Lost Worlds Part 1: Lost Worlds and Me

I'm not the first one to discuss the importance of "lost world" fiction to D&D.  A quick scan of Appendix N makes it clear that the genre appealed to Gygax, and its impact on the development of D&D cannot be overstated.  However, I haven't read as much of Appendix N as some of my fellow bloggers, and as such I don't feel comfortable guessing the effect of this genre on Gygax beyond the above truism.  Instead I want to focus on two things: how lost world fiction has influenced me and how lost worlds can be portrayed in Dungeons & Dragons.

There are few things nine-year-old Evan liked more than the science fiction and monster movies of the 1950s and 60s.*  This love had grown out of the typical childhood obsession with dinosaurs, and it was those monsters that most resembled prehistoric creatures that were my favorites.  My parents at some point purchased a VHS "documentary" entitled Hollywood Dinosaurs that they thought would entertain me.  In it a narrator would discuss various trends in giant monster movies -- few of them were actually about dinosaurs -- and then they would show the trailer of some monster movie that illustrated the narrator's point.  I posted some of these a while back, and you can see the one for Mothra: Monster God at the beginning of this post.

The one for Mothra and the one for Valley of the Dragons -- the later of which seems to have disappeared from the internet -- both captured my imagination in a way that the other trailers on that VHS were unable.  They both have something in common beyond their lost world plots: they provide a list of awesome things that are in the movie.  In the more naive time in which these films were made, the trailers would often provide a list of things to SEE or THRILL at while watching their motion picture.  These two had particularly good ones: Vampire plants, monster gods, gorilla people, stone age mountains, and underground demons.**

Now, I've not seen either of these movies, and perhaps in execution these things are lackluster.  In my mind's eye, though, they are magnificent.  They combine the feelings of both wonder and terror, which is the ultimate expression of what D&D is.

At some point in high school I began listening to Coast to Coast AM.  Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorists, and my primary reason for listening to the show is its unintentional hilarity.  However, I have drawn a great amount of inspiration from the litany of whack job guests for both Call of Cthulhu and D&D.  Just before I entered college they had a guest on who discussed Hollow Earth theory and the Shaver Mystery.  The combination of bat-shit-insanity, Ufology, lost races, and dinosaurs really tickled my brain.  I tried to work vast, subterranean areas into my Wilderlands games, and eventually I came up with my own Hollow Earth setting.

The Underworld is a cool setting.  I said in one of my responses to Zak's questionnaire that of all the things I've made I was most proud of Nightwick Abbey.  This is true; however, I have a feeling that if I was ever able to get Underworld to work that it would be my greatest creation.  Nightwick Abbey is obviously an idiosyncratic blend of things I enjoy, but those things aren't that far from baseline D&D.  Underworld is different while still fitting very well with the kinds of activities one does in D&D.  It has more or less been replaced by Uz,*** but I sometimes think Uz lacks the requisite amount of wonder.  It has plenty of terror though.

Lost world fiction had greatly affected the way I view D&D.  They define the range of emotions that I seek to evoke as a DM and that I want to feel as a player.  I want to marvel at things not seen before by human eyes.  I want to flee in terror from pallid creatures who have grown sightless in their benighted land.  I want adventure.

This post has become much longer than I originally expected.  I'll spend further posts discussing the different ways to do lost world scenarios in D&D and the pros and cons of each.  I don't know how many further parts there will be because I initially intended this to all be in one post.  If the other parts run away with me the same way this one did, you can expect a lot more.

*One of those few things was the Universal monster movies of the 30s and 40s, and I would later add Hammer to that list.  However, I've already made that setting.

**Notice I remembered several of the ones from Valley of the Dragons despite the fact that I do not have any way to watch the trailer.  Now that is good advertising.

***There may be some Uz related announcements shortly.  On a related note, make sure you're reading Dandy in the Underworld and Rogues and Reavers.  They're cool blogs run by cool people.

Visual Inspiration for My Next Project

This'll probably be for the Hell-Caverns, but I may do something else.  Click them to embiggen.  Trust me, you want to.

If you're not following Monster Brains, then you should be.

Quick Book Recommendation

If you're looking for some inspiration for your D&D campaign it's hard to go wrong with The Art of Ray Harryhausen.  My (then future) wife gave it to me as a birthday present a couple of years ago, and it has largely served as the inspiration for my Hollow Earth stuff.

As a fan of his movies (particularly 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts) I can't help but wonder at what his unmade works would have been like.  I'm especially intrigued by his adaptation of The People in the Mist and the unmade King of the Genies both of which involve lost worlds with dinosaurs.

Earth Man: a Player Character Option from Ilion

Before I disappear into the either that is life without the internet (albeit for a short time) I decided to offer this up for your approval. It is intended for use with the White Box. Whether that means OD&D or S&W is up to the user.

Earth Man
Earth men are humans from the surface world.  Most come from our Earth in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.  Their method of entry may be decided in congress with the referee, or it may be left a mystery.  Almost without exception Earth men are explorers, archaeologist, or other occupations that the popular imagination has glamorized to the point of absurdity.  A referee may wish to begin a campaign using only Earth men characters.  This can help players to better accommodate themselves to the  wonders of the Hollow Earth, but they should begin making natives once they are familiar with it.  It can be extremely difficult to keep player knowledge and character knowledge separate, and the less this must be done the better the game will be.

Character Advancement: All Earth men begin as Fighting men with no money and randomized possessions (see below).  However, if they find a tutor willing to train them in the magical arts, they may advance as magicians.  Once such a tutor has been acquired, they must select each session whether they are advancing as a Fighter or as a Magician.  

Weapon/Armor Restrictions: Unless wearing magical armor, they are subject to all Magic-user restrictions if they wish to cast spells.

Languages: Earth men begin play knowing common.  They always perceive this as sounding like their native language -- usually English.  When encountering a new language they can understand it on a roll of 1 on a 1d6.  They gain a +1 on this roll for an intelligence over 12, +2 over 14, and +3 over 16.  These languages they also perceive as sounding like their native languages, and they can switch between languages easily.  This typically frightens inhabitants of the Hollow Earth who understand the massive differences between the various languages.

Technology:  Earth men automatically understand any technology that is roughly equivalent to something from their own time.  They also have a 20% bonus to any % chance to understand more advanced technology unless it is completely beyond the realms of imagination.  As this game is entirely about imagination, one must assume this bonus is usually in effect.

[insert random chart for equipment here]

Corrected Ilion Map

click to embiggen

Here is a slightly edited version of my earlier map.  Il Male of The Yaqqothl Grimoire pointed out that it was weird that the numbers were on the bottoms of the hexes, which prompted me to look at my old Wilderlands maps.  I've changed them to be more in accordance with tradition.

Which brings me to a couple of weird things about hexographer.  I don't really like the default numbering system, which starts at 0 on both ends and has a weird dot in the middle.  Also, for some reason some of the coastlines keep disappearing when I mess with the hex types, so I've tried to add them back in this version.

New Map

click to embiggen

"New" might not be the most appropriate word since I designed the first draft of this one while on my Might & Magic kick.  Still, I have repurposed it to serve as a map of the area surrounding Ilion.  I'm still not entirely happy with it, but thought I'd let you guys have a look at it.

Uz, the Underworld, and other Updates

I'm probably going to stop developing Uz and it's surrounding territories.  This was a hard decision for me because I enjoy the ideas quite a bit, but the Ugarit project at Sword +1 is so similar that I don't want to steal his thunder.  I started working on Uz after he started his work on Swords of Abandon so I'm the late comer.

Of course the problem is that Uz filled a niche in my brain-space, one that was left empty by my many conceptual problems with the Underworld.  For lack of a better, shorter term I call this niche Sword & Sorcery Science Fantasy.  It's one part Hyboria, one part Zothique, one part Shaver Mystery, and one part Harryhausen movie.  Mix well, serve hot over rice.  But I haven't figured out the right admixture that works without any mental dissonance in my own noggin (or hasn't already been thought of by someone whose doing a perfectly good job already).  So I'm left to wander in search of an appropriate project to act as a funnel for those urges.

Thats more or less why I'm not doing the April Alphabet thing.  I was going to use it to express some of my thoughts on Uz, but now I'm without a project.

There are two reasons you haven't seen Dark Country material as much lately.  First, and most importantly, most of my time spent developing the Dark Country is spent stocking dungeons and making sure I'm ready for the next session.  Theres less high conceptual stuff I need to get out of the way.  What does need to be dealt with usually gets dealt with in play, and thats the way it should be.  The other reason is that I'm feeling a bit of ennui in regards to that setting, for reasons I may discuss in another post.  Still, it's unlikely to go anywhere for a long while.

It's unlikely I'll be able to do my one page dungeon version of the abbey.  The way the Abbey is structured in my notes is just too different from the format, and I'd essentially be creating a wholly new dungeon.  Since that  more or less defeat's the point of using the abbey the project is effectively dead.  It's also unlikely that I'll seek another form to publish it in because I rely too heavily on monsters which aren't available in the OGL.  I can't imagine Nightwick Abbey without Mites for example.

I hope to work on the community megadungeon some more, but just as I was finishing my level, cola got spilled all over my map.  I'm going to try to redraw it so that it looks nicer, but there will obviously be a delay.

Uz Test Session 1

I'm currently in my home town in Mississippi for a short vacation, and I wanted to work up a game for some of my old friends.  I hinted at this earlier.  At that time I thought I would be using the Underworld setting for these few sessions as I wanted to test some of the mechanics, classes, and monsters I'd been developing.  However, certain factors led to my developing a new setting based around the map I posted last week.  This setting has no name at this time, but the central city of the setting is called Uz, the First City of Men, and that seemed like an appropriate enough title for this post.

This milieu takes place on a far future Earth where a highly technologically advanced society suffered a catastrophic calamity that plunged it into barbarism.  At the time play begins, mankind has just dragged itself back into the Bronze Age.  I described it to my wife as "the Old Testament as written by H P Lovecraft."  In all honesty it is much closer to Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique cycle, but my wife hasn't read that.  Anyway, most of the cultures are very, very, very loosely based off of civilizations of the Ancient Near East, such as Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Sumerians.  There are also some fanciful elements such as a society of warrior women and a host of Morlocks.  Ilion also exists somewhere off of the map, since one player wanted to run a Greek character.

Most of the monsters exist because of genetic engineering in the previous eons before the rise of Uz, the first city constructed after the Deluge.  Magic exists most likely due to some sort of sciencey-wiency reason that I don't care about right now.  Thats enough about the setting.

The party consisted of :
Sheikmar of Phut -- a Phutian (kinda-sorta Phoenecians) Warrior and devout worshiper of Dagon
Belit -- Jerite (from Jerah, City of the Warrior Women) Preistess of Li-lit
Keret --  Warrior and worshiper of Kothar from Almodad, the Jewel of the Desert
Lott -- Magician of no particular religious affliation, also from Almodad
Peleus -- Ilionian lackey of the sorcerer Ajaxos (more on that later)

The party (sans Peleus) arrived at the gates of Uz just after nightfall.  After paying a small tax they were allowed into the city by the guards at that gate.  They found themselves in an impoverished and crowded district, and quickly set out to find a tavern or inn.  Inside the Red Fish tavern they found a number of locals drinking and discussing business over the teal wine of Ilion.  One of these men, a black robed figure named Shamir, approached the party after seeing the depths of their drunkenness with a proposition.  He took them to the palace of his master, the sorcerer Ajaxos.  (My wife compels me to note that it was a "ramshackle mansion" "in the ghetto."  Admittedly it was not in the best part of town.).

Ajaxos, after berating a slave boy, told them that he sought a strange item: the Fuel-less Fire from the temple of Moloch!  He asked the party to sneak into the undercity and bring it back to him post haste.  For this purpose he gave them a small censer to contain the flame.  He sent with them a lackey, Peleus (whose player had just arrived), and off they went to capture this strange prize.

Ajaxos had outlined two methods of entering the undercity that would take them close to the area beneath the temple of Moloch.  They chose to enter through a chute on top of a large platform near the center of the city used for rites honoring Uz of Uz, First King of Uz. Despite the late hour, four blind fanatics protected the chute.  Lott used his sorcery to place three of them in a deep sleep, and the party disposed of the other one quietly.  They then threw the bodies down the chute, which ended in a rather bloody mess.

The party lowered themselves into the room beneath the chute by means of a rope Lott had provided.  Once at the bottom, they discovered the chamber was a large tomb adorned with a -- now gore covered -- sarcophagus and a number of large, stone statues.  Keret relieved one of the splattered corpses of their kilt and put it on, despite the blood stains.  The other party members pried open the sarcophagus only to find that no body lay inside.  Instead, there was a small electrum statue resembling a Uzite king.  They decided not to take the statue unless they found no other booty and headed down a passage to the South.

In this passage they found two horrible creatures that resembled combinations of men, vultures, and hyenas. Readers of this blog who have read the Clark Ashton Smith story "The Tomb-Spawn" will know them as Ghourii.  The party slew these quickly, though not without some loss of hit points.  They continued on until they discovered a fork in the passage.  They elected to head down the one which, if their recollection was correct, would lead them closer to the surface structure of the Temple of Moloch.

They reached a large chamber which lay beyond an archway that possessed no door.  Within this archway was a strange trap that utilized technology long forgotten by the men and women of Uz.  When Keret passed under the strange device, a strange, red beam shot through him.  Though he survived, his armor, weapons, and other metal possessions turned into a viscous, white goo the party was unable to recognize.  Peleus attempted to destroy the triggering mechanism first with arrows, and then with his spear.  He did succeed in breaking it, but this caused red lightning to burst forth before the system finally shorted.  The strange energy destroyed Belit's equipment and reduced Sheikmar and Peleus to piles of bubbling goop.  At this point, the remaining three decided that discretion was the better part of valor and returned to the chamber containing the electrum statue.

They made an impromptu grappling hook out of a few bits of Lott's equipment (since he was the only party member with any form of metal on his person) and tied a rope around the statue.  Lott remained at the bottom while the others climbed up in order that he might make sure that the statue would not slip loose of its bindings.  As soon as the statue was lifted completely off of the sarcophagus, every statue in the room sprung to life and attempted to reach Lott.  Luckily for him, Belit and Keret were able to lift him out before he could be slain by the stone guardians.

They then began to wonder how they might sell such an obviously pilfered item and made there way to the docks which peppered the River of the Gods.  After they hid the statue in one of the character's backpacks they payed for passage by boat to the nearest city by river (Almodad).  Keret had to barter for his and Belit's passage using tulwars he had lifted off of the fanatics' corpses before climbing out of the tomb.

They arrived in Almodad the next afternoon and immediately set about trying to find a smith of ill repute.  It turns out that (after a successful Charisma check) Lott knew of such a man and they headed into his warehouse.  Along the way they bumped into a Phutian who claimed to be looking for his good friend Sheikmar.  He followed the party, much to Keret's chagrin.

At the blacksmith's shop the party exchanged the idol for some gold that they then used to purchase some new equipment.  Belit also let the Phutian know that Sheikmar had met a strange end in the undercity of Uz.

The party then wished to find an inn to stay the night.  They found an establishment called the Whore's Nose, which happened to be in the middle of a robbery.  The player of Peleus had made a character (yet unnamed) but had not yet had a chance to rejoin the party.  The exact exchange went something like this:

Keret's Player:  "We look for an inn."
Me: "You find one called 'the Whore's Nose.'"
Peleus's Player: "I rob it!"
Me: "You see an Ilionian emerge carrying a comic money-sack with a dollar sign on the side."

Keret attempted to subdue the thief, at which point Lott picked up the sack and began running down the main thoroughfare of the city.  Belit followed, and guards gave chase.  The morbidly obese innkeeper then arrived at the door.  Keret attempted to gain some boon from his capture of the thief, but his new Phutian ally punched the innkeeper in the face.  This caused the woefully out of shape man to suffer a fatal heart attack right there in the street.  Keret then weaseled a few coins from a guard before "accidentally" letting the Ilionian escape.

Lott and Belit (and now the Phutian) continued to attempt to evade the guards.  Since night was oncoming, they were able to find a -- mostly -- abandoned market square into which they lured the guards.  Belit sent their pursuers into a deep sleep, and Lott and the Phutian set about cutting their throats.  Shortly thereafter a few more guards arrived, but Lott had prepared sleep again for that day and they were no match for his magic.

Meanwhile, Keret entered the Whore's Nose to gain some favor from the innkeeper's wife.  She was a voluptuous woman who was elated to discover that her fat husband had croaked.  She immediately began loading everything of even remote value in the inn into a large sack before heading out into the night.  Keret then looked around to see if she had missed anything, but only found a number of large wineskins filled with the teal wine of Ilion.  He somehow alerted the party members to his location, and the session ended with them regrouping at the Whore's Nose.

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A few notes on the mechanics: I used the Swords & Wizardry White Box with a few house rules and treasure tables borrowed from Labyrinth Lord and the LBBs.  The monsters were almost completely homebrewed, and the traps were derived from those in Sham's Dismal Depths project.

The map I was using for the undercity was fairly large (a full page of graph paper at 10 lines to 1').  I had stocked some of the Saturday Night specials before hand.  When I say Saturday Night specials I do not mean the "tricks" outlined in the LBBs but rather the sorts of complexes MAR Barker discusses in EPT.  EPT was a major influence on this setting, even if most of the particulars are wildly different.  I was going to stock the rest of the dungeon as we went, but the players never made it out of the initial tomb complex for me to try that out.  I'll hopefully be able to work up some generic encounters to place as we go before the session tonight.

For the city parts of the session I used Zak's urbancrawl system.  This might be my favorite thing to ever come out of his blog.  I still need to work up such a map for Almodad, but the one for Uz has already become fairly complex.

It is unlikely that I will continue to work on the Underworld as this setting fills much the same niche but comes with less difficult questions to answer.  While I'm sure I'll miss the whole Hollow Earth thing, the far future can be fun as well.  Especially if you have an excuse for dinosaurs, a red sun, and "meat" animals.

Would you play a Priest?

I recently posted both an overview of the class and a lists of the "gifts" associated with Apollo.  I want to know if I've made them too undesirable.  I personally would only play priests in such a campaign, but I'm kinda a weirdo.  My wife has expressed that she feels otherwise.

So what do you think: would you play a priest in an Underworld campaign?  If not, why not?

Inspirational Trailers

The Problem with the Underworld

The Underworld (formerly the Lost Lands) is one of my longest lived ideas.  It entered my brain roughly two and a half years ago, around the same time I got the first inklings of what Nightwick Abbey was going to be like.  I've tried several times to either get a campaign started in that setting or to even run one shots in it.  The play report I posted a few days ago was only the first such attempt.  

Sadly that was the only session of that particular game despite the fact that my players enjoyed it immensely. Every time I've tried to run the Underworld it has stalled pretty quickly.  I never knew why.  I love the idea.  It scratches an itch Nightwick Abbey doesn't and takes D&D in a direction it is capable of going but seldom does. So why the hell do I never get anywhere with it?

Well today I stumbled upon the answer.  Before I say it, I need to offer up a comparison.  The Dark Country has been a fixture of my imagination for an equal amount of time.  Even before it had a name it was a land of dark forests, pagan rituals, corrupt clergymen, and sniveling devils.  Despite the fact that this is obviously not the case, it feels as though I discovered the Dark Country rather than invented it.  Even though little outside of a single village and a neighboring city has been detailed, I feel fairly confident that given merely a minute to think I could come up with the "right" answer.  I haven't done so for everything and my conceptions have shifted over time, but I still have a sense of what the Dark Country is.  In some sense it would be that way if I never detailed it; it simply is what it is.

Conversely the Underworld feels much more artificial.  Perhaps it is because having to make most of the monsters from scratch and redesign the classes makes me more aware that I'm creating it rather then discovering it.  However, I don't think this is the case.  Some of the things I create feel as though they belonged there the whole time.  A good example of this can be found in my recent treatment of Priests.  They just feel right.  Similarly some of the monsters I've created fit the setting like a glove.  In some sense it's almost as though the setting couldn't exist without them, even though I only conceived of them yesterday.

Yet it still feels artificial, but I think I know why.  Some of the restrictions I placed on the setting to make it more fantastic also make it further from my own experience.  While it's nice to say that only extinct animals exist in the Underworld (with the exception of Humans), it's something thats very difficult for me to execute.  I don't know much about dinosaurs beyond what Jurassic Park and even older, less accurate movies (not to say that Jurassic Park is accurate, just think about what that means for the other movies!).  Of course I could just research extinct animals, and  I have.  The problem is that whenever I add an extinct animal some of that artificialness creeps in.  I added that animal to fill some sort of game or ecological need.  It wasn't already there waiting to be discovered. 

This problem goes beyond animals and monsters.  The nature of the Hollow Earth also forces me to admit how "created" everything is.  Demographics too have been a thorn in my side, especially because they seem contrary to what I "know" about the setting.  In my minds eye Ilion is a huge city with a vast network of tunnels extending beneath.  It trades with some of the greatest empires in the Hollow Earth, and it's sailors know no equal.  However such things would require it to be much more settled than all the teeming wilderness around it would allow.  Is Ilion a large fortress that dominates other wilderness forts, or a cosmopolitan trading hub?  One makes sense but the other is right.

Now obviously if I was a player this probably wouldn't bother me.  If the referee was good enough at describing the world and it's mechanics I'd fall for this thing hook line and sinker.  BUT I'm not a player, and I doubt I could convey the setting well enough to be engaging if I realized the artifice involved.

So what am I to do?  I love the idea: Swords & Sorcery Science-Fantasy in the Center of the Earth.  I love some of the details I've built up around it, such as the snake worshiping cult of Apollo.  However, the framework itself seems to be flawed.  I'm not sure how to fix it yet.

Priestly Mutations Example

This is a companion piece to my earlier post.  I'm not as comfortable with it as I am with the rest of the class.  What follows is a (mostly) complete table for the "transfiguration" of Priests of Apollo.  I've been trying to work up ones for the other deities, but I'm not as happy with them.  I'm not really that happy with this one, but at least I have enough entries to make a d6 chart.

Apollo (1d6)
1 --  Skin begins to slough off, making your visage hideous (-1d3 Charisma).  If this result is rolled again then you grow scales (+1d3 AAC)
2 --  Eyes become slitted like a snake's (-1d3 Charisma).  If the result is rolled again then you gain permanent dark vision.
3 --  Hands begin to fuse together (-1d3 Dexterity).  If the result is rolled again your arms become tendrils resembling a snake's tail (-1d6 Dexterity).
4 --  Fangs grow (-1d3 Charisma, gain bite attack -- damage as small weapon).  If this result is rolled again, increase the damage by a weapon type.  If it is rolled after great weapon has been gained it causes paralysis.  If this result is rolled yet again, the bite becomes poisonous (+1 to Saving Throw)
5 --  Limbs become stunted (-1d3 Dexterity and Charisma).  If the result is rolled again, body elongates and becomes more flexible (+1d6 Dexterity).
6 --  You have displeased Apollo.  Save vs. Spells or become an Unwanted One permanently.  The referee must decide whether or not your character is removed from play.

Priests of the Underworld

It is very likely that I'll be able to playtest some of the stuff I've been developing for the Underworld.  Since I've recently hammered out the nature of the deities of the Underworld, I decided to work up a class that better reflected this than the Cleric does.  Here is the result of my efforts.  It should be fully compatible with the Swords and Wizardry White Box (with one small exception).  This is not designed to be balanced against a Cleric.  The assumption is that this class and the Cleric will not be used side by side, and as such I have upped the xp requirement for the Priest.  I never liked how quickly Clerics level compared to other classes.  Comments are appreciated.

Everything below the line is designated open game content.

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The Priest

Priests replace Clerics in an Underworld campaign.  You gain your magical power through your connection and devotion to an otherworldly entity.  The nature of this entity is determined by the referee with input from the player, but three gods are provided for the main campaign area of the Underworld.  As a Priest advances in levels, their appearance becomes more unearthly.

Table 3: Priest Advancement

Level               Exp. Points                  Hit Dice                       BHB                ST

1                      0                                  1                                  +0                    14

2                      3,000                           2                                  +0                    13

3                      6,000                           3                                  +0                    12

4                      12,000                         3+1                              +1                    11

5                      24,000                         4                                  +1                    10

6                      48,000                         5                                  +2                    9

7                      96,000                         6                                  +2                    8

8                      192,000                       6+1                              +3                    7

9                      384,000                       7                                  +4                    6

10                    768,000                       8                                  +5                    5

Table 4: Priest Spell Progression

                                    Spell Level

Level          1                      2                      3                      4                      5

1                 1                      --                      --                      --                     --

2                 2                      --                      --                      --                     --

3                 2                      1                      --                      --                     --

4                 3                      2                      --                      --                     --

5                 3                      2                      1                      --                     --

6                 3                      3                      2                      --                     --

7                 4                      3                      2                      1                     --

8                 4                      3                      3                      2                     --

9                 4                      4                      3                      2                     1

10               5                      4                      3                      3                     2

Priest Class Abilities

Weapon/Armor Restrictions:  Priests may use any kind of armor, but are restricted in their choice of weapon.  Below are lists of weapons that are permitted to Priests of various gods.  The Priest may also use any weapon permitted to the Magician class.

Apollo: bows, short swords

Moloch: Khopeshes, slings

Baldr: Spears

Spell Casting:  A Priest gains the ability to cast spells from his or her deity.  Each day, a priest must perform a ritual in a temple or sacred place dedicated to that deity.  They then may select which powers they gain that day in accordance with the spell list for their deity and the chart below.

Transfiguration:  Beginning at level 2, and every level thereafter, the Priest begins to take on aspects of his or her deity.  The referee rolls secretly on a table associated with the Priest’s deity to determine the nature of this transformation.  Mechanical changes are explained on the chart itself.

Saving Throw: Priests gain a +2 bonus on saving throws against death and poison.

XP Bonus for Divinity:  This bonus is due to a high divinity attribute.  (This should be replaced with wisdom in other campaigns)

Priest Spell List

What spells a Priest gains access to is determined by his or her deity.

Apollo

Level 1

1.         Cure Light Wounds

2.         Detect Chaos

3.         Detect Magic

4.         Light

5.         Read Languages

6.         Sleep

Level 2

1.         Find Traps

2.         Detect Invisibility

3.         Detect Thoughts (ESP)

4.         Locate Object

5.         Speak with Animals

Level 3

1.         Crystal Ball

2.         Cure (Cause) Disease

3.         Dark Vision

4.         Light, Continual

5.         Remove Curse

Level 4

1.         Cure Serious Wounds

2.         Neutralize Poison

3.         Speak with Plants

4.         Sticks to Snakes

Level 5

1.         Commune

2.         Contact other Plane

3.         Create Food and Drink

4.         Dispel Chaos

5.         Insect Plague

6.         Wizard Eye

 Baldr

Level 1

1.         Charm Person

2.         Detect Chaos

3.         Hold Portal

4.         Light (Dark)

5.         Purify (Putrefy) Food and Drink

Level 2

1.         Bless

2.         Hold Person

3.         Invisibility

4.         Knock

5.         Web

6.         Speak with Animals

Level 3

1.         Cure (Cause) Disease

2.         Fly

3.         Hold Person

4.         Invisibility, 10 ft. radius

5.         Lightning Bolt

Level 4

1.         Charm Monster

2.         Confusion

3.         Hallucinatory Terrain

4.         Massmorph

5.         Plant Growth

6.         Remove Curse

7.         Speak with Plants

Level 5

1.         Animal Growth

2.         Feeblemind

3.         Hold Monster

4.         Passwall

5.         Teleport

6.         Transform Rock-Mud

7.         Wall of Stone

  

Moloch

Level 1

1.         Cause Light Wounds

2.         Detect Chaos

3.         Hold Portal

4.         Light

5.         Protection from Chaos

Level 2

1.         Curse

2.         Knock

3.         Levitate

4.         Light, Continual

5.         Phantasmal Force

Level 3

1.         Dark Vision

2.         Dispel Magic

3.         Fireball

4.         Fly

5.         Hold Person

6.         Lightning Bolt

7.         Protection from Chaos, 10 ft. radius.

8.         Protection from Normal Missiles

Level 4

1.         Cause Serious Wounds

2.         Dimensional Portal

3.         Plant Growth

4.         Remove Curse

5.         Wall of Fire

Level 5

1.         Commune

2.         Conjure Elemental

3.         Hold Monster

4.         Raise Dead

5.         Telekinesis

Alignment and the Underworld take 2

art stolen from the awesome Chris Huth

I've discussed before my problems with incorporating D&D's alignment system into the Underworld setting. Yesterday, rather serendipitously, I believe I stumbled upon an answer.

There is no real "metaphysics" in the Underworld.  It exists in the science fantasy world of pulp fiction.  It is, in some sense, akin to the "Cthulhu mythos" with its super powerful aliens masquerading as deities.  These beings exist on Earth before the dawn of human civilization, and therefore exist in the land of things that were but are no longer.  Now they slumber in the mountains and seas of the Underworld, waiting for the unwary to awaken them.

But some have already been awakened.  There are those among these alien beings who see mankind as a boon, and when humans came to the shores of Atlantis they made themselves known in their own peculiar ways.  For these entities, mankind is a source of food.  However, they utilize humans like a farmer utilizes his crop.  In exchange for sacrifices, the "gods" give humans the ability to maintain civilization.  The Underworld is a metric shit-ton more dangerous than the ancient world of Earth, and the help is appreciated, regardless of the price.

Other such entities exist that are not so fond of mankind.  Unlike their brothers and sisters, they are not content for the occasional meal.  Why provide services for humans when they could just devour them.  These god-like powers, which men call demons, seek to pull the whole universe into their slavering maws.  They can think in the long term, however.  Many form small cults to undermine the power of deities so that mankind will be more vulnerable.

In game terms, these two groups are lawful and chaotic respectively.  Most other creatures, including most people, are neutral.  This means they're more or less out for themselves rather than the furthering of civilization or the feeding of demons.  Players may still pick which alignment they are.

Quick Map Related Thought Experiment

I've been working on some conceptual maps for the Underworld, and I think I've hit on a way to represent farmland on a Mystara style map.  Here is a small map centered on the city of Akham (formerly Khemia) in the Underworld.

click to embiggen

Here we have a desert region that is made fertile by the presence of a river system.  In this case, the area within a day's walk of the city of Akham is utilized regularly for agriculture.  This is represented by the solid green hexes.  Other areas are fertile (grasslands hexes) but are not utilized in this manner.

Here is my campaign map after I've given it the same treatment:

click to embiggen

It this case, the region near the two trade towns -- the southernmost one being Lichgate (whose spelling I really need to codify) -- is settled rather heavily with small farmsteads.  Villages only utilize the immediate surrounding area for farming, but due to their size and lack of armed men they are unable to claim the other hexes from the wilderness.  In general these settled areas are peaceful, but a cursory glance at the map will reveal that a few monster lairs are quite close to some farmland.  I imagine those poor souls are rather used to raids.

While obviously not as detailed as Rob Conley's method, I do think it adds something to the maps.  Now, do I want what it adds?  I'm not sure yet.  Theres something to be said about the phantasmagoric unreality of a D&D world consisting of nothing but huddled villages and terrifying wilderness.  I've been thinking about maps a lot recently, so expect some more posts on the subject too.

As a last note, heres a shout out to Jim of Carjacked Seraphim who happens to share my birthday.  Happy birthday Jim!