Some King's Kent

Three Western Regions of the Nome of Sekhmet - The High Wilds

2012-02-06T05:12:00.002Z

The Nome of Sekhmet (The High Wilds)

Atfet - The Land of the Mountain Viper (northwest)

Dendera (west)

Inebu hedj - The land of the White Wall (southwest)

The Nome of Sekhmet is an older Ka-akhban name for what is now the small uninhabited wilderness most often referred to as The High Wilds. The Nome of Sekhmet is situated between the far-flung northern provinces of Ka-akhba in the west and the Northern Italian Duchies in the east. To the south there is only sea; to the north mountain heaped on mountain to the sky. Repeated fickle and bloody conquests gave west and east tentative holds over the ribbons of beautiful lands below mountains of great majesty and in and around dark age-old forests. The lulls between these innovating bloodbaths lengthened, the Romans were involved elsewhere in many wars and here they had met their match. For their part the Ka-akhbans wondered if they had ventured too far from the serene beauty of their desert homeland.

In these quieter decades, black-eyed Giants with crab-brows came unto the brink of the mountains overlooking the battleground and the ancient trade route through. The Giants had made mockery of this man-feud by brushing crumbs of rock from the mountainsides onto columns of weary soldiers breaking their armored backs as if they were silver fishes. Fiends too came out from the woods at night into the troopers' camps to play at snapping-off-o'-limbs, biting heads in twain and gnawing on manhood.

Further characterising the land as a wilderness where civilisation has long grown stale, steadily for hundreds of years experimental wizards and unrepentant renegades have firmly rooted strongholds there, seeking privacy or exiled to the ends of the earth but refusing to go further than The High Wilds.

Sekhmet is the old lion-headed goddess whose wrath lays waste in war but those who make a study of the less familiar gods discover she is an intimate of the sun.

====

A hex is 30 miles from edge to edge
The Aione Dungeon is located in Hex G1. I have made some introductory posts before about it (any of the 2d or 3d Megadungeon posts - check the INDEX post)
I don't recognise the concept of alignment
There are NO UNDEAD in the campaign. That is to say the benign and malign Undead are an essential part of the campaign but in a form unrecognizable to those familiar with the Monster Manual
There are plenty of Magic-Users in the campaign but no standard Magic-Users from the Players Handbook *
Gnolls are as depicted in the Monster Manual and in lead miniatures except that as a race they are as civilised as the Romans were and the Ka-akhbans are. The gift of genius is marked with extra eyes.
Goblins are the woodland dwelling faery folk closest to the Elves of the MM. They are fey, unreliable, wickedly clever, not always cruel. Their noses are large and hooked as are their chins; their moustaches are involute and waxed; their hats leather and wide-brimmed against the jumping spiders; they all know useless spells, some know useful ones too.
Dwarves are from Tolkien; Slow to humour, melancholy; Honourable in a clannish way; A faintly cursed race as if unloved or forgotten by fate and fortune.
Elves are as far removed from humanity as the Undead.

The players will start the campaign in Hex B8 with new characters fleeing from the sea invasion of Ghouls into Italy. They will be introduced to mysteries and lured with promises of metaphysical insight in order to concentrate their explorations between hexes A1 and N8, The Nome of Sekhmet.

I am strongly tempted to have all PCs play apprentice illusionists iii *, (a class which bears little relation to the Players Handbook illusionist).

* See:- Using Mathematician's Dice to Determine Class of Magic User

Next up is a close examination of these three regions and some essential rules for travel and exploration.

Map versus Map -- The High Wilds

2012-01-23T15:16:00.000Z

This region between Italy and France, a few hundreds of miles across, I call The High Wilds and the entire next campaign will take place here. The satellite map is the reality, for example valleys acting as crucial ingresses are exact on this map but unreliably depicted on the pictorial map by the nature of the symbols. I have sketched out enough adventure for the High Wilds to take PCs from 2nd level to 9th or 10th when they would begin to interact with two agents of Beings Ultramontane, Dysdeimoscope and Oss, who have been drawn to observe the unpealing of the Aione Dungeon.

Villages, towns, the domiciles of the experimenting wizards, the encampments of five dungeoneering teams and the successfully entrenched humanoid races need to be added to the maps. The parchment pictorial map will be suitable for the players to use in this unadorned form to detail for themselves. I created it by taking a suite of symbols from a Warhammer map and painting with them using the cloning tool in Gimp, just as I painted the original map using a palette made from diverse satellite images. To be clear, the satellite map is entirely fabricated down to the smallest hills.

Do you have a preference for one map over the other? As a DM or as a player?

Some King's Kent --- INDEX

2011-08-05T04:23:00.009+01:00

Campaign: Agonmayar / Megadungeon Construction / Session Reports

Using Mathematician's Dice to Determine Class of Magic User ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/using-mathematicians-dice-to-determine.html

Metaphysical Acuity -- Important Stat in my AD&D Campaigns ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/metaphysical-acuity-important-stat-in.html

2d Random Walk generated Cavern Geomorphs for Megadungeon ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/09/2d-random-walk-generated-cavern.html

Introduction to the Caverns *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/12/saryak-some-maps.html

Augmenting the Megadungeon Map now a conduit to Hodgson's Night Land ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/11/augmenting-megadungeon-map-now-conduit.html

More Maps: The Worming Stair **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-maps-worming-stair.html

Maps: Two Pits, An Unexpected Sinkhole and The Sane. **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/12/maps-two-pits-unexpected-sinkhole-and.html

The Topology of Megadungeon Chimneys --- Movement in Alterspace *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/topology-of-megadungeon-chimneys-fast.html

Agonmayar ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/02/agonmayar.html

Psionics & the Undead *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/04/psionics-undead.html

The Sexual Nature of Ogres and Satyrs ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/04/sexual-nature-of-ogres-and-satyrs.html

Influential Fantasy Art: The Dakhen. **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/04/influential-fantasy-art-dakhen.html

NPC: Iggy Pop as Prince Hal meets his first Dungeoneer ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/03/npc-iggy-pop-as-prince-hal-meets-his.html

Demonologists & Demons: (i) Demons *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/03/demonologists-demons-i-demons.html

Demonologists & Demons: (ii) Category D Demon: Malacoda of the Malebranche *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/03/demons-demonologists-ii-category-d.html

Demonologists & Demons: (iii) The Demonologist *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/03/part-3-demonologist.html

First Game Session **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/04/first-game-session.html

Campy NPCs as a superior kind of comedy Dwarf **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/04/campy-npcs-as-superior-kind-of-comedy.html

(i) Session 2 (ii) Can I teach a newby to Role-play? *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-session-2-ii-can-i-teach-newby-to.html

Pause for thought: The mind of an assassin. *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/05/pause-for-thought-mind-of-assassin_14.html

Death on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part i/ii *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-on-altar-bridge-over-stage-stream.html

Death on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part, eh, 1.5/2 *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-on-altar-bridge-over-stage-stream_21.html

DM Advice / Suggestions / Photos

Some Observations on Magic-Use on Reading Vance's Mazirian the Magician ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-observations-on-magic-use-on.html

Thoughts for a beginning DM ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/01/ive-been-reading-about-old-school-od.html

Fun with a First Level Magic-User *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/01/fun-with-first-level-magic-user.html

Int,Wis,Cha are Crucial Stats *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/01/intwischa-are-crucial-stats.html

Lack of Roleplaying as an Indication of the Rubbish on Offer at Gametables **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/05/lack-of-roleplaying-as-indication-of.html

Class vs Adventurer; Weapon vs Armour; Technology vs Enchantment *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/05/class-vs-adventurer-weapon-vs-armour.html

The Magnificent Radical Metal d4 & Some Gaming Photos ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/03/magnificent-radical-metal-d4-some.html

Levels for Middle-earth Characters and Miniatures Selected for the Fellowship ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/03/levels-for-middle-earth-characters-and.html

Dumb & Dumber and Zombie HPS **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/06/dumb-dumber-and-zombie-hps.html

Books / Reviews

Bakshi's Lord of the Rings is a Masterwork ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/02/bakshis-lord-of-rings-is-masterwork.html

Recommendations for getting reacquainted with Shakespeare ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/05/recommendations-for-getting.html

Review: Carcosa ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/11/review-carcosa.html

Review: Systema Tartarobasis --- Melan *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/09/systema-tartarobasis-melan.html

Some Observations on Magic-Use on Reading Vance's Mazirian the Magician ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-observations-on-magic-use-on.html

Review: Black Swan

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-black-swan.html

Appendix N: Part i The Greatest Works of Fantasy ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/05/appendix-n-part-i_29.html

Appendix N: Part ii The Best of RPG Supplements *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/06/appendix-n-part-ii.html

Appendix N: Non Fiction Photo and The Beholder Contracts - Complete Adventure from 1986 *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/06/appendix-n-beholder-contracts-complete.html

Appendix N: My Fantasy Book Editions -- Photos ***

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/06/appendix-n-fantasy-book-editions-photos.html

The Chronology of Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser Stories *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/chronology-of-leibers-fafhrd-gray.html

Miscellaneous

Dice: Five Cheers For The Platonic Solids **

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/02/dice-five-cheers-for-platonic-solids.html

Laffs

Cthulhu Cultists Captured, Shaved. *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/03/cthulhu-cultists-captured-shaved.html

A Glimpse at Dragonsfoot

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/08/glimpse-at-dragonsfoot.html

Banned by Dragonsfoot: hence an impromptu award ceremony *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/03/abandoned-by-dragonsfoot-hence.html

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #1 Knights & Knaves

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/04/personalities-of-osr-in-pictures-1.html

Photo reveals Zak S. is only a little 'un after all !!

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/06/photo-reveals-zak-s-is-only-little.html

MOVIE -- Irish Windup Merchant meets American Tightass -- 'The Guard' *

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/06/movie-irish-windup-merchant-meets.html

Words From Shakespeare iii the butt

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/words-from-shakespeare-iii-butt.html .

Packing in the Blog -- Finally, as Promised

2011-07-26T03:18:00.006+01:00

Laugh or I'll blow your head off Mister

I really stretched the ass out of that final, eh, multi-part post.

Im going to leave the posts up for a few days and then remove them. Frankly its distracting having the blog up knowing how easy it is to add another post.

Perhaps Raggi is right that the Blogs are inconsequential. At times, like a protagonist from some p.k. Dick novel whose perception flickers between two realities, blogging and being online seems worthwhile at other times it is like consuming and spewing loathsome unsustaining pap from a circle of dead dugs.

Could a paper booklet have captured better from the same effort in whimsy a style or some methods for posterity? Maybe so, but I remain unconvinced that the character or essence of gaming at one table can be transmitted to another in absentia. I can't decide if superior gaming notions are handed on by individuals or are diffused in billowing echoes throughout the community. Still I can't deny that Raggi's, Zak's, and Mckinney's booklets will long outlast the blogs as will Scott's upcoming Dwarf Romance.

To those with whom I did not get along don't beat yourself up over it, I'm sure you'll find something sensible to say eventually. To those I did get along with, well, you know.

In the end I think I may, in a small way, have given Kent a bad name.

The Topology of Megadungeon Chimneys --- Movement in Alterspace

2011-07-24T20:32:00.008+01:00

One of the surrealities of Megadungeon exploration is that the direction of gravity's pull is unreliable. Explorers individually trigger a gravitational shift when they leap across pits or crevices, jump from crumbling cliffs into fast flowing streams or any time they violently push themselves from a ground position. The percentage chance of changing the direction of 'falling' is equal to the distance jumped in yards. The direction is randomly determined and the pull is weakest when opposing the true gravitational pull so that leaping from a boulder an adventurer may find himself drifting towards the cavern ceiling suffering damage only if the ceiling is very high.

To normalise the direction of gravity an explorer need only touch the ground of whatever tunnel or cavern he is in. He could be pulled down having tied a rope to his leg or he could propel himself with hands and legs along the roof and down the cavern walls but slowly.

While pressed to the cavern roof and sidling along he may discover a Chimney with sides smooth from some process other than water erosion which curves out of sight 20-30 yards above. These Chimneys are topological surrealities which may be exploited to travel locally or over vast distances by means of an alterspace of less than one hundred yards. The Chimneys are alterspaces of several curved tines arching upwards to a central summit. Only thieves, assassins or experienced Dungeoneers can negotiate the climb as entering a Chimney normalises the direction of gravity for the climber. Typically one climbs up one tine to the summit and back down a separate tine. These alterspaces smell faintly of burning and of fish having some association with The Great Fish Clothed in the Sun. The rock is basalt hard and dense and black but has a wrinkled texture warm to touch like bark. In most tines there is an emerald or vermillion glimmer, more rarely a white-yellow glow, rarer still luminescent sapphire from a fine dust suffused throughout the rock. No man has succeeded in extracting even a trace of these crystals from the alterspaces for analysis.

Here is a neat trick to determine a group of associated Chimneys:

Take a blank piece of paper which is the same size as the map over which a Chimney alterspace will range. Scrunch the paper in your fist to a tightly crumpled ball. Prick the paper ball once with a pin or thin sharp knife all the way through the ball and out the other side. Unfurl the ball which will now have several (4-8) holes and place it over your map revealing the locations on your map which are connected by the Chimney alterspace. This is a procedure I am happy to leave up to a player so that we discover together the topology of the Chimney group.

I have another kind of Megadungeon cavern feature which forms an alterspace across the continent of Agonmayar but this is very rare and very deep. Gauss' Temple of the Prime Five which I have spoken about before has one such site. There is a temporal compensation for alterspace movement which is not noticeable over short distances but is apparent over thousands of miles.

Note all Chimney tines are functionally useful. If a tine lands on a solid black region of stone this means the opening is below or above (surface?) the level of the current map.

You might have to click to see the locations of the 6 Chimneys in Red.
The Caverns above are two miles across.

Death on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part, eh, 1.5/2

2011-07-21T00:45:00.017+01:00

Part i

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-on-altar-bridge-over-stage-stream.html

Part ii: Not for the Blog, Im working on it on paper. The final part is a short piece of fiction, literary fiction a la Beckett, yet trippy and there is a player character death.

Part i.5/ii

Malacoda Slain

Malacoda was brutalised unto death by Little She who was summoned in her whirling Witch-Killing house by a humble village elder, one of many venerable non-entities each inspired with a ninth level spell by an aspect of an interfering Being Ultramontane known as Midas Melanoma. The elder was directing the flight of a northern village people in a train of wagons when Malacoda glided across his Bolgia to investigate a sea of movement to the West of his domain. Cannavoro and Grasah supped with the trembling villagers and wondrous Little She that night and learned that the flight was provoked by tales of a horde of wild men who have poured off ships along the western shore. Travelling with the villagers was a tall 'doctor of tonics' who had an inhuman gait and contradicted every piece of advice the adventurers gave to the rag tag train, Midas Melanoma.

Little She is one of the Magic-Users here:

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/using-mathematicians-dice-to-determine.html

The Ghuls Invade

An exploratory detachment of Ghouls lead by Sogol the Sarturer, probed ahead of the main force that they might apprise their admiral of the swiftest route to Florence. The School of Demonology was the prize, the contents of which, human and inanimate, were to be removed to Khomghul. At a hastily abandoned manor house the adventurers spying on Sogol overheard him cursing that Florence was already besieged by a force of Gnolls from Barbarauf. As soon as the adventurers cleansed their eyes they were determined now to get the fuck out of Italy, making their way to Hermopolis to attach themselves to one of the English Dungeoneering expeditions there. When Sogol left, the adventurers fought the remaining Ghuls to a stand off, picking up a dozen grenades from dead Ghuls. Further along the road they discovered an instance of Ghulian ritual and recreation. A distressed wagon off the road led to a quiet grove where branches were festooned with the entrails of a fugitive family. Heads impaled on shoulder high stakes had their tongues torn, stretched and nailed onto a stake immediately in front of each head. The cheeks and tongues had been gnawed on and there was evidence that the victims had been kept alive for several minutes after decapitation by magical means.

Learn about the Ghuls and the Gnoll-Goblin invaders here:

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/02/agonmayar.html

Sogol is one of the Magic-Users here:

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/07/using-mathematicians-dice-to-determine.html

The Paladin - an anticipatory note.

From before,

The character that goes with this class is the beginning and end of role-playing for me, I don't say the most interesting. The beginning because as kids we reached for this gleaming toy ignoring the mutt fighter. We learn to love the fighter as we mature but in the end I can see no greater challenge for a brilliant player in a game with no alignment. The question has not gone away, how does the DM judge a player's attempt to adopt such a difficult role? For me it has to be up front and at the beginning. A player earns the right to play the paladin with a history of good role-playing, and in return he gets to play it without any interference from me. My only reaction to his exploits is in game. My role-playing advice for such a player is succinct. There is a legend in my campaign about Paladinhood. No paladin in living memory has survived to celebrate his 25th birthday.

The Chronology of Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser Stories

2011-07-19T19:18:00.005+01:00

When I posted my Appendix N authors timeline a reader, irbyz, reminded me that the publication history of Leiber's stories was quite scattered. This bugged me now and then until I put them in order of publication below.

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2011/05/appendix-n-part-i_29.html

I was surprised to see that many of the stories I love and which influenced my teenage gaming are from the 30s and 40s, very early indeed. "The Bleak Shore" and "Adept's Gambit" are stories I associate with an early conception of the Ultramontane in my game world.

In order of publication:

"The Jewels in the Forest" (novelette 1939 Unknown) sdh70

"The Bleak Shore" (1940 Unknown) sdh70

"The Howling Tower" (1941 Unknown) sdh70

"The Sunken Land" (1942 Unknown) sdh70

"Thieves' House" (novelette 1943 Unknown) sdh70

Adept's Gambit (novella 1947, in Night's Black Agents) sm68

"Claws from the Night" (1951 Suspense as "Dark Vengeance") sdh70

"The Seven Black Priests" (novelette 1953 Other Worlds) sdh70

"Induction" (vignette 1957, Two Sought Adventure) sdy70

"Lean Times in Lankhmar" (novelette 1959 Fantastic) sm68

"When the Sea-King's Away" (novelette 1960 Fantastic) sm68

"The Unholy Grail" (novelette 1962 Fantastic) sdy70

"Bazaar of the Bizarre" (novelette 1963 Fantastic) sdh70

"The Cloud of Hate" (1963 Fantastic) sm68

The Lords of Quarmall (novella 1964 Fantastic) sm68

"Stardock" (novelette 1965 Fantastic) sm68

"Their Mistress, the Sea" (1968, first publication) sm68

"The Wrong Branch" (1968, first publication) sm68

"In the Witch's Tent" (1968, first publication) sw68

"The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" (1968 Fantastic) sm68

The Swords of Lankhmar (novel 1968) sl68

The Snow Women (novella 1970 Fantastic) sdy70

Ill Met in Lankhmar (novella 1970 F&SF) sdy70

"The Circle Curse" (1970, first publication) sdh70

"The Price of Pain-Ease" (1970, first publication) sdh70

1. Swords and Deviltry (collection 1970) sdy70

2. Swords Against Death (collection 1970) sdh70

3. Swords in the Mist (collection 1968) sm68

4. Swords Against Wizardry (collection 1968) sw68

5. The Swords of Lankhmar (novel 1968) sl68

I know Leiber *wrote* Adepts Gambit in 1936 because I heard him say in an interview that he showed it to Lovecraft back then so the issue of when the stories were written is still open though heavily constrained.

Organised with help from wikipedia.

Petty Gods and The Opposite of Petty Gods Under One Cover

2011-07-18T17:22:00.002+01:00

Barker's article on religion in gaming, Create a Religion in Your Spare Time for Profit and Fun, is a brilliant exciting piece of work for any DM who creates his own world. If you are a good DM you will be encouraged by having some of your ideas confirmed credible by a luminary in the gaming field and will be presented with many further ideas. If you are a poor DM then this may be a way to improve.

Buy here for $4. Well worth it.
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1761&it=1

Hill Cantons mentions it here.
http://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011/04/distant-mirror-of-fantasy-religion.html

Grognarda announced that he will include this article in the community monster book Petty Gods. This book may be visually neat goofy toilet reading. We know there are plenty of overemployed osr artists who are up to the task of drawing monsters and a thousand bloggers demented by lack of fame can surely jot down an interesting paragraph each.

However, Barker's article will do nothing but undermine such a shallow incoherent presentation of deities. Barker is critical and dismissive even of the familiar pilfered and concocted religious systems which seem reasonable to me for a gaming world. One doesn't put an essay by Dr. Johnson in the back of a comic book.

A similar misjudgement perhaps to printing your name as Editor beneath a spelling error on the cover of the same book.

Death on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part i/ii

2011-07-16T19:30:00.012+01:00

- top - English Neurosolar, Beckett lvl 11 Int 18 Wis 18 ma 31.

middle - Florentine Assassin, Cannavaro lvl 4 Wis 17 Dex 17 ma 6.

bottom - Gnollish Mercenary, Grasah lvl 3 Str 1864 Int 16 ma 3.

The Neurosolar Beckett sharing a common room with two unwitting and naive adventurers, approached and convinced them to bandage each his tell-tale yellowed eye. Being spied on made Beckett uncomfortable. He informed the pair they had been cursed with a mental intrusion which conveyed what they saw to a distant party. He inquired how this might be so to determine if the spy was of any consequence to him.

As he seemed, for an Englishman, a credible and knowledgable character they related the following tale in the common room of the now partially destroyed inn,

The Demon Malacoda's vandalism and sporadic murders at Lucca had resulted in mass evacuation to Florence. In due course bands of rogues and outlaws settled into opulent depopulated surroundings conducting operations in an atmosphere of fearful splendour. Grasah was hired to escort an art merchant and his haul of abandoned treasures from Lucca to Florence, a party which was ambushed outside Tolfa. The damaged coach limped to Tolfa for repairs, the art was distributed with subterfuge to a safe house and the party retired to the coaching inn preparing for a second assault. The wily merchant learned that an assassin was masquerading as a hunter not far from Tolfa and sent Grasah to hire him to learn what he could and kill whom he might, Cannavaro.

Close to midnight, on the way back the pair were visited by a dilemma. They came across ten men-at-arms from The White Company of Mercenaries who had followed some bandits to a make-do on a hill overlooking Tolfa. They had found a tower stump empty but their sergeant, a brave fellow, had descended via a greasy hole into a darkness where none of his men dared follow. Immediately they heard splashing, frantic fleeing, a falling cry and silence.

The dilemma came to this. These men were clearly hunting the very perpetrators of the ambuscade for some other crime. If they could rescue the sergeant or verify his death the men would serve the adventurers' stratagem for the impending assault on the coaching inn. But would the delay mean the bulked up force would arrive too late? A compulsion to sniff into every darkness tipped the decision towards a rescue.

Some treacherous climbing led to encounters with dog and horse sized cephalopods which were skirted and elegantly dressed bald maniacs who got the better of them. They awoke to see a Witch peering at them through a pathologically unkempt bush of hair and beard. Two hands like large baskets enveloped their heads. [a ha interjected Beckett]. Awaking a second time the Witch had gone and the eggheads told them to leave. They refused to leave. Nonchalantly they searched for and found the unconscious sergeant. Ignoring threats they found a secret passage which lead to a moving vestibule of glass. Fearing the presence of the Witch they turned back. Leaving the lair, Cannovaro petulantly stole a book with a thick leather cover pebbled with stained glass.

They returned to Tolfa, and with their merry men executed several excellent manoeuvres to outwit and outfight the outlaws, during which time the merchant, a minor dabbler in sorcery, fearing murder recklessly tampered with a bronze relief by Donatello with two results: a torrent of crackling blue light burst several walls and roofs asunder; the merchant changed places with Herod now a small bronze automaton of titanic strength who appeared thereafter to mind the Donatello with unfaltering attention.

I don't believe I have enjoyed a low level fighting game of D&D more than the assault on Tolfa. The ambush, the dilemma, the rescue, and the painstaking logistical detail and planning for the attack on the inn were all played over three epic 12 hour sessions.

To remove the curse Beckett advised them to either return and slay the Witch or with less certainty of outcome seek out and bathe at the source of a stream in a dell to the east of the road to Genoa.

Above: Wilderlands & Italy; NW Italy; Lucca - Tolfa; Players' Map of Vitelli's Barony; Village of Tolfa; The Donatello Relief; The Cover of the Stolen Book.

Megadungeon:

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/11/augmenting-megadungeon-map-now-conduit.html

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-maps-worming-stair.html

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2010/12/maps-two-pits-unexpected-sinkhole-and.html

Malacoda:

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/03/demons-demonologists-ii-category-d.html

Death of a Player Character on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part ii/ii:

The Paladin.

Death on the Stage.

Metaphysical Acuity -- Important Stat in my AD&D Campaigns

2011-07-11T01:20:00.026+01:00

Metaphysical Acuity has been established for a list of Magic-Users here:

LINK: - Using-mathematicians-dice-to-determine-class-of-magic-user.

Calculating Metaphysical Acuity:

Lvl Power

29 1275 Morgoth

28 _986

27 _757

26 _578

25 _440

24 _325 Feanor, Luthien

23 _246 Fingolfin, Pri

22 _187 Finarfin, The Trengilor

21 _143 Glaurung, Sauron, Gauss

20 _110 Thingol, Finrod, Imek arn i Dolife, Shakespeare

19 __85 Fingon, Hurin, Aione

18 __66 Galadriel, Beren, Midas Melanoma, Midas Canker

17 __52 Gandalf-Grey, Turin, Ike Tron Seven

16 __42 Elrond, Moria-Balrog, Dr. Triffid

15 __35 Isildur, Zataphor Lucen

14 __30 Anarion, Metamasque

13 __26

12 __22 Aragorn, Saryak, ~~Syrakarn~~, Requiem

11 __19 Boromir, Malacoda, Kent, Beckett

10 __16 Faramir,

09 __13 Frodo

08 __11 Legolas, Gimli

07 ___9

06 ___7 Lisa Benneti, Lugh

05 ___5 ~~Malblake~~, ~~Ardrake~~, Sforza

04 ___4 Cannovaro

03 ___3 ~~Brasidas~~, ~~Grasah~~

02 ___2

01 ___1

Player Characters in Red: Alive, ~~Dead.~~

Non-player Characters are in Blue.

From the table above, which illustrates the non linear relationship between level and power, the Base Metaphysical Acuity is found, which is simply equal to power. If a character has two classes then the power for each level acquired is summed. Thus Borgia the 5th lvl Fighter and 5th lvl Demonologist from this post on magic has a base Metaphysical Acuity of 10.

Metaphysical Acuity is modified by Intelligence and Wisdom as indicated in the following table. Thus Richard, Witch of York, who is 10th lvl with Int 18 and Wis 13 has a Metaphysical Acuity of 22.

Int/Wis Bonus

__22__ +42

__21__ +30

__20__ +20

__19__ +12

__18__ +06

__17__ +02

What is Metaphysical Acuity?

It is a single statistic which reveals how significant a character's insight is into the deep background of the campaign. The concept is used to measure a character's knowledge of legends and cosmology, obscure potentates, ancient fastnesses, dead languages, cult practices and the lost and lonely places of the world. Can a character distinguish a secret from a lie, an heirloom from an aeon old artifact, a Dungeon from a subterranean lair, sinfulness from evil. Would a character recognise a threat to his everlasting soul, sense an awful power humbly disguised, deduce a hidden way in the face of architectural ploys.

Does he know what moves the Gnoll, the Dryad, the Elf, the Satyr, the Ogre, the Alien, the benign or malign Undead, the Demon, the Manticore, the Being Ultramontane? Could he communicate effectively with any of these?

Can he hear the invisible wheel upon wheel of intricate scheme and plots ingenious which grind all men to death?

The Books:

Metaphysical Acuity is only a potential for characters who do not possess and study the appropriate Books. Every book has a Metaphysical Acuity which allows a character to improve his own Metaphysical Acuity to the book's level. Once he outgrows one book he needs to discover one with greater insights to progress further. Books do impart knowledge cumulatively but two books' Metaphysical Acuity are not cumulative, the higher value only is relevant.

A plain staff with three joints which when folded into a square and held up to frame the sun allows a script to be read upon the surface of the sun. Requires possession of particular ancient artifacts, eyeglasses, recovered from Hermopolis by the English teams of Dungeoneers. Metaphysical Acuity 25

A white bowl. When fresh water is added the tracery of fine black cracks may be read. Empty and add water again to "turn page". Metaphysical Acuity 14

On the inside of a kite shield appear delicate paintings of scenes Ultramontane when the student kneels facing North or South with shield held aloft in prayerful attitude. A powerful mind can bend the view to his will. Metaphysical Acuity 60

With pages of deerskin the book appears to be the diary of a daft Irish wizard. The book is overly concerned with the manufacture of intoxicating liquors and the meticulous description of fist-fights. Metaphysical Acuity 3

A small heavy book of silken metal foil leaves. The cover appears to be a piece from a crushed iron crown. To read it is imperative to grow sharp iron fingernails in order to turn the pages. The book concerns itself largely with the nature of Dungeons but also discusses inhuman insanity and possession by Devils. Currently with Ike Tron Seven. Metaphysical Acuity Unknown but at least 84 -- Ike Tron Seven's current Metaphysical Acuity.

An abstract wooden figurine soiled, rounded and polished with an age of handling depicts a seated savant hunched over while reading. Announcing his name in polite inquiry causes Montaigne to appear. He is a patient, fascinating and humane mentor. Metaphysical Acuity 66

A slab of dense black earth Ultramontane. Brightly coloured organisms Ultramontane of hues violet, gold, crimson and blue evolve and decay in an incomprehensible display to a soft atonal musical accompaniment. Metaphysical Acuity without apparent limit

A typical spellbook. Metaphysical Acuity is that associated with the level required of a magic-user to cast the highest level spell in the book.

How is Metaphysical Acuity Used?

[This section will be expanded with examples at a later date]

The value is a percentage chance to pierce beyond the veil of an elder secret. A player in possession of a Book can put a specific question to the DM. If he rolls under his statistic then his book must deal with the topic he wants addressed and the DM presents an answer. The book is then known to deal with this topic and the player is judged to know a little about the subject. A book deals with a number of topics equal to its Metaphysical Acuity and no more. So in the course of a game players will be provoked with mysteries and may seek to enquire if they have appropriate knowledge from their book, requiring a roll.

For now one example: A character with a Metaphysical Acuity of 4 has a 4% chance of extracting an answer from the DM.

'What the fuck is going on here?' is not an acceptable question. Better ... ,

Question: 'Is it conceivable that the fugitive witch beneath the hill in his lair of moving glass rooms has made contact with the Demon Malacoda? Could such a Demon have any motivation to deal with a human and on what kind of terms? How could the witch possibly effect such a communication?'

Answer on a successful roll: 'Perfectly possible given that in Italy there are known to be witches who were formerly Demonolgists exiled for cowardice or awe in the course of a Demon Brutalisation. Awe in this case is a sick compulsive fascination. The Book is silent on Demon motivation. Communication would be facilitated through an impish go-between with power of flight or invisibility provided by the Demon. In effect the imp is a spy and over time tries to demoralise or unnerve the witch that he might adopt a more slavish role. For his part the witch tries to win over the imp by helping satisfy his grotesque appetite.'

It is decided that one topic covered in the book is wholly related to what has been revealed.

If you want to share any ideas for Books go right ahead. Have I explained the concept? Sometimes even my players don't know what the fuck Im talking about.

* Updated Magic User Dice Symbol Categorisation Post with Pictures of MUs*

2011-07-08T02:35:00.000+01:00

Little She or Dorothy.

Can you guess what kind of Magic User she is?

I have improved the immediately previous post on Magic User categorization in my campaign with some editing, further notes and many examples of magic users from my campaign in pictures and including their Metaphysical Acuity statistic.

Feel free to think about kinds of Magic User not yet mentioned and speculate on how they might be symbolised.

Using Mathematician's Dice to Determine Class of Magic User

2011-07-03T01:53:00.026+01:00

Commentary:

Symbol Campaign Integration

I have formalised with these new dice an old classification of Magic-Users in my campaigns. You really should read at least this post (issues Ultramontane) to better follow some of the comments here.

I have never run a straight Magic-User through a campaign though I fully respect Gygax' achievement. Typically a character develops magic-using expertise while progressing in another career, as in the High Man here, who in the new scheme would be a Fighter who associated with symbols "pi" initially and later "i". The most powerful Magic-User player I had began as a pure Assassin but over the years as he developed into an excellent player became a Neurosolar, with a tendency to assassinate one might say.

A player's skill and intelligence, no matter what his starting class, will induce me to contribute magical power to his efforts to explore my world. I did not read Runequest until recently and see that Stafford had a similar idea. In my case I prefer three players as optimal and next consider four or two as equally enjoyable and in consequence of these small player parties magical indoctrination is essential for survival by the fifth level. Consider Cugel's surprisingly dangerous efforts to punish Iucounu with potent spells, once he gets hold of Iucounu's spell books. Cugel, the hat sensitive vagabond, has acquired some symbols of magical expertise along the way.

The Disciplines of Magic

The Sane and the Neurosolar are the prestigious disciplines. The Theorist is an NPC class of non-adventuring genii. My Illusionist bears no relation whatever to the empty inadequate description in AD&D. It is a very subtle kind of Magic-Use and it is very difficult to explain how it works, essentially the victim's belief lends a temporary reality to the illusory object; an illusory emergency bridge may be stepped on if believed in. Spells tend to be hierarchical suites of deception each leaning on the plausibility and acceptance of previous lies.

90% of those Dungeoneers who are lured Ultramontane are Magic-Users of one kind or another at the 12th-14th levels. Preparation for the journey Supramontane requires the association of a fourth symbol, surviving, surveying and returning to the world of Men earns a fifth symbol association. Traveling Ultramontane requires a sixth. Gauss is an e.e.e.phi.phi.phi, Shakespeare is an e.e.e.phi.phi, Zataphor Lucen from the Book of Kells post is an e.e.e.phi.

The Demonologist has been the workhorse magic-User of the Current campaign and is a pi.pi.-- where the pi concentration is on circles of protection, (-- means 'free' or 'any'). A Necromancer is a 0.0.pi or pi.pi.0. A Diabolist (very fast fencing exorcist) is an i.i.--. A Druid is a pi.pi.e where the pi concentration is on the cycles of nature. A Bard is a Druid whose wife, a dryad, has been slain. He takes up a sword, pipes, lute and drum and makes a song of his tragedy exiling himself to a land far enough away that the flora is not recognisable.

Gauss the Mathematician - Neurosolar -- e.e.e.phi.phi.phi
Exerpt from previous post on 3d Megadungeon Caverns,

Mathematicians in my campaign formalise the proofs and secure the stability of incantations. The rarely talented among them devise new spells carefully from the abstract to the concrete, specific requests come in the other direction only from those who don't understand magic at all, but can use it. Mathematicians are unlikely to have the nerve and presence of mind of the adrenaline suffused Magic-user as they are not adventurous enough typically to become practitioners. They see deeper into the origins of sorcery and for this need peace and calm. The relationship between the two is not dissimilar to that between the composer and the performing artist. Immediate and sudden stresses rebuffed with legerdemain, flair and steady nerve distinguish the adventuring Magic-user some of whom further have the psychopathic nerve of the dungeoneer.

The mathematician supreme was Gauss, whose outlet for unearthly creativity manifested in structures godlike in their architecture, an example of which is his Temple of the Prime Five. This imperishable sanctuary of sunstone and dolomite incarnadine was built to outlast the human race, as a lance through remote futures, for when time has disintegrated the Earth into a dust of atoms, the temple drifts pristine in the void as a homeless moon. The temple serves as a means to walk the Earth under the sun in its many colours. If the party ever enters between its pillars they will emerge into the ghost light of the ember sun of W.H. Hodgson's The Night Land.

Lacking 'phi' General Magic-Users Struggle with the Manifestation of a Dungeon
Exerpt from previous post on Dungeon Concept,

Once upon a time a hero, smashed and naked, died in a remote hillside village. Tended by village women he did not speak and died before he was identified as the third son of a petty prince, by the prince's witch. A renowned mountain climber and explorer, his body had consumed all of its muscle mass in his effort to get as far back towards civilisation as he did. He wore a large hollow tooth around his neck which contained some paper. Baffled by the sparsity and precision of the curved lines and symbols he found on the paper the witch set out for Mirabelvedere, the manse of his mentor Pirapuce.

Pirapuce sat watching his hoary accomplices as each man scrutinized the map and retreated to grapple with a dusty atlas. Time passed then silence reigned. Eventually a thin voice cut through the subdued room,

'It is a map.'

They waited.

'It does not however depict a coastline. Look out the window gentlemen. What do you see?'

'Sky, mountains, a woodland valley...', a voice offered.

'It is not a coastline. It is a profile map of a mountain. Those symbols are places deep in the earth beneath us.'

Silence cold, pregnant.

'Someone or something crafted this map beginning at a point fifteen miles below our feet and sending exploratory tendrils towards the surface, one of which ends beneath the lake that provided the fried fish we are still digesting. A second surfaces at the monastery of Tuntunedo Wilder Beard.'

'Isn't there a deathtrap there? A sort of dungeon underneath. I have heard about a collapsed stair that supposedly led further downwards.'

'I'm afraid this entire map will prove to be a "dungeon" as you call it.'

Night came. None stirred to light a lamp. At last, Pirapuce stood and spoke,

'Come now. We who are at the end of our days shall leave this disaster for younger spirits.'

From a cabinet he removed a tall thin bottle and opened it. A waft wholesome and yet unwholesome enveloped the company.

'This fuming green wine was a gift from the Demon Aarooruh and with a sip we can welcome our end in gentle bliss.'

As I said, they lack 'phi'.

How does the categorization work?

Imagine you the reader have turned up at my table wishing to play a magic-User. You are a seasoned player, probably a DM in your own right. You have read this post and so roll your 3 Maths Dice expectantly but still a little puzzled. I would probably let you roll again if you wanted. I like my players to feel shit cool because many of the significant NPCs are. Now let's say you get one of the 30 devotions that I haven't explicitly covered or thought about yet. We will just improvise and free associate. I will ask you to think about the words associated with your pair of dice and use your fucking imagination. Between us we only need to think of a few first level spells to get the ball rolling, and while there is mystery associated with unexamined combinations, through player exploration of the world the class will become solidified. The world is so dangerous that I tend to be sympathetic to ideas from good players and encourage them to be authorities on their own characters. Gygax' Magic-User is our guide for the power of the character but we develop our own spells, well I develop them with flavour from the player.

If anyone wishes to try it out roll 3d6, convert and tell me what you get and we can see what kind of Magic-User fits the words above, which are neither complete nor set in stone. Campaign before Mechanics for me always.

I have never mentioned Metaphysical Acuity before, a concept which players hunger for more than Gold or Experience by about the fifth level and which is intimately related to Magic and things Ultramontane and will present it in the next non-Shakespeare post.

Metaphysical Acuity is based non-linearly on Level and modified by Intelligence and Wisdom. It is entirely dependent on the discovery and the study of Books, which are usually inscribed magical devices which give insight into deep background of Agonmayar, my campaign world. Modified by Charisma Metaphysical Acuity also determines a limit for the sum of the Metaphysical Acuity of a character's followers, henchmen, agents and aspects. Unless opposing combatants or strategists have comparable Metaphysical Acuity, conflict can be resolved without dice.

Some Devoted Magic-Users from Agonmayar in Pictures
I will eventually have a description to go with each Magic User in the mode of that for Zataphor Lucen below.

[Player Character] Farinata Brunetto - Lvl 4 - Demonologist - pi.pi.i

Int 17 -- Wis 17 -- Metaphysical Acuity 8

Borgia - Lvl 5 - Fighter ++ Lvl 5 - Defrocked Demonologist - pi.pi.1

Int 16 -- Wis 7 -- Metaphysical Acuity 10

Lisa Benetti - Lvl 6 - Diabolist - i.i.e

Int 17 -- Wis 16 -- Metaphysical Acuity 9

Sogol - Lvl 7 - Sarturer [Ghulian Torturer] - 0.0.i

Int 14 -- Wis 18 -- Metaphysical Acuity 15

Rekhmire, Ka-akhban Prince deceased - Lvl 9 - Undead - 0.i.e
[Undead but pre Aione's corruption of Funerary Hieroglyphics]

Int 17 -- Wis 17 -- Metaphysical Acuity 17

Richard, Witch of York - Lvl 10 - Witch - 0.0.0

Int 18 -- Wis 13 -- Metaphysical Acuity 22

Beckett of Kent - Lvl 11 - Neurosolar - e.e.e

Int 18 -- Wis 18 -- Metaphysical Acuity 31

Killcarnosse - Lvl 13 - Dunsanian Sorceror - 1.1.1

Int 19 -- Wis 18 -- Metaphysical Acuity 44

Loulou [Shakespeare's lover] - Lvl 13 - Illusionist - i.i.i

Int 21 -- Wis 16 -- Metaphysical Acuity 56

Zataphor Lucen - Lvl 15 - Neurosolar - e.e.e.phi

Int 19 -- Wis 17 -- Metaphysical Acuity 49

Let me tell you about ... the Neurosolar Zataphor Lucen whose venomous spittle could blind a basilisk; whose iron fingernails could separate the leaves of Crow's Incantidex of silken metal foil; whose right eye once rebelled when tossed one too many times into a pit expected to 'explore ahead' and never came back; whose confidant the robin redbreast Sing would excrete a pestilent white shit onto the hair of any who harboured impure thoughts; who wielded with care an invisible needle eight feet long, Brainpin; who deceived the Sphinx Sneferu stealing a canopic jar, the prison of a poet-made-manikin who recited The Second Coming on lifting the lid; who wrestled drunkenly with a Manticore Supramontane which broke his neck and devoured the flesh on his skull and yet he was heard snoring when dawn woke his accomplices to whom he explained, 'the trick is not minding'; but who trembled on the threshold of the abode of Pri, a Being Ultramontane, whom he heard begin to hum from within a darkness his remaining eye could not penetrate.

Balrog - Lvl 16 - Demon - 1.1.0.0

Int 16 -- Wis 20 -- Metaphysical Acuity 62

Ike Tron Seven - Lvl 17 - Sane - i.i.i.phi

Int 20 -- Wis 19 -- Metaphysical Acuity 84

Midas Canker - Lvl 18 - Elementalist [The pi.pi.pi Aspect of a Being Ultramontane] - pi.pi.pi

Int 19 -- Wis 19 -- Metaphysical Acuity 90

Imek Arn i Dolife - Lvl 20 - Being Ultramontane - i.i.i.e.e

Int 19 -- Wis 22 -- Metaphysical Acuity 164

Little She [Dorothy] - Lvl 8 - Witch Hunter [She kills demons with her Flying House] - 1.1.1

Int 16 -- Wis 15 -- Metaphysical Acuity 11

Exploring the Meaning behind Symbol Combinations

The comments so far have thrown up some interesting examples so take a look and have a go yourself. A specific Symbol combination does not have a single interpretation but must follow the associations presented above.

Symbol Associations with Mathematics

0 is the additive identity from group theory allowing for the negative numbers.

1 is the multiplicative identity from group theory.

e is the mathematical constant - Euler's number. (not epsilon)

i is the imaginary number the square root of -1. (not iota)

pi relates the diameter to the circumference of a circle.

-- all of the above are crucial fundamental numbers in mathematics.

phi is the golden ratio important in art and architecture.

You may also want to read:

The Sexual Nature of Ogres and Satyrs.

Fun with a First Level Magic-User.

Demonologists i of iii
Demonologists ii of iii
Demonologists iii of iii

Dungeoneers -- Prince Hal

Words From Shakespeare iii the butt

2011-07-02T00:42:00.019+01:00

Much Ado About Nothing

He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged

Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading

the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged

him at the bird-bolt.

A flight or flight-Arrow is for long distance shooting. A bird-bolt is a blunted arrow. Let's not pierce the meat just yet eh? (see carbonado)

Roger Ascham, 1545, had this to say about arrow shafts:

I haue heard very good fletchers␣ faye, that the feconde fether in fome place is better␣ then the pinion in other fome. Betwixt the wingesis␣ lytle difference, but that you muft haue diuerfe fhaftes of one flight, fethered with diuerfe winges, for␣ diuerfe windes: for if the wynde and the fether go both one way the fhaft wyll be caryed to moche. The pinion fethers as it hath the firfle place in the winge, fo it hath the fyrft place in good fetheringe. You maye knowe it afore it be pared, by a bought␣ whiche is in it, and agayne when it is colde, by the thinneffe aboue,and the thickneffe at the grounde, and alfo by the flifnes and fineffe which wyll cary a fhaft better, fafter and further, euen as a fine fayle cloth doth a fhyppe.

ii

York - Henry VI iii

Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,
I dare your quenchless fury to more rage:
I am your butt, and I abide your shot.

A butt is a mound on which a target is placed for archery practice.

I favour butts that are mounds of flesh over mounds of earth myself:

iii

Mercutio - Romeo and Juliet

Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a

white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a

love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the

blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to

encounter Tybalt?

A butt-shaft is an arrow without its barbs and blunted. One might say a butt-shaft is for shooting at butts.

A perfect expression for when I visit the housing projects in Baltimore. As the lights go out beyond their sleepy windows I with LUSTY MIDNIGHT SHOUT begin,

~~Dusky ignorant maidens ...~~

(no that's not right)

Dusky maidens, wide hipped Moors

Dance those booties, lovely whores

Till my eager butt-shaft roars.

Words From Shakespeare ii

2011-07-01T03:04:00.005+01:00

i

Leontes - The Winter's Tale

Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed

In being so blest! There may be in the cup

A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,

And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge

Is not infected: but if one present

The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known

How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,

With violent hefts. I have drunk,

and seen the spider.

Alack, for lesser knowledge! ... I have drunk, and seen the spider.

This one is an expression, a metaphor. Is your happiness forever disturbed, has your mind been infected and accidentally poisoned with knowledge? You really didn't want to know that did you?

I have a class of Magic-User, theorists known as the Sane, who insist on confronting and abusing the dark begetter of sorcery. They drink every cup to the last drop, scrutinising and sucking up the dregs, spider or no. Wizards unflinching they must know everything. Cracking up in the face of his discoveries Leontes here might be a Magic-User, but not a Sane.

ii

Macbeth

What hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Incarnidine means to make red.

It is the kind of word Gygax might have used considering his descriptions of the Vault of the Drow and the walls and floors of The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

A wicked Witch might incarnadine his temple walls with tongues wrenched from carriers of the plague.

Words From Shakespeare i

2011-06-30T17:21:00.012+01:00

I hope to make a series of brief posts selecting words or phrases from Shakespeare that might be appropriated for gaming flavour.

King Lear - Kent to Oswald before Gloucester's Castle

I'll so carbonado your shanks

Carbonado means to hack at or score a piece of meat in preparation for the flame. It also refers to the meat so treated.

I like the sound of Carbonado and could use it to describe a kind of rogue or outlaw, more organised than a typical thug or bravo and more violent than the usual highway robber.

As You like it

They say he is already in the forest of Arden,

and a many merry men with him; and there they live

like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many

young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the

time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

"a many merry men" - weird but sounds good. I like the idea of using merry without irony to describe any band of men or group of followers, whether cutthroats or noble exiles, hiding out in woods or moors.

=====

So in gaming terms i + ii becomes:

OK guys, the hetman of the village broaches the subject of the recent ambushes which have made the villagers' lives miserable. He wants to know if you are willing to discover and take out this carbonado and his merry men.

MOVIE -- Irish Windup Merchant meets American Tightass -- 'The Guard'

2011-06-29T18:46:00.007+01:00

Let this movie be a lesson for you Yanks.

The Guard starring two actors from the top drawer, Brendan Gleeson - The Irish Guard; Don Cheadle - The FBI man. You have seen In Bruges, yes?

From an excellent radio interview on The Film Programme BBC_Radio_4 Interview with Brendan Gleeson 16 minutes in.

16.00 Interview begins with the Guard himself, Brendan Gleeson.

17.00 Gleeson on Boyle the Guard, "He amuses himself by upsetting people, which alot of people find amusing and alot of others don't."

17.30 "I think people, particularly in these islands enjoy a wind up. Rather too much sometimes I think. Its only when you go to America and places like that where people don't do it that often that you realise how catastrophically negative the whole thing is, lol."

Gleeson & Cheadle.

18.25 Clip -- Scene 1

Straight-laced bristly FBI man Cheadle lays it on the line for the Paddy cops in a lecture room presenting a sequence of ugly mugshots of Irish drug scum. In the audience is Gleeson who has a question,

Cheadle
"Yes sergeant"

Gleeson

"I thought only Black lads were drug dealers."

Silence

"… and Mexicans."

Gleeson's Irish boss,

"Apologise to the man."

Gleeson,

"Apologise for what?"

Cheadle,

"For your racist slurs for one thing."

Gleeson,

"I'm Irish sure. Sure racism is part of my culture."

This is funny because despite appearances Gleeson's guard is intelligent and not racist in any important sense but who's to know?

18.25 Clip -- Scene 2

Later the two lads are in a car together.

Gleeson

"So did you grow up in the Projects?"

Cheadle(impatient)

" No I did not 'grow up in the Projects'. I actually come from a very privileged background. Summer in the Hamptons, skiing in Aspen."

Gleeson

"I thought black people couldn't ski?"

Silence.

"… or is that swimmin'?"

=====

Now here is the first random youtube review by a 'Merican dude after a Sundance showing.

He begins saying the comedy was "stale" then "stale stupid humour, but not really stupid, I feel like I didn't get it, I feel like I missed the joke, I think the humour was over my head, a bizarre movie, if you understand what I mean maybe you can help me out here?"

'Mericans.

Do you now see what I have to put up with online from you unsympathetic Yanks day in day out? Why does tolerance not extend to my culture?

Discussing OSR failings on YDIS ends up with comments on Carcosa

2011-06-28T21:26:00.015+01:00

oo-------------------------oo

From YDIS.
oo-------------------------oo

=====

= Radovarl

Jesus, Kent, give the adjectivitis a rest for a few posts, why don’t you? You’re starting to trip over yourself, and you didn’t make a great deal of sense half the time to begin with.

=====

= Me

For some reason I associate adjectives with making fun of halfwits and I like to give them the ol’ one two rather than be too selective. When you make a study of fools you learn that they are diverse and to discriminate among them the philosopher must employ all the correct adjectives.

You seem like an intelligent person Radovarl. I hope I can learn even more from you but don’t be alarmed if in emulating Bach’s six part fugues I detonate the occasional six part adjectival bomb.

=====

= Radovarl

Intelligent? Aren’t you forgetting that I’m Chris Burke?

I can sympathize with the desire to unleash both barrels of your verbal fury at some of these dorks, but one is reminded of Nietzsche’s admonition, which I find analogously apropros, concerning fighting monsters, :) . Having made baiting fatbeards and divers breeds of self-serious goofballs something tantamount to a hobby since long before you appeared on the scene, I’ve lamentably repeatedly fallen into the jagged vise-like maw of that particular bear trap myself on a number of occasions. I think I’ll follow your lead (assuming you removed your blog yourself, on purpose), and likewise remove myself from the orange tinted Cheeto-sweat-stained arena of combat. It’s quite evidently stultifying, and one’s gotta know when to quit.

=====

= Me

Radovarl, now I want to know who you are. Were you on Dragonsfoot? Have I commented on your blog? I hope I was kind. You’re right. Harsh doses of sanity even from YDIS have not made a dent and in the comments here the ‘good humoured’ acknowledgement like a resentfully drawled prayer has become a strange ritual.

For the future, anyone in Raggi’s stable is a fair target. Fine Carcosa and his excellent manners notwithstanding, Mckinney is as self regarding as any religious fruitcake and one of the most politically naive bloggers I have read. I have to say I have no idea why Rob Conley is derided.

-----

This Diagram Explains Everything

[...Carcosa...]

=====

= Radovarl

Nope, I’ve never blogged, though I think I used the Radovarl moniker on Dragonsfoot briefly a few years back. I find the medium next to worthless. Personally I think blogs encourage the sort of vain grandstanding that many of us here seem to deplore yet gawk at like typical highway accident rubberneckers. I feel much the same way about RPG forums. One echo chamber is much like another.

For the record, and respectfully, I have to disagree about Carcosa. McKinney seems like a decent sort, but despite his obvious dedication to matters Lovecraftian, in my opinion he’s gotten it mostly wrong. He’s fallen prey to many of the same gross misinterpretations that Lovecraft’s pasticheurs have. A few reasons for this opinion:

1) The Great Old Ones don’t give a shit about mankind one way or the other (heard of Cosmic Indifferentism?), hence all of the rituals involving human sacrifice and nonlethal degradation (were there any?) jar with me–you can’t bribe Cthulhu with virgin’s blood, or anything f’ing else; he doesn’t want squat from you, Mr. Sorcerer!

2) McKinney has clearly read Ward & Kuntz’s questionable statting-up and description of the “mythos” (a misnomer) much more closely than he’s read the stories by HPL; case in point, the Great Race of Yith transfer their minds through time-space, and the rugose cones they inhabit on our world are NATIVE TO OUR WORLD!; therefore not much chance the Yithians would look the same on another fucking planet; it would have been seriously cool to have them on Carcosa, but with some other form for them to inhabit.

3) ERB was a two-bit hack. Mixing and matching concepts from Barsoom and HPL is NOT the aesthetic equivalent of mixing peanut butter and chocolate; it’s like mixing excrement and chocolate.

4) Supplement V? Arrogate much? And it’s not as if Supplement I – IV were exactly stellar efforts, either…

5) As a father of two children, I look askance at anyone who could even conceive of some of the acts described in the rituals. Yes, I realize it’s fiction, but you won’t see me inviting John Norman of Gor fame over to meet the wife, either. Likewise, neither William Burroughs nor George McKinney are gonna be baby-sitting my kids anytime soon.

—-
Guest Columnist just takes himself way too seriously. Anyone who quotes lengthy passages in Latin at every Christian holiday needs to wake up and realize he comes across not simply as a sanctimonious twit, but a pencil-necked intellectual sanctimonious twit.

=====

= Me

Maybe you should start a blog, you have plenty to say. I know it seems like the majority of the community are cretinous geeks but ... oh … I can't quite remember how to finish out that sentence. Outside of entertaining a dozen solid guys and getting the occasionally interesting comment from a passerby, for me the blog is something to look back on in ten years as a sequence of snapshots of what Im doing now, I'll browse over it in wonder, trying to convince myself that I am not an insane fuck for getting involved in D&D.

highway accident rubberneckers

Absofuckinglutely. I got close to a thousand visits for mocking Zak S, which proves that Raggi's contempt for his readers by treating them as a flock devoted to the sensational is as percipient as it is weaselly. YDIS' popularity is nothing more than the obverse of the popularity of those top dogs who crave followers, and they defined how the community functions so good luck to YDIS.

Forums. I have never laughed so much at my own jokes as on Dragonsfoot. I will say no more.

o--------------------o

[...Carcosa...]

Your knowledge of Lovecraft's works exceeds my own I'm sure. I think your point "1)" is very well made indeed. In fact Deities & Demigods set a poor precedent which prevented many DMs from conceiving for their campaigns a hierarchy of beings which exist outside of the mechanics of the game with a far more opaque abstract interaction.

However, against the thrust of your comment I would say Carcosa is an emulation of The Book of Ebon Bindings for simplified D&D rules. The mood of Carcosa is derived from ca Smith. Lovecraft provided descriptions of familiar monsters and inspired a naming convention for the rest of the monsters with help from Smith, Dunsany et al..

One excellence (relative to osr works) of the book is in McKinney's maniacal fleshing out of the details. He did not rely on the moronic fashion for random tables to do all the heavy lifting as exhibited by the likes of Zak S. White Snow + Black Coal ==atomise==> Black Snow + White Coal -- What fucking poetic genius.

The second excellence is in his unflinching depiction of EVIL activites. Fathers and mothers of young children are not to be judged rational when considering the merits of a game in which EVIL sorcerers perform horrible acts on children. It is true that the same idea can be handled with greater subtlety and effect as in say, The Night of the Hunter. Nevertheless, the authenticity of the portrayal of a kind of evil is seen in the horrified reaction of many intelligent sensitive readers, though not the morally vain and morally incontinent readers.

The book will be diminished in an art soaked edition by a company that produces texts with the image to word space ratio of a woman's magazine. I have **NO** interest in what McKinney or Raggi think a demon haunted world might look like in concrete images. I read more widely than they do and have my own ideas thanks.

You have seen this film, right?

2011-06-25T19:42:00.001+01:00

It is a rare action movie that has a flicker of an effect on my viscera but this calm pretty biography of Howard had some intense moments, witness this impromptu character sketch as Howard entertains his girl.

Bravo Vincent D'Onofrio for that thrilling musical depiction of Howard's enthusiasm. It is accurate to say that D'Onofrio would blow the muscular boys out of the water with a stage Conan. Rene Zellweger plays the squinty eyed darling with a dainty self confidence and the familiar animations of her fetching tiny eyes.

The film is called 'The Whole Wide World' and overall it is a charming tribute to an author about whom it might be said with slight modification, as was said about Schubert who died one year older aged 31,

Here music has buried a treasure, but even fairer hopes.

Book Edition Photos Restored In All Their Glory +plus+ YDIS Sighting.

2011-06-23T23:31:00.003+01:00

The photos which vanished from the previous post have been laboriously restored to their place by means of setting up the books again, taking more photos and uploading them using my computer.

I think it is no coincidence that the images disappeared just as YDIS left an insolent comment about some demented crone's hackwork, a crass remark which disrupted a homage to the greatest fantasists who have ever lived. It is no longer possible to venerate one's peers free of the attention of vandals and riffraff.

YDIS may strive to come across as a beautiful if somewhat foul-mouthed schoolgirl but I suspect that the figure behind the scabrous, uncannily accurate appraisals of the osr community is a miserable and lonely woman no man in his right mind would want to date.

Appendix N: Fantasy Book Editions -- Photos

2011-06-21T21:54:00.018+01:00

The shelf of my favourite fantasy books has been frozen for many years, presented in a table here, and so with such a compact and stable select group it has been a pleasure to hunt down some of those works in fine editions photographed above and below. [click for large]

Noteworthy are:

The Dying Earth, 1950 - Hillman Periodicals.
First edition. I like the cover because it reminds me of the time in which vance was writing. Some broad.

The Eyes of the Overworld, 1966 - Ace Books.
Beautiful printing of perhaps my favourite Vance work.

Zothique, 1970 - Ballintine Books.
Undoubtedly ca Smith at his best and in a single volume.

The Boats of the Glen Carrig, 1971 - Ballantine Books.

The most brilliant novel in the style of an AD&D adventure, a Wilderlands horrorshow .

The Lord of the Rings, 2005 Three volume 50th anniversary edition - Harper Collins.

The best physical edition of the work printed on high quality paper with well designed dust jackets.

The Children of Hurin, 2007 - Harper Collins.

I threw away the dust jacket and ripped out the colour plates which left me with beautiful small and subtle black and white illustrations in Tolkien's greatest work, an improvement even on Narn i hin Hurin from Unfinished Tales.

Characters from Tolkien, 2001 Originally A Tolkien Bestiary - Chancellor Press.

Majestic and marvelous paintings and drawings from a variety of headstrong artists.

The Worm Ouroboros, 1926 - Charles & Albert Boni.

My favourite fantasy book.

Mistress of Mistresses, 1935 - Dutton & co.

This edition has the thickest pages of any book I own, Sturdy.

The House on the Borderland, 1946 - Arkham House.

A very rare book and worth every penny to me.

The Shadow of the Torturer, 1981 - Sidgwick & Jackson.

A lovely hardback edition of this work with a cleaner cover painting and the same font as the paperback.

The Eyes of the Overworld, 1977 - Underwood Miller.

Marvelous illustrations and includes a map, unusual font and many typos, overall a joy to read.

Cugel's Saga, 1983 - Underwood Miller.

Fewer illustrations and of lower quality. Font is small and regular. A hefty volume with a great cover.

=====

Question for Leiber fans:

I am interested to hear if anyone can recommend a nice edition of Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser tales as these are the only works I have yet to find in an attractive version.

*** afternote:
Hey dumb Leiber fans! Wake up sluggards! I said, 'Tell me about your nifty editions,' you dozy gits. You'll have everyone thinking Leiber fans are imbecile cheapskates.
end afternote ***

***** afterafternote:
Leiber fans come through with a little prodding!
*****

In addition:

If anyone has some other fantasy work I have not mentioned in an edition they particularly enjoy reading, let me know.

Dumb & Dumber and Zombie HPS

2011-06-19T19:39:00.003+01:00

Let's say you have a couple of pals over who know nothing about roleplaying but you'd like to see them pitch in with your crew for some laughs. I have taught each of my players over the years how to play but in this instance there is no expectation these fellas will have developing characters. The serious adventuring is parked while the characters blow off steam in a heaving sweaty port. The regular players welcome a change in tone from the deadly serious and relish cracking open their Czech beers as soon as they arrive rather than after the usual eight hours of play in order to unwind for last two hours.

The idea is to let them play iconic characters from film and to tailor simple mechanics specifically to set them apart. It is crucial that the mechanics are jarring and inconsistent with your carefully tended innovations.

For example: Dumb & Dumber needs to be performed as a pair as they feed off each other. 0-lvl unskilled; HPS 50; AC 10. Any act of violent dangerous buffoonery which makes another player laugh, not smile, will restore 1 HP to the fool who suffered. If the tomfoolery raised only smiles at most then real damage is sustained according the DMs judgement.

The regular crew are *not* told how this mechanic works. The new lads are told.

However, the new lads are told that as a referee you will judge their antics as on the edge of plausible or implausible. Their characters suffer and die only as a result of a sequence of implausible actions.

Dumb angrily kicks Dumber up the arse for asking a barmaid if he can check if both her breasts weigh the same amount resulting in 'a' or 'b':

a: Dumber slowly removes Dumb's pot helmet and taps his skull with a mace. on the edge of plausible: -2 hps if no-one laughs; +1 hp if someone laughs.

b: Dumber sticks a knife in Dumb's eye. Save vs Death: Save is a miss, Fail results in Dumb straight to 0 HPS.

Now at times even the implausible will seem aesthetically appropriate so I would interpret implausible actions as plausible if the sufferer is at full 50 HPS.

Reflecting Laurel's sometimes bizarre constitutional effects, digesting hats, wax fruit and lighting and smoking a 'pipe' using nothing more than his thumb and curled fingers one might give him a Constition of 22. In addition allow him to discover to the annoyance of a Magic-User member of the regular crew that he can understand a random spell of the highest level in the MUs spellbook and can cast it at will with 50% accuracy of target.

For general adventuring actions including combat the principle is very simple:
Roll d20:
17-20 is a critical success. Oliver Hardy scampers up the cliff-face faster than the party assassin. Fear?
5-16 is a fail.
1-4 is a critical fail. Let the new guys describe the disaster and getting a laugh or smiles only results as in above.

Essentially improvise the results.

The greatest fun can be had with insulting behavior in taverns. Hirsute psychopathic killers will be mesmerised by their antics if they don't save versus spells or by DM sanction. "Did this fat fuck just cut off my pony-tail, glue it to my chin and vigorously nod his head with a 'Humph, let that be a lesson to you!' " These killers and bullies can only respond in kind drawn into a war of daft antics so long as your regular crew are entertained.

I have tried this out as a player where I played a Jimmy Cagney styled sailor with different mechanics but the same boozy tavern high jinks and dastardry. Good fun as a break from deadly serious gaming.

Zombies? Run.

I have been trying to think of the simplest mechanic to capture the more interesting consequences of stumbling into a slow moving swarm of Zombies. The encounter should be tactical, a thoughtful exercise in resource management but above all a dangerous game of space and movement.

Experience points should be awarded for the encounter as a whole, whether the zombies are confronted or avoided, not for individual zombies stopped.

The best simple mechanic I can come up with is:

Movement = Hit Points

and that's all that is required.

Zombies abandoned: Move #3 = 30yds = 30 HPS.

Zombies freshly disinterred, Necromancer present: Move #6 = 60yds = 60 HPS.

Hack a zombie down to 15 HPS and his Move becomes 15yds per round.

Hack a zombie down to 5 HPS and his Move becomes 5yds per round.

I would rule that a zombie with HPS/Move 10+ will track you unerringly at his pace for Move # days.
I would rule that a zombie with HPS/Move 1-9 will

track you if in line of sight at his pace.

I don't use zombies yet in my game because the undead are currently not malignant, they are Ka-akhban aristocrats who are genuine explorers of a spirit afterworld who need to preserve their corpses in pristine condition and will defend themselves just as a living person would. However a interfering Being Ultramontane is corrupting the meaning of religious symbols already inscribed in tombs which will result in these explorers becoming a horrific undead.

apropos of nothing ...

2011-06-16T14:44:00.002+01:00

Photo reveals Zak S. is only a little 'un after all !!

2011-06-16T02:07:00.007+01:00

Appendix N: The Beholder Contracts - Complete Adventure from 1986

2011-06-12T20:52:00.003+01:00

Some of my favourite Appendix N non-fiction works for gaming

I had started to scan in pages from the works above so people could get a taste for the writing styles and content but I suspect blog readers find so much reading stressful. Instead you can look around for reviews if any title catches your eye.

I am presenting here a seven page adventure with tiny font that was published in 1986 in a Dublin gaming magazine. I have the first four issues and I believe the magazine folded after only ten issues. I skimmed through the magazines again as I scanned in the adventure and was impressed with the letters page where, displaying a sense of humour at odds with precious North American nancy-boy bloggers, many of the letters they selected were scathing and contemptuous of the publication. By 'precious North American nancy-boys' I mean you-know-who-you-are because I have told you so and it amuses me that you read this blog on the sly (google analytics).

There is a description below of a gaming marathon for charity held in Trafalgar square where the ambitious belief that devotees could play for 100 hours was severely tested. I don't know about you but my brain shuts down approaching 48 hours, at that point I will sleep in your wife's bed if it is handy.

The adventure proper written by David Whiteland. I was fourteen when I used this adventure which marked the beginning of five year long campaign with two truly great players and some also rans. I have only ever used two adventures that I didn't create myself and this was the second and final one.

The characters are well drawn, the plot is elegant and the plot device is very open to further adventuring particularly if one of your players is highly intelligent and amoral. Yep. The Tomb of the Minstrel King and the encounter with Pholas needs a little thought and work to strike the right mood in your own world. Thinking back I wondered if I had been influenced strongly in any way by the adventure and I think there is no doubt that I was in one respect. I have never ever used Magic-Users as presented in the Player's Handbook not because I didn't appreciate Gygax' conceit, in fact I think his MU is the best gaming wizard I have seen, but because it was very important that I created my own wizards of many colours. Gygax' MU was used as a template to ensure my own wizards were reasonably bounded in power. You will see what I mean if you read about Tiresias here.

Appendix N: The Book of Kells

2011-06-11T23:33:00.011+01:00

The Book of Kells is one of Ireland's chief tourist attractions. The book is on permanent display at the university where I studied Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin.

Little does the book's current curator know that in time to come the magnificent illustrations of the Gospels within will delight fishes in a cold northerly lake. The future historian Jack Vance reveals,

Guyal fell quiet. “And what are the usual penalties for my act?" ...

“You are indeed fortunate,” said the Saponid, “in that, as a witness, I was able to suggest your delinquencies to be more the result of negligence than malice. The last penalties exacted for the crime were stringent; the felon was ordered to perform the following three acts: first, to cut off his toes and sew the severed members into the skin at his neck; second, to revile his forbears for three hours, commencing with a Common Bill of Anathema, including feigned madness and hereditary disease, and at last defiling the hearth of his clan with ordure; and third, walking a mile under the lake with leaded shoes in search of the Lost Book of Kells."

The fantasy world of my campaigns takes its place in a cosmology which has remained fixed since my late teens. The universe has a simple physical structure. Two conical surfaces, infinite in extent, touch at their apices (pointy tops) a collision which buckled the Earth forming two rings of obscenely vast mountains, impenetrable regions known as Supramontane Prime and Supramontane Alpha. Between these regions lies the world of Men a smooth cylindrical surface of oceans and continents. The Sun and the Moon rotate around the mortal world while the cones Ultramontane rotate very slowly in opposite directions.

Supramontane Prime. Here, and here alone, be Dragons.

There are many consequences for a cylindrical world between two infinite conical surfaces. From a high place one can see very far North and South but only as far East and West as one would expect on our own Earth. In addition since only English Magic-Users resemble the MUs of the PHB as each nation or region has its own kind of wizard, in Italy Demonologists, it is no surprise that the greatest minds in some land took a sustained interest in the world beyond. The race inhabiting The Mountains Out of Time (see map) cultivate Astronomers whose expertise lies in fashioning optical devices and whose study is the proximate regions Ultramontane, in particular Gauss' Ear an island continent the geology of which obeys an advanced geometry only Gauss of mortal mathematicians understood.

Gauss' Ear

Further, (pasted from a previous post),

Very briefly the structure of Power in my campaign: There may or may not exist an Unknowable-One-True-God whom the majority of clerics in the most advanced city states profess to have faith in. Their spells are clerical but derive from the same source as MU's spells. They preach morality but are as venal as those who listen to their sermons. They are the psionics [personal/simplified] of the campaign and have a professional function to hunt down Devils Incorporeal who possess and corrupt and when detected simply flee in one segment to an alternate random host. My game "planet" has an infinite surface area with a cylindrical centre the size of our Earth. Characters reaching 13th,14th level (no player ever reached 12th) suffer from a creeping insanity haunted by dreams of immortality. They loath the mortal centre and adventure Outwards vanishing from human history. Over aeons contact has been established with some immortals through temple sites but their motivations are unfathomable as they are insane. An analogy I keep in mind is that mortal communicants, clerics, witch-doctors, templars are like children innocent of adult sexuality.

There are no sides to take in any cosmic battle. Players with int or wis of 18 may be given hints, insight into an immortals motivation and may form a fearful treacherous alliance with one of these Powers but the structure for behaviour in the campaign is individualistic all the way up.

There are two posts on interference from Beings Ultramontane here and here if you are interested. It amazes me how difficult it is to give a sense of campaign deep background away from the gametable.

Anyway this has been a long build up to saying that I am using these delicately coloured page ornamentations of whorls and curlicues from the Book of Kells as maps of architecture Ultramontane the dwelling places of a Beings Ultramontane conceived of by Men as Dungeons or Temples. The players never have and never will travel Ultramontane because they will never reach 13th level plus.

I can however present a dungeon to them and describe, over a bottle of scotch, what adventuring is like for a legendary figure, for instance ...

... the Neurosolar Zataphor Lucen whose venomous spittle could blind a basilisk; whose iron fingernails could separate the leaves of Crow's Incantidex of silken metal foil; whose right eye once rebelled when tossed one too many times into a pit expected to 'explore ahead' and never came back; whose confidant the robin redbreast Sing would excrete a pestilent white shit onto the hair of any who harboured impure thoughts; who wielded with care an invisible needle eight feet long, Brainpin; who deceived the Sphinx Sneferu stealing a canopic jar, the prison of a poet-made-manikin who recited The Second Coming on lifting the lid; who wrestled drunkenly with a Manticore Supramontane who broke his neck and devoured the flesh on his skull and yet was heard snoring when dawn woke his accomplices to whom he explained, 'the trick is not minding'; but who trembled on the threshold of the abode of Pri, a Being Ultramontane, whom he heard begin to hum from within a darkness his remaining eye could not penetrate.

The Abode of Pri, Ultramontane.

Is female sexuality monstrous?

2011-06-07T17:28:00.002+01:00

[appendix N interlude]

The Three Genders

There are times when I look into a pretty smirking face tilted upwards and think, 'Christ, she's an animal', and then, 'but it's not her, it's her spirit of womanhood deep down'. Her brain-pussy nexus makes demands of her delicately throbbing heart because she likes what she sees. But what does she see? When a 5'2" 110lb Indian girl flashes her teeth, eyelashes trembling and wants to press her finely carved face against mine I fail to imagine the colour of her lust. Were my sexuality aligned with hers rather than opposed to hers I would hunger for a 7'2" 320lb hairy killer, a world class troll.

I have yet to adorn myself with pink garments or buttock hugging tights, to groom and paint my legs for a night out carelessly girding my thong clad hips with a handkerchief. Yet a woman attentive to such appearances commands my gaze.

Is our sexuality defined more by our own physicality or the appearances of those we are drawn to?

Right now I see teenage girl loping across a bridge on long lithe tanned legs. Her pink socks please me no end. Pink socks on the end of creamy smooth sunned shanks. Whose sexuality is the softer?

I think ours is. I admire woman's sexuality as the more dangerous and wonder, positing the existence of a third gender, what blasphemous embraces, what illicit shivers, what exquisite genital pulsings await the male sexual explorer in the clutches of that wild beast, an ab-human manifestation of abstract gender, who would face us if we turned to look in the direction of a woman's lust.

I am not a brave man and remain content to hanker after pink socks but I urge all of you to investigate this new erotic frontier with diligence and fervour and report back your discoveries. Homosexuality in the context of this observation is narcissistic, directed neither one way nor the other.

So my theory is that the hunting down and confronting of monsters, the sweaty grappling with monkey-demons in the dark, with the shades down so to speak, is in reality a sexual playtime for you male gaming nerds. Not me. You, you fruitcakes.

Appendix N: Part ii

2011-06-05T01:51:00.000+01:00

You all have a copy of The Glass Harmonica, right? Barbara Ninde Byfield compiled this lexicon as early as 1967 and I would kiss her for that alone as her peculiar vocabulary and attendant illustrations are unpolluted by the stock of tired fantasy descriptions familiar to us from gaming. The spirit of the book appreciates faerie as romance.

Appendix N: Part i

2011-05-29T01:31:00.004+01:00

This snapshot illustrates that the Timeline below is a vectorized pdf.

CLICK IT

Timeline for the Better Authors and Their Works.

All of the works and their authors presented in the timeline above have been placed on the tables below where, in the first, I have ranked authors according to their single best work, which may be a collection of short stories. In the second table I have listed further works from these authors all of which are excellent.

What characterises these tables and differentiates these authors is that they alone have written fantastical works that I have read more than once and continue to reread with the pleasures of familiarity and nostalgia, in a wandering dreamy mood and sometimes in amazement and awe. In the last fifteen years ca Smith is the only latecomer to this list.

Honourable mention must go to some writers whose style is far from realistic but who don't belong on the tables for various reasons: Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, Kafka's The Trial and The Castle, Poe's Masque of the Red Death (Why didn't he write like this always?), Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, Orwell's 1984, Zamyatin's We, PK Dick's five good novels, W Miller's short stories, F O'Brien At Swim Two Birds, The Third Policeman, Ballard's The Drought, The Disaster Area, Bellairs' The Face in the Frost, White's The Once and Future King, Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Golding's The Inheritors, Pressfield's Gates of Fire.

Egil's Saga

Religion and the Decline of Magic

Napoleon and his Marshals

I intend in the main to let further Appendix N recommendations speak for themselves through scans of selected pages from my own books. Everything presented will have influenced my game directly in some way or other.

Egil's Saga

Tolkien's First Age Man could have stepped from the pages of these sagas. Greg Stafford preferred these simpler rougher pagan men for his campaigns. Read here the first two pages and then Eddison's own fascinating notes on the Berserk and the Shape-strong.

Religion and the Decline of Magic

Read here a short excerpt from a long essay about the grounds for belief in witches. My paladins were distinguished by more aesthetically pleasing deformations such as abnormally widespaced eyes on a large head and all kinds of local boons were falsely attributed to very unusual looking monkish warriors. "Beware of a man ... who hath not a beard." Monty Python stuff.

Napoleon and his Marshals

This is one of my favourite military history books. The author is extremely witty and has an eye for character. Read here a biographical sketch of the rogue Augereau who went on to become one of Napoleon's fourteen active Marshals.

=============================================

[[[ I have just come out on the losing side from a slugging match with a whitespace generating phantom and had to rewrite the post. I stored this comment:

cyclopeatron said...

A great list. Our tastes are nearly identical, although I would have included A Voyage to Arcturus. I haven't read Shea or Stapledon, I'll have to look into these! Thanks for highlighting all these great authors! ]]]

*** If you have not read yet wish to read The Worm Ouroboros I advise not reading the comments ***

Penultimate Post

2011-05-01T19:15:00.008+01:00

I am at the halfway stage in my PhD and am disengaging from this rancid little community.

I have cringed once too often at trembling lipped cretins fawning over braying egotists who, having shouted the loudest, now hold your attention and command your tongues. Though they make self deprecating comments about their burgeoning 'professionalism' my loathing for the grandiose and deluded hereabouts has nothing to do with money. In the early days there was an opportunity to form a community of peers where guys could discuss, disagree and joke with each other on level terms. Instead the attention whores, having been burned on the forums by indifference to their mediocre observations, did their utmost to create an 'us' and 'them' fracture in the scene brooking no disagreement like a bunch of neurotic anus-lipped grey haired schoolmarms. The forums are little better, Dragonsfoot has become a little foolish and trivial although the moderators there are good humoured. The nancy-boy gunslingers at The Knights and Knaves Alehouse are preposterous and I visualise them as ludicrous American fatsos who would shriek at the sight of a mouse or a spider. Check out my final posts there to see what deserves a ban in the minds of these self named 'tough guys'. Why do Californian gamers come across as fags and old women?

I would be lying if I said I was not able to elicit from this depraved court romance of the conceited and the prostrate a useful list of gaming material to pad out my collection and I am preparing an appendix N themed post as much for myself as a handful of the hundred or so that read this blog that I don't despise.

Influential Fantasy Art: The Dakhen.

2011-04-21T17:07:00.002+01:00

When I was young and in my DMing prime, by 'prime' I mean when I had access to an abundance of fantastical ideas the scarcity of which now is not compensated for at the gametable by the steady gain in knowledge as I grow older, as I say when I was in my DMing prime a friend of mine who turned into a fine player presented me with an early problem. He wished to play a Paladin but did not roll well enough to qualify. Our group played through its lifetime in isolation so I was neither influenced by nor looked to external precedent and in the end I suggested there was little excitement to be had from dice if we looked on them as machines to gratify our will and so we obeyed the result. I had excluded Clerics from the world and thought Paladins as written had an affinity with the Cleric. I would have abandoned them too if it were not for the glorious image of the Paladin in Hell in the PHB and so decided they would be very rare individuals not classes as such, a handful alive at any one time, an idea which I have retained.

What to do with this player who wanted to play an honourable man, a competent fighter brightly armoured; not holy but prayerful, respectful and wise; tall and proud but sympathetic? Well at the time I was dwelling on the painting below trying to unravel if not its story then some story. It comes from Adventurer magazine issue 3 1986. One of the chief advantages of playing with friends is that you know what will please them and they in turn know how to coax you to develop material they will enjoy. In the end we developed the idea of a High Man, a Fighter whose spirit was tied to pattern of ancient standing stones called a Dakhen. A Dakhen was a sanctuary to be loved more than exploited for its latent power. Effects of divination, warding, projection, multiplication, televoyance were all learned in time and each Dakhen had its own Aides Sensory, Diplomatic and Awful. Within the pattern of standing stones a High Man was invulnerable to mundane hostilities and protected yet for a wide proximity without. Each Dakhen had focal stone or altar and beneath one standing stone a passage lead to a suite of metal chambers of techno-sorcerous construction.

This painting was the source for the important ideas associated with one player character who survived for six years and was one of only two player characters to travel Supramontane, to the mountains which ring the world.

There is an event depicted here inviting speculation and I doubt any two viewers so doing would tell the same tale.

Anticlockwise from front left: The High Man from the painting; Syrakarn the player character High Man; Aide Sensory - Hawk; Aide Diplomatic - Wood Elf; Aide Awful - Dakhen Guard.

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #4 Jeff Rients

2011-04-17T16:56:00.003+01:00

Gaming Joy

One of the very few guys in this scene I would like to meet in person. Hell, one of these days Im going to arrive at his house in Champaign Illinois uninvited and stay for a few months. I'll sleep quietly in his games room so his wife and daughter won't be any the wiser.

The original and the best,

SINCE JULY 2004 -- You dig? 200FOUR

Now that's a Sweet Ass

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #3 James Edward Raggi IV

2011-04-15T19:00:00.000+01:00

He'll make your eardrums bleed,

With his penny dreams, for a bag of gold.

For tales of Wonder move him not,

Unless they're bought and sold.

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #2 James Maliszweski

2011-04-14T01:53:00.003+01:00

Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti incerta et occulta

Dungeons & Dragons manifestasti mihi,

Miserere mei, Deus,

Et Hostem Kentem repellas longius.

Behold, Thou hast loved truth and the uncertain and hidden things
of Dungeons & Dragons Thou hast shown me.
Have mercy on me , Lord,
and drive foeman Kent far away.

Grognardia Mood Music -- Nicholas Gombert <<<--- CLICK

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #1 Knights & Knaves

2011-04-13T01:41:00.005+01:00

Not the brightest but sweet natured.

Kent posts comment on K&KA thread.

In this series of portraits I get to the heart of characters behind the avatars of the forums and the worshipful luminaries who blog to their adoring faithful.

The Sexual Nature of Ogres and Satyrs

2011-04-08T00:59:00.024+01:00

Pompadoodaloo in Ogre form with 'girlfriend' and as himself.

The petty Viscount Pompadoodaloo inherited several splendid villas with the ancestral fortified manor house over a century ago in the beautiful wide plateau known as the High Wilds. This region lies to the south of Dunsane and the east of the most farflung of Ka-akhban provinces - the Nomes of Thoth - and has no deep tomb to lure the adventuring elites from England, Ireland, Italy or Greece. Sparsely populated with simple farming folk and a drab aristocracy for centuries now it has provided quiet grounds for the isolated towers of specialist wizards wishing to live in solitude paying no heed to each others work. Here live Alcor the Lightning Wizard, Teresias the Scrier and Zataphor Mendas who bends White Time.

Metamorphosis was the instrument with which the legendary natural philosopher Darewon explored the behaviour of mammals, a field to which he devoted his life, living amongst these animals in their own form. If the legend is true then he found a peaceful end deep in the Dark Ocean as a blue whale with an extensive family.

The High Wilds

Only One Quarter of The High Wilds above [Red square]; 150 miles by 100 miles

The Viscount Pompadoodaloo, despite his upbringing, used that same instrument for purposes ignoble revealing a personality disinterested in the good manners fashionable at the time. Having acquired and struggled through Darewon's earliest rudimentary treatise on Metamorphosis in frustration he put his knowledge to boorish and later to turpitudinous uses. Alive for almost two centuries now in the High Wilds as the prominent exemplar of nobility in that land his character and exploits have had the effect of locally corrupting the word 'noble' to mean 'absolute cunt'.

When it came to Pompadoodaloo that his fine intellect was insufficient to grasp the concepts of Metamorphosis beyond enlargement and diminution to a vaguely human form his impotent fury emerged in displays of Gigantism. His short and scrawny build was masked with couture from a fabulous wardrobe of patterned whorled silks which defied distinction of gender. As a dandy in grubby drinking dens he blew kisses, put his finger in patron's soup licking suggestively his dripping digit, jammed the hostelry door open in coldest winter complaining of stinking bodies. As soon as violence erupted he transformed into a giant of a man with vast bony skull and cruel mankilling limbs. In less than a minute he could silence a tavern to the soft scraping of twitching prone casualties and the dead. An inveterate rapist Pampadoodaloo unleashed a more delicate cruelty on stray women and girls transforming himself to prevent recognition into a portfolio of eccentric forceful lovers.

While exploring the physiognomy of gigantism it was by accident he discovered the wholly separate grotesque form and nature of the long forgotten Ogre. At first he thought he was going to die, such was the intensity of the visceral sexual lust that immobilised him. After several such exploratory transformations he yet found the vibrancy of the Ogre's carnal appetite overwhelming and debilitating. His first sexual gropings in this form were enervating, slovenly and onanistic. With time the mist cleared and his joy at having such inhuman venal bliss within reach at will had him smirking when he was not grinning.

Pompadoodaloo invites friends around to play chess and drink sherry.

When maidens are no longer satisfyingly tight they are eaten by the manor slug as punishment.

His pleasure was so rapturous he wanted to discuss it, to have others experience the same and with wariness but little difficulty he exposed some of his aristocratic acquaintances to the delights of heightened lust and cruelty, through a transformation ceremony involving mumbo jumbo and a wine laced with the metamorphic agency. The fortune he amassed hosting bestial orgies for those who could afford it allowed him to transform his ancestral home into palatial apartments with vast windows clear and stained, floors of alabaster and pink granite strewn with furs of the most timid creatures and columns studded with jewels received for license. His new wealth funded the design and construction of an underground proliferation of chambers suitable as venues for the disgusting and insane among Pompadoodaloo's clients to amplify their cravings.

Night Hag as pander.

His original plan to establish a cult through which peasant worshippers would donate unwanted children came to naught when he felt he was arousing attention from one of the plateau's wizards. He did however experience an intimidating visit by a Night Hag who without curiosity offered to act as his procurer of sexual meat. In return she devised a transformation ceremony stipulating that her breast milk should be added to his transfiguration wine. His gorge never failed to rise as she wrenched from paps resembling poisonous fungi a grey scum into his silver chalice. Whichever came first, death or the passing of ten years after the first day's consummation of borrowed vicious sexuality she would claim the soul for her own trade in larvae Ultramontane.

Pompadoodaloo addresses his Master Spy Hunter, Bugbear Chief and Half-Orc Captain.

Further:

Pompadoodaloo has employed twenty spy hunters to patrol the High Wilds incognito visiting their gossips on the look out for moralists and general interferers. Wandering adventurers will be stalked and harassed if need be.
He no longer uses human mercenaries for his standing army. The closest he came to death was when he offered some dying girls to a mercenary captain to fuck as a perk. Being throttled he was almost unconscious when he managed to transform into a giant.
His army consists of a battalion each of Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Bugbears. Gnolls are a noble ancient race in Agonmayar. He has four Half-Orc sergeants and one Half-Orc Captain.
One of the aristocrats indulging himself at the manor is an assassin of the highest calibre. He will try to kill Pompadoodaloo. It is not known who has hired him.
Two aristocrats are suspicious about the transfiguration ceremony not that they don't thoroughly enjoy raping and abusing beautiful girls and youths. They have been surreptitiously removing samples of wine for alchemical analysis by an alchemist in Genoa.
Three Satyrs have come up onto the plateau from the north across Dunsane and out of the old forest on the shoulder of the Mountains out of Time. Satyrs are intrepid purposeful travelers possessing a powerful romantic sexuality wholly at odds with that of the Ogre. The Master Spy Hunter knows nothing about Satyrs but their loitering, drunken arrogance and aggressive questioning of farmers has him concerned.
A spy hunter attempting to disrupt a conversation between a Satyr and one of his gossips had an arrow flung by hand into his eye socket without interrupting the flow of the Satyr's conversation.
The Half-Orc captain describes the three interlopers as 'serious' and wants to move a company of one hundred Bugbears to take them out. Pompadoodaloo knowing nothing about Satyrs wants to restrict openly using his nonhuman troops and to reserve them for threats from conventional troops and is seeking a competent amoral agent for special investigations.

Satyrs Three snooping around the High Wilds investigating the abduction of maidens.

Satyrs live primarily in all male communities in the old forest skirting the Mountains out of Time. Ten percent of the time sexual congress with human female will result in Satyr offspring. Satyrs vary in height between three and one half and eight feet in height with two peaks in likelihood at four and one half- called 'fellows' - and seven feet in height - called 'killers'.

Fellows tend to be accomplished musicians with any instrument, good story tellers, persuasive and intelligent. They are excellent drinkers for their size, are hilarious company when drunk and are sought out by Dwarves for good times, a fondness which is reciprocated.

Killers are terrific fighters rivaled in Agonmayar only by Spartans, Irish Rangers and English Knights for prowess though little is known about their exploits in comparison to their peers as they are inspired more by personal romantic gestures than a wider glory. They dearly love their smaller brothers, treasuring their wit, toughness and buoyant spirit. Drinking competitions between teams of the bigger and the smaller Satyrs are the stuff of legend.

Satyrs prefer girls or woman aged roughly three times their height in feet. Fellows prefer girls of fourteen while Killers prefer woman of twenty one on the average.

Satyrs bond instantly with Dwarves who respect among other qualities the Satyr's exquisite taste in wine. Satyrs wander far and wide tasting pussy and wine and inform Dwarves in which wineries to invest for which judgement a cut of the transported wine is diverted to their merry old woods.

The Satyr's Principles of Sexuality

Human females are the most beautiful beings in the world, and the most precious.
Any girl aged twelve or more may be flirted with, cozened or seduced to some joyous romping.
Some women find Satyrs 'a bit hairy'. Such a woman has her haunch patted once, her forehead kissed and is left alone with a wink and a smile.
The Satyr's sexuality is highly romantic and rescuing women is their chief delight. They expect a roll in the hay as reward but if this is denied then see above, accusation of being uncomfortably hirsute for typical reaction.
A Satyrs pals will help him protect a whole village if he is lying down with a maid living there.
Abuse of a woman is an offense which can end only in profuse sincere apologies from the brute or death.
Rape of a woman is the most heinous of crimes and is punishable by execution or assassination. Satyrs have sacked a city to get at a high profile miscreant who has been indulged for political reasons.

Who's that girl in the hat? Saucy!!

Levels for Middle-earth Characters and Miniatures Selected for the Fellowship

2011-03-25T23:17:00.004Z

There are two parts to this post with Tolkien's characters the common theme:

I. Levels for Middle-earth characters, from the First Age primarily.

II. Miniatures selected for the fellowship in Moria.

[ III. By the way I previously discussed Bakshi's marvelous LotR here.]

-----
I. Levels for Middle-earth characters, from the First Age primarily.

A while back I posted the following on Dragonsfoot.

*****

I have just finished rereading The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin and thought since Tolkien pays such attention to the hierarchy of power and its descent over time I would make an attempt to fit some of the characters into the AD&D Level scheme. Presence, prowess, fate, and wisdom are bound up in Middle-earth into a notion of power more abstract than class level so I am not tying characters to professions which would have to be innovated for Middle-earth anyway. The idea was to use the AD&D levels to distinguish power where I believed it was suggested in the books and while the levels attributed could have been collapsed over a tighter range, considering that these are the most powerful mythical heroes some of whom lived among or vied with lesser gods I have let the characters define the level rather than the reverse.

29 Morgoth
28
27
26
25
24 Feanor, Luthien
23 Fingolfin
22 Finarfin
21 Glaurung, Sauron
20 Thingol, Finrod
19 Fingon, Hurin
18 Galadriel, Gothmog, Ecthelion, Beren
17 Gil-Galad, Gandalf-Grey, Beleg, Turin
16 Elrond, Moria-Balrog, Mablung, Elendil
15 Isildur
14 Anarion
13
12 Aragorn
11 Boromir
10 Faramir
09 Frodo
08 Legolas, Gimli

*****

What I didn't make clear at the time, as I didn't believe it necessary, was that when you are structuring power levels for your own campaign then that act is definitive of character levels in your game and gives meaning to level numbers, and so objecting that the levels don't fit well with other characters from Deities & Demigods, Greyhawk or some TSR modules is irrelevant.

Objecting that magic in AD&D doesn't fit with Middle-earth magic is correct but irrelevant because quite simply while Gandalf is not a 17th level Magic-user with respect to the spells he can cast in AD&D, he is 17th level (or thereabouts) in power if respect is paid, and taste and understanding are applied to both Tolkien's character hierarchy and the granularity of power allowed in AD&D so that a faithful discrimination may be made among Middle-earth's heroes and powers.

An AD&D archmage transported to Middle-earth should find himself subject to that campaign world's rules for presence of mind when awesome and awful beings confront each other and may find that without extremely high Wis & Cha and experience fighting the good fight or the evil fight with the blessings of the corresponding ever watchful fateful powers his mind grows numb in extremis.
-----

II. Miniatures selected for the fellowship in Moria.

I have spent wantonly on miniatures in the last few months selecting mostly from the Grenadier, Ral Partha and Reaper figure ranges. It latterly dawned on me among the hundreds of figures I had bought I might be able to select figures suited to Middle-earth characters of note. Some were heavily augmented like Gandalf; some had a weapon cropped and an object replaced - Aragorn, Boromir; the Balrog is entirely my own conception from sundry pieces.

I have no interest in painting figures beyond quelling the detail-obscuring dazzling raw metal shine of many miniatures. I consider a fine white or light grey primer coating preferable to even expert painting which make figures look cartoonish to me. Having acquired so many figures I found that some colour coding was required to aid distinguishing groups of figures so for example once selected I daubed the fellowship figures with turquoise which I toned with white, grey, green and sandstone as desired.

I spent some time thinking about the Balrog as I aim to include one in my game. I also started some time ago a discussion about the size of the Balrog among other things at Dragonsfoot.

All of these pictures are large and can be clicked.

The Magnificent Radical Metal d4 & Some Gaming Photos

2011-03-15T21:43:00.001Z

The design of the standard d4 is aesthetically flawed. Inescapable geometry means it is too light compared to the other dice and no amount of familiarity makes the reading of the result less than irritating with three numbers per face. The Guisarme, the Voulge, the Morning Star and the Bastard and Broad Swords have been rejected as weapons by players wanting to avoid the grim task of repeatedly deciphering the result of 2d8 from a galaxy of numbers all the while rolling unpleasantly light weight tetrahedrons. Not any more. Finally a reason for my players to choose the Broadsword over the Longsword. I can confirm this simple elegant design is a beauty and these dice have real heft.

I don't value the Gamescience d4 and d6 at all but the d8, d10, d12 and d20 are excellent -- say 8/10. The Casino d6 seen in photos above and below are gorgeous and functional -- say 9/10. The simple radical metal d4 is a 10/10 die. Loud Kiss.

I specifically bought the large hollow metal d12 for Morale determination which will feature more prevalently in my games on reading Chainmail while I introduce and encourage Players taking the responsibility to recruit hirelings, men-at-arms and other experts now that they are approaching the fourth level.

If I as a player rolled a '1' with the Casino d6 or the metal dice, when high was rewarded, I would feel a noble tragedy was afoot and would freely scorn other players with their 5s and 6s on nasty cheap ordinary plastic d6s.

It was over Christmas I discovered that the primary virtue of miniatures for me is their potential for use as symbolic figures on gigantic maps. They can be perfectly employed to make an Elven haven, a dismal island, a monster haunted desert or a militarised city leap out from a large map. I have integrated the Wilderlands in my gaming continent Agonmayar as can be seen in the following map where I force fit the west coast of Italy onto the eastern land mass of the Wilderlands. Further below you can see the symbolic figure placement.

Review: Black Swan

2011-03-15T02:06:00.000Z

Shit Swan.

Synopsis: Little miss princess hosts war between her neurotic upbringing and her sweet pussy. Nothing happens (in the real world). Pussy wins. Death.

Analysis: This is a film for the modern immature over-educated under-intelligent female and the overwrought nancy boy (90% of the population.) Beauty reigns; Portman's face is King. Subtlety is the village idiot in the stocks.

Solution: Watch Polanski's Repulsion or Powell & Pressburger's The Red Shoes instead.

Maps: Two Pits, An Unexpected Sinkhole and The Sane.

2010-12-07T21:25:00.005Z

On my word of honour I promise not to post any more maps from this megadungeon unless I change my mind. There are two features of note in this series:

Two pits were randomly cast as neighbors with a crumbling lip between which must be braved by a party passing that way. Two warring monstrosities, each raging at the proximity of the other's lair, will make a contest of snaffling the tiptoeing adventuring ducks sidling past.

To the east the cavern passage bursts upwards so steeply only a thief can continue without a rope to aid his climb, though others can follow if he rigs up a rope and they set aside most of their gear. At the top of the steep rise suddenly a sinkhole ten yards wide plunges deep into darkness. The rock here is trickling damp, greasy and treacherous. The ceiling low. Four yards below the brink on the far side a staired passage can be made out in the gloom. A torchless bracket on one side and a metal runged contraption on the tunnel floor with hinges out on the sinkhole wall. Within, the stair splits into a lefthand endless spiral curling around the sinkhole down onto the violent landscape of fire where resides the Balrog while to the right on gentle wide winding steps the way leads to an isolated ringlike cavern where living in a bright manse of calcite and green glass a Sane broods over enchanted books of metal foil in a silence of soft dripping and dim echoes.

Some insight into how I constructed the maps.

Western red circle -- Two pits.

Eastern red circle -- Sheer vertical passage with sinkhole.

Plan view -- Sheer vertical passage with sinkhole:

Plan view -- Two pits.

More Maps: The Worming Stair

2010-11-25T14:33:00.003Z

You might be thinking, 'I've seen enough of these maps for now, thanks' or 'What's with all the goddam fucking maps? Every day now with the shit maps!'

In scrutinising the pdfs looking for passageways which looked clear on the plan view but might cause problems for the players when the random terrain features are taken into account I came across several unforeseen choke points or obstructions one of which is this crater-sinkhole-depression-valley below shown from many angles. I found it hard to visualise what the structure of the 'bowl' was until I lowered the angle close to the horizontal and saw that it wasn't a bowl so much as a spike.

Thinking about this I have decided it has a stair snaking down its sides to a deeper cavern system which will be more chaotic and physically demanding for the party, an environment destroyed with violently erupting fireholes.

I have always wanted to interpret the mentality of the Moria Balrog and present him in game. A subtle potent version of this seven foot tall being will be the first to greet them should they choose to desend here.

All images can be ENLARGED. A square as always is 2 yds across.

Some King's Kent

Three Western Regions of the Nome of Sekhmet - The High Wilds

Map versus Map -- The High Wilds

Some King's Kent --- INDEX

Packing in the Blog -- Finally, as Promised

The Topology of Megadungeon Chimneys --- Movement in Alterspace

Death on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part, eh, 1.5/2

The Chronology of Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser Stories

Petty Gods and The Opposite of Petty Gods Under One Cover

Death on the Altar Bridge over Stage Stream Part i/ii

Metaphysical Acuity -- Important Stat in my AD&D Campaigns

*** Updated Magic User Dice Symbol Categorisation Post with Pictures of MUs***

Using Mathematician's Dice to Determine Class of Magic User

Words From Shakespeare iii the butt

Words From Shakespeare ii

Words From Shakespeare i

MOVIE -- Irish Windup Merchant meets American Tightass -- 'The Guard'

Discussing OSR failings on YDIS ends up with comments on Carcosa

You have seen this film, right?

Book Edition Photos Restored In All Their Glory +plus+ YDIS Sighting.

Appendix N: Fantasy Book Editions -- Photos

Dumb & Dumber and Zombie HPS

apropos of nothing ...

Photo reveals Zak S. is only a little 'un after all !!

Appendix N: The Beholder Contracts - Complete Adventure from 1986

Appendix N: The Book of Kells

Is female sexuality monstrous?

Appendix N: Part ii

Appendix N: Part i

Penultimate Post

Influential Fantasy Art: The Dakhen.

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #4 Jeff Rients

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #3 James Edward Raggi IV

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #2 James Maliszweski

Personalities of the OSR in PICTURES!! #1 Knights & Knaves

The Sexual Nature of Ogres and Satyrs

Levels for Middle-earth Characters and Miniatures Selected for the Fellowship

The Magnificent Radical Metal d4 & Some Gaming Photos

Review: Black Swan

Maps: Two Pits, An Unexpected Sinkhole and The Sane.

More Maps: The Worming Stair

* Updated Magic User Dice Symbol Categorisation Post with Pictures of MUs*