languages as written.<br />
<br />
What has been written about Alignment Languages? Let's see. <br />
<br />
+ From <i>Labyrinth Lord Revised</i> (Proctor, 2009) p. 14:<br />
<br />
"All alignments have alignment languages. In addition to the
common tongue and other languages known, as indicated by
class, adherents of a particular alignment share an alignment
language that only they understand."<br />
<br />
+ From <i>Basic D&D Rulebook</i> (Moldvay, 1981) p. B11:<br />
<br />
"Each alignment has a secret language of passwords, hand signals, and other body motions. Player characters and intelligent monsters will always know their alignment languages. They will also recognize when another alignment language is being spoken, but will not understand it. <i>Alignment languages are not written down</i>, nor may they be learned unless a character changes alignment. When this happens, the character forgets the old alignment language and starts using the new one immediately." [emphasis added]<br />
<br />
+ From DMG (Gygax, 1979) p. 24:<br />
<br />
"Alignment language is a handy game tool which is not unjustifiable in real terms. Thieves <i>did</i> employ a special cant. Secret organizations and societies did and do have certain recognition signs, signals, and recognition phrases- possibly special languages (of limited extent) as well. Consider also the medieval Catholic Church which used Latin as a common recognition and communication base to cut across national boundaries. In AD&D, alignment languages are the special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos. Alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public. They are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed. Furthermore, alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues.<br />
<br />
"Each alignment language is constructed to allow recognition of like-aligned creatures and to discuss the precepts of the alignment in detail. Otherwise, the tongue will permit only the most rudimentary communication with a vocabulary limited to a few score words. The speaker could inquire of the listener's state of health, ask about hunger, thirst, or degree of tiredness. A few other basic conditions and opinions could be expressed, but no more. The <i>specialty tongues</i> of <i>Druidic</i> and the <i>Thieves' Cant</i> are designed to handle conversations pertaining to things druidical on the one hand and thievery, robbery and the disposal of stolen goods on the other. Druids could discuss at length and in detail the state of the crops, weather, animal husbandry and foresting; but warfare, politics, adventuring, and like matter would be impossible to detail with the language.<br />
<br />
"Any character foolish enough to announce his or her alignment by publicly crying out in that alignment tongue will incur considerable social sanctions. At best he or she will be thought unmannerly, rude, boorish, and stupid. Those of the same alignment will be inclined to totally ignore the character, not wishing to embarrass themselves by admitting any familiarity with the offender. Those of other alignment will likewise regard the speaker with distaste when overhearing such an outburst. At worst, the character will be marked by those hostile to the alignment in which he or she spoke.<br />
<br />
"Alignment language is used to establish credentials only after initial communications have been established by other means. Only in the most desperate of situations would any creature utter something in the alignment tongue otherwise. It must also be noted that alignment does NOT necessarily empower a creature to actually speak or understand the alignment language which is general in the ethos. Thus, blink dogs are intelligent, lawful good creatures who have a language of their own. A lawful good human, dwarf, or brownie will be absolutely at a loss to communicate with blink dogs, however, except in the most limited of ways (non-aggression, non-fear, etc.) without knowledge of the creatures' language or some magical means. This is because blink dogs do not intellectually embrace the ethos of lawful good but are of that alignment instinctually; therefore, they do not speak the tongue used by lawful good. This is not true of gold dragons, let us say, or red dragons with respect to their alignment, who do speak their respective alignment languages."<br />
<br />
+ From <a href="http://underdarkgazette.blogspot.com/2010/08/pawns-of-gods-dmg-cover-to-cover.html">this post</a> by James Smith:<br />
<br />
"[Alignment] languages are limited in scope, mainly dealing with matters directly related to the ethos they serve. Seen in this light and in a culture so heavily influenced by the gods, Alignment Languages don't seem so ridiculous, at all. If you're still not on board, imagine two Religious Fundamentalists having an in-depth theological discussion. Or, better yet, two Hermetic Qabalists. Even better, two Physicists. If you're not into the same thing, you might understand some of it and may be able to identify their 'alignment,' but a lot of the terminology and meaning would go right over your head."<br />
<br />
<b>My thoughts at this point</b><br />
In terms of grounding these concepts in a specific game-world setting like the Lands of Ara, the best analogy I can come up with is drawn from Tolkien, wherein the Lawful alignment language would loosely correlate with the elven tongue (i.e., the language of the most learned "good guys" or forces of civilization) and Chaotic with the language of Mordor. I will be looking to make a similar connection with Ara, i.e., to place the alignment languages in the context of key races / groups who already live there, while bearing in mind that these are <i>limited</i> languages: a "special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words" according to Gygax. More on this in the next post.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-59392036612521959672016-02-28T00:32:00.002-05:002016-02-28T00:42:37.366-05:00Arandish Campaign Sessions 70-74 Log <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
This post continues the work begun in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2014/09/arandish-campaign-sessions-60-69-log.html">this previous log</a>, chronicling the ongoing exploits of my "home" campaign group. That group's PCs include:<br />
<br />
<b>Yor</b>, dwarven warrior and Baron of Rogaland<br />
<b>Dak the Younger</b>, dwarven warrior<br />
<b>Innominus</b>, Cleric of Endra<br />
<b>Uncle Junkal</b>, <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/rodians-reckoning.html">rodian</a> bard and member of the Kaladarian Central Bard's College<br />
<b>Vivuli</b>, a vile and mysterious <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/12/assassination-decree.html">assassin</a><br />
<b>Hazel</b>, a fighter / magic user with a valiant pet kestrel<br />
<br />
As before, these updates will take a more brief "capsule" form -- feel free to ask for elaborations in the comments.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 70 "Wizards' Council"</b><br />
Date: 5/12/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard 6), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / Mu 5)<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter (Dwf 3, follows Dak), Rodrick (Thf 5, follows Viv), Claude (Rgr 4, follows Uncle Junkal)<br />
<br />
Starts late afternoon of Day 194 at the Arkus Residence in the Lookout Hill District of the Free City of Kaladar. Heavy snowfall. Most of the party rests and relaxes at the Minochian Prince's modest but well appointed town manor.<br />
Morning of Day 195 -- extremely heavy snowfall.<br />
Tonight at midnight a Grand Council of Wizards is scheduled at the White Council Guildhall, to discuss recent demonic incursions into Ara and Kaladar.<br />
Uncle Junkal, accompanied by Innominus, visits his old campus, the Central Bard's College of Kaladar, and consults with on old grey haired rodian bard there. Asks about the cryptic note he got at the Orc's Balls Inn <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2014/09/arandish-campaign-sessions-60-69-log.html">in Session 61</a>, learns next to nothing. UJ also asks about Morag's Gates and possible folkloric locales for Morag's Workshop. His source says the workshop is either in the eastern mountains of the southern trollish territories, north of Gannar in Novellan, or possibly on the Komar Peninsula (though this last surmise could be the result of a mis-translation).<br />
As for the chits and the gates, Ben the Librarian asks UJ and Innominus if they've seen a Gate or used a chit in one, and Innominus tells him they buried a Gate under Kaminster's Manor in Rogaland, South Minoch. Upon further questioning, during which the Endran priest mentions encountering a "lobster woman," Ben tells of ancient battles between her slimy legions and Fort Hragdor -- maybe Kaladar Island is a holy place for Blibdoolpoolp? <br />
Viv seeks an assassins' guild to join, hopes to be tapped to join The Red Hand. He instead meets some representatives of the Kaladarian Murder-Heads.<br />
Day 195 at midnight: Grand Wizards' Council, Zardoz presides.* Opens by mentioning the 800-year ban on wizards getting involved in Arandish political or military affairs. Dak and Innominus insist that the whole continent is being undermined by demons and balrogs. They state that they have both seen pits to hell appear in Fortinbras and Farn Junction. They outline a plan in which the Kaladarian White Council wizards will assist in finding and sealing the hellpits.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Session 71 "War Council"</b><br />
Date: 5/26/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / Mu 5)<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter (Dwf 3, follows Dak), Rodrick (Thf 5, follows Viv)<br />
<br />
In the wee morning hours of Day 196, Viv gets a mission from the Kaladarian Murder-Heads at the Three Fingers Inn. By the end of the night, he succeeds at his mission and is awarded a Murder-Heads medallion from Franco, his contact in the guild.<br />
Dawn of Day 196 -- more heavy snowfall. Once Yor takes residence, the House of Arkus stands as a kind of informal Minochian Consulate in Kaladar.<br />
Around midday on Day 196, Claude the Ranger comes back to Kaladar from a scouting trip and tells Yor that he saw balrog forces amassing near Farn Junction.<br />
That afternoon, a Kaladarian Special Council is held at the headquarters of the Lady Mayor.** Yor speaks on behalf of the Prince of Minoch, telling the council that "the nature of this [balrog] attack requires magic to respond." <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-city-of-kaladar.html">The Free City of Kaladar</a>, <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/01/delzar-land-divided.html">Delzar</a>, Rogaland, and the <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/arandish-arcana-part-ii-of-iii-white.html">White Council</a> of Kaladar mutually endorse a Resolution to End the Hellpits.<br />
Dak asks for and gets a special appointment to the Kaladarian Guard, "Field Marshal in Charge of Hellpit Closure," reporting directly to General Izod. Dak takes military command of a special demon-fighting unit, to be trained in Kaladar starting immediately. He requests and is granted <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/magic-items-and-dwarven-steel.html">New Steel</a> weapons and <i>fire resistance</i> potions for all his personnel.<br />
The evening of Day 196, Yor visits local pubs including the Green Dragon Inn to recruit dwarves for Dak's anti-demon task force.<br />
After consulting over dinner with General Izod, Dak orders Noffellian troops to Fortinbras. Innominus sends out a call for any priests with demon-fighting abilities or experience to converge on Kaladar.<br />
Day 197-198 -- Dak makes preparations, UJ asks Alara at the Bard College about cat creatures that live in the east, and she confirms their existence. Innominus asks around about demon-hunters, finds out the Church of Achelon is a good bet and that there's also a guy names Father Wickley of the Church of Telengard known for such skills.<br />
Day 199 -- tryouts begin for Dak's anti-demon squadron . . . and four green dragons attack!<br />
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<br />
<b>Session 72 "Balrog Attack!"</b><br />
Date: 6/9/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Uncle Junkal (rodian bard 6), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / Mu 5)<br />
<b>Plus</b> Hazel (Ftr 4 / Mu 4)<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter (Dwf 3, follows Dak), Claude (Rgr 4, follows Uncle Junkal), Rodrick (Thf 5, follows Viv) <b>plus</b> Hazel's follower Fuzz (Ftr 3)<br />
<br />
Midday of Day 199, very light to no snowfall.<br />
The party just survived an extremely rare green dragon attack within Kaladar's city walls. (Green dragons are known to inhabit the woods to the north and east of the Free City and many Kaladarian landmarks are <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-city-of-kaladar.html">named for the creatures</a>.) Then, all of a sudden, Innominus, Hazel, and Yor hear distant screams and explosions from the west and Hazel sends her kestrel aloft to seek out the disturbance. The kestrel sees balrogs flying round the West Gate of Kaladar, attacking the Royal Guards posted there by dropping fire gems and whipping them.***<br />
Four saurian balrogs swoop over the city and attack Dak, Dak's task force inductees, Uncle Junkal, Viv, and Hazel. The PC team kicks their asses and heads for the West Gate. They converge there with Yor and Innominus. The party helps the Kaladarian Royal Guard fend off a vile balrog assault on the Free City of Kaladar. Collectively, counting the ones vanquished at the recruitment training field, they kill eleven balrogs. One balrog flees.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 73 "Investigating the West Gate Attack"</b><br />
Date: 6/23/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Hazel (Ftr 4 / Mu 4)<br />
NPCs: Bo Jangles (Ftr 5, follows Dak), Flipwayter (Dwf 4, follows Dak), Fuzz (Ftr 3, follows Hazel)<br />
<br />
Day 199, just before midday. Heavy snowfall. The West Gate of the Free City of Kaladar. Kaladarian Royal Guard troops line the rooftops and Outer Wall. The PCs loot 7 balrog corpses, recover a total of 6 fire gems. They also find one of Morag's Keys, a bone-like chit etched with an image of a lobster-headed and -clawed woman.<br />
<a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/07/beastarr-bobcat-coolest-familiar-in-ara.html">Beastarr the Bobcat</a> sniffs out whence the sole retreating balrog fled, leading the PCs to a place just inside the Free City's fortified Outer Wall. Innominus <i>detect</i>s residual magic traces in the air and along the interior of the wall. Beastarr smells a pungent fishy smell.<br />
Dak goes to Lady Mayor Annabelle and warns her he thinks there's a double agent in Kaladar. He tells her that the party will be staying at rooms in the Hotel Kaladarian. He then tells General Izod they'll be at the Green Dragon Inn.<br />
The party catches late night pub dinner at The Seedy Snake, a somewhat vile southside bar. Some party members espy a ghoulish figure who exits the pub via a private exit behind the bar. With his great strength, Yor <u>throw</u>s Innominus at the departing ghoul, and the cleric first tackles then <i>turns </i>it.†<br />
The PCs surround the ghoul in the Seedy Snake's kitchen and Hazel uses <i>ESP</i> to discover that it is spying on them on behalf of its master, a sinister, dark-cloaked figure. The PCs take the subdued ghoul to an inn on the next block, The Smelly Skunk, where they get a room and prepare to torture the ghoul spy . . . <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Yor:</i><br />
<i>Prince Arkus was targeted -- am I also being targeted?</i></div>
<br />
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<br />
<b>Session 74 "What the Rat Saw"</b><br />
Date: 7/14/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr 7), Yor (Dwf 7), Dak (Dwf 7), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / Mu 5)<br />
NPCs: Bo Jangles (Ftr 5, follows Dak), Flipwayter (Dwf 4, follows Dak), Rodrick (Thf 5, follows Viv)<br />
<br />
Just before dawn of Day 200. Very light snowfall. A rented room in The Smelly Skunk, a filthy inn in the South Gate District of the Free City of Kaladar. The PCs -- mainly Vivuli and Dak -- are torturing a ghoul to find out who it works for and why it was watching them.<br />
Dak sticks a bunch of fishhooks into the ghoul, then threatens to bring back a high priest to destroy it. The PCs then exit the room, leaving the ghoul tied somewhat half-assedly to a chair.<br />
Once the PCs are outside and across the street, Vivuli sends an <i>invisible </i>rat back into the room at the Smelly Skunk. Vivuli sees what it sees: a Peter Lorre-ish looking guy comes in, liberates the ghoul, covers it with a cloak, and walks it south 4 blocks then east 18 blocks into the Green Dragon District. The scrawny guy and the ghoul sneak into a cellar via a cramped alleyway. The rat follows. It sees the two meet a third figure, a black-cloaked wizard-y looking individual. All three vanish.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Dak: </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Where are the fishhooks I stuck in that thing? </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Innominus: </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>[casts <u>locate object</u>]</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Teleported to a spot under the city, beneath Lookout Hill. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The PCs go six levels beneath the Free City, into the sewers, and Dak and Yor lift a huge rock cap to access an even deeper level. It is dank and rotten-smelling. Beastarr smells a doggish scent. They are attacked by 7 slime-hounds, who they eventually vanquish.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Rodrick the Thief:</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>He slimed me!</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>[dies] </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
--<br />
* Notable arcanists in attendance include Zardoz the White of Kaladar, Zklek of Kaladar, Arel, Dicktoad the Inscrutable, Thorv, Arthurius, Threk, and Savlene.<br />
** Main attendees include Lady Mayor Annabelle of Kaladar, Sir Draco of the Kaladarian Royal Guard, Delzarian General Aron, Achelonian Colonel Zorn, Noffellian Captain Conkle, Claude the Ranger, and Zimroth the Mysterious (a Delzarian Ranger).<br />
*** A favorite weapon of the saurian balrogs, fire gems have been used recently by the party in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2014/09/arandish-campaign-sessions-60-69-log.html">Session 63</a> and by balrogs in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2013/06/sessions-57-59-adventures-around.html">Session 59</a>.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
† Yor is naturally quite strong and he also purchased a <i>girdle of giant strength</i> early in the campaign. What he doesn't know is that that the girdle is powerfully <i>cursed</i>, has already sterilized him, and will inflict even more terrifying calamities upon him if he does not get rid of it soon. </div>
Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-46705807431442903192014-09-22T19:07:00.000-04:002016-02-27T21:26:26.767-05:00Arandish Campaign Sessions 60-69 Log<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It has been quite awhile since I reported in detail about the adventures of the ongoing "home" Lands of Ara Campaign I conduct over Skype. This group has been playing together since January 2010 and includes players in Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, and (occasionally) Wisconsin. Just over a year ago, I inexplicably stopped recounting their exploits via regular session reports. Now I'm getting started again.<br />
<br />
Borrowing from <a href="http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2013/09/brief-log-of-catheign-sessions.html">Cyclopeatron</a>, I am adopting a briefer "Session Log" format to document sessions 60-69, bridging the gap between <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2013/06/sessions-57-59-adventures-around.html">the last session report I posted</a> and a forthcoming series of posts about the most recent developments in the campaign.<br />
<br />
<b>Primary PCs:</b><br />
Innominus – human cleric<br />
Dak – dwarf<br />
Yor – dwarf<br />
Uncle Junkal – rodian bard<br />
Vivuli – human Assassin/MU<br />
<br />
<b>Occasional PC:</b><br />
Hazel - human fighter/MU<br />
<br />
<b>Session 60</b><br />
Date: 9/23/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr. 7), Dak (Dwf. 6), Yor (Dwf. 6), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard 5)<br />
NPCs: Nic Cage (Ftr. 4, follows Yor), Claude (Ranger 4, follows Uncle Junkal), and Flipwayter (Dwf 2, follows Dak)<br />
<br />
Starts evening of Day 192 at the West Gate of the Free City of Kaladar.<br />
Innominus takes the charred remains of Brother Lawrence to the Temple of Carcoon, learns from the Carcoonian Priests that the Western Lands were invaded by demons roughly seven days ago.<br />
Day 193: Meet with Kaladar's Lady Mayor Annabelle and Sir Draco, the Captain of the Kaladarian Royal Guard.<br />
Uncle Junkal <i>charms</i> the Lady Mayor and encourages her to think fondly of Yor, Baron of Rogaland.<br />
The party decides to ask around Kaladar about Morag the Arch-Summoner.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 61</b><br />
Date: 10/14/2012<br />
PCs: Dak, Yor, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Claude, Nic Cage, Flipwayter<br />
<br />
Start mid-afternoon of Day 193 in Kaladar -- light snowfall.<br />
Party stays at Orc's Balls Inn, East District -- Uncle Junkal receives anonymous note sealed with wax, consisting of four pictographic symbols: a mer-lion, a saurian balrog, a wedge-shaped symbol, and a date one or two days hence.<br />
Party visits Kaladarian White Council Magic-User's Guildhall -- meets Zardoz the White, gives him Dak's summoning circle rubbing. Zardoz says he will hand this stuff over to Z'klek, a summoning and demonology specialist.<br />
Party decides to visit Stonehell that night since an unusual energy signature there matches wedge image on Uncle Junkal's cryptic note; the magic-users guild will teleport the party there with Threk and Savlene, a couple wizards, to assist.<br />
That afternoon Uncle Junkal visits the Kaladarian Central Bard's College and asks about <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/session-37-northward-to-achelon.html">northern grave-desecration incidents</a>; hears the name "Needbo."<br />
Yor buys a <i>cloak of protection</i> +2 for 18,000gp.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<b>Session 62</b><br />
Date: 10/28/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli<br />
NPCs: Nic Cage [dies], Flipwayter, Rodrick (Thf. 4, follows Viv), Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles (both Ftr. 5, mercs in Lady Mayor Annabelle's employ), 4 [soon 3] Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Start early evening of Day 193 in Kaladar -- moderate-to-light snowfall<br />
White Council wizards teleport party to Stonehell -- Nic Cage and one of the original four Rogalandish archers never arrive, buried in stone. Two Kaladarian wizards, Threk (MU 6, male human, Zardoz's apprentice) and Savlene (MU 5, female half-elf, studied with Sodomozius the Great) are sent along.<br />
Stonehell is very hot, entry chamber at base of spiral stairs features huge burn pile of corpses with four saurian balrogs tending the pile.<br />
Party uses <i>fire resistance</i> scrolls to withstand heat and defeat balrogs in battle.<br />
Items recovered: a golden necklace of dwarven make worth 80gp.<br />
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<br />
<b>Session 63</b><br />
Date: 11/11/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Claude, Flipwayter, Rodrick, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts late evening of Day 193. in Level 1 entry chamber of Stonehell.<br />
Press on into Stonehell -- fight Dark Balrogs. Viv and Bo each take a black balrog sword.<br />
Go down well shaft. Encounter metallic bobcats, <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/07/beastarr-bobcat-coolest-familiar-in-ara.html">Beastarr</a> tracks them to double doors. Viv <i>x-ray</i>s thru doors and sees ten metallic bobcats with leader in pillared room. Dak opens doors and Beastarr and Innominus enter, Beastarr attempts diplomacy, bobcats attack, Inn. and Beastarr retreat, Viv and Dak huck fire gems inside. Huge explosion which disintegrates double-doors.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Innominus: </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>What if the metal bobcats were our allies? We've now made them our enemies.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Vivuli: </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Hey, it was a misunderstanding -- and we killed all the witnesses!</i></div>
<br />
<b>Session 64</b><br />
Date: 12/16/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Claude, Flipwayter, Rodrick, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts around midnight on Day 193, in pillared chamber on Level 2 of Stonehell.<br />
Pillars have mushroom-like runes at the top which UJ identifies as the sign of the Aldorian (Elven) House of Pyske.<br />
Party descends to Level 3 and finds shape of a bobcat head burned into a wall. Beastarr picks up unique scent (implanted directly into his mind, along with a name: Keak the Fierce) and leads party into prison cell block.<br />
Party breaks into cell, meets sulfurous demon bobcat (with scars on both sides of neck) chained to the wall. UJ <i>charms</i> it then Viv speaks to it in the Dark Tongue* and learns that the huge sulfurous thing claims to be imprisoned by "the Ukuku." When questioned about the metal cats, it calls them the Ukuku and claims they are "trying to take the vessel from us." When asked about Keak the Fierce, it calls him a "traitor," saying that "he'll sell us out to the otherworlders."<br />
<br />
<b>Session 65</b><br />
Date: 01/27/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Claude, Flipwayter, Rodrick, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts after midnight on Day 193 (so technically the wee hours of morning on Day 194), in hallway outside holding cells on Level 3 of Stonehell.<br />
Party dungeoneers through several rooms, descends one level, encounters and vanquishes four magma bobcats. One magma bobcat explodes after being killed. Viv finds a silver cock ring (worth 200gp) in remaining ash pile.<br />
Party dungeoneers further, encounters three Bobcat Balrogs, UJ crits and kills a <i>gated</i>-in glebrazu in one blow.<br />
Items recovered: a silver cock ring (worth 200gp) and a hobbit- or rodian-sized <i>buckler +1.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Session 66</b><br />
Date: 02/10/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter, Rodrick, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts in the wee hours just before dawn on Day 194 in a chamber on Level 4 of Stonehell.<br />
Stalactite cave. Dak curls up and Yor "bowls" him toward advancing phalanx of Piercers.<br />
Cave Bear den, Vivuli <i>x-rays</i> and finds titanium broach.<br />
Four-way intersection where Beastarr smells all three types of bobcat demon (magma, balrog, and metallic).<br />
Chamber with the <i>blue gate. </i>Viv <i>x-rays </i>the gate, sees jack shit void. Viv then everyone goes through.<br />
In metal-walled area. Walk under titanium arch -- Viv's titanium medallion tingles. Innominus casts <i>detect magic</i> and discovers that both the arch and the medallion radiate arcane energy.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 67</b><br />
Date: 03/10/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter, Rodrick, Claude, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts just before dawn on Day 194 in a metal-enclosed chamber on Level 4 of Stonehell.<br />
Beastarr smells FAINT metallic bobcat, STRONG balrog bobcat, and a wholly new smell.<br />
Viv discovers his <i>x-ray</i> does not penetrate the metallic material of which this structure is made.<br />
Dungeoneer a ways, find some clues hinting at bobcat type culture in far Eastern Mountains of Ara.<br />
Find large metal chamber with four thrones facing blue-glowing mural. Four tall, robed, catlike humanoids -- lion, tiger, panther, bobcat -- standing around big, bright column of light in center of room. Beastarr correlates these figures to new smell. None is Keak.<br />
Viv bungles assassination of the panther-thing, Dak chucks fire gem, kills all four, melts their amulets, damages a couple of the big thrones. Column of light winks out.<br />
Yor levels to Dwf. 7 at end of this session.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Innominus:</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>We're here for Keak -- we're gonna get him one way or the other.</i></div>
<br />
<b>Session 68</b><br />
Date: 04/07/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus, Yor, Vivuli, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Claude, Rodrick, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts at dawn on Day 194 in a metal-enclosed chamber with bright blue mural and thrones, etc. on Level 4 of Stonehell.<br />
Search big chamber, find ideographs on throne armrests, Uncle Junkal and Viv note them down. Turns out ideographs are on buttons, UJ pushes some of them, various things happen.<br />
Pure white disc 6' diameter set into center of floor.<br />
Wheeled thing attacks, shooting electricity.<br />
6 Bobcat ninjas attack! UJ charms one, party negotiates.<br />
Ninjas lead the party to private chamber nearby to meet the liaison to the hukuku, a big cat-humanoid like the robed ones in the previous chamber.<br />
The liaison confirms that the balrog bobcats are his enemies. "Keak is imprisoned for negotiating with them." Also reveals that the metal section they're all standing in is a vessel for traveling between worlds, stuck here after a crash.<br />
Party speaks with Keak, who confirms that the balrogs caused the interference that crashed their ship. Party successfully negotiates his release.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Innominus:</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>There's no shortage of things that need saving!</i></div>
<br />
<b>Session 69</b><br />
Date: 04/28/2013<br />
PCs: Innominus, Dak, Yor, Vivuli, Uncle Junkal<br />
NPCs: Flipwayter, Rodrick, Claude, Threk, Saulene, Bo & Brian Jangles, 3 Rogalandish archers<br />
<br />
Starts midday on Day 194 outside Keak's cell in a metal-enclosed section of Level 4 of Stonehell.<br />
Party and Keak leave ship area to venture back up through Stonehell to surface.<br />
Keak wants to reach another rumored, much older ship crash site in Eastern Mountains. Innominus suggests to the party that it makes the most sense to take Keak back to the Free City of Kaladar.<br />
Threk and Saulene <i>teleport </i>the party plus Keak back to White Council Guildhall in Kaladar.<br />
<br />
The session continues with an interesting briefing with Zardoz, High Councilman of the Kaladarian White Council -- in an upcoming post!<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Sorry I've been so slow with these reports, but I'm working on one of these.</i></div>
<br />
--<br />
* The Arandish chaotic alignment language, discussed <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/alignment-languages-part-2-what-to-do.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I have been busy running my two <i>Labyrinth Lord </i>campaigns: my so-called "home" campaign that meets about once a month <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2013/03/skype-session-photos.html">over Skype</a>, and my public game at <a href="http://www.liftbridgebooks.com/">Lift Bridge Book Shop</a> that meets on the first and third Sunday of every month.<br />
<br />
I will return to the "home" game in a moment but first a few words about the Lift Bridge game. As I have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/09/reflections-on-lift-bridge-game-and.html">mentioned before</a>, it is mainly attended by a group of younger gamers -- a couple twentysomethings, and one gentleman closer to my own age,* but mostly lads 14 and under (about 4-5 regulars in that age category). I have been getting increasingly drawn in by that group and am really enjoying how the looseness of OSR gaming synergizes with their wild imaginations. They are also, on the whole, getting smarter as players -- more dungeoneering, planning, and coordination of effort is taking place relative to when we <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/06/first-lift-bridge-game-success.html">began this group</a> back in June 2012. It also probably can't hurt that we are generally in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/12/sweet-spot-of-adventure-campaign.html">the "sweet spot" for <i>LL</i> game play</a>, when most of the PCs are between levels three and six.<br />
<br />
However, on top of all this, one of the biggest triumphs of my entire gaming career took place at the end of today's session, when one of the younger-generation gamers, Jake, told me that he is running his own game on the side -- <i>using Labyrinth Lord!! </i> I asked him why he chose that system, and he said that as a DM, it was far easier to run <i>LL</i> than <i>D&D IV</i>. I concurred with his opinion, and told him I was pleased that he and his friends were enjoying <i>LL</i> even when they weren't playing it with me. I went home beaming inwardly that I seem to have succeeded in my stated goal in starting this public game, to wit:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
my main mission in reaching out to [members of younger generations] is to introduce them to the Old Ways, i.e., <i>Labyrinth Lord.</i></blockquote>
Mission accomplished!<br />
<br />
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<br />
As for my home game, that campaign is reaching near-domain level play, as all the PCs have reached level seven or thereabouts at this point. They are commanding some units of specialized mercenary demon-hunters and defending the Free City of Kaladar from a possible alliance between balrogs and a vampire clan called Needbo. I am having fun with that group as they approach the campaign endgame, and yet I am not sure how much longer that particular arc will continue. We will likely still be playing through the summer, and maybe even until the end of the year, but once the PCs reach level nine or so, I think it likely that I will want to retire this party and have those players roll up a new adventuring group and start over. We will see what develops.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE 3/17/2014: </b>I realized after writing the above paragraph about retiring the "home" campaign PCs after Level 9 that I may be somewhat contradicting myself from <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/12/sweet-spot-of-adventure-campaign.html">here</a>, where I said that I "expect my PCs to claim land and erect strongholds starting at Level 9" and that I am "open to seeing this campaign continue through to PC levels in and beyond the 'teens.'" Why have I changed my mind since December 2010? Two reasons: (1) I am so damn busy now that learning or devising new "domain game" rules at this stage would be an impossibility, and (2) the Lift Bridge campaign is emphatically reminding me how much I enjoy that "sweet spot" when the PCs are level 3-6 or so. Therefore the idea of retiring Dak, Yor, Innominus & co. and starting that group over from scratch actually has immense appeal for me; name-level PCs are really powerful and demand really intense foes and situations. I can sustain this for awhile longer but maybe not into the double-digit PC levels. <br />
<br />
--<br />
* The <a href="http://sandmangaming.com/whats-the-buzz/">recently un-hiatused</a> Jack Phoenix!Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-3100485409249235072015-06-09T11:01:00.001-04:002015-06-09T11:43:53.639-04:00Scrying in LL?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
My blogging activities and my "home" Labyrinth Lord Campaign (which plays online over Skype) have both been on hiatus for some time. The last time that particular group played was last September. There are several reasons for the break, chief among them the arrival of two babies -- two of our players have recently become fathers -- and my own mad scramble to get my academic ducks in a row for a major review I'll be subjected to this coming fall (it's not my actual tenure review but it will heavily inform that tenure decision, which lies one additional year in my future). So it has been a busy time full of changes in our non-gaming lives.<br />
<br />
Additionally, as I told my group of players via email a few weeks back, I was beginning to experience some DM's fatigue last year. Some of that fatigue may be attributable to a personality quirk of my own: I have this funny thing (in all things I do) where when I reach the "nearly finished" point -- about the 80% complete mark -- and I start to lose interest in a project or undertaking. I have been feeling a bit of that type fatigue with the "home" campaign before the hiatus. As I wrote to the players:<br />
<blockquote>
It is not that I "know" our campaign is about 80% done. I do not. There is no way to predict that and I do not have one, set endgame in mind -- I just know who's out there doing what to whom, so I will judge how those personas respond to your party's inevitable meddling . . .
<br />
<br />
That said, I tend to think that old-school D&D characters should retire from adventuring around 9th or 10th level -- so around then I would expect your characters to be running things (probably not all of Ara -- the Noffellians would secede if you guys took over -- but surely Rogaland, a temple of Endra, a bard's college. etc.) and then we might think about next steps. I could run another campaign in Ara, or . . . . Satan knows. </blockquote>
However, what I didn't tell the players (because I didn't realize it yet) is that part of the issue also lies with the medium through which we play: Skype. I do not mean to single Skype out here, what I mean to refer to is the general difference between playing long-distance vs. playing live, in person, at a table in the same room. For me, there is simply no substitute for that latter experience. I know this because as I have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2014/09/lift-bridge-game-updates.html">reported</a> before, I am having a grand old time running my public game at the local bookshop. There is a certain magic that can occur when folks are in the room together, and I think certain aspects of character interactions and subtle plot nuances are more easily conducted and conveyed live.<br />
<br />
All that said, my online group played again last night and had a thrilling, awesome session (the 87th session of our campaign). It was so fun that we are meeting again in a week. The group teleported their way into a crypt buried beneath the Free City of Kaladar in order to do battle with a vampire and to seek an interdimensional <i>gate</i> they strongly suspect lies somewhere in or near that crypt.<br />
<br />
In preparing to go after that vampire, the PCs enlisted the services of a wizard who briefly visited the vampire's lair, allowing himself to be transported there via a magical archway that appears to transmit living beings only, depositing them naked at the destination with none of their gear. This wizard, Tim, was instantly attacked and life-drained by the waiting vampire, and then he teleported himself back out of the vampire's lair to rejoin the party. They all retreated back to the above-ground city to <i>scry</i> the location Tim had seen via a crystal ball, so everybody could be teleported back in to do battle with the vampire.<br />
<br />
This raised a question for me and my players: how, besides a crystal ball, does one <i>scry</i> in Labyrinth Lord? <br />
<br />
None of us could find any direct reference to <i>scrying</i> except in the spell description for <i>teleport</i> (<i>LL</i> p. 40, <i>AEC</i> p. 80). Any thoughts?<br />
<br />
P.S. I checked out my <i>DMG</i> this morning and found that EGG says this about scrying and anti-scrying:<br />
<br />
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<br />Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-85615629326881681172013-06-09T18:54:00.002-04:002015-05-28T13:24:27.737-04:00Sessions 57 - 59: Adventures Around Marshton and Slag Mountain<b>Session 57</b><br />
Date: 5/6/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr. 7), Dak (Dwf. 6), Yor (Dwf. 6), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard 5), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / MU 5)<br />
NPC <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-house-rule-entourage-approach.html">followers</a>: Nic Cage* (Ftr. 3, follows Yor), Claude (Ranger 3, follows Uncle Junkal), Flipwaiter (Dwf. 2, follows Dak) and Rodrick (Thf. 4, follows Viv).<br />
NPC hirelings: Dunsdonger (Ftr. 2) and Abbideck (Dwf. 2) were also along as hired mercs, four archers of Rogaland protected their Baron, and Brother Lawrence of the Brothers of Carcoon (Clr. 3) accompanied the group as an observer, though the latter was beginning, over time, to warm to Innominus' teachings about the Temple of Endra.<br />
<br />
Early on Day 182 of the party's Arandish adventures, having just survived a <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/10/session-56-visiting-grumbledook-and.html">snowstorm</a>, the group awakened to light snowfall on the north bank of the Blintsflow River, fifteen miles southeast of the town of Marshton in Blint [hex 1517].<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Marshton is in hex 1517; the city erroneously labeled "Marshton" in hex 1316 of the above map is in fact Blintsport.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The party took two hours to hide their boat, which was rendered useless by the overnight freezing of the Blintsflow, and then they hiked overland toward Marshton. On the way there, they were first assaulted by a swarm of dreaded <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/04/e-for-eyepecker.html">eyepeckers</a>,** which they fended off with flaming oil flasks and Viv's <i>wand of lightning bolts, </i>then were attacked less than an hour later by a bulette! While the open plains of central Blint are known as feeding grounds for these dreadful beings, this particular bulette was unusual: as Yor delivered the killing blow to the creature at the conclusion of a pitched battle, an old hag's voice sounded inside his head, saying "A curse upon you and your land!" Then the bulette flatulated mightily (right in Yor's face) and died. </div>
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As Yor recovered from the stinky emission and pondered the unusual curse, Vivuli immediately set about <i>x-raying</i> and vivisecting the bulette's corpse. Inside its stomach the enterprising assassin found the partially digested corpses of six rodians, sailors by the look of them. Looting the half-digested rodian corpses, Vivuli recovered:</div>
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<br /></div>
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- a goodly amount of coinage and loose gems</div>
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- a couple of potions, of <i>human control </i>and <i>giant strength</i> </div>
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- a <i>decanter of endless water</i></div>
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- an embroidered kerchief identifying the group as members of Captain Blackskull's crew</div>
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<br /></div>
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Vivuli determined that all this stuff had been in the bulette's digestive tract since roughly the day before.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The group then pressed on to Marshton, reaching the small town in the late afternoon of Day 182 of their adventures. They checked into the One-Eyed Snake Inn and queried the innkeeper about where a group of dragon hunters could go to find extra hands in the town. After Dak and Viv both spent generously in the establishment, the innkeep suggested that they could find able-bodied warriors at the militia house on the north side of town, and also told the group that Ookla, the local wise woman, could help them with information about the precise location of Boris' lair on Slag Mountain.<br />
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<i>Ookla, Marshton's wise woman, advises a client.</i></div>
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<br />
The party paid a visit to Ookla the Wise, who lived above a small apothecary shop on Marshton's east side. They showed her the head of the dragon Zelda, and she was most impressed. She gave them directions to the lair of Zelda's mate, Boris, on nearby Slag Mountain. She also recommended a local mountaineer and guide named Jerry, who had been up on Slag Mountain before. Ookla was unable to shed light upon the significance of the bulette's curse, though.<br />
<br />
After lurking around Marshton for several more days, the party set off to the east, toward Slag Mountain, on the morning of Day 188 of their adventures. Their guide, Jerry, took them first to the country dwelling of Oswald the goat rancher, who lived on a farm between Marshton and the mountain. The party stabled their horses at Oswald's place then ascended Slag Mountain in the late afternoon.<br />
<br />
Up on the steam-vent-riddled mountain face, he group did battle with two giant snakes, vanquished them, then proceeded further upward. It got hotter. Claude the Ranger detected some snake tracks plus the tracks of some bipedal, ogre-sized magma creatures.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<b>Session 58</b><br />
Date: 6/3/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr. 7), Dak (Dwf. 6), Yor (Dwf. 6), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard 5), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / MU 5)<br />
NPCs: Nic Cage (Ftr. 2, follows Yor), Claude (Ranger 4, follows Uncle Junkal), and Rodrick (Thf. 4, follows Viv), Brother Lawrence of the Brothers of Carcoon (Clr. 3, follows Innominus), Flipwayter (Dwf 2, follows Dak), and Abbideck (Dwf 1) and Dunsdonger (Ftr 2), hirelings.<br />
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<i>"I'm always for retreating if you guys are." -- Uncle Junkal</i></div>
<br />
It is near dusk on Day 188 of the party's Arandish adventures. Light winter snowfall finds our intrepid adventurers high on the southeast face of Slag Mountain, which lies on the Blint / Minoch border.<br />
<br />
No sooner did Claude find some suspicious magma footprints on the steep switchbacks than the group was viciously attacked by two huge magma elementals. The party eventually dispatched these formidable beings, and Vivuli wrote his name in piss on one of their melted-magma corpses. <br />
<br />
In the wake of the battle, Uncle Junkal received a telepathic message in his mind: "GET OFF MY MOUNTAIN OR I'LL FRY YOU ALL AND EAT YOUR INNARDS."<br />
<br />
Taking this threat seriously, presuming it to be from the legendary Boris the Red Dragon, the party opted to immediately descend the mountain in the falling twilight, under moderate snowfall. They reached Oswald's homestead after midnight, and bedded down there.<br />
<br />
A foot of new show fell overnight, and the party set off toward the west on Day 189 of their adventures. They decided to head northeastward to the Free City of Kaladar, approximately a week's travel overland.<br />
<br />
All day of Day 189, the group was pursued and repeatedly attacked by a pack of werewolves of DOOM.<br />
<br />
Which they killed.<br />
<br />
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<i>"I'm here to kill for my god!" -- Innominus</i></div>
<br />
--<br />
<b>Session 59</b><br />
Date: 7/1/2012<br />
PCs: Innominus (Clr. 7), Dak (Dwf. 6), Yor (Dwf. 6), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard 5), Vivuli (Assassin 5 / MU 5)<br />
NPCs: Nic Cage (Ftr. 2, follows Yor), Claude (Ranger 4, follows Uncle Junkal), and Rodrick (Thf. 4, follows Viv), Brother Lawrence of the Brothers of Carcoon (Clr. 3, follows Innominus), Flipwayter (Dwf 2, follows Dak), and Abbideck (Dwf 1) and Dunsdonger (Ftr 2), hirelings.<br />
<br />
The party spends the next three days trekking overland through snow to Kaladar. The first day, they are attacked by <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/killer-looking-harryhausen-cyclops.html">horned cyclops</a>, but eventually kill these enemies, tracking them to their lair, killing their extended families, and looting the lair.<br />
<br />
The party's second and third days' travel were marked by the presence of saurian balrogs in the air overhead. The demons seemed to be flying regular patrol patterns. Early in the morning of Day 192 of their Arandish adventures, the party was attacked by a group of flying balrogs dropping fire gems! During this deadly bombardment, Brother Lawrence plus two good horses were completely incinerated.<br />
<br />
Eventually defeating these foes, the party set off for the Free City once again, reaching the West Gate of Kaladar on the evening of Day 192 of their adventures. <br />
<br /></div>
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--</div>
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* Nic Cage leveled up at the end of last session.</div>
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** Eyepeckers are an indigenous Arandish creature which you can find on p. 23 of <i><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?21xdgk6cfamfckg">The Lands of Ara Compendium 2011</a>.</i></div>
Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-31095460288684869332012-04-08T20:16:00.000-04:002015-05-28T12:57:04.872-04:00Session 50: Warren the Black and Farn Junction RaidThis session occurred on Sunday 1/15/2012. PCs Innominus (Clr-6), Yor (Dwf-6), Dak (Dwf-6) and Vivuli (Assassin-5 / MU-4) were present, along with NPCs Gorgo (Dwf-4, Innominus' follower) and Rodney (Ftr-3, Dak's follower).<br />
<br />
The session began in the afternoon of Day 171 of the party's Arandish adventures, as they approached the cave of Warren the Black, a reclusive Minochian wizard the group first met back in <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/session-36-wizards-cave-and-wandering.html">Session 36</a>. They sought his help vanquishing the ethereal beings who were haunting their recently acquired mine.<br />
<br />
As they neared the cave, a crow appeared overhead; it gave a "Caw!" and then flew down toward the cave. Moments later, the party rounded the corner and found Warren, dressed in woolen robes in his signature color, waiting for them, the crow perched upon his shoulder.<br />
<br />
"Little Henry here says he remembers you!" said Warren, and showed the group into his hovel in the mountainside. He immediately bore left into a small cave with a fire pit and some fragrant, earthy tea boiling in a pot suspended over the fire. Warren offered them tea and they drank.<br />
<br />
The PCs asked Warren if he could be of help in restoring Uncle Junkal to life, but alas, that lay beyond the wizard's powers. So the Rodian Bard remained a <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/03/session-49-ghost-hunters.html">crispy critter</a> for the time being.
<br />
<br />
Vivuli said: "Our mine is haunted and we need to kick the ghosts' asses. Also, maybe you can restore our priestly comrade to his proper age?"<br />
<br />
While Warren admitted that he could not help Innominus with his aging problem either, he <i>did</i> seem to think he had a solution for the party's mine ghost problem. He said he could have some anti-ethereal-being scrolls written by the next day (which he did).<br />
<br />
Lastly, Innominus asked Warren if he knew the story of the Ghost Tribunal? Warren said their existence was a popular local legend but that the rumored arcane tower where the three adventurers met their fateful end (i.e., becoming ghosts) had never been located. <br />
<br />
In exchange for this information and for the three scrolls of <i>dispel ethereal being, </i>Warren asked that the party bring him, in due course of time, the following items:<br />
<br />
- 20 gallons of giant wasp venom<br />
- 2 narwhal horns<br />
<br />
Yor also warned the eccentric old wizard that his valley was surrounded by <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/03/session-49-ghost-hunters.html">throghrin squadrons</a>, but Warren seemed unfazed. Apparently no one messed with the reclusive arcanist.<br />
<br />
The party departed Warren's cave that same afternoon set off for the plague-ridden city of Farn Junction, a half day's travel southeast. It was snowing moderately as they descended toward the town, which was enveloped in an ominous-looking fog cloud. They passed by Farn Junction proper, reaching Prince Arkus' encampment a few miles further east by nightfall.<br />
<br />
There they learned that Arkus had failed to summon a significant number of clerics to his aid; only Father Azamondius of the Kaladarian sect of Carcoon (Clr 10), plus two of his underlings, Brothers Theosophanes (Clr 5) and Scotty (Clr 3), were on hand. Hardly enough priests with which to conduct a full-blown purge of the city! Yet Azamondius did agree to <i>raise</i> Uncle Junkal from the dead.<br />
<br />
Seeing the Prince was in dire straits, Vivuli <i>summoned vermin</i> and got a bunch more rats, which he sent into Farn Junction forthwith. Through their eyes, Viv saw that the smoke/fog layer enveloped the entire city, that there were literally no townsfolk visible, and that there were a few saurian balrogs about, occasionally flying overhead. He could also smell via the rats a strong, pervasive rotting odor of the recently deceased, tinged with a bit of sulfurous smell.<br />
<br />
Yor suggested to Arkus that he take a unit of his soldiers to the main city gate and create a diversion while the party sneaked into the city to reconnoiter and find out specifically what had happened to all the Minochians who used to live there. Arkus agreed, so Viv turned the whole party invisible, and they camped the night, planning to commence their raid in the morning.<br />
<br />
Day 173 dawned, snowy and dismal, and the party arose from a troubled night's sleep and made their way toward the fogbound city, accompanied by two of Vivuli's rats. All of them (including the rats) were invisible. Arkus' men showed them to a hidden well in a copse a short distance outside the eastern city wall; descending into the well, the party made their way through an underground tunnel and emerged through a trapdoor into the former city residence of the Lord Mayor, i.e., Prince Arkus. <br />
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<i>A section of the Lord Mayor's Residence in Farn Junction; secret tunnel from Residence goes 500' east to hidden well in copse of trees. Note 60' diameter hellpit at bottom left.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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The group made it to the residence (seemingly) undetected, the prowled around the property for the better part of an hour, finding a sulfurous, 60' diameter hellpit with three balrogs just west of their entry point (see large rough circle on map above). They couldn't get close enough to see too deeply into the pit, but were able to feel the intense, sulfurous heat emanating from it, and could hear from below the sound of some hapless soul being whipped and screaming, and the three balrogs in the area laughing with pleasure at the unseen whipping victim's pain. </div>
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Venturing east, the PCs peeked up a street and spotted another balrog seemingly on guard duty outside a well-fortified two-story tower about 100' north of them: </div>
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<i>"X" marks the balrog!</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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The group decided to start some shit with the three balrogs surrounding the hellpit, so they approached through the ruined L-shaped banquet hall to the east, sneaked up as close as possible, and attacked!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
A vicious melee ensued, wherein Yor lost a thrown handaxe into the pit, Dak's follower Rodney was pulled into the pit (and presumably to his doom) by a dying balrog's whip, and, near the end of the battle, Innominus had Yor throw him at the last remaining flying balrog, whom the Wolverine-like cleric struck down with his mace. The group slew all three balrogs and ended the session standing at the edge of the fiery hellpit, gloating over their triumph and looting the balrogs to the tune of six <i>fire gems</i>.</div>
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<i>"We found a pit, a guy being whipped, and a gateway to hell . . . Farn Junction has really gone to shit!" </i></div>
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<i>--Dak the Younger</i></div>
Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-14662135045560826172011-04-14T08:45:00.007-04:002014-09-22T23:03:06.474-04:00L for Labyrinth Lord[Note: Any non-gamers tuning in to this series of posts are invited to consult my <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/april-z-blogging-challenge-new-reader.html">New Reader Introduction</a> for some RPG-specific definitions and a general introduction to the Lands of Ara blog.]<br />
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<br />
<i>Labyrinth Lord</i> (written by Daniel Proctor) is a Retro-Clone of the Basic and Expert D&D rules (edited by Tom Moldvay and Dave Cook) released in 1981. The basic <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> rulebook, first published in 2007 and revised in 2009, compiles all the rules contained in the D&D Basic and Expert rulebooks -- hence it is a "B/X emulator" of sorts. As Cyclopeatron's <a href="http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2011/03/defining-six-generations-of-d-players.html">"D&D Generations" list</a> reveals, B/X was the highest-selling and most popular version of D&D ever released, so it is no wonder that many old-school D&D players, many of whom are of the "second generation" of D&D players who grew up with B/X and/or Holmes, favor <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> as our preferred retro-clone system now. <br />
<br />
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However, Dan Proctor of <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/">Goblinoid Games</a> has been far from content to rest upon his laurels. He has quite actively expanded the <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> / Goblinoid Games product line to include the <i>Advanced Edition Companion </i>(AEC), the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired <i>Realms of Crawling Chaos</i> (ROCC, co-authored with Michael Curtis), and LL-compatible games such as <i>Mutant Future</i> (co-authored with Ryan Denison) and the forthcoming <i>Starships & Spacemen</i>. Given how wisely Proctor has expanded the <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> gaming line, even to include the forthcoming <i>Delving Deeper RPG</i> by <a href="http://bravehalfling.com/">Brave Halfling Publishing</a>, he may be justified in <a href="http://uhluhtcawakens.blogspot.com/2011/02/you-wanted-rosetta-clone.html">claiming</a> that Goblinoid Games has provided the OSR with a so-called "Rosetta Clone."<br />
<br />
I have been playing Goblinoid Games' products since late 2009. It was Goblinoid's <i>Mutant Future</i> (an old-school game based loosely upon an old post-apocalyptic TSR game called <i>Gamma World</i>) that provided my introduction to the Old-School Renaissance: <a href="http://mutagenicsubstance.blogspot.com/">my friend Carl</a> invited me to participate in his (still-ongoing) <i>MF</i> campaign back in fall 2009. Indeed, it was Carl who turned me on to the existence of the OSR and to <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> in particular, in essence setting my current campaign and this blog in motion. I am forever indebted to Carl for exposing me to this stuff. <br />
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Another reason (I think) for the success of <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> and Goblinoid Games (besides the terrific array of available products) is that Dan Proctor has supported not just the product line but the community who plays it. There are <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/forums/index.php">forums</a> for players of Goblinoid Games products, the <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/llsociety.html">Labyrinth Lord Society</a> (of which I am a proud member), and a "Demo Team" program whereby regional Labyrinth Lords like myself can set up games in local game stores in order to promote <i>LL</i> and old-school gaming in general. As old-school gaming guru James Maliszewski said in a recent <a href="http://grindingtovalhalla.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/one-shot-an-interview-with-james-maliszewski/">online interview</a>,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I remain convinced that the best way to get into roleplaying is to be introduced to it by someone who already plays it. [. . .] I think what we need are more gamers who are willing to share their hobby with interested newcomers. [. . .] Rulebooks and intro sets and websites can only get you so far; what’s really needed is face-to-face interaction with people actively involved in the hobby.</blockquote>
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, and I hereby pledge that sometime this fall, I will become an official <b>Labyrinth Lord Demo Team</b> member and begin running regular <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> games in a local game store, for the purpose of introducing newcomers to the joys of old-school gaming, just as Carl introduced me back in '09.<br />
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Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-70772652843049760302011-02-27T12:36:00.001-05:002014-09-22T17:42:36.927-04:00Arandish Campaign House Rules 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQDxXxYRRH03Z6uapU2ztxg6MjJcrhbUDHF7J69xyXkVbI9rN2XTWzYUYOenFZAQSwxm1MfRGhxx_vnucPszOJZXNKnjLo1-78-bANtVEnsPvdkjOhAYsFRGGZmcWgLQS53Bv9T92srZc/s1600-h/DMG_dice+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQDxXxYRRH03Z6uapU2ztxg6MjJcrhbUDHF7J69xyXkVbI9rN2XTWzYUYOenFZAQSwxm1MfRGhxx_vnucPszOJZXNKnjLo1-78-bANtVEnsPvdkjOhAYsFRGGZmcWgLQS53Bv9T92srZc/s200/DMG_dice+copy.jpg" height="32" width="200" /></a></div>
I wholeheartedly agree with James Maliszewski's <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/02/house-rules.html">reflection</a> that despite what we DM's may invent or tinker around with in our own time, House Rules are really best developed in the course of game play. Since the last revision of the <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-spirit-of-everything-old-is-new.html">Arandish Campaign House Rules</a> in November 2010, I have looked back over those rules to weed out the ones we have literally never used at the table, and to generally bring those rules closer into line with what we've been doing <i>in the actual game.</i> I already posted about the <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/01/amended-house-rule-alignment.html">simplification of our alignment system</a>; what follows is an overhaul / revision of the entire list of Arandish Campaign House Rules. (<b>Note:</b> Newest and most dramatic changes: "Generating Attributes" and "Initiative.") <br />
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<u><b>Arandish Campaign House Rules 2011</b></u></div>
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<b>Generating Attributes</b></div>
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Attribute scores are generated by rolling 4d6, discarding the lowest die roll, and assigning the result to each attribute <b>in order</b>: STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, and CHA. [<b>Note</b>: The prior system, wherein the player orders the rolls in any way s/he chooses, is now reserved for first-time players only, i.e., players entering the campaign with their very first character. All subsequent characters after the first will be rolled up using the new <b>4d6 in order</b> rule.] </div>
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<b>Alignment</b></div>
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As I have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/01/amended-house-rule-alignment.html">recently discussed</a>, the Arandish Campaign actually uses the three-point <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> default alignment system (see <i>LL</i> p.14), consisting of <i>Lawful, Neutral,</i> and <i>Chaotic</i>. </div>
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<i>Chaotic</i>: Inimical to civilization and social organization. Incapable of following orders and unlikely to put the needs of others (especially groups / nations) ahead of their own. Chaotic is the alignment of demons, Faerie, many mages, and all serial killers.<br />
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<i>Lawful</i>: The philosophical stance that civilization, regardless of how it is organized, is preferable to other alternatives. Will always privilege group processes and consensual decision making over rogue action. Lawful is the alignment of unicorns, devils, army personnel, most clerics, and all social workers.<br />
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<i>Neutral</i>: Neither fully committed to Law nor to Chaos; pragmatic. Many inflections are possible here: the Neutral character may be apathetic, invested in balance, leaning toward lawfulness, leaning toward chaos, or none of the above. <br />
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Neutral characters with lawful tendencies work well in groups, and will typically follow the orders of Lawful characters or characters whose ideas seem reasonably certain to benefit the group. Neutral characters who prefer Chaos have very little discipline, and only trust their own authority. They can work cooperatively but often undermine outside authority and resist falling in line with group decisions too easily. <br />
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Neutral is the alignment of the vast majority of dungeon delvers and adventurers. <br />
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<b>Critical Hits and Fumbles</b></div>
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Any time a player rolls a natural ‘20’ on a to hit roll, it is a critical hit. Damage is doubled.</div>
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Likewise, if a player rolls a natural ‘1’ on a to hit roll, it is considered a critical failure or fumble. Typically, this means the combatant hurts himself, drops his weapon, breaks his weapon, or just plain falls down – Labyrinth Lord's discretion.</div>
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<b>Encumbrance</b> </div>
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The optional encumbrance system in the <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> rulebook (p. 44) will be ignored; if how much a character is carrying becomes an issue, it will be dealt with intuitively.</div>
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<b>Initiative</b></div>
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Except in special circumstances, NO individual initiative is rolled (see <i>LL</i> p. 52), just initiative for each group, 1d6 rolled once per round as per <i>LL</i> p. 50. [Changed at outset of Session 29, 2/21/11.] </div>
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<b>Item Saving Throws</b></div>
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YES, see <i>LL</i> p. 55. [Note: we haven't used these yet.]</div>
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<b>Ability Checks</b></div>
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YES, see <i>LL</i> p. 55. [Note: we have, for the most part, been using simple d6 checks instead of d20 Ability checks thus far.]</div>
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<b>Morale</b></div>
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YES, see <i>LL</i> p. 56. </div>
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<b>Multiple Chances to Detect Secret Doors</b></div>
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As James Raggi IV <a href="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2009/11/gg-pdfs-ok-secret-doors-sanity.html">has written</a>:</div>
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<i>Apparently the Moldvay Basic and Labyrinth Lord state that a character gets only one try to find a secret door, and if that fails, pffft, tough shit! I have never played like that, and as I said was never aware that such a rule existed.<br />
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Doublechecking yesterday morning to make sure I haven't been playing wrong for a quarter of a century, I did confirm that OD&D, Holmes Basic, Mentzer Basic, AD&D, OSRIC, and Swords & Wizardry do <b>not</b> have this "one try only" language in the rules for secret doors.<br />
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I'm truly flabbergasted that a game that so features exploration as a primary activity would have such a limitation. To me, secret doors are time sinks, and if a party wants to take the time to make an extra check (or five) at the cost of a turn each, running down their light sources and risking wandering monsters, that's great!</i></div>
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I agree with Mr. Raggi and hereby waive the "one try only" rule as printed in <i>LL</i>.</div>
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<b>Shields Shall Be Splintered! </b></div>
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This brilliant set of concepts originates with <a href="http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2008/05/shields-shall-be-splintered.html">Trollsmyth</a>, but I like <a href="http://shirosrpg.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-i-spent-my-thanksgiving.html">this nice encapsulation</a> by David Larkins at The RPG Corner, from whom I horked many of my own best house rules. Here's the rule:</div>
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<i>Shields provide the usual +1 bonus to AC. However, they may also be used to "soak" damage from a single attack, thereby reducing damage to zero. Soaking damage destroys the shield.</i></div>
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<i>Shields may also be used against any attack that allows a save for half damage, such as a fireball or dragon's breath. In that case, the shield is destroyed, as above, and the save is considered automatically successful, thereby guaranteeing half damage.</i></div>
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<i>For magical shields, each +1 enchantment bonus gives a 10% chance of surviving a damage soak.</i></div>
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<b>The D30 Rule</b></div>
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Once per session each player may opt to roll the referee’s d30 in lieu of whatever die or dice the situation normally calls for. The choice to roll the d30 must be made before any actual rolling has occurred. The d30 <i>cannot</i> be rolled for generating character statistics or hit points. [Thanks to Jeff Rients.]</div>
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<b>Awarding Experience Points</b></div>
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Experience points are gained from two sources, treasure and monsters. Characters only gain XP from treasure of a non-magical nature, at a rate of 1 XP per 1 gp value of the item. As <a href="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2009/12/experience-what-to-award-it-for.html">James Raggi has discussed</a>, this only counts treasure/money <i>gained during adventuring</i>, NOT from opening a profitable inn or becoming a ruler and taxing one's subjects. All defeated monsters (either outsmarted or killed), grant XP based on how powerful they are (see <i>LL</i> p. 49).<br />
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<b>House Rules available as pdf <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?a3tsb14qtbi7787">here</a>. </b><br />
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See also <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-house-rule-entourage-approach.html">this post</a> about the <b>Arandish Entourage Approach to Retainers</b>. </div>
Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-13958001345666307532014-09-21T16:53:00.000-04:002014-09-22T14:18:56.039-04:00Lift Bridge Game Updates<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghm1q5nBiaDN84VsJ8NjjHdihN593CFT8jNnwXDWK2_emyFPLm-Cb7UmBD-VmWMLdgDvbpziMnA2GYGPP2mlMvvdOfi7LRxP-Mek3d-XVnyiRv0_Xek-_zJ5ALNBjVAF9ESXnD3WbS4cU/s320/noname.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghm1q5nBiaDN84VsJ8NjjHdihN593CFT8jNnwXDWK2_emyFPLm-Cb7UmBD-VmWMLdgDvbpziMnA2GYGPP2mlMvvdOfi7LRxP-Mek3d-XVnyiRv0_Xek-_zJ5ALNBjVAF9ESXnD3WbS4cU/s320/noname.jpg" height="318" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>While most of the players have turned over since this picture was taken in Nov. 2012, this accurately depicts the space in which we play Labyrinth Lord at Lift Bridge Books in Brockport, NY. </i></div>
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Much as I <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2014/03/an-osr-victory.html">reported</a> last March, I have been away from blogging (and may remain so) for awhile but am very busy gaming! Today I want to post a couple updates about my <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/09/lift-bridge-game-updates.html">open-to-the-public <i>Labyrinth Lord</i> game</a> that meets twice a month at <a href="http://www.liftbridgebooks.com/">Lift Bridge Book Shop</a>.<br />
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<i>Repurposing Classic Modules</i><br />
The Lift Bridge-based group has been adventuring in central and eastern Ara, having found a dwarven artifact weapon called <b>Whelm</b> in the treasure horde of a green dragon they slew a few days east of Kaladar. A few sessions ago, that magical dwarven warhammer communicated to one of the party members -- an elven thief named Rux Joopy -- and offered him a chance to become dwarven champion and hero. Rux accepted, and instantly transmogrified into a dwarf. The party then marched north to <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/02/gannar-dwarven-stronghold-of-north.html">Gannar</a> and received the blessing of King Robert V, who charged them to seek out another missing dwarven artifact, the sword Skeenkarbulo, rumored to be held by the vile fire giant king Snurre in the heart of the mountains.<br />
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As those in the know will have deciphered by now, I have been having a grand old time using some classic TSR adventure modules as the basis for this group's recent exploits. I am not slavishly following all the directives in these modules -- turning the resting place of Whelm into a dragon's horde rather than (primarily) the haunt of a crazy wizard, for example -- but rather modifying them to fit our own ongoing pursuits. Fun!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3LV6Fc3Nph2FWiwkjbLTBi7wiCLFbjxWZ62Sz9wHDl2SS7IguybGDwnZ9tP90wNxeV-2MNP10Mw6aRraWi9gBbPWu3lBhA8TgZzoe2MQoQyXTUjDn1rmO9l_b9p81TL5HgexPTJe5b0Q/s1600/G1-2-3_HillGiant.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3LV6Fc3Nph2FWiwkjbLTBi7wiCLFbjxWZ62Sz9wHDl2SS7IguybGDwnZ9tP90wNxeV-2MNP10Mw6aRraWi9gBbPWu3lBhA8TgZzoe2MQoQyXTUjDn1rmO9l_b9p81TL5HgexPTJe5b0Q/s1600/G1-2-3_HillGiant.PNG" height="400" width="201" /></a></div>
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<i>They've been fighting a lot of these . . . </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MS-STa2pAw664CWi08xhrwJgm0BRifIEcmYkDeclowO3YFGTY-iFxVy3lL6uItYrRvlraZIC33WbI-vL7ZY_rA1B18zpxGmF2P_KljciYVRzT-ARfp6gl8wgl1eMkXAk9l6NM4tgAOE/s1600/MM_OgreMage.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MS-STa2pAw664CWi08xhrwJgm0BRifIEcmYkDeclowO3YFGTY-iFxVy3lL6uItYrRvlraZIC33WbI-vL7ZY_rA1B18zpxGmF2P_KljciYVRzT-ARfp6gl8wgl1eMkXAk9l6NM4tgAOE/s1600/MM_OgreMage.PNG" height="400" width="313" /></a></div>
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<i>. . . and today they fought one of these . . . </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBMPG5l_j8FxkVfcAW1oTwSfHeFUDWgzlqG8znLcfXnIgdAhoGAL3BYfgJHu7ww3mU6_PWL5Wk-PFulXy6z7joJ-fTh0XBEGAkq2tk1J_G04cs9a9gnSZZCaqsVM_K3ZIp5KGeulIGj5I/s1600/MM_CarrionCrawler.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBMPG5l_j8FxkVfcAW1oTwSfHeFUDWgzlqG8znLcfXnIgdAhoGAL3BYfgJHu7ww3mU6_PWL5Wk-PFulXy6z7joJ-fTh0XBEGAkq2tk1J_G04cs9a9gnSZZCaqsVM_K3ZIp5KGeulIGj5I/s1600/MM_CarrionCrawler.PNG" height="400" width="255" /></a></div>
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<i>. . . and saw a couple of these things mating!</i></div>
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<i>Starting New PCs</i></div>
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When PCs die, or when new players join the group, I have been starting off the new characters that replace them at a higher level than 1st, since the bulk of the party is now up at 5th and 6th level on average (Voltage the Druid, the longest-lived and most powerful character in the party, hit 7th level at the end of last session). The rough guideline I used is:</div>
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<u><b>Average Party Level Starting XP</b></u></div>
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4th - 5th 4,400</div>
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5th - 6th 10,001</div>
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Not much else to report, just that we're having lots of fun.</div>
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<b>UPDATE 9/22/14:</b> Glancing over <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/arandish-campaign-house-rules-2011.html">an old set of House Rules</a> from my "home" campaign, I was reminded today that the Lift Bridge Campaign adopted a new ongoing ruling yesterday: During chargen, attribute scores are generated by rolling 4d6, discarding the lowest die roll, and assigning the result to each attribute in order: STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, and CHA. </div>
Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-21097136099403069262011-03-13T09:31:00.000-04:002014-09-22T13:53:09.428-04:00Alignment Languages Part 2: What To Do NextBefore digging into this, I recommend that you take a look at <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/alignment-languages-part-1-what-came.html">my previous post</a> about why I am adding alignment languages to my group's Labyrinth Lord game, paying particular attention to the Moldvay and Gygax quotes about how alignment languages were intended to be used in B/X and AD&D.<br />
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Both the DMG and Moldvay passages imply that alignment languages are a kind of verbal and/or gestural shorthand, not really full-blown languages like racial tongues or common. I like that idea. In fact, I hereby posit that alignment languages are the fragmentary remnants of either (a) older, now-mostly-dead languages from ancient Arandish times (for Lawful and Neutral) or (b) tongues used on other planes of existence (Chaotic).<br />
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Before delineating my tentative plan for how this will work in the Lands of Ara, I first want to acknowledge (and quote from) some online resources that helped me hone my thinking on this subject.<br />
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First would be this <a href="http://robertsongames.com/dnd/alignment-and-languages-for-dnd">concise but crucial post</a> by Stuart Marshall over on the Robertson Games website, which puts forth the following rich proposition:<br />
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What I settled on was a language that was generally associated with each of the 3 alignments, but that could be learned by other characters if they so desired. However, starting characters were limited to learning the “alignment language” corresponding to their own alignment at the beginning of the game – unless their class provided them additional language options. . .<br />
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<i>Ancient</i> </blockquote>
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Lawful characters may choose to learn Ancient as a bonus language (if they have one available). Much like Latin, this is a dead language that is primarily found in ancient texts and used by clerics. </blockquote>
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<i>Thieves Cant</i> </blockquote>
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Neutral characters are more likely to associate with outlaws, thieves and criminals. They may choose to learn Thieves Cant as a bonus language. While not used in regular day-to-day life for honest citizens, it can be heard in back alleys and seedier taverns. </blockquote>
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<i>Black Tongue</i> </blockquote>
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A vile, guttural language that most people would not dare to speak. It is said that merely saying a few words in this dark language attracts the attention of demonic ears. Orcs, cultists, and dark wizards are known to speak this dread language.</blockquote>
Very nice! This solves the problem of tying each alignment language to some game-world organization or group, and bestowing upon alignment languages a sense of history. I also tend to favor Stuart's interpretation that alignment languages should be obtainable by other, differently aligned characters, though maybe it should be difficult to find anyone who would teach a given alignment language to an outsider. <br />
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Next are some insightful comments from <a href="http://jovialpriest.blogspot.com/2010/11/unaligned-new-alignment-choice.html">an interesting post on unaligned characters</a> by The Jovial Priest. Now, much as I admire his concept here, I do not plan on adopting it whole cloth. No, I want to keep to the standard <i>Labyrinth Lord</i>-B/X three-part alignment system, and I think Neutral can more or less stand in for The JP's "Unaligned" category for my purposes. So allow me to quote from that post while substituting my own amendments in brackets: <br />
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"Most sentient beings are [Neutral]. That is, they have not committed themselves to the Cosmic Battle between Law and Chaos. They may have an opinion as to which they prefer and even work toward one end, but they haven’t aligned themselves wholeheartedly. [Neutral beings] are like most of us. We do good most of the time, are fairly selfish some of the time and occasionally we do evil. These are choices we make day to day. Were there to be a god of Law or demons of Chaos, most of us would side with Law but would generally prefer not to die for the cause.<br />
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"[Lawfully or Chaotically] aligned characters are different. They actively choose to side with Law or Chaos. [. . .] <i>Those [Lawfully or Chaotically] Aligned must actively seek as one of the primary purposes of their life to advance the cause they are aligned to.</i>" [emphasis added]<br />
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Yes! What this tells me is that the Neutral alignment language should be derived from a group and/or set of historical circumstances that has no direct investment in the ancient struggle between Law and Chaos. Stuart's proposed "Thieves Cant" could fit that bill, though I might want to make that just one possible option amongst a few. If indeed the vast majority of living beings are neutral, does it really make sense that ALL those beings would know Thieves Cant? Shouldn't Thieves Cant be limited to Thieves, Assassins, and their fences, contacts, and clients?<br />
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Another useful part of The Jovial Priest's post is the bit about the <i>Know Alignment</i> spell: <br />
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"How can Chaos infiltrate civilisation if Know Alignment is so easily cast? I intend to adopt 2nd edition AD&D, which I have never played, reverse version of the spell which allows the caster to hide alignment for 24 hours. I would also make Chaos have many magical items, a small broach or ring perhaps, that have this identical effect."<br />
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I like that a lot. It seems to me that the moment one accepts the full implications of alignment languages -- i.e., that there is a very real Cosmic Battle between Law and Chaos raging in the game-world -- then such alignment-cloaking measures indeed become a logical necessity. <br />
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So what position will alignment languages occupy in Ara? My initial proposal, to be tested during forthcoming game play, is this:<br />
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<b>To Begin With</b>: All three alignment languages are in fact ancient (for Lawful and Neutral) or extraplanar (for Chaotic) languages of which only small fragments remain in circulation. <br />
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Specifically:<br />
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(1) <b>Lawful</b> is derived from <b>Old Noffellian</b>, the ancient language of the first Arandish humans. (This is pretty much a rip-off of Stuart's "Ancient" concept.) <br />
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(2) <b>Neutral</b> is derived from <b>Old Mizarian</b>, the ancient language of the southeastern (Mizarian) strain of humanity.* Present-day Mizarian is one derivative of Old Mizarian, as is the Neutral alignment language. <br />
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The Aldorians (elves) also developed their own Neutral language, <b>Aldorian</b> (or Fey), in the ancient days -- the key difference being that Aldorian Neutral is actually a living language because the Aldorian Fey still speak it. Virtually no one except the Aldorians themselves would have access to this language, so when any other Arandish racial type speaks Neutral, they are speaking the Old Mizarian version.<br />
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(3) <b>Chaotic</b> is a simplified version of <b>Demonic</b>, i.e., the language spoken by Demons from the Plane of Chaos. Most likely this alignment tongue reached Ara via the activities of the early Summoners, who brought the first Demons into contact with the Arandish dimension. <br />
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Sorting out my thoughts on this issue has inspired even more ideas about how Arandish racial and magical languages might relate to each other, but I think I've said enough for now. I need to let this Alignment Language system get some road-testing in play before I start creating elaborate Arandish Language trees and the like. <br />
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Okay, okay, I can't resist giving out one last tidbit before I lay this subject (temporarily) to rest: on Ara, the oldest extant language, the one that predates ALL of the aforementioned ancient sources for the three major alignment languages, is the language of Dragons. <br />
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*Thanks to Carl for giving me this idea.Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-80681996446592055772009-09-26T18:37:00.001-04:002014-09-21T23:39:58.632-04:00Auto-Ethnography of a RPG'erI have been a role-playing gamer since 1981 or ‘82 when I got my first "Dungeons and Dragons" boxed set as a fifth grader. That was the very popular 1977 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Basic_Set"><i>Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set</i></a> with the blue tinted cover depicting a magic-user and a fighter confronting a red dragon—I had one of the later (post-1979) printings that included module <i>B2: The Keep on the Borderlands</i>. As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Basic_Set">wikipedia.org</a> says of that <i>Basic D&D</i> rules set, it “focused on only the first three levels of play, and was intended as a bridge between the original D&D and the AD&D rules rather than a simple introductory version of the game. Although this Basic Set was not compatible with AD&D, players were expected to continue play beyond third level by moving to the AD&D version, [. . .] even though the basic game included many rules and concepts which contradicted comparable ones in the advanced game.” As this passage suggests, it would not be long before I would be exposed to <i>Advanced D&D</i>. <br />
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Indeed, after playing <i>Basic D&D</i> for six months or so, in the sixth grade I met friends who were already playing <i>AD&D</i>, so due to their influence and at the aforementioned urging of the <i>Basic D&D</i> rules manual itself, I began to play <i>AD&D</i> almost exclusively and bought my own copies of the three core hardcover rulebooks. Interestingly, that same sixth-grade year, a friend introduced me to <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/09/ken-st-andre-interview.html">Ken St. Andre</a>’s <i><a href="http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/tandt.htm">Tunnels and Trolls</a></i>: a few of us would reserve a conference room in our elementary school library and play <i>T&T</i> at lunch and recess. My interest in <i>T&T</i> did not last long – I was still pretty big into <i>AD&D</i> then – but <i>T&T</i>'s less-is-more, “rules-light” ethos (not to mention its sense of humor, something I enjoy a lot in my RPGs) would come back with dramatically increased appeal and impact for me within a few years.<br />
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Sometime around the time <i>AD&D 2e</i> came out in 1989, I realized there was no way I was going to keep up with the world of published <i>AD&D</i> products, not in a whole new edition anyway. I was still a high school / college kid with very little money, so buying a whole new set of hardcover rulebooks felt out of reach to me. Plus, I had no real interest in updating or changing the rules I was playing by. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I thought, and so my friends and I continued to play by the first-edition rules of <i>AD&D</i>, for awhile. . .<br />
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Throughout late high school and college, I started drifting away from <i>AD&D</i> altogether, instead playing other RPGs in different genres: <i>Traveller, Gamma World, Marvel Super Heroes, Paranoia</i>, and <i>Shadowrun</i>, to name a few. I also got pretty heavily into Steve Jackson’s <i>Car Wars</i> for a few years in there. Finally, unable to find a game that I wanted to stick with long-term, I co-designed a homegrown fantasy RPG called “Crimson Blades of Ara” (hereafter CBOA) with a friend, David Miller. Dave and I worked on CBOA starting in summer 1988, when we were on a camping trip together discussing all the things that disgruntled us about <i>AD&D</i> and other RPG rule systems currently on the market. We thought we could design our own game with a skill-based rule system and a well-thought-out campaign setting (called Ara) that would be much more fun for us to play with our friends than any game we could buy. So we designed CBOA and played it pretty much exclusively from about 1990 through 1998.<br />
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Then I stopped playing RPGs altogether from roughly 1998 until 2004, mainly because I moved around and led a nomadic lifestyle during those years that made it difficult to find a group with whom to play RPGs. After moving to Eugene, Oregon in 2002, I found and joined a group in 2004 that played <i>D&D 3.5e</i>. I have had some great times playing with that group, and it has been fun to return to my roots in D&D, but I admit that the 3.5e rules feel awfully cumbersome to me: for example, I still don’t really <i>grok</i> why there are both skills and feats in the game. I don’t say this because I require an explanation; it is more of a rhetorical statement meant to convey that at a certain core level I feel alienated by the WotC take on D&D, since it does not evoke or emulate the beloved TSR versions of <i>AD&D</i> and <i>Basic D&D</i> that I remember and love so well from the 80’s.<br />
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In fact, in light of recent events — i.e., my discovery of the “old-school” gaming community — it is clear to me that the answer had always been right there in front of me, provided by TSR in that 1977 boxed <i>Basic D&D</i> set: my flight from <i>AD&D</i>, and my participation in co-writing a homegrown rules system, were all inspired by a need to <i> escape</i> cumbersome rules, to instead play within a system that was “rules-light” and allowed for the most player-referee flexibility. Obviously, once <a href="http://mutagenicsubstance.blogspot.com/">my friend Carl</a> turned me on to <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/mutantfuture.html">Mutant Future</a> a few months ago, I realized that Old-School Gaming is for me! Now I will begin development of my own OD&D campaign using the <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Labyrinth Lord</a> rules. My campaign will take place in the setting my friend and I developed for our homegrown game: The Lands of Ara. I now commence the work of converting that campaign setting and its denizens into OD&D terms; this blog is where I will share the fruits of my labors!Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8038823840472916624.post-76907019040850234882013-01-14T14:11:00.002-05:002014-09-21T16:56:57.883-04:00Carter's Appendix N<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/">FRANK</a> LOVES TO MEET NEW NEIGHBORS!</i></div>
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<a href="http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2013/01/draft-of-my-appendix-n-with-notes.html">Inspired</a> by Cyclopeatron, my new Upstate New York NEIGHBOR, I now offer my own Appendix N, which is kind of a deeper rethinking and synthesizing of some ideas I originally posted <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-own-appendix-n-sort-of.html">here</a> and <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2009/10/pilfering-from-modules-and-elsewhere.html">here</a>:<br />
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<b>J.R.R. Tolkien, <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i></b><br />
As I have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2012/04/hobbits-balrogs-and-tolkien-purism.html">confessed before</a>, <i>The Hobbit</i> and the <i>LotR</i> trilogy collectively constitute one of the strongest influences on how I view heroic fantasy and how I referee D&D. The Lands of Ara setting gets its single largest dose of "creative DNA" from Tolkien's Middle Earth. Like many Fantasy RPG'ers, when I picture a hobgoblin, it is <i>The Hobbit</i>’s hobgoblins I see. All of the action around Smaug's Lair -- the thrush knocking, Bilbo's sneaking in, etc. -- is totally iconic for me. And <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i>'s Mines of Moria are pretty much the scariest and most inspiring fantasy adventure locale I've ever read about -- note that <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/session-35-farn-junction-happenings.html">Balrogs haunt my campaigns</a> to this day. Thus, while I have always had a bit of gonzo in me -- especially where robots, dinosaurs, and inter-dimensional travel are concerned -- and also run things in a <i>tonally</i> lighter and more comedic vein than Tolkien does, I am forced to admit that The Professor's sense of his <i>world</i>, and the sense of history embodied by the races and setting of Middle-Earth, have been extraordinarily potent influences upon me as a sandbox-constructor.
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<b>Roger Zelazny, <i>The Chronicles of Amber</i></b><br />
Although I read these books awhile after my first early forays into sci-fi and fantasy, <i>The Chronicles of Amber</i> have exerted the second-strongest long-term influence upon me after <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>. Corwin of Amber is probably my all-time favorite fictional protagonist, and the first-person point of view and the gonzo setting of the <i>Amber</i> books simply can't be beat. These books deeply influence how I see magic and multiple dimensions working and interacting -- in fact, certain legendary Lands of Ara NPCs like Morag the Arch-Summoner* exist largely because of how captivating I find the concept of the princes of Amber and Chaos sneaking between dimensions via manipulation of Shadow. It rocks! And Zelazny's imaginative integration of mythical and folkloric beasts into the whole setting is damn memorable too. Hmm, perhaps it's time for a re-read?<br />
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<b>Edgar Rice Burroughs, <i>A Princess of Mars </i>etc.</b><br />
I read ERB's Barsoom books early, like in seventh grade or so, and I really loved them a lot. The world of Barsoom was so evocative for me; I can still see John Carter leaping around on those weird landscapes. Via ERB, I got into the whole science-fantasy mashup genre pretty early, though my D&D / LL campaigns favor an at least superficially Tolkienesque feel and look to them. Yet I nearly always throw a crashed spaceship or some aliens or some inter-dimensional travelers somewhere into my FRPG campaigns, and it's because I have always loved that blending of fantasy and sci-fi found in the Barsoom books (and in Roger Zelazny’s <i>Chronicles of Amber</i>).
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<b>T.H. White, <i>The Once and Future King</i></b><br />
Merlin is my third favorite wizard after Tolkien's Gandalf and <i>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</i>'s Tim the Enchanter (see next entry). I enjoy Merlin a lot because he is often portrayed as quite Druid-y and pagan, as in <i>The Once and Future King </i>when he turns Arthur into lots of different animals (including an ant!). White's interpretation of the rise and fall of King Arthur is sufficiently epic but primarily human in scale; it is also very funny, as in the sequences involving King Pellinore. But what I like best about this novel, or consider most influential upon my gaming, is its conception of magic: Merlin, Morgan le Fay, and other arcane types in this book (and in the film <i>Excalibur</i>) show us that arcana is nature-based and way more powerful than any single individual's ability to control it. I like that. Magic should never be totally rational nor masterable, and I think I drew that idea largely from Tolkien and White.<br />
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<b><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/">Monty Python and the Holy Grail</a></i> (1975, dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones)</b><br />
Like it or not, I love humor in my RPG's. I love grotesque comedy in general, and have been particularly inspired by <i>The Holy Grail</i>'s Black Knight fight scene. I love the extreme volume and distance of the blood spurts once the Black Knight starts getting dismembered by King Arthur, and have long attempted to emulate that feel when announcing the combat results in my campaigns: blood and internal organs spurt intensely and far, and a surprisingly large number of blows land in the genitals. As one former player put it, my campaigns seem to take place in a “high-pressure world” where everybody’s blood and internal organs are under a lot of pressure, so as to shoot out really far once pierced in combat. I attribute this trend to <i>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</i>.<br />
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<b><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085811/">Krull</a> </i>(1983, dir. Peter Yates)
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Again, <i>Krull</i>'s mix of sci-fi and fantasy always worked well for me; this movie was a particular favorite of mine when I was a young lad. It's very D&D ish actually, with its rag-tag party embarking upon a perilous mission across many strange lands. Great stuff! And that magical glaive thingy was bad-ass.<br />
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And to conclude, here are a few things I've read lately that I hope will influence my game:<br />
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<b>H.P. Lovecraft, <i>The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories</i></b><br />
Please see <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/01/review-call-of-cthulhu-and-other-weird.html">my review</a> of this volume for more detailed comments, but in short, "HPL's command of written English is nothing short of dazzling. His prose manages to be just rich enough to paint a convincing picture of (creepy) set and (uncanny) setting without stepping over the line into overwrought "purple prose" a la many of Tolkien's descriptive passages or even our own beloved EGG. In short, I find HPL's language to be as evocative as Tolkien's but, at the same time, much more concise." <br />
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<b>Lord Dunsany, <i>The King of Elfland's Daughter</i></b><br />
I will defer to Cyclopeatron's description: "Style and language. Where fairy tales and dreams intersect. I want stars, moss, and woodsmoke at my table. Dunsany is peerless when it comes to fantasy imagery." Agreed!<br />
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<b>P.S. Vance, here I come!</b><br />
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* As is briefly mentioned <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2010/02/random-blog-post-topic-four-demons.html">here</a>, Morag the Arch-Summoner is a legendary Arandish wizard who has lived in total secrecy for the past hundred years. He may even be dead or residing permanently in another dimension for all anyone truly knows. Even before his disappearance from human society, Morag was thought to be quite insane. In more recent news, the party in my current Arandish Campaign have <a href="http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/06/session-36-wizards-cave-and-wandering.html">found and identified artifacts</a> seemingly related to Morag's cryptic activities. Carter Soleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01286436801953647693noreply@blogger.com3