Return to the Palace of Silver Princess

Like a lot of gamers my age I am familiar with the module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, and like most of those gamers my experience is with the "Green" cover version.  Well I had heard about the infamous "Orange" cover version of course, but never hoped I would see it.  Well Wizards of the Coast had changed that when they released the banned Orange version a few years back along with the story of why it was banned/deemed inappropriate.   An interesting bit of game history, but really I think nearly everyone feels that the edited Green version is the better module.

Reading the Orange version with knowledge of the Green is an interesting experience and one that almost always leaves the Orange one coming up a bit short.  Not that the Green version, with edits by Basic Game guru Tom Moldvay, is a stellar module, it does have it's moments.

B3 holds a special place for me since it is the first module I ever bought specifically to run and not play in.  There was a lot for a neophyte DM like myself in 1981 to like.  The programmed adventure in the beginning was a nice touch to kid just learning how to also program the computers in Jr. High.  Arik of the Hundred Eyes was an awesome sounding bad guy and one I had hoped would make another appearance one day. And it was easy for me to place this all in Glantri from the Expert Set, it seemed to fit well with other things I had going on at the time.

Reading over the Wizard's site this past weekend got me thinking.  I have wanted to use B3 in my kids' game for a while now.  Thanks to the maps (linked below) from the Vaults of Pandius and the update to D&D 3.0 version of the monsters and encounters I could run this is as-is for them now.  Of course I'll want to bump the encounters up a bit to make them more challenging.   Course the maps are for the Green version and 3.0 update is for the Orange version. 

I think I'll take a suggestion from Wizards and run this as "Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess".  The events of the "green" cover happened many years ago, but something went wrong that lead to the events of "orange" cover.  The Eye of Arik wasn't destroyed properly and soon the entire area became cursed.  Ellis the Strong (The Silver Warrior) became the the cause in the minds of the locals.  While the evil energies pouring out of the fragmented eye caused mutations in all living things in the castle.  Plants became vampire roses and archer bushes, the staff became Ubues (gotta explain them somehow), Aliegha, Catharandamus and the dwarves Boron and Xyzom were adventurers that came here previously and are now coming under the affects of the Eye.  Catharandamus is going insane, thinking he can summon Arik, Aliegh is turning into a wolf (or bear or a bear-wolf crossbred-thingy) and the dwarves are slowly becoming orcs.  I do plan on using Candella and Duchess, as randomish NPCs, but they had just gotten there and have not started to mutate yet. I just liked that picture of the two of them being caught by surprise. 

I doubt I will drop any hints here to the upcoming 4e adventures or even the on going Dragonslayer's plot.  So Arik is not really another name for Tharizdun, and I doubt I'll make the Eye of Arik a part of the summoning ritual they need for Tiamat.  Just a little side adventure to amuse me and them while I build them up to the big finale.  Though the Knights of the White Drakes from the Green version allays interested me.  Maybe once the adventure is over I'll have the Knights send them their thanks and offer them a great gift, a Drake (a riding dragon) for them to use in their battle against Tiamat.  My son would LOVE that.  Of course that only works if the the guy on the dragon that everyone thinks is evil is actually good and the characters help clear his name.  I do like that idea.

Links

- Wizard's page for the Orange version, http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20020121x7 

- Grognardia reflects on B3, http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-palace-of-silver-princess.html

- As does Emerald Lich, http://www.emeraldlich.com/post.php?post_id=1162

- Acaeum overview, http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/modpages/b3.html

- Cool maps from the Mystara uber-site, Vaults of Pandius, http://pandius.com/maps.html

- d20/3.0 conversion at ENWorld, http://www.enworld.org/cc/downloads/files/palace_of_the_silver_princess.rtf

Family Game Day: All Wet (rain and ocean adventures)

Taking a break from Anime RPGs for a sec to talk about yesterday's family game day.

Due to the rain yesterday and a general lack of motivation we decided to play a game of D&D.  This is the on going saga of the "Dragon Slayers" which consisted of my oldest son's three characters (I have alway let him play multiple characters since it was just us), my youngest son and his Archer Ranger/Thief and even my wife got into the game for a bit.  A couple of D&D tile sets (which my wife told me to go out and buy more!) a few  of my son's toys that work great with the minis, and a half baked idea all came together for "Dragon Slayers and the Quest for the Dragon Pearl!"

I used my Hero Lab for Pathfinder to put together a character for my wife really fast; a duel wielding Ranger/Fighter multiclass. Now this is not the same game as the Kid's Pathfinder game I have been playing in.  Though Connor is playing an older version of that character in the Dragon Slayers game.  Liam's characters are also somehow related in both games.  I am playing the same witch character.  In Dragon Slayers she is a 9th level witch using my Liber Mysterium rules for D&D 3.0 and in Pathfinder she is a 1st level witch using the new witch class from that game. In Dragon Slayers she is a GMPC/NPC of course, but her job in that group is to record all the knowledge the characters gather on dragons.

The Dragon Slayers game has turned into a rather cool one.  It is at it's base D&D 3.0 with various 3.5 add ins, a little Star Wars d20 (for the Bounty Hunter) and some BESM d20 and Mutants and Masterminds where needed.  It is set in my Mystoerth world which is another unholy union of various D&D worlds, so it all fits really.  The over arching plot here is that evil dragons are planning to take over the world by killing all the good dragons, the characters are finding all the big bad evil dragons and hunting them down, while collecting pieces of an artifact so the can defeat Tiamat. So it has it's own built in end game.   While they are seraching for these artifacts they are also looking for other items of power.  They are supposed to head to the South Pole next time, which I am going to draw heavy from At the Mountains of Madness for, but before they get there they will come to Ansalon, a country they did not know was there (it's not on their maps) and this gives me the excuse to have them gain some Dragonlances.  So yeah, this game is more cartoon than it is fantasy adventure epic, so in a way it does connect back to the topic at hand; how to add Anime Style to your games.  My son's character sheets are an odd collection of D&D 3.0, M&M and BESM d20.  For this game the BESM d20 sheets work the best since his wizards tend to have "powers" instead of "spells".
I know there are purists out there cringing, but all I can say is it works and it is fun.

Yesterday the Dragon Slayers were convinced by an Ogre to retrieve a "Dragon Pearl".  Why were they dealing with an ogre?  Well he had the only boat that would take them from The Four Kingdoms north of the Zakhara desert to the South Pole where they believe another piece of the artifact was.  The pearl was in a submerged cave system and protected by a Deep Sea Dragon Eel and an Aquatic Dragon.  Which were stat wise just two adult black dragons with about 200 hp each.  The Dragon Eel was a toy viper fish that my son got years ago and the aquatic dragon was this sea dragon toy he bought recently on Amazon.  The "ogre" was also an "igor" figure from a Castlevania Succubus, so while he is a small figure to her, to a 7ft tall Dragonborn mini he is about 10-13ft tall (hard to tell, he is hunched over).

The adventure went great and nearly everyone gained enough XP to level up.  My sons started talking about the "end game" of this; when they defeat Tiamat and retire to pick up on 4th Edition.  While I Am looking forward to playing some 4th edition with them, I am finding I am not really ready to see the end of the Dragon Slayers yet.  It has been a ridiculously fun ride.

What adventures will the Dragon Slayers have next rainy day?  Unknown, but it will certainly be a blast.

As a GM I don't like to kill characters, but...

But I have.

Details in a bit, but first more on character death and the great battle, the Shadow War.

Many notable and non-notable personages made the ultimate sacrifice in the war against the demons.  Skie Iskatarian, who claimed to be the great-great-granddaughter of Kas the Destroyer, died on the field of battle.  She was given a heroes funeral by the Queen she would have rather seen dead, not visa versa.  She was found next to a man that by all accounts she hated more than anyone, Kiev Scorpious.  They were found back to back, fighting off the hordes that stormed the walls of the city.

Kurt, the affable monk that everyone seemed to like, had also been found.  The great warrior Jar Tearn. Not felled by any weapon, his great age was his doom and he died on the field when his heart failed him.  His wife Victoria, rushed to his side, but never quite made it.  Kara Foke, King of the neighboring country offered his son to aid Glantri, and lost that son.  Leaving his second oldest betrothed to the Queen.  She was 9 he was 8.

Some speak of the great dark warrior Absom Sark how he was never seen again after the war.  Others speak of Arachnia, the drow female warrior that roamed the lands prior to the war, but never after.  They have statues as well, even if their bodies were not found.  (they ran off together after the war. sometimes love is more important than honor).

But the greatest loss some say was the King's son, Johan III.  Lost, and he had disgraced his family and the faith by bedding not just a common girl, but a supernatural one (she was a psychic...and something else), he had returned from the Nightmare Lands (Ravenloft) in his country's darkest hour.  But the girl that was his undoing in life was his undoing in death....

--
The cool thing about being a tech-head was this great little program that my then DM and I had written for the Tandy Color Computer.  It was a combat simulator.  We could load ten characters and ten monsters in it at once and they would go after each other till all of one side was dead.  I used that and in some cases, I also rolled up the combats on my own.  Something to pass the time to be sure.

So, lots of people died so that the new generations, Quenn Celene and her future Husband Kara Werper could take center stage.  And they will, or rather would have, had it not been for that troublesome girl.

Morgan.

Morgan began in my game with only her nick-name, Raven, though she did have other names.  Raven Ebonflame, Raven the Hunter of the Dead, Raven the Daughter of Death (her father was nicknamed "Death Blade").
She was psychic, which was a strict taboo in my game world.  Sure magic is fine, because the mage schools and guilds control that. Random psychic power?  Bad juju.

So what does this girl do?  She gets herself hired in the mercenaries guild and eventually hooks up with John the 3rd, future king of the land, and gets pregnant.  When I was coming up with ideas to start my war, I decided that she ran off to have the kid rather than cause her lover any more grief.  Trouble was Johan loved her too.  Had he married her things might have been fine, but he ran off after her only to get pulled into Ravenloft.  She thought he didn't care and gave birth to their daughter.

There is one other thing about Morgan.  Something I decided on her first outing as a character back 1985 or so.  Morgan was a killer of Vampires.  She killed one at 1st level.  And then proceeded to go after more.
Morgan, Raven Ebonflame, was the very first Slayer.

And then I killed her.

She was in the war and played a minor part.  I remember being out on my bike one day thinking about what she might have done.  Then it came to me.  Morgan fought Yoln Shadowreaper, the general of the Armies of Hell.  She fought him and killed him.  By herself, single-handed, the girl that everyone in the game hated, changed the course of the War.  She gave them victory.  But it cost her her life.

Her lover, Johan went crazy and was soon killed in battle, not before taking out several dozen demons.  The priest said he could not raise her, her soul was gone.  A pact was made by the three most powerful remaining characters, the guild master (her father), the advisor (her teacher) and the King (father of her lover).  Her father went to Hell to find her soul.  In the 3rd Edition years, I worked that into the great Reckoning of Hell.

Her death was the most powerful scene I played up to that point.  But years later I so regretted killing her. I thought it was a waste (and I had more personal reasons too).

Then I began The Dragon and the Phoenix.

This was a Willow and Tara centric season for the Buffy game.  In the fifth episode, Heaven Bleeds, Willow, Tara, and Buffy travel back in time to this battle.  There they meet Willow and Tara's past lives, and all three witness Morgan's battle with Yoln.  I did retcon her into a Slayer, but it was not much of a change.

Now I redid the scene of her death as before, this time using the Cinematic Unisystem rules.  And this time Buffy was there to help.  I had players that played Tara, Willow, and Buffy, but I still played Morgan out. She still defeated Yoln, this time with her sister Slayer's help.  But she still died.  Somethings can't be changed I guess no matter how much you try.

As Morgan dies, she touches Tara and asks her to remember her.  Morgan's soul does not go to Hell as everyone thought, but instead, it is in Tara.  When the season ends she lets go of Morgan's soul to her final rest.  I have a scene in later games, Season of the Witch, to be exact, where Morgan's father meets up with Tara and is given peace.

As a DM I don't like to kill characters.  People invest way too much of themselves into their personas.
Kurt, Skie. Kiev, Jar, Victoria, Sebastian, Fjalar, Johan II and Johan III.  They all had memorable deaths and that had meaning.

But Morgan, Raven Ebonflame, the Daughter of Death, Hunter of the Dead, had the most important death of all.  Her's changed two worlds. Set things into motion that I am still using in my games. And changed how I think about characters and how I write this stuff I do.
And hers was the hardest to do and deal with and the one I have always and will always regret the most.

To pull out my comics metaphors, she is though more of my Barry Allen than Tora Olfsdotter or even Tara herself.  She died and saved the world and to bring her back now would give the character less meaning.  She died well and now deserves her well earned rest.  Tora and Tara died too (and came back) but their deaths were meaningless and meant to shock people and ultimately empty.  Mark Waid, who wrote the issues in which Tora died has since admitted it was a huge mistake as a typical and clichéd Women in Refrigerators moment.  Too bad Whedon has not had the same insight and maturity as Waid.  But I took care of that on my own.

So GMs/DMs/Directors/Story Tellers?
Do you kill characters?  Do you try to save them even if the dice fall on the side of the Reaper?

Yes...yes I can already here the Call of Cthulhu Keepers out there.  I know your point and I know there are worse things than death.

It was…a good death.

I started a new campaign this last weekend. It has all the potential of one of those long-running campaigns that will feature heroics that the players will be talking about years to come. But of late it is endings that I have been thinking of the most. The end of my long-running “Willow and Tara” Unisystem game a few years back, the end of my epic AD&D 1st edition game that spanned my high school years.

The end of that game ended in the deaths in many characters, but they were all good and heroic deaths. Well except for one, but I’ll talk about her later.

The deaths were honorable, heroic and did what they were supposed to do. Clear the slate for me fo when I went to college (and unknown to me at the time, pick up 2nd Edition AD&D).

That final battle was part of a war that had been building for a long time and finally exploded across the globe. It destroyed my DM’s own countries (he had some areas outside of the former Suel Empire) and tore mine to near shreds, I was HQed in Glantri on the other side of the world. Everywhere knew war. We called it the Shadow War. On my side of the world, the armies of Hell were marching in in an attempt to take the magical artifacts we were protecting. The war was long and it claimed the life of the King, his oldest son and their chief advisor. The head of the mercenaries’ guild vowed to stay uninvolved till his wife was killed and he disappeared. His son pledged his loyalty to the new 9-year-old Queen. It was a dark time.

The game took a little over two years in real time from say about May/June 1986 to mid-1989. Once I learned there was 2nd Edition coming (hard to believe we lived in a time where we didn’t know everything about a game line) I extended it. I took the individual battle scenes and played them all out. The return of the King’s son from Ravenloft (he wasn’t dead), the advisor, the guild master with an army of his own. Also, all my “lesser” characters that I may have rolled up and used once or twice in games got a chance to take center stage.

Here is one.  More to come.

Fjalar Snowcrest, was a dwarf thief. Kicked out of his homeland and disgraced and dishonored. He was in the city when the armies of hell overran the settled areas inside the walls. He was running, looking for a fight or to get away when he heard screaming. A few bearded devils (hamatula) had broken into a school, killed the teacher and were making their way to kids. Fjalar, never a brave dwarf, still hated bullies. When the war was over, Fjalar was dead. But all the children were alive. They told a tale of this dwarf with an axe of fire and muscles of stone who protected them from the monsters. Even when he was wounded and losing blood he continued to chop at the devils. Fjalar’s broken body was discovered, on top of 20 (though the children would later say 50 if not 100) Hamatula. At the end of the War of Shadows statues were raised to all the lost heroes. Fjalar’s was set in a public square where the dwarf stood majestically with several children behind him and his axe in front of him. The Queen herself invited his father and mother to come to see, they finally came 10 years later. She told them the story and said she knew of his dishonor, which is why his hands had been placed covering his family crest on the axe. The family said nothing till dozens of young adults and their collected scores of children came to the square. They had been the children saved that day and with them were their own children. Many children who bore names similar to Fjalar and Snowcrest.  The Snowcrest parents were moved. They said that they could not undo the dishonor their son had done and his name was still cursed, but that they were proud of their brave and honorable son.

Races of Mystoerth: Gypsy Elves

The Gypsy Elf

"Thousands of years ago the elves were a unified race.  The elven people stood strong and diverse.
Then the War came and the Elves were Sundered. The elves were divided by the war.
But some chose not to fight, some took in their brothers and sisters from all sides.
These elves were cursed by Corellon Larethian to wander the lands till the day when all elves stood as one people again.  The other elves took pity on them, calling them, in their own tongues The Wanderers.  But not the Wanderers themselves.  They knew a powerful secret.

They knew they were Free."
- From the Songs of the Ranagwithe

The Gypsy Elf, or as the call themselves "The Free Elves" (Ranagwithe in their own language) , has a long history in my game and one shared with the evolution of my Witch class.  Originally I was going to even make a few Gypsy Elf witches to play, but oddly enough I never did.   Though there are mythos of the gypsy elves that are tied indirectly with various occult, but mostly pagan, beliefs.

In the game Gypsy Elfs wander the world, in and out of the land of faerie, searching for their lost home.  They will find it only on the day when all the elves are reunited as a race.  Until then they wander.
I have pictured them as not being xenophobic as human gypsies are often portrayed, but rather as gregarious travelers.  Why this change?  It helps the taboos I have set up for them and it seemed to be more logical.  Plus I did not want to do another Romani or Irish Traveller clone.

Like their human counterparts, Gypsy Elves travel all over the known world. However, unlike the Human Gypsies, Gypsy Elves are much more gregarious. The origins of the Gypsy Elves (and Shadow Elves) date back to what has become to be known as the Sundering of the Elves. When the Dark elves broke free from the light elves they split into several races. The light elves of course became the Eladrin/High Elves and the dark became the Drow.

There were elves that remained outside of the conflict. One group was a band of light elves that protected both the dark and light elves from each other. When the gods split the elves apart, the gypsy elves were left without a home to call their own. Since they never harmed another elf before they were not forced into the dark underground. Ever since then the Gypsy Elves have wandered from place to place looking for a home. While Gypsy elves tend to be neutral to all other races, they are always treated as “good” to other elves. There are several universal elven customs that apply only to Gypsy Elves.

1. No Gypsy Elf may harm another Elf. Even Drow and Half-Elves.
2. No other elf, Drow or Half-, may harm a Gypsy Elf.
3. No Elven community may refuse lodging to a band of Gypsy Elves. The Gypsy then must agree to be on their way soon after.

At any point in time other elven species may be found in a group of Gypsy Elves, as they may freely travel as long as they abide by the Gypsy Elves rules and lifestyle. These “Free Wanderers” can make up to 10% of the tribe’s population.

As long as the other elves do not fight amongst themselves or the other Gypsy Elves they may remain with the tribe as long as they like. Also any Gypsy Elf is invited to remain in any Elf community, but few rarely do.

Consequently the racial make-up of Gypsy Elves is somewhat mixed. Actually there is no Gypsy Elf race. It is the human populations of the world call them “Gypsy”. The elves refer to them only as “Wandering Elves”. Gypsy Elves often refer to themselves as the “Free Elves. Either name in the elven language is Ranagwithe.

Gypsy Elves are on friendly terms with humans. They find Human Gypsies to be too xenophobic for their tastes. But they will travel with them for mutual benefit. This helps to explain the high amount of Half-Elves.

Gypsy Elves, like their Elf cousins, produce fine art, in particular music and dance. Many have excelled in woodcarving and sell these pieces of art in communities they pass through. What these elves cannot make, they buy. In this respect they are very good terms with humans.

Gypsy Elves are careful never to take more from the land or their hosts then they absolutely need. It has been said that there will be no evidence of a gypsy elf camp 24 hours after they leave.

4th Edition Gypsy Elves

Related to the elves, eladrin and drow, gypsy elves wander the world for their lost home and in hope that they elven races will be reunified.

Racial Traits

Avg. Height: 5'2"-5'10"
Avg. Weight: 90-150lb

Ability Scores: +2 Dex, +2 Cha
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Low-light

Languages: Common, Elvish, plus one other of the player’s choice
Skill Bonuses: +2 Nature, +2 Stealth

Gypsy Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the shortsword.
Elvish Reflexes: You gain a +1 racial bonus to your Reflex defense.
In addition, you gain a +5 racial bonus to saving throws against charm effects.

Versatile Linguist: You gain one extra language (above and beyond other bonuses) that you have learned in your travels.
Fey Origin: You are considered a fey creature for the purposes of effects that relate to creature origin.

Trance: Rather than sleep, eladrin enter a meditative state known as trance. You need to spend 4 hours in this state to gain the same benefits other races gain from taking a 6-hour extended rest. While in a trance, you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.

Elven Fate: You can use elven fate as an encounter power.

Elven Fate Gypsy Elf Racial Power
Your race has twisted the strands of fate for so long that every action can be foretold.
You may re-roll any one die and use the roll of your choice.

Encounter
Free Action Personal

Effect: Reroll any roll. Use either roll.


Play a gypsy elf if you want . . .
✦ to be good at stealth and moving in natural environments.
✦ to play a worldly hero with an air of mystery and mystique.
✦ to be a member of a race that favors the bard, ranger, rouge, sorcerer or warlock classes.

3.x/Pathfinder Gypsy Elves

+2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Intelligence: Gypsy elves are agile of foot and hand. They also process a gregarious personality. Their lack of a permanent home and their ad-hoc means of education give the impression that they are unintelligent or uncouth.

Medium: Gypsy elves are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Gypsy elves have a base speed of 30 feet.
Low-Light Vision: Gypsy elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Elven Immunities: Like Elves, gypsy elves are immune to magic sleep effects and get a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.
Elven Magic: Gypsy elves receive a +2 racial bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance.
Keen Senses: Gypsy elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with crossbows, rapiers, shortbows (including composite shortbows), and short swords, and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.
Languages: Gypsy elves begin play speaking Common, Elven and one additional language of the player’s choice. Gypsy elves with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Celestial, Draconic, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, and Sylvan.

Note: In the Pathfinder RPG Gypsy elf spellcasters often choose the Oracle and Witch classes.

Physical Qualities

Gypsy Elves look much like their Elf cousins. Traveling and encountering different lands and peoples for more than a millennium has altered the appearance of the race. They stand about the same height as elves. They are typically darker completion, having an almost olive skin color, though darker shades are not uncommon. Their hair also tends to be dark. Blacks and browns are very common. Once in a great while a blond or redhead will be born, and this is usually a cause for great celebration. If a child is born with white hair then this is considered a great omen of change; good or ill.

Playing a Gypsy Elf

Gypsy Elves are natural born adventurers. Young Gypsy Elves are expected to spend some time away from their clans in order to see the world. It is expected that they will seek out other elves in order to share stories and news.

Special thanks to Jason Vey for coming up with the elven name Ranagwithe.

Sanctuary

You feel lost. Hurt. 
Helpless. Desperate. 
Alone.

Something happened to you or to people you love.
And no one understands. 
No one believes.
And no one can help.

But we understand. 
We believe.
We can help.

We are Sanctuary.
Someday everything is going to be alright.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary began in my 1st Edition AD&D game.  Located in the Principalities of Glantri (from Mystara and Basic D&D), Sanctuary was a group of healers that specifically dealt with the attacks on normal people by supernatural creatures, werewolves and undead in particular.  Since many of the rulers of the land were the very monsters they were fighting Sanctuary had to become covert and hidden.  The only way to know you were in a "Sanctuary" was by a open palm hand in blue paint.
Eventually they were one of the groups that lead to the political coup of Glantri, tuning it in to a Theocratic Monarchy, but that was many years ago.

I revived the idea of Sanctuary for modern horror games back around 2004 or so.  They are  group that helps people deal with the after-math of a supernatural creature attack.  You or your loved ones are attacked by a vampire or werewolf?  Well going to the police or the hospital won't be much help (even if they do know) and talking to a therapist will either get you a nice quiet rest or hooked up with enough anti-psychotics to dull every pain (and in fact many do just that).

But Sanctuary is different.  They staff doctors, social workers, psychologists and even an array of computer experts to help rebuild lives.  Like all social services they are understaff, over worked, under funded and at least six months behind on their case loads.

I had wanted to introduce them in Season 2 of my Willow and Tara game, Season of the Witch.  But it never worked out.  Instead they worked out much better in my Season 3 Willow and Tara game, Generation HEX. Here the girls could contribute to Sanctuary a little more.

In the world they are a bit like occult social services and clinic as well as occult relocation program.

In an episode or adventure I use Sanctuary in my modern occult/supernatural games as part resource and part plot device.  Typically in their role of helping someone the monster of the week does not want helped.

I have not worked out any stats for the group, typically all I need is an NPC ready to go as a councilor or social worker and the monster.  Though in Generation HEX I did have an older Sarah Bailey working at Sanctuary.  She basically was there to yell at the cast saying she often had to clean up the messes and broken lives they left behind.

As a group they are not very old, game time wise.  I put their development around the 1990s.  Maybe they got their start up funds from the Clinton administration. But this goes along with my theory of supernatural games needing to up the ante each generation.  Back in the days of Chill monsters were rare, but as time went on more and more of the beasties were crawling out of the woodwork. So there has been more of an in-game and in-universe need for a group like this.

Those with a good memory might be able to guess where the name and the symbol of this group comes from.

More races of Mystoerth: Goblins

I have been thinking a bit about races, or rather species, in my world.  Last time I talked about D&D 4e and their 25 races.  I felt that was a bit much, but I got to thinking that my own home-brew efforts were just as bad. I have honestly no clue how many different types of elves I have.  And I don't just mean odd ones like grey, valley and grugach, but gypsy, rain-forest, snow and night elves too. I have at least 5 or 6 halfling subtypes and a couple of gnomes.

Hob-noblin with the Goblins

I have talked about races/species in general and a bit on orcs and elves.  But lately my thoughts have turned to Goblins.  I have to blame the work I did in Ghosts of Albion.  Pick up that game and you will see what my thoughts are currently on the various goblin type.  I have also been influenced of late by the goblins in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic.  Part of the reasons too are that for the most part the monsters in D&D are taken from myth, legend and folklore, but a lot of monsters have more than one name and the same name sometime applies to very different creatures.  I talked about this briefly in my Succubus posts. Zak over at "Playing D&D With Porn Stars" is going over all this now with his alphabetical monster thing, and the posts on  Bugbears and Hobgoblins in particular.   Of course he is not the only one, we have ideas from Warhammer, regions from Greyhawk Grognard,  and the Asian inspired Hobgoblin.
I have also produced, mostly for Ghosts of Albion, a few goblin types such as the Blood Goblin and the goblin that is not a goblin at all, the Corn Goblin.

Goblins

Goblins in my world, and this is usually regardless of system, but *D&D, Ghosts of Albion and WitchGirls Adventures in particular, are short little nasties related to the faeries.  Goblins in fact share the same relationship to the fae that Tolkien Orcs share with Elves.  My initial concept of them was of course the 1986 Labyrinth movie.  Goblins are not outright evil, but certainly mischievous and opportunistic. They love commerce, not just the money, but all that brings with it; corruption, graft, drugs, crime.  So needless to say goblins are found in (and fond of) cities in my worlds. Back in the day we were playing in a lot of urban settings as opposed to dungeons per se.  Goblins were a big part of that.  As I moved on my goblins were influenced by Ferengi from Star Trek: TNG, GURPS Goblins, a bunch of other books and just a need to have a monster/humanoid type there.  So I like the Pathfinder Goblins better than the 4e ones, but they are really not that far off from each other.
In 4e and Ghosts of Albion, I place goblins in the Feywild and Avalon, respectively (different names for essentially the same thing).  Of course being goblins keeping them in one place is like trying to herd rats and they get out every chance they get.
Goblins have high infant mortality rates, which is probably a good thing given how quickly they reproduce.

In Ghosts of Albion and other modern supernatural games I run there is the Goblin Market.  Hidden from mundane eyes nearly everything and anything found in a magical world can be found here, for a price.  In *D&D the Market is more open, and more dangerous.  I will work this up one day, just need to figure out how to do it justice.

Hobgoblins

Somewhere along the line a hobgoblin went from trickster spirits like Puck to larger, military style goblins.  Of course we could thank (or blame) the Monster Manual for that, but it looks more like it is another bit of Tolkien in D&D. They do serve a certain roll in the game world.  Hobgoblins are larger, meaner, and certainly more evil. Maybe the Hob of Hobgoblin is not a "spirit" but "old Hob", the Devil.  In the 1st Ed Monster Manual they are lawful evil.  They are militaristic, big, evil, have redding skin.  Hobgoblins are devil-goblins.  Pretty easy I think. Plus I like the idea.  If we can have tieflings, alu-demons and cambions all as races then why not Hobgoblins as devil spawn among goblins.
Mağlubiyet,the god of the goblins then could be a type of devil. Maybe even a cast down fey god.

Maybe that helps explain why some goblins look so different, but most Hobgoblins all look the same.  The strict hierarchy and breeding program of the devils forces them to be more alike.  Now I would say that some of the more evil goblins, maybe the standard "D&D" goblin are goblin/hobgoblin hybrids. Or something.
The one thing they seem to be missing is horns.  I think Hobgoblins should have horns.  Like some of the orcs in the cartoon version of the Hobbit.

Bugbears
Many years ago I had a TRS-80 Color Computer with a Speech Pak and my DM at the time wrote a program for running a D&D game.  I added the speech parts to it.  Well it would always pronounce Bugbears  as "bug-beer".  It always made me think, what the hell is a Bugbear anyway?  A giant hairy goblin according to most of the books. For the longest time I thought why not just merge Bugbears and Hobgoblins into the same creature, their stats are not that off from each other really with the only big difference is that one is chaotic evil and the other lawful evil.    Well as I got into researching more I discovered that "bugbear" come from the same phonology that gives us boogies, boogey-man, bugaboos and the buckwan.  So another English fey type.  They are more animal like than Hobgoblin, which they are obviously related to.
I have been saying this for years, but I am now convinced after seeing their new Pathfinder incarnations, Bugbears are the offspring of goblins and demons. I can even see a situation where demons began impregnating their goblin slaves over the millennia till bugbears were produced.  Millennia more of letting them run amok in the planes of mortals has produced a race that is more or less stable.  Bugbears are then larger, nighmarish goblins that tend towards acts of random chaotic violence.  Given their chaotic nature, I might even introduce random mutations.  I have seen these for demons and for Gamma World, maybe their are some good ideas in the pages of Mutant Future for this.

Not to be outdone the Arch Dukes of Hell produce Hobgoblins in a strict engineered breeding program.

Other Goblins
Goblins are ripe for sorts of fun.  From the annoying to the dangerous to the outright evil, goblins can run the gambit.  Many years ago, so many in fact I was a kid ridding my bike listening to Thomas Dolby on my Walkman, I came up with a monster.  I have stats for him for various AD&D systems, but here is the most recent version.  I might do some retro stats for the little beastie for the various OSR books out there too.

Blood Goblin
The thing was no larger than a child, but no child could have such a malevolent countenance. It was nearly doubled over, with a hump on it’s back. It’s long gangly arms caused it to drag it’s knuckles like that of an ape. It’s face was piched, it’s mouth full of cruel sharp teeth, and it’s eyes empty pools of some milky substance. It’s skin was slick and glistening, it was only under closer inspection that we realised it was in fact covered in blood. The thing spoke to us, but it was incomprehensible. Not that we needed to understand it’s words when it’s actions were clear enough.
--From the Journal of Tamara Swift

Blood Goblins are nasty little beasties. Nominally part of the faerie, their essences have been corrupted by demonic power. The ritual to turn a faerie into a blood goblin is unknown to most mortals, but what is known is it is dark and evil and requires the demon binding the potential blood goblin to feed it some of it’s own demonic blood.
Once complete the faerie undergoes a horrible transformation. Their form becomes a twisted parody of what it once was. Wings (if they had them) wither and fall off. Teeth grow long and sharp. Their skin takes on the unhealthy look of a bruise or rotting flesh and thick acidic blood weeps from their pores. Arms grow long and their now taloned hands drag the ground. Their eyes turn completely milky white with no pupils visible.
They can speak, but it is difficult to understand them.
Blood goblins are bound to their master and will do his bidding. The trouble is most are far too dimwitted to be anything other than a nasty little killers. The enjoy hiding in alleys or darkened paths and ambush their targets. They have a keen sense of smell so often they need something that smells like the intended victim in order to attack them. A blood goblin can track their victim using an Observation check, modified as the Director needs to climate conditions and the like. Once on a mission they are too dim witted and too frightened of their masters to do anything else but complete it. Goblins that do not often will go rogue, preferring not to return their master in failure.

Name: Blood Goblin
Motivation: To serve their master
Creature Type: Faerie (goblin)
Attributes:
Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Constitution 3, Intelligence 1, Perception 4, Willpower 2
Ability Scores:
Muscle 12, Combat 13, Brains 9
Life Points: 38
Drama Points: 1
Special Abilities: Burning Blood (1 LP damage per contact with bare skin); Emotional Problems (Cruel); Faerie, Reduced Size (freakishly small); Unattractive (2)
Manoeuvres
Name Score Damage Notes
Dodge 13 — Defence action
Grapple 15 — Resisted by Dodge
Punch 13 8 Bash
Knife 13 8 Slash/Stab

Drow should be Lawful Evil, among other things

I have been thinking about the Drow of late.  We are going through some of the classic modules and I really am looking forward to doing the GDQ series again.  Now I have every faith in DM to make it interesting and new to me while keeping the same thrill I originally had for me and the kids.

But I have a problem with Drow.  Actually, I have had a lot of problems with drow for a long time.  Let's work backward.  In the GDQ series, Drow are the "secret enemy" the big reveal is they are elves! who are evil!  It was like when we first saw Romulans in "The Balance of Terror".  Elves, especially to those who lived on a steady diet of Tolkien, were light and good.  The drow were evil and dark.  And that is the other problem.
Why are drow dark skinned?  Really shouldn't they be albino?  And let's not even go with the dark = evil meme.  I am not suggesting any sort of racism on the part of the creators here; this is something that has appeared in fantasy and fairy tales for thousands of years, but that still doesn't mean it has to be that way in my games. I prefer the "Shadow Elves" from Mystara in many respects over the Drow.  They are described as smaller and pale.

You can see a visual evolution of the Drow through the eyes of fellow bloggers, James Maliszewski and Eiglophian Press.

The next problem is frankly Drizzt.  He is a symbol of everything I felt was wrong with 2nd Edition and uber-munchkin playing in general.  Since his advent, the drow went from hidden secret evil to S&M fetish elves.  Now I am not against S&M or fetish of any sort, but what makes for an interesting diversion does not make for an interesting enemy.

Finally Drow are nearly universally described as an oppressive, hierarchal society ruled by the Priestess of Lolth in an iron-fisted dictatorship with harsh laws of behavior.  That sounds positively Lawful Evil to me.   This is not a new idea, it was mentioned in Mongoose's "Drow War" books (which I do not have). They are described here as being like Nazis. That works for me.  Plus if elves are freedom loving do-gooders (Chaotic Good) then the ultimate expression of evil to them must be an evil, rigid society of absolute laws.  Lolth then needs to be closer to a devil than a demon;  she was a Goddess then was "cast down" by her fellow gods.  That sounds more devil like to me.  Plus unlike demons, which are manifestations of anger, destruction and hate, devils have agendas.  So does Lolth.

So combining features of my "The Church of Lolth Ascendant" and "Going (Up) to Hell?" I think I have a way to work the Drow into my world.

Drow and Lolth in Mystoerth
The story of the fall of Lolth has been detailed by many.  Regardless of the reasons for her fall one thing is known for sure, she and her children the Night Elves were cursed.
The Night Elves were regarded by many to be the most beautiful of the elven races.  They were as Lolth herself was before the fall; described by Corellon as a "piece of pure midnight and her hair reflected the light of the stars above".  When Lolth fell her sons and daughters were cast out as well (Well there was that business with the Elven Civil War, but that is another lesson).  They resided in a place they called "The Abyss" and it eventually became known as the Demon-Web as Lolth's new form attracted spiders and arachnids of all sorts.
While the Church of Lolth Ascendant maintains that their Goddess awaits only the chance to reunite with the other Elven Gods, the Drow, as the Night Elves became to be known, decided that the only means of reunification was by violent take over to the point of killing all the other elven races.  For this they train. Their society is everything elven society is not.  Elves are free with equality to all; all drow are slaves to the hierarchy or cast above them, with the priestesshood of Lolth at the top.  Drow males are second class citizens, a concept most elves can't understand.  But like their cousins above Drow excel at magic.  Maybe they are even a little better.

Lolth does not reside in the Abyss.  That was an error from a mistranslated document.   Lolth resides on the first layer of Hell.  Here lair is still called the Demon Web and she does have some demons in her employ, but Lolth herself is not a demon but a fallen Goddess.  This makes her closer in nature to the Devils whose prison she shares.  In Dante's Inferno Lolth occupies the area of Pagans.  As can be expected she has great enmity  with Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies.  She is on well enough terms with Glassya, having supported her rise to power, but Lolth maintains her neutrality and her own agendas.

The Drow
The Drow of the underdark live close, not just in word but in relative proximity, to their Goddess.  With the Underdark as the Antechamber to Hell, the Drow are as cast out as race as one could hope to find.  Due to their prolonged sojourn in the darkest places of the world their one dark skin is now pale.  Some Drow are nearly white and others maintain a pale blue coloration.. Oddly enough it is Drow that make regular trips to the surface world that find their natural coloration returning.    These are the Drow that most surface dwellers are most common with.  It is no coincidence then that surface dwellers and Drow have prejudices regarding Drow skin color.  Surface dwellers see a dark skinned Drow and automatically think "evil elf".  While a Drow associate the darker color with a Drow that has become more "surface" or "elf" like and thus "good".
All Drow are born darker in color, but still no where near what their Night Elf ancestors looked like.  As they age their skill becomes more and more pale.  Since like elves they tend to alway look young the one true way to guess a Drow's age is to look at her skin.  The lighter the skin the older and usually the more evil the Drow.
Generally speaking Drow are smaller than elves or humans.  Shorter, smaller build.

Drow and Evil
Drow are completely lawful evil.  But they do not see themselves as being evil.  They are harsh because the survival of their race demands it.  There are rules and hierarchies because they live in a harsh, deadly environment.  The pogroms and breeding programs are in place for the good of the Drow species.  They are doing what they must do to survive.  They survive because they demand revenge on the wrongs committed on them by the elves. Killing a non-Drow is not a crime.  Killing a lower caste Drow is not a crime IF there is reason for it, but even the lowest Drow is more worthy of life than any elf.  Drow do not ally themselves with orcs under any circumstance.  They will work with like minded evil dwarf races, devils, demons or giants but Drow do not have allies, they have servants and minions.
Their ultimate goal is to retake the surface world from the elves killing them all (they are no longer satisfied with mere reunification). This way the gods would have to take them back as the only elven race.
Though there is something standing in their way and they are not quite sure how to deal with it. Humans.

So that's a start on my little pointy eared, underdark Nazis.

Gods, Demigods and Heroes

I have been thinking about Gods and the like in my games for some time now.  Now that I am going to be playing Pathfinder as well as 4e I thought I would look into some gods for my Mystoerth world.

Now Mystara didn't have gods, but Greyhawk does and so do all the other worlds I am using here.
A few I know I am going to use and where they all fit.

Gods
Ancient beings of great power.  The next generation after the Titans and Primordials.  Gods differ from humans and the others in many respects.  Gods can have Aspects and Avatars, which are semi-independent versions of themselves that can interact in the world.  Demons and Devils can have Aspects too, but generally only one at a time and for them it is more like Astral Projection.
Gods also have the power of creation.  They created their specific races, or the lands, or even the world.

Bahmut and Tiamat -Bahmut (and his Dragonlance cousin Paladine) has become the god of Lawful Good paladins since the 3.0 days.  This is only reinforced in 4.0.  Plus he is a very D&;D god, with ties back to the first Monster Manual and featured in the Dragonlance sagas.

Tiamat is a given for the same reasons, but she was also a god in myth in her own right.  Though given that in Babylonian myth she was the god of Chaos, I would change her alignment from LE to CE and put her in the Abyss.  In fact the Abyss is there there because she was tossed into it.


 Sehanine / Selûne / Shar - Three aspects of the same moon goddess. Represent the Maiden, Mother and Crone aspects of the Triple Goddess. Neutral.

Wee Jas - Goddess of Magic and Death. The Witch Queen.  Worshiped by the Suel. Mix in bits of Hecate, Cardea, Isis and Mystra to her.  Her student was Ioun.  LN.

Others
Bast Egyptian - Goddess of Cats and the hunt. CG
Blibdoolpoolp (Greyhawk) - Goddess of the Kuo-toa and other deep see nasties. Maybe a daughter of Dagon and consort of Demogorgon (ick). CE
Camazotz (Aztec) - the Bat God, I like having him as the god Vampires too, great rivalry exists between him and Orcus. Camazorz doesn't control vampires, but some vampires and vampire cult pay him homage. CE
Celestian (Greyhawk)-  God of the stars.  Have to include him. Neutral
Corellon - God of Elves.
Gruumsh - God of Orcs. Neutral Evil.
Istus (Greyhawk) - Goddess of Fate. Neutral
Lovitar (Realms/Finnish) - Everyone needs a crazy S&M chick.
Set - God of Evil.
Surtur - Fire Giants and Thrym - Frost Giants, both from Norse myth, but folded into the D&D myths.
Vaprak, the Destroyer - God of Trolls and Ogres. Though I have considered having this just be an aspect of Demogorgon.

I plan to use Earth myths when I can.  For example my Desert Elves worship elven versions of the Egyptian Pantheon.  Isis is an elf, but Set is human since according to these elves humans are the greatest evils in the world.

Devils
The new editions of D&D (3.x, Pathfinder and 4) have Asmodeus listed as a god.  Now I have no issues with that per se.  I even think the back story of Asmodeus rising to power that started with the Dragon Mag article "Politics of Hell", on through the Blood War stuff and finally his triumph at becoming a Dark God is an interesting one.  But it does't work for me.   See I would rather set Devils up as the alternatives to Gods.  The devils temp mortals away from the "proper" religions to worship them.  Why would a mortal worship a lesser beign like a Devil?  Simple, the devils provide a quick avenue to power.  Gods, even evil ones, require faith and worship and service, the rewards then are given based on that faith.  Devils tell the mortals "hey, why do all that work when you can work with us and get all those benefits now."  Devils also side with mortals against the Gods.  They will remind mortals that the Gods have it easy while they work and toil.  They even try to promote kinship, "hey the Gods cast us out, so we are on your side."  Of course these are all lies, but situated in enough truth that mortals keep falling for them.   Asmodeus then is not a Dark God, but the most power Arch Duke there is and his power is equal to that of a god or goddess.  The Devils will even point out that one of their own rose to such power that is should be possible for everyone to do it.
The devils now have moved beyond the "Blood War" of 2nd ed and are now going to engage in a "Gods War" with the battlefield the mortal realms.  I think a good story for the PCs would be to become part of this "Gods War".  I alluded to it a little in my Buffy adventure, The Dragon and the Phoenix.
Afterall what would be more climatic than all the heroes, each representing their God, on the field of battle against the greatest foe in humanity.    I might drop my "Vs. Orcus" idea for this instead.

Demons
The Abyss is the sewer of the multi-cosm.  Everything that gets flushed, thrown out, discarded and forgotten ends up here.  Of courses there were plenty of things here to start with.  Demons are legion.  There are thousands of types, races, and varieties.  Some, like Orcus, are "dead" Gods.  Others, like Demogorogn, used to be Titans.   Others still are cast out gods (not sent to Hell), forgotten powers or even monsters that have become very, very powerful.  There are even ones that were spawned by the Abyss itself.  If the ultimate purpose of the Devils is the destruction of all the Gods, then for Demons it is just destruction.
The Blood War, the war between the Demons and the Devils, was a minor skirmish in the long range plans of the Devils.  In fact prior to the Blood Wars, demons and devils had been on working terms.  The devils would often use demons as grunts in their battles.  This went on for so long that some species of demon were once considered to be devils and visa-versa.   Graz'zt, the Demon lord, had been an Duke of Hell, till he went native.  Succubi are constantly switching allegiances between demons and devils that they are difficult to properly classify.

Demogorgon - Older than the gods.  A Titan that has become more demonlike.  Hates Orcus.  Only worshiped by non-humans and insane cultists.  Just wants to destroy everything. CE.

Jubilex - Demon lord of slimes.  Created from the Abyss itself.  It is as if all the waste and runoff of the Abyss collected into a conscious form.  Deeply, deeply insane.  Wants the entire multcosm covered in acidic slime.

Orcus - Was a god, then demonized, killed, came back as undead, became a demon again.  GEnerally just an angry dude.  Hates undead, but hates them less than he hates everything else.  Wants to become the God of the Dead.  CE.

Primordials and Titans
Like in Greek myths, the Titans were the "parents" of the Gods.   Some gods from other games might end up here.  I prefer to figure these out as I need them.  The Scarred Lands books from Sword and Sorcery Studios were good for this concept as well.  They had a lot of interesting titans.  Theirs though were outright evil, I prefer to have my titans more uncaring about humans.  The world was theirs, now it isn't anymore and they are not happy about it.  Most of the titans are dead, others are imprisoned or converted to demons.

Primordials came even before the Titans and represent raw nature or natural aspects of the world.  Earth, Sky, Night, Death.  These things are hard to personify into human terms so Primordials are not really like the gods or titans at all.  Primordials do not care about worship or humans although some are aware of such actions.  In some cases my "Titans" are what other games "Primordials" are and my Primordials are something different.

Mad Gods
Have to include these. Things like Leviathan, Cthulhu and the rest certainly will have a place in my game.

For me Gods need to be complicated.  The characters live in a world where they can travel to the planes, commune or other wise get "evidence" for their faith.  I think I might make this a bit tougher is some cases and even out right prohibit in others.

Monks come from Blackmoor, part 2

So reflecting on my previous post, Monks come from Blackmoor, I went back and looked over my new (new as of Gen Con) 4e Blackmoor book.  Right there, just as I remembered was the Mystic.  Not what I liked about this Mystic class is it reminded me so much of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia Mystic.  I am not sure how they stack up against the official 4e Monks, but right now that doesn't matter much to me since these Mystic look like they fit the bill I want as is, right now.  So well in fact I am going over my 4e Blackmoor book with a renewed interest.

Their power source is "Spiritual" rather than "Psychic", but that could just be splitting hairs.  The effect is largely the same for my use.  Though Spiritual is a bit better sounding for what I want to do with them.

They do compare well to some of the other 3rd party monk classes I have seen for 4e, so I Am inclined to say, balance or not, they are roughly compatible with the 4e monks.

Given the roots that Blackmoor share with Mystara I might even go out on a limb here and say Blackmoor has no clerics in the traditional sense.  The people of Blackmoor worship, or at least honor, immortals.  They are not gods and don't grant spells.  Clerics, normally the healers of a group, can be replaced by nobles  who have healing powers and the wokan who also have healing powers and herbalism.  This is not really a big issue as one might think.  D&D4 is using the paths to immortality that was fairly common in Basic D&D and with the Leader roll and everyone having access to healing now, the cleric can be left be things other than the party medic.  Nobles then could gain this as part of their background fluff.  They are trained as both healer and soldier. This also gives the the Nobel class something to do. The hands of the king are the hands of the healer anyone? The msytic/monk then can focus on the spiritual aspects of life.

The people then of Blackmoor do not believe in gods per se. They know their are supper powerful beings out there, but they are hardly owed worship.  Honor in some cases yes, for their deeds, not their words.

I like this idea to be honest with you. Sets up a very different sort of culture for Blackmoor and I like that.

My game world is taking shape.

Ansalon: Terra Incognita?

My son is starting to read the "Gold Dragon Codex" from Mirrorstone books.  These are YA titles that are connected to the "Complete Guide to Dragons" the Mirrorstone/Wizards of the Coast has produced.  Basically they are YA D&D novels, but not overtly so.   Well I was flipping through it and I noticed that the map of area they were set in was Ansalon. I thought this was very cool to be honest.
It got me thinking about Mystoerth.  There is a area on the map that I have always wanted to put a Terra Incognita/a lost missing land.  I have roughly 2,000 miles east west and the same north south to play with.  Well that sounds perfect to fit Ansalon in.

Like many in my age group I read the Dragonlance novels and enjoyed them.  I read the second trilogy and enjoyed that one too.  I had some of the Dragonlance game books but it was never a world I spent much time in, but gladly used all sorts of things from it (like their elves, ideas on dragons, gods, having three moons).  When 3.x came around I looked at the Dragonlance stuff again and liked it in a whole different way.

Now the nice thing is Ansalon can fit in my little used southern region of my map.  It's not too big so I am not worried about it fitting.  It's far enough away that I can say that there has been no contact between the other continents for long enough to make it work for me.  A quick edit with Photoshop and I am sure it will fit nice.

But here is the question.  Am I giving up on the uniqueness of the land by just making it another continent?  Can the stories I want to tell still be done if for example I am missing Taladas?

So now my world has Blackmoor, Mystara, Greyhawk and  now Dragonlance.  Not too bad really.

Monks come from Blackmoor

I have been re-reading all my old original D&D books lately.  Fun stuff.
But I caught something today that I know I have read before, but now it jelled differently.

The Monk Class was introduced in the Blackmoor supplement.
Monks come from Blackmoor.

Now I am thinking for my Blackmoor, whether I use an OSR game or 4e, will have monks.  Sure it might not fit, but it is certainly an interesting concept.

Of course when most people think monks they think Kwai Chang Caine or Oriental Adventures. What if this sect of Monks were still psychic ascetics who trained their mind and body, not so much for a higher religious purpose, but more like something from the psychic awareness boom/New Age we saw in the 1970's.  So less Caine and more Uri Geller.

Yeah, the more I think about this idea the more I like it.   New Agey, crystal wearing hippie monks with psychic powers come from the "forgotten lands" of Blackmoor.  In the community of Blackmoor they replace the clerics as the spiritual leaders, getting people to work out their problems through peace, love and understanding.  When that doesn't work, they go all Neo on you and bend a spoon on your ass.  I'll look over  the "Mystic" class again in my 4e version of the Blackmoor book and see if there are any parallels that I can make work with this concept.

Blackmoor is quickly becoming my go to place for doing some cool Old School sandbox creating.

Going (Up) to Hell? Cosmology

I was reading a very interesting post by Mike Mearls the other day about dropping the structure of the planes in favor of something more local. Read his post here, http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2010/01/kill-planes-abyss.html.

Ok? good.

I think his reasons of course are sound and fit nicely with something I have wanted to do forever. When I first picked up that 1^st Ed copy of Deities and Demigods I loved the Planes. It had so many interesting places and so many things to do. I got very attached to the Great Wheel cosmology that I began to evaluate fantasy and later horror on how closely it fit that model. Then I began to get lazy. Not in the sense that would not write, quite the opposite, I would come up with elaborate schemes to make things fit the model or not. Whether it needed to or not. Even in my AD&D Grand Opus Adventure the characters went to Hell to confront the evils that invaded their world there was still the Great Wheel. It worked, then, but now I feel it's limitations. Well along came 3^rd Edition and suddenly the planes are mutable, changing and even expected to be different depending on how you look at them; 4E changes this even more.

Mike Mearls mentions in his blog that one of the issues of the planes being "out there" that they lose some of their value. History tells us that demons, devils and other bad things came from under-ground, or beyond that mountain or from across the sea; here there be monsters. Monsters come from "beyond the sky" in Lovecraft related fiction, which is fine for tentacle horrors, but devils at least are concerned with the same things humans are. Devils need to be close. They need to be something the common man, woman and child fears. Not just because they are evil, but because they are nearby.

Mike says move the Abyss to your world, I say move Hell.

Hell in 4e now seems to be a planet floating somewhere in the Astral Sea. This puts it on par with everything else, even Heaven. Now I am not a religious person, but doesn't Hell lose some of what makes it Hell if it just a planet with bad environmental conditions? They describe it as planet some 7,000 miles in diameter with the "layers" lower and lower subterranean continent sized caverns. Like Mearls, I say take all that and shove it inside your world. Drill down a few hundred miles and there is the entry way to Hell. Just like Dante described. What keeps the devils in? Same thing that keeps them there now, gates. Like the roach motel it is, it is easy to get, impossible to get out. Or nearly such. Of course the point between the Underdark and Abyss sharing a nature is sound, I think I can get the same thing with the Nine Hells really. In fact I might even make Lolth more like a devil (she is more devil like than demon like anyway) given her status as former Goddess, cast out and down. Sound familiar? It certainly fits with what Hell is supposed to be better, an underground dungeon for the damned. The Abyss is a maelstrom of evil and chaos, it fits better in the planes.
Of course this is not without issues. First, and the one that concerns multi-versal games the most, is that Hell inside a planet means that for every copy/twin/multiverse that planet is in there is a corresponding Hell. This might be fine really. I don't care for some of the changes made to some of the Arch Dukes in the last few books (3 & 4), but I can write that off as that is just the way things are in that universe. Which is something we all do anyway, I am just making it explicit. Of course the new 4e cosmology also gives us the Shadowfell and the Feywild, which I like, but if they are dark and twisted reflections of our own world then what about the Hell for those worlds? I say that their Hells are ours. That if you drill down in the Shadowfell you end up in the same Hell as if you did it in the Feywild or the campaign world.
Back in the day there was a great series of Dragon articles about the various Arch Dukes and Dukes of Hell. The article began with a bit of fiction about a Paladin (a holy warrior for good) marching on to Hell to defeat evil at the source. This scene works better today than it even did then with Devils now generally evil rather than exclusively "Lawful Evil". And it works better if the Paladin is marching to Hell, not paying a wizard for an Astral Projection spell.

Sure *where* it is physically located might mean little to PCs and DMs with access to magical means of travel, but the world should make sense to normal people too. What is there to fear about a creature, evil and immortal or not, if it takes a great amount of magic to get them here.

Gygax was a reader of Dante, Milton and of Ovid. These authors, as much as anything and maybe more so, shaped what we think of when we think of Hell. "Planet Hell" inside the Earth/World then fits very well with all these writers. More than a plane "out there" somewhere. Which does bring up an interesting point. Here is a quote from Milton's "Paradise Lost",

"Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon."

— John Milton, Paradise Lost II. 966.

So. Lucifer is cast out of Heaven and down into Hell, he meets up with these demons in some…what, ante-chamber of Hell, a place where Chaos rules with Night. Sounds like the Abyss, but where is that again? I have often wanted to merge Hell and they Abyss into one place where demons are the masses of creatures and devil are the upper-class. If I put Hell inside my world (or the Abyss like Mearls) then do I have room for both? Do I need both? Are they the same thing with different names? Then there are other issues I have avoided because of the aforementioned laziness. Tiamat is described in myth as "chaos" and her body is destroyed to make the firmament of the Earth. But then she gets tossed into Hell? Sure, it fits the outcast god model, but Tiamat is chaos. Lilith is also cast out, but she wants order, her own order, but order all the same; at least that is how I read it. Grazzt looks like a Devil, but is a Demon or maybe he is not. And there is the bit from Milton. So what is a world builder to do? And where is this antechamber of Hell were Demogorgon and Orcus act as the Welcome Wagon for Lucifer and the cast out Angels, now Devils? Hell has the River Styx, where the souls of the dead are ferried across, but now the souls of the dead move through the Shadowfell. This makes me want to break out the WitchCraft RPG seprioths and see if I can't make it all work.

Well here is my stab at it. The Antechamber is of course the Underdark. It is hundreds of miles below the surface of the planet. Here in the deepest pit was where the fallen angels were cast. It is here that they meet the demons. There is a great battle, Orcus (then a dark god) is killed only to come back from the dead, Demogorgon has his head cleaved in half (to regrow as two heads) and Ades…well that was the last anyone heard of him. The devils (as they are now known) take the realm once controlled by demons. Once there though the devils discover that Hell is not the home of the demons, it was only the realm they could control this close to the world. The devils seal the opening to the Abyss, place Tiamat there to guard against demonic entry and the devils themselves descend lower into Hell. Physically the Abyss and Hell (and Tarterus and Pluton and Gehenna) are all the same place locked deep within the Earth in a area were the Prime Material, Shadowfell and Feywild all intersect. The nine layers controlled by the Arch Dukes and Devils is known as Hell. Everything else is simply "The Underworld". The conditions are, well Hellish, it is inside a planet afterall, but great and powerful magics keep the denizens alive, though it warps other magic and prevents them from escaping. The areas known as the Abyss are open and there is much fighting, the area known as Hell is gated. It is supposed to be a prison after all.

At the bottom there is a dark chasm who feeds into the elemental chaos. I like the description of the Abyss in the new Manual of the Planes, it makes it sound like a black hole in the Astral.

It needs some work to be sure. Demons, like Demogorgon, Orcus, Pazuzu and others have more interest in human affairs than the mindless hoards of demons because they are more devil like, and thus, more human like. Older demons such as Dagon are more elemental chaos. Even Tiamat now is more demonic than diabolic. This helps explain the Bloodwar a bit better, explains the similarity between demons and devils and why in popular parlance (in the world) they are often confused. It also helps explain why some seem to switch sides every now and then. Or simply put, devils are the cast out immortals of good that betrayed or otherwise became evil. Demons always were evil.

Of course I could keep the Abyss as is in 4^th Ed. There are plenty of good reasons to keep it in the elemental chaos in the Astral. Demons are more elemental, more chaotic obviously and more alien. Of "demon" can just be a term to refer to anything that is evil that is not a devil. If I go that route then "Devils" would refer only to the Fallen and things like Ice Devils, Malebranche and the like are demons, just a different kind. After all, Succubi were demons and now they are devils, so it's not like there isn't precedent.
What does removing the demons and devils from the "outer planes" rob us of in D&D? Well, Planescape to a large degree would need to be rethought. To a lesser extent the nature of Tieflings will need to be changed, though maybe not. Typically to get to those outer planes takes characters of some power, so there is the build up to go to their home turf and fight that is now gone; ie. anyone can find the opening to Hell and stumble in.

OR maybe demons come the "Hells" of the Shadowfell and Feywild.

Of course there is one huge advantage of reshaping the planes. I can shape them in a way to work with either my 4^th Ed game or my OSR/Basic game or even something like Ghosts of Albion.

That is the fun thing about fantasy cosmology, it can be a mutable as I need it to be.

I Have a Plan…

It's not a great plan, or even a well thought out one, but it is a plan. I am going to be taking my two sons (and now it seems, my wife) on a massive 4^th Edition D&D campaign. Yes I know this will take years, but that is fine, I have those years. I am going to place it in my "Mystoerth" world.

Given my penchant for all things horror, I am going to set up the campaign to focus on the ascent of Orcus to godhood. Orcus is a great enemy to have. He is unrepentant evil, his minions are undead and he is full of rage, horror and violence and everything a good upstanding hero would want to stop.

I'd use some of the "new" mythology of Orcus and Raven Queen, plus a bit of my own. But not all would be railroaded plot-driven arcs. My oldest son loves to fight dragons so that would also be there. Plus I want to make this very, very relaxed. The unfolding meta-plot is my extra enjoyment, but I want to do it in such a way that we all have fun.

I am going to place it in my world's version of Glantri. Glantri is from Mystara and in that world was a Principality, now I have at as Theocratic Monarchy where the King is also the head of the Church of State. So basically, Fairy Tale England, or more to the point Fairy Tale Western Europe, since I also have influences of France and Italy here. The Princes are gone, defeated in a coup, but their lands remain ruled by nine dukes under the King. The Dukes are mostly the old family of the Princes, looking for a chance to reclaim power. So I have political intrigue if I want it, but I am going to be keeping my good and evil mostly easy to spot, at least in the beginning. The Dukes allow me to use older Glantri material, I just swap out the terms. Under the Dukes are various landed nobles, typically retired adventures, known as Barons and Counts. My thinking here is to give my boys all the full D&D experiences; so there are knights and dames, courts of intrigue and chivalry, and the way for brave adventurers to return home as heroes. Sure it is not "grim-dark" or even "points of light", but it can be part of the "oncoming darkness".

My world has a Blackmoor, a Desert, a Hyborea, not mention Greyhawk, Glantri and Kara-Tur all in one world. So, more than enough to keep me and my family busy for years to come really. Though there are only four of us, I might have to bring in some others, maybe some of their friends as well. This is one of the main reasons I am going with 4^th Edition as opposed to say an older version (the D&D Rules Cyclopedia would be so awesome for this) or another game (like Ghosts of Albion). I am more likely to find others that play 4E than some other game AND it just makes the most sense really given all the tools for 4E out now.

Here is the "Hero Tier" to borrow a phrase. These will be local and be the Mystara flavor of the epic.

• T1 The Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2. I do have the 4^th Edition update for this.
• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (can run this one in my sleep)
• B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, levels 1-3 (using bits from both the "Green" and "Orange" versions).
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X1 The Ilse of Dread, levels 3-7
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (place it in the Shadowfell, which is the new Ravenloft anyway)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7. Though I won't run it as a tournament module and that is if I don't use it as a converted Doctor Who adventure.
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
• S2 White Plume Mountain, levels 5-10
• I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10 (maybe. They might be burned out on undead by this time.)

Now begins the "Paragon Tier" and I will start with the Gygaxian canon.

• S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (with some of the info from the 3.5 update), levels 6-10
• WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, levels 5-10
• S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (though some of the instant kill traps changed, more skill challenges)
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
• G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12
• D12 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, levels 9-14
• D3 Vault of the Drow, levels 10-14
• Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, levels 10-14
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. This sets up the next tier, or I could even make this the start of the next tier and keep the Epic levels nothing but Gygaxian Greyhawk. I like that idea.

I can also fit Gary's "Dungeon Land" and "The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror" adventures here as well to complete the Gygaxian saga. But I need to re-read those to be sure.

Now here would also be a good spot for the DA series Blackmoor adventures for made for the Expert D&D set, but there is a lot of high tech stuff mixed in with those. I might pick and choose things, but I think I am more likely to go with the newer d20 Blackmoor stuff.

The "Epic Tier" is harder, but here some ideas.
Some of the Master level modules (M2, M3 and M5 in particular) look like they would work well. Plus they have the Mystara high fantasy feel that some of the Greyhawk modules don't have.
Of course I would do the Bloodstone series here, just make them harder, maybe even pair them up with the Orcus related adventures for 4e (the new "E" series), though old H4 and new E3 cover a lot of the same ground. I would want to add some other planes adventures here too. So to follow my rule of thumb I should try to find at least 6 more adventures for this tier.

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

I could also do a sub-campaign in my desert area using:

• B4 The Lost City, levels 1-3 (though I am using this one now in 3.5)
• I3 Pharaoh, levels 5-7
• I4 Oasis of the White Palm, levels 6-8
• I5 Lost Tomb of Martek, levels 7-9
• X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, levels 6-9
• X5 Temple of Death, levels 6-10
• I9 Day of Al'Akbar, level 8-10. Useful for the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar.

Now granted these levels are all for AD&D and Basic D&D and might not translate well into 4E. But I have a lot of tools at my disposal to help with that. I have a load of maps, a DDI subscription, monsters and even some third party stuff to make it all work. If I plan everything out correctly I can have them go up a level at the end of every adventure. I like that too. Also I can set up a titanic army of the undead using all the previous "bosses" from these adventures. So Strahd, Drenzula, Korbundar, Acerak, and more I know I am forgetting. Plus some GM PCs I'd love to try out that I know I'll never get to play in a 4^th Ed game.

To borrow a Klingon quote, "It will be glorious!"