One Million Room Mega-Dungeon – 003

The well, previously noted, is located in the exact center of the site and immediately to the southwest of the well is the main staircase that goes down into the first level of the dungeon. The total distance from the surface of the cap to the base of the stairway is about 40 feet. The stair way has treads about 20 feet in width leading downward and the stairway is composed of granite and marble. At the base of the stair way is a large room (L-001, R-00001) that is 50 wide and 80 feet long. This room was partially filled with debris with was cleaned out by the PCs. There were various stands and benches in the room as well as a fountain. Nothing of any real value is present in the room and there are eight door ways leading out of it, two in each of the four directions, equally spaced along the walls. The marble floor, walls and ceilings are covered in designed formed by inlaid stones depicting scenes from battles and other momentous occasions. All of the doorways had very heavy oaken doors with steel reinforcing and were found in an unlocked condition but were very difficult to open. All of the doors opened into the stairway room.

Perhaps I should clarify, there are about 40 stairways from the 1st level running up to the surface, these are covered by the cap that was installed long after the dungeon was built and the original builders were gone, the dungeon was used for thousands of years before the cap was installed and someone, as noted above, knows how to breach the cap and restore it. There are other openings that lead from the dungeon out to the outside world on the sides of the hill, those are currently undiscovered, well hidden on the outside and sealed. I am presenting this dungeon as it was for the first few months after the players arrived.

So what I am going to do is present the dungeon as it was in a certain period of time and occasionally give you glimpses of what happened later in one reality. One of those snippets is to let you know that about 3 months in all of the stairways were revealed and open and that caused the players some problems and anxious moments.

One Million Room Mega-Dungeon – 002

However, in fact there was no surface collapse into the dungeon and eventually it was learned that the original dungeon dating back at least 15,000 years was capped with a 20 ft. thick cap of unknown material with only one entrance left accessible, but sealed. On top of that cap there were two levels of “dungeon” consisting mainly of storage and with a small prison area. On top of that was built the castle and the city. This “dungeon” had many openings into corresponding areas above. It was estimated that the city and castle were demolished about 3000 years ago give or take a few hundred years or so. When this occurred, the “dungeon” was also destroyed. Therefore, the dungeon that remains is the original pre-cap dungeon. After the original single access through the cap was located the breach into the dungeon mysteriously disappeared.

Before the breach disappeared, the PCs lowered themselves down with ropes several times before they began searching for a better way in. After the breach disappeared they had little choice but to clear the access stairway. That alone took them several weeks.

I hope to soon start posting the rooms with comments. This thread is numbered 001 since I am guessing if I live long enough to finish this project it will take over 600 threads of about 3000 posts each (5 rooms to a post) to complete the project. But at least this project should keep me out of trouble, as I avoid all the other forums like the plague.

As it becomes necessary I will add an index to this post. I have debated how I will number the rooms for you and I have decided that I will number them as follows L-001 would be Level one and L-095 would be Level ninety-five and so on. Each level has between 5000 to 15,000 rooms per level, so the room number is noted as R-00001 for room number one and R-00957 would be room number nine hundred and fifty-seven and so on. The total line for each room will read L-001, R-00001 and so on. Sub-Levels are designated as L-001A, L-001B and so on.

One Million Room Mega-Dungeon – 001

The title is several things, it is partly to get your attention, partly a joke and partly serious. 

This dungeon is part of the Ruins of Murkhill campaign, with the name coming from the first game session of the campaign that started on July 11th of 2009.

Murkhill is the name of the large walled village that is located on a hill that rises 3500 feet above the broad flat plain that surrounds it. The main reason for the village location is the pure clean water that flows from a powerful artesian (magical) well in the center of the hilltop at a constant temperature of 34°F. Since the whole center of the hilltop is a rough jumbled mess of large stones covered with some soil, trees and grasses the village is built on the south facing side of the hilltop and a 1000 foot wide meadow rings the remainder of the hilltop.

The hilltop itself is somewhat rectangular and the rough jumbled area measures about 5000 ft. by 8000 ft. in size (1.4348 sq. miles or 918+ acres). The area of the entire hilltop is approximately 1607 acres.

The artesian (magical) well produces water that wells up about 8 feet above the original courtyard level and the well opening is 20 ft. in diameter at the surface and the water flows without any seasonal variation. The water emerges from the jumbled area in polished granite channels the at each of the four different points (each of the four directions) and the channels extend all the way down the hillside and out to a quarter mile distance from the hill where each channel ends and four large streams begin. None of the jumbled mess seems to have interfered with the well in any way.

There are additional flows of water coming out of the hillside into the channel at many different points that all together quintuple the flow of water in each of the channels. Once the dungeon was re-discovered, it was eventually learned that an unknown number of taps into the central vertical channel of the artesian (magical) well exist. Other knowledge is that the diameter of the artesian (magical) well at the level of the surrounding plain is 100 ft.

When the PCs showed up and started investigating a breach into the dungeon from a supposed surface collapse, they figured out that the entire jumbled area are the ruins of what used to be a large castle and city contained within walls estimated to have been 20 feet thick and extending 30 feet into the air and 60 feet into the bedrock.

There is a roadway that starts at the center of each face of the hill at the base and by the time it makes one trip all the way around the hill the four starting points have joined and they continue around the hill as a single 60 ft. wide paved roadway that circles the hill all the way to the top where it ends at the village on the south side of the hilltop.

More to follow about the area and then after that I will get into describing the dungeon. Room by room and level by level. It would be a miracle if by any chance I ever post any drawings. All of my drawings are produced on the fly and are very rough and dirty and not remotely suitable to post, sorry about that.

OD&D meets Redwall - 002

The following dates back to November 2013 to January of 2014, so this is all history at this point and I am posting it here along with a few other posts on this subject as a hopefully novel approach. My inspiration for this was nothing to do with the “furry” stuff, but instead the Redwall children’s books by the author Brian Jacques. There are 22 books in the series and there are a variety of animals in the books, both noble (good) and common vermin (evil) and these hold true with very few exceptions. This is the second post:

OK, the first game of this experiment took place on a Saturday evening in January and the weather only took out two players, but I still had five players present. Hopefully you have read the previously posted introduction, so now some of the background that lead to that situation.

There are a large number of sentient races in this part of the world which they call Meraelynyan; here are a few of them:

The most aggressive of the lot are the Ferozian who "once" viewed everyone else as food and in “rare” cases have been known to violate treaties and the newer laws that were born out of a series of Wars between the Ferozians, their allies and many, but not all, of the other races. The average male Ferozian stands about 6’4” and weighs in around 240 lbs. The Ferozians share many traits with wolves and other predators being very territorial and braver in packs. They are gray of fur, with rare variations. Ferozians are not fond of the water and are not great swimmers. These creatures are one of the most tradition bound and only the fiercest can rise to leadership and the Great Leaders will is law among them. Ferozians are one of the races that possess magic although it is quite rare among them with only one in a thousand bearing the Gift. The current Great Leader is searching all of them out and putting them to use to conquer their neighbors, striking without warning and gaining the upper hand in the early going. They have also been kidnapping as many as possible trying to discern those with the potential for magic, but as they found they could not recognize the trait in others they have been letting them starve to death and in some "isolated" cases even eating them and have turned to capturing and then killing.

The Zaqoyan are the one of the larger of the lot being much like sentient bears and most commonly of light red-brown fur. They are very strong and usually of mild temperament, but they fight with great ferocity when they are roused to war. When their trust is abused, their drive for vengeance is legendary. Of all the furred races, they alone of the furry races are nearly bereft of magic, with only one in ten thousand bearing the Gift. The average male Zaqoyan stands about 7’6” and weighs in around 380 lbs. They love the water and are powerful swimmers.

The Nagaretan are just marginally shorter than the Ferozians and are much like sentient badgers. They can be touchy and easily offended, but they are also pragmatic and were instrumental in binding the Ferozians to treaty and law at the end of the Wars. The average male Nagaretan stands about 6’ 2” and weighs in around 250 lbs. They are not fond of water either and are known for the rich dark brown color of their fur. Among the Nagaretan magic is quite rare and about one in a thousand bears the Gift.

The Zavaletan are one of the smaller of the furred races and are of wiry musculature and known for being very quick. They are much like sentient foxes. They are usually of light yellowish fur and the average male stands around 5’4” and weighs around 135 lbs. They have the most antipathy for the Ferozians and the feeling is mutual. The Zavaletan are good swimmers and about one in two hundred and fifty bear the Gift the most of any race.

The reptilian races of the Savean are covered with sand-colored scales and are great swimmers and contrary to looks some are also great climbers. They can go up sheer walls like they are stuck to them. While being a single race their abilities vary depending on where they are hatched, those hatched in the swamps are the great swimmers, likewise those hatched in deserts blend into that environment and are almost invisible and those hatched among the cliffs are amazing climbers and so on. The average male stands about 6’6” and weighs about 260 lbs. Only about one Savean in fifty thousand possesses the Gift, but in those that do it is especially strong.

The insectoid race of the Siddiq have a hard gray shell, an exoskeleton, and stand about 5’8” tall and appear to weigh about 150 lbs. but are a lot lighter. They do not swim but instead “skitter” about on top of the water, and they also can climb a wall no matter how sheer or slick and can hang upside down on the underside of a surface for hours. They can move rapidly on the eight long slender legs or rear upright and function on four legs with four arms. The Siddiq are naturally armed with a retractable razor sharp blade that extends through the palm of their “hands”. They use no other weapons and as they grow in power their natural blades accumulate a magic "charge".  Similar to the Zaqoyan, about one in ten thousand bears the Gift itself although as noted they all accumulate a magic "charge" on the natural blades they wield.

The Ferozians very rarely speak any language but their own, for they feel it is beneath them to do so. The Zaqoyan, Nagaretan, and the Zavaletan over a long period of strong alliance have come to speak dialects of the same combined language and can roughly understand each other and some older ones speak additional languages. The Savean only speaks their own language as a rule and so do the Siddiq. The only major exception to this is that most creatures know at least some of the trade language.

All of the sentient races see in low level light extremely well and can operate in daylight or nocturnally with nearly equal ease, though they prefer daylight. There are many races besides these, though only some are aware of it.

Magic known as The Gift, is an innate ability that you are born with and cannot be developed later, it is an individual Genetic Trait. The Gift comes in two flavors, Intelligence based and Wisdom based. First you have to meet a minimum level of Intelligence or Wisdom and then be found to have the trait for The Gift. The Elders among the Ferozians, Savean and Siddiq can identify The Gift in their young, but among the Zaqoyan, Nagaretan, and the Zavaletan, The Gift is only identified when it first manifests itself which could be as early as five years old or as late as extreme old age and some with The Gift never manifest. Alone of all the sentient races the Savean can develop The Gift on its own, but all the rest must find a teacher to develop and grow in The Gift.

Extremely rare is the one who possesses both versions of The Gift, usually only occurring once in many generations. When such a one appears they are held in great honor by all, but at the same time held to an extremely high standard by all. Legend tells of The Great Ones of Old and Legend also tells of two Great Evil Ones of Old who sought to use their Gift for evil and of the great battles that brought their downfall.

OD&D meets Redwall - 001

The following dates back to November of 2013, so this is all history at this point and I am posting it here along with a few other posts on this subject as a hopefully novel approach. My inspiration for this was nothing to do with the “furry” stuff, but instead the Redwall children’s books by the author Brian Jacques. There are 22 books in the series and there are a variety of animals in the books, both noble (good) and common vermin (evil) and these hold true with very few exceptions. The purpose of this was to take the players out of the comfort zone of playing humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, etc and give every player something completely different to play and play-test the ideas:

As some of you know I have been running an OD&D campaign since July of 2009 with a wide variety of player ages, background and experience. We are near to bringing that campaign to a temporary stopping point and beginning in January I am starting a new campaign somewhere else on the same planet (opposite side).

I have sent the players the following info as a starting place and invited them to provide feedback. Everything is subject to tweaking up until the campaign starts. I gave them this little starting scenario as a wild alternate to the various ways that PCs usually meet.

You all awaken to find that you have been (you assume) robbed, beaten, arrested, dressed in rags and chained up in a large dungeon cell. You awaken with no memories of who you are or what happened, you do not know if you do or should know each other or not. You have no possessions, except for your rags and you are very hungry and thirsty. You have no knowledge of what abilities or talents you may have or possess. Until you learn otherwise, assume that you are all fighting men/women. You will learn once you see your captors that survival very likely will depend on a speedy escape...

I continued to give the players additional snippets leading up to the new campaign and invite their feedback, input and suggestions.

I am planning on having no elves, dwarves, hobbits or halflings as player characters (yes, gentle readers ;) hobbits and halflings are two completely different creatures), only as non-player characters. The players will not know until they get their character sheets and until they look around the dungeon cell whether or not their character is human or something else. I am designing some new player character races and the campaign will not necessarily be humancentric. Magic will be Different and Magic-Users/Clerics, well wait and see. :) Hopefully it will be fun.

I later eliminated humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits or halflings completely from this part of the world before we started playing, I just did not want to give all of that away to begin with.

Another snippet:

Once you (each of you) are fully awake, groggy, with a splitting headache, but awake, you look around at the others chained alongside you and realize that you don’t recognize anyone and you do not even know what these creatures are. Looking down at yourself you realize you are not sure what you are for that matter. A door opens and some guards walk into the space in front of your cell. Large muscular looking creatures with a harness holding their weapons and insignia over a fur covered body, both feet and hands are clawed. You take note that the claws look very sharp as do the fangs that show when they "smile". They point at you and seem to be insulting you, but you cannot understand their language. This goes on for a while, then something from outside the cell that sounds like a command, results in all of them leaving. The minimal light in the cell dwindles to nothing. You are very, very hungry, but your thirst is impossible to ignore, your lips are dry and cracked. You realize that those guards are not going to be bringing you anything and that no matter how you ended up here, you seem to have no value to your captors/jailors.

This was the lead up to the game and the players did not even have character sheets at the beginning of the game, but only received those with minimal information as they started to discover things about themselves.

OD&D begin for me in the Fall of 1975

Bitd in the fall of 1975 a guy from Columbus brought OD&D with him to college. He had gotten the game in the spring of 1974 and played with a group of high school friends and he was the referee. That first week he told me about D&D (OD&D) and I was immediately all in. Our first game was a group of 12 players and the ref and when we started we had two elves, two dwarves, one hobbit and seven humans. That was pretty much the ratio even when the group go bigger.

In the beginning both dwarves and the hobbit were fighters, but later on there would be two hobbits thieves, one dwarven and one elven thief. In the beginning both elves were magic users, we only had one guy who ever played an elven fighter/magic user. Of the seven humans we had two magic-users, one cleric and four fighters.

So the initial 12 were one cleric, four magic users and seven fighters. When we had a party of 20 later on, we would have one cleric (we only had one guy who ever played a cleric, and he is one in real life for lo these many years), so one cleric, four thieves, six magic-users and nine fighters. So we were always light on healing magic, and magic items for the cleric were a priority and he always go first dibs on the magic armor. Later on in the games that I played in, instead of reffing, I had a paladin and I had a ranger(not at the same time) no one else ever played either of those. One guy alternated between magic-users and thieves and never once played a human, except for later on when he played druids. The guy who played the elven fighter/magic-user (the other ref) also played human fighters, an Illusionist and a Bard.

I never used my own dice to roll up my characters, I used the other refs table d6s. I rolled at least 16-18 for Strength 3d6 in order no adjustments for my fighter or subclass for every character I had over the four years. My other numbers might be very good all the way down to very low (several 3's), but they always had a good Strength. The other players rarely ever rolled an 18 for a character or a 20 on a d20. The other ref and I rolled them frequently, often when it was my or his NPC versus my or his PC and in that situation we both rolled double 20's on the same combat round (we always ran combat as simultaneous) for a double auto kill often enough that the other players came to expect them. The other ref once rolled 7-20's in a row, and IIRC I rolled 4-20s in a row on at least three occasions. The same d20's that the two of us rolled 20's on the other players would roll 1's, 2's and 3's on. I haven’t rolled that well in a long time.

I have vivid memories of the first game and going through six characters that first evening. :D When death is not permanent because you can roll up another character and be back in the game in a few minutes, how cool is that!

Out of that whole group I was the only one that got to read the rulebooks and the only one that my friend ever offered to let ref. A couple of months in I started reffing and he moved over to playing and I did most of the reffing after that. IIRC no one else had any interest in reffing so it worked out great because I loved it.

OD&D and "Meta-gaming"

I don't normally use a word like “meta-gaming” because to me it is a word devoid of useful meaning. For some of you, I have already outraged you with that first statement, but I ask you to hear me out. First of all I am talking about OD&D, this is not a story game like some later games, this is the original adventure game of exploration and many, if not all, of the more egregious things that powergamers and/or munchkins/min-maxers do are not applicable in OD&D.  Such as:

Another form of metagaming occurs as a form of powergaming during character creation, when a player takes flaws or liabilities that they know the gamemaster is unlikely to fully exploit, thereby acquiring extra creation options without paying a corresponding penalty.

That is not part of OD&D so it cannot happen, we play 3d6 in order straight up no adjustments and you create the character by playing the character not by creating a novel for a backstory.  There is no list of proficiencies, skills, flaws or perks to choose from. You develop the character by playing the character.

Assuming that if an item (often a chest, desk or book-case) is mentioned by the gamemaster during the initial description of an area, it must have some relevance to the storyline, and immediately searching or examining it. (while ignoring other furnishings or objects that are most likely there as well).

This is OD&D, there is no predetermined storyline, in OD&D after the game session is over and the players talk about the game - there is the story - it is what happened during the game.

The whole meta-gaming concept starts with saying things such as:

Gaining knowledge from Out-Of Character or using knowledge from a previously played or dead character. Using certain types of attack or defense based on the strengths and weaknesses of an opponent that the player's character is unaware of or any action that is based upon the knowledge that one is playing a game.

The thing that bothers me most about these assumptions that these players are "metagaming" and, therefore, cheating is the unspoken assumption that PCs know absolutely nothing about the world they live in and grew up in. In a pre-radio, pre-TV, pre-Cell-phone and pre-Internet world everyone told stories about everything and the amount of knowledge we assume an energetic person who wants to be an adventurer has is miniscule compared to what  a real person in such a world would know.  There would be stories about most monsters passed down from generation to generation and there would be storytellers in public places with new stories all the time. The problem is modern people not understanding what a society with an oral tradition is like. Two of my grandparents were born in 1892 and my parents were children in the mid 1920’s and 1930’s, and they were adults before radio made it into their homes in a very rural area. I myself remember having no running water and outdoor toilets and no TV in the home.  In that environment stories of all kinds are told and repeated constantly. 

What other people call meta-gaming or cheating, I call good smart play. Cheating is rolling a one and claiming to roll a twenty and I have never played with anyone like that in 39 years. But again I am reffing OD&D so I don't have any of the handicaps that some DMs/GMs may have. I never use modules and even if I did I would tweak them out of recognition, I don't have any pre-determined storyline and the players cannot break my world no matter what they do, it is not possible and I want them to try. The players all know that one: I create a lot of my own monsters and two:  the ones I use from the rules are all tweaked. For instance an ogre could have 80 HPs and an ancient troll (very rare) could be 10’s of thousands of years old and smart instead of young and a non-intelligent eating machine or somewhere in between.

My take on “meta-gaming” is this, if your campaign is less challenging because of “meta-gaming”, I would submit that it is not a player problem, not a cheating problem and not a sportsmanship problem, it is a DM problem and the DM needs to step up their game. As a DM or Ref you need to give your players a unique environment different from anything any other Ref can give them and the little bit of “meta-gaming” that helps them stay alive is part of the game when you are playing OD&D.

Worldbuilding and the world of The Ruins of Murkhill campaign 001

Worldbuilding and the world of The Ruins of Murkhill campaign

I approach worldbuilding from two directions at the same time. The part of the world that the PCs see is created from the bottom up approach as they move about the world and explore it and at the same time I also do some top down worldbuilding to a limited extent. The top down portion the PCs for the most part do not see and is done by determining how large the world is, how many moons it has, the percentage of land to ocean, does it have an ice cap or two and many of the macro details.

I do the top down portion for myself so that things can be somewhat consistent about the things that the PCs will notice such as weather, climate, how many moons they see in the sky and etc.

The world of The Ruins of Murkhill campaign is very large and has two other campaigns (at the present time) on the same planet although they are widely separated. The planet will eventually have at least 30 or more unique campaign settings


This planet is considerably larger than Earth and is approximately 20,000 miles in diameter instead of 7926 miles. The ratio of land to ocean is 35% to 65% and it is more geologically active than earth. Gravity, atmospheric pressure, axial tilt and many other factors are the same as or very similar to the values for earth. The length of the day is 30 hours and mean temperature is the same. There are three major moons in the sky and they range from the size of Venus to the size of Earth and all are habitable. There are an additional 30 moons in the sky that range from twice the size of the earth's moon to half that size and they are not habitable.

Now if I had the time and were so inclined I could do calculations to establish at any given moment how many moons would be in the sky at the same time and many other things. While it would be fun to have complete statistics for the planet and the moons, I do not have the time or the inclination to do the calculations myself. But the above gives me enough information to add some color to descriptions I give the players PCs from time to time.

In addition, it allows me to calculate the surface area of the planet - 1,256,637,061.436 square miles—giving 439,822,971.503 square miles of land and 816,814,089.933 square miles of ocean. The land area of earth is 57,308,738 square miles and this means I have 7.7 times the land area to play with and areas can be separated such that many completely different campaign areas that are highly unlikely to ever meet.

Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 006

 This is a list that I had in my notes, not sure now where it came from, but it sure makes a complete list, although way too detailed to use in a game.


1= Mite 1/24d
2= Quarter Farthing 1/Quarter Noble
3= Third Farthing 1/12d
4= Half Farthing 1/8d
5= Farthing 1/4d
6= Ha-penny 1/2d
7= Three Farthings 3/4d
8= One Penny 1d “Copper”
9= Three Half-pence 1 1/2d
10= Half Groat 2d “Tuppence”
11= Threepence 3d
12= Groat 4d
13 Five Pence
14= Sixpence 6d “Half Shilling”
15 Ten Pence
16= Shilling 1/- 12d
17= Quarter Florin 1/6 “Helm” 18d
18 Twenty Pence
19= Quarter Noble 1/8 20d
20 Gold Penny
21= Florin 2/- “Two Shillings” 24d
22 Quarter Angel
23 Twenty Five Pence
24= Half Crown 2/6 30d
25= Leopard 3/- 36d
26= Half Angel 3/4 40d
27= Double Florin 4/- 48d
28 Fifty Pence
29= Half Noble 4/2 50d
30= Crown of the Rose= 4/6 54d
31= Crown 5/- 60d
32= Quarter Guinea 5/3 63d
33= Angel 6/8 “Half Mark” 80d
34= Third Guinea 7/- 84d
35= Noble 8/4 88d
36 Ten Shilling Note
37= Half Sovereign 10/- 120d
38 Half Laurel
39 Half Unite
40= Half Guinea 10/6 126d
41= Spur Ryal 15/- 180d
42 Rose Noble
43 Britannia Sovereign
44= Sovereign 20/- “Pound” 240d
45= Guinea 21/- 252d
56= Rose Ryal 30/- 360d
47= Two Pounds 40/- 480d
48= Double Guinea 42/- 504d
49= Fifty Shilling 50/- 600d
50= Triple Unite 60/- 720d
51= Five Pound 100/- 1200d
52= Five Guinea 105/- 1260d

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 007

Ogres – are very large and have powerful very heavily muscled builds with broad shoulders and very large hands, there is no quit in an ogre, they can often be found with mixed parties of other monsters. The average ogre runs 9-10 feet tall and weighs around 700-800 lbs.

Trolls – Most trolls that adventurers will encounter run from 7-10 feet tall and weigh from 300-600 lbs. They look nothing like most illustrations I have seen, the most common troll has a black or blue-black glossy rubbery hide; however there are many different types of trolls, some of which have long hair that changes color with the season and the location they are found. Trolls, like dragons, are immortal unless they die by violence. Although rare there are rumors of trolls that are 10's of thousands of years old or even older. The average troll is a mindless hungry eating machine that feeds and sleeps. But it is said that if they live long enough that their intelligence grows to the point that they become sentient and thus obtain the skills and craftiness to grow older. If pieces of a troll are separated by at least a mile each piece will grow into a complete troll.

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 006

Gnolls – a sterile cross of gnomes and trolls that were initially created by an insane but powerful chaotic magic-user and since have begun to form by abiogenesis. They were created as body guards and when the wizard was destroyed by the demonic forces he was trying to control, this resulted in the few gnolls that existed being released into the wild. They combine the intelligence of gnomes and the brute strength and vitality of trolls. They do regenerate to the extent of healing even major wounds, but they will not regenerate missing limbs or from death. They do have the large gnome nose and the black glossy hide of the troll but without the rubbery qualities. The average gnoll is about 6 feet tall.

Bugbears – are nearly as large as ogres and are powerful vicious fighters with abnormally long arms and fast reflexes making them deadly fighters. They have a large round head that looks much too big for their bodies with a thick powerful neck. Their eyes glow yellow-green as do their teeth which are like a sharks. The average bugbear is about 8 feet tall.

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 005

Orcs – They divide themselves into numerous tribes spread across the world, warlike, cruel and bloodthirsty, almost as intelligent as men but due to their nature they do not progress very much. They are low in wisdom and are content to live on the spoils of war. They will negotiate and but rarely keep their agreements, there are times when the can be traded with, but watch your back. They live in villages and caves. They are not pig faced, but do have a very prominent long jaw and a sloping forehead. When large numbers of them arise they will form into armies that march on the nearest civilized area to burn and pillage and reclaim territory for themselves. Orcs average about 6 1/2 feet in height.

Hobgoblins – Everything you can say about goblins and kobolds applies to hobgoblins except they are about the same intelligence as humans and are like orcs in being warlike, cruel and bloodthirsty and savage. Hobgoblins average about 7 feet in height and are fearless. They are favored by other races as elite troops, whereas orcs are viewed as cannon fodder to use a more modern term.

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 004

Each type is its own species and can not breed at all or interbreed with any of the others, all are Chaotic and will detect as evil. None of them are dog, hyena or pig like in anyway in their appearance. From time to time you can find any or all of them working together:

Goblins – These are the smallest of the evil humanoid monsters, not very bright, extremely dirty, completely untrustworthy with any third party, very loyal to each other but only with regard to outsiders so if you kill one you have picked a fight with all of them. Otherwise they happily stab each other in the back. They have a keen since of spell and excellent night vision and are excellent trackers. They always try to avoid full daylight, as they do not see well in daylight and it is painful for them. They are barely 3 feet tall. They are not complete cowards and like to have huge numerical advantages when the attack armed creatures. They like to prey on the weak or small groups. They are cave dwellers.

Kobolds – These are much the same as goblins; however they are brighter and craftier, good at tactics and will negotiate to buy time to gain an advantage, but they will not keep an agreement that is not entirely to their advantage. They stand about 4 1/2 feet tall and are less cowardly than goblins and they can be surprisingly hard to defeat. They love traps and ambushes. They prefer to prey on the weak or small groups, but under the right conditions they can take down merchant caravans and other larger groups. They are cave dwellers.

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 003

Over on Dragonsfoot morikahn wrote:

Humanoid monsters are formed through abiogenesis. Just like in Lord of the Rings, orcs come from mud and slime. This is the leading reason why they are at odds with player character races.

* Some races pop into existence when the right conditions occur, but can then carry on their race through normal means. Members of these races tend to be less belligerent towards other lifeforms as they have developed inside a semi-nurturing social structure. Centaurs are like this for example.

* Some races, like orcs, form as fully fledged adults. They have no concept of family or rearing children. They rarely show any empathy towards other lifeforms and respond well only to signs of strength. This is what makes them so dangerous: they are mostly psychopaths.

* Females can form for races that do not breed normally, but will be sterile. Female ogres for example
.
One of the side benefits of this type of structure is that as a DM I never have to worry about players raiding an orc village then having an emotional dilemma about what to do with the defenseless orc children. There ARE no orc children. It also means creatures can pop up in weird locations and don't need to follow standard ecology.

For my purposes I am re-writing and using it as follows:

Humanoid monsters are formed through abiogenesis; however, IMCs this is an unnatural process and it the interaction of Chaos and Evil acting on the slime, muck, manure and decayed things giving rise to the spontaneous appearance of the humanoid monsters (Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Bugbears, Ogres and Trolls). This is the leading reason why they are at odds with player character races and why they are implacable foes and can never be redeemed. Sometimes it is possible for the PCs to bluff and bargain their way out of situations if the monsters are not confident of victory.

* Some races that can then carry on their race through normal means tend to be less belligerent towards other lifeforms as they have developed inside a nurturing or semi-nurturing social structure. These races did not arise through abiogenesis and Centaurs are an example.

* Some races, like Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Bugbears, Ogres and Trolls, form as fully fledged adults. They have no concept of family or rearing children, since they have no families or children. They rarely show any empathy towards other lifeforms and respond well only to signs of strength. This is what makes them so dangerous: they are mostly psychopaths.

* Females can form for races that do not breed normally, but will be sterile. Female ogres for example.

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 002

Classes that are available IMCs are Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and Clerics; those are the basic starting points. I also allow Paladins and Rangers, which are a subclass of Fighting-Men; however, I usually do not allow Thieves, Illusionists, Druids, Monks, Assassins. Once I have re-written the Bard, I will allow them in the game also. In OD&D Bards start as Bards from 1st level, unlike later versions and I consider them to be a subclass of Magic-Users, as are Illusionists and Druids. Monks are a subclass of Clerics, but are so poorly designed they would have to be substantially re-written to be used.

If I were going to allow most of these, I would recast Thieves with a different name and as a subclass of Fighting-men, but I don't foresee that happening anytime soon even though I may take a stab at re-writing them just for fun. I will not allow Assassins IMC because they are by definition EVIL and as such can not be a PC, although it an NPC could very well be an Assassin.

OD&D Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 001

In my OD&D campaigns and worlds, I allow the following standard PC races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits. That is the starting point. There are no Half-Elves and there are no Half Orcs, why? you say, because I like it that way. In fact there are no Half-anything in my campaigns. That is not the only reason, (more often than not it is all adults) but I also from time to time have children IMC, usually 10 and up, but as young as six and it is not my place to teach other peoples children the facts of life. Their parents can have those conversations in other settings. When it comes to monsters I do not usually put women and children monsters in the game, but I am intending going forward to eliminate them altogether for the evil intelligent monsters.

But back to the topic at hand, to continue IMC Hobbits and Halflings are completely different creatures. Hobbits are OD&Ds small PC race and Halflings are an unfortunate replacement for the real thing. The same happened as Ents were replaced by Treants and Balrogs were just deleted from OD&D. IMC there are Ents and Treants and Balrogs, but more on that later in another post.

So let us say that someone in the game wants to play something other than a standard race, what do I do? I work up a write up and let them play anything they want, that exists IMC. You want to play a centaur, a dragon, a balrog or whatever, I sit down and create a 1st level version and scale it up from there. Now if the rest of the party kills it on sight, that is not my problem as the Ref. Now I've never seen the party do that, but they have given a player with a strange PC a lot of grief until the new PC has proven itself.

Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 005

So of the next thing we need to address is how much of a given coin can a PC carry?

I am not too picky about encumbrance and try to not to let a lot of bookkeeping intrude into the game and bog things down. I like to go by it this way, give your players reasonable guidelines and trust them to follow them reasonably well. After all, hopefully you are gaming with friends and if they deliberately cheat, they are not very good friends, if you want to consider people who cheat as friends.

Belt Pouch holds 2 pounds of coins which is 280 or 140 depending on the coin, but again you are not going to get 140 Crowns or Sovereigns outside of an extreme high level challenge.

Small Sack holds 20 pounds of coins or 5600 coins

Large Sack holds 50 pounds of coins or 14,000 coins

Back Pack holds 60 pounds of coins or 16,800 coins

Small Saddle Bag holds 20 pounds of coins or 5600 coins

Large Saddle Bag holds 50 pounds of coins or 14,000 coins

Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 004

Some of the coin names I am kicking around right now are Farthing, Halfpenny, Penny, Quarter Shilling, Fourpenny, Half Shilling, Shilling, Half Crown, Crown, Noble, Royal, Half Sovereign, Mark, Guinea, Sovereign, Double Guinea, Double Sovereign, and Treble Sovereign.

I am most likely for simplicity to go with these:

Penny (Copper)(or Brass or Bronze)
Shilling (Silver)

These will be the common Coins that everyone uses and with the ration of 100 Pennies equals 1 Shilling that allows for the minimum price to be one Penny and no further divisions are needed.

Crown (Gold)
Sovereign (Platinum or Palladium)

These coins are both rare and not in general circulation, being used almost entirely by royalty, the nobility, rich merchants and high echelon adventurers. About 99+% of things that the PCs could buy will be priced in Pennies or Shillings and only high end things, such as, a ship or building a stronghold would be paid for with Crowns or Sovereigns.

While these are all subject to change and not in final form yet, these are my current thoughts on how to fun the money system. While I could also come up with different names for each countries coins, in practice I will not since any changes need buy in from the players. Just calling CP - Pennies, SP - Shillings, Gold Pieces - Crowns and Platinum Pieces - Sovereigns is not too big of a change and the buy in should be smooth. Where having dozens of coin names would not be smooth or easily done. Especially not when we play once or maybe twice a month, for about four to six hours at a time. And bitd when we played 20-28 hours per week, we would not have wanted to do anything complicated because it would get in the way of playing D&D. A more complicated system is fine for books, but not for games.

Again to be clear this is not to imply that there are Adamantine or Adamantite or Osmium or Iridium or Mithril coins, this is just to show the relative value and rarity. Think of the values as follows:


Penny equals 50 cents
Shilling equals 50 dollars
Crown equals 50,000 dollars
Sovereign equals 50,000,000 dollars

Mithril Piece equals 50,000,000,000 so if you want Mithril Armor you are not going to buy it, you need to impress the Elven elders as being a true Elf Friend and maybe, just maybe you have a slim chance of getting some.

Adamantine/Adamantite/Osmium/Iridium Piece equals 50,000,000,000,000 dollars so if you want something made with these materials you need to do something like save an entire dwarven community from a horrible death, (more than once :)) and maybe if they have ever obtained any they might make you something or you need to go deep, deep, deep into a dungeon and live to tell the tale and having a slim chance of finding some. 

That is how rare platinum and the other precious metals are in the world, very rare.

Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 003

Someone elsewhere replied to my proposed values for Gold, Silver and Copper by saying;

Normal exchange rate btb is 1 gp = 100 cp and even at that exchange rate I find it nearly impossible to get cp hoards collected by adventurers. 8,000 cp? That will encumber half the party and buy a single suit of armor. Imagine how laughable that treasure pile is at your exchange rate of 1 gp = 100,000 cp! 8,000 cp? That might get you a stick of gum, if you don't have sales tax in your setting!

To which I replied:

To repeat: I plan to switch to a Silver Economy and make Gold rare. Under a Silver Economy, Silver and Copper will be the common coins and both will have the value that they should have. When a PC obtains a Gold Piece or very rarely a Platinum or Palladium Piece, it will be something to be hoarded for a future large purchase. I will be posting a revised equipment list with new pricing in this thread.

Unlike the real world I will have one system of measure, the same for precious metals as for grain. The coins will be properly sized so that the following will be true:

One pound = 16 ounces = 7000 grains; one silver penny = 25 grains, 280 silver pennies to a pound, the same will be true for copper, brass or bronze coins. Gold, Platinum and Palladium coins are 50 grains and therefore 140 coins to a pound.

The value of silver and copper/brass/bronze coins will become more clear once the revised equipment list is completed and posted.

For example a dagger instead of costing 3 GP will cost 1 SP and a 10' pole instead of costing 1 GP will cost 10 CP. These are not final numbers but are in the ballpark of the new numbers, all prices will be adjusted and some will go up relative to others and some will go down relative to others. A cheap meal can be had a for about 20 CP and 1-2 SP will get you a good meal. Once this thread is more fully complete you will see that the PCs will not leave a single copper behind and with the encumbrance made realistic for weight versus value where 8000 CP weighs just about 28.57 pounds they will be able to haul off the copper and the silver.

Not all coins will be of standard size and that will be handled in game, but with anything other than copper/brass/bronze and silver being properly rare, the PCs will not pass up a thing.

Apparently in crafting his reply he completely ignored my point of switching to a Silver based economy where even copper has a value making it worth obtaining and of course getting rid of the monster coin size helps too.

Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 002

In some parts of the world where there are many allies and major trading partners the various nations have standardized their coinage as much as possible by adopting standard coin denominations and weights, even though each nation has it own coin names and designs, the coins in some areas are freely used in trade and commerce. These nations, along with their dwarven neighbors have agreed on standards of purity and composition for the alloys and metals used for coins and it greatly facilitates commerce. This standardization is gradually spreading as the price of joining in the trade and commercial growth.

The nation by nation coin designs for the Obverse and Reverse sides, the Edge and the Rim are very important because clipped coins are not legal tender and when found are forfeit and must be re-melted and re-struck. Non-standard coins and metals obtained in treasure hoards by adventurers must be sold, after testing and replaced with approved coinage and or trade bars. Trade bars are used for higher value transactions and for banking of large sums of money.

In the majority of the world there is no standardization of coinage and transactions are more based on the amount of precious metal and tests for purity. The most common metals for coins are sliver, copper, brass and bronze. Much less common is gold and rarely platinum and palladium.

Coins in the standardized areas start with at least 99.9% purity and then is mixed in the case of silver, gold, platinum and palladium as follows 9 parts precious metal and 1 part copper, for the purpose of strength and to reduce coin wear. This is standard and acceptable for the agreed values.

Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 001

I usually stick with a Gold Economy as it is in the rules, but I would like to switch to a Silver Economy and make Gold and the other more valuable items even more valuable, very rare and special.

This is not to imply that there are Adamantine or Adamantite or Osmium or Iridium or Mithril coins, this is just to show the relative value and rarity. My most recent thought is to do it as follows:

1 Adamantine/Adamantite/Osmium/Iridium Piece is equal to 1000 Mithril Pieces
1 Mithril Piece is equal to 1000 Platinum/.Palladium Pieces
1 Platinum/Palladium Piece is equal to 1000 Gold Pieces
1 Gold Piece is equal to 1000 Silver Pieces
1 Silver Piece is equal to 100 Copper/Bronze/Brass Pieces

So right now I am pretty much just thinking out loud and  while comments are welcome here, you are also invited to go to the forum links in the My Return post below and post there also.  I will also be adding coin names, likely using historical British coin names.

I have much to say on this subject and given time to do so, I will!

Natural 20's in My OD&D campaigns

Over the years I have seen many, many discussions on message boards about "does a natural 20 always hit." I adjudicate it as follows: If magic is not required to hit and you roll a natural 20, then you always hit. If magic is required and you are using a magic weapon (with or without a plus to hit) and you roll a natural 20, then you always hit. Those are the simple ones.

Let's say that you roll any number on the d20 from 2-19 (a natural 1 always misses) and your roll plus any bonuses you have equals or exceeds the number needed to hit, then you always hit (again accounting for whether or not magic is required or not and whether magic is used or not).  Again still simple.

Now for example, let us say that you need a 20 to hit AC 0 and the AC you are trying to hit is AC -2, what do you need to roll to hit (again accounting for magic as per the above)? Well there are two ways you can hit AC -2, the first is to roll a natural 20 and you hit, the second is to roll any number and consider any bonuses you have to hit. If you roll a 18 and have a +4 to hit, then you would hit AC -2 by rolling a 18. And so on and so forth, that is the way I run it and have never run it any different way. That is one of my very oldest house rules.

A Paladin's War Horse in My OD&D Campaigns

Over on Dragonsfoot in the Workshop a while back I came across a thread titled [1E] Paladin's War Horse Quest and the discussion was for 1st Ed AD&D, but I joined in it anyway because I like the topic. We kicked some ideas around and as a result in my new paladin thread, noted in an earlier post today on this blog, I posted a revised writeup for OD&D concerning the Paladin's War Horse.

The original text regarding a Paladins War Horse in the first printing of OD&D:

The paladin may at any time he chooses obtain a horse which is likewise gifted, but he may never obtain a second within ten years of the first, so if one is killed it is not automatically replaced. The paladin's horse is a Heavy, with Armor Class 5, Moves 18", has 5+1 Hit Dice, and high intelligence.

New writeup regarding a Paladins War Horse (specifications and example Quest):

The paladin may at any time he chooses obtain a horse which is likewise gifted(not subject to disease, has a 10% higher saving throw against all forms of attack [excluding melee] and detects all evil at a range of 6")by going on a special Quest, but he may never obtain a second within ten years of the first, so if one is killed it is not automatically replaced. The paladin's horse is a Heavy Warhorse, with Armor Class 2, Moves 24", has 8+1 Hit Dice, and high intelligence and wisdom. When the paladin decides the time has come to obtain his Warhorse, he will go on a Quest into the wilderness alone and guided by visions from above, after a difficult time of it he will find a horse in a trap battling for its life and the paladin can only effect a rescue at great risk to his own life. If they both survive, the horse will speak telepathically to the paladin and take him back to his homeland to meet the Horse King (Lawful). He will learn that the Horse King, like the paladin, serves LAW i.e the real deal, not some immortal that poses as a god (law, neutral, chaos) that the majority worship, but the real thing that only a few ever find.

The Horse King informs the man that, when a human saves a horse a blood-bond is formed. If the man wishes, he can join the elite group of humans known as the Horse Brothers; these folk have special-links to their mounts and can freely communicate with all equine. In addition, since he is a Paladin serving LAW, as all Paladins must and do, there are some special things that will also happen, the Horse King grants for paladins that their horse companion will stay vigorous and capable for its entire life span and that it will be extended past the normal bounds to match the paladins life span and the paladin will also remain vigorous and capable for his entire life span. No form of magic or attack will be able to age either the Paladin or his Mount.

Very powerful, yes it is; however you have not seen the new paladin writeup yet. :)

House Rules for My OD&D Campaigns

The house rules thread is interesting for me for several reasons, one I am going back and looking at every house rule that I have ever had, thought about, tried in a game or not, whether it was used only once or on an ongoing basis. On here I will also be commenting on what kind of house rules I do (what is acceptable and what is not) and what things are so "new school" that I will not even entertain trying them in a game. Some things just break the experience and I will go over some of those things here. I am also in the process of reviewing updating the house rules I am going to use going forward from here. 

My current situation is this, I have had prostate cancer surgery (successful) and I am in the recovery period from that (physical therapy, etc.) so at the moment I am not reffing, I am taking a rare opportunity to play instead. One of my players who previous experience was with RuneQuest and has never played OD&D or any D&D for that matter until about 9 months ago is now having his first go at reffing OD&D. He is playing it mostly by the book although he has a "story" and a "mission" that we are involved in. While it is not something that I would ref myself, we have enough freedom of action in the game that I am enjoying myself immensely and we played yesterday for 6 hours straight.

While I have never experienced the "burnout" I have heard other speak of it is always refreshing and revitalizing to play, especially when it is usually years between opportunities.

So down the road, likely months, I will eventually be posting my newest and latest house rules at a much later point in the discussion.

My Return to My OD&D Campaigns blog

Well today I return to my blog after a long hiatus, however, I have plans to resume posting hear on a semi-regular basis that is considerably more frequent than has previously been the case. I have started the first few threads of hopefully many in the Workshop at Dragonsfoot forums and I hope to add some discussion here that is not appropriate in the Workshop itself.

The current new threads are:
[OD&D] Halenar Frosthelm: One Million Room Mega-Dungeon –001
[OD&D] Halenar Frosthelm: House Rules 39 years and counting
[OD&D] Halenar Frosthelm – Money, the OD&D Economy & Equipment
[OD&D] Halenar Frosthelm: The Ultimate Paladin Thread
[OD&D] Halenar Frosthelm – The Ultimate Ranger Thread
[OD&D] Halenar Frosthelm: Races & Classes for PCs & NPCs 

I will be adding posts to these threads, hopefully, every week and adding discussion here. Perhaps some of the material will inspire you in your OD&D campaign or to give OD&D a look if you have never played it.

Thank you,

Halenar Frosthelm
The Perilous Dreamer

Player mix and other stuff

I feel very lucky with the player mix that has developed. I have two very good old school players in my game. A couple of guys with some playing experience and then a whole slew of players with no experience to speak of. Since the campaign started in July of 2009 we have played every month without missing a game. I did have once solo game during that stretch and 3 games with two players. All of the other games have ranged from 3-9 players per game with 5-6 being the most common. We have now had 17 different people play in this campaign and 13 of those are people who are currently playing every now and then.

My 16 (now 17) yr old player has only missed one game out of 21 consecutive games from July of 2009 through March of 2011. This player is really maturing as a OD&D player really developing a great feel for the game. One of the older guys in the game early on called for him to be the leader of the group and the group agreed and he has been the leader of the party ever since. Currently his character is the longest running in the game and the highest level (7th). His first character was the first to die permanently in the game and his current character obtained a ring of regeneration at about 4th level IIRC and has went to zero hit points at least 10 times since then. As the designated leader, the highest level fighter and the possessor of the ring of regeneration he is always one that fights the toughest foe and a several times he has killed the opponent on the same round he went to zero himself. He has also learned not to stand in front of a chest when you open it and many other valuable lessions. :)

My house rule on death is currently as follows:  at 0 HP to -10 HP you are unconscious and the ref rolls a d12. That is the number of melee rounds the other players have to give you first aid or you die. If I roll a 1 on the d12 you die, since that meant it was impossible for anyone to give your first aid. The higher I roll, the better chance the player has of surviving. So far about 8 characters have died permanently.

A few game notes from December 2009.

This is an old post that was sitting in the draft bucket and I somehow missed it: This is from December of 2009.

In my current campaign, my December game, only my 16 year old player could make it - so I ran a solo game for him. At one point he is exploring a portion of a dungeon and he forces a door and goes into a room where there is a fairly substantial treasure and I had placed a real monster of an ogre in the room as the guardian and instead of being a max of 25 HP this ogre had 60 HP. The Character was a 3rd level fighter with 14 HP and no bonuses at all except a magic sword +1 and magic chainmail +1. I gave him an opportunity to back out of the room and flee, but he didn't take it - he advanced to fight.

(Now in all of our previous games, this kid rolled so poorly I was really beginning to feel badly about it and so earlier this particular evening I picked up the dice that he had been throwing an average of 6 on a d20 in the previous games and I rolled it 10 times and averaged about 15. Then I handed it to him and told him that as long as he rolled it and made it bounce around like I did he would have a great evening and some stories to tell the next time we got together.)

Back to the fight - he tackled that ogre and started rolling like you never saw before. He beat the ogre in a straight up one on one fight. Now one thing I do is if you roll a 20 I let you roll again and if it is another 20 you get double damage against a higher level monster. Well right in the middle of this fight after rolling a couple of 18's, a 16 and a 17, he then rolls a double 20 and the max of 6 points damage doubled plus 1 for the sword for 13 points. Now he was down to 1 HP himself at the end, but he didn't roll anything on the d20 less than a 14 and he rolled on the d6 a 4 or better on every roll. He was on a high after that and ended up making quite a haul for himself.

Very Sad News

My friend Duwayne passed away Sunday afternoon of a heart attack. He checked himself into the hospital on the 4th with what he thought was stomach cramps (he was a veteran with other health problems) but they told him he was having small heart attacks. He was in for a week and had just been sent home two days ago. I saw him on Saturday and he was looking a lot better. It was a real shock when I found out that he was gone. You never expect it and I certainly didn't this time. He was the same age as me, 54. I won't know for a few days when the funeral is as a lot of the family is out of town and out of state. This is very rough on his family, no one is ever prepared for something like this.

I met him about two years or so ago and we became friends quickly. I found out that he was into many of the same things I was, such as John Carter of Mars by ERB and many, many others. I talked to him about OD&D and he was immediately interested even though he had never played a roleplaying game before. When I started up the OD&D campaign he was one of my steadfast players. His first character was a dwarven fighter. It fit him perfectly! In his younger days he was a very strong man, with wide burly shoulders very muscular and not very tall. I had an easy time picturing him in armor with a huge double bladed battle axe. He added a lot to our game that can not be replaced. He will be missed in many, many ways.

He was a really great guy and a lot of fun to be around. He had a great sense of humor and a great laugh and he do anything for a friend. He always had your back. A very humble gentle man. He had a deep faith and reverence for God, he loved God and I am certain that God loved and loves him. Our dog loved him. I loved him, he was my friend.

Back Online

Well, I have a new - used - computer and am back online much sooner than anticipated!


Cheers


Later edit: unfortunately due to many different circumstances it did not translate into a lot of new posts.

Online access interrupted

Hello all,


This is just to let you know that I am off line for the indefinite future until I replace my computer. It is toast!


Also I did have a game in December and in January, hope to be able to post a bit on those eventually.


Thanks to anyone who is interested, not sure when I will be back online.


Halenar