[Freeform Friday] Stone Heads, Talking Paintings, and Spoon Goddesses

So today as I sat to write, I mused out loud, “What should I write about today, as it is Freeform Friday…”

My wife responded, “Well, you could talk about our evening walk along the Avenue… or halflings. Halflings, maybe?” So…

The Avenue refers to College Avenue, the “main drag” and downtown shopping area of Appleton, where we live. Every third Friday night of the month they host an “Art on the Town” event, in which participating shops stay open late and host an artist – painter, sculptor, musician, what have you – and folks wander around taking in the sights and sounds. So for the first time ever, we went, and had a good bit of fun.

It doesn’t have the critical mass of people that, say, Chicago or San Francisco would have, nor especially any European city, but it was fairly well attended. A few things that stuck out in my mind, game-related wise, were the kind of shops that were still open and hosting artists… and the kind of art they produced.

The Vintage Garden, for example (“Shabby Chic”) was chock full of old furniture and bric-a-brac, though it was quite clean and well-lit, it still kind of reminded me of the kind of places you would find in strange fantasy cities. They had stone planters in the shape of old Greek gods, various classic iron angels re-painted, and old vintage photos in fine vintage frames. In fact, it reminded me of an upscale version of a shop you might find in The City. Here’s a little something inspired by the stone heads:

Planter of the Gods/Eikone: This is a stone planter, usually about two feet across and three feet high, shaped in the form of the head of a classical interpretation of a god/eikone. Any common plant can be grown in the planter; however, if a cleric/theurgist grows and tends herbs considered holy to the god/eikone in the planter, every season on the “high holy day” of that god/eikone, a number of magical leaves equal to 1d6 plus the Charisma bonus of the cleric/theurgist can be harvested and preserved. If these leaves are chewed/smoked/steeped in liquid and consumed or however the god/eikone prefers they be used in a special ritual, the cleric/theurgist will be granted visions of the future/present/past important to the individual and god/eikone. If otherwise consumed by the cleric/theurgist or a co-religionist cleric/theurgist, they grant the consumer a +1 bonus to the level of their next spell cast, provided the spell is cast within 10 minutes. Only one such leaf is effective at any one time.

We also stopped in the Trout Museum of Art, a local art gallery. Currently, it has an exhibit of Time Magazine covers called, appropriately enough, “Moments in Time.” All the covers were from the ’60s and ’70s, and each was signed by the person depicted on the cover, whether in art or photography. An interesting collection. This one, of course, reminded me of the old classic, first featured in Tegel Manor, of the living painting. As one of the covers featured a painting of astronauts leaping to the moon, I was also reminded of Clark Ashton Smith’s classic story, The Door to Saturn. I think that both ideas are perhaps underused these days, even though the “living painting” featured quite prominently in the Harry Potter stories… something I need to consider when working on Castle Adlerstein.

Finally, no walk around Appleton would be complete without a stop at Windows of Light-Angels Forever, a New Age store that is one of our favorite stores in the city. You can find all sorts of cool and interesting stuff there, from tons of books including Isaac Bonewits’ Real Magic, crystals and gems galore, incense, statuary, Tarot cards, and regular sessions with a psychic. The special artist guest at this evening’s event was an artist who works with fiber materials and “up-cycled” wares. She was showing off her “Spoon Goddesses” tonight; these are creations in which she takes an old, antique spoon, unites it with an art-deco style face, and adds such materials as to create a one-of-a-kind miniature goddess figurine. She says that as she is making them, they speak to her and tell her their names. An interesting and, dare I say, likely ancient tradition.

It reminded me of the Godmakers in Lin Carter’s Gondwane series; these were artisans who created not art, but gods themselves, for those who paid the fees. Some were poor and lowly godmakers, and made simple and poor gods; others, such as Ganelon Silvermane’s foster-father were grand masters of the craft, working in exotics and magical materials and using ancient and esoteric magical and scientific arts to create great and potent gods. Often today it is assumed that a cleric in a fantasy world must worship some esoteric and ethereal astral being; what if, instead, the cleric carries his god around in his backpack, or even in his pocket, or on a chain around his neck? What if the cleric makes his own god, and it is his mission to take his simple, small god and make him a great and powerful god? Kind of like the satellite gods in AnomalousSubterranean Environment… but instead of being picked up by a mad AI, the cleric created his very own, very personal god in a drunken stupor or moment of divine inspiration… Here’s an idea. Next time a player rolls up a cleric in your game, after he has bought his equipment, tell him to roll an item he purchased at random… and that is the cleric’s god.

Sooo… that took rather longer than I thought. Lots more interesting stuff I could talk about from our evening walk, and I haven’t even gotten to the halflings yet… vicious little buggers. I much prefer their hobbitish cousins. Maybe next time…

[Wondrous Wednesday] Mageglobe, Magewand, and Ring of Defense

MAGEGLOBE

These solid metal orbs, a heterogeneous composite of silver, gold, and platinum, glittering with gem-dust, are between two and four inches in diameter and are incised with tiny runes, sigils, and formulae in eldritch tongues. Developed during the height of the Second Caliphate, the magi of that realm used these devices to better target their area of effect spells such as sleep, stinking cloud, and fireball.

When held in hand prominently during the casting of such a spell, any allies caught in the area of effect receive a +2 bonus to save against the effect of the spell. Conversely, when there are no allies caught in the area of effect, and the caster can concentrate solely on targeting enemies, the enemies get a -2 penalty to save against the spell effect. The globe is useless if used on a target of a spell that only targets a specific individual or individuals, rather than a broad area of effect.

The globes are rated based on the maximum spell level at which they are efficacious. This also determines their cost to manufacture:

Least: 1^st level, 250 gp

Lesser: 2^nd level, 500 gp

Minor: 3^rd level, 1000 gp

Major: 4^th level, 2500 gp

Greater: 5^th level, 5000 gp

If at any time an ally critically fails with a “Natural 1” a save instigated by a spell modified by the globe, or similarly if an enemy makes a saving throw with a “Natural 20,” the globe temporarily loses its magical calibration and becomes non-functional until the wizard spends one hour plus 1/10^th the cost of making the globe in a ritual to re-calibrate the globe.

The art of creating these devices was spread far and wide following the flight of the magi at the fall of the Caliphate, though their creation is beyond the simple arts of the typical hedge mage. Any wizard schooled at the better colleges of magic in Itlania, Elysion, the Septarchy, Gyrax, Alspadia, or the South has a chance equal to their chance to learn a new spell to have the knowledge of how to manufacture one at character creation. Otherwise the formulae and rituals can be found in various tomes and grimoires.

A wizard can create a Mageglobe of any rank equal to any spell level they can cast. Creation of a Mageglobe requires silver, gold, platinum, gem dust, and a pint of blood or ichor from an aberration or cosmic entity with HD equal to the level of the highest-level spell that will be able to be cast using the Mageglobe. If the wizard obtained the blood or ichor himself, he gains a +10% chance on his roll to successfully enchant the device (equal to his chance to learn a new spell less 5% per level of the device). Time required is one week per spell level.

Few wizards, once they have manufactured a Mageglobe, sell them, as a weaker globe can be enchanted to a stronger globe over time with further enchantment and cost (simply subtract that already expended from the new cost). However, adventurers who have found these in treasure hoards have been known to sell them at two to five times the cost of enchantment.

Note that the Gregorian Church is leery of the manufacture and use of these devices, as the formula requires the use of blood or ichor of questionable provenance.

MAGEWAND

These simple wands, also known as dueling wands, are a basic enchanted item that can be created by even a 1^st level wizard. In fact, in the Olden Lands, one is not considered a true wizard in magical circles until one has a self-made Magewand ready at hand. These wands are enchanted to provide the wizard with a basic magical weapon, something flashy to impress and threaten the yokels and something that civilized wizards can use to resolve simple, petty feuds.

The wand is pointed at the target and the wizard utters the magic word – unique to each wizard and her wand – that sends off the bolt of magical force. The range of the bolt in feet depends on the level of the wizard:

1^st to 3^rd: 10/20/30

4^th to 6^th: 15/30/45

7^th to 9^th: 20/40/60

10^th to 12^th: 25/50/75

13^th to 15^th: 30/60/90

16 to 18^th: 40/80/120

19^th plus:  50/100/150

The wizard must roll to hit as per a normal attack, as, though the bolt is magical, it is still a normal physical attack. If hit the target does not get a saving throw. Note that though it is magical, it has no bonus to hit, thus the bolt cannot hit creatures that require +1 or better magical weapons to be hit, though it can hit any creature that merely requires any magical weapon to be hit.

The bolt, which has the color and appearance and generates a sound as the wizard who made the Magewand so dictated at the Magewand’s creation, deals 1d4 points of damage plus the highest spell level the wizard can memorize; thus the bolt of a 1^st level wizard deals 1d4+1 points of damage, the bolt of a 7^th level caster deals 1d4+4 points of damage, and the bolt of an 18^th level wizard deals 1d4+9 points of damage. The wizard can, at the time of shooting, decide whether the damage is lethal or subdual damage. Most duels are performed with subdual damage… most.

A wizard can use another’s Magewand, and the Magewand’s range and damage is based on that of the creator (if the creator is dead, it is based on his level at the time of death). However, using another, more powerful wizard’s Magewand causes the user to suffer a penalty to hit equal to half the difference between the maximum spell levels useable by the wielder and the creator, rounded up. Thus, a 1^st level wizard using a 7^th level wizard’s Magewand would suffer a -2 penalty to hit ((4-1)/2).

A wizard trained to use a Magewand possesses a number of power points equal to his Intelligence score plus his current level as a wizard. Only one charge may be used per attack. These power points, which are separate from and unrelated to spells known or memorized, are regenerated at a rate of one point per 10 minutes spent exclusively in meditation for the purpose. All points are regained after a full night’s restful sleep.

Any properly trained wizard can make a Magewand in one day’s time and by expending 100 gp in petty magical materials (eye of newt, wing of bat, nose of goblin, etc.) and a successful roll against his chance to learn a new spell. The appearance of a Magewand can vary greatly; most are simple wood, others are of metal, the more ostentatious are crystalline rods or gem-encrusted. A Magewand can take the form of a wand or even a rod, scepter, or staff. Many of the more potent magical wands, rods, and staffs known today began as a Magewand, with the wizard further enchanting his personal wand as he grew in power and knowledge.

A wizard can have more than one Magewand of his own creation in existence at one time; however, for each such Magewand in existence beyond the first, the wielder of any of the wizard’s Magewands suffers a -1 penalty to hit, cumulative.

RING OF DEFENSE

Another mainstay of wizards above the hedge-wizard level is the ring of defense, a simple enchantment that even a 1^st level wizard can readily manage. These devices are purely personal; no one else can ever benefit from a wizard’s ring of defense, though such items often evolve, of their own accord and through eldritch means, into proper magical rings of protection.

The enchantment on these rings grants the wizard a bonus to his Armor Class. The bonus is equal to the highest level spell he can memorize or his Intelligence bonus, whichever is higher.

The bonus can be used a number of times per day, defending against a single attack roll per use, equal to the level of the wizard plus his Intelligence bonus. The number of uses per day resets at dawn, noon, sundown, or midnight, as determined by the wizard when he creates the ring.

When attacked, provided the wizard is not caught surprised, he can assign the bonus to his AC instantly, before the attack roll is made. If an attacker has multiple attacks, the wizard must declare which one he is using the bonus on, though if he has enough daily uses remaining he can use one charge per attack.

If the ring’s bonus successfully provides a defense, there is a scintillating flash from the ring that interposes itself between the attack and the wizard; otherwise, if the bonus did not help in defense, there is no physical effect.

If the wizard is ever hit by a “Natural 20” in an attack in which he used the bonus from the ring, the ring’s magic is destroyed, and the ring itself melts, shatters, or dissolves, as is appropriate for the material used.

A wizard can create a ring of defense in one day’s time and at a cost of 50 gp in minor magical components per point of bonus to AC the ring provides.

The Dailies!

So after almost two years of being “between places,” my wife and I have finally once again settled in at our own home (though we still need to get everything out of deep storage, those poor books haven’t seen the light of day in years). This finally allows me the time and space to get serious about writing; though my highly variable work schedule might still cause issues, generally I now have the ability to write every day, should I so choose.

The gazetteer for Hex 02-2322 (JMG25HEX01) is first up, and proceeding along nicely. “Much sooner than later” seems an honest estimation of its due date at this point. Thereafter… dunno. Whatever comes to mind and is inspirational, I suppose.

My blogs have long languished; I see cracks and weeds everywhere. So that is going to change. The idea going forward is themed days, to afford some structure. I won’t say I have a plan to make a post every day; I don’t make plans any more, I simply have ideas, and hopes. If I manage to actually make four posts in a week, I’ll consider myself to win that week. Here are the themes of the day:

Monstrous Mondays: Mondays are dedicated to monsters… friends and fiends, enemies and allies, common to unique, fine to colossal. Sometimes new, sometimes old, always something interesting, and usually tied in with the Olden Lands, though also quite useful otherwise.

Chart and Table Tuesdays: Tuesdays will be all about interesting and useful charts and tables.

Wondrous Wednesdays: Wednesdays will feature magical items, relics, artifacts, and eldritch and wondrous locations and sites.

Throwback Thursdays: Thursdays will be dedicated to discussion of and expansion and support for old products I wrote in the AGP days, or support for currently-available products from JMG.

Freeform Fridays: Whatever strikes my fancy on Fridays.

Saturday Review: Saturdays will feature a review of someone else’s product. If I get the time and more than enough to review, maybe several products will be reviewed each Saturday. You got a product you want reviewed? Contact me at jamesmishler@gmail.com.

Sunday Driver: Sundays are dedicated to the Olden Lands, traveling around and pointing out interesting locations, bits of history, important personages, and anything that strikes my fancy, much like going on a drive in the country on Sunday afternoon.

Random Campaign: As part of the whole settling-in thing, I will once again be running a local campaign… ideally, two of them, an OldenLands Labyrinth Lord campaign and a Realms of Murikah Mutants & Mazes (Labyrinth Lord/Mutant Future) campaign. I’ll post on these as events occur.

These days I write mostly for the enjoyment of it, and to support my gaming habit as a game master. But of course, every bit of cash helps (snack and dice money is nice), which is why most of my major works will still be sold on DriveThruRPG through James Mishler Games. If you like what I publish here on the blog, please check out my other products at that site (or RPGNow, if that is your flavor of choice).

I’m also not above taking donations, green-backed kudos, from those so inspired; such can be sent via Paypal to jamesmishler@gmail.com. You can also contact me there off-blog if you have any questions or concerns, or any ideas for what you might like to see covered more in depth in the blog or in JMG products.

Mutants & Mazes: Realms of Murikah

Realms of Murikah Midzee Lands Maps

In the year 2419 the Golden Age of Man came to a cataclysmic end with the Great Rad War. The terrible weapons used in the war scoured the earth, razed mountains, boiled seas, turned the planet on its axis, and caused the very face of the world to change forever. Man’s civilization was cast into ruin, and the essential natures of men, beasts, and plants were forever altered thanks to the Glow of the Rad, which created whole new monstrous life even as it destroyed for all time other forms of life.

Five hundred years later Mutants – men, animals, and even plants – all but overwhelmed the remaining tribes of Pure Men. For a time it seemed that Pure Men might truly be extirpated by the descendents of those who suffered from the follies of their ancestors. But then, unto the Pure Men came the gods – or at least, beings claiming to be the gods. These first gods claimed to be the Old Gods of Law returned, to help gird the Pure Men in their battles against mutant-kind, to turn the tide of savagery back and hold aloft the light of Civilization. Odin and Zeus, Horus and Huitzilopochtli, the Angels Gabriel and Michael, and others – out of lost and garbled myth and legend these potent beings came forth and taught the disparate surviving tribes of Pure Men the rites and rituals that would perform divine magic.

And magic it was that turned the tide for the Pure Men. Slowly, haltingly, the tiny realms into which the mutants had thrust the Pure Men grew. Crusading priests of these Old Gods drove back the mutant menace; villages grew into towns, towns into cities, and cities built kingdoms. A thousand years after the Great Rad War the land of Murikah was divided into scores of petty kingdoms; most possessed a poor level of technology, at best on par with that of the ancient Dark Ages, as most of the Old Gods called for the rejection of the high-technology of the lost Golden Age as much as they called for the purging of the mutants from the lands held by Pure Men in the name of Law.

Slowly, the mutants were being driven back into the wilds, as kingdoms grew and empire building began again. Then two things happened at about the same time, both inimical to Law and Civilization built by the Old Gods, which would change the course of history.

First, the Other Gods appeared. The Other Gods are the gods of Chaos, the ancient, dread enemies of the Old Gods – Asmodeus and Tezcatlipoca, Set and Hecate, Tiamat and Tsathoggua, among many others. To oppose the Old Gods and their Pure Men worshippers, they patronized the mutant races, and granted unto them the same magical might that the Old Gods gave to the Pure Men.

Secondly, renegade Pure Men, who had chafed under the rule of the priest-kings of the new kingdoms, sought to gain the power of magic without being required to bow and scrape before the Old Gods. Whether they discovered it themselves or the Other Gods presented them with the needful information, these heretics and free-thinkers gained the power of Wizardry, the arts of arcane magic – the command of magical forces outside the dispensation of the gods.

But these budding wizards discovered the hard way that magic has a price – without the proper wisdom to rein it in, magic rapidly masters he who thought he was the master of magic. Over time, they discovered that this weakness could be mostly overcome through application of aspects of pre-Rad super-science. And so the Sorcerer-Scientists arose as a faction of the new wizardly groups. Unfortunately, a side effect of the application of super-science to the minds of these magi is that it usually drives them insane!

Thus, even as the kingdoms of the Pure Men were staging a great resurgence, the Chaos Priests of mutant-kind, the scholarly wizards and scientists of the renegade fringe of Civilization, and the megalomaniacal sorcerer-scientists of the wilds exploded into action. For a thousand years countless factions fought each other amidst the ruins of the Rad Glow. In some realms, wielders of divine and arcane magic learned to cooperate; in others they fought tooth-and-nail. Science was reborn, as men and mutants sought every tool in the battle for supremacy. Empires rose and fell; whole new races and civilizations grew and fell into ruin.

In the end the Sorcerer-Scientists allied with the Chaos-Priests of the Other Gods and their mutant followers against the forces of the Law-Priests of the Old Gods and their allied Wizards and Scientists. Chaos and the Sorcerer-Scientists won; the Kingdoms of Law were crushed, their lands and people split among the allied factions, and for most of the following thousand years a true and terrible Dark Age fell upon the lands of Murikah.

The forces of Law retreated into the wilds, there to hide, lick their wounds, build their strength, and bide their time. For they knew that the one great weakness of Chaos was that, by its very nature, its followers could only remain allied and at peace with one another for so long. And so it was; within a few generations the old alliances fell apart, and the factions began fighting one another for territory, dominance, or extermination. A century ago the last of the great Chaos Empires collapsed in civil war. Today, Murikah is a patchwork of Law and Chaos, Pure Men and Mutants, magic and technology and super-science.

In the lands of the Midzee, the vast freshwater sea where once stood the five Great Lakes, Chaos still has a strong hold in the Mighoomee Isles, in the city of Granpoor, in the Thunderlands, and in the wastelands of Zhawg, Kahmzoo, and the other ruins of the great cities left from the Great Rad War. Of the forces of Law, only the Ahntaryo Republic and the Empire of Man oppose them. And in-between there stands a patchwork of petty kingdoms, decadent city-states, savage tribes, Glow-ridden ruins, and mutant-haunted wilderness…

***

This pack includes two maps to begin with, the Geopolitical Map and the Settlements and Ruins Map. Further Midzee maps will be posted here; a gazetteer will be sold separately. The map pack is [b]Pay What You Want[/b]!

Stuff and Writing and Bloggery

Well... that didn't last long. As I noticed, in fact, a distinct drop in readership while doing the Blog Hop, perhaps it is a good thing I didn't continue...

I've reached an impasse on the Cimmeria Gazetteer. Lots of good stuff so far, but then ::BAM::, my writing hit a brick wall. I think what happened was I picked up a Conan pastiche and tried to read it. It (and its otherwise excellent author) shall remain nameless, but after only reading the original unaltered Howard Conan tales, it really was quite jarring. I think I need to pick up those original Conan stories again and read through them to get back on track...

After that, the Next Big Project will be the Deshret Gazetteer for the Olden Lands. But I'd like to work on some smaller stuff first, to cleanse the creative palate, so to speak. Something non-Olden Lands, something in the 24-pages realm, a bit splat-bookish and also sandbox-y gazetteer-ish. Here are some things I'd like to write; what of these would people be most interested in reading? Or perhaps more pertinently, interested in paying a nominal price to read?

1) Kingdom of the Morlocks (Labyrinth Lord)
2) The Book of Dwarfs (Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea if I can make that work)
3) Cacodemonomicon: A Grimoire of Beasts Demonic and Most Vile (LL/C&C, maybe also AS&SH if I can make it work)
4) A Sandbox for Mutants & Mazes (Labyrinth Lord/Mutant Future Mash-Up)
5) Hercynian Grimoire #2 (A melange of stuff for LL/C&C and maybe other systems)
6) A High Weird Science Western Fantasy Town... something appropriate to drop into an Encounter Critical campaign.

Post below to let me know what you are all interested in seeing me work on next... and if you can't decide, roll a d6 and let me know your result!