Jennell Jaquays (1956 – 2024)

 I was saddened to hear of the passing of RPG industry titan Jennell Jaquays this morning. I had never met with her face to face, though we had spoken together many times online. She was a compassionate, understanding, and wonderfully funny soul.

You can't go through the early days of our hobby and not see her name on something. Whether it was early Judges Guild material, articles in Dragon magazine, or her works, both as a writer and artist, for Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip, and Runequest.  Her work in the pages of the Judges Guild Journal and the Dungeoneer are still some of my favorites from the dawn age of RPGs.

Her continued work in video games, like Quake, kept her close to RPGs. 

I knew she had been sick since October, and I knew it was not a minor thing, but today we got word from her wife that she had passed.

While her work on Central Casting is justifiably lauded, it was her Dark Tower adventure in which she gained her highest accolades. Though I admit, I am also rather partial to her adventure "Talons of Night."

Her wife, Rebecca "Burger Becky" Heineman, has a GoFundMe started. Initially, it was to cover medical expenses, which sadly she still has.

I know we are getting to a point where the pioneers of our hobby are getting older. I have even lost close friends in the last year. But that does not make it any easier.  Sad thing is I had an idea from earlier in the Fall I wanted to talk to her about. She was the sort to always give very helpful and honest advice. But I saw she was ill, so I figured I would wait. 

Well. I guess I can't now. 

My thoughts are with her family.

Character Creation Challenge: Heather McHael for Wasted Lands

 Going to explore some more magic-inclined characters for a bit to see how they fare. Next is an interesting one, Heather McHael, a half-elf Ranger Bard. She was also the last AD&D 1st Edition character I made before the release of AD&D 2nd Edition. I wanted a bard character for a while but when I finally rolled up Heather, she had the stats needed to do it. 

I thought Heather would be something akin to an Irish girl living in Scotland. When I later redid her for Ghosts of Albion, I did precisely that. She was very religious (I was modeling her beliefs on Catholicism) so this would have made her a somewhat "alien" Catholic girl living in Presbyterian Scotland. In AD&D she was the youngest half-elf daughter to a human lord and elvish mother. The lord already had four human sons who were all older than she was. None were happy with their father's new wife.

Personality-wise, I wanted to explore a character who was an alien in her own world and was searching for her "true people." Along the way, she joined up with some of my other characters at the time. I decided then that she and Larina were best friends despite (or really because of) their differences.

Interestingly enough, Heather was the cause of death of my first Larina. Heather had become a vampire (long story) and Larina attempted to save her. The only way do this though was for Larina to bind them both magically to the ground and wait for sunrise. This was during my D&D sabbatical between AD&D 2nd Ed and 3rd Ed and I was killing off old characters left and right. While Larina would later be reincarnated, I never got around to doing this for Heather. I tried her out in both 3e and 4e, but nothing I ever cared for. I gave her a run in Ghosts of Albion and rather liked that one. Let's see what Wasted Lands can do for me.

Heather is primarily a Ranger with some Bard levels to boot. Because this is an AD&D 1st Ed Bard she had some levels of thief as well. She dabbled in magic but still had a good amount. To that end the Sage is a good fit for her. I am going to just start with 4 levels of Sage, but in truth 8 or more might be better.

Heather McHael

Class: Archer / Sage
Level: 9/4
Species: Half-elf
Alignment: Light 
Background: Barbarian

Abilities
Strength: 12 (+0) 
Agility: 18 (+3) A
Toughness: 16 (+2) 
Intelligence: 16 (+2) N
Wits: 15 (+1) 
Persona: 17 (+2) N

Fate Points: 1d10
Defense Value: 3
Vitality: 87
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +5/+3/+1
Melee Bonus: +4 (base), 
Ranged Bonus: +4 (base), +3
Saves: +7 to Agility Saves, +2 to Spells (Elf), +1 to Persona

Archer Abilities
Improved Defense, Master Archer, Ranged Combat, Supernatural Attack, Improved Range Damage, Eagle Eye, Incapictating Shot, Multi Attack x3, Careful Aim, Trick Shot

Elf Abilities
Night Shifted

Sage Abilities
Languages, Lore, Suggestion, Mesmerize Others, Renegade skills at level 2

Sage Spells
First Level: Arcane Darts, Glamour
Second Level: Invisibility

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: ESP
2nd Level: 
3rd Level: 
4th Level: 
5th Level: 
6th Level:  
7th Level: 
8th Level: 

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Hunter

Gear
Longbow, shortsword, leather armor, 

Wasted Lands as AD&D 1st Ed

So. I like this version, the best one out of the 3e and 4e ones, to be sure. Maybe even more than her Ghosts of Albion version. Her magic ability is a lot less here. I could tweak the character, say, reduce Archer a bit and more Sage. In any case more Sage is good.  Especially if I think of Sage = Bard.

I thought about adding in some more magic using the Heroic Touchstones, but I wanted to go light on those this time.  I will say this: the customization options given to me by Wasted Lands and NIGHT SHIFT continue to impress me. 

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Raven Ebonflame for Wasted Lands

While I am done with the various versions of Johan Werper, I am still working on his family. Today, the girl that Johan Werper III fell in love with and their adventures in "Ravenloft."

Bit of a background first. The period between 1986 and 1989 or so was a transition period for me and for my games. I was leaving High School and headed to University so I wanted to wrap up a lot of different loose ends in my game world. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to merge my world with my DM's world in what would become our Proto-Mystoerth. This was also a time I wanted to do a new world, one that was more horror-focused. Eventually, I would find this with the AD&D Ravenloft campaign setting, but for the time before that we were just calling it "ShadowEarth."  This is where Johan III would end up.

Part of the problem was the girl he was in love with. A girl known as Raven.

Now I will be truthful here, my Raven (full name Morgan "Raven" Ebonflame) began as little more than a copy of the infamous Richard Kirk's "Raven Swordmistress of Chaos," a book I had seen but had never read (yet). So my mind was already primed for this character idea.

Back in 1986, my DM Michael Grenda wrote up a new class he was calling "The Riddle Master," which was essentially a Psychic-powered class that looked like a combination of a fighter and wizard. They were more than that, but that is the overall gist. It was an experiment in class creation. This was the same time I was making my first witch class. While I had made one Riddlemaster already, I wanted another one. Someone that fought undead (sorta my thing then) and in particular, vampires (very much my thing then). Combine all of these together, and 1987 Raven Ebonflame was born.  She was the daughter of my assassin character and, what I said then, an angel. Though he did not know the woman he was with was an angel. Raven then was a supernaturally strong girl with blond hair, who's task was to destroy vampires.

Look. I am not going to sit here and tell you I invented the idea of the Vampire Slayer. 

I am going to sit here and tell you the idea was not as original as some Vampire Slayer creators might want you to believe. Hey, maybe if my father and grandfather had been big-name Hollywood writers, I could make this claim. Plus, I also know at least two other creatives who did similar things and, in one case, had published their work before the Buffy movie and series.

So Raven was a slayer hmm hunter of vampires. I used the Riddle Master class for her as a test bed for what would later become the Shadow Master class. NOTE: Don't expect to see the Riddle Master, Shadow Master, or Beast Master classes anytime soon. They were grossly overpowered even if the XP per Level were excessive. 

Fast forward to the early 2000s. I would revisit my Raven using the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. She would even be a part of my Buffy "Season" The Dragon and the Phoenix. 

I did a version of the Richard Kirk Raven (her "Godmother") for Wasted Lands last year, I figure I should do my Raven now.  There is no Riddle Master analog in the Wasted Lands, so what is she? I thought maybe I could build her out XP for abilities like I did her namesake. It would be fitting given how the Riddle Master class came to be. But the more I thought about it the more I kept coming back to the same conclusion.

Morgan "Raven" Ebonflame is a Chosen One from NIGHT SHIFT.

Morgan "Raven" Ebonflame

Class: Chosen One (NIGHT SHIFT)
Level: 8
Species: Human*
Alignment: Light 
Background: Warrior (Wasted Lands p. 185)

Abilities
Strength: 17 (+2) A
Agility: 18 (+3) N
Toughness: 18 (+3) N
Intelligence: 16 (+2) 
Wits: 16 (+2) 
Persona: 18 (+3) 

Fate Points: 1d8
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 87
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+3/+1
Melee Bonus: +5 (base), +2 (STR)
Ranged Bonus: +5 (base), +3
Saves: +3 to all Saves, +2 to Toughness (Warrior background)

Chosen One Abilities
Brutal Warrior, Melle Combat, Stunning Blow, Killing Blow, Supernatural Attack, Difficult to Surprise, Improved Defence, Ranged Combat, Survivor Skills (Level 2), Mental Resistance, Regeneration

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: Sense Evil
2nd Level: Favored Weapon: Sword
3rd Level: 
4th Level: Smite
5th Level: 
6th Level:  Great Smite
7th Level: 
8th Level: Destroy Undead
9th Level: 

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Protection

Gear
Longsword, leather armor, vampire hunting kit

Wasted Lands as D&D and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Ok. THIS is Raven. At least this is the Raven I imagined she was when I made the character so long ago. Wasted Lands + NIGHT SHIFT gives my the perfect combination of Fantasy plus Horror that I really enjoy in my games.  Here stats are high because her mother was a freaking angel after all. 

Of course, now I am a little sad I don't get to share this one with Grenda. He would have loved it. In fact I can hear him now saying "Oh shit! That IS her!"

I am going to have to go through my various folders of characters and see who else I have in this Dark Fantasy Horror theme and see if they are as equally improved by this conversion. 

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Johan Werper VI for Wasted Lands

 Today I give you the last of the Johan Werpers and my "current" one. This is a D&D 5th Edition character and one I have been using as a DMPC for my Come Endless Darkness campaign with the Order of the Platinum Dragon.  This one also brings me full circle since last year at this time I was talking bout how to move away from D&D 5 and more into other RPGs.

Johan VI is the son of Johan V.  He is largely the same as his father since I abandoned my 4e plans and moved them all over to 5e (with a brief stop as a 1st Edition character the summer before 5e was out). He is also a Paladin/Cleric, though less of a cleric and again for the Cleric's abilities as an occult scholar.  Johan VI made a study of demons in his life, which is good since he is the Johan that I am now taking through the GDQ modules. 

The trouble with converting the Johans is that original system aside they are largely the same with minor tweaks here and there. I mean, that is what I want, much like how I use Larina in other games as well. The difference is one set is a line of father-son and the other is multiple universe "Variants," which is the current en vogue term, we used to use "Cats."

This Johan was able to recover the legendary sword, Demonbane.

Since I wanted to focus this character completely within the Wasted Lands rules, I am sticking with the Warrior and Sage character classes.

This is also the same Johan, more or less, I am playing in Baldur's Gate 3.

Johan Werper VI

Class: Warrior / Sage
Level: 12/4
Species: Human
Alignment: Light 
Background: Warrior (Wasted Lands p. 185)

Abilities
Strength: 19 (+3) A
Agility: 12 (0) 
Toughness: 14 (+1) 
Intelligence: 12 (0) 
Wits: 20 (+4) N
Persona: 20 (+4) N

Fate Points: 1d12
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 114 
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +7/+5/+3
Melee Bonus: +6 (base), +3 (STR)
Ranged Bonus: +6 (base)
Saves: +4 to all Saves, +2 to Toughness (Warrior background)

Warrior Abilities
Combat Expertise, Improved Defence, Melee Combat, Master of Battle, Supernatural Attacks, Spell Resistance, Tracking, Masters of Weapons, Extra Attacks (x4), Extra Damage

Spells (Sage)
First: Bless, Restore Vitality
Second: Lesser Renewal

Renegade Skills: Level 2

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: Sense Evil
2nd Level: Favored Weapon: Sword
3rd Level: Turn Undead
4th Level: Zone of Protection vs Evil
5th Level: 
6th Level:  Smite
7th Level: 
8th Level: 
9th Level: Great Smite
10th Level:  
11th Level: Destroy Undead
12th Level:
13th Level: Spell: Ball of Sunshine
14th Level: 
15th Level:
16th Level

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Protection

Gear
Longsword, Full plate armor, Holy symbol

Wasted Lands as D&D 5th Ed

Like new D&D since 3.0, 5e introduced a new skill system. Wasted Lands has skills, but takes an old-school approach to using them. Also like 3.x and 4e, the Heroic Touchstones are great ways to fill in some the powers characters have and feats.

This one feels right. I would use the this character. After doing all six I think my preferred mix is Wasted Lands Warrior with NIGHT SHIFT Theosophist.

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Johan Werper V for Wasted Lands

 Moving into very interesting territory now, Dungeons & Dragons 4e.  My 4e days were not long-lived. I liked the game, but I never got much chance to play 4e, though I did rather enjoy it in principle. There were some really neat ideas and I liked a lot of the design elements. Thankfully, emulating the best parts of 4e while keeping the best parts of old-school D&D can be done here.

Johan V was one of a set of twins along with sister Celene. They were the children of Johan IV and his wife Reychel, aka "Rey." (yes that is how I wanted to spell it.)  Rey has a very convoluted history in my D&D 3.x games (3.5) and was a fun character to play. I might detail her later if I have the time.  

This Johan was also a Paladin, while his sister was the Cleric. Gave me the chance to try out both. To be honest, I was pretty happy with the 4e Paladin. Lots of fun things to do. I wish I had gotten to play him longer. Like his father, he was searching for the sword Demonbane, and like his father, he was unsuccessful.

Johan Werper V

Class: Warrior
Level: 5
Species: Human
Alignment: Light
Background: Warrior (Wasted Lands p. 185)

Abilities
Strength: 17 (+2) N
Agility: 10 (0) 
Toughness: 11 (0) 
Intelligence: 10 (0) 
Wits: 13 (+1) N
Persona: 17 (+2) A

Fate Points: 1d8
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 37
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +3/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +2 (base) +2 +1 Divine Touchstones
Ranged Bonus: +2 (base)
Saves: +3 to all Saves, +2 to Toughness (Warrior background), +1 Divine Touchstones

Warrior Abilities
Combat Expertise, Improved Defence, Melee Combat, Master of Battle, Ranged Combat, Supernatural Attacks, Spell Resistance, Tracking, Extra Attacks

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: +1 to melee attacks
2nd Level: +1 to saves 
3rd Level: Favored Enemy Undead
5th Level: Smite

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Protection

Gear
Longsword, Full plate armor, Holy symbol

Wasted Lands as D&D 4th Ed

If you want to give Wasted Lands a more "4e feel" you get really liberal with the Heroic Touchstones. I hate to reduce the differences to just that, but it does work. This is also why Johan V is also just a warrior so I could compare him to Johan III who was also a warrior. V already feels like he is more powerful than his great-uncle Johan III.

This will be even more useful when we get more Heroic Touchstones with Thirteen Parsecs. 

What does this mean for games? You can set the "power level" from gritty dungeon or hex crawl to super-powered heroics as you all see fit.  This is not even taking into consideration the levels built into the system itself.

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Johan Werper IV for Wasted Lands

 When D&D 3.0 hit the game stores in 2000, I was ready for it. I had been away from D&D for a number of years and was really wanting to get back into it. So, D&D 3.0 was the right game for me at the right time. In truth, there is a lot I still love about D&D 3.x, and there were some significant advances made in terms of game design and lore. So, of course, I had to make a new Johan and try out the new Paladin class.

Johan IV is the son of Celene, not Johan III, for a lot of in-game reasons that don't really matter here now. At this point, Celene is much older and retired. Johan IV has begun a quest to recover the sword Demonbane. He didn't find it, but that is another tale for another character.

For this version of Johan, I am opting to try out the Divine Warrior from the Night Companion for NIGHT SHIFT.  Thematically the Divine Warrior doesn't work with the Wasted Lands, everyone has a bit of the divine in them. But mechanically, it works great. Plus this isn't a pure Wasted Lands game, this is "O.G.R.E.S. D&D using the Wasted Lands rules."  

This version of Johan works quite well and helps differentiate him from his forefathers. In my games at this point I was playing around with the ideas of characters marked by the gods. Forgotten Realms has their "Chosen" and I had been working a lot on the Buffy RPG at this point (more on that later) so I liked the idea. Johan IV is not the chosen one (and thus I did not use that class) but he is special. In my Game he was called "The Fist of Pelor" a title for various paladins. My son had a character in 5e who is the "Fist of Bahamut." In this case the Divine Warrior class fits well.

Johan Werper IV

Class: Divine Warrior
Level: 20
Species: Human
Alignment: Light 
Background: Warrior (Wasted Lands p. 185)

Abilities
Strength: 18 (+3) N
Agility: 12 (0) 
Toughness: 12 (0) 
Intelligence: 12 (0) 
Wits: 19 (+3) A
Persona: 18 (+3) N

Fate Points: 1d12
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 110 
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +8/+6/+4
Melee Bonus: +7 (base), +3 (STR), +1 Divine Touchstones
Ranged Bonus: +7 (base)
Saves: +7 to all Wits and Persona Saves, +2 to Toughness (Warrior background)

Divine Warrior Abilities
Sixth Sense, Heal Injury and Illness (20d6), Supernatural Attacks, Protection from Evil, Turn Undead (level 15), Spot Hidden (1-3 on d4).

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: +1 to melee attacks
2nd Level: Cure Light Wounds Spell
3rd Level: Zone of Protection vs Evil
4th Level: Favored Weapon, Sword
5th Level: 
6th Level: Zone of Protection vs. Undead
7th Level: 
8th Level: Paralyze Undead
9th Level: Restore Life
10th Level: Extra Attack
11th Level: Destroy Undead
12th Level:
13th Level: 
14th Level: Spell: Ball of Sunshine

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Protection

Gear
Longsword, Full plate armor, Holy symbol

Wasted Lands as D&D 3rd Ed

D&D 3.0 introduced a new skill system and the idea of feats to the game. Wasted Lands has skill, but takes an old-school approach to using them. Feats though have a good roleplaying (but not mechanical) analog in the Heroic Touchstones.  The Divine/Heroic Touchstones, though do tend to be more powerful than feats.

Speaking of which. The "Divine Touchstones" of Wasted Lands are being used in NIGHT SHIFT and the upcoming Thirteen Parsecs as "Heroic Touchstones." If I can, I might share some of those ideas here later on.

Unless crunching numbers for skills is your thing, I found that Wasted Lands/O.G.R.E.S. is a superior D&D feel than D&D 3.x. Character creation for a 20th-level paladin is also far simpler. 

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Celene Werper for Wasted Lands

 You have followed the exploits of the Werper family, so you might be asking who this is. Celene Werper was/is a very interesting character for me. During play, Johan III got trapped in Ravenloft. Celene was his little sister. She was adopted by the group to come along in their search for Johann III (they did not know he was in Ravenloft). Celene was my first AD&D 2nd Edition character. She was also a test character for a number of things I was trying out.  She was one of my tests for a Healer Class, this time as a Priest of specific mythoi. She was also a pacifist, so I also tried to have her do non-lethal damage whenever I could. She was a healer, an exorcist of sorts later on, and to top everything off, I made her afraid of the dark. So she always had a light source on her, and yes, my DM rolled for extra wandering monsters.  But it was part of who she was.

From very, very humble beginnings game-wise, she would become a very important character. So important that the line of the Wepers now goes through her and not her brother. 

Celene Werper

Class: Necromancer (Light)
Level: 10
Species: Human
Alignment: Light
Background: Scholar

Abilities
Strength: 16 (+1)
Agility: 12 (0) 
Toughness: 16 (+2) 
Intelligence: 14 (+2) N
Wits: 16 (+2) N
Persona: 18 (+3) A

Fate Points: 1d10
Defense Value: 3
Vitality: 76 
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +5/+3/+2
Melee Bonus: +2 (base) +1
Ranged Bonus: +2 (base)
Saves: +5 to Persona, +2 to Intelligence (Scholar background).

Necromancer Abilities
Channel the Dead, See Dead people, Turn Undead, Protection from Dead x4, Summon the Dead, Vampiric Augmentation*, Suggestion x3, Command, Vampiric Touch*, Beguile Spirit, Call the Reaper.

Heroic Touchstones

1st Level: Cure Light Wounds
2nd Level: Light
3rd Level: Eternal Flame
4th Level: Conjure Flame 
5th Level: Cure Disease

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Occult Scholar, Hunter of the Undead

Gear
Full plate armor, Holy symbol

Wasted Lands as AD&D 2nd Ed

AD&D Second Edition introduced some power creep in terms of some of the classes and kits. For that reason I am adding more DivineHeroic Touchstones. Also, I wanted to replicate her healer abilities a bit more. This also begs the question, Why isn't she a Theosophist?  In truth I wanted to try her out as a Light Necromancer. Some one who naturally sees dead people and spirits and wants to help move them on. Her "vampiric" powers work in reverse; she saps her own life strength to heal others. Much like the Star Trek Original Series episode, The Empath.

In AD&D, we did this with our Spell Points system. But in truth it was way overpowered. I would not come up with a good "spell point" system until Ghosts of Albion came along. Wasted Lands already does a much better job of this, but these powers give her a neat set of role-playing hooks as well. 

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.