2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Twenty-Four

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary!

Continuing with Part Seven of our look at Running Castle Blackmoor over at The Alexandrian Blog. Today we will look at Part 10 of that series "Blackmoor Village Map."

Running Castle Blackmoor – Part 10: Blackmoor Village Map

He leads off with a map of Blackmoor Village and Vicinity, saying: 

In running my remixed version of Castle Blackmoor, I knew that the village of Blackmoor at the foot of the castle would become quite important. I printed out copies of some of the earliest maps of Blackmoor created by Arneson, but quickly discovered in actual play that they had not been made available at legible resolutions. With a little bit of research you could sort of figure things out, but the map ultimately proved more confusing than illuminating to most of my players.

He goes on to talk not wanting to "radically depart from Arneson's original material." He redrew the map based on the map published in Domesday Book #13. He links to that map and an older map over at Havard's Blackmoor blog.

IMO his redraw is extremely faithful to the originals, although he says he was tempted to make some alterations, but ended up on making one and says it should be easy to spot.

He closes with this:

For the version given to my players, however, I did decide to roll the clock back: Jenkins Hill is not yet (and may never be) Jenkins Hill in this version of Blackmoor, nor has the Great Svenny built his freehold. So this will be the version of the map I give to my players:

He posts a second map that is the rolled back version and indicates that you can download high resolution copies of both.

Before I close out this post I want to link to another post that was made by Mr. Alexander titled The Blackmoor Cruxes.

He talks about the problem of trying to date when the first session of Blackmoor was played. There is evidence that points to 1971 and also to 1970. He says:

However, in their earliest accounts virtually all of the Blackmoor players cited 1970 as the date of inception. Although several people, including Arneson, later decided that their memories must be faulty after looking at the documentary evidence (further muddying the waters), the most significant testimony is that of David Fant: He was the original Baron of Blackmoor and infamously became the first vampire. As such, he definitively played in the earliest sessions of Blackmoor, and yet he stopped playing when he got a job at KSTP at the end of 1970 and definitely was not playing with Arneson in 1971. (The fact he can definitively date the event which caused him to stop playing with Arneson lends his account substantial credibility.)

IMO that Dave Fant dating with a real world event is telling.

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Sahuagin and Other Creatures -(Part Three)- Day Twenty-Two

Today's Topic is "Sahuagin and Other Creatures, Part Three" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month! Today we will look further into the Blackmoor Supplement for OD&D at some of the other monsters provided.

Here we see an array of creatures with Giant in front of their names:

Giant Octopus 

Giant Squid 

Giant Crocodile

Giant Toad

Giant Frog

Giant Leech

Giant Beaver

Giant Otter

Giant Wasp

Giant Beetle - five types

• Stag
• Rhinoceros
• Bombardier
• Fire
• Boring

Giant Shark

Giant Eel

There are some oddities here, for example Giant Crocodile show up in numbers of 12-60, but Giant Beetles only 1-12 or Giant Leeches 2-12. So I tend to tweak the various numbers quite a bit. One thing not mentioned here are Giant Ants and a number of other insects that I have always found to be great fun. In addition, almost any of the extinct mega-fauna do show up IMC from time to time. 

The giant squid is noted to be more vicious and more mobile than the giant octopus. The giant toads are "relatively harmless" but will defend themselves, not so harmless then. Where giant frogs are described as "man-eaters" and truly vicious.

The wasp and beetles give ideas that can be applied or tweaked for other giant insects. 

Then we get into Fire Lizards and Minotaur Lizards which sound like fun and the fire lizard looks like a dragon without wings. 

For dinosaur fans (I am one) we have:

Elasmosaurus

Mosasaurus

Plesiosaurus

I and other people I know use a longer list of dinosaurs both land and sea. These above are giant marine animals, the first sometimes grabs sailors off ships (keep your guard up) and the last is the sea serpent.

More sea creatures:

Whales

LAMPREY: Similar to very mobile leeches, they range from 1 hit point to 18 hit points. They drain blood very quickly (2-5 turns), at a rate of one level per hit point. Evolutionarily primitive, they are hard to kill.

Sea Horse

PORTUGESE MAN-OF-WAR: Possesses 10-60 deadly tentacles, up to 100' long. Body is about 10' across. Big advantages are protective coloration (tentacles indistinguishable from weeds), complete silence and lack of brain waves to detect. Tentacles can paralyze (save vs. same), but only sustain 1 point each, then are severed. Only destruction of the body sac will kill it.

PUNGI RAY: Often mistaken as a piece of low weed or sea grass on the bottom, the Pungi Ray is deadly. Each of the seemingly innocent green stalks is really an iron hard spike full of deadly nerve poison. Their protective coloration is excellent (treat as invisible outside 10'). There is a 50% chance that there will be 1-10 gems inside the carcass. Each square foot of a body that lands on a ray will suffer a separate poison attack. (Ex. — walking on one would be two attacks — one for each foot. Landing on one would be 20-30 attacks.) Treat the spines as poisoned daggers (if saving throw vs. poison is made, still suffer dagger damage.) If the ray is able to cover the victim, treat it like a Giant Leech.

MANTA RAY: This giant-as much as 75' across — is best known for its 15' mouth which is capable of devouring virtually any non giant species in a single gulp. It has a great stinger in its tail which is treated as a mace with a saving throw vs. paralyzation needed if it hits. Normally a solitary predator, it blends with the sea floor. Due to its lightning speed, the first rush is nearly impossible to dodge. Its indiscriminate feeding habits label it neutral. There is a 75% chance that the stomach will hold 2-20 gems.

Water Spider

Weed Eel

Eye of the Deep

IXITXACHITL: A race of Chaotic Clerical Philosophers...

Locathah

MORKOTH or MORLOCK: The shrouded wraith of the deep

Masher

There are a number of others listed as well and these are a rich source of ideas for an ocean going campaign. I have had parties that sailed about for years of game time and it was a blast, they were almost sad when they reached their destination.

Tomorrow we will start our look at the monsters of the Eldritch Wizardry Supplement.

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Twenty-Three

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary!

Continuing with Part Six of our look at Running Castle Blackmoor over at The Alexandrian Blog. Today we will look at Part 8 and 9 of that series "Special Interest Experience" and "Special Interests."

Running Castle Blackmoor – Part 8: Special Interest Experience 

Running Castle Blackmoor – Part 9: Special Interests 

The Introduction:

In the First Fantasy Campaign, Dave Arneson includes a system of “Special Interests” of which he writes, “Instead of awarding points for money and Jewels acquired in the depths of the Dungeon or hoarding items against the indefinite future, the players will receive NO points until they acquire the items listed below…”

He then asks a lot of excellent research oriented questions about when and how Arneson used this. He talks about different interpretations of the above and ppoints out that Arneson did not seem to spend time writing anything up that he was not going to use.

He refers you here for some additional light on the subject: Perhaps Daniel Boggs’ exploration of the Richard Snider Variant can shed some light on this.

He then proceeds to say:

For the purposes of running Castle Blackmoor, as you’ll see below, I’ve decided to go with the most extreme interpretation: The only way to gain XP is to pursue your special interests. (This is, again, not a declaration that I believe this to have been what was happening at Arneson’s table circa-1971. It’s just the most interesting choice to make as we explore alternative play dynamics.)

He says that what is in The First Fantasy Campaign is not directly usable as is, different methods produce different results and it suggests*:

(suggesting that their explanation has either been mangled or that the material is actually an inchoate mash-up of several different revisions of the ruleset), multiple “examples” that all contradict each other and any version of the rules, and copious references to other sub-systems that have simply not been included.

*File this away, I am going to make a future blog post to explore the implications of this quoted idea and why it is a beautiful thing.

He proceeds to talk about the system he devised as being inspired by what he considers the best ideas of Arneson, mixed with his own and ideas from the game Blades in the Dark.

So he has a Table to determine a random Special Interest for which you will have a 100% rating, to which you add a Racial Special Interest. Some races have a specific Special Interest and others such as human roll on a random table for a secondary interest. All other Special Interest you roll 2d6 times 10% to determine the rating.

I have thought about using this system, although I would allow some latitude with players determining a primary interest.

The next Section is Gaining Experience Points. 

You only gain XP for GP which are taken out of the dungeon and spent on a Special Interest.

XP is gained on a 1-for-1 basis modified by the character’s rating in the Special Interest.

So the higher the rating the more experience you gain and the lower the rating the less experience you gain per GP.

Followed by Complications:

Spending GP on a Special Interest may lead to complications.

This is detailed in the second post of the two we are looking at and it is very amusing to the referee part of me. 

Next up is Community Limits: Where he says the size of the community limits what you can do and spend so it behooves you to go somewhere that you can spend the amount you need or want to spend. There is also a frequency at which you can spend that much gold.

The next section is on Caravans and this should prove usual to most of us and our games. He has some great stuff here IMO.

How to setup a caravan and what that entails, the hazards to a caravan such as:

Caravans – Jeopardy: Caravans are subject to brigandry, natural disasters, and eldritch fates of an even stranger character. In some cases, characters might also simply be scammed by unethical caravan masters who simply abscond with their funds.

Rules for Basic Travel, a full Hexcrawl or on a trail/road that is part of a trade route. Also for the hiring of Mercenaries.

Then we have Community Investment and in addition to what he has here I would suggest looking at OD&D which has some useful information in this regard. Remember that Arneson in Blackmoor had "Domain Play," "Wilderness Play," "Dungeon Crawls," and "Town/City Play" all going on at the same time.

He then talks about Carousing, Carnavale, Philanthropy, Religion, Song/Fame, Training, Hoarding, and Hobbies. In a fair amount of detail, more than enough to generate a lot of gaming. 

The Racial Special Interests: Humans are Generalist, Dwarves are Hoarders, Elves and their Trees, Hobbits and Gifting. This could be extended to any number of Home-brewed or other races used in your campaign.

Arcane Projects are discussed and earning XP for these projects, including Spell Forumula, Bespoke Spell Egs, Workshops, Workshop/Laboratory Spell Eggs, Other Magic Items plans. 

In regard to Strongholds he says:

Specific rules for establishing and managing strongholds are beyond this present document, but 100% of GP spent on strongholds grant XP. If strongholds are located within the community, 50% of these expenses are also considered community investment.

He closes this part with a list of things you could add to this system, all of which are IMO great ideas.

Tomorrow we will wrap this series of posts up when we cover his last post the "Blackmoor Village Map."

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Sahuagin and Other Creatures -(Part Two)- Day Twenty-One

Today's Topic is "Sahuagin and Other Creatures, Part Two" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month! Today we will delve further into the Blackmoor Supplement for OD&D looking at Aquatic Elves and Mermen.

The Blackmoor Supplement presents Aquatic Elves this way:

AQUATIC ELVES: Also called sea elves, they are akin to mermen as land elves are to men. Found almost exclusively among heavy weed beds in quiet sheltered waters, they are great friends of the dolphins. They fashion great caverns in lagoon bottoms and reefs, where they establish shops that fashion fishing and seaweed harvesting equipment from indigenous materials (bone, weed, wood and sinew). These they trade with land elves for metal goods (they are unable to forge underwater) as well as rare metals found in the sea. For every 60 sea elves, there is a 50% chance that they are accompanied by 3-6 friendly dolphins. They are humanoid in appearance, with gill slits on the throat. Seaweed affords little or no hindrance to their movement. They are invisible in weeds or on reefs. They are mortal enemies of sharks and sahuagin, and will attack either if they outnumber them. They are friends to dolphins and land elves, and neutral to all others, except for fishermen, whom they dislike due to the number of sea elves snared in nets and killed mistakenly as sahuagin by ignorant humans

Aquatic elves are mortal enemies of sharks and sahuagin we find out here and a couple of things to keep in mind at movement of 12/18 for the elves vs 18/30 for the sahuagin running away is not much of an option for them.  The only thing the elves have going for them is that they live in shallow what water near coastlines, while the sahuagin have to keep below 100' except at night or in storms, so the elves are at a big disadvantage. 

What I did was add spell use with both mages and clerics reaching up to 8th level and fighters up to 7th level. I did the numbers of higher levels similar to how I previously did for the reptile* men. I also gave them telepathy in common with their allies the dolphins, with a 25 mile range so that other clans in the areas could be summoned to help fight off a sahuagin raid. 

The other change I made is that aquatic elves can wear elven chain mail (mithril) and swim unhindered by it with mithril being of neutral buoyancy. Some of those rare metals they trade to the land elves includes mithril. 

They get a single attack of 1-10 or by weapon type. 

Their allies the dolphins are also at a disadvantage versus the giant sharks that ally with the sahuagin. Dolphins move at 15/21 vs a move of 24 for giant sharks. Hit Dice of 2+2 vs 4-9 for sharks. So I increased the pod size for dolphins from 2-20 to 6-24. Their own telepathy has a range of 50 miles along with detect magic with the same range and they are magic resistant equal to dwarves. I gave them a common telepathy with their allies the aquatic elves. The dolphins can be fitted with a harness that allows them to attack with spears attached to the harness.

The Blackmoor Supplement presents Mermen this way:

MERMEN: More intelligent than lizardmen, these aquatic creatures use weapons as men do. They hunt fish, their primary food source. They maintain regular underwater communities where schools of fish are kept penned with nets for food. Giant seahorses are used extensively for transportation. In many ways, the civilization of the mermen rivals that of humans. When out of the water, they will take one die damage per turn during daylight, and one die per four turns during darkness, as well as quadruple damage from fire weapons. Spells and special suits are usually used when out of the water (to retain their moisture) but further limit their movement and combat abilities, as if affected by a slow spell. The first two turns out of the water, they will not sustain damage, and on the third turn will seek to return to it if not protected, or suffocate from the lack thereof (hence the damage). When attacking surface vessels, they may grapple from up to 1" distant. For every ten mermen on a grapple, the ship's speed is reduced 1". If the grapple is cut while they are holding on. the mermen are forced back 1". and unable to move or grapple on the next turn.) One merman out of ten carries a grapple. When surfacing to grapple or board, mermen are subject to normal missile fire with "soft" cover. When they board a ship, they start at a level lower than the ship. Seahorses may be harnessed to the grapples, with the strength of three mermen. Mermen are armed with slings and crossbows as missile weapons, and can surface and fire from seahorseback. They are generally neutral.

Mermen get three attacks, 1 bite and 2 hands (claws) for 1/8 and 1-4 each.  I gave mermen Mages and Clerics of up to 6th level each and Fighters up to 6th level. I did the numbers of higher levels similar to how I previously did for the reptile men.

There is a standard Sea Horse that the aquatic elves use, but here it is noted that they use Giant Sea Horses. The standard Sea Horse get 1 butt of 1-6 HPs. Now over in this post  I noted that before I had the Blackmoor Supplement and only the Greyhawk Supplement I said this about a Giant Seahorses, in regard to Tritons: They ride Giant Sea Horses of 5 HD, AC 6 and they bite for 1d4. 

So what I did is alter this just a bit, I changed the bite to 1d6 and they use the butt on the initial charge and thereafter they bite. They move at 18 inches instead of 12 inches with the AC being one step better that the standard seahorse.

Tomorrow I will take a look at some of the other monsters in the Blackmoor Supplement.

* Yes I am aware that reptile is a broad category that includes lizards, for my game I separated them with reptiles being water breathing and lizards being air breathing.

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Twenty-Two

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary!

Continuing with Part Five of our look at Running Castle Blackmoor over at The Alexandrian Blog. Today we will look at Part 7 of that series "Restocking the Dungeon."

Part 7: Restocking the Dungeon

He introduces the topic this way:

The creative and evolving process of restocking a megadungeon is something I discuss at length in (Re-)Running the Megadungeon. I’m not going to rehash that material here, and if you’re unfamiliar with that earlier essay you might want to take a few minutes to peruse it.

A large part of the gist of this side article and others is that you should employ standard non-linear dungeon design. I say standard because until I first got online, I did not know anyone did it any other way. The old school dungeon has multiple ways of getting to the various parts of dungeons, multiple entrances and exits, stairways, slides, portals and dozens of other ways (many of them secret or hidden) to enter or exit each level of a dungeon or area of a level. 

Back to restocking the Dungeon. He says that he see restocking a dungeon as a mix of art and science. You want to look at the context of events and the evolution of the dungeon should reflect ongoing events. Then he goes on to say:

With that being said, I often find it rewarding to incorporate random procedural content generation. It can prompt me to pursue unusual creative directions and force me out of my comfort zone. It can also “force” me to put in the work when it can sometimes be easier to default to “nothing happens”.

In restocking the Castle Blackmoor Dungeons he was looking for an alternative to the standard ways he normally does it saying:

As far as I know, however, Arneson never explained his restocking procedures. (If he even had a formal procedure.) So there’s nothing explicit for us to base our restocking techniques on. What we can do, however, is look at how a restocking procedure could be created to capitalize on the tools provided by the Arnesonian procedures we’re using.

He goes into a description of three  approaches that he developed that he calls:

EMPTY ROOM METHOD

GLENDOWER TEMPLATE METHOD

QUADRANT CHECKS

He says in part:

Quadrants, however, give you a simple one-size-fits-all approach that can be quickly slapped down onto any level of the dungeon.

You’ll still want to use common sense, of course: In the map above, for example, you can see how I’ve tweaked the borders of each quadrant on Level 1 to follow natural divisions in the dungeon corridors.

He is referring to a map image posted at the beginning of the post.

He closes by saying that with playtesting you may want to tweak the odds he has listed here and makes a couple of suggestions.

Tomorrow we will look at the Topic of Special Interest Experience.

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Sahuagin and Other Creatures -(Part One)- Day Twenty

Today's Topic is "Sahuagin and Other Creatures, Part One" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month! Today we begin delving into the Blackmoor Supplement for OD&D starting just with Sahuagin for today.

Here is the writeup as presented for Sahuagin since it is extensive I will only post parts of it and summarize some of the rest; however, you can download a copy of Blackmoor on the Blackmoor Campaign page of Dave Arneson archived here and you can read the full write up directly:

THE SAHUAGIN (Devil-Men of (The Deep):

A constant threat to man, beast and fish are the voracious SAHUAGIN whose only friends seem to be the equally voracious and predatory Giant Sharks. Although of an intelligence equal to the elves in many respects, the Sahuagin have taken and perverted virtually every aspect of civilization to support their sadistic cannibalistic culture.

There is a bit of history of the past and how the Sahuagin came to be and that they were created to be "the most evil of the evil." 

Much about the Sahuagin is probably myth but even if half of what is said about them is true then they are, indeed, a terrible threat.

This is followed by a full physical description. Their average swimming speed is 18" with a max of 30" once an hour. Also it details that they have hundreds of razor sharp teeth. Their attacks include their bite, the tail can deal club damage times two and the powerful pincers provide crushing damage. Beyond that they can rip and tear with the hind feet if the victim is held with the pincers.

Their disadvantages are that their eyes generally keep them 100' or more below the surface, although at night or during storms they will reach the surface. Their ears are easily damaged by loud noises at close range and they cannot pick out the sound of swimming creatures (of any kind). 10-60 will be found in a single group with a 30% chance they will be in a lair with Class "F" and "A" treasure. The lair will be completely water filled since these creatures cannot breath air or fresh water at all.

When found in a lair there is a 10% chance that it is actually an underwater community of 100-1,000 creatures. There is then a further 20% chance that this community consists of 1,000-10,000 individuals. The under water capital city has nearly 100,000 of these creatures residing within its watery limits. These cities will have great fighters and magic users as well as underwater horrors that live and fight for the Sahuagin. The ratio of these is as follows:

This followed by a long section detailing what is found in the communities and we find out they will have members equal to a 10th level fighter and magic-users up to 12th level. They will also have a large number of sharks that will fight for them.

They are armed with trident and net, with deadly poison on the trident and hundreds of small hooks in the fabric of the net. They bring victims to the nearest habitation usually to eat or to pen and use for entertainment.

They have a King and nine Princes, these positions of leadership are always subject to challenge from any other Sahuagin. The losers and any sickly or unfit are eaten. Females are visually no different from males and fight alongside of them. About 1% are born with 4 arms. Leaders will often have 4 arms and since they never stop growing leaders are usually the older ones. They are hatched from eggs and the birth rate significantly exceeds the death rate.

So you can see from the specs that they are very dangerous and they are a growing menace due to a high net yearly growth in population. The way I use them, they are such a powerful foe that even Tritons will seek alliances when Sahuagin come to call.

Tomorrow we will look at Aquatic Elves and Mermen.

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Twenty-One

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary!

Continuing with Part Four of our look at Running Castle Blackmoor over at The Alexandrian Blog. Today we will look at Part 6 of that series "The Dungeon Key."

The Dungeon Key.

First off I will let you know that he provides in his post:

There are four versions of the key available for download as Microsoft Word files:
Blank Template – Glendower Template – Seed 1 – Seed 2
COLLECTED ZIP FILE

You can download them individually or as the full zip file and the links currently work.

He says:

In order to make full use of this material, you’ll need copies of the Blackmoor Dungeon maps. The maps from the First Fantasy Campaign are ideal, but those from Zeitgeist Games’ Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor are adequate, despite introducing a number of new errors. (The most notable of which was that the cartographer didn’t understand how Arneson indicated secret doors on his maps, so missed several of them and turned the rest into normal doors.) The Zeitgeist Games release does have the advantage of currently being available on DriveThruRPG.

And yes, his link to the items on DriveThruRPG are working links. He also comments that the procedures he is going to show you will work on any dungeon, especially mega-dungeons and also homebrewed dungeons.

The next section is titled "The Keys" and this is where he discusses each of those four files that he made availabe for download. 

He describes Arnesons system thusly:

As I described in Reactions OD&D: The Arnesonian Dungeon, I found this particular format fascinating because the combination of treasure + protection point budget creates a specific tactical “shape” for the dungeon, but allows the GM to completely reinvent the dungeon on-the-fly each time they run it:

Under "Seed 2" he says:

Perhaps the most notable take-away, in my opinion, is how the same stocking procedure can create radically different versions of the same dungeon.

That seems to me to make it a system well worth digging into.

At the end he gives you his "Observations from Stocking."  He mentions odd results starting about Dungeon level 5 and some different ways of handling or interpreting that. 

After this he has a section on "Using Minimalist Keys in Play."

An excellent read, lots of good advice and a sense that Arnesons lower dungeon levels were brutal.

Tomorrow we go on to the next section "Restocking the Dungeon."

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Owlbears and Other Oddities -(Part Six) Day Nineteen

Today's Topic is "Owlbears and Other Oddities, Part Six" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month! Today is the 20 20 20 post.

Today we are talking about Tritons and Lizard Men.  Greyhawk presents Tritons this way:

TRITONS: Similar to Mermen in appearance, Tritons are more powerful in all ways. They range from 5-7 hit dice, and their ability to use spells is commensurate with their hit dice, ranging from 2nd to 4th level ability. Thus a 5 hit die Triton could use 5 spells up to 2nd level, a 6 hit die Triton could use 6 spells up to 3rd level, and a 7 hit die Triton could use a total of 7 spells up to 4th level. They move 15"/turn in water, but they do not venture on land at all. When mounted on sea horses their movement increases to 24". Armor class varies from 6-4. Magical resistance is very high at 90%; in Lair 25%.
Treasure varies according to strength, 5 hit dice Tritons have Type F, 6 hit dice Tritons have Type G, and 7 dice Tritons have Type H.

Triton, one attack, 3-18 plus special, Number Appearing 5-30+, AC 6-4, Move 15/24, 5-7 HD. 

I did not change much with Tritons, except these things. There will always be at least two - 6 HD Triton, if there are 21 or more there will be at least four - 6 HD Tritons and one - 7 HD Triton, if there are 35 or more there will be at least seven - 6 HD Tritons and at least three - 7 HD Tritons not to exceed 10% of those present in the largest groups will be 7HD and not to exceed 20% of those present in the largest groups will be 6 HD.

Groups of 20 or less have Type F treasure, groups of 21-34 have Type G Treasure and groups of 35 or more will have Type H Treasure. I also changed the number occurring to 8d6+2d12.

They ride Giant Sea Horses of 5 HD AC 6 and they bite for 1d4. (we did not have the Blackmoor Supplement yet when we wrote this up)

Greyhawk presents Lizard Men this way:

LIZARD MEN: These aquatic monsters have a rude intelligence, using weapons such as spears and clubs. They are fond of human flesh, and they will generally capture as many humans as they can when offered the opportunity in order to take them to their lair and have a tribal feast. They live either wholly under water or in very wet places (65%/35%).

Lizard Man, 2 claws 1 bite, 1-3/claw and 1-8/bite, Number Appearing 10-40, AC 5,  Move 6/12, 2+1 HD 

First I split them into Lizard Men and Reptile Men. Lizard Men are on dry land ranging across most terrain types including deserts. Reptile Men are the aquatic monster. 

Among Lizard Men they are specific to a type of terrain so those in hills will have different abilities and adaptations compared to those in deserts or those that dwell in mountainous areas with cliffs or those in deserts with hot sand and sun, but cold nights. 

Among Reptile Men abilities will vary between those in marshes and swamps, rivers, lakes, ocean coastlines. If found near to Tritons they will be enslaved by them and might help a party against Tritons if they thought there was a good chance of success.

I also made them quite a bit smarter so that there are Shaman types among them that can operate as a mix of a Cleric/Mage with up to 2nd level spells of each type. But the number of spells is as for a 5th level Cleric and a 5th Level Mage, of 1st and 2nd level spells only. This is even though they are only 2 HD+1.

Lizard Men have armor of Leather and some metal use, shields and swords, in addition to spears and clubs, they cannot use bows. They do have metal working. Base natural AC is 4.

Reptile Men do not have metal working, but will use metal weapons if they can get their claws on them. They prefer bronze weapons to ferrous metals. Base natural AC is 3.

I also upped the number appearing from 10-40 to 10-100. If there are 21 or more there will be a 3 HD leader, if there are 40 or more add and an additional 4 HD leader and 3 HD leader, if there are 70 or more add a 5 HD leader and two additional 4 HD leaders and four additional 3 HD leaders. There will be one shaman for every 20 in the group.

Tomorrow we will look at the Blackmoor Supplement and the Sahuagin.

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Twenty

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary! Today is the 20 20 20 post.

Continuing with Part Three of our look at Running Castle Blackmoor over at The Alexandrian Blog. Yesterday in Part Two we looked at the third post in The Alexandrian series about Running Castle Blackmoor and commented more on the series to that point, today we will look at the fourth and fifth posts in that series.

Running Castle Blackmoor – Part 4: Magic Swords

Magic Swords are a subject near and dear to me! He again discusses it, shows what he is doing and includes design notes and a whole slew of great swords.

He says:

Magic Swords are, universally, intelligent creatures. Possible explanations (some, all, or none of which might be true):

• Prisons for higher-dimensional beings.
• The matrix through which higher-dimensional beings communicate with the material world, and enact their will through mortal wielders.
• The personality storage devices which preserve the personalities of the Ancients; or perhaps the crew of some interdimensional / interplanetary vessel.
• Ancient artificial intelligence processing cores.

Arneson describes them as both the “Magic Swords of Mythology” and as “an entire family of magic swords”. The Swords comprised “most of the early magical artifacts,” with Arneson placing the statistics for each on an individual card.

I wrote about Magical Swords a short time ago on this blog at this post (https://originaldungeons-and-dragons.blogspot.com/2020/01/30-day-d-challenge-describe-magic-item.html) 30 Day D&D Challenge - Describe a Magic Item You Created - Day Seven  I give my treatment of swords there, they start with their own unique sentience and grow from their over time. Their personality is largely shaped by the first owner and/or first significant owner.

In the design notes his first comment is :

DESIGN NOTES

Simply waving away Arneson’s lengthy treatment of magical swords would have certainly been the easiest approach here. But it was also clear to me that magic swords WERE a central element of Blackmoor, particularly in its earliest days. (Where, as Arneson wrote, they were most of the magical artifacts to be found.)

Then he explains how he approached the whole thing and how he interpreted things.  He also provides a couple of tables for generating swords. The list of pregenerated swords is sweet!

The next part is the castle and its background, with a few really interesting tidbits the few people know about.

Running Castle Blackmoor – Part 5: Castle Background & Features

Excellent descriptions and history too. More as usual, useful design notes. The first half of the post covers the Castle and the second part of the post talks about the dungeon features on the map and goes into some detail. In the design note he again talks about how and what he did to understand what Arneson did and his desire to tap into that creative pallette of Arneson.

Tomorrow we get into the topic of the Dungeon Key.

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Owlbears and Other Oddities -(Part Five) Day Eighteen

Today's Topic is "Owlbears and Other Oddities, Part Five" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month!

Today we are talking about Druids and Ogre Magi. Please note that this is Druids presented as a monster rather than a PC. Greyhawk presents them this way:

DRUIDS: These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement capability, and are combination clerics/magic-users. Magic-use ranges from 5th through 7th level, while clericism ranges from 7th through 9th level. Druids may change shape three times per day, once each to any reptile, bird and animal respectively, from size as small as a raven to as large as a
small bear. They will generally (70%) be accompanied by numbers of barbaric followers (fighters), with a few higher-level leaders (2-5 fighters of 2nd-5th levels) and a body of normal men (20-50).

First off, they operate as a 5th to 7th Level Magic-User and as a 7th to 9th Level Cleric with Spells for those Levels. In a later Supplement Druids are introduced with a write up for PCs. We went back and made them consistent with each other, I will return to that point at a later date. Right now I want to focus on what encountering them is like. First they are well equipped with spells from both sides of the aisle which is pretty powerful in and of itself. On top of this 70% of the time they will numbers of barbaric followers (fighters) with the actual numbers left open to the referee, a few high level fighters as leaders(2-5, 2nd to 5th level and 20-50 normal men. And on top of that 1-4 Druids are encountered. So you could encounter one lone Druid or four Druids backed by an army. Now that is a variable encounter. The change I made here was to change that 70% to a 90%. And on the 10% without followers, there would be four Druids present.

OGRE MAGI: These are properly Japanese Ogres, far more powerful than their Western cousins! An Ogre Mage has the following abilities in addition to those of a normal ogre: 1) become invisible; 2) fly, as a Flying spell allows; 3) cause darkness in a 1" radius; 4) polymorph itself into a human form; 5) regenerate at 1 point/melee round; 6) employ a single Charm Person and a single Sleep spell once per day; and 7) use a Cold spell of 8 dice value once per day. These abominations typically lure or raid for human victims to pillage, devour, or enslave.

These are based on the Oni which is a kind of ogre or troll in Japanese folklore. At the time, I did not know that(having not yet read an Japanese folklore), so seeing no reason for the term Japanese Ogres, I rewrote this as an human, ogre and troll hybird created by a long ago wizard and went from there with it. They are a powerful foe with 1-6 appearing at a time. One is bad news, especially if it ambushes you, six is serious. They regenerate quickly, they can polymorph into human form and infiltrate the party striking during a watch in the night or just distract the party while they get hit from behind. There are many, many options when using these guys. One of the options we used was to make them leader types for groups of ogres and/or groups of trolls allied with an orc tribe.

Also of course, sleep spells are deadly against lower level parties, fly and invisible allows for a fast approach to range of the 8d6 cold spell followed by quickly closing to melee or casting of the charm spell or something else.

Tomorrow we will look at Tritons and Lizard Men, these get a fair amount of tweaking.

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Nineteen

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary!

Continuing with Part Two of our look at Running Castle Blackmoor over at The Alexandrian Blog. Yesterday in Part One we looked at the first two posts in The Alexandrian series about Running Castle Blackmoor, today we will look at the third post in that series.

Running Castle Blackmoor – Part 3: Treasure Stocking

This essay has a number of tables and a huge presentation of magical and technological items of all sorts. Everything you need to play an Arneson style gonzo game where you mix technology, post apocalyptic vibes, and space travel with magic, Swords & Sorcery and medieval times to mention just a few features.

The creativity level is off the charts both Arneson's and Mr. Alexander's treatment of the material, a veritable gold mine of game ideas.

This post has extensive design notes. However, here a few of the important points that he makes:

DESIGN NOTES

I find it interesting, but also perhaps unfortunate, that every iteration of Blackmoor seems to have stripped away more and more of this unique character, leaving behind an increasingly generic D&D milieu.

The other thing I love about Arneson’s items list is how many of them unlock new game play (rather than just enhancing the existing cycle of play).

In my first post I introduced you to this series of essays made by Mr. Alexander in regard to the setting and the monsters. Here in the part on Treasure Stocking a very important and oft overlooked point is made. That is the point about stripping away the unique character of the setting.

As a side note, I have discussed before many times the differences between old school and new school gaming. Some claim here is no difference albeit they have never actually played the former. Other say there are no schools, that there are no styles of play, they are all the same and all manner of similar dismissive comments about things that some of see as real things. I say I used to use the term old school; however, that term has been devalued and diluted with its application to things that are not even in the same universe as what we are talking about. I have seen other terms used as replacements, Primordial Gaming, Ancient Gaming, Pre-School Gaming and others. I am just calling it Arnesonian Gaming.

Arnesonian Gaming is by its very nature conducted in a setting of unique character that reflects the designer/creator of the game world. People criticize The First Fantasy Campaign because it is not highly polished, totally consistent and perfectly presented. They miss the whole point of creating a living breathing game world. The "Real World" is not highly polished, it is not consistent and it is not perfectly presented. The "Real World" is full of ambiguities, misinformation, inconsistencies, and all manner of skulduggery at every level. When you strip all of those things out of a game world, you neuter it and rob it of its life, you rob it of everything that allows for that "suspension of disbelief" because you removed the very things that make it come to life.

Another point he makes here is that the things that Arneson created for his game are not just things that are useful to the players right now, they lead to other options, new ideas, a jumping off point for players to take the game different places.

Let me ask you this.

Do you create unique things for your game that do not exist in something you bought?

If you create unique things do they "unlock" new possibilities? Do they put new options on the table? Do they create new ideas that go beyond the thing itself?

Tomorrow we will look at his next post on Magic Swords.

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Owlbears and Other Oddities -(Part Four) Day Seventeen

Today's Topic is "Owlbears and Other Oddities, Part Four" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month!

Today in Part Four will talk about Rust Monsters and Liches. Here is the way they were presented in the Greyhawk Supplement.

LICHES: These skeletal monsters are of magical origin, each Lich formerly being a very powerful Magic-User or Magic-User/Cleric in life, and now alive only by means of great spells and will because of being in some way disturbed. A Lich ranges from 12th level upwards, typically being 18th level of Magic-Use. They are able to employ whatever spells are usable at their appropriate level, and in addition their touch causes paralization(sic), no saving throw. The mere sight of a Lich will send creatures below 5th level fleeing in fear.

Liches are bad medicine, very dangerous and very hard to beat, especially if they are played well and not nerfed, they are IMO one of the most tactically and strategically aware monsters. On top of that their attack is d10 plus special, the whole fear and paralyzation thing plus spells. It gets even worse, they are found in Lair 100% of the time, so you get to fight them on their own turf and here is a real kicker, number appearing 1-4, yeah one is bad enough, what if you had four of them to contend with at the same time.

Let us say that you had two mage liches and two cleric liches. They each have one of their most powerful spells. The two cleric liches each cast Full Finger of Death - no saving throw, two of your most powerful gone instantly, then both of the mage liches cast Meteor Swarm. But there are many other spells they could use instead and on top of that the two mage liches combine for a total of four 8th level mage spells and the two cleric liches combine for eight 6th level clerical spells.

Like I said, if the referee does not nerf the encounter, these are almost impossible to beat unless the party knows what they are going into and plans accordingly. They would also need to be very tough cookies and be well-equipped.

Then there are the rust monsters as presented in the Greyhawk Supplement:

RUST MONSTERS: These seeming in offensive creatures are the bane of metal with a ferrous content, for as their name implies they have the effect of rust upon such substances, and this happens nearly instantaneously. Any hits by or upon a Rust Monster cause even magical weapons to rust and fall to flakes. Armor is affected in a like manner. The creature is very fast, being attracted to the smell of the iron-based metals, and when alone it will devour the rust it has caused.

They move at 12", and are AC 2 and you can not damage them with any ferrous metal weapons. My player hated these things. They will not hurt you, they just touch ferrous metal items and turn them to rust which they then eat.

My players came back with bronze armor, bronze weapons and wooden clubs and killed every one they could locate. After that they would always look for them with the thief scouting ahead and if they found any, then part of the party would change into their rust monster killing kit and take them out. Of course, one of the worst parts is that they had no treasure.

The Topic for Part Five tomorrow is Druids and Ogre Magi.

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Eighteen

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary!

Over at The Alexandrian blog back in Sept & Oct of 2018 there was a multi post series on Running Castle Blackmoor to celebrate Dave Arneson's birthday on Oct 1st. These posts are lengthy and excellent which is par for the course at The Alexandrian blog. I highly recommend, taking your time and reading all of them even for those who may not be fans, there is a lot and I do mean a lot to learn here. 

Running Castle Blackmoor

His first two posts are concerned with identifying his goals and focus, the dungeon and the monsters.
At the bottom of the post he printed these design notes which say in part:

DESIGN NOTES

Castle Blackmoor’s dungeons descend to Level 10 in the printed maps. (Reputedly only one expedition ever discovered the 11th Level, but the dungeons were said by Arneson to go as far down as the lava pits on the 25th level.) Despite this, the Protection Factor table ends at 7th Level because that’s as far as Arneson provided information. Beyond 7th level the value would have either capped or continued to increase. (But you run into additional problems in any case in the lack of Group IV monsters.)

Running Castle Blackmoor - Part 2: Special Monsters

With more design notes at the bottom of the post which say in part: 

DESIGN NOTES

The special monsters listed here are all inspired by the original Blackmoor keys or other accounts of play with Arneson. A few are a bit more of a stretch than others, however: Robots appear only in the treasure tables, not any of Arneson’s keys (but having autonomous robots running around down here feels right). The “Man-Eating Seaweed” appears only as that name and I’ve creatively expanded upon it. Normal Monster With A Special Power is based on “Air Elemental W.A.S.P.” from the original key (for which testimony exists that W.A.S.P. stands for With A Special Power); it follows logically that other special monsters might receive special powers. Living Statues are perhaps the largest reach, being based entirely upon the description of a broken statue of Poseidon found within the original dungeon.

Tomorrow I will move on to his 3rd post and after that will talk about things up to his point and then non following days will continue with the series Running Castle Blackmoor.

30 Day OD&D Challenge - Owlbears and Other Oddities -(Part Three) Day Sixteen

Today's Topic is "Owlbears and Other Oddities, Part Three" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month!

Today in Part Three we will talk about Hell Hounds and Phase Spiders. Here is the way they were presented in the Greyhawk Supplement.

HELL HOUNDS These are reddish-brown hounds of evil disposition which have the ability to breathe fire. The damage caused by their fiery breath corresponds to the number of hit dice they have: hit dice range from a low of 3 to a high of 7 (6-sided dice). They move with great stealth, and they are able to detect hidden and invisible objects/creatures 75% of the time. They are often found as companions of Fire Giants. They are fairly intelligent.

Also their bite does 1-6/bite.

So when do they breath fire? The way we did it is this. The referee would secretly roll a 10d6 and write down each number quickly, then ask the players "high or low", then you just checked the pre-rolled d6 for each round to see if 1/3 of the hell hounds breathed that round. On a 1-3 1/3 breathed fire and on a 4-6 they did not breath fire. If there were an odd number of hell hounds, we alternated each round if for example there were five hell hounds, whether two breathed or three breathed.

The other thing we did is that hell hounds had a bite that you could get badly infected from doing 1d6 the first day, 2d6 the second day, 3d6 the third day and death on the fourth day if you missed a saving throw on day one and no magical healing was available. An alternative when no magical healing was available was to amputate if the bite was located where that was possible. Of course the characters had to sterilize a blade with fire, cauterize the wound and the character lost two points of constitution.

PHASE SPIDERS: Although these monsters appear to be nothing more than very great spiders, they are something quite beyond this. When attacking or being attacked, the Phase Spider is able to shift out of phase with its surroundings, bringing itself back only when it is ready to deliver its poisonous bite. When out of phase they are impervious to nearly all forms of attack, although a Phase Door spell will cause one to remain in phase for 7 melee rounds. Oil of Etherealness and Armor of Etherealness also put their wearers into the same phase as this monster when it shifts out of phase.

Also does 1-6/bite regardless of the success vs poison saving throw.

These are absolutely deadly to all but high level and well equipped parties. IMC phase spiders would always attempt to attack from behind and if the bite was successful they would try to grapple and hang on and if they were successful in the grapple then they would also successfully bite on each succeeding round that they maintained the grapple. With each bite a new savings throw was required.

Another change we made was that Holy Swords wielded by Paladins could successfully attack an out of phase spider at a -2 to the attack roll.

Tomorrow for Part Four we will take a look at Rust Monsters and Liches.