Mystara, The Known World of BECMI

Spend any time here and you will know that the Known World of the Basic/Expert Sets (B/X) was the first world I played in.  While I would move on the AD&D and Oerth the Known World would also move to Mystara.  It would be the world introduced to us in the Companion Set and expanded on the Gazeteer Series, the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, and even into the 2nd Edition age and beyond.

But it was in the Companion and Master Sets that Mystara got its start.

The Known World of  B/X was based on the world of Tom Moldvay and Lawrence Schick.  He detailed it a bit over at the Black Gate blog. This was expanded on by James Mishler in a post on his blog Adventures in Gaming, The Original Known World. But that only leads us to the B/X known world, not the one in the BECMI Companion and Master sets.

The B/X Known World only occupies the East-most lower gray box.   The BECMI World, Mystara, is going to be bigger.  Even this is just the continent of Brun.

I am not sure who came up with the idea for Mystara to look the way it does but there are some obvious parallels.

From the Master DM's Book,

Here is Mystara, courtesy of http://pandius.com/

If it looks familiar there is a good reason.

(image from here, http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm)

That is the Late Jurassic, early Cretaceous period of the Earth, 150+ Million Years Ago.

Long time reader here already know of the Paleomap Map project of Earth History.  It has many maps of the different stages of Earth history and potential future maps.  I will admit when I first saw maps of the really old Earth it was disquieting to me.  I love maps and throughout all of human history, the Earth has been the same. Not so throughout ALL history and prehistory.

It's also kind of cool to see where the places of Mystara will line up to our world.

Mystara and the Lands beneath the Waves by Grimklok

The Known World of Mystara was later expanded and given more detail in the wonderful Gazetteer Series, the Hollow Earth series and finally the Challenger series.

While delving into everything Mystara would take me another month, or another year really, there is still vibrant and active community on the web to support this world.  In fact I would say it is far more active than most other worlds. Starting in the early days of the MPGN listserve lists run by TSR, the MYSTARA-L listserve was active back in the days when my access to the Internet was via a mainframe.  Many of the same people on those lists then are still active in the various Facebook groups and websites today.

For me, I always had a soft spot in my heart for Mystara. It was the world of my Basic era days and when I moved on AD&D I still kept the world as "my own."  It was understood that when I was a player it was in Greyhawk/Oerth but when I was a DM it was in the Known World/Mystara.  Eventually, right before college, we merged our worlds into one. I got the western half and my DM got the eastern half.  So you know I was thrilled when I found the James Mischler/Chatdemon Mystoerth map.  The worlds share a lot of details in common so that a merge was inevitable really.

Click for larger

This appears to be the original map.  While researching this I found an old post by Rich/Chatdemon that offers up an alternate name, Oerstara.  I kinda like that. A lot.  It sounds like Ostara, the pagan holiday that Easter comes from.  Oestara could have been an alternate name for the planet. Like Earth and Terra.

What I love about Mystara (Mystoerth) is that while so much of the world is "known" there are still many, many parts to discover anew. The communities are also very active in detailing new places, moving the timeline forward and adapting material from other sources.  I have already seen plans in place to adapt a new 5th Edition book to Mystara months before the book even hits the shelves.  That's dedication.

Would I like to see WotC produce new Mystara material?  Sure, but if they don't I know the world is in fine hands.

Links

• The Vaults of Pandius - for everything Mystara
• The supercontinent Pangaea showing regions of low oxygen.
• Facebook Groups & Pages
• Mystara
• The Piazza
• Vaults of Pandius
• Mystara Cartographic Society
• Atlas of Mystara
• Threshold Magazine
• Sages of Mystara
• Mystara Reborn
• Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Mystara

BECMI: Master Set Review

Moving every up we are now at the apex of BECMI D&d Play for normal characters.  The journey that began at level 1 in the Basic set is now seeing its end at levels 26 to 36 in the Master Set.
This particular set was never on my radar and I only picked one up a couple years ago.  The box was beaten up and the contents were water damaged, but still readable.  The box also had an extra copy of the Immortal rules inside, so that was a nice bonus.  But this has always been something an "other" for me and my D&D game.

Today I look into these rules for the first time in detail.

The Master set covers levels 26-36, following right from the Companion rules.  I am going to say that in my reading of both sets I am convinced really that they likely should have been combined into a single set of rules.  Big set to be sure, but the overlap is often very significant.

D&D Master Set (1985)

As with the previous BECMI Sets, I am reviewing both my boxed set and the PDFs available from DriveThruRPG.

The Master Players' Book
This book is the smaller of the two at 32 pages. Color covers, black & white interiors.
There are some interesting things to note on page 1.  First, we are told this is the Dungeons & Dragons game by Gary Gygax.  Dave Arneson is no longer listed.  Also, this book is "compiled by" Frank Mentzer as opposed to "written by."   I am not going to try to read too much into this. Writing on the book was complete in Spring 1985.  It would be published that summer in July but it would soon be eclipsed in sales by the Unearthed Arcana for AD&D which had sold well.  Though in 3-4 months it would all change and Gygax would be ousted from TSR.  But that is a topic for another day.
Like the previous books, this one covers all the details needed for characters up to the vaulted 36th level.  Clerics and Magic-users see the most text devoted to them. Clerics gain additional turning abilities which include more monsters and the ability to affect more monsters.  They also get more spells but still top out at 7th level.  More druid spells are also presented here. Magic-users also get more spells including the most abused spell in D&D history, Wish. Again they top out at 9th level spells.  Even clerics get access to Wish if they are 36th level and have a wisdom of 18 or greater. Magic-users also get Heal. Which I admit seems a little odd to me.
Fighters get half of a column or 1/6 of a page for their updates.  Thieves get a page.  Dwarves, Elves, and Halfling get a page to share.
There are some new armor options, but the biggest inclusion is that of Weapon Mastery. This mimics the Weapon Proficiency we will see in the Unearthed Arcana and future editions of D&D.  Essentially fighters are better with a chosen weapon.  while I have heard and read that this can lead to fighters becoming too powerful at early levels, I don't think this is really a big deal. I like the idea that a fighter should be able to train with a weapon exclusively and become better at it.
We get expanded weapon and damage charts to include all the weapons that have been added since the Basic set. Plus some Pole-arms (maybe Frank was looking over Gary's shoulder a few times!)
There is even a section on siege weapons that can be used with the War Machine rules.
so a lot yes, but nothing that really screams Masters to me.  A lot of what is here could have been added to the Companion rules for a 48 page Player's book.

The Master DM's Book
This is the larger at 64 pages. Color covers, black & white interiors.
One of the neatest bit of this book is finally getting a map of the Known World.  It is so great that I am going to devote an entire post just to that later this week.

Like the books before it, this section is given over to Procedures first. First up is a ruling on Ant-Magic Effects.  Good to have really for any version of the game.  some detail on characters are also given including Character Background.  It is 1985 after all.  A couple of other things stand out.  We get our first taste of the Immortal rules here with the introduction of the idea of Immortals as the "next level up."
Monsters get an upgrade here with expanded to hit tables; Creatures to 33+ HD and Armor Classes from 19 (yes +19) to -20.  But that is not all.  Monsters also get an average Intelligence rating. All creatures from all four sets are covered.  Along with this intelligence rating, there is an optional change to charm based on intelligence.  It's neat, but I would rule that intelligence has no effect at all on charm magic.  No that is the realm of Wisdom.  In my copy I would cross out "Intelligence" and replace it with "Wisdom."
Included here for some reason is also the Mystic class.  Expect it is not really presented as a full class.  It is not the Mystic that Gygax was talking about in Dragon magazine, but rather a different version of the AD&D monk.  It appears again in the Monster section.
Another update to monsters, in particular, non-human monsters are spell casting monsters.  Dragons are discussed, but we also get the Shaman NPC class (Clerics) and the Wicca NPC class (Magic-Users).  There are some interesting ideas here and some level limits for a large variety of monsters.  I am curious as to why Frank choose "Wicca."  I am sure that the meaning here is "witch" and that is not just my biases.  If you look back over the various BECMI books Wicca, Witch, and Wokani get used failry interchangeably.  I discussed this in a recent Class Struggles post.
On the other end of the spectrum from Immortals, we also get Undead Liege Lords and how they can control lesser undead.  Also useful for any version of the game.

The next big section of the book belongs to the Monsters.  Like the Companion Set this one is broken up into Prime Plane creatures and outer plane creatures.
Here we get some very new looking monsters that would only later move on to the main AD&D/D&D lines.  We also get what I like to call BECMI versions of some others.  The Devilfish is essentially an Ixitxachitl. Blackballs remind me of Xeg-yi.  We do get new Dragons in name, Crystal, Onyx, Jade, Ruby, Sapphire and Brown. But they share stats with dragons we already know. We also get the four rulers of the Dragon kind, Pearl, Opal, Diamond and the Great Dragon.  There are Drakes which are not exactly like the Drakes of later D&D and closer to shapeshifters.  These could even pass for the elusive Mystaran Dragonborn.
We also get Faeries, Hags and Liches to round out what I consider some of the classical monsters.
Part 3 of the monsters listing includes stats from all sorts of B/X and BECMI monsters published elsewhere (other rules, modules) and then brought into the fold of the full BECMI rules.  So even the oddities like Brain Collectors and Lupins from X2 Castle Amber are here.
The last 20 pages of the rules cover magical artifacts; something we have not seen in BECMI to any degree yet.  There are detailed rules for artifact creation and a number of new artifacts. Many I have never seen before and none copied over from the AD&D DMG.
In fact, there is so much here that I am going to cover it all in a future post.
There are only a few "normal" magic items listed at the end.

Ok. So the Masters Rules feel very uneven to me after the Companion Rules.   I could see where it might have been better to instead take both sets and merge them into one and maybe top out at 25th or 30th level really.  We will see that re-organization in the future.

Fighters went from getting all the new fun details to nearly nothing in going from Companion to Masters.  Clerics and Magic-users get more spells, but that is about it. Thieves suffer the most for now having to have their abilities amortized over 36 levels.

There are some great new monsters in the Master's rules, very few save for the various "rulers" even have Master's level HD (26+).

The artifacts though are great and really gives a feel for what a Master's Level game could be about.

The art feels lighter in this set than the previous ones. The only Elmore art is the cover.

Monstrous Monday: Sasquatch (BECMI Special)

I am continuing my BECMI posting all month.
Saturday was the first day of Summer for 2020 and Summer and June usually meant one thing in my house back in 1983.  The local Public Library's Summer Reading program!

When I was younger I devoured books on monsters, aliens and all sorts of strange creatures.
I have detailed my interactions with some of these books that I was able to find more recent as an adult elsewhere here on my blog.

But today is special.  Today is the confluence of a number of topics in a perfect way.  Today I will post my review of the BECMI Master's set.  It is summer. It is a Monster Monday.  What better monster for today than the one that is really at the root of my monster love.

Bigfoot, or the Sasquatch.

Around the same time I was getting into D&D we also subscribed to Showtime, one of the first cable channels out.  The film Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot was on heavy rotation on the channel then (that and Smokey and the Bandit). It was a pseudo-documentary, but it really set the stage for some of the games I would later play; the monster naturalist.

Here is a sasquatch I developed originally in 1986-87.  I used these stats later to develop the Almasti for Ghosts of Albion later on.

Sasquatch
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 6*
Move: 180' (60')
Attacks: 2 fists or rock throw
Damage: 6-11 (1d6+5) / 6-11 (1d6+5) or 7-21 (2d8+5)
No. Appearing: 0 (1-10)
Save As: Fighter: 5
Morale: 7
Treasure Type: Nil
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 500

The sasquatch, also known as the "Bigfoot", is a large humanoid creature.  It is neither human, orc or even an ogre.  The creature is elusive and extremely shy. Very little is known about the creatures and most urban scholars doubt they even exist.

What is known is this. The sasquatch ranges from 7' to 9' tall, and weighing between 650lbs to 1,000lbs.  They have long torsos, long arms with massive hands, shorter legs but large feet which gives them their name.  They are strong, 22 Strength, have dark brown, reddish or black fur like that of an ape.  What is often most remarked about them is their strong odor which gives them their other common name, the "skunk ape." 

The sasquatch can blend into surroundings making them difficult to spot. They can only be seen on a roll of "1" on a d20.  Their odor makes it difficult for them to completely surprise. They can only surprise on a roll of 5 or 6 on a d6.

They are normally non-aggressive, preferring to hide, and stay away from all others save their own family units.  If pressed they will attack, or if they feel their family unit is in danger.

The sasquatch can attack with two fists or throw boulders, much like a giant.  The sasquatch can also howl.  This howl causes fear (as per the spell) to all that hear it who fail a saving throw vs. Paralysis.  Those that fail the save are too frightened to attack or move.

--

I mentioned here before that my "first monster manual" was by Daniel Cohen and not Gary Gygax.

This plus my Moldvay set keep me going for a very long time.

GAZ 3 The Principalities of Glantri Print on Demand

BECMI Month continues here at The Other Side with an early Father's Day gift for me.

The Principalities of Glantri, Print on Demand version.

I reviewed the PDF and my original print version some time ago, so if you want to check that out it is here.

The PoD is fantastic really, and great to have since this is the one Gazetteer that sees the most use out of all my Basic-era books.

My original signed by Bruce Heard.

The original Gaz 3 cost $8.95 back in 1987.  This one set me back $7.66. 

Yeah, no shipping since it is part of a multi-shipment.  Part two should be here next week. I hope so, I have a lot to say about that one.

The maps are attached to the spine, so not as useful as they could be, but getting the PDF is part of the PoD, so I can always print them out if I don't want to use my originals. 

For the price being able to put up my original and have one I can use daily if needed is a steal really.

Each PoD has been getting better and better. This one seems to be best so far.

Character: Magnus Ulslime, the Chaotic. Death Pact Warlock (BECMI Special)

Last week I talked about the adventure Quagmire for the Expert set.  Earlier I talked about the adventure Death's Ride for the Companion set.  What do these both have in common?  They were the genesis points of a reoccurring bad guy in my games, Magnus Ulslime, the Chaotic.

Magnus, as he was most often known in my games, is not just an awesome reoccurring bad guy, he was my testbed for all sorts of evil, death-priest, warlock style characters.

Anytime a new version of D&D would come around I would roll up a new Johan Werper as the son of the previous one, either as a LG Cleric or Paladin.  I'd attempt to make a version of Larina.  And I would make a version of Magnus.  But unlike Johan, who is a different character each time but always a LG holy warrior, or Larina who was a reincarnation of her previous version and always a witch, Magnus was always something different.  I would always go with the class that would give me the best evil traits.  In Basic he was a evil Cleric. In AD&D1 a Death Master, in 2nd Ed he started out as a Druid and then became a Necromancer.  When I switch over to 100% Ravenloft in my college years the cover of Ship of Horror and the evil necromancer Meredoth also had a huge influence on me.  As it turns out Meredoth would be revealed as an expatriate of the Mystaran country of Alphatia.
In 3rd Ed...well there were some many choices that I eventually made 6 different versions.  You can see some of that in my Buffy adventures The Dark Druid and The Dead of Night.  In 4e I used him as a test of the Death Pact Warlock that never saw the light of day under 4e.  It did, however, affect the writing I did for my warlock books.

Magnus Ulslime became my poster boy for warlocks soon after I got a copy of 4e.
I tried him out in several different ways mixing in bits of cleric, wizard, and especially necromancer.
In my Strange Brew: Warlock book for Pathfinder I introduce both Cthonic and Death Pact warlocks.  I expand on those ideas from a different point of view in my more recent book, The Warlock for Old-School Essentials.  In both cases, I made Magnus a Death Pact warlock.  It was a much better representation of how I saw the character.  He made a trade to Death for more power in the mortal world.

Magnus for BECMI
If I rerun Death's Ride again for any version of the game I'd like to replace Ulslime the Cleric with Magnus Ulslime the Warlock.  For 3rd to 5th Edition of D&D this is not a big deal.  But BECMI does not have a warlock.

No. But Old-School Essentials and Swords & Wizardry do.

My warlock for Old-School Essentials is a B/X style warlock with Death Pacts.  But it only goes to 14th level.  My warlock for Swords & Wizardry goes to 20th level (the level I want Magnus at) but it doesn't have Death pacts.  No problem. I designed the books to work together like this.  By combining them I can get the exact warlock I want.  If I need more death or necromancy themed spells

Magnus Ulslime, the Chaotic
20th level Death Pact Warlock
Lodge: Sixth Circle, Masters of the Undying

Str: 10
Int: 18
Wis: 16
Dex: 10
Con: 15
Cha: 18

HP: 66
AC: 2 (mage armor, phantom shield, ring +2)

Invocations (10)
Arcane Blast, Agonizing Blast, Armor of Shadows, Aura of Fear, Claws of the Ghoul, Eldritch Sight, Form of the Undead Horror, Mask of Many Faces, The Wasting, Whispers of the Grave

Spells
Cantrips (6): Aura Reading, Daze, Detect Curse, Mend, Message, Object Reading
1st level (7): Arcane Dart, Corpse Servent, Häxen Talons, Feel My Pain, Mage Armor, Phantom Shield, Taint
2nd level (7): Augury, Aura of Chaos, Corpse Walking, Death Knell, Grasp of the Endless War, Speak with the Dead, Ward of Harm
3rd level (6): Bestow Curse, Black Lightning, Cackling Skull, Corpse Candle, Lifesteal, Rage
4th level (6): Animate Dead, Crystal Visions, Extend Spell (Lesser), Fear, Spell Storing, Undead Compulsion
5th level (6): Bad Luck (Run of Bad Luck), Death Candle, Death Curse, Dreadful Bloodletting, Song of the Night, Winds of Limbo

Magic items: Amulet of Chaos, Pentacle Rod, Ring of Protection +2, Staff of the Warlock,

Not too bad really.  I might have to go more "BECMI" and raise him to 25th or 36th level!

While I am playing around, here is a 5th Edition version to use in my 5e Converted Death's Ride.

Retrospective, Review and Refit: CM2 Death's Ride (BECMI)

Ah.  Death's Ride.  I have such fond memories of this adventure.

CM2 Death's Ride: Retrospective
Death's Ride is one of a few adventures I have had the privilege to both play in and to run. While overtly for the D&D Basic rules, Companion set, it can be run (and we did) under AD&D. Though some of the special features were lost I think.

I bought this module and gave it to my DM to run back in the day and I ran it using the 3.x version of the D&D rules and then again most recently using the 5th Edition rules.

The Barony of Two Lakes Vale gave us ample room to move about and try different things, but then it was the NPCs that captured my attention the most. Ulslime, Wazor, and Korbundar lived on in my games for many more years with both Ulsime and Korbundar even threatening my players in the 3rd Ed. game. One, and I am not sure if he was an NPC in the game or one my DM made up, went on to torture my characters for many more adventures after this.

The Death Portal was an interesting bit of necromantic trickery to get the players something to focus on and the new monsters were a lot of fun (the Death Leech nearly took out my characters back in the 80s.)

But before I wax too much more into nostalgia, let's review this adventure proper.

CM2 Death's Ride: Review
by Garry Spiegle, art by Jeff Easley, 32 pages, color covers, black & white interior art.
I am reviewing both the DriveThruRPG PDF and my original copy from 1984.

Death's Ride is one of our first Companion level adventures.  The code for this series in CM, since C was already taken.  Both CM1 Test of the Warlords (with it's Warduke-like cover) and CM2 Death's Ride were designed to be introductions to Companion level play. Both were supposedly designed to work with each other, both being set in Norwold.  However, they really don't work together other than this thin thread of Norwold.  That does not detract from its enjoyment.

The basic premise is this.

The adventurers, already powerful and famous in their own right, are summoned to the Barony of Twolakes Vale by King Ericall of Norwold (Background on King Ericall is given in Companion adventure CM1.) The local baron, Sir Maltus Fharo, has sent no taxes, caravans, or messages in several months. A small body of troops sent by the king to investigate has not returned. At this time, Ericall doesn't have the resources to send a large body of troops, so he is asking the characters to go to the barony, find out what's wrong, and if possible, restore contact. The king gives the characters a royal warrant and permission to act in his name.

The problem is much worse than the King suspects. A gateway to the “Sphere of Death” has been opened in Two Lakes Vale. It's up to the characters to determine who or what opened the gate. They must also close the gate forever. The characters should not actually enter the Sphere of Death in this adventure; their goal is to close the gate. Twolakes Vale holds only an inflow portal from the sphere. Consider any character who actually reaches the Sphere of Death as killed (or at least removed from the campaign until other characters can launch a formal rescue operation).

Here they will encounter death, destruction and our three main Antagonists. Wazor an "Atlantean Mage", Ulslime a cleric of "Death" and our cover boy Korbundar the huge blue dragon.  No, the skeleton riding him does not appear anywhere in this adventure. Nor does the lake of fire.

By the way. Which one do you think is Wazor and which one is Ulslime?

The adventure proceeds on a location-based adventure.  The characters move from location to location in the Twolakes Vale, which is described well except for where it is exactly in Norwold, finding clues, fighting enemies. Until the final confrontation and destruction of the artifact (the "deathstone") opening the Sphere of Death. Of course, you need another artifact to do that.

The NPCs are very detailed and out trio of bad-guys are so much fun that both Ulslime and Korbundar were made into semi-permanent NPCs of note in my games.    It got to the point where my kids would be like "Is that Korbundar!!" anytime a blue dragon was used in a game.

The other issue with this adventure, and one that was lost on me until recently, is that is doesn't really fully feel like something from the Companion Set.  It has been described, by most notably by Jonathan Becker at B/X Blackrazor, that this adventure really runs like a high-level Expert set adventure.  A wilderness hex with various points within the hex that need to be investigated.
There are some of the new monsters in the adventure, but when I played it and ran through it we substituted the monsters from AD&D/D&D3 as the case required.  There are Wrestling Ratings to the monsters and a chance to raise an army, but nothing about domains or ruling kingdoms.
Of course, this would all come later on in the CM adventures, so I guess that is not too big of a deal.

Calling it a "High-level dungeon crawl" or "High-level Expert Set Adventure" is fair, but it leaves out a lot of what made this particular adventure so much fun. I still have my original copy of this and it holds up well.   So despite the criticisms of it as a "Companion Adventure", it is still a very fun "D&D Adventure" and one that holds up.

CM2 Death's Ride: Refit
I have no idea how much I paid for my copy of Death's Ride when it first came out. How much were modules back then? $5? $8?  Whatever it was I certainly got my money's worth. (the consensus online is $6.)

Back in 1985-5 when I went through as a player we used AD&D 1st Ed rules.  Seemed like the logical thing to do.  We stuck it on the end of this huge campaign that also included H4.

When I would later run it again in college it became part of my big "Ravenloft is From Mystara" deal and I ran it under AD&D 2nd Ed.   It usually became the gateway characters used to leave Ravenloft and come back into their normal world.

Now I am setting up to run it again, this time using the 5th Edition Rules.

For that, I joined the Classic Modules Today group and did the 5th edition conversion.

I had a great time not only converting the adventure and creatures, but getting a chance to re-do Wazor, Ulslime, and Korbundar as 5th edition characters.  It was a struggle I have to admit not to include *my* versions of them and instead play them by the book.

In the conversion guide I mention where I would place the adventure in the Forgotten Realms (something we all did) and how it could connect to others.  For me I saw this as a nice Coda to the Out of the Abyss adventure.

Characters will complete Out of the Abyss at roughly the same level characters would need to be to start Death’s Ride. The adventure can be seen as either as some last-ditch effort by Orcus to open a portal in the Realms in which to invade or as a means of flooding the area with undead.

This flows from both my using Death's Ride as part of an Orcus/Realms take-over (Module H4) and my connections to Ravenloft as a portal.

I might not have know the Companion Set very well, but there is at least one Companion level adventure I do know.

BECMI: Companion Set Review

We are now at the part of my hand-made maps of the world where I leave the dungeons (Basic) and wildernesses (Expert) that I knew so well.   I am now in an area of half-rumored tales and speculations.  Stories from other travelers, with tales that are both familiar and yet foreign to me.

Join me on my exploration of the new worlds of the D&D Companion Set.  But a warning, here there be Dragons!

D&D Companion Set (1984)

I don't think it is too much to say that the Companion Set contains some of the most interesting changes and updates to the D&D than any other product TSR had published to date.  I will talk more about these in the review, but first a look back.

I had eagerly awaited the Companion set for D&D ever since I got my Expert Set.  That is, by B/X Moldvay/Cook Basic and Expert Set.

The Companion Set, as promised by the Expert Set rules, mentions that characters will now go to 36th level and there will be a way to cure undead level drain!  Such promises. Such hope!

D&D Cook Expert Set, page X8

Though it was not to be and the B/X line stopped there, only to be "rebooted" in 1983 with the BECMI line, though we were not calling it that back then.

By the time the Companion did come out I had moved on to AD&D. I no longer had any interest in the Companion rules having discovered the world could also have Assassins, half-orcs, and 9 alignments.

I did manage to read it once.  I was in college and it was at Castle Perilous Games in Carbondale. Of course, at the time AD&D 2nd Ed was the new hotness and I had no desire to look backward.  What I saw though at the time did not impress me.  I think the entire Mentzer set at the time (AT THE TIME mind you) made me think of it as D&D for little kids (now I see it differently).

Looking back now I see I made a BIG MISTAKE.
Well...maybe.  I mean I would not have traded my AD&D time for anything, but I do wish I had given the BECMI rules more of a chance.

Now I can fix that.

Today I am going to cover the BECMI Companion Rules.  I am going to cover both the DriveThruRPG PDFs and my recently acquired box set.

The Companion Set follows the rules as presented in the BECMI Basic and Expert books. But unlike those books, the Companion Rules sets off into uncharted directions and gives us some new material.

While the claim can be made that Frank Mentzer only edited and organized the Basic and Expert rules based on previous editions, the Companion set is all his.  While there may be some influences from earlier editions such as Greyhawk (with it's 22nd level cap [wizards] and some monsters) and AD&D (some monsters and the multiverse) this really feels new.

Companion Player's Book 1
The player's book is 32 pages with color covers and black & white interiors. Art by Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley.
Opening this book we get a preface with a dedication to Brian Blume. A nice touch and yeah he is often forgotten in the tale of D&D's earliest years.  The preface also firmly situates us in time. We 10 years out from when D&D was first published. The design goals of this book, and consequently this series, have never been more firmly stated.  This is an introduction to the D&D game and designed to be fun, playable, and true to the spirit of D&D.  It certainly feels like this is the successor to the Original D&D game; maybe more so than AD&D.
One page in and we are off to a great start.

The title and table of contents page tell us that this game is now "by" Frank Mentzer, based on D&D by Gygax and Arneson.  As we move into the book proper we get a feel for the "changing game."  Characters are more powerful and once difficult threats are no more than a nuisance or exercise.  The characters are ready to take their place among the rulers of the world.  This makes explicit something I always felt AD&D only played lip service to.

We get some new weapons that have different sorts of effects like knocking out an opponent or entangling them. We also get some unarmed combat rules.    Now, these feel they really should have been added to the Basic or Expert rule sets. Maybe they were but were cut for space or time.

Up next is Stronghold management from the point of view of the player characters.  Again here D&D continues its unwritten objective of being educational as well as fun.  More on this in the DM's book.

Character Classes
Finally, about 11 pages in we get to the Character updates.  Here all the human character classes get tables that go to level 25; again maybe a nod to Greyhawk's level 20-22 caps, and caps of 7th level spells (clerics) and 9th level spell (magic-users).  Clerics get more spells and spell levels.  The big upgrade comes in the form of their expanded undead turning table.  Clerics up to 25th level and monsters up to Liches and Special.  This mimics the AD&D Clerics table; I'd have to look at them side by side to see and differences.  One difference that comes up right away is the increase in undead monsters.  There are phantoms, haunts, spirits, and nightshades.  Nightshades, Liches, and Special will be detailed in the Master Set.

Something that is big pops up in the cleric listing.  A Neutral cleric of level 9 or higher may choose to become a Druid! Druids only resemble their AD&D counterparts in superficial ways.  They have similar spells, but the BECMI Druid cannot change shape.  It is an interesting implementation of the class and one I'll discuss more in a bit.

Arguably it is fighters that get the biggest boost in the Companion Set.  They gain the ability to have multiple attacks per round now and other combat maneuvers such as smashing, pairing and disarming. This is a big deal since they got so little in the Expert set. Fighters can also "specialize" into three paths depending on alignment.  There are Knights, Paladins, and Avengers.  Each type gives the fighter something a little extra.  Paladins are not very far off from their AD&D counterparts and Avengers are as close to an Anti-Paladin as D&D will get until we get to the Blackguards.

Conversely, Magic-users do not get as much save from greater spells. We do get the restriction that any spell maxes out 20dX damage.

Thieves can now become Guildmasters or Rogues.  A name that will come up more and more with future editions of D&D.

BECMI "Prestige Classes?"
The Druid, Knight, Avenger, Paladin, and to a lesser degree the Magist and Rogues represent what could arguably be called the first Prestige Classes to D&D.  Their inclusion predates the publication of the Thief-Acrobat in the AD&D Unearthed Arcana.
Prestige Classes are classes that one can take after meeting certain requirements in other "base" classes in D&D 3.x and Pathfinder. Often at 10th level, but can occur anytime the character meets the requirements.  This concept is later carried on into D&D 4 with their "Paragon Paths" (chosen at 11th level) and even into D&D 5 with their subclasses (chosen at 2nd level).
The BECMI Avenger and Paladin are the best examples of these working just like the Prestige Classes will in 15 more years.   This is interesting since it also means other classes can be added to the basic 4 core ones using the same system.  An easy example is the Thief-Acrobat from UA or even the Ranger from AD&D.  Though here the problem lies in the alignment system.  Rangers are supposed to be "good" for example.

Demi-Humans
Demi-humans may not advance any more in level, but they are not idle.  This is also the area of the Companion Set that I most often go wrong.  Each demi-human race has a Clan Relic and some demi-humans could be in charge of these clan relics, making them very powerful. There are also clan rulers and they are also detailed.  What does all that mean?  It means there is a good in-game reason why demi-humans do not advance in levels anymore.  They are much more dedicated to their clans than humans. So after a time it is expected that they will return home to take up their responsibilities to the clan.

That is not to say that these characters do not advance anymore.  Each demi-human race can still gain "Attack Ranks" as if they are still leveling up.  They don't gain any more HP, but they can attack as if they are higher-level fighters.  They also gain some of the fighter's combat options. Each class gets 11 such rank-levels.   It seems to split some hairs on "no more levels" but whatever.

We end with a map of the expanding Known World.  This is the continent of Brun of Mystara, but we don't know that yet.  But I will discuss that later this week.

This book is a lot more than I expected it to be and that is a good thing.

Companion DM's Book 2
The DM's book is 64 pages with color covers and black & white interiors. Art by Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley.
There is a lot to this book.  First, we get to some General Guidelines that cover the higher levels of play and planning adventures accordingly. There is sadly not a lot here.
We follow up with Part 2: The Fantasy World.  This continues some of the discussion of stronghold management and dominion management as well.  Now here is quite a bit of good information on what happens, or could happen, in a dominion. 
This section also includes the hidden secret of the D&D BECMI series.  The War Machine Mass Combat system.

War Machine
Around the same time TSR was also developing the BattleSystem Mass Combat system.  The two are largely incompatible with each other.  I always thought it was odd that two systems that do essentially the same things were created and incompatible with each other.   Later I learned that D&D BECMI lived in what we like to call a "walled garden" in the business.  It was out there doing it's own thing while the "real business" of AD&D was going on.  The problem was that D&D Basic was outselling AD&D at this point.  This was not the first time that TSR would woefully misunderstand their customers and sadly not the last time either.
War Machine has an elegance about it when compared to BattleSystem.  I am not saying it is simple, but the work involved is not difficult and I am happy to say it looks like it will work with any edition of D&D.

The Multiverse 
A big part of any D&D experience is the Multiverse.  This section allows the DMs and Players to dip their toes into the wider Multiverse which includes the Ethereal Plane and the Elemental Planes.

Space is also given to the discussion on aging, damage to magic items, demi-human crafts, poison, and more. We also get all of our character tables.

Monsters
About halfway through the book, we get to the section of monsters.  A lot of familiar AD&D faces are now here, though a bit of digging will show that many of these are also from OD&D up to the Greyhawk supplement.  Most notable are the beholder, larger dragons, druids (as a monster), and many elemental types. Monsters are split into Prime Plane and Other Planes. 
Among the monsters featured are the aforementioned Beholder, larger Dragons, and bunches of new Undead like haunts, druj, ghosts and more.  A few that caught my attention are the Gargantua (gigantic monsters) and Malfera.  The Malfera REALLY caught my attention since they are from the "Dimension of Nightmares."  More fodder for my Mystara-Ravenloft connection.
Monsters from the Other Planes focus on the Elemental planes.

Treasure
Lots of new treasure and magic items.

Adventures
There are three short adventure or adventure hooks for companion level characters.

All in all the Companion Set is full and had many things I did not think it had given my very casual relationship to it over the years.  Reading it now and in-depth for the very first time I see there is a lot I could have used in my games back then.

Also reading this gives me a lot of ideas for more Basic/BECMI sorts of campaigns and plans for classes.

The OSE Warlock, In Print

I interrupt BECMI Week to give you something decidedly B/X.

It took a bit, but now you can get The Warlock for Old-School Essentials in print, both in hard-cover and soft-cover!

I am very pleased with how they came out and they look fantastic.

The contents of both versions are the same, so no need to worry about which one to get.

They look great with the Old-School Essentials books.

The hard-cover even fits into your OSE box!

It is 100% compatible with my Swords & Wizardry Warlock book.  Combine them for even more warlock powers, pacts and spells.

Or combine it with my Craft of the Wise Witch Book for Old-School Essentials for even more spells.

It is the latest, but not yet the last, of the books in my Basic-Era Games line of Witchcraft traditions.

Back to BECMI posts later today.

Monstrous Monday: Philosopher Lich and Notions (BECMI Special)

This week I am going to cover the Companion series and what that meant to me before it came out when it came out and now.

Today we have nearly unfettered access to RPG material.  One of the things I did not have access too was the original AC9 D&D Creature Catalogue.  My DM though in 1986 did.  One of the creatures I liked was the Gray Philosopher. I really liked undead monsters for my game, so I went home after seeing this and wrote my own version for my AD&D game.  Liches would not appear in D&D until the Master Set, which I never saw till much later, but they were a staple of AD&D.

Later I expanded on it for AD&D 2nd Ed and called it an "Occult Lich."  Though I was never 100% happy with it.

This creature is based on some ideas I had for the "Occult Lich" and something I was calling the "Accidental Lich."

This lich was/is my "clerical" version of the "magic-user" lich.
The name is also a nod to the "Philosopher's Stone."

Lich, Philosopher
Armor Class: 0
Hit Dice: 10-14*
Move: nil
Attacks: nil
Damage: nil
No. Appearing: 1 (1)
Save As: Cleric 10-14
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: V x2 + Special
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value:
  10 HD: 1,600
  11-12 HD: 1,900
  13-14 HD: 2,300

The Philosopher Lich is most often created when an evil cleric is pondering some evil plan or a philosophical bit of occult knowledge that they extend beyond death.
The Philosopher Lich will often be found seated, typically in a pose of deep contemplation.  They appear as do other liches; skeletal wearing robes common to their station in life and with eyes that glow of a deep and profound evil intelligence. It is this malevolent glow that keeps them from confused with normal skeletons or an undead one.
Philosopher Liches were once great clerics dedicated to foul beings beyond the understanding of humans.  Their evil thoughts pre-occupy their very existence. They do not move and rarely speak.
They are guarded by their evil thoughts made manifest known as notions.
If all the notions are defeated the Philosopher Lich can attack with spells it knew as a high-level evil cleric.  They will also have 2-5 (1d4+1) magic items common to high-level clerics with the exception of arms and armor. This is in addition to double the type V.
Philosopher Liches are turned as Liches, but they cannot be turned as long as their Notions are still active.

Notions
Armor Class: 3
Hit Dice: 4**
Move: 90' (30')
   Flying: 240' (60')
Attacks: 1
Damage: 2-5 (1d4+1) + Special (Intelligence Drain)
No. Appearing: Same as HD of Philosopher Lich
Save As: Cleric 4
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: Nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value: 175

Notions are the manifestations of the evil thoughts of the Philosopher Lich.  The notions appear as wraith-like horrific versions of the Lich as he or she appeared in life, though twisted.  Each notion is a reflection of the horrible thought the Lich has.  So thoughts of murder manifest as a bloody looking notion, greedy notions are covered in chains, gluttonous notions are fat, and so on.
The notions attack with a single touch that feels like an electric shock or cold chill, depending on the notion, that does 2-5 hp of damage.  The victim attacked must also make a Saving Throw vs. Death or lose 1 point of Intelligence.  The notions "feed" on this mental energy and give it to the Philosopher Lich.
Victims restore their Intelligence score at a rate of 1 per week.

Notions can be turned as Spectres.

Happy Birthday to Me, BECMI style

Today is my birthday!  For me back in Jr. High and beyond that meant playing D&D in the summer.
Well, I still get to do that with my kids, but this birthday I treated myself to something special.

Yes, it took me nearly 40 years, but I finally picked up the BECMI Companion Rules.

I have been going over the PDFs for my BECMI month and Companion week coming up on Monday. But let's be honest, nothing is better than a physical book.

The box was in rough shape, but the books inside are great.

I paid...well more than I care to admit...for these, but to get this vital part of my BECMI collection, to get it now AND for my birthday made it worth every penny.   The box damage is no big deal given all that.

I can say that at least my collection of BECMI rule books is now complete.

I do not have boxes for the Expert or Immortals set and that is fine really.  I am sure I can score an Expert set box somewhere.  Though my Masters and Immortals are both water-damaged so new ones would be nice.

Looking forward to my campaign that will use this system.  More on that later this month!

Retrospective, Review and Refit: X6 Quagmire (BECMI)

Not just a review today, but I want to spend some time today with an adventure that fueled my imaginations...or at least I thought it did.  I also want to talk about what my plans are for it now.

So come with me to Quagmire. Its a journey of half-remembered ideas, Lizardmen characters, Dragonborn, and special guest appearances by Ulslime and Mary Pickford.

Somewhere back in Jr. High or High School before I ever saw this adventure I had watched a movie. Likely on a local channel or maybe an old tape or laserdisc (my dad loved laserdisc!).  The move was Sparrows (1926) and it starred Mary Pickford.  To me the movie was a horror film. 

Pickford played Molly and she was the protector of a bunch of orphans being exploited by this old man named Grimes.   Ah, Grimes, you evil bastard.

Not since the Baron and Baroness Bomburst of Vulgaria in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had I seen a character eviler in his disregard of children (my mom ran a Day Care, in my mind the evilest thing was to hate or harm a child).  He left a lasting impression to be sure.

In my mind, the dichotomous battle was set. Old, evil, Grimes versus the young, pure Molly.  And so help me if I didn't like Grimes better.  I really wanted the kids to rise up and just beat the living shit out that guy and his wife.  But they never did, worse, Molly keeps looking up to the sky like she is getting some private communique. Like that is going to help.

I think about this movie fairly often, to be honest.  Many things I wrote after I watched it will bubble back up in things I write today.  I still used swamps as my ultimate hideout of evil (but that could also be in part to the Legion of Doom).

Quagmire: Retrospective

Around 1984-85 I was at my Favorite Local Game Store, which then was Waldenbooks in nearby Springfield, IL.  I was looking over the new adventures they had there.  One was CM2 Death's Ride, which is getting a full review next week, the other was X6 Quagmire.  I read the back of the module and it sounded interesting. It dealt with a city, dangerous swamp and monsters.  All great stuff. But I bought CM2 death's Ride instead. I also gathered from reading White Dwarf #70 that the reviewer liked Quagmire, so it had to be pretty good.

Somewhere along the line I also learned there was a sinking tower (really a city, but it looked like a tower) and lizard men (seemed natural).  So I added it to my own version of the Known World.   A sinking tower, in a swamp called Quagmire.  I took the evil cleric Ulslime and made him into a Death Master (from Len Lakofka) and made him master of the tower.  He looked and acted an awful lot like Grimes from Sparrows.  I must have seen at least more of the insides of the adventure because "Ulslime" became "Magnus Ulslime." I combined two characters, one from CM2 and one from X6.

For decades THAT was my Quagmire.  It fit the cover art, it tied it in with CM2 Death's Ride and a bunch of other things going on in my Known World at the time.  It worked.

Imagine my surprise when I finally got the POD version of Quagmire from DriveThruRPG.

The actual module is...well...different than my ideas of what it was.  That is neither good nor bad, but it does color how I choose to use it.

Quagmire: Review
Quagmire is a 32-page adventure module written by Merle M. Rasmussen, of Top Secret fame, for the Expert Set.  Character levels 4-10.  Color covers and some maps, black & white interiors. Art by Steve Peregrine (cover) and Jeffrey Butler (interior).
For this review, I am considering the PDF and POD versions from DriveThruRPG.

Quagmire focuses on a city that used to be by the seashore but is now sinking into the sea.  The city is actually a large spiral tower that looks like a whelk shell.  The city leaders are moving the entire populace from their city to a nearby, identical one.  The PCs have been hired to clear out the wilderness area of lizardmen and goblins and help them get to the new city.

The module expands the Known World to now include the Serpent Penisula, which is just west of the Isle of Dread.   If the Isle of Dread is Jamaica or the Bahamas then the Serpent Penisula is Florida and Cuba.  All I need to do is add a "Bermuda Triangle."

This expansion of the Known World detail is the best part of the adventure.  This area would later be expanded on in future products and The Voyage of the Princess Ark feature in Dragon magazine.
Additionally, the city design itself is very interesting. Something very appealing about it to be honest and a giant tower as a city is the sort of thing I love to see in my games.

The adventure itself sadly a little lack-luster. The ending is a little anti-climatic and the wilderness encounters seem to be strung together to provide the characters something to do.
There are a lot of great parts to this adventure and there is plenty of potential, I am not sure the adventure itself lives up to all of that.  Still, the parts are good and there is no end of ideas for other swamp-based adventures or even the spiral cities.

The adventure, like all adventures of this time period, features new monsters and some new magic items.  There are also some pre-rolled characters.

The POD (Print on Demand) version is very clean and easy to read. There is some of the "fuzziness" I associate with a POD of a scanned product, but much less than some of the others I have purchased.  In fact, this might be one of the better scans I have seen.  At the time of this review, the POD is only $4.99 for both the POD and the PDF.  That is a fantastic price really.

So while the adventure is a little lacking, the material that comes with it is great and the PDF/POD is great.

Quagmire: Refit

So Quagmire the actual module and Quagmire how I *used* it are fairly different.  That's fine really, but what can I do with it now?

Well, one thing I have been wanting to do is add Dragonborn somewhere to Mystara/The Known World.  I have not given it a ton of thought, so I posted out to some Mystara groups on social media.
Now, of course, I got the one expected response, "Dragonborn don't belong in Mystara!"
Well. They do in mine.
The next responses seemed to be evenly split between Davina and the Serpent Peninsula. Both ideas have their merits.  I was all set on doing Davina. It's far enough away to be remote, but still close enough to be accessible.  But I was thinking about my kids' current game in Mystara, the Second Campaign, they just left the Isle of Dread and are headed south. It has taken them a long time to get this far; Davina might be too far still.

It also appears that the Serpent Penisula also has a lot of Lizardmen.  This is great for two reasons.
1. Lizardmen are the ancient enemies of the Dragonborn in my games.  Their relationship is like that of orcs and humans.
2. Anyone who tells me that Dragonborn doesn't belong as a PC race in D&D I remind them that Lizardmen were once accepted as a playable race in Holmes basic.  Maybe not explicitly, but certainly in practice.  Even Gygax himself said that this was fine when comparing D&D to AD&D.

So. If Lizardmen can be there, so can Dragonborn.
Dragonborn look different, but they are not really all that different from dwarves in combat.  They have a limited breath weapon that would do 1d6 for a while or save for half.  I'll play around with it.

I could still make them from Davina, but have an outpost or a colony on the Serpent Penisula.
I would change the people of Quagmire to Dragonborn.  That would be an interesting twist really, especially if the PCs get a letter asking for help and they expect humans or elves.  I might also swap out the mermen for Kopru, just so I can give those crazy fish people some more action.

Yeah.  This sounds great, to be honest.  BUT the events of the adventure were retconned to have taken place over 500 years ago.  Ok.  That still works.  The Dragonborn are in their new city of Thanopolis/Tanakumba, the Kopru are in the underwater city, and Quagmire?  Ah.  The city never sank all the way and now my necromancer/Death Master Magnus Ulslime is the master of that city and it is full of undead and surrounded by mud-men and mongrel-men, the victims of his magical experiments.  And maybe even an army of children digging in the nearby flooded mines to recover ancient Dragonborn treasures.  Just so I can work Grimes into the mix as well.  Maybe a name change to Magnus Ulgrimes should be in order. I never liked the Ulslime name, but I had used it too long to drop it back then.

It looks like I managed to get everything I wanted into a neat package! Sweet, and tomorrow is my birthday!