So I started using Middenmurk's weapon and armour rules (in case you've been living under a fucking rock, read both of those NOW), because that shit is the bomb. In practise there were a few hiccups, I totally forgot about a lot of the special characteristics in the fracas of melee. The PCs certainly weren't about to remind me that "my guy hits last every round 'cause of his crappy weapon". I definitely need to improve the implementation, but I'll share my thoughts.
Middenmurk has it right. A wider spectrum of equipment is a great idea - instead of having the best weapon and the 2nd-best armour right at first level and having nowhere to go but magic items, you get to start with garbage gear and work up to amazing shit, without going up the "plusses treadmill." This means magic items can be way less common - just the way I like it!
In the spirit of the Peasant Equipment List, here is my first kick at the can:
All prices use the copper piece, same as Middenmurk, cause it rules.
PEASANT ARMOUR LIST
(yeah I use ascending AC, so what?)
Unarmored: AC 11 Buff Jerkin: sleeveless cow leather jacket - AC 12, fragile, 20 cp Bark Bands: wooden rods bound together into a jacket - AC 13, stiff, awkward, 30 cp
Swineskin: heavy cured boar-leather coat. AC 13, pork, fragile, 45 cp Cornwall Brinejack: cured fish skin cuirass, looks cool - AC 13, fragile, fish, slippery, 55 cp Penny-plate: tiny copper disks laced to a cloth backing - AC 15, fragile, jingles, 100 cp
Wicker Shield: small wooden hoop with wicker woven over it - +1 AC, fragile, 25 cp Plank Shield: wood hacked into round shape - +1 AC, fragile, clunky, 20 cp Padded Cap: covers the head & ears - fragile, 10 cp
ARMOUR CHARACTERISTICS
fragile: damaged (-1 AC) if enemy rolls a 20 - if AC bonus is eliminated, it’s wrecked stiff: no DEX bonus to AC slippery: difficult to grapple or be grappled while wearing awkward: takes longer to take on/off, cannot sleep while wearing jingles: makes noise, harder to sneak while wearing pork: smells delicious fish: stinks clunky: only protects vs 1 attack per round
Next I gotta expand outwards with tons of different racial, tribal, and other equipment lists. First up will be the 'wildman weapon/armour list' for a few PCs who are from outside the empire and just use sharpened sticks. After that, we'll have lizardman stone & bone weapons (I imagine them being sort of ancient mayan, so they'll use those clubs with obsidian blades in them), the bog elves' greenish swamp-iron, crappy goblin gear, ancient elven & dwarven stuff from the lost kingdoms (need some effort to keep those from being boring), the charred and rusted tools of the gloom farmers and a ton more!
We actually had a lot of fun! Except when Mike fell asleep.
SUCCESS!!
I am glad none of the characters died, especially since one of my players brought a girl who has NEVER played an RPG before. She got right into it though, was talking to NPCs and strategizing with the other players, she even said "forsooth" a few times (this is more participation than I expect). I am the most proud of the fact that I didn't ruin a first-time gamer's day, and maybe she will come back to play again. That's a big win in my book.
So I started things off on the Isle of Wight, with a lone survivor of the last party that ran through the ruins on the island (a much older version of the dungeon!) stumbling back into town, mostly dead, with a half-drawn map, a key and an odd statue of what looked like a skeleton anti-pope. This got the PCs together and hustling into the dungeon, and the game was afoot!
Who would make a statue of this guy?
The intrepid group of 4 PCs (two goblins, a dwarf and a sea-blood accompanied by 2 hirelings and 2 mangy dogs, with maybe 20 hit points between all eight of them) fought a moss hog (oh you fucking bet!!!!), then ran into a squad of terrified bloblins (same link). They rolled nice on the reaction roll - you can bet nobody had ever done THAT before - and the bloblins told them about "Jack," who had been asking about the strange statue, and the "big whippers" who oppressed them. The PCs wanted to help the bloblins, and promised to fight the whippers if they would then lead the way to Jack. So venturing further into the dungeon without too much incident (the random encounter tables were very mild that day - another happy accident for the new player is that there wasn't much combat, and diplomacy carried the day), the PCs did battle with some giant goat-men with whips!
Yep.
After the battle with the goat-whippers, the bloblins failed their morale check and said they would take the PCs to Jack right now, or that was it. Leading them through the dungeon, they also came across a wall with a damaged mosaic of a battlefield, depicting some kind of figure in the foreground - the only thing left was a set of horse legs though. Maybe that will come back later!
The bloblins gave them directions to Jack, and told them "don't go through that other door," before running off to hide somewhere in the dungeon again. Jack of course turned out to be a small, walking scarecrow with a pumpkin head. He couldn't talk, but when the PCs gave him back the statue he was relieved of a curse and really dished the dirt. The players asked him about the dungeon, how long he's been around, if he knew where any treasure might be, a ton of other questions. He told them he was from "down the stairs," and wanted to go back there. Since they freed him, he gave them vague directions to some sort of useful magic nearby, and offered to lead them to the stairs he spoke of.
Jack led the party through some strange rooms, including one with a glowing spectral eye that scrutinized the players, and another crammed with shelves of earthenware jars - nobody opened one, but Jack said they contained human brains. Through another room with strange insectile statues, Jack led them into THE STAIRS: a gigantic, glowing red shaft that extended up and down as far as they could see, like a giant underground missile silo of stone. A narrow walkway headed across to the other side, and a similarly narrow stairwell circled around the wall of the shaft, heading down and up.
Jack had a few parting words for the PCs when they asked him where he's from: "it's always the same season at home... you know the one, with all the orange leaves." He told them the queen's name is Gloriana, but he "doesn't really follow politics." With a nod and a wink he jumped off the ledge and plunged down the stairway shaft into the distant red glow.
Bemused at this departure, the adventurers crept across the walkway to the other side of the stairway shaft and followed a tunnel to a heavy stone door with a symbol of the sun, and a strange keyhole.
Then I had to go to band practise, so the PCs retired to the outdoors again (no random encounters at ALL in this latter half of the adventure) to camp out on the hills and await the next delve!
*****
All told this was a success and better than I hoped for a first run-through with this group. The players saw some cool stuff. Nobody died. There was some combat and some diplomacy in equal measure. The newbie had a good time, there isn't much else to ask for. I threw out some cool elements in this session I've been thinking about for a while, so hopefully I can blog about them in more detail soon!
*****
!!! ACHTUNG !!!
NO PLAYERS CLICK ON THIS!
Actually, the whole top level of this dungeon is this find-and-replace dungeon that I got from D&DwPS.
2:
Running Maze of the Blue Medusa is going fairly well. The characters are way overleveled and overequipped for it, but they're scared of EVERYTHING so it ends up playing as if they're all first level anyway, until the combat starts and the monsters get hacked to ribbons. And they all complain that the NPCs are "useless" because nobody will tell them where the moon-man's kids are.
3:
Here's another kick at the can, with some more flavour for my PC races.
Goblins AKA hobs, hoblings, boggarts, bogies, brownies, gnomes and so on
Brian Froud - close, very close
There are scores of different faeries spoken of in Britain, each governing a different domain - sprites of dirt and ditch, field and farm, home and hearth. In fact there is only one. The goblins have always and only lived in Britain - they are connected to the land, and can't leave. A goblin has no otherworldly home like an elf or underground kingdom like a dwarf, only the patch of soil it walks upon. They can swim in the waters around Britain and even travel to other dimensions and back, but their feet cannot step on the soil of another country. Maybe a little bit of Gaul or Benwick if you're feeling charitable and there aren't too many frogs around!
Many goblins never leave a small region they call home (a village, farmstead or patch of forest), hence their reputation as household spirits. Like the legends say, they will do some chores or housework during the night if the residents leave them some milk or a bit of sweet food. They sleep out in the fields and ditches, or in holes they dig in the ground, for the earth of Britain is their home and where they feel the safest. Not all goblins live this way - there isn't actually any magic binding them to a certain place the way a Dryad is to a tree - most just don't want to go around looking for food on their own.
They have never been seen in groups or families, and how they reproduce is unknown. Most peasant folk think they just spring up out of the soil, fully grown, although nobody has ever witnessed this.
In fact this is true. Goblins are just a product of the unknown magics and mysteries permeating Britain. A few spring up with a perverse lust for human gold in their hearts and become wanderers, rogues, thieves and adventurers. Some of the best cutpurses and assassins are hobs, because they're small, quiet, can endure almost any hardship and do not think the same way humans do. Their morality is strange and animalistic - they don't have to grow up and have no parents to teach them, being creatures of the wilds only. They don't have 'friendship' really, but can understand a sort of group loyalty and mutual advantage. Wise are the adventurers who ensure their goblin allies have full bellies and a scrupulously fair share of treasure, and woe betide any who betray a goblin, or indeed who trust one overly.
FROWN. HOARD. FROWN AGAIN.
Goblins are usually earth-toned, ranging in colour through orange, red, brown, olive green, grey and even eggplant. They can be as light as a well-tanned human or almost coal-black. Their skin is dull, weathered, and usually dirty. There are no bright green goblins! Get outta here. Goblin eyes are usually human-shaped, or occasionally reptilian, and every colour variation imaginable has been observed.
(They are my reskin of halflings who are way too annoying, Tolkienian, pastorial longing-for-a-simpler-age to be in this setting.)
ALSO: Once again, go hit up Middenmurk for this. A few don't really fit, it'll be okay, just use my best judgement.
Sea-Bloods AKA Dagon's children, fish-men, "the creeping rot within our society," etc
(You know the deal. Straight out of RoCC. Get into it.)
Even mother probably didn't love this face.
Sea-bloods! The genetic terror from beneath the waves. They could be among us right now. The Dark Ages was already rammed with superstition, mistrust and wild accusations. Britain AD 500 will be no exception: this isn't the golden age yet kiddies. These guys make it so much worse. Until they gain a few levels or reach a certain age, you can't tell a sea-blood from a normal human, except that they may be odd-looking or ugly, and let's face it in the Dark Ages everybody was ugly. These creatures serve their lord and master Dagon, and work to bring about a fishy domination of all land-dwelling beings on earth. This is not the kind of thing you want working against you when you're trying to build a perfect society. PC sea-bloods may have some idea of their origins at first, or they may not. The only thing I'm not sure of is how things will go in an adventuring party when a level or two has been gained and it's obvious that the character is somehow "monstrous." My players will probably just leave him to twiddle his thumbs in the forest whenever they go into town and not think any more of it, but who knows what yours might do? The fact is that most peasants and regular jackoffs won't think anything of another ugly dude tramping through town - they don't even know that the deep ones are working to destroy their way of life. Anybody in the know, though (wizards, most of the clergy, any Round Table knights, etc) will be quite exercised to spot a sea-blood just wandering around town with his heavily armed chums. I look forward to the PC vs. town guard bloodbaths, or other fun ways of dodging this problem. (I originally included Subhumans in the second version of the Spoils of Annwn. The first version was almost completely stock LL. The fact is that they're way less exciting than they seem. They're really just fighters. If you were playing straight out of RoCC with no dwarves or elves they might be useful, but not for me.)
As my old 'one-page character generation' document from way back outlined, I am using some but not all of the classic D&D demihumans as player character races. We have elves and dwarves, but halflings have been replaced with goblins and I've added sea-bloods, the unholy hybrid of humans and deep ones!
Dwarves AKA worms of the earth, corpse-skins
Coming to Britain along with the Anglo-Saxon raiders, all dwarves are northern European (the first fool who tries a Scottish accent, I swear). Born from the blood of Ymir the giant, they live deep in the earth and spend their time mining and crafting, learning the secrets of stone and metal. Most dwarves never leave their caves, because the light of the sun turns their bodies to stone.
Once in a while, a dwarf will turn his back on his home forever, giving up his inborn talents in exchange for walking in the sunlight. From this point on they cannot build anything from scratch out of stone or metal ever again. They just can't wrap their minds around it. They could repair a suit of armour or sharpen a sword, but a free dwarf cannot make so much as a flint knife on his own. They can never return home (they have nothing that dwarven society wants), so they wander.
The Anglo-Saxons love dwarven mercenaries as they're tough and still retain their experience from living underground (just enough for that infravision and bonus to detect secret doors). Most of them join up with a raiding party for a while and then move on to something else. The invaders are too superstitious to impose "military discipline" on the spawn of a giant, happy for the dwarves' help when they choose to give it. Some dwarves have settled in Britain, seeking only quiet lives far from the company of others, but most don't stay in one place for very long.
They are milk-pale and sickly with deep purple smears under their eyes and their blue veins visible from living underground. Even a seasoned free dwarf campaigning under the sun for years still looks more like a corpse (if they lie very still and hold their breath, they can play dead to most beings that aren't already familiar with them). They are only slightly shorter than humans (averaging about 5'), but walk with a hunch even outdoors, as if they are still in the tunnels dug by their ancient fathers. Their eyes are dark brown, almost black, with monochrome hair ranging from jet black through gray all the way to bone-white. Their bones are dense with minerals so dwarves are actually quite heavy, weighing 300+ lbs most of the time. For this reason and a natural superstition, they don't like to ride horses.
Elves AKA faeries, the sheeda, dwellers of the hills, the ill folk
As I also mentioned, Elves live in the sad realm of Annwn, ruled over by the lord of the dead. They live eternally in a land where nothing ever changes (they cannot die except by violence or misadventure). Most never leave this grey otherworld, but a few decide that the adventuring life is for them and depart by unknown means to wander among the short-lived races. Elven adventurers still live at home though, and will return between game sessions. They just walk around a tree or over a hill and they're gone. Yes, this is the same Annwn that contains all the dungeons. It's a big underworld, and where the elves live isn't anywhere near any dungeon, don't worry about it.
Elves from Annwn don't look like Orlando Bloom: they are bizarre and otherworldly personifications of magic. I'll be using the tiefling appearance tables from the old Planeswalker's Handbook (I never get tired of that book), unless the player can give me his own cool description of his elf character by the time it's rolled up. They are closer to spirits than to biological creatures like humans and dwarves, and when they get cut, it likely isn't even blood that comes from the wound.
Elves can't learn spells from books, don't need a spellbook, and don't spend time memorizing spells. Instead, they can cast any spell they know spontaneously, up to the usual limit of spells per day determined by level. More magic in their elven blood will make itself available when they gain levels, or under some other circumstances. I'll roll randomly on my spell list and see what new spells the elf PC will gain. This makes elves difficult, because what are the chances you will get something sweet like Sleep, and not some weak shit like Floating Disc? On the other hand, there will be some really cool elf-only spells.
This means elves can't teach spells to each other, except through ritual cannibalism. If an elf eats another elf's remains: add the experience levels of both elves together, that's the % chance that the eater can learn one of the eatee's spells, randomly determined. Some elves just dissolve into a puddle or a cloud of butterflies when they die, so if the whole corpse isn't available, adjust the chance of learning a spell downwards accordingly. Some elves carry straws around for just this purpose, and view this practise as "keeping the knowledge in the family." They will view as rude anybody who expresses disgust or tries to interrupt them.
Less Tolkien, more alien. Look at all the stories of making ill-advised bargains with the fae (fairy tales, Neil Gaiman, Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Tamlin) for the kind of elves I'm thinking of.
*****
And for god's sake just go to Middenmurk and roll a few times on this and this to save us both the trouble.
So I was at work the other day doing a routine and boring task, and my mind was wandering. I was moping around about the hideous and depraved life I live, when I had an inspiration: I decided to try thinking about D&D instead to cheer myself up. Almost instantly I felt better, and I began wrestling with a somewhat knotty problem: how to reconcile all the aesthetic elements of my setting?
After seeing my inestimable comrade N. Manscorpion's beginning work on his own megadungeon, I was forced to conclude that my setting is too fractured. I can hold his whole setting, in terms of look and feel and vibe, in my mind all at once. I can't say the same for my own. Depending on where I turn it's grim black metal album covers and beheadings, or faeries with pointy hats sitting on toadstools conversing with guys in platemail and fair maidens. There's nothing wrong with having both in your game, but I really want something that I can visualize in its entirety. It helps with making decisions if I can instantly say "this fits, that doesn't."
False Patrick has written about the difficulties of D&Ding in Arthurian England before (I have read this article a million times). I am sidestepping some of these concerns by placing my game in a "slightly more realistic" era, after the Roman occupation ended (somewhere in the late 400s/early 500s). I will be adding in anachronistic elements because it's not D&D without some of those (plate mail is still available, but insanely expensive and hard to find), but there is no renaissance fair, shining castles, bards in tights stuff going on. It's closer to Middenmurk (actually I will be shamelessly using 80% of that page in my game) than Camelot as it's usually depicted.
Even so, we have King Arthur, magic swords, ladies of the lake, wizards in towers, goblins, dwarves, pixies, griffons and giants. How do I reconcile those with the fact that, a mere 50 feet underground, you can do battle with horrors from beyond the stars? Why don't those guys run the whole world? More importantly, why doesn't anybody talk about them, and what would life be like if they did?
So there I was at work, doing something boring, when I flashed on it:
Final Fantasy Tactics.
For those who don't know, Final Fantasy Tactics was a classic Playstation game that succeeded the obscure gem Tactics Ogre, which itself was a sequel to one of the greatest goddamn games ever made: Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (if you have some spare time and like strategy games, all three of these are highly recommended).
Anyway, I remember the storyline of FFT being really political (boring). The general thrust is that the main character, Ramza, leads a group of scruffy cadets to stop a world-destroying bad guy, you get the idea, regular stuff. While his childhood friend Delita commands the army, marries the princess, becomes king, and goes down in the history books as the hero of the Lion War, Ramza (whose eyes the player sees the story through) fights in utter obscurity. One of his comrades' diaries is discovered generations later and "the true story of the Lion War can be told."
This is an easy one to translate! As long as those rugose cones, goatmen, and brain-eating jellyfish never venture above ground to threaten our existence in public, nobody knows or talks about them. The characters can fight, die and (maybe) win, gain experience, get rich and have cool adventures in the otherworldly hells of Annwn, but they won't ever get famous for it.
To get a reputation, they have to do things outdoors in the open. Winning wars, slaying big classic monsters (ogres, giants, griffons, etc), bringing bandits to justice, fighting in tournaments, paying bards to sing songs about them and the like. This makes me think that instead of rolling "Wyvern" on the wilderness encounter table, it should be "The Winged Terror of Whatevershire." Something that relates to the social world where the PCs live, in a way that dungeon encounters don't.
Only Warhammer Fantasy has the pictures I need.
The fun thing about thinking along these lines is: if nobody talks about it, who's to say Arthur's knights didn't all gain their early levels in dungeons too? Lancelot can fight 30 men at once because after "Wargoat Fight Club" in a pool of boiling acid, everything else gets the volume turned down. Maybe he wanders the kingdoms alone "on quests" so often because he has fucking PTSD from his experiences, not to mention all the friends and comrades that he must have seen die down there?
I had been thinking about using a sanity or horror system of some kind to represent the otherworldly terrors that the PCs will come in contact with, but haven't settled on anything good. The fear aura of some dragons or powerful undead is a good start, but I wonder if some kind of permanent 'mental scarring' can be made to work. I have no qualms about characters being permanently changed (in ways other than dying, HA!) from their trips to the dungeon, and I like the idea of going underground a wet-behind-the-ears 1st level pissant, and coming out rich, powerful and geared-up but with a 1000-yard stare, a few missing fingers, and no pancreas. Beedo's article on the subject from back in the day seems like too much for me: the PCs will be throwing down with hideous horrors a lot, and not everything they see should blast their minds. Nevertheless it's something that I'd like to bring into play somehow, especially as it relates to the "secret dungeon war." (I have also been thinking about player character mutations, but that really just requires a giant random table and a few failed saves.)
Forever alone.
Maybe all the "evil knights" are such dicks because once they got deep into the dungeon, they saw that not only is Jesus not the supreme deity, not even in the top three, but we live in an amoral mechanistic universe? Maybe Sir Meleagaunce went into the dungeon with Alignment: L on his character sheet, and came out C? Maybe he decided if he couldn't beat the eldritch horrors, he could still cut a deal? Maybe under his helmet he isn't entirely human? He can't look like the full-on Warhammer chaos knights, because then we may as well just play Warhammer and it makes things too obvious. Maybe just a weird mole or birthmark, a gross scar, something that sets him apart as weird or unnatural that you wouldn't necessarily see or notice.
It's also worth noting that this is pretty close to what happens to Solaire of Astora in Dark Souls, so it's right where I want to be tonally.
Maybe the reason Arthur is so perfect and good and has the best judgement and stands apart as kind of inhuman in his reasonableness and fairness (White touches on this in The Once and Future King) is that he gained all his levels at once from pulling the sword out of the stone, and he never had to go into a dungeon and watch his friends die and his dreams get slaughtered for a few gold pieces more. Sure he wages bloody wars against the Saxons, but everybody does that anyway. What makes the rest of the round table knights such good guys, and how do they rise up from being scruffy adventurers to the leading moral figures of the age? Lots of different ways. Some had prophecies going in their favour, some just grew up fighting wolves in the snow and never had to breathe in radioactive mists while the Cthulhu Cult stabs them with hot pokers, and some just made all their saving throws. As a wise friend of mine once said: "Being the good guy just means waking up better than everybody else."
*****
Anyway, this has been a productive piece of musing, but now I have to go redo all my encounter tables and double the square footage of level 1. Play this the next time you need a bit of pagan pessimism in your game:
Here we go with the classic questions, the ones everybody needs an answer to! The setting is beginning to clarify after a bit of thought. I had prioritized character creation and the first level of a dungeon so I could start playing right away - now I'm starting to make sense of this mishmash dark ages Britain I'm coming up with. I need a good name for the setting and campaign though: probably I'll just call it "The Spoils of Annwn" after the poem, although I feel it's a waste not to use Albion. What a great name that is, Albion.
What is the deal with my cleric's religion? - Christianity, Celtic, Norse, or Ancient Ones. Monotheism has not taken over Britain, everybody’s god has about the same social status. I like this so we can have talks like “Crom laughs at your four winds,” etc.
Where can we go to buy standard equipment? - Here in Yarmouth they have a decent selection. Basic adventuring gear, booze, and a few spare horses if you’re lucky.
Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended? - The nearest large town would be Southampton, across the strait and up the river inland. It's big enough to support a blacksmith good enough to do custom work, and it’ll be expensive - 2 to 10 times standard plate prices.
Who is the mightiest wizard in the land? - Merlin!
Who is the greatest warrior in the land? - Uther Pendragon is well-known for his victories against the Saxons in the North, although he cannot hold back the tide by himself.
Who is the richest person in the land? - Uther Pendragon. Other rich and powerful kings and lords include Lot of Lothian, Vortigern the Betrayer, Anguish of Ireland and more. Arthur is of course a broke, struggling young warlord right now.
Where can we go to get some magical healing? - The church of the Christ has missions in most towns. In Saxon territory there are churches of Odin and Freya. Out in the wilderness are the Celtic pagan temples, but if you aren’t a member they are really hard to find. Thee Church ov Starry Wisdom in the dungeon.
Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath? The Church of Christ can restore alignment change, level drain, curse, poison. Pagan churches can do poison, disease, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change. Thee Church ov Starry Wisdom can fix poison, disease, curse, polymorph, level drain. If you’re dead or undead? Sorry pal.
Is there a magic guild my MU belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells? - No, wizards are still lone weirdos who don’t band together. There aren’t enough of them to get together and organize, plus they don’t trust each other. It’s a simple master-apprentice slave labour sort of equation.
Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC? - Southampton, on the mainland is the first place to start, but you might have to go all the way to Londinium. Although there is that lighthouse on the west point of the island...
Where can I hire mercenaries? - Either of Yarmouth’s taverns has an assortment of roughs-for-hire.
Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law? - Wizards are weird and scary, so don’t be too obvious about it, but you won’t get arrested for walking around in a robe and pointy hat. Also, things are still very tough with the Saxons, in the north it's still open warfare, so Dwarves take heed.
Which way to the nearest tavern? - The King’s Head and The Blue Crab are right here in the middle of town.
What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous? - Sir Meliagaunce is one of the many knights in the up and coming maiden-kidnapping business. Wyverns fly down from the hills and devour livestock sometimes. Ogres prowl the forests and highways, catching and eating travellers - the most famous is Sawney Bean who makes life north of Hadrian’s Wall quite dangerous.
Are there any wars brewing I could go fight? - Yes, Arthur is always fighting against new Saxon and Anglish warbands in the north, although some have settled on the isles peacefully. Uther Pendragon is jockeying with the other kings and lords for larger chunks of territory. Nobody controls the whole of Britain yet!
How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes? - Deep in the dungeon, the decadent underworld inhabitants have all kinds of bizarre sports. Gladiatorial contests are just the beginning.
Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight? - Oh sure. The Cthulhu cult, the Esoteric Order of Dagon, Iok-Sotot’s worshippers, The Temple of Satan, followers of Arawn, the Morrigan. Lots more.
What is there to eat around here? - Boiled potatoes. Boiled parsnips. Boiled mutton. Boiled beef. Boiled rats.
Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for? - Many kings of Atlantis were buried in Britain with the hoards they kept from the waves. The locations of these tombs are unknown at present, but it’s rumored there is one beneath the ruins on the Isle of Wight...
Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure? - The giants that used to command Britain are nearly extinct, but some still survive in the high mountains. They are the richest monsters since dragons have not been seen in hundreds of years.
Ability scores generation method? - 3D6 down the line. Don't worry, there are no class ability requirements. Play a dumb wizard or weak fighter, it'll be fun. I am honestly considering allowing players to pick 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange to taste, but mandating that their character's title must be "the pansy" or "the milquetoast" or something similar.
How are death and dying handled? - Dead at HP=negative level, but shields shall be splintered! gives you a chance to save and take that fatal strike. Bleed out 1hp/round, so this doesn't help 1st level characters much, but gives the veterans a chance.
What about raising the dead? - Once you’re gone baby, you’re gone. Unless maybe there is some epic quest to the underworld to retrieve your soul.
How are replacement PCs handled? - If you have a hireling, you can promote him on the spot, roll stats and he is your new character! Or roll up a new one back in town, who can be your character’s heir (only once per character though) and obtain their money and one magic item, less a 10% tax.
Initiative: individual, group, or something else? - I think we will try both. I’ve never rolled group initiative before and I'd like to see how it works.
Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work? - Yes, critical hits automatically gives you double damage dice. Roll to confirm and to see if I can roll on a table for more cool stuff. Fumbles you just get the fumble table right away for things like drop weapon, hit self, weapon breaks, basic things.
Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet? - Some of the critical hits apply to your head, so yeah a helmet will save your ass sometimes.
Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly? - Ah there's nothing about it in the LL book, so for now, no. However there will be stiff to-hit penalties if you're right behind your friends trying to fire past them.
Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything? - Oh yeah baby you’ll have to run away sometimes. I don’t set out to execute the PCs, but I will stat shit up and put it where I like, doesn’t mean you’re tough enough for it.
Level-draining monsters: yes or no? - They’re quite rare but they exist (hint: stay away from those barrows at night).
Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death? - Fuck yes.
How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked? - In a general way. I will be tracking light especially, because you can’t stay in the dungeon forever. Weight will be a factor because you can’t carry everything you find, and you might want to run away at some point.
What’s required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? - No training. The only place to learn new wizard spells is from books you beg, borrow or steal. Clerics get their spells automatically as usual. You have to rest outside the dungeon to level up, but it can happen in the middle of the session.
What do I get experience for? - Some from monsters, mostly from treasure. SPENDING your treasure on partying, babes, castles, tithes to the church, cool clothes, funerals for your buddies, etc.
How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination? - Description. Traps will be easy to locate, there are lots of clues. Disarming the traps is another story.
Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work? - Yes, go ahead and get retainers, I have those speed hireling rules. I will be using morale for enemies and NPC party members.
How do I identify magic items? - Cast read magic or pay a wizard, sage or temple to identify it for you.
Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions? - Potions and some minor magic items can be found from odd merchants in the dungeon, but they probably don't accept your surface world coins...
Can I create magic items? When and how? - As a higher-level wizard, sure. Costly quests and rare components are essential. I’m more concerned with having item creation kick off further adventuring and be sufficiently difficult that magic items don’t proliferate.
What about splitting the party? - Go ahead, but it’s dangerous and I don’t recommend it.
Sometimes I do this weird thing where I am a big fan of something, but I forget that I like it so much. Then years later I'm looking through my CD shelf, or browsing around the internet or in my bookshelf and think:
"HOLY FUCKING CHRIST this is fantastic, my whole life has been wasted whenever I wasn't [doing/reading/listening to this], how did I forget about this?" I'm sure it's just life in the 21st century and mass distractions. It's weird, but that's how I feel today.
Because another key part of this rapidly less-Arthurian than I thought game (which I had forgotten about until the other day) will be BLACK METAL. I think this is why I picked up on Labyrinth Lord, the illustrations
(especially of Orcus) look like some of the '80s and '90s B&W black metal album art. Here are some pictures to indicate what I mean. Some of these are huge, click on them for full-size:
GOAT DUDES:
The grand-daddy of them all.
Go ahead, tell me about how you don't want to play in this game. I'll wait.
Alignment: CHAOTIC
OUTSIDER ENTITIES:
"I dunno guys. This seems pretty dangerous." Note the wizard conjuring this shit in the bottom left corner.
ELDRITCH AS FUCK.
Inside the dungeon, we shall only listen to black/death like Teitanblood, Antediluvian, Mitochondrion, Portal, Blut Aus Nord, AEvangelist, Conqueror, Blasphemy, maybe some Demilich or Ulcerate and the occasional old Rotting Christ and Mortuary Drape to lighten things up. Everybody's gonna hate it but me!
Now I try to mash that stuff together with
KING ARTHUR:
This is the Arthurian artwork style I'm accustomed to. It looks great on a canvas, but the world just seems too damned polished and friendly - I need something dirtier, a place adventurers can trip over things and do stupid shit, for regular people and not supermen. We need a tiny bit of this, but NOT much.
This is good. It's still brightly coloured and undangerous-looking, but we can see the guy's face - he's tired and pissed off, he looks human. This could be any couple of fighters in plate mail.
More medieval, a bit more legit. I like the dark and gnarled forest here - this is the English wilderness I want, still wild and trackless.
Nope, too far back in time! Tough to get turned on by this.
This is getting warmer! Murky and spooky, feels like classic D&D. Some kind of undead happening here, Galahad might be in the shit!
Gustave Dore is the man to beat when it comes to pure desolation. Regular guy dying in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, H J Ford is harsh as fuck. This is great. Might as well be right out of a 1st Edition book.
It's all about the black & white. Mournful maidens, mystical cauldron, hazy structures in the background. No giant gilded cities or spotless ubermensch knights here.
That wasn't too hard actually! It's not only about the shining castles. This gives me lots of brain-fodder to work with. Dropping King Arthur down a few notches, gritting it up, taking away some of the domestication that comes with the complete and total reign of a golden age in the kingdom.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the best time to set this game would be while Arthur still hasn't solidified his reign. Maybe he's just one powerful warlord among many; maybe he doesn't have as much manpower as he needs, and is out looking to fill his round table; maybe he is busy trying to repel the Angles and Saxons from Britain's shores wherever he can, and doesn't have time to run a country. Maybe he's fighting a constant battle against the snake-men, who were also pulling the strings of the Roman Empire, and want Britain back now that the legions have pulled out. Any way you slice it, this is more interesting than peacetime, and leaves the PCs more room to strut around poking their heads into caves and crypts.
Well, shit - I got a new job last year and picked up my guitar again - where has the time gone? Apologies are due to Jez, Erik, Stefan and the other dudes who I was in the middle of a conversation with when I up and vanished. Next time I'll let you know what's going on - and hopefully not disappear for a year.
I haven't played much of my home game since last spring, but I still toss ideas for games around in my head all the time. I ran a one-shot of my proposed Arthurian Labyrinth Lord game almost a year back, and it was... OK.
After some reflection, the setting needed some changes - it's back on the drawing board. One of the big improvements was adding Realms of Crawling Chaos to the mix. Now I have a setting that's still familiar enough to be easily communicated, but is gaining much-needed variety. I'm going to scrap the one-shot dungeon I wrote, and use a few parts in building a MEGADUNGEON beneath the Isle of Wight.
Actually, the megadungeon will extend underneath all of Britain.
Right now the setting is less "Arthurian high fantasy" and more like:
KING ARTHUR vs. ARAWN vs. CTHULHU!
You might say those first two are pretty similar. The Arthurian heroic fantasy milieu is closely related to Welsh and Irish folktales, but actually the concept of Arawn's 'otherworld' or a fairyland will be stretched to include not only classic D&D stuff like rust monsters and gelatinous cubes, but also the kind of gonzo shit I love to see on MMSFP. So while the Arthurian influence will govern the cities and wilderness of primeval mythic Britain, the folktale/fairyland stuff will take over underground - while the Cthulhian, Weird Tales shit will be stuck in all the hard-to-reach corners.
I have been crawling my favorite blogs (and some really cool ones that are new to me) for monsters and other ideas that fit the bill. Some of my older Arthurian posts are now inaccurate; the speed hireling table and the "Where do you hail from?" table specifically. I will update them in a while, if I am ever done my endless fiddling with the fucking things.
(the one you can't see because of glare is Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain)
I don't know why I never thought of putting all these together before.
