On Shadowrun

It's often said that good science fiction is about taking an idea that is initially preposterous and playing it straight. For this reason Shadowrun should really work. The idea is as preposterous as you can get and therefore, you would assume, has the potential to be genuinely interesting if taken seriously. (I don't mean being played seriously in-game; I just mean the actual setting itself.)

Unfortunately it always came across to me as being cartoonish and frivolous, as if the designers knew, in their hearts of hearts, that what they were coming up with was really rather silly indeed - or else a rather cynical attempt to gain popularity through combining two contemporaneous fads (epic fantasy and cyberpunk). Then again, my perception of the game may have been skewed by the gaming group I was in when I was 15 and Shadowrun was at the height of its popularity - the main raison d'etre for the group was actually smoking weed, if anything, which as well as robbing you of your ambition does not generally make for good gaming. (Don't do drugs, kids.)

I think the most interesting take on Shadowrun would be to make it more fairy-tale and supernatural. It's the future, we all have BlackBerrys in our heads and submachineguns which fire cyanide-tipped bullets and the Chinese and Brazilians have taken over the world, and yet at the same time...there are fucking elves around. And not your D&D "Legolas from the LOTR films" elves - your actual sidhe of myth and legend, who steal babies in the night and replace them with changelings, who trick you of your money and sanity just for laughs, or spirit you away for what seems like hours but actually turns out to be years. Or redcaps who lurk in dark alleys waiting to let your blood so they can dye their hats. Or Gibson-esque Voodou Loa who gain actual spiritual form from the worship of their immigrant followers. Or Wiccan gangsters who use magick.

The key to all this would be the interplay between the fairy and the technological, and the failure of high-tech to deal with the fact that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. You know like how, in a cyberpunk game, the black ops wing of a sinister corporation could hack into your personal emails to find out your movements, or wait for you to come online and then fry your brain with hunter-killer software? Well, what would they do if you never came online because you use magick to communicate with your cronies? Wouldn't that sinister corporation want magick users itself?

Played straight, it works, see?

Microscope Dungeon Creation

For people who mostly play "trad" games, the immediately obvious use for Microscope is to spend a session or three creating a setting and history, both GM and players together, and then using that setting as the backdrop for 'ordinary' games of D&D, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulu, or whatever. This sort of thing is apparently already going on, all over the place, and lends itself to 'troupe play' with rotating GM-ships and adventuring parties, a la Ars Magica.

Now I learn that it's being taken a step further and people are creating dungeon histories using Microscope. To which I can only say, "Cool, or what?" ("What" is the wrong answer. "Cool" is the correct one.) I wouldn't want to do it all the time, because let's face it, discovering the history of a dungeon (that the DM has come up with by himself, in a darkened room) is part of the joy of dungeoneering Old School Style. But certainly I think there's room for it in the kind of 'troupe play' I mentioned above. This would see the dungeon as being, basically, a shared world, which people could GM and run games in on a casual basis.

The USP, of course, is that you know the broad sweep of the dungeon's history, so you could have different adventuring parties exploring it at different points in the timeline. You could even have groups of adventurers discovering things the aftermath of previous forays by other adventuring groups from decades or centuries earlier. To which I also can only say, "Cool, or what?"

Shadows of the Iron Sorcery

Being a bit of a contrarian, I'm starting to think about what's become the red-headed stepchild of D&D in recent years (at least, as far as I'm concerned): 3rd edition. It's been left behind by the OSR, by Wizards of the Coast, and by most of the remaining fanbase (who all now seem to play Pathfinder), and it now feels like a somewhat forlorn and desperate figure at the fringes of the D&D pantheon. We won't talk about 2nd edition, which is even worse off, but at least that has the saving grace of partially coming under the OSR umbrella - if only due to compatibility issues.

I didn't like 3rd edition when I came across it, which was years after it came out (there was probably a 10 year period in my life where I didn't play RPGs at all), and d20 always struck me as a bland and quite irksome way of running a game. D&D never had a really sensible or coherent set of rules, let alone an elegant one, and shorn of D&D there was just no point in using the system whatsoever when so many others were available. I played in a d20 Modern campaign fairly recently and loathed that particualr iteration in particular.("You get hit by a 7.62mm round. Lose 12 hit points!")

But I have a vague hankering to run a more Sword & Sorcery, Shadows of the Colossus-tinged affair, in which the PCs go around taking on mighty mythical beings, horrible ancient demons, and gargantuan Things That Should Not Be (something I've written on in the past) in a Fantastical Post-Apocalyptic World Populated With All Sorts of Menaces^TM, and I've got something of an idea that Iron Heroes is the way to go with that.

The more I read about Iron Heroes, indeed, the more I start to like the thought. Listen, I love tactical combat in a wargame setting, so why not in an RPG? I like the notion of taking magic out of the hands of the players. Something about starting off the PCs as relative "bad-asses" also appeals to me, since almost all my games start off with the opposite approach. And above all, there's something almost perverse about playing Iron Heroes in this day and age, given that it's sort-of proto-4e-while-retaining-elements-of-the-worst-edition-ever, which is what I really like about the idea.

Sentient Doors

"NEEDS YOU," intoned the door abruptly, in a precise, hollow voice: "NEEDS YOU, BAA, BAA, BAA. OURUBUNDOS — "

The gathered Northmen dropped their spades. Many of them made religious signs with their fingers. Eyes round, they clutched their weapons, breathing through their open mouths.

"DOG MOON, DOG YEARS," moaned the door: "BAA, BAA, BAA."

And to each ritualistic syllable, Tomb made a suitable reply. Their dialogue lasted for some minutes before silence descended and he began again the process of moving his hands across the ancient script.

"GOLEBOG!" screamed the door.

A brief, intense flare of white light obscured the Dwarf. He staggered out of it, beating at his clothes. He chuckled. His hair reeked, his leggings smouldered. He blew on his fingers. "The door mechanism has become insane over the years," he said. "It — " Here, he said a word that no one knew " — me, but I misled it. Look."

...As Cromis entered the bunker, the door whispered malevolently to him, but it left him alone...

- M. John Harrison, The Pastel City.

Sentient doors in ancient dungeons often go mad, having long ago forgotten their original purpose, or failed to perform it for so long that they have become confused. Each time a group of PCs comes across a sentient door, randomly generate how it reacts by rolling a d12 and consulting the following table:

1. The door whispers vague threats about what lies ahead. This has a 10% chance of being accurate.
2. The door hisses "I'm behind you" after being passed through.
3. The door shuts itself 10 seconds after being opened, regardless of who or what is standing in its way. It causes d4 damage.
4. The door shouts incoherent gibberish if disturbed (i.e. touched).
5. The door announces that it is offended by the presence of intruders, and has to be begged and cajoled to open.
6. The door makes a very human weeping sound as the PCs approach, and begs them not to open it. There are no consequences if they do so.
7. The door is apparently friendly and offers information about who has opened it recently. 10% of the time the information given is accurate.
8. As above, but there is a 90% chance of the information being accurate. However, the door will also tell the next set of passers-by about the PCs.
9. The door makes a loud, horrible wailing sound when opened, and doesn't shut up.
10. The door can be opened, but the next time the PCs come this way, it will refuse to do so.
11. The door sucks magical energy. There is a 50% chance that each passing magic-user will forget a randomly-determined spell.
12. The door offers in a loud voice to answer three questions about the dungeon. Its answers are absolutely truthful about the state of play as the door understands it, i.e. 3000 years ago.

Potential Dungeon Hazards

Here is a list of various hazards I'd like to include for D&D dungeoneering:

• Magical wall paintings. These would be akin to those found in the Chauvet Cave and other neolithic subterranean labyrinths, but rather than merely being paintings they would come alive as intruders walked by.
• Some system for, basically, randomly discovering whether the party become the target of dungeon muggers. If an adventuring party went away somewhere, came back with lots of treasures, then went off somewhere again and came back with lots of treasure again... Wouldn't opportunists begin to notice this? And, like, follow them, and lie in ambush waiting for them to emerge from the dungeon and then rob them of all their gains? I want to think up a system for determining the likelihood of this, the type of muggers encountered, and so on. Likewise, I think any DM worth his salt has used the "somebody notices that suddenly those impoverished adventurers have lots of cash" motif to annoy his players, but I'd like to think up a system for determining how frequently this occurs, who notices, etc.
• Build-ups of hazardous gases from mining operations of dwarves, orcs, and the like. Hydrogen sulphide, carbon monoxide, you name it. PCs would have to be able to smell the gas, of course, before it just killed them randomly, but whether they knew what the smell meant would be based on their own research (or lack of it).
• A quasi-runic magic system, like you get in many roguelike games, like Angband, allowing magic-using monsters (and PCs) to learn how to scrawl runes on the floor or wall of the dungeon to ward off good or evil, explode, cause a collapse, summon a monster when stepped on, etc. 
• Subterranean lakes... of acid!!!

The Table is Creative

P., my Apocalypse World MC and regular in my CP:2020 game, came up with a great idea on his blog: take the "Isle of the Unknown" hexmap, write down a list of all the hex numbers, use the list randomiser at random.org to scramble them, then past the random list back into the original. Suddenly all the hexes are randomly "paired" and connected:

This forms a list of connections between every hex in the map. For instance, in my first attempt I found the B-Located cleric in hex 0114 is connected to the crystal statue in 1709. Maybe that's where he got his bi location power? The statue used to be a person whose soul was taken by the poisonous giant woodpecker in hex 2410. The woodpecker is connected to the weird island in 2415. Is that where it lost it's original soul? Is it still waiting for it to re-appear?

The only problem, according to P., is that:

[T]his pretty locks down the whole island from the beginning. I prefer it when things are generated randomly at the table. It provokes a more interesting state of mind. But to do that I need a dice method that can randomise 343 hexes.

But one of my other players, N., had a solution. Put all the hex numbers into 7x7 tables. Roll 3d8: the first d8 gives you the table, the second gives you the row, the third gives you the column (re-roll 8s). Hey presto! The hex you are in is connected to the numbered hex you just generated.

Instant-random-hex-connection-generator: sorted.

"Doing" Vance

I came across a link to this Forge thread while on my ramblings through Google reader this morning. Long story short, it's a a game designer who I respect (Vincent Baker) saying a lot of weird things, and then a whole load of very very pretentious people literally talking gobbledegook. But! It contains an interesting line (to me, anyway):

Then I remembered how much I love Vance, of course, and how much I'd enjoy trying to channel him, and just how much fun his ironic, cynical relativism is. So now it's great.

And it got me thinking about games that set out to "do" Jack Vance. It turns out, from a little bit of Googling, that not only is there already a Dying Earth RPG, it was written by no less than Robin D. Laws and John Snead, two of the least Cugel-like people in the entire world. Curiouser and curiouser!

I'm just perusing the quick start rules on my lunch break. No time for an in-depth analysis now, but suffice to say there's stuff in here that's likeable (spell titles like "The Astonishing Oral Projection"). I'm a bit more dubious about this:

In [this] game we're not always rooting unreservedly for the characters to succeed. They are often selfish, greedy or overconfident... What matters is not victory or defeat, but how well the story entertains us... We reward you, the player, for making the game entertaining.

It might just be my nautral prejudices, but when I read stuff like that it sets alarm bells ringing: there's nothing less entertaining than people trying too hard to be entertaining. If I was designing a Dying Earth RPG my main focus would be on getting the players to be interested in self-advancement and self-aggrandization, rather than on being entertaining - which, it strikes me, is more of a by-product.

But we'll see. I might be tempted to make a purchase all the same.

Uncle Andrew's Bestiary

So, I think when I'm coming up with my next campaign I'll be using an idea I'm christening "Uncle Andrew's Bestiary", after the character from The Magician's Nephew and inspired by this post. An Uncle Andrew's Bestiary is, in essence, a volume which the DM gives to the players at the start of the game as a piece of realia, which pupports to be a catalogue of monsters that might be encountered in the adventuring environment. Example versions of Uncle Andrew's Bestiaries are:

• A volume inherited by one or more of the players from an adventuring uncle.
• An ancient book found in the dark corner of a library.
• An old hard disc from an abandoned space wreck.
• The log or diary of an explorer in a museum.

The point of an Uncle Andrew's Bestiary is that it should give out enough information to get the players interested, but not enough that it prevents them from wildly speculating and becoming worried. Of course, as a piece of realia, there are no stats, and the conceit - that this is actually a written account of a real person - rests on the assumption that the author did not get close enough to the creatures he wrote about to be attacked/killed by them. This means that their abilities will remain mysterious and unquantified for the players until there is an actual encounter.

Some example entries from an Uncle Andrew's Bestiary:

• "In the tunnels under the mountain lived a horrid, gaunt, grey creature, like a thing that had tried to become human but failed."
• "There were many eyes glimmering in the dark, and the impression of a huge writing body mass; I fled back the surface."
• "Something like a large feathered frog, with a maw of razor-sharp teeth and long legs made as if for jumping great distances. The jungle people told me not to go near."
• "It had a long body like a snake, but transluscent; inside I could see what I think were human bodies. Its head was like a man but with a loose, open jaw. The locals called it an Apotavee and told me it appeared once a year."

And so on. An optional extra would be to draw sketches to accompany the entries, to give it a Travels of Marco Polo sort of vibe.

But the Dogs, Well They're Only Dogs

Having just read this piece, in which a modern-day war-dog (a Belgian Malinois) plays a starring role, I got to thinking about dogs in RPGs. As any old schooler knows, dogs are indispensable to an adventurer - especially to magic-users. They give muscle, an extra set of eyes, an extra nose, and, if push comes to shove, meat. Forget hirelings. No 1st level character should ever leave home without a dog or three.

They're also historically accurate. Real-world D and D parties - for instance, bandeirantes and conquistadors - were constantly surrounded by dogs and pigs wherever they went. Dogs were used for hunting and fighting (the conquistadors used armoured mastiffs specially trained to disembowel their semi-naked native American adversaries), and pigs were slaughtered for food (it is believed that escapee pigs were one of the major disease spreaders in native populaces). It would be extremely unusual for a group of roguish adventurers in a fantasy world to venture out into the wilds without a pack of hounds.

I've always been fond of the AD&D 2nd Edition DMG's 'Horse Personality' table, which allowed you to randomly determine a set of traits for any given horse (from being a good jumper to being a notorious biter). So without further ado, here's the equivalent for a conquistador's best friend:

Dog Personality Table

A dog will have d2 traits, randomly determined from the following table (roll 1d12); if the dog is expensive (+10% cost), add +1 to the roll, and if it is particularly expensive (+25% cost), add +2 to the roll; corresponding negative penalties should be applied to the roll for cheap and particularly cheap dogs respectively.

-2: The dog is extremely bad tempered. It will attack anybody except for the owner who approaches within 5 feet.
-1: The dog has only three legs. It moves at half rate.
0: The dog is very bad tempered. There is a 25% chance it will attack anybody except for the owner who approaches within 5 feet.
1: The dog is a coward. Before a fight it has to check morale (10) or it will cower behind its owner.
2: The dog is stupid. It cannot be trained to do anything, though it will attack enemies of its owner and is generally docile otherwise.
3: The dog has an unfortunate body odour that doesn't seem to go away. The stench can be detected within 15 yards.
4: The dog is easily distracted. It will try to chase anything fast-moving that it sees.
5: The dog is a nipper. Anybody except the owner who tries to touch it will be bitten (roll for attack as normal; damage is 1 hp).
6: The dog has a strange taste for a certain type of food (player's choice). It will try, remorselessly, to eat this food if it ever comes across it.
7: The dog is greedy. It will eat uncontrollably at any chance it gets, and if it kills an opponent will stop to feed rather than continue the fight.
8: The dog is very intelligent. It can pick up new tricks very easily (+3 bonus to Animal Training proficiency checks).
9: The dog is very tough (maximum hit points).
10: The dog is very fast (+2 to initiative rolls).
11: The dog seems to be a very good judge of character (will growl at any evil human it comes across).
12: The dog is extremely brave and loyal (always passes morale checks).
13: The dog has animal perception (can see invisible things on a 25% chance).
14: The dog is immensely powerful (+4 damage)

Uniqueizing Your Campaign

Random Name Generators like the Forge are a very underused resource when it comes to giving a unique flavour to a campaign. I'm not talking about randomly generated names of places and NPCs, which I suppose are the most obvious usages but also the least interesting. No, I'm talking about the things which for some reason most DMs seem to see as sacrosanct - names of spells and monsters.

I'm not even talking about using a random name generator to create entirely new spells and creatures (which is a worthwhile though time consuming pursuit; I just generated the spell name Nassim's Monstrous Drinker, which if I had the time I would write up right here and now). I'm just talking about putting a spin on the tired old standards. I mean, how much more interesting would it be if, instead of discovering a spellbook containing boring old Magic Missile, your mage PC instead found something called Shatter Enemy, Ayz's Silt Flame, or the unbeatable Rage Sadism? The effect changes not a jot - Rage Sadism would be just Magic Missile masquerading under a cooler name - but the feel and flavour is totally different.

Similarly, imagine a campaign in which goblins are not called goblins, but "Obsidian Monkeys", trolls are "Frozen Minotaurs", orcs are "Rash Ghouls" and worgs are "Crystal Howler Locusts". Suddenly the flavour is totally different, and you haven't even had to change a single stat; all you've done is filed off the name and replaced it with another. There is no easier and lazier way of coming up with something different.

The Circle of Life

Back in the early days of this blog, I wrote two posts on random events at weddings and funerals. Here's one for births. It can be used at any time an NPC (or PC!) has a baby and the DM is casting about for an adventure hook. On the day of labour, roll a d20 and consult the following table.

1 - The baby has red eyes and clammy skin, and does not smile. There's really something not quite right about it...
2-5 - The baby is terribly weak. The midwife believes it will only survive if it can be given a regular supply of a certain herb, which is only found high up in the nearby mountains.
6-10 - The baby disappears from its cot the following night, despite being in the same room as its parents.
11-13 - Judging by its appearance, the baby is quite clearly not the "father"'s. He's the only one who apparently hasn't realised this.
14-16 - The mother becomes convinced over the following few days that her baby has been replaced by a changeling (this can be true or false: DM's choice).
17-18 - Whenever the baby is in the room, small objects seem to move of their own accord.
19 - Sometimes, when the baby is asleep, a dark and ethereal figure can be seen lurking in a corner. It disappears almost as soon as it is noticed.
20 - The baby has a pair of wings.

Power is a disease one has no desire to be cured of

As a rule, I'm not a fan of vampires. The whole idea never captured my imagination even as a child, and ever since Anne Rice and Vampire: The Masquerade the things have had this awful veneer of supposed 'coolness' and a geek cache that I loathe so much I can't adequately put it into words. Skinny bisexual spoiled rich kids are not cool - they're ANNOYING.

But I like the idea of politican-as-vampire, and I think that White Wolf missed a trick in going down the teenagers-and-ennui route. (Financially they didn't miss a trick, but in noisms' Ranking of Good Games they certainly did, and we all know which of those is the more important.) I really think there's great potential for a game about vampires in the Corridors of Power, whether in Westminster, Capitol Hill, the Diet, or whatever country you prefer. I say this mainly because vampires and politicians are practically indistinguishable from one another, but also because I just saw the film Il Divo, the story of Giulio Andreotti, three-time Italian Prime Minister, who happened to bear a striking resemblance to Count Orlok of Nosferatu fame - both in looks and personality. This then reminded me of Michael Howard, one time Home Secretary in one of Margeret Thatcher's cabinets, who famously resembles a vampire, not least in having Romanian ancestry. (Anne Widdecombe once offhandedly remarked that "there is something of the night about him" - one of the most notorious comments a British politician has ever made about another.)


I think some political systems would be more amenable to this sort of game. The Japanese Diet, and the Italian Parliament, with their well known ties to organised crime, would be the easiest to envisage being populated by vampires. The more open British and American systems, with their intense media scrutiny, perhaps not so much. (Although trying to maintain a blood habit while avoiding the prying noses of journalists could be a great game in and of itself.) Play could revolve around all kinds of corruption and derring-do - from assassination of rivals to bribery to tabloid indiscretion. I think I'd be more inclined to use a diceless system to run it, though - maybe Amber (if I ever get around to properly reading it) or Nobilis.

Or perhaps Risus...

Abracadabra, Hocus Pocus and Alakazam

The Sorcery! line of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks is one of the great overlooked masterpieces of pulp fantasy. Yes, I'm serious. If you've never read them, or have some sort of misguided prejudice against gamebooks, I'd say you need to do some serious thinking about your life and the way it's going.

Anyway, one of my favourite aspects of Sorcery! is that in order to cast spells, the player is forced to memorise certain code words. As with most aspects of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, this is achieved through a strict honour system which naturally nobody ever follows; if you play by the rules you're not allowed to look up the code word when trying to cast a spell, and instead have to guess or recall from memory. The code words are simple (zed, mib, hig, that sort of thing) so it isn't a particularly onerous task, but when you guess wrong and cast a completely inappropriate spell it injects a dose of light-hearted weirdness that I used to really appreciate. (Of course, I would usually then go back to the previous entry and guess again until I got the right phrase.)

I've sometimes thought about introducing some sort of system of magic words for D&D spells, so that instead of Vanican spellcasting a wizard can cast any spell according to his experience level - provided the player can get the word right without looking. Of course, for every new magic user character you'd have to randomly generate new words, in order to prevent it from being too easy. And you would only allow the player about a minute to try to memorize all the different code words. There would also have to be a system of random effects if a mistake were made. People being turned into frogs and the like.

I can't quite decide whether this would be inspired genius, amusing distraction, or idiotic annoyance and mood spoiler. Probably the latter.

More Extracts from My Game Idea Grimoire

A while ago I posted list of ideas for games I'll never get the chance to run. Here's some more entries from noisms' Gargantuan Tome of Unfulfilled Gaming Desires:

Catalogue 16a, book XVII, chapter 9, subsection IV, no. 163: A time-travelling game, probably using GURPS, in which a future civilisation creates time travel, goes back in time and contacts people from ancient Sumer, but is then destroyed by nuclear war. The player characters are ancient Sumerians who subsequently come across the gate that leads them to the future, which they travel through and discover a world without humans but all kinds of futuristic technology. And aliens. And radiation.

Catalogue 34j, book X, chapter 83, subsection I, no. 18: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e - Characters from the Old World travel off on a voyage of exploration and end up being shipwrecked and washed up in Cathay.

Catalogue 29a, book II, chapter 11, subsection X, no. 4: D&D Animal Fantasy a la Redwall, but rather than mice and otters and badgers and the like, the major races are all based on varieties of insects and spiders. Locust Bard, anybody? Tarantula Fighter? Wasp Mage? No takers?

Catalogue 2k, book LXV, chapter 1, subsection XX, no. 38: A forge-style, indie, story-games.com, you-only-play-about-three-times-before-it-gets-samey-and-boring style game set in the Stalinist USSR. Basically a variant on wink-murder or the Prisoner's Dilemma, the characters pass notes to the DM every five minutes saying which other player they want to denounce to the KGB and have sent to the Gulag. But the denounced players can save themselves by correctly guessing which other player dobbed them in. Works better if you also have to drink a shot of vodka every time you get sent to the Gulag.

Catalogue 6w, book C, chapter 91, subsection V, no. 20: The PCs are Russian adventurer/explorers in the vein of Yermak Timofeyevich, participating in the conquest of Siberia. A bit like the Wild West (so I'd use the Deadlands rules), except with Tatar raids, crumbling remnants of the Mongol Empire, lots of snow, and China, rather than California, waiting on the other side.

Blake in the Dungeon (I)

A while ago I wrote two articles about Jorge Luis Borges and D&D. Another of my favourite weird writers is William Blake, whose insanity-fuelled visions seem perfect for a more 'fantastical' or horror-oriented campaign.

Here's an idea.

Blake, for the only time in his life, saw a ghost... Standing one evening at his garden-door in Lambeth, and chancing to look up, he saw a horrible grim figure, 'scaly, speckled, very awful,' stalking downstairs towards him. More frightened than ever before or after, he took to his heels, and ran out of the house.
- Alexander Gilchrist

The flea communicated to Mr. Blake what passed, as related to himself, at the Creation. 'It was first intended,' said he (the flea) 'to make me as big as a bullock; but then when it was considered from my construction, so armed—and so powerful withal, that in proportion to my bulk, (mischievous as I now am) that I should have been a too mighty destroy; it was determined to make me—no bigger than I am.'
- From Blake's Obituary

Fleas are inhabited by the souls of such men as were by nature blood thirsty to excess.
- William Blake

The Ghost of a Flea

The Ghost of a Flea is the spirit of a parasitic louse made into man-shaped flesh. Thoroughly insane and thirsting only for blood, its origin is unknown. It pursues its goals with the single-minded obsession of an insect. However, its behaviour sometimes hints at a horrible and higher intelligence.

The Ghost of a Flea must be called into a given reality by a mage of 8th level or higher, through the use of a Summon the Ghost of a Flea spell. The summoning involves the drawing of a circle of iron filings and the sketching in those filings of certain astrological symbols; the casting takes four hours. When finally the spell is complete, the Ghost of a Flea steps into the circle as if moving from behind a dark curtain. If there has been any error in the casting of the spell (INT check), the Ghost will immediately attack the caster. Otherwise, the spellcaster is safe, and the Ghost can be communicated with.

The Ghost of a Flea wants nothing else other than to leave its circle of summoning and find something on which to feed. A cunning spellcaster can strike a bargain to lead the Ghost to sources of blood in return for information; there is a 33% chance that the Ghost will know the answer to any question that it is asked. Any number of questions can be asked. However, the Ghost will always insist on one clause to any bargain it enters into: that it must be given living blood within one hour of being asked the first question put to it, otherwise it will devour the questioner. Nobody knows from where the Ghost gains its knowledge, though it is believed that it comes from the Devil himself.

Once the bargain has been fulfilled the Ghost of a Flea returns to wherever it came.

The Ghost is seven feet tall and massively built, with huge cord-like muscles under the surface of its black-gold skin. Golden lidless eyes stare out of its face. Its features are crude and misshapen, and its tongue is long like that of a dog; it lolls out of its mouth at all times. The Ghost's fingers are long, thin, and clawed.

The Ghost of a Flea

Intelligence: Average (8-10)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
AC: 0
Movement: 15 (Jump 30)
HD: 14
THAC0: 6
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1-12/1-12 (fists), 1-20 (bite)
Special Attacks: If the Ghost of a Flea hits with both its fists, it has grabbed its opponent and its bite will hit automatically for maxiumum damage; alternatively it can throw its opponent 15 feet in a random direction, causing 1-10 points of damage and stunning the target for d6 rounds. It can also perform a leap attack, jumping 30 yards and striking with both fists for double damage (though without the bite attack).
Special Defences: Can be hit only by enchanted or cold iron weapons.
Morale: Fearless (20)
Other: As soon as it has made a kill, the Ghost of a Flea will attempt to make off with the body in order to consume it in peace. It can carry any weight without encumbrance penalty.

The Rod of Seven Parts and Quintessential Campaigns

A while ago on rpg.net, there was a thread about something.

Amazing, I know.

Anyway, whenever it was and whatever the thread was about, at some point somebody (who I think may have been Brian, of Trollsmyth fame), brought up the idea of a Quintessential Campaign for each edition of D&D. It would contain all that was best and all that was special about that particular iteration of the most popular rpg, and would span all the experience levels available.

Since the best thing about 2e was the settings, it was decided, the Quintessential 2e Campaign would involve an attempt to find and assemble each piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, with every segment found in a different campaign world. Thus the first might be found somewhere in Greyhawk, the second in Waterdeep, the third in Zakhara, the fourth in Oerth, the fifth in Krynn (shudder) and so on. Once the rod had been assembled there would be some kind of final mission, preferably involving spelljammer ships and the outer planes.

I thought that was a capital idea, even if I disagree that the best thing about 2e was the settings. (They were one of the great things about it, but not the best thing.) It quickly became one of those Campaigns That Must Be Run in my mind, but the sheer epic scale of the thing is pretty galling and eventually I put it to the back of my mind and forgot about it.

Well, it resurfaced yesterday while I was flipping through a pdf of an Al Qadim sourcebook. God, 2e had some great settings. As a general rule I'm the type of person who wants to create their own worlds than play in somebody else's sandbox, but who can resist the magic and mystery of an Al Qadim, a Dark Sun, or a Spelljammer? (Let's forget about Dragonlance for a moment.) The sheer force and potency of creativity in those settings is heady stuff, and the creators are never given enough credit.

I doubt I'll ever have time to run the Grand Rod of Seven Parts Campaign, much less the interested players. It's another one for the grimoire, I suppose. But that doesn't stop me thinking about it.

I'd start with Al Qadim, and Zakhari characters. The contrariness of that, rather than going for Greyhawk, or Forgotten Realms, or Dragonlance, has a certain appeal. The campaign would have to encompass Dark Sun, of course, preferably when the PCs were at a lower level - seeing how they dealt with the sheer meanness of the place would be an interesting adventure in and of itself. Then the action could swing through Oerth and Ravenloft, before progressing to Greyhawk and then, to the phlogiston, and the Abyss... Ah, the possibilities, unable to be realised. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Yak Folk

I never was a big fan of D&D 3.x. But there were some gems (well hidden) in and amongst its sourcebooks. Here's one, kitted out for use with BECMI:

Yak Folk

In the high plateaus of Bhauta live the Yak Folk, a race of nomadic slave-owners whose utter indifference to other forms of life is easily mistaken for malice. They move around their mountain realm in clan groups numbering in the several dozen, herding both their yaks (who they view as their children) and their humans (who are seen as equal in status to all non-yak animals). Twice a year - once in spring when the snows begin to thaw, and again in autumn before the heavy snowfalls - they perform elaborate rituals before setting off to raid the valleys and foothills for more slaves. Life as one of their chattels is brutally tough, but the Yak Folk are generally sensible enough not to allow their slaves to die unnecessarily.

Yak Folk adults stand considerably larger than a man (6-7' for a female, up to 8' for a male), and they are covered in shaggy black fur. They are extremely vain, and enjoy elaborate, decorous clothing, especially dyed in yellows, reds and purples, and they usually adorn their horns with expensive silk tassels and scarves. The materials for clothing are often stolen on slave raids, where the Yak Folk take great care to select only the very best and most expensive looking goods.

Yak Folk are equally powerful in magic and combat. In a fight they wield short, heavy scimitars and kukri knives, and can also gore with their horns (although they view this vulgarity as a last resort). They prefer illusory spells which confuse and befuddle their opposition, and often employ such tactics to subdue an enemy; opponents are usually worth more alive as slaves than they are dead.

Armour Class: 3
Hit Dice: 5
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 2 scimitar/1 horns or 2 kukri/1 horns
Damage: d8+4/d8+4/2d6 or d4+4/d4+4/2d6
No. App: 3d4 (raid), 6d6 (clan group)
Save As: Cleric 8
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: E
Intelligence: 14
Alignment: Chaotic

Special Abilities:

Each Yak Folk encountered also functions as a magic user (Wokan) of level 4, except for one of their number, who will be a level 6 Wokan.

Once per day, three Yak Folk can perform a ritual to call 2d4 Lesser Djinni to their aid. The ritual takes two rounds, during which the Yak Folk cannot be disturbed. Any summoned Djinni serve for the length of the combat before returning to the elemental plane of air.

I am the Law

Among my many faults, I am something of a scholar of International Law. (At least, I'm working on a PhD entitled "A new conceptual framework for state-minority relations in the United Nations' human rights monitoring system" - which entitles me to call myself a 'scholar' but which also makes me a hugely pretentious ass.) So naturally enough, in my idle moments my thoughts sometimes drift towards the idea of legal systems being incorporated into fantasy role playing settings. Of course - and I know this to be true, with every bone in my body - such an idea cannot be anything but a recipe for disaster - because what player would ever want to have anything to do with such a setting? Who wants to worry about the law, when you're supposed to be having fun?

Nevertheless, I'm toying with the idea once again. Here are some unfocused ramblings regarding legal systems in fantasy rpg settings. Enjoy.

What interests me, as a legal theorist more than a practitioner, is how a legal system would develop in a typical bog-standard fantasy setting, in which elves, dwarves, humans, hobbits, half-orcs, giants and dragons intermingle in a haphazard way. What would govern the relations of the wildly different races? What self respecting dwarf would abide by judicial decisions made by an elf?

In Early Germanic Law, a similar problem (how to deal with the patchwork of wildly different cultures found through the Holy Roman Empire) was circumnavigated by treating every man in accordance with the laws of his own people. Even if a Frank and a Burgundian committed identical crimes, their treatment would vary according to their specific 'racial' law. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a similar system existing in a fantasy state in which elves, dwarves, humans and halflings lived side by side. What follows is a dreamt-up overview of a set of legal systems for a place called Sachsenpiegel, which I've just made up. It is an ordinary bog-standard fantasy kingdom in which the population is equally divided between humans, elves, dwarves and hobbits.

Human Law

Because humans are the least well educated of the four races in Sachsenspiegel and most of them are illiterate, their law is also the least codified and it relies heavily on custom and precedent. It is enforced by traveling judges, who move from town to town and village to village, hearing complaints and making decisions according to their own analysis, and according to precedent set in similar cases which they have heard about and memorised. They enforce their own decisions, and they are usually very powerful wizards or clerics who are strong enough to carry out required punishments, whatever form they take. Once a year every judge in Sachsenspiegel gets together at a great moot, where they exchange experiences, ideas and judgements.

Dwarf Law

Dwarfish Law is based on the concept of the 'Maegth' - everything is regulated by laws of kinship, and everyone within an extended clan is responsible for everybody else. If a member of a clan has committed a crime, all the members of his clan pay restitution and accept punishment. Likewise, if a crime is committed against a member of a clan, all the other members get together to demand (or enact) retribution. This system can result in very harmonious relations if clans are prepared to keep their members in line. But it can quickly spiral into tit-for-tat blood feuds spanning generations if justice is not perceived to have been done in a particular case.

Elven Law

Elven law consists of a set of simple guidelines for behaviour, based heavily on the concept of harmony. Because elves consider each other basically trustworthy and incapable of intentionally committing a crime, any transgression is viewed as having been accidental and repentance and forgiveness are expected on the part of the transgressor and victim respectively. Punishment is only enacted for refusal to repent or refusal to forgive; refusal to repent can result in anything from a fine to ostracism, whereas refusal to forgive generally results in milder sentences.

Hobbit Law

Hobbit Law is molded by the character of hobbits themselves. The little people like nothing better than poring over books, holding long and intricate discussions, and taking their time mulling over decisions. This makes hobbit law highly codified, extremely arcane, and almost inexplicable to outsiders. Trials typically last for months or even years except in the most clear cut cases, as the two parties, their representatives, and the judges argue the cases and discuss fine (extremely fine) details. Often the two parties (transgressor and victim) will compare notes and ideas very civilly over the existing statutes, precedents and records and what they all mean, and will reach a mutually acceptable decision together with the judges. Clouds of pipe smoke and the the thick smell of beer accompany almost all hobbit legal proceedings.

Interaction of the different systems

In the case of a crime in which the transgressor and victim are of different races, the guilty party is tried in accordance with their own law. This often results in problems, particularly in cases in which an elf 'accidentally' commits a crime against a human or dwarf - as people of those races are unlikely to accept the route of forgiveness.

Such cases are resolved by a council of eight legal elders - two from each of the races, appointed by their respective communities. Together they hash out decisions regarding inter-racial crimes, and generally speaking their decisions are abided by. In the case of further argument, both parties to a case have recourse to the king, whose decision is final.

Random Encounters with Military Units in a Feudal Japanese Setting

I was flicking through the mass battle guidelines in the Rules Cyclopedia this morning, and was struck by inspiration. I quickly cobbled together this random encounter generator for feudal Japanese military units.

Random Encounter Generator for Feudal Japan-inspired Settings

For large swathes of its history Japan was riven by internecine warfare, notably the periods of ‘feudal anarchy’ in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During those years the feudal lords (Daimyo) kept large standing armies which were constantly on the move throughout the country. It stands to reason that adventurers traveling in such a setting would have a relatively high chance of stumbling across one or more military units. This is a system for generating random encounters with such units.

The results will generate encounters with units varying in size from 11 individuals to 10,000 soldiers. Larger armies will include scouts, usually mounted, so DMs should take their existence into consideration when such an encounter is rolled.

Table 1 assumes that the DM wishes for a completely random encounter. Obviously the result should be chosen non-randomly if that would serve the game better.

The first step is to determine the force's general mission. This will affect its size and composition. Roll a d100 and consult the following table to determine the type of force, then note down the letter in brackets (the unit type), as this will affect the composition of the unit.

Table 1: Type of Force

0-5. An escort for a minor noble (A).
6-10. An escort for a major noble (A).
11-25. A raiding party (B).
26-40. A force being sent to clear out bandits from a local area (B).
41-50. Troops being redeployed to a nearby castle (C).
51-65. A small force sent to deal with a minor skirmish (C).
66-80. A small force sent to deal with a boundary dispute (C).
81-86. A screen or feint for a larger force (D).
87-95. An army, representing a part of the military strength of a major lord (E).
96-100. An army, representing the bulk of the military strength of a minor lord (E).

Next, determine the force's size. Roll a d100 and multiply according to the following guidelines in order to find out the number of individuals in the unit. Always re-roll results of less than 10.

Table 2: Size of Force

A - x1
B - x3
C - x10
D - x5
E - x100

The third step is to determine the force's general composition. Roll a d6 and consult the relevant chart for the force's unit type.

Table 3 - Force Composition

A
1. 50% light cavalry, 50% medium infantry
2. 50% light cavalry, 50% heavy infantry
3. 50% light cavalry, 50% archers
4. 50% medium cavalry, 50% medium infantry
5. 50% medium cavalry, 50% archers
6. 50% heavy cavalry, 50% heavy infantry

B
1. 25% light cavalry, 50% medium infantry, 25% archers
2. 25% light cavalry, 75% medium infantry
3. 25% medium cavalry, 50% medium infantry, 25% archers
4. 25% medium cavalry, 25% heavy infantry, 25% medium infantry, 25% archers
5. 50% light cavalry, 50% heavy infantry
6. 25% heavy cavalry, 50% heavy infantry, 25% archers

C
1. 10% light cavalry, 10% medium cavalry, 25% heavy infantry, 40% light infantry, 15% archers
2. 10% light cavalry, 35% medium cavalry, 40% medium infantry, 15% archers
3. 10% light cavalry, 10% heavy cavalry, 10% heavy infantry, 50% light infantry, 10% archers, 10% special troops
4. 10% medium cavalry, 10% heavy cavalry, 25% heavy infantry, 40% light infantry, 10% archers, 5% special troops
5. 10% light cavalry, 10% heavy cavalry, 25% heavy infantry, 40% medium infantry, 15% archers
6. 15% light cavalry, 15% medium cavalry, 50% light infantry, 15% archers, 5% special troops

D
1. 20% light cavalry, 10% horse archers, 20% medium infantry, 40% light infantry, 10% archers
2. 10% light cavalry, 10% horse archers, 20% medium cavalry, 35% light infantry, 15% archers, 10% special troops
3. 25% light cavalry, 25% horse archers, 10% medium cavalry, 40% archers
4. 10% light cavalry, 10% medium cavalry, 25% horse archers, 50% light infantry, 5% special troops
5. 20% medium cavalry, 25% medium infantry, 40% light infantry, 15% archers
6. 10% heavy cavalry, 25% light cavalry, 50% light infantry, 15% archers

E
1. 5% light cavalry, 5% horse archers, 10% medium cavalry, 5% heavy cavalry, 10% heavy infantry, 20% medium infantry, 35% light infantry, 10% archers
2. 10% medium cavalry, 5% heavy cavalry, 15% heavy infantry, 15% medium infantry, 30% light infantry, 15% archers, 10% special troops.
3. 10% light cavalry, 5% medium cavalry, 15% heavy infantry, 20% medium infantry, 40% light infantry, 10% archers
4. 5% light cavalry, 10% horse archers, 10% medium cavalry, 20% medium infantry, 35% light infantry, 10% archers, 10% special troops
5. 10% horse archers, 5% medium cavalry, 5% heavy cavalry, 25% heavy infantry, 40% light infantry, 10% archers, 5% special troops
6. 5% light cavalry, 15% medium cavalry, 5% heavy infantry, 10% medium infantry, 40% light infantry, 15% archers, 5% special troops

Next, determine the nature of the troops. Roll once for each variety of troops present to find out their level of experience and equipment.

Table 3 - Nature of Troops

Light Cavalry (軽騎兵 - Keikihei).

1. Keikihei - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, light lance, javelins, leather armour, AC 7
2. Keikihei - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, light lance, short bow, studded leather armour, AC 6
3. Keikihei - 1-Level Fighters, 6 hp, light lance, short bow, leather armour, AC 7
4. Keikihei - 1-Level Fighters, 7 hp, light lance, javelins, studded leather, AC 6
5. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, light lance, short bow, longsword (katana), brigandine armour, AC 5
6. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, naginata, short bow, longsword (katana), brigandine armour, AC 5

Medium Cavalry (中騎兵 - Chukihei)

1. Chukihei - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, medium lance, javelins, banded mail, AC 4
2. Chukihei - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, medium lance, javelins, banded mail, AC 4
3. Chukihei - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, medium lance, banded mail, AC 4
4. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, medium lance, longsword (katana) splint mail, AC 4
5. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, naginata, longsword (katana) splint mail, AC 4
6. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 9 hp, longsword (katana) splint mail, AC 4

Heavy Cavalry (重騎兵 - Jukihei)

1. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 6 hp, longsword (katana), short sword (wakizashi), heavy banded mail, AC 3
2. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, longsword (katana), short sword (wakizashi), heavy banded mail, AC 3
3. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, heavy lance, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 3
4. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, heavy lance, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 3
5. Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighers, 10 hp, naginata, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 3
6. Mounted Samurai - 2-Level Fighters, 14 hp, heavy lance, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 2

Horse Archers (弓騎兵 - Kyukihei）

1. Kyukihei - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, composite bow, short sword (wakizashi), leather armour, AC 8
2. Kyukihei - 0-Level Fighters, 5 hp, composite bow, light lance, short sword (wakizashi), leather armour, AC 8
3. Kyukihei - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, composite bow, light lance, short sword (wakizashi), studded leather armour, AC 7
4. Kyukihei - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, composite bow, long sword (katana), studded leather armour, AC 7
5. Kyukihei - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, composite bow, short sword (wakizashi), studded leather armour, AC 7
6. Kyukihei - 1-Level Fighters, 9 hp, composite bow, light lance, studded leather armoud, AC 7

Light Infantry (軽歩兵 - Keihohei）

1. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, spear, padded armour, AC 9
2. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, spear, javelins, padded armour, AC 9
3. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, long spear, padded armour, AC 9
4. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, long spear, javelins, padded armour, AC 9
5. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, spear, leather armour, AC 8
6. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, spear, longsword (katana), studded leather armour, AC 6

Medium Infantry (中歩兵 - Chuhohei）

1. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, long spear, brigandine armour, short sword (wakizashi), AC 6
2. Ashigaru - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, long spear, javelins, brigandine armour, AC 6
3. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, long spear, javelins, longsword (katana), heavy brigandine armour, AC 5
4. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, long spear, javelins, longsword (katana), splint mail, AC 4
5. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 9 hp, long spear, javelins, longsword (katana), banded mail, AC 4
6. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, long spear, longsword (katana), splint mail, AC 4

Heavy Infantry (重歩兵 - Juhohei）

1. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, long spear, longsword (katana), heavy splint mail, AC 3
2. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 3
3. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, naginata, longsword (katana), heavy splint mail, AC 3
4. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, heavy flail, longsword (katana), heavy splint mail, AC 3
5. Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, longsword (katana), short sword (wakizashi), heavy splint mail, AC 3
6. Foot Samurai - 2-Level Fighters, 14 hp, naginata, longsword (katana), heavy splint mail, AC 3

Archers (弓射手 - Kyushashu)

1. Light Archers - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, short bow, padded armour, AC 9
2. Light Archers - 0-Level Fighters, 4 hp, short bow, leather armour, AC 8
3. Medium Archers - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, composite bow, dirk (tanto) leather armour, AC 8
4. Medium Archers - 0-Level Fighters, 6 hp, composite bow, dirk (tanto) leather armour, AC 8
5. Heavy Archers - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, composite bow, short sword (wakizashi), banded mail, AC 4
6. Samurai Archers - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, composite bow, longsword (katana), splint mail, AC 4

"Special Troops"

1. Warrior Monks - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, naginata, brigandine armour, AC 6
2. Grenadiers - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, grenade*, leather armour, AC 8
3. Arquebusiers - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, arquebus, bridandine armour, AC 6
4. No-Dachi Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, two-handed sword (no-dachi), banded mail, AC 4
5. No-Dachi Samurai - 2-Level Fighters, 14 hp, two-handed sword (no-dachi), splint mail, AC 4
6. Elite Samurai - 3-Level Fighters, 20 hp, longsword (katana) short sword (wakizashi), splint mail, AC 4

NPCs

For every 40 (or part of 40) troops of a given type, there will be a leader or officer of one level higher than his comrades. For example, if there are 250 horse archers of 1st level, seven of their number are 2nd level leaders or officers. If there are 402 ashigaru of 0-level, there are eleven 1st level leaders or officers.

Each force also has a number of 'name' characters. The highest level character will be the general or leader of the force – or in the case of unit type A, will be the noble being accompanied. The number of name characters in a force is as follows.

A - 1 for every 25, or part of 25, troops
B - 1 total
C - 1 for every 500, or part of 500, troops
D - 1 for every 100, or part of 100, troops
E - 1 for every 1000, or part of 1000, troops

Such NPCs can be generated as follows. To determine level, roll:

Table 5a – Level of Named NPC

A - d8+3
B - d4+2
C - d6+3
D - d6+2
E - d8+3

To determine class, roll:

Table 5b – Class of Named NPC

1-4: Fighter, 5: Ranger, 6: Paladin, 7-8: Cleric, 9-10; Wizard

Each name character has a 50% chance of having a magical item or magical items of treasure type S.

Sample Forces

Some sample forces generated using the above tables.

320 Samurai of the Ishiwara Clan, led by Fujihira Kenzaburo, a 4^th Level Fighter. The force has been sent to deal with a boundary dispute with the Takamatsu Clan, and it consists of:

32 Light Cavalry - Mounted Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with light lances, short bows and longswords, wearing brigandine armour (AC 5), and with 8 hp each. Led by a 2^nd Level Fighter.

32 Heavy Cavalry – Mounted Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with heavy lances and longswords, wearing heavy banded mail (AC 3), and with 10 hp each. Led by a 2^nd Level Fighter.

80 Heavy Infantry – Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with naginata and longswords, wearing heavy splint mail (AC 3) and with 10 hp each. Led by two 2^nd Level Fighters.

128 Medium Infantry - Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with long spears and longswords, wearing splint mail (AC 4) and with 10 hp each. Led by four 2^nd Level Fighters.

48 Archers – Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with composite bows and longswords, wearing splint mail (AC 4) and with 10 hp each. Led by two 2^nd Level Fighters.

58 Keikihei and Samurai of the Muramatsu Clan, accompanying Muramatsu Tsuyoshi, an 8^th Level Fighter, as he travels from his castle at Mie to his winter residence at Awahashi. The force consists of:

29 Light Cavalry – Keikihei of 0 Level, armed with light lances and short bows, wearing studded leather armour (AC 7) and with 6 hp each. Led by a 1^st Level Fighter.

29 Medium Infantry – Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with long spears, javelins and longswords, wearing heavy brigandine armour (AC 5) and with 8 hp each. Led by a 2^nd Level Fighter.

560 Men of the Mizaru Clan, led by Bamba Tsutomu, a 7^th Level Cleric of Amaterasu. The force has been sent to head off a group of samurai of the Iwamura Clan who are making for an important fishing port owned by the Mizarus, in an apparent attempt to raize it. The force consists of:

84 Light Cavalry – Mounted Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with light lances, short bows and longswords, wearing brigandine armour (AC 5) and with 8 hp each. Led by three 2^nd Level Fighters.

84 Medium Cavalry – Mounted Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with medium lances and longswords, wearing splint mail (AC 4) and with 8 hp each. Led by three 2^nd Level Fighters.

280 Light Infantry – Ashigaru of 0-Level, armed with spears and javelins, wearing padded armour (AC 9) and with 4 hp each. Led by seven 1^st Level Fighters.

84 Archers – Archers of 0-Level, armed with composite bows and dirks, wearing leather armour (AC 8) and with 6 hp each. Led by three 1^st Level Fighters.

28 No-Dachi Samurai – Samurai of 2^nd Level, armed with two-handed swords, wearing splint mail (AC 4) and with 14 hp each. Led by a 3^rd Level Fighter.

99 Men of the Yamada Clan, led by Hitotsuyanagi Ushi, a 6^th Level Fighter. The force has been sent to clear a gang of bandits out from a rise of wooded hills on the borders of the Yamada Clan’s lands, and consists of:

25 Heavy Cavalry – Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with heavy lances and longswords, wearing heavy banded mail (AC 3) and with 10 hp each. Led by a 2^nd Level Fighter.

24 Archers – Samurai of 1^st Level, armed with composite bows and longswords, wearing splint mail (AC 4) and with 10 hp each. Led by a 2^nd Level Fighter.

50 Heavy Infantry – Samurai of 2^nd Level, armed with naginata and longswords, wearing heavy splint mail (AC 3) and with 14 hp each. Led by a 3^rd Level Fighter.

Inspirational Pictures

Some inspirational photos found while traipsing around google search results and wikicommons. Doing this never fails to get my creative juices flowing. If only I could find the time for the many, many campaign ideas...


Ships orphaned by the disappearance of the Aral Sea in Moynaq, Uzbekistan. (Full of treasure? Ghosts? Both?)



Stone structures from the "Japanese Atlantis" off the coast of Yonaguni Island in the Southern part of Okinawa. (Ancient submerged city? Home of tritons, sahuagin or a dead kuo-toan god?)



The Old Man of Storr, a rock formation on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. (Lair of witches? Sacrificial altar for a sinister cult? Entrance to a dwarven citadel?)

More some other time, maybe.