Another Piece of Inspiration

This image is from the tympan of a cathedral in Conques.  It depicts the literal "Mouth of Hell."  That's not a metaphor, that big dragon head at the bottom is actually the entrance to hell.  It's a giant mouth.

Now I need to figure out where that goes on my hex map :D 

You may have already seen this...

but I like it.

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.

A Map Has Been Found and Other Underworld News

Thanks to reader Derek Upham for showing me Abyssia.  I'll be basing the main campaign map for Ilion off of this section of Atlantis.

Here is my rendition of it on the continent scale map.

Click to enbiggen

I'm not entirely sure which sector I want to enlarge and place Ilion in.  I've thought about the large island with the mountains in the center since it would allow them to control trade throughout that small sea, but I'm still not sure.

I've completed the Men & Magic booklet for the Underworld, but it uses far too much from the White Box document for me to post it here.  I replicated much of the little booklets because I want players to only need one booklet in front of them to play.  I'm currently working on the Monsters and Treasure booklet, and once it's created I might run a playtest of the rules over Skype.  Eventually I hope to add some adventuring rules to it as well and make the unique portions available freely online as a downloadable WB supplement.  This may or may not pan out.

Alignment and the Underworld

As my previous post should indicate, I'm once again giving thought to how one might run the Underworld setting.  Last night I managed to cook up an almost complete rules document for players participating in such a campaign.  I've hit a bit of a snag though: what do I do about alignment?

Until last night, I had given very little thought to alignment in the Underworld setting.  Nightwick's world is one that is entirely based around alignment.  The God of Law struggles against the myriad of Demons who wish to unmake all of creation to end their suffering.  Underworld has no such struggle.  Sure the various civilizations in the Hollow Earth are attempting to expand into the dark jungles and blasted deserts, but there is little ideology wrapped up in this.  The heroes of Underworld seek glory and riches not the betterment of the human condition.

But what about the Gods? Surely some of the ones I've selected for the setting would be Good or Evil (or Lawful or Chaotic as the case may be).  Well... no.  I have drawn a line between the various demons that magicians conjure and the beings that provide priests with spells.  However, both are equally wicked and demand the foulest rites to be carried out in their name.  One can see my treatment of Apollo to see what I mean.

I could just dispense with it altogether; however, this is probably more trouble than it is worth.  I've decided to include the three basic classes in the Underworld setting (if it worked for Tekumel it'll work for me) and too much of Clerical magic is tied to their alignment.  Cure v. Cause wounds, protection from Evil, detect Chaos, the list goes on.

Until I figure out this issue it seems that development on the rules side will stall.

Need a Hollow Earth Map

I'm looking for a map to base the continent scale area of the Underworld off of.  I can't find one for the life of me, so I'm asking you guys for help.  Public domain is good, and if it shows mountains I'll hug you.

Nightwick Abbey Session 4

Last night's session was the first in over a month.  It wasn't a very action packed session, largely due to time constraints.  We had a bit of catching up to do and quite a bit of time was spent cracking jokes and goofing off.  This is in some sense part of the game, and as long as the participants had a good time then who cares?

The party consisted of:
Ffraid -- A Neutral Cleric  (A quick note: I'll be using the RC's idea of Druids and Paladins, and it is Ffraid's intention to become a Druid once she hits level 9)
Wodewick -- A Lawful Cleric
Slick -- A Thief
Cornwell -- A Magic-User
and their five followers

The village of Nightwick was a bit busier than usual.  Several merchants were setting up stalls and selling goods not normally available in the village.  Some investigation revealed that this is part of an annual fair that lasts only for a few weeks.  The merchants attempt to sell as many goods as they can before winter comes to the mountains and the snow makes travel dangerous.  Several of the party members restocked their supplies, and Slick the thief was able to obtain several magic arrows.  He also cut a deal with a group of Froglings who offered to brew him some potions that an adventurer might find useful if he would come back next week and purchase them.

After this, the party set forth for the abbey once again.  They found that the advancing cold had an adverse affect on the strange vines that spread from the abbey.  A group of Hobgoblins lay in ambush for them inside the ruins, but after trading bow shots for a few rounds, the Hobgoblins fled.  The party took the opportunity to pursue and managed to slay the whole lot of them before they made it inside the dungeons.

The party had originally planned to check out the are where they slew the Hobgoblin leader in the last session, but something about the dungeon caused them to change their mind.  The entirety of the abbey seemed to creek and moan like an old house (only louder).  The players guessed that this must be because something in the dungeon changed.  One of the players suggested that they return to a landmark room and explore out from there, and so they headed to the circular room which once contained the Orcish black mass.  Here they were attacked by a number of skeletons in decrepit armor, but the party one initiative and the clerics were able to turn them.

They moved into an as yet unexplored room that contained a large tapestry.  This tapestry depicted Sword Brothers in a desperate battle with demonic-looking pagans, but when the light flickered the image seemed to warp to depict undead knights slaying innocents.  Behind the curtain was a small hallway leading to a library manned by zombies in monastic habit.  These set upon the adventurers, and after a hireling was slain and two of the party came within inches of death, they fled back to the surface.  The confluence of strange happenings caused one of my players to say "This place is weird. What the hell did these guys do?"

Next week will hopefully be more active, though if we discuss Mr. Bill some more, that's ok too.