Saintly Saturday: St. Leo the Great

Awake, O man, and recognize the dignity of thy nature. Recollect thou wast made in the image of God, which although it was corrupted in Adam, was yet re-fashioned in Christ. — Sermon On the Feast of Nativity VII

…recognize thy parentage, to become free after slavery, to be promoted from being an outcast to sonship: so that, thou who wast born of corruptible flesh, mayest be reborn by the Spirit of God, and obtain through grace what thou hadst not by nature, and, if thou acknowledge thyself the son of God by the spirit of adoption, dare to call God Father. — Sermon On the Feast of Nativity II

Today is the Feast of St. Leo the Great, who I count among my friends. This may seem strange, considering that Leo lived and died fifteen centuries ago; however, we Orthodox Christians believe he is alive in Christ and I have gotten to know Leo through his writing.

I do not have fond memories of Christmas growing up. My family is small, estranged and far-flung. The two largest emotions I associate with my childhood Christmases are anger and disappointment. There were always fights and presents never lived up to my own imagination or expectation. Thus, I have a real tendency to be very cynical about the holiday — especially with the way it is treated by 21st century America.

A number of years ago, I found it necessary to do some research on Christmas. In the course of this project, I ran into St. Leo and his sermons on the Nativity. He convinced me, through his love, his enthusiasm and his eloquence that Christmas is indeed one of the great Christian feasts that deserved my own love and enthusiasm. I often go back to his writing in order to have my friend remind me how important it really is. For that, I am eternally grateful to him.

I mention this as a prelude to this post, because St. Leo is most famous for his writing, specifically a letter to Flavius the Bishop of Constantinople which is more popularly known as The Tome of Leo. The Church of the fifth century continued to be embroiled in Christological controversies. The Tome of Leo was written in response to the Christology of Eutyches, a monophysite (meaning one nature and which over-emphasized Christ’s divinity to the exclusion of his humanity).

The Tome was famously ignored out of hand by the Second Council of Ephesus (A.D. 449), where it wasn’t even allowed to be read. St. Leo would go on to call the council a “den of thieves” and it went down in history as the Robber Council. The Tome of Leo was finally adopted as orthodox at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451), which would later be ratified as the Fourth Ecumenical Council.

It occurs to me that though tomes filled with lost knowledge and revelation are one of the great tropes of both this hobby and of the pulp fantasy/sci-fi which it uses as its inspiration, these tomes often contain some forbidden knowledge of great evil. The Necronomicon immediately comes to mind. Therefore, there is a lot of room for similar tomes that, rather than containing the forbidden, are revelation.

Since I am in the middle of a thought experiment where I am imagining a version of Basic D&D that only uses the monsters from the Fiend Folio, I think it apropos to imagine a campaign set in the distant future that such an edition strongly suggests. Personally, I find it quite compelling to throw a copy of The Tome of Leo at a world based on Vance’s Dying Earth. What kind of impact would such a text have on a people who had forgotten Christ? Who would want it found? Who would want it destroyed? An entire series of adventures could center around the party being one of many that are trying to find the Tome in order to protect or destroy it.

The aspect of this I like best is the implied end game. This isn’t just about finding the Tome, but also about what happens afterwards. Power structures will be threatened and created and the PCs will be right in the middle of things. It is a great excuse to break out ACKS.

***

The Tome of the Lion

This is a gold covered tome some 18” wide and 24” tall and 4” thick, decorated with the image of a lion made entirely of precious stones. The interior is an illuminated holy text along with various commentaries. Based on these materials alone, it is worth at least 50,000gp and even more to those who share the faith of the text.

This book, however, also radiates of magic. Its powers become manifest when the tome is placed upon a corpse. The lion will animate, roar and allow the person who placed the tome to speak with the dead. The lion will be the mouth piece of the corpse in question. The spell will allow 1d4+1 questions to be asked, after which the lion will go back to its original form. There is a 1 in 4 chance that the dead questioned will answer falsely. This chance goes up if the one doing the questioning is responsible for the corpse’s death. This power is usable once per day.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 3

Putting the Scare back into the Undead

One of the recurring challenges in D&D is that the Turning ability of clerics tends to take a lot of drama out of encounters with the undead. As a result, they normally do not garner the kind of fear and loathing that the undead ought to. If a cleric (or clerics) get into mid-level and higher, then one has to be creative in order to make undead encounters even interesting.

One of the reasons that I have always liked the FF is that the undead found therein have some bite. Given a little bit of fiddling, undead in a Basic Edition that uses the FF for its monsters could prove to be very frightening indeed.

Let’s begin with a list of all the undead in the FF:

• Apparition
• Coffer Corpse°
• Crypt Thing*†
• Eye of Fear and Flame*
• Huecuva°
• Penanggelan≠
• Poltergeist†≠
• Revenant†≠
• Sheet Ghoul§
• Sheet Phantom§
• Skeletal Warrior
• Sons of Kyuss

Some notes about this list:

* = though the description seems to indicate undead, these are not specifically described as undead. 

† = these creatures are not really meant to be wandering monsters — crypt things and poltergeists are tied to a specific encounter area; revenants are tied to a specific encounter type. 

§ = sheet phantoms and sheet ghouls do not strike me as undead creatures, despite the fact that they are described as such. Their powers and abilities are much more akin to slimes and oozes. Indeed, the sheet phantom is said to be related to the lurker above and the sheet ghoul functions much more like the non-undead yellow musk zombie than a ghoul. Therefore, I am going to treat them this way because it makes for better undead. 

≠ = these creatures either are completely immune to Turning or there are circumstances when Turning will not work on them. 

° = these might appear on Wandering Monster Tables in a Basic edition.

If we get rid of the sheet ghoul and phantom, the lowest HD undead are the coffer corpse, the heucuva and the poltergeist. Since the latter is normally associated with a single spot and cannot be Turned if it is in that spot, poltergeists don’t really function as undead creatures and can easily be recast as dark fey or some other kind of magical activity.

This leaves the low power undead spectrum to the Coffer Corpse and the Heucuva. Check out their nastiness:

• The Coffer Corpse can only be hit by magic weapons.
• The Coffer Corpse is treated as a wraith on the Turn tables.
• The Coffer Corpse can cause fear.
• The Huecuva can only be hit by silver or magic weapons.
• The Huecuva is treated as a wight on the Turn tables.
• The Huecuva can polymorph self 3x per day.
• The Huecuva can give its victims a nasty disease.

Again, given the fiddling with the undead list from the FF, these are the weakest undead in the game.

There are a few interesting consequences to this:

1. Despite a complete absence of lycanthropes, silvered weapons would still be on the equipment list because they might do damage to the undead.
2. First level clerics are incapable of Turning the undead. At second level, they can Turn a Huecuva on an 11.
3. The undead do not drain levels, but they still have some diseased ways of making you either dead or one of their own.

The long and short: if you see the undead run for your lives! Adventurers will not be capable of having a shot at survival against the undead until at least third level and even then only if the Referee is nice and gives out a few magic weapons.

It must be noted that this renders clerics, as written in B/X, very weak at low levels. They will have no ability to Turn undead and no spells at first level, reducing the incentive to play one. I realize that this will suit many folks in the OSR and will also better justify the low XP requirements for the class. Personally, I would be tempted to use the LL version of the cleric, which at least gets a spell at first level; however, given the mechanical distance this undead list implies for clerics from those of other editions, I would be inclined to chuck it all and use Talysman’s non-spellcasting version where clerics do everything using the Turning mechanic.

In other words, the undead are properly scary and the cleric becomes its own unique miracle-working class rather than something somewhere in-between a fighter and a magic-user.

Meditating on Level Limits

There has been a low buzz in the blogosphere about racial level limits. Since I just got done proposing a bunch of non traditional race-as-classes with built-in level limits, I thought I'd add my two cents worth. The arguments I have seen floating around go something like this:

• Modern gamers don’t like them, so they have to go away if we are to expand the hobby.
• They should go away, because nobody ever uses them anyway.
• They need to go because they are inherently racist.
• The have to stay because they help maintain mechanical balance.
• They have to stay because D&D has always been/is/should be human-centric.
• They have to stay because they balance the traditional D&D world.
• Embrace them, because as a player I get to retire my character at X level and actually accomplish a major goal for my character.

I may have missed one or two. All in all, each has its own merit and one could justify using/not using them all you want with any of these arguments. I believe, however, that they all miss the point.

Level limits are not limitations, they are opportunities. Note that in 1e AD&D that it is not only demi-humans that have level limits — humans do too. No one, no matter what race they are, can become a 16th level assassin. The question isn’t whether or not level limits are good or bad, but rather Why? With the assassin the answer is that there can only be one Grandfather of Assassins and he/she is always 15th level. This has all kinds of implications for the campaign world and for adventures that include assassins — especially PCs as they get into higher levels.

Since such answers are only provided for assassins, druids and monks, we are free to come up with our own answers for demi-human level limits. We are also free to make them different for different campaign worlds. Do these limits exist because of cultural reasons? Physical reasons? Magical reasons? Theological reasons? The options are endless and each one makes the gaming world that much richer and more interesting.

For example, in my version of Averoigne, demi-humans are all fey-touched humans who have rejected their humanity. As such, they have rejected the image and likeness of God within themselves. Since God is infinite, humans have infinite potential when it comes to levels. Since creation is finite, demi-humans have finite potential when it comes to levels.

Here is my greater point: if a campaign world has specific reasons as to why level limits exist, than creative players can come up with campaign specific reasons as to why they can be overcome.

Question: Which would you rather have?

• A 15th level halfling because level limits suck.
• A 15th level halfling because the level limit was overcome by stealing Queen Mab’s eye?

Personally, I’ll take the latter every time.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 2.5

Optional Race-as-class

For those who want to embrace the science fantasy/mutant future weirdness that I suggested in Part 2 for the generic D&D world of a Basic edition that uses the FF for its monster section, I offer this alternate race-as-class:

Qullan

This is a bit of a stretch, which is why I didn’t include it in Part 2. Normally, I would dismiss Qullan out of hand because they would make horrible PCs — they emanate confusion and immediately attack, without question, all strangers. However, their use of individualized war paint of wildly contrasting colors and their insanity suggest that they might be clones — the insanity is a result of genetic degradation over time and the war paint is a means by which to identify themselves as individuals.

Making this assumption allows the use of the Replicant class from Section 9: Mutants & Mazes in Mutant Future. For those that aren’t familiar, they are clones that exhibit various mutations, which might result in some wonderfully weird looking PCs. I have always assumed that such a race might very well be obsessed with cleansing these mutations from their genetic code. The Qullan could therefore represent what happens every time the Replicants have tried to remove those mutations from the genetic material they use to reproduce. This also gives PCs a good reason for adventuring — they are seeking out ancient technologies that can help them do genetic experiments without resulting in Qullan (whether or not this is even possible may very well be a central theme of a campaign).

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 2

No Dwarf, Elf or Halfling PCs

There are no halflings or halfling-derivative races within the FF. The only elves are Drow, who live deep beneath the earth and have little incentive to come to the surface (all their cool toys are broken once they see the light of day). The only dwarf-relatives are the svirfneblin of which we know this from the flavor text:

Only males have ever been seen and those only deep beneath the ground.

Given that in other editions, the various demi-humans that were available as PC races or classes show up in the monster sections, a Basic edition using the FF as its monster section would not have any dwarf, elf or halfling PCs. The latter due to a complete absence and the first two because there is no justification for drows or svirfneblins to go wandering with surface dwellers.

While I am hugely tempted to leave this at that (in my old age I tend to lean toward human-centric campaigns), I am guessing that (like me) there are gamers from every generation whose very first character was something other than a human. In order to scratch that itch (and to start making assumptions about what a generic D&D world might look like through the lens of this hypothetical rule set), there are several candidates for non-human PC race-as-classes:

Aarakocra

Even though this is one of the few good creatures found in the FF and it is reasonably anthropomorphic and has a hit die comparable to the elf in the MM, I have to reject it out of hand. The reason is found in the flavor text:

Aarakocra are extremely susceptible to claustrophobia.

Since Basic D&D is all about exploring dungeons, a PC race that won’t go underground sort of defeats the purpose.

Dakon

Although the base damage for these intelligent apes seems high (1d10 x2), the base damage for an elf in the MM is 1d10, the HD 1+1 and they can use spells. Dakon also have an HD 1+1, are lawful, speak common, are on good terms with lawful humans and can be found in a variety of environments except near bodies of water. One flavor text I very much like is this:

…the dakon will never attack except in self-defense or to recover stolen treasure from it.

This immediately brings to mind the dwarves of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and suggests that the dakon will make a very good substitute for dwarves. In fact, one could simply use the same basic stats or (as I might be tempted to) use the White Ape Class from the RCC.

Kenku

Again, the base stats for these bird-men appear to be on the powerful side; however, using the MM elf as a model, it is an easy thing to say to the average player: sure you start out worse, but you are going to end up being a whole lot better. There is even a flavor text that suggests that younger (and therefore weaker) kenku are far more prone to going on adventures:

Particularly adventurous kenku have been known to use [shape shift] to assume the form of a god and accept offerings from credulous worshippers, and this is but one example of the bizarre uses to which the kenku, and particularly the younger of the species, have put this power.

Since kenku can cast spells, they make an interesting stand-in for elves; however, some of the elven abilities would need to be traded out for the kenku abilities:

• Flight 18”
• Shape shift 1/30 days for up to seven days in a row.
• Pass as human via a disguise 50% of the time.
• They don’t appear to be able to speak, though they seem to speak to each other via telepathy. (For purposes of making them PCs, this last one can be done away with or have PC versions be a minority that can speak.)

Though these might be a bit on the powerful side, given that kenku are mischievous and prone to kidnapping as a means of making a living, there would be a powerful social stigma that PCs would have to deal with.

Quaggoth

These white, shaggy bipeds have an HD 1+2, are neutral and speak common (if haltingly). PCs could represent either the most intelligent of the quaggoths or half-breeds. Though they are much taller (7’ +), the fact that quaggoths are immune to poison suggests that they are a good substitute for halflings (and could therefore use these stats). Another alternative is to use the White Ape Hybrid Class from RCC (which combines fighter and thief abilities).

If used, these race-as-classes firmly move the generic D&D world away from high fantasy and a medieval european analog. In essence, these three are intelligent ape-, bird- and bear-men, suggesting a science fantasy world in the distant future where these races evolved through either mutation or experimentation. Such a world would have more in common with Vance’s Dying Earth and CAS’s Zothique than REH’s Conan or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. One might even be tempted to characterize it as a more serious/less gonzo version of Gamma World/Mutant Future. This leaves much room for introducing sci-fi elements and explaining various magic effects in terms of technology (Maliszewski’s take on wands, for example). For me, this is one of the most compelling aspects of this experiment, because it nicely scratches the science fantasy mash-up itch that I usually have to suppress or keep under wraps in most D&D games.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 1

Let me preface this by saying that one of my favorite poetic forms is haiku. It seems so easy — five syllables, seven syllable, five syllables; however, trying to create something truly beautiful with something so limited and small is a true challenge. This challenge often brings out my own creativity in a way that other forms of writing do not.

Thus, I was very much intrigued by Jeff Rient’s radical reduction of the 1ed PH weapon tables for his Wessex Campaign. Having had a lot of success, fun and creativity doing this sort of thing myself over the years I whole-heartedly agree with his assessment:

The lesson here might be that with a game as big as D&D one way of getting a handle on it is to cut it down to size.

Therefore, I happily followed him down the rabbit hole where he hypothesizes a campaign that only/primarily uses the Fiend Folio as its source for monsters. The FF had always been my favorite monster tome and I have gleefully used many of its inhabitants (even some of the goofiest).

This got my creative juices flowing and I am in full-on Gamer ADD mode. Given that I am not a huge fan of AD&D, the most likely way that I would ever implement such a concept would be with my favorite version of the game — B/X and its retro-clone LL. This gave me an intriguing way to further reduce the FF into a more easily digestible chunk — what would Basic D&D look like if it were only to use monsters from the FF?

Therefore, I went through the FF and gleaned only those monsters that might appear in the Wandering Monster Tables of a Basic D&D book — up to about 3+ Hit Dice . There are several very compelling implications to make about this list, so this will take multiple posts; however, I am going to begin with a criticism/concern.

As I was going through the FF and really trying to use it as a whole, one of its features really began to jump out at me — the length of each monster entry. It struck me that there are several truly creative and inspiring monsters like the Berbalang and Pênanggalan that I have never used because the flavor text was so long and complicated as to be virtually unusable for my style of fast and free play (who wants to skim through a page and a half of text to figure out how to use a randomly generated monster encounter?).

Curious, I did a cursory comparison of the FF to the MM. A quick (and probably inaccurate) count of monster headings in the Alphabetical Table of Contents revealed that the FF has about 161 and the MM about 212. The FF fits these headings into 91 pages while the MM does it in 97 pages. This means that while the FF averages less than 2 monsters per page (about 1.76), the MM has almost half an entry more per page (about 2.18). This only gets worse when one factors in monster headings that have a description followed by separate stat blocks like dragons and giants. The FF only manages to average 4 monsters per heading in these cases while the MM averages over 11 (11.4). In addition, the MM has a couple dozen entries that pack multiple stat blocks together (such as various animals with regular and giant versions). The FF has about three.

In other words, whereas the MM was one small step away from the bare-bones monster entries of OD&D and which made the MM one of those tomes that I constantly go back to no matter what version of the game I play, the FF is one (big?) step toward the over-complexity of later editions. Actually reading and re-reading some of these entries I am not sure if their length is a function of the complication of the game over time or simply an editorial need to fill enough space to justify a page count (probably both).

The implications of this for a Basic edition doesn’t bode well. Both the complexity and the verbosity of monster entries suggest a higher page count than 64, something I am not thrilled about. This is especially true when one considers that much of the complexity seems to be related to the growing canon of AD&D world/cosmology concepts like the various planes of existence.

The concept of the inner and outer planes has never set well with me, even before I became an Orthodox Christian. If, then, the page count beyond 64 is primarily taken up by cosmology and how it affects the game world not only are we one step closer to RPGs that spend more time telling us about their world than on mechanics (and thus limiting player freedom), but (more importantly) I may never have played the game.

Since my first exposure to D&D was with the Holmes edition, which itself was an exercise in DYI D&D, I have always been acutely aware of the freedom I had to mix and match as I please with the various components of the rules. AD&D (despite some of the claims of Gygax himself) was never the official way to play the game. Holmes gave me permission to fiddle as much as I wanted to. If my first exposure to D&D had been something I envision a Basic D&D flavored by the implications of only using FF monsters might be — complicated and constricting — I may have left D&D behind for greener pastures (the original Traveller comes to mind).

Saintly Saturday: St. Theodora the Empress

Today is the feast of St. Theodora the Empress. Born into a military family, she was married to the last iconoclast emperor — Theophilus. Despite this, she was a secret iconodule and privately collected and venerated icons. After the death of her husband, she restored the icons in the churches for public veneration and liturgical use. This event is celebrated every year on the first Sunday of Lent. When her son Michael came of age in A.D. 857, she abdicated and joined a convent, where she lived out the rest of her life. Today, her relics are on the island of Corfu in the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos of the Cave.

Art has always played a huge role in my life, let alone my understanding of this hobby. My grandmother was an art teacher and through her diligence, patience and genius I actually provided for myself and my family for over a decade through the skills she taught me. Thus, I have a very deep appreciation for how and why we interact with art and how powerful it can be. For example, even though I do not hold this up as one of the greatest examples of RPG art, it nonetheless has powerfully influenced my own understanding of hobgoblins and their culture and has done so for decades:

Orthodox iconography is no less inspirational or influential. For example, this particular icon, which depicts St. Mercerius wielding two swords (one of which is the sword of the Archangel Michael) inspired an entire series of adventures in my Lost Colonies campaign:

For those that don’t know, however, icons for the Orthodox Christian are much more than inspirational. They are personal. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, Christ and the saints depicted in icons are personally present through the icons. Thus, when you see an Orthodox Christian kissing an icon, we are not just kissing paint on wood, we are lovingly greeting old friends. Many Orthodox Christians will describe icons as windows of heaven — we get a foretaste of what heaven is by means of looking at (through) icons.

It occurs to me, that this may very well be one of the major sources for a trope within many of my campaigns — portals to other dimensions and realities. If icons are a portal through which the saints can be personally present within my life, it is an easy leap to introduce into fantasy the opposite — a party’s ability to go the other way through these portals.

Though such possibilities have long been a part of the hobby (Judges Guild’s Portals of Torsh, Irontooth and Twilight are favorites of mine), they are not as widely used or as enthusiastically embraced as one might expect. My own enthusiasm for them may very well be explained by my relationship with art and iconography.

Lost Colonies Session 50

When we last left our stalwart adventurers, they were still in shock over the death of Hamlen (who went toe to toe with a demon in order to save the rest of the party). The thrown room only had one entrance, so they quickly barricaded themselves inside in hopes of being able to rest and heal, because, despite finishing off the demon thanks to the heroics of Hamlen, most of the party was in a very bad way.

Unfortunately, Ahkmed found a secret door behind the thrown and the party was forced to reconnoiter the passage that lay beyond. Fortunately, it merely led to small subset of rooms unconnected to any other part of the dungeon, and this included both a treasure and a map room. Their rest was briefly interrupted by a pounding on the door and a demand to see the king, but using some knowledge gleaned from the map room, they managed to talk their way out of having to fight right then and there.

That knowledge included the following:

• The language used on the maps and various correspondence is that used by the Cyn (a name the party learned for those who wear the golden masks while in the Brain Lasher city).
• There was some kind of trade going on between the toad men and occupants of levels immediately above and below.
• There were prisoners, one of which was an elf (though they did not know if they still lived).
• There were priests among the toad men.

It was decided that the party would first free the prisoners (if they were still alive) and then deal with the priests.

Using the maps that they found, the party made quick work of the guards and managed to free three prisoners:

1. Thog the Dwarf, a former PC that has been a slave of various factions within the megadungeon since the early days of the campaign.
2. Aldros the Elf who has evidently been experimented on, because he has severe amnesia and isn’t very good at learning spells.
3. Fidgewik the toad man. 

This is where the session really started to take off for me, because I had a complete blast playing up all three of the prisoners, especially Fidgewik.

The poor toad man was the unfortunate recipient of magical experimentation gone wrong — he turned to stone during what passed for night in the dungeon. He was imprisoned to keep him isolated from the rest of the toad men in case the affliction was contagious. Gillek the Gnome had on his possession a ring labeled “stone” in Dwarvish. He knew it was magical but had yet to figure out what it did.

Therefore, he decided to see if the ring was a protection against petrification by giving it to Fidgewik. His instinct proved correct and Fidgewik enthusiastically declared that he was no longer a toad man but a gnome. The rest of the session saw the toad man trying to mimic the gnome in all things. For example, Fidgewik assumed that a trident is a gnomish weapon because Gillick primarily uses the magic trident he got from the Water Naga outside the underwater city. Of course, Fidgewik insisted on using a trident himself.

Most of the session was taken up with interviewing the prisoners as well as feeding, healing and equipping them. The session ended with a combat with a water-hydra guarding the underground lake which led to the demesne of the toad men priests. This combat went extremely well for the party. They had learned of the hydra’s presence from Fidgewik and were able to prepare and execute a battle plan, which included using a pig carcass to draw the hydra out of the water and into terrain that better fit the abilities of the party. The liberal use of missile weapons and a goodly amount of bad rolls on my part saw the party make short shrift of the beast.

Next: the party braces for a clash with the toad men priests.

On Alignment and Character Morality

Brendan at Untimately has written an interesting analysis on alignment (and in passing mentions one of my many musings here). He does something that I think very much needs to be done in any discussion of the alignment system, which is narrow it down to the mechanical and practical reasons within the game system. He mentions two:

• Spells like Detect Evil and Protection from Evil
• Ethos classes such as assassins, druids, monks, paladins and rangers.

He goes on to illustrate how LotFP and Carcosa handle the first in heuristic way — every action can be clearly understood as being in or out of a particular alignment. For my own purposes, this can be simply stated as (Christian) Civilization vs. (Demonic) Wilderness. Or, to put it more bluntly: are you in or out of the Church? I say this in context of the pre-Reformation world where being Christian and Christianity was inseparable from being part of the Church.

The second is where D&D has historically ran into trouble. The five- and nine- alignment systems do not lend themselves well to an heuristic approach. In addition, they are so ambiguous in their moral/ethical distinctions as to be indistinguishable — True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil might as well be the same. This confusion is only exacerbated by our modern relativistic inability to define good and evil.

Even so, such definitions are not necessarily useful in terms of determining whether or not a particular class is adhering to the class ethos and therefore is qualified to retain or lose all class abilities. Take, for example, this Christian understanding of good and evil:

• Good = God (and therefore, the presence of God)
• Evil = the absence of God

Thus, any act that moves us toward God and being like Him is good. Any act that takes us away from Him and His likeness is evil.

Given this criteria, the killing of any human being for any reason is evil because it is a willful destruction of God’s image and likeness. Thus, every time a paladin or a ranger killed an evil human, they would lose their class abilities. This only gets messier when dealing with demi-humans — are they or are they not made in the image and likeness of God? Why? In the end, this approach will most likely place the vast majority of PCs in the evil camp and make it virtually impossible for either the paladin or ranger to be played at all.

I suppose that if one was willing to limit the image and likeness to humans and if evil human opponents were used in moderation, one could have a simple means by which a paladin or ranger could be reinstated (such as confession). If handled correctly, this could introduce some interesting moral choices into the game; however, this is a very narrow interpretation of the game that severely limits the utility of these classes. Even in campaigns, such as my own, which strive to equate the Wilderness with the monstrous and demonic, this line gets fuzzy when players interact with and humanize monsters. There are currently at least five henchmen NPCs in my current campaign that started out as monsters.

The ugly reality is that PCs represent that morally ambiguous part of civilization that has to do dark and nasty things so that everybody else doesn’t have to. Thus, having a mechanical consequence that punishes players for doing the morally ambiguous things that the game (in essence) requires that they do is inherently unfair (and one of the reasons we’ve been arguing about how to implement the paladin since its inception).

When I did the meditation on alignment that Brendan cites in his post, I was purposely sidestepping the moral issue for exactly this reason. From a practical point of view, determining “sides” in a manner akin to the wargaming roots of the game makes much more sense than the moral/cosmic adherence implied by the traditional D&D alignment system. Brendan, by the way, was ultimately critical of this approach because he not only sees a need for the moral/cosmic, but sees the dynamism implied by my approach as a problem. I tend to see it as a feature — changing alignments is more akin to changing political parties than changing religion and is therefore less dramatic or earth shattering. Indeed, depending upon the mechanics a particular campaign ties to those alignments, it could even be good strategy.

However, I recently made reference to a speed bump that the Pathfinder campaign I’ve been participating in ran into. This is in part due to an absence of the moral/cosmic alignment system, despite the fact that we had no real ethos classes. Some of our more inexperiences players — lacking a moral/cosmic basis by which to weigh their decisions — did a few things that some of the more experienced players found to be rather heinous and offensive.

This has reminded me that there is one more practical way that alignments are used in games:

• A basis which aids a player in deciding how their character should act in certain situations.

Given that a cosmic alignment doesn’t necessarily imply a moral/ethical code (see the heuristic approaches of LotFP and Carcosa above) and that a more traditional (Christian) definition of good and evil is not very useful in context of the average adventuring party, there has to be a different criteria by which to aid players in making moral decisions for their characters.

Given my recent experience, I am going to propose this schema:

• Evil = selfishness
• Good = service to others

This does several things:

• It anathematizes selfish play (and all of the various vices that unfold from this kind of play). 
• It nicely plugs into the cosmic schema of Civilization vs. Wilderness while allowing for the kind of moral ambiguity that adventuring requires while also being applicable to the more diverse alignment system that I proposed here.
• Finally, it gives characters of diverse backgrounds a means of negotiating cool reasons to work toward a common goal. Take, for instance, a thief who is loyal to one of the local crime families and a fighter who is loyal to the local city guard. In a normal schema, these two would not work together. However, when serving others is understood to be the moral center of a character, it is possible to understand the taking down of a rival family’s smuggling operation as mutually beneficial. Ultimately, it gives players of wildly different characters a means by which justify the kind of trust necessary for really good games.

Saintly Saturday: The Right-believing George the Great Prince of Vladimir

When looking over some of the possible subjects for today's post, I ran across an obscure saint. Celebrated today is the Right-believing George the Great Prince of Vladimir. He was one of the rulers of the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal at the end of its golden age, which was during the late 12th century and early 13th century. He died during the Battle of the Sit River in 1238. His body was found by Bishop Cyril and transferred to the Rostov Cathedral and finally to the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir.

As an aside, George (also known as Yuri II Vsevolodovich) is the uncle of Alexander Nevsky. When it comes to influences on my life and on my gaming, there are actually very few films that have any sway at all; however, Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky is one of the few film experiences that I can say with certainty started me down several paths that led to the person I am today.

Ostensibly, it is an historical piece about the Battle of the Ice, where Alexander Nevsky defends Novgorod from an invasion of Teutonic Knights. In reality, it is a blatant anti-Nazi/pro-Communist propaganda piece. If one can look beyond this (and its pathetic comic-relief subplot) this is a brilliant war movie. The armor of both the Russians and the Teutons still inspire today and I personally hold up the climactic battle of the movie as one of the best ever put on film.

There are two interesting things about the Right-believing George. Firstly, he is an example of the phenomenon of the local saint. Unlike the very legal process by which someone becomes a saint within the Roman Catholic tradition, Orthodox saints are recognized in a far more organic way. One aspect of this is that popular holy men and woman in a particular region can be recognized as saints within that particular locality. The most popular of these will go on to be more widely recognized. St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki is an example of this. In the mean-time, within each local church there can be widely different lists of saints (though this is becoming less and less predominant given modern communications technology).

Secondly, the title Right-believing is a title given to sainted secular rulers. Therefore, Right-believing saints are popular leaders that defend and/or promote the Church. Some are known for building churches and/or monasteries. In the case of George Vsevolodovich, he died defending Christendom (note that in his icon he carries both a sword and a martyr’s cross).

In terms of an FRPG setting, this suggests a tremendous amount of freedom in the creation and existence of saints. Not only can each locality can have its own unique saint, but the title Right-believing suggests that even PCs can eventually attain sainthood doing what PCs do — as long as such adventures are done to protect and promote Christianity or what-ever analog the campaign world happens to have.

I am also tempted to take mechanical a spin on this local saint phenomenon. Given the uniqueness of each local saint, it could be possible to offer unique divine spells in various local churches, with flavor texts based on the life of the local saint.

For example, one of the possible ways that Hamlen might continue to influence my Lost Colonies campaign is through becoming a Right-Believing-type saint. Should a chapel ever be built in Headwaters, I would offer the following spell to any cleric that prepared their spells within its confines (due to his affection for horns and using them prior to combat):

Hamlen’s Horn

Level: 1
Duration: Instantaneous
Range: Self

When cast, this spell summons a spiritual horn that gives off a blast of sound. All opponents within a 30’ radius must immediately make a morale check. This check is in addition to any other morale checks that normally happen during combat.

Lost Colonies Session 49

I have not had a very good couple of weeks in terms of gaming. I’ve been ill, the Pathfinder campaign I am playing in hit a major speed bump which probably should have resulted in PCs killing each other and when we re-started the Lost Colonies campaign, the session ended with one of my favorite PCs permanently biting the dust. Though I am an advocate of lethality in my games, I do not necessarily relish in killing off PCs, particularly ones that have had a large impact on my campaign world.

When we last left the party, they had managed to escape certain death in the Brainlasher City by jumping through an inter-dimensional portal which they then managed to destroy. Unfortunately, they found themselves deep beneath the earth in one of the lower levels of the campaign’s megadungeon.

As the party explored, they came upon what amounted to a drug factory. Fungus was being grown and processed to create a highly addictive additive to food stuff that had been shipped across the inter-dimensional portal to help keep the Brain Lasher’s slave population under control. The party efficiently moved through this section, cleared it and then destroyed the facilities (though not without Raine, the party Thief, getting herself addicted).

As they continued to explore, they found the lair of the creatures responsible for the production — toad men. They talked their way into the lair and met with their leader. Unfortunately, the players made a miscalculation and revealed that they were an enemy of a toad men ally and a big fight ensued. Things went rather well for the party until a demon showed up. At this point, Hamlen realized that several party members were unable to have any real effect upon the fight, so he went toe-to-toe with the demon so that the rest of the party could escape.

Considering, he did extremely well — so much so that the party was eventually able to finish it off. In the end, it came down to an initiative roll. Sadly, the demon won and Hamlen was slain. Dn. Goram cast a Speak with Dead spell to determine his final wishes. He distributed his goods among the rest of the party and, being satisfied with his life and his death asked not to be raised.

As I said, this is how the session ended, and (at least for me) was a real downer. I really liked Hamlen and what he had become for my campaign. His death may very well have long term consequences, if for no other reason than I want his influence to continue.

Saintly Saturday: St. Ephrem the Syrian

Today is the feast of St. Ephrem the Syrian. He was born in Nisibis about the year A.D. 306. In his youth he was a disciple of St. James, Bishop of Nisibis who was one of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. Around A.D. 363 he was forced to flee his home in the wake of the death of Julian the Apostate. When the pagan emperor died fighting the Persians, they were able to conquer Nisibis. St. Ephrem settled in Edessa where he flowered as a poet and a hymnographer.

At the time, a form of Gnosticism preached by Bardaisan was very popular in Edessa. Much of this popularity was due to Bardaisan’s skill with hymns, which became very fashionable. St. Ephrem set about writing a multitude of hymns with correct Christian dogma to combat the gnosticism of Bardaisan. Interestingly, they were meant to be sung by women. His writing became so popular that it was translated into Greek from the original Syriac.

Eventually he came to be known as The Harp of the Holy Spirit. His prayers and hymns influenced later hymnographers and are still used today. The most readily recognizable prayer for Orthodox Christians is the following, because it is a central prayer in our Lenten services:

O Lord and Master of my life!

Take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity,
humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors
and not to judge my brother,
for Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

There are two things that suggest themselves to me through St. Ephraim:

1. Firstly, he wrote in Syriac. This might surprise some, but Syriac is a very important language in Christianity, particularly in the East. In fact, it is arguable that it is as, if not more, influential than Latin. I mention this, because one of the things that has emerged from my Lost Colonies campaign is the relative importance of Goblin. Besides Common, there is no other language that has had a greater impact on the campaign — something not lost on my players. Intellectually, I might be tempted to have Elvish or (to borrow from the 3e era) Celestial, Draconic or even Abyssal a centrally important language. These (at least to me) are the fantasy equivalents of Greek and Latin. The importance of Syriac in Christianity, however, suggests that we can throw a curveball in our campaign worlds where languages like Goblin can be just as, if not more, important.
2. Secondly, St. Ephrem, being a hymnographer, brings up that old bug-a-boo the bard. Roger of Roles, Rules & Rolls has a very nice iteration of the bard as a hireling. This has me thinking. The influence of St. Ephrem was not in his singing or his performance. Rather, it was from other people learning and singing his hymns. To put it in another context, drinking songs and school fight songs do not depend upon their performance, but rather in the very strong emotions that they give those who know and participate in singing them (however badly). This suggests that mechanical effects normally associated with bards need not actually need a bard to be present. Rather, players can attempt to get their exploits popularized by song. Base price can be 50-100gp with a base chance of success derived from Charisma. Extra cash can be spent to increase the chance of success. That success represents the tune, the song and the exploit becoming popularized enough that anyone singing/reciting it will induce an emotional response. Mechanically, this can be played out as simple battle cries such as Remember the Alamo! or Spoon! When appropriate, the Referee can make something like a Morale Check for the party. If successful, the battle cry based upon the successful song can give the party a +1 to hit, AC or damage for the battle. Of course, this is entirely dependent upon the whim of the Referee — but this prevents such things from being overused or abused.

Map: Manor House

I have been re-tooling some of my work on my version of the Chateau des Faussesflammes, concentrating primarily on the ruins that are above the dungeons below. The first step I took was to make a map of the Chateau (which is really a manor house) prior to its ruination. This way I can make various adjustments, depending on when the Chateau is entered.

This manor house sits atop a hill. The stairs lead up to the front terrace and there is a ramp leading up to the back terrace. The fortifications (including the barracks at the front and the towers at the back) are later additions. Originally built during a time of stability and peace, the fortifications became necessary as the Merovingian dynasty declined from its apex. Though it adapted an already existing space, the chapel is also a later addition, after the line adopted Christianity.

Here is the map itself:

Here is a rough key:

1. Entrance Hall
2. Inner Court/Garden
3. Sitting Room
4. Music Room
5. Storage
6. Kitchen
7. Storage
8. Servant's Dining Room
9. Servant's Foyer
10. Powder Room
11. Sitting Room
12. Great Hall
13. Gallery
14. Trophy Room
15. Dancing Room
16. Dancing Room
17. Dining Hall
18. Storage
19. Trophy Room
20. Coat Room
21. Storage
22. Gallery
23. Dining Hall
24. Storage
25. Trophy Room
26. Coat Room
27. Gallery
28. Study
29. Sitting Room
30. Changing Room
31. Training Room
32. Changing Room
33. Sitting Room
34. Reception Room
35. Study
36. Narthex
37. Chapel; a=Vestry
38. Reception Room
39. Study
40. Reading Room
41. Library
42. Secret Study
43. Front Terrace (protected by a portcullis)
44. Back Terrace
45. Tower
46. Entrance Ramp
47. Barracks; a=Soldier's Quarters; b=NCO Quarters; c=Officer's Quarters; e=Guard Room

Stairs labelled with 'd' go down and those with 'u' go up.

Saintly Saturday: Panagia Paramythea

The name Panagia Paramythea (roughly translated as All-Holy Comforter) refers to a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary found on Mt. Athos at the Vatopedi monastery. It is differentiated from the most common icon of the Virgin Mary because rather than looking towards the viewer’s right and having the Christ child blessing, as in this icon:

the Virgin is looking to the viewer’s left and is pulling the Christ child’s hand away from her mouth:

On January 21, 807 pirates had secretly landed on shore near the monastery. In hiding, they were waiting for the gates to open in the morning to launch an attack. The abbot, alone in prayer in the chapel where the icon was heard the Virgin Mary warn him of the impending attack:

Do not open the gates today, but go up on the walls and drive away the pirates.

Looking up at the icon, from where he heard the voice, he saw that the Virgin had turned her head toward him and the Christ child was reaching up to cover her mouth (the icon originally looked like the first icon above). Christ then spoke:

No, Mother, do not watch over this sinful flock, let them fall under the swords of the pirates and be punished as they deserve.

The Virgin then reached up and pulled Christ’s hand from her mouth to repeat her warning. The monks, thus forewarned, were able to repel the pirates and the icon has remained as seen above in the second icon ever since.

This is another feast that is personal to me, because I have spent time at Vatopedi and I have seen this icon with my own eyes. Today it has been given a protective, silver cover but one can still see the faces of both the Virgin and Christ as they were when this miracle happened in A.D. 807.

From a theological point of view, this icon and others that have similarly changed from their original form, reinforce what Orthodox Christianity believes about icons — they are the personal presence of Christ and the saints depicted. The Virgin and Christ could speak through the icon because they are personally present through the icon.

In context of my musings this past week on the Mythical Underworld and Mythical Geography, this particular icon demonstrates that, at least within a Christian context, the ever changing nature of the The Dungeon need not be malicious. As levels and sub-levels are cleared, positive transformations can come upon those areas explored. It also demonstrates that Sword & Sorcery, Horror and Weird Fantasy do not have a monopoly on the weird.

Okay WotC, You Officially Have My Attention

I have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised by the news that WotC will be re-releasing the AD&D core books in April. Unfortunately, it is a limited print run that is only available through local game stores here in North America. This means I may very well be unable to give WotC money for one of their products for the first time in over a decade. The closest game store to me is over an hour away and with my commitments to both family and career that means making a special trip, something I cannot guarantee.

Personally, I hope that there are plenty of others that can purchase these, if only to prove that there is a demand for items in the D&D library that have long been out of print. I say this in hopes that the hobby will see WotC roll out other items in that library that I would make a special trip for. As others have suggested, I would love to see compilations of modules.

To be honest, my enthusiasm for this news is somewhat curbed by the choice of what to re-release. I do not play AD&D with any consistency when compared to those editions that came with soft covers. I still own good copies of all three AD&D core books and have no burning need to spend that kind of money for second (if brand new) copies. My various copies of those soft cover editions, however, are not in nearly as good a shape. As much as I love the various retro-clones (especially LL), I am always going back to the original B/X, Holmes and OD&D rulebooks to look at art, muse about original rules and otherwise wish that they were in good enough condition to regularly bring them to the table. For the purposes of giving the Hobby as a whole a tremendous gift, I hope these softcover editions could see their own re-release with hard covers to help preserve them for generations to come. One can hope. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention pdfs...

Having said that, I greatly appreciate why WotC chose the AD&D core books. They don't need to reformat, they closely mimic the WotC core book model (PH, MM, DMG) and of all the various editions to re-release, they can make the most money off of these three books.

In the meantime, I am now paying attention to what WotC is doing — something that I didn't believe would ever happen. Lets hope that this good will and good news continues.

Lazy Post — 23 Questions

A couple of folks have chimed in with their answers, so here are mine:

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
That boring Sword +1 might just be an elf of the Winter Court trying to escape mortality.

2. When was the last time you GMed?
November.

3. When was the last time you played?
Last Saturday.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
The Brainlashers need your help — the great machine that kept their inter-dimensional uber-gate from tearing giant holes in time and space has been destroyed.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
I usually chime in with what the NPC henchmen and followers think about the situation.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Somebody will usually show up with leftovers, cookies or pizza.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Physically, no. Mentally, Yes. There have been plenty of times when I have come into the game physically exhausted and I haven’t noticed a difference in how I feel physically, but having to improvise always takes its mental toll.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Talking with what every other character thought was a god while insisting that it was merely an angel at best and a demon at worst. (I survived too!)

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
No, all my players like to immerse themselves into the reality of the world. We tend to be goofy out of game.

10. What do you do with goblins?
In the Lost Colonies, goblins are creatures who desperately feel the need to attach themselves to some creature more powerful than they are. They understand themselves to be so pathetic that unless they have something like an ogre, troll or dragon to “back them up” they have no courage what so ever.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
A painting by Romanian artist Sever Frentiu.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
The Halfling war cry: No one insults a Halfling’s cheese and lives!

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Mr. Stater’s Pars Fortuna has a simplified version of feats called boons. I wanted to use them as an inspiration for my own musings about feats.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Anyone who is willing to do their stuff in B&W.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Yes. I gleefully play up those things that creep out my players and am quite guilty of having creatures crawling around my worlds that PCs have no business messing with.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
Roshia’s Gauntlet by Dave Dollar. It is an independently published funhouse adventure from back in the day that has a specific goal — seeing if the characters are worthy to have a powerful wizard as a patron.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
I’d love to game in a high-ceiling room with lots of natural light with everyone comfortably ensconced in big fluffy sofas and chairs.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Empire Builder (Mayfair’s Railroad simulation board game) and GURPS Traveller.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
The Bible and HPL.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
The kind who is unafraid to be wildly creative.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
I've used my time on Mt. Athos to translate both the monastic lifestyle and the physical properties of the monasteries themselves into my games.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
No. There are so many wildly awesome products out today that far surpass my own idea of the possible that for me to wish for anything else would be disingenuous.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Not really. I think this is one of the reasons I blog — it gives me an outlet to geek out that I would otherwise not have.

Old School Feats

Forgive me, but I just cannot find the original quote that inspired this post. Someone, somewhere observed that 1e, with its insistence on high stats in order to “not suck” was the first (and only?) edition to cater to those who want to do character builds (because all of the various methods for rolling up characters in the DMG all end up there) as well as those who want the dice to roll where they will and play with it.

Since I play with both kinds of players, this got me thinking about ways to update this characteristic of 1e so as to be able to scratch the character build itch without affecting either the streamlined nature of old school play or the ability to let the dice roll and play whatever comes up.

In order for this to work, every characteristic needs to have a combat bonus/penalty associated with it. I postulated something along these lines here. These, of course, would affect all classes.

Then, there would be a series of feat-like bonuses attached to each characteristic depending upon class. Players would be able to pick one or two of these feats, the effectiveness of which would be tied to the characteristic. Thus, they can only be taken advantage of if the characteristic has a bonus.

For example, here is a rough draft for feat-like abilities that can be associated with the B/X; LL magic-user:

• Str = 1, 2 or 3 spells cast per day by the magic user have their durations doubled.
• Dex = 1, 2 or 3 spells cast per day by the magic-user with an area effect have that area doubled.
• Con = The magic-user may use 1, 2 or 3 weapons or armor chosen at character creation that they are not normally able to use. In the case of armor, leather must be chosen first and chainmail is the heaviest armor a magic-user can wear and be able to cast spells.
• Int = 1, 2 or 3 spells per day with variable effects cast by the magic user have maximum effect.
• Wis = The magic-user can store 1, 2 or 3 spells that can be spontaneously cast in place of a memorized spell of equal or greater spell level per day.
• Cha = 1, 2 or 3 spells per day cast by the magic user require two successful saving throws to save versus the spell.

This could be done with every class. Assuming that a typical character has two characteristics with bonuses, there is a huge range of options combining combat bonuses with feat-like abilities, thus offering plenty of different character builds per class for those that like to scratch that itch. It also gives more variety of surprise for those who like their characters to be random. Finally, these feat-like abilities can be tailored to campaign-worlds if Referee so desires.

Thoughts?

Some Under-Appreciated Mythical Geography

Last month, Beedo of Dreams of the Lich House mused about Mythic Geography for FRPG settings. I have been meaning to muse myself on the subject, but life has delayed this endeavor until now.

Several of the examples that Beedo uses to make his point are (of course) from mythology — especially those most readily familiar like those of the Greeks and the Norse. As evocative as those might be, I think a particularly useful and suggestive mythical geography that gets discounted either out of hand or out of ignorance is that of the Old Testament. Take a look at this popular imagining of OT cosmology:

Note that it is easy to see with this image how both Tolkien's Undying Lands and Lloyd Alexander's Summer Lands can be reached by the right kind of sailing ship — sail the Waters above the Firmament and you might reach the Heavens.

These same waters might be used to sail to the stars and the planets surrounding them. One might have to climb the Pillars of Heaven to set sail, however. The Underworld is well represented by Sheol; however, there is a secondary, potentially more frightening area — the Abyss. What strange creatures lie within the waters at the bottom of the Pillars of the Earth? 

For those that wish to follow in Beedo's footsteps and expand the Mythic beyond The Dungeon, I invite you to consider the imaginings of the writers of the Old Testament. You might be surprised at how rich an imagination it is.

Saintly Saturday: The Holy Fathers slain at Sinai and Raitho

Today is the feast of the Holy Fathers slain at Sinai and Raitho, which are a pair of monasteries in the Sinai Peninsula. This feast actually remembers two separate events where monks were slaughtered by nomadic tribes. One massacre happened at the end of the fourth century and the other occurred in the middle of the fifth century.

This feast is very personal to me. In the ancient church, one of the primary places that Christians would gather to worship was around the grave sites of saints — particularly the martyrs. During those periods where it was legal for them to build churches, they often did so where they had worshipped — over the relics of the saints. This is where the tradition of naming church buildings after saints comes from. In order to keep a connection to this practice, the Orthodox Church places relics of a saint within the altar table at the consecration of a church. I have only had the privilege of taking part in one consecration. The relics of one of the Fathers of Sinai and Raitho was placed in the altar — an altar at which I worshipped for many years.

What I find interesting about this feast is that the hymnody plays up a thematic trope that lies very close to the heart of D&D and the pulp fantasy that inspired it — Civilization versus the Wilderness:

Greatly did you struggle, O Saints of God: while courageously enduring the barbarians’ attacks, you laid down your very lives with eager zeal before their swords... — From the Stichera of Vespers

The desert you made a city through devotion to God… — From the Kathisma of Matins

Thus, Civilization is personified by the monks and the Wilderness not only by the violence of the barbarians, but also by the desert in which the monks built their monasteries.

In the geography of Genesis, the Tree of Life is at the center of a fenced garden which lies in the middle of a plain (Eden). Across from Eden lies the Wilderness (Nod). In the Wilderness demons reside — one interpretation of the scapegoat (literally for Azazel) in Leviticus 16:8 is that it is sent out into the desert where the demon Azazel lives to be devoured.

The Greek word for wilderness and desert is έρημος which literally means a desolate and lonely place. It is the root for both hermit and eremitic — that type of monasticism practiced by hermits. Thematically, therefore, monastics are Christian adventurers who go out into the Wilderness to fight the monsters that live there. The monasteries that they build are akin to the Keep on the Borderlands — outposts of civilization.

Both monastics and the typical D&D adventurer represent the people who have the requisite temperament and skills to make the Wilderness safe for the rest of us. They are the ragtag front line that take the fight to the dangers that live just across the way in the Land of Nod.

In other words, the classic pattern of D&D where parties of adventures go deep underground or out into the lands dominated by beings of evil and Chaos is a metaphor for the monastic endeavor of living in the desert, because monasticism — seen in terms of the geography of Genesis — is a metaphor for Civilization vs. the Wilderness.

Meditating on The Mythic Underground

One of the more interesting aspects of OD&D, as interpreted by various corners of the OSR, is its portrayal of the Dungeon as the Mythic Underworld. For those unfamiliar with this particular theme I suggest Philotomy’s musings on the subject here. I, myself, have played with this interpretation in my own musings about the Holmes Basic Edition here and here.

In the classic mythological trope, the hero finds it necessary to descend into the Underworld in order to obtain something vital in order to achieve their overall quest. This could be information, an item, a skill or even a person. The hero emerges, changed and readied to take on the rest of their quest.

D&D (particularly in its B/X form) emulates this trope very well. The early levels of character development occur primarily in the Dungeon, where they obtain magic items, maps and experience. Once they reach 4th level or so, the characters emerge ready to take on the rest of their quest — explore and tame the Wilderness in order to build a stronghold.

I mention this, especially my own musing on the Holmesian version of the Dungeon (an ever-changing and unconquerable place that is almost a character unto itself), because Christianity takes this classic tale of the hero and turns it on its ear. Christ — the hero figure of the Christian story — does not descend into the Underworld in order to gain some special object or skill. He descends into the Underworld in order to conquer.

Greek Shorthand for Christ Conquers

For He crushed the gates of bronze and shattered the bars of iron — Psalm 107:16 (cf. Isaiah 45:2) 

For as Jonah remained in the belly of the sea-monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of man be in the heart of the earth for three day and three nights. — Matthew 20:14 

In the body He was put to death, in the spirit he was raised to life, and, in the spirit, he went to preach to the spirits in prison. — 1Peter 3:18-19

In other words, the implied pattern of dungeon-delving in context of the Christian story is not just exploration, but restoration. This flies in the face of the Mythic Underground as understood by Philotomy and my own understanding of the Dungeon in Holmes.

Given that I am very interested in a Holmesian Underworld as well as playing in a Christian context, I have been trying to meditate on how to reconcile these two divergent views of the Hero and the Underworld. Part of my thinking in this direction is inspired by the general move that the OSR has made in recent months toward the Weird.

In a world where the Dungeon is a semi-intelligent and ever-changing NPC (Holmes), it makes sense to understand that part of this change can be imposed. What if, when a level or a sub-level of a dungeon were cleared (and thus restored) or otherwise "rescued" that it physically moved from the underworld to the surface world? In context of a dungeon beneath a city, these dungeon levels could be additional neighborhoods that spring up. In context of a dungeon in the wilderness, the levels could be ruins restored to full functionality. The more of the dungeon that is restored, the more Civilization takes root and the more Wilderness (whether on the surface or in the underworld) retreats.

The Dungeon would then change in response to the foray by the adventurers. Either the next level could "move up" or another level or sub-level could spring up in its place. Thus, the semi-intelligent and ever-changing Dungeon of Holmes can actually play a vital role in the context of the Christian hero story.

Meditating on Pathfinder

Since the Big News of the day is the advent of 5e D&D, I thought I’d buck the trend and speak about one of the reasons why Hasbro has been forced in this particular direction in the first place — Pathfinder. (Besides which, Jeff Rients pretty much sums up everything I might say on the subject with his open letter to WotC).

As I have said several time before, I play with a bunch of guys who were introduced to the hobby via 3e. I have split time running campaigns with other guys, depending on who has an itch to run a game. When I first began doing this, the other campaigns we played were 3.5 games. More recently, these games have been 1st ed AD&D. Well, a couple of the guys from our group have been getting the urge to go back to their roots and play a little 3.5.

For the most part, the group wasn’t all that interested. Our table very much likes the fast-paced combat achievable with earlier editions. The amount of stuff that can be accomplished in an evening of gaming using LL or AD&D far outstrips what we did while using 3.5. Thus, the whole discussion was a bit of a non-starter. That is, until someone brought up the possibility of playing Pathfinder using the Kingmaker Adventure Path.

I happen to really like Paizo, their attitude and their relationship they have with the community. I even gave my two cents during the open play test of Pathfinder. Thus, though I have never had occasion to purchase any of their products, I have rooted for them. The closest I ever came to actually forking over part of my limited gaming budget to them was when they published the Kingmaker Adventure Path. It intrigued me to no end — I wanted to see how one would go about doing a sandbox with a complex ruleset like Pathfinder.

So, when one of our guys volunteered to run it, I was actually very interested to see what would happen. Due to life issues, we decided to take a short break from my own campaign to take advantage of my own relatively busy schedule in December and his own relatively light schedule to go all in for the last month with Pathfinder.

The campaign has been relatively successful. Pathfinder does all the things 3.5 does well better. I say this with one caveat. Having had experienced the abstract combat style of LL, our GM has adopted several of the conventions that we use while playing LL. This speeds things up considerably and still allows for some crunch for those that want it (and who needs to pull out maps and figures for most wilderness encounters anyway?) In addition, our GM adjudicates all skill rolls — he either rolls them himself or simply arbitrarily declares success. This has had the wonderful side affect of encouraging more role playing than roll playing.

Unfortunately, Pathfinder still suffers from many of the flaws that 3.5 does. Personally, I would not wish to invest the kind of time necessary to ever run a Pathfinder campaign. In addition, we have averaged one character death per session (something we have grown accustomed to with older editions). The problem is that even when a player knows what they are doing, creating a new character takes forever. We have alleviated this a bit by having NPCs available to play. This strategy, while fine with old-school guys like myself, defeats one of the reasons why some of our group (and a whole segment of gamers) like to play 3.5 & Pathfinder— testing character builds against game conditions.

If I am honest, I can greatly sympathize with this particular mindset because I have spent many an hour doing various kinds of builds to test in game play. The major difference between my own gaming experience and those who enjoy this aspect of 3.5/Pathfinder play is that the major outlet I have had over my gaming life has been through various war games.

Car Wars, Starmada, ARES and Renegade Legion (Interceptor) among others are all games that I spent lots of time making builds and then testing them in game play. I did the same with two what are ostensibly RPGs but more often than not my friends and I used with arena combat scenarios to test character builds — Champions and GURPS. The most common scenario my friends and I ran with Champions was the Danger Room — which is, in essence, a war game. The only original version of GURPS I still own is its precursor Man to Man — an arena-type war game that uses what would become the GURPS combat system.

Thus, that occasional itch to make what in 3.5/Pathfinder are character builds I scratch with war games or RPGs that can be played as war games. It makes me wonder if the cultural divide between 3.5/4th ed players and earlier edition players is in part a generational thing. Guys my age grew up with war games — I had certainly played several different war games prior to ever hearing about D&D. The guys I now play with are all young enough that what I had readily available as board and mini-games had all been displaced by video games. With no real outlet other than RPGs to scratch that character-build itch, is 3+ D&D for many gamers today what war games are/were for me?

In the end, I very much enjoy the campaign; however, if your goal is to play Pathfinder in an old-school style, old school rules do a much better job without all the negatives the complex rules bring with it. Kingmaker is fun, but if I ever ran it myself, I would convert it to LL + AEC in a heart beat.

Cults of Averoigne Part 3

The last group of cultists that will populate my version of Averoigne are not inspired by history, but rather by sci-fi and fantasy. Though this cult will be far less prevalent than the other two, it may very well be the most dangerous, because they see themselves as the servants of the Old Ones (do you think I wouldn’t figure out a way in which to pay homage to CAS and HPL?)

Before I go any further, though, I do need to explain a bit about my comic book reading habits (trust me, it will make sense in the end). I am neither a huge comic book fan nor much of a collector; however, there were a couple of periods in my life when I did actively buy and read comic books. I tend to be more of a DC kinda guy than a Marvel guy. This largely has to do with the fact that during those times I was buying and reading, DC was putting out a superior product. I came to this conclusion despite the fact that all of my comic book reading friends insisted that Marvel was better.

This anti-Marvel prejudice was solidified when the comic book giant came out with a bunch of new titles. A few of them really inspired my friends, so I selectively gave a few a try. I had to admit, some of the ideas behind the books were indeed rather awesome. Then original writers and artists were dumped from the book to go on to more important titles and these various cool ideas were systemically destroyed by incompetence, indifference and an emphasis on stories that required the purchase of several books I had zero desire to ever read, let alone pay for.

This was many years ago and my copies are long gone as are my memories of the titles, characters, artists, writers etc. A cursory Google search turned up nothing but the inherent prejudice of the internet for the current, new and now. All that remains is the cool idea that inspired my favorite of these comics.

The book centered on a group of mercenaries that travelled through dimensions/time/space in order to procure technologies that could then be reverse engineered and developed for the company that sent the mercs out on their various missions. The potential for this beautiful nugget is endless — especially for serialized storytelling like comic books.

This nugget of an idea forms the basic premise of the cult of the Old Ones. A couple of weeks ago, I posited an idea about how arcane magic slowly rips apart space and time. These holes can become large enough to let in things from different eras both past and present.

The cult of the Old Ones actively tries to create and find these holes. Cultists come in two different flavors (or some combination thereof):

• Those that seek to find power and riches by raiding different time periods of their magic and technology.
• Those that seek to find that point in time either in the distant past or the distant future where the Old Ones are awake and active so that they can come through the hole in space and time to wreck havoc on Averoigne and the world.

Thus, these cultists are, in essence, twisted versions of the average D&D adventuring party. Rather than raiding dungeons, they raid time itself. This, then, has the potential of setting up an adventure or series of adventures where a group of players are hired by the cult to do their dirty work — go retrieve this device that lies just beyond that gate over there. If they do, then the fun begins as they must deal with the consequences of their actions...

Saintly Saturday: The Synaxis of St. John the Baptist

Today is the Synaxis of St. John the Baptist. A synaxis is a gathering. After major feasts, there is a gathering of the various saints associated with the feast the next day. Thus, December 26th is the Synaxis of the Virgin Mary. Since yesterday was the feast of Epiphany (the baptism of Christ), today is the Synaxis of St. John — the one who baptized Christ.

As an aside, I am always struck by the hymns that are sung at this time of year. Various aspects of nature get anthropomorphized:

Jordan River, tell us do: What did you see and were amazed? I saw naked Him whom none can see, and shuddered in fear. And how was I not to shudder at Him and be frightened? The Angels, when they saw Him also shuddered in awe. And heaven was astonished, and astounded was earth. The sea recoiled along with all things both visible and invisible. For Christ appeared in the River Jordan, to sanctify the waters.

It is a reminder that Christ willingly uses His creation as active participants in his salvific work. Despite the fact that water is one of the most deadly and destructive forces in nature, despite the fact that the cross is one of the most heinous tools of torture and death devised by man, Christ chose to use both. It is this fact that drives me to play RPGs the way that I do. There is no part of creation where Christ does not belong and that He cannot transform into resurrection.

One of the more interesting traditions of Orthodox Christianity at this time of year the the Great Blessing of the Waters. In places with larger Orthodox communities, this blessing will take place at rivers, lakes and oceans. A cross will be thrown into the waters and young men and women will dive in to try and be the one to retrieve it. Those that do receive a special blessing for the coming year.

This past summer, I came up with some random tables to come up with various festivals that could populate an RPG world. Given that post was also inspired by one of the many days of the year dedicated to St. John the Baptist, I thought I’d expand on that table. The following is designed to come up with unusual traditions that can accompany said feasts and festivals:

Action

1. Combat
2. Move
3. Find
4. Retrieve
5. Defeat
6. Race
7. Speak with
8. Journey
9. Destroy
10. Trap
11. Sacrifice
12. Explore

Object/Person

1. Holy Symbol
2. Undead
3. Magic/Magic Item
4. Child
5. Gem or Jewel
6. Class (1=Fighter; 2=Magic-User; 3=Cleric; 4=Thief)
7. Demi-Human Race (1=Dwarf; 2=Elf; 3=Halfling)
8. Exotic Animal
9. Exotic Plant
10. Maiden
11. Construct
12. Monster

Location

1. Mountain
2. Ruins
3. Bazaar
4. Castle
5. Battlefield
6. Temple
7. Woods
8. Desert
9. Cave
10. Body of Water
11. Tomb
12. Dungeon

I have left these tables kind of vague so that it is possible to come up with several variations for each result. This allows some flexibility so that the feast and the tradition don’t need to be incongruous. For instance, let us take the example feast from original tables (The Discovery of the Skull of the Mother of a Regional Saint) with the rolls on these tables of 11, 4 and 1. Sacrificing a child on a mountain does really fit; however a child making a sacrifice on a mountain does.

Of course, these tables can be expanded or modified to better meet your particular idiosyncrasies. Have fun.

Cults of Averoigne Part 2

Though I am quite satisfied with the Oamenbun — an analog for the Cathari of 13th century France — I also need to set up a pagan cult. Since the Crimson King and his Black Queen are so tightly associated with the pagan past of Averoigne and since time tends to be a bit non-linear — especially around the Chateau des Faussesflammes — I need to establish the pagan cult the king and queen were/are/will be involved in.

I originally created this bit a heraldry for the Crimson King because of its Wotanic overtones:

However, since I have gone to the trouble of tying the Oamenbun to a regional group, I also want to have stronger local ties to inspire this pagan cult. Thus, I have been doing some cursory investigation into the paganism found in France. Here are the three local cults that I find most useful:

• Esus (which means Master) was local to the tribes of southern France. Blood sacrifices were made in his name and he was also associated with hanging. He was depicted with three birds and a bull.
• Sucellus (which means Good Striker) was depicted with a long-handled hammer and a cauldron. He was usually seen accompanied by a raven and a three-headed dog. This suggests that he had a very strong association with funerals, death and the underworld.
• Nantosuelta (which means Winding River) was associated with nature, valleys and streams. She was the consort of Sucellus and was depicted carrying a staff topped with a dovecote as well as a cornucopia. Her symbol was the raven, so she also was associated with death and the underworld.

I plan on doing an amalgam of these three by taking the name and practices of the cult of Esus and applying them to Sucellus and Nantosuelta, since they parallel the Crimson King and the Black Queen. Thus, these two will be simply called Master and Mistress. Their cult will practice human sacrifice wherein the victim is hung and exsanguinated. Necromancy and the undead will also be a huge part of cultic practice.

The various associations of these three also suggest a number of artifacts that might be found while exploring the Chateau des Faussesflammes:

• The Master’s Maul, also known as Lovitor, or Striker. Its size seems to suggest that gauntlets of ogre power or a girdle of giant strength are necessary to even wield the weapon and a combination of the two might be necessary to take full advantage of its powers.
• The Mistress’ Staff, also known as Rau or River. There are several possibilities here. The dovecote suggests the ability to summon and control birds. The name Rau suggests water-based magic. A combination of the two suggests the ability to summon and control a water elemental in the form of a bird.
• The Master’s Cauldron. I cannot help but think of the Black Cauldron from Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. It was the source of the Arawn’s army of undead and the only way to destroy it is by willingly sacrificing oneself by crawling in. This suggests a couple of special creatures that might be produced by the cauldron, based upon the sacrifices made to the Master — the Hanged Ones and Blood Golems.
• The Mistress’ Cornucopia. Given her association with rivers, it makes sense that this artifact is an unending source of water; however, given her association with the dead, it also suggests another special undead. Should a corpse “drink” from the Cornucopia, it will rise as an undead called the Drowned.

Finally, there are several creatures that suggest themselves (besides the undead and the blood golem):

• The Raven — this strongly suggests spies. It will be fun to play on the paranoia of the players once they figure out that the birds can reveal their secret plans to the enemy.
• The Three-Headed Dog — this, of course, brings to mind Cerberus the guardian of the gate to the Underworld. Thus, somewhere under the Chateau he will guard some major treasure horde or possibly some kind of hub wherein gates to several different time/space destinations can be found.
• The Bull — this suggests that a gorgon wanders the halls of the Chateau and that statues in various poses of fright and combat be littered throughout. Imagine the surprise of a party carrying mirrors in preparation for a medusa or a basilisk realize that their doom is actually a breath weapon.

Cults of Averoigne Part 1

Among the various wilderness encounter areas that I have for my version of Averoigne are several cultists. I included them on my Random Wilderness Encounter Tables because not only do I want an interesting and insidious group of human adversaries but because there is an historical precedence in 13th century France for such a group.

From 1209-1229 nobles of northern France were encouraged to wipe out the Catharism abundant in southern France in what is known as the Albigensian Crusade. It all started when a papal legate was murdered while trying to negotiate with Cathar nobles. Lands held by Cathars were offered up as rewards for those nobles willing to take up arms. There were a couple of interesting consequences from this crusade.

1. Southern France had a distinct culture and language. In the wake of the crusade, both of these were greatly reduced under stronger influence of the French crown over the area.
2. The crusade played a role in the establishment and institutionalization of the Inquisition.

Both of these suggest some very interesting background noise for an Averoigne campaign. First, the language and culture of Averoigne is distinct from the rest of the region. Secondly, Inquisitors tend to be outsiders who have a nationalistic agenda rather than a purely religious one.

Catharism is a dualistic gnostic Christian heresy. Dualism is a belief system that holds that there are two equally powerful deities — one good and one evil. Gnosticism takes on various forms, but there are several characteristics which can be identified as gnostic. In the case of Catharism, they identify the god of the Old Testament as a demiurge — what they term the Rex Mundi — that is in actuality the evil god in their dualistic pantheon. This results in another typical gnostic characteristic — the belief that creation and all matter are fundamentally evil, having been created by the Rex Mundi. As a result, Catharism understands the person of Jesus to be a manifestation of spirit unbound by matter who in no way shape or form became human or died on the Cross.

Of course, these beliefs run counter to Christian orthodoxy which holds that the Trinitarian God is the only God who even has dominion over the devil and his angels; creation was declared very good by God; and Christ definitively became a human being and died on the Cross.

Cathari religious texts included parts of the New Testament (especially the Gospel of John), The Gospel of the Secret Supper (sometimes called John’s Interrogation) and The Book of Two Principles. There is some question as to whether or not the name Cathar was used by the heretical group. More certainly, they referred to themselves as Bons Hommes or Good Men.

Despite this moniker, gnostic theology has some nasty consequences. Since all matter is considered evil, how one treats matter is of little consequence. Thus, extreme asceticism and hedonism are both frequent expressions of gnostic practice. Taking this understanding of material as evil to a logical conclusion, it is possible for gaming purposes to justify torture as a legitimate tool of religious conversion and discipline — to remove dependence upon evil matter.

Therefore, the analogous group for the Cathari (which I am thinking of calling the Oamenbun) would practice extreme asceticism (horse hair shirts being considered mild) who would think nothing of kidnapping and torture as a means of furthering their own agenda. The inner circle of leaders would have secret dens of inequity where all kinds of heinous and hedonistic practices can be found. Most intriguingly, this group would be fervently nationalistic — resisting the influence of non-Averoigne culture and language. This nationalism would earn them wide support among the locals.