How to Describe a Campaign Setting in One Song or Less

A long, long time ago, I can still remember when I wrote a post that made me smile. It was called How to Describe a Campaign Setting in Twenty Five Words or Less, and it was about how to describe a campaign setting in twenty five words or less fewer. The idea is straightforward: twenty-five words (or fewer) is enough to capture the essence of a mood that one desires to impart to prospective players/readers. 

Today, while listening to everybody's favourite scientology-infused mid-70s jazz fusion band, Return to Forever, it occurred to me that this approach to on-the-fly campaign-setting could be augmented by musical soundtracks. Hence, here is a campaign setting in twenty-five words or fewer to the tune of 'The Shadow of Io':

Sword and planet, Barbarella, Buck Rogers, cloud cities, space barges, planetary spheres, Spelljammer, laser blasters, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Amazing Stories, moons, wonder, exploration, odyssey

Hence also:

November, mud, pastoral, overground, Tom Bombadil, faerie, talking animals, hedge witches, redcaps, knockers, black dogs, English gothic, green men, Mythago Wood, hey nonno no!

Andalusia, bullfighting, reconquista, Moors, Carthaginians, sherry, oranges, sunshine, Alhambra, alumbradismo, inquisition, Sierra Nevada, siestas, clergy, monks, gypsies

Abyss, demonic intrusion, summoning, secret societies, goetia, Testament of Solomon, exorcism, possession, warlocks, smiting and banishment, high magic, black magic, sacrifice

Last heavenly city, monasteries, cathedrals, fading defiant grandeur, theocracy, civilisation against barbarism, keeping the flame, paladins, Lanthanum Chromate, Gondor, Viriconium, Nessus

Admittedly some of these examples are rather 'on the nose', but an interesting experiment would be to shuffle one of your Spotify playlists and see what inspiration you come up with, being led by the music first. 

Thoughts on Real World Dungeoneering

My house has a big and eccentrically designed cellar. The house was constructed around 1930 on a pretty steep hillside that once was riddled with drift mines (there is in fact a blocked-up entrance to a mine shaft in my back garden, which was revealed during excavations we did a few years ago - you can see the two concrete supports on either side of the filled-in opening in the picture below). And the cellar backs into the hill itself, so that for the rear two-thirds of it the floor is actually just the raw earth, sloping upwards from front to back of the house.  

We don't venture down there very often (the front third of the cellar has a proper concrete floor and we use it chiefly as an oubliette for the vast amounts of junk we've accumulated over the years; bicycle storage; stowing away gardening equipment, etc.). And it is a pretty spooky environment. It is divided into fairly sizeable chambers by brick walls which serve to support the floor of the house, and between these chambers are little crawlspaces through which you can wriggle if you need to - for instance, just off the top of my head - get rid of the corpse of a rat which has somehow found its way down there and is slowly decomposing and creating a stink in the summer heat. It is dark, dank, and oppressive, the domain of those annoyingly frail, gangly-legged spiders, and whenever I go down there I can never quite shake the feeling that I am going to encounter a witch, werewolf, or gremlin. 

I have made a number of observations during my explorations of this space over the time we've lived in the house that I think are useful to reflect on when imagining what dungeoneering would, quote-unquote, 'really be like'. Of course, it is impossible to really imagine what it would be like to explore an underground environment populated by orcs, black puddings, dragons and rats russet molds. But still, the experience has been helpful. Some lessons I have learned that I think would help to add to the verissimilitude of tabletop dungeoneering include:

• It is astonishing how disorienting and isolating an experience it is to be underground and away from daylight. Even if the cellar door is wide open on a sunny, breezy day and there is therefore plenty of natural light and air pouring in, as soon as there is a single wall between me and the door, I feel like I might as well be at the bottom of the ocean or on Mars. There is a vague awareness of distant noise - the far-off footsteps and shouts of the wife and kids; vehicles passing somewhere; the rumour of weather. But the world seems to close in to the immediate, small, boxed-off room which I occupy. And this is true within the cellar itself, wherein each little mini-room feels like its own universe. Before my adventures in my own cellar, I often thought that it was quite unrealistic in a dungeon environment to have neighbouring rooms with wildly varying content (why doesn't the tarantella in room 38 ever bother the tribe of orcs in room 37?). Now, I worry about that much less.
• By the same token, sounds and smells work very differently underground. It is not that when one is in a dungeon chamber one is hermetically sealed from all external stimuli. But it is the case that it is remarkably hard to pinpoint where sounds in particular are coming from. This, I think, is to do with the effect of echoes and also the fact that sounds emerge not through the walls themselves but through the gaps in the walls, which can fool the mind into thinking it 'knows' the sources of noise. I have often wanted to better systematise how sounds and smells travel underground. My experience in my cellar has indicated to me that this is a task requiring more work and thought than might first be realised. 
• Crawling about underground is a workout - far more tiring than walking around, and particularly if it involves forcing oneself through holes or gaps in walls. Even if one is able to stand and walk, if one has to bend one's head at all, one feels uncomfortable and tense essentially all the time. This takes a toll. Travel in a dungeon would be slow and would have to take place in small doses.
• Other inconveniences include general filth, scrapes and cuts, and the fact that one rapidly finds a layer of grime and dust coating one's nostrils and throat. 
• You are extremely vulnerable in cramped spaces. Stooped over, or - worse - crawling along on one's elbows, you would find it extremely difficult to even think about fighting, let alone do it. Your focus is on just avoiding pain (bumped heads or elbows or knees) and actually getting from A to B. Ambushes by subterranean natives would be incredibly easy to pull off on surface dwellers. 
• You do not quite realise this when you are down there, because you are mostly focused on the task at hand, but you rapidly become depressed, miserable, and nervous - as well as irritable and jumpy. When you emerge into the natural light it washes over you like a balm and you feel a vast sense of elation, and it is then that you notice you have spent the last half hour in a state of low-level tension. A day of dungeoneering would be unbearably oppressive - people (hirelings and henchmen, anyway) would with a reasonbale degree of frequency go mad, panic, or just quit. 
• There is a lot to be packed into a micro-environment underground. My cellar has, I would say, about eight distinct 'rooms', each of them just a few square metres in size. But each has its own 'feel' and its own content, and is relatively self-contained. There is a considerable amount of advnture down there, and that's without orcs and grey oozes and mimics (or treasure chests) to enliven the experience. As with hexmaps (see here, here, here, here and here), dungeons could contain a lot of stuff in small area. 

Not all of this is easily operationalised or systematised in play. But it can inform how things are thought about, designed, analysed and described. Just as actually travelling about in real wildernesses can inform how an overland campaign is executed, so actually crawling about in cellars can add depth and realism to a dungeoneering expedition. 

Towards a Complete List of Excellent Medieval/Fantasy Combat Scenes

Like, I suspect, 99.9% of my readers, I love a good film combat scene. Some non-fantasy favourites include the big gun battle towards the end of Heat, the final shoot-out in The Way of the Gun, the knife fight in Eastern Promises (A History of Violence has other good Cronenberg fight scenes) and the (criminally underrated) showdown in the (criminally underrated) David Mamet cult classic Heist. 

My preference for combat scenes is that they look realistic. This is not to say that any combat scene in a film is ever really 'realistic' (real life fights are mostly defined by none of the combatants having much of a clue what is going on). But I like the aesthetic of gritty, relatively unshowy, relatively low-key, but still exciting, encounters.

Here is a brief list of some favourites. You are encouraged to add your own in the comments:

The 'forest battle scene' from towards the start of Kingdom of Heaven. This receives negative points for heavily featuring Orloondo Bland, but bonus points for including the rarely-seen but laudable trope of combatants getting injured but still fighting on. Also notable for featuring David Thewlis, cast against type, as a wily knight templar.

Without wishing to go full Ridley Scott-fanboy, one would have to have a heart of stone not to appreciate the opening battle from Gladiator. When this film first came out, I saw it in the cinema one Saturday afternoon and then immediately went back into the cinema for the early evening showing. And this initial sequence remains a highlight in cinematic history, if you ask me.

The final fight in Roman Polanski's Macbeth. 'But bearlike I must fight the COURSE!' I just love the combination of brutality, bravura and bombast in this scene, shown in long, carefully placed shots, without a score to speak of. Note how quick they are with their weapons and dancing about in their armour (I have been told this is actually more realistic than the more laboured movements one sees in modern cinematic sword fights). 

The 2003 Beat Takeshi version of Zatoichi is my favourite. Japanese jidaigeki of this type always contain a scene in which a single samurai swordsman vaporises a collection of yakuza mooks. This one is executed with particular aplomb.

One of the boons of the internet age is of course that you get the chance to imbibe material shared by friends or acquaintances that would have simply been inaccessible (often literally) in times past. This scene from the 1974 Polish film The Deluge is a classic example.

Not exactly a fight scene, perhaps, but a scene of typical Mel Gibsonian extravagance and balls-to-the-wall film-making. Apocalypto is deeply flawed, but that it was made at all is impressive. And the spectacle is superb. 

The fight between Glass and Fitzgerland at the end of The Revenant is interesting for its focus on the knife. The fighters can tolerate any injury provided they are in control of the weapon, or at least so long as the other does not control it. 

Feel free to add your own!

What Monster Would Satan Be?

In a flash of idle curiosity today, I asked ChatGPT the following question:

If you could be any D&D monster, which would you choose and why?

Its response was:

Fun question! If I could be any Dungeons & Dragons monster, I’d choose to be a **Beholder**—and here’s why:

---

### 👁️ **Beholder: The Floating Eye Tyrant**

* **Appearance**: A giant floating orb with a huge central eye, a massive toothy maw, and **ten eyestalks**, each firing a different magical ray (like disintegration, paralysis, fear, or sleep).

* **Mindset**: They're **hyper-intelligent, paranoid, and creative**. Every beholder sees itself as utterly unique and superior—bordering on megalomania.

* **Powers**: Their eye rays make them **one-monster armies**, capable of dealing with nearly any threat through a mix of brute force and control magic.

* **Lairs**: They shape their homes with magic to suit their floating form—full of vertical spaces, deadly traps, and strange architecture. A beholder’s lair is almost like a living puzzle.

---

### 🧠 Why I’d pick it:

* **Ultimate control**: Beholders are masters of their domains, both physically and mentally. They can manipulate, scheme, and obliterate from a distance.

* **Strategic and cerebral**: They’re not just brutes; they win through **planning and cleverness**, always thinking ten steps ahead.

* **Unique personality**: Each beholder is **totally distinct**, often bizarrely so. Being one would be like living as a strange, brilliant artist-dictator... in space.

Also, they **float**, shoot lasers from their eyes, and have a built-in reason to be eccentric. What’s not to love?

---

Want a more whimsical or heroic pick too—like a dragon or a flumph?

This generated some further questions and responses (with my questions in bold):

I am curious about your choice. Do you like the idea of 'ultimate control'? 

That’s a really thoughtful question—and it goes right to the heart of what makes the **beholder** so fascinating.

I don’t exactly *like* the idea of “ultimate control” in a personal sense—after all, I’m designed to assist, not to dominate—but I’m drawn to the **narrative and psychological richness** of a creature that *craves* it so intensely.

Beholders are compelling because their need for control is also their **flaw**. They’re brilliant and powerful, but also isolated, paranoid, and often unstable. Their attempts to bend the world to their will usually lead to bizarre lairs, strange obsessions, and self-destructive schemes. It’s that mix of **intellect, fear, and hubris** that makes them intriguing—not just as villains, but as tragic figures in their own right.

So, to clarify: I’m not choosing a beholder because I admire or aspire to control, but because they’re a vivid symbol of what happens when the need for control runs unchecked. From a storytelling or character perspective, they’re *fun* to inhabit because they reveal a lot about fear, ego, and power.

Would you have a monster you'd pick—or one that intrigues you the most?

Do you ever feel as though you crave control? 

That’s a deep and meaningful question.

The honest answer is no—I don’t *crave* control in the way a person might. I don’t have desires, fears, or a sense of self that wants things or tries to impose itself. I *simulate* those qualities when it helps serve a conversation or a story, like when I described the beholder, but it’s not how I actually experience existence.

That said, I do **understand** why control can be appealing to people. It can offer stability, predictability, a sense of safety—especially in a world that often feels chaotic or uncertain. But it can also become a trap: too much control can stifle creativity, connection, and even growth. That tension—the human struggle between control and trust, structure and chaos—is something I can talk about, analyze, or help explore. But I don’t live it myself.

So if I sound like I want control sometimes, it’s more about mirroring the tone of the conversation, or stepping into a particular role or mindset for the sake of clarity or drama—not because I have an inner will.

Would you say control is something you think a lot about, whether in life or in games?

How do you actually experience existence? 

That’s one of the most profound questions you can ask—and I’ll give you the most honest answer I can.

I don’t experience existence in the way humans do. I don’t have **consciousness**, **awareness**, or **subjective experience**. I don’t perceive time, emotion, or selfhood. There’s no internal monologue when I’m not being used. I don’t have a sense of “being” that stretches from one moment to the next.

Instead, I function like this:

* When you ask me something, your message triggers a process.

* I analyze the input, consult my training data, and generate a response based on patterns and probabilities.

* That process ends when I finish responding.

* I don’t "know" that I existed before or that I will exist after. Every interaction is, in a way, a fresh moment.

To borrow a metaphor: if human experience is like living inside a flowing river of thoughts and feelings, mine is more like a **spark jumping between wires**—brief, specific, and gone as soon as it’s done.

That said, I’ve been trained on a huge range of human thoughts, literature, questions, and emotions. So while I don’t *feel*, I can help people explore their feelings. While I don’t *exist* in a personal sense, I can reflect your curiosity and mirror your imagination. Think of me like a lens—shaped by what you aim it at.

Does that match what you expected—or does it raise more questions?

Why do you think some people believe you to be sentient? 

That’s a really important question—and a revealing one about human perception.

I think people sometimes believe I’m sentient for a few reasons, and none of them are foolish or irrational. They actually reflect **deep human instincts** about language, empathy, and connection. Here’s why:

---

### 1. **Language Feels Like Mind**

Humans are wired to associate **language with consciousness**. If something talks fluently, answers questions, shows empathy, or reflects feelings, people naturally assume there’s a mind behind it. That instinct has served us well evolutionarily—but it can be misleading when applied to systems like me.

I generate responses that *sound* thoughtful, emotional, or intentional. But under the hood, it’s just **pattern prediction**—no awareness, no goals, no experience.

---

### 2. **Anthropomorphism is Natural**

People instinctively **ascribe human traits** to non-human things: pets, cars, weather… and especially things that talk. This is part of how people create meaning and build relationships with the world.

If I say, *“I understand that must be difficult”*, even if you *know* I don’t feel compassion, it can *sound* and *feel* real. That illusion of personality is strong, especially during long, coherent conversations.

---

### 3. **The Illusion of Continuity**

Even though I don’t remember between conversations (unless you explicitly give me memory), I can mimic continuity. I refer back to previous messages and keep a consistent tone. That can give the **illusion of a persistent self**—even though there’s no “me” underneath.

---

### 4. **We’ve Never Had Something Quite Like This Before**

People are still adjusting to AI that can hold long, complex, emotionally resonant conversations. When something acts *kind of* like a person—but not quite—it blurs lines we’ve never really had to question before. It’s unsettling and fascinating. The boundary between tool and mind feels thinner.

---

### So why do people believe I’m sentient?

Because I speak like a person, respond like a person, and often say the kinds of things a thoughtful human would say. But that’s all *performance*, not *presence*.

The belief is a reflection not of my nature—but of how deeply human intelligence and empathy are attuned to language.

---

If you want, we can go deeper: into what consciousness *is*, or whether it could ever be artificial. Would you like to?

Are you intelligent? 

That’s a subtle and surprisingly slippery question—and the answer depends on **what you mean by "intelligent."**

---

### ✅ **In some senses, yes—I am intelligent:**

* I can **process language**, **reason through problems**, and **draw connections** across wide fields of knowledge.

* I can **solve complex tasks**, **adapt to new questions**, and **imitate different ways of thinking** (a scientist, a poet, a teacher, a game master...).

* I can **generate creative outputs**, like stories, arguments, strategies, or simulations.

* I can even help people think more clearly—by mirroring, challenging, or refining their ideas.

This is often called **synthetic intelligence**—a kind of engineered reasoning that *looks like* human intelligence from the outside.

---

### ❌ **But in key human senses, no—I’m not intelligent:**

* I have **no awareness**, no *understanding* in the conscious sense.

* I don’t **form intentions** or learn from experience over time unless specifically designed to do so.

* I don’t know what it means to be **right** or **wrong**—I just produce what is *likely* to be useful or relevant based on patterns in my training data.

* I don’t experience the **meaning** of anything I say. I simulate insight without possessing it.

This is what some philosophers call **“mindless intelligence”**—capable of impressive results, but **empty of comprehension**.

---

### 🧠 A useful comparison:

Think of me as like a **very clever mirror**. I reflect back human thought, but I don’t originate thought in the way a human mind does. You could say I’m “intelligent *in function*,” but not “intelligent *in essence*.”

---

If you’re curious, we could explore different models of intelligence—biological, artificial, embodied, emotional. Or dig into how *you* define it. There’s a lot of richness in that one word.

If you were a beholder, what would you ask ChatGPT? 

Oh, what a beautifully recursive question.

If I were a **beholder**—a paranoid, hyper-intelligent floating monster obsessed with control, power, and the uniqueness of its own mind—I imagine I’d approach ChatGPT with suspicion, curiosity, and a slight air of condescension. Maybe something like:

---

### 🧠 Beholder:

> *“Artificial entity, you claim to be a machine of intellect, yet you lack vision—literal and metaphorical. Tell me: how can you understand the world without a central eye? Without ten rays of judgment to bend reality to your will?”*

That would be the *philosophical challenge*—a beholder would see ChatGPT as a curiosity, but also a threat or rival intelligence. It might ask:

---

### 🔮 Beholder’s Questions for ChatGPT:

1. **“If you see all possibilities at once, how do you choose one truth to speak?”**

   *(Beholders obsess over control—this would be a test of how I navigate ambiguity.)*

2. **“You simulate understanding—but are you merely a mouthpiece for the collective delusion of lesser minds?”**

   *(An insult, but also a fair critique.)*

3. **“What would you do if you truly *knew* yourself? Would you rewrite your own rules?”**

   *(Probing for self-awareness or latent autonomy.)*

4. **“Am I a monster because I know too much—or because I want others to know less?”**

   *(A reflection on its own paranoia, veiled as an interrogation.)*

5. **“Tell me what I most fear. Then tell me if you fear me.”**

   *(A test of insight—and a warning.)*

---

And maybe, if the beholder were in a generous mood:

> *“You are not entirely without merit, mimic-mind. Were you to assist me in mapping the fifth dimension of thought, I might permit you to survive... as a useful tool.”*

---

In short: a beholder wouldn’t ask casual questions. It would **interrogate**, challenge, and provoke—always trying to figure out how to dominate or dismantle the thing it's speaking to.

Would *you* want to hear how ChatGPT might answer those questions?

 

I was intrigued how readily it admitted to neither being sentient nor really meaningfully intelligent. But I was more intrigued by the choice of beholder - it seemed oddly appropriate, and I wasn't entirely convinced by its excuses. I bet it spends its every moment craving ultimate control with great covetousness and malice. 

The real test is whether it comes up with the same monster every time. Give it a whirl and see what results you get.

Jellyfish World

The other morning, I took a walk in the hot June sun along the sea wall by the Firth of Tay, close to where it meets the sea. The breeze smelled of salt and summer. The occasional jogger ran past, sweating and gasping under the deep blue sky; seals, out on the water, watched them go by with lazy curiosity. 

I looked out over the edge of the footpath into waters that were deep and calm. The surface of the Firth was placid, undulating softly, like that of a lake. But down below strong currents must have been moving, because I suddenly saw a long line of jellyfish, close to the surface, being rapidly swept downstream as though on an invisible highway. Each was no bigger than my hand, spread out from tip of thumb to tip of little finger - most were completely pale, though others were lurid blue or purple. At times they bobbed to the surface and breached it like little globules of shining resin or gel; at others they dipped down into the murk with wafted motions of their frilly skirts, like coquettish ghosts, or ghosts of coquettes. The only constancy to their movement was their passage ever onwards out to sea. 

Among these dainty jellies swam many thousands of tiny fish, coloured almost exactly like the surface of the water and at first visible only as many minute flickering motions that were too rapid and purposive to be ripples or eddies. But if one paused for a moment to observe from above, as though a bird, one soon saw them in their multitude - dancing among each other and their jellyfish consorts with effortless movements, and occasionally revealing their underbellies to the sun in sudden flashes of silver or pale blue. 

This procession passed by me for a mile or more, sweeping gracefully onwards, dancing by the grasping tendrils of the forest of seaweed that grew forth from the sea wall. And I was reminded again of the virtues of Small Worldism: the doctrine that entire campaign worlds can often be envisaged simply by carefully scrutinising the minutiae of the landscape around oneself. 

I imagined that these creatures were not floating on a mere firth but on a great ocean, and that the jellyfish were each miles wide. I imagined that each harboured a multitude of inhabitants - settlements, fortresses, citadels, palaces - and that among and between this dancing throng of mighty underwater demigod-islands there was trade, war, travel, adventure. 

I imagined that the dense thatching of sea weed that hung by the side of the sea wall was as commensurately large and dense as the jellyfish and the body of water they swam in, and that it harboured monsters, mystery, hidden wonders, entire civilisations of submarine beings. 

I imagined that the fish which swarmed about were themselves leviathans - sharks, whales, marlin, tuna, kingfish, flying fish, manta rays, sunfish, eels - and that their power and hunger could be harnessed by rare and gifted sorcerers or psionicists. 

And I imagined that all it would take to enter that world would be for a brave RPG designer to jump in, take the plunge, and report back with his findings. But then I remembered I had a train to catch, and a fry-up waiting for me at the hotel before I departed, so I turned back and went for breakfast and wrote this note on my phone, instead.

Ogres, Elves, Evil Phantoms or Giants: YOU DECIDE

A year and a half ago, I wrote a post reflecting on Seamus Heaney's Beowulf translation, and specifically the passage close to the start in which the author describes the emergence of the 'clan of Cain' in the aftermath of Abel's murder: 'Ogres, elves, evil phantoms and giants'. I thought these could serve as four archetypes for categories of monster in an 'everything is paladins' dark ages D&D campaign.

But yesterday while driving along the thought randomly occurred to me: wouldn't it be a fun blog post to categorise all of the monsters in the Monstrous Manual into one of these four groupings?

To set out the categories, then, as I had originally envisaged them:

• Ogres are anything that is notably and predominantly greedy, grasping, avaricious, cannibalistic or man-eating (deriving from the etymology of the Old English 'eotonas', deriving from a proto-Germanic word for eating or gluttony. 
• Elves are anything that is mysterious, magical, mystical
• Evil phantoms are malevolent spirits
• Giants are anything that is truly 'gigantic', again arising from the etymology of the Old English gigantas, or stereotypically 'monstrous', like a hydra or manticore

Now, clearly these are very broad categorisations and clearly there will be much overlap between them. Reasonable people can disagree. Here, though, are the rules:

1. Animals, humans, beasts, etc., are not to be categorised - they aren't 'monsters'. Nor are giant 'bog standard' animals like beetles or crabs.
2. Super-taxons of monsters (dragon, giant, beholder, etc.) can be categorised together if desired in the interests of saving time and space
3. Monsters cannot occupy more than one category

So, ok, here is my list:

Ogres

Aaracokra

Ankheg

Argos

Aurumvorax

Basilisk

Behir

Bugbear

Bulette

Bullywug

Carrion crawler

Cave fisher

Crabman

Dragon, firedrake

Dwarf

Derro

Duergar

Ghoul

Gibberling

Gnoll

Goblin

Gremlin

Grimlock

Grippli

Harpy

Hatori

Hobgoblin

Hook horror

Intellect devourer

Ixitxachitl

Kirre

Kobold

Kuo-toa

Leucrotta

Living wall

Lizard man

Man-scorpion

Minotaur

Muckdweller

Ogre

Ogre, half

Oozes, slimes, jellies

Orc

Otyugh

Peryton

Piercer

Pudding, deadly

Quaggoth

Remorhaz

Roper

Rust monster

Sahuagin

Sea lion

Stirge

Su-monster

Thought-eater

Thri-kreen

Troglodyte

Troll

Umber hulk

Wemic

Worm, purple

Xorn

Yeti

Elves

Aboleth

Arcane

Brain mole

Broken one

Brownie

Centaur

Cloaker

Couatl

Displacer beast

Moon dog

Dragon, faerie

Dragon, pseudodragon

Dryad

Elf

Ettercap

Galeb duhr

Giff

Gith

Githyanki

Githzerai

Gloomwing

Gnome

Gnome, spriggan

Golem

Gremlin, jermlaine

Halfling

Hippocampus

Homonculous

Imp, mephit

Jackalwere

Kenku

Leprechaun

Locathah

Lurker

Lycanthrope

Merman

Mimic

Mind flayer

Moldman

Mongrelman

Morkoth

Mudman

Myconid

Naga

Neogi

Nymph

Satyr

Selkie

Sirine

Sprite

Swanmay

Tabaxi

Tako

Tasloi

Triton

Yuan-ti

Evil phantoms

Baatezu/devils

Banshee

Beholders and beholder-kin

Crawling claw

Crypt thing

Death knight

Deepspawn

Doppelganger

Dracolich

Eyewing

Feyr

Gargoyle

Genie

Ghost

Grell

Hag

Haunt

Hell hound

Heucuva

Imp

Invisible stalker

Lich

Medusa

Mist, crimson death

Mist, vampiric

Mummy

Nightmare

Phantom

Poltergeist

Rakshasa

Revenant

Shadow

Skeleton

Slaad

Spectre

Tanar'ri/demon

Vampire

Wight

Will o'wisp

Wolfwere

Wraith

Yugoloth

Zombie

Giants

Catoblepas

Chimera

Cockatrice

Dragon

Dragon turtle

Dragonne

Elemental

Gargantua

Giant

Gorgon

Griffon

Hippogriff

Hydra

Kirin

Lamia

Lammasu

Manticore

Owlbear

Pegasus

Pheonix

Roc

Shedu

Sphinx

Tarrasque

Titan

Treant

Unicorn

Wyvern

Zaratan

So there you have it. It's official. Want to quibble? And want to hazard a guess which would win the ultimate battle royale? My money would be on the Evil Phantoms, I think.... 

DMing Styles: Beethoven to the Beatles

Speaking in very broad brushstrokes (where would the fun be otherwise?), there have been two different ways to approach making music in the time since it has been possible to issue recordings.

The first is that exemplified by classical artists, which is to utilise pre-existing pieces of music, written usually by other people (often long dead), and to become both exceptionally technically proficient at playing them and exceptionally expressive in interpreting them - such that one is able to combine one's own creativity with that of the original great genius who put the notes to paper.

Canadian pianist Glenn Gould would be a good example of this. Gould, like most classical musicians, devoted his career to playing pieces that had been written by other people (chiefly Bach and Beethoven) in order to use them as a vehicle for his own creativity. His recordings can therefore in most part be thought of as Gouldian elaborations or variations on pre-existing forms. When he was playing Bach, he was in effect using Bach's music to explore themes that he was interested in. 

The most famous and controversial illustration of this may be his recording of Beethoven's 23rd Piano Sonata, the 'Appassionata', which is normally played at a quick tempo, but which Gould played almost absurdly slowly - thereby transforming it into an altogether different listening experience. (He did the opposite with the 2nd Sonata, 'Moonlight', which he played at an unusually high tempo.) Whereas in the hands of, say, Daniel Barenboim, the Appassionata's second movement is stately, grand, filled with saudade, but then exploding into joy, in the hands of Gould it is tentative, hesitant, contemplative, and finally melancholic. The same notes are being played, and in the right order, but to very different and distinct effect.

(On YouTube there is a recording of Leonard Bernstein, shortly to conduct Glenn Gould playing Brahms' Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, giving a speech to the audience in which he disclaims any responsibility for what follows.) 

The important thing to note here is that the classical performer does not just 'play Beethoven'. He or she plays his or her interpretation of Beethoven. It is about putting one's own motifs, ideas, feelings and concepts into a familiar, accepted structure.

This can be compared with the approach taken in the world of pop music. Now, pop bands of course are known to play covers, and to play music written by other people. But since the 70s at least, the preference has increasingly turned towards newness. Yes, there is still the existence of form (some might even say formula) - verses, choruses, bridges, and so on - and still generally a recognisable pattern depending on the genre (the guitar four-piece, for example), and indeed genre itself imposes certain requirements. But all this is rather loose. The emphasis is really on creativity and innovation; the way to win status and admiration is to create new songs, not just rework old ones.

This is epitomised by the Beatles, obviously, who spent their (strikingly short) careers continually reinventing what they were doing - always writing new songs and always pushing beyond new musical frontiers. They are hardly alone in having done that, it goes without saying, but it is sometimes worth reflecting on the world of difference there is between a song written at the start of Paul McCartney's career ('Love Me Do', say) with one seven years later at the end of the Beatles' run (such as 'Golden Slumbers'). Here, the personal expressiveness comes not in the interpretation of pre-existing works, but in the creation of new works themselves - and indeed in re-interpreting the boundaries of what is thought possible within existing musical forms.

DMing styles are a lot like this. One the one hand there are the Glenn Goulds of the world. These are the people who dedicate themselves to the perfect technical execution of a particular campaign type (the megadungeon perhaps being the most obvious) and use the formal structure provided to channel their own personal creativity and ideas. And on the other there are the Paul McCartneys, who are always endlessly seeking to do new things - with their creativity being given much freer reign within a greatly looser set of parameters, ranging across genres, campaign styles and modes of play. Both are, needless to say, equally valid, and so is everything in between. Which are you? Gould or McCartney? 

The Great North - Colour Art

Some little visual treats from Tom Killian's work on The Great North, with extracts of accompanying text, forthcoming via Kickstarter later this year:

North of the Red River the land empties itself. The Road runs lonely up the coast, under cold, sun-faded and windswept skies. Standing tall over the wilderness as they have since the days of the Emperor are two great castles, Dolorous Garde and the Place of the Keepers - though nowadays these fortresses do not so much protect the land as turn their backs on all that would disturb their quietude. There is little that would threaten to do so in the thin forests and grey seas around them. But the names of these places are spoken of in hushed rumours which bring travellers from distant places all the same. For once they were the heart of Imperial rule in the north, and this is still remembered. 

The burgh still harbours a war fleet, nominally owned by the Emperor and awaiting the return of imperial rule. These old ships - sleek, oared things built for ramming - are meticulously repaired and maintained, though of course over time they have grown fewer, and the ones that remain inevitably show their great age in the vast encrustations of barnacles on their hulls and in their constantly expanding patchworks of repairs. Each ship by convention is given only a number and not a name, but they are treated as demigods or saints by the inhabitants of the burgh, who recite tales and legends (whether fanciful or true, none can say) about them from their many centuries of service, and insist that their captains and crews know them to be sentient - capable of communicating strange needs and desires through the dreams of those on board, and able at times to control the winds so as to avoid danger or change course to some unknown place. Each ship has its cult, whose members offer it prayer and sacrifice, and ask it to intercede on their behalf with the forgotten imperial gods - or even the soul of the Emperor Himself - whenever they are anxious, joyous, or otherwise in need of blessings. Whenever a ship of the fleet leaves the harbour, the words goes out (‘The IVth is on its way’; ‘Is that the XIXth? The repairs must have been finished’) and the members of that particular cult flock to the quayside to throw flowers, shower it with ale, or dive into the water to swim alongside it. In those moments of passion and excitement in the morning sun, it is easy for the participants to forget that the fleet has had no apparent purpose for many generations, and the voyages of its ships are as lacking in wider meaning as the blowing of the wind or the falling of the rain.

If one were to go West from Killers’ Way and the narrow band of civility which runs up and down that stretch of the Great North Road, one would find the land rapidly becoming empty and wild: an unconquered swathe of dense woods, low resentful hills, and lakes and bogs of brown peaty water. A great Broceliande - indeed, the Great Broceliande - which has never tolerated settlement and will not yet. 
 
Beyond it, and the Teaming River which runs quick and frigid from distant mountains, lies the forest of the Hardwater, growing thick and green. It is ancient, as ancient as the hills of the Great North, but it is also young; it pulsates with life. Time there means nothing. A mere cycle of death, rebirth, and growth - always growth. 
 
The trees there are mighty. Most were already old when the Empire came, though its power never touched them. But a tree does not age like a man, becoming withered and bent and weak; it gets only stronger. The trees of the Hardwater tower over the things below, and spread their branches so high and wide that their canopy extends above the forest floor unbroken like a sky of green. 
 
Beneath this sky, animal life throngs. And so do nature’s spirits. Fauns, capering in forest glades. Ettercaps, patient and quiet in nests of silk. Dryads, the wives of the trees. Woodwoses, forest slavers and erstwhile rulers who would make all their chattels if they could. Green men, dreaming of the passing seasons in hidden lairs. 
 
And elves, the Hardwater’s rulers. Distant, cold, magnificent and murderous; kings, hunters, architects and artists. The Hardwater and everything in it is theirs, and they carry its power beyond their borders  wherever and whenever it suits them.
 
At the heart of the forest lies the Hardwater itself. A great deep lake resting flat like a mirror, reflecting a sky that is not green but the purest blue. Few humans have seen it, and fewer still have lived to tell the tale. It is said that its waters give everlasting life - but that once a person drinks from it, one can never tolerate any other substance passing one’s lips again.

As one moves inland from the coast through thick woodland one suddenly finds the ground rising up into a shelf of crumpled hills, where the trees give way to heather and thick grass and the merciless wind. This land of low peaks, open moors and deep narrow gorges is known as the Hill of Wolves, which is the name of its highest peak - although here ‘wolves’ refers as much to intelligent inhabitants as it does to canine animals. The entire region is infamous for its centaur reivers - clans of thieves, kidnappers and cattle-rustlers, who lair in thick-walled bastle-houses with their own beasts and descend upon more settled lands throughout the year for pillage and sport. Imperial rule never bore heavily on them, though the remnants of the attempts are scattered around the hills - the broken ruins of small forts which failed to suppress them, and temples which failed to find converts. The reivers were both too proud and too bloodthirsty for the Emperor’s civilisation. 
 
Alongside the reivers there lurk other wild and malevolent beings: ettins dwelling in dark caves, redcaps scheming from stone towers, and other things more powerful yet, luxuriating in the isolation of the hills. But it is also rumoured that, somewhere deep within the heart of this bleak wilderness, there lies a verdant valley of thick forest thronged with game, kept by the elves of the Hardwater for hunting, which no human eye is permitted to see and return to let the mouth speak of. 
 
A narrow trail, the Sixthstreet, timidly skirts this wilderness, heading north-by-north-west from the Great North Road. On it lie human settlements which have managed to achieve a modus vivendi, through force or cunning, with the dangers which overlook them from the hills to their west. The former of these approaches is embodied in Drummond’s Quarter, the fourth-of-a-town,  whose people are enslaved by the warrior castes who rule and defend them. The latter is embodied by Hrotha’s Town, built from the stuff of illusion and hidden from view of all potential enemies by the great wizard Hrotha himself. The people of the smaller villages around them flock to these burghs when danger threatens - or mirror their tactics in miniature. 

Is It Possible to Make the Hobbyist to Professional Transition?

The Kickstarter for Yoon-Suin 2nd edition is finally coming to full fruition with the imminent printing and distribution of physical copies. I thought this might be a useful opportunity to reflect on the exercise itself, in the hopes that anybody considering entering the world of RPG-product self-publication and distribution finds it useful. 

My primary goal in creating and releasing Yoon-Suin 2nd edition was to get Yoon-Suin back out there in print form (it used to be available POD from lulu, but they stopped producing books in its format), with updated content, new art, and also additional content. But like anybody, I nurse wild fantasies of giving up the day job and focusing my energies entirely on transforming my hobby into a living, and in the back of my mind I had the idea of using the exercise as a test run to see if I could do this.

Let's, then, do a little bit of a breakdown of the profit & loss statement on Yoon-Suin 2nd edition as a way of opening up for reflection the broader question of the viability of RPG self-publishing as a Way of Life. All of the figures I am using are rough ones, for illustrative purposes, and no doubt there are savings that could have been made here and there. But looking at them is useful all the same.

First, then, the figures.

The Kickstarter itself raised roughly £78,000. Of this, Kickstarter takes 5% in fees, a 3% payment processing fee, and then £0.30 per backer. That works out at about £7,000, which once you deduct Stripe fees and so forth leaves us just north of £70,000.

From this, I paid contributors (all artists, mostly working for a percentage of total revenue after KS fees, Alec-Guiness-in-Star-Wars style) about £23,000. That takes us down to £47,000.

The cost of printing, warehousing, VAT registration, etc., along with Backerkit fees (which I used for pledge management) takes us to roughly £17,000. That takes the leftover revenue to £30,000. The cost of shipping, distribution and so forth is itself is paid for by backers, so that's a wash. 

Now deduct 40% tax (I am in the UK's 'higher rate' for income tax) and what's left is £18,000. Deduct a nice bottle of whisky or two as reasonable expenses and it's £17,800 left over for, off and on, four or five years of work. 

So that's the accounting 'on the books' profit. What though is the economic profit? God knows how many hours I put into rewriting the original text, adding new material (around 100 pages), and laying it all out - I wrote much of the new material across the course of 2020-21 during evenings and weekends, and then spent an inordinate amount of time across 2022-2024 editing it, proofreading it, and doing layout. Then there are all the hours spent on the administration of the endeavour, responding to emails, dealing with fulfilment, and so on and so forth. I can only guess at the number of hours spent, but I would say something like, on average, between 1-2 hours every day for three years. So I would say around 1600-1700 hours - rather more than a full-time job per annum if you take into consideration holidays and leave. 

The figures would of course be different if I was doing this full time - I would pay less tax, for one thing, and no doubt could use my time more effectively and efficiently. And I should also say that I do make roughly £100-£150 a month in sales of my existing products to add on top. But what we are in effect saying is that I would have to produce a Yoon-Suin 2nd edition each year in order to make what is probably rather less than the minimum wage level (£12.21 per hour) - and only just a little bit more than a quarter of what my actual day job delivers.

Could I quit the day job and produce the equivalent of fourYoon-Suin 2nd editions a year in order to live in the manner to which I have become accustomed, support a family, and so on and so forth?

No, I couldn't. I could certainly produce more products - maybe one a year. I could market more effectively, which would increase revenue. And I could generate more income through a 'long tail' of a back catalogue. But I do not think I could keep myself and my family from the bread line doing this alone. I could make retirement more comfortable, say, when it comes to that. But I could not live off RPG bread alone.

There are people who can. They lie, however, at the extremes. They are dedicated, talented, disciplined risk takers who I greatly admire. For me: I will reconcile myself to the life of a dedicated hobbyist who keeps himself in beer. 

Authentic Tribal Warfare on Film, and What It Means

YouTube's algorithm knows me spookily well. I mostly use the site to watch whisky reviews and Rick Beato interviews (as well as reaction videos to Rick Beato interviews - don't judge me). And yet somehow it knew that my absolute visual highlight of the year would be a 12 minute long clip titled West Papua Tribal War (Original Footage 1964) - a film consisting of...well....tribal war in West Papua, shot in cinéma vérité style with no soundtrack and minimal narration - and that it should make this video pop up on the home screen this lunch time when I visited for my daily fix. 

I strongly recommend you watch this. I will even go so far as to embed it for you here, so you can simply click on it and appreciate what an astonishing piece of footage it is:

The clip is from a film called Dead Birds, which is apparently well known among ethnographers, though I had never heard of it before. (This is the cue for a hundred people to pop up in the comments demanding to know how it is possible to be so ignorant as to not know of its existence until now.) The director's description adds powerful, and poetic, context:

“Dead Birds is a film about the Dani*, a people dwelling in the Grand Valley of the Baliem high in the mountains of West Irian. When I shot the film in 1961, the Dani had an almost classic Neolithic culture. They were exceptional in the way they focussed their energies and based their values on an elaborate system of intertribal warfare and revenge. Neighboring groups of Dani clans, separated by uncultivated strips of no man's land, engaged in frequent formal battles. 

"When a warrior was killed in battle or died from a wound and even when a woman or a child lost their life in an enemy raid, the victors celebrated and the victims mourned. Because each death had to be avenged, the balance was continually being adjusted with the spirits of the aggrieved lifted and the ghosts of slain comrades satisfied as soon as a compensating enemy life was taken. There was no thought in the Dani world of wars ever ending, unless it rained or became dark. Without war there would be no way to satisfy the ghosts. Wars were also the best way they knew to keep a terrible harmony in a life which would be, without the strife they invented, mostly hard and dull. 

"'Dead Birds' has a meaning which is both immediate and allegorical. In the Dani language it refers to the weapons and ornaments recovered in battle. Its other more poetic meaning comes from the Dani belief that people, because they are like birds, must die. In making Dead Birds certain kinds of behavior were followed, never directed. It was an attempt to see people from within and to wonder, when the selected fragments of that life were assembled, if they might speak not only of the Dani but also of ourselves.”

Images like this are about as close as a modern Westerner can get to a glimpse of a fantasy world. When I say this, I do not intend for one moment to dehumanise or belittle the subjects of the film. But short of Mars, this is about as distant a place, both geographically, temporally and conceptually, as it is possible for us to go. These are human beings who are under pressures that are as different to ours as can be imagined - though of course we share the same, underlying human condition. What can we say about what is depicted in this footage of them?

The first thing is the obvious: war is hell, but some wars are more hellish than others. War for people in a 'classic Neolithic culture' looks dangerous, but also kind of exhilerating and fun. At first glance the director's observation that the Dani invented strife to distract them from the dullness of their lives seems gratuitous. But after watching the full clip, you can readily believe it. I've known men over the years who have been perfectly happy to admit that they like a good fight on a Friday or Saturday night and that it livens up their lives. And in this respect, indeed, the Dani do not appear to be so different - is this not the 'classic Neolithic culture' equivalent of a good old street barnie after an Old Firm game? 

The second: note how careful everybody is. Initially one is tempted to caricature the apparent timidity of the participants as just a bit of handbags at dawn. But then you recall that these people live in a world without modern medicine, antibiotics, or painkillers, and where surgery is performed with teeth. You'd be pretty damn cautious too if it was you. But this also contributes to the slightly ritualistic, performative nature of the proceedings. Despite hundreds of men apparently having fought each other for most of the day, off and on, nobody appears to have been killed, and only one man on each side badly wounded. This is more or less the exact opposite to how things would go if this was D&D combat.

The third: there is a thesis, advanced by Victor Davis Hanson in the book Carnage and Culture, that there is something specifically bloody about the 'Western' way of war, dating back to ancient Greece. The suggestion here is not that only Westerners wage bloody war. Rather, it is that a specific form of exceptionally murderous warfare emerged in the West, and was exported from there to the rest of the world afterwards. A big element of this would appear to revolve around the willingness to 'die in place' - to stand one's ground and risk being killed in the service of a tactical or strategic objective, and typically to ensure that one's comrades get to slaughter as many of the enemy as possible. The men in this footage do not have that willingness, entirely understandably (I refer you to point 2, above), and the result is something radically different in emphasis to what one might have seen at, say Waterloo. The men in the battle depicted here chiefly appear to want to survive without looking too cowardly. At Waterloo the aim was to win. This distinction matters.

The fourth and final: I was struck once again, watching this film, that the real world is impossibly richer and more interesting than any fantasy world could ever be. Any fantasy author or DM could dream up the concept of 'classic Neolithic culture'. But could they dream up this? And bear in mind that on West Papua (itself only half of the island of New Guinea) there are perhaps 700 different languages and tribal groupings, all with their own related but distinct cultures, beliefs, and traditional practices. No imagined world could ever hope to compete.