Aleena, doomed cleric for D&D 4 Essentials

“My name is Aleena. I’m a cleric, an adventurer like yourself. I live in the town nearby, and came here seeking monsters and treasure. Do you know about clerics?”
- Aleena, D&D Basic Set, Player's Book, page 4.

I never knew Aleena.

I never knew about her ultimate sacrifice for what could have been millions of would-be adventures out there.  I never played, or owned, the Mentzer Basic Set.  I started with Moldvay and Morgan Ironwolf never would have gone down after one magic missile.  But I got on the 'net and soon I discovered her tale and that of Bargle. 

I liked Elmore's art, always have. That alone seems invalidate my Old School street cred.  I love his witches (no surprise) and love how he draws women.  So when I finally got my hands on a Mentzer basic set, I loved the art and yes, I found Aleena.  Though there was no emotional connection there with me.  I felt that killing her was a cheap attempt to get the players involved.  This is called a "Women in Refrigerators" effect and its a cliché.

That all aside, it also worked. 
People to this very day still remember Aleena and hate Bargle.

Give that Aleena was the star of the Mentzer Red Box, then it is fitting that she be given stats for the new D&D 4 Essentials Red Box.  Though we never got stats (at least what I could find) for her in the  Red Box Basic.  She did appear later in some D&D (BECMI) products, which gives us an idea what she eventually did.  Of course assuming that she somehow came back to life.
I say in D&D4 she is reincarnated, and given a second chance.

Like with Morgan Ironwolf, I went through the hand process.  Yes, I have DDI and it is a lot of fun, but I felt Morgan and Aleens deserved to have things done the "old-school" way.  I did most of her sheet while working tonight away from my books.  It went really fast.

Comparing Aleena to Morgan Aleena obviously has more powers and spells, even if many effect how her weapon of choice, her mace, does damage.  I like this, it very cool.  I choose Pelor as her God, even if she is Mystaran and Pelor is from the Greyhawk campaign world, but I felt it fit the concept well and Pelor is an old god.  I did not give her many combat-related feats, she was felled by a single magic missile after all, but she did manage to scare off some ghouls.  So I emphasized her "turning undead" and healing powers.

In truth, she feels like a cleric from one of the older rule-sets with some house rules that her spells are focused through her mace.  Hell, the Sun-Domain War Priest here is not very different than the Sun-Priest class I made for 2nd AD&D so many years back. In fact I like it so much that I might have to break with tradition and have my first D&D4 Essentials character be a Sun Priest, er Sun Domain War Priest.

There she is.  The reason so many of you play.
Print out the sheet and go save her.  Or maybe she will end up saving your butt one day, cause I don't see this one going down without a fight.  So her and Morgan are going to team up and go after Bargle now.

Morgan Ironwolf for D&D4 Essentials

Morgan Ironwolf was a character from the D&D Basic set edited by Tom Moldvay.

I say she was a character, but really all we had to go on was a sheet and sketch that appeared pages later.  It is generally assumed that the two go together and the sample character Morgan Ironwolf, was the woman with sword and shield.  It matched the sheet so I guess it is fine, and the discussion about movement was talking about her right above her picture.
Here is the original Basic Set sheet with the image 'shopped in.

In a similar vein of going through the motions of stating up a character, I printed out a new D&D Essentials sheet and went through the book to stat her up.  The results are below.

Not too bad really.  Like my conversion of Emirikol the Chaotic, I opted for D&D4 style abilities scores, so I used the array from the book.  Sure I could have used her stats or even rolled.  I wanted this to be more organic.

She is still a fighter, still Lawful (Good), and still has a sword, chainmail and a short bow.  I ran out of money to buy the shield though.  Basic D&D characters got more gold than their D&D4 counterparts.

I opted to use the "Slayer" build for her for a lot of reasons, mostly because it is new and she looks like more of the stealthy type than the club you on head with heavy steel type. I mean look at those boots. Ok, chainmail is not very sneaky.  

Plus I had a character back in the day named Morgan that I must have subconsciously named after her.  In later years when she reappeared in my Buffy/Ghost of Albion opus The Dragon and the Phoenix (which you will read about this week) she became a Slayer.  So why not.

All in all the characters feel pretty even to me. D&D4 Morgan obviously has an better chance to hit, but the monsters are also tougher.

Time to make either character felt about the same.  The biggest issue was checking to make sure I was still doing D&D4 correctly under the Essentials revision (I was).

There are few links out there for Morgan, given how little we actually know about her.  

Here is a great Deviant Art page with her picture by artist Dominic-Marco, http://dominic-marco.deviantart.com/art/Morgan-Ironwolf-111886797

Another page from Santiago Iborra, http://www.quellion.com/portfolio/Color%20Work/Morgan%20Ironwolf.jpg, looks more like the Jeff Dee original..  Both have given her blonde hair, which is interesting.  Given she was made in the early 80's then big blonde hair seems appropriate. 

I might be using her in a game as well.

Emirikol the Chaotic for 4e

Cause I can.

There has been a lot of talk of various iconic D&D images and one of the ones that seems to come up time and time again is the David A. Trampier classic "Emirikol the Chaotic".

Emirikol appeared in the 1^st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide but he didn't get stats till the end of AD&D 2^nd Eds. run in the adventure "A Paladin in Hell" (another classic image).

I have always wondered what his deal was.  He seems to be going through the streets just zapping people as they came out to see the commotion.

Reading over his stats and looking at this picture I can't help but think he would make a great NPC-nemesis for my 4e game.

At first I tried him out as a Warlock, given the zappy-ness of the picture, but a Wizard worked out the best.

Here is Emirikol in one of many possible 4e permutations. I tried to retain all the spells and magic items from his 2nd Ed stats, but I mostly with what the spells or magic items did rather than look for exact copies.  Feats and skills are a total guess.  He might not be the most optimized D&D 4 character, but I hope he is at least a workable one.

Emirikol the Chaotic, level 24
Human, Wizard, Weaver of Chance, Harbinger of Doom

Build: War Wizard
Arcane Implement Mastery: Wand of Accuracy
Second Implement: Orb of Imposition
Arcane Admixture Damage Type: Arcane Admixture Fire
Arcane Admixture Power: Magic Missile
Background: Geography - Urban (+2 to Streetwise)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 14, Con 15, Dex 17, Int 22, Wis 15, Cha 18.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 13, Dex 15, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 14.

AC: 34 Fort: 30 Reflex: 34 Will: 35
HP: 117 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 29

TRAINED SKILLS
Dungeoneering +19, Arcana +26, Religion +23, History +23, Insight +19

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +15, Bluff +16, Diplomacy +16, Endurance +14, Heal +14, Intimidate +16, Nature +14, Perception +14, Stealth +15, Streetwise +18, Thievery +15, Athletics +14

FEATS
Wizard: Ritual Caster
Human: Die Hard
Level 1: Arcane Reserves
Level 2: Human Perseverance
Level 4: Battle Caster Defense
Level 6: Astral Fire
Level 8: Alchemist
Level 10: Battle Hardened
Level 11: Enlarge Spell
Level 12: Spell Focus
Level 14: Action Surge
Level 16: Second Implement
Level 18: Destructive Wizardry
Level 20: Arcane Admixture
Level 21: Immolate the Masses
Level 22: Lightning Transport
Level 24: Arcane Mastery

POWERS
Bonus At-Will Power: Magic Missile
Wizard at-will 1: Ray of Frost
Wizard at-will 1: Phantom Bolt
Wizard encounter 1: Burning Hands
Wizard daily 1: Summon Dust Devil
Wizard daily 1 Spellbook: Freezing Cloud
Wizard utility 2: Shield
Wizard utility 2 Spellbook: Daunting Presence
Wizard encounter 3: Hypnotic Pattern
Wizard daily 5: Fireball
Wizard daily 5 Spellbook: Web
Wizard utility 6: Disguise Self
Wizard utility 6 Spellbook: Wall of Fog
Wizard encounter 7: Repelling Sphere
Wizard daily 9: Lightning Serpent
Wizard daily 9 Spellbook: Wall of Fire
Wizard utility 10: True Seeing
Wizard utility 10 Spellbook: Blur
Wizard encounter 13: Mesmeric Hold (replaces Burning Hands)
Wizard daily 15: Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (replaces Summon Dust Devil)
Wizard daily 15 Spellbook: Bigby's Grasping Hands
Wizard utility 16: Fly
Wizard utility 16 Spellbook: Stoneskin
Wizard encounter 17: Dancing Bolts (replaces Repelling Sphere)
Wizard daily 19: Disintegrate (replaces Lightning Serpent)
Wizard daily 19 Spellbook: Plague of Illusions
Wizard utility 22: Wall of Force
Wizard utility 22 Spellbook: Time Stop
Wizard encounter 23: Chain Lightning (replaces Hypnotic Pattern)

ITEMS
Spellbook, Adventurer's Kit, Wand Implement, Sextant of the Planes (paragon tier), Amulet of Protection +5, Ring of Wizardry (epic tier), Chaos Weave Efreetweave Armor +5, Orb Implement

RITUALS
Tenser's Floating Disk, Unseen Servant, Sending, Wizard's Sight, Detect Object, Arcane Barrier, Hallucinatory Creature, Telepathic Bond, Primal Grove, Create Teleportation Circle

I like it.  I am keeping him.

Blog Discussions Round up

Lot of interesting things going on in the various old-school blogs over the last week or so.
Here are the ones that caught my attention.

Harvard over at his Blackmoor Blog is talking about formative images.
http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/09/formative-images.html
He talks about Aleena and Bargle from the Mentzer Basic set.  Harvard describes me perfectly, a Moldvay Basic player that went on to AD&D skipping over the whole BECMI series.  So I never knew who Aleena and Bargle were.  Funny thing though I have been planning on updating Bargle, Aleena and a fave from Moldvay, Morgan Ironwolf to the new D&D4 Essentials.

The wicked cool Cyclopeatron has ranked all the "old-school" blogs by followers.
http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2010/09/165-old-school-rpg-blogs-ranked-by.html
To follow up on that the equally cool From the Sorcerer's Skull had put together a level advancement table based on followers complete with level titles.  http://sorcerersskull.blogspot.com/2010/09/old-school-rpg-blogger-advancement.html.  Given that I am a 6th level Maven Blogger.

Not so much a blog, there is an interesting article on Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms over at Grasping for the Wind, and how story and adventures play on each other in the creation of these two D&D worlds.
http://www.graspingforthewind.com/2010/09/19/the-worlds-that-outgrew-their-stories-two-roads-to-intellectual-property-success/
There is a lot of good points on both sides and especially a lot of good point for would world-creators out there.
James over at Grognadia follows up with a brief post and bunch of comments.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/09/power-of-ip.html
And Jason over at The Wasted Lands weighs in on the subject of Story-vs.-Railroad.
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/09/story-vs-railroad-some-ponderings.html
This is something I keenly felt when writing and running the games for The Dragon and the Phoenix.  We were constrained by the IP in many respects but ended having the most fun when we broke out of it.  Plus I wanted to avoid railroading to get to a desired outcome.  Players will always do what they want.

Speaking of old school characters, Rob over at Bat in the Attic has been on the trail of Emirikol the Chaotic.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/09/imagining-d-for-myself.html
and as reported at Akratic Wizardry, http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-trail-of-emirikol-chaotic.html (and a better version of the street here, https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQTQHzeWs0a9N6e_oJRmu3lhWXjMZlb3oeyHpOAcAhRpIeUr_Pz6g7sAQaesEhwNfuVK0u9v1RX7FXClA-4QdkCBuZQ0qL_XKRASEZvGKDA8jLEigG4gFm3NSOqv9ZSfPCBntkVbpbLU/s1600/Street+of+the+Knights.jpg)  It was also reported at the Acaeum, http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about10562.html
Seeing the "Real World" scenes is very cool.

Know of anything else cool going on?

Reflecting on D&D - Sometimes you can't go back

This is not a retro-clone post, nor is it an old school post.  This is about the original games that so many games today get their inspiration from.

I was back in my home town over the weekend to visit my brother.  Grognardia's post was fresh in my mind and was something I was thinking about during the long drive from Chicago to Springfield.  We were meeting my parents, sister, and brother at the local mall, a mall that during the heyday of my D&D days was one of my FLGS.    Of course, the Waldenbooks was where I had bought so many books and dice was gone.  As was the B. Dalton's where I had bought my first set of clear dice.

In my home town, they are redoing the downtown area that had been busy in my youth and then died.  While it is nice to see it coming back one thing that I won't see back is "Belobrajdic's Book Store".  They were closer to me (Springfield was 30 miles away from Jacksonville), but they did not carry as much stuff.    Belobrajdic's ("bell-o-bray-dicks") did have Dragon magazine.  I eventually became a subscriber, but not for another 20 years almost.  I think my first issue was 85 and then I bought it as my meager job as a paperboy would allow.

Waldenbooks, B. Daltons, Belobrajdic's, and even Black's Hardware (for miniatures) all share something in common. All were places I connect with the Golden Age of D&D. And all are gone.

Today I spend my time and money at Games Plus.  A place I would mail order when the above stores would not carry something I wanted, like Eldritch Wizardry.   But what did this trip down memory lane teach me?

Well. Try as they might, and they do try very, very hard, the Clones just can't capture the same feeling of those early days. The Zeitgeist is gone.  I remember hearing a rumor that Belobrajdic's was going to stop selling D&D due to the "Satanic Scare" of the 80s.  You just don't get that these days.
Every book was something new, every purchase was tinged with anticipation and excitement of new worlds to explore.

Some of it isn't just Zeitgeist. Some of it is age and all that goes with that.  I don't have to save or anticipate anymore.  If I want a book I go buy it on my way home from work.  There is sits on my desk or game table till I get a chance to read it. Back then I got the S-series of modules and read them cover to cover all the time.

New games help.  Pathfinder and D&D 4 give me that thrill of the new.  Clones scratch my nostalgia itch.  But none really combine them all very well.

You can't go back to the Caves of Chaos anymore.  The monsters of old are gone and there are Eladrin, Tieflings, and Dragonborn in the Keep talking about needing Warlocks or Sorcerers to help them complete their quest.  Clerics talk about healing surges, druids spend more time in animal shapes and have forgotten the trees.   It is a new world out there full of change.  I can't bring back the old felling or the old D&D anymore than I can bring back the stores that contained those memories and books.

I might wax nostalgic, but I look forward to the next new purchase and the new worlds it will bring all the same.

Imagining D&D meme

So on Friday Grognadia had as the Open Friday this bit:

when you think about Dungeons & Dragons, the cover of what product comes first to mind?

For me it was a toss-up.

This is the version I adventured in the most, back in the day:

But this is one I played first and the cover is more evocative of "D&D" to me.  Wizard and fighter battling a red dragon sitting on a treasure hoard.

But this is the version that gets my geek fondness into overdrive.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 4

Episode 4: Identity Crisis

Willow: So you are saying that whole season of ‘Facts of Life’ was nothing more than unrequited lesbian love between Blair and Jo?
Tara: Absolutely, they were totally into each other, that’s why they fought so much.
Willow: Now you’re just playing with my emotions.
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 4 “Identity Crisis”

Episode 4: Identity Crisis by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

January 8, 2003 Sunday

Willow’s first big dive back into magic is to recreate Tara’s identity and remove all references of her death. A magical surge created by Yoln, the Shadowreaper, causes the magic to go awry and creates a duplicate of Tara who believes she is Kara, Tara’s twin sister. A magic ID provided by Anya also goes awry and the personality of a dead stripper is imprinted on Tara. In addition, the cast have to deal with hungry snake demons, a small gang of mobsters and a 7ft tall, one handed killing machine.
Story Arc elements: Establishes Tara’s “twin” sister Kara and Murl the demonic identity merchant. Introduces Yoln.

Notes and Comments:This is the adventure that made me forget that the show was even still on TV. Once we got to this episode things were moving great. The ideas flowed much faster. This was also our most comical episode despite the fact that it began with a dead stripper. We have "two" Taras running around, demonic identity merchants, would be gangsters, and a 7 foot tall man in armor with one arm. Plus there is the whole Tara-as-a-stripper scene.

The identity merchant was a great idea.  These are demons that make a living integrating other demons into human society.  They do it by having the demon assume the identity of someone that had died and they get all their effects, basically becoming that person.   Anya gets the id of a recently killed japanese stripper.  We also wanted to do one "Willow's magic screws up" episode and ehen never do it again.  She is supposed to be the most powerful witch on the planet afterall.  In truth her magic didn't screw up it was the combination of her magic, the dead stripper's id and the magic of Yoln.

Special note: Because of this episode Tara can still speak fluent Japanese, Amber Benson made a remark at a con a while back along the lines of "well I guess I can speak Japanese" when talking about the afterlife of fan fic. Wish I could find the link for you all.

Yoln of course is the proxy for our big bad.  We find out more about him next episode, but we learn he is the "Hand of Leviathan" whom he calls "The Whispering God".  Yoln was also an old D&D NPC that plagued my characters.

Kara, Tara's "straight" sister was an inside joke that began on the Kitten describing the soap oprea like plotting we were seeing in the show up to Season 6. We decided in the alternate past that Kara had a hugh crush on Giles. The ophidians were an old AD&D monster of mine.

The author of this adventure, Sass, has a better grasp on Willow than anyother author I have ever met. She gets her on such a fundamental level that her fiction should be required reading for anyone wanting to play Willow in a game.

Kara was not just a proxy for dead Tara, but Dawn as well. We established that she was as real to everyone, including memories, as Dawn, and a spell took her away. This was part of the alienation plot for Buffy and Dawn. Both were feeling like they were less and less human than the people around them, though for different reasons. I disliked the Slayer-as-demon (the episode where the girl was raped by a demon to make her a Slayer had not happened yet) and wanted to go a different direction, so we began by having Buffy become stronger and faster than before, becoming something other than human, or so she thought. For Dawn it was the start of her psychic powers.  I wanted both characters (via the players) to struggle with what it means to be human, or maybe no longer human.

And true to our cause here  "Candy", the dead stripper, gets avenged in the end and her killers are met with justice at the hands of the Yakuza.  Tara also gets a marker from the Yakuza boss.  The boss was named Tatsou which means "Dragon".  There is no connection, just a pun on my part to keep some element of the overall plot in every episode.

The quote above is an in-play quote between Willow and Tara.  All this terrible stuff is going around them and they are having a discussion about the lesbian sub-text of the Facts of Life.

In this episode we also established that Willow & Tara's favorite indie band is Lipkandy. They were playing the night after Tara's birthday.

At this point we began to insert a lot more crunchy stuff to our games.  Previously we had been content to use the playtest material of Buffy, but now we were moving along at good pace.  Episodes 4 and 5 were our playtests of the new Magic Box book, but we wanted to add more.

New Monster


Ophidians
Motivation: Eat humans
Critter Type: Demon
Attributes: Str 7 Dex 6 Con 6 Int 2 Per 2 Will 5
Ability Scores: Muscle 20 Combat 14 Brains 15
Life Points: 70
Drama Points: 1
Special Abilities: Armor Value 10 (scales) Qualities: Hard to Kill 3
Dodge: 14
Claw: 16 18 dam Str x 3
Bite: 15 21 dam (Str + 1) x3,
Poison
Tail slap: 15 14 dam

Ophidians are said to be a young race by demon standards, thought to exist only for the last 3 or 4 thousand years, since early Egyptian times. They are an isolationistic race, known to spend time only with their own kind, and have little regard for other demons. While most demons are decidedly carnivorous, the Ophidians are one of a few whose diet is thought to consist solely of the flesh of human beings. It is known that almost all Ophidians worship some sort of a serpent deity, but whether this is Set or Leviathan is unclear.
These Ophidians worship leviathan, but it can’t be a coincidence that many also worship Set and the cast just dealt with Set.

New Spells

Magic Missile
Quick Cast: Yes
Power Level: 2
Requirements: Witches and Warlocks need only shout “dissolvo.” Other magicians also need to meditate for one minute.
Effect: A ball of light shoots from the caster’s hand and shoves the target one foot per Success Level rolled. This spell could knock someone down or push them free from someone who was holding them. It normally does no damage, but if the target is shoved into a wall or some other hard surface, she takes double the casting roll’s Success Levels in Bash damage.
Note: This is the spell Tara used in “Bargaining”. It is assumed that Kara has it as well.

Sleep
Quick Cast: Yes
Power Level: 1
Requirements: Command word calling on the gods of sleep (Hypnos, Morpheus, or ‘the Sandman’) and a bit of sand.
Effect: Target must make a Will check. If failed the target falls into a deep sleep for one hour per level of sorcery skill.
Note: This spell is know to both Tara and Kara.

Undo Spell
Quick Cast: Yes
Power Level: 5
Requirements: Witches and Warlocks need only to command that the spell be ended. Others need to concentrate on the spell for 1 minute per power level of the original spell. If the caster does not have the sorcery levels required she can bring in other casters.
Effect: Undoes one spell or magical effect.
Since the magical effect in not natural, the magic is easy. But the witch needs to be able to overcome the level of the original spell as a resisted check.

Next Week:  Tara and Willow are targeted by assassins and they learn more of their mission here.