Table This Discussion

 Roll a d6 to see which table to roll on:

Table 1 (roll d8): Why does this dragon hoard treasure?

1. In debt to a loan shark - possibly a litteral shark, or another dragon or a god or something

2. Eats and/or poops treasure

3. Compulsion due to curse and/or mental illness

4. Treasure is the fuel or raw material for some kind of magical endeavor

5. It looks real pretty

6. Saving up to buy something - you know, the thing money is actually for?

7. Building a computer, intends to melt it all down for circuits and chips and stuff

8. Peer Pressure (thanks to my friend Sam for this one)

Table 2 (roll d10): Why is this dragon keeping the princess captive?

1. Snack for later

2. Sacrifice for Satan

3. Ransom

4. Vengeance or punishment for royal crime

5. Forced to edit dragon's memoirs

6. Needs another player for a convoluted game that no one but the dragon likes

7. Just to cause chaos and make the kingdom spend time, resources, and manpower on rescue attempts

8. Prove some kind of philosophical, political, or theological point

9. Trade to another villain for something else

10. Loneliness

Table 3 (roll d8): What does this intelligent magical sword want?

1. See the wonders of the world, and maybe kill some interesting people if time permits

2. Cross off everybody on a Kill Bill-style revenge list

3. Return to the Lady of the Lake

4. Become a kitchen utensil for the finest meals

5. Spa day: get oiled and sharpened, get a fancy new scabbard, get some jewels added to the hilt or something

6. To be the Scalpel of the Gods

7. Just live a normal life without all of this killing and adventuring

8. Souls, naturally. Maybe blood.

Table 4 (roll d10): Surprisingly, this dungeon was originally a:

1. Hospital

2. School

3. Music venue, sports arena, or theater

4. Bank

5. Factory

6. Library, gallery, or museum

7. House or apartment complex

8. Mall

9. Bunker or missile silo (thanks to my friend Sam for this one, too)

10. Theme park or arcade

Table 5 (roll d8): The evil "god" is actually:

1. Demon (duh)

2. Asshole ghost

3. Asshole alien

4. Illusionist, magical or mundane, preferably hiding behind a curtain

5. Giant primeval animal, and not actually evil, just confused and angry

6. Different, more sinister god

7. Robot or rogue AI

8. A convoluted misunderstanding or pure superstition

Table 6 (roll d12): Ah yes, the two genders:

1. Lords & Ladies

2. Wizards & Warriors

3. Ghosts & Goblins...or was it Ghouls & Ghosts?

4. Tombs & Treasure

5. Tom & Jerry

6. Chutes & Ladders

7. Cadillacs & Dinosaurs

8. The Young & the Restless

9. The Sound & the Fury

10. The Quick & the Dead

11. Swords & Serpents

12. Peanut Butter & Jelly

Bonus Table! Roll d6 for your* next OD&D Campaign:

1. Holmeswrecker

System: Holmes Basic D&D with a TON of house rules, primarily inspired by the Holmes Redux post at "Pits Perilous"

Classes: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Elf, Thief

Current in-person campaign played about every other weekend, nominally set in 1980-Folio-era Greyhawk, with Portown being located on the coast of Ratik

2. Gormenghast + Outdoor Survival campaign

System: Delving Deeper

Classes: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Elf, Druid

Single semi-abandoned giant city/castle surrounded by howling wilderness

3. Stonehell and/or Pool of Radiance

System: Swords & Wizardry Core

Classes: Standard options plus Dwarf Cleric/Fighter

Possibly a one-on-one game with the whole party controlled by the only player, very casual and limited in location and scope

4. Lost Carcosa

System: Greyharp/Full Metal Plate Mail/Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

Classes: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Ghoul

Uses the titular fan-made OD&D supplement plus the Barbarian Prince hex map and a homemade megadungeon I've been making on and off (mostly off LOL LMAO got 'im)

5. The Blurst Fantasy Campaign

System: Greyharp/Full Metal Plate Mail/Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

Classes: Fighter (intentionally sub-par/obsolete), Cleric, Magic-User, Elf (unlimited Fighter advancement/Level 8 Magic-User cap), Dwarf (unlimited Fighter advancement)

Takes place in Blackmoor, near-maximum levels of silliness, domain play encouraged

6. Wizards & Warriors (probably no relation to the Wizards & Warriors video games, but I'm not ruling it out)

System: Greyharp/Full Metal Plate Mail/Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

Classes: Warrior (Fighter with nearly all Dwarf/Elf/Halfling abilities), Wizard (Magic-User plus Cleric spells/turning/equipment)

Original Scenarios Resurrected from the blog "Explore: Beneath and Beyond," and/or The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg, possibly with some inspiration from Adventures in Fantasy

*By which I mean MY next campaign, if we're being honest, since these are all things I'm hoping to run eventually, given a long enough timeline and enough interested players. You know how it goes; best-laid plans of spicy men or whatever...

Gold Box D&D - Final Party Lineup for Champions of Krynn Series?

 As with the Pool of Radiance series, I'd need to settle on a party if I want to play the three Krynn games on the Gold Box engine. In this case, I decided on a slightly modified version of the party used by the CRPG Addict for his excellent blog.

Seriously, I really only changed two characters. I was tempted to replace one of the Knights with a Human Paladin in the second game of the trilogy, or even replace the second Knight with a Human White Mage right from the get-go, but based on what I've read about these games, it really seems like a second Knight is the most powerful/useful/efficient choice here, and I'm afraid of being underpowered for the hardest battles in the second and third games. Unlike the Pool of Radiance series, there's no Dual-Classing in the Krynn series (to the best of my knowledge), but if that feature were included I'd definitely want to replace the second Knight with a White Mage Dual-Classed to a Paladin in the second game, just for the added variety. Maybe the Gold Box Companion would allow me to do that, but I guess my silly gamer instincts are preventing me from indulging in that level of "cheating" for my first playthrough.

Heroic and Adventurous Champions of Krynn

1. Sir Michale - Lawful Good Human Knight
2. Sir James - Lawful Good Human Knight
3. Elizur - Chaotic Good Silvanesti Elf Cleric (of Kiri-Jouth)/Ranger
4. Magus - Lawful Good Qualinesti Elf Cleric (of Majere)/Fighter/White Mage
5. Jazid - True Neutral Qualinesti Elf Fighter/Red Mage/Thief
6. Tamar - Neutral Good Kender Cleric (of Mishakal)/Thief

The names are borrowed from Down in the Dungeon.

Elf Variant for Delving Deeper V4b

The following rules only apply to Player Character Elves. NPC Elves follow the default rules.

Any special abilities of Elves not mentioned below (see pg. 15 of Vol. 1 "Heroes & Magic) remain unchanged.

Max Level: Fighter 8/Magic-User 8.

No class switching or dividing XP between classes. E.G. A Level 2 Elf is both a Level 2 (modified) Fighter and a Level 2 (modified) Magic-User. (Think of the Elf class in B/X, for example.) They begin "dual-classed."

To-Hit: As Fighter

Spells Per Day: As Magic-User

Prime Requisite: Strength OR Intelligence, whichever is lower.

Elves do NOT have the ability to "multi-attack" normal types (<3 HD enemies) the way that Human Fighters and Monsters do.

Elves do NOT gain a damage adjustment for having 15 or greater Strength the way that Human Fighters do.

Normal types do NOT require a positive morale check to stand their ground if a Level 8 Elf charges them.

Can only cast spells while wearing MAGICAL armor or no armor. "Armor" includes shields.

Level     XP Needed         HD        Poison Wands/Rays Paralysis Breath Spells

1             0                 1         12         13         13 15         15

2             5,000         2         12         13         12 15         15

3             10,000         3         10         11         12 15         14

4             20,000 4         10         11         11 12         12

5             35,000 5         10         11         11 12         12

6             65,000 6         8         9         10 12         12

7             130,000         7         8         9         10 12         12

8             240,000         8         8         9         9 9         9

Advantages of this Elf Variant over the Default Elf:

-No confusing/annoying need to split XP between two classes or to pick a class before each gameplay session

-More HP/HD (Level 8 Elf is on par with Level 12 Cleric and better than Level 12 Magic-User)

-Better To-Hit (Level 8 Elf is on par with Level 12 Cleric and Magic-User)

-Better Saving Throws (still not as good as any Level 12 human overall)

-Awareness of invisible opponents within 3' at Level 8

Level 12 Fighter Advantages Over Elf Variant:

-More HP/HD

-Better To-Hit

-Able to "Multi-Attack," deal +1 damage with 15 or greater Strength, and (at Level 8) force morale checks upon normal types when charging

-Better Saving Throws

-Can build a stronghold, attract/lead an army, and take over territory

-Much less XP needed per level

Level 12 Magic-User Advantages Over Elf Variant:

-More Spells Per Day

-Access to 5th and 6th-Level Spells

-Can craft Enchanted Items

-Better Saving Throws (except Breath)

-Can build a stronghold, attract/lead an army, and take over territory

-Much less XP needed per level

Inspired by the Elf Variant in White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game.

TASTY AF

Sorry for taking so long to post again, but I've been doing a lot of soul searching, and I think it's time to be honest with myself and whatever readers remain. I'm not really into games anymore. Playing them? Don't have the time or the fellow players. Creating or redesigning them? Don't have the energy, or even any good ideas left. Writing about them seems like an exercise in pointless deception and arrogant denial.

Instead, I'm going to rework this blog to cover my other, remaining true passion: cooking and catering with lesser-known and underrated recipes from vintage mid-20th Century cookbooks. In this post, I will teach you how to prepare an old-timey favorite of the Stewart household, courtesy of my prized hand-me-down copy of Golly Gee Ain't That the Whizz-Bangiest! Neato Modern Recipies to Impress at Any How-Do-You-Do, First Edition, by Ivana E. Tadoudi.

On a relatively cold Orlando night in 1993, my Gram-Gram led me deep into the everglades under the full moon while my parents slept. With a crooked finger she pointed out a WWII-era footlocker secreted beneath a half-sunken tree stump, chained shut as if to keep some vicious animal inside. As snakes swam around my ankles, Gram-Gram's arthritis-ravaged hands fished around in her Disney leather clutch until she produced a polished iron key.

"There lies your inheritance, JJ. I hid it away when the Beatles came to our shores, tried to deny the fourteen years of hedonistic horrors it used me to unleash on unsuspecting bridge clubs and bingo halls and barbeques and...oh lord, oh sweet merciful mother of God, the PTA meetings..."

She spit something black and ropey into the reeds through a gap in her broken dentures, then stared at the uncaring sky for a long moment before handing me the key and continuing,

"I hid it in your Grandpappy's war chest, waiting for you to be born, to come of age. Now it falls on you to resurrect it, to force helping after helping of pure, unnatural sin down the throat of mankind until Mammon himself chokes on the blood of a billion billion sinners."

Inside the locker was my copy of Golly Gee Ain't That the Whizz-Bangiest! From that night on, it's been a favorite family tradition for me to fix this delicious casserole every Fourth of July. Now you too can savor this patriotic flavor!

Without further ado, here's how to make:

Freedom Surprise Casserole

Serves 9 People

Ingredients:

• 16 packets of extra-dense lime gelatin mix
• Substitution: 3 lbs. calf's foot jelly and 44 tablespoons of lime pulp
• 7.25 oz. macaroni
• 10 cups beef au jus
• 3½ lbs. fresh salmon
• Substitution: 7 lbs. tilapia
• 64 Kraft Deluxe Process Slices
• 6 teaspoons olive oil
• 12 pints bourbon
• 18 pie crusts
• 2 cantaloupe
• Substitution: 1 honeydew and 4 bananas
• 9 hardboiled eggs
• 8 grams sesame seeds
• 5 quarts mayonnaise
• NEVER SUBSTITUTE WITH MIRACLE WHIP!
• Ground pepper added to taste

Steps:

1. Mix beef au jus and bourbon. Soak hardboiled eggs and macaroni in mixture overnight.
2. Remove hardboiled eggs. Boil macaroni in bourbon/au jus mixture until al dente. Separate macaroni from mixture and set both aside.
3. Lightly sauté salmon, olive oil, 1 cantaloupe, and sesame seeds until smoke alarm is activated.
4. Arrange pie crusts on 6-inch-deep tray in overlapping manner to create a pie bowl. Pour macaroni, salmon, olive oil, first cantaloupe, and 7 grams sesame seeds into pie bowl.
5. Bake pie bowl in oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool in refrigerator for 45 minutes.
6. Cut second cantaloupe into thin strips and soak in bourbon/au jus mixture while pie bowl cools.
7. While food is cooling, smoke 1 to 4 Lucky Strikes or Chesterfields and allow soupçon of ash to fall into bourbon/au jus mixture, or lightly dust hardboiled eggs as desired.
8. Remove pie bowl from refrigerator and cover contents in layer of mayonnaise, followed by layer of cantaloupe strips. Arrange hardboiled eggs on top in radially symmetrical pattern.
9. Suspend pie bowl and contents in ring-shaped lime gelatin structure. If you don't know how to do this, consult your nearest suburban housewife.
10. Use curling iron to slightly melt Kraft Deluxe Process Slices. Cover gelatin with Kraft Deluxe Process Slices. Sprinkle pepper and remaining gram of sesame seeds onto Kraft Deluxe Process Slices while still warm.
11. Place container of bourbon/au jus mixture in center of gelatin ring structure for dipping or for use as a convenient ashtray. Serve and enjoy!

Excerpt from the introduction to Golly Gee Ain't That the Whizz-Bangiest!

I hope you've enjoyed the first of many classy culinary classics soon to be hosted here at my newly revamped blog:

Pictures courtesy of https://deathgenerator.com/#familyfeud
and https://deathgenerator.com/#aitd

Special thanks to my friend Aubrey for inspiration.

Odds & Ends 2: Holmes for the Holidays

Holmes Basic D&D has been on my mind once again lately. Jess and I both miss playing D&D in person - as opposed to the online roleplaying we've been doing during the pandemic - so I pitched the idea of some one-on-one dungeon crawling with the good ol' Blue Book to her. She likes the idea, naturally. It's not hard to talk her into rolling dice.

So now I've got more odds and ends on the brain lately, all revolving around Holmes Basic this time. I don't know why, but Holmes seems to be linked with December and Christmas and winter in my mind. It's not like the Blue Book has any particularly wintry illustrations or rules or anything. It's just a weird feeling I have. Hey, maybe this is the start of a new holiday/winter tradition.

By the way, if you're also a fan of this particular version of D&D, check out this cool thing made by Zach Howard of Zenopus Archives!

Item 1: Choosing House Rules - the Dragons Gonna Drag Way

A lot of people have expanded on Holmes Basic in different ways. These are my favorite fan-made expansions at the moment. Different DMs are going to care about supporting or modifying different aspects of the rules - here's my criteria for choosing one set of house rules over another, depending on what I want to get out of my Holmes campaign or one-shot.

Holmes Complete, Redux Edition was recently posted at the excellent blog Pits Perilous. I think this might have been what got me pondering Holmes again, actually. Simple, elegant, great for anyone who wants to focus specifically on low-level play but bring in just a few more features to make the game feel more complete. I'll return to this one below.

Meepo's Holmes Companion is a classic I've seen posted many places on the internet. This page at the Zenopus Archives seems to be one of the most reliable places to download it. This is perfect for the Holmes DM who wants more than just three levels of growth for PCs, but still wants to keep things fairly limited in scope overall. Also short and sweet at four well-organized pages.

The Holmes Basic + OD&D Reference Sheet can be found at this page. It's ideal for starting with just Holmes and incorporating more OD&D material over time. It's a cool piece of work that's inspired me before. Very short at one page, with excellent layout, but also requires the most books for reference (Holmes, Little Brown Books, and probably Greyhawk at the very least).

Blueholme Journeymanne Rules is a complete game in and of itself, essentially a retroclone of Holmes but with a huge expansion of new material, including a bunch of playable races and advancement to at least level 20. This is the most self-contained and thorough option. I backed this on Kickstarter, but I honestly haven't dug into it too deeply yet. It seems really good, though, and you don't need to track down any old D&D books from the '70s to play it.

Item 2: How Do Elves Work?

I should start my noting that I used both Holmes Basic and Meepo's Holmes Companion to make this table. Without Meepo's expansion, I think the first five XP "milestones" should still be in line with the Holmes rulebook as written, however.

Prior to AD&D and B/X, the rules for elven PCs and their weird multiclassing are pretty vague and open to a lot of interpretation - debate on how OD&D and Holmes Basic elves are supposed to actually work rages on to this day. Well, I can't speak for the Little Brown Books' elf, but I'm reasonably sure this is, if not the one true intended way for the Blue Book's elf to advance in levels, then at least a reasonable interpretation of the rules, and thus "close enough" to what was intended.

The "Level" column on the far left is just my own simplification, equal to the number of hit dice the elf possesses at each experience point milestone. The "Class" column is the actual breakdown of how many fighting man and magic-user levels the elf has at each milestone. The first five hit dice (or my simplified "Levels") are covered by the actual Holmes Basic rules, while everything from 6 HD and up is my interpretation of how I think Meepo's rules are meant to expand elven advancement beyond that.

Three noteworthy things: First, elves each start with 2 levels - one in each of their two classes - but only get one hit die between the two of them...yet each additional level in either class grants a hit die, so their total HD always equals the sum of their two class levels minus one. At first I thought that couldn't be right, that maybe they only gain HP every fighting man level or every even-numbered level or something, but no, as far as I can tell the rulebook never specifies anything like that and seems to imply they gain d6 HP every time they gain a level, period.

Second, an Elf doesn't really benefit from their second and third fighting man levels except through additional HP (and I guess additional buffers against being killed outright by level drain). If my interpretation is wrong, then one alternative would be to give the elf a hit die every magic-user level, since that would be "every other level" for at least the portion of character advancement handled by Holmes, and those would be the points at which the elf has an equal level in both classes...but if you do that, you could practically just forget about the elf's fighting man levels altogether and make this whole thing much simpler, right? Instead of the confusing explanation in the book, couldn't Holmes (or Gygax and Arneson before him) have just said "Elves are magic-users that can wield the same weapons and armor as fighting men, save as fighting men when advantageous, and have d6 HD, but require twice the XP to gain each level" and called it a day? No division of XP between two classes, no confusion over HD, nice and easy.

But assuming I'm right that they get d6 HP every time they level up in either class, this means if you play Holmes Basic by itself with no house rules/expansions and without transferring the campaign to another set of rules like AD&D to allow PCs high than level 3, then elven PCs "max out" at a de facto higher "Level" than their human and other demihuman counterparts! Everyone else gets 3 levels and 3 HD, while the elves get 3 levels across two classes and a whopping 5d6 HP between that total of 6 levels.

Did I get this wrong? Please feel free to point out anything I missed or may have misinterpreted in the comments. Feel free to offer your competing interpretations as well. Who doesn't love a good nerd debate?

Item 3: My House Rules for Pits Perilous' House Rules

I plan to use the following house rules when Jess and I play our one-on-one game. They're mostly a mix of Holmes Complete, Redux Edition and bits of my own tinkering (like this and this), with a few things borrowed from Meepo's Holmes Companion and Gary Gygax's OD&D house rules. First, I've taken the altered level-based progression of spells and other class-based abilities from Pits Perilous and extended them to a maximum limit of level 4 (or 2/2 for elves), as per the chart below:

Note the two different spell totals for level 4 magic-users. Which one I pick depends on whether or not I end up including third-level spells. If I do, I'll probably pull them from Meepo and/or Zenopus.

Second, I'll be borrowing from Pits Perilous the "renown" system and the rules for losing a level instead of dying at 0 HP. Also, I'll be using everything listed on the first page of Meepo's Holmes Companion under "Rule Variants" except for dual wielding and critical hits. (Crossbows will still take a round or two to reload, in case you interpret the "COMBAT ROUNDS" section to indicate otherwise.) I will also allow fighters "with STR of 13 or higher [to] add 1 to their damage in melee combat" as per page 2.

Finally, the following changes will apply:

1. No dwarf or halfling PCs. Fighters make saving throws as if they were dwarves or halflings. The +3 Magic War Hammer is usable by fighters, thieves, and clerics.
2. No infravision for elf PCs.
3. Maximum HP every level for PCs.
4. A Strength score of 13 or more grants +1 to hit with melee attacks.
5. Unarmed attacks do d2 points of damage. Shoddy and improvised weapons do d4 damage. Light crossbows do d6+1 damage. Heavy crossbows do d6+2 damage. Magic-Users can wield staves, but they do not add +1 to damage like other two-handed weapons.
6. Read Magic is removed from the spell list. Scrolls, runes on wands and magic items, and other typical magical writing that normally requires the use of this spell can instead by read automatically by any Magic-User. This skill is considered a basic part of a Magic-User's training. Essentially, every Magic-User is under the permanent effect of a "Read Magic" spell at all times.
7. Thieves can detect secret doors and special dungeon features as if they were dwarves or elves (and their ability to do so advances as per their ability to hear noises). Thieves can vanish into undergrowth like halflings as per their ability to hide in shadows. Level 4 thieves will be able to cast from scrolls with an 80% success rate - failure means the spell is still lost as if cast.
8. For monsters without a listed Dexterity score, divide their highest listed Move score by 10 to determine their Dexterity for purposes of initiative. Outside of combat, monsters can move twice per turn just like PCs, so their maximum movement per turn is twice that listed.
9. Most magic items are identified immediately. Potions must still be sipped to ID, though.
10. Dungeon doors are not stuck closed by default, but specific ones may be stuck as chosen by the DM.

Item 4: Holmes Art in the UK Version

Warning: Some links below may be Not Safe For Work due to mild nudity.

When I did my read-through of Holmes Basic in 2016, I talked a bit about the art in the US copy I own, but I neglected to mention that the UK release had a lot of different art. It's really good, too! I especially love the cyclopes.

The blog Scrum in Miniature has a wonderful post showing off the UK art HERE. I really just wanted an excuse to point everyone towards that highly informative post, but you can find some of the differing art in a thread at Dragonsfoot as well.

Item 5: Nick LS Whelan's Dungeon Moon

Over at one of my absolute favorite blogs Papers and Pencils, Nick has lots of cool info on his Dungeon Moon setting, which I've discussed before. I would still love to play a Holmes Basic campaign set on the Dungeon Moon. I would probably either use the Holmes Basic + OD&D Reference Sheet or the Blueholme Journeymanne Rules. Mirroring the "dungeons at lower levels, wilderness at higher levels" philosophy typical of many old-school campaigns, I'd like to start out focused on dungeon-crawling on the moon, and then open the game up into wilderness exploration if/when the players find the portal down to the planet below. Of course, the planet might not be as serene and lovely as the moon's inhabitants hope it will be...

EDIT: Whoops, looks like I already talked about this years ago. Well, I still think it's a good idea, so whatever.

https://deathgenerator.com/#kq5

Odds & Ends

Tunnels & Trolls & Thieves' World

I don't know what system I'll end up running Thieves' World with, but one contender is Tunnels & Trolls 5th Edition, because the box set already includes stats for it, and I've been wanting to try it out anyway. (At least I think it's 5th Edition, since that was the most recent version of the T&T rules at the time of release.) If I go with T&T 5E, I'll probably implement the following house rule that I nicked from 7th Edition: Warriors increase their combat adds by their character level.

Carcosa Mini-Appendix M (for Movies!)

1. At the Earth's Core (AKA MST3K Experiment 1114)
2. Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer/Red Sonja
3. Conquest
4. Fantastic Planet
5. Krull
6. Riddick
7. Starcrash (AKA MST3K Experiment 1106)
8. Yor, the Hunter from the Future

Forget Yor; Pag is the real hero.

Super-Casual 2: Greyhawk Bugbearloo

Remember that new group that wants me to run D&D for them? I'm considering the following series of adventures for their campaign, in the style of my current group's Super-Casual Pulp Campaign. It'll be set in my (lightly researched, "non-canon" version of) Greyhawk, and I'm mostly using it as an excuse to run interesting modules I couldn't fit comfortably into the first Super-Casual syllabus, especially adventures by TSR UK.

Prison of the Hated Pretender
UK5 Eye of the Serpent - Level 1

N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God - Levels 1-3

U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh - Levels 1-3

U2 Danger at Dunwater - Levels 1-4

U3 The Final Enemy - Levels 3-5

UK2 The Sentinal - Levels 2-5

UK3 The Gauntlet - Levels 3-6

UK4 When a Star Falls - Levels 3-5

UK6 All That Glitters... - Levels 3-5

UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave - Levels 4-7

I2 Tomb of the Lizard King - Levels 5-7

WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun - Levels 5-10

S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth - Levels 6-10

UK7 Dark Clouds Gather - Levels 7-9

I8 Ravager of Time - Levels 8-10

EX1 Dungeonland - Levels 9-12

EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror - Levels 9-12

WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - Levels 9-12

WG7 Castle Greyhawk - Levels 0-25 (multiple adventures to fill in any "gaps")

WG6 Isle of the Ape - Levels 18+

Lost Carcosa and Barbarian Prince

Look at that beautiful hex map! And it's got enough types of terrain to match all of the major regions of the setting presented in Lost Carcosa, provided I get a little creative. Honestly, I'm probably going to be too lazy to draw my own hex map, not to mention that my illustrative talent is...modest, let's say. Why not borrow the Barbarian Prince map and just make some substitutions?

Open Countryside=Forest

Farmland=Plains

Forest=Jungle

Hills/Badlands=Colour-Blighted Wastes

Mountains=Underworld

Desert=Desert

Swamp=Sea

The Carcosan Underworld is supposed to be its own separate hex map, but again, I'm lazy, and I don't know if I'd have enough major underworld locations to require a second map anyway. My justification for using the underworld as a terrain type on the "overworld" is that the mountains of Carcosa are basically impassable aboveground. They're cartoonishly steep, incredibly treacherous, exposed to the elements, devoid of edible food and potable water, and in many cases airless and radioactive because they poke out through the atmosphere into space. (Maybe the atmosphere ends at a lower "ceiling" than it does on Earth, or maybe the mountains are just that tall.) Even the parts within the atmosphere are shrouded in toxic gas or blasted by eldritch energies or just really cold and slippery. Bottom line, the only practical way to traverse the mountains is the go under/through them, so moving across mountainous hexes means travelling underground for that leg of one's journey.

As for the named locations on the Barbarian Prince map, I'll probably keep a lot of them as-is, only renaming things as needed when placing specific destinations from Lost Carcosa. My main struggle is figuring out where to put the city of Carcosa itself and the Lake of Hali. Maybe the latter could lie to the south just off the map, with the "Samain Marshes" becoming an inlet of Hali, and "Aeravir Castle" becoming the city. I might change hexes 1723 and 1823 from "open countryside" to part of the inlet as well, so that it's more obvious that the city is right on the edge of Hali.

Mega-ish Dungeon?

I've been trying to make a big dungeon, on-and-off. I hesitate to call it a proper "megadungeon" because I don't yet know if it will fit all of the common criteria like "being the only or primary dungeon of the campaign" or "not capable of being completely and permanently cleared out by the players" or "being a living, constantly evolving place full of factions." Still, it's twelve floors deep, it's under a town, and I'm trying to make it nonlinear, so I feel like it's at least pseudo-mega.

When it comes to drawing dungeons, not only do I lack artistic talent, but I'm also usually hit by instant decision paralysis. To overcome this, I started with these geomorphs by Dyson Logos, helpfully arranged by my wife Jess in a manner both artistically pleasing and conducive to the creation of branching paths. Next, I implemented one of the dungeon's two major gimmicks, which I'll cover shortly. Then I examined the paths on each floor to see which areas were continuous and which were separated and inaccessible to each other. I changed a few details, mostly adding doors so that whole floors would be continuous, but sometimes leaving a separate area accessible only from another floor without magic or excavation. Finally, I picked where I wanted to put stairs - or maybe teleporters or just open shafts, I haven't decided yet.

So the absolute basics are done, more or less. I might add more entrances/exits on other floors; currently I only have two entrances between the town and the first level, although in my defense I did try to make one path down multiple sets of obviously-nearby stairs going pretty deep into the dungeon for quick access to lower levels. Then there are other stairs scattered about each floor to make less obvious linkages.

The dungeon's first gimmick is that the north and south edges of each floor are linked, as are the east and west edges. For example, if you go down a hall that leads off the map to the west, you'll loop seamlessly to the map's east side, at the same location on the north-south axis. Each floor is effectively a torus, except that this doesn't apply to the up-down axis. It's like how the world map works in a lot of older JRPGs. And no, of course I wouldn't tell this to my players ahead of time.

The second gimmick is actually one I haven't decided to include for sure, but it's tempting. The usual scale for old-school D&D dungeon maps is 10 feet per square, while Wizards of the Coast-era maps tend to use a scale of 5 feet per square. For this dungeon, I think I might go with 20 feet per square instead. Why?

• It would give me very big floors on very compact maps.
• It would make the conditions a little less cramped for big parties and big battles.
• It would make it feel more realistic to me that there are tons of monsters hustling around down there to serve as random encounters.
• It would give the denizens (both factions and loners) more breathing room and more territory to fight over.
• It would let me fit more furnishings and other stuff in each square.
• It would help bigger monsters get around more easily.
• Hopefully it would help inspire a sense of wonder in any explorers if even the hallways and doors and such are on a larger-than-human scale.

Anyway, I'm just trying to make something fun, not publication-worthy. I think it's good practice, and it would be nice to run a creation of my own again, even if it's not very original. Plus I can use it to see what those default random encounter and treasure tables in the D&D rulebooks are like in actual play; I almost never use them because I'm always running modules with their own tailored encounters and treasure instead. This could almost be like a "default" D&D adventure, straight from the rulebooks, which feels weirdly fresh since I'm not used to running the game without modules.

Pictures courtesy of https://deathgenerator.com/#faxanadu

The Truth About Pickles

It's not actually a pickle unless it comes from the Pickle region of France. Otherwise, it's just a sparkling cucumber.

Mind's Eye - A Magic Item

Part wildlife tagging/remote surveillance program and part series of field experiments, the Mind's Eye Project was instituted by the Rigellian Empire* as a means of testing the biological, psychological, and sociological effects of high-level magic use on humans. (It also doubles as a handy spy network should the surveilled population get rowdy.) Just find an isolated world infested with humanity,** implant some pre-selected individuals*** with "Mind's Eye" devices, then sit back and collect your data.

Outside of the human body, a Mind's Eye looks like a silver lozenge inscribed with the alchemical symbols for "digestion," "projection," and "the Philosopher's Stone" inscribed in gold. When swallowed, the nanomachines which make up the lozenge are triggered by the subject's stomach acid to separate and travel through the bloodstream to the brain, where they reform into a shape resembling a miniature goat's eyeball rooted directly to the visual cortex and connected to the rest of the brain by an extensive network of neural filaments. This process takes d6-1 turns, with a result of 0 meaning it takes d10 seconds instead. Upon completion, the effects listed below manifest in the subject.

If removed from the brain, the eyeball-like mass will reshape itself into its lozenge form over the course of about ten seconds, at which point it can be installed in another host. Mind's Eyes are almost never found in their lozenge state "in the wild," but rather in the brains of the most powerful and ambitious wizards in the land. This is presumably the origin of the stereotype that sorcerers are all brain-eating cannibals.

In it's lozenge state, a Mind's Eye is about as resistant to damage as steel, although it can be "tricked" into separating into a swarm of nanomachines by exposing it to stomach acid outside of a living human, at which point it becomes vulnerable to a variety of other caustic substances, extreme heat or cold, or even simple dilution and separation of the nanomachines to the point that they lose wireless communication with each other and shut down. If attacked directly in its eye-like state, a Mind's Eye has 8 HP and regenerates 1 HP every ten minutes. Killing the subject will not damage the Mind's Eye, simply causing it to revert to lozenge mode.

Effects

• Increases a character's spellcasting ability by one level. This is for purposes of spells per day, spell levels that can be cast, and the caster's level for the purposes of spell effects.
• This does NOT increase the character's level in any other way; it does not grant additional HP or better saving throws or a better attack bonus, it does not change the character's current XP or the amount required for the next level, and it does not allow the character to survive an extra level's worth of being level drained.
• This DOES allow characters to exceed any normal level cap or XP limit for purposes of spellcasting. E.g. A ninth level Magic-User with one Mind's Eye can memorize and cast spells as if they were a tenth level Magic-User, even if ninth level is usually the maximum achievable level in your game.
• This DOES allow members of other character classes and even level 0 characters to memorize and cast spells. E.g. A fourth level Fighter with one Mind's Eye can memorize and cast spells as if they were a first level Magic-User.
• Any character with at least one Mind's Eye can cast spells from scrolls, wands, and staves.
• A human character can only use up to 10 Mind's Eyes at once. Attempting to install 11 or more simultaneously is instantly and invariably fatal to humans.
• Naturally, the referee is free to reduce this amount if desired. E.g. If I were running BX D&D and I had set a level cap of 9 for Magic-Users, I would probably limit the simultaneous use of Mind's Eyes to 5 because the Expert Set only lists the class' level progression up to 14.
• Anything seen by the subject is transmitted to a recording device possessed by the Rigellian Empire, on which it can be played back and otherwise manipulated like standard video footage (albeit in binocular form).
• The current generation of Mind's Eye technology is susceptible to a series of glitches which cause certain visual information to be redirected only to the installed Mind's Eye(s) and not the perception of the subject. For each Mind's Eye installed, a character must succeed on a saving throw vs. magical device or else lose the ability to see one of the following randomly-determined sights: 

1. Random color - Seen as gray instead.
1. Red
2. Orange
3. Yellow
4. Green
5. Cyan/Light Blue
6. Indigo/Dark Blue
7. Purple
8. Violet-Red colors (Magenta, Rose, etc.)
2. Light brighter than 2000 lux - Seen as painful white glare.
3. Light dimmer than 1 lux - Seen as pure blackness.
4. Right angles that take up more than 25% of your field of view - Seen as drastically warped to become acute or obtuse to random degrees.
5. Distances across open air or empty space more than 30 feet across - Seen as being concealed by fog.
6. Motion - Seen as a low-FPS series of still images.

*Or the mysterious otherworldly being(s) of the referee's choice, naturally.

**One can scarcely generate antimatter without blowing up a world that's absolutely overrun with Homo sapiens, and they're just smart enough to cast spells, so they make perfect test subjects.

***As determined by the variables of the specific experiment, and possibly the bureaucratic whims of the researchers' bosses, or the irrational whims of the researchers themselves if they're not very objective.

Paranormal PC Quirks

Roll a d30 at character creation:

1. When you close your eyes, you can see invisible things...and nothing else, because your eyes are closed.
2. When first clothed for the day, one pocket is always mysteriously full of sand.
3. You know one additional language, with the following caveats: You can only write it with your non-dominant hand (ambidextrous characters have a 50/50 chance of either hand being the one that can write it). You can only read it with your non-dominant eye (50/50 chance of either if you don't have a dominant eye). You can only understand it in its spoken form by hearing it in one ear (it has to be on the same side as either the hand that writes it or the eye that reads it - player's choice). You can only speak it when you bleed.
4. Your fingerprints are identical to those of every other player character who rolls this result, and to the first NPC you meet who has never been met by any player character before.
5. Any metal surface you touch is noticeably slightly warmer that it should be, even accounting for your body heat, for d10 minutes afterward.
6. Your body is just incredibly unique, and doesn't necessarily match the genetics of your parents. Your belly button is an "outie," your hair has a counterclockwise whorl, each of your hands has a single palmar crease, your blood type is AB positive/AB negative/ RH null (player's choice), you have no wisdom teeth, you have an extra rib and a preauricular sinus and palmaris longus muscles, and cilantro tastes like soap to you. Your eyes also have at least one of the following features (player's choice):
1. Complete heterochromia
2. Segmental heterochromia
3. Central heterochromia
4. Gray
7. One day of each week, no one can remember your name without some kind of exterior prompt like seeing it in writing; seeing or talking to you doesn't count. Roll a d8 for the day:
1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
4. Thursday
5. Friday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday
8. Player's choice
8. Once a day, you can cause one human being in your line of sight to have hiccups for 3d20 minutes if they fail a saving throw vs. paralysis. This requires no gestures, only a deliberate mental trigger.
9. The first time your HP is reduced to 0 (or whatever amount would normally kill you), roll a d10: on a 1 or 2 you die as normal, but otherwise you regain half of your maximum HP. The next time you would normally die from HP loss, roll a d10 and only die on a roll of 1 to 3, then the next time you die on a roll of 1 to 4, and so on. The ninth death definitely sticks.
10. Your shadow is always (roll d6):
1. Darker than it should be, even pitch-black sometimes.
2. Lighter than it should be, even somewhat transparent sometimes.
3. Longer than it should be.
4. Shorter than it should be.
5. Changing size and shape subtly if exactly one person looks at it, but returning to normal before anyone else can see it or the viewer can be certain they saw anything unusual.
6. Moving dramatically when no one but you is looking at it.
11. Blood tastes delicious to you, drinking blood does not trigger nausea or cause an iron overdose, and you receive an additional saving throw with a +4 bonus against contracting any bloodborne diseases (even receiving a saving throw if you normally wouldn't get one at all).
12. You've somehow gone your entire life up to now without experiencing physical pain. This is because things that would normally cause a small amount of physical pain instead cause an equally compelling share of emotional "pain" or distress, and only things that would hurt at least a moderate amount register as "literal" pain. You've never been injured enough to overcome this pain "threshold." But now's your chance!
13. You have wildly changing luck. Whenever you fail a roll on which you don't have advantage or disadvantage, you gain advantage on your next roll. Whenever you succeed on a roll on which you don't have advantage or disadvantage, you suffer disadvantage on your next roll.
14. Your dreams always consist only of an accurate recreation of everything you experienced since the last time you dreamed. (Well, except for your very first dream, which covered everything from your birth up to that point.) You live everything twice.
15. Once per day, you can make every domesticated animal within earshot come to you and try to get you to pet them by saying "pspspsps."
16. Your ability scores are each increased by 1 point while you are exposed to sunlight. Your ability scores are each decreased by 1 point for ten minutes after you speak, with the timer resetting if you speak again during this "cooldown period."
17. There is a second consciousness or personality inside of your brain. You cannot read their thoughts except those they choose to mentally "speak" to you, and vice versa. They cannot directly control your body, but they experience all of your sensory input while they are "awake." They "sleep" the same amount as a normal person, but this never occurs while you sleep, so they experience what you miss while you slumber, and you have a period of privacy during your waking hours. Each of you always knows when the other is awake or asleep.
18. You're an expert ventriloquist and can do spot-in impersonations of the voices and mannerisms of others. Your voice can realistically imitate a variety of sound effects, too. This is all instinctual and not the result of practice. You have no original voice of your own, although you may have chosen a specific impression as your "default," and others might not know its origin.
19. You have an unerring sense of time. You'd know the exact hour even deep underground, and you can count the passage of zeptoseconds flawlessly (even if you don't know for sure what a zeptosecond is). You have perfect rhythm, naturally.
20. You can bend spoons and keys and similar small objects just like Uri Geller, except for real.
21. Your voice echoes more than usual, even in places where it shouldn't echo at all.
22. While touching another non-supernatural animal, you experience all of the creature's sensory input.
23. No insects, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions, spiders, woodlice, mites, or ticks will ever willingly bite or sting you. All venomous snakes and lizards you encounter will make biting you their number one priority, even above survival.
24. You know the exact distance and direction to one particular living being at all times. Once per week, you can change which person this is, provided the new target is within your line of sight or earshot.
25. Your outer layer of dead skin is incredibly hydrophobic, so the outside of your body is never really wet. Somehow, this doesn't seem to cause any health problems - your skin doesn't even look or feel particularly dry even though it literally is. Any clothes you wear become hydrophobic as well until removed.
26. Eldritch forces are constantly reshaping you for unknown purposes. Reroll a random ability score every day.
27. You were born under a bad sign. Pick a zodiac sign: you must behave in accordance with the worst stereotypes about that sign.
28. You've found a way to bargain with some god of chance. Once per game, you can change the result of one of your rolls to the best possible result or change the result of one roll that negatively affects you to the best possible result for you. In exchange, your next d3 rolls will automatically be the worst possible result(s).
29. Roughly speaking, you perceive orange as what others would consider blue, and vice versa. Same for the red-green and purple-yellow pairs. But how would you even know?
30. You're a p-zombie. Although you are indistinguishable from a normal human as far as others can tell, you have no sentience or conscious experience or inner life. The light's on, but nobody's home. So yeah, there's no meaningful difference between you and other characters in the game.

Appendix VG: Carcosa

Here's one more post about Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa that I've had on the back burner. In the style of some previous posts, I made an "Appendix N-style" list of inspirational material that heavily informs my personal conception of the setting. The twist is that these are all video games. Why?

1. McKinney's Carcosa always felt very video gamey to me, and especially comparable to retro games, what with the bright colors, and the pseudo-random, almost-clashing elements, and the synthesis of fantastical imagery and computer technology, and the way the game relies on the players' imagination to fill in the blanks and flesh out the implied world.
2. A lot of video games just happen to have elements that fit Carcosa very well, through either game mechanics, through characters and props and setting details, or through the tone or atmosphere created by art assets and music and such.
3. Video games just fucking rule.

Some people look at Carcosa and see Masters of the Universe. I see sprites and polygons and hear chiptune music.

Full disclosure: I haven't played all of these myself. I don't necessarily even think all of these are good, per se. But I think every single one of these is both fascinating in its own right and an exemplar of the aesthetics, mood, tropes, and pure gonzo insanity most associated with McKinney's Carcosa in my mind. I hope something here piques your curiosity and sparks some cool ideas for your own games and imaginings, whether Carcosa-related or within even stranger realms.

Picture courtesy of https://deathgenerator.com/

P.S. Much like Carcosa itself, "Age of Barbarian," "Produce," and the Japanese version of "The Legendary Axe II" include some nudity and/or sexual content that might be NSFW or upsetting to some people. I apologize if I neglected to warn about such content in any other games listed here.

Roll d66* for Inspiration for Your Next Game:

11. Age of Barbarian

12. Alien Storm

13. Another World/Out of This World

14. Ark: Survival Evolved

15. Axiom Verge

16. Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior/Death Sword - especially Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax

21. Blaster Master

22. Bloodborne (and Demon's Souls and Dark Souls to some extent)

23. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

24. Cap'n Magneto

25. Chakan: The Forever Man

26. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

31. Far Cry Primal

32. Generations Lost

33. Golden Axe

34. The Guardian Legend

35. Horizon: Zero Dawn

36. Kenshi

41. The Legendary Axe - especially The Legendary Axe II

42. Metroid

43. Overwhelm

44. Peter Jackson's King Kong

45. Phantasy Star

46. Rubicon (all versions)

51. Rygar - especially the NES version

52. The Sacred Armour of Antiriad/Rad Warrior

53. Secret of Evermore

54. Secret Quest

55. The 7th Saga

56. Shadow of the Beast

61. Tongue of the Fatman/Mondu's Fight Palace/Slaughter Sport

62. Turok

63. Turrican

64. Weaponlord

65. Wizard of Wor

66. Zeno Clash

Extras - After you use an entry from the table above, cross it out and roll d88** on this table for a replacement entry:

11. Altered Beast
12. Alternate Reality: The City/The Dungeon
13. Barbarian and Obliterator (the Psygnosis series, not the Palace Software series mentioned above)
14. Battletoads
15. Berzerk (and Frenzy)
16. Blackthorne
17. Blade Master (Edited on 8/17/21: I originally had Terrorpods here, but this is a much better fit.)
18. BloodStorm (and Time Killers to some extent)
21. Brataccas
22. Captain Zzap/Flash Gordon
23. Conan: Hall of Volta and Conan: The Cimmerian
24. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands/Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager/Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands
25. Drakkhen/Dragon View and Eternam
26. Dyna Gear
27. Eldritch
28. El Viento/Earnest Evans/Anett Futatabi
31. Fester's Quest
32. Forgotten Worlds (Edited on 3/6/22: I originally had Conan: The Cimmerian here, but I combined it with the Conan: Hall of Volta entry above.)
33. Heart of Darkness
34. He-Man/Masters of the Universe
35. Hylics
36. Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road
37. Isolated Warrior
38. Joust
41. Karnov
42. Koudelka/Shadow Hearts
43. Krull
44. Kult: The Temple of Flying Saucers/Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess
45. Leander/Galahad
46. Last Armageddon (and After Armageddon Gaiden)
47. The Legacy: Realm of Terror
48. Marathon/Pathways Into Darkness
51. Metal Mutant
52. Might & Magic
53. Monuments of Mars
54. Mutant Chronicles: Doom Troopers
55. Oddworld
56. O.D.T.
57. Odyssey
58. Ork
61. Perihelion: The Prophecy
62. Produce (プロデュース)
63. Purple Saturn Day
64. Quake
65. Rastan/Rastan Saga
66. Robinson's Requiem and Deus
67. SaGa/Final Fantasy Legend
68. The Sinking City
71. Space Ace (and Dragon's Lair to some extent)
72. Space Funeral
73. Space Harrier
74. Spiderbot/Arac
75. Stargate
76. Stone Protectors
77. Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
78. Strife
81. Sword of Sodan
82. Ultima
83. Unreal
84. Vandyke
85. Vangers
86. Where Time Stood Still
87. Wizardry (especially Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Crusaders of the Dark Savant, and Wizardry 8)
88. Xexyz

Picture courtesy of https://deathgenerator.com/

*If you're unfamiliar with d66 rolls, check out this Wikipedia entry...or better yet, check out Troika!

**This works just like a d66 roll, except with two d8s instead of d6s.