FLAILSNAILS Conventions for Nightwick Abbey

As a signatory of the FLAILSNAILS Conventions I have decided to put up a very rough and somewhat preliminary conversion guide for the current incarnation of the rules used in the Nightwick Campaign.  For now I'm assuming one is coming over from a version of TSR D&D, but I'm open to other options.

• Character Abilities: PCs will use ability score adjustments from Labyrinth Lord.  These bonuses do not cover any activities not covered in the core book.
• Races: the Nightwick Campaign currently uses a Race as Class system.  Your character becomes the racial class available in the Dark Country that is closest to your character's race.  Elves and Half Elven characters always become Changelings, while Halflings and Hobbits grow beards, develop an intense desire to make shoes, and generally become Gnomes.  Others shall be decided on a case by case basis.
• Classes: The following classes are available in the Nightwick Campaign: Assassins, Clerics, Druids, Fighters, Magic-Users, Paladins, Rangers, and Thieves.  All classes operate as explained in the Advanced Edition Compendium for Labyrinth Lord.  Fighters are the exception and gain Multiple Attacks as per Swords & Wizardry.  Racial classes include Changelings, Dwarves, Froglings, and Gnomes, but see races (above) for handling non-human characters.  In the event that you're converting an Illusionist you may pick whether your character is a Magic-User or a Changeling.
• Rules Cyclopedia Special Case: Lawful Fighters being brought in from the Rules Cyclopedia may choose to be Paladins for the duration of the game.  Neutral Clerics from the RC may enter play as Druids.
• Hit Dice:  All characters roll all of their hit die as if they were making a new character at whatever level their character currently is.  Use the Advanced HD option from the AEC.   Do not reroll 1s.
• Secondary Skills: Each Character begins with 1 secondary skill from the AEC.  This is rolled randomly.
• Alignment:  Each character is either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic.  The vast majority of imported characters will be Neutral (meaning they are polytheists and not dicks).  Chaotic characters will only be those who actively worship the various Demons that exist in the Nightwick Campaign.  Lawful characters must worship the God of Law, and it is suggested that in previous games the character worshiped a Lawful or Lawful Good deity such as Heironeous or St. Cuthbert.
• Character Languages:  Languages operate as they do in LotFP:WFRP.  Treat the character as if they have never encountered a language other than Common or their racial language before.
• Age:  Character age as though the character is brand new in the Nightwick Campaign as per the AEC. However, if the character suffered any aging affects in previous games, these still apply.
• Multi-Classing: For simplicity's sake, multi-classed characters entering the Nightwick Campaign must pick which class they really are.
• Equipment:  The character begins with any equipment they had in the previous adventure (or its closest AEC equivalent).  However, they lose all of their gold coins upon entering the Nightwick Campaign (Dark Country taxes are rough).  The character may begin with 3d8 gp in order to buy some equipment they think they may need for the adventure, but that option is for sissies.
• Spells:  Spells function as they do in the AEC.  Incoming Magic-Users begin play with a number of spells in their spellbook equal to the number of spells they can cast per day unless they are level 1.  If they are level 1 they begin with two first level spells and one second level spell.  In addition they also begin play with Read Magic.  They cannot cast anymore than they could under standard LL rules.  These spells are rolled for randomly by the judge (if  he has enough time) or the player (if he doesn't).  Changelings use the illusionist spell list.

That should just about cover it.  It'd be unlikely that these rules would be used at the actual table, since my group meets at one of my players' homes; however, they would definitely be in effect if I ever offered to run Nightwick Abbey for Constantcon.

It is possible that I might make an online version of the Abbey use a different rules set (either straight up OD&D + Houserules or S&W) in which case I'll post a different set of conversion rules.

Druids

Despite the efforts of the Church, most of the inhabitants of the Dark Country pay homage to the Old Gods in some for or another.  Even those who claim to follow the God of Law, and indeed even the most ardent supporters of the Church, will make a small sacrifice to those primordial beings who aided humans in their earliest attempts at civilization.  Such beings do not offer aid without a price, and it is for that reason the first Clerics of the Old Gods learned their arts.

Clerics of the Old Gods oversee the rites and rituals needed to appease these capricious deities.  They know when to perform the sacrifices, and the type of sacrifice needed in order to bring the community back into accordance with the will of the thing living in the woods.  This is a useful skill for a society living on the brink of catastrophe, such as the barbarians in the Dark Country.  The humans of the West have been softened by civilization -- in the opinion of the barbarians anyway, the men of the Desert Lands and the city of Zenopolis can barely tell the difference between Westerners and their barbarian neighbors.  They have forgotten what one must do in order to survive, the bargains one must make.

It is the Clerics that oversee these bargains, but these men and women are not true Druids.  Druids are only those Clerics specifically chosen by an Old God to serve as the elect leaders of their cults.  They alone are privy to the true mysteries of the universe, or at least what their gods claim are the true mysteries of the universe. They are few in number, but their power is great, and they have proven to be a thorn in the side of the Church since the Sword Brothers arrived.

However, the Druids' powers are waining.  Not in the magical sense, for Druids' mastery over the natural world grants them powers beyond the comprehension of most mortals.  No, it is the political power of the Druids that is waining. As more and more settlers trickle in from the West, the old order is supplanted by the new.  Though most men and women who profess the new faith of the God of Law still visit the shrines of the Old Gods, their children do not.  Who knows how much longer the old faith can survive in the face of this onslaught.

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In my campaign, neutral Clerics become Druids at level 9 a la the Rules Cyclopedia.  This may seem odd given the increasingly "advanced" nature of my campaign, what with a Paladin* and a Dwarf Fighter in the mix, but that is how I decided it should be handled before I purchased the AEC.  My wife, who plays Ffraid the Cleric of the Old Gods, has insisted we stick to that most likely because she likes the healing available to a Labyrinth Lord Cleric.

*On a related note, I had originally intended for Paladins to be level 9 Lawful Fighters, but I forgot to mention that to the player of Roger Le Douche when he started making his character.  Oh well.

Race as Class, Race Plus Class, and Racial Classes

 

Regular readers of my blog will no doubt know that I have acquired a rather bizarre set of races for the Dark Country.  While it does have Dwarves and Gnomes, both are slightly (or drastically in the case of Gnomes) altered.  The other races are Changelings, half fairy creatures who replace Elves, and Froglings, drunken amphibian merchants from my campaign's equivalent of the Netherlands.

When I originally conceived of the Nightwick Campaign, I pictured using these races, though Gnomes and Changelings did not exist at the time, as other races are in OD&D: they can level as a fighter or a thief and get a few extra abilities based of their race.  When the decision was made to switch it over to Labyrinth Lord, I decided to stick with the Race as Class dynamic familiar to all those with experience using OSD&D.  This was primarilly done for simplicity's sake.  I know of a number of systems for desiging B/X/CMI classes, but I know of none for desiging AD&D races.  For that matter, Labyrinth Lord defaultly uses race as class and only with the advent of the AEC, which I only purchased recently, did it have the option to split race and class.

However, the longer the Nightwick Campaign goes the more I find myself using my 1e books.  I've primarilly been using them for dungeon stocking since I like the wide array of systems and monsters availible within those tomes.  However, I've also been contemplating using more of the classes from the AEC/AD&D.  The player of Barley Brownbeard almost made a ranger instead of a Dwarf using the AEC, and I would've let him.

In light of the increasing AD&D-ness of my campaign, I am left to wonder what I should do with the various demi-humans that putter about the Dark Country.  Some of them, like Dwarves and Froglings, would lend themselves well to having different classes.  Dwarves worship the God of Law, though their practice differs from human worship, and I'd desperately love to have Fighting Frogs like that fellow at the top of the page.  Others are tougher to figure out.  How do I deal with Changelings' inherent magical ability or Gnomes' alien psychology?

I'm not sure what the answer is yet, but it may lie in combining the various approaches.  Perhaps Dwarves may enter some of the classes currently available to humans to a limited degree, while Froglings and Gnomes have classes specific to themselves and Changelings are just Changelings.  This of course depends as much on the preference of my players as it does on me, so I'll have to posit this to them.

Clerics

The Church teaches that the God of Law divided all of the world according to a divine plan.  Just as he separated earth, water, fire, and air from each other, so to did he divide the people of the world into three great orders: those who work, those who fight, and those who pray.  The strict maintenance of these orders and their presumed hierarchy is necessary to the ultimate defeat of the Adversaries, or so many Clerics claim.

Clerics are a class apart.  They alone receive divine wisdom from their God, and they are tasked with using it to protect the people of the World from the workings of Demons and others who would tempt them astray.  In the West, Clericalism is believed to be a a hereditary trait.  One does not become a Cleric, one simply is a Cleric.  Usually this is because the Cleric comes from a line who possess  a "Magic of the Blood."   This quality allows them, just as it allowed their forefathers and mothers, to communicate with the Divine in a way that is impossible for the other people of the World.

Since they are such a small and selective group, they would be ill suited to serve as the machinery of the Church.  Rather, they lead by example.  Clerics find their callings out in the world where their tools and gifts are best suited to helping the other orders of society and defeating the servants of Darkness.  The Church itself is largely composed of lay ascetics and bureaucrats who maintain the collections of doctrines so necessary to the function of the Church as an institution.

Clerics are carefully watched.  The Adversary has many ways to trick mortal men, and one of the foulest is his use of Anticlerics.  Proper orthodoxy must be maintained so that the righteous might be separated from the wicked.  Demons are capable of granting desperate men the powers saved only for those chosen by the God of Law.  In order to prevent these men and women from leading the downtrodden astray, Clerics and Priests must keep abreast of proper theology.

Recent heresies have questioned the need for Clerics.  They point to Magic-Users and note that they are capable of working wonders just as Clerics are.  Some of the literati in the realms of the West believe that Clerical magic is simply a set of formulas guarded by certain families.  They call for these to be revealed to the world so that Magic-Users may study them and better understand the nature of magic.  Those who work, for their part, continue to toil in the fields awaiting the day that creatures pour out of the woods.

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It's been awhile since I've done a kinda-sorta in setting post and I thought it was time to try another one.  Much of this entry was inspired by Georges Duby's The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined.  While I have some issues with the book, his notes on how bishop's saw their roles in Medieval society are quite fascinating.

The bit at the end owes itself to the recent urge by many OSR types (myself included) to jettison the Cleric from their preferred system.

Ritual Magic

Let me preface this post by saying I have no problem with Vancian magic.  While I've had players who didn't care for it (read: hated it), I've never seen where all the bile comes from.  I rather like the idea of spells as a resource and I typically try to play Magic Users when I play D&D so I've obviously never had a problem with it.

That being said, sometimes I want a little more out of magic.   I want foul acts performed in the dark of the Moon.  I want dust created from the powdered bones of nine mummies from the steaming Jungles of Mu.  I want alchemical tar that when rubbed on the eyes of a corpse causes the deceased to return to his or her body and whisper secrets from beyond the grave.  I want salt circles to hold demons so that the sorcerer can force their demonic tutors to reveal ancient sorceries.  I want hooded figures chanting around a stone idol.  You know, that sort of thing.

This has some precedence in D&D.  Most notably in Dave Arneson's rules that would lead to D&D wizards had to use strange formulas to concoct various "spells."  Or something like that.  I don't have the First Fantasy Campaign to reference, but Rob Conley hints at it a bit in his discussion of that book and Dragons At Dawn contains a system supposedly based on Arneson's rules.  Granted Dragons At Dawn might have gotten it wrong, but it's neat enough that I hope Daniel Hugh Boggs is correct.

While not entirely the same as ritual magic, this system does appeal to me.  More recent examples, assuming the Arneson anecdote is correct, include Geoffery McKinney's infamous work Supplement V: Carcosa and Rob Conley's Supplement VI: The Majestic Wilderlands.  These two have very different takes on how ritual magic should work.  Conley's is largely based on 4e's ritual system.  It couples Vancian magic with the ability to pay gold and take several minutes to cast any spell the Magic-User knows as a ritual.  I'm not terribly keen on this, but it's a serviceable solution.   I've thought about adapting it to Nightwick Abbey, but I'm unlikely to in the near future, but it is a possibility.

I think McKinney's model, despite being squicky, is a tad closer to what I want.  Now, I am not going to represent the rituals in the kind of lurid detail he provides, but the idea that individual spells require rituals and can never be cast instantaneously interests me.  It could be combined with an otherwise Vancian system.  Perhaps summoning a monster takes time and tools, but producing a fireball doesn't.  This would be in line with the Roger Corman film The Raven, which I have cited as a source of inspiration before.  Another way of looking at this model could be that any spell over level 5 is a ritual of some form. 

They could also be coupled with Arneson's model.  In this version, a wizard would ready the powders and ichors required for whatever challenges he or she believes he will face in a dungeon or other discrete adventuring local.  However, while at home he or she might take days to complete some sort of ritual to summon a familiar or create a terrible storm.

Finally, the rituals could stand on their own as they do in Carcosa.  Magic is not something cheap and reliable.  It is strange and difficult.  Magic takes time to practice and master and invoke.

I'm going to be considering these models as I develop my two settings further.  While Nightwick Abbey and the Dark Country will still rely on Vancian magic, I would like for the various sacrifices made to terrible demons to actually do something.  The Underworld is still up in the air.  It might use Vancian magic, or I might develop a ritual magic system for it.  

Sorry to those who thought I would have rules for Ritual Magic in this post.  Perhaps I will once the ideas I have get more concretely formulated in my head.

Froglings for Labyrinth Lord

Frogling

Requirments: DEX 12 CON 9

Prime Requisite: DEX and CHA

Hit Dice: d6

Maximum Level : 9

Saves: As Dwarf

Attack Table: As Fighter

Froglings are frog-like humanoids from the distant county of Hopland.  They are no more than 4' tall, but their weight varies wildly.  Their skin coloration also varies, but most have green or dark brown skin.  They are excellent brewers and craftsfrogs.  Froglings are primarily found in the West or the Dark Country in mercantile roles.  They may wear any armor, though some may have to be specially adapted to fit their squat frame, but may only use one handed weapons.

Due to the dangers of their swampy home, Froglings are always on the lookout for danger.  Froglings may roll an extra die in addition to the Party roll for surprise.  The Frogling then gets the better of the two results.  They also have a 50% (1-3 on 1d6) chance of finding food in a marshy, swampy, or forested environment.  If they do so, the Labyrinth Lord must roll another d6.  If the result is a 6, the food is poisonous to all but the Frogling.  The Frogling should not be aware of this.

Froglings are also adapt climbers.  They gain the Climb Sheer Surfaces ability as though they were a Thief of the same level.  (If the alternate Common Tasks system from Lamentations of the Flame Princess is being used, this translates into a 1-3 on a 1d6 chance to climb regularly, or a 1-2 on a 1d6 to climb a sheer surface).

Froglings may hop up to 30' horizontally and 15' vertically.  They do not take any damage from falls less than 40', which they treat as 10' for damage purposes.

Reaching 9th Level: At 9th Level a Frogling can establish a Merchant House.  This must be done in a major city or a community that receives a large amount of traffic from various traders.  This Merchant House will attract both Froglings and Human Man-at-Arms to the Frogling's service.  The Frogling will act as the Guildmaster for the Merchant House.

Froglings may swim as fast as they can walk unless encumbered.  They need less oxygen than other characters while swimming.  The effects of this must be determined by the individual Labyrinth Lord.

Advancement Table

Experience/Level/HD

0/1/1

2,241/2/2

4,481/3/3

8,561/4/4

17,121/5/5

34,251/6/6

68,501/7/7

137,001/8/8

274,001/9/9

Underworld Systems and Character Types

Forgive me if this is a bit rambling.  My thoughts on these subjects are a bit half-formed, but I feel like I need to get something about them hammered down before I continue developing the Underworld.

In the days when the Underworld was called the Lost Lands, I went through a number of possible system options.  It was originally designed alongside a homebrew system created in order to fill the requirments of Matt Finch's Quick Primer on Old School Gaming while still being appealing to the new schoolers I played with.  It did this with some success, but it lacked the kinds of guidelines I like when making wilderness and dungeon areas (such as No. Appearing and Treasure Class).  I toyed with using the "Lost Lands" as the basis for a Swords & Wizardry based game, even going so far as to write up a pretty extensive house rules document that is now lost to the ages.  I've even considered using a combination of yellow book BRP and the Bronze Grimoire to power the setting, but nothing came of that either.

Now that I've picked it up again (as a side project) and given it a bit of a face lift, I need to think about what system I'm going to use to power it.  Obviously, I could go the route of Scott of Huge Ruined Pile and make all the material as systemless as possible.  I don't feel comfortable with that option.  The amount of  changes that would have to be made to any given system to accommodate just the monsters is pretty large.  Almost all of D&D's monster list is completely useless.  The only exceptions being certain undead and summoned monsters.  I'm fine making a wholly new monster list, but I wouldn't want to burden some other sap who decided this setting was the bomb and wanted to use it in his or her home game.  Therefore I need some system I can provide stats for, though I will probably put out little handouts on how to run this setting with other systems.

So what system?  I'm currently getting better acquainted with Labyrinth Lord since the group that I will be DMing for is relatively familiar with that system.  I'm also a fan of LotFP:WFRPG.  So some sort of B/X D&D hack?  Well... no.  I've never really been comfortable making monsters for those systems as I never know how much xp they should be worth.  The most likely answer is the Swords & Wizardry White Box, which is by far my favorite retroclone.  It has a bare bones sensibility that I think will lend itself well to tinkering and this project in general.

Of course I could pick up another side project that would fill a similar niche in my creative efforts but not be as arduous a task.  Possibly more on that later.

With that out of the way, I need to decide what character types I wish to represent with these rules.  Fighters and Magic Users fit in easily to the setting.  Clerics stick out like a sore thumb.  They fit great in Nightwick Abbey's pseudo-Medieval milieu, but their holy magic and mace wielding antics are a poor fit for a setting where even the nicest gods have terrible serpents for pets.  I could just stick to Fighting Men and Magic Users, possibly importing LotFP:WFRPG's encumbrance rules and lack of weapon/armor restrictions, but I'm not sure about that yet.  I feel like I want to allow some other class options for the players if only to give them more options.

That being said, none of the other classes developed for TSR D&D strike me as appropriate for this setting.  Thieves could work, but I find that they generally muck up OD&D.  Still they are an option.  The others work less well.  I'll probably have to create some of my own with the setting in mind, but I'll burn that bride when I cross it.

To close, here is an inspirational image for the setting:

Now back to thinking about Nightwick Abbey...

Getting Rid of Witches

I've said several times that the Witch is one of my favorite classes to add to D&D; however, I'm thinking about removing it from the Nightwick Abbey campaign.  While I have a very good context for the Druid, the Witch  makes surprisingly little sense in this campaign roughly modeled on a dark version of Medieval Europe.  The chief issue is that Magic-Users in my setting already fill my "bargains with demons" niche, and I like my conception of them far too much to change it.  For now, I'll be allowing Druids as priests of the Old Gods, and removing Witches from the campaign setting for the time being.  It is possible they will show up in the Underworld though.

Changelings

One cannot accurately call the people of the World superstitious.  They are mistaken about a great many things, but one cannot truly be superstitious in a world where ghosts arise to torment their murders, strange creatures -- half-beast and half-man -- make their home in the darkest woods, and magicians weave spells to prolong their sinful existence.  Peasants have good reason to leave sprigs of wolfsbane above their door and to cross themselves when passing over certain bridges.  This is not to say that the folk of the World know exactly how, why, or if these practices are effective, but they provide a modicum of hope in a land filled with horrible creatures and diabolic cults.

Not all things can be stopped by such ritual.  Woe be unto the woman who gives birth on a pagan festival day, for they are doomed to raise a Changeling.  Pagans say that the Old Gods punish the spirit of the child for having the audacity to distract from the rites which are owed to the gods.  Followers of Law say that the sinful acts of the pagans on such feast days allow demons or fairies to enter the Material Plane and steal the child in order that they might replace it with the Changeling.  Countless other explanations exist.  Perhaps it has nothing to do with the feast days.  Many a bard's tale tells of ghostly lovers or strange dreams causing the creation of such beings.  Hunters sometimes return from the woods "changed" as well.

Changelings are strange beings.  They seem to grow more quickly than normal children, but they retain their youthful appearance well into their ninetieth year.  Those who changed when they were adults are often experts at skills they showed no affinity for in their previous lives.  All a masters of magic, and the arcane arts seem to come naturally to them.  They are equally skilled with swords, bows, and other weapons of war.  According to the stories women tell to each other while they prepare their husbands' freshly killed game, Changelings often use these powers to bewitch their parents or lovers.  The endings vary, but all are too horrible to relate to those of us who live comfortable lives outside the toil of Premodern life.

Like the other creatures of the World, Changelings exist outside of the tales of hunters and old women.  All bear some strange feature or mark of their nature. The nature of their mark varies wildly.  Some bear strangely curved horns, others unnaturally colored eyes, and still others seem perpetually covered in soot and grime.  These sorrowful beings wonder the World, for no sane person would ever let such a creature into their home.  However, despite their appearance, Changelings have very human minds.  They feel sorrow and pride and mirth as much as any other human.  Perhaps woe is not visited upon the mother, but upon the Changeling itself.

Despite the seemingly innumerable ways Changelings can occur, they are extremely rare.  Most will go there entire lives without seeing one, or indeed without hearing a story about one that had any basis in truth.  Perhaps this is the reason they are shunned.

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I strongly considered removing the Elf entirely from the Nightwick Campaign world -- well, as a player option anyway.  Some suggestions here led me to consider this option.  I must say that I'm rather happy that I found a way to contextualize Elves.  I'm not always a big fan of their psuedo-Tolkien flavor, but I rather like the idea of a Fighter/Magic-User hybrid.  This model should allow me to keep that as a player option while still making Elves mysterious and frightening.

I'm not entirely sold on this option yet.  I'm worried it might be a bit too "emo," but such is life.

Magic-Users

Sorcerers, wizards, magicians, and other practitioners of the magical arts may be found (in small numbers) across the World, if one knows where to look.  They congregate in secret cabals where they work their wonders far away from the prying eyes of the Church and the superstitions of the common people.  This is not to say that the art (or, if one prefers, science) of magic is proscribed, but the Church meddles too much and the peasantry have a difficult time distinguishing rightful practitioners from Witches.

Magic-Users claim to seek knowledge about the World and, if they're being watched by the Church, God's Creation.  Despite this lofty goal, most practitioners spend their time in the pursuit of earthly pleasures.  What use is knowledge if one gains nothing from it?  Many a magician has been tempted by the loathsome devils which inhabit the netherworld.  These creatures promise magical power that may fulfill even the most wicked desire and the most perverse of turpitudes.  It is for this reason that the Church believes Magic-Users, when found, must at least be monitored if not burned immediately to prevent a scandal.

Those few who do actually use their powers to further their understanding of the world and its logos become rapped in bitter rivalries with other such scholars.  Usually this has little to do with actual differing opinions, but rather the sorcerers fight over the limited magical resources of the World's kingdoms and the patronages of lords and kings and emperors.  Because of this fact, Magic-Users are loathe to share their secrets with one another.  Sadly, such rivalries slow the rate at which useful knowledge can be obtained, and few new spells or magic items have been created since the time of the Empire.

The Church also hinders progress.  To take but one example, recently in the city of Lichgate four mages were burned at the stake simply because they wished to understand the process of decay and hired a few ne're do wells to exhume a number of corpses from the cathedral graveyard.  The duke's soldiers who were tasked with the arrest of these men told terrible stories of undead servants and demonic guardians, but who is to believe such slander?  The rabble will say anything to justify their ignorance!

Magic-Users have few friends in this world.  The Church is ever wary of their propensity for temptation, the peasantry views them as simply conduits that demons use to steal their cattle and kill their children, and others of their own kind are just as likely to murder them as give them a handshake. Still, all of this power has to be good for something, and indeed many Magic-Users have ingrained themselves into the courts of the World.  With this comes power, influence, and laboratory space.

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A rough account of my house rules for Magic-Users may be found in this post. The only one not listed is the way I handle spell acquisition.  Magic-Users will gain no spells automatically when they level.  All spells must either be gained from earthly or unearthly tutors, spell scrolls, or magical research.  Magic-Users can have any number of spells in their spell books, but -- obviously -- may only memorize a number dependent on their level as per S&W.

Men and Magic of Nightwick Abbey

I have a few minutes to spare and I thought I would use this space to outline what kinds of characters I will be allowing in the upcoming voice chat game.

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Humans

I'm including more human classes than the basic three.  I'll provide a little bit of the flavor and mechanical changes below, but expect to see more substantive posts on each one in the coming days.

Cleric -- I discussed the framework for clerics in an earlier post.  As stated there, lawful Clerics may only heal, while Chaotic cleric can cast reversible spells and still heal.  Clerics will receive a number of bonus spells based on their Wisdom score.

Fighting-Man -- There isn't much you can add to the Fighter flavor rise.  It represents both the civilized fighting men who have converted, and the pagan barbarians.  I'm using "follow through" from Ruins & Ronin instead of the Fighter's normal ability because I like it better.  I believe I read somewhere that that rule originated with Dave Arneson, but I don't know the veracity of that statement.

Magic-User -- Magic-Users in the World must usually hide their practices.  While there is nothing inherently evil about their art, the Church frowns upon such activities unless they are used for the glory of God.  However, the fear of Magic-Users saves them more often than it harms them.  Who would want to piss off someone who can turn you into a toad?  I'm using the Holmes rules for scrolls, and Magic-Users will gain a bonus number of spells per day based on their Intelligence.  They will also be allowed to use crossbows.  Magic-Missle always hits.

Thief -- Thieves are found throughout the urban areas of the World.  They do not for "guilds" nearly as often as people think they do, but criminal gangs are fairly common.  I'm using a version of the Thief class whose abilities are based on S&W's saving throw mechanic.  Anyone can sneak, but the Thief's abilities are supernormal.  They do not have the ability to find traps, and one anyone can disarm a trap with a clever explanation, the Thief can just do it mechanically.

Druid --  I discussed Druids a bit in the above post.  My main goal with the Druid is to remove the hippy association and return them to their rightful place: burning men in wicker cages.  They will receive bonus spells based on their Wisdom score.

Paladin -- I'm using the version of the Paladin outlined by James of Grognardia.  The only difference for me will be that the Paladin's of my campaign are sponsored by the Church and believe in God.  It is possible I will develop an Anti-Paladin class.

Ranger -- Again, I'm looking to Grognardia for inspiration; however, I'll be reducing the amount of HP James allowed his Rangers.  For the purposes of my setting, Rangers are scions of civilization who chose to live in the wilderness in order that they might preempt attack from the forces of Chaos.  The prime requisite for the Ranger will most likely be Constitution.

Witch -- Witches are the wise people of pagan villages.  They know the proper sacrifices necessary to appease the Old Gods, and how to heal the sick.  This is a completely homebrewed class, and I may not include it.  If I do, it will replace the Druid.  It uses a combination of Magic-User and Druid spells from a special list.  It also gains the ability to shift into a small animal, decided on at character creation.  They will most likely gain bonus spells from Charisma, because I am a fan of using all of the ability scores if possible.

Healer -- The Healer fills largely the same niche as the Witch, and therefore I will not include both.  If I decide to include the Druid, then I will include the Healer to provide a pagan alternative to the Cleric for healing.  This class is available on the Mythmere Games website.

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Demihumans

In the original Nightwick campaign I did not allow demihuman character types.  Pressure from the wife, and one of my inspirational sources have compelled me to do otherwise this time.  I'm going to use the LBBs method of saying that demihumans are limited to different classes rather than doing a race-as-class setup.  There is one glaring exception below.

Dwarves -- Greedy, drunken little people who hate goblins.  I'll be posting more on their relationship with goblins later.  For now they can only level up as a Fighting-Man.  I'll probably let them advance as far as name-level so that a PC can become a King Under the Mountain.  I think it is important to note that if someone made a movie of Nightwick Abbey that the Dwarves would be played by little people instead of a CGIed John Rhys-Davies.

Halflings -- Despite my love of the Hobbit, Halflings in my campaign are going to represent something more akin to a Leprechaun, i.e. a small woodland sprite.  They may only advance to third level as a Fighting-Man but may advance fully as a Thief.  Perhaps, as Scott of Huge Ruined Pile points out, it is better to call the Gnomes.

Elves -- Elves are ephemeral and terrifying creatures of the woods.  I hinted at that a little in an earlier post. Elves will be a class unto themselves.  I'm using the typical Fighting-Man/Magic user at once setup.  I may switch out their Magic-User spell list for a Druid one.

Cyclops -- This is only a possible one.  Cyclops would be largely based on the character from Krull.  They possess a strange and mystical society focused around contemplation of death.  Regardless of whether or not they are allowed as PCs, they have a long and secreted history in the campaign world.  They may advance as Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Druids.

Froglings -- A possible replacement of Halflings.  I originally was going to include them but I think they might break the setting's dark tone.  I will not include both them and Halflings.  They are drunken, raucous, and adventurous little frog-men.  They're based on the song Froggy Went A Courtin', the Wind and the Willows, and an odd pun about beer and hoppes.  They're culture would be largely based on the Netherlands.  I'm an odd bird.

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There you have it.  Sorry about the length.  Comments are always appreciated.

OK, What's Up with Clerics?

Unlike a few other Old School DMs I've seen, I like the Cleric as a class.  A fighting, smiting holy-man fits very well with the Nightwick setting, so this post isn't about that.

Why do they take the least amount of experience to level?

They can fight, and cast spells.  This makes them, essentially, the most powerful class.  Wassup with that?

God, gods, and devils

I wanted to discuss the religions of the Nightwick Abbey campaign... so here we are.  From a setting perspective, I wanted religions which would both allow me to engage with some of the historicity of the Middle Ages, and feel like Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne cycle.  This is really the first time I've decided to buck D&D's pseudo-traditional polytheistic assumption for something more closely resembling Medieval religion (as viewed through a lens of Gothic horror).

Another design goal was to have one religion for each alignment.  For my campaign I'm using the traditional Law/Neutral/Chaos split.  The religions have also been designed, largely, to incorporate the Druid in a way that takes out some of their hippy-dippy-high school Wicca-nature-happy-fun-time bullshit.  As such I, obviously, need three religions.  They are detailed below.

The Great Church represents the forces of Law.  It is essentially Christianity with all references to Jesus removed.  They're monotheistic, headed (loosely) by a pope, have holy orders of various sorts, and like to evangelize.  The Church ordains women as well as men, making it at least a tad different from the Latin Church of the Middle Ages.  Their symbol is either going to be a cross, or a vaguely cross-shaped star burst used to indicate the sun.  Nightwick Abbey was dedicated to God before it fell into darkness.  All non-evil Clerics are members of the Church.  This is not to say that the Church is solely a good institution.  Pastors may be just as easily tempted as their flock, and the servants of the dark ones have infiltrated deeply into the Church's infrastructure.

The Old Gods were the only gods worshiped in the campaign area before the Church arrived.  There are many, especially outside of the towns, who still conduct the ancient rites to pay homage to the Old Gods.  The Old Gods are not worshiped, so much as placated.  They represent natural forces and demand various types of sacrifice, including human sacrifice, in order to spare the realms of humankind.  They are, however, capricious and have been known to aid heroes as well as hinder them.  The mysterious Druids are their priests and priestesses.  It is unlikely that I will ever detail specific Old Gods for anything other than a quick description.  They are always worshiped together, and the peasants who still take grain to their altars simply call them "the gods."

There are many demons.  They writhe and wait in ink black pools to lure humans to their doom.  They are worshiped by mad and desperate  people who believe that doing so will win them power or glory or fame or sex or other, darker desires.  Demons seek to unmake the world a pull it back into darkness so that they no longer feel the eternal suffering of their existence. The "god" referred to in my previous post is actually a demon.  For the moment I'm assuming it is Orcus, but that may change as the campaign develops.  Anti-Clerics obviously are the worshipers of demons; however, it can often be difficult to tell one from the other. Unlike good Clerics, Anti-Clerics can both heal and harm.  As such, they can masquerade as the righteous and lead many on the road to damnation.

The campaign area is kinda-sorta modeled on the Balkans during the Northern Crusades.  The Great Church has already made quite a few converts, including chieftains and kings, but the fall of Nightwick Abbey to diabolic forces has shaken them.  Many wonder if the worshipers of the Old Gods would have been better off if the Church had never arrived, and argue that the Old Gods are an expression of the same divine force.

In the cities, most people worship God.  A few farmers who come in to trade worship the Old Gods, but they are wary of making this fact known.  Even those who have been converted are usually very confused as to just what the difference between an Old God and a Saint is.  In the country side the Old Gods still hold sway, though the Church is attempting to make headway once again.  Demonists and Satanists hide everywhere, waiting to devour humankind and lead it to damnation.

Edit: Though I would have had a pseudo-Christian main religion anyway,  I should give credit where credit is due and note that I stole the name of the Great Church from Scott, at Huge Ruined Pile, who in turn stole it from B2.  Just so we're clear.