Horror in the Cloud Mines

PENELION - Session 12 - Labyrinth Lord

This is the first time I’ve taken a group of players through the cloud mines. It seems to have gone quite nicely, although some aspects of the adventure induced a bit of timidity in the group. The cloud mines are basically an upside-down floating labyrinth, the individual levels of which are separated by cables that can be transversed by enclosed cable cars. Each labyrinth level is an independent swaying, creaking, levitating enclosure that is attached to the ground hundreds of feet below by a cable. The cloud mines float in a thick opaque mist that induces fearsome hallucinations unless special precautions are taken. Several of the floating levels act as distilleries that extract magical fluids from the opaque vapours – hence, the cloud mining. These distillery levels have large complex glass machines with apparatuses extending deep into the vapour banks outside the enclosures.

PCs: Philina (level 2 cleric), Chipwich (level 2 thief), Syeth (level 2 MU), Alia (level 2 fighter)

NPCs: Merryn (level 2 cleric)

Return to Penelia: The party has now relocated to the small deep-forest hamlet of Penelia, home of the animist Penelion Sisterhood, to which Philina and Merryn belong. The sisters tend to a large ancient owl living in a Venusian-sized tree to the west of the hamlet. Unrest in the southern range of the forest led the matriarch of the Sisterhood to urge the party to investigate a haunted glen in the mountains foothills to the south. It has been observed that troupes of small blue-skinned eyeless humanoids have been traveling in and out of the glen in recent months. This glen was the site of a massacre eons ago, and those who enter the glen return insane or are lost forever.

The Glen of Opaque Vapours: The party finds the entrance to the glen and camps out nearby to keep watch through the night. Shortly after dusk a man runs out of the glen and Alia catches up with him on her horse. The man, Hyne, says he’s an explorer as well, and gives some background about what he knows is in the misty glen. For reasons that are mysterious, a floating cloud mine has been constructed in the vapours by a Cinnabar Witch. There are apparitions in the vapours that will drive you mad if you look at them. Hyne has built a pair of fine-slit blinder goggles that aid in traversing through the vapours. The party heads back to town for the night, and some role-playing with Hyne, the party, and the locals ensues. The next day the party agrees to return to the mines with Hyne, and they hire local craftsmen to make slit-goggles for the whole party.

Through the Vapours: The party returns to the glen. As they follow a footpath deeper into the mists, the vapours begin to take a scarlet hue. Rotten figures shamble about the group, threatening mystic fear. Philina uses her blessed bandana (magic item from several sessions previous) to resist the fear. The group finds a stone structure with a ladder leading to a platform. There is an enclosed wooden car on the platform attached to a cable leading directly up into the blood hued vapours.

Into the Cloud Mine: A crank moves the car hundreds of feet up the swaying cable until a thud halts the car’s movement. The party exits the car through a hatch in the ceiling and find themselves in a wooden room – they are in the entry chamber for the floating cloud mine. The group explores this level of the mine (I’m not providing too many details here…) and finds living quarters and mangled corpses of the eyeless blue men – mineworkers apparently. The group is attacked by, and barely defeats, a gaggle of horrific wild beasts – large chimpanzee-like creatures with transparent skin - that appear to have invaded the cloud mine. The group eventually finds some special glass goggles that prevent the hallucinations of the vapors. They also find a shrine to a Cinnabar Witch and a cable car leading to a distillery level of the mine. Two members of the group make a quick trip to the distillery level, take some vials of red sticky vapour distillate, which they conceal from Hyne, and return to the party on the first level. The group then leaves the cloud mine and heads back to Penelia.

(NOTE: I still owe players a recap of Sessions 4-11)

 

The Sands of Mars

Mars photos from NASA APOD.

You must ENLARGE these photos to maximize awesomeness.

Thawing sand dunes:



Barchan sand dunes blown by the wind take a liquid aspect:



Landslides of black sand create the impression of a surreal forest of ebony yucca trees:



This crater, the Echus Chasma, is hypothesized to have been one of the major water sources on Mars. These cliffs are ~4km high and were possibly carved out by running water. At one time this may have been the greatest waterfall in the solar system:



Martian landscape marked by mysterious streaks of black sand:



Strange white finger-like rock formations revealed at the bottom of an impact crater:



Avalanche:



A weird 150m-wide pit in the side of a volcano. Infrared thermal signatures suggest this is a very deep hole leading to an underground cavern system. Several of these pits have been identified:

Recycling Human Heads Into Magical Items

A mind is truly a terrible thing to waste. In fact, many centuries ago it was common, even fashionable, for magicians to recycle unused or unneeded brains into handy little fellows known variously as “chi-chi friends”, “scholars’ helpers”, or “homunculons”. These homunculons, as we will call them here, typically consist of a human head with a few extra appendages or features added – fingers, eyes, ears, toes, etc. Players can gain a great deal of pleasure and utility from owning and caring for a homunculon. One of these little guys can truly be a magician’s best friend!

Care and feeding of homunculons is fairly simply. Because they can go into a hibernation-like torpor between moments of activity, they do not require much in the way of food or drink. After each use, just make sure your homunculon gets a bite or two of grub and a sip of something to wet its tongue. A dormant homunculon can sit for centuries between uses. Be sure to keep your homunculon clean! Because they lack gastrointestinal tracts, they tend to relieve themselves rather quickly after a meal. They have little buttocks at their napes, you see. Some homunculons may tend to have strong appetites, which can lead to a bit of a mess.

If a Dungeon Master wishes, she may randomly determine the nature of any homunculon her players may make acquaintance with:

Type of Homunculon (1d6):

1. Reminder – Once per day a Reminder can read and memorize a single magic user spell of level 1-3 and “remind”, or recharge, a magic user’s memory of that spell. This assumes the magic user has the ability and a memory slot available, either through having recently cast a spell or by not having previously filled the memory slot for that day.

2. Reciter – Can read, memorize, and verbally recite up to 50,000 words of normal text.

3. Reader – Can read and verbally translate normal text. Knows 2d6 languages.

4. Transcriber – Usually in the form of a large hand / head fusion. Can read, memorize, and transcribe up to 50,000 words of normal text.

5. Translator – Can verbally translate up to 2d6 spoken languages.

6. Analyzer – Once per week an Analyzer can observe a spell being cast and has chance of learning the spell, which it can then transcribe into writing. Analyzers always have a hand and/or several fingers attached to aid in transcription. To learn a spell, the Analyzer must be able to clearly see and hear the spell being cast from no more than 15’ away. To determine if the attempted spell learning is successful you must roll the spell’s level or higher on a 1d4 (for example, for the homunculon to learn a 3rd level spell you must roll a 3 or 4 on a 1d4). Some rare and valuable Analyzers, fashioned from the brains of once-powerful magicians, can roll 1d6 or even 1d8 for this purpose

Roll for Two Extra Characteristics (1d6 twice):

1. 1d8 extra fingers
2. 1d4 extra eyes
3. 1d4 extra ears
4. 1d4 toes
5. Head attached to a foot
6. Head attached to a hand (required for Transcribers and Analyzers)

Size: 2d4 pounds

Intelligence Level (1d4):

1. Animal
2. Toddler
3. Average
4. Genius

Personality Trait (1d20):

1. Giggly
2. Surly
3. Enthusiastically helpful
4. Snobby
5. Poetic
6. Manic depressive
7. Co-dependent
8. Cowardly
9. Pretentious
10. Likes to sing
11. Problem with hiccups, farting, or burping
12. Overly hirsute
13. A beautiful face
14. Desires fine clothing
15. Dope addict
16. Amorous
17. Loves fine wine
18. Awesome moustache
19. Charming personality
20. Only a child

Magical Meconium of a Godling - World Oranj Session 3

This ~4hr session was a nice mix of exploration, role-playing, and tactical adventure. Sadly, we also had our first PC death: Sproutface – the only lawful PC in the group. The party found a large treasure stash, including several MU scrolls. Interacting with Loomis, the spurned apprentice, and Little Chief, the captive goblin, brought more clues regarding the nature of Morton’s sidetracked project of reviving a dead godling. With this game we also began playtesting a new Beastmistress class, where advancement leads to gaining special animal-related abilities (inspired by the Gamma World mutation system).

Continuing PCs: Cookie (L1 F), Gorlark (L1 F), Franklin (L1 C), Sproutface (L1 C), Monolaba (L1 C), Scunibro (L1 MU)

NPCs: Mess (Farm Lad), Pipple (Farm Lad), Shiply (Poet)

Welcome New PCs:

Beana – Level 1 Beastmistress (playtesting new character class), has a large curly mop of hair that her pet bird Taka lives in.

Loomis – Level 1 MU, came to ask Morton for an apprenticeship, and rapidly ended up in a floating sphere of Vaseline.

Magical Meconium of a Godling: The party is two levels below ground in a large chamber dominated by a 50’ long stone tub holding a gigantic human head with a tiny limp body floating in oily brown bathwater that smells like meat. Large prisms and lamps, dark, on swinging arm apparatuses flank the tub. Monolaba dips his finger in the brown liquid and tastes it… ‘tase good! A weird high pitch telepathic voice asks Monolaba if he enjoyed the godling’s meconium. Franklin fails a save against spells and is charmed by the voice, who asks him to please feed the head using the crystal hand (see session 1). The brain in the giant head is messing with the group. Cookie restrains Franklin and pulls him into a southern chamber…

Stasis Gel Orbs: A small room with two floating gel orbs and a pool of water with a waterspout going into the ceiling. From each gel orb are rescued two more prisoners of Morton: Beana and Loomis. Much cool first-person role-playing ensued as Beana and Loomis explained how they were each captured by Morton, and what they know about the place.

Water and the Fungus Heifer: The party heads further south into a series of fungus caverns. They pick samples of various species of mushrooms – Purple Chanterelles, Lace Morels, Yellow Roaners, etc. Monolaba took a taste of a Purple Chanterelle and didn’t notice any immediate effects. Exploration and mapping brings some notable discoveries: large ancient statue of amoeboid creature, a small stream falling into a dark cavity, a large shy fungus beast with black ascomycetic eyes retiring in the back of a cavern.

Blood, Gore, Goblins, and Rats: A fairly complex series of encounters occurred where the players learned how to gain access, through a portcullis, to an eastern set of tunnels inhabited by hostile rock goblins. A series of gnarly back-and-forth tactical fights through the tunnels occurred. No characters died, but some were left unconscious or were seriously wounded. Scunibro’s sleep spell helped finish off a good portion of the goblins, and the party took one captive for questing. The little goblin said that the troupe was hired by Morton to help defend and maintain the caverns, and that there were many more goblins remaining. The party set up camp in an easily defendable room for the night. The party was interrupted once in the night by a pair of large rats who were quietly watching the party from the edge of the firelight. Beana spoke with the rats, who said that the goblins were mostly killed (in contrast to the captive’s story). The rats departed, and the party was able to get some rest.

Grod the Magical Goblin and the Deaths of Sproutface and Mess: The next day the party reentered the Goblin cave to try to finish off the creatures. While the party was distracted by a screaming goblin, Grod the Magical Goblin Chief snuck up from behind the party and cast a sleep spell, laying most of the group on the ground. Only a couple players, in a side tunnel, remained awake – they ran as quickly as they could to awaken their companions and attack the small group of goblins now ambushing the party from the other side of the cavern. Ultimately two party members had their throats slit and died: Sproutface (the only lawful PC) and Mess. The party killed off all the goblins except for one, whom they christened “Little Chief” because they promised to reward him the control of the newly emptied cavern in exchange for his assistance. The party looted the goblin’s supply room and Grod’s personal chamber, where they found some of Morton’s scrolls and fine valuables.

So back to town the party headed with the corpses and the treasures…

7 Weird Drawings by Penny Davenport

Some recent drawings by U.K. illustrator Penny Davenport. Truly delicious!

Gary Gygax’s Whitebox OD&D House Rules

At the beginning of our World Oranj Whitebox OD&D game I started picking through various common house rulings in order to put together my own initial set of house rules. My personal list is based on rules I use in Classic D&D games (currently, Labyrinth Lord) and also on rules I've read about but never tried (see the excellent house rule lists by Philotomy and Delta). During this exercise I paid special attention to Gary Gygax’s house rules, which I attempt to compile here. The topic of Gygax’s OD&D house rules pops up on a regular basis in game forums, and some of what I summarize here will be old hat to many readers. My goal was to sift through the chit-chat and identify some of the specific rulings originating from Gygax himself. An important caveat is that Gygax was constantly tinkering with his house rules, meaning that any reported house rules should not be considered the final word.

I found two main sets of Gygaxian house rules. The one that is most frequently discussed in game forums appears to originate from Robert Fisher, who compiled the list after questioning Gygax about a game run in 2005 (someone please correct me if this citation is inaccurate). The rules were:

    * Only use the three little books - none of the supplements.

    * Ability scores rolled as best 3 out of 4d6. Arrange scores to taste.

    * All PCs get 1d6 hp/level. HP rolls are rerolled on a 1.

    * Fighters get +1 HP/die. All PCs get +1 HP/die if Con > 14.

    * Fighters do +1 damage if Str > 14.

    * Dex doesn't affect AC. (It does affect missile attack "to hit" rolls.)

    * PCs start at 3rd level.

    * PCs are unconscious at 0 hp. They can go as low as level +1 before death. (e.g. a 4th level fighter can be brought as low as -5 hp and just be unconscious.) A healing potion or cure spell restores them immediately.

    * 1d6 for surprise. 1=1 round. 2=2 rounds. 3 or more=no surprise.

    * PCs must declare actions before initiative. Casters must declare the specific spell being cast.

    * 1d6 for initiative. A tie means simultaneous combat.

    * A casting caster who loses initiative will lose his spell if hit.

    * No training necessary to gain a level.

    * To acquire new spells casters must find scrolls, spellbooks, or a friendly higher-level caster.

    * Clerics don't need spellbooks. (The original books can be read to imply that they do.)

    * Gary IDs most magic items immediately (charging large sums of money when they return to town to rest & recuperate for this service). (This is because the players are anxious to get back into the dungeon & don't want to bother with in-town adventures.) Potions must still be tasted to ID, though. Unusual items require a trip to the striped mage.

The second set of rules comes from a forum posting that Gygax himself made in 2007:

    * STR > 14: +1 to hit and +1 to damage if a Fighter

    * INT > 14: +1 1st level m-u spell

    * WIS > 14: +1 1st level cleric spell

    * DEX > 14: +1 to AC, and +1 to move silently

    * CON > 14: +1 HP per HD (same as a Fighter class gets, +2 if a Fighter)

    * CHA > 14: +1 (positive) on reaction checks

    * HPs: Characters are only unconscious at 0 HPs. For each level a character may have a minus HP total equal to the level, so a 1st level PC is dead at -2, a 2nd level at -3, etc.

    * When taking damage allow -1 HP per character level (from a GenCon XL report posted by Gygax)

Another quote directly from Gygax (ENWorld, September 2006), shows that he maintained the 1st level cleric spell house rule:

"I run three-booklet OD&D now and again myself, adding some house rules to make 1st level PCs a bit more viable and allowing Clerics a spell at 1st level if their Wis is 15 or higher."

Gygax's house rules are interesting because most of them make characters stronger: the ability modifiers are all directly or indirectly positive, it’s harder to die, clerics don’t need books, magic items are instantly identified, no training to level-up, etc. One of the big advantages for players is the -1HP damage reduction per character level (!). Overall, Gygax seemed to be fairly liberal in giving out little bonuses to player characters.

These bonus-oriented house rules strongly imply that Gygax felt that by-the-book Level 1 characters in OD&D were too vulnerable. The main reason to implement most of Gygax's house rules would be to decrease mortality and make the characters slightly more powerful. A small number of gamers – almost exclusively experienced retro-role-playing enthusiasts - enjoy high-mortality low-level D&D play because of the special kind of challenge and excitement it offers. I like this kind of gaming myself. In my experience, however, most casual role-players are bummed out by seemingly random or premature character death. Gygax seemed to be interested in accommodating this latter group.

Gygax’s house rules are also interesting from a game evolution perspective. We can outline character strength in early D&D thusly:

    * Original OD&D: Low baseline, low positive modifiers.

    * Gygaxian OD&D: Low baseline, medium positive modifiers.

    * Classic D&D: Medium baseline, extreme negative and positive modifiers.

Having played Classic D&D since the early 80s, I now find myself increasingly preferring the Gygaxian OD&D model because it seems to be the most fun for my current players, and therefore for myself, the DM. It decreases low-level mortality to a manageable level where there's an exciting tension but players are not so cautious as to make the game tedious. It focuses on “+” modifiers, which are psychologically more fun for players (e.g. nobody likes having to take -1 or -2 to their to hit roll every single time). Also it's mechanically simpler and faster than Classic D&D because players don’t have to juggle multiple “-“ and “+” modifiers.

In general, I think it’s better to start with a lower baseline and add to it, as opposed to starting with a higher baseline and being forced to subtract. This goes for many things, including rules complexity itself. It’s just more fun that way…

Weird Masterpieces of Paul Lehr

Paul Lehr (1930-1998) is one of the greatest future-fantasist painters of the post-pulp era. He was very prolific and produced a large body of work of remarkable intensity and consistent high quality. Lehr did many mindbending paperback covers in the 1960s-80s before Michael Whelan and his wave of imitators moved science fiction and fantasy illustration towards photorealism. In the late-80s and 90s, after paperback publishers had lost interest in putting beautifully weird covers on their books, Lehr turned his attention to painting epic and highly detailed dream landscapes, a few of which are included below.