Monday, January 4, 2021

Character Creation Challenge: Dungeons & Dragons, Basic Edition

Monday of the first week of the year and it is back to the day job for me.  Thankfully I planned an easy (for me) one today.  To continue with the editions of Dungeons & Dragons we are now up to Basic D&D. 

Basic D&D Boxed set

The Game: Basic Dungeons & Dragons 

I have told the tale here many times on how I began with Holmes Basic, but the first D&D I ever owned was the Moldvay Basic Set.  I played Basic D&D, just "D&D" to me then,  but soon I and everyone else, were mixing it liberally with bits of AD&D.  Sometimes I think of the days when a Blue or Red D&D Basic book was used side by side with the AD&D Monster Manual and modules.

Spend any time here and you will know of my love for Basic D&D. So there is little more I can say here.

The Character: Áine nic Elatha

The witch class I am pairing with this is the one from Dragon Magazine #43 and using the guidelines set out by Tom Moldvay on what a witch should be. 

Dragon Magazine #43 was published in November 1980; the high point of Holmes Basic, the start of AD&D popularity, and one year before Moldvay Basic was released.  The class is overtly designed for AD&D, but as I mentioned we used Basic and Advanced interchangeably.  I suppose if I am being true to Basic I should drop the bonus spells per Intelligence the witch gains.

Given the time and this tantalizing promise, I can justify making it for a bastardized Basic/Advanced D&D.

The witch from Holmes

Áine daughter of Elatha is a human magic-user (Basic after all).  She is "the path not taken" for me.  My first "witch-like" character was Luna, a cleric that worshipped an unnamed moon goddess. While she would later morph into something else, I soon created other witch type characters, Áine is what that character could have been if I had chosen Magic-user rather than Cleric.

Áine nic Elatha
1st level Human Witch

STR: 10
INT: 17
WIS: 12
DEX: 11
CON: 12
CHA: 11

AC: 9
HP: 3

Spells
1st (1+3):  Change Self, Cure Wounds, Light, Sleep

Equipment
Dagger, backpack, iron rations, water, holy water, darts (3), 50' rope, staff.


Holmes & Moldvay Basic sets

If you are doing this challenge as well please feel free to post on the Facebook group, I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters.

Also, this month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Plastic Polyhedra. They are doing Characters, Stories, and Worlds, so that fits right in with everything we are posting this month!

Do check them out!


Sunday, January 3, 2021

War of the Witch Queens Session 2: Into the Ruins of Ramat

We got a chance to play the second full session of War of the Witch Queens today, our last day of winter vacation.  Today's adventure dealt with leveling up the characters to level 1 and giving them a slight boost in HP.  The characters also got the chance to buy some real weapons and armor.

All in the process they learned about the terrible Ruins of Ramat from the villagers of Wydfield Woodfield.


The party searched the ruined church and found their way down into the underground structure where the clerics had lived and trained.   

They still need to find the spear and use it to defeat the ghost above.  Hopefully, we can get a session in this week, even with work.

The players are learning a key feature of Basic-era D&D.  Sometimes it is better to run away.  

Since everyone is now level 1, I am allowing the players to diversify their characters.  One thief is now an Assassin from OSE-Advanced. The magic-users are splitting up into a Blood Witch, Sorcerer, and Wizard.  I am going to let them choose from a common spell list, and then also a spell list unique to each class. One cleric is going to focus on being a healer.  So I need to get that written up with some ideas. 

For this game, I swapped out my New Big Dragon Game Master's Screen for the Old School Essentials Screen.  Both work great.

The tiles are Dwarven Forge and the temple is from Reaper Minis.

Can't wait to see where we all go next!

Character Creation Challenge: Dungeons & Dragons, Original Edition

Today is the start of the first full week of January and thus 2021.  So let's spend some time this week with the Grand-daddy of all RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons.  Every day this week I am going to do an edition of D&D.  Today I am going to start with Original Dungeons & Dragons. 

The Game: Dungeons & Dragons

D&D is arguably the first RPG ever created and certainly to first-ever mass-marketed.  Original D&D is a great game that is a lot of fun, if you can find a group that plays it correctly.  One summer back in 1987 I played in a summer-long campaign of OD&D using the Eldritch Wizardry rules.  I was already a HUGE fan of the Eldritch Wizardry supplement, having picked up a copy back in 1985.  I loved the demons, the druids, and the psionic rules.

To do my witch I thought I might do a druid, Rules as Written, but I think instead I want to use the witch class from The Dragon Magazine #5 (1977). Though that witch is more of a "monster" type than an NPC or class.  So I will also look at The Dragon Magazine #20 (1978).  This works for me since I like to consider 1977/78 the "end" of OD&D's run and the start of "Basic" D&D and AD&D's prominence. 

I will do the 3d6 in order, but I am also going to reorder as needed to get the numbers I need. 

In true OD&D form I am going to start her as a Magic-User and choose spells from The Dragon #5 & #20 witch lists.

witches in OD&D

The Character: Deirdre

Deirdre is a witch idea I had while reading Celtic Myths.  I know very little about her yet except she seems to be sad.  

Deirdre
1st level Magic-User (Medium) [Witch]

STR: 8
INT: 14
WIS: 13
DEX: 14
CON: 13
CHA: 11

Equipment: Dagger, 50' rope, staff, iron rations, 3 pouches (2 empty, 1 with spell components), spellbook, iron spikes, water skin w/ water, 4 darts.

Spells: Sleep

witch from The Dragon #5

I used the dice roller on Google for this. Not too bad really. If the rolls had favored it I would have made her a druid since that also works out nice.  I am sure there will be some druids in my characters this month.

Original D&D rules

Tardis Captain, who started this challenge, is keeping a running list of participating blogs on his site and people are posting over at RPG.net as well.

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Character Creation Challenge: Dark Places & Demogorgons

Next to NIGHT SHIFT, Dark Places & Demogorgons is one of my favorite Old-school inspired, modern horror games.  It is similar and yet very different from NIGHT SHIFT and I really enjoy it.

The Game: Dark Places & Demogorgons

I have talked a lot about this game on these pages. Basically, it is the "Stranger Things" the game using the very same 80s inspired D&D that the show used.

The Character: Taryn Nix

Taryn is the daughter of my iconic witch Larina. She is my "Teen Witch" archetype, so a perfect follow-up to my Sabrina post AND a great choice for the teen-centric Dark Places and Demogorgons.

If Larina is my go-to witch for fantasy games then Taryn is my go-to for teen games. 

I imagine her as a little rebellious and an expert flyer/broom-rider.

For this build, I am using the White Witch options from the DP&D Player Options & GM Guide.

While I always thought of Taryn as a Millenial/GenZ girl, she is named after "Taryn" from the Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Which I might admit is my favorite.

Taryn "Nix" Nichols

Class: White Witch  Level: 1
Alignment: Good
Languages: English, Latin
Age: 13

Attributes
STR: 9 +0
INT: 14 +1
WIS: 15 +1
DEX: 13 +1
CON: 17 +2
CHA: 18 +3
SUR: 16 +2

AC: 10     HP:  10   Attack Bonus +0

Courage: 8
Critical: 5
Death: 5
Mental: 6
Poison: 3

Background
Mother is a Witch, her father is some sort of supernatural creature. 

Class Abilities
+1 to all saves against magic, +3 to Courage saves, Likable aura (+1 Charisma & +1 to Death saves), Healing Touch x5 a day (1 HP healing to living, 1 HP damage to undead, devils, or demons), heal at double rate, Toughness: Evil +2

Familiar
Black cat, "Mojo".

Skills
Art +4, Math +3, Science +3, Knowledge (Magic) +5, Paranormal +5, Botany +3

Possessions
Bike, Broom of Flying

Money: $45

Spells
Minor (1): Glammerd Appearance

Perfect really.


Friday, January 1, 2021

Character Creation Challenge: NIGHT SHIFT

Welcome to 2021! Happy New Year and here's to a better year.  I am going to start this year with the Character Creation Challenge. 

A lot of people will be doing this and that is fantastic.  So if you are doing this on your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or wherever you have an open invitation to post a link to you creation in the comments section below.  I have moderation turned on to stop the spammers, but I'll approve your post.

For me, I am going to do witches. That's my thing and it is why so many people come here I think. Plus it is a challenge for me to take a game and make a witch, Rules As Written.  In every post I will give a little bit of detail about the RPG used and then the character I make and how they might fit into my world or campaigns.

Today I want to start with a game very near and dear to my heart. 

The Game: NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars is a modern supernatural monster hunting game written by Jason Vey and myself.  We took all of the work we have collectively done with Old-School RPGs along with all the experiences we had while working on Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness, Ghosts of Albion, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten and poured it into this new game.  My personal goals here were to make a game that I could play any type of witch I wanted and to fill the Buffy-shaped hole in my life.  I feel I succeeded in both.  

NIGHT SHIFT is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

The Character: Sabrina Spellman

Last night the fourth (and sadly the last) season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was released. I am only up to episode 5 so far, but I have all day today.  Plus Sabrina gives me the chance to see how well NIGHT SHIFT holds up to my design goals.

Sabrina Spellman
4th level Female Witch (Supernatual)* 
(In Sabrina's world a witch is a different species of human and different than a "mortal."  Sabrina is also the daughter of Lucifer Morningstar.)

Strength: 10
Dexterity: 15 
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 17

HP: 8
Alignment: Neutral (Good Tendencies)
AC: 9 [10]

Check Bonus: +3 (Primary) +2 (Secondary) +0 (Tertiary)

Familiar: Salem (Cat)

Arcane Powers
Supernatural: Astral Travel (to Hell only)
Witch: Innate Magic (Glamour), Telepathic Transmission

Spells 
First: (3) Command, Mind Obscure, Obscurement
Second: (2) ESP, Produce Flame

It's hard to nail down her spells really. She has shown she can cast teleport, exorcism, astral projection and more.  Some of this is plot-focused, others are one-shot abilities.  All I can explain with the use of my ritual magic rules from my Basic-era books.

This version stacks up well with the Swords & Wizardry version and the Cinematic Unisystem version I posted a while back.

I think this is a pretty good build for her to be honest. NIGHT SHIFT really works well for both of my design goals, and a great start to this challenge.



Tuesday, December 29, 2020

The Queen is Dead! Session 1 of War of the Witch Queens

After Session 0 the other day we settled on three characters each to run through the funnel of The Witch of Wydfield; or rather the Witch of Woodfield as we kept calling it.

Witch of Woodfield

The adventure went as expected. I had everyone choose one of the "Basic Four" classes; Cleric, Fighter, Magic-user, or Thief.  As they played we worked out what specific class each one would end up being.  One magic-user will become a sorcerer, the other a blood witch.  A cleric that worships the Moon might go into druid or might go into fighter, but tell everyone he is still a cleric. It's my youngest. That is what he does.

Witch of Woodfield

I had plenty of copies of Moldvay Basic so everyone had one.  I used my Old-School Essentials book and my GM1a Game Master's Screen from New Big Dragon Games Unlimited.

Since one of my goals is to use as many different kinds of OSR products I can, I think I am off to a good start. Everyone had so much fun they want to play again tomorrow.

I am likely to go with the Ruins of Ramat, this time for Labyrinth Lord. There are also versions for Original EditonCastles & Crusades, and an expanded Castles & Crusades version.  I have not decided which one to use.  Part of the fun is converting.

The characters (and the players) learn the first hint of the overall arc of the campaign; cryptic messages from a possessed girl and the moon (no, really) "the Queen is dead!"

No new hints in the next adventure, but we will see.

Monday, December 28, 2020

Monstrous Mondays: Amphicyon, the Bear-Dog (Memory and the Mandela Effect)

I am sure by now many of my readers are familiar with the "Mandela Effect" or a large collective false memory effect OR example of how we, or some of us, switched over to a parallel universe.  It is named this because there are some people that "remember" that Nelson Mandela had died in a South African prison and did not later become the first President of post-Apartheid South Africa. 

There plenty of people that claim that the comic Sinbad was a genie in a movie called "Shazam" (and not the similar "Kazaam" from Shaq) or The Berenstein Bears was a book series and not The Berenstain Bears.

While it might be fun to explore the whole parallel universe or our world as a simulation narrative to all of this, that doesn't interest me as much as the truth; the collective false memories people have.  I did my Master's Thesis on Long-term memory activation, my first Doctoral Dissertation was on information processing cognition and memory.  I find memory to be a fascinating topic.  I don't want to claim to be an expert in this, but I am well informed and have done plenty of original, published scientific research on it.

So when I fall "victim" to the Mandela Effect myself, I pay attention.

At this point, you might be asking what does all of this have to do with Monstrous Monday? Well simply put, I have a creature in my memory that none of the rest of you have.

Let's go back a bit to 2002.  My oldest son was a baby, my youngest had not yet been born.  We would go to the library and pick up DVDs to watch.  One of my son's favorite was Ice Age. I have talked here before about how his love of prehistoric beasts, especially sea creatures, had been an influence on him getting into D&D.  Well this was before D&D and before his love of dragons.  I think I watched Ice Age a hundred times with him back then.  The disc we got also had a special "behind the scenes/making of" section that I would watch as well.  This section talked about all the characters that were in the movie; Manny, Sid, Diego, Scrat, and one other.  This other character was an Amphicyon or a bear-dog. They showed how the character was designed and even rough cuts of the character and a draft of the poster featuring this other character.  I remember telling my wife about it one day after we had returned the DVD to the library.

Fast forward a couple of years and we get the DVD, but no behind the scenes feature on it.  Hmm.  No problem I think, I'll just grab it from the library again.  Well, this stretches into a long period of time and I never grabbed it until a few years back.  I liked the creature and used it in a couple of games. I rewatched the DVD behind the scenes and...nothing.  No Amphicyon, no bear-dog, nothing at all.  I searched online. Nothing.  I asked my wife. She didn't remember it.  I have a very distinct memory of this short and this character.

But it never happened.

I know that over the years I have constructed and reconstructed the memory.  Memory is not a hard drive where things are stored unaltered.  We encode our memories with our surroundings; like how a smell or a song will trigger a memory, or in the case of my research in the 90s, how a word can affect which memories are retrieved.  For me, I know how my memories were altered.  At this time (2001 to 2005) I was suffering a fairly major bout of deep depression.  I have studied the effects of depression on memory.  I know what can happen.  Yet here I am, 2020, searching on the Internet for a character I *know* did not exist, but somehow I am still not 100% convinced I am wrong. (I am wrong, I know this logically)

BUT that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun with this.

Amphicyon

Amphicyon-ingens reconstruction
aka Bear-Dog
Large Beast (Prehistoric)
Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1d4)
Alignment:
Neutral [True Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Swim: 90' (30') [9"]
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 8d8+8 (44 hp); 
  Alternate (Large) 8d10+8 (52 hp)
Attacks: claw/claw, bite
Damage: 1d6+1 x2, 1d10+1
Special: Swimming, Omnivore
Size: Large
Save: Monster 8
Morale: 8
Treasure Hoard Class:
None
XP: 650 (B/X, OSE), 640 (LL)

The Amphicyon, or bear-dog, is a large prehistoric mammal that is the forerunner of all modern canines and bears. It was active some 16.9 million years ago and died out 2.6 million years ago.  

The creature appears as a large bear, 8 to 9 ft. in length and weighing 1,300 to 1,400 pounds.  Its muzzle is more wolf-like than bear-like as are it's teeth and jaw.  

Unlike wolves and modern canines, the amphicyon is more of a solitary creature. Groups greater than one and up to four are family units consisting of a mother and her cubs. Also like bears, the amphicyon is a carnivore but can survive on an omnivorous diet.  Amphicyons are good if slow, swimmers and will make a diet of fish when they can.

Generally, the amphicyon will avoid contact with humanoids, but it can attack with a claw, claw, bite routine. 

Lycanthrope, Were-Amphicyonidae
Medium Humanoid (Shapeshifter, Prehistoric)
Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1d4)
Alignment:
Neutral [True Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
Armor Class: 4 [15]
Hit Dice: 9d8*+18 (59 hp)
Attacks: claw/claw, bite, or by weapon
Damage: 1d4+2 x2, 1d8+2
Special: Shapechange, harmed by silver
Size: Medium
Save: Monster 9
Morale: 10
Treasure Hoard Class:
C (XX)
XP: 1,600 (B/X, OSE), 1,700 (LL)

Amphicyonidae Lycanthropes are similar to werebears and werewolves, likely the forerunner to both types of creatures. Like all lycanthropes, the were-amphicyonidae can shift between an animal form (an amphicyon), a human, and a hybrid creature. These lycanthropes though are found exclusively among prehistoric humans like cavemen and Neanderthals, and almost exclusively in colder climates.

Were-Amphicyonidae are affected by the phases of the full moon as are werebears and werewolves.  Like werebears they retain some human intelligence, though a primitive intelligence focused on survival.

The first were-amphicyonidae, and indeed, among the first lycanthropes ever, were shamans that had mastered the abilities of shape-shifting long before there were druids, clerics, or even witches. They passed their gift on to others and now all that remains of the great shamans of old are these creatures.

In combat, the were-amphicyonidae fight with a claw, claw bite routine. They cannot "hug" as a werebear can.   They can only be harmed by silver or magical weapons.  Their bite can transmit the lycanthropy curse but only Neanderthals will become were-amphicyonidae. Normal humans will become werebears (lawful and neutral) or werewolves (chaotic) depending on their alignment.