General Blog Update

It has been quiet here recently.

After a series of fast releases – 13 products in four months, from April through July, followed by the release of Magical Beast Adventures in August, I decided to take some time off to collect my thoughts. Almost two months later I’m still trying; collecting thoughts is kind of like herding cats.

In that time, several things have happened that will impact my writing going forward.

First, Dan Proctor of Goblinoid Games has announced that he is going to release Labyrinth Lord 2nd Edition. That will be sometime in early 2023, so I am likely going to wait until then to start writing new LL products. The differences will be minor, I am sure, but most folks prefer new products to be for the most recent edition. In this, discretion is the better part of valor.

Second, I got a full-time job. This will cut significantly into my writing time going forward.

Third, shortly after I got the job, I tore my left meniscus, and have been hobbling around on crutches ever since. Fortunately, my job is such that I can work from home, so that’s good. Unfortunately, for various reasons, I cannot get the surgery to fix it for a couple of months. So that sucks. But things could be worse, and we are taking it day by day.

So, no Labyrinth Lord products for maybe six months, and limited production going forward.

What’s on the schedule, then, such as I’ve ever had a schedule?

Well, I had some ideas for further materials, including a full campaign setting, for Magical Beast Adventures. But the sales on that have been underwhelming, so that’s been shelved.

Work on the Castles & Crusades project has also been shelved. The response to that made the sales of Magical Beast Adventures seem spectacular by comparison.

I was working on a new module when I got the job, but between the job, my leg, and the new upcoming edition of Labyrinth Lord, that too went on the back burner.

Isle of Eldisor: The Northlands is still on the list, somewhere. While sales for Eldisor were better than anything else in years, it just has not yet made enough sales to carry a full-sized expansion. But that is a possibility in the future.

I have some vague ideas for a city product. I LOVE city adventures. But for various reasons, it is difficult to get started on those now.

That’s about it. 

I think for the next while I’ll be focusing on actual gaming, rather than writing for publishing. 

I am currently in two online games, my Old School Buddies Monday Night Game and my Merlin’s Keep Crew Friday Night Game. So far between the two groups we’ve played Blades in the Dark, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, and Shadowdark. They are great groups.

I’ve had a lot more chances to actually play rather than run with these groups. I’m getting the hankering to run again.

I’m thinking of running the Monday Night Group through some Dungeons & Dragons, using the classic Cyclopedia Edition and setting the campaign in Mystara. We’re also talking about playing some Twilight 2000. 

I’m still debating what to run for the Friday Night Group. I’m thinking I might try to fill my desire for city adventures and develop a city for them to play in using Shadowdark. If you haven’t checked out Shadowdark, you really should. That link takes you to the Arcane Library page where you can download a free Quick Start PDF set.

I’m sure I’ll be posting about their adventures here.

Oh, and the release of the Skull and Bones: Savage Storm comic book has been moved back to March 2023, to track with the release of the game. Keep an eye out for that, too.

That’s about it for now.

Good gaming!

40 Years Ago Today…

40 Years Ago Today…

 

December 25, 1981. Christmas morning in the small northern Indiana town of Chesterton.

 

A Christmas morning like many others, however, there would never again be a Christmas morning like that for me.

 

For that Christmas is the year I received the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, the “Moldvay” magenta edition. 

And my life was never the same again. 

In fact, that one single gift directed my life pretty much every day since that day.

 

I still remember opening the gift and setting it aside on the pile of other games and toys, then later that afternoon, belly filled and everyone going off to rest and recover in their own way, I sat down in the big chair in our family’s formal living room to check out that new game.

 

I’d seen it before, at several stores; I realized it was a different boxed set than the one I was used to seeing (the “Holmes” set). I’d even expressed interest in it before, but that one little book with the sacrificial victim on the cover (Eldritch Wizardry) put my mom off the idea of my ever playing such a strange game.

Little did my parents realize that this was that self-same game, in a new edition, written and illustrated in a child-friendly manner, and available at that most innocent of stores, Toys ‘R Us. I had read The Hobbit, and most of the Lord of the Rings (that part in Two Towers with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum was just soooo boring to a 12-year old…). I had consumed other fantasy and science-fiction books and movies in large quantities...

And so not recognizing it as “that game,” my parents thought that some game with a dragon on the cover would be a natural fit, and as they had a few dollars left in the budget they set for games and toys for me, they picked it up… on a whim!

 

I tore open the box, opened the book -- and never looked back.

 

I was the first kid in my age group/social cadre to get D&D, and so I of course became the first Dungeon Master of the group. Oh, the spectacular mistakes I made! Worst example – I did not understand monster hit dice at first, and just assumed that their hit dice were their hit points. So orcs had 1 hit point, ogres had 4, and red dragons had 10… monster kills were in the 100s before I figured out THAT mistake.

 

But the game was glorious fun. In January I picked up the D&D Expert Set. In rapid order thereafter I picked up modules B1 and T1, which introduced me to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the books of which I picked up at the Hallmark Books shop in Marquette Mall in Michigan City. I rapidly discovered that there were hobby shops dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons, among other things. I picked up my first issue of Dragon Magazine, #57, at B&A Hobbies, also in Michigan City, around that same time.

 

By April 1982 Dungeons & Dragons had become my life. My first non-D&D game was Gamma World 1^st Edition, which I received for my birthday that month. I also decided I wanted to design and write for Dungeons & Dragons, as I sent off a letter complete with hand-written monsters, to TSR; some months later, I received a “thank you, but” reply, my first rejection letter at age 13.

 

Needless to say, it did not stop me.

 

I was known as “That D&D Guy” in school thereafter. If I was not King of the Nerds, I was certainly somewhere on that court. I played D&D in the high school D&D Club (run by the Anatomy & Physiology teacher, Mr. Jim Strange), right up until a priest came in and convinced our principal that D&D was satanic.

 

I continued playing even when I lived in Germany for a year between high school and college; I even introduced gaming to some German friends there. I like to think that I ran some good games there, but between my half-assed German and all the beer, I never quite knew…

 

I continued playing in college. I ditched my German for Teaching program for Anthropology and Humanities, thinking that somehow that might A) be more interesting and B) help my be a better game designer, so I might get a job writing for TSR (silly me, what they wanted was designers with English degrees, to save $ on the editorial process). In graduate school I had a dual epiphany – I hated academia and I really, REALLY wanted to work in the Game Industry. Sneaking into my first Game Manufacturer’s Association Trade Show with some faked-up business cards sealed the deal.

 

From 1995 to 2012, most of my adult life was spent (WELL SPENT, so very, very well spent) working in the Game Industry. I never got paid full time to be a game designer – sadly, game designers have never been well paid, so I worked in peripheral support areas. Over the years, I worked for Wizards of the Coast, West End Games, WizKids, Chessex Distribution, Alliance Distribution, ACD Distribution, SCRYE Magazine, Comics & Games Retailer Magazine, and Chimera Hobby Shop, among others. To stay in the business I did anything I could – I worked in publishing, purchasing, marketing, advertising, public relations, sales, and warehousing – in manufacturing, distribution, and retail. I even got to do some design work, initially as a freelancer.

 

That work of which I am most proud, and which also sadly was my Waterloo, was publishing the Wilderlands of High Adventure under license from Judges Guild and working directly with Bob Bledsaw; closely followed by working on Lejendary Earth with Gary Gygax (the fruits of which died on the vine, and would never see print). I got to work with two of my greatest childhood heroes – for Bob and Gary had a stature in my heart and mind much as, say, Joe Namath or Reggie Jackson might have in the hearts of football and baseball fans.

 

It was amazing.

 

How many can say they lived their dreams?

 

All that was born on that one simple Christmas day 40 years ago. A simple box, a simple game, from which sprang forth a lifetime of amazing adventures, in the world of fantasy and in real life.

 

Life is a game. Roll some dice.

 

Merry Christmas.

Orcs and XP through the Ages

I have been working on a booklet about humanoids and found some interesting tidbits about XP ratios and humanoids through the editions (and this also touches on treasure). The main simple distillation of what I found can be seen in the ratio of the number of orcs a party must kill/defeat before rising from 0 XP at 1st level to 2nd level.

After almost 40 years, I now understand why I always thought AD&D was more of a grind than B/X, which I think is a major element in my preference for B/X...

Party of four adventurers: Cleric, Fighter, Magic-user, and Thief; XP required to get to 2nd level:

OD&D: 7,200

GH: 7,200
B/X: 7,200
AD&D: 7,254
5E: 1,200

XP Value of One Average Orc (5 hp):

OD&D: 100 xp
GH: 10 xp
B/X: 10 xp
AD&D: 15 xp
5E: 100 xp

Number of Orcs a Party must Kill to rise to 2nd level (not including Treasure XP):

OD&D: 72

GH: 720
B/X: 720
AD&D: 484
5E: 12

Average Treasure per Orc, including Individual & Lair Treasure (except 5E), ASSUMING MAXIMUM COINS in treasure (not counting gems or jewelry) and Orcs per Group:

OD&D: 26 gp (TT D: 8,000 gp/300 orcs)
GH: 26 gp (TT D: 8,000 gp/300 orcs)
B/X: 133 gp (TT D: 8,000 gp/60 orcs)
AD&D: 16 gp (TT C, O & L: 4,860 gp/300 orcs)
5E: N/A

Number of Orcs a Party must Kill to rise to 2nd level (including Treasure XP, except in 5E):

OD&D: 58

GH: 200
B/X: 51
AD&D: 234
5E: 12

Skull Mountain, Cross-Section Dungeons, and Birdman?

So as mentioned before, Jodi and I are viewing a ton of old cartoons, especially of late classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 60's and 70's. One that we are viewing is Birdman and the Galaxy Trio (the original, not the post-modern remake, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law).

So there we were, watching some real old-school super-hero antics, when in episode 12A: The Wings of F.E.A.R. (first aired November 25, 1967),  the enemy base ends up being "Death's Head Peak" high in the Andes:

Death's Head Peak

Now, this is already cool enough, because, you know, villains lairing in skull-topped mountains is always cool. But then shortly thereafter, this scene popped up:

Cross-section of the F.E.A.R. lair in Death's Head Peak

And what have we here, an actual cross-section of the lair/dungeon of F.E.A.R., inside Death's Head Peak! Now what did that remind me of? Well, of course, this:

Sample cross-section of levels in Holmes

Now, of course, the original cross-section of levels as featured in OD&D Vol. III showed much of this, just not without the skull element. And there are plenty of other "skull lair" motifs in all sorts of literary and other sources.

But... did this brief scene perhaps help influence the development of the Great Stone Skull Dungeon in Holmes? Holmes would have been 37 when this show first premiered, so it is unlikely he was watching Saturday-morning cartoons at the time. Perhaps he saw it when his son, Chris, was watching? Inquiring minds want to know...

Simple Vancian Magic

Of late there has been a bit of chatter about Vancian style magic in D&D, as in, how much magic in D&D actually resembles the magic portrayed by Jack Vance in his Dying Earth series.

 

Short answer, "sorta-kinda." Longer answer, it is similar to Dying Earth magic in that it is "fire and forget," but in practice, there is a lot more granularity to the D&D system than there is to magic as portrayed in Dying Earth. That of course does not take into account the later appearance of Sandestins (effectively, re-skinned genies), which Vance introduced in his later Dying Earth stories. D&D magic-users can cast a LOT more spells at higher levels than any wizard of Dying Earth (or even of Lyonesse); however, D&D magic is a lot less "colorful" than that found in Dying Earth, but that is really more of a function of rules versus literature. If a judge wanted to, she could make D&D magic just as colorful as that found in the Dying Earth.

 

Also, in Dying Earth, wizards had to get by a lot more on their wits than most magic-users seem to do in games these days (or even back in the day). A truly Vancian magic-user would have Charisma as his second-highest stat, merely to take advantage of reactions, bargaining, intimidation, and simple bluster and bluff, and in combination with his Intelligence, wit and repartee. Most D&D magic-user players, at least, from being on the other side of the screen as I have, seem to just fade behind the meatshields after they have used their spells, or at best, fall back on flaming oil, caltrops, and other such more physical "bags of tricks."

 

That said, the brief and simple system to make D&D magic more "truly Vancian," is simple.

 

A magic-user can memorize a number of levels of spells equal to her level plus her Intelligence bonus. The magic-user cannot memorize the same spell twice. Memorization requires an hour of rest and then one round per spell level to impress the spell in the mind. Once the spell is cast (or miscast, or lost), the spell is gone from the mind. 

 

Note that no magic-user in their right mind would ever bring their spell books (plural, one to six spells per spell book, no more) with them into the dungeon, as they are far too rare and valuable. Any foolish magic-user who does this deserves everything she gets (or rather, loses) when Something Bad happens to her spell books.

 

The Cugel Corollary: Anyone who wishes to may attempt to cast a spell from a spell book, if they can read the language (this presumes that spells are written in a readable language rather than a magical cipher). Use the character's "Spell Learning Probability" based on Intelligence and subtract 10% per level of the spell to be cast. ANY failure indicates that Something Bad happens to the attempted spell-caster...

 

For a longer, more involved version of the system, read my Jack Vance Dying Earth-inspired Adventurer class.

[New Spell] Finally got introduced to Samurai Jack, so here is a spell...

Portal into the Future

Level: 5

Duration: Instant

Range: 10’

                           

This spell enables the magic-user to get rid of a meddlesome foe by flinging the target into a one-way portal into the future. If the target fails a saving throw versus Spells, the target is flung into the future… it is a one-way trip, though the victim can find another way back in time, if such exists. If the target makes the save, he or she jumped out of the way of the portal, and the spell fails.

The victim, if flung into the future, arrives at a random safe point on the same planet, d100 miles distant from the original point of the spell per level of the caster, in a time one century in the future per level of the caster, +/- d100 years. The caster does not know when the target will arrive in the future; similarly, if the caster is alive when the victim arrives, the caster has no clue, until this is discovered through normal means.

The caster physically ages one year per century the target is flung into the future, rounded up. For a human caster, this can be quite dangerous, if he does not have access to potions of longevity; for elves and other long-lived beings, such as shape-shifting masters of darkness, such effects are of little note.

[Horseclans] Coming of the Horseclans

One of the strongest influences on all my works has been the writings of Robert Adams, specifically his Horseclans series of 18 novels and two Friends of the Horseclans short story compilations.

The Horseclans series take place in a post-apocalyptic North America. The titular Horseclans are nomads from the Sea of Grass, the PA Great Plains, from the Mississippi to the High Plains of the Rocky Mountains, and from southern Canada to the Rio Grande. The Horseclans themselves are descended primarily from the youthful survivors of a bomb shelter in Los Angeles who, over the first several generations, migrate east, eventually taking to a nomadic life after the climate change that follows the war makes farming difficult if not impossible in the West (or was Adams simply prophetic about the forthcoming centuries-long Great Drought?).

Along the way they bring into their tribal alliance various other survivors, including descendants of Canadian military, Anglo-Canadian and French-Canadian refugees, campers from Yellowstone, experimental ranchers from Texas, descendants of National Guardsmen from Missouri, and others. Though most of the ancestors of the Kindred, as they are called, are white, their culture is more Mongolian-Turkic, including yurts, wagons, sabers, and an intense dislike of Dirtmen (farmers), who are worthy only of raiding and taking as slaves.

The Kindred are mutants, most of them, with powerful telepathic powers; some exhibit other powers, but other abilities are rare. Using their telepathy, they are better able to work with their horses, which are also telepathic and smarter than your typical horse. Their major allies, however, are the prairie cats, which are descended from an attempt to re-create the saber-toothed tiger through back-breeding. These are as intelligent as humans, and have very strong telepathy, of greater power usually than even the strongest Kindred.

The leader of the Horseclans is Milo Morai, an immortal, one of the Undying. He was born long before WW III; how long before is unknown, as he lost his memory before the 1930's, but he was obviously a fighting man in the era before guns became popular, because even then he was a past-master of swordplay and knew dozens of languages, many of them long dead. My own theory is that he was a Greek or Roman from the Migration era; the author at one point mentioned that he was actually an alien, but that makes no sense, as there are other Undying. The Undying can die, it just takes cutting off their head; drowning them; or burning them at the stake; all things that can kill them faster than they can regenerate, which is at a speed as to turn a troll's head.

Most of the early action in the series focuses on the east coast, as that is where the Horseclans migrate to in the first book, The Coming of the Horseclans. It is the late 26th century, about 700 years after the Two Day War and the Great Dyings, which are by now a time of myth and legend. In the early series the war was ~1980; as that year passed, the author later placed the war ca. 2015 (starting in the Middle East, likely with a local dictator getting a nuke and hitting Israel, but as it was intimated that it was Libya and Qaddafi, I'm not too worried today). An ancient prophecy among the Kindred tells that the clans would one day return to the Holy City of Ehlai; as Milo knows that it is a radioactive ruin, most of which slid into the sea after the Big One finally hit in the 23rd Century, he takes them east instead.

There they run into the kingdoms of the Ehleens, or Greeks, who migrated to the east coast some centuries ago, fleeing the depredations of the Turkish Sultan. They built a great kingdom on the east coast, from Virginia to the Mississippi and south of the savage lands of Tennessee, that broke up after the Big One (which was continent-wide, and took out much of the east coast and the coastal cities with tidal waves). So when the Horseclans arrive, they find three divided countries of now decadent and debased Ehleens.

In The Coming of the Horseclans, the Kindred conquer the northern country, Kehnooryos Ehlahs or New Greece, in the process discovering the presence of the Witchmen, who are men from the old world who use technology to move their minds from one body to another, and thus try to re-build their kingdom, which was destroyed when the Ehleens invaded. They defeat the current machinations of the Witchmen, defeat the decadent Ehleen nobles, and start a new united kingdom from their city of New Ehlai, built atop the ruins of Hampton, Virginia, where Milo spent some years following WW II as part of the budding military-industrial complex.

In  the second book, Swords of the Horseclans, the other two kingdoms come calling, wanting to re-conquer the lands the Horseclans took in the previous generation (the books follow Milo at this stage, and as he is immortal, each book jumps a generation or two). The Kingdom of Karaleenos (the Carolinas, of course) is at first at war with the new Confederation, which is a union of the Ehleens and the Kindred. Then the vast army of Zastros, the newly-crowned King of the Southern Kingdom, comes up to wipe away both forces. Zastros is under the influence of the Witchmen, and doesn't care how many are killed, as all the chaos is needed to enable the Witchmen to reconquer the eastern coast (they are stuck in the swampy ruins of Florida, where they were based before the war, at Cape Canaveral/Cape Kennedy Research Center). Thanks to prophecies provided by Blind Hari of Kroogah, a Kindred bard with many of the other unusual psychic powers the Kindred can possess, High Lord Milo and his allies are able to defeat Zastros, and unite all three kingdoms into the Confederation.

In the third book, Revenge of the Horseclans, we find that things are going well for the Kindred, as they now mostly rule the Confederation. However, the Ehleens, now sharing or losing much of their power, seek to regain it, and unite behind the Ehleen Church, a debased and decadent version of the old Greek Orthodox faith, long ago infiltrated and perverted by the Witchmen. During the Great Rebellion, we see Thoheeks (Duke) Bili Morguhn, son of a chieftain and Duke of Morguhn, rise to the occasion and rout the Ehleens, though other counties are not so lucky, such as the Kindred of the Duchy of Gafnee, the whole clan of which is extirpated when their virtually impregnable fortress is struck by a "miracle" i.e., a Witchman magic item, an ancient missile!

These were the first three in the series, originally published by Pinnacle Books in 1975, 1976, and 1977, and later picked up by Signet for the rest of the run beginning in 1982. The first prints of the first and second books had covers by Carl Lundgren, the third by Ken Kelly, who went on to do the covers for the whole series under Signet.

You may well ask why I am posting about the Horseclans like this. Well, with Richard Le Blanc of New Big Dragon Games nearing completion of the Basic Psionics Handbook, I hope to revive an old dream of mine... to run a science-fantasy version of the Horseclans. Rather than just adding in bits and bobs from the series, or adding elements inspired by the series, I'll be able to run the series using Labyrinth Lord with bits of Mutant Future. While an official GURPS supplement came out ages ago -- GURPS Horseclans, which was excellent -- I much prefer B/X and Labyrinth Lord. So I am hoping that this new book will enable me to run that campaign without a lot of house-ruling, as I've tried in the past...

Spontaneous Generation in the Dungeon

Back in the day, people believed in the spontaneous generation of life; that is, they believed that life forms, such as worms, insects, and even mice, swans, and other larger creatures, generated spontaneously from unrelated things, such as corpses, water, and barnacles. Of course, today we know this is not true… but what if in your Dungeons & Dragons fantasy world, it was true?

This could easily explain the nature of the population of dungeons; explain how dungeons can so easily and quickly become re-populated; and also eliminates the need for humanoid nurseries, if you dislike the idea of baby orcs or goblin whelps.

Spontaneous generation in the dungeon begins with the death of a living creature in the dungeon. If that creature is not wholly eaten, if it is not buried with proper holy rites, if it is not burned to ashes, or otherwise if its body is not completely destroyed, then one or more new creatures might spontaneously generate from it within three days.

Note that humans and demi-humans are not spontaneously generated in the dungeon, though if their bodies are left in the dungeon, they can spontaneously generate other creatures! It might be most disconcerting for a party to leave their erstwhile delving companions in the dungeon after death, to return several weeks later and discover a whole new orc tribe with their facial features!

Note that evil versions of demi-humans, such as duergar and drow (the “maggots of the earth”), might spontaneously generate in a dungeon; you might also allow for spontaneous generation of human types, such as berserkers and cultists, who might look mostly human, but incomplete, and would lack a soul.

The order of species and potential generation is thus, in ascending order:

Slimes, Molds, and Jellies

Vermin

Animals

Humanoids (baseline for human and demi-human bodies left in the dungeon)

Monsters

Monsters*

Monsters**

Etc.

Monsters with an asterisk (*) indicate monsters with that number of special abilities, as per the B/X rules. Note that humanoids (and humans and demi-humans) and certain monsters can rise again as spontaneous undead through this process! Skeletons, zombies, wraiths, and spectres are the most likely to be generated by this process; note that multiple skeletons and zombies can rise from a single body, after all, it is a strange kind of magic!

Whenever a creature dies, is left in a dungeon, and remains mostly whole roll a d6. On a 1-3, one or more creatures spontaneously generates from the body after 1d6-3 days (on a 0, roll 1d24 for number of hours; -1, roll 1d12 hours; -2, roll 1d6 hours).

If the original roll to determine spontaneous generation was a 1, re-roll the die; if the re-roll is a 1, then the creature(s) that spontaneously generates from the body are of one order higher than the creature; continue re-rolling as long as you roll 1s, until you no longer roll a 1.

Otherwise, the creatures will either be of the same sort, or a similar sort, or at the judge’s whim of a lesser order (for example, a boar might generate more boars, other animals, vermin, or slimes, mold, or jellies).

Thus if a cave locust (vermin) is left to rot, and you roll three 1s in a row, humanoids spontaneously generate from the corpse.

It should be noted that orcs, goblins, and other humanoids often have a slimy pit in their lair; there their shaman or sorcerer throws in bodies of victims, and using their dark magic, direct the forces of spontaneous generation such that they can assure the generation of new orcs or goblins or such from the bodies thrown therein…

Halve the number of maximum hit points the creature had (individually, not based on maximum HD roll), rounded up; this is the total number of hit dice of creatures that spontaneously generate from the corpse. The bigger and more powerful the individual, the more potential... In the case of the cave locust, a 2 HD creature with 7 maximum hit points, up to 4 HD of creatures can spontaneously generate from the corpse.

If a massive pile of dead creatures is left to rot, then group them together in 5s or 10s to determine spontaneous generation, and tally up all the hit points of the creatures to determine the maximum number of hit dice that can spontaneously generate from the mass of bodies. This is how dragons and other large creatures can spontaneously generate from lesser creatures.

Spontaneously generated creatures can be a mixed bag, and need not be the same creatures from even the same body; if most of the hit dice are taken up with one creature, and no creatures of that order can be generated with the remaining hit dice, go ahead and choose lesser order creatures. Creatures generated from the same mass of bodies often remain allies, and can communicate with one another or at least understand each other through a common language.

Creatures generated through spontaneous generation can reproduce normally (except for the human-like berserkers and cultists and other such pseudo-creatures).

The odds of spontaneous generation and improved order of creatures might be improved the deeper one goes in the dungeon; or near certain magical emanations; or if the bodies are left in the shrine of a god of the underworld; and so forth. You can also tinker with the number of hit dice generated by hit points, with perhaps 1 HD per three hit points or even less, depending on how quickly you want your dungeon to refill itself spontaneously…

As an example, a party slaughters a small clan of 17 goblins, and leaves the bodies to rot in their lair, sealed away from vermin and other things that might eat the bodies. The judge checks for spontaneous generation in blocks of 5s, with three blocks of 5s and the remainder of 2. On the first he rolls a 4; no spontaneous generation. On the second he rolls a 3; on the third he rolls a 2; and on the two remainders he rolls a 1, and then rolls another 1, and then a 5. The two normal rolls total 30 maximum hit points, generating 15 HD of goblins, replacing almost the entire clan. The two remainders with 6 maximum hit points generate a 3 HD monster; the judge decides that a giant black widow spider emerges from their putrescent bodies. Thus is born the Clan of the Black Widow…

The powerful lord Dahneel Vahr-Ghoom, an 11^th level fighter with 79 maximum hit points, is slain in the dungeon; his body left to rot in a deep well by his erstwhile companions. The judge rolls for spontaneous generation; a 1, then another 1, and another 1, and another 1, followed by a 3. 40 HD of potentially two-star monsters are generated from the dread lord’s corpse. The judge decides to go with the lord himself rising again as an 11 HD spectre; the additional 29 hit dice are divided among seven wraiths (4 HD each) born of his wrath and the lord’s animated skeleton (1 HD), still dressed in his fine armor and wielding his magical sword. The new undead lord seeks the destruction of his former comrades, and quickly takes over the local dungeon level…

[Found Treasures] SnarfQuest Westrian Kingdoms

And here is a rendition of the Westrian or Olde Young Kingdoms of SnarfQuest in Hexographer.

I took my old hand-drawn map, scanned it, plunked it into Hexographer and ran with it. The Hexographer map is a mix between the original and my hand-drawn version. Seems like it could make for a nice, interesting B/X or Labyrinth Lord campaign setting...  I'll have to see if I can do anything with it...

Click to embiggen

[Mystara] Final Round of Q's Answered by Lawrence Schick

Lawrence Schick has been kind enough to answer one last round of questions on the Original Known World -- this time about his and Tom Moldvay's original campaign style as Dungeon Masters of the first campaigns set in the Original Known World. Though this is the last we will hear from him on this for the time being, I am sure he will be back with more fascinating information and insights when his schedule allows...

For more background, check out the earlier rounds of questions:

[Mystara] The Original Known World

[Mystara] Lawrence Schick Answers Q's on the Original KnownWorld

[Mystara] Another Round of Q's Answered by Lawrence Schick

How lethal were your campaigns? Were you more into the narrative of the story, or into random adventure? What was your style like as a DM?

These things evolved over time; I think they followed an arc similar to that of many mid-1970s campaigns. At first we allowed players to play multiple characters at a time, as well as henchmen and hirelings, so a group going into a dungeon could be very large, maybe two dozen characters. So we WERE lethal: life was cheap, and rarely was a dead low-level character deemed worthwhile of the expense of a “Raise Dead.” But at first, the characters weren't much more than collections of stats, so it seemed appropriate.

Over time, as characters acquired history, personality, and nuance, and the game world gradually fleshed out, storytelling became more important. Combat and problem-solving were still supreme, but we began to take more care in setting the scene, in role-playing NPCs, in setting up situations where player characters, played well, could shine and make memories. We were beginning to try to use the tools of the game rules to evoke the kind of fantasy stories we loved.

Did you use prepared adventures, or were your adventures more along the lines of off the cuff sandbox runs?

Neither: both Tom and I carefully mapped out and prepared our adventures in advance. Not that we weren't willing to ad lib and extemporize, but it was always in the context of a prepared situation. I remember the first time someone brought G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief to one of our sessions. We looked at it in wonder. Really? Buy somebody else’s adventure? And at $5.00 for eight pages and a map folder? Madness. Clearly, that sort of thing would never be popular.

What kind of preparations did you make for each session?

Speaking for myself, I spent many hours planning things out. (Remember, I was a college student, and had the hours to spare.) I drew maps, statted out monsters and items, and created NPCs. As time went on, and the role-playing moved to the fore, the latter task grew in importance.

How many players were there per group? Did you allow multiple characters per player?

The number of players varied from one to eight. As I said, at first we allowed players to run two, three, or even four PCs at the same time. As certain PCs grew to prominence, the others sloughed away, until eventually we were down to one player, one character.

Did you use henchmen and hirelings, and if so, how were they treated by the player characters?

At first they were just unthinking meat-shields; eventually, they started growing personalities, and we made the players spend more time and effort managing them. Once the players were betrayed by their own hirelings a time or two, they became much more careful about who they picked to join them.

Did you focus on dungeons, wilderness, or cities, or a mix?

Dungeons at first, then wilderness on the way to a dungeon, then wilderness for its own sake, then we added in towns and cities—but the dungeons never went away. They were too much fun.

Were you more historically minded or did you allow for anachronisms?

As you’re well aware, the early days of D&D were pretty wide open. We didn't allow for anachronisms so much as wild crossovers of various fantasy genres. We delighted in confounding the players by throwing in creatures or characters that were completely unprecedented from previous adventures. Once they’d learned how to slay dragons, why keep sending them after dragons?

Were you serious or wahoo?

We were seriously wahoo.

What kind of mix of monsters, traps, and “specials” did you use in your adventures?

That varied a great deal: our dungeons tended to be themed, so it depended what kind of dungeon we’d lured the players into.

How did your literary influences work with your actual game play and campaign development?

That was where the aforementioned themed dungeons came into play: we would try to craft adventures that evoked the work of specific authors or sub-genres of fantasy. I still remember Tom’s first Lovecraftian dungeon. Horrific! At one point we just turned tail and ran for it.

What were your NPCs like? Did you work out a background for each, a full sheet of description, perhaps an index card, or were they just a name and line or two of text?

It depended on the importance of the NPC. We were wary of creating characters that would steal the PCs’ thunder, so I don’t think we ever went as far as a full sheet of description—at least, not until “Giants in the Earth.”

Coda

One thing Tom and I discussed more and more as our campaigns evolved was the collaborative nature emerging from RPGs. The more we got into storytelling, the more we noted that the game story wasn't complete without the contributions of the players. We spent more time thinking about how to draw them in, get them invested, make them actors rather than reactors. These were lessons I carried with me to TSR, and on after that into video and computer game design.

Replica map of the Known World from module X1. Cartography by Thorfinn Tait.

[Mystara] Another Round of Q's Answered by Lawrence Schick

Lawrence Schick has been gracious enough to answer even more questions about the Original Known World that eventually became the world of Mystara.

1) Did you use Gods, Demigods & Heroes for the gods of the Original Known World or did you work out your own gods and pantheons. If you created your own, do you remember any details?

Tom and I adopted and adapted it, essentially rewriting the entire supplement to suit the OKW. It filled 17 typescript pages, all of which survive. We made a list of 100 deities (so one could roll randomly at need), mostly drawn from GDH, but we added a few we thought were unfairly overlooked. As you’ll see from the second page I attached, our standard rules for gods varied in some significant ways from the GDH standard.

Lawrence has been kind enough to send on the first two sheets from the list he and Tom Moldvay developed. As usual, click to embiggen:

2) You mentioned an “ancient, pre-human civilization.” Do you recall any details about this? Related, do you recall if Tom Moldvay’s creation, the Carnifex of M3: Twilight Calling, were based on the Dragon Kings from Lin Carter’s Thongor series?

The pre-human civilizations were misty, with contradictory legends about them. Tom’s Carnifex were not based on Carter’s Dragon Kings, IIRC. (Neither of us thought very highly of the Thongor novels, though we admired Carter’s work as an editor.)

3) Where were the Mahars located? Related, based on module X1: Isle of Dread, I kind of assume that that was the “Lost Land” region. Were there other such regions?

One of the mountainous areas featured a “Valley of the Thunder Lizards” inspired by Burroughs’ Pellucidar that was ruled by the Mahars. To the best of my recollection this was in the mountains to the east of Darokin, at the headwaters of the Qeda River.

4) Here are my guesses for the cultures, based on the list from the “Languages” sheet and the list you included in the article on Black Gate: Thyatic: Greco-Roman Iasuli: Persia (and Arabs?) Gwynish: Welsh Heldann: Norse (and Balts?) Plirok: Aztec Xoph: Pharaonic Egypt Ethengar: Mongols Ethesti: Ottomans Here are the cultures I can’t quite figure out… Cezavy: Sounds like it should be Russo-Slavic, though such was not listed? Mnokkian: Turks or maybe Scyths, I would think… Glaini: The Dutch, descended from far-wandering Heldanns? Celok: Or are these the Balts? Not sure where the Han Chinese, the French, and the Mughals quite fit… maybe the Darokins are a mix of Heldann and Thyatic forming the Carolingian French?

Okay, let’s see if we can sort this out. The culture list in the Black Gate article was from memory, and doesn't give a one-to-one correspondence with the cultures that ended up in OKW. Here’s my best shot:

Norse = Heldann

Ancient Mediterranean (Greece/Rome) = Thyatis

Ottoman Empire = Ethesti

Mongolian = Ethengar Khanates

Aztec Mexico = Plirok (with Lovecraftian and Tekumel overtones)

Han China got relegated to another continent and forgotten

Celtic Wales = Gwynish

Pharaonic Egypt = Xoph

Hanseatic League Balts crossed with Armenians = Minrothad Guilds

Carolingian France = Glantri, but filtered through C.A. Smith’s Averoigne and Leiber’s Nehwon

Ancient Persia = Ylaruam

Moorish Arabs = Iasuli

Dutch Republic = Darokin

Mughal India = Akoros

Kievan Rus = Cezavy and Sclavak

Byzantine = Corunglain

Mnokki = Scythian / Eastern Turks

Barbary Pirates = Ierendi

5) A few bits and bobs on the map:

A) I have added a large area of plains between Sclavak and the forests of the Hagath. Does that seem right?

High steppes, really. Seems fine.

B) I have placed several different likely locations for the various Orc groups on the map. Are these appropriate? Were they that wide-spread?

They weren't as widespread as you show. Keep the Atruaghin Clans to the east and the Vanog Orcs to the east-central mountains.

C) Were the Malpheggi half-orcs? Similarly, were the Quastog half-elves or half-orcs or a mix of the three races?

The Malpheggi are piscine/human hybrids with the “Innsmouth Look” – there are subsurface colonies of Deep Ones (later brought into D&D as Kuo-Toa) in the Sea of Dread offshore from the Malpheggi Fens.

A note about the races in OKW: they’re much less hard-edged and distinct than in Middle-earth or World of Greyhawk. It’s better to think of them as tribes or ethnicities. All the breeds of humanoid mortals in OKW are inter-fertile, so wherever they’re adjacent there’s a fair amount of intermixing. If you self-identify as an elf, you’re an elf.

The Quastogs of Canolbarth Forest are a tribe suffering under a divine curse; I forget which deity they infuriated, but they were cursed such that most of their infants are stillborn. As a result the Quastog undertake grueling long-distance raids outside Canolbarth in order to abduct children—of any race. So the Quastog, originally Orcish, now look like anything and anybody.

(As an aside, the Quastog share the forest with the Canolbarth elves, but rarely interact with them; that tribe of elves specializes in misdirection magic, so a Quastog hunting party can walk right through an elven camp and not even notice it.)

D) Was there a White Plume Mountain near the city-state of Keraptis?

No, White Plume Mountain didn't exist until I decided to write a sample scenario to persuade TSR to hire me.

E) Were any other continents developed during the course of play?

No, this was plenty. Too much, even.

F) How many moons did the Original Known World have?

One: the Moon. It ruled the twisted lives of all lycanthropes.

G) Was it simply always known as "The Known World" even then, or did you have a different name for the setting?

We called it “The Known World.”

6) You mention that the Original Known World was used by several groups for many adventures between 1976 and 1979. Do you recall any stories or anecdotes from those adventures? Who were the other DMs, other than yourself and Tom Moldvay?

At this point, no, I can’t remember any names – only misty faces.

7) Trips to Mars and other weird realms were all the rage back in the day. Were such experienced by adventurers in the Original Known World?

It was more our practice to bring the aliens to the OKW, e.g., the Tharks.

8) Did you have any special house rules, such as different magic, different classes, multi-classing, critical hits, etc., that applied to the Original Known World?

We did: Tom and I tinkered with the OD&D rules quite a bit, and a few pages of that stuff has survived. I’ll just mention a few of our homebrew rules:

* We dumped all stat-modifications based on gender, e.g., female characters get -1 to strength (because smaller) and +1 to charisma (because cute). I mean, come on.

* We allowed multi-classing, and any race could play any class.

* We dumped racial level limits.

* We added a whole bunch of spells and monsters.

9) The influences from Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith are fairly obvious. But what, if any influence of Moorcock can be found in the Original Known World? Were the alignments of the OKW strongly in the Moorcock tradition?

We weren't all that big on alignment, actually—it seemed to us, even then, to be an oversimplification that was more restrictive than it was useful. Moorcock’s real influence on us was the example of his anti-heroes, which freed us up to put moral choices in the hands of the players, rather than hard-wiring the world into good vs. evil.

10) Where were your personal campaigns based in the Original Known World?

Both Tom and I ran campaigns based in the Republic of Darokin—that enabled players to advance characters in both campaigns simultaneously. Adventures tended to take the characters west into the lands around Lake Amsorak and the Shallow Sea.

11) The "Giants in the Earth" started out as an off-shoot of the Original Known World. Can you recall where some of these characters were based? Were they regarded as home-grown heroes or were they dimensional travelers even in the Original Known World?

When those characters showed up in our campaigns, they were always travelers who had come to the OKW from their world at the behest of some deity or mighty wizard. When their story in the OKW was finished, they usually returned to where they came from.

12) That said, were the cultures of the Original Known World their own, or were the original founders of these realms travelers from our world? In other words, was the Original Known World a parallel dimension/world or was it derived and descended, literally, from travelers from Earth? I’m sure more questions will arise from the answers from this round…

The OKW was its own place. For the sake of player familiarity it was designed to evoke cultures from our own history, but it stood on its own.

And here is the most recent iteration of the full-color Original Known World map. I am considering doing another version that adds the Real World cultural names of each nation... though that would make it a bit crowded... let me know if that might be valuable.