This Old Dragon: Issue #112

 It is August, 1986. I am getting ready to start my senior year in high school. My car was a 1977 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, burnt orange. Its redeeming qualities were that it was built like a tank, it had an amazing stereo system thanks to my older brother, and it had a V8 engine. Of course, anytime I drove it over 50 mph, it would shake like crazy.  The "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera is the number one song (I can't even recall it). Aliens, the action sci-fi sequel to the horror sci-fi movie Alien, is number one at the box office. And on tables and bookshelves everywhere is This Old Dragon #112.

Issue #112 had two standouts for me, and I can recall my reaction to them both very clearly. More clearly than the rest of the magazine to be honest. But that is getting ahead of myself.

My issue is falling apart, but it does make scanning the cover a lot easier. It is another great one from Daniel Horne featuring some dwarves and a flying dragon. Though, given the magazine's content, a dinosaur would be better.  

Letters covers the issues of the month, with some criticisms about the "Death of an Arch-Mage" adventure from the previous issue and "The House in the Frozen Lands" from issue #110.

Kim Mohan's editorial is a brief overview of what he will discuss later.

The Forum has a long discussion about how "realistic" it is to have strength limitations on women characters. The author argues that in practical concern there is no difference between the genders. And counters why we are using "realistic" when it comes to dwarves, elves, and halflings anyway. This is a very good point. 

Dawn of a New Age by Kim Mohan covers the future of Dragon Magazine. I think by late 1986 we saw that there were changes coming to TSR. Dragon changes happened first, followed by D&D. In particular, Mohan himself would be out before year's end. We learn that in addition to the Ares section going away there will be less Science Fiction in general, but more coverage of computer games. This was a trend among all game magazines of the time to pull back and only support the in-house systems.

Our big feature is Dinosaurs by Dragon regula Stephen Inniss. He covers quite a lot of beasts here and gives a lot more detail than what we find in the Monster Manual 2. I have to admit I have always wanted a Dinosaur bestiary for an RPG system. AD&D (like this one) or D&D 5 or anything would be great, really.

Joseph R. Ravitts is up with Revenge of the Nobodies. Or giving the normal humans their due. This would later work well as a basis for the angry villager rules I would use in Ravenloft.

Up next we have one of the articles I remember very well. The very first The Role of Computers from the Lessers; Hartley and Pattie. A few points. First, this one is not copyrighted by them independently of Dragon. Something that we will see in future entries. Secondly, they give us a history of games. Uh...Ok. But does this audience really need this? Third and most importantly, Rogue. After I bought a Color Computer 3 with an INSANE 128k of memory and an external floppy drive, this was the first game I bought for it based on this article alone. And I played the hell out of it. It didn't have the graphics of, say, Dungeons of Daggorath, but it made up for it in terms of re-playability.

Dragon MVP Ed Greenwood is next with Cloaked in Magic, or a bunch of new magical cloaks from what I assume was Elminster's wardrobe. We learn now that Elminster is not just a sage, but also a mage, maybe even an Archmage! Who knew? I can't be 100% sure, but I have my suspecions that Nigel's and Larina's matching Cloaks of Shadows were created after reading this article. Larina would ahve been about a month old at this point and Nigel three years.

An ad for GURPS. One of the "WHAT THE @!¢%*# is GURPS" ads. Making it a very early one.

Also a nice two-page spread for the DC Heroes RPG.

Armor, Piece by Piece by Matt Bandy is for people who want a lot of detail in their armor for D&D but don't want to actually play Rolemaster. What I remember most about this article is I couldn't read it and not have The Tubes "Piece by Piece" off of "Love Bomb" going through my head. Yes. I bought that album and I might be the only person I know outside of a couple of friends who did. Though I am sure someone loved this article and planned out their armor with a lot of care.

TSR Previews is up for October 1986. Of note, the DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor module is on the way. As is I10 Ravenloft II: Gryphon Hill. The Queen of Spiders super module is on the way as is Day of Al'Akbar. I think I bought all of these.

The next big article I remember well is The Dragon Magazine Ultimate Article Index. This covers 10 years of Dragon magazine. Compiled by Jean Black & Wally Black and edited by Kim Mohan, this was a treasure map. True, I did have access to all the locations, but I could make a wish list of articles I wanted to read. I took a highlighter to it and had it all marked up.  And there, on page 64 there was a mention of a Witch Class and a Witchcraft supplement. All I needed to do was get copies of Dragons #5, #20, and #43. Well...according to the ad on page 40, back issues didn't go back that far! Little did I know I only had to wait a couple more months for issue #114. Of course, I had already started my own witch class by this point. But it was exciting to learn that others had also tried their hand at it. 

The dinosaurs continue for a few pages after this. 

William Tracy gives us Dire Invasion, Rom and the Spaceknights, or at least Marvel's comic version of the toy line for the Marvel Superheroes RPG. I liked the idea of Rom and the Spaceknights; it felt a little like the Green Lantern Corps to me, but that is fine. I didn't like the Dire Wraiths, though. It did make me want to do my own dire wraith as an advanced version of the AD&D wraith. 

David "Zeb" Cook is next with For a Fistful of Credits, or more gear to buy for the Star Frontiers game. I know I used these in my own game. This was as close to official content as Gygax writting an AD&D article. 

Convention Calendar covers a few cons for the end of the summer and start of fall 1986. This includes Gen Con. 

Gamers Guide has our small ads, including two artists who will draw your character. Dragon mainstay Anvil Enterprises, and a new one, Walter Moore of Alabama. There is also a small ad for a new game magazine, White Wolf Magazine. I wonder what happened with them?

Dragonmirth has our comics. And we get entries from Snarf Quest and Wormy.

So yes, a pretty solid issue. The Dinosaurs and the Dragon Magazine Index are a must-have, really. Though the index here has been replaced by the Dragondex. 

I spent some time reminiscing over computer games and played some Rogue and Baldur's Gate 3 today, the first and last D&D-adjacent computer games I purchased. They are light-years apart in terms of complexity. Curious note: today in Rogue I was killed by a hobgoblin; later on in Baldur's Gate 3, I was able to make some trades with the hobgoblin Blurg for some needed potions. 

The other big thing for me was that this was the first issue that let me know there had been a witch class in the pages of Dragon, and I was not creating something that no one would want.  I would need to wait for Dragon #114 to see it, but that was only a couple of months away; it wouldn't be until I picked up Best of The Dragon (Volume 1) that I saw the witch from Issue #5. And it would be even longer before I got the Dragon Magazine CD-ROM collection and then saw the witches from issues #20 and #43.

If you are curious, here is what I said about White Dwarf #80, out that same month.

Witchcraft Wednesday: Étaín Moonshadow

 I picked up a new Forgotten Realms game over the past weekend. Sorta. It is actually the same game I have been playing in, just with some new characters. In reality, I am worried less about the setting or background and more about the playtest. I am using this game to try out some more ideas from my Advanced Witches & Warlocks book. While I have the classes pretty much where I want them, I still want to "stress test" them a little more. 

Étaín Moonshadow

 I have half-jokingly referred to Étaín Moonshadow as my Margaret Murray of the Realms. She is a Moon Elf and was born in Evereska. She was an acolyte of Sehanine Moonbow and could have lived the quiet life of a priestess. That was until Sehanine came to her in a dream, telling her there was more to her faith than she knew. The dream, nearly half-forgotten, disturbed her at a fundamental level. She tried to forget it and ignore it, but the more she tried, the more it got to her. 

Her mother was a member of the clergy of Sehanine, and her father was an archivist. This gave her access to documents, scrolls, histories, and tales of the elven folk.  As she read, she remembered tales from her grandmother on how her own grandmother came from the Moonshae Isles, and her worship was different.  Much was the same, but other aspects seemed odd or incongruous at the time. Until she read more and discovered that some of the rituals were similar to those she had read about in Selûnite prayer texts. Liturgical texts lifted word-for-word from Sharan ones. At the start, she believed what any elf would, that humans had copied older elven texts. But as she read, she became less and less certain of that. She began to come to the conclusion that the worship of Sehanine Moonbow, Selûne, and Shar were all one and the same. Even more than the three goddesses were all but a face of a single Moon Goddess.

Étaín left Evereska to seek adventure, at least that is what she said. It was not uncommon for a young Moon Elf to do so. But what she didn't tell anyone was that is was not treasure she sought, but knowledge. Knowledge to support her idea of the Triple Moon Goddess.

--

So now I have this adventuring witch who is not looking for gold and glory, but for knowledge and divine truths.  She feels there is an ancient religion out there, and she just needs to reclaim it. She is also searching for others who share her beliefs. These will be members of the other classes from the book. Some will agree with her, others will challenge her. She will run into the orthodoxy of the Sehanine, Selûne, and Shar religions and she will have to deal with them as well.

Her interest in Selûne started out as an academic curiosity, until the dream of Sehanine. Then it became much more. 

This is also where she is less Margaret Murray and more Raymond Buckland. This ties back to my 1986 connections with his own "Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft" published that year. Étaín is not just searching; she is reconstructing this religion as she goes. "Moonshadow" then becomes the craft name she chooses for herself.

Calling Étaín the "Margaret Murray of the Realms" is only partly accurate. Like Murray, she is assembling scattered traditions into a larger theory. Unlike Murray, though, Étaín is willing to abandon her conclusions if better evidence appears. She is less interested in proving herself right than in following the evidence wherever it leads. In that sense, she also owes something to Raymond Buckland, who took fragments of older traditions and helped shape them into a living modern faith.

So she is a witch character to help me discover more about other witch characters.

Étaín Moonshadow

Moon Elf
Witch level 6

Secondary Skill: Scribe

S: 10
I: 14
W: 16
D: 12
C: 10
Ch: 15

Paralysis/Poison: 11
Petrify/Polymorph: 11
Rod, Staff, or Wand: 12
Breath Weapon: 14
Spells: 13

AC: 10 (None)
HP: 22
THAC0: 18

Weapon
Dagger 1d4/1d3
Staff 1d6

Familiar: Snowy Owl "Nóta"

Spells 
First level: Charm Person, Glamour, Mend Light Wounds, Read Languages, Speak with Animals 
Second level: Augury, Detect Thoughts, ESP, Knock, Suggestion
Third level: Clairvoyance, Tongues

Theme Song: The Mystic's Dream - Loreena McKennitt

Eyes: Blue with flecks of silver
Hair: Black
Born: 1230 DR (age 128)

What excites me most about Étaín isn't whether she'll discover the truth about the Triple Moon Goddess. It is whether she'll change her mind along the way. If the evidence leads somewhere unexpected, then so will she. That's the sort of character I want to spend time playing, and exactly the sort of witch I want Advanced Witches & Warlocks to encourage.

Now I just need to play her some more.

One of the things I want to test with Advanced Witches & Warlocks is whether a witch can drive an entire campaign through curiosity rather than combat. D&D often assumes adventurers are motivated by gold, glory, or survival. Étaín is motivated by questions. If there is an old moon shrine, she wants to read the inscriptions. If there is a forgotten library, she wants to compare its texts. If there is a village with unusual customs, she wants to talk to the oldest grandmother she can find. Success for her isn't measured by magic items recovered, but by another page filled in one of her journals.

When the party enters a ruin, the fighter looks for enemies, the thief looks for traps, and Étaín looks for inscriptions. If someone says, "We found treasure," she'll smile and congratulate them. If someone says, "We found an old prayer carved into the wall," she is already halfway across the room.

Unlike some of my other witches, Étaín does not have a Jackson, IL counterpart. Étaín is too linked to the history and the mythology of the Forgotten Realms in my mind.

Vecna Must Die!

 I just watched the Season 4 finale of Critical Role's "Vox Machina" on Amazon Prime. Don't like Critical Role? Here's 50 cents; call someone who cares. I enjoyed the hell out of it. They set up their Big Bad for Season 5, The Whispered One. Or, as most of us who followed the stream, Vecna.

Vecna is getting some solid multiversal play. He is threatening Exandria; this winter, he was threatening Hawkins, IN, in the final season of Stranger Things. He even had a new multi-versal adventure arc for D&D 5e.  He even had some hits in AD&D 2nd Ed. His name dates back to Original D&D. 

Vecna is a bad dude.

So it seems really strange that I have never run an adventure where he is the Big Bad. I have never even run one where he has been featured to be honest. Oh, I have started some, but by the time they went from idea to notes to something written to the table, it changed. Usually the Vecna "bits" are given over to The Necromancer.  Given his importance to the history of D&D, and in-world history too, it feels like I am missing out.

Trouble is, Vecna, as a threat, is an order of magnitude (or more) above most threats your typical AD&D/D&D5 character would face. Strahd's motivations are easy to grasp; that's what makes him a great villain. Even Iuz has an understandable point of view. Same with Szass Tam, Lord Soth, Areelu Vorlesh, or the myriad other bad guys that litter the D&D multiverse. 

What does Vecna want?

Once I can answer that question, I know what my adventure needs to be. Because whatever it is Vecna wants, it will not be good for the worlds the PCs live in. 

It can't be something as mundane as control. Or even godhood. Casting down all the other gods would get the entire multiverse up in arms against him. No. It has to be qualitatively different. 

What do I want?

That is also a good question. I want something that feels epic in scope and in play. I really don't want a MacGuffin hunt. I mean, it works, yes, but if Vecna has a plan to gather all the Dragon Balls Vestiges Artifacts, then why hasn't he done this already, quietly?

When I say epic, I mean EPIC.

I want it to cross universes, to cross genres, something when the players are done they feel like this was the best adventure of their lives.

What Features Would I Like?

This is a slightly different question. Vecna, as a topic, needs epic gestures, grand plans, multiversal-changing events. Or...more to the point. I need that. I have done hundreds of "small" adventures. Clear out the goblin nest, stop the orc raids, and then escalate. My players have fought Vampire Lords, Demon Princes, Dukes of Hell, and Witch Queens. I can do grand. But this needs to be bigger. I owe that to myself. A grand opus.

1. There needs to be world hopping. 

I said no MacGuffin hunts, but that does help here. I want to sample the worlds of D&D and I want to do it in a quality way. Vecna: Eve of Ruin does this, but I want to do it differently. 

2. I want a Tour of Editions

I have always wanted a campaign where the characters and players switch editions. Start out in OD&D or Basic and work your way up to 5th edition. Each major "Act" is a different edition. That would require me to be extra clever about the characters used and how to structure leveling up. Some pragmatic concerns include different leveling assumptions, i.e., max 20th level in AD&D 2, D&D 3 and 5, but 30+ in D&D 4 and BECMI. Also, class and species. Starting out in OD&D has limits on what classes people have access to. Want to play a Tiefling Warlock? Best I can do is a human magic-user. That being said, I would make allowances. If someone REALLY wants to play a Tiefling Warlock, sure, rules-wise maybe they start out as a human magic-user, but as play (and editions) progress they become that Tiefling Warlock. Which gets me to my next point.

2a. A Guided Tour

I *might* consider grabbing an iconic adventure from each edition and trying it out as part of this epic quest. It's just a thought.

3. I want the Players to have options

I want the players to feel invested in this campaign. I want them to care. The best way to do that is let them play what they want and leave it to me to figure out how to make that happen. SO I am not saying "No" to any reasonable request. So want to play a Teifling Warlock? Great! You can do that. I just need to figure out how to that in the BECMI part of the adventure arc.

4. The Stakes need to be High

None of this works unless what Vecna wants is so cosmos-altering that stopping him is never a question of "why do it?" but instead "how to do it?" The PCs need to stop him. The Players need to want to stopp him. 

What does this all add up to?

No freaking idea.

But it is a fun thought experiment. And it is certainly something I will do one day. I just have to keep picking at it. 

Mirror Mondays: The Witches of 1986, The Final Girl and the Adventuring Party

Candy and Denise, in trouble again.

Jackson, IL is a place where 1980s horror rules apply.

I just finished watching "In Search of Darkness" on Tubi, and it was wonderful. It is about 4 and a half hours long and covers movies from every year of the 1980s. There are some fantastic movies, wonderful interviews (Barbara Crampton and Cassandra Peterson still look amazing!), and just a wonderful romp through some of my favorite VHS, and now Tubi, memories. 

They talked a lot about the "rules" of horror movies and how more recent movies still abide by them and/or try to send them up. They are useful and a lot of fun. 

I have no desire to go by the book on every one of those rules, though. Some of them are better left broken or put into question. Others ought to be hauled out behind the old school and put in the ground where the football field lights can’t find them.

Then there is the matter of the Final Girl. She still has her place.

She matters in that she is the one who spots the pattern. The locked door, the photograph that isn’t there, a name you keep hearing, a song in the wrong room, some sound the rest of them don’t pick up. She puts two and two together before the adults do and lives to see how the horror is done. When the game is well played, she will act on it.

Mina Murray Harker is still my favorite example of a Final Girl. It might seem an odd choice for a discussion of 80s horror, but she is the root of it for me. More than simply being the one to outlast Dracula, she makes sense of things. She organizes the evidence, types up the journals, and turns fear into something you can act on. I find that more to my liking than the "last girl alive" trope.

For the 1980s, we have Nancy Thompson. She is a prime case. She stops waiting for the grown-ups to come to her rescue and starts making ready for the fight herself, having learned Freddy’s rules. Or take Kirsty Cotton in Hellraiser; she doesn’t survive by overmatching the Cenobites but by knowing their rules well enough to make a better bargain than the one they offer. Or  Laurie Strode in Halloween, or Ellen Ripley in Alien (ok, 1979, but she still counts). 

That is what I want in my games. None of the lazy notion that survival is a form of moral superiority, no purity or punishment for its own sake. The Final Girl endures because she learns and adapts and won’t let the monster have all the upper hand. That is good horror design and good adventure design.

In Jackson, the title of Final Girl does not belong to the witches. My playtests have shown it is usually Denise and Candy who are best at it. And that is as it should be.

They are NPCs, certainly, but they stand in for the kind of characters Jackson should be able to support. They are not here to supplant the ones at the table but to demonstrate the sort of arc you can get from the game. YOUR characters should feel like the Final Girl. At least that is my desire. 

Denise and Candy are not the stars of every Jackson game, but they are the proof of concept: ordinary people can stand in the center of the horror and still matter. In fact they can sometimes have the best clarity.

Denise and Candy are always in some kind of trouble. Not from any weakness or foolishness on their part, but because they are right in the human center of the horror. They are tied to the town and its consequences. The witches may spot the occult angles first, but Denise and Candy will see the human side of it. Who is being lied to? Who is missing? Who is afraid? Plus they just have a knack of being exactly where they shouldn't be. More Horror Movie logic.

What am I getting at? Survival is not always about power. It should be about noticing what is going on. 

It is what makes them targets and what makes them valuable.

The horror in this part of Illinois is not just about who wields the magic. It is about who comes through an encounter and doesn’t leave the vulnerable behind, the one you can run to later. That is where Denise and Candy count for most. They don’t just get through a bad night and disappear. 

I would call that a Final Girl arc, and I want one at my table. In a ways it is like The Hero's Journey, just with more AquaNet.

With this logic then there can be more than one "Final Girl." You will not find that in a film. A Slasher is built to whittle things down to a single survivor; a role-playing game has no need for such assumptions. The Game Master ought not to view the rest of the cast as so many bodies laid out to flatter one character’s significance. This is not a screenplay. It is a room full of people making their choices and rolling the dice to see if they can get through the scenario.

In Jackson, the Final Girl might be Final Girls. Or a boy. Or a coven. Or a whole lot of furious, battered teenagers who put up with the haunted school and then have to be in class on Monday. That makes for better play. The archetype is there, but the table is what counts.

And this is where we look at Advanced Witches & Warlocks.

In Gothic Horror, the Final Girl is often the helpless last victim. Mina Harker broke this mold. She is last, but she was never helpless. She was the hero.

In AD&D the Final Girl is the adventuring hero. To make her only the Witch would be too self-serving, too narrow. The Witch has her part to play: she is the one who knows the monster’s true name or reads the omen the others missed. But let the Fighter hold the door. Let the Cleric be the one who won’t abandon the dead. The Thief can spot the way out, the Magic-User the spell that turns the tide, the Ranger can follow the horror to its lair, while the Paladin stands at the threshold. The Gallowglass, the Warlock, the Magus, they all get their due.

The adventuring party in AD&D are all potential Final Girls. Fantasy and horror mix well because the dungeon is a haunted house with rules you have to learn or die by. D&D is different in that it allows your characters to be more than mere survivors. They become the ones who go back in.

You have Nancy setting traps for Freddy, or Kirsty haggling with Hell and coming out the other side. Mina is the one who collects the evidence to put Dracula to the sword. Laurie and Ellen telling the monster, "No." Then the party comes to the crypt with lanterns and spells, and someone says to the monster: "We know what you are now. And we know how to fight you."

That's D&D for "Get away from her, you bitch!"

That is the moment I am after. Not because I want to make horror easy. If the creature is reduced to a bag of hit points, you have lost the tone. But if the characters have put in the work, survived the first pass, and figured out the pattern, then acting on that is no betrayal. It is their reward for paying attention.

The Final Girl isn’t the one the scenario lets off the hook. She is the one who has learned how it works. She knows the rules. And at the table, that can be anyone, or all of them.

Mirror Shard: The Survivor’s Rule

There are times in an adventure, be it in Jackson, IL, or with Advanced Witches & Warlocks, or with your own horror game, when the horror is thick, and the characters have come face to face with the main threat and put up with it. In those cases, put this rule into play.

Let a player who has just survived a run-in with the central horror put in one question to the Game Master about the creature’s weakness, its limits or how it operates. You must give a straight answer. It doesn’t need to be exhaustive, but it has to be true. The character has been there and seen what the rest of the party has not. This is their reward for paying attention. For surviving. 

Some good ones to ask might be:

• What does it invariably do before making an attack?
• Is there a name that will make it pause?
• What has it left in its wake?
• Who is it after, really?
• Where won’t it go?
• What old mistake has it made?
• What compels it to follow a certain rule?

In Jackson, you can think of it as genre knowledge born of fear. The survivor has picked up on the rhythm of things; she knows the hallway is quiet when it should not be, or what tune precedes the ghost. She can tell the adult is lying because she has heard the lie from him before. With the Advanced Witches and Warlocks, it is more of an old-school affair. They have put themselves in harm’s way to see how the monster behaves, to watch it choose or reveal itself.

But don’t let the rule be a way of handing them the answer. Make it the basis for their next dangerous decision.

It is horror movie logic, gamified. 

It is the desire to survive against terrible odds, certain death, or worse. 

The "or worse" is important. In AD&D, death is something that happens a lot, and there are ways to raise the dead. In Jackson, death is a much bigger deal. A death can shut down a community, and there are no Raise Dead spells here. Dead is dead.

But Player Characters are not Horror Movie Characters. So the fear may never be as real to them. I keep thinking about "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors". Those kids are still in terrible danger. Freddy is still Freddy. But once they understand that the dream gives them a kind of power, the game changes. They are not safe. They are not invincible. They are just no longer completely helpless.  That is what the Survivor’s Rule is meant to do. It gives the players a small edge, earned through fear and attention. The Big Bad can still be bigger and badder. In fact, it probably should be. In the end Freddy still gets most of them. 

That is why I keep coming back to the Final Girl. Not as a fixed role, and certainly not as a body count waiting to happen, but as a way to think about play. Horror gaming works best when the characters are frightened, outmatched, and still paying attention. Jackson, IL gives me Denise and Candy as my working examples of that. Advanced Witches & Warlocks gives me the adventuring party as the fantasy version of the same idea. Different clothes, different weapons, different rules, but the same moment at the table: the monster has shown itself, the players have survived long enough to understand it, and now someone gets to say, "We know what you are." That is when horror becomes adventure.

Supergirl Day and Larina for DC Universe

 So last year I got super-hyped for the new Superman movie. I loved it and it was a great new start to a new DC Universe on screen. Tonight I am going to see the new Supergirl movie and I have heard some good things about it. Milly Alcock looks great and I loved her in "House of the Dragon."

I have always been a fan of Supergirl, and I think she works best when she is treated like the survivor of an apocalypse. Kal-el is an adopted son. Kara is the last survivor of a world and should have a lot of unresolved trauma and anger.

I loved Melissa Benoist in the role of Kara, but I am looking forward to seeing this different take on her.

This also got me thinking about the "new" DC Comics-related RPGs we have coming out.

The first is the overdue DC Heroes Role-Playing Game 40th Anniversary Kickstarter to get us the classic Mayfair DC Heroes game.  I am still excited for this one and can't wait to give it a spin.

There is also the new Justice League Unlimited: The Roleplaying Game coming out soon. There is a fun quickstart rules, and I can't wait to try out the full game. 

I was spending some quality time last night with Larina for another post next month and thinking about DC. I have stats for her for Mayfair's DC Heroes, and by the way of Mutants & Masterminds 3.0, I have them for DC Adventures. 

But what I have never posted are her stats for the DC Universe game. 

There is a good reason. I owned it briefly in the mid 2000s but ended up selling it at a game auction. I like the D6 system and want to do more with it, there is something about it that has just never clicked with me.  No slight on the system, I think I just need to try it more. 

So I have a sheet for her, but it was incomplete. So I went to the D6 Legend open gaming SRD and tried to put her together. I was up far too late last night doing this. In truth, I don't even know if I did it right.

Larina Nichols / Nix the Witch Queen

Real Name: Larina Nichols
Occupation: Witch, Librarian, Occult Investigator
Base of Operations: West Haven
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Divorced
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 135 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Red
Race: Human / Homo Magi
Tech Level: Modern (1)
Motivation: Responsibility of Power
Enemy: Mordru, The Dark Lord

Reflexes 2D
brawling 3D, dodge 4D, driving 3D, sneak 3D

Coordination 2D
catch 3D, sleight of hand 3D, throwing 3D

Physique 2D
flying 4D, resistance 3D, running 3D

Knowledge 4D
arcane lore 8D, criminology 3D, languages 5D, medicine 3D, research 6D, scholar 5D
Specialties: arcane lore: demons +1D, arcane lore: witches +2D, research: occult texts +1D

Perception 3D
artist/music 3D, hide 4D, know-how/witchcraft 7D, search 5D, shadowing 3D

Presence 4D
animal handling 5D, charm 5D, command 4D, persuasion 5D, willpower 7D

Speed: 30
PDV: 3
Unarmed BDV: 2D
P/L Bonus: +2
Hero Points: 12
Villain Points: 0
Character Points: 105
Body Points: 32

Advantages
Attractive +2D, Ally: Cotton the Familiar -2D, Connections: A.R.T.E.M.I.S. -2D, Connections: Occult Underground -2D, Courage -2D, Magically Adept -5D, Scholar -2D, 

Disadvantages
Sense of Duty: young witches and the Gifted +3D, Secret Identity +2D, Reputation: feared and respected in occult circles +2D, Power Limitation: incantations and gestures required +4D, Relationship: Cotton +2D, Enemy: Mordru +4D.

Powers

Witchcraft 10D
Limitations: incantations and gestures required -3D, magical/occult effects only -2D, backlash on critical failure -1D.
Enhancements: broad spell flexibility +3D, ritual magic +2D.

Second Sight 6D
Limitations: magical, supernatural, and dimensional phenomena only -2D.
Enhancements: detect magic, occult residue, spiritual presences, active spells, and magical beings.

Flight 5D
Limitation: broom, charm, or active levitation spell required -2D.

Teleportation 5D
Limitations: mirror, water, polished glass, or reflective surface required -3D.
Enhancements: accurate +2D, extended range +1D.

Mystic Shield 8D
Limitations: must be conscious and able to cast -2D.
Enhancements: protects against magic and supernatural attacks +2D.

Magic Blast 8D
Limitation: witchfire, force, or occult energy only -1D.

Illusion 6D
Limitations: glamour and sensory deception only -2D.

Mind Control 5D
Limitations: charms, binding words, fear, sleep, or compulsion only -2D; resisted by Willpower -1D.

Summon Familiar 4D
Cotton is a small incorporeal white cat familiar with danger sense, mental link, stealth, spirit perception, and limited independent action.

Common Spell Effects

Witchfire Bolt: Magic Blast 8D, ranged attack using know-how/witchcraft or Witchcraft.

Witchfire Ward: Mystic Shield 8D, usable on Larina or one nearby ally.

Binding Curse: Witchcraft 10D opposed by the target’s Willpower or Spirit resistance. Success restrains, silences, slows, or mystically marks the target.

Part the Veil: Teleportation 5D through a reflective surface.

Divination: Second Sight 6D plus arcane lore or research. Reads magical traces, past impressions, omens, and supernatural patterns.

Glamour: Illusion 6D, usually subtle rather than combat-flashy.

Call Cotton: Summon Familiar 4D. Cotton can scout, warn, distract, or perceive spirits.

Equipment

Occult library access, notebooks, charms, ritual kit, protective jewelry, cell phone, library credentials, broom or broom-charm, Cotton’s anchor token.

Strategy & Tactics

Larina does not fight like a brick or a blaster. She opens with Second Sight, research, and wards, then uses binding magic, glamours, and mirror movement to control the field. Against normal criminals, she uses fear, sleep, misdirection, and restraint. Against supernatural threats, she escalates quickly to Witchfire, wards, banishment circles, and ritual magic.

She carries a charm that turns into a broom so she can fly. 

I like giving her Mordru as an antagonist. The dude fascinated me as a kid, and I thought he was a great bad guy. Felt a little like an evil Dr. Strange in the DC universe.

This also gives me an opportunity to bring back A.R.T.E.M.I.S. Maybe I need to work it into my West Haven game. It is a bit too modern, and its scope is a bit too much for Jackson. 

This also reminds me I still have a lot of games here I need to dig into more.

BECMI Binders

 I saw this post on Facebook a bit ago and I thought it was rather great. This guy, Vinnie Notabartolo, had taken his BECMI books and placed them all in binders. Frankly, I loved the idea.  I had already done something like that for my BX books. Giving me "table" copies so I could put my boxed sets out of reach of the UV light from the office/game room. He looked great, and I wanted to do something similar. So thanks to Prime Day sales, I grabbed some binders, took out my old DriveThruRPG printouts and now I have a complete set.

I also did the backs and the spines.

I didn't get into BECMI until much later in my gaming life. I began with Holmes Basic and moved quickly to Modvay Basic/Cook & Marsh Expert and then on to AD&D.  So BECMI has been a "new" thing for me. But like all recent converts, I am a zealot.

The interiors are from DriveThruRPG PDF printouts, so that is good. This also allows me to put my boxes into the lower shelves, where they are more protected from the light. Also my Masters box set is in terrible shape. 

I'll add more color-coded character sheets, like I have with Raven Swordsmistress of Chaos, back when I did her stats for BECMI.

The binders are 1½" so there is a lot of room left over. I might pick some materials for each to add. I might throw in my B/X Basic and Expert into their respective binders too since I have so many copies of B/X. 

The one I don't have filled yet is the Green Rules Cyclopedia Set 6.

I have an old, beat-up copy that has been missing a cover. I could take it apart and put that into the binder. Might be cheaper and easier than printing one out here at home.

I am happy to have a complete set of these.

The Witches of Appendix N: A. Merritt

Abraham Grace Merritt, also known by his byline A. Merritt, was a new name to me when I was reading through Appendix N for the first time many, many years ago. Not a surprise, really. He was a contemporary of Howard and Lovecraft, publishing in the same magazines, but he was older (20 and 10 years or so respectively) than both. He was also more successful in terms of publishing and earnings. However, he lacked what made Howard and Lovecraft household names: strong, recognizable characters. He had them, but they were largely cut from the same cloth.

In Appendix N, Gygax mentions three of A. Merritt's tales: "Creep, Shadow!" "The Moon Pool," and "Dwellers in the Mirage". He even said in the DMG, "The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt." That's a strong endorsement. 

In Merritt’s tales, you will find intrepid, but often normal, folk making their way out of the world they know and into territories subject to much older rules. Often "occult" in nature, with the "hidden" meaning of occult being the main focus. There are lost civilizations down in the earth, monsters that are holdovers from another time rather than simple beasts, ancient and forgotten religious practices, and a blurring of the line between sorcery and the super-science of antiquity. That same sort of imagination is at work in D&D’s underworlds and its odd ruins or cities that should not be there, right down to the dark domain of the drow and their queen. In a way, Merritt puts it into perspective: the dungeon is a threshold, not just a collection of rooms. 

Merritt was a collector of the odd, with an air about him that could have been plucked from one of his own tales. He would go traveling and come back with masks, carvings, weapons, and the like, or whatever unusual instrument he could find. At home, he put in order a private library of occult works that ran to several thousand volumes, and he even had a hand in growing plants with a history of poison, witchcraft, and visions.

I mention this because it goes some way to explaining the quality of his fiction. When Merritt put down a priestess or a lost god, he wasn’t working from the kind of thin pulp vocabulary you might expect. His head was full of folklore, botany, ritual, and the occasional nightmare, as well as his share of anthropology and occult theory. Read his best, and you get the sense of a room walled with forbidden books, each shelf suggesting a world far older and less human than we care to think. He was doing the same sort of research into writing his tales as I am doing into reading them.

For me, he feels like a go-to author for the ideas about "Occult D&D," a hidden world just behind the real world we all know. Even sometimes this hidden world is both metaphorically hidden, as in "Burn, Witch, Burn," and geographically hidden, as in "The Moon Pool." 

To explore this, I am going to go beyond the three tales Gygax mentions and into his other works; again, the focus here is not just on the contributions to AD&D/D&D but on how witches or witch-like characters appear in his stories.

Burn, Witch, Burn! (1932)

This is obviously an important one. 

In addtion to the titular witch(es) we get an idea that is very central to my notion of what occult magic needs to be in an AD&D game, namely an older form of magic. In "BWB" the witchcraft of the animated dolls is an older "Science" in Occult D&D witchcraft is an older magic. Both are occult in their nature. 

Based on his essays published at the time this story was heavily influenced by his own interest in witches, witchcraft and the plants used by witches. Madame Mandelip, the antagonist of the tale, gets her name from the Mandrake root used by witches and is also consequently seen as a miniature man. 

I was also impressed by his use of the nine-knot "witch's ladder" in the tale, a nice attention to detail. "Attention to detail" is key, Merritt's style includes a lot of detailed descriptions of what is happening and what things look like. 

The origin of the doll maker, Madame Mandelip, from Prague, reminds me of the tale of The Golem.

This story was also loosely adapted into the screenplay for the 1936 Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks) movie, The Devil Doll. 

A. Merritt on Modern Witchcraft (1942)

Appearing later on in his career, this brief reflection deals with a case he witnessed of Pennsylvania Dutch Powwowing, or Witchcraft. Here, an anemic child was tied to a bloody sacrificed ewe and was "miraculously" healed. Honestly, it would have been as likely to kill the poor girl, too, but as Merritt points out, there might be some hitherto unknown science going on here. 

While the "hex doctor" here could have negative connotations ("hex" = "evil") this is obviously the case of healing sympathetic magic. The blood, or even the life force, of the ewe is being transferred to the little girl. 

I should note that Merritt's description of his participation here parallels that of many of his protagonists: a man of reason thrust into a world dominated by the supernatural. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that such practices occurred in Pennsylvania Dutch, Appalachian, and European folk magic. Did Merritt actually see this happen? I have no idea, but I am willing to take him on his word.

The Doctor in both tales is named Dr. Lowell.

Special thanks to Chrisladams Bizarretales and the A. Merritt Fan Group on Facebook for helping track this article down. 

The Dwellers in the Mirage (1932)

Here we have a lost Alaskan valley, a cult that worships an octopoid godlike being, human sacrifice, and the whole notion of reincarnation. Then there is the modern hero who finds himself confused with, or drawn into, some mythic identity of yore. Here again is another lost world and one many have seen as the prelude to Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness."

Khalk'ru certainly feels like another name for Cthulhu. You can almost squint and see that the names are related. 

There is a lot here that is foundational to D&D from an Appendix N perspective. 

Lur the witch woman is practically flirting with me. Strong, powerful, red hair, blue eyes. She is like Larina's distant ancestor. She is called the witch woman, but she doesn't do much that is really witchy, save for talking to wolves and stirring up memories in Leif/Dwayanu, though that could also have been just him or the past-life memories.  Or a "subconscious intracutaneous retro-fold memory loop" as Donna Noble would have called it. 

Lur has a witchy quality by virtue of being part of the threshold; she is of the hidden world and remains so until the hero gets his head around it. She is privy to the names and old identities, the cultic duties, the wolf-roads, and the emotional underpinnings of a place that ought not to be here any longer. You could call her a fine Appendix N witch for that, spell-casting or not. Put it in D&D parlance: she is the one who has an idea of what the dungeon is all about long before the party has found the stairs.

Certainly, the cover of this edition could have influenced the cover of the most witch-coded of the original D&D covers, Eldritch Wizardry.

Still quite an engaging tale.

The Moon Pool (1919)

I remember picking up "The Moon Pool" many years ago, reading it, thinking it was very good, and then never reading anything else of his after that.  Which is too bad, because he is quite good, and he sits at a nice intersection of fantasy and horror. 

There are many elements here similar to those of The Dwellers in the Mirage. Lost lands, lost races, powerful entities, the battle of good vs evil. 

Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One, plays the role of the tempter witch here...sort of. She uses her beauty as a weapon, but it is not her only one. She participates in rituals (called a Witches' Sabbath) and channels the power of the Shining Ones. She has glamours and even something like an evil eye. So even though her powers seem more like lost science than magic, she has more witch-coded powers than Lur the Witch Woman. She is even called an evil witch at one point.

For D&D, what appeals to me is that Yolara is more than just a "female magic-user." You have a priestess and a politician in her as much as a seductress or an occult technician. She has a firm grasp on the rules of her world and how to put them to work. That is exactly where Merritt is useful for Witches of Appendix N. His women of power are not always witches in the fairy-tale sense, but they often occupy the same role a witch occupies in myth and gaming. They are the ones who can stand in the presence of old power and know how to talk to it.

Ship of Ishtar by Virgil Finlay

The Ship of Ishtar (1924)

Sharane, priestess of Ishtar, is another near-witch figure. She is the priestess of a lost and secretive religion. Sharane is a good example of the divine witch. She has witch-like magic and serves Ishtar in a supernatural environment. 

She is what I would call a Witch Priestess. 

Sharane is especially useful because she shows how close the witch and the priestess can be in Appendix N fantasy. To be sure, she is in service to a goddess, but you would not mistake her for some tidy D&D cleric in his mail armor with a cure spell on his lips and a holy symbol at hand. Her world is one of beauty and desire, of temple mystery and curse, of mythic time. She hails from a more ancient religious sensibility where the divine is as intimate as it is perilous, and love, magic and death are all facets of the same issue. Where you have Yolara the tempter or Lur the wild witch of the hidden valley, Sharane is the sacred witch; her authority is drawn from the goddess, from rite and old obligations.

We certainly get the Charm Person spell from here. Or at least one source of it.  

The Near Witches

These tales have women who are near witches. They are not witches per se, but live in a world where witches could live. 

The Women of the Wood (1926)

While not a witch per se, this tale offers another glimpse into the idea of a hidden world next to our own. In the French countryside, a man encounters a woman who is not what she appears to be and then is exactly what she appears to be. Also, if you are not playing your dryads like this, you are missing out. 

Seven Footprints to Satan (1927)

While not really Satan (or his he?), this tale treats the world of crime and its underground, akin to an occult underground. While there are no witches here, it is a great tale on how to possibly use a criminal organization. Again, here is Eve, who is not a witch, but she does have some occult, as in hidden, knowledge.

--

You could say Merritt’s greatest gift to the concept of the Occult in D&D is his treatment of magic as an old science rather than a simple list of spells. He has put his stamp on it with the idea of an older order of powers just beneath the surface of what we know. You will find cults and priesthoods, forbidden things that have survived the ages, secret rites, odd plants, and ancient deities; modern folk may write them off as superstition because they can't think of anything better. A rational sort might come by this world, but he won’t find it easy to master. Case in point, nearly every Merritt hero. 

Then there are the Witches of Appendix N. Merritt presents the witch as one who stands at the threshold. Whether she is a villain or a queen, a living idol or a guide, she is the one who understands the world’s older rules ahead of the hero. Certainly, before the hero does. 

She might be Madame Mandilip in her shop with her murderous dolls, or Yolara, the priestess of the Shining One. Perhaps she is Lur, all red hair and danger in some forgotten Alaskan valley, or Sharane, Ishtar’s darling and victim to a divine curse you couldn’t put a date on. 

He didn’t hand D&D the witch class on a plate, but he has provided a shelf full of witch-shaped ideas for us. In my book, that is enough to work with.