Shiribeshi is a giant curved U, spinning on an upright axis, locked in a permanent ice age. Its surface is a sea of glaciers, occasionally punctured by islands of mountains, and it is constantly swept by gale force winds, blizzards and ice storms. Very few outsiders can tolerate its frigid temperatures, but its groundling population is vast - ice trolls, quaggoths, remorhaz, derro, white dragons, giants, and many other varities of cold-loving beings.
Because of Shiribeshi's unusual shape it has certain unique characteristics. On the inside of the U days are short and separated by a few hours of "half night" around noon as the opposite side of the curve passes before the light of Iburi. Meanwhile, on the tips of the U and at its base there is never night - for the whole year light approaches from an oblique angle, providing the extremities of the planet with constant weak illumination.
Derro are the dominant intelligent race in large swathes of Shiribeshi and they make their homes in citadels in the mountains, where they burrow deep down underneath the planet's surface, mining for minerals. These are traded with visitors from other worlds, mainly for human slaves who the derro can torture, eat, and put to work. Ruinous wars are fought between different derro polities over the best lodes.
Abashiri is a small, flat disc of rock barely 10 miles in diameter, orbiting very close to the fiery ring of Iburi. Its geography is simple: a ridge of mountains runs directly through its centre, with a small area of hills and flatland on either side. Abashiri rotates slowly and in perfect synchronisation with its orbit so that the same side of the mountanis always faces Iburi; this means that one side is constantly bathed in the light and heat of the Primary, while the other is in the permanent shadow of the mountains. From the highest peaks the edges of the disc and the stars beyond can be clearly seen.
Only two intelligent races inhabit Abashiri in any numbers, and their settlement areas are sharply divided by the mountains. On the Iburi side (sometimes called "The Face") live two tribes of primitive Thri-Kreen who thrive on the warmth and constant sunlight they enjoy. On the outward side (called "The Tail") are a handful of wild clans of Grimlocks dwelling in unending near-darkness and frigid temperatures. There are no cities or towns and the only permanent settlements are Grimlock caves and tunnels; the Thri-Kreen are nomadic. It probably has fewer than 100 inhabitants.
Abashiri produces little of value and is rarely visited by travellers from other bodies, though pirates and outlaws occasionally hide there. It is often called "Abashiri, the Old" by those who know of its existence; this arises from the ancient legend that the bodies orbiting Iburi were once living beings, lost in the phlogiston, who came to the Primary one by one. In this mythology Abashiri was believed to be the first to arrive and the last to die, and is hence the most aged.
By God I love a good random generator, and Spelljammer's Universe Builder is the ultimate in both scope and elegance. I'm going to create myself a little planetary system, just for the hell of it. Today I'll do the basics; tomorrow we'll see about fleshing things out.
1. System Type - Is our system your ordinary orbital one, or is it 'special' (a void, nested spheres, etc.)? The answer: standard. That's fine, this is our first effort after all.
2. Primary Type - Do we have a central sun/star, or do our planets orbit something weird and wonderful like a portal to the Negative Material Plane? Earth Body. The centre of this system is not a sun or star, but a body of elemental earth. Less weird than it could have been, but stranger than average. It's a massive cluster of asteriods surrounded by a huge, saturn-like ring of magma and fire which provides light and warmth for the entire system, and it is called Iburi.
3. Number of Planets - 6. Perfect - not too many, not too few.
4. Planet Types. Let's find out what's orbiting Iburi.
- First up is an Earth type, which we'll call Abashiri. It's a tiny flatworld - a disc floating in space a safe but slightly uncomfortable distance from Iburi.
- Second is Shiribeshi, another Earth type, considerably bigger than Abashiri, with an irregular shape; it takes the form of a gigantic U, with its inhabitants living on the outside edge. It is locked into a permanent ice age.
- Next is a Water planet, Rumoi. It is gargantuan, a monstrous oceanic sphere floating through space. It has a cluster of 13 asteroids in orbit around it, believed by its inhabitants to be the corpses of 13 dead gods.
- Fourth we have Utashinai, another Earth type and another giant to rival Rumoi in size. It is uncommonly hot, with a geography characterized by steaming jungles, parched deserts and vast sultry swamps. This is caused by massive levels of volcanic activity on its surface.
- Fifth is an Air planet, Muroran, another mighty body, composed entirely of swirling wind, clouds, and pure oxygen. It is vastly distant from the other four planets, but is known to have one, solitary moon.
- Finally, furthest from Iburi but itself a great source of light and heat, is Tomakomai, a great flat disc of flame. It is dominated by one great civilisation (perhaps beings of elemental fire?), and has 4 scorched moons orbiting it.
Starting tomorrow we'll think these worlds out in a little more detail. Feel free to make suggestions as to what kind of inhabitants they might have and what their geographies are like.
I've been on a real Spelljammer kick recently ever since reading this entry. Spelljammer is one of those things that you tend to forget about for long stretches of your life, but comes back with a vengeance when you least expect it. Like a girl you went out with in school and who you always bump into when you go back to your home town. You don't often mention her and you can go for years without even thinking about her. Then there she is on the dance floor, bam. And you want to play with her.
Ahem. Anyway, yeah, Spelljammer.
There are three things that I find interesting about Spelljammer.
The Grand List of Things That Are Interesting about Spelljammer
- It taps into that very compelling subgenre of fantasy that is sometimes called "Sword and Planet" ("Science fantasy" is both boring and inaccurate), and which swirls, vortex-like, around a certain Michael Moorcock. We all know about the connections between Hawkwind (the ur space rockers) and that author, but it goes much deeper than that - just about every Eternal Champion incarnation has some sort of space-going element to it. And since the Eternal Champion is just about the most interesting fantasy series ever written (if not the best, always the most interesting) that makes Spelljammer interesting too - brilliance through association. That's not even to mention Edgar Rice Burroughs.
- Don't even get me started on the picaresque. The thesis that D&D is a picaresque seems compelling to me and you don't get a better setting for that than riding through the phlogiston on a star sailing ship, landing on random planets and meeting space orcs. You just don't.
- There are not one, not two, but three subgenres of Spelljammer game which you can explore. (There are more than that actually, but let's look at the main three.
- Horror Spelljammer. In space no one can hear you scream. In the phlogiston, people might hear you scream as the pack of githyanki pirates begin to eviscerate you with astral cleavers, but seeing as those people are likely to be illithids and neogi, you can forget being home in time for dinner. Spelljammer has a potential like no other setting (except Planescape, natch) for existential terror: in the big bad prime material plane there is only murder and pain.
- Traveller Spelljammer. Roll up a sector of crystal spheres on a hex map and go off a-trading with the
Zhodani scro in a combination of (arguably) the two greatest role playing games of all time. Just be careful of those space elves waiting in that asteroid belt. - Trad Spelljammer. The background music is Hawkwind, The Mars Volta, Pink Floyd, Monster Magnet, Klaatu, Ziggy Stardust, and weird Daft-Punk-esque French synth pop; the flavour art is stills from Ulysses 31 and Thundercats, the illithids are dressed like Marc Bolan. It's so naff that it has gone beyond naff into cool again. It's Spelljammer how God intended it, and it is really, really great.
When people talk about imaginative 2nd edition era settings they tend to bring up Dark Sun and Planescape the most, but if you ask me Spelljammer gives them both a serious run for their money. Buy it, play it, love it.
When the people of the Mountains of the Moon go to war, they employ phalanxes of specially bred giant crayfish - their equivalent of heavy cavalry. These crayfish are usually armoured with additional special barding and sharpened claws.
There are many problems associated with the use of war crayfish. They are stupid, belligerent and usually half-starved to make them more aggressive, so they are as likely to attack their own side as the other if they are not properly controlled. Though they have been bred for many generations to live out of the water, they still have to return to fresh water once a day. And they are totally incapable of following any but the most basic commands - essentially: face left, face right, face straight ahead, attack, halt. But timed correctly a crayfish charge can destroy entire formations of foot troops.
War crayfish are controlled with the aid of special magical items - Helms of Crustacean Control - which are operated by a religious cult of mercenary eunuchs. These eunuchs travel the oligarchies of the Mountains of the Moon, offering their services to the highest bidder; they are paid only in platinum and slave boys, who they train as apprentices. They have their own religion, which is based on a the worship of a pantheon of crayfish gods, and call themselves the Kep kep.
As well as being used in military formations, individual war crayfish are sometimes kept as pets or bodyguards, or found in gladiatorial arenas.
War Crayfish
Armour Class: 0 (with bronze scale barding)
Hit Dice: 4+4*
Move: 120' (60')
Attacks: 2 claws
Damage: 2d6+4/2d6+4 (with sharpened claws)
No. App: Special (up to 30 in one formation)
Save As: F3
Morale : Special
Treasure: Nil
Intelligence: 1
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value : 125
Special: One eunuch controller can command up to 30 war crayfish. If he is killed, his charges will attack the nearest warm-blooded creature - or, failing that, move in a random direction in search of fresh water.
War crayfish cause fear when they charge at non-elite troops and horses. Horses will flee in terror from a war crayfish charge for d6 turns; non-elite troops are permitted a saving throw vs. magic.
Helm of Crustacean Control
This helmet takes the form of a large copper crab, which grasps the wearer's skull with its legs. It allows the wearer to command up to 30 crustaceans who are within one mile. It also allows the wearer to sense telepathically any crustacean life within that distance.
Only a eunuch can operate a Helm of Crustacean Control. If a non-eunuch puts such a helm on his head its legs will press inwards and slowly crush his skull, killing him over the course of five turns. Once this process has begun it can only be stopped by a wish spell.
[An occasional series of 15-song playlists for different gaming genres. Partially inspired by Zak (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery), but I was planning to do it anyway. Today: Post-Apocalypse.]
- The gadget turned the pre-dawn sky as bright as the sun...
- Zombies running all around!
- It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been...
- "What five letters spell 'Apocalypse'?" she asked me.
- Give peace a chance, and see what happens.
- I could have swore I saw a light coming on.
- I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin'.
- In better times, a spell could save you... [to 5:02]
- There's nothing left to see - turn out the light.
- It's only the wind, blowing litter all around.
- This will turn out the way it should be.
- We still believe in love, so fuck you.
- No birds, no birds, the sky is swollen black...
- The Cool Kids of Death.
- I heard what you said - the leaders are dead!
Some are chosen for lyrics, some for mood, and some for both.
I read today something which surprised me from several different directions:
In previous editions, metallic dragons were good aligned, meaning that a DM would have to either create reasons that that the dragons were violently opposed to the PCs, or just ignore the “Always Lawful Good” and similar alignments. As we already knew from Monster Manual 2, this default assumption has changed a bit, tossing many of the metallic dragons squarely into the Unaligned category, giving some wiggle room to those playing it by the book. Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons takes it even further...
Critical hits previewing Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons, how doth thee surprise me, let me count the ways:
- The trivial one: You're telling me metallic dragons weren't in the first 4e Monster Manual? I suppose that makes sense from a business point of view (don't blow your load of iconics on the first book, because nobody will be interested in the second) but still.
- More serious: It's amazing how combat-oriented this quote reveals 4e to be. The fanboys on rpg.net will say otherwise, but how else are we to interpret this radical rethink of "good" dragons, other than that it is geared to making them a more convenient enemy to fight? I'm particularly interested in this idea that in previous editions, DMs would either have to dream up reasons for metallic dragons being "violently opposed" to the PCs, or else just ignore the default alignment. It seems to imply that the only reason why you would want a monster to appear in a game is to have the PCs fight it. What happened to, you know, PCs just interacting with creatures, as opposed to fighting them?
- The third surprise: Where usually I read stuff about 4e and it makes me want to poke myself in the eye with a fork, I find myself conflicted about whether I think this is a bad development or a good one.
On the one hand, there is something in me that is repelled by the wimpiness of D&D dragons, and especially the good ones. The blame more or less lies with the Dragonlance books, which started off by building up dragons into terrifying demigods but wound up painting them as little more than big and talkative flying pets. Dragons should be in my opinion the most powerful and frightening D&D monsters; from The Bible to the legends of Tiamat to the works of William Blake to The Lord of the Rings, their most compelling portrayals have always been huge and mighty embodiments of malice, antagonism and cruelty. So doing away with good dragons is something I can get behind.
But on the other hand, I do think there is a place in the game for what you might call Old Testament Good - by which I mean the portrayal of God in those volumes as so Good he is to be feared. The stern, just, righteous kind of Good that sees wrongdoers turned into pillars of salt and smites the wicked. Good dragons play into that - as holy guardians and powerful fighters against evil everywhere. A bit like Batman, maybe.
So I view this development with mixed feelings. On the one hand, making Good dragons Neutral so that it's okay to fight them represents a kind of depressing banalism - yet more fodder for the Awesome Things Hitting Each Other routine that the 4e designers seem to want people to play. And yet on the other hand it represents a more-than-welcome step away from the odious Weis-and-Hicksian vision of Dragon-as-My-Little-Pony. A tough call, but I give the move a C+.
As is the case everywhere in Yoon-Suin, the people of Lamarakh are keen smokers. Because they are river nomads who do not plant crops, they instead use the leaves of various trees found lining their waterways, particularly those of the kójó. The kójó is an ordinary jungle tree with rather mundane looking, but tasty, red fruits. Its large leaves are dried and then crushed, then wrapped in a whole one and smoked.
Something about the nature of kójó leaves allows them to be easily imbued with minor spells and cantrips, and a cottage industry has grown up in Lamarakh selling such magical cigarettes to traders from the Hundred Kingdoms, the Yellow City, Sughd and elsewhere. Some varieties are listed below:
Love Cigarette (50 gold pieces)
The smoke from this cigarette acts like a temporary charm person spell if it is blown directly into the face. The victim is permitted a saving throw vs. magic to resist the effects. The spell wears off after 12 hours.
Red Eye Cigarette (20 gold pieces)
This cigarette endows the smoker with infravision of 60' for 12 hours.
Ghost Eye Cigarette (10 gold pieces)
Invisible beings can be seen by looking through the smoke of this cigarette, as if it is a lens. This only lasts as long as the cigarette itself is lit.
Cigarette of Judgement (10 gold pieces)
The smoke from this cigarette functions as a know alignment spell; gazing through it at somebody reveals their nature to the smoker.
Cigarette of Choking (20 gold pieces)
This cigarette's smoke is equivalent to a stinking cloud spell which only affects one person. Inhaled directly it is safe, but when it is exhaled into the face of another it induces vomiting and weakness.
All cigarettes last for three minutes.
[Inspired by something Alexis put in the comments to yesterday's post.]
Yiyik's Hookah
Yiyik, an archmage from Sughd, was fond of two things above all others: smoking and cruelty. He created a giant hookah with which to combine them.
The hookah itself has a large basin some four feet in height and eight in diameter; unlike other hookahs it is rather squat in shape, with its large charcoal burner plate being four feet in diameter but extending upwards only one foot. The basin is made from blue amber; the plate and burner are burnished bronze. There are four gold figurines at compass points at the top of the basin; one a tiger, another a dragon, a third a yak and a fourth an ape. From the mouth of each extends a hose with which to inhale.
Yiyik's Hookah can be smoked with ordinary tobacco and water. But if a living thing is sealed within the bowl, it causes magical effects; the creature begins to slowly dissolve in the smoke filtering downwards [losing one hit point per inhalation], and its very essence is sucked out through the hoses and into the lungs of the smokers.
This has three effects. First, it allows those inhaling the smoke to have access to all the captured being's memories and experiences. All secrets are rendered knowable to those smoking its essence. Second, it allows the smokers to steal the captive's magical knowledge. Any spells that the captive has memorised at the point of dissolution are then memorised by the smoker, who can cast them as usual that day in addition to his or her daily allotment of spells. (They are forgotten at the stroke of midnight.) Even non-mages have access to this effect.
Thirdly, the hookah slowly kills the unfortunate victim, who gradually withers and fades into liquid and smoke.
The hookah can only be opened from the outside.
I'm only an occasional smoker (and I used to smoke a lot more than I do now) but it seems unfortunate even to me that the depths of tobacco-related products are so unplumbed by D&D designers. After all, just look at how cool Gandalf, the chain-smoking wizard, is. The reason for the deliberate oversight is obvious - the designers didn't want to encourage kids to smoke, or at least didn't want to be accused of doing so. But hang on, isn't this a game in which the characters routinely engage in murder, theft, whoring and torture?
There are six categories of magical tobacco and tobacco related paraphernalia:
- Tobacco or other smoked material that causes its effects on the body via direct inhalation, i.e. which affects the physiology of the smoker;
- Tobacco or other smoked material that causes its effects on the body via indirect inhalation, i.e. which affects the physiology of those who the smoke is blown at or who inhale it second hand;
- Tobacco or other smoked material with effects that come about through the act of exhalation, i.e. with smoke which is itself intrinsically magical;
- Smoking-related equipment which conveys miscellaneous magical proporties to ordinary smoke;
- Smoking-related equipment which conveys miscellaneous magical properties to the smoker;
- Smoking-related equipment with miscellaneous magical properties which come about through the act of smoking but do not directly affect the smoke or smoker.
Of these, I would argue that the third is perhaps the most interesting, as it allows for the possibility of pipes, cigarettes etc. which summon beings from the Elemental Plane of Smoke. Hence:
Pipe of The Mephits
This is a very long and thin smoking pipe, with a stem made from amber and a graphite bowl. Both the bit and the bowl are decorate with whorled etched patterns inlaid with brass. The entire pipe is apparently impervious to harm and never shows signs of wear.
When the pipe is filled and puffed it takes one round for sufficient smoke to build in the immediate area. After another round the smoke begins to coalesce into vaguely humanoid, winged shapes. Finally, after the third round, 2d3 smoke mephits will have taken shape around the smoker.
These mephits always obey the smoker, though they are not mindless automata: their nature is capricious and wicked and they will take every opportunity available to twist, ignore or pervert the commands given to them. Their summoning from the Paraelemental Plane of Smoke is generally permanent, however, and they will be bound to the smoker until destroyed or released (by the smoker's death or command). The only exception to this is if they can immerse themselves in the smoke released by zinc burning in air; this allows them to break their bonds.
The Pipe of the Mephits functions as an ordinary pipe once it has been used to summon mephits in this way; it cannot summon more until the first group have been destroyed or released.
