Skylla: Spellcraft & Swordplay: Eldritch Witchery

For my first conversion of Skylla I wanted to start as far back as I could while still using a proper "Witch" class.  Plus I want to do something that is more similar to a "wizard" class.  For those reasons I am choosing to use Spellcraft & Swordplay (since it is very much like OD&D) and the warlock class from Eldritch Witchery.

A few conceits.
- While the original Skylla was 6th level, I am going to stat all my versions as 7th level.  The reasoning is that a lot of my witch classes gain a power at 7th level and many others have at lease one power by that point.
- I am also working under the assumption that Skylla began as a good character, either as a good witch or a good magic-user/wizard and then soon became evil.  By 6th level she is unrepentant chaotic evil.  So her initial options as a character would be the ones a good character might choose.
- I am keeping her same stats, but I am going to rearrange them so her Prime Attribute always has the highest value (in this case 15).
- I am going to try to give her the same or similar spells from her original stats.

Skylla from Eldritch Witchery
I choose the Warlock class since it seems to fit my narrative of her. Warlocks are "betrayers" and evil typically, but they don't have to be.  You can use Eldritch Witchery to make a good Warlock.  Evil just happens to be easier.  Also Warlocks are an advanced class of Wizards (Magic-Users) so it fits.

She belongs to the Goetic Lodge. Figured that it was the best choice to fit a character that wanted to seek out more magic.

Skylla, 7th Level warlock (Goetic)

Strength: 9
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 15*
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 11

Hit Points:  25
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
AC: 3 (Ring of Protection +1)

Occult Powers
Familiar: Elemental Sprit
7th level: Summon 6HD Elemental to do her bidding (typically she likes fire and air)

Spells 
First: Charm Person, Light, Read Magic, Spirit Dart
Second: Detect Invisible, Knock, Levitate
Third: Bestow Curse, Slow, Wizard Lock
Fourth: Elemental Armor

Magic Items
Ring of Protection +1, Dagger +1, Staff of Enchantment, demon helm (+1 saves vs. demons and charming magic, +1 AC)

Some rearrangement of spells but still comes close.  There is no Staff of Commanding in S&S, but there is the Staff of Enchantment which fills the same niche.

Eldritch Witchery in Print

You can now get Eldritch Witchery in softcover print format.

Get it in print at DriveThruRPG.

Makes for a great Christmas gift!

Doctor Who: Night of the Doctor

In case you have been sleeping this came out today.


I think it is great that Paul McGann is getting his due screen-time.  And long time readers here know of my enjoyment of the Sisterhood of Karn.

Cubicle 7 also plans to release a hardcover of their Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space.
http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/doctor-who-aitas-limited-edition-anniversary-edition-cover/

I think I am going to celebrate a little and run some Doctor Who this weekend instead of the AD&D 1st ed game we planned.  Though I think I might run Ghost Tower of Inverness, IL.
Should be great.

Skylla, Evil Magic User

I reviewed Module XL1 Quest for the Heartstone recently and among other things it had the stats for a character I knew very little about.

Skylla was an evil magic-user for the LJN/AD&D toy figure line.
She never made it to the larger "Action figure" as far as I can tell, but instead was one of the smaller "collectible" figures, abut 2" tall.

She comes up every so often on eBay, and she never appeared in the D&D cartoon to my knowledge.

Here is what is said on her card:

"while wizards are the most powerful of magic users, the female must be considered even more special. In a world where every hand is turned against her she has risen in a field that is difficult indeed. Able to cast magical spells of awesome power, she will go to any lengths to win her private battles. Often this type of person can be counted on to use magical devices of great power. Glowing slaves. Rings, and amulets are constantly found in the possession of such a person much to the horror of her enemies."

Well...it was 1983.

While I want to say I never saw her before and I honestly don't remember the character, there are some similarities with this character and a witch I made around the same time.  I pulled up her stats from Quest of the Heartstone.

Yeah. That is Larry Elmore doing the Skylla art.
A couple other things jump out at me. She is 6th level so her "name level" is "Warlock", or in old D&D Expert, a "Witch".   Plus the Italian version of the character refers to her as "La Strega" which also means, the witch.

She also appeared in The Shady Dragon Inn supplement.

SKYLLA™ Evil Magic-User
S 9; I12; W 8; C 9; D 11; CH 11; AL C;
LV 6; AC 8; hp 22; P/D 11; MW 12;
S/P 11; DB 14; SP/MS 13; THACO 17
[16 using dagger +1]
Spells: 1st Level: light, magic missile.
2nd Level: detect invisible, levitate.
3rd Level: hold person, lightning bolt.
Wears ring of protection +1; carries dagger
+1, staff of commanding (10 charges).

SKYLLA™ Evil Magic-User has silvery dark hair, stands 5'10", weighs 131 lbs., and has flashing dark eyes. She favors gray clothing, although she always wears her golden demon headress and her golden demon girdle. SKYLLA carries a magical staff, a staff of commanding. Once she was a student of RINGLERUN's, but when she was exposed to the Heartstone, she began to seek out the evil, harmful side of magic.
Her lust for power grew until she broke away from the good magician, seeking personal gain and power. Because the Heartstone did not affect RINGLERUN, she has grown to hate him for what she feels is his "soft and stupid" use of magic.

Her stats are quite similar to a witch character I had been using (and still use) at the time.
Also her concept, a magic-user that uses a lot of magic items, is not unique (there was one in the Myth Adventures books) was also something I had done for my witch.

This is all a rather fortunate find for me really!

I needed a new adversary to work with that had a history with one of my witch characters.  I was going to go with Iggwilv, but she is way too big.  Skylla here is perfect.
Also, I wanted a witch character I could use to compare the various witch books I have.  I wanted someone around 6-7th level. I needed someone with "normal" stats and someone that would not take me hours to stat up.  I was going to go with my own witch character (again), but none of you have the connection to her that I do.  So the reading might be a little dull.

Skylla is perfect for all of this.
I can develop the character as I stat her up to compare systems.  Win all around.
Besides. Playing around with a chaotic evil witch will be fun.  I plan on using her (in some way) in my kids 1st Ed game this weekend.  They are still working through the Cave of Chaos.

In the meantime I'll also keep looking for more information on her.

Links

• Custom figure and on eBay (for 300 bucks)
• Puffy stickers pack
• Noble Knight Games and Elmore art (though it does say "good", she began as good)
• A page with all the NPCs
• Her "namesake" Scylla

I am not afraid: Disney's Maleficent Official Teaser Trailer

The new Teaser Trailer for Maleficent is now up.


Many thanks to +Joseph Bloch for getting this link to me!  We both will need to stat her up with our respective witch classes.

It looks fantastic.

White Dwarf Wednesday #87

White Dwarf Wednesday takes us to issue number 87 from March 1987.
Again we are graced with another rather "Heavy Metal"-esque style cover. It is another Frank Brunner cover, this time from 1982.

Mike Brunton tells us that there are more changes coming to WD in the future. Including a 16 page adventure format that was introduced previously with the RuneQuest adventure.

Open Box covers the new and cheaper RuneQuest rules. The rules do not have a "proper" GM section according to the reviewer Peter Green.  The change would be regarded as a "money grab" in today's circles. But other games seemed to be immune to the edition wars that plague D&D and it's clones.  
Green and Pleasant Land is the long awaited British source book for England and Great Britain.  
The other interesting tidbit here are the reviews for the AD&D adventure modules "Day of Al'Akbar" and "Ravenloft: House on Gryphon Hill" two adventures I went through then and have run since.  The reviewer, Carl Sargent, makes note of Jeff Easley's cover of DaAA, calling sexploitation and "soft core". er. ok. Frankly my biggest issue with the image was would harem girls have 80s hair?  He also thinks Gryphon Hill is a worth successor to the original Ravenloft.  It is fun, but not quite up to the same quality in my mind.

Open Box X-tra goes into detail on Warhammer Fantasy.  Similar to what they did last time with the Dragonlance modules.  The article would have been more interesting if it hadn't been full of "this is the way D&D does it and its wrong! we do it like this!"  Yeah, ok, it is not as bad as that and comparisons are inevitable, but the game should stand on it's own.

The comics are next, the new acquisition, Derek the Troll and Thrud the Barbarian.

The highlight for me is the treatise on Zombies in Call of Cthulhu.  A bunch of different zombie types are covered including the common one found in D&D, the "voodoo" zombie and parasitic infection.  We are still few years out yet from GURPS Voodoo or Eden's "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" but this works very well.

We get three adventures up next.
Night of Blood for Warhammer Fantasy, Taurefanto for MERP and Happiness is Laser Shaped for Paranoia.  All in all a lot of pages devoted to adventures.

We wrap it all up with letters, ads and some coming attractions in the various Warhammer lines.

The Call of Cthulhu bit on Zombies is neat and there are still a number of games still be supported, but the issue itself leaves me feeling a bit flat to be honest.

You know I am going to see this...

It's been a good time for witches on TV lately, movies look like they are not too far behind.