Category: Old Games

D&D Planescape Resource – The Book of Doors and Keys

The Foundry Tower

One of the central mysteries of my Erlendheim campaign was the PCs’ hometown. Dor’s Hill stood out like a boil on the perfect skin of an elf. The town stood atop a tall hill in the exact middle of the island of Erlendheim, surrounded by plains and forests. There was something else about it that was odd. A legend, or false history existed, indicating that, many generations ago, a number of very different people appeared in the vicinity of the hill, supposedly sent by the islanders’ primary deity, Helm, to act as guardians of the island. The native people were humans with a Nordic type of culture. The new people that appeared also included humans, though very different to the Erlendheimers, but there were also the goat-like Bariaur, a contingent of Githzerai and several Tieflings too. The legend told that they built the town of Dor’s Hill on top of the hill and swore to live in peace with the people of the island while acting to protect it at the behest of Helm.

As usual with such stories, there were elements of truth mixed into this largely fabricated tale. It was mostly made up or confused or deliberately mis-told over the centuries. In fact, the hill never existed prior to the coming of the new people. Because they arrived in it. It was a building, formerly of the city of Sigil, at the centre of the Outer Planes. It was the old headquarters of the Faction known as the Believers of the Source, or the Godsmen. It had been plane-shifted to the island by one of the Factions’ great rivals, along with everyone in it. When the Godsmen found themselves on Erlendheim, they also found there was no way back. So, rather than despair, they set themselves up on the island, allying themselves with the locals and assimilating.

The Foundry Tower, as it was known while situated in Sigil, had been rather brimming over with portals to other places and planes of existence. It had been renowned for being the most portal-dense building in a city filled with such portals. In Sigil, any door, window, pipe-opening, sewer grate or picture frame could also be home to a portal. You just had to know the key to activate it. So, although the PCs discovered the tower under the hill and uncovered the fact that it was home to dozens of portals that still worked, they had no way to activate them without some guide to the keys required. And they had to find them because the Druid’s kids had been kidnapped and transported through one of the doors. After losing access to the only extant copy of the book describing the keys on the island, they had no choice but to travel to Sigil in the hopes of finding another copy. So that’s what they did, through an underwater backdoor portal that happened to exist off the coast, conveniently.

Now, the fun thing about the doors in the City of Doors, was that the keys needed to open them could be almost anything, from a verse of poetry to the lost sword of a dead king. As a result, I thought I would let my imagination run wild with the keys needed for the doors in the tower. It turned out I didn’t need most of theses. I think they only ended up entering two or three of them in total, but it was still a fun exercise and I think it could stand to me in the future if I ever have another Planescape adjacent campaign.

So, as a break from the Erlendheim Character Options series, I thought I would present here “The Book of Doors and Keys.” If you can get any use out of this in your own Planescape campaign, that’s great! You may even be able to use them for some other purposes, I guess.

Bear in mind that the “Door” entries are specific to a map I was using for the tower. I’m not going to present it here as I think its usefulness to others is negligible, so you can just ignore those.

Also, please note that any destination with “Scatterhome” in it is from my own home-brew world, so you can safely substitute it for some other place.

The Book of Doors and Keys

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 3
Destination: Nidavellir, Ysgard
Key: The thought of your most beloved person

Door: Eastern Doorway in Level 1, Room 6
Destination: Abellio, Arcadia
Key: Eat a plate of ribs at the doorway

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 10
Destination: Dothion, Bytopia
Key: Turnip

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 11
Destination: Pandemonium
Key: Be drunk

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 13
Destination: The Shadowfell
Key: Whisper a secret to someone else which will make them think less of you

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 16
Destination: Para-elemental Plane of Smoke
Key: Smoke a strong joint

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 18
Destination: Chaste, Vitrean Empire, Scatterhome
Key: A symbol of Kaigun, God of the Sea, from a dead priest

Door: Well near Level 1, Room 20
Destination: Mechanus
Key: A gear from a magical construct from Sigil

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 22
Destination: Goldenfields, The Sword Coast, Faerûn
Key: A red ribbon tied into a knot

Door: Well near Level 1, Room 24
Destination: The Caverns of Thought, The Outlands
Key: The memory of a parent that is the most enraging

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 26
Destination, The Elemental Plane of Fire
Key: Dragon-breath

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 31
Destination: The Nords, The Outlands
Key: Crush a bunch of peck-berries (only obtainable from the Fae-wild) under foot before the door

Door: Doorway in Level 1, Room 33
Destination: Aquallor, Arborea
Key: Whistle the tune to the Hymn of the Mother

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 1
Destination: Elemental Plane of Air
Key: Eat a turtle cake and burp in the doorway

Door: North Archway leading to the statue of a Githzerai in Level 2, Area 2
Destination: The Astral Plane
Key: Break a bottle of healing potion in the doorway

Door: South Archway leading to the sculpture of a great palace in Level 2, Area 2
Destination: The Factol’s Palace, The Ethereal Plane
Key: Tell someone a secret that will cause emotional harm to them

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 4
Destination: Tír na nÓg, The Outlands
Key: Tell a joke

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 5
Destination: Khalas, Gehenna
Key: Stab yourself in the leg and spread the blood across the door before the doorway

Door: Northern Archway in Level 2, Room 6
Destination: Strixhaven University
Key: Frustration

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 8
Destination: Neverwinter, The Sword Coast, Faerûn
Key: Dance the Neverwinter Axe-dance

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 9
Destination: The Infinite Beerhall, Demiplane of Celebration
Key: Put a sausage somewhere it does not belong in front of the doorway

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 11
Destination: Elemental Plane of Water
Key: Speak the name of the person you would most like to have sex with

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 13
Destination: Malbolge, The Nine Hells
Key: Burn a book and throw it through the doorway

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 14
Destination: Minethys, Carceri
Key: Inscribe an arch around the doorway with the tip of a steel sword

Door: Doorway in Level 2, Room 15
Destination: The deepest dungeon of the Imperial Palace in Vitrea, Scatterhome
Key: Cut off a left hand and place it in the doorway

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 1
Destination: Krigala, The Beastlands
Key: Throw a beast’s tooth through the doorway

Door: Double doorway, Level 3, Room 3
Destination: The Arena, The City-state of Tyr, The Tablelands, Athas
Key: The tortoise blade of a Mul Gladiator left in the doorway

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 4
Destination: the Feywild
Key: Play the pan-pipes in front of the door

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 8
Destination: The Positive Energy Plane
Key: Roll two sixes on a pair of dice

Door: North Doorway of Level 3, Room 10
Destination: Krangath, Gehenna
Key: Wear a crown

Door: West Doorway in Level 3, Room 13
Destination: The Opera House, Rath an Croí, Scatterhome
Key: Place a diamond in the doorway

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 12
Negative Quasielemantal Plane of Ash
Key: A handful of Yugoloth ash poured on your head

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 15
Destination: Amoria, Elysium
Key: Pay a compliment to the person you find it most difficult to compliment

Door: East Doorway in Level 3, Room 16
Destination: Niflheim, Hades
Key: Cry genuine tears of sorrow

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 17a
Destination: Mercurua, Mount Celestia
Key: Tell a sad story in celestial

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 17b
Destination: The Mortuary, the Hive, Sigil
Key: Crush a cranium rat’s brain in your hand

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 17c
Destination: Limbo
Key: The memory of your most embarrassing moment

Door: Doorway in Level 3, Room 20
Destination: Avalas, Acheron
Key: Burn your skin and allow the heat from the burn to kill an insect

New Character Options from Erlendheim, Part 3

Erlendheim

I began a series of posts last week detailing the character options I introduced to my Planescape flavoured D&D campaign a few years ago. It was quite epic in scale and involved gods and legendary monstrosities and elemental powers as well as travelling across multiple planes of existence and saving the universe from the domination of a narcissistic sea spirit. I hadn’t planned it in advance but, at one point, the Warlock needed to switch her patron so I came up with a new one which you can read about here. After that, I was hooked. I started making new character options, features and powers for every PC in the party. You know when you max out your rep with your party members in CRPGs like Dragon Age and Mass Effect and they get access to new abilities? That’s the way I was thinking of it. As a result, these new character options were designed with our specific players, characters, shared world and story in mind. I left balance at the door. Balance was not relevant to what I wanted to achieve. In fact, I wanted the PCs to feel special, powerful and impacted in a very concrete way by the events of the campaign. I think I largely achieved that. Take a look, here, at the powers I gave the party’s Druid when he became a kind of a shitty god. I think it exemplifies my philosophy when designing these abilities.

Celebrating the Mundane

I think the next big character advancement arc to culminate was that of Xarune, our Githzerai Fighter. Xarune, despite his background as an adventurer in his younger days, had a solid view of the world. He believed in the shield in his hand, the guardsman at his side and the firmness of the ground beneath his feet. He had developed a dependable reputation in a position of some responsibility as a sergeant in the Yeomanry of the town of Dor’s Hill. Magic was anathema to him and, indeed, he went to extremes to explain away magical phenomena in entirely mundane terms. But then the ground beneath his feet turned out to be the ancient tower of an unknown faction from a city in the shape of a donut floating above the top of an infinitely tall spire at the centre of the Outer Planes. It became increasingly difficult for him to hand-wave the obvious magic in the world around him, especially once he ended up in Sigil. In fact, I instituted a special mechanic, specific to Xarune. Each time he witnessed something truly magical that he could not explain, he would roll a Wisdom Saving Throw. When he failed, he lost a point of Wisdom, making it more-and-more likely that he would fail with each successive failed save. My goal here was to get Xarune under 10 Wisdom. Once that happened, his aura of confusion and his inability to square his beliefs with the facts of reality brought him to the attention of a small, new Faction in Sigil. They were called the Mundane. When Xarune ran into their leader, another Githzerai warrior named Sarafem, who noticed his unique state of disorientation through her natural psychic abilities. We had another short mini-game at this point, after Sarafem introduced the Faction and its tenets. She presented to him her shield, with, emblazoned upon it, the emblem of a shield. She asked him to take and examine it.

Here is how I presented Xarune’s inner struggle in my notes:

Sarafem will encourage Xarune to use detect thoughts while examining the shield. In essence, this will allow Xarune to detect his own thoughts, to interrogate his own beliefs.
If he does so, he will replay some of the more recent encounters he has had with “magic.” Ask him to recount them and indicate that he is unable, in retrospect, to lie to himself and his own feelings. The truth is that the spells and magical effects did happen. In some cases he was able to shrug off the effects and in others he bore the full brunt of them. What becomes clear as he remembers these incidents is that, it is not objectively true that he or anything has to be subject to such effects. He begins to get so in touch with his feelings that he feels a new understanding blossom. He is able to apply the force of his will against this magic, a will that is every bit as strong as any wizard or demon thinks they are. For that is all it is in the end, a battle of wills.
He will want to fail his saving throw against detect thoughts. Give him three chances to fail it at various points through the process. Of course, it is a Wisdom saving throw but this time the DC will be 2 points higher than Xarune’s normal DC as it gains a bonus from the shield.
Whether he succeeds or fails, Sarafem will present to him the shield with a bow. It is a mundane +2 shield. There is nothing magical about it, but it is exceptionally well made from the hardest, lightest wood they have ever seen. (It is made of what she calls Steadfast.)
If he fails, with a barely perceptible twinkle in her eye she will ask him to join her budding faction, which she calls, “The Mundane.” She says they are still workshopping it. There are not many of them so far, but each of them has a very firm grasp of their true feelings and they know what is real. If he decides to take her up on her offer, they are usually to be found meeting in her house near the Statue of Bigby in the Lady’s Ward any evening.
Also, he will regain his lost points of Wisdom and he will gain the new abilities presented [in the section below]
If he succeeds, however, he will go on as before, he will not regain any points of Wisdom and he will continue to risk losing them. If he ever reaches 0 Wisdom, he will lose his mind completely and reject reality entirely, thus becoming an NPC.
However, he can continue to attempt the trick with the shield, trying to detect his own thoughts. He can do this whenever he has downtime using the same rules as are presented above.

Thankfully, he failed all his saves and his outlook and philosophy changed as a result. Not completely, it was still quite compatible with his no-magic stance from before, it just morphed into a more anti-magic one, bringing a few new abilities with it. And you can read about those below.

But that wasn’t all. Xarune’s player, Isaac, took the idea of the Mundane and ran with it. He quickly took the ideals of the Faction and began to codify them, even going so far as to write up a Mundane Manifesto! This did my withered old heart good to see. The campaign gave his character a concrete, mechanical advancement directly related to Xarune and the way he played him, and he gave back to the campaign and the world, adding to its story and its depth. Sigh so good.

New Fighter Features – Nullification (Anti-magic)

Erlendheim #DND

So, as I pointed out in the intro to this post, I created these features and options for, not only a specific class, but for a particular character. As a result, the features prestented below are unique to Xarune’s flavour of Fighter, a Battle Master who focused on using the Defense and Protection Fighting Styles. As always, if you think you could make use of any of this stuff, please feel free.

Fighting Style

Defense

Also add a +1 bonus to saving throws against magical effects

Protection

In addition to the regular advantage of this fighting style, if a creature you can see casts a spell that requires a saving throw against a target other than you within 5 ft of you, you can use your reaction to add your shield’s AC bonus (including magical or other bonuses if it has them) to their saving throw.

Martial Archetypes

Battle Master

Maneuvers
Deny

When another creature hits you with a spell attack or you fail a saving throw against a spell effect or magical effect, as a reaction you can expend a superiority die and reduce the amount of damage you take by the superiority die roll + Con modifier.

Reflect

When another creature hits you with a spell attack, as a reaction you can expend a superiority die to reflect the superiority die roll + Con modifier damage back at the spell caster.

Wake-up Call

When you take the attack action on your turn you can forego one of your attacks and instead use a bonus action to direct another creature who can hear you to make an immediate saving throw against a spell that they are currently affected by. You expend a superiority die and they can add the roll + your Con mod to their saving throw roll.

Indomitable

In addition to the regular benefits of this feature, starting at 9th level, if the Nullifying Fighter is subject to a magic spell or effect, they can roll any saving throw with advantage.

New Character Options from Erlendheim Part 2

Gods are superheroes too

In the last post, I wrote about how D&D 5E characters are basically superheroes by another name. I also introduced the new Warlock patron that we came up with for Yulla in our D&D 5E campaign, Erlendheim, a few years ago. She had abandoned her “Fathomless” patron and taken up with “The Source.” After Yulla got her groove back and started living up to her potential, it was our Druid’s turn.

Habjorn, played by David, had not wasted the years since their former adventuring days. He’d settled down with his wife, Lydia and started a little family which quickly ballooned into a sizeable troupe of children. There were seven in total, Habjornson, Sigrid, Gurt, Hogarth, Jankur, Flaarj and Yeet, the little one. But, as I noted last time, they, along with several of their neighbours, went and got themselves kidnapped by one of the antagonists. Lydia had already passed away a few years previous.

So, obviously, the party to go to great lengths to find them. Lengths that eventually led them to Sigil and beyond.

While the party were in the City of Doors, they got a job from Kesto Brighteyes, the gnomish owner of the Parted Veil, a bookshop where the PCs went to find the tome they were looking for. I found Kesto and everything about him in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil. This was an invaluable source-book for this campaign and provided at least three incredibly useful, well drawn and significant NPCs who were residents of the Cage with depth and interconnectedness.

Anyway, this quest led them off to the Lady’s Ward of the city, where they managed to defeat the object of their quest, a Gautierre. Upon the occasion of their victory, Habjorn the druid was approached by Lydia, his dead wife, in the form of a Petitioner. Petitioners are the souls of dead sentients, ascended to the Outer Planes who are, to all intents and purposes, reborn into new lives there with no memories of their old ones. They normally turn up on the plane where their gods lived or, at least, on a plane that matches their alignment. But, Lydia’s god, it turned out, was dead. So, she started wandering the planes looking for somewhere to belong. Until she felt a pull drawing her to her husband when he passed through a portal into Sigil.

Lacking a god or any sense of purpose, she felt a connection with Habjorn that she thought she should have had with her god, Helm, but didn’t due to his deceased state. So she started to believe in Habjorn like a god. She didn’t necessarily agree with him all the time or obey him at all, in fact, but she still had a strong enough belief in him to essentially grant him the status of a Minor Power, a godling out there on the Outer Planes.

It was actually pretty tragic. He was overjoyed/heartbroken to see her again but she didn’t recognise him and had no memory of their life together before her death. She knew nothing of their family and her motivations were totally different as a Petitioner.

But I digress. Before he knew it, Habjorn started hearing the prayers of his kids, held deep underground on the plane known as the Outlands, under the roots of one of the World Tree’s saplings. They were hoping and praying that he would come and save them and their belief began to compound the meagre abilities provided by Lydia’s own prayers.

And thus the Druidic Deity was born. So, like Thor and Hercules (kinda) before him, Habjorn became a superhero god!

Now, believe me, I understand that this stuff is totally unbalanced and potentially game-breaking. But I was throwing these characters up against some very tough situations, so I felt ok about it. I will point out, also, that, unlike the Warlock patron from the last post, this is not a subclass. Instead, its a couple of new features that work for Habjorn the Circle of the Land Druid/minor god, in particular. It is unlikely to work for anyone else in its current form but I think it was a fun addition to his set of abilities that allowed him to do some interesting stuff in particular situations and led to some truly fantastic character and story moments in our game. So, take it under advisement! But, if you want to use it or any part of it, please feel free!

New Druid Features: Druidic Deity

Grant Druidic Magic

The Druidic Deity can grant two cantrips and two first level spells from the Druid Spell List to their follower/s. The druidic deity can grant the cantrips and spells once and cannot do so again until they have completed a long rest.

The Power of Prayer

When a worshiper has prayed for spells to be granted the Druidic Deity gains a Prayer. There is no upper limit to the number of Prayers the Druidic Deity can be in possession of and if not spent before taking a long rest, they carry over. The Druidic Deity can spend a Prayer using a bonus action. This Prayer can be spent in several different ways:

  • Allow the Druidic Deity to regain an expended spell slot of any level they have access to
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to gain another use of Wild Shape
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to Wild Shape into any CR 2 Beast or Monstrosity that they have seen
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to remain in Wild Shape for double the normal length of time
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to cast spells while in Wild Shape
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to use the Natural Recovery feature to regain all used spell slots including 6th level ones and higher
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to cast one of their Circle Spells without expending a spell slot
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to empower their Land’s Stride ability , granting them the opportunity to pass into a plant of sufficient size and emerge from a similar plant of sufficient size within 200 ft
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to empower their Nature’s Ward feature, granting them immunity to one more damage type of their choice until they complete a long rest
  • Allow the Druidic Deity to empower their Nature’s Sanctuary feature so that beast and plant creatures cannot attempt to save against it.
  • Grant a worshiper another cantrip or first level spell

So, like I mentioned above, I know these features are potentially game-breaking and open to abuse. But my players took this sort of thing in good faith and David played his character as he thought he should react to becoming a slightly shitty kind of god. He was somewhat incredulous but used every ounce of his power to do the things his “worshipers” wanted of him. In other words, for Daddy to come and save them. And that’s what he did.

I would mention here as well, that balance, as a concept in D&D/TTRPGs in general is a concept that I take with extreme caution. I would rather chuck an unbeatable monster at them and have them figure out they need to run away or use their wits instead of charging headlong into the fray, then stick to Challenge Ratings most of the time. In this respect, I think the OSR has it right. But, I think this door swings both ways, if a challenge can be unbalanced due to an encounter’s difficulty, the PCs can also be a challenge due to their ability. They should get to feel like the superheoroes thery are. On the other hand, I also have the ability to keep piling on the difficulty as the party gets more and more powerful, so I see it as a win-win.

Let me know if you have any comments on these nutty druid features, dear reader.

New Character Options from Erlendheim Part 1

D&D Superheroes

There’s no doubt in my mind that the creators of the current version of D&D meant to make the PCs into superheroes. This goes for 5E 2014 as well as 2024.

You can have opinions about this. There are times when it frustrates the hell out of me as a DM just trying to introduce potentially deadly situations to our games. I usually overestimate the lethality of these situations, whether they might be traps, encounters or particularly difficult episodes of exploration. The players normally trounce these situations readily. They always have a feature or a spell or a power or a magic item or a special friend who will come to their rescue so that they emerge largely unscathed and only further emboldened. On the other hand, I do feel bad when a PC dies in one of my campaigns. I mean, of course! They spent hours designing and imagining and embodying this person… and they died… it can be devastating. It should be devastating. Not just for the player in question, but for every player in the game, including the DM. So I get it. I understand why the average D&D PC’s life expectancy has sky-rocketed in the last couple of decades. I also understand that if you want something more lethal, Troika! is right there. So, if you want more lethal play, there are plenty of options.

Anyway, when I finally realised the superheroness of the characters, we were playing one of my long-time RPG group’s more iconic campaigns. It was called Erlendheim and it was based on my home-brew world of Scatterhome. Here’s the TLDR for the campaign:

The PCs were all former adventurers living in or around their hometown of Dor’s Hill on the island of Erlendheim. The island was surrounded by a terrible and eternal storm meaning no-one could leave and no-one new ever turned up. The PCs started at level 8, but their adventuring days were behind them. Until one day, they were asked by the powers that be in Dor’s Hill to investigate some strange reports from an outlying fishing village. While they were off fighting what turned out to be Yugoloth fiends there, all six of the Druid’s kids were kidnapped by some more extraplanar beings. This, eventually and after much adventuring, roleplaying, schmoozing and drama, led them to Sigil, The City of Doors, The Cage. For the uninitiated, Sigil is the city at the centre of the Outlands, the plane at the centre of the Outer Planes in the D&D cosmology.

Now, as a die-hard AD&D 2nd Edition player of old, I was a massive fan of the original Planescape setting, the new shit it introduced to the game and the way it expanded our horizons as both DM and players when it came out in the nineties. But, I’ll be honest, I don’t think I knew how to use it as a 14 or 15 year old DM. It was just too massive. I wrote and ran adventures that were pretty much standard AD&D adventures except in a place in the Outlands instead of on the bog-standard fantasy world I had devised. So, in 2021, when I got the chance to send these PCs to Sigil!!! I grabbed that bull by both horns. It was so much better than I could have hoped. Even just the act of getting there was a major campaign milestone. And before long, both the players and the characters were knee-deep in planar weirdness. They didn’t know it, they didn’t understand most of it, but they still had goals. They were there for a reason (they had to find a book that explained the keys to all the planar doors in a mysterious tower beneath the town of Dor’s Hill back home.) So they pursued that. On the way, they all gained even more super powers than they already possessed. Why? Because, once you understand that D&D 5E is a superhero game, it’s a good idea to lean into it.

The first PC to get blessed in this manner was our warlock, Yulla (played by Tom.) Now, it just so happened that Yulla, up until this point, had a patron named Aegir, an elemental spirit that turned out to be the baddest guy of the entire campaign. So, when she went to Sigil her confidence in their patronage had taken a few knocks. When she then discovered her long lost, presumed dead parents there she was open to new possibilities. Now I was using the gorgeous, unimpeachable original version of the Planescape setting for this game. It was made for AD&D 2nd Edition but that was no impediment at all. (When I got the new 5E version I was a little shocked and affronted to find that they had done away with one of my favourite Sigil factions, the Believers of the Source. I understand that this actually happened way back in one of the nineties Planescape novels but I never read those so I had no way of knowing.) Anyway, the entirety of my Erlendheim campaign had been built around the Believers, their doctrines, their headquarters, etc. And it turned out that Yulla’s birth-parents had been members of the believers for decades since their supposed deaths. Anyway, this led Yulla to seek the Source as a patron, instead of the untrustworthy and, frankly quite evil Aegir.

And this is where the extra super powers come in. Tom and I designed a new Warlock Patron for Yulla, the Source itself. I based it around the philosophy of the Believers: you must try to reach your potential, your existence should be evolved as much as possible within your own lifetime, etc. Here is the result. If you like the look of it and you can find a way or reason to use this in your own campaign, please feel free.

New Warlock Patron – The Source V 2.1

Description

You have have made a pact with the ultimate creative and destructive power in the multiverse. The Source is that from which all things come and which all will someday rejoin. The members of Sigil’s faction, The Believers of the Source understand that all beings should be striving to evolve within their lifetimes to become one with the Source. To this patron, time and space have little meaning; sentients are beings of pure potential and a deep understanding of the planes of existence is essential.

Expanded Spell List

Spell LevelSpells
1stFind Familiar, Inflict Wounds
2ndWither and Bloom, Vortex Warp
3rdMotivational Speech, Life Transference
4thAura of Life, Vitriolic Sphere
5thDestructive Wave, Legend Lore

Features

1st Level Feature

Burst of Potential

From 1st level, as an action the warlock becomes a silhouette of themselves and emits a brief burst of soft yellow light. They draw on a fraction of the unlimited potential of the Source and grant it to those allies in a ten foot cube around them. Until the end of the Warlock’s next turn all within the aura gain advantage on a single ability check, attack roll or saving throw of their choice.
Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

1st Level Feature

Fragment of the Source

From 1st level, using a bonus action, the Warlock of the Source gains the ability to summon a fragment of the Source in the shape of a softly glowing orb. It will appear at a chosen point anywhere within 60ft of the Warlock. The Fragment of the Source will remain for a number of rounds equal to the Warlock’s Charisma modifier. The Fragment can use its potential energy to allow a creature within 5 feet of it to roll with advantage or force a creature within 5 feet of it to roll with disadvantage on any attack roll, saving throw or ability check. As a bonus action on their turn, the Warlock can move the Fragment up to thirty feet. The Warlock can summon the Fragment a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus and regains all expended uses when they finish a long rest. The Fragment of the Source will act on the same initiative as the Warlock.

6th Level Feature

Aura of Potential

From 6th level, the Warlock of the Source’s Burst of Potential feature becomes an aura. The effects are the same as the Burst but apply to each ally that starts their turn in the aura. Also, the effect can be used to ensure maximum damage on an attack roll.
The Aura of Potential lasts a number of rounds equal to the Warlock’s Charisma modifier.
Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

6th Level Feature

Wasted Potential

From 6th Level, as a reaction, the Warlock of the Source may fire a sparkling yellow orb at any creature taking an action, making an attack roll or rolling a saving throw within a 30ft range. The creature must make a Charisma saving throw against the Warlock’s spell save DC or apply disadvantage to their roll.

10th Level Feature

Mark of Potential

From 10th Level, the Warlock of the Source begins to gain benefits from the potential bestowed or denied by the Aura of Potential and Wasted potential features. Each time an ally succeeds on a roll which benefits from the advantage bestowed by the Aura of Potential the Warlock gains a Mark of Potential. Each time a creature fails on a roll affected by Wasted Potential, the Warlock gains a Mark of Potential. Gained Marks spark briefly into being around the Warlock’s head before fading into invisibility.
At 10th level the Warlock can hold up to a maximum of nine Marks of Potential. At 14th level the Warlock can hold up to ten Marks of Potential (See the “Evolution” feature below for how ten marks can be spent.)
The appearance of the Marks is up to the individual Warlock.
Marks of Potential may be held until spent.
Marks of Potential can be used in the following ways:

Marks SpentEffect 1Effect 2Effect 3
1Apply advantage to any attack roll, saving throw or ability checkDouble the range of Fragment of Potential
2Roll a hit die plus your Charisma modifier to regain hit points
3Maximise any damage effectInduce a critical success
4Roll two hit dice plus your Charisma modifier to regain hit points
5Double the area of Aura of PotentialDouble the number of targets affected by Wasted PotentialDouble the number of Fragments of Potential Summoned
6Roll three hit dice plus your Charisma modifier to regain hit points
7Increase the casting level of any appropriate spell by one
8Roll four hit dice plus your Charisma modifier to regain hit points
9Regain a Spell Slot

14th Level Feature

Evolution

At 14th level the Warlock of the Source gains the ability to use ten Marks of Potential to evolve into a form which brings them closer to the Source for a number of rounds equal to the Warlock’s Charisma modifier. For each level the Warlock gains above 14th, the duration of the evolution is increased by one round.
In their evolved form, the Warlock gains the following features:

  • 5 hit dice plus Charisma modifier of temporary hit points
  • Makes all attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws with advantage
  • Triples the area of Aura of Potential

The appearance of the evolved form is up to the individual Warlock.
Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

The Feeling of Dungeon World

Hirelings to Heroes

My good friend Tom. recently kicked off a Dungeon World campaign. I’m a player in it. It’s got a very particular flavour and premise that places the players in the position of being the hirelings of the “real” adventuring party. And so it was at the start. But, before we had a chance to yell, “WATCH OUT FOR THAT FLESHY BOI MAN THING” the tables were turned and the PCs had to dig deep and find something heroic inside themselves or have the entire group die horrible deaths in the depths of the first dungeon. I would like to give a big shout-out to Tom’s awesome in media res beginning in a massive organic mouth with eyes on the inside and little flesh monsters. It rocked.

My character is Craobh Beag (pronounced something like Kreev Byug), a Kyrfolk (think minotaur whose bull half was a Highland) druid. Had a lot of fun with the shapeshifting and his generally chaotic nature. You can check out Tom’s post about how they built the world we’re playing in here.

A shaggy, red-haired straight horned cow in a field.
This is what my Dungeon World character looks like except with two legs and more vines. Highland cow by Nilfanion – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7868883

Old School?

But what I want to write about today is what the game evoked for me. As a player of a certain age, my first introduction to RPGs was the red D&D boxed set back in the late eighties. This was fairly normal at the time, as I understand it. It really was magic. I don’t remember too much of the mechanics of playing that game. My memory is reliably questionable. But I have a distinct memory of the feeling of it. The wonder of imagining my little dwarf swinging his wee hammer at monsters in some unnamed dungeon, having real adventures! I’d played choose your own adventure books like Fighting Fantasy and Zork before but this was entirely different. There was no way of save-scumming by keeping a finger on the decision entry page so you could go back if you didn’t like the outcome. The consequences felt consequential and the world was wide open. No limits!

When I think of old school games, I think these are the feelings they should elicit. Fear of threat, concern for real consequences, appreciation of truly impactful decisions, a sense of freedom in an open world and an enjoyment of the fantastic. I want to be fearful for the life of my character. I need to know that the decisions I make can have a truly terrible or wonderful impact on the world in some way. Now, there are a lot of differing opinions out there as to what constitutes an OSR principle. Some of them involve the inclusion of resource management, others disregard that as non-essential but insist that they should be ‘rules-lite.’ Anyway, let’s take this list I lifted from Wikipedia that comes originally from Matthew Finch’s A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming (2008.)

  • Rulings from the gamemaster are more important than rule books. Concoct a clever plan and let the gamemaster rule on it.
  • Player skill is more important than character abilities. Outwit the enemy, don’t simply out-fight them.
  • Emphasize the heroic, not the superheroic. Success lies in experience, not superpowers.
  • Game balance is not important. If the characters meet a more powerful opponent, either think of a clever plan or run away.

I think we can see that these four pillars of OSR games cover a lot of the feelings I want to get out of them. A sense of the fantastic is noticeably absent. But that might be something specific to me.

Dungeon World (2012) by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel supports this type of play so well. It ticks all these OSR boxes! Now, obviously, I have only played the one session of it so far, but I have to tell you, the first of the stars I sent to Tom after that session was this:

right at the top I have to say that this is the closest I feel I’ve gotten to experiencing the feeling of playing old school dnd in a very long time. Despite the system being slightly different, it’s close enough that it feels familiar. More importantly, it’s the overall atmosphere [Tom] has created with a pretty traditional dungeon scenario with puzzles and traps in a recognizable fantasy setting. It really brought me back.

It’s an odd duck, Dungeon World. It is very much a PBTA game. You have bonds and moves and holds and degrees of success/success with consequences when you roll your 2d6. But you also have D&D’s core abilities, alignment, HP and magic spells. You even have classes like Dungeons & Dragons. The standard races are human, elf, dwarf and halfling (Tom has tweaked the list of available races or cultures in their campaign. Once again, you can read more about that in their own words here.) So, this is how it retains the flavour of D&D without the ruleset. LaTorra and Koebel could have made a dungeon exploration game that was far more Apocalypse Worldy. I mean, do you really need the D&D style stats? No. Is alignment necessary? No. But we are trained to understand that the fiction presented by those things is reminiscent of a particular type of game that we want to experience the feeling of again. Well, that goes for those of us who have had that feeling before. For others, who maybe never played anything but PBTA games and are loathe to dip their toes into OSE or DCC or even actual D&D, it offers them a chance to do that.

So we were on a storm-wreathed cliff-side, and we were being led by a ghost dog we had just befriended. The ghost dog walked through the air to the other side of the cliffs as though the rope-bridge was still standing. But the bridge had been cut in the middle. Still, we knew the undead doggie was trying to direct us to where we needed to be, so we used a combination of moves (shapeshifting into a forest bird), equipment (lots of rope, which our paladin ended up losing as a consequence of his actions) and luck (mixed success) to make it across to the other side (even though the self-same paladin decided it would be clever to tightrope walk across and nearly plummeted to a nasty death as a result.) This one scene involved most of the pillars of the OSR that I quoted above.

Old as new

Sometimes I find I just have to write about games like this, that are brand new to me, even though they have been out for over a decade. I’ve done it with OSE and Dragon Age too. This might seem a little redundant to some, but the way I look at it is that, if it’s new to me, it’s new to someone else too. I have to remind myself that somebody discovers OD&D every day. I only first tried a PBTA game about three years ago. When it comes to RPGs, there are trends and movements and there is always something new coming out. And there are quite a few people publishing articles on them. But I don’t think that any reason not to write about games like this that I am enjoying and enthusiastic about right now, no matter how old.

Dear reader, we have literally, only just begun our Dungeon World adventure and I am hoping to write more about it and the other games I’m currently involved in over the next few weeks. There are so many! I am looking forward, next, to discussing Trophy Gold, run by Isaac, and a new project/event that Tables and Tales is cooking up too. So stick around for more!

Woodpaneled

Vintage RPG

Do you listen to the Vintage RPG podcast, dear reader? Do you follow VintageRPG on Instagram? If you are reading this blog, the chances are good that you do both of those things. But, in case you have somehow never come across it, the podcast is presented by Stu Horvath and John “Hambone” McGuire. On it the lads chat about lots of RPG related subjects. As the name implies, they do talk about older games, like Fighting Fantasy and Beyond the Supernatural, which, as a gamer of a certain vintage, I very much appreciate. But many of the most interesting episodes involve newer games like Swyvers. They often have fascinating interviews with game makers. Their conversation with Swyvers creators, Luke Gearing and David Hoskins, convinced me to back the project and I’m so glad I did!

And on Instagram, Stu posts at least five days a week with details of old modules, game systems, books, accessories etc. It’s the exact kind of nostalgia I can enjoy. I am of the general opinion that most types of nostalgia are just gateway drugs to the sort of opinions that lead many people to vote for tangerine demagogues. But, Stu is under no illusions. He takes a critical look at each of the products he features and calls it out when they are problematic, poor quality or just nasty.

The point is, Vintage RPG is a wonderful source for news on the RPG scene, historical gaming facts and deep delves and has acted as an outlet for game creators and enthusiasts to push themselves, their work and their passions.

Webring

So anyway, on their recent show, ostensibly about Eat the Reich, Stu and Hambone introduced their listeners to the Woodpaneled webring. For those of you who haven’t heard of this phenomenon, this is how Wikipedia defines a webring:

A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme, often educational or social

Woodpaneled

The Woodpaneled Webring was founded by Stu to help those participating in it to have an internet experience that is not entirely governed by the algorithms of social media companies or the advertisement driven peccadilloes of search engines. He put the call out on the show for artists, writers and designers with websites related in some way to a broad theme. Most of the sites that are part of the ring now are to do with RPGs or at least RPG-adjacent but some are more broadly about culture and art. Here is a link to the a short piece Stu wrote to explain why he started this thing. He explains it far better than I could, especially as I am pretty sure I have a very different relationship with wood panelling than he does!

Now, I don’t have much of a presence on social media. I have an Instagram account that I am fairly active on and I just started a Bluesky account @thedicepool.bsky.social which I have yet to even post on. I gave up on Facebook many years ago for the same reasons that I view nostalgia with suspicion, and I abandoned Twitter when the fash started to take over. Basically, the idea of a smaller, slower, less shouty and more contemplative internet appealed greatly to me. I thought this sounded like a perfect home for The Dice Pool, to be honest. So I contacted Stu to ask him about joining and he was so enthusiastic and sound about it! And so helpful. I am not terribly experienced when it comes to the technical side of running this website so I needed his assistance to jury-rig a solution to allow me to embed the Woodpaneled widget that you can see at the top of my main page (I am working on getting that to appear on every page. Like I said, I’m more of a tortoise than a hare when it comes to the backend stuff, but I’ll get there in the end.)

So, dear reader, I want to encourage you to go hit those “Next” and “Previous” buttons on the widget and have a dive into other sites on the webring. There are some fascinating and creative people involved!

Ravenloft

Something’s gotta give

I thought I would play Ravenloft around Halloween this year. My friend returned all my Ravenloft books and boxed sets to me back in the spring after about 25 years, and since then I have been thinking it would be cool to run something in the Domain of Dread as a Halloween one-shot. But, in the meantime, I have played a lot of different games, mostly one-shots, mostly a lot easier to play in that format than any version of D&D. So I did consider starting a campaign or a multi-session adventure, but, to be honest, I didn’t have it in me to do all the reading and conversion that was necessary. I may be playing more RPGs than I ever have before in my life but that has an unlooked for side-effect: I have less time to prepare for games! This is a dilemma that has been exacerbated by my blog schedule and I have been thinking that I might have to make a change there too. I am switching to posting once every three days for the foreseeable future.

The Demiplane of Dread

So, I am not talking about the original Ravenloft adventure from AD&D 1st Edition or the Curse of Strahd released for 5E, but the setting released by TSR for AD&D 2nd Edition in 1990. It is by Bruce Nesmith and Andria Hayday. I think I have mentioned in another post that my friends and I played most of our AD&D in the Dark Sun setting but I would imagine Ravenloft comes a close second. I just loved having them create regular old characters in my home-brewed standard fantasy world and then dumping them, unceremoniously and with no warning through the mists into the forests of Barovia or the mountains of Forlorn and hitting them with monsters that drained levels and abilities and where there was no escape from he darkness and the terror. Although, I confess, the games were probably not very terrifying. I did my best, but I have always found horror a difficult genre to emulate around the table, especially with a system like D&D. The authors did their best to assist the Ravenloft DM with sections in the main book about the “Techniques of Terror,” where they discuss “Assaults on the Mind,” “Assaults on the Body,” “A Villain in Control,” and that sort of thing. But, the fact was, we were a gang of teenaged boys who mostly just wanted to hit things until they died so those were usually the kinds of adventures we got.

Looking at it from a more mature standpoint now, I would love to try to run it with a real sense of gothic horror. I think I am better equipped now to attempt it. Although I still think it would be a challenge and I might refrain from running it in a D&D-like system. Why? Well, the products for Ravenloft, while not all gold, are still some of the highest quality items I think TSR produced. Just look at all these handouts! Each one of them has something useful on the back of a beautifully illustrated card.

5E products are usually produced to a high standard, but they don’t have the variety and versatility that the 2nd Edition boxed sets did. They also don’t have the quality or usefulness of content. These boxes and sourcebooks are stuffed with useable materials; details on lands, villains, monsters, new spells, effects, encounter tables, maps, maps, maps. 5E setting guides of late, excepting maybe Planescape are very short on this sort of detail.

Adventures in Ravenloft

I usually wrote my own adventures back in the day. Or at least I would pick and choose liberally from the pre-written modules and combine them with my own scribblings to make them fit into an overarching campaign. Or that’s what I told myself I was doing. I have a funny feeling that, mostly, I was just trying o murder the PCs. This is another aspect of my style that has, thankfully, changed, since the good old days.

I do have a few Ravenloft adventures that might be fun to convert or even to just run in the original 2nd Edition ruleset.

Feast of Goblyns is a very flexible module that is designed to be run for characters of levels 4 to 7. It is presented in a format that allows many different paths to be taken through it, with the PCs potentially ignoring some major and minor plots depending on how they decide to play it. This one was designed to be the adventure that draws PCs into the Demiplane, which is always fun. I think I remember playing parts of this module but my memory is not good enough to recall which parts. At 96 pages, though, it would require a bit of commitment to play through the whole thing.

From the Shadows is written for rather high level characters, levels 9 to 12. It is based around the plots of Azalin the lich, lord of the domain of Darkon and his eternal conflict with Strahd Von Zarovich, famed ruler of Barovia and OG Ravenloft BBEG. A great deal of it takes place in Castle Avernus, the lich’s home, and that is pretty cool. I definitely played this but I don’t think the characters survived the whole way through.

Finally, I have the Book of Crypts, which is similar to the Book of Lairs but has 8 full adventures in it! This seems the most suitable for a shorter game or campaign and I might just take a look at running something from here before the spooky season is fully through.

Dear reader, have you ever played this version of Ravenloft? Do you yearn for the mists? Or would you rather play a game actually made for horror?

Hex-jammer

Messin’ with 5E

I’m sure those of you who have been around for a while are aware of how much I enjoy mucking around with my D&D campaign. It is a Spelljammer campaign of the 5E variety and it has been running for quite some time. About 25 sessions, I think. That makes it one of the longest running campaigns I have ever had. That’s probably what makes me want to keep messing with it. A while ago, I introduced the very FitD idea of Engagement rolls before big jobs/dungeons and that has worked pretty well. I also brought in the adversity token, which have come in handy for our heroes in a few clutch moments, let me tell you!

1E Throwback

This post is not so much introducing yet another rules hack or even anything home-brew. It’s more about utilising a style of play that went out of fashion in D&D a long time ago. Hexcrawling! A couple of the oldest D&D publications I own are from AD&D 1st Edition. One of those is UK5 Eye of the Serpent, written by Graeme Morris and released in 1984. This was designed for one DM and one PC! Specifically, it was made to be the first adventure for a druid, ranger or monk character. This is besides the point. I just thought it was unusual. Also, it reminds me of a Troika! adventure I just read, The Hand of God, mainly because it starts much the same way, with the characters being abducted by a powerful winged creature and dumped in their nest at the top of something very, very high up.

Anyway, the point is the hex map of the outdoor region, Hardway Mountain (the name of which, I think we can all agree, is a little on the nose.) Now, the use of this map was incredibly restricted in the text. If your PC was playing a druid, not only did they have to have a prescribed set of three NPCs with them, they should also be forced to take a particular selection of the marked “routings.” These would be distinct from the routings a ranger or monk character would be forced down. You can see this laid out in the unfeasibly complicated two-page spread below.

Now, I think this is really interesting in comparison to what you might deem a hexcrawl style game today. I think most OSR games that use a hex map are thinking along the lines of open-world or sandbox play where you go to a certain hex on the map to explore, with the understanding that the whole thing will be open to your PCs. There might be geographical or other obstacles they have to overcome but that’s up to them, they can either try them out or forget about them.

When it comes to encounters, places of interest, etc. a lot of the time these will be generated randomly and the GM is discovering along with the players in many cases. Even if the GM is the one who came up with the encounter table they’re rolling on, they are not to know what the roll will turn up in the moment or what the PCs will do with them! I realise I am probably teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, but I want to point out that, although the hexcrawl is a pretty old school style, it wasn’t always necessarily as free a style as it is generally taken to be today.

One last thing. That Eye of the Serpent module has some fantastic art by Tim Sell. Just check these out.

Hexing the Rock

The Spelljammer campaign may have gotten a bit bogged down on the Rock of Bral. Why? Is it because it is the only location described at all in the Spelljammer 5E set? Maybe. Is it because all the plot threads of the campaign led there? Partly. Is it because it takes a life age of the earth to get through a round of 5E combat? That’s a distinct possibility. Anyway, the crew have spent a lot of time exploring, murdering, stealing, negotiating, shopping, drinking and dating on the topside of the Rock already. But one of them has had a literal ooze-heart pulling them to the underside since they got there and they finally made it down. Now, to get them there, I invented a little something I like to call the Shaft of Bral. Stop sniggering! It is a shaft of pure void half a mile wide through which you can reach not just the top and under sides of the Rock but everything in between too. So they took a little row-boat called a spell-rudder down to the bottom and now they are crawling through the hexes underneath. I threw a few random encounters at them on the way down as well. I invented a few encounters for the Shaft of Bral and put them in a d6 table. I got the players to roll for those and they had fun getting hit by another spell-rudder in a hit-and-run and avoiding the sickly air of a boat full of corpses on their way down.

So far, using the encounter table in Boo’s Astral Menagerie (the Spelljammer Monster Manual,) I have been unimpressed. The first time I used it they got an encounter with a ship of aggressive Vampirates. Then there was a fight that lasted three full sessions. It wasn’t all bad, it just derailed things in a less than ideal way. So, I thought I would just make my own encounter tables from now on.

Once they were finally on the Underside of the Rock, I had to think about how I was going to handle it. It is a very large area, made up largely of farmland and forest and they were there to find one wee gnome. I could have just given them directions, but I wanted it to feel like they were exploring and finding their own way, so I took the map of the Underside of Bral and popped it into Roll 20. We are playing this game online so this worked out well. Then I set the map layer to have a hex grid, instead of the standard square one. Now, as they travel, each time they pass from one hex to another, we roll for an encounter. Some of these encounters are designed to beneficial, some are quite the opposite and others are what they make of them. They have been using their own skills, abilities and traits to push on towards their goals while getting the impression of uncovering things about this place as they move through it. I’m not sure how the creators of this version of the Rock imagined people using this map. Maybe this is exactly what they thought we would do! But, I doubt it. It doesn’t feel as though any thought went into that, in fact. As it is with so many recent D&D 5E products, you are given the bare minimum and expected to figure the rest out for yourself. Even a little advice to go along with the map would have been useful. I mean, even Eye of the Serpent did that in 1984.

Anyway, the last session we had was one of these hex crawl sessions and I can’t remember a funnier time. Genuinely laughed the whole way through. Now, I am incredibly loathe to take any credit for that. It was entirely the hilarious antics of the fantastic players I am blessed with. A couple of highlights:

  • Our Giff Charisma-Fighter/Paladin climbing a tree to hide from a patrol with his trousers ‘round his ankles because he thought his hairy grey arse-cheeks would help disguise him as a bunch of coconuts (didn’t work, it was an oak tree.)
  • Encountering a bunch of Hadozee who were on the run from the nearby prison but didn’t know how to escape the Underside. The party told them all about the secret hatch in that stump over there which led to the Shaft of Bral. What’s that? Do we have a boat there? Yep! On, ok, bye then! Good luck in the shaft!
  • Herbert Gũsfacher, ornithologist, the latest identity adopted by the party’s resident illusionist, Balthazar.
  • Gary, Son of Gary. Oh, are you based in the Garrison, Mr Gary-son? No, the Citadel, actually.

Anyway, these random encounters did help along the good times and, I hope, gave the players a sense of active exploration. They haven’t found what they were looking for yet (it’s Eccta, the plasmoid Mum) So I can’t go into any detail about what is in store but I will be using a lot more of my own home made hexcrawls and random encounter tables, that’s for sure.

Character Creation – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, Dark Sun, Part 3

Rezina carried over

Here’s what we’ve got so far, mainly from the post two days ago. The only thing I managed to do yesterday, pretty much was spend an inordinate amount of time waffling about all the classes and finally, roll a die to find out which one she was going to be. Turned out, it was Illusionist:

  • Name: Rezina
  • Pronouns: she/her
  • Race: Halfling
  • Class: Illusionist
  • Ability Scores:
    • Strength: 11
    • Dexterity: 18
    • Constitution: 18
    • Intelligence: 17
    • Wisdom: 18
    • Charisma: 9
  • 3ft 3in tall
  • 59lbs in weight
  • 41 years of age

Let’s move this along, shall we?

So, let’s get her sorted, remembering that she starts at 3rd level. I found a form-fillable AD&D 2nd Ed character sheet online so I am going to go down through that, addressing each element I need to consider since neither the PHB nor the Dark Sun Rules Book have anything so prosaic as a step by step guide on character creation.

Preserver or Defiler?

As it turns out, the first thing to decide is not on the character sheet which was meant for a more generic setting.
I like our little Rezina and I don’t think it would be in keeping with the Halfling culture to have her defiling the land with her spells so I am going to make her a Preserver for the purposes of casting spells.

Alignment

I’ve always liked the Chaotic Good alignment and it seems to fit our little Preserver Illusionist, in that she doesn’t ascribe to the rules and laws of the sorcerer-kings and she would rather project benevolence both onto and into the world around her.

Patron/Deity/Religion

Not Applicable in this setting

Place of Origin

A photo of the map of the Tablelands from the AD&D 2nd Edition Dark Sun Boxed Set.

Traditionally, the Halflings of this region of Athas come form the Forest Ridge off to the west of the map, beyond the Ringing Mountains. Now, looking at the description of the Forest Ridge in the Wanderer’s Journal, the setting guide that comes in the Dark Sun boxed set, I can see where I got the idea that Halflings were cannibals. Travellers in the forest need to watch out for being ambushed and caught by Halfling tribes. If presented to their king, he is likely to eat them alive! Anyway, this is where Rezina is from. Why has she made her way to the Tablelands? Perhaps she heard about the reputation of the secret Preserver’s organisation, the Veiled Alliance, and wanted to join.

Saving Throws

A photo of Table 60: Character Saving Throws from the AD&D 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook.

Technically, the next thing on the sheet would be the ability scores but I have covered those completely so I am moving on to Saves.
The Character Saving Throws table is unreasonably hard to find. They have stuck it in the Combat chapter, instead of the Character Creation one. Bonkers. Also, it’s so complicated. Why? Whyyyyy?

Anyway, she is a Wizard of sorts so these are her base Saving Throws at 3rd level:
Paralyzation, Poison or Death Magic: 14
Rod, Staff or Wand: 11
Petrification or Polymorph: 13
Breath Weapon: 15
Spell: 12
But she also gets +1 against rods, staves, wands, spells and poison for every 3 1/2 points of CON… so that’s an extra +5 for Rezina.

Armour Class

No armour allowed for our Illusionist, but, with DEX 18 she gets a -4 modifier, leaving her with a respectable base AC of 6, but a Surprised AC of 10, a Shieldless AC of 6 and Rear AC of 10.

DEX checks, vision checks, hearing checks

There is a section beside AC on this character sheet that includes these three things. I have no memory of these scores or modifiers and I am not sure where to look to find them (the index does nothing.) I will fill in the DEX Checks one with a +2, though as it seems to make sense as a reaction adjustment so save against falling or something similar. Moving on!

Hit Points

I rolled a 4, a 4 and a 3 on my 3d4 since she is 3rd level and added 6, +2 from her Constitution each level, to make 17.

THAC0

To Hit Armour Class 0. The most arcane thing about this complicated process, perhaps? Anyway, all Wizards of 1st to 3rd level have a THAC0 of 20. So, Rezina needs to get a modified attack roll of 20 to hit something with AC 0. Thankfully, this PDF calculates all the rest of the table for you!

Combat Modifiers

Once again, as a type of Wizard, Rezina has a non-proficiency modifier of -5 to an attack roll. That means that using a weapon she is not proficient, she is much less likely to hit.
But she does have a +1 to hit with slings (her one weapon proficiency) and thrown weapons.
She has no damage bonus due to her 11 STR and she has a -4 to AC from her DEX as stated earlier.

Weapon Combat

I mapped out here the details of the sling and her chosen ammo, the sling stone. She gets one attack with it per round, it’s size is small, has a speed of 6 (this has an affect on your initiative score), it has the blunt damage type, she has a +1 to hit with it, it does 1d4 damage and finally it has short/medium/long ranges of 4/8/16. There is so much to note and keep track of here it is honestly bewildering. Glad I didn’t get a class with more than one weapon proficiency, honestly.

Proficiencies

So, these are the non-weapon proficiencies and include languages. My INT 17 gives me 6 slots to play with. On top of my free language, Halfling, I took two more, the common tongue and Gith, the tongue of the desert raiders. I also took some Dark Sun specific ones, Somatic Concealment allows spell-casters to hide the somatic components of their spells. Being an unsanctioned wizard in one of the city-states is a dangerous business you see. Heat protection seems important to survival in this setting. Sign language looked for someone who is potentially part of a secret rebellion. Finally, boring old Reading/writing from the

Equipment

Money is a bit different on Athas compared to other D&D settings. Metal is incredibly rare here so the most common coin is the ceramic piece, which can be further broken Doen into ceramic bits. 1000 ceramic bits = 100 ceramic pieces = 10 silver pieces = 2 electrum pieces = 1 gold piece = 1/5 platinum piece.

A Wizard starts off with 1d4+1 x 30 cp. Of course I rolled a 1 so that’s 60 cp. yes. Not a lot to start with.

According to the Dark Sun Rules Book nonmetal items cost one percent of he price listed in the PHB and all metal items cost the price listed. This puts most metal items out of my price range. But at least a sling is affordable along with a few stones.

But this exchange rate means the price of the sling, 5cp in the PHB, would be 1/2 a ceramic bit so this is kind of a pain. I will round it up to one bit. And get 100 stones for another bit.
Down to 59cp and 8 bits. I’m also going to buy a fire kit for 2 bits, a tun of water for 1 sp (10cp,) a common robe for 1cp, some sandals for 5 bits, a backpack for 2 cp, a small belt pouch for 1cp, 50ft go hempen rope for 1 cp and a week’s worth of dry rations for 10cp. I’ve rounded up or down here or there because the maths was doing my head in. But, basically, I’ve got 34 CP and 1 bit left after that.

Movement

As a Halfling, Rezina is not the fastest thing on two legs. Her movement is 6, this means she can move 60 yards in a single round. In this game, a combat round is approximately one minute long. WTF? I did not remember that. That seems like a huge gulf of time! I think the current rules in 5E have a round at like 6 seconds. So, ten times less. Anyway, her movement rate of 6 means she can also walk 12 miles in a day.

Encumbrance

Just no. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered with it in 1991 and I can’t be bothered now.

Character Class information

Special Powers/benefits

  • Wizard spells
  • 10% bonus to XP due to INT 17
  • +1 to saves against illusions
  • enemies have -1 to saves against my illusions
  • Extra illusion spell at each level
  • Easier to research new illusion spells (I don’t know how this works exactly)

Special hindrances

  • Harder to research new non-illusion spells
  • Cannot learn spells from the schools of necromancy, invocation/evocation or abjuration

Psionics

A photo of the front cover of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition of the Complete Psionics Handbook from TSR.

All characters in Dark Sun have a psionic wild talent, a minor or major power that they get for free! I’m going to roll on the Wild Devotion table in the complete Psionics Handbook to see what I get. I rolled a 100! Unbelievable. What that means is that I get to choose any devotion (minor power) from the table and then roll again on the Wild Science (major power) table. I think I will choose Flesh Armour for my squishy Illusionist from the Wild Devotion table and then I roll a 36 on the Wild Sciences table, which gives me the Death Field psychometabolic power. This power is going to gradually turn Rezina evil. Oops. It costs 40 PSP and, when I sacrifice a certain number of HP, everyone else I the filed loses the same amount if they fail their save v Death. Flesh Armour has a table you have to roll on when you use the power. That determines the level of armour you get from it. It costs 8 PSP.
AS for Psionic Strength Points, Rezina starts with 31 thanks to the table in the Complete Psionics Handbook where it’s based on her Wisdom score and modifiers from CON and INT. This of course means that she will never be able to use Death Field…

Wizard Spells

Finally, onto spells. My Illusionist has three 1st level and two 2nd level spells. And here they are:

  • Colour Spray – Blinds creatures
  • Change Self – self explanatory really
  • Audible Glamer – can make a noise equivalent of that made by 4 men…
  • Blur – gives enemies penalties to hit her
  • Invisibility – makes you invisible, dunnit

Conclusion

When I went into this, I thought I would get through it in a couple of hours. Here I am, three days later, and I finally have a fully formed Dark Sun Halfling Illusionist PC. It is not an easy process. It is very difficult to find all the information you need to make your character. I had to use at least three different books and had to go searching through them to find things like Saving Throw and THAC0 tables that should be easy to find. I ended up with a character I would happily play but was it worth it? Honestly, I’m not sure. It was educational alright. It taught me that it might be not such a great idea to try to start up a new Dark Sun campaign using the old Ad&D rules, for certain.

What do you think of this whole process? Do you enjoy a protracted character creation process? If you were one of my players, would you want to go through all this?

Get in the comments!

Character Creation – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, Dark Sun, Part 2

What has come before

Well, yesterday I started by creating a brand new character to be played in Dark Sun, the AD&D 2nd Edition setting. Here’s what we’ve hot so far:

  • Name: Rezina
  • Pronouns: she/her
  • Race: Halfling
  • Ability Scores:
    • Strength: 11
    • Dexterity: 18
    • Constitution: 18
    • Intelligence: 17
    • Wisdom: 18
    • Charisma: 9
  • 3ft 3in tall
  • 59lbs in weight
  • 41 years of age

What have we learned? Race is problem in these older books. The ways they refer to characters as “half-breeds” or inherently unintelligent or bred to be sterile are incredibly distasteful. It is all couched in very racist and unsympathetic language and I am glad that that sort of writing is a thing of the past.
Also, Dark Sun characters come out powerful, with the new way of rolling up your ability scores and some really useful racial traits.

Stay classy

It’s time to look at classes in Dark Sun. There are many changes to the classes compared to the AD&D 2nd Ed Player’s Handbook. There are also a few new ones here. Dark Sun introduced the Defiler, the Gladiator, the Preserver, the Psionicist and the Templar to the game. Technically, Psionics were introduced in the Complete Psionics Handbook, though. I mentioned yesterday that Halflings can choose from the following classes: Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Gladiator, Illusionist, Psionicist, Ranger and Thief. But I will take a look at each of the new ones and the major changes to the existing classes too.

The Dark Sun Rules Book splits the classes into their categories of Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue with Psionicist sort of tacked onto the end.

A photo of the AD&D 2nd Edition Battlesystem Skirmishes Miniatures Rules from TSR.

TSR really wanted you to use their Battle System mass-combat rules with Dark Sun. If I remember correctly, parts of the opening few official adventures contained full-scale battles where it expected you to have armies of miniatures fielded against each other. I don’t remember ever using them, despite having the book. Anyway, as a result of that, one of the main things that Fighters got in Dark Sun was a whole bunch of automatic followers. These people would just flock to you as a successful Fighter as you gained levels. They can also teach weapon proficiencies from 3rd level, operate heavy war machines from 4th level, supervise the construction of defences from 6th level, command large number of troops from 7th level and construct heavy war machines from 9th level. All of these very Battle System related abilities are in addition to the stuff they get in the PHB. Fighters have an ability requirement of 9 STR so Rezina could, technically take this class. Hit Dice: D10.

The Gladiator is a new class. They are the slave warriors of the Sorcerer Kings. The arena is a big part of life in the City States of the Tablelands. It is the main form of entertainment and a system of control for the masses. It’s also big industry as the slave trade is key to the economy of the region. Gladiators get a few nice benefits. They gain proficiency in all weapons and can specialise in multiple weapons too. Not only that, but they are expert in unarmed combat and get to optimise their armour, reducing their AC by 1 for every five levels. From 9th level, Gladiators also gain followers like the Fighter. They have some harsh ability score requirements though, STR 13, DEX 12 and CON 15. The Strength requirement disqualifies Rezina, I’m afraid. Hit Dice: D10.

Rangers are mostly unchanged from how they are described in the PHB. They have to decide on an elemental plane of worship at 8th level and can only cast cleric spells from that sphere and they gain followers of animal and humanoid type from 10th level. Required STR 13 means I can’t choose to be a Ranger. Hit Dice: D10.

Onto the Wizards! Rezina can choose only Illusionist from this list but we’ll have a look at them anyway as they are so important to the overall lore of the world. Wizards work quite differently on Athas. The default magic user is the Defiler. These guys drain the life from the world around them to power their magic and, as a result of their disdain for the environment, they gain levels much faster than their Preserver counterparts. Preservers balance their consumption of magical energy to minimise or chancel the damage they do. Of course, this course makes them level up much slower. Finally, there is the Illusionist, a specialist wizard class who are treated exactly as they are in the PHB except that they have to choose to be either a preserver or defiler. Regular Preservers and Defilers only have an ability score requirement of INT 9, but if you want to be an Illusionist, you also need to have DEX 16. So, this is, in fact, an option for Rezina.

Priests are split into Clerics, Druids and Templars.
The Clerics are worshipers of a particular elemental plane, rather than of a deity or pantheon. Athas does not have its own gods and is considered separated somehow from the influence of the Outer Planes. It is very hard to get to and from Athas, in fact, through planar magic, portals or even spelljamming vessels. So, Clerics, although they may be flavoured differently depending on their backgrounds, gain power from the Inner Planes, the elements, instead. Their weapon restrictions are based on the elemental plane they worship, they can ignore the presence of the element they worship from level 5, they can gate material form their chosen plane at level 7. You need a WIS 9 to be a Cleric so that is an option.

Druids are out for Rezina due to their ability score requirements, WIS 12 and CHA 15. She’s just ain’t got that rizz. Druids have to choose an area known as their Guarded Lands and from 12th level on, they have to spend half their time there. They gain their powers from the spirits there. Usually, their spells are restricted to one or two spheres related to their guarded lands. They can speak with animals and plants as they gain levels, and get a whole bunch of powers from their lands.

Clerics and Druids are really only a thing outside the City States themselves. Inside, the priests who matter are the Templars, the priests of the Sorcerer-kings. They’re not good guys. In fact, a Templar PC has to be either Neutral or Evil. They enforce the edicts and laws of the Sorcerer-kings and are not above a little corruption. They have access to vast libraries that allow them to use spells from all spheres, though they progress slower than Clerics at lower levels. Unlike the other priests, Templars get their spells directly from their Sorcerer-king. They can raise and ally with undead but cannot turn them, they have the power of life and death over slaves (this is a class benefit…) they can legally enter the house of a free man and accuse them of disloyalty from 4th level and pass judgement on them from 7th level. They can start throwing their weight around with nobles from 10th level. They can can requisition soldiers from 3rd level, gain access to all areas of palaces from 5th level and draw on the city treasury for official investigations. From 17th level, they can pardon any condemned person, though, which is nice. Rarely do you see a class in RPGs that is as focused on civic matters and accusing people of shit to get their way. It’s a weird one and I don’t think anyone in my games ever chose to play one. Anyway, Rezina can’t be one because she is a Halfling.

Onto the Rogues.

Bards are out for Rezina as she is a Halfling. But they are pretty cool in Dark Sun. They are renowned, not only as entertainers, but also, assassins, blackmailers and thieves. They have all the benefits of the original Bard from the PHB but they also have a mastery of Poisons. One big difference is that they don’t get access to spells at all.

Thieves work basically the same as they do in the PHB but they also can find a patron from 10th level. These guys can give them jobs or protect them from others. With the only pre-requisite being DEX 9, Rezina could choose this class.

A photo of the front cover of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition of the Complete Psionics Handbook from TSR.

Finally, the Psionicist. Every character in Dark Sun rolls on a table to get a Wild Talent, an innate psionic ability that may or may not be particularly useful so the class is open to all races. But Psionicists have a whole raft of abilities that come with the class. Luckily I have a copy the Complete Psionics Handbook (TSR 1991.) Psionics were based on the idea that the powers were split into separate disciplines within which you get major powers called sciences and minor ones called devotions. Your character gets a pool of Psionic Strength Points, based on a relatively complicated equation involving WIS score and CON and INT modifiers. You spend these to use powers. They also learn Defense Modes which are used in psionic battles. They gain followers from 9th level. The ability requirements are CON 11, INT 12 and WIS 15 so Rezina could choose this class.

There are a few other points to consider before making the choice here. Halflings can choose to multiclass and Dark Sun characters start at 3rd level by default. I won’t multiclass, just to keep this a bit simpler.

Another characteristic of Dark Sun is that you are supposed to have a character tree, ie, a selection of 4 characters to choose from in between adventures or so there is backup in case one character dies in this very lethal setting. I won’t be doing this as I have spent so long making just a single character already!

Time to choose

A photo of page 30 of the AD&D 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook. It contains the description of the Wizard class, including Wizard level progression and Spell Progression tables.
A photo of the Illusionist section from the AD&D 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook.

My options are Fighter, Illusionist, Cleric, Thief and Psionicist. Should I roll for it? Yep. On a d5 (thanks again DCC) I rolled a 2. Illusionist!

Illusionists get a +1 on saves vs illusion spells and others get a -1 against their spells. They also get to memorise an extra illusion spell at each level. Researching new illusion spells is easier but conversely, researching the spells of other schools is harder. Of course, it also means that they can’t learn spells from Schools directly opposed by illusion, ie, necromancy, invocation/evocation and abjuration.

Ok, I am going to have to wrap this up here. This character creation process in Ad&d is pretty time intensive, especially when I go through every potential class candidate and critique them I will have to finish this off tomorrow. See you then!