This Old Dragon #154

Today, we head back to the dawn of the 1990s. It's February 1990. I am working on my undergrad degree in Psych and decided to pick up a minor in Computer Science. I have some great friends, a girlfriend in the last half of the term, and I am having a great time. My roomate's kid brother comes to stay with us a couple of days, I opt to stay at my girlfriend's for a bit. But he has this really annoying friend who came with him playing all these bootlegs in my tape deck telling me I need to listen because this band he has been following is going to be HUGE. I ignore him. The band as it turns out, is Soundgarden. Maybe I should have listened.

The number one song on the radio is "Opposites Attract," a duo by Paula Abdul and an animated cat. The number one film was "Driving Miss Daisy" with Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy. On the shelves and tables is Issue #154 of this old Dragon.

I am getting to the bottom of this giant box of Dragons. Many of them don't even smell musty anymore. As usual, this one is missing a cover. This one features a "war dragon" with an undead rider by Bob Eggleton. 

The Letters section is a bit thin this month. Sage Advice covers some spells from AD&D 2nd Edition. 

James Ward is up with The Game Wizards: Angry Mothers from Heck. Basically Ward talks about the removal of Demons and Devils from AD&D 2nd ed as an appeal to the "Angry Mother Syndrome" which he sees as a good, but somewhat limiting policy. He does conclude that appealing more to heroic motives rather than just wanton killing of hack-and-slash is a noble endeavor. I don't disagree, but I also like fighting demons and devils. 

The Forum covers clerics, the relative merits of the D&D vs AD&D 1st ed vs AD&D 2nd games. I *get* the discussion, but I have admitted here before we so readily mixed the rules that seems like a non-issue to me. 

We get to the featured section of this issue, The Art of Making War. 

Our first article is from Eileen Lucas, with Warrior Kings and Empire Builders, where she borrows from history, and you should as well, to define your warrior leaders. She uses Julius Ceaser and Charlemagne as her examples. 

Eric Oppen is next with The Making of a Paladin.  A fun article about the purpose of playing a paladin. Oppen makes the claim that paladin is one of the most popular class. I can see that. I love playing paladins. Even today paladin is one of the classes most used in Baldur's Gate III.

Heraldry, politics, and feudalism in fantasy campaigns is next in Thomas M. Kane's All in the Family. Covers details on how heraldry originated and how they are designed.  It is a fairly detailed article to be honest. 

For King and Country from Dan Salas gives a new campaign model where the PCs are called to duty by their king. Well new at the time. This sort of game was well covered by Pendragon, Chivalry & Sorcerery, and AD&D's own Birthright.

Thomas M. Kane is back with another long article with How to Win Wars and Influence People. This one grabs details from AD&D 1st ed, 2nd ed and even battle system. There is a lot here, and I am wondering if this would have helped in the massive war I had run about 2-3 years before this article.  It is a great article that I am not 100% sure I get all of. I mean I like massive battles, every so often, but I don't run enough of them to have a lot of experience here.

A bunch ads and we are done with the special feature. While my issue has no cover, it does still have the GURPS poster intact.

Ken Rolston is up with Role-Playing Reviews with three Sci-Fantasy games, and all three are favorites of mine; Shadowrun, Spelljammer, and Space: 1889.

He loved Space: 1889, calling it "pure pleasure" and "comes with my unreserved recommendation." I concur. It might have been this review that made me want to check out this game. He felt Shadowrun was "adorable and surprising" and "impressive, exciting, and entertaining." Again, I concur. I remember driving back to University one night from my home town and talking with my old highschool DM who was getting ready to transfer there.  We talked about his Shadowrun campaign the whole 2.5 hour dirve down. I now have his old Shadowrun book. He also loved Spelljammer but felt that the AD&D 2nd ed rules was it's weakest point. 

I have to admit this article is what I remember the best of this whole issue. I was thinking how cool it would be to mix magic and sci-fi. An alchemy I have been trying to perfect for a while. You see in my Star Wars posts and certainly my BlackStar idea. 

Our fiction section is from all stars. Raistlin and the Knight of Solamnia from none other than Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, with illustrations from Larry Elmore. 

The Lessers, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk are up with The Role of Computers. This month cover the Mines of Titan, M1 Tank Platoon, Star Fleet II, Ghostbusters II, and David Wolf: Secret Agent. I do note that most of the games are now PC-DOS games for the IBM compatible machines. I do miss seeing the Apple, Mac, and even Amiga games. 

Convention Calendar is next with the hottest cons of the winter and spring of 1990. I swear there were more cons then than now. Cons now are bigger for sure, but there doesn't seem to be as many. 

Novel Ideas comes to us from Will Larson and covers the novels coming out of TSR in the next months. They are "Dark Horse" by Mary Herbert, "Warsprite" by Jefferson Swycaffer, and "Nightwatch" a Greyhawk Adventures novel from Robin Bailey. I will freely admit, none of these sound familiar to me. 

Ah, now something I DO recognize, The Voyages of the Princess Ark, Part 2 from Bruce Heard. One day I will collect all of these. For the moment though I'll keep this one to the side. 

Dragonmirth gives us some comics. I recognize Yamara of course. But nothing in color.  There is a jab at the "Trump Game" which I am pretty happy to see. 

TSR Previews lets us know what is coming up in the next couple of months. More Spelljammer, more Monstrous Compendiums, and even a Buck Rogers novel. 

Marcus L. Rowland is stuck at the end of the issue with "Who Was That Masked Android?" overtly for Marvel super Heroes, but can be adapted to other supers games. 

We end with the small ads of Gamers Guide. There is a sub-section here dedicated to Play by Mail games. These were about to head to the same category as Ham Radio; still loved but by an ever decreasing fandom. 

All in all, not a bad issue, but not one that kept my attention then or even today, to be honest. 

Witchcraft Wednesdays: More Occult D&D, the Supernal Tongue

Still working through my ideas on "Occult D&D." 

I have scads of notes on Enoch and Enochian and the connection he has to the occult via figures like John Dee and Edward Kelley. I have always wanted to explore the concept of Enochian as a magical language, but I have not used it. Why? Well, for starters, Enochian works well here due to its ties to history (Dee, Kelley) and myth (Enoch), as well as the gravitas of the Abrahamic religions. That all works wonderfully in a NIGHT SHIFT game, but not for a D&D-like game.

I also have a bunch of notes and ideas scribbled out on Proto-Indo-European languages. My thinking was to use PIE as a sort of root language of the world and one taught to witches, much like the ideas of my first "witch language" posts. 

There is no way I am going to build my own constructed language no matter how cool that sounds. I am no David Peterson. Though I do like to think his Inha language would be fun to explore. Great for Primordial. His Verbis Diablo is also great for Infernal, and I loved the idea of his Méníshè from Motehrland: Fort Salem.  What do all three of these languages have in common other than being constructed by Peterson? They are all explicitly languages learned by witches.

I am not ready yet to put a stake down in a specific witch language. I mean, I assume most Pagan witches are likely illiterate, and many of my other traditions are separated by time and space (Classical and Gothic, for example). So what language would they have in common? Well, nothing witch-specific, but something very occult.

SUPERNAL (Lost Tongue of Creation)

This language is the primordial root-speech from which all alignment tongues are said to descend. It is believed to have been spoken in the earliest ages, before the division of law and chaos, good and evil. Angels and devils alike once uttered its syllables, but even the eldest celestials and the most ancient fiends no longer command it in full.

Supernal is not a common language of conversation but a metaphysical system of sound and sign, wherein words themselves shape reality, bind spirits, and mark the planes. Only a fragment survives. Fewer than two hundred words are known with proper pronunciation, and even these must be taught with precision, for error can render meaning void or bring peril to the speaker.

There are many written forms, the most notable being Supernal-A, a draconic-seeming script often mistaken for true Draconic, and Supernal-B, a flowing elven hand that appears beautiful but yields nonsense when translated as Elvish or Sylvan. Supernal texts (grimoires, tablets, or fragments) are commonly interpolated with Celestial, Draconic, or Elven words to replace what has been lost.

Those Who May Learn It: Supernal is reserved for scholars of the occult, such as high witches, ceremonial warlocks, magi, and certain esoteric clerics or wizards. Ordinary characters cannot select it. Even among such classes, mastery is partial; no individual is known to possess more than a handful of true phrases.

Game Use: Treat Supernal as a secret, universal occult tongue. It may be used to decipher ancient inscriptions, recite certain rituals, or command extraplanar beings when the proper words are known. It is never learned by chance; knowledge of Supernal must come through initiation, tutelage, or the study of rare and perilous texts. Characters cannot learn Supernal unless they meet the following requirements. 

• Must be a witch, warlock, cleric, magic-user, or one of their subclasses. Druids cannot learn this language.
• Intelligence score of 16 or higher.
• Have a free language to learn.
• Find a teacher who knows Supernal.

Costs for this can vary greatly depending on the demand and location. It takes one year for the character to even learn the basics and a decade to learn enough to be able to read any text. For game purposes, treat one year of learning as one level of experience.

Magic-users, as part of their normal education, learn a few words of Supernal along with magical words of Draconic and Elvish. They can be assumed to have had one year (one level) of instruction already.

Phygor

The Ascended Master, Scribe of the Gods, Walker Between Worlds

In the chronicles of magic, few names are so widely spoken and so little understood as Phygor. Born into a wealthy family, he was initially a promising but unremarkable student at the Great School of Magic. Then, as the tale is told, one day he simply stood up from his bench, leaving behind his books, his belongings, and even his half-eaten meal, and began to walk. He walked out of the School, out of city, and out of the world that others knew.

Phygor wandered for years beyond counting, traveling among hermits, witches, shamans, astrologers, monks, and warlocks. He learned a fragment here, a secret there, piecing together what none before him had dared: a greater vision of magic, gathered from every corner of the earth. Some say he spoke with dragons in their dreams, others that the spirits of the land taught him great mysteries. A few whisper that he was shown hidden truths by beings of heaven and hell, who recognized in him a mind vast enough to hold the Supernal syllables themselves.

When Phygor returned, he was transformed. His magics were strange and terrible, alien even to the archmages of the Great School. With these, he crushed a rebellion of wizards not with slaughter, but with dazzling displays of artifice and spells they could not comprehend, forcing them to surrender in awe. Though a man of Law and Good, he did not hoard his knowledge. He broke with all tradition, declaring that magic was not the possession of a cabal or a guild, but a birthright of the wise. He published his findings, opened his grimoires, and gave freely of his lore. Even those of wicked heart who opposed his ideals respected his power and grudgingly acknowledged his genius.

Phygor’s end is disputed. In some tales, he simply walked again, leaving the world behind as he had once left the School, and was never seen thereafter. In others, he ascended bodily into the higher planes, taking a place among the immortals. A few claim he became something greater still: the Scribe of the Gods, known to angels as a shining scribe and to demons as a voice of thunder, recording the hidden laws by which all spells are written.

Among witches, magi, and warlocks alike, Phygor is a luminary sage of study, initiation, and the pursuit of hidden knowledge. To invoke his name is to claim the lineage of the wandering master, the one who saw further than all others and gave what he found to the world. To some, he is a hero, a true master teacher. To others, a dangerous radical bent on upsetting the balance of magic. To all who wield magic, he is a name spoken with respect.

All of the known words of Supernal come from his writings. 

Monstrous Mondays: Guardians of the Library

Photo by Дмитрий Пропадалин

Still working through a bunch of notes for my "Occult D&D" project. I was thinking about my descriptions of "The Library," home of the Akashic Records in my universe, and how I have not really detailed any librarians at all. I am still not today, but I am going to share the Guardians. These creatures keep an "eye" on the collections, make sure no one damages any books or tomes or disrupt other patrons. 

Guardians of the Library
(Custos Bibliothecae)

FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 2
MOVE: 12" (Fly 18")
HIT DICE: 8+8 (always 50 hp) (Greater Guardian: 10+10, always 60 hp)
% IN LAIR: 90%
TREASURE TYPE: Special (see below)
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1–6+3 / 1–6+3 (mace)
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Gust of Wind (breath weapon)
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Immune to fire, sleep, charm, hold; half damage from non-magical weapons
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 30%
INTELLIGENCE: Very
ALIGNMENT: Neutral (orders tend toward Lawful Neutral)
SIZE: L (7' tall)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
    Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
LEVEL/XP VALUE:
 Guardian: VIII / 3,200
 Greater Guardian: IX / 4,500

Guardians of The Library are powerful extraplanar servitors, created by the Unseen Masters to protect the great cosmic Archive known simply as The Library. Their forms appear as animated suits of ancient, rune-marked armor, though the armor is but a shell, within dwells an intelligent elemental force akin to an invisible stalker, but bound by vows of scholarly protection.

They serve as wardens and curators, ensuring the safety of books, scrolls, and ancient grimoires from theft, fire, and willful destruction. Though not inherently violent, Guardians will employ force, escalating as needed, to fulfill their charge. Most patrons of The Library will only see them as silent watchers, pacing slowly down the marble corridors of endless shelves.

On the very rare occasions they speak, their voices are a deep bass and sound hollow, as if the voice is coming from somewhere deep within their suits of armor.

A Guardian attacks with two powerful mace strikes per round, each dealing 1d6+3 damage. Though they carry weapons, these are not enchanted items; they are extensions of their elemental force and vanish if the creature is destroyed.

Once every 3 rounds, a Guardian may exhale a gale-force blast of wind (treat as a Gust of Wind spell cast by a 10th-level Magic-User). Creatures in a 6" cone must save vs. Breath Weapon or be knocked prone and disarmed. The gust will extinguish all non-magical flames instantly and has a 50% chance to snuff out magical fires (e.g., Flaming Sphere, Burning Hands). It is frequently used to subdue would-be thieves or suppress fires before they spread.

Guardians are immune to fire, and suffer only half damage from all non-magical weapons. They are unaffected by sleep, charm, and hold spells, and cannot be turned. They can see invisible, detect heat, and sense intention to harm (as ESP) within 3".

They never pursue to kill unless the lives of other patrons or the integrity of The Library is directly endangered.

Guardians dwell within The Library, an interplanar construct maintained by the Unseen Masters—entities believed to be ancient witches, archmages, or ascended Starchildren. Each Guardian is assigned a section to oversee, and their awareness is attuned to every page, shelf, and ward within that domain.

Once bound to The Library, a Guardian remains in eternal service unless recalled by its Master or utterly destroyed.

Guardians do not eat, sleep, or age. They do not reproduce. Their armor-shells are forged from spiritual metals unknown to mortal smiths. Upon death, they dissipate into rushing air and scattered dust. No treasure is carried save what they guard, which may include scrolls, spellbooks, or occult tomes.

GREATER GUARDIANS

These elite custodians (HD 10+10, AC 0, +4 damage per strike) are found only in restricted or high-risk sectors of The Library, such as the Infernal Stacks, Forbidden Annex, or near tomes written in Supernal. They are also sent to the Prime Material Plane to recover overdue or stolen books, always appearing silently near the offender.

Once per day, a Greater Guardian may Gate in a second Guardian (60% chance, no greater variant), but only if defending The Library itself.

--

The phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" keeps running through my mind here. Who are the Ascended Masters?

#RPGaDay2025 Day 31 Reward

What is reward, really?

Is it gold? XP? Magic items? The thrill of leveling up and unlocking that next power, that new spell, that coveted domain?

Sure. It can be all of that.

But if you’ve been playing for a while, really playing, you know the real rewards aren't measured in coin or mechanics.

The real reward is the story you still remember fifteen years later.

It’s the time your witch stood alone in the haunted chapel, torch flickering, casting Augury with a deck of real tarot cards, trying to divine whether the village elder was possessed, or worse.

It’s the argument your players had, in character, about whether or not to open the sarcophagus sealed with silver nails, or follow that perfectly innocent-looking elf into the dark alley.

It was a battle so tense that you all jumped to your feet when the last die finally landed. 

My oldest’s Sunday D&D sessions will often get quite loud. I’ll turn to my wife and say “oh I wonder what happened this time!” Especially with his recent “It’s Always Sunny in Waterdeep” campaign. I know it will be something crazy.

You don’t tell stories about how many XP you got. You tell stories about the time the halfling bard tricked the lich into believing he was its long-lost apprentice, and somehow, it worked.

You tell stories about that game, the one that went off the rails in the best possible way. The one that ended at 2 a.m. with laughter and a hastily scribbled map and a blood pact to absolutely pick this up again next weekend.

The reward is connection. It’s the friendships forged in dungeons and dark forests. It’s the notes passed between players when they think the DM isn’t watching. It’s the memes, the inside jokes, the long-running gags about cursed dice or that one player who always rolls a natural 1 during stealth checks.

And yeah, sometimes it’s the bragging rights. The tale you tell at the next Gary Con or your local game store. The story you pull out at dinner when someone says, “Wait, you play D&D?”

The reward is knowing you built something together, something weird and magical and fleeting. A tale that never existed before you sat down to roll the dice.

And maybe, if you’re like me, the reward is watching your players squirm when the signs and portents line up just right, and they realize they’ve been dancing on the edge of something much older and darker than they imagined. 

Or when they finally connect all the dots and realize that they, and they alone, are the ones to save the whole freaking world.  When Willow & Tara held hands and jumped into the maw of Leviathan. When my son’s paladin used the Sun Sword from Ravenloft to split the Chaos Stone Lolth was using to cover the world in Darkness. And so many more that have meaning to me and my players.

So yes. Reward is treasure, sometimes.

But more often?

It’s the echoes of shared imagination, still lingering long after the dice are packed away.

It’s the memory of that witch, that warlock, that paladin who fell but didn’t break.

It’s the experience of creating together.

And that?

That’s priceless.

Questions

What. Nostalgic. Character. What Character am I nostalgic for? I have to admit I LOVED playing Johan, my AD&D 1st Paladin. I have played a version of him in every edition of D&D and many other fantasy games. I have even tried a couple of versions of him in Baldur's Gate 3 and other video games. But nothing really compares to that goldenrod sheet and those old sky-blue dice from my Expert set.

--

And that’s a wrap on another #RPGaDAY! Huge thanks to David F. Chapman (Autocratik) and Casting Shadows Blog for keeping this tradition going year after year. It’s been a great excuse to reflect, reconnect, and rediscover why I love this hobby so much. Whether you joined in with every prompt or just caught a few along the way, I hope you found something that inspired you.

See you next year! 

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

#RPGaDay2025 Day 30 Experience

 Wow. Experience. What a loaded word.

Are we talking about experience points? Game experience? Play experience? Player experience? Or what it means to build experience over time, as a gamer, a DM, a creator?

All of it, really, I guess.

I have been posting my Witches of Appendix N to tap into the experiences of the creators and first players of the D&D game, while also incorporating my own experiences and influences. 

But today I want to focus on the experience of exploring different games, and what we carry with us when we return to the familiar.

Recently, D&D influencer Ginny Di did a great video talking about what she loved about Daggerheart, and what she planned to steal for her own games. And while she didn’t name names, we all know she meant D&D. And you know what? She’s absolutely right.

The best games we play change how we think. They expand the toolkit. They remind us there are other ways to do party dynamics, relationships, mechanical choices, and storytelling rhythms. And even if we come back to the same rules we’ve always loved, we bring something new with us.

For me, this has been a theme lately. I’ve spent a lot of time working on my Witches of Appendix N project, not just reading the stories that inspired the first generation of D&D creators, but trying to feel what they felt. What was it like to play this weird little fantasy game in 1974? What shaped it? What inspired it?

But I’m not Gary Gygax. I’m not Dave Arneson. I’m not sitting in a basement in Lake Geneva trying to rework Chainmail into a fantasy skirmish. My Appendix N isn’t just swords and dragons and pulp novels. It’s Dark Shadows reruns on PBS. It’s D-grade horror movies from the ’70s. It’s weird occult books I wasn’t supposed to be reading. It’s Led Zeppelin and  Iron Maiden album covers (I am listening to “Number of the Beast” as I write this)  and pages from Fangoria, Starlog, and Heavy Metal taped into a spiral notebook.

Those are my experiences. And they show up in every spell I write, every monster I stat out, every setting I dream up. No matter how “old-school” I go, it’s always filtered through who I am, what I’ve seen, and what I love.

And I think that’s true for every one of us.

We all bring our own experience to the table, our own flavor, our own influences, our own emotional palette. That’s what makes the hobby so weird and beautiful and impossible to define.

So yes, learn new systems. Try new styles. Borrow shamelessly. Steal structure from Daggerheart, emotional mechanics from Monsterhearts or Blue Rose, pacing from Call of Cthulhu, drama from Star Wars, or epic deeds from Wasted Lands. Fold it all back into your game.

Because your game, your world, should reflect your experience.

And if you do it right?

It becomes an experience someone else will never forget.

Questions

 What. Confident. Lesson.  What lesson am I the most confident in? I would ahve to say the math lessons I built in my games with my kids. It was great fun.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Fantasy Fridays Review: Forgotten Realms City of Splendors

I have not been very good at keeping up with my Fantasy Fridays. Nor have I been good at keeping up with my exploration into the Forgotten Realms. I think that is why so often they end up on the same post. I had good intentions of doing this one yesterday, but sadly my day got away from me.

So here we are, standing outside the gates of the City of Splendors. I read a lot of material about this place, but today is the day I visit the city proper. Reminds me when I first moved to Chicago to be honest. Big city, lots of new and exciting places.  Let's go.

For this review, I will mostly consider my boxed set I scored at an auction a few years back when I was building up my Forgotten Realms collection. I will also bring in the DriveThruRPG pdfs as needed.

Before I get to that though I do want to read, briefly, the "Welcome to Waterdeep" article from Dragon Magazine #128 from December 1987.

The copy I had was falling apart so I took the "Welcome to Waterdeep" article and put it into this boxed set. It fits...rather perfectly. The boxed set was published in 1994, so this article is the perfect introduction.  While there was FR1 Waterdeep and the North and FR8 Cities of Mystery, this article is the "real" introduction in my mind. The traveler's brochure. It is not long, it doesn't need to be, it just describes some areas outside of the city proper. Wonderful lead in.

City of Splendors

1994. Steven Schend with Ed Greenwood. Three books, one booklet, lots of maps. There is so much going on here it is best just to get into it. I count over 300 pages. I am shocked the PDF at DriveThruRPG was under $7.

Book I City of Splendors Campaign Guide

At 128 pages it is the largest book. We learn right away that Waterdeep is Ed's favorite city in all of the Realms. No surprise I think. 

We dive right into the division of the city into the various "wards" Sea Ward, North Ward and so on, and of course the tantalizing City of the Dead, the walled cemetery.

At the time of this writing the population of the city is just over 122,000, so about the size of Topeka, KS. We get some basic geography and some history, but told with the Ed Greenwood charm that makes the reading not seem like a history text. I mean it is, but it is still very engaging. This includes much of the same surroundings as covered in the Dragon article.

The history is split up into the various ages of Waterdeep and then getting into a more detailed timeline. As dry as timelines can be, I do love reading them. I mean I see things like "the Trollwar" and want to go off on a tagent to discover more.  For the record, and mostly for my own record keeping, the current year of this set is DR 1368.

Next up is a chapter on the city wards. This followed by a chapter on Places of Interest & Danger. Honestly there is so much here I could run adventures in Waterdeep for years. The sewer map alone is just begging to be used.

An aside. This came out in 1994, by this time I was working on my first Ph.D. and not buying a lot of AD&D books save for Ravenloft. BUT I was still reading Thieves' World book where I could. Seeing this labyrinth of sewers puts the "Maze" of Sanctuary to shame. Well...it certainly gives it a run for the money. 

There is some minor details on Undermountain. I am not going to get sidetracked by that right now, save that Undermountain only adds to the playability of Waterdeep. I must make an effort to learn more.

Chapter five covers the Lords of Waterdeep. Some of these even I know by name, and others are familiar enough. 

No city book would be complete without a section on Law & Order. (Damn. Now I want to do a "Law & Order: Waterdeep" campaign!)

Sorry. I had to do that.  🎵 Dun Dun.🎵

One of my favorites is next. The Magic of Waterdeep. So all new spells and magic items. 

Appendix One covers trade and travel. One that is very important for our "It's Always Sunny in Waterdeep" game, travel from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate via the High Road is 32 days. 

Appendix Two covers Skullport a city beneath the waves. 

Appendix Tree covers the Blue Alley.

Appendix Four is a conversion of old and new map keys from previous books, and Appendix Five is a very robust index.

Book II City of Splendors Who's Who in Waterdeep

Let's be honest. Ed LOVES his NPCs. There are so many characters here that I should never, ever run out. So what do I get? A 96 page book of MORE characters!

Ok, it is not all characters, there are also roles (that people fill) and the expectations of society. 

Chapter 1 covers Waterdeep Society. I actually take to this one rather easily. There is my social psych background and I have written similar characters for Victorian era games about London. This one is rather brief though.

Chapter 2 has our nobles of the city. So we are leaving "Law & Order" and headed into "Bridgerton" territory. I guess Xenk can be "the Sexy Duke" here too! I wonder who our Lady Whistledown is? My guess is Laeral Silverhand in her Irusyl Eraneth guise. 

That is only a third of the book and I am already overwhelmed with ideas.

Chapter 3 covers the money and guilds. Back in 94 this would have been the chapter for me. But right now  can't get past the Waterdeep/Bridgerton crossover I am now currently planning. Though I don't want to undersell this chapter. The Forgotten Realms was built on the idea of Adventuring Guilds. It is a world that supports the AD&D rules and vice versa. We get more details on Adventuring Guilds in Chapter 5. 

Likewise, in the 1980s, I would dive headfirst into Chapter 4, Religion. I do wish this one was a bit longer. I was looking forward to details on the Temple of Selûne and the abandoned Temple of Shar.

Chapter 5 covers the independent operators in Waterdeep. This includes some details on select Adventuring Guilds. This is a chapter of loose groups and some personalities, but really, this feels more like "Realms" to me. If nothing else, it is a great source of names. The same applies to all the NPCs listed after the groups. Waterdeep also has its own Aleena. Who knew? Well, not me until a few minutes ago. 

Chapter 6 covers the enemies of the City. This gives us a glimpse of Xanathar from the cover of Book I.

Appendix One here is a tale about adventure. Appendix Two is about The Thirsty Throat. 

Book III City of Splendors Adventurer's Guide to the City

Slight editorial aside. I love this cover. It might be one of my favorite Elmore covers ever.

Chapter 1 covers a local's guide to Waterdeep. What I love about this book is it is done from the point of view of locals from Waterdeep. This includes what the common folk know about the various rulers and locales. It covers much of the same territory as the first book, but from a different point of view, so the material does not feel like it is repeated. 

Chapter 2 gives us details on Waterdeep's festival life. This includes a brief coverage (too brief) of Watedeep's nightlife and the various festivals through out the year. 

Chapter 3 covers what it is like to be a Waterdhavian adventurer and what benefits there are to that. We get into some game mechanics here with new Proficiencies. 

Chapter 4 discusses the Waterdeep campaign. This is some good information for new DMs and New-to-Waterdeep DMs. Chapter 5 continues this idea with NPCs of the Adventuring Quarter. Great as NPCs to help/hinder characters. Certainly PCs are far more likely to rub elbows with Branta Myntion than they are Elminster. 

Chapter 6 has some adventure seeds. Though they are going to have to battle for room in my mind since "Law & Order: Waterdeep" and my "Brigerton/Waterdeep" crossover are both being very loud right now. Though seeing how our "It's Always Sunny In Waterdeep" went, I think my Brigerton/Waterdeep crossover will end more like "Laeral Silverhand's Fight Club."

Book IV City of Splendors Secrets of the City

This 16 page booklet really could have been folded into Book III to be honest. It covers similar territory. It is just a more fleshed out set of adventure seeds. But I suppose it works like an adventure pack.

The boxed set also came with more AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Compendium sheets. I copied them here at home to stick in my binder and kept the originals in the box.

There a lot of maps too. 

My favorite is the last one, the map of Waterdeep and all the streets. I'd hand this one up, but I know the lights in my office will bleach it out like it did to my map of Chicago and is doing to my map of Victorian London. 

I have always loved city and urban adventures. There is just so much to do. Hell I am not even sure when the last time characters leveled up in "It's Always Sunny..." but everyone is having a great time. 

I knew this boxed set was going to be great and it lives up to the hype in my head about it. I know I have more books about Waterdeep to work through, especially with 3rd edition coming up later (likely next years really) and 4th and 5th as well. 

I can see why this is Ed Greenwood's favorite city in the Realms. 

I don't recall what I paid for this, but I do know it wasn't a lot. In fact, my memory of it now, I got it pretty cheap. Whatever I paid it was worth every penny. 

Sinéad, Nida, and Company

And what of my erstwhile adventurers in the Forgotten Realms? Well Sinéad and Nida are sticking around Waterdeep for a bit, though my plan was to have them begin going East.  I do know that my characters, Rhiannon and Jaromir, were anxious to return to Rashemen*.  Like I mentioned above, there is no great change to their stats just yet.  Since I am using Sinéad as my way to experience the Realms, I would have to say that, like me, she is fascinated with the city. Her "pagan" background has totally unprepared her for any large city, let alone the largest one on the Sword Coast. 

This is the same with Rhiannon and Jaromir. *Because I have not figured out which witch class to use for her nor how I want to replace the barbarian class for him, they have been largely absent. I said they have gone home, but looking over my notes I see they are still staying in the cheap inn with everyone else. I am going to have to do some work on these two. Maybe a side quest. I could follow the Minsc example and make Jaromir a Ranger. I have to admit that while he began as somewhat generic barbarian, I have been playing him more like a member of the Fianna. I think I'll take a side trek to figure out their AD&D 2nd Edition classes prior to their return home to Rashemen. Rhiannon then should very obviously be a Rashemi witch. 

The question is now, will Sinéad and Nida go with them? That was always my idea. But who knows now. I'll have to see how the games go. I do know that Nida is going to pick up some spellcasting levels. I thought witch, but maybe it will be magic-user/wizard. 

DriveThruRPG PDF

The PDF from DriveThruRPG is a single file of 377 pages. The images are a touch fuzzy but the text is sharp and clear. All the maps are here, but they are in letter-sized chunks. The Monstrous Compendium pages are here too, and can be printed for obsessive/compulsive completists like myself. 

Like I said above, at under $7 this is an absolute steal. 

Final Thoughts

Between the PDF and the used but in fantastic shape boxed set I have, I feel like I robbed someone. There is no way I have paid more than $20 for all of this (boxed set and PDF), and the value is an order of magnitude beyond all of that. 

I loved the AD&D 1st Edition Campaign setting Boxed set, and this is akin to that. Rock solid, enough for decades of play, and I am not likely to run out of ideas for it anytime soon.

Honestly, just so much great stuff here, I am overwhelmed. 

#RPGaDay2025 Day 29 Connect

Nothing in this game works without a connection.

You can run the most finely crafted dungeon, write the most terrifying villain, drip suspense like wax onto the map, but if there’s no connection at the table, it falls flat.

No tension. No stakes. No spark.

Because in the end, this is a shared experience. Between players and the DM. Between the characters and the world. And, maybe most importantly, between the characters themselves.

We talk a lot about storytelling in RPGs. Plot arcs. Mystery reveals. The slow burn of occult horror. But the game isn’t just what happens. It is who it happens to, and why that matters.

Suspense only works if the players care.

Horror only works if the players believe in it.

Mystery only works if the players want to know more.

Danger only matters if they don’t want to lose what they’ve found.

Daggerheart is good at this. So is Blue Rose. They help foster connections that matter. Even the FFG/Edge Star Wars I have been dipping into has this. It’s not really new, of course, we did this a lot with DC Heroes and Marvel Super Heroes.

That’s why I care so much about connection in my games. The bonds between players and characters are the emotional engine behind everything else. When those bonds are strong, everything hits harder. The betrayal cuts deeper. The rescue means more. The shared victory feels earned.  It makes the stakes feel higher and the victories feel better.

Sometimes this connection happens naturally. A few good players click, and suddenly you’ve got a party dynamic that could fuel an entire campaign. Other times, you have to work for it. Give them moments to talk. Space to share. Conflicts that force them to choose each other over the easier road.

And it’s not just about the characters. It’s about the people at the table.

As a DM, I try to read the room. I listen. I adjust. I check in. Because every suspenseful pause, every creepy whisper, every climactic reveal, only works if the players trust me enough to lean in. That connection is the unspoken contract we all agree to when we sit down and roll dice together.

Even when I’m building strange, mythic, symbolic games, when the world feels uncanny and the magic is layered with secrets, what holds it all together is the bond.

Between the witch and her familiar. The rogue and her rival. The paladin and his doubts. The players, sitting together in a shared dream.

Connection makes it real. Connection makes it matter.

And without it?

You’re just telling stories in the dark, hoping someone’s still listening.

Questions

 What. Grateful. Rule. I might have answered this one or some variation of it. What rule am I grateful for Rule #0 that says the GM can change what they need to. 

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