La Befana The Christmas Witch

La Befana at Disney World

Every year I try to remember to say something about La Befana, the Italian Christmas witch.
This year I remembered, but had set the date wrong.  Oh well.

You can read more about her here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana

The most common tale is she directed the Three Wise Men to the new baby Jesus, but declined to go with them till her housework was done.

Like St. Nick/Santa, she gives out gifts to Children on Epiphany Eve.  Befana, like many other Christianized myths has her origin in an older story of the Goddess Strenua.  So she is seen a protector figure in myth.

Given that she is such a complex character it would be difficult to do her justice in a write-up.

But I can talk about her broom.
Her Broom seems to be perfect as a powerful witch artifact that you can drop into your games.

The following is released as Open per the OGL.

La Befana’s Broom
La Befana was a great and powerful witch. Legend says that she once helped three great and powerful Magic-Users find their way when they were lost, search for a young king. They had asked La Befana to go with them, but she declined telling them she had cleaning to do. In reality she did not want to go because she had lost her own baby and seeing this new one would have made her sad.
 The Magic-Users on their return brought La Befana a gift, a magical broom that would clean her home for her if she uttered the proper word. It would also render her invisible and allow her to enter the home of anyone unnoticed as long as her intentions were good and pure. La Befana used this magic to go into people’s homes on the eve of the Magic-Users' return to her each year to clean the homes of the good people in her village and leave a small present, usually a bit of candy for the good children or a bit coal for the bad ones.
She has let the broom go now so it may continue to do good in the world where she can’t go.
In the hands of a Good witch this broom will manifest the following powers:

• Act as a Broom of Flying 
• Act as a Broom of Protection, Threshold 
• When held it will render the witch Invisible 
• When used to knock on a door the door will open as if a Knock spell was cast on it. Inhabitants will not be able to hear the knock.

Neutral witches can also use these powers, but only if their intent is pure and good. If they attempt to do anything that is considered harmful or against those pure intentions then the Broom treats them as if they were Evil.
Evil witches cannot use the Broom at all. Once they touch it it becomes a Broom of Animated Attack. The broom will attack for 1 round (it gets the initiative due to surprise) then it disappears.
Typically the Broom will remain with any given witch only for one year then it will disappear to find another worthy witch.

Blogging A to Z?

Last year I proudly participated in the Blogging A to Z challenge in April.

I felt it was not only a good way to stretch my creative abilities but work on my writing and do a bit a cross blog-genre promotion.  My hits went up, and stayed up, drastically during and after April and I got my greatest surge of followers.

Well they are doing it again this year.

http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2012/01/blogging-from-to-z-april-challenge-2012.html

Though I am not sure I am going to do it this year yet or not.

Last year it worked out on many levels for me.  I recall thinking about the posts I had queued up and how they would fit the challenge.  When "Z" fell on a Saturday it clinched it for me.

Part of the purpose of the blogfest is to post every day.  I do that now anyway.

Keep in mind I am NOT saying participation is a bad idea, far from it in fact.

I actually suggest that we get MORE OSR/RPG bloggers participating to get our message out there.

The one thing we all talk about is getting more people involved in our hobby, we can't do that if the only people we talk to are already in our hobby.

Plus if you are selling a product you should participate just to more attention to you and your book.

If I do it this year then I need to do a theme or something, make it more challenging than last year.

Are you going to participate?  Why or why not?

Skylanders Hex for Pathfinder

So we have been playing Skylanders a lot recently.  My little witch Hex is now 5th level.  Not to bad really.
To celebrate here she is in her Pathfinder Witch version.

You can read the background and see my 4e stats of her here.

I don't have my books with me, so I took some artistic license with how she is presented here.  So instead of the floating skull familiar I gave her a bat.  I am just going to say it is a skull with wings.


HEX    CR 4
Female Drow Witch 5
CN Medium Humanoid (Elf)
Init -1; Senses Darkvision (120 feet), Low-Light Vision; Perception +7

---

DEFENSE

---

AC 9, touch 9, flat-footed 9   (-1 Dex)
hp 23 (5d6)
Fort +1, Ref +0, Will +5
Immune sleep; Resist Elven Immunities; SR 11
Weakness Light Blindness

---

OFFENSE

---

Spd 30 ft.
Melee Unarmed Strike +2 (1d3/20/x2)
Special Attacks Blight (DC 16), Misfortune (DC 16)
Spell-Like Abilities Dancing Lights (1/day), Darkness (1/day), Faerie Fire (1/day)
Witch Spells Known (CL 5, 2 melee touch, 1 ranged touch):
3 (2/day) Bestow Curse (DC 17), Pain Strike (DC 17)
2 (3/day) Scare (DC 16), Death Knell (DC 16), Glide (DC 16)
1 (4/day) Chill Touch (DC 15), Cause Fear (DC 15), Mage Armor (DC 15), Ray of Enfeeblement (DC 15)
0 (at will) Touch of Fatigue (DC 14), Dancing Lights, Daze (DC 14), Bleed (DC 14)

---

STATISTICS

---

Str 10, Dex 9, Con 10, Int 19, Wis 13, Cha 12
Base Atk +2; CMB +2; CMD 11
Feats Alertness, Arcane Talent: Daze (3/day), Ectoplasmic Spell
Traits Focused Mind, Scholar of the Great Beyond: Knowledge (History)
Skills Bluff +2, Diplomacy +2, Fly +3, Heal +6, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (Arcana) +12, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +9, Knowledge (History) +11, Perception +7, Sense Motive +4, Spellcraft +12, Stealth +1, Survival +2
Languages Abyssal, Common, Draconic, Drow Sign Language, Elven, Undercommon
SQ +3 to Fly checks, Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su), Empathic Link with Familiar (Su), Poison Use (Ex), Share Spells with Familiar, Speak With Familiar (Ex), Ward +2 (Su)
Other Gear Staff of Necromancy

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SPECIAL ABILITIES

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+3 to Fly checks You gain the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach.
Arcane Talent: Daze (3/day) You gain a chosen spell as a spell-like ability, 3/day.
Blight (DC 16) (Su) Curse animals, plants, or land
Dancing Lights (1/day) (Sp) Cast Dancing Lights once per day.
Darkness (1/day) (Sp) Cast Darkness once per day.
Darkvision (120 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su) Your familiar can deliver touch spells for you.
Drow Immunities - Sleep You are immune to Sleep effects.
Ectoplasmic Spell You can cast a spell that has full effect against incorporeal or ethereal creatures.
Elven Immunities +2 save bonus vs Enchantments.
Empathic Link with Familiar (Su) You have an empathic link with your Arcane Familiar.
Faerie Fire (1/day) (Sp) Cast Faerie Fire once per day.
Focused Mind +2 to Concentration checks
Light Blindness (Ex) Blinded for 1r in bright light, dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Misfortune (1 round(s)) (DC 16) (Su) Target must take the lower of 2d20 for rolls.
Poison Use (Ex) You do not risk poisoning yourself accidentally while poisoning a weapon.
Share Spells with Familiar The wizard may cast a spell with a target of "You" on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast).
Speak With Familiar (Ex) You can communicate verbally with your familiar.
Spell Resistance (11) You have Spell Resistance.
Ward +2 (Su) Target receives +2 AC and save bonus until they are hit or fail a saving throw.

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White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 1

Welcome to my first White Dwarf Wednesday!
Today we are going to look into Issue 1 published in June of 1977.
But first lets talk about what White Dwarf meant to me and why it later captured my attention in the OSR days.

Back in the early days of my gaming I was well aware of Dragon Magazine.  My first issue was Dragon #80 and it was awesome to see that this new game I enjoyed so much was enjoyed by others.  Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that there was not just one, but TWO magazines dedicated to this hobby.
Back in the 80s I was in love with all thing British.  My favorite shows were "Doctor Who", "Monty Python" and "Benny Hill". My favorite bands were "The Who", "Led Zeppelin" and "The Police".   To my teenaged mind there was nothing better than something from the UK.  White Dwarf did not prove that wrong to me.
The writing style was different than what I saw in Dragon.  It was grittier, it was more dangerous.  I reminded me a lot of Heavy Metal magazine to be honest.  Plus the ads in White Dwarf were not "edited" or dare I say, "censored" as they were in Dragon. And really who could forget those early Gamma World ads?
My first issue of White Dwarf was issue 44.  I picked up some here and there over the years, and about 4-5 years ago I was able to buy issues 1 through 89.  I worked on getting all the way 100, but only have a few between 89 and 96.

I used White Dwarf in the Great D&D Article Purge on Wikipedia a few years back.  Since WD was a 3rd party publication it could support many of the D&D articles that needed extra references.  In the process I got to read through all of them many times over and it was a great blast from the past.  I am now in my 3rd wave of White Dwarf affection thanks to the OSR.  You can't get much more Old School than this.

So without further ado, lets jump right on in.

White Dwarf #1
June/July 1977

The magazine contains the sub-title of "The Science Fiction and Fantasy Games Magazine", certainly that was true enough.  Counting covers we have a mere 24 pages worth of content.
The editorial from Ian Livingstone discussed the emergence of just 2 short years of a new kind of wargaming brought over by two Americans, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.   He mentions how there are now over 50 games in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre and over 10 companies providing these games and how White Dwarf hopes to cater to them.
We have a two and a half page review/pre-view of the newest Sci-Fi game, Metamorphisis Alpha.
We are treated to a few ads about a local game store and the British Fantasy Society.
Next up is something very unique and very interesting for a number of reasons.  It is Don Turnbull's Monstermark System.  The Monstermark system was used by White Dwarf to assign a "level of malignity" to every monster.  An early attempt at what would be the Challenge Rating.  The Monstermark is based on the number of rounds it would take to defeat a monster and the aggressiveness of a monster.
The explanation is full of wonderful equations; enough to make your high school math teacher happy and there are tables with examples.  What else could be more old school really?  I am bit suprised no one has tried to revive this and republish it for the OSR (or something like it).  What struck me as interesting too was that this was based on something the author had published previously in Owl & Weasel. How often did you see something like that?  The Monstermark system would be used in White Dwarf for many issues to rate the various monsters they created including some of the future Fiend Folio ones.
The Open Box feature column reviewed games.  Games were ranked 1-10 on Complexity, Skill, Atmosphere, Originality, Presentation and an Overall score. This issue SPI's Sorcerer (overall score 7) and Avaon Hill's Starship Troopers (Overall, 9).
A piece on competitive D&D. Part 1 of Lewis Pulsipher's D&D Campaign breakdown. IS D&D a war game or something else? An article on the wargame "The Warlord" by Steve Jackson (the English one)
Near the end we are introduced to a section called "Treasure Chest", which is basically a way for readers to send their contributions to the D&D rules.  We have a magic item, the Helm of Vision, and a bit talking about how D&D combat and magic is all wrong and a proposed fix (and it's only Issue #1!).  We have a new class (The Pervert) and some information about Poison.
We end up with some classified ads, and a "caption this" style cartoon.

All in a good start. It does not compete with Dragon from the same time yet, but it will get there soon.

New Year, New Look

I am going to be working on the look of the Other Side here for a bit.  New Year and all.

If you are reading this in a reader, can you please stop by and let me know what you think.
This gives me readability feedback AND helps me check to make sure I put the Google Analytics codes in right.

Thanks!

Magical Near Talents in Ghosts of Albion

The child looked at me in obvious fear and trepidation. I tried to win the young lad over with my most winninest smile. "Its ok dear. I am not going to hurt you." I said, but he shook his head.
"Beggin' your pardons Mum, its not you I'm worried about, but that ghost lady behind you."

-From The Journal of Tamara Swift

Not everyone in the Ghosts of Albion game is a ghost, powerful Protector or vampire.  In fact the vast, vast majority of people in the world are not only ignorant of the supernatural, but so far removed from it that it has no impact on their lives whatsoever.  Generally speaking this line is easily demarcated with the possession of either the Magic quality (in humans) or the Innate Magic quality (in supernaturals).  If you have one or the other then the world of the supernatural is open to you and you to it.
There are some that have no magical talent to speak of, yet the world of the supernatural is open to them, in a limited state.  They see ghosts, hear strange creaking where others hear nothing and sometimes even are able to cast a spell.

These folk are known as Near Talents and they are have a zero (0) level of Magic.

Magic 0
3 points or Special
Prerequisite: Must be human
Characters with 0 levels of Magic have a small bit of magical talent.  They can cast a spell (typically they know only one) of PL 1 (and no higher).  They cannot quick cast any spells and will always cast their spell at the end of their round.
Characters with Magic 0 are treated as if they have Lesser Sensing, but they typically need a Perception + Notice roll in order to see any magic or magical creature.  The Director can make exceptions to this, typically making it easier to see some things like a familiar ghost.
Characters can "upgrade" to a full level of Magic with the Director's approval only.  Directors are encouraged to find an "in story" reason for this manifestation of the character's full potential and either grant them Magic 1 or allow them to buy it for 1 or 2 points (never more than 2).
Spellcasting is treated the same, except the Magic modifier is 0.  Characters with Magic 0 have no magical defenses, they need to be Magic 1 at least for that.

Uses of Near Talents
Near Talents can be used to provide a nice middle ground.  Ordinary humans with one toe in the supernatural world. The obvious choices are NPC and Guest Stars, but Cast Members can also benefit from this quality.  In particular Magic 0 also acts like a low level magic sensitivity that can be given to otherwise normal humans so they can be part of the adventuring world.  If this is the case then the director is encouraged to give these Cast Members Magic 0 for free, but not give them a spell to use.  If they later find one that can be up to the Director.

My new game Sky..(mumble)...

So I got a new game over Christmas.  It is very popular and has may RPG elements in it and you get to fight monsters and explore an expanding world and I am already 3rd level and addicted to it.  It is called Skylanders.

Were you expecting a different "Sky" named game?

Well Skylanders is cool all the same.  We have been playing it on the Wii and there are all these little figures you can collect and use in the game in addition to magic items, new lands and all sorts of things.

My boys have had the game for a while, but since they know I love witches they got me the figure Hex for Christmas. She is Drow Dark Sorceress whose "element" is "undead".  The game play is fast and really fun.  Simple enough for the young kids to figure it out, yet enough detail to keep me entertained.  In fact I was killed at one point because I was paying too much attention to the details of the game.

Here is my character, Hex, done up as a 3rd level D&D4 Witch.
I decided she is a Drow. Not the best choice for a witch, but it works well for the story.  She has lower than average Dexterity to reflect her lower than average Agility.  She has a floating skull familiar (like in the pictures) and I figured she was cultist. Her Charisma is lower than one would expect for a Drow due to all the evil undead stuff about her.


====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======

Hex (witch), level 3
Drow, Wizard (Witch)
Moon Coven Option: Dark Moon Coven
Dark Apprenticeship (+2 to Bluff)
Theme: Cultist

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
STR 10
CON 10
DEX 9
INT 18
WIS 13
CHA 12

AC: 16 Fort: 12 Ref: 16 Will: 16
HP: 28 Surges: 6 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +12, Dungeoneering +8, Insight +8, Intimidate +11, Religion +10

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +1, Athletics +1, Bluff +4, Diplomacy +2, Endurance +1, Heal +3, History +5, Nature +3, Perception +3, Stealth +3, Streetwise +2, Thievery +1

POWERS
Basic Attack: Melee Basic Attack
Basic Attack: Ranged Basic Attack
Cultist Attack: Master's Eye
Drow Racial Power: Cloud of Darkness
Wizard Utility: Augury
Wizard Utility: Ghost Sound
Wizard Utility: Spook
Wizard Utility: Mage Hand
Wizard Attack 1: Dread Presence
Wizard Attack 1: Phantasmal Assault
Wizard Attack 1: Witch Bolt
Wizard Attack 1: Ray of Fatigue
Wizard Utility 2: Shield
Wizard Attack 3: Grim Shadow

FEATS
Arcane Familiar (Floating Skull)
Level 1: Shield of Shadows
Level 2: Disciple of Death

ITEMS
Battle Staff +1 x1
Delver's Cloth Armor (Basic Clothing) +1 x1
Cloak of Resistance +1 x1
Cloth Armor (Basic Clothing)
Adventurer's Kit
Staff Implement x1
====== End ======

Pretty good fit I think.  I might have her show up as an NPC sometime.  My boys would get a kick out of that.



Oh. And we got Skyrim too.  Just what I need, more distractions.