Dungeon of Signs

Dragonlance, much reviled, much mocked but secretly much adored. Back when it was originally published I never read or played any of the Dragonlance Modules, or perused the novels. By the time Dragonlance was in full swing the guys I played games with had moved on to Car Wars. Jack over at Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque once suggested Dirtbag Dragonlance - which still stands as a good setting idea, but I am curious if there is anything to be salvaged from Dragonlance that could make a fun game without the inclusion of Monster Trucks. Also Beyond Castle Cadwell is such a waste of a good design idea that I may have to stop reviewing the B-Series of modules.

DRAGONS OF Despair

I decided I should actually try reading one of the Dragonlance Modules to earn the right to either ridicule or defend them. I picked Dragons of Despair, DL1, because

It's the 80's!

it’s the first. The title is good at least, and the module does include both dragons and despair. Published in 1984, Dragons of Despair is a work by Tracy Hickman, who also wrote Rahasia, which I reviewed a while back. Hickman has a signature style, one I revile, but it’s absolutely his own, as much a Gygax’s painstaking treasure accounting and bloodthirsty trap advice is his. From what I can tell the marks of a Hickman adventure are complex story, evocative detail and player handouts, high fantasy and a moral impulse.

The introduction to Dragons of Despair is emblematic of this sensibility, and lays this out in a more poetic context – a piece of creative writing about how the GM is playing the role of some ancient lore-master/historian/demigod rather than acting as an impartial referee. It’s perhaps a subtle difference or a hokey one, but I think the idea that the characters are the sort of people that ancient semi-divine robed spirits would be interested in watching is a fundamental difference between a Hickman adventure and the traditional D&D mindset. It also sadly creates a world where plot immunity is encouraged for player characters. The rules don’t make dying harder, but the future destinies of the recommended party members seem to.

The odd thing about Hickman's modules (the two I've read) is that within the plot driven railroads and the mechanical problems caused by the plot's strict morality there are some cool encounters and good ideas: metal poor world with steel coinage, elevator encounter, loss of Clerical magic, and the Draconic army that seems modern in it's (fascist) ethos massacring the heck out of high-fantasy land. It seems something must be salvageable from these ideas.

The problems I have with the Hickman game world are many, but at the core Dragons of Despair (and Rahasia) appear to be an effort to use the medium of table top games to tell a different kind of story then the picaresque of most D&D games. They strive to be sweeping and epic, and while my experience playing suggests that this approach rarely works, that any sweeping epic moments must arise from the players own goals derived from observation and interaction with the world rather than the ones predetermined by a GM or adventure writer, I can’t say that the goal of Dragonlance modules wasn’t a novel one. A very successful goal apparently as well, as the novels and modules of Dragonlance were perhaps D&D’s flagship world for quite a while, and beloved by a lot of players.

What’s awful about Dragonlance, and it is awful (though not without redeeming features), isn’t it’s goals or the creativity behind it, it’s the world it evokes and the way it tortures D&D’s mechanics to make that world work.

THE MODULE

The module starts with a nuisance ambush by hobgoblins, who drop a clue about a magic staff. As random demi-human ambushes go it’s okay, the hobgoblin leader has some character even, but 20 1+1 HD humanoids rushing a fresh gang of 6^th level adventurers seems a bit depressing. After an initial mention of this blue magic staff the party encounters a plot protected NPC and PC (Goldmoon and Riverwind) who provide some healing, flash a magic staff and sing a terrible song about their tragic love affair. While the adventure suggests it’s open to the party letting the pair of Plains Indian/Adam Ant super-fan pastiches wander off, I don’t really see how this works with the focused direction of the module. I appreciate that the option is mentioned, but the structure kind of falls apart if the players decide they don't care about the staff, and the clues it leads to (though the staff is not needed to complete the adventure).

A few encounters in idyllic and picturesque places later the party should really have been bludgeoned with the idea that there’s a magic staff, it’s blue, and there are draconic baddies looking for it. Then an army of dragons and dragonmen invade, a scaly blitzkrieg that rapidly fills the map while the party theoretically wanders to the poorly defended town of Haven, now packed with refugees. The town offers no refuge and the group needs to go into an elf-wood straight out of Tolkien or a fairy haunted wood ruled by a unicorn. Unwinnable fights push the party into parley with the elves or unicorn and they learn an important lesson about always judging creatures encountered based in their appearance.

With a cryptic message from a unicorn and some gratuitous pegasi the party is off to a new land, populated by some kind of Sioux-Mongol derived plainsmen noble savage clichés. The brave natives are foolhardy in their insistence that they can stop the dragon army, and are suffering for it more then the quasi Byzantine city of Haven. The terroized and despoiled plains must push the party to follow the unicorn’s advice and head to an ancient city.

Now the party is in an ancient city. It’s in a swamp and crawling with dragonmen. Since dragons plus swamps equal black dragons in D&D there’s a few of them as well. Fight some draconian soldiers, free or slaughter some slapstick gully dwarves, and confront a giant black dragon who is (properly I think) fond of hit and run tactics. The dragon may be destroyed instantly (err heroically) by the staff and some magical discs discovered that allow clerical casting (Discs of valuable metal, engraved with the true holy texts in a fallen land? Hickman is a Mormon by the way...) With that it's on to Dragon's of Flame DL-2, or a long session of weeping in the shower because this module was so impossible to play or run in a fun manner.

THE Despair

My biggest issue is the tone of DL-1, it’s relentlessly serious, stern in the demand that one take the clichés of high fantasy with gravitas. Krinn is A game world where all elves are beautiful and sad, where every meadow or hut needs a box text

This is not a good
use of an isometric map

description straight from a creative writing workshop. Most importantly the tone demands heroes, in the least nuanced sense possible, and if it’s not to be utterly depressing, it requires the heroes to succeed. It’s a special kind of fantasy, one that I associate with the 80’s, crystal accented pewter wizard figurines and heroines with feathered hair. This fantasy isn’t popular in older D&D game circles these days, I know it annoys me, but perhaps this is just a matter of fashion. The gonzo cheer of 70’s D&D camp, murder-hoboism, and gruesome metal album art as monster manual seems ascendant right now, but high fantasy kitsch was a big thing for quite a while and has an appeal. Still, it’s really hard to play game of D&D as high-fantasy kitsch, the resolute seriousness would be maddening and descend into the same jokes and beer that a good D&D game always does. The fancy adjective boxed text becomes a satire at this point, and the party starts looking for things to do besides help DM PCs with silly names.

Besides the tone issue, D&D’s mechanics are at their worst in a heroic game, the crafty tricks that D&D characters depend on to avoid combat and other dangers seem contrary to the spirit of the game world, and thus combat has to be winnable. The dragon kryptonite staff is fine, it's largely optional to the module, despite it's seeming importance, but every other encounter appears designed to allow a victorious party - remember this party is 5th level (though the ACs of the pre-gens are very bad for that level) and armed with +2/+3 weapons.

I also don’t really get how the encounter stream works. It seems like the story central encounters are scripted to occur at intervals, and then others in certain large areas of the map occur between these depending on where the PCs are. The other mechanic at work here is a dragon army surging across the map and changing the encounter tables. There are also marked locations. This seems a poor way of running the module, designed to impart a particular narrative arc. As a GM I am sure my players would start avoiding the programmed encounters when possible, either out of a perverse desire to screw with the module’s hubris or because once they realized that with an army of dragons was at their back, random encounters become doubly a waste of time and resources. Worse, the combat encounters are almost all of the “they attack until killed” or the “you can’t win, you will be captured or surrender to move the plot along” variety. This isn’t to say that things are stated up to be unstoppable, they are largely fairly weak, and the human NPCs are appropriately leveled (or un-leveled) meaning that as a sandbox, DL-1 isn’t unworkable.

DL-1 is also a straight railroad, from lovelorn princess, thru flight from a bad army, to ancient ruins with magical staff which defeats the unstoppable dragon (well I suspect it’s actually a rather stoppable dragon for a 6^th level party). This is just awful. The opposition is largely both too aggressive and too weak to stop the party, presenting a series of die rolling delays rather than options for players to weigh risk and reward with a real danger of character loss. Indeed there is little in the way of interim reward for the characters, treasure is rarely mentioned (and mechanically treasure/XP represents D&D’s way to incentivize solving problems ), and there is not much adventure to experience if the party strays from the railroad – only an endless fight against dracononians, who are entirely unreasonable and immune to things like player selected goals. This makes for a boring adventure to me, and seems more a way for the GM to experience epic sweep then a game played by players and GM.

There’s also something creepy and dishonest about the way that DL-1 glosses over the horror of the marauding alien army killing and driving everything before it. This is Dragonlance's morality, defined as lawful good, and it's deeply flawed, willing to create a world of horrors as a backdrop and then demand that the players focus on poses of noble sacrifice and heroics in service of a epic plot. The plot isn't which is not about finding food sources for refugees, or a way to communicate with the Draconians and reach some kind of understanding, but about heroic quests for magical gee-gaws, and this eliminates one of the more interesting elements of D&D games, the moral one, where players decide (usually based on a piece of throwaway GM description) what's right and wrong and what part of the world is worthy of aid or destruction.

Despite Dragonlance's moral bullying, my GM experience tells me a lot of players will want to solve the invasion problem different ways, there own ways, rather than embarking on a bland quest for an unknown whatever with a magical staff. These options should be available, there should always be multiple solutions in a module, and they need not all be optimal. Adventuring as branded slave soldiers of a city now allied with the Dracononians is not a wrong outcome, it’s how the game world grows from player choices.

Kender are horrible, not the idea of Kender, Isolationist kleptomaniac Halflings are great, but that they are a player race and so beloved by the game writers that they get rather absurd powers. For example a Kender staff sling somehow does 1D6+2 damage as a melee weapon. I true 80’s style the module justifies this by giving it a martial arts weapon name “as jo-stick”, but when a stout club with a nail in it is a D4 weapon, and a long sword a D8, no stick should be the best weapon available, especially in the hands of an obnoxious kleptomaniac hobbit. What’s worse though, and the real issue with Kender is that their cutesy, anti-social behavior is ripe for exploitation and abuse by disruptive players.

HOW ONE MIGHT FIX IT

Besides dousing the absurd high fantasy schlock in a bit of grimness (which an invading army of draconic-fascists does pretty effectively), it’s hard to figure out how Dragons of Despair can be fixed. There’s the core of something interesting here, but it’s not in the party of pre-generated adventurers with epic backstory returning the Gods the Krinn. It’s in the profoundly ugly apocalyptic scenario that Dragonlance is built on. Krinn is a high fantasy idyll and it get smashed by an army of evil rather convincingly in DL-1. What’s left is an apocalypse that Rather than have the players pick heroes destined for glory, let then roll up poor refugees and thralls of the invading dragon army. Don’t have the party start the Dragonlance modules as 4^th– 6^th level, have them begin as 0-level farmers and townsfolk, or 1^st level deserters from the destroyed armies. This is the Eastern Front in Spring 1941, or Germany during the 100 year war, and the party has a huge pool of replacement refugees when their characters, unprepared to take on even the pushover enemies (the monsters in DL1 are pushovers for a 6^th level party) and resorting to a scramble to find safety.

An open scenario allows the map to be loosened and the story made less important. Scripted encounters become random, and the party decides which faction they want to aide. I’d run the module like this: village is Guernica’d by dragons in advance of Dragon army, survivors (a 0-level funnel) have chance to 1) regroup, fight and die 2) flee 3) lay low and accept their new scaly masters. All three choices allow the staff quest to get introduced later without Goldmoon, if the players want to follow it. A perfectly good option is instead have the party sent to find the staff by the Draconians, a crafty group of 1^stlevels can take on a magic-less 5^th level cleric and 5^thlevel fighter, or simply steal it. Not sure what the consequences are, but the character’s village will surely be spared and that’s how player agency works. Another option here is to allow the players to flee into the scary woods and start trying to be guerrillas or bandits.

The woods will mean that the party encounters cruel elves or strange tree spirits. These forest dwellers, the city of Haven, the Draconians and the Plainsmen all represent factions. DL-1 makes no use of this, but it’s here that the railroad can be uncoupled (just as in Rahasia). Railroads happen when the game is supposed to be a story, and there’s one ‘right’ way to go forward. With non-heroic characters and factions that have individual, conflicting goals a story can evolve that’s robust enough to deal with player decisions to fight the forest elves or take a band of refugees to look for water transport.

Since the Black Dragon Onyx is a powerful faction herself, allied with the Draconians and enslaving the Gully Dwarves (I’m okay with Gully Dwarves if one views them as goblin reskins), she can intrude on any fragile structure of alliances and faction agreements the PCs build, pushing the adventure more naturally into the ruins. To accomplish this it’s best if Onyx isn’t simply part of the Dragon invasion, but another faction, perhaps a hold over, hiding in her pit with a few debased and inbred Draconian servants since the last Dragon invasion. The Unicorn, the Elves and eventually Haven’s priests may discover her possession of the discs that bring back Cleric magic, and the Draconians are likely to know this as well. Why does Onyx covet these discs, and what does she want for them? Can the black dragon be played off against the other factions, and who should the party support in this coming fight? It seems like this is the seeds of an interesting adventure capable of bringing a party of 0 Levels up to about 4^th or 5^th level with plenty of room for replacement PCs.

FINAL LUNACY

Dark Sun is Krinn a thousand years after the Dragons win. Let the Dragons win, because no small plucky band of heroes can stop an army. Your Dragonlance game will be better for it.

Dungeon Moon Character Sheets

So I’ve been playing Nick from Paper & Pencils’ game on his rather unique setting “Dungeon Moon” intermittently for quite a while now. The setting is a huge funhouse megadungeon, but with a better setting explanation then most.

Makepeace NoHells 4th level.

The character I originally made as a joke “Makepeace NoHells”, who I originally suggested was a “Atheist Paladin” has turned out to fit the setting quite well as a militantly atheistic warrior. Militant atheism being rather appropriate to a campaign setting where numerous extremely unpleasant demi-gods run about being nasty. Makepeace is a fourth level fighter now and wields a dangerous magical axe that slowly fills with power from killing creatures, gems on its haft glowing as it becomes stronger, until the wielder channels this power into a single huge blow. He’s a dangerous lunatic these days, having successfully slain (or at least trapped) on of the gods of the dungeon moon and returned with it to his strange cannibal cult family compound. Equipped with the finest plate armor available from the cult armory and dependent on his unnatural dexterity Makepeace has become very hard to injure, making him an effective frontline fighter and door opener.

Above is the character sheet I drew of Makepeace during the last session, after Makepeace had a magically induced goblin fetus surgically removed (there are actually rules for surgically terminating demon pregnancies in LOTFP – just saying) by the party’s other fighter, Zoad the musketeer.

MakePeace NoHells, Level 1

It was also recently revealed, thanks to a magical magnet trap, that the reason Makepeace constantly wears a sinister full helmet inscribed with the ‘null’ symbol denying the existence of gods (foolish really in a game where there are clearly evident, actual demi-gods roaming about) isn’t just devotion. Despite normal human intelligence and a manly enough voice, Makepeace has the grinning round face of a large baby. The product of genetics both inbred and tampered with by wizards in the last few generations has made the fighter a freak.

KillSin NoHells, hench-cleric.

After a few adventures, when Makepeace’s party kept emerging from the tunnels under the rocky surface of the Dungeon Moon with food, valuable and glory. His family/church has allowed him to bring along one of their most promising young preachers as a henchwoman. Sister-Aunt Killsin NoHells is a first level cleric of the ‘human’ spirit (though human can be switched out for whatever sentient species is currently behaving in a friendly manner). She’s been an effective henchwoman, and has used her habitually memorized ‘command’ spell to rather good effect.

Dungeon Other PArty Members

I've drawn up two of the other Dungeon moon party members. I've tried to keep a consistent weird fantasy look to the equipment and citizens of Dungeon Moon, which is less Tolkien and more Orphans in the Sky with magic instead of technology.

Bansho, Save vs. Total Party Kill blog's Specialist who began Dungeon Moon as a "chimney sweep", with specialties in climbing and stealth, but is now pretty much your standard bow shooting, trap detecting, monster hunter.

Bansho, Specialist (level 3)

Zoad, Nercopraxis blog's gunpowder based fighter, who has proven rather dangerous with his variety of bombs and black powder weapons.

Zoad - Fighter (level 4) and
demon baby obstetrician

LOTFP Blank Character Sheet

Below is the blank character sheet I made up for Dungeon moon. In the style of the old Champions 2^nd edition sheets you can fill in the features and equipment heroic cannibal within the dotted guides, and draw his equipment directly onto the sheet to track it.

I like this style of sheet because it really does contain the minimal amount of information required to play with, and I think gives a good visual representation.

PAHVELORn
Character

SHEETs

My most played character of late has been Beni Profane, an OD&D (well Greyhawk) thief, who has survived in Necropraxis’ long running Vaults of Pahvelorn. The campaign is on hiatus, with the party having just slain some kind of lich and the floating ruins that have long loomed over the Vaults (a huge pit in the earth with several entrances) descending back to earth. The campaign is thus poised on the brink of either victory or destruction, as what exactly will happen next is very much an open question.

Beni Level 1-3

Beni began as a “rat catcher” which was largely an excuse to include “sack with six rats” on his sheet. The rats have proved their usefulness, as did Beni’s faithful terrier. The dog died in the last session (which was almost a TPK, the survivors of a huge fireball blasted and unconscious on the floor except for one Cleric who managed to cast hold person on the lich/awakened arch mage and save the group.

This is Beni’s first character sheet, with the portrait based on a woodcut from the 17^thcentury. He has his ratting pole (with hook, dead rat and flag) and his ridiculous hat (with floral scarf and emergency/sneaking candles).

As Beni grew in power, he kept using bits of monsters that the party had slain to create

Beni Level 4 -7

an outfit more in keeping with his new found ‘fame’. The first suit was simply leather armor made from the skin of a giant albino snake, pulled from a subterranean well. It was pretty garish. Shortly after this armor (level 3 or 4) Beni also began to fervently worship his rat goddess (the result of a failed carousing roll) and now is devoted to bringing about something like a rat based anarchist revolution. He doesn’t get along so well with the parties’ clerics, though it seems that Pahvelorn is polytheistic enough where it’s less religious intolerance and more chaos v. order.

Now Near the height of his powers, Beni has picked up some scars, and upgraded his armor again to a magical cuirass, immune to blades, incorporated into a suit of purple wyrm leather armor with strange anti-acid properties. He also has a magic sword, which doesn’t do much, except occasionally allow him to hit incorporeal undead, and a dwindling collection of magical arrows.

Beni - Level 7.

While I can’t find the sheet for Beni’s most beloved (and recently deceased) companion Treacle, the small but vicious dog, his two other henchmen are below. Donkeyteeth the orphan apprentice died badly when a bunch of cave dwelling troglodyte types (hairy pale men with crazy eyes) stabbed him with six spears in an ancient saint’s tomb, but Lau Taxan is still with Beni. Lau Taxan is a fanatical shaman priest of the rat goddess, and seems to be trying to summon packs of holy dire rats into every dungeon that the party enters, but is otherwise quite useful at 4^th level (the Dire Rats are useful as well, at least until they run off and form their own colonies, restocking the level with 2HD backstabbing rat-things).

As a whole these are very basic character sheets, and while fun to draw, useful and intuitive to a long time D&D player, they lack something compared to the style I have used for Dungeon Moon.

Lau Taxan - Shaman 4

Donkeyteeth - Thief 1

EMPIRE OF RAG & BONE

Since the surrender of its fleet and the loss of the more vigorous Southern, Eastern and ‘New’ provinces, eight generations ago the body of the Successor Empire has rotted. The empire contracts and spasms - Postowns lay abandoned, the Tradetowns in revolt or dusty decline and the wide estates of an unknown multitude of petty barons, atamans, viscounts, colonels, pashas, nawabs and lairds teeter under the weight of preening desire, feud and a nobility grown strange, reclusive, and horribly fecund. Even the Imperial capital, a metropolis for a three hundred generations, is as a comatose patient, atrophied and so weakened that it barely twitches in its most vile of fever dreams, reeking and tangled amongst soiled sheets.

The howls of the inbred and moronic Emperor echo from the empty and lightless windows of the Imperial spires when the moon wanes. The rumormongers in the Dockwards whisper that He, the ‘sunshadowing light of the world’, hunts his own misshapen children like a red gummed dog amongst the graceful arcades, scuttling through the wreckage of five millennia of opulence. Only the amber masked priests of the Imperial cult, and perhaps the more human of the hulking heredity Excubitores, their frames grown monstrous from generations of selective breeding and the ancient magics poured into their sires, know or care about the truth of these rumors.

Below, encircling the spires are the abandoned towers of the nobility, where only a few families of ancient lineage, too destitute or cracked to leave the pestilent canals, still molder, wearing court brocades, dusty and long out of style. The high families might pass for ghosts as they scrabble awkwardly for sustenance, fishing bogs that were once pleasure lagoons for creatures that were once pedigree carp and farming stunted decorative pears from the tired dirt of roof gardens, amongst the broken limbs of priceless statuary. Past this Mesatown a semblance of life returns, but it is the riot of vermin and carrion eaters on a corpse. The neighborhoods of trade and commerce are shells, where the people cling to forgotten tradition and the chanker of a pantomime propriety. The only industry still thriving is salvage or plunder, as the uncountable wealth of three millennia is mined and traded at the rickety new docks, built from the beams of floundered ships, and extending over the old river's bed from the ancient trade docks of ageless white arcane stone. The traders are foreign, their armed barges filled with barley, teff and amaranth. The princes among these merchants sell casks of cheaply distilled clear brandy made from squash vines, but drink vintages dredged from deep cellars, laid down when their forefathers still had tails and ripping canines. The docks are ordered, protected by a polyglot legion of cruel mercenaries, who wear the puissant, but ill-fitting armor and badges of the 5^th, 23^rd and 207^thurban banners without irony and who serve only the whims of richest resurrectionist houses.

Through miles of mostly silent ruined city, life again reasserts itself amongst the once happy hives of the arcane factors. The great assembly floors and towering stacks are nothing but shells, overflowing with the armed camps of savages that sing twisted reflections of the company songs dedicated to primordial forefathers’ patron sorcerers. The sorcerers themselves are long extinct, the scions of their most foolish apprentices ten generations removed now raise fortresses of fragments and poorly maintained ancient artifacts around the few Cornucopiam that still spew out enchanted sustenance to feed the feral workforce.

Even amongst this feculent mass there is profit to be made, and trade that must be transacted. The Resurgent Powers pick the corpse of the empire with armed bands of merchants, not ready to war against the stone titans, still loyal to the seals of imperial nobles wantonly bickering amongst themselves until a foreign enemy appears. It is easier to send a legion of cunning younger sons, and ambitious 3^rd daughters to buy old magic and tarnished silver with dross, trivialities and grain too rough for pigs. Each fortune seeker sets out on the bright, level, glass of the Imperial road with a wagon or pack horse, a good sword and a full measure of the vitality that has made the fractious Resurgents an ever tightening ring around the Imperial heartland.

KUGELBERG FLOOD

The Drowned Dome of the Voivode

The 2014 One Page Dungeon Contest Just ended, and I spent a good amount of time this year trying to figure what to write up for it. Of the five ideas I originally had, I ended up starting PDFs of three, and then realizing that the two I liked the most wouldn’t fit on a single page. I entered a cloud castle, but am dissatisfied with it.

The Kugelberg Flood is the last of these. A vanilla fantasy world one shot location/event focused on plundering the cursed pleasure dome of an ancient tyrant, now sunken beneath the sea. The party will have twelve hours to explore the place and grab what they can while the sea is at a once every ten year magical ebb. The dangers include a spectral odalisque, mad automatons, poison coral and a lot of zombie sea life. I suspect the dome could be run as a 1^st level adventure, but the enemies are a bit tough for that. Perhaps it’s more appropriate for a 2^nd level party. The greatest danger though is of course the return of the ocean so I think this thing would only work if one’s GM enjoyed timekeeping.

KUGELBERG FLOOD PDF FORDOWnlOad

THERE’S NOT MUCH BEYOND CASTLE CALDWELL

Club Sleeper hit of 2005

It’s not worth noting, but Castle Caldwell’s cover art is amusing, a droopy eyed lizard man carries an attractive swooning woman who is wearing an outfit straight from a mid-2000’s anti/neo-folk album cover: mini heeled ankle boots with slouch tops, a studded girdle, some chunky jewelry and a white peasant dress. If I’d worked for Rolling Stone in 2007 a photo shoot recreating this silly scene with the folk-rock ingénue of the year would have been a personal goal. Sadly this is the best thing about Castle Caldwell.

Castle Caldwell and beyond are a bit strange, a series of small adventures designed to each be played in a few hours , rather than a larger location or set of problems to be solved over several sessions. I really enjoy this idea of module design, but Caldwell just doesn’t come together very well. It also depends on the use of boxed text, and the boxed text is terribly dull, fleshed out with the obvious and uninspiring. B9 is broken into five smallish adventures, beginning with the Castle named at the beginning. There’s a lost opportunity here as only the first two of these little scenarios is tied together, while the final two are unrelated. Ultimately Caldwell is poisoned by dull writing, uninspiring map design, incomprehensible monster variety and pointless treasure.

Castle Caldwell and Beyond begins with fairly standard but decent advice on play: expect PCs to die, use common sense as a supplement to dice rolling and adjust things based on your setting. It really has little to offer beyond this and its sterling idea of creating a module that is several linked small scale adventures. The first two of the little adventures are Castle Caldwell itself and later its dungeons. The hook for them isn’t even terrible. A wealthy fellow who really wants a castle has a deed to the abandoned castle. He wants it cleaned out because it’s full of monsters. Specifically it appears that a monster menagerie left its more boring denizens to populate the castle. Goblins, wolves, and bandits have their own apartments within the perfectly symmetrical single level castle.

The second of the two Caldwell adventures is to clear out the castle cellars, titled ‘the Dungeons of Terror’, on behalf of Clifton who the party previous worked for. The ‘Dungeons of Terror’ offer no terror. There’s a doppelganger and the trap door entrance shuts magically, trapping the players within. While I do appreciate the name of Area 2, ‘Magic-User Lair’ and at least there’s a vague feel that this is some kind of sorcerer’s workshop, this adventure is simply bad. It also has an ugly quantum ogre in the form of a necessary key that is always in the last of several rooms searched. There’s also gratuitous Thouls – something I can’t decide is good or bad, given that hobgoblin/troll/ghouls crossbreeds are pretty hilarious and never has an edition of D&D explained where baby Thouls come from (please don’t). I generally think thouls stats make them pretty scary and suspect deserve better, reskin thouls as some sort killer hag or undead goblinoid shaman ancestor rather than a joke/gotcha monster.

The third execrable outing in Castle Caldwell involves rescuing a princess. Apparently the party’s thoul bashing and dungeon tidying service has gotten the attention of the local good king, whose good princess daughter has gotten kidnapped by a motely gang of monsters. I’m almost on the side of the monsters here - If the monster gang had a really religious guy doomed to ‘crack’, a handsome Texan and a wise cracking kid from Brooklyn they’d be the subject of a monstrous WWII buddy movie. As it is there are some lizardmen with accents, some goblins, an evil wizard and an owlbear. Still the adventurers need to drag the dirty dozen out of their monster hole. The monster kidnap squad are mercenaries, kidnapping princesses for profit, to prevent dynastic marriages and because they are naughty monsters. Still at least the gang leader has an owlbear based combat plan and uses his spells (motley monster squads are always lead by wizards) well. The map again has a terrible symmetry, and not in the Blakeian sense.

The fourth of B9’s depressing outings into the realm of conventionality has the party mysteriously slipped mickey finns or ‘captured by opposing forces’ and locked up. This adventure is horrible, there is an outpost to escape and fighters to fight. The party will succeed in any sort of hijinks because they are guarded by a lone gnoll, perhaps it’s a lonely gnoll to, because certainly everyone else in the out post is a fighting man or fighting woman (much time is spent on making sure there are proper amenities for each). Besides begging the question of why a human military force would hire a man eating hyena beast as it’s prison guard, and creating wonder over the fact that Lonely the Gnoll is the toughest enemy in the outpost nothing makes this adventure interesting. Nothing. I am normally not so harsh on monster placement, especially in old modules, but to my mind having a sensible group of monsters who behave sensibly becomes far more important in context of an organized outpost or fortress. Crawling around in abandoned castles a player is far less likely to ask “what’s with the lone gnoll”, but in an organized military camp, one needs to explain why enemies other then soldiers, their warbeasts, camp followers and support elements (like wizards or clerics) are about because it’s easier to understand the naturalism involved then it is in some weird mythical underworld.

The last of B9’s adventures is better because it’s last. It’s the understaffed fortress of an evil cleric. There are orcs and some maps. It might even be possible to rescue this one from it’s dullness, but really at this point why bother. The map to this one is halfway decent, it’s symmetrical on the outside, but a very strange spiral within. It’s a pretty good map for the home of some crazy two hundred year old renegade cleric. Unfortunately the adventure insists on trapping the party in the evil shrine and then having some token opposition to overcome and a few tricks to unravel for escape.

MODULE WIDE FIXES

PLOT– Some vague relation between the locations seems worthwhile, here’s the one I’d use. Castle Caldwell rules over a largely worthless swamp and is inhabited by an almost extinct line of deranged nobles. The neighboring Duke decides it’s in his best interest to clean the worthless pocket sized barony Caldwell out, because as a lawless, festering hole where his predecessor exiled the Duchy’s undesirables it’s become a source of vagabonds, clubmen and humanoid bandits. The players are told they can have Castle Caldwell if they can take it. Who doesn’t want a barony at level 1? It’s a terrible barony, and the line that has ruled it for twenty generations isn’t all dead. Sure they have taken up worshipping a blood god, become robber knights and grandpa disappeared into the cellar/family crypts a few years ago to practice necromancy but they don’t even control the whole castle at this point.

Once the castle is in the hands of the party, and I’d propose having the evil acolyte being the heir of barony Caldwell, and perfectly willing to deal with the players to keep the barony in her family. Once they have dealt with the basement of necromancy (which will make everyone happy really) the true situation in barony Caldwell becomes clear. The neighboring Duke has some woman named Sylvia who is part of a cadet line, and who he proposes marrying to his cousin to cement control over the Caldwell swamps.

Sylvia was kidnapped on her way from the convent, kidnapped by the local bandit lord/hedge wizard (previously responsible for the alchemical goblins that were pushing the Caldwell’s out of their manor). Should the players ever try to return to the Duke (with or without Sylvia) they will be tossed in jail and accused of a variety of crimes. If they escape, they can return to Caldwell, where they will have may marry into the Caldwell family and take up the job of defending the barony against the Duke’s perturbed cousin. They might also consider joining up with Horn, who I’d play more as either a mercenary scoundrel or a local who just wants to restore order to the Barony (and get rich, murder the people he dislikes and make abominations).

The shrine of the lunatic priestess becomes something that is ever present in Caldwell, a floating fortress/shrine above the swamps, that supposedly hold a holy relic, or maybe the crown of Caldwell (not a very nice crown to be sure, but perhaps it has a single emerald cabbage on the brow) and is a totally optional adventure locale. Perhaps in the distant past, the mad priestess of the floating shrine warred against the Caldwells, and is now making a claim on the barony herself.

AREA MAP– The inside cover of B9 includes monster stats. Dull repetitive monster stats, broken up by room for each adventure. Rather than this Castle Caldwell needs an area map so that these locations can be put in context, and the story unfold with plenty of wilderness wandering, including random encounters. A pitiful town with some NPCs as mercenary, criminal and decrepit as the Caldwells would also do wonders and provide someone for the PCs to interact with.

BETTER TREASURE– The Caldwell family used to be rich, so treasure should be in the form of damaged oil paintings, cracked china, tarnished silver plate and maybe a magical heirloom or two while in the Castle. Horn the Alchemist undoubtedly has some strange magical equipment in addition to the normal (slim) pickings of hinterlands banditry.

FIXES - CASTLE CALDWELL & THE DUNGEONS OF TERROR

Castle Caldwell - designed like a motel

NEW MAPS – I don’t normally decide these old modules need a new map, except Palace of the silver Princess (B3) which needed ½ a new map and was easy to redo because the descriptions made sense. Caldwell doesn’t make sense and its map doesn’t look like a Castle Map. It needs multiple levels, and a sensible floor plan for a castle, meaning a lot of asymmetry based on the funny shape of the rock outcropping it rests upon. . It only has 31 rooms, but most are pointlessly empty, so one could pare it down into two or three areas each with a monster faction. The Dungeon of Terror also could use a new map, something that looked like cellars (converted into a low rent wizard lab) attached to a family crypt. No magical sealing, unless crazy grandpa necromancer and his evil hag (thouls make good hags/evil necromancers) manage to get a wizard lock in.

Krak des Chevaliers
aka Castle of the Kurds
aka An interesting floorplan

SENSIBLE ENCOUNTERS– There are humans within Castle Caldwell, which is nice, because humans suggest negotiation and a social aspect as opposed to ‘bash the beasts and take their treasure’. In Caldwell these consist of an evil Lvl 1 cleric (what danger a single HD of cleric poses to an adventuring party is questionable) a few bandit and three traders. Obviously these folks are in league. In my version of Caldwell they are either the last remnants of the nobles who ruled the place at one time or a robber baron and his ‘knights’. They also get more HD and are open to working as the party’s flunkies, or conspiring with them to keep Castle Caldwell in the Caldwell family. Second there’s a goblin raiding pack, undoubtedly made up of weird cauldron born runts in the service of the alchemical bandit lord “Horn”. Theses ‘Crucible Imps’ have some strange alchemically altered riding beasts as well. The castle also has some vermin in its abandoned parts, but mainly it’s goblins v. human dregs.

The Dungoens of Terror will likewise need some reskinning, but less. Crazy necromancer Grandpa Caldwell, his hag/berserker cabal and skin stealer creation will provide the one faction, while some rather perturbed, but neutral cranky, Caldwell wights make up the second.

FIXING THE ABDUCTION OF PRINCESS SYLVIA

NEW EVERYTHING– I’ve mentioned the revised plot, but this adventure needs a revised map, and better motivations. The monsters and treasure need to be reworked as well. This bandit lair is an organized, currently occupied location, manned by intelligent enemies. I’d think Horn the Alchemist is most trying to impress Sylvia (it’s going poorly) with his not insignificant charm and whatever rustic comforts he and his gang of alchemically empowered bandits, crucible imps and his bizarrely mutated alchemical steed (It’s still an Owlbear – because Owlbear). I note that the internal art of this adventure includes a polearm wielding bipedal owlbear, I approve of this as owlbears should always be scary and weird, but it does sort of show the slapdash way that B9 seems to have been created.

Something to encourage the players to rescue Sylvia (or assassinate her) may be worthwhile, perhaps the idea that if Sylvia is gone Caldwell stays with the hapless Caldwell family, or that whomever marries Sylvia can become baron of Caldwell. Sylvia should have a say in all this as well, even if she swoons at the sight of lizard men. I suspect she wants nothing to do with Caldwell, or marrying anyone to claim it.

Horn’s motives and general lack of real evil should help make this another bit of complex social conflict, now between the Duke, the Caldwells and Horn. Sylvia may have her own goals as well, perhaps she was kidnapped by the Duke in the first place and just wants to go back to being an acolyte somewhere, or return with a church army to take Caldwell in the name of some deity.

FIXING THE GREAT ESCAPE

TOTAL REWRITE – The dungeon escape is a cool concept, but frankly the lack of creativity here is stifling. I would want at least three or four tricky but fairly obvious ways to escape besides “bash 2HD jailer in head with chamber pot”, perhaps it would even be fun to use this as an opportunity for the party to play their henchmen or allies (Horn’s gang of alchemical freaks, or the Caldwell family depending) and break the PCs out of the Duke’s prison. As written the stockade where the party is trapped is dumb, as is the idea that they can fairly easily get their equipment back. A better, more fantastical prison (Say it’s the cleaned out portion of some ancient barrows, or a prison hulk floating in the bayou) would be better than the overly complex military outpost provided. Also these options allow for something besides fighters of levels 1 & 2 to guard the place. Whole thing needs a rewrite, nothing more to say, and given this is an optional scenario in my rewritten version of B9, I don’t think it needs more detail.

FIXING THE SANCTUARY OF ELYWINN THE ARDENT

FIT IT INTO THE REST OF B9– While the Sanctuary of Elywinn the Ardent is the best of the B9 adventures (not that it’s good) it’s also the least related to any of the others. I think keeping it a strange location on the Caldwell map seems about right. A place of ancient magic with its deathless, insane clerical keeper. Why Elywinn has orc servitors (and only five) is questionable, let them be some kind of warped religious fanatic, held together by faith and old prayer book bound around their crumbing skin. If one is going to go through the trouble of having a strange evil shrine masquerading as a potentially good shrine spring up in the wilderness, the GM needs to run with the bizarre. The place should be a glassy arc rising up from the swamp incrementally, some kind of divine battleship of corruption, being birthed from the swamps and attracting devotees at an alarming rate.

CONCLUSION

B9, Castle Caldwell is a waste – even its maps are bad. All it really has to offer is the idea of a series of small location based adventures instead of a large dungeon, which may be an important game design idea, but was done earlier and likely better by Judges’ Guild.

A while back I tried to give a fair review of Dragon’s of Despair; to express what I liked about the modules, to look at where it went wrong and to see what could be salvaged. To reiterate, the fundamental problem with the Dragonlance modules (as far as I can tell from reading two of them) is that they are story and hero driven high fantasy epics masquerading as 1^st edition AD&D Modules. This isn’t to say that the story is bad, or that such epics might not make a good table top game, but it’s certainly hard to fit the epic ethos and genre conventions into a high lethality, combat adverse system like 1e AD&D or the B/X and OD&D that it derives from.

NICE THINGS ABOUT DRAGONLANCE

!Fantasy Apocalypse, takes an idyllic high fantasy world and reveals both its troubles and doom.

!Good Enemies, The party fights dragons, and dragon men who present some fun tactical challenges.

!Solid Worldbuilding, There is a sandbox under the railroad waiting to be played with many cool ideas.

HORRIBLE THINGS ABOUT DRAGONLANCE

!Saccharine Tone, High fantasy bathos is overwhelming and painfully clichéd.

!Forceful Railroading, forces player decision making and goals along a single storyline.

!GM PCs, Precious little plot immune horrors that must survive to force players down the rails.

!Lack of Meaningful Factions, There is bad and good, sometimes good is grumpy, but it’s very clear.

DRAGONS OF FLAME

Why does Dragon decor consist of Dragon skulls?

The second in the Dragonlance Series of modules Dragons of Flame was written in 1984 by Douglas Niles and continues the story right after Dragons of Despair leaves off. Player Character clerics, or at least the insufferable singing cleric Goldmoon, can now cast spells thanks to some platinum discs. Niles has an even heavier hand then Hickman at forcing the party into a series of chutes leading to heroic adventure, and he’s content to emulate the maundering pretentious language of Dragons of Despair as well. What’s worse is that while Dragons of Despair only required the railroad by necessity and encouraged the use of the novel derived pre-generated characters, Dragons of Flame actively creates all sorts of Quantum Ogre situations (events/encounters that occur regardless of PC action) and railroading while actively discouraging the use of anything but the pre-gens, some of whom “must survive”.

The party begins gazing dully about in the war-torn wastes after returning the gods to Krinn via magic discs, which make clerics and issue them id passes in the form of platinum amulets. The party then gets to wander about the destroyed landscape until they set off for a town. The town they set off from has been reduced to ruins, and even the lone survivor they discover dies as a plot point regardless of the players actions (even the expenditure of magical healing) after he imparts a few brave and sad words. This is something that creeps me out about these modules (and much high fantasy), the actions of the heroes must be lubricated with the horrible deaths of a large number of faceless, nameless peasant types to show the gravity of the situation and to provide proper motivation. In my own experience playing D&D players are a pretty callous lot when it comes to fictional persons, but not as callous as the Dragonlance modules.

It’s totally unnecessary and a slap in the face of player morality and agency to have a victim/mouthpiece who dies automatically no matter what players do. The adventure is in no way harmed by the story advancing old man being unsaveable. The most effect his survival will have on the game is to maybe provide the characters with a 0-level henchman. This is a small thing but symbolic of an attitude that’s shot through the two Dragonlance modules I’ve read. The players can’t win at the small efforts of goodness or humanity they might choose to have their characters undertake, only the big epic adventure goals.

When I compare this with something in the new Old School, specifically an LOTFP product because LOTFP has a reputation for being gruesome and to some flirts with being the ‘bad D&D’ that Mazes and Monsters warned us all about, Dragonlance comes up short. This is interesting because Dragonlance was conceived by a writer who I suspect is a very moral person, and some of its appeal to TSR undoubtedly came from the clear “good v. evil” lines drawn by Dragonlance. Yet looking at Death Frost Doom (which is apparently getting a Zak Smith rewrite [hopefully redraw as well] and general improvement), known as one of LOTFP’s best products, a serious OSR experience and emblematic of the heavy metal, gore soaked LOTFP worldview, I don’t feel the same kind of twitchy moral repugnance that this one scene in Dragons of Flame gives me. In Death Frost Doom there is an annoying old man at the bottom of Mt. Horrible, and every bit of raving lunatic warning he gives is basically correct. Besides stinking, ranting and grabbing adventurers, holding them back from adventure, Zeke is a total pacifist who is trying to help. Many parties end up killing him, because that’s the nature of the murderhobo mind, but the module never assumes that Zeke’s fate is foreordained for effect. He might not even be around when the party stops by his creepy hut, he has his own plans that likely will lead to his death, and he’s unlikely to survive the coming apocalypse, but the module doesn’t kill Zeke. Player choice, callousness, greed or bad decision making kill Zeke.

Likewise, there is a heroic choice for many parties at the end of Death Frost Doom. By the module's climax the party has released an undead army on the world, and is likely to be trapped inside the ancient tomb complex where thoroughly evil creature offers the best potential for escape. The ‘good’ choice here is to turn the vampire general down, and go down fighting. This is heroic, and a rare party might even fight their way free, yet the choice most adventurers take is to survive and release a greater danger onto the game world. Dragonlance never allows this choice, it doesn’t allow the party to either save the lives the module deems insignificant or heroically lose the lives that the module deems valuable. The two modules present similar apocalyptic scenarios, but for all its gore soaked Finnish umlaut ‘evil’, Death Frost Doom makes player decisions and judgments the moral locus in its world, allowing everything from doomed nobility to black-hearted evil (Some party has surely pledged themselves to serve the undead general?). Dragonlance instead prevents certain kinds of good acts, punishes bad with death by endless encounters and forces the players into the high-fantasy heroic mold by making it the easiest and often only option, which both cheapens heroism and prevents players from having to say “Nope, there are some fictional acts that I just won’t do, even if it would benefit my fictional avatar.”

Back to Dragons of Flame.

Discovering the nearest town has been sacked the party can wander about, but it will be captured in an automatic encounter with two huge red dragons, and thrown into a slave caravan. Likewise the party can head back to their former home base, Solace the Ewok village, which still remains somewhat intact and is occupied by Dragonmen. It’s a bit of a catharsis for those who have seen the Star Wars Ewok TV shows to imagine the Ewok village burnt and destroyed, but that life is going on amongst the burnt stumps of the giant high fantasy tree town is a good metaphor and image for the world that the evil dragons are making. In Solace programmed encounters will lead the party into a situation there where a former 1HD barmaid from DL-1 (now 3^rd level thief and 4^th level fighter, with a frying pan that is as effective as a longsword), will win the party’s hearts with fried potatoes before she gets them into trouble and captured.

All choices lead to the slave caravan, overseen by the hobgoblin boss who briefly appeared in DL-1. The only thing I like in this part is the idea that the Dragon armies are not simply a plague of destruction, they are occupying areas and trying to turn the populace to their purposes as slaves or subjects. Once in the slave caravan an important elf prince and random dude from the novels (who actually lacks plot immunity) get tossed into the cage cart with the party. A set piece escape, which is not itself bad, follows as elves go all French Resistance and shoot up the slave caravan. Personally it gets better if one thinks of the Elves as being Yugoslavian – because why are elves always French, and wouldn’t fantasy Tito be pretty awe inspiring – heck maybe they are Maoist elves, and Dragonlance is the Japanese occupation of China, not the Eastern Front.

Either way, in Dragonlance the elves are not Tito’s partisans or Mao’s cadre – they are high fantasy elves, they live in the forest, protect blonde elf princesses and have a golden tower. The elves ooze ancient nobility and sadness, but without any of the even vague weirdness that Tolkien would have implied. A kindly elf princess is introduced, but she is immediate kidnapped by dragon fait. Elves tell of mines with slaves, and captive innocents, including the captive elven princess! Get aboard the Dragonlance Express, next stop heroism! Strangely the module gives the players a ‘chance’ to refuse this quest. If the party refuses the elves will be grumpy,noble and double-plus sad. The elves will try, but will be wiped out in 2D12 game days as they lack plot immunity and the players can leave quietly where they will be ambushed every time they do anything by identical gangs of draconians “until they are dead”. The GM can then fold his jerk arms and say “Never get out of the Boat”, because in Dragonlance if you don’t want to save princesses when the module says 'save princesses', you want to be dead.

DL-2 with all the player choice of a 90's video game

If the players decide not to die, they meet a special NPC, who is of course caught in a melee with dragonmen, but since he can’t die, because plot (he has to betray the party), a smart meta-gaming party would just sit back and watch him win the lopsided fight. Now the party is past the Dragonman rear gates, and there are native trolls, because fighting dragonmen is boring eventually. How these obviously bloodthirsty to the point of stupidity trolls are alive is a mystery, why they are more sore at the party then at the dragonmen squatters on their ancestral troll bog is unfathomable. Troll allies – who hasn’t wanted some since they saw a drawing of a D&D troll? Dragonlance won’t give you the chance. There’s tiny tomb to go through and some standard tomb denizens after the troll ethnic cleansing. The only good part of the tomb is the room with 250,000 GP in gold bars which are useless to the PCs, both because Dragonlance, and because by now the players should realize there’s an electric third rail that leads to death by endless ambush if they step away from the railroad to heroism for even a second.

Secret door into Dragonman mine fortress. Monsters never find secret doors, it’s just a rule. In the mines the Dragonmen behave badly towards ladies, not super badly, but in a rude fashion at least. The ladies suggest dressing up in drag to sneak up and free the miner men types because that’s how fortresses are invaded. There’s an evil priest and a Red dragon with 88 HP (the red dragon maximum I think), there are hobgoblins. The dragon likes children though so in the climactic ending scene, without aid from the PCs, red dragon No. 88 saves the children by attacking red dragon No. 2. Presumably at this point the party has an angry dragonman army following 800 tired out slave followers, including children on foot with little or no food, it’s a victory for good!

Fixing Dragons of Flame

While Dragons of Flame is worse than Dragons of Despair it does offer some interesting ideas of what the Dragon Army is like as an occupying force. More Mongol Hoard then Roman Legions, they don’t salt the ground, they behave badly on an individual level and try to squeeze useful production out of their captives.

The GM now knows how to handle the character’s inevitable capture. Slave Caravan and mines. These are a decent thing to add to ones slowly growing map of Krinn burning. Following the plan I decided on in reviewing Dragons of Despair, the towers/mine and other occupied lands become more areas on the hex map. The Draconain plan progresses and as their front line armies move on, they bring in local auxiliaries in the form of hobgoblins. The party’s carefully constructed place in the world of occupied Krinn falls apart as the hobgoblins are really poor occupation troops and the Draconians wither now have the resources to hunt partisans or push untrustworthy human mercenaries (the party) off to the side. The elves provide a refuge if the party can add to their fighting power, but the elves have an ideology as well. Partisan Elves are pretty much jerks, high on the rightness of their cause, and intent on massacring the ‘collaborator humans’ that remain in Solace and destroying the mines (regardless of the fate of the human slaves there, as human slaves are war materials just as much as iron is).

So it’s hobgoblins and elves ruining any equilibrium the players may seek, and a danger of capture. Lets make the trolls more interesting, because presumably Dragon’s aren’t really pro-troll and to the Draconians troll tribes are just less common stupider slave subjects. This would help make Dragonlance interesting, alignment basically rewritten into ‘dragon’ and ‘not dragon’, with only holdovers like the elves unable to realize that their traditional gripes about chaotic good v. neutral evil are meaningless in the face of dragonized warfare

I really have less to say about Dragons of Flame, then about Dragons of Despair, as it’s a worse module. The railroading has taken on an ugly tone and there is less going on in Dragons of Flame because the module is even more narrowly focused on forcing player actions and creating a specific scenario.

SUMMER OF THE WHITE MOUTHED DOGS

I think this is video game concept art

Below is an initial attempt to flesh out the ideas behind my fallen Empire Post of last week. The idea behind Fallen Empire/Empire of Rag and Bone is to create a setting where high magic of the most absurd and potent variety exists, but is both rare and mysterious. I have tried to include a few setting hooks into the letter below, which may verge on “Bad wanna-be fantasy author territory” rather then game content. I also try to pull the game ideas (Stone Ships is explicitly from this world) from actual historical events (take a guess what the three below are).

Dearest County Cousin,

In the Summer of the White Mouthed Dogs

The summer of the 14^thyear of the Reign of his Imperial Luminosity Just the XIX, the weather is fierce and the river low. The guard’s cistern had to be drained to keep the roof ponds, and their bounty of frogs from drying out, though the frogs are neither as numerous or juicy as might be hoped. At least the guards won’t mind the lack of water, as Warden Quinn has moved into Sister Astix’s chambers, which will be a scandal, but it’s not as if there are any left in the capital of the right blood for the poor girl to marry anyhow and if there were we have nothing worth a dowry these days. Quinn’s five men deserted last year to join the plundering trade, and only Gorg has returned, the white haired man stood at the gate the first day of spring, naked and a bit cracked, but the Patriarch’s pride will make sure he’s fed, and has a place by the kitchen fire.

Most wondrous news, and I know how you enjoy news from the ‘Great Capitol’. The low river prevented a great many of the barges from finishing their journey this year, at least the ones whose masters didn’t ride the spring flood. It was a bad year for scavenging, so bad that a daughter of one of the mercantile families approached me by the Twinlight Gate, you remember the old archway where we sat that fateful autumn of the last year of childhood and watched the soldiers burn where that Resurgent fool tried to take the wealth of the Red Factory by force. It is still covered amber moss and tiny white flowers that smell of musk, and out of its shadow a veiled woman made a gesture of acknowledgement. Do not worry she was wrinkled and coarse as all the crafters are, in her 40’s and worse her hands exposed to the sun in childhood.

Yet the woman, I never learned her name, do you think that rude, or would learning it have been too familiar? Had an offer. Her family had some paintings, and wines and good brocades and they wished to know how our larders were. I brought the deal to the Patriarch and was most forceful, so in the end we all have a new set of linens, two new footmen, and the entry hall has a fine monumental ½ scupture of Vizer Tel, who was my 12^th Grandfather’s patron.

The negotiations took the weeks of late spring, and I was the chosen representative for the house. In many hours of conversation I learned much news from the townswoman. Here are the bits I remember dearest cousin:

X) An expedition by the Resurgent Templar King, a title so absurd I had to pretend I was ill for an hour after I first heard it to stifle the laughter, set out from some port in the New Provinces and landed on the Isle of Enmity* seeking souvenirs. They did not return of course, but their supply ship escaped and reported seeing an archon striding along the beach. Imagine a creature of that nature still exists from the First days of the Successor Empire and the battle against the demons of the False Corrector.

X) The Resurgent Kingdoms war with each other again, but one clever barbarian despot has managed to marry his daughter to a family of border barons, I think it was a rustic branch of the Green Sash, and brought in their war machines**, a brass colossus and a few lesser automatons into the war, enlarging his Kingdom. I wonder if this is a victory for Imperial culture or a loss, but I know so little of the province I cannot say.

X) I have saved the best for last! The Imperial Road Wardens*** are still active, while I accept that the highways may be in poor repair in places I believe that this fact alone shows that the highways are still safes. With taxes being paid to the wardens for their upkeep, the roads must be clear of the sort of riff raff and dangerous beasts that would trouble a young man of my station. I plan to depart next spring, after the roads have thawed but before the torrents. I believe that the crafter family can secure me a place on a barge that will take me past the riotous districts and then it will simply be an idyllic ride through the blooming countryside to your father’s lands. I think I will bring my valet, and old Gorg, and the freckled footman who is excellent at bringing down birds with a strap and stones, as company and in case I meet with commoners that can give directions. I cannot spoil the surprise I have planned for my arrival, but I will say that I have instructed the footmen to spend time between their fishing expeditions on making the dower suite habitable again.

Until I see you, know that I have not forgotten our time together those many years ago when your father visited the Capitol. I trust you have not forgotten either, and expect to see you before the summer next.

Eternally,

Pepinot Vex, Hereditary Peinkernes Extraordinary

*The Isle Enmity was once a fortress island in the ancient war the destroyed the True Empire. The demon legions under the command of the Imperial Bureaucracy and the False Corrector had fortified the island when they realized that their tactics of resolute attack were failing. Spending over a year using magic and alchemy to carve the entire island of heavy volcanic rock into a network of fortresses, the battle to capture it’s strategic ley nexus and port was one of the worst of the war. So fierce was the conflict that the forces of the Cadet Emperor had to summon archons and offer them a pact to take the island.

It has remained untouched, unplundered and largely unexplored since and represents a treasure of both the ancient magical weaponry and more mundane valuables, striped from at least two provinces buried in the fortress vaults by the Corrector’s armies.

** The remaining frontiers of the Imperial Central Provinces are protected by scattered and corrupt garrisons, lucky if they have a fifth of the soldiers they claim on paper, and ancient arcano-technic automatons in the hands of the nobility. The various colossi and titans are the greatest of these, and even broken (as most are) they are engines of destruction without equal and capable of single-handedly leveling any fortress built in the last 1,000 years or destroying all but the largest and most magically potent of armies. That some such devices might fall into the hands of the Resurgent Powers bodes ill for the Empire, as they are the only force protecting it from wholesale plunder. The Resurgent Powers are ripe for military adventurers, with kings, high inquisitors and khans willing to hire almost anyone with the right Imperial accent who claims to know something about the recovery, use or repair of ancient Imperial Weaponry.

*** The Imperial Road Warden were originally bands of tax collectors, rangers and excise agents who were paid to maintain and keep the roads clear of banditry and dangerous fauna. They do still exists, as the Warden families and hamlets have themselves grown into their own communities over time, and now take their duties and right very seriously. Originally empowered to tax based on a certain percentage based on the expected profits of a trader’s stock and to take this tax from the stock itself if coinage was not available, and then issue a stamped lead pass entitling the merchant to Imperial protection form future taxes (market taxes, province taxes and noble’s road taxes) the Wardens have devolved into a type of genteel banditry. Still able to quote Imperial law (several centuries out of date) and well versed in the ancient value of various goods or the price of passage in extinct coinage, an encounter with Wardens will typically result in the loss of a trader’s entire stock and a traveler’s possession. Wardens are not as hated as the bandits that also infest the roads, because they are punctilious in their duties and never steal a traveler’s horse, wagon or clothes, and always issue stamped lead passes, which are still honored in a few trade towns. Moreover the presence of Wardens, many of whom still carry at least a few pieces of ancient Imperial weaponry, tends to mean that the road is free from mundane bandits. Larger merchant caravans have been known to hire groups of Warden’s as guards or employ an Imperial Barrister to argue law with any wardens encountered. All of these methods have meet with varying degrees of success, depending on the nature of any the Wardens encountered.

Merchants may undertake these methods, and simpler tactic of deception or violence to protect themselves from Warden bands, but they never forge the Warden’s simple lead passes, because it is a known Warden tactic to infiltrate family members (the Warden bands are almost all familial in nature and all Wardens see themselves as kin of a sort) into caravans to ferret out dishonesty. Merchants who cheat or attempt to deceive wardens will be strangled at night by these imposter travelers, and a signed death warrant for a variety of crimes against the Imperial Code left on their bodies.

Ruins Of the Central Provinces

Pepinot Vex has set off across through the decaying grandeur of the Imperial Capitol and into the desolation of the Central Provinces. The heartland of the Successor Empire, and the richest provinces during the thousand years of Imperial Peace, these lands are desolate now, clogged with ruins and soured by the esters of abandoned ancient magics.

D20	Central Provinces Encounter Tables (Ruins)
1	A Coaching Inn, abandoned in the past two generations. The core buildings of antediluvian bonewhite are surrounded by a sagging maze of later wood and stone construction. The ruin looks uninhabited, but seems the sort of place that wildlife, bandits and arcane sports would congregate
2	A Coaching Inn, burnt timbers and frames jut from a pile tumbled stones. Only bright yellow mushrooms grow from the ashes so the fire was relatively recent or the ground is cursed with magical waste. The inn was of modern construction and little remains above ground. Careful searching will reveal a stone trapdoor that leads to the Inn’s former cellars.
3	Only a roadside sign, of weathered bonewhite, proclaiming “The Moneylender’s Folly” hints that a ruin of a coaching inn concealed in a dense growth of briar trees. The ancient buildings have been melted to slag by some magical conflagration, but the foundations remain, filled with a maze of briar trees festooned with bone chimes and trained into a warren.
4	A Coaching Inn, bright pennants and bunting decorate a plastered white building roofed in blue tile and the sounds of a pianoforte tinkle out onto the road through an open window. Approaching the ruin reveals that this is an illusion of prosperity a spectral remnant of the past, only single wall of the inn stands pitted and covered with mould.
5	A much worn coach of black polished wood rest on its side in the ditch, perhaps the conveyance of a member of the rural nobility. Scattered around and within the coach are 1D4 badly mutilated bodies and the contents of several trunks (torn and soggy clothing). The massacre appears recent (2D100 hours old).
6	Half buried in a hill a few hundred feet from the road are the gutted remains of an ancient bonewhite flying coach. The cause of its crash is not evident, but its location provides an excellent overlook of the nearby countryside.
7	The bare outlines of farmland remain here: foundations, rotting wooden posts. More notably this large farm was once an orchard, and many of the trees, though long past their prime, are still covered in strange bright fruit of varieties now uncommon or unknown.
8	The low buildings of an ancient plantation are nearly invisible beneath a riot of fleshy purple vines, some as thick as a man’s waist. Only a bell tower, molded in flow-stone with lost art, climbs above the overgrowth. The vines are clearly a product magical corruption, and rustle with ominously.
9	A hamlet is visible from the road, its exact details masked by strange blurring. Upon approaching to a few hundred feet the there is a sense of incredible wrongness about the place. Within the haze of magical corruption figures still move, seemingly carrying on normal errands and work. If observed for long enough the figures' movements repeat.
10	A peaceable looking thorp of modern construction, reed hovels surrounding a few substantial wooden buildings. The entire thorp is mined and trapped so that individuals investigating the building will trip wires, step on buried or disturb carefully balanced triggers and shatter glass orbs containing air flammable alchemical compounds. The resulting fire will set off a conflagration as numerous barrels of oil and flammable straw pack the hamlet’s buildings.
11	A neatly kept Imperial messenger station stands near to the highway. Its windows are shuttered, door locked, and horse paddock empty, but otherwise the post appears untouched by time. The interior of the station barracks once housed a long squad of 18 vigiles, but now contain the body of one elderly man, who has rested dead in his bunk for at least a month, wearing the threadbare uniform of a forgotten legion.
12	Once a small rural garrison, this ruin shows the signs of titanic violence. The walls of the fortified blockhouse have been blasted outward and the other buildings crushed from above. All that remains of the garrison are ancient bone fragments and a few pieces of shredded armor
13	Scorch marks, small fires and shattered windows mark this mansion an empty ruin. The interior is covered in the graffiti of a redistributionist cult and the bodies of the lord and his family hang desiccated from the rafters of the great hall.
14	Once a stately carved stone manor, worn by eons of rain, now in a terrible state of ruin by neglect. Still the vineyards that surround it are well trimmed and contain only the most gnarled of old vines rich in black fruit.
15	The pit’s sides are more slope then cliff, but they are clearly an old sinkhole. At the center of this pit is a largely intact manor house, its roof collapsed on its upper level and its lower level collapsed onto the elaborate crypts and cellars that may have undermined the structure whose passages still gape in the pit's walls.
16	A nameless town, built around a distillery, now standing in ruins. The place appears to have died of neglect rather than violence, but careful examination of the buildings will discover repeated graffiti of the yellow plague sign.
17	This town was ancient, and once prospered on trade from the surrounding farms. It appears as if it was inhabited only recently, at least in some of the buildings closest to the road. The rest of the ancient buildings contain only bones, human and animal, stacked in huge careful piles.
18	The crumbled hive of a factory looms, its high walls covered in vines and lichen. The edifice seems to have been abandoned for centuries, but the descendants of its workforce may still reside within, feral a plague upon the countryside.
19	A line of stone hills, covered in an aggressive vibrantly green moss, mark the fall of an ancient stone war-titan across the road. While the immediate path has been cleared, straying will enter the arcane sink created by the slowly dissipating magic of the ancient construction. The effects of this pollution are minor as the fall occurred long ago, but strange life persists amongst the titan’s crumbled remains.
20	A bronze titan, 60’ tall and incredibly ancient was finally brought down here, likely in a skirmish between noble houses. The bulky wreck crushes a vineyard building, still partially intact, and the fruits in the fields beyond have grown wild and gigantic from the wreck’s magical emanations, making a fertile landscape for arcanovores.

I have decided that in any game of Fallen Empire played there is an additional stat, much like the stat for Sanity in Call of Cthulhu. Exposure to magical pollution will slowly wear away this stat, and when it’s exhausted there will be a nice mutation table to roll on. I might even consider allowing magic-users to burn this stat as a means of recasting spells.

Also given that the pernicious influence of magical radiation is a major setting component, I think that the Owlbear will be a commonly encountered monster, they are inexplicable horrors that persist on vermin and magical radiation after all.

To the right is a quaint little character sheet I drew up. I suppose it's for ASE or a similar gonzo sort of game, as it includes a Zardoz head atop the character portrait, but really I think it has everything I'd need to run a basic D&D character. I made it with a 'significant item' sort of encumbrance system in mind but if you need use weights and measures who am I to say that's a bad thing.

I think the hit matrix is largely unnecessary and assumes descending AC, where as I prefer a LOTFP style hit bonus system.

Here's a PDF of the sheet.

A discussion of trick monsters

WOTC's new Owlbear, lovely plummage, same bloody beak

Occasionally one hears table-top RPG players discuss trick monsters, usually with a bit of disdain or annoyance. Things like Nilbogs (with their reverse everything mechanic) and the various monsters that conceal themselves as treasure or harmless dungeon dressing (mimics, trappers, lurkers above) are classic examples of ‘stupid’ or ‘silly’ trick monsters and get a share of disgust and annoyance. Yet the trick monster is the mainstay of computer RPGs these days (especially the more action oriented ones) and can be a great deal of fun. Basically a trick monster is an adversary that the players must think up a special way of defeating beyond simply squaring their avatar’s shoulders and having some luck with the dice and this provides the basis for a fun encounter.

Trick monsters aren't a bad thing, it feels good from the player side of things to defeat a monster that does something tricky, either through figuring out a puzzle or because it’s at least different than doing things the standard way. The key to making a good trick monster is to make it something that either provides a warning, or a context that is itself a warning. How subtle or overt these warnings must be relates to the players and the GM in question. Still a trick monster without warning or worse one that gives false clues, is not fun - these are gotcha monsters as opposed to trick monsters. Even the Nilbog isn’t like this despite it’s silliness, you cut it with a sword and it looks healthier, meaning there is a quick way to figure out what's special about the horror. A gotcha monster is an enemy where the trick isn't part of the story, it's aimed at the players with the goal of tricking them into making mistakes. For example, a fire elemental that is healed by cold and water attacks but harmed only by lightning would be a rather nasty gotcha monster both because the clues about it (unless it’s a made of icy blue flames, but even then) are the opposite of its trick, and because the trick of hurting it with lightning is entirely concealed.

Special abilities are important, and really a very necessary part of good monster design. They become more important the higher level the party is, both because the players will be well acquainted with regular combat, and because at higher levels combat encounters often take a lot longer. Special abilities, either by making a monster susceptible to certain tactics or by making the monster more dangerous make combat quicker and more dangerous. Even at first level monster special abilities are interesting and build setting.

1) Surprise/Concealment/Ambush – From a murderous animate carpet, to goblin huntsmen with a concealed blind this is one of the simplest and most effective tricks. The enemy will spring at the characters and get a free attack or two unless they are detected. While players are likely to find monsters that pretend to be flooring silly or unfair, they are unlikely to complain about monstrous felines that drop from the trees or bandit snipers. Some warning is perhaps, but with a plain ambush it’s not really necessary. Trappers and Lurkers above (who compound their ambush with delayed death) and hide in plain sight might need a bit more warning of their existence, and context. Certainly something like the animate carpet is a better example than the fake stone Trapper, as its presence is advertised as being different from the rest of the dungeon. No player can seriously complain if after having battled an animate stool and gang of brooms in the wizard’s pantry, the rug in the hall rises up to smother her character.

2) Backstabbing– An underutilized variant of the ambush creature, this is some monster that mimics the thief’s traditional ability to strike unsuspected with increased accuracy and for a large amount of damage. This makes ambushing monsters even more trap like, as unless detected they can suddenly kill a party member. Likewise a backstabbing ambusher (again like a thief) need to be as tough to be scary, their normal attacks and defenses can be relatively weak as the initial attack is so effective. The increased deadliness of these creatures means that removing the sense of unfairness from them is best done by making them detectable and perhaps providing warning. Even something like an invisible stalker (underused is the invisible phantom monster) should appear in context – in a wizards laboratory or a shrine to an evil god of the wind for example and perhaps provide subtle signs that it’s nearby (a strange Predator like blur even).

3) Spell Use/Abilities – Insane warlocks make the best enemies. Like the backstabbing monster spell casting enemies turn character abilities back on the party, specifically the extremely dangerous powers of magic. Spell casters are fun enemies, because the mechanics for spell casting are well defined and clear to the players. Spell casters rarely need warning, as they are an enemy the player understands. The more a monster deviates from the traditional Player Character spell caster’s weakness to melee combat, the more dangerous it become, and the more some sort of warning or context is appropriate.

4) Delayed Damage/Multiplying Damage– A monster that telegraphs attacks for more than a round. Generally this is some sort of obviously dangerous or even lethal attack. More often than not the delayed attack is combined with some other mechanic, such as the swallow and suffocation of a purple worm, or even the bear hug attack of an owlbear. Both mechanics encourage certain combat choices and disfavor a straight forward melee approach. These mechanics put whichever character directly engages the monster or seeks to draw its attention in the greatest danger. For example, a fighter who bravely stand up to the owlbear will quickly be picked to piece by its bearhug and beak. They thus demand a change in tactics to defeat. The owlbear requires harrying and missile attacks, but it would be just as simple to create a creature that required melee engagement, say a modified version of the manticore. These mechanic are nice because as long as they are clearly evident in the creature they don’t need any explanation or warning beyond the encounter itself.

5) Doesn’t Attack Hit Points– The poison spider is the easiest example of this, as is anything that requires a saving throw. This is a great mechanic, perhaps even the central trick mechanic. Like the above delayed damage mechanic it makes the players adapt their tactics. The classic variation on this attack is level draining undead, which do small amounts of damage, but not only both permanently penalize battling them, but kill in a set number of hits, regardless of HP. Beyond saving throws there is the option of attacks that do direct damage to statistics. I like this option, especially for magical creatures because it not only makes the players change their tactics, it puts different characters at risk. When an attack damage Int and bypasses armor, the magic user becomes the character who should stand toe to toe with it while the party brute takes on a supporting role. These attacks are tactical and as long as they aren’t instantly deadly or entirely obvious (avoid the venom dripping from the giant scorpion tail) they don’t need a great deal of warning, only context.

6) Breath Weapons– Breath weapons have a special place as they are the nearly unique power of old school dragons. Or at least that’s what I mean by a ‘breath weapon’ – a devastating attack that does damage based on the existing hit points of the monster. This emphasizes a certain kind of tactics and makes a dragon an incredibly dangerous hit and run opponent. This mechanic is neat because it works as a meta-game element as well, players know what a dragon breath attack does and are afraid of it, they know its specific limitations and powers as a nearly unique mechanic. As a pretty tactical ability, this is something that is a fair attack as long as it’s contextually sensible.

7) Restraint or Removal– The Monster can remove or otherwise incapacitate its enemies. Paralysis, swallowing attacks or magic are examples of this kind of attack. By reducing the player’s options and numbers this attack is dangerous, but it isn’t lethal like a save or die poison, so it can be used much more easily. It also has the advantage of complicating defeat, as most players are unwilling to leave living companions behind. Another cool element of this sort of trick is that the victims are captured rather then slain, meaning that even a total party defeat isn’t the end of the game. Again as a tactical mechanic that is more limiting then completely destructive, this doesn’t seem to be a trick in need of a great deal of warning.

8) Automatic Damage to Attackers– A creature that either reflects certain kinds of attacks or does damage per round to anyone who engages it in a certain way. Classically this is some sort of spell reflection, but it would work well as a cloud of stinging midges or some sort of arcing lighting that harms ranged attackers. Since the results here are damage, and usually either the damage that the players own attacks would do, this isn’t an extremely deadly special ability, but it has the ability to make surprise attacks, a backstab or an unexpected lightning bolt very deadly to the players. An aura attack is likely best warned of with monster appearance.

9) Destroys Equipment – The Rust monster is almost universally hated by D&D players but it’s a rather sound and reasonable trick monster. Nearly harmless, except for its ability to melt metal equipment – there is perhaps nothing glorious about taking off one’s armor and beating the rust monster to death with a ten foot pole, but it clearly changes the dynamic of combat. I suspect the annoyance at this sort of creature is player hatred for losing equipment. This seems a bit odd in a game that is traditionally focused on resource allocation and attrition, but my anecdotal experience is that (like level draining) players strongly dislike losing their equipment. A similar effect would be a monster that steals the spells out of a caster’s mind. I am hung up about how warned about these monsters the players should be, mainly because they are so reviled by players. Yet, it may be that in a context where the creature makes sense, some sort of decay spirit rather than a weird propeller bug creature, it’s sensible enough that the danger can be anticipated and fair.

10) Lingering Effects– Mummy Rot, a lethal disease that needs two high level spells to cure is pretty harsh, but the mechanic is sound. I’m not sure how useful it is, as the delayed effect doesn’t really impact the encounter and only matters if it’s something that can be incorporated into the larger campaign. As something that is more of a campaign effect, this sort of trick is something to play carefully and think out beforehand. Warnings clues and signs might be appropriate, but since this sort of trick seems mostly campaign focused it largely depends on the campaign. It’s for this reason that the I wouldn’t use lingering effects for incidental monsters, as tempting and authentic as it might seem for giant rats to spread disease, anything that requires figuring out disease rates and questing for cures should be planned out beforehand.

11) Special Immunity– Classically this means something like an immunity to weapons, typical of undead or spectral creatures. Other examples exist, immunity to elemental attacks or magic general for example, even the ability to snatch missiles out of the air. These classic defenses are good, because at low levels they make monsters terrifying and at high level they are a way of limiting the effectiveness of excessive henchmen. In general if the defenses are obvious, there’s nothing wrong with this, but when the defenses are concealed it’s rather frustrating and should be avoided.

12) Possession– Monsters with special abilities that take possession of an enemy are really scary. The danger of these monsters is immense, as to defeat them the party may have to fight themselves. Ghosts are the most terrifying example of this, specifically their near immunity to damage, their powerful aging attack and the ability to possess characters with magic jar makes them incredibly powerful, even against high level PCs. One of the other interesting things about creatures with possession ability is that most players won’t attack their friends once they are possessed, so the party is often forced to negotiate with the possession monster. Clues and warning are pretty appropriate simply because the danger of the trick.

13) Regeneration– Trolls regenerate, that’s what every D&D player knows about trolls. Regeneration, or perhaps damage reduction, are a neat special defense. It’s also something that can bring a monster back again and again, a sort of anti-immunity effect. In general regeneration is pretty straightforward if it’s a healing per round effect. More complex regeneration is a power that keeps returning until something is special is done to kill it, a special item destroyed or weapon used. Since regeneration makes monsters only marginally tougher, it’s something that isn’t especially worth providing clues for, though if there’s a hidden secret that provides the only way to destroy a powerful enemy, that is obviously a different story.

14) Temporary Immunity– Total immunity isn’t a reasonable trick, I’ve only seen it in the worst sorts of railroad modules. At the same time temporary immunity on a strict timeline or with conditions is a rarely used trick. A monster that is immune to attack for the first three rounds, and it becomes especially dangerous, but in a fairly interesting way. One could also have a monster that is immune for a few rounds based on a certain conditions. This is something would look require a pretty good warning, after all, bosses in old video games flash red when they are about to do a special attack.

15) Fairy Tale Defenses– Fairy tale monsters are fun, creatures that have strange special abilities, specifically defensive abilities, that can only be overcome with something strange. A tough monster that can be defeated only by a unique weapon or item, cats for example. This sort of trick requires a bit more planning, and might be best for a legendary creature, requiring some kind of in game preparation. I think this is an underused trick, but it’s one that is could easily be overused, and so worth saving for important campaign enemies.

I suspect this list isn't all inclusive, but the point of the list to look at the special abilities of monsters as a means, to recognize that the mechanical aspects of monster design can be viewed like any other mechanic and should be considered from a perspective of how they effect play. Despite this, I don't mean to suggest that a GM should look only at the way a special ability will effect play, special abilities are intrinsic to certain monsters and their identity. Good monster design means making sure that the monster has a logic, and if that logic demands it spray acid, it should spray acid. Special Abilities that stem from monster identity are good because they provide an intrinsic clue, something that the players can break down and base their plans around.

Asylum demon fan art found online

Asylum Demon

A towering mass of stinking meat, gorged on tormented souls. Asylum demons are creatures of sloth and will remain relatively placid as long as they are supplied a steady diet of souls, since they aren’t especially picky about the quality of the souls they subsume and so Asylum Demons make excellent guards for the prisons of evil despots and mad wizards.

These demons are boisterous and lazy, always wielding huge weapons that only allow them to attack every other round, even with their huge strength. Rumors about Asylum Demons will emphasize their slow ponderous nature, relative immunity to ranged attacks and ability to crush armored targets with ease.

HP 50, AC 8*, ATK ½**, DAM **, SV F8, MV 20’

*The enormous mass of the Asylum Demon gives it a near immunity to missile attacks, all missile attacks do 1 point of damage to the Asylum Demon.

** The Asylum Demon has three different types of attack, which it will use tactically based on the party’s actions once every other round.

Sweep: The demon will attack sweep its huge weapon, usually a simple club of enormous size, smashing all who have engaged it in Melee. A dexterity check will avoid the attack, but those who fail will take 1D8 damage. The Asylum demon finds this attack unsatisfying compared to Crushing an enemy, and will only use it if it can catch more than one opponent at a time.

Pounce: Should its enemies retreat and harass the demon from a distance it will take to its puny wings and awkwardly drop onto its enemies from above up to 80' away. This clumsy attack can easily be avoided, but the demon’s target and anyone within 10’ of it must save vs. paralysis or be stunned for four rounds, setting them up for a another attack.

Crush: This crushing attack is aimed at a single annoying target and the demon's favorite tactic, which it will do as long as an enemy is in melee. The attack does 2D8 damage and requiring a save vs. paralysis to avoid being knocked over and stunned for the next round. Asylum demons are clumsy creatures and this attack is made as a 0HD creature, they are also very strong and armor provides no protection against the attack which will be made against the target’s base unarmored AC.

This post is inspired by a recent Post of Brendan's over at Necropraxis and I would like to think a contribution to a conversation about monster design. Brendan has a preference for monster special defenses as a basis for trick monster design, I'm not opposed to special defenses, I just think they're harder to run as a GM then special attacks. Thus while he's designed a defense base version of the Asylum Demon (the first boss from the video game Dark Souls) I've worked out an attack based version. The statistics are designed with LOTFP or B/X in mind and assume the existence of LOTFP's offensive and defensive fighting rules.

The way one defeats the Asylum Demon (or at least the way I did after 14 trial and error deaths) in Dark Souls was to leap on its head to stab it, and then circle around it, dodging its attacks and hacking at it's giant horrible looking haunches. In D&D terms this might be a backstab or flank attack followed by a series of rounds alternating between defensive and offensive attack. The way I would figure the demon attacks in a D&D game is to sweep if the party tries to mob it, pounce if they run away and try to peck it to death with arrows then crush them. If the party engages the demon by dispersing around it (perhaps after that backstab, which should take of a good 30% of its HP) and stabbing fiercely during its wind up every other round while backing out of melee except for the most dexterous fighter or thief who engages the demon in some sort of defensive effort. A character with 1 point of bonus dexterity AC in full defensive mode will mean the demon has to get a 16 or better to hit (using LOTFP), while a really nimble PC will need an 18 to hit (assuming a +4 AC bonus for fully defensive fighting). While this is still a risk for the demon baiter, and a successful strike has a really good chance of killing its victim if they are low level, the demon should go down in a few rounds of focused attack, given that it's AC is quite low.

So Tenkar Tavern's OSR Superstar contest continues. I've made it to the 3rd round,and decided to put my winning monster submission up below.

Robber's Bride

"The Robbers’ Bride a nightmare of settled man, the keening memory of a kidnapped daughter and the shadow of a wife fled into the night. To the vagabond, the proscribed, the outcast and the criminal they are the manifestation of hopes and dreams. Robbers’ Brides appear both as the motherly prophets of blood-soaked wilderness brigand bands and as the child saints of the urban underworld. These thieves’ oracles been reported to hold court in the low dens of tomb robbers and self-proclaimed ‘Adventures ‘, where these murder and gold crazed vagabonds pay homage to them as voices of true prophecy."

PDF of Robber's Bride

The One Page Dungeon Contest also ended this week, and Dungeon of Signs Thunderhead Manse managed to make it to the final round.

Abstraction & Movement

In the recent online discussion of monster design, partially inspired by my Trick Monster post earlier this week, I’ve crystalized a few of my views on designing monsters for the type of battlemap free OD&D I prefer. I find trying to use exact positioning and even calculated missile range hard to do in the context of an active game. Early D&D shows its wargame roots though, adopting distances and strict movement ranges without examining these choices. These rules have always frustrated me, and like many others I’ve largely ignored them. The issue then is how to better make use of the abstract elements and to create the same sort of tactical considerations and tensions without any sort of concrete or empirical spatial considerations.

Specifically, I want to look at rules for two kinds of special attackers that are extremely dangerous and should likely be treated similarly, Dragon Breath weapons and artillery (or any kind of heavy siege weapon really).

Range

Goya, Disasters of War I Think.

The first consideration is range, as there needs to be some consideration for range to keep tactical options open, but breaking it into broad classifications is better for my goals than tracking combat movement. This treatment of rsnge may seem cursory and makes closing range easy, but given that the majority of D&D combat happens in poorly lit mazes of 10’ wide stone corridors I think it will serve.

Range should be determined by movement and in an abstract tabletop game combat movement is really only important in attempting to flank, charge, and most important for retreat. I think a simplification (one I am undoubtedly stealing from someone) of movement into a value from 1-6 and treating it similarly to a specialist skill for difficult combat movement, while using opposed rolls for flight, is appropriate. Since the unarmored D&D human, or at least most humanoid monsters in the old monster manual, seem to have a movement rate of 40’, setting ‘movement’ at 4 of 6 seems about right. Being encumbered or wearing armor one lacks skill in using reduces movement by ‘1’ point per level of armor (light, medium, heavy) or based on the level of encumbrance. Thus a magic-user wearing plate armor has a movement of 1, meaning they move very slowly.

Movement works two ways, first in combat and second in pursuit. My range categories (below) consists of five basic combat ranges (Grappling, Melee, Short, Medium and Long) and it takes a movement value of 2 to close one increment of range, or to attack (though attack ends any movement). Likewise most actions take 2 movement points (swapping weapons or removing something from a pack for example) Charging allows an attack at the end of a full movement (meaning an attacker can charge from medium range to attack with associated penalties and bonuses). Unless someone is actively trying to impede this movement in combat or the movement is tricky (pushing past allies into the front line) there’s no need to roll, but if there is a doubt about the viability of the movement a roll on a 1D6 under the movement value should suffice. The reason I am simplifying movement to this extent isn’t just practicality, it’s because removing specific distances creates abstraction and should help with arguments about what a ‘real’ character could or couldn’t do, in the same way the abstraction of hit points decreases the number of arguments about character injury and death.

I think this simplified movement will work well in pursuit scenarios, as the runner and the pursuer can each roll a movement check on a D6 and the amount of success or failure creates a number representing distance gained or lost between the pair in that round of flight.

Ranges

Grappled– Combatants are intertwined and wrestling and subject to grappling rules. Missiles fired at grapplers have an equal chance of hitting any party in the grapple. Close Weapons do automatic damage in a grapple, and melee weapons can’t be used by the grapplers unless the grapple is broken. Melee attacks against the grapplers will hit the wrong target on natural a ‘5’ or less.

Melee– Melee range, meaning that the combatants are actively engaged in hand to hand combat with melee weapons. While in melee a combatant may not use a ranged weapon (with the exception of firing a preemptive weapon such as a pistol prior to melee or as an improvised weapon) Firing at a target in melee with a ranged weapon will result in striking an unintended target if the roll is less than a ‘5’. ‘Reach’ is a sub category of melee range, and represents the distance for fending weapons such as a spear or polearm. Attacks against enemies in melee with an ally can be made with a reach weapon without penalty and without danger of reprisal, reach range is treated as regular melee if no ally is preventing an attacker from moving closer to the reach weapon wielder.

Short– The range that missiles may be accurately fired into melee. Some missile weapons (scoped rifles, and longbows for example) have a penalty to hit at this range, while others (pistols) may have an advantage.

Medium– Medium Range, a distance that combatants are unlikely to close in a single round and still enter melee. This is likely to be the range of most encounters in a dungeon environment as it corresponds to the edge of torchlight.

Long– The range outdoor combat often begins at, usually beyond the range of hurled missiles, but the best range for certain kinds of missile weapons. In outdoor scenarios there is a use for longer ranges, say long range 2, long range 3 and so on to allow more round of missile fire against a closing attacker.

Artillery

Perhaps ‘Artillery’ isn’t the proper word for it, but it’s always struck me as strange that there are these devastating attacks that powerful characters can shrug off. Surviving a falling stone block trap or the direct hit by a 12 lb cannon ball should be a function of absurd luck rather then the strange abstraction of HP. So heavy weapons: cannons, catapults, anti-tank rockets or the results of a summon whale spell cast 40’ above the party, don’t attack HP. These are save or die attacks with a save vs. Dragon Breath to prevent annihilation. The only other protection is ‘cover’. A character that takes cover in the face of such an attack (and can see it coming/i.e. isn’t surprised) may take cover and if they save will take no damage from the artillery attack. Taking cover may simply mean dropping to the floor, or hunkering behind a shield, as it’s more a status then anything, will allow a miraculous zero damage in the event of a save, and the artilleries listed damage in event of a failure. The key element of taking cover is that it eliminates all movement and must be broken to act (with the exception of firing certain missile weapons – mainly guns and crossbows) This may also explain why something like a ‘2 inch cannonade’ has a damage listed as only 2D6. Outside cover (charging or firing at the mouth of a cannon loaded with grape shot) a failed save is lethal to any normal creature or humanoid and a successful save results in damage as listed for the artillery weapon.

I like these rules as I can add the cover ability to certain creatures (devils/giants/dragons/undead abominations/turtle beasts) and to powered armor (HMS Apollyon Boiler-mail) as a big bonus in large-scale combat or against certain weapons. Likewise I suppose a spell that allowed a character to act as if she was in cover all the time would be pretty cool. I have previously used the same cover concept for automatic weapon fire and shotguns (which depend on a save v. wands, but lack automatic lethality).

However, as fond as I am of this artillery damage rule, how do I do artillery targeting? Likewise this problem applies to thrown bombs and the adventurer’s favorite, the flask of oil Molotov. I am tempted to use the automatic weapon save rule for these as well, but that hardly works. For flung explosives and artillery I suppose some metric based on the maximum number of targets is appropriate. A shell or bomb has a set value that is it’s max available targets, I’ll call it explosion value (or splash?) – say ‘4’ for a cannonball and ‘8’ for a large shell. A flask of oil might have a ‘3’ value. Likewise a crew served weapon firing full automatic. This is the max targets it can hit a round, but it’s unlikely it will get them all, because for attacker picks a target and if that target fails their save the attack moves on to the next target, who also saves, and if they fail onto the next. This process repeats until a target saves. Even is this last target takes damage (i.e. isn’t in cover) the area effect is spent.

Grenades

I can’t decide how to treat grenades, I like the idea of treating oil bombs and other tossed explosives as artillery with low explosion values (and with damage not instant death), but this may make the flask of oil too powerful. Also I enjoy making the use of burning oil tense due to the danger of a fumble. Perhaps a first to hit roll to determine if the oil is a fumble. Actually I can avoid this extra roll as follows:

Oil Bombs: Explosive fire bombs that have an explosion value of less than 3 depending on manufacture. The gout of flame they create is easier to avoid then a specially designed weapon and all targets are treated as being in ‘cover’ for damage purposes (0 damage on a successful save). Oil Bombs do 1D6 damage the first round and 1D6/2 damage for each of the next following rounds to a target that fails its save. If the first target rolls a 19 or 20 on its save (the thrower may also roll this, depends on the GM I suppose) it is a fumble.

Bombs and Grenades: fragmentation or explosive weapons are more effective then fire in some ways, but do not have the versatility and ease of manufacture. A thrown grenade (often a small black iron sphere with a fuse) has an explosion value of 3 – 6 (depending on the type) and targets are treated normally, meaning they may take cover but aren’t assumed to. A roll of 20 on the initial target’s save means the bomb was fumbled. Normal thrown bombs or grenados do damage as a two handed weapon, but more advanced or larger explosives may be more effective.

Dragon Breath

Dore does a nice etching

Dragon Breath traditionally has three modes of attack: cloud, cone and line/stream and due to the feelings of hermanutic discovery I felt upon first looking at the dragon breath diagram in the basic book (or was it the Monster Manual/DMG?) I don’t want to change it. So here’s the idea, each type of dragon breath mode is optimal at a certain range and will thus dictate dragon tactics. I figure dragons aren’t firing a single explosive round (or fusillade of bullets) and aren’t instantly lethal so an explosion value is less necessary. I might still use it from the breath weapons of lesser beasts, like hell-hounds for example, but a dragon has enough fire or whatever else for everyone within its reach.

Stream: A Stream is almost useless a melee & short range, with only a single melee target being subject to the attack and considered in cover due to the relative each of dodging a stream of deadly breath. At medium range the dragon can walk it’s breath weapon over as many targets are reasonably available, especially if it’s flying.

Cloud: Cloud or spray attacks are effective only at melee to short range, but will hit all targets in melee range. At short range clouds are less effective, and targets are treated as in cover.

Cone: Cones are effective at Melee – Medium Range and similar to a stream in that only one target at melee range can be caught in the cone. Even melee range targets aren’t considered in cover though, and at short and medium range a cone can catch any reasonable number of targets.

Example

A steward crew of three is defending a long gangway, lit with sputtering arc lamps. The crew has just dragged up and loaded a 2lb quickfiring cannon (a Pom Pom) when an abomination, an undead demi kraken surrounded by 6 war dead gun wights comes crashing into the gangway. The stewards are well equipped with silver fragmentation shells (which run 100 GP a piece) but the Kraken is truly a nightmare beast, 40’ of ropey tentacles, stinking rubbery flesh with crude platting bolted to its beak and head.

The parties are at long range, down a gangway, and the great undead horror lurches forward with a speed of 2. The gun wights, undead soldiers, decapitated with an array of rusted gun barrels emerging from the stumps of their necks and capable of firing ghotly bullets, are speed 3. The Pom Pom is a long range weapon that is quite versatile operable even at short range, and firing every other round from a box magazine of 6 shells (which requires 4 rounds to reload). The cannon shells have an explosion value of 5 and do 2D6 damage. The stewards are level 2 fighters with 8 HP, Speed 4, and an attack bonus of +3 each. The kraken has 10HD (41 HP), attack bonus +11, 8 reach attacks in melee (tentacles), a melee range ‘cloud’ breath weapon that targets all in melee range in the form of spray of necromantic bile, doing damage equal to its current HP with a save for 1/2 . The Gun Wights are 3HD undead with a shotgun like missile attack of eldritch shot that attacks save v. wands and does damage as a 2hd weapon (2x1D6 pick the highest). Yet for this artillery combat these other stats matter little, as both groups will be attacking saving throws rather than armor class.

Thumping down the hall at long range the demi-kraken, a rubbery mass of stinking flesh with a corroded bronze beak comes with a high keening. Its servitors follow, lowering the rusty muzzles of the assorted gun barrels growing obscenely from their severed neck. Knowing this is their doom, but with no retreat, the Steward team stands and triggers the first round from their quick firing gun wishing that their supporting band of spear wielding militia had not deserted earlier in the day.

The Kraken moves into medium range, as do the gun wights. The kraken is a giant eldritch horror and its bulk and puissance grant it automatic cover. The cannon fires, booming in the close hall and targeting the kraken. The Kraken has a good save as a 10HD monster, but it fails and takes 2D6 damage as silver shrapnel rips at its rotten mantle. It is a mediocre roll, only 5HP and the Kraken is reduced to 36 HP. The undead leviathan continues hooting with fury, but its gunwight companions aren’t so lucky. The blast might catch up to four more targets, and indeed the first two wights fail their saves, dying instantly in cloud of clotted blood, rusted metal and rotten uniform. The third wight saves, taking 2D6 damage, but a maximum damage roll of 12 hit points is enough to reduce the 3 HD wight to paste.

In the 2^nd round the wights surge forward from medium to short range, as does the Kraken. The creatures could all attack (the wights have medium range gun attacks, and the Kraken’s bile is a cloud, moderately effective at short range) but they have no movement left, being sluggish undead. The Steward Crew frantically primes the gun.

In the 3^rd Round initiative actually becomes important, as the kraken is charging into melee (it only has a 2 move so it must charge to attack from even short range), while the gun wights are taking cover, being ranged attackers. The cannon fires at the charging kraken and its companions (wights and beast are still at the same range as the kraken has yet to move), this time targeting the remaining 3 wights. The first wight is blasted with a failed save, but is in cover so takes ‘only’ 2d6 damage, and with a damage roll of 4 it still stands. The kraken is the next logical target, but it saves and hence takes no damage as it is considered in cover. With the cannon fire exhausted the kraken rears up over the horrified Stewards and unleashes a vile spray of filth over them. The stewards cannot take cover, having fired their last desperate shell this round. Two artillerists fail their saves, taking 36HP of damage each, and melting into puddles. The last steward hides behind his comrades, but even with a successful save the 18 HP damage from the breath attack is lethal and the valorous gun crew is overrun.

NIGHTS DARK TERROR

The Interior Art is Better

After the mess that is Castle Cadwell and Beyond it’s been hard to review another B-series module. Luckily B10 “Night’s Dark Terror” is an excellent module, viewed by some as the best of TSR’s. Certainly it’s up there in any ranking of old or new adventure supplements, and it's very good. Dark Terror is a directed sandbox module, meaning that it’s a sandbox of various placed encounters that starts with and contains several set pieces. I think the difference between this and the much maligned railroad is that the events and encounters in Dark Terror don’t really depend on a specific set of player actions, they simply exist within the context of the region the module describes during the time the party is there. B10 was written by a stellar set of British game designers, Graeme Morris (worked on the UK series of modules), Jim Bambra and Phil Gallagher (the writer for Death on a Reik and the other Warhammer Fantasy Enemy Within modules) in 1986, that is a couple of years after TSR has seriously latched on to the heroic epic railroad variety of module and was fully at the height of its popularity.

Yet, B10 is closer to Keep on the Borderlands then it is Horror on the Hill (two modules that are basically the same adventure done alternatively in Gygaxian naturalist and mid-TSR proto-railroad style). In a sense, B10, by breaking from the dungeon crawl focus of early D&D while renouncing the railroad/story-line module of late D&D and is I think a very good model for the best of the ‘OSR’ products of today. The only major peculiarity of B10 as it relates to the rest of the B-Series is that it is for character levels 2-4. Rahasia also suggests a level 2 party, but seems less focused on this. Dark Terror really does try to push the players and GM from the dungeon crawls of the Mentzer Basic set to the wilderness adventure of the Blue Box Mentzer Expert set. B10 wants to ease the party into wilderness exploration and the idea of becoming regional power brokers. Yet Dark Terror is its own thing, and really succeeds on almost every level, except when it strays too far into trying to make the players follow a certain path and neatly tie up loose ends from earlier sections of the adventure. B10 has an evocative, but still rather vanilla D&D setting, a nice way of introducing/using wilderness rules and a real sense of exploration.

THE STORY

The hook for B10 is guard duty for a caravan of white horses in a distant land. It’s a poor hook, but things unroll afterwards in such a way that the original hook is almost meaningless. A bit more excitement about the absurd profits for selling horses to elves might get things going better, and then one could pay a homage to the rather decent Elmore Leonard novel Cuba Libre, about a horse selling cowboy getting involved in the Spanish American War. Ultimately the hook is just an excuse to get the party finds itself in a competition with a sinister organization to find the hidden homeland of an ancient race by finding lost magical tapestries.

A short boat trip into the pseudo Slavic lands of Karameikos is interrupted by an ambush aided by a spy aboard the boat. The ambush is fairly well designed, and the mysterious members of the Iron Ring. A surviving party will find themselves at a dock, menaced by the dock owner’s pet cave bear, which is mourning its mistress, killed by raiders. After a night in the dockside cabin the party can head to their destination, a fortified farm, but they will discover it, at dusk, under attack by three goblin bands. The overnight siege is well designed, and looks fun to play. Afterwards the farmers are thankful for the characters’ help, but not overly so (which is nice) and discover that the attackers have stolen their horse herd. The players are encourage to set off after the herd, which is pretty reasonable given its value. Following the horses the party finds goblins massacred by other goblins and ultimately the horses in the hands of some bandits/traders. The goblin raids were bad, and the party discovers that the whole region has been ravaged, a that the brother of the farming clan leader they befriended has been kidnapped. The party is offered a greater share of the horse proceeds to save the brother, and the use of the fortified farm as a base.

Goblins, Very Games Workshop Goblins

Assuming the adventurers accept this mission, they must discover where the goblins lair by talking to people, especially captured goblins and then do a bit of sandbox travel. There are some side adventures, seemingly entirely optional - including a band of evil pixies and a horse protecting magical creature. In general these are very solid little encounters, except for a bit of a vanilla fantasy feel. Eventually the players will raid another goblin lair, set in a magically petrified forest that deserves more attention, and discover that the captives have been moved to some ruins. The best way to find the ruins is to ask the horse spirit (that the party may have previously encountered) and kill a mother and son pair of werewolves on their behalf. Exploring the ruins on a tip received from the horse spirit the party fights more goblins and frees the captive they were seeking.

Another wilderness jaunt follows the rescue as the party goes to sell their horses to some elves. Increasing numbers of slavers are encountered and the party should be developing a real antipathy towards one yellow robed wizard by this time. The horses can be sold at a few different places and if the party follows the yellow slaver wizard they will end up in a large town. In town the wizard, slavers and their local wererat allies set a decently tricky trap for the players that involves a fake fortune teller and swaggering stevedores. After dealing with the slavers, wererats, and a basement troll the party can head North into the lands of an ancient race, suspiciously similar to well-behaved gnolls. The mountains are also full of savage gnolls who will hound the party into a lost valley.

Within the valley stands an ancient city and two warring tribes, one of brutish lizard riding humans, and one of decadent jackal headed humanoids led by a large number of priests. Both are harassed by undead from a corrupted temple. This is a basic faction war with the party holding the balance of power. Both sides can present themselves as sympathetic or awful, depending on the party’s interpretations and the truth is somewhere in the middle. Eventually the undead problem and the existence of a hunting slime monster, a former semi-divine protector of the jackal mens’ temple. The factions both want the party to help destroy the undead, and the slime monster may also need dealing with. In the end the factions will both turn on the party, which is perhaps a bit trite.

THE GOOD

GENERALLY EXCELLENT - B10 Night’s Dark Terror is a very good module, and this extends to its usability. It has solid maps, and actual functional pull out play aids, especially a sheet for tracking weather and travel. Likewise the art is rather nice, higher quality than many modules of the era and evocative of the module’s vaguely Slavic setting. The writing is clear, box text used fairly sparingly and descriptions not overly verbose. There are a few pages of history and GM explanation in B10, but it’s matter of fact and fairly concise, relying on information building during play and NPC interaction rather than from chunks of amateur short fiction.

In general the encounters in B10 are fairly tough for a party of 2-4 level, but reasonably so, and many of the random (or fixed to hex/optional sandbox) encounters are non-combat run in with strange creatures or mundane difficulties. This varied set of challenges evokes travel a lot better than the fixed encounters along narrow paths of Journey to the Rock, another B series ‘wilderness adventure’. The enemies are smart as well and the modules generally gives each encounter a few tactics to try. From the initial ambush to the various goblin siege tactics these are interesting and reasonable, even (or perhaps especially) when they aren’t absolutely the best tactics available. Likewise the NPCs and monsters are usually fairly believable in their goals and relations. The goblins fight each other over treasure for example and aren’t a monolithic force of evil, while even thankful villagers become hostile if the party decides to snoop in their bedrooms.

Traps and many of the mundane treasures are pretty good, as are the use of new monsters and slight modifications to standard monsters to make them more interesting. As always in TSR products the magic items are fairly common and utterly banal. Still for a mid 80’s TSR product there’s enough flavor in B10 to make it hold up.

A GOOD INTRODUCTION- B10 starts with a few pages of excellent introduction. This isn’t the space wasting pabulum of Palace of the Silver Princess, or the terrible fiction as pep talk found in DL1, its two pages of solid advice about how to make weather important in wilderness adventures and how to add replacement characters. There are other hints and bits of advice throughout, but the majority of it is interesting and useful.

SUBSYSTEMS – B10 includes some nice subsystems that are important to the module, such as its use of weather effects, as well as some cool localized rules for the way specific encounters play out. The siege encounter has several nice examples of this, which various goblin tactics requiring some reasonable little rule gimmicks (like HP for doors etc).

Obsessed with Bones, but not Gnolls...

FACTIONS – B10 actually nicely uses factions and powerful creatures with their own interests. While some like the farmers and horse spirit are mere quest givers, their motivations and goals are there so that a GM can use them in the future.

THE BAD

MINOR RAILROADS – The first hint of story making tricks comes when the party is forced to stop the night at the dock upon arrival in Karameikos. If the threat of ravening cave bear (which is reasonable, can be overcome and occurs based not only on a plot driven need) fails to keep the players from staying overnight they automatically suffer wolf attack, and then even if that fails to drive them off any attempt to move results in the party getting lost. This sort of thing is annoying and unnecessary. Another example of this is an encounter with horse thieves, who will sell the party the horses stolen by the party or inexplicably attack when the party’s NPC companion refuses to buy the horse. Now I see this as a perfect space for a player decision. Does the party buy the horses, steal them back, attack or walk off. Since this section of the adventure is just lead in to a larger sandbox, I don’t see how these choices need to be forced by the module. These sort of narrative tricks and forced decisions crop up in B10, and it’s a shame as they aren’t necessary and seem designed to make player experience of B10 follow a certain path rather than embracing its open nature and the fun of contingency.

PREDESTININATION - I’m not sure what to call this exactly, but the way that certain encounters, such as the horse thieves and ultimately the party’s flight from the hidden valley are set up to turn inevitably to conflict annoys me. I think that D&D players tend to be bloody minded enough without the module ultimately forcing violence as the solution to tricky problems. It may be that the factions are covetous of any treasure the party can take from the valley, and that only the barbarian humans’ lizard mounts allow a reasonable escape, but these facts alone are enough to set up an interesting conclusion, without B10 forcing a battle. The module suffers because it wants to wrap up its sections neatly, meaning that enemies who manage to survive often 'ambush' the party before the adventure moves on to its next major area. I think this tendency to definitively finish a segment of the adventure by forcing a combat is poor design and moreover it's frustrating as it's unnecessary.

HOW I’ would RUN IT

I think B10 is a good adventure, and pretty well set up to run directly from the book. I would make some changes, but they’d be minor. First, I’d increase the vaguely Russian feel of the adventure, reskinning the goblins as some sort of hairy forest spirits (Leshy I guess, though they’re more gnome like). I would also make the obvious changes to the railroad like elements of the adventure, and put the conflict between the goblins and farmers onto a calendar rather than as triggered events. This way the adventure wouldn’t require the players following a particular breadcrumb trail. A few key encounters (finding the location of the ruins for example) need more than one solution and alternatives would need to be designed.

Otherwise I can’t really think what to do with adventure, unless it’s reskin it and set it in pseudo pre-Spanish American war Cuba with factions of American capitalists, rebellious locals and stand-offish Spanish colonials. This would largely be making a different adventure. I have less to say about B10 then I do about some other modules, because it is a sprawling and largely successful adventure that reads more like a campaign setting then a module.

Here's a Map I won't be using for anything. Have at it.

If it looks familiar perhaps it's because it's a version of the 'fill in' map by Matt Jackson (Lapis Calumni) for Tenkar's Tavern's OSR Superstar Contest.

I've been working on a few projects here and there, adventures that I hope to put up as a PDFs eventually. Some are nearly done, some long overdo, some new and barely outlines, but one of the things I have been focusing on is improving design and usability. My past adventures, especially early ones like Obelisk of Forgotten Memories have a lot of content, but they are a bit of a mess. I've been trying to improve the layout and utility of what I write and I think I have made some improvements.

Rumors, always found in fantasy bars

The description box, encapsulating smell, lighting, treasure and perils in a given location is a good edition I think, as it provides at a glance what a GM needs to know to run the room, or better to job a memory of the room description that the GM previously read. With a personal solution to this basic location description in place I've been thinking more about the larger issue of scenario design, and the weaknesses I find when reading published adventures, specifically the B-series of modules, specifically the introductory hook and the rumor table.

Hooks and Rumors

Hooks and rumors are pretty intregal to motivating players to explore a location, and the difficulty in creating them is I believe one of the problems with sandbox play that leads to railroad adventure design. This can be ameliorated by having a ton of content available or by making hooks and rumors more interesting. First it seems that there has been a distinction recognized between hook and rumor, the first being why the adventurers are seeking out a location, and the second being what they might learn about the location prior to adventuring there. I'm not sure this is a valuable distinction.

Hooks are usually provided as narrative, a page or two of why a group of adventurers would be compelled to go someplace, or want to. This seems excessive as players will often go where the GM hints they should go, unless the game world has given them their own agendas already. That is to say "There's a tomb rumored to be full of money outside town" is often enough when the game world is young and bare, while even a patron demanding that the party explore a tomb full of money to save the world won't be met with enthusiasm once the game world has developed a good deal of richness, and the characters have their own agendas. Longer, more complex hooks should really be role-played out at the very least and demand to be incorporated into the game rather then simply sprung on the players. If the evil of the week is going to kidnap the players' favorite NPC, let them have some say in this, even if the kidnapping fails the players will likely motivate to retaliate. This isn't to say that sudden world shaping events (A meteor full of vampire elves crashes into town) aren't legitimate means of creating an adventure, but not every hook can be sudden, unavoidable and monumental.

Rumors aren't traditionally hooks, they are traditionally something extra that the GM hands out to create a bit of flavor, warn against special threats or get the players more excited about the adventure locale. My favorite old B-series rumor is "Bree-Yark is goblin for I surrender", an entirely false rumor from Keep on the Borderlands. It's a terrible rumor as it is false, and there's no point to false rumors except to trick the players, and likely teach them never to trust rumors. This isn't to say false rumors should be completely abandoned, only that when giving false rumors there should be a way of determining falsity and some consideration given to the use of the false rumor. There's a couple ways of doing this, an internal inconsistency or an external one. In the first case there's the rumor "no-one has returned from the Caves of Chaos alive as the manticore gets them" This is clearly a false rumor and should be ignored because if it were true about there being no survivors, who mentioned the manticore? The players should easily figure this is an entirely useless rumor. Yet why give an entirely useless rumor, it just wastes time. Am extrinsic error would be some fault of the narrator that indicates a problem with the rumor. If a local bumpkin says that all the doors on the to the Caves of Chaos are locked with unpick-able wards it means a only that there might be some locks, but if a magsman in good standing says the same, maybe knock is a necessary spell to get into the caves. Likewise a false rumor may be interesting or useful if the provider of the rumor is an important NPC or reveals the extent of a faction's knowledge. For example if the entirely absurd rumor that the orcs in the Caves of Chaos are in league with the church is spread by the Keep's guard it reveals a certain fracture between the church and the secular authorities.

There are two issues here, the importance of rumors depending on the nature of the rumormonger, and the use of simple hooks unless they are part of the adventure itself. I that the traditional hook as narrative, random rumor table can be combined for a good effect, that saves space, allows multiple hooks, makes in town interaction more interesting and helps keep the possibility of false rumors (or partially false rumors) open.

Below is a rumor table I just created for an upcoming project.

Thieves’ Rumors
D8	Rumormonger	Rumor
1	A grizzled fifteen year old former pickpocket fingers hammered and twisted into uselessness.	The Road of Tombs is the place to go on the lam, there’s plenty of hidey holes and if you go far enough out not even the enforcers will find you.
2	A ragged house breaker, her eyes wide with dream berry and her hands twitching.	There’s something real down the Road of Tombs, it’s the wilderness, but it’s calling to me now, a land of true comrades and the balancing of the scales. I’d go but my job is here.
3	A soberly and meticulously dressed professional guide for the slumming gentleman.	The Bawds have been having trouble of late, disappearances from some of the outer crypts, I bet it’s some crime king, trying to scare them into working for him. Little chance there.
4	A matron, dressed in sober black with a grey stone skull mask and pin designating her as a professional tomb robber.	The Road of Tombs is picked clean, anything left is trapped, wyrded, guarded or ensorcelled. Even commoners’ ash jars will sometimes contain ember geists, and the tombs of the ancients, I didn’t get this old by playing with that kind of magic.
5	A portly fence and boaster for the Crime Kings, wearing a red sash of office and the smile of a cannibal hog.	Boss Dixson has put up an honorarium of 500 GP for any who can trace what happened to the lads he sent to the Massif. We know the gladiators at the Bawd’s Market are behind it, they aren’t real thieves and have no sense of propriety or honor.
6	An elderly confidence man, still attractive in a leathery way, but seemingly retired and dressed in a patched merchant’s suit.	The Road of Tombs was the way out of town fast when I was in the game. There was a necromancer at the Massif, something Vex. You could trade him a blown horse for something that would ride like the devil until the sun came up, hell of a guy.
7	A scarred pit fighter, having trouble drinking through the grill of the elaborate bronze helm bolted to his neck.	Gladiators all hope to go to the Bawd’s Market after the pits, take a few clients, instruct them in fighting or pleasure, whatever suits a gladiator. It’s worrisome though, the Bawds claim they are losing custom and their own people in the night.
8	An assassin, or something equally dark, her face covered in tiny tattoos, and her right hands a magically animated steel talon.	Smuggling is weak craft, the weak are smugglers. The gods say they should drown in their own blood, and that is what is coming along the Road of Tombs, a reckoning in blood. I know how to stay before the tide – do you?

There are a couple of things at play in this table. First the rumors are all true, and the nature of the teller indicates a bit about the context of the rumor, giving clues about faction relations in town, and potentially in the dungeon. Second it allows me to lead to certain hooks if the party wants to follow up on them, or directly offer missions as part of the rumor discovery process. Last note that this is only the "Thieves' Rumor Table", for characters who decide to seek information in the underworld,there are a couple of others in the adventure, one for more respectable types who ask the merchants and another for those who don't focus their inquiries and ask about haphazardly. While the rumor providers and rumors are lined up more or less in the above example, they could be rolled separately, allowing the GM to give more then one spin on the same rumor.

It is surely possible to take this further, making the rumor table into a full fledged in town random encounter table, perhaps linking it to carousing or as an automatic in town action.

THERE’S NOT MUCH BEYOND CASTLE CALDWELL

Club Sleeper hit of 2005

MODULE WIDE FIXES

FIXES - CASTLE CALDWELL & THE DUNGEONS OF TERROR

Castle Caldwell - designed like a motel

Krak des Chevaliers
aka Castle of the Kurds
aka An interesting floorplan

FIXING THE ABDUCTION OF PRINCESS SYLVIA

FIXING THE GREAT ESCAPE

FIXING THE SANCTUARY OF ELYWINN THE ARDENT

CONCLUSION

Thouls and Owlbears oh my!

Inspired by Hereticwerk’s 6 Tigers and 6 Lions of Wyrmspittle here’s 10 Owlbears and 10 Thouls. Owlbears and Thouls have a special place in mid -80’s D&D, showing up in a large number of the B-series modules that I have been reviewing. I like both these monsters, they are D&D originals, the owlbear (like the bullette and rust monster) is one of those early D&D beasts based on a set of plastic ‘dinosaur’ toys, and the thoul is an absurd horror seemingly designed as a mechanically infuriating trick monster with several special abilities and very poor justification of them. Owlbears are the embodiment of bestial fury for low level adventuring parties, a dumb brute capable of tearing apart anyone foolish enough to stand against it in melee combat. The Thoul is more mysterious, some kind of goblin undead super-soldier or strange hybrid goblinoid. I think Thouls exist primarily as a means to trick parties who gleefully set about massacring humanoids, but there's a place for them as some kind of altered goblinoid: undead, enchanted, possessed, mechanically augmented - whatever goblins are into in a setting culminates in a Thoul. Below are the stat blocks for both creatures along with the descriptions taken from the Moldvay Basic Rules.

Thoul		Owl Bear
No. Appearing: 1-6(1-10) Save As: Fighter: 3 Morale: 10 Treasure Type: C Alignment: Chaotic	Armor Class: 6 Hit Dice: 3** Move: 120' (40') Attacks: 2 claws or 1 weapon Damage: 1-3/1-3 or weapon	No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-4) Save As: Fighter: 3 Morale: 9 Treasure Type: C Alignment: Neutral	Armor Class: 5 Hit Dice: 5 Move: 120' (40') Attacks: 2 claws/ 1 bite Damage: 1-8 each
A thoul is a magical combination of a ghoul, a hobgoblin, and a troll (see D&D EXPERT rules). Except when very close, thouls look exactly like hobgoblins, and they are sometimes found as part of the bodyguard of a hobgoblin king. The touch of a thoul will paralyze (in the same way as that of a ghoul). If it is damaged, a thoul will regenerate 1 hit point per round as long as it is alive. (After a thoul is hit, the DM should add 1 hit point to its total at the beginning of each round of combat.)		An owl bear is a huge bear-like creature with the head of a giant owl. An owl bear stands 8' tall and weighs 1500 pounds (15,000 coins). Owl bears have nasty tempers and are usually hungry, preferring meat. If both paws of an owl bear hit the same opponent in one round, the owl bear will "hug" for an additional 2d8 points of damage. They are commonly found underground and in dense forests.

Owlbear Classic by Demos-Remos

The above stat blocks don’t tell the reader much about the glory of the Owlbear or the Thoul and as creatures without a mythical basis, there’s really nothing else to go on. One of the saddest things in a tabletop game is when monsters lose their terror and mystery and become simply stat block. This is a problem with the late period TSR modules, and one that I personally find make me want to stop playing a game. A monster should have a description and evoke wonder rather then simply be a set of mechanical challenges. Below are ten new descriptions of Thouls and ten descriptions for Owlbears that don’t qualify as reskinning but are hopefully more flavorful then the ones above and allow the monsters to be use in a variety of settings.

10 Owlbears
1	A screaming cry announces the presence of this magically created horror. The body is that of a large black bear, with thick and lustrous fur, but the head and forelimbs are those of a giant peacock. Jewel toned feathers erupt in patches along the creature's furred back and it bobs its head twitching and staring with beady eyes.
2	This is the product of low vivamancy, its pelt a badly sutured mass of bear skin and owl feathers, covered in sores and jutting metal prods. The creature growls with the pain of its existence, and blinks a cluster of pus filled eyes above the beak of a great kraken in a face seemingly assembled from the heads of a dozen large owls. The beak caws intermittently, and what sounded like the cry of an animal reveals itself to be the croaking voice of a thirsty man through repetition. It calls for death, again and again, but whose death is unclear.
3	The earth here is rich, covered in lush moss, and walking calmly over it is a great beast, a spirit of the wild. The creature is huge and solid, the furred body of a bear, marked with whorls of feathers like magic sigils that flows gracefully into the enlarged head of a horned owl. There is intelligence in the thing’s green saucer eyes, but one antithetical to humanity and its works.
4	Peacefully regarding you with giant purple eyes, a creature with the body of a giant bear cub sits, stubby legs spread comically. It sniffs with its small, feathered owl head, twitching a large yellow beak before moving slowly onto its four heavy limbs, each tipped with golden claws. The beast suddenly cries, sensing the magic about you and charges, tiny featherless wings flapping furiously on its back as it rushes forward to devour any magical item, spellbook or practitioner it can draw into its crushing hug.
5	A riot of limbs comes through the forest, thrashing amongst the trees and crying from a chipped black beak set amidst a mass of brown feathers and coarse fur. A single yellow eye stares unblinking and evil above the beak, surrounded by flailing limbs. The beast’s limbs are a tangle, jutting in every direction from a central mass. Some have the claws of the bear, while others are the huge taloned claws of an outsized bird of prey.
6	Birthed in the war rookeries beneath the glass citadel, the beast, a magical hybrid of bear and owl, should not be here, it was made to break siege lines and hunt cavalry patrols at the behest of its masters. The crystal and ceramic control rod, grafted into its brain is shattered and old however, broken, unlike the sorcerous batteries and alchemical pumps jutting from its shoulders, which are now winding up for combat as the creature’s augmented senses have detected intruders to its territory.
7	The stuffed body of a bear, moving jerkily with a lingering formaldehyde stink, this taxidermy monster’s head has been replaced with a brass and steel clockwork shaped like an owl skull. Its crystal lensed eyes swivel in search of prey and it’s cruel steel beak slashes in anticipation.
8	Clearly summoned from beyond terrestrial space, this horror walks on thin black scaly legs ending in talons, its huge eyes are smoking pits that focus on any movement with unreasoning hatred. The beast’s body is a mass of shaggy red, stinking hair pocked with hundreds of tiny black and red beaks that jut in every direction. The beaks call for blood in ten thousand languages.
9	Settling on its long, wing -like arms this bulky creature resembles a plucked owl, with wrinkled skin and huge milk white eyes. Its red beak and a glowing red tendril drooping from the center of its flat owlish face are the only spots of color among an expanse of maggot white flesh. The deep hunting beast reaches out with it’s long arms, each tipped with several razor sharp bone spines, and its beak opens in a silent scream.
10	A confused look on its ancient features, this abomination is the fallen god beast of a lost tribe. Once wreathed in jewels and paraded on a sandalwood platform from village to village, its people are gone, but it endures. Sitting hopelessly in the crumbled ruins of its temple, a half avain/half ursine form, the exact portions of the two beast constantly shifting and at war in its still body. The holy beast’s great plumes are faded and dust covered now, and if it could once speak wisdom and prophecy it can now only howl and caw, but it still remembers that the blood of man is its fitting sacrifice, and it has been long since any have appeased it.

10 Thouls
1	A lone goblin stands above the rest, limbs long and hard, and body showing none of its kin’s hunched furtiveness. It is a soldier amongst slaves, bred and molded through generations of selective breeding by the goblin kings to fight longer, better and faster than any human warrior. Its eyes hold only contempt, as it’s long black tongue licks its weapons coating them in poison spittle.
2	The bundle of rags and bones studded in rusting putrid iron is taller than a man - some kind of rude goblinoid idol, suddenly lurching to unnatural life. The echo of ancient chanting and foul goblin incense pour from its carved mouth, filled with old nails. The living fetish moves to stop any desecration, its painted eyes sparkling with the trapped spirit of a long dead goblin hero.
3	A lone goblin, more pitiful then most, it’s skinny body starved to the point of emancipation whimpers just beyond the light. Suddenly the lantern's beam catches the wretch’s face, and it’s ugly features reveal the mark of the ghoul. Black rot surrounds the poor creature’s mouth and has reduced the long fingers it raises against the light to bone talons. Like all ghouls it moves with unnatural speed and ferocity, but somehow the uncanny goblin constitution has kept the poor brute at least partially alive despite its affliction.
4	Wrapped in dusty rags and stinking slightly of pitch the long dead corpse of a goblinoid hero twitches to life, its stick limbs and withered flesh are covered in hexed ropes, charms and gris-gris that constantly regenerate its flesh and ensure that it’s touch spreads paralyzing terror.
5	The goblin shaman floats inches above the ground, eyes rolled back into its head, daubed with hexes and wreathed in chattering spirits. In this trance the creature moves with supernatural speed, and its accompanying spirits plunge into any wounds, healing the shaman from within. It is impossible to meet the puissant goblin’s lolling eyes as they seem to suck strength and hold the viewer trapped in their thrall.
6	The goblins head rotates like a gear, its shattered vertebrae clicking as the body turns in a circle to follow its gaze. A haze of black sweat drips from the creature, clearly the host for something far more evil and powerful than a mere goblin shaman. Goblins are silly creatures, and many the goblin shaman, driven by lust for power will make pacts with the forces of damnation, never appreciating the consequences.
7	A goblin warrior, in ancient black plates, an artifact of its tribe, forged from raw iron ingots pulled protesting from the deep places of the earth. The armor is engraved with fel symbols and disreputable prayers, both of which glow with black light. Laughing the goblin warrior moves with confidence, sure that the magical venom coating its gauntleted hands and the armor’s unnatural powers of regeneration will bring it victory as they have many times before.
8	A goblin, its skin blotched with symbiotic fungus, and evil red mushroom caps covering its back stands separate from the rest of the clan. This infected creature is stronger and more resilient than its fellows and the parasitic fungus’ spores that coat its hands will paralyze any it grapples with.
9	A clockwork goblin, more scaffolding then statute, steam sputtering from its every joint is serviced by a crew of small goblin midges ready to hammer out dents and reconnect severed hoses. The thing's bladed hands squirt caustic oils into the wounds of those it claws, causing excruciating, paralyzing pain.
10	The works of goblin sawbones are rarely pretty, but this horror, besides being clearly the result of reanimating magic and galvanic tinkering, appears to have been stitched together from more than one donor goblin and several other humanoid creatures. Clotted black blood coats it’s claws, and the entire thing reeks of death.

At the very bottom of everything, the well stretching skyward, with the surface as distant as the radiant heavens of the Bother Gods, and for us equally unobtainable we took stock of who had survived slaughter by the maggot skinned beasts. We sat around a meager fire making biscuits from the weevil rich flour whose sacks had been torn in the combat. Our only protection was a low roof of stone held by a myriad of pillars, an edifice much like a pier, but rising from the smooth dry stone of the cave. As we sat, men and woman first tried to find those of their own country, or those who had made up the cliques and gangs in the camps above.

The grim descent and the fight afterward had scattered and broken these chains of the past. Amid the abattoir of our fellows, torn by the deep beasts, the past seemed less important then before, a rebirth from a womb of light and space into a place where darkness has twelve distinct varieties. I found myself using the blade of the ax I had grabbed up in desperation to help the man next to me heat his doughy biscuits as well as my own. He was a lean and ageless man, and from his ragged robes I knew him to once have been a noble from the distant islands across the spotted sea. From the scars of torture and the brands on his hands I also knew him to have been a sorcerer, who had somehow survived the special attentions of the Crusaders. He called me "Ax" from that day, and we became friends there. I for my part always called him as "Titter" from his strange laugh - in our own lands we would have clung to our proud traditions and he insisted on his title and honorifics while I demanded he respect the honors I once won in the City of Glass.

- Testimony of fallen redeemer No. 34 at the Inquisitional inquest regarding the White Fortress massacres.

I was thinking again about running a 'company style' game, where the player select from a large pool of potential characters, but do not each 'own' a specific character. Obviously generating PCs quickly is essential in such a game, and as mentioned in previous posts on the subject the goal is to have a varied party of 'adventurers' each session with a trade off between leaving the best company members in camp or using them as characters in a specific session. While stat lines can be generated quickly, and equipment becomes more a function of company stores then individual record sheets, I wanted to add a bit more to character generation so that the company members, most who will be little more then replacements or NPCs could be a bit more memorable.

To this end, below is a table of 100 Nicknames and Traits, many of which also adjust statistics so that a player will have something to go on when starting with a new PC.

Nicknames and Traits – Quick Generation
D100	Name/Effect	Description/Effect
1	Worm/-Chr -Int	Diseased/*-Con
2	The Roach/-Con -Chr – Int	Missing Leg/*-Dex
3	Bad Mojo/*-Wis	Missing Arm/*-Str
4	Humongus/-Str-Con	Stunted/-Str/-Con
5	Lump/*-Int	Foolish/*-Wis
6	Runto/-*Str	Clumsy/-Dex
7	Smash n’ Grab/-Int	Horribly Scarred/*-Chr
8	Witless/-Int	Moronic/*-Wis
9	Weed/-Str	Elderly/-Dex-Str
10	Stinky/-Chr	Halfwit/*-Int
11	Greenguts/*-Con	Gullible/-Int
12	Smoker/-Con	Midget/*-Con
13	Maladroit/*-Dex	Illiterate/-Int
14	One-Eye/-Dex	Filthy/-Chr
15	Hunchie/-Str	Missing Eye/ -1 to missile attacks
16	Dirty Britches/-Chr	Scrawny/-Str
17	Wildman/-Int	Drug Addict /-Con
18	Naptime/-Wis	Obese/-Dex
19	Dead Light/-Int	Near sighted/-1 hit with missiles
20	The Creep/-Chr	Crude barbarian/- Wis/-Int/+Con/+Str
21	Sharky/-Chr	Pocked
22	Stumpy/-Dex	Extra pinky
23	Rabbit/-Con	Flatulent
24	Slouch/-Dex/-Con/	Abstainer and teetotaler
25	Grandpa/-Con/-Dex	Unnatural eye color
26	Constance/-Wis/-Int	Has autopsy scars
27	Brokeback/-Str	Always hungry
28	Wretch/-Int/-Str/-Con	Shockingly white hair
29	Badgerbag/-Chr/-Int	Missing 1D4 fingers
30	Devil Face/-Chr	Performs many tiny superstitious rituals
31	Hedgehog	Collects grisly trophies
32	Mouther	Musician
33	Lost Boy	Entirely hairless
34	The Prince	Covered in tattoos
35	Grim	Has slave/criminal brand
36	Strawman	Rumormonger
37	Giggler	Strange religious prohibitions
38	Ladykiller	Hates snakes
39	Footsore	Fond of black clothing
40	Redeye	Pleasant singing voice
41	Shark	Disheveled
42	Campfire	Neat
43	Two Penny	Gluttonous
44	Ditchwater	Lonely
45	Pinky	Animal lover
46	The Cheat	Opposite sex, in drag
47	Drip	Incomprehensible foreigner
48	Black Rose	Odd laugh
49	Lowtrade	Disgraced nobleman
50	Pleasant	Dandy
51	The Dancemaster	Peasant agitator and revolutionary
52	Diddler	Mildly xenophobic
53	Petunia	Excellent cook
54	Red	Former lawreader
55	Angel	Well-travelled
56	Bandit	Former stage actor
57	Preacher	Tiny Head
58	Blister	Former Tax Collector
59	Grumbler	Extra Finger
60	Blood Drinker/*+Con/-Chr	Potbellied
61	Runion/- Int/- Wis/+Chr	Enormous Beard
62	Monk/+Wis/-Chr	Former Acolyte
63	Throatcutter/*+Dex/-Str	High squeaky voice
64	The Dastard/+Wis/+Dex/-Con/-Int	Slovenly and shambolic
65	Lil’ Mercy/*-Con/+Dex/+1 Damage	Scarred face
66	Ox/*+Con/-Dex	Immaculately dressed
67	Beast +Con/+Str –Int/-Wis	Fear of stinging insects
68	Glass Green/-Con/*+Str	Pyromaniac
69	Eggs/-Str/-Con/-Dex/+Int/+Wis	Offputtingly calm/-Chr/*+Wis
70	Ten Fingers/+Dex	Faulknerian idiot/+Str/+Chr/*-Int
71	Ironhand/+Str	Foppish dandy/+Dex/+Chr/-Con/-Wis
72	Killer/Backstab 2 in 6	Functional drunkard/+Con/-Wis
73	Deadeye/+1 Hit with missiles	Magically null/+4 all magic saves/*-Wis
74	Mother/+Wis	Brutal +1 Damage/-Chr
75	Lightfoot/2 in 6 Stealth	Child/+ Dex/-Con
76	The Barber/2 in 6 medicine skill	Sneering rationalist/-Wis/+Int
77	Hellion/+1 Damage all attacks	Devil blood/*+Str/+Int/no clerical healing
78	Crusher/+1 Hit with blunt weapons	Naïve optimist/-Wis/+Chr
79	Sorry/Crit on 19 or 20	Hypochondriac/-Con/+ 1 poison save
80	Ace/*+Str/+Dex/+Int	Upper class accent/+Chr
81	Spooky/*+Wis	Burly/+Str
82	Sweetpea/+Chr	Trustworthy face/+Chr
83	Monkeyman/+Dex	Prophetic dreams/+Wis
84	Ruin/ +Str	Stoic/+Con
85	Pincher/2 in 6 pick pocket skill	Iron stomach/ +2 to poison saves
86	Spider/2 in 6 climb skill/	Forester/2 in 6 Survival skill

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Underdark Musings - Company Game Trait Generator