Castle Amber by Candle Light

Running behind on posting (and reading).  We got slammed by a freak storm in Chicago and we were without power from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning.

Friday we went out in the hope that the power would be back soon.  No such luck.  So we spent the night reading by flashlight and candle light.  I grabbed my old 2e Ravenloft Boxed set to flip through.

Saturday was spent grilling everything in the fridge so we would not have to throw it all out.

Eggs, toast and bacon on the grill. I might never eat inside again.

We then spent the day preparing and playing one of my favorite modules X2 Castle Amber.

And trust me, nothing was quite as fun as playing it all by candle light.

We played it under 5th edition rules.  Unlike Bone Hill, I did not have 5e stats for all the monsters in this adventure.  But fortunately the conversion process was very easy and most I could do one the fly.

Yeah that is my 1st Ed. DMs screen.  I had my kids grab everything and they also got that.

So far 5e is still working very nice for us.
Castle Amber is also a great adventure to play and run.  The kids are having a blast.  They managed to get through the west wing and they even found an intelligent magical sword.  I am not sure what do with that one yet. I hand-waved it for now since I have not found any D&D5 rules about intelligent weapons yet.

My family is loving this adventure so far and I have to admit I was rather gleeful inside at scene where they have to run from the "Grey Mists" to get into the castle.

The nice thing is that even though this feels like a "monster of the week" adventure there is a great tie-in to the overall "Cult of Chaos" plot I have been weaving through all the adventures.  Yeah, yeah I have seen the posts that D&D isn't supposed to be "cinematic" or "storytelling".  Screw that. I do what my family and I enjoy.   My youngest spends his time playing looking for any clues that might help him understand more about the mystery and my oldest wants to read Lovecraft now.

So next time they will finish the central forest and hit the East Wing and then beyond.

March Madness OSR Challenge! Part 4

I want to thank Tomb of Tedankhamen for hosting this.

Here is part 4 of my list.  Hope you enjoy!

23 What is the most broken game that you tried and were unable to play?
The Bram Stoker's Dracula RPG.  It's just awful really.  This one is an easy choice.  But the question remains, is it broken or just bad?

24 What is the most broken game that you tried and loved to play, warts and all?
Broken is sometimes a matter of opinion.  I personally think the Skills and Powers books for 2nd Ed AD&D are broken.  The World of Synibarr is broken and bad, and yet there is something appealing about it.  It's just so crazy it went past bad right into crazy ass gonzo.  I have seen people say (and complain) that AD&D is broken.  It might be, but it is still fun.

25 Which game has the sleekest, most modern engine?
Cinematic Unisystem.  There isn't anything that it can't do well. Or maybe more to the point there isn't anything I can't do with it.  I am sure others think the same thing about GURPS, d20 and/or Savage Worlds. For me CineUnisystem is a perfect fit.

26 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.
At the risk of sounding vain, Ghosts of Albion. Based on Amber Benson and Christopher Golden's novels and animations.  Written by myself. ;)  But seriously those have been some of the most fun games I have ever played.  Outside of that then the Buffy or Angel games.

27 What IP (=Intellectual Property, be it book, movie or comic) that doesn’t have an RPG deserves it? Why?
Charmed. I am dead serious.   I have been wanting to write a Charmed game for years and honestly I think I could not only do it justice but get people to play it that never watched the show.  One of the most fun times I ever had at Gen Con was playing Piper (a witch from Charmed) in a Charmed/Buffy/Supernatural crossover game.  I would love to do it as a Cinematic Unisystem game.  And it would rock.

28 What free RPG or what non-English RPG did you enjoy most? Give details.
For free I would have to say Basic Fantasy.  It really is a great game and really represents what I feel is the best ideals of the OSR.  Plus it is that sweet spot of how I was playing in the early 80s; a mix of Basic and Advanced D&D.

29 What OSR product have you enjoyed most? Explain why.
Wow. There are so many to be honest.  Nearly half of this blog is dedicated to OSR products I enjoy.  One of the things I like most about the OSR are the products that don't give me things I already have, but things I have always wanted or never knew I needed.
Here are some of my favorites.
B/X Companion - it gave me a book I have been waiting nearly 30 years for.  I had left B/X years ago, but I always felt a little longing for the Companion rules (levels 14-36) that we never got.
Labyrinth Lord - The Basic version of D&D that opened up the OSR world to me.  While in some respects I prefer Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord is still one of my favorites.
Adventures Dark and Deep - Joesph Bloch's magnum opus. A "what if" book, so not a "retro-clone" really.  Something new based on history.  This book is AD&D 2nd ed if Gygax had not left TSR.  Is it "exactly" like what Gygax would have done? No. But this is the closest I think we will ever get.  Joe based this one the reading of all Gygax's letters and things he had mentioned in the pages of Dragon magazine and elsewhere.  It is also a perfectly enjoyable game in it's own right.
Spellcraft & Swordplay - Another "what if" game.  This one takes the SRD and uses the original combat mechanic found in OD&D (not the alternate d20 one we all now use).  It also streamlines a number of things and gives you a really nice, very gritty, old-school game.  One of my favorites.
Another favorite is Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea which I have talked about a lot here.

30 Which non-D&D supplemental product should everyone know about? Give details.
Chill Vampires. If you ever want to use vampires in any game then I suggest you get this book. If you can get the Pacesetter, 1st Edition version then do so, otherwise the Mayfair, 2nd Ed. version is good too, it is just missing a couple of the vampires I really found interesting.  It really is a great book on how vampires can go from being just another monster to an enemy that needs to be studied and understood before fighting.

31 What out-of-print RPG would you most like to see back in publication? Why?
Castle Falkenstein.  Not only is it a fun game, but Mike Poundsmith is one of the best game designers out there.  The premise is cool but the game design blew me away. If you have only ever played D&D or it's direct clones/offspring then you owe it to yourself to play this.  It is available in PDF but I would love to have it in print.

Come Endless Darkness

No. Not the Gary Gygax book, but related.

I have been thinking a lot about the 1st Ed AD&D game my kids are in now.   They love play 1st ed more than 3e I feel, but what is missing from this game, at least how I initially conceived it, is an epic arc.

In this campaign the characters are going to get involved in something huge, something world changing.  Since these characters are the sons and daughters of their 3e characters I also want some thing that alters the feel of the game world to help explain the shift in rules from 3e to 1st Ed.

So I am going back to an idea I had years ago that I originally wanted to try for 3e.  It was going to be called Shadow Earth and bits and pieces live on in my other products and posts.
I am planning to blot out the sun.
This was something that I toyed with now and again and thought it might make for a good plot. It was also one of the ideas I threw out later on as an idea for my "no big bad" game Season of the Witch.

The idea is a simple one really.  The vampires, drow and mind flayers* (or maybe the mi-go have not decided yet) join forces to blot out the sun.

The PCs discover part of this plot after they bust up a slaving operation being run by vampires (A series).  Unlike like other games though, the bad guys succeed in their plans and the sun goes dark.  While the big powers of the world are meeting to discover how to reverse it (and thus not able to help out their offspring) the new generation is sent off to investigate reports of giants attacking a village nearby (GDQ).

So yes I am using modules with this.  I figure I have come up with say about 100 unique adventures over the last 35 years or so.  These allow me to ease some of the heavy lifting AND also to give my kids a shared experience with other gamers.
Here is the plan so far.

• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (played at Gen Con 2012)
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (playing now, will include a shrine to an evil god of chaos)
• T1 Village of Hommlet, Intro-levels (might not use now, depends on how the Temple of EE fits in)
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4 (maybe)
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (the MiGo plot)
• A0 to A4, levels 4-7 (the vampires get their victims from the Slavers)
• A5, The Last Slave Lord, levels 5-9 
• I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, levels 4-7  (snakemen - minions)
• C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, levels 5-7
• G123, levels 8-12 (drow)
• D12, levels 9-14
• D3, levels 10-14
• Q1, levels 10-14

They are currently going through Tomb of Horrors under 3e, and I am thinking of running Expedition to the Barrier Peaks under AS&SH.

The idea then will be that the PCs discover the plot and have to destroy the device blocking out the sun on Lolth's plane.  IF things work out and we have more time or they want to go on then I *might* work in the old H4 Module, Throne of Bloodstone and redo it a bit to give them a second part to destroy.

Things I have not yet figured out.  I would love to use my Ophidians in there somewhere.  I should really since they a cool race and work well.  I will have to use my take on Demogorgon then as well.

Mindflayers seem like a no brainer to me which means I should really investigate why I am using them.  I think they should be part of a more Mythos-like mindset.  Their goal of course is to enslave the entire world.  But do they have a demon lord they answer to? Not likely.  Given this many factions I need to figure out their motivations.  Why? Well that will tell me how the players will be able to succeed.
Maybe the Ophidians are in league with or controlled by the mind flayers.

I want to give them an epic. I want this to feel like opera; like all three parts of Wagner's Ring Cycle.
At the end I want to be able to look over the table at their faces and know they know what it is to shake the pillars of Heaven.  I felt that when the I was done playing in the "Dragon Wars" in 1988 and again when I ran "The Dragon and the Phoenix" in 2002-2004.

Regardless how epic it might be, it will be fun.

Reviewing the Classics, B/X Edition

I love the Basic D&D game and the B/X version in particular.  I love it's simplicity and its ability to be adaptable to just about anything I want it to do.  So I was thrilled to death that the B/X pdfs starting showing up on DriveThruRPG, even if I knew that also meant that there was little chance of them getting reprinted.
B/X was also one of the first systems I own every product.  There are still some AD&D items I don't own and even some later editions, but B/X was and still is one of my favorites.

I have picking up all the B/X material I can on DnDClassics.com.

D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic)

If you are like me then this is it. THIS is what D&D was. Sure I had read a friends Holmes/Blue-book Basic set and I knew of AD&D through the Monster Manual. But this is the D&D book that started it all for me. This is the one that set fire to my imagination.
This is a complete set of rules. Character creation through to 3rd level. Monsters, treasures, dungeons. Everything that ever was or will be D&D had it's start right here (more or less). Honestly this book is not worth 5 stars here. It is worth 6 out of 5.
I almost would say that if I could only play one version of D&D ever, then this might be the one. It lacks the complexity of AD&D or 3e, but anymore I see this as a feature.
64 pages plus cover. Marbleized dice and crayon not included.

D&D Expert Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic)

This was the 1981 followup to the D&D Basic set. Designed for the Moldvay Basic there was even a little bit about what to do if you had the Holmes Basic.
This expanded the game to level 14 and for most of us it was all we needed for a very long time.
I loved the introduction of all the new undead like Vampires and Spectres (was a big horror fan even then) and that little map of the Known World. I starred at that map for hours, learning lands and names of places far off and never were.
Plus all the new spells! The options of spells for my cleric and magic-users were beyond my 11-year old brain's reckoning at the time.
At 5 bucks this is a criminal steal. I wore my old copy of my expert book out, now I have a PDF to go back too anytime I like. Combine it with the Basic book and some adventures and you are set. Everything you need to play D&D just like the good old days. No skills, no feats, no attacks of opportunity, but plenty of flexibility and action.
I love newer games, but this is the one. The one that keeps me coming back. Back to the Keep, back to Glantri and back to D&D.

B1 In Search of the Unknown (Basic)
This is my "go to" adventure anytime I want to start up a new group or game.  It's a ritual for me, roll up characters and run them through the halls of the lost Castle of Quasqueton. I still have my copy that I bought all those years ago and it was also one of the first PDFs I purchased from WotC. I never really expanded on Roghan the Fearless or Zelligar the Unknown save that they were long dead and their Castle was now overrun with monsters.
It is one of those adventures I can run with zero prep time and each time I learn something new or remember something I forgot.
This module is simple, easy to use and can adapted to any campaign world and even any game.
It is a perfect module for the Basic game.

B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (Basic)
I once read that more people have played through the Keep on the Borderlands more than any other adventure. Of that I am sure. I have run scores of new players through it myself including a new generation of gamers.
The module hardly needs an introduction and it really is almost immune to review. Who cares that the Caves of Chaos look like some sort of Monster Condo where all these different creatures live together until those meddling humans show up from the Keep.
Going to the Caves is rite of passage. It is the hallmark of a real honest to Pelor adventurer.
If you don't have it you can't really call yourself a D&D player.
Just remember, "Bree-Yark" means "I surrender" in goblin. Yell it out really loud.

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess (Basic)
Another classic. B3 has had a storied history, but the module we all actually played has a special place in many gamer's hearts.
For starters it is a Basic module, and lot of material in it is aimed at new DMs working on their craft. While the programmed text of rooms 1 to 6 might look quaint by today's standards, there is a lot of good things here.
For starters the basic premise of the module is a fun one. An Evil artifact, an innocent princess, a dashing rogue on a white dragon. Lots of the cliches of fantasy gaming, but all are played earnestly and not a hint of irony is here.
The module itself is not without issues as mentioned elsewhere. The map of the castle is enough to drive a sane mapper crazy and some of the NPCs (like the green elf "Protectors") are annoying. But all that fades when you discover the Eye of Arik and destroy it.
I recently re-ran this one for my kids using the D&D 3.5 edition rules. Worked great.
If you are new to the Basic D&D game (B/X flavor) then this is a great adventure to get.

B4 The Lost City (Basic)
Another great Moldvay module. This one is so strange, but so much fun.  I remember playing this one in 8th grade and honestly I had a blast.  It wasn't though till many years later while running it for my own kids did I see it's Pulp fiction roots.   Plenty of great influences can be seen in this from Robert E. Howard to Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith.
To me this one was always on the edge of that B/X divide. Sure it was a B series module, but it could have easily been one of the X series.
Unlike some adventures I played or ran in the 80s I went back to this one appreciated it more now then I did then.

X1 The Isle of Dread (Basic)
Maybe second only to B2 and B1 in terms of numbers of players, but The Ilse of Dread lasts as one of the best Basic-era adventures out there.  In today's frame of mind the adventure is equal parts Pirates of the Caribean, King Kong and Jurassic Park.  It is a heady cauldron of tropes, ideas and just plain crazy fun.  It was included in the original Expert set and it still had expanded maps and more creatures.  I never understood why the creatures where not just in the main book, but it did make the module special.
What was so nice about X1 over B2 is you had the feel it was more integrated into the Expert rules; it felt like a logical extension.
I ran it again recently with 20+ years between the last time I had ran it and it felt like a very different adventure.  There is a lot of untapped potential here. Enough for several adventures.

X2 Castle Amber (Basic)
This adventure had always been something of a Holy Grail for me.  I was a huge fan of Tom Moldvay, I  had heard this adventure took place in Glantri and it was full of horror elements.  As time went on and I still never found a copy I began to hear more; that it was a crazy dungeon full of crazier NPCs. That it is was more of a thinking module and not a hack and slash one and finally it was heavily influenced by Clark Ashton Smith, whom I always felt was superior to Lovecraft in many respects.
I did finally get a copy, paid a lot for it and I also got a copy here.
The module lives up to the hype.  It is not a particularly easy module to run and you better spend a lot of time with it.  But for me at that time (the mid 90s when I finally got a copy) it became a great addition to my growing Ravenloft collection.  It was not officially part of Ravenloft mind you, but so much of it feels the same that is would have been a crime not to bring them together.
This is one of the last of the truly classic modules.

Though not official there have been some great B/X related products.

• The B/X Companion
• Basic Arcana
• The Witch

Running the Classics

I don't consider myself to be one of those GMs/Players with "Gammer ADHD".  I like to make a plan and stick with it.  My BIG PLAN for some time now has been to run my kids through all the classic D&D modules in some form or another.

I have detailed my attempts here and here. Since that time we have gotten new reprints from WotC and the DNDClassics PDF store opened up.  My kids also dropped 4e in favor of 1st Ed Ad&D.

So I have an embarrassment of riches here.  I have the systems, I have the modules and I even have the willing players.  What I lack is time to do it all.

I guess the only thing for it is to make the time. That and stop buying games.

In my kid's 3.x game we are going to do the Tomb of Horror and I'll talk about that one later.
In their 1st ed game they are still investigating the Caves of Chaos.  After that that we are doing T1 and L1 before moving on to the A series, to eventually do the GDQ series.  I'll work other classics in there where they fit.

Here is my plan so far.

• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (played at Gen Con 2012)
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• T1 Village of Hommlet, Intro-levels
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• A0 to A4, levels 4-7
• A5, The Last Slave Lord, levels 5-9
• G123, levels 8-12
• D12, levels 9-14
• D3, levels 10-14
• Q1, levels 10-14

The trouble is that living in a post-Drow world the impact of GDQ is just not the same unless I make them very different.
Also while Queen of the Demon web pits is fun, it lacks the final confrontation that I would like to do with a "big bad".  Plus I'd like to go to 20th level.

I could scale everything up a little and stick I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City in there before the A series.
Other candidates are X2 (I already took them through X1), C1 and C2.

That would round out the classics really.  Here is how they stack;

• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (after L1)
• I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, levels 4-7 (after A but before G)
• C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, levels 5-7 (after A but before G)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7 (after A but before G)

Not to bad really.
It's not too difficult to turn the GDQ series up anyway, but are the drow and Lolth interesting enough?
Since this is the "NextGen" game after my 3.x one maybe Lolth is taking some revenge for her ally Tiamat, or moving into the recently vacated "most evil goddess" role.

While I don't need it a huge Lolth figure would be nice.

Ravenloft / Glantri connection

This post might not be all that interesting (I know the WRONG way to start a post) but I have been digging up some old information on an old campaign I ran at the end of the 2nd ed era.

Many, many years ago while I was still deeply involved in the online Ravenloft community I postulated that Barovia, the home of Strahd in Ravenloft, is a domain taken from the Known World of Mystara, and Glantri in particular.
I was very active on the old MYSTARA-L and RAVENLOFT-L listservs.

Here is a post from 2001 where I talk about it.  This might be the first time I even mention it.
http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0108a&L=mystara-l&P=5201

Hold on a sec I have my combined Ravenloft-Mystrara-Greyhawk Time line here.

Now keep in mind that Ravenloft has funky time.  So Ravenloft uses the
Barovian Calendar (BC) and the present day is 751 (according to the books)
or 753 (according to the kargatane).  That would make it 1,346 AC.  On *my*
time line.
This also coincides with 1,370 DR in the Realms (but who cares about that!).

I am correlating my dates based on the "fact" that the two Blackmoors are
the same in Greyhawk and Mystara and were destroyed at the same time,
possibly splitting Mystara and Oerth (and D&D from AD&D!).  Then I use
Azalin from Ravenloft since we know when he entered the mists and when he
was a king on Greyhawk.

Barovia is founded in "an unknown world" in year 1 BC, or 596 AC.  So what
areas were still ripe for conquest or settlement then?
Strahd is born in 299 BC (894 AC)
The "Tergs" invade Barovia 320 BC (915 AC)
Strahd pushes them back 321 BC (916 AC)
Strahd kills his family, Barovia is "cloned" and sucked into the demi plane
351 BC (946 AC).

So the world that Barovia is from, never knows it is gone since an exact
copy with out people is left behind.  Well, some of Strahd's family remains.

800 AC to 1000 AC is a fairly well documented period of time.

Castle Amber (X2) has some amazing "Ravenloft like" elements.  After all,
Old Averoigne *IS* from Gothic Earth! ;)
As does the Glantri Gazetteer.
Other modules from Mystara also have a very heavy Ravenloft feel to them,
more so than other worlds ("Death's Ride" anyone?)

There is an adventure where the character go to the Prime Material Barovia
around 740 BC (or 1,335 AC). Barovia of this time and place is rules by a
"King Strahd".

If I go with my "Holy Lands of Glantri"  future Time line, 1,335 is a blank
period of time for me. A time between the "true" kings in which a regent sat
on the throne.  It was an attempt by the mage guild to bring back the rule
of the Princes.  They had assassinated the true king and his heirs, but one
escaped not to be "discovered" again till 1,496 AC.

SO, given my time line, I'd say Barovia is/was a principality of Glantri.
Granted this is not conclusive evidence, but it fills the holes I have.

What else do we have?

Warlock.
--
Web Warlock,
Author, the Netbooks of Witches and Warlocks
The Other Side: http://www.rpghost.com/WebWarlock
The DnD Community Council: http://www.dndcommunitycouncil.org/~nbownw

Yeah I was still going by "Web Warlock" online all the time is a vain attempt to keep my academic persona (Timothy S. Brannan) seperate from my gamer geek one.  Finally I said screw it and embraced my inner and outer geek.

There is more here and elsewhere.  With James Mishler online now I should ask him what his theories were.

Here is something I posted years ago that I can't find the original of online anymore.  Though it was quoted at Dragonsfoot.  I have the original Word doc here at home still.

Barovia is from Mystara
While Ravenloft may be my favorite game world, it is not my first. No that (dubious) honor belongs to Mystara. So here is how I have used my two worlds together. We really don't know what world Strahd's homeland came from. Other lands are clearly defined as being from Oerth (Greyhawk), Toril (Forgotten Realms), Athas (Dark Sun) or Krynn (Dragonlance). That leaves both Barovia and Mystara obvious by their absence. So. I speculate that Barovia is a darker version of one the Principalities of Glantri. Of course this long before the Princes ruled. We know that from the adventure "Roots of Evil" that the original Barovia still remains on it's home world. Well Glantri has a principality called Boldavia that is surprisingly like Barovia. It is possible that they were nieghbors, but when Strahd and his Barovia was pulled into the mists, the lord of Boldavia took over the unprotected Barovia.

There are plenty of other clues of a Ravenloft-Mystara link.

The classic module, X2 Castle Amber, takes place in Glantri and the module reads like a proto-Ravenloft setting complete with mists and lands being pulled into demi-planes. X2 was based on the writings of Clark Ashton Smith, one of Lovecraft's inner circle, and both writers have contributed a lot to what makes up D&D and Ravenloft today.

Glantri has a very European feel to it. It is higher tech and higher magic than most of the other lands on Mystara and there is definantly a darker edge to it. Since Ravenloft also uses psuedo-European cultures, the ties fit rather nicely.

Demi-Plane or World
Ravenloft is a demi-plane. Or so they tell us. But this has never been a satifactory world for me. In my mind this only emphasizes the "weekend in Hell" feel of the world. So. With the latest edition of the Ravenloft rules, I have decided that Ravenloft is in fact it's own world. Granted it is a haunted world, but not much different than the "World of Darkness" of White Wolf. This has certain advantages for me. Worlds are easier to deal with. I can have a place that can seem real to it inhabitants and give me a reason to have native players. Plus if I want, I can use my Call of Cyhulhu, White Wolf, or Witchcraft RPG stuff to modernize the world, or give it a future. This is what I liked best about Gothic Earth. With 3E Ravenloft I could do a Gothic Mystara or a Gothic Oerth.

Personally I rather move the lot to Earth. But that is a topic for another time.

Plus this helps bring other ideas from the Ravenloft-list into line for me. Ravenloft has a mostly human population, but there are monsters. So a world can support a larger ecosystem. Monsters can run about. Another idea is move the mind flayers, Illithids, to the moon. This give them a more alien feel and ties in very nicely with Lovecraft. Plus I have the new d20 Call of Cthulhu book sitting on my self next to my Ravenloft one. So I am sure I can get something from their unholy union.

Another idea to flesh out this "world" is to use some of the new d20 products out there. Sword and Sorcery studios has some great books, like the Creature Collections and Relics and Rituals. The Scarred Lands of those books has the dark and gritty feel I like to inject into my games. I also have a few good official Wizards of the Coast products that also make a nice addition. Monsters of Faerun is a good example.

The Dark Powers
Who or what are the dark powers and what do they wnat? That is question that has been bugging players and DM of Ravenloft for a long time. We have had some clues. They could be evil outsiders, or gods. Or they could be Good and Ravenloft is a prison. Or maybe they started out as good and became evil. Who knows. The truth be told. I don't deal with them much in my games. While I dislike the idea of Ravenloft being a giant roach motel of evil, I also like to keep the players and the Dark Lords in check.

Plus there are the Dark Lords. Very powerful, not very mobile. I like to use a bit more flexibility with my Dark Lords and Powers. Granted this has not always worked out as well as I would have liked. But I'll keep experimenting. Normally I like to take a page out of the Masque of Red Death and not have Dark Lords at all. Or rather, they are there, but they are significantly weaker when they leave their area of control.

No Dragons?
How is it there are no dragons in Ravenloft, a Dungeons and Dragons game? Well I have added them. Yes they are evil and there is even a Dragon dark lord. The realm is Draconis, and it is also from Mystara. It is currently an island. It too has it's roots in Glantri. You can download it from PlanetADnD.com. Draconis.

If I continue the world metaphor then there are plenty of places for Dragon Dark Lords and Dragons. While Draconis is based on Glantri, it has it roots in the mystical "Dragon Isle" of so many fantasy stories, including the tales of Michael Moorcock's Elric.

BTW I still have Draconis laying around here somewhere.  I reused large portions of it for my Dragon Ilse in my kids 3.x game.

I'll have to see what else I have laying around.

Retrospectives

I have to admit. I really enjoy reading the Retrospectives over at Grognardia.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/retrospective

James usually covers something I know, but every so often something comes up and I am seeing something new.  But in every case I learn something I didn't know before.

Here are some of my favorites:

• The Book of Marvelous Magic - I was looking for a copy of this at the auction, so this was the right thing at the right time.
• Authentic Thaumtaurgy -  Issac Bonewits was one of the first people I talked to on the Internet back in the old Bitnet days.  He was kind of a jerk.  But I liked this book.
• Dragon Dice- precious jewels!
• The Dying Earth - How I learned to love Vancian magic.
• Palace of the Vampire Queen - managed to score a copy of this.
• Alma Mater - this one too. One of the strangest games in my collection.
• Chill - again my love of Chill knows no bounds.
• Castle Amber - one of my most favorite adventures.
• Castle Greyhawk - I also own this one, and yes it is bad.  It is also deadly, maybe one of the deadliest dungeon  crawls to be published by TSR.  Yes. Even more deadly than Tomb of Horrors.  If I remember right CG features at least two elder vampires, three Death Knights, a couple of demon lords and everything but a Kitchen Sink Monster.
• Ravenloft - Still my favorite adventure ever.

I have used these retrospectives many times as a starting point to do more research for articles on Wikipedia or for my own benefit.

My Kids are Awesome!

With the new reprints of 1st Ed AD&D now out my kids want our next game to be a 1st Edition one!

How freaking cool is that?

We have done just about everything we have set out to do in 3rd Ed and our 4th Ed game is still moving right along.

So what should we do then for 1st Ed?
I know I am going to throw in some house rules.

• 1st level HP will be equal to Con scores for all characters and NPCs include 0-level humans.
• I will be using bards, I am just not sure which one yet.
• Double damage on a natural 20.
• Will use strict multi-class and dual-class rules.
• If it is written down somewhere and it works with AD&D1, 2 or Basic D&D then it will be considered for this game.

I know I am going to use ideas from ALL the retro-clones where appropriate.  So it will be less of a 1st Ed game in rules, but certainly one in terms of tone and spirit.

Here are the adventures I want to use.  Again, I like sticking with these old school modules.

T1 Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2 (IF I don't use it in the D&D4 game)
B1 Into the Unknown, levels 1-3 (my go to starting module)
B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (how can I NOT do this?)

L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (love this freaky module, though it sticks out as the only Non-Greyhawk one)
A1-4 Slave Lords, levels 4-7
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12 (I also have the Stone Giant one from Dragonsfoot)
D12,3 Against the Drow, levels 8,9-14
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, 10-14
S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (IF I don't use it in the D&D4 game, it is an AD&D classic)
CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (Again, unless I use it in my current 3.x game which the boys want me to do)

AND if their 4.e group does not get to the end, then I could use the Bloodstone H series too.  But that is getting WAY ahead of myself.

If you look over my previous plans here and here, you see I am sticking with the modules. 
I am running the HPE Orcus ones for 4e, and used many of the other classics in my 3.x games.

So far the boys have gone through B3, B4, S2, S4, WG4, I1, and X1 for 3.x (and a bunch I made up when they were younger like "Cave of the Rainbow Dragon" and "The Stinky Cave"), and H1 Keep on the Shadowfell for 4e.  So they are getting, as my youngest put it this morning, a full Dungeons & Dragons education.

Again.  This is going to be a lot of fun!  I am not expecting this one to start anytime soon, I still have a 3.x game to finish with them. 

"Let's Play 1st Ed. Dad!"

Those are the words I heard after I told my boys that 5e was on the way and there were going to be reprints of the 1st Ed AD&D books.

Part of me is thrilled, another part of me is wondering what the hell am I going to do with all the 4e stuff I bought. ;)  You might recall my Big Plan^TM was going to be have the kids fight Orcus.

Here are the adventures I am thinking of running with them at the moment.  You will note that these all have a large amount of undead and "horror" themes to them.  As with the "Dragonslayers" I'd run this to level 20 or so.

• T1 The Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2. 
• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3
• B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (this should be higher really, the caves are a killer)
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
• I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10. (maybe)
• I9 Day of Al'Akbar, level 8-10. Useful for the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar.
• S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12 (this is an odd one.)
• G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12
• D12 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, levels 9-14
• D3 Vault of the Drow, levels 10-14
• Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, levels 10-14 (maybe)
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (If I don't use it in my current games. Thematically it fits better here.)

Then there are these modules:

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

Interestingly enough this is almost EXACTLY the same path my characters took when I played back in the day.  Some of these will be my first time running, others (B1, I6) I can run in my sleep.

Others I have a bigger issue with.  As muchas I LOVED the D series, we live in a post Drizzt world.  Drow are not the TOS era Romulans anymore.  They are the DS9 era Romulans.  The mystery is gone. Drow are no longer a big secret anymore.  Plus how does Lolth fit into the Orcus plot?  No idea.  She doesn't have too, but I want a big sweeping epic.  Something my kids will talk about when they are older.

If I do keep with 4e, I can do my original plan.  In both cases the Big Bad is Orcus.  And I kinda like that idea to be honest.

If do 1st Ed I am very likely to include information from JB's B/X Companion Rules and the Rules Cyclopedia to deal with the higher level play.

Who knows, maybe 5e will give me the power to use all this stuff under one game system.

Of course there is one other option.  Play the 1st ed games as a "Flash back" game or even (gasp!) a time travel one.  The characters (whether 4e or 5e) spend some time in the past.  I would stat up the characters as 1st Ed ones.  I kinda like this idea to be honest.  Play my 4e plan, and then hit some of the past adventures too.  I could then be more selective about which older adventures to use.

So many games to play and so little time....

Tom Moldvay on Witches

When it comes to Basic D&D, the Basic set edited by (even created by I'd say) Tom Moldvay is my favorite.  Holmes has it's charm (and was my first exposure to D&D) and Mentzer has it's legions of fans (so the new D&D4 starter sets lead me to believe), but it is Moldvay's Basic (and the Cook/Marsh Expert) set that gets my geek-nostalgia into overdrive.  Most of it is because this was my first proper D&D game ever.  Also though, long before I knew of Arneson or really even Gygax, tom Moldvay was the "Name" for me.  His was the names on these boxes and on the adventure X1.  Later I would pick up Castle Amber and there he was again.  To me Moldvay is very much what D&D of 1980-1981 is.   I guess this is one of the reasons I was so geeked about the B/X Companion.

While I have been ruminating on playing a witch again in a B/X era game I could not but help recall somewhere in the deep dark parts of my memory an article that tom Moldvay had done on witches in D&D.  Sure enough, Dragon 43 from Nov. 1980 on page 8 had what I was looking for.

Tom Moldvay was a bit of scholar as well as a game designer.
Here are a few brief lists of his work.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Moldvay
• http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=694
• http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=423796
• http://index.rpg.net/display-search.phtml?key=contributor&value=Tom+Moldvay

He had a Master degree in Anthropology and was certainly acquainted with works of Margaret Murry.  Even if her ideas and theories have been discounted by modern anthropologists, they were still in vogue at the time Moldvay was in school and writing for TSR, and you can see this in his Dragon article about witches.

According to Moldvay a witch class should include the following:
1. The ability to use herbs for healing and magic.  2. The power of fascination, like a super-charm ability.  3. A combination of both Clerical and Magic-User abilities. 4. The ability to practice sympathetic magic.  5. Be worshipers, in secret, of a religion otherwise forbidden in a particular era. 6. Powers based on nature and the cycle of seasons, similar to Druidic* powers.

I want to look at each of these in turn.

1. Ability to use herbs.  Well to me this reads like a skill, but certainly at the time it was meant to be a class-feature.  How would a witch do this in game?  I would say herbal healing is a natural ability.  The witch would need to find the herbs and then prepare them in a way to heal, say 1-4 hp +1 hp every other level.  She could have some healing balms prepared ahead of time, say no more than 3 plus her INT or WIS modifier (4 to 6 for most PCs).   I would argue that these balms are also of a nature that they can spoil if not used.  So no matter how many are made the witch can only start the game with this number, never more.  When these are exhausted she could look for herbs in the wild (requiring an INT check) and prepare them (requiring a WIS) check  Game mechanics wise we don't want to rob what is a central element of the Cleric class, the ability to heal.  Herbal healing needs to be non-magical; so great for wounds, not great for magical afflictions.  Witches can take cure and healing type spells for that, but not so much to negate the need for a cleric.
I would extend this to include brewing of potions too and other forms of alchemy.

2. The power of fascination, like a super-charm ability. Again, this could be a spell, but it is worded like a class ability. If the ability is greater than the spell Charm, then it also needs to be a spell.  The witch should be able to add her Charisma modifier to any charm-like spell.  If this is a class ability then it behooves the witch to have a high Charisma.

3. A combination of both Clerical and Magic-User abilities. Again, not so much to make either class obsolete.  The Basic Magic-User is as much Morganne le Fey and Circe as it is Merlin and Gandalf. The trick is not to give the witch powers that the Magic-User already has, but to highlight how they can be similar and still different.  If you can be a class that can throw magical spells around and still heal like a cleric then why be a magic-user?  The trick is to have enough overlap, but not too much.  They will all have some spell in common, but keep some signature ones to themselves.  Which I think is a good tie in to point 4.

4. The ability to practice sympathetic magic.  Witches need to have something to make their magic more "witchy" and what is better than "Wool of bat" and "eye of newt"?  Witches, regardless of what magic-users might be doing, HAVE to use material components.  This can even be a good in-game difference.  Clerics need their faith, Wizards rely on their intellect, but a witch needs something, either a small piece of the object she wants to affect or something that was in contact with it or somehow related to it.  She wants it to rain? She needs to pour out a little bit of water to stimulate the elements to do her bidding.  So control dolls, fetishes, strange and sometimes hard to some by items are needed by the witch to make her magic work.  You can imagine that Clerics and Wizards look down on the witch and her "low magic" for needing such "props".  I think that regardless of what is used as a spell component this will make the casting time of any witch spell longer than a similar wizard or cleric spell.

5. Be worshipers, in secret, of a religion otherwise forbidden in a particular era.  This one is harder to pull off as it is written. Think about it, the D&D worlds are FULL of gods. Good ones, bad ones, greater ones, lesser ones, new gods, old gods, gods everywhere.  One faith's cleric is another's witch if you get right down to it.  So who are the witches worshiping?  They need to go with things that are not gods.  Demons, devils, ancient primordials, titans,  even lords and ladies of the Fey courts, or maybe they believe in one Goddess and one God and all others gods and goddesses are only aspects of this great pair.  This is what makes the witch different than a cleric.  Clerics are granted power because they serve their deities purposes in the world.  Witches are granted power, though not the same way, because they serve their patrons directly.  While the origin of these power may be extra-planular or even divine, witches are essentially arcane spellcasters.  They just don't learn this in mage schools.
This is something I tried to do in the 3rd Ed version of my witch class and what WotC does fairly well with their 4th Ed version Warlock.  I called them Patrons, they call them Pacts.  Pacts with Patrons.  Works, more or less, but the idea is the same.  You are giving up something of yourself to serve a "higher" power in exchange for magical power.

6. Powers based on nature and the cycle of seasons, similar to Druidic* powers.  Now here is a tricky one.  What Druid is Moldvay talking about?  Do we mean the popular neo-pagan druids that most people think of when the word "druid" is mentioned?  Does he mean the AD&D Druid with it's animal shape abilities? Or the semi-historical druid of legend that we still only know a little about?  I have seen it mentioned that Druids are male and Witches are female, which is fine if one only is thinking of the neo-pagan versions of each.  This would preclude archetypes like the Bandrui and Warlock.  Plus when you look at it, the AD&D druid had some elemental focused spells, but nothing really on the cycle of seasons.  I would conclude though from this that like the druid the witch would never have access to a Raise Dead spell, but only Reincarnate.  Raise Dead would break the cycle of Life-Death-Rebirth and thus be an taboo.   I would argue undead are the same way, but witches of Orcus would have little to do.

I think this is a good list and certainly one to consider if ever building a Witch class for any version of the game.  But there are couple I think I would like to add.

7. Covens.  While some witches have appeared by themselves there are others that have always appeared together. The weird sisters of Macbeth, the Stygian Witches all the way up to Piper, Phoebe and Paige, witches work together in a coven.  Usually three, sometime more.  A game mechanic needs to be in place to allow this to happen.   It can even be as simple as some spells requiring three or more witches in order to work, or other spells that work better if more than one witch is casting.  Not quite the Ritual Magic of d20 or even Ghosts of Albion, but something.

8. Ritual Magic. I think this is also a must.

I'll be posting more thoughts soon.

Favorite Modules

So thanks to the magic that is Half-Price Books, eBay and my local game store, I have managed to score over the years nearly every classic AD&D Module and many of the 2nd ED ones and a fair number of 3rd and 4th ed ones too.

I am a-wash in adventures.

I want to run my kids through some of the greatest adventures of all time.  They have already been through X1 Ilse of Dread, B4 the Lost City and a few others.  They are going through B2 now with another DM using Pathfinder and will be going through B3 as soon as tomorrow under D&D 3.x.

I am itching to take them through S1 (I have versions now for every edition of D&D), S3 and S4/WG4.  I am dying to get them through Ravenloft and Castle Amber (X2) and Death's Ride (CM2).

They will also hit the GDQ mega-adventure someday, either with me or our other GM.

So what are your favorite adventures and why?
Help me narrow this down to the "must dos".

Thanks!

Revised Plan; Generational Mega Plots

I plan to come back to Cartoon Action Hour here in a bit, but I have something I want to get organized first.

So a while back I posted a plan for the adventures I wanted to run with my family using 4E.

Well since that time, some gaming has happened, some looking over various adventures and some tests on my part has brought me to the conclusion that I can't run some of those old school modules under 4E after all.  Certainly I am still working on my current 3.x adventures with my kids.

Now mind you, this is not a bad thing nor is it reflective of the modules, 4e or "Old School".
But it has forced me to change my plans.

So for the "Dragon Slayers" game I am running I'll add some of those classic modules.  The characters are all right around 13th level now, with one just on the verge of 10th.  The ultimate goal of this game is to defeat Tiamat in the "Graveyard of Dragons". What can I say, my kids like the old D&D cartoon.    The rules are under 3.x edition, which has an odd mix of D&D 3.0, with some 3.5, minor bits from Pathfinder, BESM d20 and Star Wars d20 (the revised one that came out after Attack of the Clones).

Also some of these modules are going to be played by me under Pathfinder in either my "Big Kids Group" or the "Little Kids Group".  Currently the LKG is going through "B2 The Keep on the Borderlands".  I have already used bits of "X1 Ilse of the Dread" and "B4 The Lost City".  I know that in the one of the Pathfinder groups we will go through the GDQ series at some point, most likely the Little Kids Group.  I will be running "C2 Ghost Tower" under the Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space game.

After that those characters will retire and their descendants will complete a new Quest.  The defeat of Orcus.
I'll run this one under D&D 4E and I do plan on it taking many years.

I am not 100% certain how the adventures will pan out, but I do want to use the D&D4 ones for ease.

• H1 Keep on the Shadowfell
• H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth
• H3 Pyramid of Shadows
• P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
• P2 Demon Queen's Enclave
• P3 Assault on Nightwrymn Fortress
• E1 Death's Reach
• E2 Kingdom of the Ghouls
• E3 Prince of Undeath

Part of this is my desire to have them battle Orcus at the end. Plus I like to overall plot of involving the Raven Queen vs Orcus and Orcus getting a hold of some ancient artifact of Tharizdûn.

Those modules will get them from 1st to 30th level.  But I might want to add a couple here and there.  Not sure yet since I have not read them all in detail.   I also know some people have had issues with these modules, both in terms of how they fit together, plot and playability.  So I want to get things that are out now, and then tweak them as I need.  Afterall, if this is about fighting Orcus who gets an artifact from ancient Tharizdûn then I can lay some ground work in my 3.x game now for that.

So after all that I have some modules left over.

• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, levels 1-3 (using bits from both the "Green" and "Orange" versions).
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (place it in the Shadowfell, which is the new Ravenloft anyway)
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
• S2 White Plume Mountain, levels 5-10
• I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10.
• S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (with some of the info from the 3.5 update), levels 6-10
• WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, levels 5-10
• S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (though I might just wait for the new D&D4 version)
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. 

Then there are these modules:

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

Like the E series for D&D4, these send you to Orcus's layer to defeat him.   Of the lot, H4 would be the best one to use, maybe as a buffer between E2 and E3.   The others seem more suited for the Dragon Slayer's Pathfinder game.    Of course, I could convert the H1-H4 Bloodstone series to feature Tiamat instead of Orcus.   S4 and WG4 are linked and deal with Iggwilv, her Demonomicon and Tharizdûn.  They are good to set up the history of Orcus and Tharizdûn.  They can happen in either game. In the 4th Ed game I'd stick it in between H and P.  CM2 Death's Ride has some cool stuff in it. Good to set up the whole Orcus wants to be a God thing in the 3.x game.  Plus it would give me a good arch-nemesis for the characters to fight throughout.

The Ravenloft ones would be great for the Sunsword (a good weapon against the undead) but there is the Board Game coming out and I want it.  Plus I'd rather run Ravenloft these days under True20.  So I might have to find something similar.  If I use the new Tomb of Horrors then I could place a good aligned sword there.  There is a D&D4

There is a lot to do and figure out here.  But I see this as a good thing. Look at all the time I have.  I can plan out a mult-year arc of adventuring that would take my kids all the way to college.  Wouldn't have died to have done something like that?

Though I do need to figure out a way to get more dragons into the 4th Ed game for my oldest.

Now this is my attempt to bring Old Schoolers and New Schoolers together.

NEW SCHOOLERS:  What things should I be aware of when running the HPE series?

OLD SCHOOLERS: What classic, epic modules are a "must run" for a group of kids that were not even alive when Clinton was in office, let alone Carter.  What memory of "D&D" is a must have?  Barrier Peeks?  Tomb of Horrors?

Clarifications on Games being Played
- "Dragon Slayers" is a 3.x game that I play with my two sons and sometimes my wife joins us. The goal of this game is to defeat Tiamat.
- "Big Kids Game/Group" is a Pathfinder game where I play a Paladin.  In this group are my kids and the DM's kids (6 players, 1 DM)
- "Little Kids Game/Group" is a Pathfinder game where I play a Witch (same witch as I do in Dragon Slayers).  This is the group with the Problem Player.
Both Pathfinder games have the same DM.
- "Untitled 4th Ed Game" is a 4e game where the players are the same as Dragon Slayers, but the characters are their children or descendants. The goal of this game is to defeat Orcus.

Yamil Zacra: The Infernal Star

I have been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft since high school.  I like his works as much as the next gamer/horror geek (which is to say, a lot), but it was a chance discovery in my college library one day that I happened on a collection of unfinished stories by Clark Ashton Smith.  I had known of CAS for a long time.  I knew he was a friend of HPL and the D&D module X2: Castle Amber, was a pastiche of his ideas.   One story in this collection of unfinished tales was The Infernal Star, a story of a evil star.


Accursed forevermore is Yamil Zacra, star of perdition, who sitteth apart and weaveth the web of his rays like a spider spinning in a garden. Even as far as the light of Yamil Zacra falleth among the worlds, so goeth forth the bane and the bale thereof. And the seed of Yamil Zacra, like a fiery tare, is sown in planets that know him only as the least of the stars .... -Fragment of a Hyperborean tablet.

This story grabbed a hold of my imagination and never really let go.  I could never find that book again in the library, despite my best efforts at looking.  But a couple of years ago I discovered the story online at Eldritch Dark, a CAS devoted website.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/101/the-infernal-star-%28fragment%29

This dredged up another half-forgotten memory of Nemesis, the hypothetical red- or brown-dwarf star that obits our sun.  The theory is that Nemesis causes extinction events about 26 million years or so.  The two certainly could be one and the same in a near-apocalyptic game.

Yamil Zacra: The Infernal Star
Somewhere between the stars Polaris and the acknowledged evil star Agol, lies a star nearly invisible to the naked eye; but a star whose ill light shines on Earth still.
The star, Yamil Zacra and it's darker, smaller companion Yuzh, though were once worshipped as evil gods by the Hyboreans and the twisted sorcerers of Mu. Astrologers say that it's foul light was visible when Atlantis sank and the contents moved. In the far future, when many stars have burned out their fuel, they will again be honored by the fell Necromancers of the last continent of Zothique when the Earth is dying.
The ancient Hyboreans believed that this evil star bore the seeds in which all foul magics have grown. That the greatest and most terrible of witches, necromancers and foul wizards were born under it's light.
These magics may be realized when certain amulets of black extraterrestrial metal are grafted into the skin, most often the chest, of those willing. These amulets fell to Earth in ancient times were from the solitary planetary body of Yamil Zacra, a twisted world know as Pnidleethon.

Once in the possession of one of these amulets the dreams of Pnidleethon and Yamil Zacra begin including the means to travel to this chthonic world. When the amulet is finally embedded into the prospective student's chest he forfeits forever his soul and Earthly shell in favor for a form to travel the distances across cold space to the immense world of Pnidleethon.

The scene of these latter dreams was not the Earth, but an immense planet revolving around the sun Yamil Zacra and its dark companion, Yuzh. The name of the world was Pnidleethon. It was a place of exuberant evil life, and its very poles were tropically fertile; and the lowliest of its people was more learned in wizardry, and mightier in necromancy, than the greatest of terrene sorcerers. How he had arrived there, the dreamer did not know, for he was faint and blinded with the glory of Yamil Zacra, burning in mid-heaven with insupportable whiteness beside the blackly flaming orb of Yuzh. He knew, however, that in Pnidleethon he was no longer the master of evil he had been on Earth, but was an humble neophyte who sought admission to a dark hierarchy. As a proof of his fitness, he was to undergo tremendous ordeals, and tests of unimaginable fire and night.

Yamil Zacra in WitchCraft/Buffy/Ghosts of Albion
It is rumored that the possession of such an amulet will increase one's magical energies ten-fold. In game terms increase the character's Sorcery/Magic by +10 or increase their Essence 10 times. While this seems to be great remember at this time there are only two amulets left in the world and the user forfeits their own soul for this power. The soul is not given to some demon or even otherworldly god, but it is consumed whole.

In the Armageddon game I would have Yamil Zacra appear in the nigh sky, a brownish-red blotch on the night sky.  It casts no light, save for those already under Leviathan's influence, but everyone can feel it's heat.

Yamil Zacra in All Tomorrow's Zombies In the present day it is difficult to travel to Yamil Zacra and Pnidleethon other than by eldritch or sorcererous means. But in the future worlds of ATZ such an expedition to a planet that is seemingly dead is different sort of tale.

Option 1: The planet is dead. The crew lands on a planet where there had once been a great, if evil, civilization. Yet something is still out there in the dark picking off the cast one by one. It's Cthulhu meets Aliens, or "Journey To The Seventh Planet" with less suck.

Option 2: The planet is alive. Here the civilization of seemingly advanced humans still thrives. But the cast is trapped. Think of the song Hotel California and apply it to the entire planet. Or, Planet Ravenloft.
Escaping in either case is the goal, the means in each option differ. In Option 1 it is just get back to the ship before you all die. In Option 2 it is figure out how to get back to the ship and get out.

Yamil Zacra in D&D4
Obviously one of the dread and fell stars that grant warlocks their power.

More Revelations of Melech
Yamil Zacra: When civilizations fall, it is the light of Yamil Zacra that falls on them. It is a dark red star barely seen by mortals, those that can see it know it is a portent of doom.

Level 23 Encounter Spell
The Doom of Yamil Zacra                                        Warlock Attack 23
For brief, horrible moment the light of Yamil Zacra shine on your enemy, revealing the doom that must come to all.
Encounter ✦ Arcane, Radiant, Fear, Implement
Standard Action                                                            Ranged 10
Target: One creature
Attack: Constitution vs. Fortitude
Hit: 4d8 + Constitution modifier Radiant damage, and the target grants combat advantage to all your allies until the end of your next turn.
    Star Pact: If this attack hits, the target takes a penalty to Will equal to your Intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.
    Infernal Pact: If this attack hits, target also takes Fire damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.

I Have a Plan…

It's not a great plan, or even a well thought out one, but it is a plan. I am going to be taking my two sons (and now it seems, my wife) on a massive 4^th Edition D&D campaign. Yes I know this will take years, but that is fine, I have those years. I am going to place it in my "Mystoerth" world.

Given my penchant for all things horror, I am going to set up the campaign to focus on the ascent of Orcus to godhood. Orcus is a great enemy to have. He is unrepentant evil, his minions are undead and he is full of rage, horror and violence and everything a good upstanding hero would want to stop.

I'd use some of the "new" mythology of Orcus and Raven Queen, plus a bit of my own. But not all would be railroaded plot-driven arcs. My oldest son loves to fight dragons so that would also be there. Plus I want to make this very, very relaxed. The unfolding meta-plot is my extra enjoyment, but I want to do it in such a way that we all have fun.

I am going to place it in my world's version of Glantri. Glantri is from Mystara and in that world was a Principality, now I have at as Theocratic Monarchy where the King is also the head of the Church of State. So basically, Fairy Tale England, or more to the point Fairy Tale Western Europe, since I also have influences of France and Italy here. The Princes are gone, defeated in a coup, but their lands remain ruled by nine dukes under the King. The Dukes are mostly the old family of the Princes, looking for a chance to reclaim power. So I have political intrigue if I want it, but I am going to be keeping my good and evil mostly easy to spot, at least in the beginning. The Dukes allow me to use older Glantri material, I just swap out the terms. Under the Dukes are various landed nobles, typically retired adventures, known as Barons and Counts. My thinking here is to give my boys all the full D&D experiences; so there are knights and dames, courts of intrigue and chivalry, and the way for brave adventurers to return home as heroes. Sure it is not "grim-dark" or even "points of light", but it can be part of the "oncoming darkness".

My world has a Blackmoor, a Desert, a Hyborea, not mention Greyhawk, Glantri and Kara-Tur all in one world. So, more than enough to keep me and my family busy for years to come really. Though there are only four of us, I might have to bring in some others, maybe some of their friends as well. This is one of the main reasons I am going with 4^th Edition as opposed to say an older version (the D&D Rules Cyclopedia would be so awesome for this) or another game (like Ghosts of Albion). I am more likely to find others that play 4E than some other game AND it just makes the most sense really given all the tools for 4E out now.

Here is the "Hero Tier" to borrow a phrase. These will be local and be the Mystara flavor of the epic.

• T1 The Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2. I do have the 4^th Edition update for this.
• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (can run this one in my sleep)
• B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, levels 1-3 (using bits from both the "Green" and "Orange" versions).
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X1 The Ilse of Dread, levels 3-7
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (place it in the Shadowfell, which is the new Ravenloft anyway)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7. Though I won't run it as a tournament module and that is if I don't use it as a converted Doctor Who adventure.
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
• S2 White Plume Mountain, levels 5-10
• I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10 (maybe. They might be burned out on undead by this time.)

Now begins the "Paragon Tier" and I will start with the Gygaxian canon.

• S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (with some of the info from the 3.5 update), levels 6-10
• WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, levels 5-10
• S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (though some of the instant kill traps changed, more skill challenges)
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
• G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12
• D12 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, levels 9-14
• D3 Vault of the Drow, levels 10-14
• Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, levels 10-14
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. This sets up the next tier, or I could even make this the start of the next tier and keep the Epic levels nothing but Gygaxian Greyhawk. I like that idea.

I can also fit Gary's "Dungeon Land" and "The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror" adventures here as well to complete the Gygaxian saga. But I need to re-read those to be sure.

Now here would also be a good spot for the DA series Blackmoor adventures for made for the Expert D&D set, but there is a lot of high tech stuff mixed in with those. I might pick and choose things, but I think I am more likely to go with the newer d20 Blackmoor stuff.

The "Epic Tier" is harder, but here some ideas.
Some of the Master level modules (M2, M3 and M5 in particular) look like they would work well. Plus they have the Mystara high fantasy feel that some of the Greyhawk modules don't have.
Of course I would do the Bloodstone series here, just make them harder, maybe even pair them up with the Orcus related adventures for 4e (the new "E" series), though old H4 and new E3 cover a lot of the same ground. I would want to add some other planes adventures here too. So to follow my rule of thumb I should try to find at least 6 more adventures for this tier.

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

I could also do a sub-campaign in my desert area using:

• B4 The Lost City, levels 1-3 (though I am using this one now in 3.5)
• I3 Pharaoh, levels 5-7
• I4 Oasis of the White Palm, levels 6-8
• I5 Lost Tomb of Martek, levels 7-9
• X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, levels 6-9
• X5 Temple of Death, levels 6-10
• I9 Day of Al'Akbar, level 8-10. Useful for the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar.

Now granted these levels are all for AD&D and Basic D&D and might not translate well into 4E. But I have a lot of tools at my disposal to help with that. I have a load of maps, a DDI subscription, monsters and even some third party stuff to make it all work. If I plan everything out correctly I can have them go up a level at the end of every adventure. I like that too. Also I can set up a titanic army of the undead using all the previous "bosses" from these adventures. So Strahd, Drenzula, Korbundar, Acerak, and more I know I am forgetting. Plus some GM PCs I'd love to try out that I know I'll never get to play in a 4^th Ed game.

To borrow a Klingon quote, "It will be glorious!"