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Fern and Oak Dragons

Demiurgus Dreams on Etsy

Another friendly reminder: because of impending incredibly foul weather (and in Texas, “foul weather is usually a synonym for “hail and tornadoes”), this weekend’s Triffid Ranch event at Frightmare Collectibles was cancelled early this morning. We’re awaiting word as to … Continue reading →

(The Texas Triffid Ranch Occasional Newsletter and Feedlot Clearance Sale is a regular Email newsletter, with archives available on the main TTR site at least a month after first publication. To receive the latest newsletters, please subscribe.) Installment #25: “Chicago: City of the … Continue reading →

Here we are!  At the end of another A to Z Challenge. I am pretty pleased with how this all turned out to be honest.  I got a lot of monsters done and found some new blogs to follow.  I had not participated since 2016 and I was curious about how it all might be different. Well, it was. Far fewer people were in it now (no surprise) and it also seemed to have a bit less interaction.  Some sites I noticed had quite a few comments, while many others had none at all.  

I'll have to think about what I am doing for next year.  I guess it depends on what book I have coming out.  An A to Z of Demons part 2 might be in order.  But that is the future, today I want to talk Zombies!

I wanted to end this challenge with a monster I first made on one of my first computers.  This is NOT the first monster I ever made. This is, roughly, the same monster I first created on my Tandy Color Computer 3 with my first ever word processing software, VIP Writer.  I looked to see if I still had the printout, on dot-matrix paper no less, but I am afraid that is long since gone.  

Additionally, this creature was inspired by the creatures in the 1980 movie The Fog.

Zombie, Drowned
Medium Undead (Corporeal)

Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1d8 (3d8)
Alignment: Chaotic [Neutral Evil]
Movement: 60' (20') [6"]
  Swim: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 5d8* (23 hp)
THAC0: 13 (+6)
Attacks: 1 weapon
Damage: 1d8+2
Special: Undead
Save: Monster 5
Morale: 12 (12)
Treasure Hoard Class:  X (M)
XP: 300 (OSE) 350 (LL)

Str: 16 (+2) Dex: 10 (0) Con: 10 (0) Int: 5 (-2) Wis: 7 (-1) Cha: 3 (-3)

The drowned zombie, or sometimes called a sea zombie, is the reanimated corpse of a drowned sailor.  Often reanimated via some curse or the desire of their captain to continue their mission at sea.  They will rise up from the sea at night and terrorize local coastal villages.  They seek out warm bodies to feed on. 

Similar to other zombies, these creatures though have a bit more intelligence and free will. They are subject to control over whatever animating force brought them back. If it is a curse then they will seek out whatever means they can to either break or satisfy the curse so they may rest at the bottom of the sea. 

Drowned zombies attack with whatever weapons they had in life. Their strength adding a +2 to hit and damage. They can be hit by normal weapons, but slashing and piercing weapons only cause 1 hp per hit regardless.  As undead, they make no noise until they attack. Immune to effects that affect living creatures (e.g. poison). Immune to mind-affecting or mind-reading spells (e.g. charm, hold, sleep). 

Drowned zombies are turned as mummies or 5 HD undead.

--

And there we go!  

I did not get my Treasure figured out, nor did I figure out which XP system to go with.  OSE is in general lower than LL, I could present it as a range of values.

Will I do this again next year? No idea yet. But this was a lot of fun.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Published by Straycouches Press, Crawl! is one such fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Since Crawl! No. 1 was published in March, 2012 has not only provided ongoing support for the roleplaying game, but also been kept in print by Goodman Games. Now because of online printing sources like Lulu.com, it is no longer as difficult to keep fanzines from going out of print, so it is not that much of a surprise that issues of Crawl! remain in print. It is though, pleasing to see a publisher like Goodman Games support fan efforts like this fanzine by keeping them in print and selling them directly.

Where Crawl! No. 1 was something of a mixed bag, Crawl! #2 was a surprisingly focused, exploring the role of loot in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and describing various pieces of treasure and items of equipment that the Player Characters might find and use. Similarly, Crawl! #3 was just as focused, but the subject of its focus was magic rather than treasure. Unfortunately, the fact that a later printing of Crawl! No. 1 reprinted content from Crawl! #3 somewhat undermined the content and usefulness of Crawl! #3. Fortunately, Crawl! Issue Number Four was devoted to Yves Larochelle’s ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game for characters of Fifth Level. Crawl! Issue V continued the run of themed issues, focusing on monsters, but ultimately to not always impressive effect, whilst Crawl! No. 6: Classic Class Collection presented some interesting versions of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style Classes for Dungeon Crawl Classics, though not enough of them. Crawl! Issue No. 7: Tips! Tricks! Traps! is a bit of bit of a medley issue, addressing a number of different aspects of dungeoneering and fantasy roleplaying.
Published in November, 2013, as its title suggests, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! is another focused issue, and that focus is on guns and adding guns to your Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game campaign. Guns are something of a difficult subject when it comes to Dungeon Crawl Classics because it is a fantasy roleplaying game and guns, whether because of their history or their technology, do not belong in a fantasy roleplaying game. Much like firearms historically negate the degree of training necessary to wield a bow effectively on the battlefield, in fantasy, they negate the years of study and training necessary to become a wizard, as well as being easier and faster to reload. They are in the main, the province of roleplaying games and campaigns set in the modern day or the future, although historically, the modern day begins in the seventeenth century when armies and individuals wield arquebuses, flintlocks, wheellocks, and the like. Historical precedent aside, this does not mean that a Dungeon Crawl Classics Judge cannot include or add them to her campaign, and well as providing rules for their use, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! gives at least one way in which they can be added to a campaign.
Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! opens with Reverend Dak’s ‘Firepower!’. This gives a quick discussion of how and why firearms might be introduced into a campaign before providing rules for their use. Should they be powerful and rare or mundane and not much pop? The advice for power and rare at least is to build limitations into their use, whether that includes limiting them to black powder or non-automatic, or using the optional rules included. The basic rules include their being fast and that they can be aimed, so that the user gains Die Bump up to a bigger die for the initiative, attack, and damage rolls. Damage is always the one die, except when it is doubled for aiming. Taking cover is an action and increases Armour Class, and duels are extremely deadly, inflicting a number of dice’s worth of damage equal to the Level of the Player Character or NPC. Since the duellists will be standing facing each other, this seems fair enough—if nasty! 
Optional rules include making Critical hits deadly, firearms complicated—giving users a negative Die bump to rolls until they are properly trained, and automatic weapons can be used to attack everyone in a ten feet area. Actual stats for guns are given in ‘From Gold to Guns’ by Mike Evans with the Reverend Dak. This covers weapons across four eras—of powder and smoke, gear and bullet, destruction and calamity, and lasers and rockets. The latter group is where the article strays into the realms of Science Fiction, but its contents are very easy to use.
Reverend Dak provides a reason for the inclusion of firearms in a campaign with ‘Invasion!’. This sets up an invasion by an alien species, the reasons why it is invading, and so on, with a series of tables. Thus, who they are, where they are from, what they want, and who and what they brought with them, whilst stats are provided for all of the given invaders in a separate appendix. This is the first of several appendices which round out Crawl! No. 8: Firearms!. ‘Appendix R: References’ lists other roleplaying games where firearms play a role, whilst ‘Appendix S: Submissions’ collects the best submissions to the editor’s blog, and notably adds explosives and bombs to the mix. Lastly, ‘Appendix T: Firearms Critical table’ and ‘Firearms Fumble Table’, both by S.A. Mathis, provide exactly what you expect.
Physically, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! is decently presented. The writing and editing are good, and artwork, if not of highest quality, is all very likeable. The wraparound cover is a nice touch. The subject matter—and thus the whole issue—is going to be a hit or a miss for most Judges, players, and campaigns. It all boils down to whether or not they want to include the use of firearms alongside their fantasy. If they do, then everything is here in a handy fashion to include it. If not, then the issue will be of little interest, though this does not mean that the issue is by any means a bad one. Even if a Judge has no plans to add firearms to her campaign, there is nothing to stop her reading the issue to find out how it might be done, and Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! certainly provides that. Overall, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! is a solid, serviceable treatment of its focused subject matter which is easy to bring to the table if that is what a Judge wants for her game.

A leading warning that anyone living in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area takes to heart: don’t mess with the weather. This week has already been brutal through Texas, but Saturday has the promise of thunderstorms, with a risk of hail … Continue reading →

Pursuing the AD&D Monster Manual back in 1979 I could not help to notice that while most of the monsters were obviously mythology in origin, one stood out.  There are on the next to last entry stood tall and proud, the Yeti.

Now you have to remember what the late 70s were like.  Bigfoot fever was all over the place then, there were no less than a dozen movies about Bigfoot in the 70s alone. Only the 2010s exceed it.  So seeing a Yeti, who I knew was a relative, was very interesting.  At first I didn't want to use him, it seemed so "off" to me.  But over the years I have changed my mind and now I use all sorts of hominid cryptozoological creatures.   But one of my favorites might just be the Almas.

The Almas featured in my first Ghosts of Albion adventure, Almasti, found in the Ghosts RPG core rule book.  I spent a lot of time with them and decided I needed to port them over to D&D.   This version is different than the Ghosts version, but still compatible.

Yeti, Almas
Medium Humanoid (Cold)

Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1d4 (1d8)
Alignment: Neutral [True Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Fly: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 3d8+6** (20 hp)
THAC0: 11 (+8)
Attacks: 2 fists or by weapon
Damage: 1d6+2 x2 or by weapon type +2
Special: Fly, immune to cold, spells
Save: Monster 3
Morale: 8 (10)
Treasure Hoard Class:  None
XP: 100 (OSE) 135 (LL)

Str: 16 (+2) Dex: 14 (+1) Con: 16 (+2) Int: 13 (+1) Wis: 15 (+1) Cha: 11 (0)

Almas are the smaller, more intelligent cousins of the Yeti. Due to their smaller size, they do not have the yeti’s hug attack.  For every group of six Almas, one will be a shaman who has the spellcasting ability of a 2nd level winter witch.

With the aid of the shaman, an Almas can fly on the boreal winds, but only after the sun has gone down.

They are immune to normal and magical cold.  Almas speak their own language and that of giants.

Almas are usually found in lower parts of the same mountain ranges one will find the yeti.  The two groups will avoid each other, mostly due to the fact that interactions between them have caught the attention of humans and that is a far worse out for them.

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Simple monster with plenty of role-playing power.  Plus they are fun to pull out when the players are expecting a yeti and these guys just fly away.

And the results are in: the winner of the Triffid Ranch in the Workplace contest is Lewisville Salon Suites and Spa. Rosemont 6th Grade gave a hearty challenge, but with 78 votes, the Salon Suites was the decisive winner. Many … Continue reading →

As if May isn’t busy enough, those wanting something to do in the outdoors in May might want to note the Triffid Ranch Porch Sale on Mother’s Day. Get your tickets now: they’re free.

Sam Moore / April 28, 2021

One of the first, most potent images in Wakefield Poole’s groundbreaking 1971 adult film Boys in the Sand is that of Casey Donovan emerging from the waves before making his way onto the beach. The image feels like a queering of a common cultural touchstone: a figure of great beauty surrounded by water, as if the waves and sea came together to create it. From Botticelli’s Birth of Venus to Ursula Andress in 1962’s Dr. No (subverted decades later by Daniel Craig in 2006’s Casino Royale), there’s something about the water as a site of (re)birth that’s full of power and myth. This idea of a loaded geography, at once physical and representative of something greater, runs deep in the DNA of Boys in the Sand; the film wouldn’t exist without the Fire Island locale that it calls home. 

Poole’s film explores both the reality and mythical unreality of New York’s Fire Island, a place that’s taken a heightened place in queer art and culture for decades now—a kind of sanctuary, a place of freedom, one made all the more tempting by the fact that it isn’t available for everyone. In the director’s commentary for Boys in the Sand, Poole says that when it came to Fire Island, “a lot of people had heard of it, but never seen it.” Boys is a kind of strange travelogue, capturing both the island’s reality—how elemental it is, the heat and the water—and also imbuing it with a kind of magic, helping to turn the place into a myth. The film is a perfect escapist fantasy: there are no straight people, there’s no violence, all the men are beautiful, and the sex is plentiful. It becomes something utopian, the kind of gay-only place that people might normally have only dreamed of. The nature of queer life at the time, the extent to which it was something that had to be kept secret, is one of the things that’s gone on to make Fire Island such a staple of queer culture, an iconic part of its history. This idea—attractive men bathed in a sunlight so bright that it seems almost unreal—is echoed in a lot of art that explores the Fire Island milieu, perhaps most explicitly in the images detailed in Tom Bianchi’s 2013 Fire Island Pines: Polaroids 1975-83. 

Bianchi’s images echo the aesthetic of Boys in the Sand, and looking at Donovan in the film alongside some of the men who appear in Bianchi’s Polaroids, it becomes clear that they share the same approach to Fire Island: both artists echo the same Arcadian myth of the pines. A certain type of body populates the vast majority of the snapshots: buff, gym-going, masculine, tanned—the tan lines on Bianchi’s subjects, in fact, are often vivid in contrast to their sun-kissed bodies. Poole’s actors fall into a similar camp, and this creates the sense that Fire Island is a place that’s by and for a narrow group of people within queer communities: conventionally attractive men. The prevalence of these images inverts similar ideas in a straight tradition: tempting women on distant islands, stretching all the way back to the sirens in The Odyssey. From a queer perspective, this idea is both new and old all at once; while it changes the ways in which male bodies are viewed—and challenges mythical traditions that often only frame female bodies in this way—it continues to show that only certain kinds of bodies are worth immortalizing via images. 

For all of the possibility in the air, the bodies that occupy these spaces make it clear that the Fire Island that exists in queer art is a place to showcase a certain type of body, a way to look and a way to live that’s the price of admission for this very specific utopian escape. Boys in the Sand finds power in these bodies as objects of desire—a magical pill literally causes a boyfriend to materialize out of thin air in the film’s “Poolside” section—the currency with which the place is navigated. This is echoed in some of the queer art that comes in the wake of Boys in the Sand. The Andrew Holleran novel Dancer from the Dance (which uses one of Bianchi’s Polaroids as a cover photo in a recent reprint) is obsessed with the mythical image of Fire Island, populating it with characters who exist through gossip and assumption as much as through their own lives, much like the island itself, so it makes sense when Holleran writes: “we queens loathed rain at the beach, small cocks, and reality, i think, in that order.” None of these things exist in the images of Fire Island put forward by Poole and Bianchi; the sun is always out, and the real world is always on the other side of the water. 

How one stayed at Fire Island is one of the other great dividers of the place. Poole himself acknowledges this in his Boys commentary, where he argues that the economics that defined much of the island came down to whether you came in on the ferry or owned your own boat. None of Poole’s characters seem to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum; the houses they stay in are nice, and the integration of domesticity—a lot of the characters in Boys want relationships beyond a sexual fling, and there’s an air of loneliness that exists in a push-and-pull dynamic with the possibility inherent on the Island—carries with it the idea of a kind of ownership that not everyone can afford. The idea of loneliness—both on and beyond Fire Island—is echoed in an interesting way in Bianchi’s Polaroids: it’s rare for any of his subjects’ faces to be seen, as if the specter of the world beyond the island stops them from revealing all of themselves to the camera. 

This is one of the things that makes Fire Island such a strange, liminal place in queer art. It exists in a singular way, unlike anywhere else, and also unlike a real place. There’s a scene in Boys where a door is opened to seemingly nowhere, a sort of non-space that’s divorced even from the rest of the island. The episodic structure of the film—”beachside,” “poolside,” and “inside”—break the place down into a series of fragmented landscapes, at once connected and not connected to one another. This is never a place that people will stay in for the long-term, we know. Even if the domestic moments suggest some kind of future, it isn’t a future that’s possible here.​

​And yet, queer art keeps returning to Fire Island, this place that’s at once impermanent and inescapable. For Poole, much of the drama in Boys is the act of cruising itself: the slow-moving camera that follows the movements of his lonely lovers, the immediacy and intimacy that’s only available on Fire Island. For Bianchi, it’s a bright escapism, even if his images don’t always show all of their subjects—that incompleteness allows viewers to fill in the blanks, imagining their own dream man.

Holleran’s novel makes for a fascinating contrast with both Poole and Bianchi. He seems more willing to engage with the idea of the myth, where the others, knowingly or not, contributed instead to the act of myth-making. The echoes of Fire Island also echo some of the problems inherent in the ways that queer culture is understood. There’s a reason that the bodies across all these different media are so uniform, and one of the strangest, most compelling parts of the Fire Island myth is how explicit it is about the fact that freedom and joy won’t be offered to everyone who arrives. The thing that most clearly, most viscerally ties together the film, the photographs, and the novel are these bodies—their conventional, masculine attractiveness serving as a kind of shorthand for the acceptable face/facelessness of Fire Island, a small sample of the kind of men who are most likely to be accepted here. Even though the entrance to Fire Island is restricted—by how you look, by how much money you have—the return, season after season, still seems inevitable. It makes sense. All of these people, fictional or otherwise, escape here because the island offers them something that the real world won’t.

Sam Moore‘s writing on queerness, politics, and genre fiction in art has been published by the Los Angeles Review of Books, Little White Lies, Hyperallergic, and other places. Their poetry and experimental essays have been published in print and online, most recently in the Brixton Review of Books. If their writing didn’t already give it away, they’re into weird stuff.

I have another water-spirit/fey today.  Unlike the undine, this one was on my list from day one. These creatures are from the Asturian area of Spain. I will admit, there are not a lot of X monsters out there. 

Xana
Medium Fey (Water)

Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (2d6)
Alignment: Neutral [Neutral]
Movement: 90' (30') [9"]
  Swim: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 8 [11]
Hit Dice: 4d8* (18 hp)
THAC0: 17 (+2)
Attacks: None
Damage: None
Special: Charm potion, invisibility, witch spells
Save: Witch 4
Morale: 6 (6)
Treasure Hoard Class:  X (M)
XP: 125 (OSE) 135 (LL)

Str: 8 (-1) Dex: 13 (+1) Con: 10 (0) Int: 10 (0) Wis: 10 (2) Cha: 20 (+4)

Xana are a type of water faerie that lives in cool rivers, streams, and freshwater ponds. They are described as beautiful with long curly brown or blond hair.   They are similar to other water faeries in that they prefer to spend their time in their watery lairs. 

They are social creatures, with several living in an area.  Their lairs are under the water where they are 100% invisible. 

They will leave their lairs to seek out mates.  They can take their waters and make a weak love potion that will affect one male of her choice. They get a saving throw vs. poison. If they fail they are treated as if they have a charm person spell on them.  A successful save means the potion had no effect.   The children they have from these encounters, xanín, can’t be cared for by the xana.  They will sneak into homes at night and leave their children in place of human babies.

Xanín will grow fast. The girls will seek out their mothers and join them.  The boys will tend to grow up to become sailors.

Xana can cast spells as a 3rd level witch.  They however will not attack physically. They will swim to the deepest part of their watery lairs. 

There is a rumor of a smaller xana that feeds on children.  These creatures are indistinguishable from other xana and are chaotic evil. 

--

There are a lot of water spirits and water fey out there.  How to make them all different from each other will be my goal.  

The enclosures Novi and Hoodoo (shown here) went home last weekend, but we still have two contestants vying for Launch Bay. You have until midnight Central Time on April 28 to get your vote in, so make somebody’s day.

It would be disingenuous to claim that Greek and Norse Mythology were my only gateways to my obsession with Dungeons & Dragons. No. Like so many gamers before and after me my D&D games were heavily fueled by my love for Tolkein. I discovered the Hobbit around the same time I discovered D&D. So naturally while my games had a mythic feel, there was also a feeling of "leaving the Shire" to them. 

It also doesn't hurt that I am listening to Led Zeppelin while working on this.

So much of Tolkein's DNA is threaded throughout this game, Gygax's testimonials to the contrary.  

One of the most memorable creatures to me were the Barrow Wights from Fellowship of the Ring.  The Wight from Basic and Advanced D&D was a thin imitation of those creatures in my mind.

Dante and Virgil observe a wight

Wight, Barrow
Medium Undead (Corporeal)

Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1d4 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
Armor Class: 3 [16]
Hit Dice: 6d8+6* (33 hp)
THAC0: 11 (+8)
Attacks: 1 touch + ability drain or weapon
Damage: 1d6+2 or weapon type
Special: ability drain, undead
Save: Monster 6
Morale: 12 (12)
Treasure Hoard Class:  XXI (B)
XP: 650 (OSE) 680 (LL)

Str: 16 (+2) Dex: 14 (+1) Con: 13 (+1) Int: 12 (0) Wis: 10 (2) Cha: 6 (-1)

Barrow-wights are greater undead of fierce warriors. They remember their lives from before and are fast, dangerous, and particularly deadly. They are usually encountered in the ancient burial mounds that give them their name, barrows.  Wight is an older word for a man, or more commonly, a fighting man.

The most horrific attack of these creatures is their ability to drain the life force of their victims. A successfully hit a target loses one point of the Constitution. This incurs a loss of any bonus hit points, as well as all other benefits due to the drained ability. A person drained of all constitution becomes a wight  (common wight) in 1d4 days, under the control of the barrow wight that killed them

As undead, these creatures make no noise until they attack. They are immune to effects that affect living creatures (e.g., poison). Additionally, they are immune to mind-affecting or mind-reading spells (e.g., charm, esp, hold, sleep).

Barrow-wights can only be harmed by magic. They are turned as 6 HD creatures, or as Spectres.

--

This is closer to the creature I remember fighting in my summers of the 80s.  

Like many of my undead, I have done aways with "level drain" and replaced it with ability drain. I just like the feel of it better and it is a threat to both low-level and high-level characters.  Undead should always be scary.

Since its start five years ago, the Manchester United Flower Show at the gallery hasn’t always been smooth. It ran well on its first year at the old Valley View space, but it was cancelled in 2017 while we tried … Continue reading →

Image by Rondell Melling from PixabayAs of this writing, I have 292 monsters written and complete for the Basic Bestiary I.  I have about 10-12 more that are mostly done.  Of the total 355 entries I have, a full 43 of them are Vampires. 

Yeah. That's a lot.

I have said it before but long before I was known as "the Witch guy" I was known as "the Vampire guy." 

I have talked about my origins of the Basic Bestiary before. My love of Greek, Norse, and Celtic myth, old "monster movies" with my dad, and the day I picked up the AD&D Monster Manual for the first time.  BB is my love letter to the MM.  But it is not my first monster book, it is just the first one I am going to publish.  I have sitting on my hard drives monster books that go all the way back to my earliest days.  Some of these monsters have been revived in my various witch books.  Many have been posted here. Among the files I have here and there there is one that is really old. 

File "necro.txt" contains all the undead monsters I hand-typed from the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II plus all the undead I could get from Dragon magazine and all the ones I made up.  There are over 150 creatures in that file.  Many of them are vampires.

Now the issue I have now is not whether to stat up all these creatures (I already have in some places) but how many to include as full monster entries and which ones are just AKAs.

So instead of posting a monster today (I did Vampires in the 2015 A to Z) I thought I might instead post the list of possible ones and see how I might combine, rearrange or otherwise categorize.

When I talked about the Undine on Saturday I mentioned large categories. Vampires will be a category in BB1.

Vampires

Vampires are among the most fearsome and feared of the undead.  Unlike most undead creatures the vampire can often pass for a living creature. Moreso they charming, both in terms of personality and in magical ability, they are physically strong (19+) and difficult to kill. Vampires exist for a long time so many are also quite intelligent (16+) and have mundane and supernatural protections in place.

As undead, the vampire has all the following features of a corporeal undead creature.  They do not need to check for morale and are immune to fear effects from spells or other creatures.  They are susceptible to the Turning effects of clerics or other holy warriors.  They are immune to the effects of  Charm, Sleep and Hold spells or other mind-affecting magic.

Vampires take 1d6+1 hit points of damage from Holy Water and it is treated as though it were acid. As corporeal undead slashing and piercing damage of weapons are largely ineffective since their damage is done to vital organs or blood loss. Vampires take no damage from mundane weapons.  Silvered piercing or slashing weapons only do 1 hp per hit. Magic weapons calculate damage per normal.  Vampires only take half damage from electrical or cold attacks. They are immune to paralysis, poison or any gas-based weapon. 

Most vampires drain blood to survive. This is done at the rate of 2 Constitution points per attack unless otherwise stated.  Vampires also regenerate 3 hp per round.

Many vampires have alternate shapes they can assume. Most common are animals of the night and gaseous forms. Others may become moonlight or stranger things. All vampires need to rest at some point.  Many are vulnerable to the light of the sun and all have at least some sunlight weakness.  VAmpires also have common items that will repel them, such as garlic, a mirror, or rice, and nearly all will be forced back by holy symbols. 

All vampires have a unique means to kill them these are detailed in each entry. Often this is what sets one type of vampire from the other.

Unless otherwise noted, all Vampires turn as Vampires.

Vampire (Base)
Vampire Lord
Vampire, Alp
Vampire, Anananngel
Vampire, Asanbosam
Vampire, Astral
Vampire, Aswang
Vampire, Berbalang
Vampire, Blautsauger
Vampire, Brukulaco
Vampire, Bruxsa
Vampire, Burcolakas
Vampire, Ch’ing-Shih
Vampire, Children of Twilight
Vampire, Dearg-Due
Vampire, Ekimmu
Vampire, Eretica and here
Vampire, Estrie
Vampire, Farkaskoldus
Vampire, Gierach
Vampire, Hsi-Hsue-Kue
Vampire, Jigarkhwar
Vampire, Kathakano (Catacano)
Vampire, Krvopijac
Vampire, Kyuuketsuki
Vampire, Lobishumen
Vampire, Moroi (Living Vampire)
Vampire, Mulo
Vampire, Neuntöter
Vampire, Nosferatu
Vampire, Ovegua
Vampire, Pĕnanggalan
Vampire, Rolang, Demonic
Vampire, Rolang, Personal
Vampire, SoucouyantVampire, Spawn
Vampire, Strigoi
Vampire, Tenatz
Vampire, Upierczi
Vampire, Vrykolakas (Burcolakas)
Vampire, Wurdalak (Vourdalak, Vlkodlak)
Vampire, Xiāng-shī
Vampire, Yara-ma-yha-who
Vampire, Zburător (Zemu, Zmeu)

--

And there you go! Clicking on the links above is like doing archeology into my ever-changing and adapting stat-block.

I did include some AKAs in the list above and those will likely just be a paragraph in the main entry of what makes them different.  AS I work the remaining monster up I am likely to discover more.

This list though makes me wonder if I need yet another Basic Bestiary just for the undead. I know I have enough.  But will it make my first book too light?

Here is where I am at right now.  Aberration (0), Beast (24), Celestial (9), Construct (12), Dragon (5), Elemental (7), Fey (73), Fiend (0), Giant (4), Humanoid (45), Monstrosity (8), Ooze (0), Plant (3), Undead (71), Vermin (0), Total (261).

Removing the 71 undead would make the book stand at 190 monsters right now.  I still have to add all those vampires, so 120+ undead creatures total?  Would make for smaller books, and thus cheaper ones. Fiends are already going into their own book, Basic Bestiary II.

What do you all think?

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—


Published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1981, Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency was one of the first military themed roleplaying games. It had been preceded by The Morrow Project from Timeline, Ltd., although that was a post-apocalypse roleplaying game, and would be followed by FASA’s Behind Enemy Lines and Role Playing Games, Inc.’s Recon: The Roleplaying Game of the Viet Nam War, both in 1982. The genre would arguably reach its apotheosis in 1984 with the release of Twilight 2000 from GDW. Of course, the earlier Traveller Book 4: Mercenary from 1978 from GDW would cover some of the same subjects and situations as Merc, but being a Science Fiction roleplaying game, it would avoid some of the real-world issues that Merc deals with. What is interesting about the titles in this genre is not that they were published at all, but rather that it took so long for the roleplaying industry to publish straight, non-fantastical treatments of military subjects given that hobby had essentially come out of the wargaming hobby and that many of its designers and players had military experience. 
The designers of Merc set out their stall with, “Think of the possibilities: go back to 1954 and go on patrols with the Legion in Indo-China, or search the countryside of Ireland for I.R.A. terrorists, join 5 Commando in 1964, or even lead a patrol of Soviet 103 Guard Army Airborne into Afghan hill country. With these rules and your imagination you can visit Rhodesia, Chad, Angola, El Salvador, Panama, or even Cuba. Of course, your accommodations won’t be first class and you’ll have people shooting at you, but we guarantee lots of excitement.” Thus, Merc is a role-playing game of modern mercenaries in action, carrying out missions for their employers anywhere in the world, being employed as Soldier of Fortunes operating in small teams. Missions will be covert or overt, and range from assassinations and search and destroy to sweeps and reconnaissance.
Merc comes as a boxed set, which contains a thirty-six-page book, four cardstock reference sheets, plastic transparent overlay, and two six-sided dice. The book covers character creation, including former service and why the Player Character decided to become a mercenary, rules for movement and stealth, small arms combat, vehicles, experience, and a short mission. The reference sheets reprint various tables from the book, whilst the plastic transparent overlay has a target which is placed over the silhouettes of vehicles and men on the other reference sheets and the hit location rolled for. This is likely one of the first uses of a transparent overlay in a roleplaying game, and would most notably be seen again in 1991’s Millennium’s End from Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment and 2007’s Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier from Kenzer & Company.
A Player Character in Merc is defined by his Physical Appearance, Physical and Mental Attributes—Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Knowledge, Intuition, and Prior Military Service, and one or more Military Specialities. The latter two will be defined by a mercanary’s Physical and Mental Attributes. Physical Appearance values are rolled on three six-sided dice. All Physical and Mental Attributes are measured as percentile values, but range from eleven to sixty-six. These are all generated by rolling two six-sided dice and treating one as the tens dice and the other as the ones dice, again one of the earliest uses of the ‘d66’ in a roleplaying game. The process is relatively straightforward and a player is free to assign the rolls to the attributes as he likes, primarily to be able to select the ‘Military Occupational Specialty’ of his choice.
Name: Ernest LuddeAge: 31Height: 5’ 9”Weight: 170 lbs.
Hair Colour: BlackEye Colour: BrownComplexion: AverageVoice: AverageHandedness: Ambidextrous
ATTRIBUTESStrength 62 – Strong (+5 Test Modifier)Agility 63 – Nimble (+5 Test Modifier)Intelligence 24 – AverageKnowledge 54 – Knowledgeable (+10 Test Modifier)Intuition 61 – Primordial (+5 Test Modifier)Prior Military Service 44 – Extended Service (+10 Test Modifier)
MOS #1: Heavy Weapons ExpertMOS #2: Martial Arts Expert
Frame: MediumCarrying Capacity/Build: Above Average (125 lbs.)
MAJOR TESTSStress Test: 46Dexterity Test: 46Command Control: 51
Mechanically, Merc uses two core mechanics. The first is Major Tests, of which there are three—Stress, Dexterity, and Command Tests. The first is rolled when a Player Character is in a tight situation, under sniper fire, in a minefield, and so on, and can result in him freezing, bolting for cover, or blindly opening fire. The second covers acts of agility and athleticism, whilst the third is how well troops follow a Player Character’s command. All are rolled as percentiles on ‘d66’, the aim being to roll under. The second type of test is the Skill test, and there are nine of them—Detection, Evasion, Pathfinder, Stealth, Intercept Messages, Decipher, Concealment, Set/Disarm Explosive Devices or Traps, and Set/Disarm Non-Explosive Devices or Traps. All are rolled on two six-sided dice, the aim being to roll under a target of six or less, though this target can be modified by the situation and the Merc’s Primary and Secondary MOS.
As a military game, Merc recommends that it be played using 20 mm miniatures. It covers just about everything you would expect—types of movement, terrain, vehicles, types of opponents, combat, ambush, traps, and equipment. Movement is by type, cross-referenced with terrain and how far a mercenary can get in thirty seconds. The vehicles tend to be light and relatively small, so trucks and jeeps, no more than armoured personnel carriers, scout cars, and light tanks, plus limousines and private jets. Opponents include government troops, terrorists, guerrillas, and natives. The list of equipment is exactly that, and anyone expecting something more complex or detailed is likely to be disappointed. Combat uses three different mechanics. Unarmed combat is a standard Skill Test, as are use of grenades and mortars, though with higher targets. Small arms fire though, is rolled on three six-sided dice, the aim being to roll under a target of twelve or less, though this target can be modified by the situation. Sniper shots use the transparent overlay placed over a silhouette. Two six-sided dice are rolled, modifiers are applied, and the result compared to the number on the transparent overlay. The aim is to roll as low as possible to get closer to the aim point. Rolls of zero or below are considered to be on target.
There is not a huge amount of depth to Merc, but damage is where it definitely feels underwritten. Located in the section for the Corporation—the name for the Referee in Merc, and also the employer for the teams of the Player Character mercenaries—it is handled on a single table which with a roll or two, determines hit location, severity and damage inflicted, and effect. Typically, this includes the initial damage, the ongoing damage, and whether or not the damage inflicted is a mortal wound. There is no effect from skill or weapon type as such. The rules also state that Body Points are lost, when in fact they are not. Rather they are gained, whether from the initial damage, from wounds, and ongoing damage, such as internal bleeding. As a mercenary gains more, the greater the chance of his falling unconscious or dying from his wounds. Similarly, the rules for medical care are also underwritten and undeveloped.
Also, for the Corporation, there is a guide to mission types and how many Experience Points a mercenary will earn from successfully completing it. A mercenary will earn more if his MOS is pertinent to the mission and he performed it well, so a medic will earn more for keeping a hostage already known to be seriously wounded, alive long enough to bring him back after being rescued. Experience Points are then divided in two, one half being paid as money to the mercenary and the other awarded as actual Experience Points, and these are split between Attributes and MOS. Exactly how that works is not quite fully explained. Ultimately, should a mercenary acquire enough Experience Points, he is hired by the corporation and retires.
The Corporation is provided with an example of play, which is definitely of use when trying to understand the rules and how the game is meant to be played. There is also a scenario set in Rhodesia in 1975. The Player Characters are mercenaries hired by the White minority government to strike at a village harbouring ‘terrorists’ who have crossed the border with Zambia and begun operating in the area. It comes with a couple of maps and six pre-generated mercenaries. There is a distinct anti-Communist tone to some of them and in comparison, to the pre-generated mercenaries, the scenario does not even name any of the terrorists, give them any personalities or motivations, or backgrounds—and the villagers are ignored all together. The orders for mercenaries are to eliminate the terrorists—and if necessary, the village. Much more of a wargaming than a roleplaying scenario, would anyone really want to roleplay such a mission? There is no denying the historicity of the situation, but that does not make it any less abhorrent.
—oOo— 
It would be at least a year before Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency was reviewed at the time of its release. In the January 1983 edition of The Space Gamer (No. 59), Brian R. Train thought that the game suffered from a lot of ambiguous rules, saying, “This is quite a good game for an (assumed) first effort – I feel its flaws are due basically to not enough development time and design limits. If a later, revised edition of Merc were put out, I would heartily recommend it. As it is, though, I would warn the buyer to ‘approach with caution’ unless he is already quite familiar with the subject matter, in order to fill in the numerous holes.”
Paul Cockburn gave Merc only a thumbnail review in Imagine No. 9 (December 1983), alongside reviews of other Fantasy Games Unlimited titles—Daredevils, Daredevil Adventures, Vol 2, No. 1 & 2, Merc Supplement 1, and Swords & Sorcery for Chivalry & Sorcery. He wrote, “Merc is clearly designed for the gun nut, the sort of role-player who likes to know just how much of a mess his assault rifle will make of a ‘soft’ target.” before concluding “The book is dedicated to ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare, (Mercenary Extraordinaire)—and I’m sure he’ll be delighted.” In comparison, William A. Barton, writing in Different Worlds Issue 32 (Jan/Feb 1984), gave Merc and its first supplement a more detailed review, in the process identifying several issues with the rules which felt should have been caught in the editing and playtesting stages. He stated that, “If the thought of going into corporate employ for combat missions in third-word countries on a regular basis is appealing to you—or if you desperately need additional information to bolster campaigns based on systems such as Traveller’s Mercenary, which lacks data on most of the situations covered by Merc—FGU’s little game of modern counter-insurgency situations might not prove a bad buy for you at all.” However, he thought that the price was “…[j]ust a bit steep for those not thoroughly committed to modern merc role-playing.”
—oOo—
When it was published in 1981, Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency was a very contemporary roleplaying. After all, Colonel ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare would attempt a coup d’état in the Seychelles in November of that year, the film The Wild Geese and the book it was based upon appeared in 1978, and The Dogs of War, the film based upon the book by Frederick Forsyth, had been released the year before. The concept of mercenaries conducting small unit operations in faraway countries was common, and as Soldiers of Fortune, such men were revered and reviled in equal measure. It is rare that a roleplaying game can be or would be as contemporary. Forty years on, and both Merc and the world it depicts are very much a piece of history—and a troublesome one at that. Today, mercenary work has been corporatised as security work and is rarely in the news as it was then, but the world of Merc is one of post-colonial intervention, even meddling, in Third World countries, and it feels, and is, distasteful. As is mention of the fact that mercenaries served with the Nazis in World War II, as is having to determine height, weight, build, and so on, according to ethnicity, as is the scenario being set in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and being employed by the White government to prevent ‘terrorists’ sneaking over the Zambian border and attacking the railway. This was the situation in Rhodesia, but having to roleplay that now as well as the other elements, means that it is horribly dated, and feels at least horribly inappropriate, if not actually racist. And that is not even mentioning that all of the Player Characters are meant to be male. Of course, it depicts what was a male world, but again, it feels unintentionally misogynist.
In some ways more a military skirmish wargame than a roleplaying game, Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency has not dated well in the forty years since it was originally published. At best, it showcases why sometimes the contemporary is not always the best realm for a roleplaying game to be exploring. It might be serviceable for what it is, and arguably not even that in some places, but the world it depicts and what it involves the Player Characters doing is most definitely a different country, and beyond its limited historical significance as a roleplaying game, perhaps Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency should stay there.

Got a nice treat in the mail last week.

Rahasia is one of the next adventures I will be running in my War of the Witch Queens campaign for Basic-era D&D.  I have a copy of the original B7 version, but I thought a Print on Demand would be nice to have as well.  

I was not wrong.

As with all the PoD modules from the TSR era the maps are not printed on the inside covers but rather as pages.  Not a huge deal to be honest, just make sure you buy the PDF as well and print them out at home.

I had hoped that Rahasia's letter had been cleaned up.  It hasn't. But the source version was difficult to read as well.  I had to retype it so I could have it ready for my War of the Witch Queens game.  

To get this once rare and hard-to-find adventure for just under 12 bucks (I paid $11.99 total) is a really great deal, to be honest. 

Rahasia Links

• Review: B7 Rahasia (BECMI Special)
• A to Z of Adventure! B is for Basic Adventures
• A to Z of Adventure! R is for RPGA Adventures
• Rahasia, Ravenloft and Witches (with witch stats for Karelena, Solorena & Trilena)
• Class Struggles: The Basic/BX/BECMI Witches
• Rahasia's Letter

“Good evening, and once upon a time…” What if these were the opening words of the six o’clock news? What if the news was not only of the latest government initiative, a war in a faraway country, threat of famine in another, a new economic report, a celebrity’s scandalous activities, and all you would expect, but also of Gods walking the Earth, their cults proudly and joyously celebrating festivals dedicated to them, of myths being enacted and reinforced? What if corporations and celebrities and politicians purposefully align their brands with the Gods in the hope gaining their patronage, the love affairs and scandals of the Gods are the subject of the magazines at the supermarket checkout, Valkyries and Amazons work as mercenaries, Satyrs make for the greatest party hosts and revellers, and victorious sports teams give praise to Nike? And not millennia ago, but yesterday, last week, and tomorrow? This is The World, which is just like ours except that the Gods are real, their faiths accepted alongside the more modern monotheistic faiths of ours, and the supernatural is real, but occluded rather than hidden.

The World is one with multiple pantheons—the Aesir, Manitou, Theoi, Netjer, Kami, Tuatha Dé Danann, Óríshá, Devá, Shén, and Teōtl pantheons—often rivals and competitors for the same myths, legends, artefacts, and aspects of The World. As much as they are idolised, it is rare for any one of the Gods to walk the Earth or directly intervene in the affairs of mortals, primarily because they need to maintain a balance between the human belief and worship in them which forms both their personalities and their roles and the danger that the fickle nature of that belief and worship will drastically change their personalities and their roles. Instead, they reside in Overworlds and Underworlds from which they project Terra Incognita, lands of myth once removed from The World, but accessed via Gates such as Bifrost or Fengdu Ghost City, or Axes Mundi, like travelling the aether or sailing the ocean to reach the River Styx. Many of these Terra Incognita parallel real-world locations in The World. For example, Boston’s Catholic churches double as Tuatha sancta, whilst its city parks are strewn with fairy mounds from which lead stray paths where tolls must be paid or riddles answered to again access dreamlike gardens. Sailors carrying a piece of wood or stone from Ireland may find themselves voyaging into Tir na nÓg rather than docking in Boston Harbour. The shining metropolis of Memphis in Egypt with its skyscrapers and maglev mass transit is contrasted with the ancient and macabre necropolis of Saqqara next door, where with the right spells, entry into the Duat, the realm of the dead, may be found.

The feuds and rivalries between the Gods are not the only sources of conflict in The World. The primary conflict is between the Gods and the Titans. The Titans are also deities, but are archetypal embodiments of a particular purview whose pursuit of their primal urges tend to have destructive effects, especially on the mortal realms. Consequently, the Gods, many of them children of the Titans, imprisoned the Titans, who have rattled their chains ever since, more recently weakening them and allowing their more monstrous offspring to enter The World and threaten humanity. Into this conflict step the Scions. Each is the half-divine child of one the Gods and humanity. Many do not know the true nature of their parentage and so explain their amazing abilities and skills as being due natural talents, others have undergone the Visitation, the moment when their true nature and divine lineage is revealed and they are granted their Birthright, gifts from their godly parent.

This is the set-up for Scion: Second Edition, published by Onyx Path Publishing. Inspired by The Wicked + The Divine by Keiron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, the television series Carnivàle, and others, this is a contemporary roleplaying game of modern myth and epic heroism in which not only do the gods walk amongst us, they often have children too. These children, the Scions of the gods, born to the magic of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow, are caught up in a war with the Titans, elder beings who rage against the human world and its wayward gods. As children of the gods, the Player Characters protect the interests of their parents on Earth whilst protecting humanity against the ravages of the Titans. It is explored through not one book, but four, each book representing a different Tier. These are Scion: Origin, Scion: Hero, Scion: Demi-God, and Scion: God, which explore the Scions’ growing ties to their own myths and legends and to the mortal world, the latter weakening as the former strengthens, as they become increasingly involved in divine conflicts.

Scion: Origin is the starting point. The Player Characters are mortals, not yet aware of their true nature, even though divine ichor flows through their veins. They might be a faith healer whose powers are truly divine in nature, a stuntman whose physical prowess enables him to throw himself into any situation, a gambler whose luck truly shines, a mercenary for hire always able to get the job done, but part of that will be their unknown divine mature. Alternatively, a Scion may not be the son or daughter of a God, but a Supernatural being. These include Saints, Kitsune, Satyrs, Therianthropes, Wolf-Warriors, and Cu Sith, who may in turn achieve true divinity like the sons and daughters of the Gods.

A Player Character in Scion: Origin is first defined by a Concept and three Deeds—short-term, long term, and band-term—which combine the Scion’s aims and what his player wants. He has three Paths, one each connected to his Origin, Role, and Society/Pantheon, representing decisions the Scion has made or experiences made, the Origin his background, the Role his occupation or area of expertise, and Society/Pantheon his connection to an organisation, cult, or pantheon. Origin Paths include Adventurer, Life of Privilege, Military Brat, or Child of the Street; Role Paths include Charismatic Leader, Detective, and Technology Expert; and Society/Pantheon the Aesir, Manitou, Theoi, Netjer, Kami, Tuatha Dé Danann, Óríshá, Devá, Shén, and Teōtl pantheons and one of its Gods. In the long term, a Path also provides a route along which a player can develop his character, and will be rewarded in doing so with slightly reduced Experience Point costs. He also has Skills and Attributes, and lastly, a Calling and Knacks. The Calling is an archetype such as Creator, Guardian, Hunter, Lover, and so on, each of which has several associated natural or supernatural benefits, or Knacks. For example, ‘The Bare Minimum’ for the Healer Calling, enables a Scion to tend someone safely even without the right tools and ‘Experienced Traveler’ for the Liminal Calling lets a Scion quickly pick up social cues and language even in the remotest of locations, and is unlikely to be seen as out of place. Some Knacks require the expenditure of Momentum—acquired from failed dice rolls, and whilst a Scion can know multiple Knacks, at the Tier of Scion: Origin, he can only have the one active.

Creating a Scion is a matter of making choices building upon the Concept and selected Pantheon, the player deciding which of his Scion’s Paths is primary, secondary, and tertiary and assigning dots to skills based on each Path’s skills. Attributes are divided into three arenas—mental, physical, social, and are assigned dots based whether they are primary, secondary, or tertiary. The Scion’s Approach, how he prefers to act, whether through Force, Finesse, or Resilience, grants further dots in the three associated attributes. The process is not complex, and whilst it is supported by a solid example, it could have been eased with a clearer summary at the start of the process.

Our sample Scion is the Pre-Visitation Elias Castro who made it big as a successful lawyer defending even bigger-name clients, some of whom were guilty and he managed to get off. He made himself rich and famous—even infamous—and then his conscience got to him. Elias began to drink and gamble, putting himself in debt, leading to a vicious circle of terrible clients, drinking, and gambling. Part of him wants to be off the rollercoaster, part of him continues to enjoy the ride.

Name: Elias Castro
Concept: Off-the-deep-end Gambler
Parent: Hermes
Origin Path: Surburbia – Everybody’s gotta grow up somewhere
Role Path: Charismatic Leader – Honey tongued lawyer
Pantheon Path: Hermes – Caught between two worlds
Calling: Trickster (1)

DEEDS
Short-Term Deed: To take one more risk (Courage)
Long-Term Deed: To get sober (Conviction)
Band-Term Deed:

SKILLS
Culture 3 (Rough & the Smooth), Empathy 5 (I can see through you), Integrity 3 (I stand by everything I say), Leadership 2, Persuasion 5 (Would I lie to you?), Subterfuge 4 (God of Gamblers), Technology 1

ATTRIBUTES
Intellect 3 Might 1 Presence 3
Cunning* 4 Dexterity* 2 Manipulation* 5
Resolve 2 Stamina 1 Composure 3

Movement: 2
Defence: 1

KNACKS
Aura of Greatness, Rumour Miller, Wasn’t Me

Mechanically, Scion: Origin employs the Storypath system, which can be best described as a distillation of the Storyteller system—the mechanics of which date all of the way back to Vampire: The Masquerade—and certainly anyone familiar with the Storyteller system will find that it has a lot in common with the Storypath system, except that the Storypath system is simpler and streamlined, designed for slightly cinematic, effect driven play. The core mechanic uses dice pools of ten-sided dice, typically formed from the combination of a skill and an attribute, for example Pilot and Dexterity to fly a helicopter, Survival and Stamina to cross a wilderness, and Persuasion and Manipulation to unobtrusively get someone to do what a character wants. These skill and attribute combinations are designed to be flexible, the aim being any situation is to score one or more Successes, a Success being a result of eight or more (this can be lowered as Scions become more powerful). Rolls of ten are added to the total and a player can roll them again.

To succeed, a player needs to roll at least one Success, and may need to roll more depending upon the Difficulty of the task. Should a Scion succeed, he can increase the number of Successes with an Enhancement, such as having a fast car in a race or the favour of a particular God, but he needs to succeed in order to use the Enhancement. Any Successes generated beyond the Difficulty become Threshold Success and represent how well the character has succeeded. These can be spent by the player to buy off Complications, for example, not attracting the attention of the Police in a car chase, or to purchase Stunts. These can cost nothing, for example, the Inflict Damage Stunt, whereas the Disarm Stunt costs two and the Critical Hit Stunt costs four. Characters in Scion: Second Edition often have Stunts due to their Birthright, such as Loki, which grants the ability to positively influence someone, but only when the character lies, but Birthrights are outside the scope of Scion: Origin.

Under the Storypath system, and thus in Scion: Origin, failure is never complete. Rather, if a player does not roll any Successes, then he receives a Consolation. This can be a ‘Twist of Fate’, which reveals an alternative approach or new information; a ‘Chance Meeting’ introduces a new helpful NPC; or an ‘Unlooked-for Advantage’, an Enhancement which can be used in a future challenge. Alternatively, a character gains Momentum which goes into a collective pot and which can be spent to add extra dice to a dice pool or used to fuel various Knacks possessed by the Scions. Scion: Origin focuses on three areas of action—Action-Adventure, Procedurals, and Intrigue. The first covers combat and is fairly straightforward. The second handles information gathering, which is divided into two categories. Leads start or continue the plot and so do not have to be rolled for by the players, whereas Clues provide extra information, are more challenging to find, and do require a roll. Intrigue covers social interaction and the reading and shifting of the attitudes of both NPCs and player characters.

Scion: Origin is a roleplaying game of supernatural and divine beings, many of varying power and scope. The mechanics cover this with Scale, both Narrative and Dramatic. Narrative Scale covers minor characters and story elements, whilst Dramatic Scale covers situations when it applies to the Player Characters. When Scale comes into play, it adds a number of Enhancements equal to the difference between the two sides involved in the scene. As with the rest of the Storypath system, Enhancements come into play as effects if successes are generated as part of a test.

The advice for Storyguide includes the general and the specific. The general is the fairly standard and includes ignoring or modifying rules she does not like, ensuring that everyone around the table is comfortable with the tone and content of the game being played, and so on. This does feel underwritten and could have included further advice and safety tools such as the X-Card. The specific discusses how to set up a campaign through steps of what it calls the Plot Engine—the seed, the pitch, and deeds and arcs. Naturally, it emphasis how to bring the myth into the game, but keep it subtle because the Scions are not truly divine, so will not be enacting the Saga of Argonauts, the search for the Golden Fleece, or penetrating the maze of the Minotaur—at least not literally. Instead, they might be enacting them with the myth alluded to, but underlying the mundane. So at the Myth Level of Scion: Origin, set at Iron Level—with the divine present in the mundane world as signs and omens which may or may not be real, bordering on Heroic Level—in which the supernatural has begun to become apparent, the search for the Golden Fleece might turn into a road trip to get a fleece jacket back , whilst penetrating the maze might mean a bureaucracy rather a labyrinth. This can be as subtle or not as the story warrants, the Storyguide advised to play with and enforce mythic tropes such as the Rule of Three, Hometown Advantage, Beauty is Only Skin Deep, and so on. To do this, the Storyguide will need to research and adapt myth upon myth, and depending upon the choices made by her players, the mythos of pantheons she is not familiar with. She is also advised to keep it dramatic, including repeating a call to adventure over and over if a Scion ignores it, slightly changing the nature of the call each time. This is delightfully unsubtle and whilst you might not do it in another roleplaying game, it is perfectly in keeping with the Urban Fantasy genre and thus Scion: Origin.

The setting to Scion: Origin is explored in several ways. This includes several pieces of fiction, all by Kieron Gillen—author of The Wicked + Divine—telling the story of Scion discovering the true nature of the world around and her place in it. Along with the sample pre-generated Scions, these a holdover from the roleplaying game’s first edition, they bring a personal perspective to the setting. One of these examples includes a God not given in the list pantheons to show other deities can be included. As well as exploring the nature of The World and its differences with ours, several cities are described, including their links to the Terra Incognito and the Axis Mundi. They include Boston and New York, Kyoto and Memphis, Mexico City and Varanasi, and more. Not all in the same detail, but they do suggest how other cities might be explored in a similar fashion. There is also a good chapter of antagonists, including archetypes, using qualities, flairs (one-shot abilities which require a cool-down period to use again), and utilities to build important NPCs, advice on creating them, and numerous ready-to-play examples. The latter are accompanied by design notes which explore the principles of each mythic creature, suggesting how they can be used and adapted from one pantheon to another.

Rounding out Scion: Origin is a set of appendices. The first explores six Supernatural Paths. These include Saints, Kitsune, Satyrs, Therianthropes, Wolf-Warriors, and Cu Sith. Of these, Therianthropes are lycanthropes, Wolf-Warriors are berserkers, and Cu Sith are fey canines. Guidelines are given on how to adjust them to model other mythical figures, such as adapting the Wolf-Warrior to be a classical Amazon, a Dahomey Amazon, and a Shieldmaiden. These shift Scion: Origin away from being a roleplaying game about the divine, and more to encompass the Urban Fantasy genre, as well as pleasingly demonstrating the flexibility of these archetypes. That said, more of them included in the book would have been nice. The second lists all of the major Gods and their Callings and Purviews for all ten pantheons presented in Scion: Origin. They include the Aesir or Norse Gods, the Manitou or Algonquian pantheon, the Theoi or Greco-Roman pantheon, Netjer or Egyptian pantheon, the Kami or Japanese Gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann or Irish Gods, the Óríshá or Yórúba pantheon, the Devá or Gods of South Asia, the Shén or Chinese pantheon, and Teōtl or Aztec pantheon. These are lists only, and whilst useful, further research upon the part of the Storyguide and her players will be needed beyond this. The third and last appendix provides a conversion guide from the first edition to the second edition of Scion: Origin.

Physically, Scion: Origin is well-written, the full colour artwork throughout is excellent, and the whole affair is attractive. Perhaps in places it feels a little too concise, especially in the examples of the rules. What Scion: Origin is lacking though, is a beginning scenario, which would suggest some idea as to how the designers intend the roleplaying game to be played. However, there is the quick-start for it, A Light Extinguished: A Jumpstart For Scion Second Edition, which could be played with the full rules using Scions of the players’ own design, rather than the pre-generated ones provided in the quick-start. More of a problem is the lack of story hooks or campaign suggestions which might have helped spur the Storyguide’s imagination. Similarly, it would have been interesting to see myths taken from the different pantheons and worked through to see how they could work in Scion: Origin. Doing so would also have been a chance for the designers to showcase some of the less familiar pantheons. Elsewhere an example of play and a full example of combat would both have been helpful.

Scion: Origin is a roleplaying game about playing Gods to be, so it is almost as if Scion: Origin is wanting to pull the Scions onto the step in their Paths to divinity, which technically would be Scion: Hero, but it never goes as far as pulling the setting of The World and the Scions over that threshold. There is a sense of the liminal to Scion: Origin which is not helped by the lack of examples and the Storyguide being left to research, adapt, and develop myths of the pantheons to really get started. This is not to say that the tools are not there for the Storyguide to get started—the Storypath system is suitably cinematic, the advice is solid, and the background is good, but Scion: Origin does not help the Storyguide make that first step into The World easy. However, Scion: Origin is a roleplaying game full of great potential and a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are also full of great potential. For the Storyguide willing to work myths, Scion: Origin will turn into some potentially mythic stories and adventures.

Well, enough disasters in the past few years have prevented the Manchester United Flower Show gallery exhibition from running, so let’s hope that the real disasters stay away from this weekend. If you can make it, we’ll see you on … Continue reading →