The Black City: Area N, the Palladium

About the Black City:  The Black City is a ruined, alien city in the frozen north, on the shore of the island of Thule.  It's a campaign setting and megadungeon I've been working on the past half year; you can see how the project is doing here:  Black City project.

The Palladium is area N on the surface map, and is the second to last surface area on the map before I move on to the dungeons (or Trade Town - not sure which I'll do first - I have good notes on both of them).  The Palladium is one of the more interesting buildings that has survived the millennia.  Constructed of an indeterminate alloy, it is a massive domed structure (reminiscent of a modern domed stadium) with half of the oval above the ground and half of the oval below the ground.  The structure is supported by massive arched ribbing; rubble and debris of the ages  is piled against the outside walls.  The inside of the domed area covers a distance 320' across and the dome is around 120' high from it's lowest to highest points.

A covered tunnel leads into the murky interior.  Dim greenish lighting is spaced intermittently around the circumference of the dome, enough to make the interior gloomy while keeping visibility poor.  Floating around the interior of the dome are a large number of floating platforms, ranging from 10' x 10' all the way up to a couple of  40' x 40' platforms; each one is a few feet thick.  The platforms all float at different heights, and create a lazy circuit counterclockwise around the dome.  Down on the floor, there is a large central platform, but otherwise the floor is littered with rubble, debris, and the bones of countless mammals.

At the end of the covered entrance tunnel is a docking station, where a pedestal featuring basic hand controls can be used to call a floating platform over to the dock.  The palladium was once used by the inhabitants of the city to take in entertainment from a central performing area on the platform below, while floating around the interior space at leisure.  Dozens of large and small anti-grav platforms continue to circle counterclockwise in the open air.  Player characters jumping or climbing onto one of the platforms will be able to discover a touch pad on the platform that responds to different foot pressures, raising or lowering the altitude of the platform, returning to the dock on the next revolution, and increasing or decreasing the speed slightly.

Unfortunately, a powerful space devil was drawn down from the stars ages ago by the city's Beacon, and it's created a lair for itself here, high above the floor on the highest floating platform, near the top of the dome.  This tentacled monster is invisible, and feeds on the blood of mammals, slowly becoming visible as it drains more and more blood from a victim.

In game terms, the space devil can dangle paralytic tentacles to fish intruders off the lower platforms, reeling them in to meet a grisly end high above the ground.  A truly horrifying experience will be when the creature launches itself off the high platform, landing with a wet thud on the next platform and temporarily displacing the platform's orbit until it regains its buoyancy.  Although it will be invisible, it will be clear to any observer that something big and hungry is launching itself from platform to platform, quickly closing the gap to wherever the party is standing.

For the manuscript, I've got some basic rules sketched out for controlling the floating platforms, their rate of revolution and ability to ascend and descend, along with how to adjudicate jumping from platform to platform.  That could be a key strategy to escaping the space devil.

Star Vampire (inspiration)

SPACE DEVIL

No. Enc.: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 40' (120'), flying 20'
Armor Class: 0
Hit Dice: 12
Attacks: 6 / 1
Damage: Special / 5d4
Save: F12
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: V x 2
XP: 2,400

The idea for the space devil is Robert Bloch's "Shambler from the Stars", but I don't believe it's public domain.  So I'm using the basic D&D Roper as the Space Devil and drawing some inspiration from Bloch's monster (Look!  It's an invisible Roper!)

The space devil is a mass of roiling tentacles that moves on the land through a combination of rolling and pseudopodia.  It is able to fly slowly through the atmosphere, and often drifts in the air over the ruins near the palladium like a large floating jelly fish, trailing an invisible tentacle near to the ground to snag a meal.

Its six capturing tentacles can reach up to 50'.  A successful hit will force a victim to save vs paralysis due to toxins, and the creature will begin to reel the victim in at the rate of 10' per round.  A victim that makes the save can attempt a force doors check to break out of the tentacle; inflicting 5 hp on the AC 4 tentacle will also sever it.  Once a victim is reeled in, numerous small tentacles with sucking mouths and claws will drain blood at the rate of 5d4 hit points per round.

The creature is normally invisible (-4 to hit, assuming the party even detects it) but for each round of blood drain it inflicts, the penalty decreases 25% as the creature becomes visible as a pinkish horror.

The creature is immune to cold-based attacks and takes only half damage from electrical attacks.  It saves at -4 against fire attacks.

Mythic Monday: The Nephilim and the Watchers

When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years." At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown." (Genesis 6:1-4)

The theme the past few Mythic Monday columns has been around demons - demonic possession, named demons from folklore (like Azazel), and now the origins of demons.  The goal has been to see what kind of ideas can be gleaned from real world myth and folklore for making demons more interesting than big bags of hit points (the D&D approach); lately that's involved looking at some potential origin stories.

Last week we looked at the War in Heaven theme - demons are what happens when one side loses; it could be rebel angels getting cast out of heaven, or the titans being thrown down by the Greek gods; the losers become monsters and go to hell, literally.

The related theme this week has to do with a group of angels called the Watchers, and their offspring, the Nephilim.  In the quote above, the phrase 'sons of god' was interpreted by later Jewish writers to be referring to a sect of angels they called "Watchers".  The term Grigori is used for the Watchers in some of the texts as well.  Sent as stewards of creation, they watched over humanity and the world as caretakers.

You can see what happened.  "Holy smokes, earth women are hot!"  The angels defect en masse, lead by a rebel called Samyaza, and their antics give rise to a generation of demigods; semi-divine "great" men, the "giants in the earth" - referred to in the passage as Nephilim.  The Nephilim take charge and plunge the world into war and debauchery.  In the Biblical story, the world is eventually swept clean by a great flood, in part to reset the mortal world after all the destruction wreaked by these amok demigods.

The apocryphal book of Enoch takes up the narrative, and describes how the spirits of these semi divine Nephilim don't die when their bodies are killed, but instead become the evil spirits of the earth.  It goes on to describe what they do while they hang around in spirit form:

"And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them. From the days of the slaughter and destruction and death of the giants, from the souls of whose flesh the spirits, having gone forth, shall destroy without incurring judgment".
(1 Enoch 15:9-12)

So there you go.  Disembodied spirits that hang around the earth and cause problems are the remnants of these ancient hybrids.  Demons.

These stories offer a lot of inspiration for gaming, because they support a couple of different classes of antagonists and players.  You've got the heavenly group (the angels), you've got rebels from that group (fallen angels), and you've got the offspring of fallen angels and humans, hanging around as evil spirits (demons).  Factions create interest and conflict.  I imagine most gamers are familiar with the idea of the Nephilim; someone even mentioned them in the comments of the Neanderthal column the other day.  And if you're not comfortable with Judeo-Christian folklore in gaming, you can transplant the actors to other pantheons and myth cycles; I've been pointing out how Greek myth has parallels to the War in Heaven and there is plenty of crazy god-on-human sex, love and rape happening in the Greek myths; most monsters in those myths are the off spring of the gods.

Next time I'll go in another direction.  In folklore, one culture's demons are usually the previous cultures divine beings.  I'll ask the question, what if the cosmology really worked that way?

Original Rules, Clone or Sequel?

I haven't seen a good name for "2nd generation clones" - games that use the OGL to mimic elements of D&D, but aren't creating a faithful retro-clone of the original rules.  So I'm going to start calling them Sequels, at least until someone smarter and wiser comes up with a cooler name (and no, not 'fantasy heartbreakers').  The sequel games I'm most familiar with are LOTFP or ACKS.  LOTFP goes lower magic, grim and grittier, with stronger character archetypes (niche protection), weirder magic, and a consistent skills set.  ACKS isn't even published yet, but it's looking really good.  It introduces a very strong campaign play mode that includes campaign roles for the core classes, domains, economics, and mass combat.  The class design approach mixes in some 3E style elements and might bridge the generation gap between new schoolers and old schoolers.  (I'm equating D&D new school = class customization and optimization).

True clones are things like Labyrinth Lord (BX D&D), OSRIC (AD&D), Swords & Wizardry (original D&D), and Dark Dungeons (Rules Cyclopedia/Mentzer D&D).

I don't know if it's nostalgia or comfort, but I find myself using different copies of the original rules as my primary references, and using the Clones or Sequels as a source of house rules.  30 years later, I still love the blue and red basic and expert books.  I can find things much faster in BX or the AD&D books than LL, for instance, although publishers are starting to move beyond basic publishing to usability at the table and layout - so my primary table references could change.  I have a hard time imagining using old-style thieves after using the LOTFP specialist - I also love the LOTFP encumbrance system, the skill system, and the focus on the fighter.  I've been getting all the prerelease rules of ACKS, and can see I'll be retiring my Companion domain economics  (among other things) once ACKS comes out, and play testing their own fighter tweaks.  I foresee my home games will be a mish-mash of systems going forward.

Seemed like a good idea for a poll.  Do you primarily run a purist game (Original Rules only), Original Rules with your own house rules, a Clone, a Sequel, or a Frankenstein mash-up of everything?

Recent Poll Results

Two recently finished polls are getting added to the polls page.

WHAT STYLE OF FANTASY SETTING DO YOU PREFER?

High Fantasy (6%), Low Magic Grim and Gritty (31%), Swords & Sorcery (61%).

I think of Swords & Sorcery as Conan stories and Lankhmar - picaresque and easy to make them episodic.   Perfect fit for D&D.  There's the belief that High Fantasy requires strong narrative control by the DM (and a ton of railroading) because folks remember thinks like Dragonlance or Time of Troubles or the DM will inflict his version of Lord of the Rings on the players, complete with Mary-Sue Gandalf and Elrond MacElminster.

Could a High Fantasy sandbox work?  I think it would be a fun project to try - maybe for my future "family campaign" I'll try and do something that incorporates all the familiar tropes of epic, high fantasy for the kiddos yet tries to keep the agency solely in the player's hands.

WHICH LIST OF ELEMENTS IS MOST IMPORTANT TO HOW YOU RUN OR PLAY YOUR D&D GAME?

Rules only (6%), Rules and Adventures (11%), Rules, Adventures, and Campaign Setting (51%), Rules, Adventures, Campaign Setting, Ruler ship of domain (6%), Rules, Adventures, Campaign Setting, Ruler ship, Economics and Warfare (23%).

Some interesting choices here.  If folks are committed to the end game, they want to go all the way - economics and mass combat rules.  I like how the ACS project is shaping up, so we should have some solid rules in the near future to help out with the campaign side of ruling and running domains.

The majority of folks just want a campaign setting with some history to place their adventures in.  I like the 6% that said, "give me a good set of rules, screw the rest - I'll wing it."

The Award-Winning "Dreams in the Lich House"

Thanks Brian!  I've been nominated for a Recruitment Award for my efforts running kids D&D for our neighborhood kiddos.  We've had 7 kids in our kid's game (now being DM'ed by a neighboring dad), 3 more kids on the way, and a splinter group of older kids that are building their own Pokemon-based RPG.  A few of the 9 year olds are in our weekly adult game.

Gaming with kids is awesome.  One thing I noticed running kids through classic modules, it's a chance to reconnect with those amazing places you visited yourself when you were a kid.  The Keep on the Borderlands or The Lost City might be old-hat to your adult gamers, but it will be awesome to the kids; I'm a big believer in the shared experience of modules.  In this case, you can trade war stories across generations.

There are a few selfish reasons for starting the kids young, too.  Recruiting players may be hard - so make your own with the neighborhood moms, dads and kids.  Recruiting is DM job security!  Plus - I've noticed that if some of the adult gamers are bringing the kids to the game, it's a little bit easier getting time away from the spouse - gaming is a family activity instead of a "Dad" activity.

You'll hear some funny stuff at the table, too, and the kids will try some pretty entertaining things.  For a while, ours all went to the Looney Tunes school of tactics.

Here's an older post on things you might hear yourself saying when dungeon mastering for 9 year olds.

Adventure Review: Hammers of the God

Hammers of the God is a LOTFP adventure for characters levels 3-5.  As such, it's compatible with any old school D&D game.  I ran it for my Gothic Greyhawk group a few months ago (prior to Ravenloft).  It is a site-based adventure module that describes a lost dwarven temple and tomb complex. Like most of my reviews, I expect the folks that read reviews of adventures are DM's and considering a purchase, so there could always be spoilers.

The booklet is 84 pages, detailing 27 rooms.  Some time back, I decided to rate the richness and density of adventure modules  (some posts on Treasure by Adventure Module), so continuing in that manner, here is how Hammers of the God weighs in:

============================================
HAMMERS OF THE GOD
For levels 3-5

Treasure 24,950 gp
Levels gained  (.6)
Density: 29%
============================================

The modern aesthetic is more exploration and less combat grind, so this is right in line with a density of 29% - but it's also not terribly lucrative in terms of monetary treasure.  An average 4th level group would only gain half a level based on monetary treasure.  However, the module is magic-rich and I found this offsets the low treasure haul.  Plus, there's a trove of information that could be priceless, from a campaign perspective.

The temple complex holds a dark secret hidden by the dwarves thousands of years ago, and a savvy group may be able to piece it together through murals, runes, and a fully detailed library.  There are quite a few traps and interesting mechanical elements for experimentation by a party of adventurers.  Like other works by this author, many of the traps are extremely deadly but fair; a group that pays attention, collects clues, or uses the necessary care, will survive.

I really enjoyed the detailed back story and some of the intricate features to the rooms; some of the descriptions for a single room spanned multiple pages.  This is quite a bit different than the sparse notes and bare bones sketches I might use in an improvisational setting.  The dwarven secrets in the library, assuming you use them, could destabilize dwarven kingdoms in the campaign world and lead to religious wars - heady stuff!

In actual play, the tomb complex kept the players on their guard and required consistent engagement with the physical environment - pushing levers, prodding things, smashing things with hammers, taking harrowing submarine rides down a cavernous water fall.  Overall, they had great fun.  The play reports started back with Game Report 21 if one cares to see how it went with my group.

I give this 5 stars on the Beedometer.  My first question when rating is:  How would this adventure compare to something I'd homebrew?  And then to get a top rating:  Has this been done before?  Does it break new ground, redefine a genre?  It's a totally personal scale.  In  the case of Hammers of the God, the level of detail throughout the complex, and particularly in the synopses of the 100 library books (I'm not kidding - 100 individual write-ups) makes this feel like an archaeological dig and the unfolding of a murder-mystery - or in this case, a massive cover-up.  And who in their right mind would write up descriptions for a hundred fake library books?  And yet, it works here.  My group greatly enjoyed the library and returned on multiple occasions.  The atmosphere of the temple complex is oppressive and eerie, and there are mechanics that keep a bit of time pressure on.  If your group likes detailed exploration over fight, fight, fight, this a good one for you.

The Black City: The Hippodrome

A note on the Black City:  It's been a few weeks since a Black City post.  The Black City is a sprawling alien ruin in the frozen north, recently rediscovered by Viking Northmen.  The project is a campaign setting I've been developing that includes islands, a ruined a city, and the dungeons beneath the city - you can skim the project here:  The Black City project.

The Hippodrome (area K on the city map) is the crumbling ruins of an ancient coliseum; the southern half of the coliseum crumbled long ago during an ancient earthquake, and explorers must make their way up treacherous blocks of stone and rubble to see the arena below.  There are three wide tunnels that lead from the floor of the arena into the warrens beneath the seating area, and ultimately connect to both the Transit Tunnels (dungeon level 1) and the Warrens of Decay (dungeon level 2).

There are small enclaves of White Apes throughout the city and the tunnels beneath it, but the largest population has staked a claim here, in the ruins of the Hippodrome, lairing in the tunnels beneath the stadium.

I still need to put together a formal bestiary article for the White Apes, but their origin is that they are the remnants of early humans, devolved along the evolutionary tree by the alien overlords of the city many tens of thousands of years ago to become a slave race.  Their stats will be somewhere between BX Neanderthals and BX White Apes - they have much higher than animal intelligence, simple tool building skills, and even a little use of fire, but are still a separate species from humanity.  The name "ape" is a misnomer, misapplied by early explorers, but these hairy brutes do have ape-like features and are covered with shaggy white hair.  They're like oversized, white haired chimpanzees - an arctic version of a stronger, tougher Australopithecus.

Violent packs of male apes roam the snowy wastes around the lip of the arena and surrounding streets, armed with bone clubs and rocks, and often enter into violent clashes with other groups of apes or men.  However, anyone that makes it into the arena area and comes into the awareness of the powerful females that dominate White Ape society will be greeted in another manner entirely.

Perhaps the apes are jealous of man's gracile form, or they innately understand the inter-species compatibility between man and ape, but male adventurers will be accosted in an inappropriate, yet arguably friendly, manner.  Any explorers that are able to wander the ape tunnels will see evidence that other raiders from Trade Town have been to the tunnels beneath the Coliseum and have taken advantage of the primitives; hybrid ape children can be seen and there's even evidence identifying one of the crews involved - a flag or standard that belongs to the long ship, Crow Feeders.

Ape society is strongly matriarchal, with females forming powerful alliances to control the males of the tribe and enforcing a communal lifestyle.  There's no sense of paternity among the White Apes, leading to the communal raising of all chimps, including the hybrids.  The most powerful male in the tribe has a degree of autonomy outside of the lair, and often leads violent patrols into the ruins of the city.  The White Apes have a primitive language and can also communicate through hand signals.

The apes hunt a number of animals on the ice, but desperately fear polar bears and some of the other predators that haunt the city.  They're often victimized by the inhabitants of the Tower of Terror.  For that reason, they descend to the Warrens of Decay to gather food and fuel in the sprawling caverns below, retreating into the colder upper tunnels of the city to escape the monstrous insects that inhabit the Warrens.

Unbeknownst to most inhabitants of Trade Town, the recent discovery of the Black City was not the first time the city was found in modern times; a ship was blown off course and landed here decades ago, leaving with a most unusual passenger.  Now there is a prominent person back at Trade Town that doesn't know he's a hybrid, returning to the island of his birth after decades living in the Northlands.  There's something in the air here, something in his blood.  If the players return to Trade Town with stories of the Ape Men and evidence of the hybrids, it might unhinge this person as certain connections are made and forbidden questions  are answered.

Ape Men of the Black City (White Apes)

No. Enc.: 2-12 (10-40)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: weapon or 1 bite
Damage: 1d6 or 1-3
Save: F2
Morale: 7
Hoard Class: XX
XP: 20

The bestiary article will include societal details from the entry above, such as the matriarchal nature of the ape clans and the demographic break down of males, females, and children.

The Ape Men use primitive clubs and sharpened bone axes as weapons, and can hurl rocks for 1d6 damage.  Every clan will have an alpha male that fights as a higher HD monster; a 3HD monster if there are 20 or more apes in the clan, and a 6HD monster if there are 50 or more.  (It's true the number appearing in the wilderness is only 10-40, but I reserve the right to have larger clans gathered - DM fiat!)