Back in The DM's Seat Again

It's been a while but I finally have a regular RPG session again. Surprisingly, this one is with my own family.

With my daughters now 13 and 9 and still interested in gaming, and with a gamer wife it's too good an opportunity to pass up.

I have been trying to get such a game going for a while now, but with the end of summer, the beginning of school and life in general it's been hard to pin everyone down. In fact, it was so hectic a start, that I even hesitated to blog about it until I could see that it really was happening. In the end, I was finally able to get characters made and the game going.

My wife and youngest daughter both made dwarfs, Gerta and Halfa. My wife is playing a fighter and my 9yr old is playing a cleric. She wanted a spell-caster but I was afraid a magic-user would be a little too stand around for her to keep her interested. Clerics are bashy and have magic and so it was the obvious choice without the fiddly neutrality of Druids or the wait for it nature of Ranger or Paladin magic. Don't get me started on Bards.

My oldest wanted to play something different and asked if she could play a "kitty person". I took this as a challenge and created an exotic race of cat-folk that live on an island in the remnants of their once mighty civilization - the Shathra. I worked out a culture, back story and even dredged up some cool art online to illustrate them. I wrote them up from scratch, no re-skinning and ultimately....

They were kitty-people...

Such is the world of RPGs with teenage girls, I suppose. She made the character a fighter as well and so we set out with two fighters and a cleric, none of which are humans.

So far the sessions, of which there have been three, are going really well. We have integrated them as the climax of our regular "Screen-Free Sundays" as a reward for surviving all day without TVs, video games, or even computers. The girls have a knack for gaming which is mostly my oldest girl's doing as she has been running her own light weight D&D/Labyrinth Lord games for over a year now. For both of them, this is their first time playing in a "serious" campaign.

They are still in the middle of the first adventure but have already had a few surprising role-plays and some good ideas come out of it. I have even had to edit the original adventure concept to go along with a few good ideas, the girls had, that I felt deserved capitalizing on. This has lengthened the adventure beyond where I had originally written it but will also allow them to gather some more X.P. before adventure number two.

-Eli

"O" is for...

Old School RPGs

Yes, the old school thing again. I love them. 3.5 and Pathfinder and newer RPGs are cool and all and i do enjoy them, bust sometimes I just want to throw something together and play and the old school games are less bogged down in the sub-systems and heavy rules that make that difficult with the newer systems. For me, the old school thing isn't just about playing the old versions and their retro clones. It's also about playing new games with old school sensibilities.

These are games that have been built from scratch or partially from scratch but that maintain the basic tenants of the old school RPGs. They are not as heavy on specific details and systems as the new games allowing the detail to come out in the unfettered playability that their compact and elegant rules allow for. You may not find massive lists of skills and modifiers, but are they needed for the style of play you are going for?

Take, for example, Barbarians of Lemuria. This is Simon Washborne's imaginative brain child that combines elements of Conan, Tekumel, John Carter, and other staples of pulp fantasy and science fiction. The system is very smooth and intuitive, allowing the players and the GM to do much of the leg work within the most subtle of guidance from the rules. At it's core, you character has careers. If he encounters a situation that would draw from his skills, knowledge and/or experience in one of these careers, he gets a bonus or at least the ability to make a skilled check. That's it. No laborious catalogs of skills to pour over just do it. BOL is but one example, but still others exist.

While i have not purchased or played all the newer, old school style systems out there, I do have some of and I find that there is pretty much a game for anyone out there. Whether it is X-plorers, Rogue Space, or Stars Without Number, if you are looking for science fiction role-play you will find it. If it's a pulpy romp, try Dicey Tails, the pulp rewrite of Barbarians of Lemuria, a system that works well for the loose and cinematic conventions of the Pulp genre. I wish I could name  more, but I only have so much time and money to spend on exploring systems.

One last system worth mentioning is a favorite of mine that is still alive and well. It faded from mainstream but never went away and continued to be developed by the creators. I speak of the West End D6 System. Revived as a trio of core systems all using the same rules framework, D6 Adventure, D6 Fantasy, and D6 Space really offer you just about anything you could wish for and FOR FREE. Not only are three core genres well represented in these tittles but each is completely cross compatible on a cellular level with one another. What's more, the system has been made open source and so there are numerous third party publications tapping into the system covering a number of different topics, even super heroes.

Boxed Set Bliss

My good buddy, Iken managed to score yet another awesome boxed set for me. This time it was the FASA Star Trek RPG deluxe set. All the books were in perfect condition though it was missing the Tactical Simulator rules. It still had unpunched, full color counters for the Simulator and the hex mat. There was a bonus inside and that was the "Next Generation Year One Sourcebook". A nice find indeed, though I would like to track down the big purple Next Generation book they did.

So nice to have the boxed set to go with the bits and pieces I already had.

-Eli

Keep it Under Wraps - D30 Mummies

Mummies. Classically depicted as foot dragging, dry-throated mutes with a grudge against the living, these creatures have undergone some very interesting changed in the last couple of decades. Where as a quick step and a sharp eyes would have been enough to escape the mummy of the past, today's mummy is fast, dynamic and often not just a guy in bandages with a serious mobility impairment. In movies and TV, the mummy has become a force to be reckoned with. Possessed of immense power of magic, items of power or even innate natural abilities, the modern mummy sometimes bears little resemblance to his silver screen ancestors.

As a solute to this new breed of mummy, I thought it would be fun to do a D30 chart for it. This chart is designed to provide various abilities and modifiers that can be overlayed onto the classic mummy write-up found in most D&D and similar systems from the OSR era.

1. Bestial. The mummy possesses physical characteristics of some sort of animal giving it appropriate natural attacks for that type of animal.
2. Humanoid. The mummy is not human or demi-human but some form of humanoid (orc, bugbear, goblin).
3. Giant. This mummy was created from some sort of giant humanoid and had physical modifiers and abilities consistent with that sort of creature. Regardless of special abilities, all giant mummies are +3 damage to all physical attacks.
4. Multi-limbed. Possessing an additional set of limbs, this mummy gains +1 attack.
5. Tauric. The lower body of this mummy is that of some sort of animal giving it appropriate abilities and movement for that that animal (burrowing, flying, swimming) as well as +1 attack.
6. Internal swarm. Nestled within the body of the mummy is a swarm of insects, arachnids, worms or other vermin. These creatures can be controlled by the mummy over great distances, functioning as spies and messengers as well as being used to attack opponents.
7. Built-in weapons. Those who made the mummy intended it as a guardian and as such bestowed upon it weapons made part of its body. All attacks made by the mummy now count as weapon attacks doing damage appropriate for the type of weapon.
8. Independent body parts. This mummy can detach its body parts and still use them.
9. Shapechanger. The mummy has the ability to change its shape at will as per the polymorph self spell.
10. Warrior. The mummy was a warrior in life and counts as a fighter of a level equal to his hit dice.
11. Wizard. The mummy is possessed of arcane skills giving him magic-user levels equal to his hit dice.
12. Demonic/Diabolic. The mummy's body is also a prison for a creature from the lower planes. In addition to the mummy's normal powers, it also possesses the powers and spell-like abilities of the demonic/diabolic creature trapped within.
13. Visage of vitality. Despite being a mummified corpse, the mummy has the appearance of life. This appearance is only skin deep however and wounds inflicted upon the mummy will reveal it's true nature.
14. Hypnotic effect. Something about the mummy has a hypnotic effect. Whether it is its gaze, voice, perhaps the sparkle of a jewel in its attire it can mesmerize those it comes in close contact with.
15. Animal control. The mummy has the natural ability to control the animals found in its environment.
16. Weather control. The power of the elements is are at the command of the mummy. Wind, rain, freezing cold, roasting heat, etc all may be summoned up in the home region of the mummy.
17. Life drain. This mummy possesses the same life level drain ability as a Wight.
18. Shadow walk. The mummy may move between any two shadows as if using a dimension door spell.
19. Mirror walk. The mummy may use mirrors and reflective surfaces to travel as if using a dimension door spell.
20. Dust form. The mummy can change to dust and fly through the air at will.
21. Arcane prison. The mummy's powers come from a supernatural being trapped within it. When the mummy is destroyed, the being is released.
22. Slime or fungus infested. In addition to the mummy's usual abilities, it's physical form has also become home to some form of slime, jelly, ooze, or other form of dungeon fungus.
23. Soul devourer. The mummy has the ability to pull the very soul from another being, trapping it within itself. This power works similar to a magic jar spell but the victim has no control over the fate of their soul. Destroying the mummy frees any trapped souls.
24. Elemental. The mummy possess natural control over a particular element with spell-like abilities to match.
25. Tomb control. The very walls and passages that entomb the mummy are at its command. The mummy may freely manipulate the structure that confines it, shifting passages, opening and closing doors, etc..
26. Regeneration. The curse that binds the mummy is so powerful that it will not even allow the physical form to be destroyed. The mummy heals 1d6 hit points of damage every round.
27. Toxic breath. The mummy may belch forth a cloud of poisonous gases that are lethal to the living.
28. Warded mummification. Those who mummified the creature imbued its wrappings, body markings or other mummification treatments with spell wards and protections. 
29. Eldritch ally. The mummy is the thrall of some ancient, otherworldly, cthonic force and may manifest powers appropriate for that alien intelligence. 
30. God corpse. This mummy is no mere mummy. It is the entombed avatar of a god.

Favorite Monsters - Githyanki

We all have them and we all have them for various reasons. They are those monsters we love as either gamers in general or as GMs. They are our go-to monsters or the ones that make us think up fun scenarios or perhaps they are those creatures that fascinate us in ways that we cannot quite explain. The githyanki are something of the latter for me.

Ever since I saw them on the cover of the Fiend Folio, I have been enchanted by their evil, gaunt visages. They are powerful and they seem to have purpose beyond simply stocking a dungeon. They are evil and vengeful and wield powerful items that they very much wish to keep to themselves. Their kinship with red dragons adds even more mystique to these denizens of the Astral Plane and gives them potential for some serious punch. Their listing in the Fiend Folio gives them so much to work with, including their ongoing conflict with the githzerai, the other offshoot of the original gith race. The creators of the githyanki seem to have really built they and the githzerai with an intention for some very intricate gaming.

My interest in them grew even more when I read an adventure in Dragon #67, called Fedifensor, that I borrowed from an upper classman in grade school (I never got it back to him before one of us had moved away). In this adventure a magic sword, Fedifensor is being held in one of the githyanki astral fortresses. This adventure put the githyanki front and center as the party's main foes and battling them on their home turf.

The back story is that a high priest (Astramal) of the god Amphabese, had two prophetic dreams. In the first one, his temple was overrun and by a demonic horde. The second dream was of a paladin, wielding a mighty blade, defeating a singularly powerful demon.

FEDIFENSOR (quoted from a EN world forum post http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/82866-dungeon-dragon-story-fedifensor.html)

Distraught by these visions, he went to visit an enclave of gray elves. Convinced that his dreams were prophetic in nature, and that a horde of demons would be as bad for them as for the temple, the gray elves agreed to make a blade such as Astramal had seen in his dream.


It took years, but finally they delivered to him the blade Fedifensor. Astramal thanked them for their gift, and pledged that he would watch over the blade above his own life, and that only the most virtuous of hands would wield it.


It took months to determine who that would be, having to choose from among the paladins who came to their temple to renew their holy vows, but Astramal finally settled on Boyd de Thalion as the one to wield Fedifensor.


It seemed that no one was Boyd’s equal, until another paladin named Karl appeared. He might have also passed the tests to wield Fedifensor, save that the first test was to meet Boyd himself, upon which he immediately recognized Karl as a powerful demon in disguise. As in Astramal’s dream, they fought, and with the blade, Boyd was victorious.


Although the second dream had come to pass, Astramal’s fears about the first were not allayed in full. As such, the temple remained vigilant; rightly so. A horde of evil finally emerged from across the sea. Thousands of lesser demons succeeded where one powerful one had failed. The temple fell, and many powerful defenders, including Boyd de Thalion, died in its ultimately unsuccessful defense.


Taking the fallen champion’s blade, Astramal used a spell to send his spirit to the Astral Plane, taking Fedifensor with him. However, before he could do more, his material body was slain in a fire that had started in the temple during the battle, and the sword was lost there. A band of githyanki found it, and, determining that it was magical, took it back to their fortress on the Astral Plane, where it remains. (Until the adventurers who played this adventure recovered it, anyway.)


In the hands of a non-paladin of lawful good alignment, Fedifensor is a +2 bastard sword. It has an intelligence of 17, an ego of 18, and (of course) is aligned lawful good. It cannot be touched or carried by anyone of another alignment unless the blade is sheathed in its special scabbard.


In the hands of a paladin, Fedifensor is a +5 weapon and also exhibits these other abilities:


1) Magic resistance of 50% in a radius of 5 feet .


2) Dispel magic can be cast upon any spell cast on the sword or its wielder whenever the paladin desires, at a level of spell use equal to the experience level of the wielder.

3) At a range of 1”/level of the paladin, the sword can detect the presence of major evil entities [demons, devils, undead, or any evil creature that can only be hit by a magic weapon). If the blade is unsheathed, it will immediately begin to glow bright red, as if just drawn from a forge furnace.


4) It inflicts an additional point of damage (beyond the usual +5) for each experience level of the wielder when used against a demon.

I was only able to encounter the githyanki once as a player. This was during a pretty over-the-top era of D&D for me when characters got built up to impossible levels of power and did truly epic things. We were in late grade school/middle school when these were played and admittedly we were a bit out of control. Regardless, I recall fondly the last stand at the gates of a hidden thieves hold where my barbarian, Balor, faced off against a savage party of githyanki and their red dragon mounts bent on the recovery of one of their coveted silver swords. The sword had been taken by the other players in the game - two thieves of great infamy. They left my poor barbarian out to hang. Balor was missed but he died in battle as any good barbarian should.

Later game releases revisited the githyanki, but in variant forms, building even more complexity into their background. Dark Sun had a race of savage, degenerate gith while Spelljammer offered them up as a sort of cosmic race of corsairs in the form of the "Pirates of Gith". When Planescape was released, the githyanki were necessarily included. who better to menace adventurers travelling the planes than a race who's been there since the earliest days of AD&D. There were even stats given in one book or another for allowing you to play them as a PC race.

Throughout these products, the visual elements of the various races of gith played around with the original version. 2nd Edition D&D and Spelljammer left them mostly alone, preserving the style of the original Fiend Folio cover. Dark Sun's savage gith were bent and carapaced and obviously a sub-species of their own. It was Planescape, where the imagery of the talented Tony DiTerlizzi had a profound effect on the visual interpretation of many of D&D's existing denizens. Under tony, the githyanki became less monstrous and much more "human" in appearance. I am not sure what made this happen, but they were suddenly no longer the gaunt undead look-alikes.

The newest editions of D&D (3.5 and 4E) have brought that original look back to them. They maintained their original yellow skin-tone and the bejeweled adornments of the scant armor and the jagged edges of their wicked weapons. this pleases me very much. Newer issues of Dragon and Dungeon have even given them new life and new details including a series of articles that details how to run an extended githyanki incursion into your campaign world. In fact, the githyanki have spawned a number of articles and have wormed their way into many publications official and unofficial (See list at the end of the post).

In game terms the githyanki can be used across a number of levels. They have an entire hierarchy full of monsters with levels in a number of classes. In addition, their associations with other creatures and their talent for magic crafting. They are the sort of enemy that can plague you all through a campaign through direct action as well as their agents.

Love them or leave them, the githyanki are one of my top favorites from D&D if not the top favorite.

 

Quick and Dirty City Gazeteer Maps

As I am going into my second week with a nagging cold, I haven't had much energy or focus to sculpt or paint, never mind a lack of stability due to being worn out and coughing all the time. Because of this, I've been trying to do up a few bits and pieces for my Labyrinth Lord campaign which is supposed to be kicking back in gear following the holidays here. This has mostly entailed me going through various resources and printing out the bits I'd like to have at hand but I've also been cobbling together some play aids. It's amazing what you can do with a few maps pulled off the Internet and a little cut and paste.

The first few things I did were simple flash map style, gazetteer blurbs for different districts in the "home town" of our mostly sandbox campaign. A good, solid starting place with a little detail serves well to keep players grounded in the setting and also adds a bit of attachment as this place develops and grows. To make these maps, I just took three maps of blank city maps, gave them names and wrote a couple of paragraphs of flavor text on each. These were then printed out and put into the campaign notebook. I have left them blank for now and will number and detail as needed, keeping with the whole sandbox style of play.

So far I have done three -

High Ward - wealthy district.

Merchant's Quarter - center of trade and commerce.

Blackwytch Quarter - bad area of town.

They're nothing overly special, but I think they will prove to be a simple and effective tool for letting the players interact with the game world a bit more. This will be especially useful as none of my players are overly experienced gamers.

Fraggles

Fraggles as portrayed in the Jim Hensen series are small, whimsical creatures with a very gregarious nature. They are imaginative, tricky, curious and inventive. Fraggle culture has produced adventurers, explorers, painters, storytellers and artists.

Interpreting these diminutive creatures for D&D type games is a bit tricky. They are obviously not the evil and menacing humanoids that populate most dungeons, though I suppose they could be bent to work as such. Evil fraggles, aside, the obvious way to use them is as a demi-human race or perhaps NPC encounter throughout your campaign.

I see fraggles as a sort of faerie folk. Certainly Fraggle Rock shares many characteristics with faerie realms - small size, inter-dimensional connection with the human world. Throughout the series, fraggles are shown to have a bent for things mystical, including a natural talent for lucid dreaming as well as the ability to share their dreams with other fraggles.

Fraggles might certainly prove useful in campaigns as contacts and adventure hooks for an adventuring party. They are small and the exploratory ways gets them in all sorts of trouble stumbling on many things. Fraggles have even made dedicated efforts to explore the world outside of their rock so in the greater scope of a fantasy RPG world it is not absurd to entertain the possibility of small fraggle communities outside of Fraggle Rock.

Of course, a more wicked GM might choose to tweak fraggles and make them into a sort of dark version of Jim Hensen's creatures or perhaps just mimic the concept using an existing fantasy monster like kobolds or goblins. Certainly a dark Fraggle Rock with semi-mystical goblins would create something akin to another Jim Hensen project, "Labyrinth".

Fraggle

No. Enc.: 1d6 (4d10x10)
Alignment: Lawful (Good tendencies)
Movement: 120' (40')

Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 1d4 hp
Attacks: One weapon - usually thrown stones, walking sticks, frying pans or other mundane items.
Damage: By weapon - usually 1d4-1
Special Attacks: None
Save: F3
Morale: 6
Hoard Class: None, though fraggles do often accumulate an interesting item here and there in their adventures.

I've started another OSR game recently. This time I'm playing with my oldest daughter, her dad (she's a step-child, technically), and his girlfriend. Overall this is a group put together for her benefit with the adults being there to back her up.

Anyhow, the first adventure I ran them out on, I decided to go big and have fun with a serious dungeon crawl. I went with this map (shown right) that I found on A Character for Every Game. This is an amazing dungeon with a lot of interesting character and some complex twists and turns.

As of the end of the first sessions they had entered the dungeon through stairs at the middle of the lower part of the map and fought their way past the hobgoblins, goblins, and kobolds that were standing guard in that first cluster of rooms. They barricaded the well after hobgoblin reinforcements tried coming up it and had just headed westward where they encountered an ogre supported by a shaman.

We had to end there but we had a great time and using this wonderful map made my job as DM all the more entertaining.

Game on!

-Eli

Down at Fraggle Rock

Recently the HUB network, one of the newer "retro" programming networks hit the air and brought back one of my all time favorite childhood programs, Fraggle Rock.

I remember when this show first came out and being lucky enough to have HBO at the time (a pretty big deal in 1983). I have always been a Muppet maniac and this was right up there with the Muppet Show and the various Jim Hensen Christmas specials like Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (now available on DVD!). I quickly found myself caught up in the series and the adventures of little Fraggles in their ever more complexly fantastic world.

Once I started gaming, the series was still on and the appeal of the show to my budding gamer mind was not lost. Here we had a twisting, winding bunch of catacombs populated by a variety of creatures and perils. The Fraggles had secret orders, great halls, holy men, social pr4oblems and even a symbiotic relationship with other creatures. There were giants and oracles, kings and realms and a strange interdimensionality between the outside world on one side of the rock and the other. As much as these ideas might have bounced around, I never really did anything with it.

Until now...

As I am re-watching these episodes, I shall be taking notes on elements that are worthy of interpretation as gaming fodder. Rather than straight, silly homage pieces, I'll try to interpret these write-ups into something that can be used in people's games in a versatile and serious manner. Of course, I'll still include plenty of fun images from the original series when I can, though episode stills are hard to find in programs predating the explosion of Internet fandom. I'll likely be writing them up in either a Labyrinth Lord format as it is what I am using for fantasy RPG fun these days, but this should still make them useful to other OSR players as well as players of newer systems.

Stay tuned as I venture forth into the world of Fraggle Rock.

Thanks for reading,

-Eli

[Labyrinth Lord] Elwyren - PC Races

When thinking over the world of Elwyren, I very much wanted to depart from the traditional fantasy races. Part of this comes from a long-standing dissatisfaction with haflings and gnomes, but there was also a desire to make the world a bit more diverse and enchanting for my younger player. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone, making halflings and gnomes into anthropomorphic animals - mice and hedgehogs respectively.

As I was looking at the other races, I figured I might take a stab at half-orcs as well. I initially planned to re-theme them as classic fantasy barbarians, leaving them statistically the same but "re-skinning" them. As I developed the idea, I decided that rather than having them be just another race of near-humans - much the same issue I have with halflings - that I would change them into a race of their own.

The final change came about with considering the origins of humans in this world. Humans are not from this game world originally and do not dominate it in the same way that they do in other fantasy worlds. Instead they are descended from refugees from another fantasy world who passed through a magical veil between worlds. This gave me some room to perhaps expand the scope of humans' abilities.

Below are a few more specific notes on the concepts behind the races in Elwyren...

[Labyrinth Lord] Elwyren - A New Beginning

I have been asked to run another Labyrinth Lord game at home, but this time I will be including some of the extended family, i.e. my oldest daughter Anna's real dad (she's technically a stepchild) and his girlfriend, both of whom are old gamers from way back. This isn't as odd as it sounds as they come over to the house just about every weekend anyhow and Anna's dad and I are friends, pretty good ones in fact.

Anyhow, enough about my mixed up life.

Not one to take anything lightly, I have begun cobbling together a new setting to run this new campaign in. I've already run Anna through the basics and she's run them herself with her friends, so now it's time to amp it up a bit. We're not taking the dial to eleven just yet, but I thought that adding such things as separate race and class as well as a few tweaked rules wouldn't be a bad thing. I want her to see that RPGs are what you make of them and not let her develop a "rules are everything" attitude while she's still learning what gaming is about.

I started by putting together a quick, possibly overly detailed map...

The map depicts the central area from whence all adventure shall spring. It shows the human-settled lands of the southernmost part of the main land mass of a land called Elwyren. Here I have laid out several cities, towns, and villages. There are roads, forests, rivers, mountains, hills and even a swampy area. There is even a great chasm that creates a natural barrier in the north which is flanked by two man made walls that breech the gap between the chasm and the mountains that border it. All of this should frame out a nice starting place for adventures.

There are some other ideas in mind for the setting, but I'll go into these in a future post.

-Eli

[Editor's Note: I mistakenly put in the wrong world name for this setting. I have since corrected the post to bear the proper name of Elwyren.]

Uhul Adventure Seeds

What can I say, the Uhul really hit the spot for me. Well before I decided to make them the subject of my first sculpting attempts, I was already very much creating their background and personality with a little help from Will over at Green Skeleton Gaming Guild. These creatures are the sort of beasty that really creates adventures and as such, I thought I'd post a few adventure seeds stemming from the Uhul.

1. The Uhul have been hunting too much, eating everything that lives and leaving nothing for anyone else.
2. Travellers have been disappearing and it looks like the Uhul are the culprits.
3. Uhul have been raiding the village taking people away.
4. Uhul have been stealing livestock, leaving little for the villagers themselves.
5. An ancient item lost to the Uhul must be recovered.
6. An Uhul shaman has summoned up a horrible curse.
7. A person (PC or NPC) has fallen under the effects of one of the Uhul's bone fetishes.
8. The Uhul have pushed another humanoid race out of its regular territory.
9. The Uhul have flushed some dangerous beast out of its regular habitat.
10. An Uhul fledgling is found alone in the wilderness.

Of course how these seeds grow into full adventures is another matter. None of them need be follow verbatim and I'm sure there are other ideas that I have missed.

Enjoy,

-Eli

The Power of Who?The Power of Uhul

In the cold mist they call

Ooohoo

In the shadows they hunt

Ooohoo

With sharp beaks they kill

Ooohoo

Your skin they tear

Your flesh they share

Your bones they wear

Ooohoo ooohoo ooohoo

-Anagochik chant

Uhul

Statistics by Will Wood & Eli Arndt

No. Enc.: 1d6 (4d6)

Alignment: Neutral (Chaotic tendencies)

Movement: 120' (40)

Armor Class: 6

Hit Dice: 3

Attacks: claw/claw/bite or by weapon type

Damage: 1d3/1d3/1d4 or by weapon type

Special Attacks: If the Uhul successfully strikes with both claws in one round, the Uhul also squeezes their prey in a powerful hug that does an additional 1d8 points of damage. Uhul are quite strong and when they use weapons crafted by their own people (and thus designed for their clawed big hands) they do an additional +1 point of damage. In spite of their relatively large bulk Uhuls are quite stealthy and will surprise their opponents 50% of the time.

Save: F3
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: XXII

Hoo? Uhul...

The silent trees cast their skeletal shadows across the still, winter snows blanketing the forest floor. Clear sky and a nearly full moon allowed his eyes to see near as well as daylight, but the pallor of the land at this time of year and the confused crosshatch of shadows broke any shape into an unintelligible jumble. Arnkor, The Hunter tightened his grip on his spear and took his next few steps forward, followed by Nikapik and the dwarf Skafor.

The tracks and remains of their missing herd had led to this place but it was no place he or his fellows wished to be. At the sight of a tree, naked except for the tussle of trophies, scalps, bones and charms, Skafor let out a low whistle of amazement.

“Curse you, dwarf,” spat Arnkor. He knew of the creatures who called this place home and it was just such sounds he had been taught to listen for before they came.

Skafor grumble out a misty series of muttered curses and drew his oaken shield in close, the silver inlays sparkling in the moonlight.

Nikapik, a lanky youth and a member of Arnkor’s hunting band drew up close to his elder’s side and whispered, “This is their place.” His eyes darted about to make sure his words had not carried and been noticed, “We should not stay here.”

Arnkor understood the youth’s hesitation and respected his fear, but if anything remained of the missing score of reindeer, he owed it to his people to find them. Winter had already been harsh and deadly. People starved in other villages and stories moved, with travelers, of villages reduced to unspeakable means of survival. He would not see his children and kin reduced to ghoulery. He would brave the tangled wood that was their hunting ground and home knowing that they too must be starving and hungry.

A shrill, scraping shriek broke the still and sent the trio spinning to find its origin. Casting eyes from one limitless shadow to the next, fighting hard to not lose their focus in the tangled thicket of mooncast shading, Arnkor and his party froze as they finally saw what they feared so much.

Looming unseen save for the glowing circlets of their unblinking eyes they surrounded the party. Whistles and ghostly hoots passed from one hidden foe to another, shining eyes bobbing and wavering like bedeviled fireflies. Though he knew they drew closer, Arnkor could hear nothing that marked their passing. Even his best hunters could not pass so close without some sort of noise.

As they grew ever closer, Arnkor braced himself, setting his eyes on a cluster of glowing eyes that marked three of them. He felt Skafor and Nikapik close in behind him, forming as close as they could manage to a circular formation. It was as he feared. They were surrounded. He gritted his teeth, filled his chest with cold night air, muttered words to his totem spirits and ancestors, hearing his fellows do the same. Skafor grunted something in his people’s tongue that almost sounded insulting in its tone and directness.

“Do not let them wear my bones…” whimpered Nikapik.

Retrofitting a Campaign #1 - Doing It Old School

No, this is not an RPG porn title, but it does sum up an idea I had for going through and converting my 3.5 world, Artaera, that evolved out of my AD&D 1E/2E days back into something a bit more OSR in feel.

Now, because the world of Artaera has existed since my high school years it has had many layers lumped one on top of the other. As new supplements and editions came out more concepts, classes, special rules and such were layered back into the fold. I'll try to preserve as much of this flavor as I can without getting all mired down in the things that eventually drove me from this world and on to create new ones, but I'm sure some of it will have to go.

#14?!

The cryptic title of this post is to express my confusion and surprise that ISLP is rated as #14 among 165 OSR blogs according to a post at Cyclopeatron. It is hard for me to accept this credit because really ISLP is only marginally an OSR blog. though I may have 151 followers, I cannot say, accurately, just how many of you fine folks are here for OSR content of which there has been remarkably little of late. Also, some of those blogs are newwer than this one.

It is nice to see how this blog stacks up against other gaming blogs and the fact that you all have bumped me up into the higher end says to me that I must be doing something right. ISLP will continue to deliver as much and the best content I can with as much frequency as I am able to. This includes all the quirky stuff that has come along with that in the past - humor, life, food, etc.

I know I say it a lot, but thank you all for making I See Lead People a blog worth doing.

-Eli

Old School Maps 3

Continuing with the series on old school maps from the old Imagine magazine, I bring the last of the examples I have scanned. These are some particularly nice maps, being either quite detailed or simply interesting. The first is a dual map, featuring a plan of a castle as well as a modest dwarf stronghold. Like many of the maps from the various Imagine articles, these maps are at once interesting and evocative, but not so specific that you can't pluck them out of the magazine and plop them down anywhere in your own campaign. Both the castle and dwarf stronghold here could represent any encounter area in a game and could be readily used to represent generic structures found throuhgout a campaign world.

The next two are a rather detailed and nicely arranged inn and an Egyptian styled temple complex. Both provide numerous rooms across a number of buildings and plenty of space for encounters and treasures. Though the temple is designed as an Egyptian styled structure, it could be used for any great temple without any extra work.

I hope you have enjoyed these posts showing the old Imagine maps. I had a lot of fun pouring over them again and sharing them. It should be noted that these last three maps are yellow not because of the age of the magazines but because they were included as part of the "centerfold" pull-out adventures included in many issues of Imagine. These adventures were printed on thicker stock paper than the rest of the magazine, three-holed punched and made removable for transplant into notebooks. I think this is a great idea, myself.

Have fun,

-Eli

Old School Maps 2

The next set of maps from the old Imagine magazines are a few of the more involved ones that I have seen. These are still part of the whole City League series of maps for their featured setting. As you can see below, these are a gambling den, a courthouse, and a castle.

The Cornucopia gambling house map is a nice example of a luxurious manner style house and has a great underground element to it.

The Court is a bit simpler on the above ground levels, but still features a nice underground/dungeon section. I find the idea of civic offices around a central courtyard with multiple gates to be a particularly nice architectural choice.

The castle in the map may not be from the City League maps, but it is a nice, solid-built structure with thick walls and lots of rooms and passages. For those who don't like dungeons for dungeon's sake, this castle map would make a suitable alternative and still allow for enough room to explore for a dungeon.

Old School Maps

Going through some old issues of Imagine magazine I was struck by how nice some of the maps were. If you aren't familiar with Imagine, it was an older British gaming magazine, published by TSR Hobbies UK that ran from 1983 to 1985 as far as I can recall. It followed a format very similar to the early Dragon and White dwarf magazines offering articles, supplemental material and adventures for D&D as well as other fantasy and science fiction RPGs. There were some really nice articles in its pages as well as some fun monsters and adventures.

One of my favorite things in the later issues was a project called Pelinore - The City League where they detailed a particular set of cities providing NPCs, local information and some lovely maps of the buildings. I have some scanned images of some of those maps included below. As the magazine is long out of print and next to impossible to find, I hope they won't mind me sharing a few snippets of the fine map work that was done within those pages.

I hope you enjoyed these maps. I'll post more in the future.

-Eli

[Labyrinth Lord] Anna's Game - A Sad Development

Despite her good solid start, it looks like short attention spans won out. Todays game session fizzled for Anna when her friend playing the fighrer decided that she was tired of sitting around, talking, and rolling dice. Anna's did make an attempt to keep her player but alas the group has already fizzled. the remaining players seem to have been turned off the game by the conflict and have gone on to play their own game of live-action role-playing.

Unfortunately, I think Anna's controlling personality may have come into play here. The one friend was not wanting to play today and was rather strong in her opnion. Anna, being the girl she is, tried to fight for what she wanted and pressed the issue more than she should have, escalating what should have been a simple case of "okay another time". The friend left the group badly and the other two were left a bit off-put by the situation.

I have talked to Anna and explained to her a few ways she might salvage the game. The girls are all still friends, even though moods may have soured on the game for now. I suggested to Anna to give it a bit of time and offer the option to pick the game up at another time. Hopefully she'll be able to salvage some part of this and return to the fun it's supposed to be. Evidentally, the girl that voiced the initial disinterest has a tendancy toward modo swings and Anna thinks even she might be salvaged as a player.

The big bummer to this whole story, however it plays out, is that this summer we are moving away from the area and Anna will no longer be going to school with these girls. I'd be alright with them visiting the new home, but parents in this area are a bit wierd about their kids and tend to keep them on pretty short leashes.

Stay tuned folks,

-Eli