Red Sonja for Daggerheart

 I am still enjoying Daggerheart, but I haven't had much of a chance to play lately. Star Wars has been taking a lot of our time. No need for minis when you still have Kenner Star Wars figures!

This past week, we saw the limited release of the new Red Sonja movie, which, by all accounts, is not bad. Better than the 1985 movie (not a high bar, of course). Too bad it did not get a better release. Have to wait for an on-demand or digital release. I am also reading Gail Simone's "Red Sonja: Consumed." I wanted to follow up with some Red Sonja after reading so much of Howard's original work, and I wasn't all that interested in reading the Conan or Kull pastiches. There were a couple of newer Kane books (from different authors) that looked fun. And since anything done is worth doing in excess, I grabbed the latest Humble Bundle of Dynamite's Red Sonja comic run.

Appendix N Note: Although Red Sonja is not listed in Appendix N, Gary was aware of the character from Marvel's 1973-1986 run. That is prime "Golden Age" D&D time. She gets honorable inclusion, I think.

I like Red Sonja. Ok. I like her a lot. She might be one of the reasons so many of my characters have red hair. Ok, her and Batgirl. I loved her run in Marvel comics. I do think we get a slightly more sophisticated character under Dynamite, but all the Sonjas are great in my mind. One of the stories I read last night, "Red Sonja: Altered States," dealt with her spirit reappearing in modern New York. Fun idea really. Got me thinking maybe the "red goddess Scáthach" is really just Sonja herself helping her reincarnations throughout time and space. Anyway, there is something I am planning to have some fun with later on, but for now I think I want to see what she would be like in Daggerheart.

Sonja the Red for Daggerheart

There are a lot of "fighter"-like classes for Daggerheart and lots of things she could be. While there is the "barbarian" idea from Conan, I always felt Sonja was a bit different. In AD&D terms, she would be a fighter. A good fighter, but not a ranger (though that is what she is in Pathfinder: Worldscape) and certainly not a paladin. 

In Daggerheart classes are made up of two Domains. Given her moniker of "She-Devil with a Sword" I feel that one of those domains needs to be "Blade." This gives me two choices, Warrior (Blade and Bone) and Guardian (Blade and Valor). For this, I have to go with Warrior.  After that the rest fell into place rather quickly.

Red Sonja of Hyrkania

Level 5
Class & Subclass: Warrior (Call of the Slayer)
Ancestry & Heritage: Wanderborne Human
Pronouns: She/Her

Agility: 3
Strength: 2
Finesse: 0
Instinct: 1
Presence: -1
Knowledge: 0

Evasion: 12
Armor: 4 

HP: 7
Minor Damage: 14 Major Damage: 22
Stress: 6

Hope: 2

Weapons: Greatsword, Strength Melee, 3d10+8 Physical
Hallowed Axe, Strength Melee, 3d8+6 Magical

Armor: Leather 6/13 +3

Experience
No Man Can Defeat Me +2
I Will Avenge my Clan +2
Gold! Drink! Adventure! +2 (can find adventure, or trouble)
I have been to lots of places +2 (picking up tidbits of knowledge and language)

Class Features
No Mercy, Call of the Slayer, Weapon Specialist, Get Back Up, Untouchable, I See It Coming, Reckless, Fortified Armor, Vitality x2

This was a fast and easy build. 

Her features (the class cards) fit her well, to be honest. Given Daggerheart's narrative structure, fitting these to her backstory is easy. And given her backstory has changed over the years, well, this all still works.

I have seen Red Sonja in New York, in Victorian London, in Pathfinder, and even in Riverdale. Maybe this is Red Sonja in Iriandor. Why she is there, though, is an excellent question. She is never a tourist; there is a reason. I am going to blame the Wizard Thorne.

I am not sure what that reason is just yet.

Links to my other Red Sonja builds

• Old-School Essentials, with Thorne
• Army of Darkness
• Spellcraft & Swordplay
• Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition
• Barbarians of Lemuria
• Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
• Leagues of Adventure (Ubiquity)

I could certainly do more, to be honest.

#RPGaDay2025 Day 21 Unexpected

 The unexpected is where the magic happens.

You can prep the dungeon. You can write out the villain’s monologue. You can stack the random encounter tables and plan your traps with precision. But none of it survives contact with the players.

And that’s the point.

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." 

 - Mike Tyson

Fantasy roleplaying lives in that strange middle place between structure and surprise. The tension between what we plan and what actually happens. And over the years, I’ve learned to stop resisting the unexpected and start inviting it.

I’ve had villains turn into allies, thanks to a clever player speech. I’ve had major arcs derailed by a single spell (more than one). I’ve seen players bond with NPCs I hadn’t even named yet (too many times to count), turning a throwaway shopkeeper into a long-running favorite. I’ve had sessions where everything clicked, and others where nothing went according to plan but somehow worked anyway.

That’s what I love about this hobby. The unexpected isn’t a problem. It’s the reward.

But it’s not just in gameplay mechanics or plot twists. It’s also in the tone. The emotional texture. I’ve had horror campaigns become character dramas. Light-hearted one-shots veer into genuine catharsis. Once, in the middle of what should have been a tense combat encounter, a player described their character’s internal conflict so beautifully it stopped the game cold. We just sat with it. That moment, unplanned and unprompted, said more than any scripted scene could.

And sometimes, it’s the characters themselves who surprise you. The warlock who resists the call of their patron. The cleric who starts to doubt. The witch who turns away from power to protect something small and fragile. The hero who decides not to fight, but to forgive.

As a DM, I’ve learned to treat the unexpected like a knock at the door. You don’t always know who’s there, but it’s worth answering.

Because that’s where the best stories begin.

Not where you planned, but where the players took you instead.

Questions

How. Excited. Character.

How excited am I for a character? I am always excited about a new character, all the untapped potential. Everything about a new character.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Witches of Appendix N: Robert E. Howard, Part 3: Kull, Kane and "Accidental Feminism"

 Today I conclude this "mini-series" on the pivotal works of Robert E. Howard, one of the most influential authors in Appendix N, shaping the Dungeons & Dragons experience. 

I have already covered Conan in Part 1, and his horror stories in Part 2. Today I am going to talk two of his other characters, King Kull of Atlantis and Solomon Kane.

Kull of Atlantis: Silence Where a Witch (or even Women) Might Be

Kull’s stories are dreamlike, almost mythic, often more about philosophy than plot. Women of any kind are scarce, and witches are entirely absent. When sorcery intrudes, it comes from male figures: Thulsa Doom, the snake-men, necromancers, shadowy priests.

Is Kull even interested in women? Howard never shows him with lovers, nor does he pit him against the temptations or sorceries of an enchantress. Kull broods on law, on identity, on the shifting unreality of his throne, but not on witches, or even women for that matter. Their absence says much: the philosopher-king is concerned with metaphysical threats, not the seductions or mysteries that witches (and sorcerers) often embody in Howard’s other tales. 

Kull's most significant interaction with a woman comes from one of his earliest tales. A girl in his village is being burned at the stake for taking a lover from the wrong tribe. Kull, not seeing the justice in this, uses his own flint dagger to give her a merciful, quick death. For which he is hunted. 

Speaking of flint daggers. Kull is supposed to be taking place around 100,000 BCE. So really pre-history, but it feels more like 100 BCE in terms of "technology." Granted it is "lost age" the same sort you see working in Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age. Credit where it is due, Howard does do a great job of making it feel like Kull predates Conan by centuries. 

If Kull, and Conan, are covered well by Wasted Lands and other Fantasy RPGs, then Kane is dipping right into horror.

Solomon Kane: A Puritan Without Witches

If Kull’s Atlantean dreamtime excludes witches entirely, Solomon Kane’s early modern setting seems tailor-made for them. The 16th and 17th centuries were rife with witch trials and burnings, and Kane is a zealous Puritan avenger. You’d expect him to clash with witches by the dozen. But he never does.

Instead, Kane’s foes are vampires, demons, revenants, and African sorcerers. Women in his stories are usually victims or innocents caught in evil’s path, never witches themselves. Was this deliberate on Howard’s part? Perhaps he didn’t want women as Kane’s outright antagonists, preferring instead to cast him against inhuman horrors or exotic magics.

One exception worth noting is Nakari from The Moon of Skulls. She is cruel, manipulative, and queenly, with many of the trappings of a witch, save for actual sorcery. She does have a coven of sorts, her "Starmaidens" and she knows some Atlantean rituals.  She rules through charisma and cruelty, not spells. And despite her names she is neither demon nor vampire. Kane’s crusade against her feels witch-hunter-like, yet Howard stops short of giving her magic. Again, we see the absence: Kane fights monsters, not witches.

Kane is adventure fiction, but it dips into horror and horror themes more often than not. 

Kull, Conan, and Kane make up an interesting trinity of Howard protagonists. All are cut from the same cloth and each could be a reincarnation of the previous.

Accidental Feminism?

Now, I do want to say upfront that Howard considered himself a feminist. He had some very progressive views for his time, but also some fairly typical ones. People are complicated. 

If Conan’s world has some witches and Kane’s and Kull’s are completely barren of them, what does that say about Howard? His female characters are sometimes villains (Salome, Tascela, Nakari), but they are also commanding presences, equal to or greater than the men who face them. When Howard leaves witches out, women almost vanish. But that absence makes it striking when he does put women at the forefront, because when he does, they are unforgettable.

Think of Bêlit, the Queen of the Black Coast, who is as fierce and ambitious as Conan himself. Or Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, a woman who makes her own choices and follows her own path. Red Sonya of Rogatino and Dark Agnes de Chastillon are not sorceresses at all, but warrior women who seize the agency the world denies them. These characters aren’t “witches” in the pulpy sense, but they are Howard’s women: strong, willful, larger than life, and often overshadowing the men around them. Red Sonya appears in one tale, yet "Red Sonja" has hundreds, including comics, novels, and a new movie out. Bêlit & Valeria have also appeared in plenty of comics together, often sans Conan, to prove they are interesting enough characters in their own right. Even if I am getting a bit of a Betty & Veronica vibe from them sometimes. Though Red Sonja has teamed up with Betty & Veronica in the past.

Bêlit, Red Sonja, (and Conan) and Valeria by Geof Isherwood

That duality shows up outside the stories too. In a famous letter to Harold Preece, Howard rattled off a litany of great women, from Sappho and Aspasia to Joan of Arc, Emma Goldman, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, defending their genius, passion, and rightful place in history. “Women have always been the inspiration for men,” he wrote, “and… there have been countless women whose names have never been blazoned across the stars, but who have inspired men on to glory.”  

Howard’s pulp tales are not feminist manifestos, but they carry a paradox I’d call his “accidental feminism.” In his fiction, women may be cast as temptresses, pirates, or witches, but they are never weak. And in his private words, he saw women as philosophers, poets, and warriors equal to any man. It may be accidental, but it left us with heroines and enchantresses who still burn as brightly on the page today as they did nearly a century ago.

Conclusion

There are more Robert E. Howard tales. Lots more, and many that could be fundamental to what the D&D experience was going to become. But here is where I part ways with the author. I found his sword & sorcery tales to be captivating, his horror stories fascinating, and his heroes equally as wonderful in their own imperfect ways. There is a reason why we all know of Conan and Kane, and to a lesser degree, Kull. Even his forgotten "step-daughter," Red Sonja.

When it comes to witches, Howard doesn't give me enough, though what he does give is wonderful. Salome and Tascela are fantastic characters who I would have loved to see more of, or more to the point, more like them. Too bad that they died in their respective tales; they would have made great antagonists for Bêlit, Red Sonja, and Valeria.

#RPGaDay2025 Day 20 Enter

 There’s a moment that happens in every good fantasy RPG. It might not look like much on paper. A room description. A line of dialogue. A decision so small it barely draws attention at the time.

But something shifts. The torches are lit. The players lean in.

And the question lingers: Do you enter?

That’s the threshold.

To enter is not just to cross into a new place. It’s to leave something behind. Safety. Certainty. Sometimes even identity. And once you've stepped through, the world is never quite the same.

I think about this a lot when I design adventures. Not just dungeons or lairs, but those moments when the world opens up and becomes other. That heavy door groaning open into darkness. The portal that hums with a color you don’t have a name for. The standing stones that seem to lean in closer when you blink. These are not just places, they’re invitations. Rites of passage. The crossing over from the known to the unknown.

In the monomyth, it’s called the first threshold. In Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, it’s the moment when the hero accepts the call to adventure and moves from the mundane into the mythic. But I’ve always felt witches and warlocks experience this differently. For them, it’s not a line they cross once. It’s a cycle. A spiral. The path winds inward, deeper each time. Every doorway leads to another, and each one costs a little more.

Sometimes it's a literal entrance: the black iron gate of a cursed estate, the crumbling stairs beneath a ruined temple. Other times it’s less obvious. Opening a book you were warned not to touch. Answering a voice in your dreams. Saying “yes” to something without understanding what you’ve agreed to.

These moments aren’t about combat or treasure. They’re about change. The world shifts. The story deepens. And the characters, whether they know it or not, are no longer who they were on the other side of that door.

I try to honor that in my games. I give players the moment. I let them feel the weight of the threshold before they step through. I don’t need to say anything dramatic. Just a pause. A look. The air gets a little colder. The fire flickers once. Something remembers their name.

And then they enter.

Because they always do.

Questions

What. Nostalgic. Rule.

What rule am I most nostalgic for?  I miss the days when the thief class had more options for thief skills, beyond just a d20 roll for "Thievery."  While AD&D 1st Ed was great, I like the flexibility granted by AD&D 2nd Ed where you could distribute points into the skills. 

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Mail Call Tuesday: Witch Mountain Board Game

 Sometimes I have the impulse control of a toddler. 

I saw this game, Witch Mountain, featured in a post (Gen Con, I think), and I thought, "Damn. I need that." So a quick trip to eBay and I found one, cheap, and still in shrink wrap. Plus it says right on the box, a game with "Witches & Dragons."  Sounds like the RPGs I have been playing for the last 45 years.

A few days later, it was mine. 

I pulled off the shrink and was treated to the game inside. 

The game board is neat. The objective is to get your colored pawns into the center, "Witch Mountain" before the other players, and avoid the witches and dragons flying around. 

Gameplay largely relies on the luck of the dice roll. Though it does have the nicest dice rolling cup I have ever seen in a game. Nice hard plastic lined with cork. The board is sturdy, typical of the 1980s. The play reminds me of "Sorry!" The dice are colored sides with a mix of the player colors and an occasional witch or dragon. 

Given the date of 1983 I can't help but think the "Witches & Dragons" is an attempt to grab some of that fantasy game market.

Traveller Envy

In my ongoing obsession with adding some board game experience to my Fantasy RPG and Horror RPG experiences, I have been thinking about how to add this. Obviously the pawns are all rival witch covens who need to get to the top of Witch Mountain. The witches flying around are the current occupiers of the mountains and the dragons do their bidding.

Come to think of it. It seems odd to me that I have not codified a more permanent "Witch Mountain" in my games. One of the milestone events in my love of witches was the 1975 Disney film "Escape to Witch Mountain" and it's sequel "Return from Witch Mountain." Although I was disappointed that there were no real witches in it, despite many of the trappings, I still loved the movies. The 2009 "Race to Witch Mountain" was also good. I will admit that I have always given any witch character I play TK and telepathy/empathy of some sort as my nod to Tia, played by Kim Richards, in the first two movies. 

I do have a set of mountains outside of my West Haven setting called "The Broken Mountains," which is my homage to the Brocken mountain in Germany. Given it's, and Pendel Hill's,  importance to witch lore ([1] and [2]), I really should have something.

I do have the Montblanc Family, and they come from near a "white mountain."  Maybe they are the witches in control of the Hexenberg. I have always said they were a very old, and very rich, witch family. Having control of a few dragons is not really a stretch for me to consider. 

So I hope to come up with some more ideas for der Hexenberg. Or even an adventure featuring the Witch Mountain. I have been wanting to write more adventures.

Links

• Witch Mountain at BGG

#RPGaDay2025 Day 19 Destiny

Some characters are made. Others are called.

In fantasy RPGs, we often talk about adventure as something that happens to the characters. A job they take. A dungeon they stumble into. A series of increasingly bad decisions with increasingly sharp consequences.

But sometimes… the story’s already waiting for them.

That’s destiny.

It’s the feeling that a character wasn’t just born to swing a sword or cast a spell, they were born to change the world. Or maybe to save it. Or break it.

And whether you believe in fate or not, it makes for a hell of a story.

The classic model, of course, is the Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. The call to adventure. Refusal. Supernatural aid. Descent. Return. Transformation. It’s clean. It’s powerful. It’s the scaffolding behind everything from The Lord of the Rings to Star Wars to the better arcs in your home campaign.

But witches rarely walk the Hero’s Path.

They dance on it.

Their model isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral.

A path that doubles back. That deepens. That re-enters old places with new eyes. It’s the Witch’s Spiral Dance, a sacred return. A reweaving of self. Not a quest for glory, but a journey inward and downward, until the truth is uncovered in the dark.

And that, too, is destiny.

In my games, I love to ask:

• Does this character believe they have a destiny?
• If not, what happens when they’re told they do?
• What happens if they refuse it?
• And what happens if they chase it too far?

Not every character needs a prophesied fate. Some are just trying to survive. But destiny has a strange way of catching up. That cursed sword didn’t find them by accident. That sigil birthmark? That wasn’t just cosmetic.

Even when you're winging it as a player, the story has a gravity. It pulls. It whispers. It tempts you with the idea that maybe… this moment was meant to happen.

And when you step into it? When the character finally sees themselves in the myth?

That’s magic.

That’s the moment when dice and drama and destiny line up. When a witch completes her spiral. When a hero returns home, changed. When the dungeon wasn’t just a hole in the ground, it was the crucible of the soul.

So sure, roll with the chaos. Make it up as you go.

But when the time comes? When the stars are right, and the door opens?

Step into destiny.

Questions

Why. Excited. Accessory.

Why am I excited about BLANK Accessory? For me it is an online visual character generator. Why, but I can create characters to use in my games without needing to hire an artist every time. I'll save that for things I want to publish. 

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

#RPGaDay2025 Day 18 Sign

 Not every message arrives in words. Some come as signs.

• A crow circling widdershins.
• A mirror that cracks without reason.
• A cold wind blowing from the east when the sky is clear.

In the occult, both in fiction and in real-world traditions, signs are how the unseen speaks. They’re not always obvious. They’re not always dramatic. But they always mean something.

Witches know this. Warlocks, too. They don’t just read books. They read the world. The patterns in the bark, the way the candle flickers, the strange arrangement of bones at the edge of a clearing. The world is a living grimoire, and every sign is a page waiting to be read.

I’ve always loved using signs in my games. They’re more than just flavor, they’re agency. A clue, a key, a message scratched into the world itself. Sometimes it’s overt: a vision, an augury, a rune glowing faintly on a stone altar. But more often, it’s subtle. A dream that changes after entering a cursed forest. A candle that won’t stay lit inside a ruined chapel. A tarot deck that keeps drawing The Tower, no matter how many times it’s shuffled.

The best signs don’t give answers. They ask questions. They don’t tell the players what to do, they ask if they’re paying attention.

And if you want to turn up the pressure, signs can act like story clocks. Foreshadowing. Countdown markers. A narrative fuse quietly burning in the background.

The third raven means the pact is broken.

 The red comet marks the return of something old.

 And when the stars are right… well, you know how that one goes.

From a DM’s point of view, signs are one of my favorite storytelling tools. They create atmosphere. They build tension. They reward curiosity. And they make the world feel alive, alive and watching.

From a player’s point of view, they’re invitations. To dig deeper. To question everything. To realize that maybe the dungeon isn’t the real threat, it’s what’s waking up beneath it.

So the next time something strange happens in your game, an unexplained sound, an uncanny shadow, a symbol that appears where it shouldn’t, don’t explain it right away. Let it linger. Let it breathe. Let it be a sign.

And watch what your players do with it.

 Because half the fun of prophecy is wondering if it’s true.

 The other half? Watching your players spin themselves in circles trying to figure it out.

Questions

When. Contemplative. Character.

Related to signs above, when should a Character be contemplative? Obviously, when trying to figure out whatever mystery I have thrown at them, and not in the middle of combat.  Their thought process can e a great role-playing device.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/