Saintly Saturday: St. Timothy of Symbola

Today is the Feast of St. Timothy of Symbola, who was of Italian descent. He was attracted to the monastic life and was tonsured at a young age. After spending years of training in a monastery he received the gift to heal the sick and to cast out unclean spirits. He also spent many years as a hermit, wandering the wilderness offering up prayer both day and night. He died at what is only called “a great old age” in the year A.D. 795.

This date places him in the era of iconoclasm, an era when many monastics came into direct conflict with emperors over the use of icons in the Church. Indeed, St. Timothy may very well have taken to the hermetic life because of imperial pressure upon the monasteries.

St. Timothy gets his title “of Symbola” because he pursued his asceticism at a monastery called “Symbola.” This monastery was near Mount Olympus; however, if you think this means he lived his life in northern Greece, you would be mistaken, because the Symbola Monastery was in Asia Minor, near the Sea of Mamara on the southern edge of Bithynia. Yes, I did talk about these two places last week.

Although today it is called Uludağ or Keşiş Dağı (literally “Mountain of Monks”), this mountain was called Olympus in antiquity. It is not alone. In addition to the world-famous Mt. Olympus where the pagan Greeks imagined their gods lived, there are another five in Greece (at Lesbos, Euboea, East Attics, Skyros and Arcadia). Besides the “Mountain of Monks," there are three more in Turkey (at Bartin, Kemer and Aegean Turkey). Finally, the highest point in Cyprus is another Mt. Olympus.

Mt. Olympus in Macedonia

Mt. Olympus in Bithynia

I have two thoughts about how to inform a campaign using the story of St. Timothy:

Firstly, I’d further develop the campaign of the Sea of Mamara with a brewing conflict between a group of rebellious monks (based out of the Mountain of Monks) and one of the political powers in the area. This is not something isolated to this campaign or this particular era, either. Monastics of all stripes have come into conflict with political powers throughout history. The key is finding an issue intriguing enough to add a bit of fun to the campaign.

Secondly, the fact that there are eleven (!) mountains by the name of Olympus in the ancient world, reminds me of the value of having multiple names for various landmarks in a campaign, with some of those names referring to multiple places. This is especially true in a campaign where the PCs are interested in finding an artifact, a tomb, a person, etc. that is located at a “Mt. Olympus.” The players are then left with trying to decipher which is the “Mt. Olypmus” in question.

Over the years, various bloggers (which ones I cannot recall at the moment), have posited using The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth or The Tomb of Horrors as goals for PCs introduced at the beginning of the campaign. Should players choose, the whole campaign could focus on getting information detailing the contents of these dungeons so that when they were ready, the players would have a fighting chance of success (especially in the case of the The Tomb of Horrors). This campaign would be especially interesting should the PCs not be the only ones interested in finding and conquering the dungeon.

In such a campaign, having several different versions of “Mt. Olympus” with multiple names would add a layer of complexity, forcing characters to choose which to focus on, or possibly use to mislead rival parties.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 5

Step 5: Dungeon Background

It is now time to use the level names and landmarks of the dungeon to inspire several different eras of occupation. I normally use three, because that gives me enough detail to keep things interesting while being simple enough to make the design work easier. I tend to label these eras Ancient, Old and Present.

Ancient

The most evocative name level of the dungeon seems to me to be The Tomb of the Old One. This is where the McGuffin of the campaign is going to be and where all of the various factions are going to want access to. It is therefore imperative that I know who the Old One really is.

According to the original material, Scytheback was part of the reason the Bright Empire fell; however, remnants of the Empire still hold on. Thus, the dragon had to have been stopped at some point. This is where the Old One enters into the picture.

The Old One was (is?) a powerful magic-user from the days of the Bright Empire. Today, no one remembers his (her?) name. Tasked with stopping the dragon Scytheback, they entered into battle. The dragon nearly lost its life and did lose an eye. Never before had the beast encountered such a powerful adversary. Never before had it experienced fear. It has laid low ever since, using intermediaries to do its will.

Little did the dragon know that the Old One was also crippled in the fight. Unable to survive another onslaught by the dragon, the Old One turned to dark secrets in order to protect the people of the Bright Empire. As an accomplished necromancer, the Old One became corrupt. In the end, the Old One did more to bring down the Empire than did Scytheback.

Today no one knows if the Old One lives or has died, but artifacts occasionally do show up, reminding the people of Blackmarsh that a powerful mage once roamed these lands.

Old

The fortification on the surface of the dungeon was built later without knowledge of the lower sections beneath. The stone giants of the White Mountains suggest a reason why the fortifications became necessary. Off the west side of the map is giant territory. The pass was a means for those giants to raid Blackmarsh. This period was colloquially called the Giants Wars.

Eventually, things escalated when the various types of giants were united by a frost giant named Gymir. Due to the disorganization of the giants, the fortification of Fedor’s Pass proved to be partially effective. Once united, however, Fedor’s Pass quickly fell and the people of Blackmarsh got desperate. Gathering a large amount of viz, a group of mages cast a ritual spell that closed off the mountain pass. The remaining giants were either hunted down and killed or agreed to some form of peace. The stone giants are all that remain of those stranded in Blackmarsh by the Giant Wars.

The fortress at Fedor’s Pass was briefly maintained after the Giant Wars; however, the post was plagued by bad luck, accidents and a few unnatural deaths. Given that it no longer had any real protective purpose the post was eventually abandoned.

Present

It is now time to take elements of the Ancient and Old eras of the dungeon and weave them into who presently occupies the dungeon. Currently, the main fort of Fedor’s Pass is occupied by a force of goblins led by the bugbear Drefec.  They are a part of a coalition of goblin tribes led by the stone giant Lythor. Unlike many of the stone giants currently in the region, he is Chaotic and yearns for the days of old when the giants were terrorizing the land during the Giant Wars. Fueling this desire was a chance discovery of a volume that once belonged to the Old One. Lythor read the book and his already cruel intelligence became dangerously high. Subsequently, he has organized the local goblin tribes into a personal army.

At the beginning of the campaign, Lythor has been sending out scouting parties in search of clues for the resting place of the Old One because there are references in the tome he read of other books, weapons and treasures that could turn his private army into a conquering hoard. The bugbear Drefec has unknowingly found the location of the Tomb of the Old One; however, he has discovered an artifact of the Old One himself and is now only paying lip service to Lythor.

Beneath the Opal Lake is an artifact manufactured by the Old One call the Subterranean Lake of Watery Simulacrums. Drefec now lies within that artifact and is able to send individual duplicates of himself to rule and fight without fear of death, because when one simulacrum is destroyed (turning into water), another one can rise with all the knowledge of the previous Simulacrum.

There is, however, a faction within Drefec’s forces that haven’t forgotten their mission and are secretly trying to find more artifacts to return to Lythos. Ironically, if a party managed to actually kill Drefec, it might actually make the situation worse...

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 4

Step 4: Fill in Dungeon Details

It is now time to name each level of the centerpiece dungeon and place landmarks throughout. The goal here is to have each area of the dungeon have a specific function and feel that differentiates it from everything else.

The reason to do this is to not only make the dungeon itself better, but to start to knit together a background story that will serve the campaign.

By the way, do yourself a favor and check out Matt Finch’s Tome of Adventure Design. It is filled with random table goodness for coming up with dungeon level landmarks and names. It is one of the single best RPG purchases I have ever made.

Here is my version of Fedor’s Pass with level names and landmarks:

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 3

Step 3: Place Your Centerpiece Dungeon

This is an important step, even if you never see your players show any desire for entering your megadungeon/dungeon of choice. The reason being, the backstory of the dungeon affects the backstory of the region and the campaign. Often times, there will be something inside the dungeon, whether an object, a person or a piece of information (or all three) that the various factions within the campaign are vying for. Thus, the dungeon will be a source of adventure even if the players themselves never go there.

Personally, I rarely use published dungeons for this purpose, because the backgrounds often don’t jive with what I want to do with the world (unless I start with the dungeon and move out, but that usually involves a lot more work). Since we are doing an exercise for folks who don’t have the time or inclination to draw maps, etc. I would suggest doing a couple of things:

Go to Dave’s Mapper and play. You can make a side-view of a dungeon and then a map for each section of the dungeon in that side view. You can also go look at the plethora of maps Dyson Logos has done over the years. To keep your own efforts to a minimum, you really need only do a sideview to begin. The rest can be done later as needed.

For my own purposes, I decided to go with a map Dyson drew several years ago called Fedor’s Pass. The name is evocative, there are a number of levels already mapped and some that are not. This leaves room for me to use either maps of my own creation, those found by playing with Dave’s Mapper or using other maps by Dyson.

The name “Fedor’s Pass” suggests that the surface structure was used to protect a road that wound its way from one side of a mountain range to another. Blackmarsh has several mountain ranges: The White Mountains, The Pendar Mountains, and the Dragonbone Peaks. The latter is the most tempting, due to its massive cave network; however, the only place that might have a pass leads to a forest…with pixies.

The Pendar and White Mountains occupy the western edge of the map. If the whole 010X column of hexes were filled in with mountains and hills, then there would be a need for a pass to go west off the map.

Hex 0107 has a group of bandits out for revenge against Castle Blackoak, something I am not particularly interested in. It would, however, put Fendar’s Pass in close proximity to the castle and make sense as front-line defense position for anything trying to use the path to raid or invade Blackmarsh.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 2

Step 2: Ignore or Change Everything Else

Seriously. Your job is not to follow the whims or will of the author. Your job is to create a world that you have fun with. This is one of the reasons I prefer products like Blachmarsh and the Wilderlands. The terseness used by the authors gives me permission to use, ignore or change anything I want. There is no canon I have to break. There is no intricate back story I have to re-craft. The implied effort of the author is only invested in a few sentences at most. Thus, I am not going to hurt any one’s feelings (or be challenged by a canon-nazi).

Indeed, I would imagine that Rob would be thrilled at seeing me take his Blackmarsh setting and run with it in whatever direction I want to take it. He did exactly the same thing with the Wilderlands, after all.

I also know from personal experience that once a campaign begins, I very rarely have to re-read or even look at the published campaign material. Everything that happens is driven by character action (or inaction). I use the stuff I care about and let them react to what PCs are doing. The results are almost always fun for me because the campaign is no longer the published material, it’s mine.

From Blackmarsh, as published, there are two things that I immediately want to change:

• As written, Scytheback is a very old red dragon. I want an ancient black dragon who knows how to polymorph self. (Red dragons bore me, acid breath is terrifying and polymorphing dragons are awesome NPCs).
• I want to change the name of the Blackmarsh Rangers to the Blackoak Rangers. It makes it much clearer that their HQ is Blackoak Castle and it emphasizes that they are an independent organization that is willing to help any Lawful cause that helps bring stability and peace to the region.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 1

The other day, I started going through Rob Conley’s Blackmarsh setting (which you can get for free here) to engage in a little creative calisthenics by thinking on how I would run a sandbox campaign using the goodness found therein. While doing this it occurred to me that while Rob has an excellent series on how to create to a sandbox similar to Blackmarsh (a map, encounter areas, major NPC’s etc.), not everyone (especially me at the moment) has the time or inclination to do all that work.

Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to write down my method for prepping a sandbox campaign using a preexistent setting like Blackmarsh, especially since it follows in the footsteps of settings like Judges Guild’s Wilderlands of High Fantasy with what might be called a terse style. I must admit, I am also doing this for the purpose of having a repository for the ideas I have come up with because this is becoming a campaign I wouldn’t mind running someday.

Step 1: The Read Through

One of the reasons I really appreciate the terse style used in Blackmarsh, and settings like it, is that it allows me to quickly get through an entire setting with a simple read through. What I look for during this read through are ideas or encounters that catch my attention, because these are the things I am going use as the basis for a campaign. Here is my list after that quick read through:

• I love the concepts of The Mountain that Fell and Viz. They give magic a source — there is this alien substance brought to the world via an asteroid that crashed into the very region the campaign is to take place. In addition, viz is something that can be found, touched, forged, bought and sold. It gives the entire region a gold-rush kind of feel where greed is going to be a major problem.
• There are a bunch of potential factions competing with each other over resources (like viz) and territory: The Osrobards, Castle Blackmarsh, the Vasan Vikings, the Grand Kingdom, the Blackmarsh Rangers, the House of the Raven, the Greywood Elves and the Bolzak Dwarves of Olden Hold.
• The Osrobards are trying to become civilized, an endeavor the younger generation seems to take more seriously than their parents.
• The men of Castle Blackmarsh are remnants of the long-gone Bright Empire.
• The Vasan Vikings are refugees seeking revenge upon the Grand Kingdom which drove them from their home, but find themselves just trying to survive.
• The Grand Kingdom, though the current champion of Civilization who is trying to take up the mantle once lost by the Bright Empire, is still just an usurper in Blackmarsh.
• The House of the Raven are regular elves, not drow. Their motivation is chauvinism, not evil for the sake of evil. In other words, they are the heroes of their own story — the best kind of villain. As normal elves working for the betterment of elven kind, they can also operate secretly (openly?) within Greywood without raising an eyebrow.
• The Blackmarsh Rangers are recruiting.
• There is a bunch of undiscovered goodness at the bottom of the Smoking Bay.
• The Dragonbone Peaks have an extensive cave system formed as a result of the Mountain that Fell.
• There is an abandoned Dwarven Hold called Daur Anthar guarded by an earth elemental.
• There is an old wizard’s tower where an experiment went awry.
• There are a number of dragons, one who has a great name: Scytheback. This dragon is responsible for the destruction of a settlement which served as a hub for silver mines.
• There is a hydra that the House of the Raven are trying to use to create havoc.
• There are a number of Stone Giants that mostly leave people alone.

Saintly Saturday: St. Auxentius of the Mountain

Today is the Feast Day of Auxentius of the Mountain. Born in Syria, he enlisted as a soldier in A.D. 442, during the reign of Theodosius the Younger. He served in the Fourth Military Company of the Scholarii, also known as the Imperial Guard. He saw enough vanity in the world of high politics that he retreated into monasticism. He became a hermit on Mt. Oxia (which came to be known as Mt. Auxentius). This mountain was near Chalcedon, a city across the Bosporus from Constantinople, in the Roman Province of Bithynia.
As often happens with holy hermits, he began to attract other monastics and he became an Archmandrite (literally, “chief of a sheephold”) of the community there. He was asked to speak at the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in A.D. 451, which dealt with monophysitism (the belief that Christ only had a divine nature). He became well-known as a healer.

Chalcedon, Bithynia and Mt. Oxia/Auxentius are all on the northern coast of modern-day Turkey, just east of the Sea of Mamara. Bithynia was actually its own Kingdom prior to voluntarily becoming a part of the Roman Republic. Its capital was Nicomedia, which was on the eastern coast of the Sea of Mamara.
If the name Mamara rings any bells, it is because I mentioned it in a post about the Nine Martyrs of Cyzicus. At the time, I drew a map that might serve for an interesting campaign. Here is an updated version of that map:

I added a stand-in for Nicomedia, which could be the capital of a kingdom whose influence reaches east off the map. In addition, I included a "Mt. Auxia," which could serve as another option for a megadungeon (we could always use another abandoned monastery). Alternatively, there could be an active monastery where PCs might find an oracle, or the guardian of a key piece of information and/or object. Given that St. Auxentius was a healer, PCs might go to the mountain seeking the only person in the region able to heal a particular ailment. This, in turn, might have the PCs going on a mission at the request of the monks on Mt. Auxia.

Regardless, this proto-campaign, based around the Sea of Mamara continues to grow.

Why Alignment is So Hard

Inspired by St. Augulus, I meditated once again on alignment, something I do quite often here in my corner of the internet. In fact, I would argue that it is the most difficult aspect of D&D. In response to my post, Roger of Roles, Rules & Rolls asked my thoughts on this observation:

I've observed that a trouble with alignment is that people get confused between its cosmic, political, and character facets.

Thus without contradiction a single figure can serve cosmic Law while espousing political Freedom and walking a Neutral path between personal predictability and whimsy.

And when the agent of political Law persecutes the agent of cosmic Law there is likewise no contradiction.

I feel this deserves an entire post, because I fundamentally disagree that there is no contradiction when a single figure serves the cosmic Law, preaches political freedom and embodies Neutrality personally.

Whether we like it or not, Western Culture has Judeo-Christianity as its foundation (despite repeated attempts to abandon it). At its core, Judaism sets forth an ideal that the cosmic, the political and the personal can and should all be united. This ideal is codified in the Mosaic Law. In Christianity, this unity is made manifest in the person of Christ. In both cases, it is the individual’s calling to strive for that unity, either through participation in the Law or in Christ.

Thus, what Roger identifies as confusion really isn’t; however, it is an ideal. From the Christian point of view the Mosaic Law has no salvific value. Rather, its purpose is revelation. One of the things it makes perfectly clear is that humanity, on its own, is completely incapable of fulfilling the Law and therefore uniting the cosmic, the political and the personal. In religious lingo, we call this sin.

Therefore, one of the realities of the fallen world is that, especially when one talks about politics, contradiction is inevitable. Let me give you an example that has been bandied about recently in U.S. politics — vaccinations.

The state government where I live requires by law that all children receive a schedule of vaccinations in order to participate in government funded public education. At odds here are two concepts that most Westerners would find good: Freedom and Security.

As a parent I am not free to choose and therefore control the healthcare of my children, even if I have religious, personal or individual health concerns about my kids and vaccinations.

On the other hand, I live with relative security that serious contagious diseases in my community are kept to a minimum.

The two are diametrically opposed. Not only that, but each choice brings with it an extra cost:

• If we were free to choose vaccination or no, diseases we thought long ago defeated would have a serious chance of returning to our communities. Even if I choose vaccination, my kids may very well contract these diseases through the children of parents who opt out of vaccinating their children. 
• In the state where I live, some of the mandated vaccinations use fetal matter from abortions.

Regardless of which side you are on, your choice leads to suffering and death.

The crux of ethics, therefore, is what sacrifice are we personally and/or societally willing to make — who is going to suffer and die for our security and freedom?

This question is at the core of Firefly and Serentity. Both the Operative and Mel are right; however, each answer requires a different sacrifice.

For those curious, Christ’s answer to that question is Himself. Therefore, it becomes possible for us to overcome the pain and death necessitated by the fallen world and enter into His Kingdom where that unity is made manifest.

The alignment system is born of the idealized unity of the cosmic, political and personal in Judeo-Christianity. We run into so many problems with it because what PCs are doing is almost entirely political. Therefore, player action will inevitably create dissonance with their alignments.

I would argue that this isn’t a bad thing. Firstly, it duplicates what the Mosaic Law reveals. Secondly, it is fodder for good adventures. It is always interesting to see how people react to situations where two “goods” come into direct conflict.

In the end, I am back to my preferred alignment system: Law-Neutral-Chaos. It gives me the freedom to explore this facet of our fallen nature without getting caught up in the minutia of a nine-point axis.

Saintly Saturday: St. Augulus

When you spend enough time reading the Synaxarion, you run across entries about saints who have no name or saints about which we really only know scant information about and only because they are mentioned in passing by one or more ancient sources. Today is the Feast of St. Augulus and he is one of these saints.

We know him primarily because he is listed by St. Jerome as a martyr and a bishop from Britain. Most likely he was martyred in London. Time references (circa A.D. 300) suggest that he was killed during Diocletian’s persecution of Christians.

One might speculate as to why his story is not widely known. My own guess has to do with the remoteness of the Roman colony in Britain and the fact that a few centuries later it was overrun by pagan Goths when Rome abandoned their British territory. The fact that we still know of him is rather spectacular.

***

His story, what there is of it, does get me thinking about alignment, of all things. I have done a lot of posts on alignment, and no matter how I might pontificate about the matter, I always fall back on the three-alignment system found in 0e and B/X in actual practice.

While I could probably play sans any alignment rules, the Law-Neutrality-Chaos axis does provide for a useful — and very flexible — reference point. This is true not only for players, but for for me as well.

Let me illustrate my point with one of my all time favorite movie antagonists (note, I am specifically using that word because I would not call him a villain):

The Operative from the movie Serenity would seem to fit nicely in the Lawful Evil section of the nine-point alignment system. He even admits that what he actually does is quite monstrous; however, he does it so that no one else has to. He also endeavors to do it in the most honorable and merciful way possible. The reason being, his real interest is in the greater good. As he sees it, someone has to do his job so that all the good people of the world are free to go on being good. This clearly places him outside Lawful Evil as it is described in the AD&D PH:

life, beauty, truth, freedom and the like are held as valueless, or at least scorned. By adhering to stringent discipline, those of lawful evil alignment hope to impose their yoke upon the world.

as well as Lawful Neutral:

Those of this alignment view regulation as all-important, taking a middle road betwixt evil and good.

Thus, the nine-point alignment system cannot adequately describe the Operative and his philosophy of life. The three-point axis, on the other hand, can. As an agent working to protect Civilization, he is clearly Lawful.

In the same way, the soldiers who arrested and murdered St. Augulus during the reign of Diocletian were not agents of Chaos. They, too, could be described with the label Lawful.

The implication here is that the Civilization (Law) vs. Wilderness (Chaos) dichotomy need not be a black and white affair. Indeed, one could duplicate a purge in a D&D campaign similar to the one Diocletian was attempting. In his eyes, the Christians were traitors and posed a serious threat to the stability of the Empire. When such a persecution shows up on the borderlands where PCs normally go adventuring, this leaves them with a very interesting question:

What kind of Civilization are we making the Wilderness safe for?

Ecology of the Hobgoblin

I don’t know about you, but I have long felt that the hobgoblin is the most neglected of all the “primary” goblinoid races. They just feel like an afterthought. This has also long bothered me because of all the various humanoids and goblinoids that exist in the game of D&D, hobgoblins are my favorite. This is in large part due to the way they are depicted in the MM1, especially the illustration that looks kinda like this:

Due to this rendering, I have always thought of hobgoblins as having an altogether different order of civilization and culture than other goblinoids. Recently, I have been meditating upon the ecology of the hobgoblin and had an epiphany, which I’d rather like to share.

First things first, in order to understand some of my basic assumptions about goblinoids in general and hobgoblins in particular, please refer to my previous ramblings on Elves and Dwarves.

These assumptions seem to be supported by the MM1 description. Note that, like goblins in Holmes who attack dwarves on sight (thus suggesting their dwarven ancestry), hobgoblins “will attack [elves] in preference to any other troops.” Thus, hobgoblins are twisted elves.

One quirk of the MM1 hobgoblin that I have always found fascinating is the fact that they can speak the rudimentary tongue of carnivorous apes and that 60% of hobgoblin lairs will have carnivorous apes as guards. Note also their baboon-like physical description:

The hairy hides of hobgoblins range from reddish-brown to gray black. Their faces are bright red-orange to red. Large males will have blue-red noses.

Given these factors, the origin of how elves were twisted into hobgoblins seems to suggest itself — hobgoblins are the product of a breeding program that intermixes elves and carnivorous apes. The majority of hobgoblins seem to continue this rather disturbing process. This explains the necessity to speak the language of carnivorous apes and the close relationship they have with them. It also suggests a reason why hobgoblins prefer to attack elves above all other troops — to capture more elven stock to interbreed with carnivorous apes in hopes of producing stronger strains of hobgoblin.

It is even possible to imagine, due to the arcane nature of elves, that such experimentation has resulted in such ape-like monsters as girallons. Considering the fact that the MM1 gives hobgoblins Average intelligence instead of the typical goblinoid Average (low), it is possible to imagine that the entire hobgoblin culture centers around a quest for some kind of eugenic ideal that they are continually refining through their interbreeding with carnivorous apes and the offspring of carnivorous apes and the occasional elven captive.

There, I hope that helps folks see that the hobgoblin can be more than merely a bigger goblin.

A 5e-Inspired Weapon vs AC Table

I have a quixotic obsession with Weapon vs. AC Tables. It is quixotic because at its core, D&D combat is extremely abstract. Once one starts to add things to make it more concrete (like a Weapon vs. AC Table), combat becomes complex, game flow slows down and becomes something I would rather not play anymore. When it comes to crunchy systems that simulate one-on-one or skirmish level combat there are far better games than D&D; however, it’s the abstract nature of D&D combat that gives D&D (especially in its older incarnations) much of its charm.

There is enough drama involved in the combat system that it is fun to play, but at the same time it is simple enough to get through a single combat quickly so that players can focus on whatever aspect of the game they are interested in, whether that be exploring, interacting with NPCs or hacking through as many monsters over the course of evening as possible.

I did, however, play war-games before I played RPGs. Therefore, part of my gamer-make-up likes the kinds of tactical choices one must make while playing a war-game. Thus, I have a deep-seeded desire to bring this kind of choice into the combat system of the RPG I play most often. Inevitably, though, the moment I polish off my latest and greatest Weapon vs. AC Table, reality sets in and I am faced with the fact that once implemented, I don’t want to play anymore.

Enter 5e and the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic. This affords me the opportunity to make a Weapon vs. AC Table as abstract as feasible, thus keeping combat in the abstract rather than the concrete. This holds the possibility of tacking on a tactical choice for players simple enough that combat remains abstract and therefore something I might still want to play.

Since the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic is a three tier system, both weapons and armor need to be characterized by three general categories. Weapons are quite straight forward:

• Slashing
• Piercing
• Bashing

Armor is a bit more complicated; however, modern versions of the game do give us three general categories:

• Light
• Medium
• Heavy

Thus we can assign the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic as follows:

• Slashing: Advantage to hit Light Armor; Disadvantage to hit Medium Armor
• Piercing: Advantage to hit Medium Armor; Disadvantage to hit Heavy Armor
• Bashing: Advantage to hit Heavy Armor; Disadvantage to hit Light Armor

One could also rule that unarmed combat automatically is at a Disadvantage against all armor types (unless one were a specialized class like the monk).

The biggest problem with this system is assigning an armor type to monsters. Rather than base it on AC, I would suggest using Movement as a general guideline:

• 60’ = Heavy
• 90’ = Medium
• 120’+ = Light

This works reasonably well for most monsters. While there are anomalies, these are few and quite easy to adjudicate on the fly. For example, Giant Beetles have a Movement of 120’+. One can simply rule that all giant insects or creatures with exoskeletons have heavy armor. Goblins and halflings have a Movement of 60’ due to their size. It is easy enough to rule that they have Medium or Light armor.

Finally, as a general rule, PCs should be at a disadvantage against gigantic creatures like dragons, giants and purple worms regardless of what weapon type they use. This makes combat with such monsters epic in scale, something that I imagine such combats ought to be.

Saintly Saturday: St. Brigid of Kildare

While today is the feast of Sts. Cyrus and John the Unmercenary Healers, I am not really going to blog much about them. I do love them and have a great affinity towards Alexandria, where they were martyred; however, in terms of RPGs the only thing that I can think of to write about is the fact that one of the reasons the original cleric, which was in part modeled after Christianity, has spells like Cure Lights Wounds, Neutralize Poison and Cure Disease is likely because of these saints and those like them.

While potentially interesting, I have found myself drawn to St. Brigid of Kildare this week. Though her feast isn’t until tomorrow, her life has me itching to start drawing maps.

St. Brigid was born around A.D. 450, the daughter of a slave and her master. She was baptized by St. Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland and they were life-long friends. Due to her generosity to the poor, her father found her to be too expensive to keep as a slave and was set free. Afterwards, she was the founder of women’s cenobitic monasticism in Ireland and is considered to be one of the patron saints of Ireland along with St. Patrick.

The monastery that she established was on a piece of land given to her by the King of Leinster and called Cill Dara (now known as Kildare). Translated, the name means “church of the oak.” It was in the midst of an oak forest and was built from oaken timber.

There are a lot of stories from the various hagiographies of St. Brigid, but one of my favorites is of the blind nun Dara. One evening, the two sat and talked. Losing track of time, they found that their conversation had lasted the whole night and it was dawn. St. Brigid was astonished at the beauty of the morning light on the dew of the flowers in the field in front of her and longed for Dara to be able to see it all. Praying to God, she made the sign of the cross and Dara could see. Although she did find the morning scene to be quite beautiful, she asked St. Brigid to pray for her blindness to return, explaining, “for when the world is visible to the eyes, then God is seen less clearly by the soul.” St. Brigid prayed, and Dara was blind once again.

Interestingly, St. Brigid herself had only one eye because she plucked the one out in defiance of a suitor who was enamored with her beauty. She died in A.D. 523.

The RPG part of my brain has been gleefully chewing on the name “Cill Dara” and the story of Dara the blind nun all week. The fruit of that endeavor is an adventure locale akin to the Monastery of the Unsleeping Ones.

The Monastery of the Oak is literally a giant oak tree with a door in it. At one time, it was inhabited and cared for by an entire community of blind nuns. What is not generally known is that the oak actually sits atop a rift in time/space which allows all kinds of nasty things to come crawling into the world. It is also not widely known that the nuns actually lived inside the oak.

When a normal adventuring party opens the door of the giant oak tree, they will see a set of stairs going down. These lead to a section of your favorite megadungeon teeming with all kinds of monster badness. If, however, any member of the party is blind, blindfolded or otherwise cannot use their eyes to see, there are no stairs down, but rather a gate leading into the main grounds of a monastery which can only be “seen” by those who cannot use their eyes.

If the monastery is successfully entered and those who enter it begin to pray, the tear in time/space is closed. Thus, anyone entering the oak sans blindness or a blindfold would simply see the empty shell of an oak trunk. How and why the blind nuns no longer pray 24/7 to keep the tear closed is part of the mystery a party might stumble upon while exploring the dungeon and the monastery.

Meditating on 5e (Basic Rules) Part 2

PLEASE NOTE:Currently, all of my meditations on 5e are going be about the Basic Rules as a stand-alone product outside the context of the rest of 5e. I am doing this for a couple reasons:

1. My only access to 5e is the Basic Rules, because I cannot afford to invest anything other than free in my gaming for the foreseeable future.
2. As this community has demonstrated from its outset, there is value in examining a rule-set on its own. We have examined 0e, Holmes, B/X, 1e etc. and found a number of wonderful, unexpected treasures buried inside those rule sets. We’ve also found a number of things we’d rather not use.

Yesterday, I got several comments that deserve a response. Due to the wide breadth of these comments, I am going to do an entire blog post.

Firstly, my biggest beef with 5eBR is that as a stand-alone product, it is unusable. There is no treasure table. There is no advice in the DMs section on awarding XP, except a table in the Building Combat Encounters section. That means, as is, combat is the only way to earn XP. Certainly, I can hack away and use treasure and XP tables from another edition, but I really didn’t want to have to do that in order to play. Even though limited to 1st-3rd levels, both Holmes’ and Moldvay’s Basic Editions are playable without using any other outside material.

Secondly, there is enough in 5eBR that I do want to play it in some incarnation. There are two things, specifically, I will definitely be trying out regardless of edition I play in the future:

• Advantage/Disadvantage — this is such an elegant mechanic that so simply deals with a huge swath of situations where a ±1 to ±4 just never felt right.
• Backgrounds — anything that can enrich the story of a 1st level character with randomized goodness, a couple of non-combat areas of expertise, NPC contacts and some equipment that one might not otherwise bother buying is right up my alley.

Thirdly, while I do understand and accept that there are other useful models for granting XP, reading 5eBR reminded me how awesome Arneson’s 1 XP = 1 gp spent really is. As anyone who has read this blog long enough knows, one of the things I value most in my RPGs is freedom. While combat-only is a legitimate choice for awarding XP, it does so at the cost of player freedom and, at least in context of how much a goblin is worth and how fast the XP progression is in 5eBR, my own ability to suspend my disbelief.

Player freedom goes out the window, because the only way a mage can become second level is to go out and fight things. IF Arneson’s XP model is used, that very same mage has a huge variety of choices as to how to get to second level. The mage could go and find a goblin army to kill, but a more interesting choice is to make off with the army’s supply caravan or to run off with the treasure hoard of the evil mage paying the goblin army.

To boot, the 1 XP = 1 gp formula puts the development of the character directly in the hands of players. How a player spends that money in order to become second level defines who that character is even more than class mechanics. That same mage could spend money by bar hopping across your favorite FRPG city or by buying access to a private collection of scrolls. Each choice says far more about the character than his/her spell book does.

I have also found that when players are having to find ways to dump thousands of gold pieces, the easiest way to do so is to invest in and build stuff. Players suddenly have far more of a vested interest in the health and safety of a community/locale when this kind of spending happens. Thus, external threats become much more personal and adventures have higher stakes.

Fourthly, while professional armies were a new thing during the Hundred Years War, the largest expense of the Crown was equipment not wages. And if, as is the tradition in FRPGs like D&D, one relies on literary source material, according to Shakespeare, Henry V had a close personal friend hung for stealing from the conquered French. Thus, the actual amount of cash an average commoner would get from a 6-month contract wouldn’t likely be enough to be able to advance to second level. Which goes to show that this scenario is a lot easier to justify using older editions than trying to justify how anyone, let alone an officer, in an army could only be 1st level using 5eBR.

Finally, when it comes to game mechanics, I don’t buy into systems that treat PCs differently than the rest of the world. Suspension of disbelief plays a large part in this, because such a mechanic is antithetical to the world view of my faith. Christ gave eternal life to all of humanity when He went to the cross and rose from the dead. The crux of our life is what we do with that gift. Practically, it means that anyone can do great things. If a game does not allow Joe Nobody to defeat Mr. Big Bad Guy with a good plan and good luck, then my suspension of disbelief is out the window, because I know the stories of thousands of Joe Nobodies who did do great and wondrous things.

Meditating on 5e (Basic Rules)

PLEASE NOTE: As of now, all my musings on 5e are going to be about the Basic Rules (which I will refer to as 5eBR from now on). When one has a child in the hospital for the better part of a year, one’s gaming budget is Free. I have no ability anytime in the near future to actually purchase any of the core rulebooks. I may never do so.

I really want to like 5eBR. I really do. It is a really good hack of D&D and there are several interesting ideas that I will be hacking into my own hacked version of D&D. Unfortunately, I cannot bring myself to like 5eBR as is. It all comes down to a theatrical concept called suspension of disbelief.

When putting on a theatrical production, it is critical that the world presented have some kind of internal logic so that when presented with things such as the Battle of Agincourt from Shakespeare’s Henry V— something that could never happen within the confines of a theatre stage — the audience can easily immerse themselves in that world. They suspend their disbelief that the battle can’t occur on stage.

RPGs operate in a similar fashion. Everyone who plays D&D, for example, should know that the world presented defies all kinds of economic, physical and social logic. However, the rules do such a good job of representing a fantasy world in the abstract that we have successfully suspended our disbelief for decades.

Upon reflection, the moment I knew I didn’t like 3.5 was the moment my suspension of disbelief was shattered. Our party stumbled upon a machine that was built/controlled by the bad guys. It was a giant clock work of gears. We wanted to literally throw a wrench into the works; however, we did not have a rogue and the gear system was the equivalent of a DC25 trap. No matter what our party did, no matter how logical, no matter that it would work in the real world no one in our party could stop those gears from turning. I could no longer immerse myself in the world and I found, rather, that I was just seeing how illogical and silly it all was.

When the DM section of 5eBR was released, I decided to “play” the game the only way I could: stock a dungeon and see how it compared to the editions I like to play. I quickly realized that I couldn’t. There are no treasure tables. I then realized why WotC would be so lazy as to not include any: all XP comes from combat. Treasure is largely irrelevant.

This seriously challenges my ability to suspend disbelief: in order to become a better mage, cleric or thief you have to go kill stuff. The world presented isn’t a world where adventurers explore ruins from lost civilizations. Rather, it is a murder world where prowess in combat is everything. I suppose if you wanted to run a campaign inspired by Glen Cook’s The Black Company this would be okay, but this certainly isn’t the game I played as a kid.

What really threw my suspension of disbelief out the window was the combination of XP progression and the amount of XP given per kill. I have no real issue with fast XP progressions, especially in context of not having the kind of time necessary to take a character from 1st to 9th level (something I never did using older rule sets). Personally, this really never bothered me because my favorite “tier” of play is 1st-3rd; however, I could see how shortening the XP progression could be a very good thing.

Having said that, the world 5eBR presents completely breaks down when considering the amount of XP given per combat kill. A measly little goblin is worth 50 XP, a bandit 25 XP and a commoner 10 XP. At 300 XP to get to 2nd level, it would take 6 goblins, 12 bandits or 30 commoners to advance. This defies logic, because those kinds of numbers should be achievable through basic training — especially in a murder world where even scholarly mages need to kill things to be a better mage.

This is rendered even less logical when one realizes that Soldier is one of the backgrounds available to 1st level characters. A professional soldier in a world where combat is a constant should be plowing through the equivalent of 6 goblins almost every day during training, let alone if one actually participated in some kind of military campaign. Add to that the idea a 1st level character could be an officer and the 5eBR world just spirals off into the ridiculous.

I suppose that if the average age of a 5eBR 1st level character were, say, eight I might be able to accept all of the above, but I don’t really get off on imaging a character as an eight year old kid who is forced to murder things in order to get by.

For me, this all highlights the genius of Arneson’s 1 XP = 1 gp spent. Regardless of the world in which such a scheme exists, the main impetus for characters to advance from 1st to 2nd level is getting enough cash to invest in themselves — whether through better equipment, better henchman, tithing to a church, a down payment on a house, etc. Thus, each character can become a renaissance man (woman) in their own unique way and believably face down tougher and tougher monsters and win.

It also becomes believable that an army of commoners will still be commoners after a series of battles. When treasure spent is the main way one gets to 2nd level (because otherwise someone would have to kill 100+ goblins), war is no longer the main way a bunch of normal joes can become high-powered adventurers. Only folks willing to explore ruins, lost civilizations and dungeons to bring back treasure get to do that.

Saintly Saturday: St. Gerasimus of Perm

Today is the Feast of St. Gerasimus the Bishop of Perm, which is both a city and an area in central Russia at the base of the Urals, where Asia and Europe meet. It is the traditional home of the Zyryani or Zyrian people (today, they are called Komi). St. Gerasimus was elected sometime after 1416 and was the third bishop of this newly Christianized people.

During his bishopric, he took part in local councils. One dealt with the structure of the Russian Church and one rejected union with Rome as advocated by Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev. The villages of the Zyrian people were also frequently raided by Novgorodians (who had their own Republic at the time). These raids were primarily carried out by a pagan tribe known as the Voguls. St. Gerasimus was extremely diligent in caring for his flock, going so far as to condemn the raids and travel in Vogul territory urging them to cease their violence. He was murdered by a Vogul in 1441. Tradition holds that he was strangled with his own omophorion (part of the bishop’s vestments which go around his shoulders).

There is a meme among those of us who play fantasy RPGs which champions campaign worlds that don’t feel like traditional high fantasy and/or medieval Western Europe. Personally, I like my campaigns to be a healthy mixture of the familiar with the alien. The familiar elements help players immerse themselves in the world, while the alien elements help bring a sense of wonder and a need for exploration. The See of Greater Perm at the time of St. Gerasimus is an excellent example as source material for this kind of campaign.

While still ostensibly European in character, its proximity to Asia (especially a fantasy analog) justifies PC classes like monks and any others that one might port over from your favorite Asian-flavored rule set (mine would be Ruins & Ronin) as well as all kinds of cool monsters.

Politically, Perm is a keep on the borderland between the Far Eastern reaches of European Civilization and the Asian Wilderness. The Europeans have an ongoing political conflict between the power hungry Novgorod Republic, the more traditional power of Kiev and the upstarts of Moscow. (Given the raids by Novgorod and St. Gerasimus' rejection of the Kiev move to ally with Rome, it would seem that Perm-as-Keep on the Borderland would be a Muscovite endeavor).

The Republic is comfortable with assimilating (pagan) nomadic tribes from Asia in order to expand their territory. This could be interpreted as having a number of non-human and non-Lawful allies, which could very well complicate matters for PCs as they come into conflict with non-human adversaries.

The modern name for the Zyrian peoples is Komi, which can be translated as River People. This justifies re-skinning magic to be more water/river based. Cure Light Wounds, for example, could be understood to be the application of Holy Water to a wound.

Given that Perm is around the same Latitude as Juneau Alaska, the theme of Heat vs. Cold or Fire vs. Ice could also color the traditional Law (Civilization) vs. Chaos (Wilderness) dichotomy.

The coat of arms of Perm includes a bear, which suggests that (polar) were-bears play a large role in the campaign.

Finally, a branch of the modern Komi peoples are reindeer herders, which invites me to do the following:

Frost Elf

Prime Requisite: STR and DEX
Requirements: INT 9
Hit Dice: d6
Maximum Level: 11

Frost elves are found in arctic and subarctic forests and are often seen riding reindeer. While not as innately magical as normal elves (they cast arcane magic as a magic user of half their level), they do have the following abilities:

• Beast Friendship: frost elves gain a +2 reaction with wild animals, may take them as henchmen and can identify flora and fauna with a roll of 1-3 on a d6.
• Creatures of the Forest: +1 to surprise rolls when in the wilderness
• Elf Tongues: frost elves can speak elf, gnoll, hobgoblin and orc
• Elven Senses: frost elves can detect hidden and secret doors with a 1-2 on a d6 when actively searching and with a 1 with only a casual inspection
• Frost Familiarity: +1 saving throw bonus versus Petrification/Paralysis; immunity to the touch of ghouls
• Frost Missiles: frost elves can imbue any missile weapon with frost, giving them a +1 on damage. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd, 6th and 9th level
• Frosty Mist: frost elves can cast Obscuring Mist once every eight hours
• Icy Grasp: at 3rd level, frost elves can cast the equivalent of Shocking Grasp once per hour
• Ice Web: at 5th level, frost elves can cast the equivalent of Web once per 8 hours
• Numbing Cold: at 7th level, frost elves can cast the equivalent of Slow once per day
• Stonghold: upon reaching 9th level, all animals within 5 miles of a frost elven stronghold will be kind and helpful

Frost elves fight as fighters, may use any weapon and can wear chain or lighter armor plus shields.

XP Progression:
Level 2: 3,350
Level 3: 7,700
Level 4: 15,400
Level 5: 30,800
Level 6: 61,600
Level 7: 125,000
Level 8: 250,000
Level 9: 420,000
Level 10:590,000
Level 11: 760,000

Giving Thanks

Several months ago, I tried to start posting to this blog again. Shortly thereafter, my daughter’s health took a dramatic turn for the worse. She is still in the hospital, having had almost a dozen major surgeries and been a razor’s edge away from being declared brain dead. Only by the grace of God is she still with us and there is actually an end in sight to this whole chapter of our life. Thus, gaming and thinking about gaming haven’t been on my radar, let alone blogging about gaming.

I do plan, however, to get back to some sort of routine here in this little corner of the internet, because I miss it, and (most importantly) I miss the people who inhabit this little corner. Therefore, I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who has sent prayers, warm thoughts or just generally missed my musings. All have helped me get through this past year.

I hope that those who know this blog and know me are neither surprised nor offended that I must also give great thanks to God for all that He has done for me and my family this past year.

I am looking forward to being here more often in the near future. Godspeed.

I Like Things Black & White

It is ironic, really, that under normal circumstances “life” would be intruding upon my “RPG time” but now that my circumstances are anything but normal, “RPG time” seems to want to intrude upon “life.” That I am writing this at all is an indication that my less than normal circumstances are less dire, but I certainly do not have the time to make this a habit, yet.

There are several things that have wormed their way into my attention: Dwimmermount, Basic 5e, various controversies and a survey by Frog God games asking me for my opinion on whether or not they should go full color or not. All of these have made me feel nostalgic and I have occasionally pursued the blogverse. Therefore, I found a nice little piece at Hack & Slash On the Visual History of Illithid that allows me to, somewhat, easily address the last of these issues.

You will find an interesting comparison of Githyanki art by Russ Nicholson:

and Wayne Reynolds:

Whereas one can lose yourself in the Nicholson piece, the Reynolds piece is a bit, well, boring. This, despite all its cool color, detail and action.

Given Frog God Games’ interest in going Full Color, I got to thinking. I found myself wondering why I find that the static pose and details are better in Reynolds than in Nicholson, but I want to look at the Nicholson art, not Reynolds. So I decided to see if it was the color that got in the way (BTW, for a more philosophic take on my opinion about F/C vs BW art look here). So I did a little Photoshop on Reynolds and found this:

Yes, the color did get in the way. Suddenly, here is an illustration that seems to move. It draws me in and I am trying to fill in details of why, where, what and how. I am sold.

Black & White is what dreams and fantasy are made of.

The Feast of St. Prokopius and an Update

Today is the Feast of Prokopius the Great Martyr, for whom this blog was originally named and as I did my morning prayers early today I was reminded that I have left this particular area of my life fallow for quite some time. For that I apologize (especially to those who have encouraged me or tried to get a hold of me and fell victim to my shortcomings despite my best intentions).

The reality is that I haven’t been playing or much thinking about playing for the past year. Medical issues have plagued my family. I had to go through some physical therapy (nothing serious) but my daughter is currently in a hospital two hours from home and will be there for the foreseeable future. Thus, when my schedule is dictated by driving to and from the hospital to be at my daughter’s bedside all the while supporting the rest of my family, playing any kind of RPG let alone maintaining a blog about it really doesn’t even show up on life’s radar.

I pray one day I will have the time and freedom to return to this part of my life, and will be especially interested in how the landscape has changed in the meantime.

Saintly Saturday: The 26 Monk-Martyrs of Zographou Monastery on Mt. Athos

Today is an interesting feast: the 26 Monk-Martyrs of Zographou Monastery on Mt. Athos. My interest is in the fact that it is part of the larger story of the Great Schism.

The popular date for the schism between East and West Christendom is 1054. This is due to a very dramatic event: the papal legate assigned to Constantinople angrily placed a papal bull of excommunication upon the altar table of the Patriarch of Constantinople during a liturgy. This event, however, only signified one argument among many between Rome and Constantinople during which time other Eastern jurisdictions remained in communion with Rome.

The truth is that the Great Schism was a process more than a single event. The seeds were planted as early as the 8th century when the Franks began to distinguish themselves from Constantinople and eventually claimed to be the true heirs of the Roman Empire.

The single most important event in the whole process (at least in the minds of Eastern Christians) is the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. The City had been unconquerable for almost one thousand years and it falls, not to pagan barbarians, not to the great Roman enemy the Persians or to the Ottoman Turks, but to fellow Christians from the West. It was a deep and bitter betrayal.

Constantinople became vulnerable. It is in this context that the story of the 26 Monk-Martyrs of Zographou Monastery is told. In 1274, Emperor Michael VIII accepted union with the Roman Church in the face of threats from both East and West. The Union of Lyons stipulated a recognition of Papal authority, the use of the Filioque in the Creed and the use of unleavened bread for communion.

With the sacking of Constantinople fresh in their minds, most of the Orthodox East rejected the Union of Lyons, including Patriarch Joseph, who was deposed. It is even reported that the emperor’s own sister remarked, “It is better that my brother’s empire should perish, rather than the purity of the Orthodox Faith.”

The 26 Monk-Martyrs of Zographou Monastery were among those who were persecuted for refusing to submit to an imperial edict that demanded acceptance of the Union. When imperial forces were sent to Mt. Athos to enforce the imperial policy, the martyrs locked themselves inside the monastery and reproached the imperial forces from inside. The attackers set fire to the building and all twenty-six monks were burned alive.

In truth, the Great Schism didn’t fully come to be until East and West stopped talking to each other after Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans in 1453.

***

Flaming Ghoul

Let fiery wrath swallow up the survivor, and destruction overtake those who oppress your people. — Sirach 36:8

Number Appearing: 1d6
% in Lair: 80%
Alignment: Chaotic
Armor Class: 6
Move: 9
Hit Dice: 2 (turn as 3 HD)
Attacks: 1d3/1d3 + flame
Special: see below
Save: F2
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: XXI
XP: 47

These restless dead are normally the angry victims of persecution — especially those who were burned to death. They resemble normal ghouls, save for the fact that their flesh is charred instead of desiccated. While in combat, they burst into a magical flame. Those in melee with them must make a Save vs. Breath or take 1d3 heat damage every round. Anyone who is hit by the claw of a flaming ghoul must make an additional Save vs. Breath or catch fire. Those on fire will automatically take 1d3 points of damage per round that the flame is not put out. It takes one full round to put a flame out. Anyone who dies from the flame will rise as a flaming ghoul. Those under the effects of a Bless spell are immune to the flames.

Saintly Saturday: St. Sisoës the Great

Today is the feast of Sisoës the Great, a monastic saint of the fourth century. He began his ascetic trials at the monastery Nitria, just outside of Alexandria, Egypt. After the death of St. Antony the Great, St. Sisoës went out into the desert to live in the same cave that Antony died in. He lived a life emphasizing humility, as is evidenced by the story of his death.

As his brother monks gathered around his death bed, the face of St. Sisoës began to shine as if the sun. When prompted, he began to describe the coming of St. Antony, then the Prophets and then the Apostles. He then began to speak. When his brothers asked who he was speaking to, the saint explained that the angels had come for his soul and he was begging for more time to repent.

The monks tried to argue that he had no need of repentance, but the saint replied, “I do not think that I have even begun to repent.”

The light of his countenance then became unbearable as he explained the the Lord was coming. Then there was a great flash of light, the air was filled with a sweet fragrance and then (as the Orthodox Church likes to say) St. Sisoës fell asleep in the Lord.

As inspiring as this story is, I want to talk about this icon:

It is called The Astonishment of Sisoës the Great and depicts the saint at the tomb of Alexander the Great.

During the fourth century, Emperor Theodosius began to issue a series of decrees outlawing the worship of pagan gods. At this time, Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria obtained the legal authority over a pagan temple (some accounts have Dionysus, others Mithraeum), which he intended to renovate into a Church. When secret caverns beneath the temple were discovered, this caused a major conflict between the pagans and Christians. The pagans were forced to retreat into the Serapeum, the main pagan temple, taking Christians as hostages. Though many Christians were tortured and thrown into pits used for blood sacrifice, Theophilus asked for leniency from the Emperor; however, he did ask that all pagan images be destroyed. As a result, the Serapeum was demolished by a combination of Roman soldiers and monks. It is at this time that the remains of Alexander the Great disappeared from the historical record.

St. Sisoës was a contemporary of these events, thus, despite a lack of any written record, what is depicted in the icon is probably an actual occurrence.

The inscription on the icon reads thusly:

Sisoës, the great ascetic, before the tomb of Alexander, King of the Greeks, who was once covered in glory. Astonished, he mourns for the vicissitudes of time and the transience of glory, and tearfully declaims thus:

“The mere sight of you, tomb, dismays me and causes my heart to shed tears, as I contemplate the debt we, all men, owe. How can I possibly stand it? Oh, death! Who can evade you?”

In other words, it doesn’t matter if you are one of the greatest kings in the history of the world, or if you have conquered all the world, or gathered riches from all the world: in the end death makes us all a pile of bones.

An interesting note about the Serapeum: it is named for the Ptolemaic pagan god Serapis. He was named the protector of Alexandria and was a syncretic combination of Osiris and Apis. This was done so that these local gods could be accepted by the Greeks, who ruled Egypt after Alexander until Egypt fell to Rome. I find it fascinating how politics helped create a pagan cult which became the center of pagan worship in Alexandria.

Besides exposing me as a history geek, this story has an interesting twist on factions within a dungeon — faction can be outside the dungeon fighting each other for the right to explore/protect/go in. Thus, the PCs have to negotiate with various parties to get into the dungeon, and may find that the control of the dungeon entrance has changed when they return to the surface (giving the DM/Ref/LL/Judge plenty of opportunity to have fun with the players).