2021 Character Creation Challenge: Day 30 - Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition

     The penultimate entry in this series takes me back to a version I only played in a single campaign.  I was pretty much out of gaming while the Navy moved me around from Virginia Beach to Newport RI to San Diego to New York City to Jacksonville and finally to Chicago where my career changed.  In December 1999 we moved back to Minnesota and I got back in touch with one of my gaming friends from college and Virginia Beach.  He invited me to join his 2nd Edition group and I've been back in gaming fairly steadily for the last twenty years.  As soon as 3rd Edition came out we picked it up and went on from there, so all I ever bought was a used Player's Handbook and maybe a source book.  I made a single character - a bard, who the party accused of being a thief.  (I did name his horse 'Back Pay')  In honor of that character, I've rolled up another one.

I used Method 2, rolling twelve d6 and taking the top six. (7, 15, 12,13,12, 11,9, 14, 17, 18, 13, 4).  After due consideration of Prime Requisites and survivability of different stat arrangement I decided on this

ST  14

DX 18    Reaction + 2 Missile +2  Defense -4

CN  17   Hit Points +2

IQ  13   Languages 3 Max Spell Level 6

WS  13

CH  15   Henchmen 7  Loyalty +3  Reaction +3

The problem with Bards mechanically (at least in 2e) is the highest Prime Requisite value they need is Charisma - but NONE of their abilities are really tied to it.  Influencing others is a Save vs Paralyzation with negatives based on the Bard's level.  Inspiring allies, just happens, range increases by level but nothing else.  So while I couldn't make Charisma a dump stat, there was no reason to max it out.  

Intelligence is the second highest required Prime Requisite and the Bard is a Spellcaster.  But they have to find all of their spells after 2nd Level, getting the scraps the Wizard leaves for them.  While a Bard can cast Fireball (and would be cool to so) having a high intelligence doesn't really help them acquire it or cast it for more damage.  I will say that it helps them learn the spells, but I recently had a 1e Wizard with 18 intelligence roll a 98 to learn fireball - so he can't - and it shows nothing is guaranteed.

Dexterity in a lightly armored character is always a good thing, so max it out.

That left me with a 17 to place in Strength, Constitution or Wisdom.  Wisdom was ruled out immediately, no advantage there.  I almost went with a 17 Strength for the additional hit and damage.  But too many years on both sides of the screen have demonstrated how much of a game changer having more hit points is in the game.

Stats having been distributed, looking at Bard abilities had me looking back at the Thief tables for Pick Pocket, etc.  The racial bonuses pushed me to select half-elf as a race. I checked, in 2e humans don't get an extra proficiency, otherwise I would have gone with that.  That gives base percentages of Pickpocket 35%, Detect Noise 15%, Read Languages 0% Climb Walls 60%.  Distributed the twenty extra points 5 to Detect Noise and 15 to Read Languages.

Last thing to do was Non-Weapon Proficiencies.  A section, I had completely forgotten about.  As a Bard I felt obligated to burn one to learn a musical instrument, then reread the Bard entry and found I didn't need to.  So Appraise and Blind-fight (which takes two proficiency slots).

For a name, well, I was reading Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave series at the time and used something based on a minor character's name.  So I'll go with a Celtic name with a Latin ending again.

Celynus                               Chaotic Neutral  Half Elf   Bard 1

ST  14

DX 18    Reaction + 2 Missile +2  Defense -4

CN  17   Hit Points +2

IQ  13   Languages 3 Max Spell Level 6

WS  13

CH  15   Henchmen 7  Loyalty +3  Reaction +3

HP 8    AC 2 (Rear 6)  Hide Armor    GP 19

Bastard Sword (2H)               THAC0   20  Damage  2d4/2d8

Composite Short Bow            THAC0  18   Damage  1d8/1d8 (Sheaf arrows)  ROF 2/1  Range 40/80/170

Abilities:  Climb Walls 60%, Detect Noise 20%  Pick Pockets 35%, Read Languages 15%, Influence Reactions (Save vs Paralyzation) , Inspire (Chose +1 Attack, +1 Save, +2 Morale) 10' radius, Counter Spell (Save vs Spell), Identify Item 5%, 30% Resistance to Sleep & Charm, 60' infravision, Detect secret doors (Passive: 1 in 6, Active: 2 in 6, Concealed 3 in 6).

Proficiencies:  Appraise, Blind-fight (-2 to Attacks)

    A fixture in the cheaper taverns of the City State, Celynus claims to be Viridian and related (admittedly distantly) to the World Emperor.   His dark skin and red hair, indicate that the relationship must be VERY distant and he probably has closer relations with the pirates of the Sea of Seven Winds.

Character Creation Challenge Posts:

2021 Character Creation Challenge
Day 1 - D&D 0e
Day 2 - Empire of the Petal Throne
Day 3 - Metamorphosis Alpha
Day 4 - Chivalry & Sorcery 1e
Day 5 - Traveller
Day 6 - Runequest
Day 7 - Gamma World
Day 8 - The Morrow Project
Day 9 - There was no Day 9.  Bumping the schedule back a day.
Day 10 - Warhammer FRP.

Day 11 - Judges Guild Universal Roleplaying Adventure

Day 12 -  Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 

Day 13 - Space 1889

Day 14 - Shadowrun

Day 15 - Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

Day 16 - Infernum

Day 17 - The Dark Eye

Day 18 - Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Day 19 - Labyrinth Lord 

Day 20 - Carcosa

Day 21 - Swords and Wizardry

Day 22 - Adventurer Conqueror King

Day 23 - Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

Day 24 - Castles and Crusades

Day 25 - Warriors of Mars

Day 26 - Chivalry & Sorcery/ Swords & Sorcerers - Norse

Day 27 - Chivalry & Sorcery/ Swords & Sorcerers - Celt

Day 28 - Chivalry & Sorcery/ Swords & Sorcerers - Steppe Nomad

Day 29 - Chivalry & Sorcery/ Saurians

2021 Character Creation Challenge: Day 15 - Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition

   3rd Edition, where the OSR took it's own course, thanks, I think, to the Open Game License.  Really don't know it was probably eight or ten years afterwards before I became of the OSR and people were squabbling over who invented it.  

    Lots of baggage was jettisoned in 3rd Edition THAC0 and the odd saving throw categories from the beginnings.  Lots of complexity was added, skills and feats and challenge ratings.  The first two led to the rise of the min/maxers, who always seemed to me to mistake winning for playing the game.

   Time is tight and it took me a while to come up with a character concept that I felt like building.  Too many choices was implied in the complexity.  Just to be weird, I'm going to build a half orc sorcerer,  Sorcerers need high Intelligence and Charisma, 3rd Edition penalizes Half Orcs in Intelligence and Charisma.  Ran the spreadsheet until I had a character with high scores in Intelligence and Charisma.

ST 16 DX 10 IQ 17 WS 10 CN 11 CH 16

Half Orcs get +2 ST, -2 IQ, - 2 CH, so...

ST 18  DX 10 IQ 15  WS 10  CN 11  CH 14

Half Orc Traits: Speed 30  Dark Vision 60; Orc Blood

Languages: Common, Orc

Sorcerer (2 * Intelligence Modifier (+2))* 4 = 16 skill points at first level

Hit Dice d4

Proficient in all simple weapons.  Not proficient in armor or shields

Spells 4 - 0 level, 2 - 1st Level known.  Can cast 5 - 0 level and 2 - 1st level every day.  He receives a bonus 1st level and (eventually) a 2nd level spell for his Charisma.  Spell DC = 10 + 2 for his charisma + spell level.

Special: Summon Familiar

Base Attack + 0 Saves:  Fort 0 Ref 0 Will +2

_____________________________________________________________________________

Jens the Bastard                                     Sorcerer 1

ST 18  DX 10 IQ 15  WS 10  CN 11(13)  CH 14

HP 8   Fortitude 0   Reflex 0   Will 2

Half Orc Traits: Speed 30  Dark Vision 60; Orc Blood

Languages: Common, Orc, Skandik, Draconic

Skills  Concentration 4, Knowledge (arcana) 4, Spot 2, Scry 2, Jump 2

Feats: Toughness (+3 HP)

Proficient in all simple weapons.  Not proficient in armor or shields

Spells 

0 level - Detect Magic, Read Magic, Light, Disrupt Undead 

1st Level -  Mage

 Armor, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon

Familiar: Toad +2 Constitution

Base Attack + 0 Saves:  Fort 0 Ref 0 Will +2

Combat

Short Spear +4 to hit 1d8+4 damage.  Range 20'

Morningstar +4 to hit 1d8+4 damage

Gear: backpack, bedroll, Crowbar, ink & pen, grappling hook, silk rope, belt pouch, spell component pouch, spell book.  15 GP.

    Auburn hair, emerald green skin and blue eyes demonstrate his orc and Skandik heritage.  Surprisingly focused for a cross between an orc and a sea raider, he looks to make his fortune in the City State ... at someone else's expense.

Character Creation Challenge Posts:
2021 Character Creation Challenge
Day 1 - D&D 0e
Day 2 - Empire of the Petal Throne
Day 3 - Metamorphosis Alpha
Day 4 - Chivalry & Sorcery 1e
Day 5 - Traveller
Day 6 - Runequest
Day 7 - Gamma World
Day 8 - The Morrow Project
Day 9 - There was no Day 9.  Bumping the schedule back a day.
Day 10 - Warhammer FRP.

Day 11 - Judges Guild Universal Roleplaying Adventure

Day 12 -  Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 

Day 13 - Space 1889

Day 14 - Shadowrun

Another Box in the Basement

Cover Illustration

     I keep a lot of the stuff I picked up in the 70's and 80's, especially the old hex and counter games in a plastic bin in the basement.  I did find another use for the box this weekend, as it was the right height to support the running boards I was installing on the new truck.  Of course, I needed two bins of that height so I grabbed the one underneath, which I'd forgotten what had been packed into it when we moved in 1999.
     After I finished what became a long and painful process when the wrench slipped and I caught it on (not in) my mouth; I popped the top to see what was in it and found not only the board game 'CA' (heavy cruisers); but also my copy of Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) Moria setting.
  This is a 71 page booklet, authorized by Tolkien Enterprises  in 1984, so it freely quotes from the LotR and reproduces information from the appendices in Return of the King.  
   The stats in the book use the ICE Middle Earth Role Playing System (MERPS), a d100 based system, but they offer handy conversion tables for a 1-20 scale, like D&D. 

Contents
    After the section on conversion there is a five page introduction to the area (if you haven't read LotR), climate, ecology, plant and animal life.  These include Lothfelag a rare mushroom capable of healing and even restoring life, and the bat swarm called the "Cavern Wing" - described as a twisted cloud of knives.


  Twelve pages mixing rehashed information from the appendices about the history of Moria and the

Dwarven Sketches - including
the illusive beardless female!

dwarves with a smattering of new information, such as dwarvish burial customs, then we get into Dwarven Technology, extensive fluff on smelting and forging and bar works and wore works and mold works, ending Cold Forging magical glass on an underground glacier.
  A few machines are described and illustrated, the only ones of note to me are the "Ram Drill" and the Fire Wagon, which heats the stone which is dowsed in ice water causing it to crack.
   Three magical items are described:
       Light stones - not quite eternal light sources in gem stones.
       Watchers-in-stone - not quite animated statues that guard and warn.
       Rune Keys - for the very best magical locks

Detail of a spiked trap

Fluff on arms and armor  and use of water power leads us to the meet of the booklet, a physical description of Moria.  It's avenues and roads, mines and crypts, the metals, the metals and gems they mine - and the traps they guard them with.  While they only list seven types of trap, I will say that the quality and ingeniousness of each is so high - I was disappointed when I picked up Grimtooth's Trap a couple years ago.  Razor studded chute traps that drop you into an abyss; traps that drop you into live steam or the wheel trap that will leave a thief as a greasy smear in the tunnel.




     A couple of pages on the orcs, trolls and the dreaded Balrog, before it returns to the layout of the

Map of 1st Level and 1st Deep

city.  Very small scale maps of each level and deep in Moria - little detail but the major roads and location of important features (Durin's Stairway, the Balrog's Throneroom etc), but that's what the accompanying random chart is for, detailing what the party encounters as the skulk through the caverns.
    The last few pages have adventure ideas for different times in Moria's past and one in the future (early Fourth Age), then a number of charts.







    Overall, a nice resource that I'm glad I found again.

 

Wilderlands - Baronies - further considerations

Ian Borchardt, whom I consider one of the luminaries over on MeWe, provided some excellent

Wolvesey Castle, Winchester

feedback on my last post.  So good that I asked for permission to address it directly in a post, as it gives me a chance to elaborate on my background thinking and intentions with my Wilderlands posts.

Technically a baron is anyone that holds land directly from the sovereign (or as an allodial [Rod - had to look this one up.  Land ownership by occupancy and defense of the land.] baron owns the land in freehold).   So counts, dukes, and marquis are also barons (but naturally socially outrank a mere Baron).  They just have larger holdings and greater responsibilities as officers of the sovereign.  Anyone else is a vasavor (a vassal of a vassal) [Rod - this one I knew] and holds from one of these barons, rather than the sovereign directly.

Rod - absolutely correct.  At Runnymeade, the most common title of nobility held by the rebel barons, was actually 'Earl'.  And looking at it that way, using the Chivalry & Sorcery domain rules, the largest possible 'barony', is 142.5 square miles for the main demesne PLUS 10 of the largest (118 square miles baronies) for a total of 1,326.875 square miles, rounding up to 62 five mile hexes.  [This tracks right on the figures from D&D and the Wilderlands baronies I calculated in the previous post, but it's a maximum rather than an average.] A strong king could control 2-3 times this amount of land.

I didn't pursue this for a couple of reasons, one of which I should have addressed.  The obvious one is that 'Baron' is a specific noble title in the Wilderlands, C&S, ACKS and the real world.  The one I should have addressed, and may have in an unsaved draft, is buried on page 59 of the CSIO booklet, under Boons and Duties.  One boon is a 'Bookland Grant'; Bookland being an alienation of common land into private ownership, a practice from Saxon England.  The boon grants a building in the city or 1-6 acres outside.  I had already decided that a grant of 1-6 HEXES to a noble man made more sense than acres.  Six acres being only half the size of a small Roman farm, it's not enough to support a nobleman.

I tend to use a six hex approach.  Something that is easy to patrol in a day looking for encounters.  Although I may deform the hex shape.  It will tend to avoid dedicated terrain hexes and follow rivers.  [I consider the "clear" hexes to be still heavily wooded, just not impenetrable forest.  It takes a lot of effort to clear land.]



Rod - personally I like to have natural borders for feudal polities.  It's much easier for the king to say

New Forest, Hampshire

you own from the river to the forest, than to give accurate geo-coordinates.   It still leaves a lot of room for dispute, but at least you can see the border.  Alas, the Wilderlands maps do not really provide much in the way of terrain to draw those borders, so I used a lot of hex sides myself.  I conceive of the clear terrain as a mixture of plowed fields, pasture and open woodlands with light underbrush - like the New Forest in Hampshire; rather than the heavy pine forests I grew up in in northern Minnesota.

On a quick note about patrols, please remember that whilst the local villagers may never have been more than a days journey from their home, they generally know that area very well, and are quick to note any irregularities.  A lord (as long as they don't actively mistreat their peasants), can usually rely on pretty good intelligence from the locals (after all anything bad is likely to affect them as bad or worse, and it is the responsibility of the lords to protect them, not for them to deal with the problem).

Rod - yep and I plotted the regularly visited boundaries around the villages, although I haven't gotten to the stage of assigning villages to rulers yet.  It's actually one of the issues I haven't resolved on how to treat in my Wilderlands - the D&D rules call for 4-6 villages within the "barony" when the character develops the territory, yet Wilderlands shows villages of as few as 20 (Whan, hex 1005, Map 6 Viridistan).  I don't see a rational to add additional villages since the canon goes down to this level.

There is plenty of wilderness between actual settlements in this area.  [This isn't wilderness as D&D players define it, but rather natural undeveloped areas.  These are often quite vital for inhabitants, especially the supply of firewood (generally only dropped wood) and for foraging and licencing to bodgers  [Rod -"skilled itinerant wood-turners, who worked in the beech woods on the chalk hills of the Chilterns", yeah I had to look this one up myself too] or even lumberers.  As the and becomes more civilised the wilderness diminishes, often causing problems (but fortunately saved by the blessings of technology and civilisation).]

Southampton Town Walls

Rod - yes, this is reflected in my maps as the difference between Market Area and Patrolled.  The Market Area contributes resources to the village or town, but isn't necessarily traversed often enough by the population to be considered patrolled, monsters, barbarians and invaders may be able to pass through without raising an alarm or being pursued.  They'll probably be noticed, but word doesn't get back quickly enough for the village to take effective action as long as you don't tarry.

Depending on the technology level (remember "medieval" covers five centuries or so), will affect the location of the individual settlements (manors), which will be concentrated around rich arable bottom land. As irrigation (especially drainage in England), crop rotation, and plough development improves more land becomes arable.  Settlement on an estate will be scattered in hamlets, as well as the central village (which mainly exists to supply resources for the estate/manor), which are no more than a half-day walk from the central village/manor.  These will be concentrated around the resource to be exploited (food or rarely something else).  The fields will surround the hamlet/village.  Dedicated pasturage may be more distant, but animals are often pastured in fields after the harvest.  Long term projects (such as orchards) will always be around the manor/village since the lord is the only one that can generally afford such an endeavour.

Whitefield Moor, Brockenhurst, Hampshire

Rod - really parallels my thoughts, reading and experiences growing up in rural Minnesota, the vegetable garden was near the house, then the cow pasture and then the woods.  BUT, see my comment above on how Wilderlands already has located every small village, and they don't correspond with the citadel and castle locations.  One option I'm considering is relocating the citadels and castles on the maps for my own version.

I haven't visited many real castles, in fact the only ones I have visited were built to control cities, rather than arable land - Edinburgh, Wolvesey and the Tower of London.  While I don't argue that barons were primarily landowners, my impression has always been that the defensibility of the castle site was more important than proximity to the best farm land on the manor.  This is something for me to look into, it could be a reading bias as storming well sited fortifications is more memorable than taking a keep in a valley.  Well, the fall trip to Scotland has been postponed until 2021, I'll do some more field research then.

The baron (and the surrounding small town) will always be in a pretty centralised location.  It will have a weekly market  (given most of the surrounding villages are up to a half day away).  Traditionally this is on the holy day so that the villages may also attend the baron's magnificent stone church. A baron may even be able to afford an actual small castle (or hill fort) that serves as a mustering point for the barons troops when they are called up.  It may even actually be on a road (second or third class) in more civilised lands.

Rod - I'm inclined to phrase it that the fortification is the centralizing influence (po-tay-to / po-tah-to), especially in the context of a D&D campaign where there really are parts of the map that should be marked "Here be Monsters".   For the same reason, I would state that a fortification must exist in a barony.  

For my world I define roads, trails and paths.  While a road may or may not be paved, ala a Roman road, or even a post-apocalyptic freeway, the distinguishing characteristic of a road is that it will cross rivers via bridges or ferries, while a trail will detour to a natural ford.  Both can handled wheeled traffic, whereas a path is usually only passable on foot or mounted.  I was very happy when Rob Conley posted his map on MeWe showing the secondary roads (trails) in the Wilderlands, as the road network from the originals never made much sense to me.

A baron has  the resources (excess food) to create specialised villages that may exploit  larger resources, such as a dedicated lumber camp or mine.   [On the other hand a lord might dedicate a hamlet to a small version, such as a quarry or clay pit if they have this resource, but they will also need to hire a mason or potter to exploit them.

Rod - hence the rules for Specialists since 0e.  I hadn't really given this any thought, it's a good point only the nobles have the capital (land) to exploit new resources.

That's pretty much my take on it at this lower level.  The higher level stuff depends on the overriding sovereignty and general level of civilisation (which is generally lacking in the wilderlands).

Thank you for your input, Ian, feedback always makes a work better and more enjoyable.

Wilderlands - So how big IS a Barony?

     In my last post, I had graphically demonstrated that there was no room for nomads in Altanis, based on the patrol area of "Baronies" as listed in the canon.

     In this it follows closely with the OD&D booklet Volume 3 The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures which, in lieu of a number of hexes, gives a patrol radius.

     By time we get to AD&D, the term "Baronies" has been changed in the DMG to "Territory Development by Player Characters".  

DMG page 93

     Honestly, I find the rules opaque, the DM gives the player a map of 6 hexes, the scale isn't stated but I assume it's 30 mile campaign hexes.  Then (start) map(ping) the hexes at a 200 yard scale, so they fit nine into a one mile hex.  Once the player has mapped the central hex and six surrounding it - this is the confusing bit - which scale is he talking about, 200 yard, 1 mile or 30 miles?  It will take a LONG time to randomly roll enough 200 yard hexes to map seven 30 mile hexes.  In any case, to get back to how far the character will patrol, I interpret the final paragraph to mean once the character has cleared a thirty mile campaign hex, wandering monster checks are reduced.

     I'm going to add in one more system at this point, Adventurer, Conqueror, King includes domain level play in it's core rules and defines the territories, not only of Baron, but of a number of greater nobles also.

Time for some math!

    The Wilderlands definition of patrolling out four hexes from the center hex creates and area of no less than 61 five mile hexes.  Each file mile hex is an area of 21.65 square miles, so the area of a "Barony" in the Wilderlands is 1320 square miles or 845,216 acres or 342,047 hectares.

     OD&D defines a Barony as patrolling a twenty mile radius,   1256 square miles, or 803,840 acres or 325,303 hectares.

   AD&D is opaque, but I'm going to assume he meant a barony equaled a 30 mile campaign hex or 779 square miles or 498,831 acres, or 201,870 hectares.

    ACKS comes in a a puny six mile hex.  That give it an area of 31 square miles,  or 19,953 acres or 8,075 hectares.

Lets put it in a table and do some real world size comparisons.

Region	Description	Square Miles	Acres	Hectares
San Marino	Fifth smallest country	20	15.36	6216
ACKS	1 x Six mile hex	31	19,953	8,075
Liechtenstein	Sixth smallest country	62	39,680	1658
Rutland	40th largest Ceremonial County	152	97,500	39,457
Sao Tome and Principe	25th smallest country	386	247,040	99,974
Westmoreland	29th largest Ceremonial County	759	485,990	196,637
AD&D	1 x Thirty mile Campaign hex	779	498,831	201,870
Mauritius	26th smallest country	788	504,320	204,091
Rhode Island	Smallest US state	1033	661,120	267,546
Samoa	29th smallest country	1097	702,080	284,122
Gloucestershire	17th largest Ceremonial County	1235	790,470	319,892
OD&D	Twenty mile radius circle	1256	803,840	325,303
Wilderlands	61 x Five mile hexes	1321	845,216	342,047
Cornwall	16th largest Ceremonial County	1336	854,770	345,913
Cabo Verde	30th smallest country	1557	996,480	403,262
Delaware	Second smallest US state	1938	1,240,320	501,940

     In Real World terms,  the areas given for Wilderlands, OD&D and AD&D are simply too big, they are the size of an English County.  Now, I know that Ceremonial Counties do not represent a contiguous landholding, but while their size and boundaries have wavered over time, they do go back to the Norman Conquest where they are used as census units for the Domesday Book.  And that book shows that several barons will have holdings within the County.
    One illustration of the practical issues with the sizes given is the time it would take to patrol areas this large.  For a Wilderlands barony, it would take a single patrol over two months, at twenty miles a day, to pass through every single square mile.   Keeping monsters out of such a large area would be a frustrating game of Whack-a-Mindflayer, even with multiple patrols.

More Math Ahead!

    As long as we've reached this point, what is a reasonable size for a Barony, or any other feudal demesne?  Does ACKS have it right at a about 30 square miles?

    To answer that question, I'm going to pull out my go to system for world-building for the last 40 years - Chivalry and Sorcery.  The old red book provides a system for Designing the Feudal Nation, allowing you to generate the demesnes of the great lords, down to the landed knight.  Who isn't terribly humble even if his small manor house isn't much more impressive than the local inn.
   In this system Barons are the lowest nobles (knights being of "gentle" birth rather than "noble") however, unlike the Dukes, Earls and Counts above them, they are NEVER 'tenants-in-chief' holding their lands directly from the King.  Instead, they report up to one of the great nobles - and their fief is generated as part of generating the demesne and feudal holdings of their overlord.  In short, if when generating the fief holders of the great noble, you randomly generate a small castle or shell keep, you create a barony to hold it.  The barony itself will have fief holders dependent on it, but these will be mere landed knights.

    In the C&S Sourcebook, under Feudal Economics, are rules for calculating the amount of land to grow food for a given population.  There is a page of text, but it comes down to add up the population figures from the table, multiply by 10 to include families, beggars and bandits in the area.  This gives the total population, which is multiplied by 8 to determine the number of acres of cultivated and pasture land required to support the population.

   There is one more source I'm going to pull in, Leonard Cantor's The English Medieval Landscape.  This tome, published four years after the Sourcebook, reviews land use at the time of the Domesday Survey.  It shows that "35% of England was covered in arable land, 25% put to pasture, with 15% covered by woodlands and the remaining 25% predominantly being moorland, fens and heaths."  

     Note that the percentage of crop land to pasturage is reversed from the Sourcebook, but it's the ratios of those together to the total amount of land that I'm interested in obtaining - and that ratio is 6 acres of farm and pasture to 4 acres of wood and wasteland.  I can now calculate the average size of a "Barony".

     In doing so, I am assuming that each Barony will have the same breakdown of land use as the kingdom as a whole.  That is of course, another spherical cow of uniform density - a working approximation that meets my current level of detail.

     So, throwing the C&S tables into a spreadsheet and letting it do the math for me, based on the possible outcomes of the determining the Baron's tenants, I find that a Barony will hold between 56 and 118 square miles of territory, on our five mile hex map that is between 3 and 6 hexes (rounding up to the nearest whole hex).  Because of the distribution of possible out comes, the average size is 81 square miles or 4 hexes.  Now I can re-do the last map.

Altanis Baronies & Villages
Click to enlarge

Now, I have room for Barbarians!

Bittersweet Haul

I was contacted by a friend of mine this weekend, she asked if I wanted to come over and look through and take anything from her late husband's collection.  Here's what I came away with.

Dungeons and Dragons

Deities and Demigods - first printing, with Lovecraftian and Melnibonean deities.

DMG - this one is going to my eldest, the squid, for his collection.

Dungeon Geomorphs - Set I-III,  intact, but unwrapped.

Adventures 

Temple of Elemental Evil

G Series

Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Also photo copies of the last two and a photo copy of the Slave Lords.  I know he had an original of those, but it wasn't there.

Judges Guild

Sea-Steeds and Wave Riders - includes deck plans!

















D20 Adventures

Bastion of Broken Souls

The Standing Stone

The Forge of Fury

The Crucible of Freya (Sword and Sorcery)

Miscellaneous Maps

Dark Furies - Masterwork Maps Inns and Taverns

Skeleton Key Paper Taverns

The Dark Eye

Cucch got these when Atari was working on digital version of the German RPG.

Basic Rules

Quick Start

World of Aventuria (Setting)

Adventure: The Secret of the Blue Tower and Witching Hours






Morrow Project

I remember playing Morrow Project once, back in '80 or '81.  Cucch wasn't the Director though, it was one of the occasional members of our group.  Don't think we got much further than character generation and waking up.

TM 1-1 Basic Rules

Project File 001 - Liberation of Riverton

Project File 002 - Damocles

Project File 003 - Operation Lucifer

Project File 004 - The Ruins of Chicago

Project File 005 - The Starman Incident

Project File 006 - Operation Lonestar

Project File 007 - Desert Search

Project File R008 - Prime Base

Project File 009 - Bullets and Bluegrass

Project File 10 - The Final Watch

Directors Screen

Morrow Project Identity Packet

GA- 1 Game Master's Shield and Reference Tables

GA-2 The New Personal and Vehicle Basic Loads and Hand-to-Hand Combat System

GA-4 Vehicular Blueprints

To absent friends - he's rolling with Gary & Dave now, having the time of his afterlife!

T

Review Chivalry & Sorcery Supplement - Swords & Sorcerers: Physical Layout

A recent pick up from Once Read Books out of Long Beach C, it's a supplement to my first ever RPG purchase.

Physical Condition as advertised: "Paperback. GOOD. White and green illustrated wraps, approx. 8.5"x11", 94pp., bagged for protection, small creases to spine end, spine hinges, and corners, 3 holes punched into spine hinges, closed tear across middle  hole on back cover, price sticker remains to middle back cover, rub-wear to covers, most pages detached from spine, many loose pages, no missing pages."

Physical Condition as received.  Bagged as advertised, I'd describe the color as mustard yellow rather than green.  The exterior flaws as noted, plus an additional small tear on the top of the back cover.  Only the residue of the price sticker glue remains on the back, so no idea what the original selling price was.  I want to say the original source book was in the $20 range, but I paid cash many miles and a few decades ago - and don't save my receipts.   I'm not concerned about the holes punched in the book, as I did the same to my core rule book, some time around 1982, the Fantasy Games Unlimited bindings weren't of the highest quality.

Opening the package - the book is really feels like it's in remarkably good shape.  Inside the front cover is inscribed "Paul Rado", in much neater handwriting than I ever had.  Anyone know him?

Started paging through it to check for missing pages, the pages really are falling out as soon as I get past the preface, so I'll put it in a three ring binder right away.  All the pages are there, the page count in the advertisement did not include the pages in the dedication, table of contents or introduction, so there are an additional seven pages, every one complete and legible at first pass.

Wow, look at the dedication page.  I just read about Ed Simbalist visiting Chaosium, now I see the connection to Arneson.

All the pages are there and in very good condition.

Layout - the font seems easier on the eyes that in the Sourcebook, but I suspect when I look at them side by side they will be the same.  Nope, I was wrong - this book is laid out in 9 point font, single column; the C&S Sourcebook is 6 point font, two columns per page.  Thank you, unknown  layout artist at Fantasy Games in 1978 - much easier on the eyes!  It's divided into three sections, Nordic, Steppe Nomads and "Gaels and Picts" as a single section.  Just leafing through it, I see that I'll want to do a post looking at each section, checking for new material versus repeating sections from the Sourcebook (reusing content from previous products was a bad habit Judges Guild had in their the Wilderlands campaign setting; first chance to see if FGU did it too.). 

I'm very pleased with this purchase and will look to do business with Once Read Books again in the future.  Maybe chase my old college roommate over there to look for bargains.

Encounter Balance

     Yet another thought provoking post over on Gnome Stew, this time on Encounter Balance in the game.  As my players will tell you, I stopped worrying about it.  I stopped worrying about it in reaction to their behavior several years ago in a 3.x campaign that lasted three or four years.  I was originally excited by the Challenge Rating concept and wasted much time calculating CRs for encounters; which isn't straight forward when the numbers of players showing up varies from three to fourteen.  I noticed occasionally players seemed to get frustrated when their character approached single digit hit points.  From their reaction I realized that the concept of Encounter Balance had morphed into meaning the characters must always 'win' and that killing a character had become seen as a sign that the game had degenerated into a contest between the DM and the Players.  So I pulled a few punches and the game sucked to run. I ended the campaign and took a break.
     When I came back with a new campaign I explicitly stated that character death is an option, advising them to have a couple of characters handy.  Sure enough, a character died in the very first (random) encounter. In my current campaign, one player has had characters die not once, but twice.       Usually character death is the result of the player's and party's actions, like being the first in the room with the troll and having the next person fall and cause a pile up outside the door.  Or being 15 feet behind the thief when they blow the disarm check and the portcullis drops. And once, unfortunately, I goofed and forgot to provide the right clues that this is was encounter to run from.(Feel bad about that one.)
    Instead of worrying about Encounter Balance and calculating CRs for every encounter, I just  try come up with encounters that challenge the players to think and role play, providing clues for them to misinterpret or ignore.  As long as we're having fun, encounter balance isn't important.

Stories we share

Charles over at Dyvers was musing on the manners of deaths of various characters and generally commenting on the meaning(less) of life in an RPG.  You can hear the unspoken story behind every one of his characters and it leaves you wanting to know more, like what was in the wagon, why was it a bad thing to hit it?  Shoot, his character deaths sound like plot hooks, not the end of the adventure.

And that I think is the best part of the hobby, the stories we tell with friends go on and on.  And we get to share them with new friends.  In the last session, we gained a player, who I played Chivalry & Sorcery with twenty five years ago.  Jim and I shared the story of the squire whose tagline was "I'm not worthy" with the group and the group shared writing "Vald is a doofus" on the vampire's forehead with Jim.

What are the stories you share?

Restoring Lost Art - Pictures from Monster and Treasure Assortment Set Three: Treasure

In the final installment of the pictures included in the loose leaf Monster and Treasure Assortment, here are two unattributed pictures.  The first one reminds me of the art work on pages 172 and 173 of the DMG.  Probably the barefoot guy.

Finding Treasure

Treasure

I'm tempted by the amount of shading on the second to assign it to Trampier, but I really can't say for sure.  Again speculation is welcome in the comments.

Restoring Lost Art - Pictures from Monster and Treasure Assortment Set Three: Ogre Magi

Another Sullivan piece, an incautious fighter negotiating with Ogre Magi.  Note the third one behind the screen, there's a scent of betrayal in the air

Cutting a deal

. This does a nice job of bringing out the oriental background of this monster.  It's a good companion to the illustration DCS did in the Monster Manual.

Monster Manual Ogre Magi

Although the others probably teased this guy about his nose.

Restoring Lost Art - Pictures from Monster and Treasue Assortment Set Three. Umber Hulk

This time I have an action shot by David C Sutherland III, an Umber Hulk snacking on a fighter as his henchman reconsiders his employment.

Umber Hulk in Action

Compare this picture to Sullivan's Umber Hulk in the Monster Manual and it appears rougher and cruder.  Also it has a full head of hair. 

Monster Manual Umber Hulk

Book Review - Quag Keep

Quag Keep by Andre Norton, was as I mentioned during February's Blog Hop, the first D&D themed novel I ever read.  Indeed it is the first one ever published.  It was published in 1978, and I have the a paperback copy from the Daw September 1979 printing, which puts it right after I started college and coincidentally right after I started playing AD&D.  The book has been traveling around the country with me, thanks to the fact that most of my moving was done at the taxpayers expense.

My memory of it was that it was an unmemorable work by a major author.  It is a fairly lame premise, gamers encounter mysterious miniatures sent to 'well-known players' and are magically transported to the world of Greyhawk, where a wizard sends places them under a geas to find and oppose whoever sent them.  A bit circular but that's the premise.

The intrepid troop, travel across a recognizable version of the Flanaess; each one gets their chance to take center stage by having a unique talent/ability/possession that will get the group past this chapter's literary obstacle.  Eventually they find the eponymous castle in the middle of a swamp in the middle of the Sea of Dust where they defeat the wicked Referee, who is plotting on merging the two worlds.  Character development zero, comprehensible rational for the villain zero. Which I think is par for the course with Norton.  I read many of her works when I was younger, but never felt she was at the level of Heinlein, Asimov, Anderson or Tolkien.

Still if the plot is second rate, the individual scenes are done by a master wordsmith. She makes buying horses for the journey a scene full of background knowledge for the setting; humor and wraps up with a sense of foreboding.

I'm not a fan of any D&D setting fantasies; of the ones I've read, this one has the best writing, but the plot limits my recommendation to two skulls.

Restoring Lost Art - Pictures from Monster and Treasure Assortment Three

A few weeks ago I posted a scan of Trampier's Manticore from the Monsters and Treasure Assortment playing from 1978.  What I've done here is run the manticore and the accompanying dragon pictures through GIMP to delete the blue background from the card stock they were printed on in an attempt to bring out the original pictures as the artists drew them..  Unfortunately, the heavy card stock (and the cheap scanner) ended up with many shades of blue on the scans, so they're still not pristine.  Still here they are, cleaner than they've been seen since 1978.

Trampier's Manticore

 

Full Frontal Dragon

I suspect that Sullivan is the artist for he dragon, but please leave your guess or knowledge in the comments.  I'll post the rest of the illustrations from the Assortment as I get them cleaned.

It's Arrived! - Castle of the Mad Archmage Review

That was quick.  I ordered +Joseph Bloch 's megadungeon on the 2nd and was warned to expect 2-3 weeks for delivery.  I have to say the service was fantastic.

I'll also say that those plastic covers are COLD when they've been sitting on my doorstep in sub-zero temperatures all day.

And that I was surprised by the small size of the Illustration book, but that's because I didn't read the large print on the Drivethru RPG website.

I read through the PDFs before the soft covers arrived and the this is one impressive work, the first level alone has over 100 rooms.  The monsters are intelligently placed and with reasons for their placement.  The traps are neither over-present nor over-lethal.  Don't be misunderstand me, careless or unlucky players will end up with dead characters.  But the traps only occur often enough to keep a party paranoid.  They won't wear the party down with saving throw after saving throw.

The tricks and puzzles ranged from easy to solve to real head scratchers.  There's one I had to think about after I read the solution and I'm still wondering if I understand it correctly.  If your players are like my group and don't do well with puzzles, well, there are NPCs in the dungeon they can ask - for a price.

The maps and the adventure key by themselves would be worth the price.  The Illustration book is a wonderful bonus, it takes dungeon features out of the Theater of the Mind and allows the players to see them through the eyes of their characters.

Is there anything I don't like about it?  Yes, the books are only glued and making them lie flat so that I can see the interior margins threatens to destroy the bindings, especially with the Map book.  When that happens, there isn't enough room to punch holes in the paper to add them to a ring binder. I'll have to try to find the type of plastic binder that has been holding together my copy of The World of Greyhawk Gazetteer for the last thirty four years.

I'll still give it five skulls.

Origin of Species - Manticore

Continuing the series on the origins of the classic monsters, we come to the Manticore. 

  From Volume 2 Monsters and Treasures:
MANTICORAS: Huge, lion-bodied monstrosities with men's face, horns, dragon
wings, and a tail full of iron spikes. There are 24 of these spikes in a Manticora's
tail, and they can be fired 6 at a time in any one direction with the range (18")
accuracy and effect of a crossbow. Their favorite prey is man.

The illustration is Trampier's fronts piece from the 1978 Monster and Treasure Assortment.  Note the head is fully human ad the wings just stick out of the body in an unnatural fashion.

Pliny Natural History Book 8, Chapter 30

Ctesias informs us, that among these same Æthiopians, there is an animal found, which he calls the mantichora; it has a triple row of teeth, which fit into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and azure eyes, is of the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. Its voice resembles the union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh. 

The illustration is Sullivan's from the Monster Manual.   DCS has taken a lion's body, a spinal ridge, added somewhat more natural looking wings and given it the head of Rutherford B. Hayes.

This is one of the few subjects that both illustrated, and the real reason for the post.



Except for the tail, the manticore's description in the game marches with Pliny's from the time of the Apostles.  Making the tail a wyvern like stinger instead of the  spikes the players expect would be a nice surprise to them.  And the description of it having a body the color of blood, either in Theater of the Mind or in a painted mini would be quite unusual.