Another fantastic work found at the British Museum.

Today is President's Day. Since we just got rid of the President from Hell, let's talk about a President of Hell. One of the things that I always found interesting reading demonology texts was the term President of Hell. One, in particular, is the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, The False Monarchy of Demons.  

One of the first Presidents mentioned was Buer.  Here is what is said about him.

Buer is a great president, and is seene in this signe [*]; he absolutelie teacheth philosophie morall and naturall, and also logicke, and the vertue of herbes: he giveth the best familiars, he can heale all diseases, speciallie of men, and reigneth over fiftie legions.

Kind of cool really. In this case, a President is someone that runs a government. The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum lists 14 such Presidents. How they fit into the Gygaxian vision of the Nine Hells and the Archdukes remains to be figured out; likely two presidents per layer of hell. 

Buer also appears as a President in the Ars Goetia of The Lesser Key of Solomon.  

Buer then would be classified as a devil in the Gygaxian taxonomy. 

Buer

President of Hell
Large Fiend (Diabolic)

Frequency: Unique
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic [Lawful Evil]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Centuar: 180' (60') [18"]
  Spirit: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 3 [16]
Hit Dice: 15d8***+45 (113 hp)
  HD (Large): 15d10***+45 (128 hp)
Attacks: trample, bite, spells
Damage: 1d6+2 x5, 1d8+2
Special: Devil abilities, spell casting
Size: Large
Save: Monster 16
Morale: 12 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: XXI [B] x3
XP: 4,200 (OSE) 4,350 (LL)

Buer is a great President of Hell. He controls fifty legions of demons (a legion is 6,000 demons).  He will appear to mortals as a great red centaur. His true form is that of a lion's head with five goat legs radiating from this central head.  His whole body is aflame.  

Buer can cast spells as if he was a 13th level magic-user.  He can cast any spell dealing with fire (produce flame, fireball, etc) twice per day with additional memorization needed. 

He is a great patron of witches and warlocks, in particular warlocks.  The familiars he grants can heal their warlocks once per day for 1d6+ hp of damage and cure disease once per week. 

Buer is summoned by demonologists and malefic witches for his knowledge on logic, moral philosophy, and the sciences, of which he is particularly knowledgeable on.  He can grant a familiar to those that summon him.  These will be imps but can appear as a natural animal.  These familiars will work to bring their master to greater and great acts of evil.  If the magic-user (or witch or warlock) dies while they have this familiar their souls will be sent to Hell where the familiar becomes the new Master and tortures the former magic-user for eternity

--

So a few things I have to consider.  Buer is a President, one of 14. I need to figure out which ones go where.  I am still thinking two per levels 2 to 8, with none for the 1st and 9th levels.  I also want to come up with new names for the levels and the rulers, more or less.

Now I know that Buer was featured in Dragon Magazine's famous "The Nine Hells Revisited, Part 1 and 2" and there is some written about him there. While it is all good stuff, I want to reorganize these as I like. 

I am certainly going to do a lot more with thses.

 Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford's mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?
The Gifts of Prax is a short scenario set in Dragon Pass wherever Shamans may be found.
It is a sequel (or prequel) to Stone and Bone.

It is a forty page, full colour, 39.94 MB PDF with a three-page, full colour 10.99 MB handout.

The Gifts of Prax is well presented with decent artwork and clear maps. It needs a slight edit in places.
Where is it set?
The Gifts of Prax is set in Prax amongst the Straw Weaver Clan of the Bison tribe during the wet season. Notes are included to enable the Game Master to set it elsewhere.
Who do you play?
Praxians who are members of the Straw Weaver Clan. A shaman may be useful, as well as a mix of genders amongst the Player Characters. Notes are included to run the scenario using other character types, including non-Praxians.
What do you need?
The Gifts of Prax requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Access to the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary may be useful, but is not essential to play.

What do you get?
Erhehta, shaman of the Stone Weaver Clan has been attacked by a rival, Maserelt of the Impala Tribe—and he must have his revenge! This will take the form of an attack upon her in the spirit realm, using a bison herd. However, to do this, he requires several items and he requires that the Player Characters fetch them. These include a stone to sharpen horns, flood water from the Stealer’s River, Graro plant and sand mushrooms, and more. Each of these will enhance the shaman’s attack upon his rival and obtaining each of them is a mini-quest in itself. The Player Characters are presented with a Map Bag, which will not only serve to carry each item as it is collected, but as a set of directions to where each is located. However, the Map Bag is women’s magic and if there are no female Player Characters in the group, the male Player Characters will have to handle it with great care.
There are two parallel strands to The Gifts of Prax. One is following the Map Bag to each of the locations where the items that Erhehta needs can be found, the other is a series of encounters along the way, each of which may bestow upon the Player Characters a ‘gift of Prax’. These can help or hinder the Player Characters in their progress—having to look after a baby Condor for example will prove to be something of a challenge, for example, but by finding the items that the Stone Weaver Clan shaman wants and by bringing him the ‘Gifts of Prax’, the Player Characters will underpin and bolster his chances of success in taking his revenge from the Spirit World upon his rival. Both searching for the various items and especially receiving the ‘Gifts of Prax’ make good use of the Player Characters’ Runes and each of the encounters is accompanied by notes suggesting ways in which the Game Master can scale it up for more experienced Player Characters. Ultimately though, as much as Erhehta needs to take his revenge upon Maserelt, for both his standing and that of the Stone Weaver Clan, the Player Characters will be faced with a dilemma—just how far should this revenge go? This brings in a degree of morality that the Player Characters will need to address, one which nicely counterpoints the physicality of the quests they undertook to set up the revenge attempt.
The Gifts of Prax also includes a colouring-in sheet for the pleasure of the players.

Is it worth your time?
Yes—The Gifts of Prax is a well written, entertaining, and challenging scenario if you are running a campaign set amongst the Tribes of Prax. Especially if the Player Characters include a shaman amongst their number.
No—The Gifts of Prax is set in Prax, and if your campaign is not set in Prax, then the scenario is harder to use, especially as the time of year and the environment plays a strong role.Maybe—The Gifts of Prax is potentially flexible enough to be set elsewhere away from Prax, but the Game Master will develop much of the geography and details herself to successfully adapt the scenario.

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—

In 1995, the hobby gaming industry was deep into the collectible card game craze. Magic: The Gathering has been published in 1993, had become incredibly popular, and made its publisher, Wizards of the Coast, a lot of money. In response, other publishers—large and small—understandably, followed suit, and as they competed in this market, so the hobby gaming industry turned away from the types of games which had supported it over the previous two decades. By 1995, the number of new roleplaying games published that year had diminished to less than half that in previous years. Yet in that year, Wizards of the Coast would publish a roleplaying game which was radically different in concept and format to almost anything which had come before it. A roleplaying game which was so radically different, it would flop. Despite the lack of success though, its simplicity, its focused concept, and its emphasis upon storytelling and drama would all flower in the ‘Indie Roleplaying-Movement’ of the noughties, the concepts of which would go on to be absorbed into the mainstream during the teens. That roleplaying game is Everway Visionary Roleplaying.

Everway Visionary Roleplaying comes in a large box and looks like a traditional roleplaying game, but open up the box and it is clear that it is anything but. In addition to the one-hundred-and-six-two page ‘Playing Guide’, the sixty-four page ‘Gamemastering Guide’ and the fourteen page ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’, the roleplaying game includes over a hundred, full-colour cards. These consist of the ninety card Vision card Deck, ten Source cards, and thirty-six Fortune card Deck. This is in addition to the two maps, twelve blank Spherewalker sheets, and eleven pre-generated ready-to-play Spherewalker sheets, but what was missing from the box for Everway Visionary Roleplaying is dice. This is because in terms of its mechanics Everway Visionary Roleplaying is diceless. Instead, it uses a combination of the Fortune card Deck and narrative efficacy to determine the outcome of a task or story. Of course, diceless roleplaying games had been seen before, notably Phage Press’ Amber Diceless Roleplaying from 1991, as had card-driven roleplaying games, such as R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Castle Falkenstein from 1994. Everway Visionary Roleplaying, though, does not use numbered cards as in the use of a standard playing Deck of cards by Castle Falkenstein, but rather the images upon its cards. Hence Everway Visionary Roleplaying was a visionary roleplaying game in more ways than one.

The setting for Everway Visionary Roleplaying is a multiverse of Spheres—or worlds, each world consisting of numerous different Realms—each connected by a series of Gates. Known Spheres include Ashland, a land of smoking volcanos, nasty cockatrices, and scheming goblins; Canopy, a singular, enormous tree, its inside populated by humans, its roots home to extensive cave systems filled with fantastic creatures; and Pearl of Waves, an undersea kingdom where travel is conducted via bubbles of air or the mouths of giant fish. Typical Realms include the Land of a Million Deities, a conservative Realm of hereditary kings and queens sanctioned by the priests and priestesses of many gods; The Middle Kingdom, a sophisticated Realm dedicated to knowledge and bureaucracy; and the Smith’s Realm, a realm of conquered territories, controlled by regional governors. It is a fantasy setting, one of low magic and high magic, in which demons, angels, godlings, spirits, fairies, dragons, unicorns, and other creatures can be found, but the most common species, in various shapes and forms, to be found throughout the Spheres is mankind, all able to understand the common language known as ‘The Tongue’, a gift from the gods. Perhaps the most famous location in all of the Spheres is that of Everway, a city at the heart of Sphere that has not the two gates typical to most Spheres, but a grand total of three-score-and-ten—if not more!

Every ‘Outsider’ who comes to Everway, experiences the city in a different way. To some it can be well-mannered and bright, to others a city of dark alleys and citizens ready to exploit every visitor or sell them any vice, or ordered and cosmopolitan. It is though, an ancient city, matriarchal, but with a king, and numerous families of note, each of which controls a particular aspect of the city. For example, the Keeper family maintains and guards the Gates, the Scratch family consists of scholars and bureaucrats, and the Wailer family specialises in ceremony of any kind. One type of rare individual drawn to the city of Everway is the ‘Spherewalker’, capable of using the Gates freely and taking the one-week journey to traverse between one Sphere and the next. They can be powerful mages, mighty warriors, enigmatic Shaman, and more, but in becoming Spherewalker, they may be seeking to fulfil a personal quest, to bring justice and an end to evil in any or all Spheres, to search for treasure and personal gain, to atone for crimes committed, or even to gather research and information for the Library of All Worlds in the city of Everway. Each Player Character in Everway Visionary Roleplaying is one of these Spherewalkers.

A Spherewalker is defined first by his Name, typically a common word, or one based on a common word, then a Motive, for example, Mystery, Wanderlust, or Adversity. He also has a Virtue, some way in which he is gifted—it could be a personal trait, a magical gift, or an aspect of fortune. His Fault represents a particular weakness or vulnerability, again a personal trait, magical curse, or aspect of fortune, whilst his Fate is the challenge he currently faces. He is likely to have one or more Powers, limited in scope, but still powerful and distinctive, for example, ‘Fast Healing’, ‘Magical Singing’, ‘Cat Familiar’, ‘Throw Fire’, ‘Invulnerable’, and so on. The ‘Playing Guide’ includes many examples, but a player is encouraged to create his own, a Power typically being a combination of Major, Frequent, and Versatile. This is in addition to the free power which each Player Character Spherewalker possesses. A Spherewalker has four Elements—Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Air is intellect and communication; Fire, force, athleticism, and combat prowess; Earth, toughness and willpower; and Water, empathy, perception, and wisdom. These are rated between two and nine, each value exponentially greater than the one below it. For each Element, a Spherewalker has a speciality, a skill or ability in which he is better when using that Element. An Element can also suggest a career, such as warrior or acrobat for Fire or poet or physician for Air and Water.

A Spherewalker can also have magic, a mage typically specialising in one of the elements. Thus, Words of Power for Air, Soil and Stone for Earth, Flux for Fire, and Open Chalice for Water. As with Elements, Magic is exponentially more powerful the greater a rating a mage has in it, each rating granting particular advantages. So at a Fluxx rating of three, a Spherewalker can alter minor features, for example, aging milk, freshening the air, rusting metal, and so on, whilst a Soil and Stone rating of six would enable a Mage to save a Realm from a plague or heal a person. How often and for how long a Mage can perform such magics is measured by his Earth Element.

To create a Spherewalker, a player goes through six stages. These start with the player selecting or drawing five cards from the Vision card Deck. In addition to the full-colour illustration on the front, each Vision card has four or five questions on the back about the image on the front. For example, the card depicting two goatherds amidst a field of goats, one of goatherds seeming to steal away with a goat in his arms, has the questions, “How are the two goatherds related?”, “What is the sundial for?”, “How far away is the nearest village? Where is their home?”, and “Why is one goatherd crying?”. The player uses the Vision cards and the questions as inspiration. After deciding upon a Name, Motive, Virtue, Fault, and Fate, the player assigns twenty points between his Spherewalker’s Powers, Elements, and Magic, though all Spherewalkers will have Powers or Magic. The process is in part meant to be collaborative, each player specifically taking the time to introduce his Spherewalker and who he is, whilst the last stage involves the players asking questions about each other’s Spherewalkers, helping each other to understand who their Spherewalkers are. The end result though—and the author’s advice is that everyone should work towards this—should be playable, compatible with the rest of the party, and be prepared to grow and change.

Goat-sent grew up a simple goatherder, alongside her father, tending to the herds belonging to the village in the valley below until she turned thirteen and one goat began talking to her. Not just talking to her, but talking to her things that would happen—and then they did. When the villagers learned of it, they were at first curious, then fearful, and ordered the goat killed. This would happen at the sundial where many of the village’s religious ceremonies took place, but she could not let the goat be killed and ran away with it. Escaping for the first time through a Gate, she sought sanctuary and answers with a Sage, who taught her to focus upon a candle to enter into trances in which she would foretell the future. In time, the rich and powerful of his Realm came to hear their fortune, but not once was she able to tell of the Sage’s future. Yet ultimately, she found the sanctuary constraining and decided to leave, not to go back through the Gate she had used but via the harbour. The ship she embarked upon took her far away, further than the ship had sailed before, from one Realm to the next, where Capybara and her human companion, told her that she was a Spherewalker and that she should follow the sun through to Everway, where perhaps she might find answers. So far, the peoples of Everway have presented with answer upon answer as to the nature of her gift, but none can agree which is correct. So, she seeks answers beyond in the Realms.

Name: Goat-sent
Motive: Mystery
Virtue: Truth (Knowledge) 
Fault: Effort Misspent (War)
Fate: Maturity (Winter)

Air: 5 (Singing)
Earth: 4  (Herding)
Fire: 4 (Living under the sun)
Water: 5 (Tracking)

Powers:
Goat companion, 3 (frequent, major, versatile)
Mystic Eye, 3 (frequent, major, versatile)
Goat Tongue, 0

Mechanically, Everway Visionary Roleplaying provides not one, but three means of resolution—the Law of Karma, the Law of Drama, and the Law of Fortune—and the Game Master is free to use whichever one she prefers or feels best fits the situation. With the Law of Karma, a Spherewalker’s Elements, Specialities, Powers, and Magic determine the outcome of an intended action. If the Game Master judges that the appropriate Element, Speciality, Power, or Magic is sufficient, then the Spherewalker will succeed. If not, he will fail. The Law of Karma also comes into play in the long term, potentially rewarding or penalising a Spherewalker depending upon whether an action can be seen as positive or negative. This is of course, up to the Game Master to judge.

The Law of Drama is even simpler. Essentially, the needs of the narrative and the story determines the outcome of an action. Is it appropriate or satisfying at the point in a story that a Spherewalker escape from the cell or does the villain need to turn up to deliver a monologue? Which outcome would make the story better—more interesting, more exciting, more intriguing? The Law of Fortune is slightly more complex, but again relies upon a high degree of improvisation and interpretation upon the part of the Game Master. To determine the outcome of an action, the Game Master draws from the Fortune Deck and interprets the Fortune card as it relates to the situation. Typically, this simply requires the Game Master to draw the one card per situation, whether that is for use of an Element, a Power, or Magic. Going from one law to the next, from the Law of Karma to the Law of Drama to the Law of Fortune involves increasing levels of improvisation upon the part of Game Master and acceptance and participation upon the part of the players and their Spherewalkers to buy into and engage with that improvisation.

Now all of these resolution mechanics also apply to combat as well, whether that is the Law of Karma determining that a Spherewalker is skilled or powerful enough to overcome a foe, the Law of Drama determining that it is appropriate in terms of the narrative for a Spherewalker to win or lose a conflict, or the Law of Fortune relying upon a Fortune card and its interpretation to determine if a Spherewalker wins the conflict or not. This makes combat simple and fast, effectively deemphasising combat as a means of overcoming problems in Everway Visionary Roleplaying. However, combat can be handled in more dramatic fashion, still using the Law of Fortune, but drawing not the once, but from round to round, exchange to exchange. This really works best when a fight or conflict is important, rather than with every single scuffle or brawl.

Mechanically—and thematically, the Fortune Deck lies at the heart of Everway Visionary Roleplaying. Out of the box, it is a deck of thirty-six, full colour, illustrated cards. Every card can be reversed and besides a title, has two simple pieces of text. For example, the text for the Inspiration card is ‘Creativity’, but ‘Lack of Imagination’ when reversed. It is this text which the Game Master is interpreting when applying the Law of Fortune. In the game though, the Fortune Deck is divination tool found in every Realm, but not necessarily as a deck of cards. It could be a great series of bells rung and interpreted in random order each day or the order in which a flock of birds returns to roost at dusk, but it is present in every Realm. The Fortune Deck influences every character—NPC or Spherewalker—and every Realm, so that they each have a Virtue, a Flaw, and a Fate, all drawn from the Fortune Deck. Similarly, each Realm can be created by drawing cards from the Vision Deck and interpreting them just as each player did during the creation of his Spherewalker. The Fortune Deck though, is flawed—by intention out of game, and because in-game, it adds an element of chaos. It was a deity of chaos who stole the thirty-sixth card, leaving a void, and this void, known as the Usurper, is filled with a profoundly negative influence, such as Despair, Sacrifice, or Vengeance, from one Realm to the next. The influence of the Usurper and this negative influence in each Realm will ultimately underlie any Quest that the Spherewalkers undertake there.

Everway Visionary Roleplaying is played as a series of Quests, and again, these can be created using the Vision cards as inspiration and the Fortune Deck to create the conflict in the Quest. Advice for the Game Master covers both the creation of Quests and Realms, and what makes both a good Quest and a good Realm. It also covers running the Quest, bringing the Spherewalkers together, and more. Half of the ‘Gamemastering Guide’ is given over to ‘Journey to Stonedeep’, a lengthy, detailed Quest designed to get a Game Master started with her Everway Visionary Roleplaying game. Several other Quests are outlined in the rest of the ‘Gamemastering Guide’ along with the advice. The much longer ‘Playing Guide’ introduces the setting of Everway in broad detail, enabling the Game Master to develop the particular details as necessary, should she want to involve her Spherewalkers in its daily life, politics, and other events, before guiding both player and Game Master through the stages of Spherewalker creation, and explaining and advising about the rules. The ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’ explains the Fortune Deck in more detail, its use as a means of divination, and the cards in the Fortune Deck—their correspondences, their meanings, and reversed meanings. If the mechanics to Everway Visionary Roleplaying are simple and easy to learn, in comparison, learning to interpret the meanings of the cards in the Fortune Deck is not. So careful study of the ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’ is warranted, though as a guide and means of interpretation, rather than being proscriptive. Some advice though could have been included though on how to interpret various situations using the Fortune Deck.

Physically, Everway Visionary Roleplaying is nicely produced and presented. The three books, each 8½ by 7-inches in size, are done in black and white and either pale blue or pale ochre, illustrated throughout with art taken from the Vision Deck, though in black and white rather than colour. The pre-generated Spherewalker sheets are attractively done in full colour, as are all of the cards in the various Decks. The cards in the Vision Deck are done on thick card, and have the feel of collectable trading cards, whilst the cards of the Fortune Deck are more like traditional playing cards—or those of Magic: the Gathering. (That said, it is surprising that the cards of the Vision Deck were not printed on similar card stock.) All of this nicely fits into the plastic insert tray in the box and which has room for further cards—more cards were published for the game.

Yet, for all the high quality of the production values—which for 1995 are excellent, what stands out about Everway Visionary Roleplaying is the quality of the writing. It is engaging throughout, it is helpful throughout, it gives numerous examples throughout, it gives advice throughout, it explains what the game is about and what the job of each player is and what he should do to make the game enjoyable for everyone around the table, and what the job of the Game Master is and what she should do to make the game enjoyable for everyone around the table. Alongside the advice and examples, there is discussion of what happened in the designer’s own campaign, which helps to bring the setting to life and to help the prospective Game Master understand the designer’s intentions. It is all fantastically, superbly useful.

All of this advice is necessary, because with as a trio of mechanics as light as presented in the Law of Karma, the Law of Drama, and the Law of Fortune, those mechanics are open to interpretation—though this is both a feature and the very point of the mechanics, and thus not a negative—and if not necessarily bias, then potential misinterpretation. Everway Visionary Roleplaying is designed to be a game suitable for those new to roleplaying and both its writing style and its advice is helpful in that regard. However, the step from a more tradition, dice and stats, simulationist roleplaying game to a narrative driven, diceless roleplaying game like Everway Visionary Roleplaying will be more of a challenge. Players and Game Master alike, more accustomed to such mainstream roleplaying games will find themselves perplexed by the lack of dice, by the very light, interpretative mechanics, by the emphasis upon the narrative rather than the mechanics, and the questions posed as part of Spherewalker creation will find themselves needing to make some adjustments in how they approach and play the roleplaying game. That though was in 1995. They did gaming differently then, but come forward a quarter of a century, and so many of the ideas and concepts behind Everway Visionary Roleplaying have been taken up by wide aspects of the hobby in the time since its publication, such that if they are not part of the mainstream hobby now, they are an accepted part of gaming. 

—oOo—

Rick Swan began his review of Everway Visionary Roleplaying in Dragon Magazine No. 224 (December 1995) by being surprised at the choice of designer for Wizards of the Coast’s new and original roleplaying game and the roleplaying game itself. He described Jonathan Tweet as being talented, but “…not a mainstream kind of guy.” and that whilst he would have expected Wizards of the Coast to want a mainstream product, “In fact, Everway is so far out of the mainstream, it’s barely recognizable as an RPG.” After going into some depth about the roleplaying he states that, “Everway codifies the freeform style favored by me and (I suspect) thousands of other referees. It makes for a brisk game, and Everway, to its credit, plays at blinding speed. But to an unprecedented extent, the success of an Everway adventure depends on the improvisational skills of the referee, his ability to come up with interesting plot twists, characters, and scenic details on the spur of the moment. And players must respond in kind, relying on their imaginations instead of die-rolls to forge their characters’ destinies.” before concluding, “I suspect Tweet has underestimated the average gamer’s aptitude for improvisation. But I could be wrong.”

[As a side note, it curious that Swan concluded with, “I suspect Tweet has underestimated the average gamer’s aptitude for improvisation. But I could be wrong.” (My emphasis.) Given the tone of the review and that Swan thought that Tweet’s earlier Ars Magica would last a year or two, it is quite possible that that what he actually meant was ‘overestimated’. This would better fit the tone and conclusion that the review comes to.] 

Ken & Jo Walton made Everway Visionary Roleplaying a Pyramid Pick in Pyramid Number 17 (January/February ’96). After a lengthy review, they concluded, “By now, you’re probably thinking either “That sounds interesting” or “That sounds awful.” This game is not one for simulationists, who want every detail of the physical world accurately portrayed. But for those roleplayers who want to roleplay in a free-form, improvisational way, Everway is a system which actually supports such play, rather than hemming the game round with rules that straitjacket the players’ character conceptions and hamper speed of play with tables and charts.”

Everway Visionary Roleplaying was reviewed by John Wick in Shadis Issue 25 (March 1996), by which time, the roleplaying game had been picked up by Pagan Publishing, the first of several subsequent publishers. He wrote, “Everyway is a game quite unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. The cost is a little high, it may be a bit too off the mainstream for many, and the characters presented arc definitely not Conan clones (white Anglo-Saxon males) which many may interpret as a tip of the hat to “political Correctness”, but all in all, it’s a great game that looks at every aspect of gaming from a different perspective. And that’s what “visionary” roleplaying is all about.” (Note that in 1995, Everway Visionary Roleplaying cost $34.95.)

—oOo—

Everway Visionary Roleplaying is the television series Sliders meets Roger Zelazny’s Amber, played out across a multiverse where patterns in terms of civilisations and the Fortune Deck resonate and repeat again and again. All focused through a lens of the mythic and the mystic, the latter verging on New Ageism, especially with the use of the Tarot card-like Fortune Deck. (This is in addition to the pattern of three which runs throughout the game—the three laws of resolution, the three aspects of divination, and so on.) It seems amazing that this roleplaying game, with its sparse mechanics, emphasis on the narrative, player-focused questions asked during Spherewalker creation, and lack of dice would be released in the nineties at the height of Magic: the Gathering’s popularity. When almost no other roleplaying games were being published and the roleplaying industry looked to be all but upon its death knell. Yet, all these aspects of its design would be explored further in the late nineties with designs like Robin D. Laws’ Hero Wars—which would become HeroQuest and Jenna K. Moran’s Nobilis, before the ‘Indie Roleplaying-Movement’ enthusiastically took them up and ran helter skelter with them. Designer Jonathan Tweet would himself be subsumed by the mainstream by the end of the nineties, becoming the lead designer on Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, again for Wizards of the Coast, and then as co-designer, bring some of that radicalism, non-mainstream design into the mainstream with 13th Age for Pelgrane Press.

In 1995, Everway Visionary Roleplaying was ground-breaking. With its advice and extensive examples, it showed how diceless roleplaying could be achieved and played and run with a strong emphasis upon the narrative. Both the means of Spherewalker creation—the use of the Vision Deck and the Fortune deck, along with the questions during the process, and the downplay of combat as a means of resolution, fostered engaging roleplaying and alternative means of solving conflicts and problems. It was incredibly well written, packed with advice, and supported with numerous examples, and yet… In 1995, it was too ground-breaking, it was too radical, and with its Tarot-like Fortune Deck, perhaps overly influenced by New Age religion. Ultimately though, it was not mainstream enough, not commercial enough. In 2021, though…?

Today, Everway Visionary Roleplaying still feels sleek, modern, and elegant. Game design has undergone radical changes since its original publication and now, Everway Visionary Roleplaying fits into the marketplace. It does not feel out of place. If the production values look dated, the design does not. Everway Visionary Roleplaying could be played today and nobody would think it weird or different. As radical as it was in 1995 and as influential as it has been over the last twenty-five years, Everway Visionary Roleplaying is a game from the past that fits today.

 —oOo—

A new version of Everway Mythic Roleplaying is currently being funded as part of a Kickstarter campaign. It will be published by The Everway Company.

The closer to Sunday we get, the worse the weather promises to get, and it’s not getting better all week. Because everyones’ lives are much more important than any open house, we’re rescheduling the Carnivorous plant Tour for Sunday, February … Continue reading →

The tales of Robin Hood, of a band of outlaws standing up to the tyrant King John in the Forest of Nottingham are so strongly woven into the folklore, legends, and myths ‘Merrye Olde Englande’ that they are familiar across the English-speaking world. Over the decades, the tales have been reinforced again and again by film and television, from the 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and the 1950s television series The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene to more recent adaptations such as the BBC’s Robin Hood of the noughties and the 2018 film, Robin Hood. These adaptions and retellings, of course, vary in quality, tone, and humour, some even having been done as comedies. Similarly, Robin Hood has been the subject of numerous roleplaying games and supplements. Some have been quite comprehensive in their treatment of the outlaw and his band, for example, the supplements Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS Robin Hood and Iron Crown Enterprises’ Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign are both highly regarded in this respect, whilst other supplements take a broad approach or simply touch upon the subject of Robin Hood, such as Romance of the Perilous Land from Osprey Games.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood takes a broad to the tales of Robin Hood and his merry men. Published by Battlefield Press, it is written for use with Savage Worlds, Third Edition, but versions of the supplement are also available for Pathfinder, First Edition, Swords & Wizardry, and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and since it is written for Savage Worlds, Third Edition, it is easily adapted to the more recent edition, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood begins with a ‘Gazetteer of the 13th Century England’, which provides a historical and geographical overview of England—and to an extent, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales—for the period. It covers geography, economy, religion, everyday life, and more, including useful little details such as a list of the religious holidays during the period. Overall, it is a decent overview, giving some context for creating Player Characters and the setting. In terms of setting rules, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood offers three different modes of play. These are Historical—realistic, superstition rather than magic, and relying upon Outlaw skill, luck, and confidence; Mythic England—a combination of mysticism, the supernatural, and the fantastic; and Swashbuckling—cinematic and sword-swinging! Each mode of play comes with a list of its Disallowed Hindrances and Edges, Setting Rules, and new Edges, along with a nod to its particular inspirations. Thus, for the Swashbuckling mode, it is The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn; for Mythic England, it is the British Robin of Sherwood television series of the eighties; and for Historical, it is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves from 1991. Of the three modes, Swashbuckling is actually intended to work with the first two, either Historical or Mythic England, so that the Game Master could run a Swashbuckling Historical campaign or a Swashbuckling Mythic England campaign. It should be noted that for role-players of a certain age, Mythic England, based upon Robin of Sherwood, is likely to be the default mode.

Player Characters in Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood are all Human. Along with a range of new Knowledge subskills, it gives a variety of new Edges and Hindrances. Thus for the latter there is Love, the type of love which going to bring a Player Character serious trouble, ‘Maladie Du Pays’, the medieval equivalent of Shell Shock, and Xenophobia, this last probably needing to carefully adjudicated by the Game Master lest it lead to inappropriate play at the table. Alongside various modified Edges, new Background Edges can make a Player Character have the Blood of the Fey, be a Knight of the Order—three are given, Knight Templar, Knight Hospitaller, and Knight Teutonic, or be Landed, for particularly rich characters; Combat Edges include Long Shot and One Shot Left, both useful for the Player Characters who want to be as good at archery as Robin Hood himself; and Social Edges include Quip!, Witty Banter, and Taunt, which all work with the Taunt skill to grant more than one attack per round.

If a campaign does involve magic, then Arcane Backgrounds include Alchemist, Conjurer, Druid, Priest, and Witch, the latter reflecting the period attitudes towards witchcraft rather than modern ones. These are nicely done and mechanically distinct, so the Alchemist concocts his spell effects into potions and the Druid casts rituals which take several rounds. The last Arcane Background is Engineer, which functions more like the Weird Science Arcane Background than magic, and enables  a character to design and build various devices.

Mechanically, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood adds three new options. First, Bennies, the equivalent of Luck or Hero Points in Savage Worlds, are called Swashbuckling Points. Like Bennies, Swashbuckling Points can be used to reroll a Trait Test or Soak damage, but in Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood, they can also be used to add a bonus to a Trait Test, increase the success of an Agility Trick to a Raise, and for one or two Swashbuckling Points, depending upon the degree of alteration, a player can alter the story or immediate surrounds to his character’s benefit. Second, Agility can be used to perform Tricks like Attack from Above, Blade Ballet, Running Up Walls, Swinging Attacks, and more, which the players are encouraged to use Swashbuckling Points to set up. Lastly, rules for archery contests, target shooting, including the splitting of an opponent’s arrow, and speed shooting cover the signature elements of the Robin Hood legend.

Besides equipment, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood gives several archetypes, including Engineer, Knave, Man-at-arms, Noble, Priest, and Yeoman, all ready for play. In each case, their role in both the setting and gaming group is discussed, as well as ways in which they might vary. For the Game Master, there is ‘Trouble in Sherwood: Adventuring in Nottingham’, covering various types of campaign, Gritty Outlaws or Political Outlaws, for example. What it highlights upfront is that whatever the type of campaign, a Robin Hood-style campaign should ideally be episodic—which nicely ties back into Robin of Sherwood—and rather than be about combat or facing monsters, should be more like an espionage campaign, involving secrecy and subterfuge. Rounding out the supplement is a set of write-ups for the major figures of  the Robin Hood legend, from Robin Hood himself and Little John to Guy of Gisborne. Lastly, ‘Mythic Sherwood’ guides the Game Master through bringing mythic elements and magic into the setting, the primary advice being to keep the effects of magic subtle, whether real or not. The aim being with the introduction of magic or any of the ‘Legends and Monsters’, from dragons and gargoyles to pookas and banshees, is to avoid the campaign from straying into territory already covered by traditional fantasy gaming.

As much content as there is in Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood, it is lacking a couple of areas. First, as much as the gazetteer gives context for a potential campaign, a timeline would have been useful to give more context for the history, and second, a better map would have been useful to give more context for the geography. Of course, both of these omissions can be addressed with some research upon the part of the Game Master, but the loss of a piece of art or two would certainly give room for either. 

Physically, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood is a decent little book. It is well written and illustrated with public domain artwork, but it does need an edit in places and the layout could definitely have been tidier. By contemporary standards, it does feel a little too grey and plain in terms of its look, but to be fair, it would not have been greatly improved by being full colour.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood packs a lot into its seventy-two pages, playable Player Characters, new Edges and Hindrances and skills, NPC write-ups, and both campaign ideas and modes. Together, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood should just about cover anything that a Game Master and her players would want in a Robin Hood campaign in what is a serviceable little supplement.

The weather forecast for this coming Sunday keeps bouncing back and forth between “bitterly cold but reasonably clear” and “SET THE HOUSE AFIRE BEFORE YOU’RE BURIED ALIVE IN SNOW,” so Sunday’s Carnivorous Plant Tour is still on for the moment. … Continue reading →

Artist unknown, wood engraving attributed to the British style. Artwork found at The British Museum.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Designed for Player Characters of Second Level, as well as being a Halloween scenario for the popular retroclone, it is a sequel to the author’s earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red—of a sort. In Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, the Player Characters—all Zero Level and all members of the major families in the village of Portnelle were at the wedding of a young couple whose marriage might have healed a long running rift between two of the families. Of course, it was not to be, as wedding guests were decapitated and stolen away by strange creatures which erupted from beneath the ground. Eventually, after a weirdly crunchy encounter at the nearby abandoned vineyard and a delve underground, they revealed both the culprit behind the attacks at the wedding and darker family secrets. These darker family secrets play out in the events of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module—sort of.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module opens with the inhabitants of Portnelle and the Player Characters in the local church. Recently, the townsfolk have suffered a rash of abductions and mutilations, and as a fierce lightning storm rages outside, the senile Father Giralt cries out that he has been granted a vision identifying the person responsible for both. None other than Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut, a local Elf who resides in a strange castle down by the coast and a recluse who has long been estranged from his family. Of course, as the local priest makes his declaration, there is a crash of lightning, the doors get knocked down, and the congregation is attacked by strangely earthy golems! Who could have ordered such an attack, could it have been Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut?

Armed with the few rumours they know about the reclusive Elf—the adventure comes with an extensive rumour table—the Player Characters proceed to Castle von Weißgras-Geisterblut! Behind its high walls, they will find all manner of strangeness. First is that the tower keep has been transformed into the head and torso of a woman reaching up out of the earth and into the sky. Second, there is all manner of odd constructed creatures. They include things like ‘Crude Fleshy-Contraption Archers’, collections of gears and levers, powered by enchanted sinews; ‘Weredoggins’, a combination of were-hound and scorpion, whose traditional curse is more spiritual than medical in nature; and the ‘Halfling-Hand Luck-Sucking Lizard’, which is as weird and as nasty as it sounds. There is some enjoyably inventive monster creations here, so it is a pity that so few of them are illustrated in the module. However, the signs of Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut’s research can be found throughout the tower and together with the constructs, they add to the sense that a mad scientist is at work, which pervades the scenario.

Ultimately, signs point to the top and bottom of the tower. At the top of the staircase which climbs all the way up the arm can be found a local woman, imprisoned and at the mercy of the lightning storm, whilst at the bottom is Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut’s laboratory. Between the two runs a lengthy coil of mithril. Could the mad doctor be seeking to harness the lightning for a purpose of his own? To which, of course, the answer is ‘yes’, and it is one that the Player Characters will confront—as depicted in the scenario’s centrefold of the Bride Giant, an obvious homage to Bride of Frankenstein!

There are one or two issues with Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module. One is that the dungeon, essentially, the inside of the tower, is small, just nine locations. It does not feel like somewhere that Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut lives and perhaps another level, one in the ‘head’ of the tower, could have been included to flesh it out a little. Another is that although Exact Spirit Animal, the spell that works in conjunction with the effect of the bite of the ‘Weredoggins’, is included in the scenario, another spell, Geisterblut’s Squirming Flesh, is not. And there is also the matter of the scenario’s centrefold of the Bride Giant. It is not titillating as such, but there is plenty of ‘flesh’ on show, and it may not be to everyone’s taste.

If the horror in Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red is gothic, its inspiration that of Edgar Allen Poe, then the horror of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is that of Universal Monsters—in particular, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, as well as Hammer Horror. The scenario is horrifying, challenging, nasty, and in the right hands, campy fun too. That though is Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module as a standalone scenario.

As a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, this scenario is disappointing. Not just the fact that Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red is a Character Funnel for Zero Level Player Characters and Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is designed for Second Level, meaning that the Judge will need to run a scenario or two to get the Player Characters who survived Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red up to the required Level to player this scenario, but that there are so few links between the two. Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red ended by indicating that Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is a sequel, but as written, the links between the two are underwritten. The villain of this scenario, Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut, is a nod at least to Lotrin Whitegrass, husband of the betrayed Brandolyn from Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red—and besides the fact that the two scenarios are set in the same location, Portnelle (whether town or village), that is really all there is in terms of links. There is no family set-up as there is in Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, there is no advice to link the two, which is both frustrating and disappointing. It just means that the Judge will have to create some of his own.

Ultimately, as a standalone horror scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is entertaining, being a fan and campy challenge. As a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, it is very much a missed opportunity.

For those in the general Dallas-Fort Worth area, you already know the score. For everybody else, as happens to be a long-running tradition with Triffid Ranch events, Sunday’s Valentine’s Day/Lunar New Year Carnivorous Plant Tour coincides with what threatens to … Continue reading →

Dobrynya Nikitich's Battle with the Seven-Headed Zmey, 1913-1918 

Prince Ivan's Battle with the Three-Headed Serpent, 1910–1912 

Archangel Michael, 1914–1915 

Poster for charity bazaar to support war victims 

Baba Yaga, 1917 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1887 

Sirin and Alkonost, The Birds of Joy and Sorrow, 1896

Kashchei the Immortal, 1917–1919 

Knight at the Crossroads, 1882 

Last Judgement, 1904 

Sleeping Princess, 1913-17.

I stated in my post about the Yaoguai that I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert on Chinese mythology.  But even I know there is no way for the Deities & Demigods to cover all the mythological figures, gods, demigods, heroes, and monsters of Chinese myth.  The editors of the D&DG agree.

Instead what we have here are a few select gods and monsters for D&D fare.  I am quite certain that anyone that knows more about this than I do will notice some glaring issue, but for the moment let's look at it for what it is rather than what we wish it to be.  This is good because "what it is" is a fascinating, if sometimes problematic, read.

There are a few gods and creatures here that not only would make for great demons (in the Demon category of the Monster Manual) they are creatures that made many appearances in my games. Again this is taking them "as is", not "as they should be" but I will detail that in a bit.

An issue I should address is spelling.  Translating between Chinese and English is often half linguistics and half art.  Even when the spelling is agreed on it can change later, "D" and "T" are notorious.  What does that mean to us?  Well, it makes the research a bit harder on some creatures.  To get into the myths and stories behind these creatures would take a lot longer than this post and outside of the scope of One Man's God, but as always I will try to pull in the research when I can. 

One of the better sources for these myths is  E. T. C. Werner's "The Myths and Legends of China" whose earliest publication date appears to be in 1940.  The book is in the public domain and would have been available to the authors of the D&DG.  While there are other books, I am going to go to this one for confirmation on what is here. Now Werner could have a bunch of issues all on his own. I am not qualified to judge those either.  

Finally, I want to give credit to the artist of this section of myths, Darlene.  I don't think she gets the credit she deserves half the time (outside of her FANTASTIC map of Greyhawk).  Her art really captures the feel of these myths for me. 

Chih-Chiang Fyu-Ya

This guy typifies the problem I speak of.  A search for him online reveals only sources that were obviously taken from the D&DG.  The only other mentions are people asking where he is from.  Now I have no issue with making something up whole cloth for a game (I do it every day) but does that make him a part of Chinese myth?  In any case, Chih-Chiang Fyu-Ya looks and acts more like a Monster Manual devil than he does a demon.  My feeling is this guy was made up for the D&DG.

He does not appear in Werner's book.

Ma Yuan

So Chih-Chiang Fyu-Ya is the punisher of the gods, that is someone the gods send out to punish, much like Erinyes. Ma Yuan is the Killer of the Gods. He kills the gods.  He is also a unique beast and fits our definition of a demon well. He is Chaotic Evil, 70's tall, and has 300 hp.  He could mop the floor with Demogorgon! Well...maybe not mop.  Ma Yuan also appeared in many of my games back in the day as a giant monster of destruction (and ignoring his "High" intelligence rating), his sword is one of just a few fabled weapons in my world that can kill a god. 

In Gods, Demigods, and Heroes for 0e he is called Ma Yuan Shuai. This is very interesting since Tian Du Yuan Shuai is a figure of Taoist myth (though he could have been a real person) and he is associated with Okinawan Gojū-ryū karate. This was interesting to me because I studied Isshin-ryū karate in college and grad school, they are similar in many of their katas. But going done that rabbit hole was a dead end despite how interesting I found it. 

"Yuan Shuai" is also a rank in the Chinese military rank that is equivalent to Marshall in other militaries.  Ma Yuan Shuai could mean something like "Horse Marshall."

Going with this name I head back to Werner's book, I find this:

Ma Yüan-shuai is a three-eyed monster condemned by Ju Lai to reincarnation for excessive cruelty in the extermination of evil spirits. In order to obey this command he entered the womb of Ma Chin-mu in the form of five globes of fire. Being a precocious youth, he could fight when only three days old, and killed the Dragon-king of the Eastern Sea. From his instructor he received a spiritual work dealing with wind, thunder, snakes, etc., and a triangular piece of stone which he could at will change into anything he liked. By order of Yü Ti he subdued the Spirits of the Wind and Fire, the Blue Dragon, the King of the Five Dragons, and the Spirit of the Five Hundred Fire Ducks, all without injury to himself. For these and many other enterprises he was rewarded by Yü Ti with various magic articles and with the title of Generalissimo of the West, and is regarded as so successful an interceder with Yü Ti that he is prayed to for all sorts of benefits.

Doing research on this guy reveals that I was not the only one taken with this character (not a surprise really). Here Spes Magna Games updated his stats to 5e D&D.  

Ma Yuan though is a great being. I would say that he is a great sleeping demon (though his "in lair 10%" seems to preclude this) that is only roused when needed.  Werner's description seems to favor demon really.

Lu Yueh

Some success?  Lu Yueh appears as a figure using a magic umbrella to spreading plague in a 1922 painting by an unknown artist. 

He also appears in Werner's The Myths and Legends of China.  Called Lü Yüeh here he seems to be more of a hermit than a demonic god. Also, he only has one head.  He still causes plagues though. 

Tou Mu

Yikes. 

I am prone to be forgiving in cases like Chih-Chian Fyu-Ya; creatures made up to serve a purpose or a niche for a game.  Or even Lu Yueh and Ma Yuan; myths extended and/or changed to fit into D&D a little better. But what they did to Tou Mu?  No. This is just terrible research at this point.  I have avoided being too critical of the D&DG because I know the authors did not have the same access to materials I have now and, not to be a dick about it, but I have been trained to do Ph.D. level research. I have had 30+ years of professional research to draw on. They did not.  But this case really goes to the critics of the D&DG.  

Background.  Tou Mu was something of a celebrity back in Junior High among the people I played D&D with.  First she looks way freaking cool, secondly, she had a Charisma of 5! She had a ton of great and unique magic items and some DMs even gave her the dancing sword of lightning (as if she didn't already have enough).  She was an Endgame Boss.  

In actual Taoist mythology, she is Dǒumǔ (斗母) the 'Mother of the Great Chariot' or the Big Dipper.  she would not be a "Chaotic Evil Lesser Goddess" but most likely be a Lawful Good Greater Goddess, though a Lesser (but powerful) Goddess would also be acceptable.  Though I am not sure what I find worse, the evil alignment, the 5 Charisma or the 3 in Wisdom.

Here is how she looks in the D&DG,

versus how she is depicted in the real world, 

Seriously, how could they have messed this one up so bad? Turn a beloved goddess into a monster?

Again, let's see what Werner has to say about her:

Goddess of the North Star
Tou Mu, the Bushel Mother, or Goddess of the North Star, worshipped by both Buddhists and Taoists, is the Indian Maritchi, and was made a stellar divinity by the Taoists. She is said to have been the mother of the nine Jên Huang or Human Sovereigns of fabulous antiquity, who succeeded the lines of Celestial and Terrestrial Sovereigns. She occupies in the Taoist religion the same relative position as Kuan Yin, who may be said to be the heart of Buddhism. Having attained to a profound knowledge of celestial mysteries, she shone with heavenly light, could cross the seas, and pass from the sun to the moon. She also had a kind heart for the sufferings of humanity. The King of Chou Yü, in the north, married her on hearing of her many virtues. They had nine sons. Yüan-shih T’ien-tsun came to earth to invite her, her husband, and nine sons to enjoy the delights of Heaven. He placed her in the palace Tou Shu, the Pivot of the Pole, because all the other stars revolve round it, and gave her the title of Queen of the Doctrine of Primitive Heaven. Her nine sons have their palaces in the neighbouring stars.

Well, in many ways I supposed that is what OMG is kinda based on; One Man's God is another man's demon.  Still, it doesn't feel right to turn Dǒumǔ into Tou Mou.  I also suppose this also is part of the criticism landed at TSR/WotC's feet back in July of 2020 about the Oriental Adventures book. which, by the way, despite what all the Chicken Littles were saying back then you CAN still buy it in it's unedited form. 

I said at the outset I know far less about Chinese myths than I like and far less than I do about other mythologies.  What I do know there are SO MANY great stories about gods, demigods, monsters, and human heroes that doing this one right would fantastic.

My first Bard for B/X, Lars

It has been a while since I had done one of these so I thought today might be a good time to bring it back.  One of my favorite classes has always been the bard.  Back in the AD&D days I managed to get only two characters ever to become Bards.  One very early one who was later killed and another, Heather, who ended up being my last ever AD&D 1st Ed character before 2nd Edition was released. These days though I am all in on Basic-era D&D. Holmes. Moldvay. Even some BECMI.  But those versions of the game did not have a Bard really. Today, thanks to the Old-school gaming movement and clones I have many choices for Bards.

I'll point out that is a continuation of my Class Struggles: The Bard from all the way back in 2015.

The Basic Bard, Review

Basic-era D&D never had a proper Bard.  The version in the AD&D Player's Handbook was difficult to get into and harder still to get DM's will to allow it.  Second Edition AD&D had a Bard that was part of the Rouge Class, but it felt bland for lack of a better word.  I enjoyed playing Bards when I could and I considered doing my own Bard Class to go along with the witch.  Thankfully others have stepped in and up to do all that work for me.

Before I get into my new entries, I want to recap the Basic-era or even Basic-like versions of the Bard from my previous post.  More details can be read in that post.

Richard LeBlanc, over at Save vs. Dragon

http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-bx-character-class-bard-version-i.html
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-bx-character-class-bard-version-ii.html
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/search/label/bard

and to be featured in the Character Class Codex.
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2015/08/cx1-character-class-codex-update.html

Richard LeBlanc has given this class a lot of thought and energy.  His Version I has more thief skills, his version II has more magic.  I think in the end I prefer his version II Bard.  I tend to like a magical flair in my Bards.  

Barrel Rider Games

James over at BRG has given us a number of Bard-like classes.

• The Bard
• The War Chanter 
• The Greensinger 

Running Beagle Games, B/X Blackrazor

The Complete B/X Adventurer from Jonathan Becker has a "Loremaster" style Bard.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

While not "Basic" the Bard from AS&SH 2nd Edition would fit well into a Basic-era game. 

The New Bards On the Block

When the Advanced edition of Labyrinth Lord was released I was hoping for a Bard class, but not unduly surprised when it was not there.  No problem I think, plenty of others (see above) to choose from.  But in the last few years, a bunch of new, Basic-specific Bards have come out.

Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy

One of my favorites is the BX style Bard from Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy.  Part of the Old-School Essentials line delves into the more "Advanced" features and in particular classes.  This is a single class bard as expected and redesigned to fit more with BX D&D than Advanced.  It uses Druid spells and is sometimes known as a "Divine" Bard for reasons I'll detail in a bit. It has language skills like I like and lore and charm abilities, but no thieves skills.  Since this Bard uses Druid spells I like to refer to it in my games as an Ovate.

With the recent OSE Advanced Kickstarter there was an exclusive "Inaugural Issue" of Carcass Crawler a Zine for OSE. This zine included a new Bard. This Bard uses Magic-user spells and has some thieves skills but no charm powers or languages.  Called an Arcane Bard in the zine I tend to call this one a Skald.  Both work great in a game.

Companion Expansion

This is not my first time with this particular version of the Companion Rules for B/X, nor is it likely to be my last.  Like Advanced-OSE above this set gives us a Bard, an Illusionist, a Druid, and Gnomes.  The Bard in this expansion also has the Bard casting Illusionist spells which I rather like to be honest. Something that Gnomes (races as class) also get.  The Bard has some nice features, but what I think I would do is redo the Arcane Bard/Skald from above and have it cast Illusionist spells as per this Bard.

Bard Class from James Mishler Games 

Likely the most complete Bard class this is a separate PDF from James Mishler.  This one is so new that the post he announced it in is still fresh!  This Bard has all the skills I want and like. The spells list is a combination of both Divine and Arcane (Cleric and Magic-User) spells, likely as it should be really. But what REALLY makes this bard a great class are the renaming of the spells. Each spell is named like a song or a piece of music.  Really gives this Bard a different feel.  If I were to import say some more Illusionist and/or Druid spells to this one I'd have to come up with some new names for the spells. 

All three (or four) are really great and I can see each one fitting into the game. 

A final Bard would be the semi-official Bard from Vol.2 Issue 1 of The Strategic Review from February 1976.  This Bard is for OD&D and there are 25 total levels for it.  It can charm and has Bardic Lore. It also casts Magic-user spells.   I use this as my basis of comparison for Bards going forward.

The proof they say is in the playing.  So despite all the warnings, the Internet seems to want to share, I think a party of Basic Bards might be in order just to see how they all work out.  While none are great combatants they all would bring various magical and thief skills to the mix.  Oh! I can see it now. A D&D version of the Beatles OR better still, The Monkees!  I'd use my Hex Girls, but I need four, unless I ignore the Arcane Bard.  

Hmm.

It could work.

Pieter van der Heyden, After Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Pride, 1558 

Pieter van der Heyden, After Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Gluttony, 1558

  Pieter van der Heyden, After Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Envy, 1558 

No names or dates are attributed to these four paintings, all variations of Bruegel's engraved series "The Seven Deadly Sins."

Additional engravings based on the works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder were previously shared here.

Richard McKenna / February 9, 2021

Hawkwind: Days of the Underground
By Joe Banks
Strange Attractor, 2020

Disclosure: Joe Banks is a We Are the Mutants contributor.

I don’t really remember anybody actually mentioning Hawkwind in my youth. You just seemed to absorb an awareness of them from the landscape by osmosis, the same way you absorbed knowledge of the locations of short-cuts, haunted houses, and the more dangerous potholes. Cognizance of these archetypes stalking out from the mists—lead singer and guitarist Brock the stroppy-looking, vaguely Asterix-ey Celt chieftain, even his name sounding like something out of the pulps; Stacia, mad-eyed unafraid galactic goddess; Calvert the seer, consumed by the voltage of his visions; Nik Turner, crazed sax druid; Lemmy the pagan barbarian; and all the other assorted weirdos, bruisers and flakes, equal parts disconcertingly familiar and reassuringly alien—somehow assembled itself in your brain of its own accord from fragmentary exposure like a sub-language. Shards of an aesthetic, like the weird Art Nouveau-ish t-shirt worn by the girl at the youth club, the truncated roar of “Silver Machine” coming from the open door of a pub, a friend’s older brother’s odd-smelling bedroom, all pointing to the existence of this thing: Hawkwind.

For a period, I didn’t even realize that Hawkwind was a band, having intuited that it was a TV program along the lines of Catweazle, and by the time I was a teen in the mid-’80s, Hawkwind were so violently out of fashion in the milieus I frequented that it wasn’t even necessary to choose not to like them—not liking them was the default position. Perhaps, along with a widespread post-’77 mistrust of hippies (ironic, seeing as it was often hippies-turned-punks who were punk’s most dedicated propagators), it was this sense of them more as an aspect of the environment than a rock revelation that contributed to the relative neglect the band long enjoyed in their native island. And yet they remained eerily omnipresent and potential, like a seam of strange metal running through everything that you did like, and biding their time until the moment you noticed them and the electricity started to flow. 

For those that have managed to avoid the knowledge, Hawkwind are a British band who played—and in fact continue to play—an unappetizing-sounding cocktail of hard rock, hippy sludge, psychedelic rock, prog, and a kind of Ur-punk. Over the top of the chippy rhythms, DIY electronics, and gloomy melodies sits the crazed lyrical world the band have gradually accreted around themselves over the years, where genuinely inspired SF poetics collide with off-their-face ramblings pulled from the last SF pulp someone read. All this somehow coalesces into what’s often seen as the UK’s equivalent of Krautrock. It’s often referred to as “space rock,” a concoction they’ve stuck with for decades. See? You’re already sneering. But that’s only going to make you feel even more of a tit several years down the line when you feel compelled to play “Orgone Accumulator” five times in a row every time you’ve had a drink. Because Hawkwind technology works, and when that electricity starts to flow, you will feel the irresistible cosmic boogie blasting through your body.

Hawkwind: Days of the Underground takes upon itself the task of lasering away the galactic cobwebs obscuring the sleek form of starship Hawkwind, waking its crew from suspended animation and firing up its thrusters. In it, author Joe Banks shows how transformative Hawkwind were from a musical, political, and maybe even sociological standpoint, their stubborn refusal to become part of the machine hardwired into the instruments of their mission. He contextualizes them in the various musical scenes they warped through and reminds us of their DIY vocation, highlighting how much more they perhaps have in common with an entity like CRASS than they do with their nominal peers. It’s in their shared aggro-hippie roots in free festivals and pagan whatnots, artwork-as-intrinsic-part-of-the-package philosophy, quasi-military collective presentation, relentless beat, guitar rhythms that feel like they’re hacking away at something, and even in the prole-patrician tensions implicit in the contrasting vocal stylings of Hawkwind’s Brock and Calvert and CRASS’s Eve Libertine and Steve Ignorant.

Like the idiot I am, I avoided Hawkwind like a time-plague for much of my youth, so the revelation when it came that they were not in fact some embarrassing 12-bar club band but a paradigm-blasting mindfuck was even more shocking, and this is the feeling that Days of the Underground captures: that moment of protracted excitement when you realize something is great. It’s also the perfect book for anyone like me who has a dread of books about bands and the deadening effect too much information can have (at least for me) on the daft power of rock ‘n’ roll. Practically every time I’ve read a book about a band it’s felt a bit like watching a beautiful stage set be dismantled by well-meaning yet stolid roadies whose main interest is in the kinds of screws holding the props together, or what’s going to be on the catering table.

Days of the Underground isn’t like that. It’s a book written by a fan in the best possible meaning of that phrase, in the sense that it communicates its author’s deep passion about and desire to share something transformative and, in its way, profound. The book is rammed with insightful commentary, informed analysis, and detailed information about every aspect of the band (and their endless internal crew disputes), but despite that it somehow never lets the momentum slack or allows fannery to drown out the driving Cosmic rhythm. I came away from it feeling excited and galvanized—not just wanting to re-listen to every Hawkwind LP (though I definitely did) but also wanting to actually do things: not read another rock book but pick up a guitar, draw a picture, write a story, go into suspended animation and let the automind pilot me outside of time. It’s a read that feels more like an actual exciting thing than it does a book about an exciting thing, if that makes any sense. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no greater compliment.

Richard McKenna grew up in the visionary utopia of 1970s South Yorkshire and now ekes out a living among the crumbling ruins of Rome, from whence he dreams of being rescued by the Terran Trade Authority.

The weekend before last I was at my FLGS and in their "glass case" there was a game that I have been wanting since I opened my first "Gateway to Adventure."  That game is Warlocks & Warriors.

While the game has some serious nostalgia value to it (details in a bit) the game itself is so simple it makes Dungeon! look like RuneQuest or Champions.

Choose to be a warrior or a warlock and move your pawn on the board.  Run into another player? Duel, which has the effect of pushing them back. 

The goal is to get the blonde princess back to her castle so her daddy the King can give you half his kingdom and supposedly the princess too. Hey, it was 1977.  Given the cover, I thought maybe the blonde was also a playable character.  I really should have known better, but I had hoped.

But there are a few things going for it.  First and foremost this game was designed by Gardner Fox.  Yes THAT Gardner Fox.  So I was hoping for a little more to be honest.  The guy that gave us Zatanna and Doctor Fate (among others) should have had cooler warlocks.

It is also an "Introductory Fantasy Game" so it would be fun as an introduction to old-school D&D tropes for younger kids.  Though the lack of anything like fantasy monsters (as moving pieces) or treasure limit the use of this for that.  The playing pieces are basic, but not really for 1977 standards.

The cover similarities between this and Holmes Basic can't be ignored.

It really seems to be the same "Warlock" and "Warrior" on both covers.  Both were done by David Sutherland and both boxed sets came out the same year.

This is also not the only time we see the "Princess" we next see her in the AD&D Player's Handbook looking over the collected treasure loot. 

Maybe she told the Warrior and the Warlock (and her dad)  to go get bent and she became an adventurer herself.  I mean she is eyeing that magic sword.

Zenopus Archives (the authority on all things Holmes) comments on how the map from this game would make for a good Holmes Basic "Hex Crawl".

The box itself is surprisingly light.  But I am judging it by today's standards.

Would this game satisfy my "Traveller Envy?"  I am not sure.  I think I could work it into a game somehow.  Maybe as the previously mentioned Hex Crawl for Holmes (or Basic Era between levels 1 and 3).  I could come up with a whole adventure for it to be honest.  Warlock holding a princess captive, hex crawl to find her.  But that is WAY too clichéd. 

Still. I can't help think there is a way to add this to the Holmes Experience.  Potentially add it to the Monster Manual for the full 1977 experience!  Or maybe the Ancient Ruins on the map are the dungeon from the Dungeon! board game. 

The game itself is really just a larger "mini-game" not much more complex than the mini-games that TSR would later release in 1981.  I'll even go on a limb here and say the relationship between Warlocks & Warriors to Holmes is not significantly different than the relationship between the 1981 mini-games and Moldvay Basic.

More on these mini-games at a future date!

Reviews

• Jennifer's Comic Blog
• Zenopus Archives: Warlocks & Warriors Wilderness Map
• Board Game Geek: Warlocks & Warriors
• Board Game Geer Review: Over 40 years later
• Dungeon Master Magazine (Italian)

The Descent Into Limbo, 1559-63

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1556 

The Last Judgement, 1558 

Saint James and the Magician Hermogenes, 1565 

The Fall of the Magician, 1565 

The Witch of Malleghem, 1559 

The Fight of the Money Bags and Strong Boxes, 1570-1601 

Pride, 1558 

Lechery, 1558 

Envy, 1558 

Avarice, 1558 

Sloth, 1558 

Anger, 1558 

Gluttony, 1558 

Patience, 1557 

Big Fish Eats Little Fish, 1557 

The Peddler Pillaged by Apes, 1562 

Fortitude, 1560-62 

 

All artworks attributed to Pieter van der Heyden except for "Fortitude" which is attributed to Philips Galle.   Engravings published by Hieronymus Cock. 

All artworks found at Rijksmuseum.

Well, January was used up and Monday, February 1st was also taken, so that makes today the first free Monday in 2021 for Monstrous Mondays!  Let's get to it.

First I want to talk a little bit about my two monster books, the Basic Bestiaries.  I am far behind my original and revised, release dates.  Not that this is a big deal really save that I wanted to something more done. I mentioned a while back that I began with one book and I am now splitting it up into two books, one for witch and witchcraft associated monsters and another for various demons and devils.  Work has continued on both books, but I might get to a point where I need to split them up yet again.  No big details yet, but I have an overabundance of the undead, in particular, vampires.  Still, my choice is two books and I am extremely happy with my Fuseli and Goya covers.

This brings me to today's post.  The Yaoguai and Chinese demons.  

My demons are now over 500 individual monsters and I am just getting started. I have talked a lot about demons here. 

What I know about Chinese Mythology could fill a book.  A very small, poorly edited book.
Here is what I have learned over the last few months. 

Yaoguai are a class of mostly evil (but not always so) spirits.  The name is used for the collection of all such spirits and for a group of specific animal spirits.  The name comes from the characters 妖怪 which translate into "strange ghost." They are related to yaomo (妖魔 yāomó, lit. "strange devil") or yaojing (妖精 yāojīng, lit. "sprite" or "seductive") all start with the same character 妖. This (typically) refers to an awakened spirit.

And as expected it also far more complicated than that.  Though as I have mentioned before, I can't serve two masters, in this case, Chinese mythology and good Game Design.

Yaoguai

Lesser Yaoguai are all animal spirits that were normally benign but have sought out immortality by becoming demons. While they can generally be described as evil, they are often more selfish and amoral.  The ones most encountered are evil since they tend to work against mortals.

All lesser yaoguai can be recognized by their glowing eyes, preternatural strength, and enlarged teeth and claws. All yaoguai can speak common and any other local languages.

As a spirit creature, a lesser yaoguai can be "Turned" by a cleric as if they were undead.  They do need to know their proper name.  So "begone rat demon" will not work, but "begone shǔ yaoguai" will.  A result of "T" will cause the creature to run away. A "D" result will force the spirit out of the animal in question, often killing the host animal. 

Lesser Yaoguai also all have the following powers.

• Spirit. The natural form of the Yaoguai is a spirit. It will inhabit the body, living or dead, of the animal of their type.
• Command Animals. Lesser Yaoguai can command animals of the same type. Niú Yaoguai can command oxen and other cattle for example.
• Hybrid form. Yaoguai can shift between animal form and a humanoid form like a lycanthrope.
• Immune to poison, gas, polymorph, and petrify effects. Immune to normal weapons.
• Half damage from cold, fire, and electricity effects.  Half damage from silver weapons.
• Full damage from magical weapons.
• Double damage from a blessed weapon. These weapons specifically blessed by a priest to fight a particular type of Yaoguai spirit.

Shǔ Yaoguai  
Rat demon spirit
Medium Fiend (Demonic, Yaoguai)

Frequency: Uncommon
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment:  Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Hybrid: 120' (40') [12"]
  Spirit: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 5d8***+5 (28hp)
Attacks: claw/claw, bite
Damage: 2d4+1 x2, 1d6+1
Special: disease (demon fever), summon animals
Size: Medium
Save: Monster 5
Morale: 8 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: None
XP: 750 (OSE) 860 (LL)

Shǔ Yaoguai, or Rat demon spirit, is the most common of the lesser yaoguai encountered.  They appear as large rats with glowing eyes and human intelligence. In fact, they are often smarter than humans.  They can be found wherever large groups of rats are found.  They are often mistaken for wererats or dire rats of a, particularly evil mien.

Shǔ Yaoguai can attack with claw and bite and it is by these means that they deliver their curse of Demon Fever.  On a successful critical hit with a bite (a natural 20 rolled), they transmit Demon Fever.

The subject is allowed a saving throw vs poison.  A fail means death, a successful save means the victim has contracted a slower version of the fever. They will not be able to do anything but require complete bed rest. They will lose one Constitution point per day unless a Cure Disease is cast on them.  If they reach o Constitution they will die.

These demons can summon 10-100 normal rats, 2-40 dire rats, or 1-6 wererats in rat form.

Rat demons exist to cause chaos and suffering only. While they are intelligent their plans typically do not exist beyond this.

Niú Yaoguai
Ox demon spirit
Medium Fiend (Demonic, Yaoguai)

Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 90' (30') [9"]
  Hybrid: 120' (40') [12"]
  Spirit: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 7d8**+21 (53hp)
Attacks: I headbutt
Damage: 2d8+3
Special: Trample (4d8+3)
Size: Medium
Save: Monster  7
Morale: 10 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: XV [H]
XP: 1,250 (OSE) 1,200 (LL)

Niú Yaoguai, or Ox demon spirit, are among the least intelligent of the yaoguai.  They are also among the strongest and the greediest.  In their animal form, they appear as a black and red ox with fiery eyes. Their hybrid human form appears as a minotaur.

The main attack of the ox demon is a running headbutt. On any critical hit (a natural 20) they also knock their opponent prone and trample them as an automatic attack.  The prone victim needs 1 combat round to get back on their feet.  The ox demon is not very dexterous and needs a full round to turn around if they wish to attack the same victim twice.  

These demons are slow, dumb, and very materialistic.  They can also be bribed with treasure; at least double or triple what their current treasure hoard is worth (discounting magic items which they have value for).  If this offer is made even the chaotic ox demon will not attack.

Hǔ Yaoguai
Tiger demon spirit
Medium Fiend (Demonic, Yaoguai)

Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Hybrid: 120' (40') [12"]
  Spirit: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 6[13]
Hit Dice: 9d8**+9 (50hp)
Attacks: claw/claw, bite
Damage: 1d6+2 x2, 2d8+1
Special: rake (back legs for 1d8+2 x2)
Size: Medium
Save: Monster 9
Morale: 10 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: XXII [A]
XP: 2,350 (OSE) 2,400 (LL)

Hǔ Yaoguai or Tiger demon spirit are among the most violent of all the yaoguai. They appear as tigers with glowing eyes. Their hybrid form reminds one of a weretiger or even a type of Rakshasa; a comparison that both types of fiends abhor.

The tiger demon gleefully attacks with its claws and bite.  A critical hit on a bite attack (natural 20) will result in a pin and the demon can then attack with its hind legs for a rake. A hǔ yaoguai in hybrid form cannot rake.

This demon delights in sowing fear.  Its preferred attack is to seek out remote villages and begin to kill lone travelers.  It will leave the bodies where they can be found to raise the fear levels.  Its ultimate goal is to not just kill as many mortals as it can, but also to get the inhabitants of a village or local so scarred that normal life stops.  Fields are not attended, work ceases in other parts of the village, and so on.  Killing a handful of villagers with claw and bite is satisfying. Killing dozens because there are now not enough crops to feed them is a greater evil. 

Despite their propensity to violence they are a clever demon and will work towards the maximum fear they can.

Shé Yaoguai
Serpent demon spirit
Medium Fiend (Demonic, Yaoguai)

Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 150' (50') [15"]
  Hybrid: 120' (40') [12"]
  Spirit: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 8d8***+16 (52hp)
Attacks: bite + poison
Damage: 1d6, save vs. poison
Special: Poison, summon normal animals
Size: Medium
Save: Monster 8
Morale: 10 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: XX [C]
XP: 2,300 (OSE) 2,440 (LL)

Of all the lesser yaoguai the Shé Yaoguai, or Serpent demon spirit, is the most clever. Second only to the Hóu Yaoguai; but never mention that to these evil creatures.  They spend the most time in their animal form as a large constrictor snake with glowing eyes, large fangs, and strange markings on their skin.  They are never confused with normal snakes.  Their hybrid form is that of a large snake with a humanoid torso and arms with a snake's head.

This yaoguai prefers to attack with its bite only.  A critical hit (natural 20) means they have injected a paralytic poison into their victim. The victim needs to save vs. poison or die.  A successful save still infects the victim and they lose 1 point of Dexterity per round. This will affect any attack or armor class of the victim. When they reach 0 Dexterity they are paralyzed permanently unless a Remove or Neutralize Poison spell is cast. If all their victims are defeated then the serpent demon will feast on the corpses and the paralyzed.

Shé yaogaui demons can also summon 10-100 normal snakes, 1-10 poisonous vipers, and 1-10 constrictor snakes.

Among the most evil of these types of demons the Serpent Yaoguai attempt to tempt humans into hedonistic lifestyles where only their own pleasures matter.  To this end, they work through others to provide decadent parties, banquets, and houses of pleasure.

Hóu Yaoguai
Monkey demon spirit
Medium Fiend (Demonic, Yaoguai)

Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Hybrid: 120' (40') [12"]
  Spirit: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 10d8***+10 (55hp)
Attacks: claw/claw, bite
Damage: 1d4+1 x2, 1d6+1
Special: Yaoguai abilities
Size: Medium
Save: Monster 10
Morale: 10 (NA)
Treasure Hoard Class: XXI [B]
XP: 3,000 (OSE) 3,100 (LL)

Hóu Yaoguai, or Monkey demon spirit, are among the most powerful, smartest, and evil of the lesser Yaoguai.  Their animal form is that of a particularly evil-looking monkey looking like a macaque combined with a chimpanzee.  In their hybrid form, they can pass for a hairy human. Given the proper clothing, they can be 90% indistinguishable.

Like all yaoguai, these creatures prefer to attack with their natural weapons. In this case two claws and a bite. Unlike others, there is no special attack by this demon. 

These demons are more subtle than their kindred.  There are no summonings of creatures or deadly diseases. What they can do is summon 2-20 thralls; mercenary humans they have brought over to their causes.  This suits the Hóu Yaoguai well in its chosen area of interest.  The breakup of human-run governments. 

The Hóu Yaoguai will insert itself into a government as a low-level official and work its way up to power where it can influence governors, princes, or even the Emporer.  Its goal is always the same bring as much chaos as it can.  The ultimate goal for any Monkey demon is civil war.

--

Not too bad for a start.

As part of efforts to make 2021 better than 2020, the efforts begin this week to clean up the computer desktop, which was taking on disturbing parallels to fiction. This entails cleaning up lots of redundant folders, removing applications that … Continue reading →

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—


What is it?
Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents an NPC for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
It is a nineteen page, full colour, 1.67 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations good.

Where is it set?
Shaivalla, Well-Loved is nominally set in Sartar, but the NPC and her entourage can be encountered almost anywhere the Game Master decides.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Shaivalla, Well-Loved.

What do you need?
Shaivalla, Well-Loved requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha as well as the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary. In addition, The Red Book of Magic will be useful and Shaivalla, Well-Loved can also be tied into The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories.
What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters.
The inaugural entry is Shaivalla, Well-Loved, which details a power-hungry, revenge-driven priestess of Ernalda, including her background, motivation, magical items and allies, and her retinue, accompanied by their statistics and full NPC sheets for each. Shaivalla, Well-Loved is an expatriate Sartarite, a member of the Locaem Tribe’s ‘royal’ clan, the Salvi, whose family was forced to flee south into Heortland following the Lunar occupation. After time spent in Esrolia, she has returned to her homeland a Priestess of the Earth, but not to her tribe, many of whose leaders she cannot forgive for their cooperation with the Lunar occupiers. Instead, she and her retinue wander Sartar, looking for allies, lovers, and anyone who might support her campaign against those she regards as traitors.
Shaivalla, Well-Loved is presented as both enemy and ally. She is cunning and Machiavellian, preferring to work behind the scenes rather than directly confront her enemies, working her way into the local cult of Ernalda and coming to influence a clan’s leadership—whether that is against the aims or beliefs of the Player Characters, or in line with them. To that end, four adventure seeds are included, some of which are easier to use than others, all of which will require development upon the part of the Game Master to some varying degrees.
Alongside the full stats for Shaivalla, Well-Loved, there are details of each of her bound spirits and the major members of her retinue. These feel a little underwritten in comparison, especially the Initiate of Eurmal the Vain, who is along for Shaivalla’s amusement and as a disruptive influence. Lastly, there is a full write-up of a magical artefact, ‘Lengarthen’s Head’, done in the style of Treasures Of Glorantha: Volume One — Dragon Pass. This grants the Ernalda priestess a powerful advantage should events turn against her and which should confound the Player Characters should they think that they have defeated her—at least the first two or three times… Thus she can become a recurring villain.
Although discussion of Shaivalla’s tactics—in and out of combat—are discussed, her long-term plans are not quite as detailed and possibly an outline of her campaign against Aritha, the High Priestess of the Three Emeralds Temple of the Locaem could have been useful. One definite omission is an illustration of ‘Lengarthen’s Head’.

Shaivalla, Well-Loved will definitely need some development upon the part of the Game Master to bring into her game, she should have both roleplaying her and developing her devious plans. However, the NPC it presents will easily play upon any hatred the Player Characters have for the Lunar Empire, and for those who do not, potentially lead to a potential rift between the Player Characters, and thus dynamic storytelling.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents a devious, potentially disruptive presence in a campaign, one that potentially could lead to war against another clan—rival or not—especially if the Player Characters have a dislike of Lunars, and dynamic storytelling if they do not.No—Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents a devious, potentially disruptive presence in a campaign, and whilst there is potential for dynamic storytelling, the Game Master may not want the playing group of her campaign so disrupted o.Maybe—Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents a devious, potentially disruptive presence, especially in a Sartar-set campaign, but she does need a degree of development to work effectively.