OMG: Demihuman Deities, Part 1

Ok a bit of a direction change here for One Man's God.  Normally I look at the myths presented in the 1st Ed AD&D Deities & Demigods, compare them to the myths from the real world and then look to see how some of the monsters can be classified as "D&D Demons", which is not exactly the same as a Judeo-Christian Demon, but I am not ignoring that mythology either.

This series will be different since the myths I am looking at now were all almost all wholesale made up by the creators of the AD&D game as it existed at the time.   So no appeal to real-world myths here is 100% appropriate, though there are some notable exceptions.

When looking over these beings though we are left with the same question as before.
Would this being be better suited as a god or as a demon?

Let's find out.

Introduction
We start out with the idea that demi-humans and non-human monsters are either Shamans or Witch Doctors.  We see this in action later in the BECMI / Rules Cyclopedia version of the D&D rules.  We are even given a new class, the Wokani, which (depending on which version of Basic you grab) are either witch doctors or witches in their own right.   But I am getting ahead of myself here.

We are also told that some of the creatures in the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio are to be treated as lesser gods.

MONSTER MANUAL
Demon: Demogorgon, Juiblex, Orcus, Yeenoghu
Devil: Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Dispater, Geryon
Dragon: Bahamut, Tiamat

FIEND FOLIO
Demon: Lolth (detailed in D&DG as well)
Elemental Princes of Evil
Slaad: Ssendam, Ygorl

So, if they have a unique personal name then they are essentially lesser gods.  Sort what I am doing here really.

Right off the bat some of these creatures are gods and others are named as demons.  The are some that fall in the in-betweens and those are the ones I want to investigate further.   I am also going to work from my own biases here. I think certain creatures are certain things.  Want to do it differently? Great, do it your way.

Gods Among (Demi)Men
Who in this listing of gods are undisputable gods?
I think the following beings make the list.
Skerrit (Centuars), Moradin (Dwarves),  Corellon Larethian (Elves, and most of the elven gods), the gods of the Giants, Garl Glittergold (Gnomes), Yondalla (Halflings), Gruumsh (Orcs) (but more on him later).  Others are ify.

Side note: I always loved Yondalla. I thought of all the gods of the demi-humans she was perfect. Exactly the kind of goddess the Halflings would have.

Maglubiyet, Hruggek and Gruumsh

In my game world, Goblins are actually a faerie race.  They are often evil, but some are just good enough to be considered Neutral.  For this reason, I see them more as Chaotic.  Hobgoblins in my world are related more to Hobs or more to the point, "Old Hob" aka the Devil.  I consider them goblins with a touch of Devildom about them.  Much in the same way that tieflings are to humans.  Bugbears, on the other hand, are more demonic. Bugbears come from the same root of words that give us boggles, boggleboes, and boogeyman.   I have played around with various ideas of goblin gods for a while.  At first, I went with Maglubiyet, but there is something about him I don't like, or rather, I don't like in this role.  Then I went with the Erlking as Lord of the Goblins and also Jareth as a Faerie Lord king of the Goblins.  I even went with atheist goblins for a while after reading GURPS Goblins.  I think I am more happy with a Jareth/Erlking blend these days.
That leaves me with Maglubiyet, the Lawful Evil god of Hobgoblins who also is a lesser Duke of Hell (his names sounds like a Duke of Hell to be honest) who wars with Gruumsh.  And way over in the Abyss we have the monster Hruggek who is a Chaotic Evil Demon Lord that is the patron of the Bugbears.  His name also sounds more demonic to me.
This leaves both beings relatively the same as they were before.

Gruumsh is a different story.  The one-eyed Gruumsh is obviously a nod, conscious or not, to Sauron.  Also, the orc of Tolkien's world are much more demonic that the orcs of D&D and other modern fantasy.  In The Silmarillion, we learn that orcs were created by the Vala Melkor, later Morgoth.  So there is an idea of divine creation perverted.  Would Melkor be a demon?  He is more closely related to Lucifer is analysis, but that only muddies the waters really.   I also like the idea that orcs were once related to Elves.  Of the two main species in D&D only elves and orcs can mate and produce offspring with humans.  So here is a heresy.

Orcs, and indeed Gruumsh, were all elves.  Gruumsh was Corellon's brother.

Somewhere, somehow, Gruumsh betrayed Corellon (orcs say it was the other way around) and Gruumsh the orc was born.  I just need a good Elvish sounding name to give him before this fall.
Personally, I find this FAR more compelling than the tale of Lolth.
Speaking of which.

Lolth, The What Queen?
Lolth is a lesser goddess. No, wait she is a demon. She was Araushnee, but that doesn't come till later.
I have talked about my issues with drow in the past and how they are really Lawful Evil and not Chaotic Evil.   Plus if I can make a Lawful Evil Goddess Tiamat into a Chaotic Evil I should be able to do the opposite for Lolth.  Which of course means she would not really be a demon anymore.  She is more of devil.  BUT. I like the idea that she is a demon.  Can I make a LE Demon? no. not really.

I think the simple answer here is that Elves, Orcs, and other fae creatures like Goblins don't fit into the Devil-Demon dichotomy very well.   I am inclined to pull them out and let them be their own thing.  Lolth is called the "Demon Queen" but that is more due to her "Fallen" status than anything else.

Despite my stated goal of trying to pull these beings into the likes of demons, I am happy with them being their own thing.

Gnolls and You Know Who
Before I end today's discussion I should point the example that falls right into line with what I am doing.  Gnolls and the Demon Prince Yeenoghu.  Here we have a strong non-human species and they worship a demon as their god. It works. It works well.

Too well.  Why does a weak-ass demon prince (ok relative) like Yeenoghu have humanoid, intelligent worshipers but more powerful ones like Orcus and Demogorgon do not?  I will dig into it next time.

Wasted Lands Playtest: War at the Gates of Dawn. Chaoskampf in your Games

One of the later additions to Dungeons & Dragons lore was that of the Dawn War. Introduced in 4e and detailed a bit more in The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea book, this war dealt with the war between the Gods and the Primordials at the Dawn of Time. Among other things, it leads to the creation of the Abyss, the devils, and more. It destroyed entire planes and creatures and built the shape of the D&D multiverse.

It is also nowhere near an original idea.

That is not a slight. In fact, it is a feature.

In studies of mythology, this is known as the Chaoskampf or the battle against Chaos. We see this in Greek Mythology as the Gods vs. the Titans. In Norse Mythology, as the Gods vs. the Giants. And in Sumerian Myths such as Marduk vs. Tiamat.  We even see it in Christian myths as God and the Angels vs. Satan and his followers. It features again in Ragnarok and Revelations. 

It is, quite literally, one of the oldest stories in the world.  The roots go back to Proto-Indo-European Gods and myths, but it is likely much, much older than that even. Jung would say it is something buried deep in our collective unconsciousness about imposing order over chaos.

It is also part and parcel of the Wasted Lands experience.

In the Wasted Lands, you play human (or near human) figures fighting back against the forces of chaos. The forces of chaos are the Old Ones, but these creatures and their minions are largely indistinguishable from the Titans, Giants, or even the Primordials of any number of myths and legends.

How does this all tie together? Easy really. 

Let's say you are a D&D fan (doesn't matter the edition) and you would like to play out this Dawn War (something I have done myself to great enjoyment). Why? Well it could be for fun, or for me it was to let the characters gain insight to what is happening in the world of the gods and this all came to them in a dream.  You can use the Wasted Lands RPG to accomplish this.

War at the Gates of Dawn

The War at the Gates of Dawn is my "serial numbers filed off" of the Dawn War. Though there is really no need for that since like I said, there are many of these in all mythologies and since it took place in (or at the beginning of) the Multiverse.

So how do you dothis? Easy.

Step 1: Choose Your Setting

This is the easiest; you are going to go back in time in your own D&D/Pathfinder/d20 game setting. I take the point of view that all the worlds that share similar gods began in one universe and then fractured at this point. 

Step 2: Choose Your Primordials/Titans

When I ran this before my Primordials were Vaprak, who late become Demogorgon, Tharizdûn, and the god that would become Orcus and Dispater. Additionally, I could use my concepts of Die Hüne from my Roma/Norse Pantheon.  But any Titans will do, really. I find Kaiju fit this role rather nicely.

Step 3: Choose your Gods, aka Characters

This will depend on your setting, but if you go with the notion that all Dawn Wars are THE Dawn War and all worlds come from a similar source, then you can go nuts. A place where Pelor, Odin, Isis, the Raven Queen, Bahamut, Selûne, and Sarenrae all fight side by side. In fact, I would say it is highly appropriate for all the gods of different myths (aka games) to come to this battle. 

I let my players choose the god their character worshipped, was closest to, or had a Pact with. 

Step 4: Go Nuts

Now the characters, either as 1st level or higher, need to battle the machinations of the Old One/Titans/Primordials. This makes the Dawn War/War at the Gates of Dawn a much longer conflict.

The Wasted Lands rules are VERY customizable. You can cleve very close to the D&D of your choice in terms of gameplay. The differences in the rules and the tone and tenor of them will give your "War at the Gates of Dawn" a different feel than your typical game, reinforcing how this is a different time.

My son is play-testing Wasted Lands with his D&D 5e group now, and they all claim that the rule differences make them feel like they are playing something "old and brand new" at the same time. The rules aid in the immersion of the game and help them get into their characters better. 

Now, could you get the same effect with, say Basic D&D or some other version of D&D/AD&D? Sure, but what you would be missing are the customizable rules of Wasted Lands and, of course, the Divine Touchstones that really set the characters apart. 

Doing it this way lets you start with the early days of the war and build up to what is really the biggest battle in all of D&D/Greek Myths/Norse myths or the myths of your own world. 

I ran this a while back it worked amazingly well. My oldest is doing it now in his own world where the players take on their favorite gods and have to battle the forces of chaos in the manifestation of The King in Yellow. If the shouts and cries I hear coming from our game room is any indication then it has been an epic success so far.

I think that encapsulates the Wasted Lands well. Simple in execution but epic in scope.  

This Old Dragon: Issue #98

June 1985. Later this month I'll turn 16, but due to the fact I need new glasses, I won't get my license for a few more weeks.   Rambo First Blood is in the theatres and Tears for Fears is on the radio.  On the shelves, the new covers for the AD&D hardbacks and you can buy This Old Dragon issue #98.

The cover features a dragon horde filled with modern day items.  This is also the 9th Anniversary issue.  As far as I can recall all the anniversary issues featured dragons on the cover.  This cover though does not strike any memories with me. It's a cool cover.

We get to the main feature of the issue, all about Dragons.
Up first is Tailor-made Treasure from Roger E. Moore.  This is a new system for figuring out a dragon's treasure hoard.  It has some great quotes from various works of literature. Reading it over it could work well with pretty much every version of the game.

The Magic of Dragon Teeth by Gregg Chamberlain covers the various effects of burying dragon teeth. Each color of dragon will produce a different sort of warrior ala Jason and the Argonauts.
Most gamers of a certain age remember the old movie featuring the Harryhausen skeletons.


There are some neat ideas here.  To be honest I never felt the need to codify this.  Through the dragon teeth on ground and skeleton pop up.  Cause weird shit like that happens in a magical world.
Though more recently I have been using Dragon Tooth Talismans.  These provide protection from the that dragons' type of breath weapon.

Need music from the Ancient Empires for your game?  Well, you can get it in STEREO from Ramal LaMarr!  (I am sure that is 100% his real palindrome name too).

I have to admit I loved these ads.  So corny and over the top.  You can find his music online still.



You keep doing you Ramal!

Leonard Carpenter gives us a nice brief one in Dragon Damage Revised.  A great add for AD&D 1 but something you see now in most newer editions of D&D.

Roger Moore is back again with some background on The Dragons of Krynn.  In this, we learn that Takhisis and Paladine are similar to (but not the same as) Tiamat and Bahamut.    We get some Krynn history that is familiar to all of us now, but here it was all new.   A lot of Dragonlance has migrated back into D&D proper since the 3.0 days and I think that is largely a good thing.  Back in the 80s we used to talk about how the dragons of Krynn were larger and somewhat more "dragon" than the ones you found in Greyhawk.  I know that there are plenty of old-school fans that are aghast with this, but hey. They focused more on dragons in Krynn than Oerth.

Nice big ad for the Dragonlance Chronicles book 2, Dragons of Winter Night.

Ken Hughes gives us an entry with Creative Magic Items.  I want to talk less about this specific article and more about the type of article it is.  There were always a lot of articles in Dragon that I call "You are not bound by books!" articles.  I get that many people want to play RAW, but we were always doing things not in the books. Creating new monsters, new magic items, spells, classes.  Everyone I had gamed with had the books memorized back in Junior High, there was no way to surprise them unless you were willing to go out side of the books. Most of these articles elicited a "no shit, doesn't everyone do this?" but after a while I came to the conclusion that no, not everyone.

Detailing a Fantasy World is from Jim Dutton, whom I feel I should know but don't (flipping further I see his company runs the AD&D PBM game). Now this has some great advice on how to build your fantasy world from the ground up, or at least detail enough areas to keep your players busy.  At only three pages it feels too short to deal with the advice given, but it is short and succinct and should give any budding world builder a place to start and the seasoned ones some new ideas.

I am usually cautious of reviews of TSR products in Dragon. Such is the case of this reveiw of the first two Dragonlance novels by John C. Bunnell in It's a Neat Idea, but ... NOT just a Gimmick. I think we can be adults here and talk about the fact that the Dragonlance novels have some shortcomings. That being said these are fun books and they did represent a sea change in *D&D as a game and as a product.

A surprisingly long article from Dave Rosene discusses what PCs are likely to find in local shops in Knowing What's In Store.   We live in a world today where everything is available at our finger tips. In the 80s even we had malls (lots of malls) but historical medieval lands did not. Fantasy worlds need to tread this line carefully.

The Forum is next.

An ad for Traveller races. At this time and now these books make me want to play Traveller. I want to know more about the Aslan, Vargr and K'kree.  Maybe someone has ported them over to White Star or Starfinder already.

Some coming attractions for TSR products. Highlights include the D&D Masters Rules and the AD&D Unearthed Arcana.

Ad for Chill.  Still love that game.

Our centerfold is the first Gamma World Mutant Manual.  I am very pleased that it is still in this magazine too. Some would make for great additions to an OSR D&D game or a Mutant Future game.

Merle and Jackie Rasmussen have their Part II of Authentic Agencies for Top Secret.  A great find for the pre-internet world, but also real world agencies spelled out in Top Secret format.

The Ares section is next.
The Volturnus Connection is first by Stephen Bonario.  I have to admit, if I ever run a Starfinder game I'd consider a "Return to Volturnus" like game. I had a lot of fun with Star Frontiers.

When History Goes Awry by Mark Acres deals with parallel and alternate timelines for the Timemaster game.  Degree in History not required but certainly helpful.

Big index of all the heroes published for the Marvel Super Hero game in Marvel-Phile.

Huge list of conventions for June to October 1985.

Gamer's Guide has a lot of cool ads including one for the new Super Endless Quest books. These included a simple character sheet/bookmark.

Comics include Wormy and Snarf Quest.  Snarf is long, Wormy is down to a page.

A fun issue really and one I'll go back to for more information on dragons.

Want to see what I was saying about White Dwarf magazine for June of 1985?  Check out my White Dwarf Wednesday for issue #66.

This Old Dragon: Issue #65

Dragon Magazine #65 from September 1982 might, in fact, be the very first Dragon I had ever laid eyes on.  It is, without a doubt in my mind, one of the more pivotable issues in my gaming career.  Given that it is a perfect "first issue" of a NEW collection of Dragons sent to me by Eric Harshbarger. Eric contacted me a few weeks back to ask about some extras and gaps in my collection.  I mentioned that most of the Dragons I have are collected from larger lots of game materials I buy and most times they are in pretty sad shape. So he offered to send me some.  There are some duplicates with my collection, but these are in much better shape.  So if you can pop on over to his website.  Thanks, Eric! Now it is time for your contribution to This Old Dragon!

Ok. Where to start with this one? First, of course, is that cover.  It is great to see it here next to me instead of having to go to my CD-ROM to get the PDF (which is good since the PDF scan is not as good).  It is a wonderful, and surprisingly thigh-less, effort by Clyde Caldwell.   I always loved Caldwell's work and this cover is no exception. I love that Dragon sneaking down on the cross-eyed fighter.  Ok, he isn't cross-eyed, but it always looks like he is when I first look at it!  At least the dwarf sees it.  But my attention is focused on the witch in the background.  Is she a witch?  Well to me she is and she was one of the subconscious elements I would later use for my own witch character Larina.

Witch by Clyde Caldwell, Larina by Jacob Blackmon

So the red hair, purple dress with cloak and hood, the necklace (though different), the bangles on the wrists. Pretty archetypical image items really. But that image stuck with me.  I'd say it was Larina's mother, but I always pictured her as a blonde!  Maybe my little witch is having adventures I don't know about!  So this is what I can say when I have a cover to actually look at!

We are not quite at that "golden age" of Dragon that I think everyone is nostalgic about.  OR maybe we are.  When I say "Golden Age" maybe you all have a different picture in mind. Anyway.  This is the time before I started buying Dragon.  I have no doubt however that this is the first one I ever saw.

Out on a Limb covers some letters on Ed Greenwood's article on Firearms a few issues back. Everytime I pick up an older Dragon my mental timeline of Ed's involvement gets pushed back a little bit more.  I REALLY did not give this guy enough credit.

Gary is up next with his Guest Editorial. Ok...what to say about this.  It is basically a 3-page rant against GAMA and Origins.   I am happy to say that things are better between GenCon and Origins, and in about a decade from this original publication Gen Con and Origins will host a co-Con, but for now Gary is really irritated.  I don't know what is going on behind the scenes at this point. Back then I would have read this and been firmly on Gary's side, but today it seems like an old man yelling at clouds (and to be 100% fair here, Gary at this point is younger than I am right now!)  Ok. Moving on.

Blastoff! gives us all the information we need to know about the brand new Star Frontiers game.  We get to see that iconic Larry Elmore cover for what I think is the first time. We learn the about the new races (Vrusk, Yazirians, and Dralasites), a bit on the new character creation system and some of the in-universe background.  We also get some background on the game itself.  Design work began in 1979 by Dave Cook and  Lawerence Schick and spent the next two years in design, development and playtesting.  I guess there was a more "hard core" version of the game at one point.

Gary is back and this time with a classic.  From the Sorceror's Scroll covers Character Classes to Consider.  We learn that there will be an expansion volume to AD&D.  This book will eventually become Unearthered Arcana but until then he gives us a sneak peak.  We know now that all of these classes did not make it to that book.  Some would later go on to be rumored for the 2nd Edition of the AD&D game; or rather the 2nd Edition as penned by Gygax himself.  This is one of the main articles that +Joseph Bloch would later use to build his "what-if" version of a Gygax 2nd Edition in Adventures Dark and Deep.

Rob Kuntz is next with another installment of Greyhawk's World.  This covers Events of the Eastern and Southern Flanaess. I always enjoyed these articles. It made me feel like the World of Greyhawk was a living place, even though at this point I was still very much entrenched in the Known World of the D&D Basic and Expert sets.

Feel like I am dropping names left and right here, but after that we have Len Lakofka's Leomund's Tiny Hut.  This issue Len is focused on Keep(ing) Track of Quality.  Or how the quality of the goods affect the price, time to make and how that can play out for the player character.  This article covers mostly sheilds, armor, and some weapons.  A bit of converting for AC and you have a good article you can still use today.

Almost the counterpoint to weapon quality is character quality.  Christopher M. Townsend presents a new proficiency system for use in AD&D in Weapons Wear Out, Not Skills. This system is neither as complicated as the ones will later get nor as crunchy.  In fact, this system is light on the crunch and heavy on the role-playing aspects.  Or at least insofar as training in general in AD&D was a roleplaying aspect.  Now your training has some other purposes and can take longer.   Rereading it now I can see using this as a guideline in my D&D 3.x and D&D 5 games.

Gary is back again with some new creatures. These Featured Creatures are considered to be official AD&D^TM monsters, so that takes care of that argument (but opens it up for the next batch!).  We get two good-aligned monsters, the Baku and the Phoenix.  Both of these monsters will appear in the Monster Manual II due out soon.  But that is not what grabbed me about them.  Flipping the page something burrowed deep, deep into my psyche.

To me, the Phoenix was a god-like creature.  They were the natural enemies of darkness and chaos.  The mere look of one could destroy a vampire.  They were not some giant bird to be hunted for their feathers and beaks, they were divine agents of rightous wrath.  In many ways they were the opposite of the Dragons.  Yes, we have good Dragons, but the Phoenix (capitalization is mine and for emphasis) opposed the evil Dragons more.  I remember reading this issue from friends (sometimes many, many times) and at one point I wrote down "It was a time of great chaos. It was the time of the Dragon and the Phoenix."  Yes, yes I know there is a Chinese dish of the same name, trust me, growing up in the deep mid-west in the 70s and 80s the only Chinese I ever saw was "Chop Suey".  I would only later the myths and stories behind it.  The Dragon and the Phoenix became something BIG in my games.  So big in fact that I would later take some of those ideas and adapt to my Buffy the Vampire Slayer game and run a campaign I called The Dragon and the Phoenix.  Those games would later be the basis of my Ghosts of Albion RPG.

Ok, speaking of those dragons.  Richard Alan Lloyd gives us The Missing Dragons. Based on the "color wheel theory" he decides that there must be more dragons, the Yellow, Orange, and Purple.  Now few articles were as controversial in my early days as this one!  There were people that hated the idea of more dragons. There were people that hated the idea of these colors for dragons (this group though usually let the Purples in) and there were those that liked them but would not include them since they were not "official" AD&D monsters.  And of courses there those that liked them and used them.  Myself, I liked the idea. I thought the logic was faulty. I mean are there Draconic Evolutionary theorists of the RGB sort versus the CMYK ones?  I did use the Purple dragons once or twice.  I used an orange one once and I said the yellow had all died out.  The biggest issue with this article is Tiamat.  She has five heads, not eight. If we limit it to five, then the green head needs to become yellow.  Now there are many, many (MANY) other dragons in D&D now and Tiamat is still just five-headed.  So maybe I need to bring these back to my games.

An ad for the RPGA.

Dropping more names Lew Pulsipher is next with a new NPC character class, Timelords. These are not your two-heart, regenerating Time Lords.  These are more like Time Protectors or Time Guardians.   They are fighters with some basic time manipulation magic that gets more powerful as they go up in level. When I first read it I hated it.  I also used to have a pretty hard core rule in my D&D games of "No Time Travel!"  I have loosened up a bit on that over the years.

Next is Monsters of the Midway, BUT I don't have it in my copy.  So the rules state I must move on.

Ah, here is something else that wormed it's way into my psyche.  Robin Emrys Atkinson presents the Tuatha De Danaan, A revised Celtic Mythos.  With amateur drunk day Saint Patrick's Day in a couple of days, this is another reason why this is a good choice. This is designed to replace and add to the section on Celtic myths in the Deities and Demigods book. And it is much better.  It was here that I went into a HUGE Celtic myths kick that I never really got out of.

And the hits keep comming!  Ed Greenwood (I feel like I am the MC of a Night of Thousand Stars) is next with Law of the Land. A six page article on the legal system and political systems of the AD&D world.  Or as I like to think of it, the PCs do not live in a vacuum. Also a great system-free article and something to help curb the influx of Murder-Hoboism in your games.

Lew Pulsipher is back again (!) and takes a D&D (not AD&D) perspective on War! and how it can give the characters reason to "live".  Again this is a very system free sort of article and covers the types of wars that PCs might find themselves in.  Very usuful stuff.

Some Top Secret information from James "Pong" Thompson. It covers recon and assassinations.

An editiorial of sorts from Lew Pulsipher in Up on a Soapbox. In this, he discusses the difference between the Classical Role-player and the Romantic.  Lew is coming from a solid Wargamer point of view here.  I don't get the feeling that either of these types are bad, just they have certain ways of playing.  More the point in a Wargame if you can identify their style you will know how to defeat them since you know what risks they are likely to take.

The Dragon's Augury has some reviews including one of the first Computer games I can recall being reviewed.  WIZARDRY costs a then princely sum of $49.95 and you will need an Apple II computer with 48k and DOS 3.3. 
Tom Watson reviews some books for Traveller while Gary Gygax himself reviews Empire Builder by Mayfair games (he loves it).

Comics are next.
Phil and Dixie talk about how much Fantasy and SciFi are alike.
Wormy is only one page.

An ad for Chaosium's Trollpak takes half of Dragon mirth's page.  I always wanted that. It looked cool. 

Back cover has an ad for Grenadier Models and flip over for Gang Busters.

Wow. What a packed issue.  Not just name after name of the whos who of the early RPG scenes, but great content as well.

Want to know what I thought of White Dwarf from the same time? Check out White Dwarf Wednesday #33.  It was also a good issue.

DIY Minis

One thing I never quite understood was when people slam 4e (or even 3e for that matter) one of the things they point to is the use of miniatures.  Haven't we always used miniatures?   I know I have seen that somewhere before...

Plus minis are so cool to have.  I can imagine with the best of them and I have a pretty good visual memory.  But having a mini on the table is great fun.  I also happen to LIKE the collectible aspect of it all and the surprise of not know what you might get.  I got a Tiamat once out of regular old box of minis for 20 bucks.  You can't really beat that feeling.

But sometimes I want something special or sometimes I something laying around that I can use.  So here are some DIY mini ideas.  Yes you can use them with any version of the game.

This one you have seen before.

Orcus and Aspect of Orcus set me back quite a bit.  Destroyah and Aspect of Destroyah set me back about 10 bucks. Total.

Here are some others.

Some undead dinosaurs threaten the Dragon Slayers.  The one in the back even glows in the dark.  Some of these came from a teacher's supply store, one or two of them where attached to a dinosaur shirt I had bought for the kids at the mall.  The size looks about right to me.

Here the Dragon Slayers see if they can live up to their name.  A couple of HeroClix (or maybe some other similar game) dragons bought cheap at GenCon, a couple of fire breathing dragons bought at the Ren Faire a few years ago, a McFarlane dragon and Sea Dragon and a viper fish from Safari Ltd. a company that makes scientific models for schools of real (and fantastic) animals.  The McFarlane dragon has a sigil on it's wing so we decided that even though he is an evil red dragon, he cares more about finding more magic than hording treasure, or rather he hoards magical items and books.  Need to stat him up one day for you all.

And of course this one.

The Dragon and the Phoenix.

So basically there are tons of great mini ideas out there.  Go read Zak's blog to see all the cool things they do with props and do-it-yourself stuff.  All I did here was raid the kids toys for a bit.  Sometimes we find a toy here or in the stores for cheap and say "we need that for D&D!".  And given my oldest loves to collect dragons, they usually serve double duty.

And not to let my Unisystem games go unloved,

Willow and Tara in the Charmed Ones' Attic during the events of "Semi-Charmed Life" where they also got to meet the Paradox versions of Willow and Phoebe.  Ok, these are a bit bigger than mini, but they are still pretty cool.  All of these I got from CineQuest, my favorite place to shop for little plastic people.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods and Alien Gods

One of the great bits of synchronicity of my education back in the late 70s early 80s was my discovery of two very different authors.  The first was Erich von Däniken who had a lot of ideas that appealed to my young self, a self that was fed a steady diet of mythology, astronomy, UFOs, and new-age ideas.  For me, at age 9 to 10, this seemed like great stuff.  It all seemed to fit so well.  Then I discovered the second author, Carl Sagan.  I had seen the various episodes of "In Search Of..." and all the episodes of "Cosmos." So at age 10 there seemed to be a worldview that *could* include both.  I mean, the fringes of science were the fringes, after all. Sagan told me that in black holes, the laws of physics break down.  Maybe there were other places/things/times like this?

"Chariot of the Gods"

It is no stretch of the imagination that Carl Sagan and Cosmos utterly changed my life.  I always had wanted to be an astronomer, and Sagan was the model I wanted to follow.  Too bad I get to a point in Calculus where I stop understanding it.  Thankfully it was enough to help me out in statistics.

And I read, with abject horror and then absolute delight, Sagan's masterful takedown of von Däniken (and Velikovsky). He so utterly destroyed everything von Däniken had said and claimed.  The evidence and case were overwhelming for me; Erich von Däniken was a fraud, and Sagan was the true visionary.  At the age of 10, I tossed out, mentally speaking, all the things that were spiritual or pseudoscientific.  I relegated all my "magical thought" to my new obsession, D&D. 

But I never really let the ideas go away. Even Sagan himself entertained the possibility of ancient aliens, but as always, he met it with his famous standard, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

One of those ideas was about ancient aliens visiting Earth and being interpreted as gods or angels. 

Von Däniken was not the only one to have these ideas. There was Zecharia Sitchin, who gave us, among other things, the 12th Planet and Nibiru.  But the biggest one was Immanuel Velikovsky.  There are more, but this is not a post on pseudohistory or pseudoscience.  This is a post about gods.  I'll try to recover from my self-inflicted irony wound here later. 

The Aliens

I would like to reconstruct the "Ancient Alien" idea with some major changes.  First, since this is a One Man's God post, these are not aliens but actual gods. I am going to present them as such. They can be "Alien Gods" to be sure, but these are Gods in the D&D/FRPG sense of the word.

I will do it, though in such a way as to leave enough doubt in the readers' minds. That "doubt" is really just my wiggle room so I can use them as "gods" in my various D&D campaigns or as aliens in my various modern games like NIGHT SHIFT.

I want to build something that feels like it came right out of the occult-infused 70s.  

Given all of this, it should not be a huge surprise that I will be drawing on many of the same research and literature reviews I did for my April A to Z of Conspiracy Theories.  I am going to include and draw on the following posts (many of which were originally written for an earlier version of this very post):

• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: A is for Ancient Aliens 
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: C is for Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: D is for Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: E is for Extraterrestrials on Earth
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: O is for Outer Space
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Q is for Queen is a Lizard
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Z is for Zecharia Sitchin

I would take a lot of this material and put them together as a group of gods. I have PLENTY of examples. 

Case in point: The Norse Gods and the Nordics.  Take the "alien race," the Nordics, for example. Called such because, well, they are tall and blond. In my take here, the aliens become the Norse Pantheon, essentially what you see in the Marvel Movies with the Asgardians.  

Case in point 2: The entire plot behind the Stargate movie and TV series.

Mine will not be so neat and certainly not so benevolent as those. 

Also, I want to avoid some well-documented racist tropes inherent in the Ancient Aliens as Gods theories. This can best be summarized as "white people couldn't figure it out, so therefore Aliens!" Even in the 70s, I saw this. 

Union of the Snake

The academic work on this is known as the Ophiolatreia: Rites and Mysteries of Serpent Worship. This covers many religions and practices. But it also plays a little loose with the definition of "Serpent." 

Let's try something simpler. There are 1000s of Gods, and there is no way I am going through all of them to find "interloper" gods or ones that don't quite fit with the rest. But I can start with the same resource I have been using this whole time, the Deities & Demigods.

I will work it this way. I'll take all the Gods in D&DG and find the ones that don't fit, and for the most part, I will focus on the reptilian or snake-like gods. I will add a couple more because they fit well with my ideas. 

The Flock

Given the fixation on snakes and reptiles, there needs to be a good representation of those sorts of gods in this new pantheon.  Also, many of these gods will be "sky" gods. While there are archetypes all gods fall into, I am not going to necessarily follow that here like I did in the Roman-Norse Pantheon.   

While the people here are reasonably "Good" aligned, I can't say the same for the gods.  In fact, I am going to have this pantheon of gods be primarily evil.  Their design here is to enslave humans and make them build these giant temples for whatever reason. Conquest? Food? I'll see as I build them.  The humans here are doing what they can to appease these powerful beings in the only ways they know how given their times and tools at hand. This is what makes the process more "Stargate" and less "Marvel's Thor."

So who are these people? This has to be Bronze Age or long before; the Neolithic sounds better. 5,000 BCE feels right.  This also allows me to use some Proto-Indo-European notions of gods.  Indeed I might even reconstruct my own versions of the PIE Gods, not unlike what I did with the Roman-Norse Pantheon.  OR, and here is an idea, the PIE Gods existed, and these "Alien Gods" were the ones they warred with.  This tracks with the common element in many PIE myths of the Hero/God slaying the Dragon/Serpent.  Could the Dragon/Serpent be these Alien Gods?  This is the Chaoskampf of many myths.

Remember, I am not putting together a Master's Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation here. I am building something for the D&D, NIGHT SHIFT, and WASTED LANDS RPGs. I get to bend the rules of proper academic research as much as I like.

I will use these ideas to expand my monsters, Ophidians, and Saurians.

The Gods

Here are some gods that look like they fit my criteria of a snake/reptile/non-human god in a pantheon of human gods. Eastern religions, or, more to the point, non-European ones, have far more variety in their gods. Note: I am also going to get into the subject of Good vs. Evil here. Some, like Queztequotal (Aztec) and Shāhmārān (Turkey) are objectively good figures. Others are not.

While I will focus mostly on the myths as presented in the DDG, there are far, far more. I am going to avoid monsters for the most part, but some will sneak in.  Though I will add more gods that I know as appropriate.

American Indian Mythos

• Snake-Man

Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian Mythos

• Apsu
• Aži Dahāka / Dahak
• Inshushinak
• Ištaran
• Nirah
• Tiamat
• Tishpak

Celtic Mythos

• Caoránach
• Oilliphéist

Central American Mythos

• Kukulkan / Queztequotal
• Huhueteotl
• Tlaloc

Chinese Mythos

• Ma Yuan

I talk a lot about Ma Yuan and Ma Yüan-shuai in my discussion of the Chinese myths, I think I might keep him "as is" for this.

Egyptian Mythos

• Apep
• Flame Snake (monster and enemy of the Gods)
• Mehen
• Nehebkau
• Set (to a degree)

Finnish Mythos

• Syöjätär (a monster, but that is the closest thing they have)

Greek Mythos

• Enceladus
• Gorgons
• Hydra
• Ophion
• Ophiuchus

Indian Mythos

• Bhenswara
• Nagas
• And dozens more

Japanese Mythos

• Ugajin
• Yamata no Orochi

Norse Mythos

• Jormungandr

This could be a pantheon all on its own. Several of these have their own "portfolios."  And there are so many more.

While I am considering this as something to use with NIGHT SHIFT as "Ancient Aliens." In the WASTED LANDS, they could be heroes (still aliens of a sort) that become gods. Though in at least one case, Jormungandr is another name for Yig.

I could revisit these as part of my Deities & Demigods II since this might be my last Syncretism post for a bit while I spend some more time on my Deities & Demigods II ones.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism

• Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn
• Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods
• Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• Syncretism Part 4, Orcus and Dispater
• Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods

Epic Dragonslayers

A couple of the Dragonslayer characters hit 19th level over the weekend.

I let my boys play two characters each, but sometimes the characters can vary.  My oldest has a cast of 6-7 that he uses two at a time.  Well both boys now have a character each that are 19th level.  The lowest ones are still 15.

I am planning to let them take ALL their characters for the final battle with Tiamat.  Yeah, yeah I know, not really a good role-playing experience for them and more of a roll-playing one, but it is the final battle and the last time they will be able to use any of these characters.

Plus I have a couple more adventures I want them to do before that big battle.

So I am considering using the Epic Level rules.

Anyone have any insights, tips, suggestions?

Running the Classics

I don't consider myself to be one of those GMs/Players with "Gammer ADHD".  I like to make a plan and stick with it.  My BIG PLAN for some time now has been to run my kids through all the classic D&D modules in some form or another.

I have detailed my attempts here and here. Since that time we have gotten new reprints from WotC and the DNDClassics PDF store opened up.  My kids also dropped 4e in favor of 1st Ed Ad&D.

So I have an embarrassment of riches here.  I have the systems, I have the modules and I even have the willing players.  What I lack is time to do it all.

I guess the only thing for it is to make the time. That and stop buying games.

In my kid's 3.x game we are going to do the Tomb of Horror and I'll talk about that one later.
In their 1st ed game they are still investigating the Caves of Chaos.  After that that we are doing T1 and L1 before moving on to the A series, to eventually do the GDQ series.  I'll work other classics in there where they fit.

Here is my plan so far.

• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (played at Gen Con 2012)
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• T1 Village of Hommlet, Intro-levels
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• A0 to A4, levels 4-7
• A5, The Last Slave Lord, levels 5-9
• G123, levels 8-12
• D12, levels 9-14
• D3, levels 10-14
• Q1, levels 10-14

The trouble is that living in a post-Drow world the impact of GDQ is just not the same unless I make them very different.
Also while Queen of the Demon web pits is fun, it lacks the final confrontation that I would like to do with a "big bad".  Plus I'd like to go to 20th level.

I could scale everything up a little and stick I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City in there before the A series.
Other candidates are X2 (I already took them through X1), C1 and C2.

That would round out the classics really.  Here is how they stack;

• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (after L1)
• I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, levels 4-7 (after A but before G)
• C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, levels 5-7 (after A but before G)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7 (after A but before G)

Not to bad really.
It's not too difficult to turn the GDQ series up anyway, but are the drow and Lolth interesting enough?
Since this is the "NextGen" game after my 3.x one maybe Lolth is taking some revenge for her ally Tiamat, or moving into the recently vacated "most evil goddess" role.

While I don't need it a huge Lolth figure would be nice.

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 1b

So I picked up my 4e Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons and read up on Dragotha.

Cool stuff really.  What they have there is largely compatible with what I want to do in my adventure.  Dragotha was Tiamat's consort, he was betrayed and left for dead.  In the Draconomicon he was "aided" by Kyuss.  I think I might not use that part or just not bring it up.

Course now is the big question.  Will Dragotha help the PCs or try to fight them?  I am going to have him under Kerapis' thrall, so as long as Keraptis is alive, then Dragotha will attack.  Would Dragotha know of the PC's quest?  They have not been secret about it to be sure.

So till next session, I'll hit the research.  Certainly I could "just make stuff" up, but I like the feeling of my little game being part of a larger world.  Plus one day, maybe one day soon, my boys will be searching for this stuff online too and I want them to be able to say "yes! I Was there, I did that."

What have I learned?

• Keraptis was a contemporary of Acererak.
• He delved into Necromancy, pretty deeply in fact.  He may have been one of Greyhawk's premier necromancers.
• He is most certainly a lich now; if not dead.
• The magical items are each connected to the elements, Whelm-Earth, Blackrazor-Fire, Wave-Water and a fourth, Seeker, an elven arrow for Air.  
• White Plume Mountain is a place of ancient magics.

To be sure, this is a lot of background for a guy that is essentially the Level 20 Boss.  But a well developed villain is a good villain.

I might change Seeker to a bow and my other son has been looking for a sword called "The Dragon Blade" that he is certain has to exist. I'd give it pluses for killing evil dragons and allow the wielder to be looked apon favorably by good dragons.  He is not interested in Blackrazor at all.  It might end up in Omar's shop!

I even found a place for the final battle, the Cave of Bones.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20010817a

Refs
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keraptis
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=465
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=464
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=447

Pygmy Tarrasque

The Pygmy Tarrasque

The Tarrasque in D&D is colossal monster that pretty much no character has any right to stand against. It is the primal force of destruction made physical. It is the Godzilla of the D&D game. It is also based on a monster of myth and legend known as the Tarasque. While they look similar and act similar, the Tarasque was once defeated.

I can recall one time while watching some TV, likely a nature show but it could have been Star Trek the Next Generation too. I was reading my Monstrous Compendium and someone had mentioned the Pygmy Tarsier. I thought that at the time a Pygmy Tarrasque would make for a great monster.

The idea here is a Tarrasque that the characters can actually and defeat.  Build up the rumors in either direction; the tarrasque is an unstoppable killing machine created to kill gods OR it's just an armored dragon like beast that a group of French villagers can kill.  Which is true?  Don't know and neither will your players till you spring this on them.

Fluff:  Let's say the regenerative powers of the Tarrasque is such that sometimes big hunks of it's flesh are torn out.  Typically this would only happen if it was in a fight with a titan or demon lord. These hunks either regenerate into smaller versions of the creature or maybe this is what happens to other monsters when they consume this flesh.  Or one could even say that these smaller ones are the result of the breeding of the Tarrasque with dragons.  Or it along with the Great Tarrasque are the offspring of Leviathan (as in the myths) or even Tiamat.   One should not discount this angle on the story.  Given the Leviathan connection it sorta behooves me to stat it up for Cinematic Unisystem.

In the village of Tarascon they still celebrate the defeat of this great monster. I am happy that we have never seen such a beast in England.
- From the Journal of Tamara Swift.

Name: Tarrasque,  Pygmy
Motivation: Eat
Creature Type: Monster
Attributes: Str 18, Dex 7, Con 10, Int 2, Per 6, Will 3
Ability Scores: Muscle 40, Combat 20, Brains 10
Life Points:  750
Drama Points: 2

Special Abilities: Additional Actions +2 (3 total), Armour Value 9, Attractiveness –5, Cause Fear, Increased Life Points, Regeneration (Con per Hour), Resists Magic 3 (can deflect automatically any spell PL 3 or lower)

Manoeuvres

Name	Score	Damage	Notes
Bite	+22	48	Slash/stab
Claw x2	+20	34	Slash/stab
Tail	+18	34	Bash
- stinger	+16	Special	Poison

Monstrous Mondays: Dragon, Wood

 On Saturday, February 10th we ushered in the Chinese Year of the Dragon.  Since this is 2024, it is the Year of the Wood Dragon.

Reflecting on my last This Old Dragon, I have always tried to balance how powerful dragons need to be in an old-school game.   I want to keep dragons powerful but not so powerful that they make 1st edition Tiamat and Bahamut look weak. 

It is a balancing act. I also want to consider how much more powerful they get as they age. 

Dragon, Wood
Huge Dragon

Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral [Chaotic Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Fly: 180' (60') [18"]
Armor Class: 2 [17]
Hit Dice: 7d8+28** (66 hp) (6HD to 8HD)
  Huge: 7d12+28** (74 hp)
THAC0: 8 (+11)
Attacks: 2 claws, 1 bite, + special
Damage: 1d6+3x2, 2d8+3
Special: Breath weapons (Choking Cloud), camouflage, dragon fear, low-light vision (120’), magic use, shape change
Save: Monster 7
Morale: 10 (10)
Treasure Hoard Class: Special

Habitat: Temperate Forests
Probability Asleep: 25% 
Probability of Speech: 90%
Breath Weapon: Choking Cloud
Spells: First: 3, Second: 3, Third: 1

Wood dragons appear similar to green dragons in general form but lack wings. They can still fly due to their innate magic. Their coloration is usually some sort of brown that looks like polished wood, accented with bits of green and yellow. This gives them a natural camouflage ability (75% hide outdoors) in their preferred environment, temperate forests.

These dragons can attack with a claw-and-claw-and-bite routine in dragon form. In human form, they can wield a weapon. In either form, they can use magic as a magic-user of the 6th level. 

Their breath weapon is a cloud of choking smoke. It requires a save vs. breath weapon or take damage equal to the dragon's current hit points. Save results in half-damage. The area of effect is 50 ft by 50 ft in front of the dragon, which has reduced vision to all but the dragon. Attacks are at -2 for the next round following the breath weapon attack.

Wood dragons are lively, dynamic creatures. They can be quite friendly, but their moods switch easily and quickly. Many pursue some artistic or academic endeavor that takes all of their time and focus. It is in this pursuit they are most likely to engage with others.  Like all dragons, they hoard their treasures, which are always related to their interests. So, instead of gold and jewels, it will be art, paintings, or books. 

Wood Dragon encounters both Green and Orange dragons in their home environments and finds both sorts unpleasant and distasteful.

The Dragonslayers vs. The Lost Caverns of the Tsojcanth, Finale

Last night the Dragonslayers (aka my kids) finished up the Greater Caverns to discover Iggwilv's greatest treasure and fight Drelnza.  I was considering to bring her back, but she was so completely destroyed that I just can't imagine how she would do it.

The boys did great really, I am very pleased how they played.  I was amazed how well my youngest did.  He figured out the secret of the central doors really fast and had a really good sense of direction.  We used minis of course, but not for the entire dungeon, just the battles.  They got the Lanthorn, the Prison, and all her books of magic.  Everyone leveled up one level.

Of course the boys had a  great time and we even got to play past bedtime. They woke up today and wanted to get right back into it.  That is the sign of a good adventure.

Now I need to figure out what the guys are going to do next.  I'd love to move on to the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, but I am anxious to get them to the big battle against Tiamat.

For that I am considering using the old H4 Throne of Bloodstone, but not sure yet.

Here are the previous posts in this series.

• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/11/getting-back-in-to-it.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/06/dragonslayers-vs-lost-caverns-of.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/07/dragonslayers-vs-lost-caverns-of.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/12/return-of-dragonslayers.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/01/dragonslayers-and-books-of-vile.html

Tomorrow. Something special!

#AtoZChallenge2022: A is for Ancient Aliens

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: A is for Ancient Aliens 

Let's kick this A to Z challenge off right and dive right into Ancient Aliens.  This will be one of my bookends for this challenge since I plan to use Zecharia Sitchin as my Z entry.

Now while there is a ton I could say about these theories today and the rest of this month, I do want to make it 100% clear that I do not buy into any of these notions.  They are good for RPG material though.

Ancient Aliens is the notion that ancient people were visited by aliens (extraterrestrial advanced lifeforms) and not only did these ancient people regard them as gods they shaped the cultures of these people and even, in some theories, shaped their DNA. 

I want to address the biggest issue with ancient alien ideas.  They are all notoriously racist.  There is an underlying notion that "white people couldn't figure it out, so brown people must have had help from an advanced species."  Which is pure bullshit.  We do have better ideas on how the pyramids were built and why.  We know how the stone heads on Easter Island were transported. We even have better hypotheses on how places like Stonehenge were built. None of these involved magic or alien technology.  Renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass has been particularly critical of these ideas saying they take away from the ingenuity of the Egyptian people.  I agree.

Once you start reading into this (and I even found a couple of questionable documentaries) it opens a whole rat's nest of crazy topics.  I am not going to go into any of these topics in detail. No room here and way off scope. But I am going to link some of the more *interesting* ones and the ones that had the most effect on my work here.

• 5000 BCE
• Anakim
• Nephilim
• Reptilian conspiracy theory
• Serpent gods/worship 
• Serpent symbolism
• Serpent Seed

This all makes one think about the movie and TV series "Stargate."  And it was looking into all of this that made me realize how much stuff I can use here.

For NIGHT SHIFT

Most ancient alien/god "theories" are centered around Egypt and the Pyramids.  But many also pull in myths, legends, and stories from ancient Babylon, Sumeria, and the Fertile Crescent.  Others also involve American cultures like the Mayans, Aztecs, and the Toltecs.  While Egypt and the Fertile Crescent certainly had interactions, the Central and South Americans had no contact with them. In fact, that is a central thesis of these theories; "They had no human contact but there are similarities, therefore they must have had divine/extraterrestrial contact."  Ok, technically that is not a theory but more of a poorly worded research position trying to move to a hypothesis.  I am going to suspend my years of doing and teaching research design though for now.  This is for a game, not a grant.  

In NIGHT SHIFT Ancient Aliens DID exist, but they did not give humans high-tech materials or help them build the pyramids.  Humans were slaves and many times they were food.  To quote Dr. Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters II, "And that is the whole problem with aliens, is you just can't trust them. Occasionally you meet a nice one: Starman, E.T. But usually they turn out to be some kind of big lizard!"

The ancient peoples feared them, but I am going to say they mostly tried to fight them.  There were organizations created then to combat this alien invasion and some still exist to this day. 

These ancient aliens were those lizards.  They invaded ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and gave gods like Set, Apep, and Tiamat.  Then they went over to Central America and gave Queztcoatl.   The world of NIGHT SHIFT is absolutely overrun with alien lizards and their genetically modified lizard people.  

The ancient alien theories claim they are "reptoids" and are from stars in the constellation Draco. IT doesn't matter it seems that some of the stars in Draco are only 20 ly away (σ Dra) and others are as far as 7,000 ly away (V571 Dra) and everything in between.  But for NIGHT SHIFT let's pick Thuban (Alpha Draconis) as their homeworld.  It is 303 ly away, so a good distance.  It could explain the gap in time between visiting Ancient Egypt and Meso-America, they had to go back home.

I will get into the details of these lizards and what they can do.  But this is a start.  They have been here since the beginning and are still here now.  Maybe they are connected to the dinosaurs and responsible for all the myths about dragons.  

Who knows. 

I guess we all will soon.

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

Be sure to visit all the A to Z blogs this month at the Blogging from A to Z blog.

Monstrous Mondays: But What About Dragons?

Did quite a bit of work on my Basic Bestiaries last week.  Mostly edits and some large-scale moving around of content. I am close to publishing yet, though I have more art for BB1.

Here is where I am on content.

	aka	Complete	Started
Basic Bestiary I	Witch Monsters	284	339
Basic Bestiary II	Undead	131	378
Basic Bestiary III	Demons	155	240
Basic Bestiary IV	Dragons	12	20

So, nearly 600 monsters are complete, and nearly 1,000 total started in one form or another.

A couple of things. 

Basic Bestiary I has shrunk while Basic Bestiary III has grown. I moved over about 20-25 creatures from I to III since they fit better.

Also, you might notice Basic Bestiary IV, aka Dragons.  I have talked about it, but not much. Mostly because I kept it closer to my chest, but really because so little of it was done.

This project grew out of something my oldest had been working on for a while, a book about dragons we were calling "Here There Be Dragons." It has been an on-again, off-again project for a while (ok 11 years) but I was leaving it in the hands of a then 11-year-old to work on. We resurrected it a while back and I have been slowly converting material from it to my Basic Bestiary format.  But that is not all, I also want to come up with a good monster stat block that will really take advantage of how awesome (in all senses of the word) dragons are.  I experimented with this one, but it is not 100% where I want it to be yet.  

I love the idea of Dragons getting their own book. I mean if I am going to do a book of Undead and Demons then Dragons really should get their own too.

In addition to the stat block, I have other issues to work out. Should Tiamat be in the Demon book or the Dragon book? Right now she is in both. What about one of my favorites, the Piasa Bird? Is it a dragon?

Next year, 2024, is not just the 50th Anniversary of D&D but it is also the Chinese year of the Dragon.  Feels like to me that an Old School monster book about dragons would be perfect.

I just need to get my ass moving on these.

I am also ditching the current covers I have for them and looking for something new. Still figuring out what to use.  I want the same artist for all four and they must feature the creature types covered. Still searching.

BTW if you want some cool dragon content now, Bruce Heard has a bunch up on his blog.

• D&D Class: The Dragon Cultist
• D&D Class: Dragon Slayer
• Dragon Steeds Pt. 1
• Dragon Steeds Pt. 2
• Dragon Steeds Pt. 3