In myth, monsters and treasures are often unique. For example, not a medusa, but the medusa. Not a sword +1, but Excalibur. The advice to give items or creatures a backstory to increase interest is sort of obvious, but what if this principle is taken further so that most things are not only named and distinct, but also unique? Taking this approach also serves as a self-discipline mechanism for controlling the supply of power within the game, by making magic items essentially take the place of artifacts.

I had originally wanted to sketch out an entire setting using this method, but that proved too ambitious, so instead I am presenting a suggestive miscellany. The basic model was to take each example element from the rule book (Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox), interpret it through the lens of the setting (often as a unique element), and then place it on the hex map. This also serves, procedurally, as a checklist for campaign creation. Since you are placing game elements on the map, it guarantees that you are focusing your preparation on things that will show up directly in play.

Based on this principle, there were two other seeds from which the setting grew: each magical staff became the symbol of office for one arch-mage (leading to 10 arch-mages) and the most powerful monsters became the gods of the setting. This was also partially inspired by the original Deities & Demigods (which is in essence a high-level bestiary) and the way Carcosa presented the great old ones.

The divinities, thus, are immanent. For example, Xelior is the efreeti. Hegombol is the dragon. Though they may be challenged and slain, if killed within their domain they will not be truly destroyed and will rise, full of vengeance, on the next day. The gods are not divine aspects of mundane monsters; there are no dragons other than Hegombol.

• Arudin, genie of the air, ruler of the open skies and patron of all who would remain unchained. Stats as djinni.
• Baalroch, ruler of HELL. Stats as baalroch demon.
• Garviagad, ruler of VALHALLA, the land in the sky above the southern seas. Honorable warriors are reborn in VALHALLA. Stats as storm giant.
• Gezarvalu Catastrophon, the many-headed, incarnation of chaos and destruction, worshipped only by the insane. Rises from the sea without warning and lays waste to all nearby. Stats as hydra.
• Hegombol the Volcano, terror of the northeast, the dragon. Demands, and is paid, monthly tribute from the town at the base of his mountain. Stats as red dragon.
• Xelior, genie of fire, slave to the arch-mage Azafont of the Brass Tower. Stats as efreeti.
• Yex the Colossus. Said to once have been the mightiest of the gods, until tricked by the arch-mage Luder Dreamwalker. It is said that Yex first taught humans the mastery of stone-craft and building. Luder destroyed part of the fabulous temple of Zumen, and while Yex was distracted stole his capstone, which was also his soul. Now Yex stands frozen, supporting the remains of the temple. Stats as stone golem if the capstone is returned. The realm of Yex is all lands above the sea.

There are 10 arch-mages, each of which possess one of the 10 staves of legend. The staff is not only a source of power, but also a symbol of office. Anyone who can claim one of the staves becomes a new arch-mage. The staves no longer have charges, but instead may be used any number of times. After each use, 1d6 is rolled and on a 1 the staff will not work again until the next moonset.

• Dedardima the Collector. She possesses the Staff of Absorption, and has peppered the known lands with bunkers and underground compounds, many of which she has forgotten about, in preparation for the final battle which she perpetually fears is about to occur. She is also known as the Doomsayer.
• Azafont of the Brass Tower. He possesses the Staff of Beguiling, and also ring of Xelior, the Efreet. The pleasure gardens of his estate are infamous.
• Gorbex. She possesses the Staff of Command. She dreams of killing all the gods and being queen of the world. She has a huge army.
• Sambasmyr the wanderer. She possesses the Staff of Healing. She was driven out of her tower by the betrayal of an apprentice, Cassadior, who also tried, and failed, to steal her staff.
• Aznix. He possesses the Staff of Power and delights in the struggles of kings and warlords. He will sell his loyalty to the highest bidder.
• Kokal the Undying. She possesses the Staff of Lordly Might and is ageless. She allows few mortals into her presence.
• Sathifor the Corruptor. She possesses the Staff of the Snake and is worshipped by the lizard-men of Neshistathelex.
• Luder Dreamwalker. Possesses the Staff of Striking. It is said that he lost his first body long ago, and survives by claiming new hosts through their dreams.
• Magaitand, the Liche. He possesses the Staff of Withering and rules from the drowned palace of DAI-PALAN in the Swamp of Beltikur.
• Chalasu. He possesses the Staff of Wizardry. Nominally the highest ranking of all wizards, but nobody pays attention to him. He is said to have forgotten more spells than most magic-users have ever cast. His eye was taken by Baalroch, and he would like to get it back. His tower in the hills is where the council of arch-mages meets, once per year.

Though this setting is directly compatible with the unmodified Swords & Wizardry rules, several house rules developed naturally during the process of creation. First, clerics do not in general exist. Any clerics played will be of the singular, prophet variety. The cleric spells that do show up in the setting can be prepared by magic-users.

Further, I see magic working slightly differently. Spells are prepared as normal by magic-users, but require components to cast. This came from the idea of distributing components around the hex map explicitly. Rather than fire and forget, each time a spell is cast, a component is consumed. A spell cannot be cast without components, even if it has been prepared. Magic-users begin with 1d6 components for each spell known. Components beyond this beginning allotment must be acquired during play.

Components are specific things, not abstract GP values; a list of components by spell can be found below, along with hexes where the components can be found. Occasionally, components may be available for sale, but this is neither consistent nor reliable (especially considering that the sale of many spell components would be considered morally reprehensible by most upstanding persons). If you are playing with my strength-based encumbrance system, each type of component consumes one encumbrance slot.

For an example of another sui generis magical item, consider Mendo’s Magnificent Flying Machine, last of its kind, as a stand-in for the flying carpet. 1 in 6 chance to learn how to operate, but then it also need fuel. The flying machine can transport up to 10 persons. This item also shows how this procedure is not just re-skinning. No existing mechanics are necessarily privileged, but instead are used suggestively. For example, this version has an added benefit (can carry more people) but also some downsides (you can’t roll it up, and you need to secure fuel). So it’s not exactly the same. I like doing this much more than just giving existing stats a new face.

The images below were done by Gus L. from Dungeon of Signs. Thanks Gus!

Azafont of the Brass Tower (Staff of Beguiling)

Queen Gorbex (Staff of Command)

Sathifor the Corruptor (Staff of the Snake)

Magaitand, the Liche (Staff of Withering)

Sambasmyr the Wanderer (Staff of Healing)

Mendo, master of the ancient flying machine

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day

If you are laying out text with narrow columns, using full justification without hyphenation is unlikely to result in an attractive document. Very narrow columns are most commonly the result of wrapping text around images. Consider the following unhyphenated and fully justified example:

Unhyphenated Fully Justified Text

Pretty ugly, right?

Compare that to a hyphenated version:

Hyphenated Fully Justified Text

The hyphenated example above is still not perfect, but I suspect most readers will agree with me that it looks better than the unhyphenated example. These cases were created with a standard word processor (Mac Pages) by a person who is not a layout expert (me). A professional using real typesetting or layout software could undoubtedly do much better.

Many people prefer fully justified text, because it provides a veneer of profesionalism (since most books use fully justified text). However, fully justified is not the only option. Ragged text is a totally legitimate alternative. Ragged vs. hyphenated-and-fully-justified is a taste thing, but full justification without hyphenation (especially in a context of narrow columns, as shown here) should probably just be avoided.

Given that I have found myself giving this feedback several times now, I figured it merited a page that I could just reference. (And now you can too, if you come across egregious layouts and agree with my document aesthetics.)

Ragged Right Example

Example images and text taken from the Wikipedia page on Necromancy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necromancy

James Maliszewski has mentioned before that staircases are evocative for him of adventure. For me, it’s doors. So, during my recent trip to the UK, I made a point of taking pictures of interesting doors. Here are some from Edinburgh.

LS has a post up about using 1d12 to determine weather randomly. That’s a cool idea (I do something similar by making weather a sort of reaction roll with the cosmos, which I may have gotten originally from Talysman).

But I don’t want to talk about weather here, I want to talk about using 1d12 as a general resolution system. It has a reasonably large set of possibilities, and is also quite pleasant to roll. As LS points out, though 1d12 is not as common in the real world as 2d6, it does have the advantage of not requiring any addition. So how does it stack up for a five-fold result space? (All percentile probabilities are rounded, and so may not sum to 100%.)

Neither of the 1d12 possibilities matches up exactly, and bonuses affect the result slightly differently than with 2d6, but it’s probably “good enough” to use with the same kind of probability curve (not quite a bell curve, but a big middle with small tails). I prefer the LS distribution; the alternate is just presented for comparison.

For a “1d12 only” game, you could use ability modifiers rather than full stats, and all action resolution could be done using the 1d12 simulation of 2d6 fivefold results. Rather than 3d6 in order, there would be 1d12 in order…

Poussin – The Plague at Ashod (WikiPaintings)

I’ve been reading a book called Necropolis: London and Its Dead (a souvenir I picked up in Cambridge), and it gave me an idea for a campaign. Just jotting it down here so that I don’t forget.

The seat of the empire, the City, has served as the seat of power and the source of culture for ages untold. The hegemonic family’s rule has been unchallenged. But now, plague stalks the city, and the Heavenly Family was one of the first to succumb. In the power vacuum that followed, lords stood dumbfounded, but only for a moment before they were at each other’s throats.

Quickly, the disease raged unchecked, and the city descended into chaos, law fleeing to the hills with the nobles outside the now cursed city walls. The one accord the warring nobles made was to seal the city from the outside, hoping to save the surrounding lands by a great quarantine.

The PCs have been sealed within. Food dwindles, and many of those with arcane knowledge have turned to necromancy, either to preserve themselves from slow and painful death through un-death, or to make use of city’s now greatest resource: corpses uncountable. This is D&D as survival horror, with “treasure” often being another meal. Like insanity in Call of Cthulhu, death, while not fated, would be to some degree expected at some point.

In addition to some human classes, several types of B/X-style race as class undead would be playable, and would probably have some sort of humanity stat (perhaps shoehorned into wisdom) which would be the undead analogue of constitution/hunger for the still living. Negotiating the factions, building new power structures within the anarchic confines of the City, and maintaining enough resources to survive would be the primary objectives of gameplay. Perhaps playing an undead would need to be unlocked first, by finding and performing the appropriate necromancy.