Campaign journals, reviews of TTRPG stuff, and musings on D&D.
My favourite form is “all-in-one-book” no matter how thick and unwieldy it is! Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia is a classic example, while Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised and OSRIC are modern examples. Consequently, by buying all three of these you will effectively have full OD&D, D&D, and AD&D games.
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| Character | Class | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hagar the Hewer | Dwarf level 4 | Imagine Conan as dwarf. |
| Ambros | Cleric level 5 | Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time. |
| Foxglove | Thief level 4 | A willowy human, long hair ties in a pony tail, looks a bit dangerous and dainty at the same time. |
| Darius | Cleric level 4 | Follower of Dacron, God of Craftsmen. |
| Riker | Magic-User level 2 | A magic-user seeking glory or death. |
| Araggouk | Dwarf level 1 | A skinny dwarf with patches of hair lost from stress. |
“They look like they've been murdered by Magic Missile or similar...”
Three rotting corpses with blast-marks lied prostrate in the chamber ahead of the party. The one to the right laid on its back, arms as if to protect the face. Said face was missing as well as its palms. The one straight ahead was lying on its left side, facing the party. Left side of the head was blasted, and right side was torn open, exposing festering flesh and broken ribcage. The one to the left was on its belly, and had a gaping hole instead of an abdomen.
The adventurers did not fall for the obvious trap. Whatever they threw into the chamber was immediately blasted to pieces by rapidly flying glowing orbs. They would flash on impact, destroying whatever they hit. Ingenious combination of torch on a tenfoot pole and judicious use of Find Traps spell, the party had identified four floating silver spheres, one in each corner of the room.
Illustration by kickmaniac.
Shooting them yielded no result. The party reasoned there must be some sort of pattern one has to follow in order to cross the chamber safely. So they picked up Rorik's corpse—carried by the sole surviving hireling—and chucked it on a square in front of them. Rorik was blasted and reduce to half of what he used to be. Spheres rotated and retracted into the ceiling.
“I think they are recharging! We should just run!”
“No, let's take it slow, maybe this is another trick.”
With that they picked Rorik's remains and threw him forward once more. Nothing. The fighter serves in death as much as he did in life.
“Run!”
Darting through north-east doors led the party into another corridor maze. There they found foul and soiled dwarf named Araggouk. Unfortunate soul got lost in the dungeon more than a week ago. He holed up in one of the dead ends and was biding his time until the rescue party arrived.
Reinforced by the smelly dwarf, adventurers explored the winding corridors. One route took them to suspicious elevated platforms. Roughly forming the shape of three broad stairs, a stone chest was resting atop the final one. It was flanked by two stone heads some ten feet above the ground. Both were roughly reptilian shaped, with fanged mouth stretched agape.
Thorough investigation revealed no visible traps, or rather triggers. After all, it was obvious even to the least experienced in the party that this chest must be trapped. Some horrors will surely come out of the gargoyle heads!
Araggouk successfully convinced others to help him open the stone chest, for he was too weak to lift the stone lid all by himself. FoxGlove stepped forth selflessly.
Oh, how wonderful its contents was! Thousands of shiny gold and silver coins! And two fist sized jewels resting on top of the pile!
Alas, their wonder was cut short by two snakes the fell down their necks from above. By the time Riker had finished casting Sleep, FoxGlove was bitten twice. Araggouk's skin had proven too thick, or too nasty even for a snake.
Ambros ran to the thief, looking for ways to help. He knew damn well what needs to be done. He was woefully aware of his inability to cast miracles like Bishops of his order. FoxGlove went pale, and then collapsed into cleric's arms.
“The pulse is still there, but weak...”
Tiberias was upgraded from corpse-porter to almost-dead-porter. He approved of that and was happy to offload Rorik's mutilated corpse to Riker. Adventurers snatched the gems and continued seeking exit.
Avoiding traps, they reached a large rectangular chamber. In fact, it was so large it took them good time just to walk it. Dwarves marvelled at its geometrically perfect lines. Moving on, the adventurers correctly identified and avoided two more traps, lifted a portcullis and reached stairs leading up.
“I don't believe it...” Darius mouthed, dejected.
Indeed, the party spirit was so low that they even debated if they'd take the stairs leading up or continue looking elsewhere.
Courage prevailed and they went up. And up. And up. Finally they ran into a t-shaped junction. To their right were closed stone doors and portcullis to the left. Behind the doors was an empty chamber with nothing but large mask carved in the east wall. Its smiling mouth was wide open, presenting an inviting darkness.
The invitation was not accepted by any of the adventurers.
Raising portcullis led them into a square chamber with doors in the south-west corner. That in turn led into a wide chamber with new doors to interact with. Opening north doors led into a hexagonal chamber with low stone column in the center. On it stood a stone vessel with an opening on top.
Ambros, desperate to save the thief, took the vessel and brought it to FoxGlove's lips.
“No, stop!”
Hagar prevented a possible tragedy, for the liquid seemed like mercury and not some antidote or similar helpful concoction.
Darius and Ambros studied the vessel, liquid, and pillar. It is possible that this is a divine mercury used in barbarian rituals to summon a god. The diviner would be granted a single simple question, that deity would answer with a word or phrase if they felt generous, or simple yes or no if they felt neutral. And better run for your life it hey were in ill mood.
Feeling tiredness setting in their muscles and bones, the party retreated into an adjoining chamber. Three strong men were needed to lift the portcullis; Riker placed a glass vial so it shatters in case someone or something lifts it while the party rests.
Relatively well rested, the party returned to the hexagonal chamber. The room had three egresses: stone doors to the south, portcullis to the west, and framed stone slab to the north. The last one was interesting because it looked like regular stone doors from afar, but once up close it was nothing but a stone slab framed as doors.
With thorough investigation, the dwarves surmised the slab ought to be pushed. Doing so revealed two rectangular openings on the sides; one to the left and one to the right. Hagar remembered similar mechanism elsewhere in this dungeon. Last time they opened it by placing a palm in each of the openings. So they did the same this time. And it worked!
The chamber was stained yellow; filthy yellow. Sticky gas rolled around it; driving the adventurers to tears. Four disgusting abominations stood in the center of the chamber. They had fat, rotund bodies, and comically long, spindly arms and legs. Their head were nothing but folds of fat with slobbering jaws.
Whatever these creatures were, the party had surprised them. Tired and suffering sofuckitis, the adventurers charged the monsters head on. Yellow demons responded by beating on their fat bellies, causing an unpleasant cacophony and releasing yellow gas.
Hagar, Ambros, and Araggouk cut into two of them, slashing and smashing. Monsters oozed yellow pus. They cried and banged their bellies, and created so much fog that one couldn't see further than their own nose.
And then the noise stopped.
Blinded and nauseous, the party braced themselves for whatever is about to come next.
Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.
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Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Rules Tome is very easy to use. Combination of clean layout, terse writing, and information concentration make for a great reference book. It is a good example of applying technical writing principles to a RPG book. Alas, it also spawned a horde of copy-cats who just imitate OSE look, without understanding the underlying principles of the technical writing!
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What is great writing? To me, great would be evocative, inspirational, not too terse and not too verbose, and clear. I don't think I've encountered any RPG book yet that hits all of those criteria.
Three RPG books that I immensely enjoyed reading, even if they were verbose and opaque at times are classic Dungeon Masters Guide by Gary Gygax, Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised by Matt Finch, and The Arcanum Second Edition by Stephan Michael Sechi and Vernie Taylor.
Now, none of the above are terse, and do require some effort to parse. But boy, are they inspirational! Whenever I'm in a rut I can grab any of the three, and I'm full of ideas within moments.
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Drats, I just packed my RPG books because I'm moving them to another location, so I'll have to go off my memory. Three RPG books that have memorable art are:
And all three are great for play as well!
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Dungeons & Dragons Basic / Expert have served as foundational rules for my long-running campaign Conquering the Barbarian Altanis—101 sessions over two and half years. Later this year we will be transition to original Dungeons & Dragons, ie. rulebooks published prior to the Advanced and Basic split.
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A zine chronicling the Conquering the Barbarian Altanis D&D campaign.
This issue details sessions 55, 56, and 57.
Adventurers discover a ruined tower and embark on three expe- ditions, determined to plunder its riches.
You can download the issue here.
Overlord's Annals zine is available in print as part of the legendary Alarums & Excursions APA, issue 585:
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Most recent in The Keep on Yeoldelands campaign run by IdleDoodler: few sessions ago my two characters, Rarder Brete and Konrad Klaver, died to a pack of god-damn sea hags. The party is trying to get them reincarnated... IdleDoodler runs slightly house-ruled Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy.
Most recent in Conquering the Barbarian Altanis campaign: Hagar accepts invitation to attend dinner organised by the powerful merchant family Namelin. With some time to spare, the part decided to revisit one of the nearby dungeons they haven't cleared out. They choose trap-heavy dungeon, and get trapped without known way out.
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Well, let me check my buying history... As it turns out, I buy great majority of RPG stuff either through Kickstarter or DriveThruRPG.
Apparently I bought four isses of the Wyrd Science zine:
I remember them being pleasant to look at, but thin on gameable material, if any. They are more like articles and columns on various topics.
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| Character | Class | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hagar the Hewer | Dwarf level 4 | Imagine Conan as dwarf. |
| Ambros | Cleric level 5 | Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time. |
| Foxglove | Thief level 4 | A willowy human, long hair ties in a pony tail, looks a bit dangerous and dainty at the same time. |
| Darius | Cleric level 4 | Follower of Dacron, God of Craftsmen. |
| Rorik | Fighter level 3 | A fighter. |
| Riker | Magic-User level 2 | A magic-user seeking glory or death. |
Following a day-long deliberation on what to do that will take less than ten days in total, the party had decided to revisit a ruined tower some ten miles south-west of Hara.
The one where they recovered valuable silver orbs from.
The one where they lost on full party.
Spending a full watch scouting the surroundings for any changes, the adventurers determined nothing much changed. And so they descended down.
Hagar took the lead since he had been here before. They went through the secret passageway under the stairs, then left in the pendulum room, and then through north-west doors. From there they went forth, left, and then right.
“Locked. Can't find the mechanism!”
FoxGlove played with stone doors preventing their further progress. It had three holes, each in different shape: a five-point star, a six-point star, and an equilateral triangle.
They backtracked and moved into an unexplored corridor, then right turn, then more than hundred feet forward, left turn, and then through stone doors into a mostly empty chamber. A set of rusted bear traps were piled in one corner. Some were open, some were closed.
Finding nothing of value they proceeded through south doors, and down another long corridor. Alas, the moment they turned into the corridor a sliding stone slab prevented their return.
“I don't understand this dungeon. Is this to prevent something from coming out? Or us from retreating?” one of the adventurers wondered.
“Step aside, I'll smash it.” Hagar stepped forth with a sledgehammer.
An hour later and all he had to show was a fingernail-sized chip.
“I guess we head down the corridor then!”
Another hundred or so feet, a left turn, and stone doors, and the party entered another chamber. This one was peculiar since it had a long stone bench running along north, west, and south wall. The bench was low, and comfortable for dwarf to sit on. It had no legs and underneath was nothing but empty clearance. It felt pleasant to the bum.
South-east doors led into a large circular chamber with a swirling pattern carved into the floor. Grooves were obvious even to non-dwarves.
“Uh-huh, this is a trap.”
FoxGlove went in by himself, tied with a rope, and carefully explored everything. Alas, nothing much. Unwilling to risk finding out what the trap might be, the party backtracked into trapped corridor and spent significant time investigating every portion of wall. Alas, nothing.
Once the full party entered the round chamber the ground shook and spiral fell down, turning the floor into a downward slide. Ready for this, the party tumbled in a relatively controlled manner.
Lighting up extinguished torches, the party scanned the chamber they fell into. It was a similar circular chamber like the one they were moments ago. Stone doors were to south, and open archway to north. They chose the latter direction.
Navigating the maze-like corridors led them to portcullis with loud snoring, a direction which was immediately abandoned it. Moving opposite, down the corridor led to two dead ends.
The north one had a skeleton pinned to the wall. What they though to be javelins turned out to be long iron quills.
FoxGlove plundered the skeletons sack for some gems, and coins.
Peeking into a chamber filled with skeletons was sufficient to shut the doors and abandon that route as well. Backtracking the maze and following northern route led the party to stone doors flanked with holes, another obvious trap.
Adventurers triggered the trap with tenfoot pole, forcing five spears to launch out of the wall. Then they used the grappling hook with rope to bend each one of them.
Following that Hagar and Rorik forced the doors open. Alas, Rorik failed to synchronise with the beefy dwarf, and went straight through open doors. He stepped on the trap on the other side of the door, and triggered it.
He evaded two spears, deflected one, and got cut by two.
Illustration by kickmaniac.
The chamber had several human-sized skeletons laying on the ground, all facing down. Many had broken bones. The floor was full of small holes.
“Rorik! Rorik! We'll get to you!”
The fighter leaned back, making sure he doesn't step further into the chamber. Five iron spears just behind his back prevented his exit.
“Come on! Pull!”
Bending each spear took around ten minutes.
They could see Rorik sit down.
“Pull! Pull! We are coming for you! Hold in there!”
Rorik could feel his blood burn.
Rorik could feel his flesh ache.
Rorik could feel his heart racing.
Until Rorik could feel no more.
Darius closed the warrior's eyes.
And then two freshly recruited men-at-arms were turned into corpse porters.
Backtracking once more, the part retreated into the round chamber. There they camped and rested as long as it took six torches to burn.
The adventurers now explored eastern set of corridors. Bunch of dead ends, one with gas trap that left Darius and Riker injured, and one hireling dead. That one was left behind.
“How about we check the south doors?”
This led them into a five hundred feet long winding corridor. They passed one dead end with robed corpse gripping a staff. Naturally they took the staff. The corridor terminated with an archway opening up in a wide chamber.
Three corpses with blast marked lied prostrated on the floor. These ones actually had some flesh on them, unlike ancient skeletons they had found so far.
“Careful there...”
Will the party manage to escape this time?
Or will they suffer the same fate as the party that went missing?
Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.
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