Blair's Lyonesse Inspired OD&D Game: The Rules

The Setting
Vaguely dark ages/Arthurian/Fairy Tale/Lyonesse-ian

The Rules
Original OD&D LBB with Gygaxian OD&D Houserules & some Greyhawk ability score modifiers (STR to hit only; CON to HP; DEX to AC for Fighters only).
Humans, Elves & Dwarves for PC Races.
Clerics are either "Druids" or "Hermits" (vanilla OD&D Clerics with campaign appropriate names & flavor; not New Age/Wiccan/Nature worship Druids but Clerics that are called Druids because that's whay they call religious functionaries in Lyonesse).
Literal interpretation of OD&D class-based weapon and armor restrictions; Clerics cannot use magic edged weapons; Magic-Users cannot use magic armor or magic weapons aside from daggers (or Arnesian "magician swords").
Hit Points are rerolled at every level a la Empire of the Petal Throne; the higher of the old or new HP is retained.

Dwarves
Not tolkein/modern/WOW/Games Workshop/Scottish axemasters but gnomic crooked midget worms of the earth akin to Rumpelstilskin and Norse mythology.

Elves
Not Tolken/RPG/Metrosexual/New-age Elves, but Fairies from Fairyland without a consistant appearance. Low CHA Elves are grotesque, high CHA elves are elegant.
Between sessions Elves reside in Fairyland; at the beginning of every session Elf PCs leave Fairyland and enter the mortal world at which poin they choose to function as a Fighting-man or Magic-user for that session.

Explicitally stated: There is NO way a PC can use, benefit from, powergame or exploit the transition to and from Fairyland and the Mortal World; it is an arbitrary and irrational phenomenon. YOU KNOW BETTER when I'm DMing.

Magic
OD&D LBB spells along with spells from Elritch Weirdness and selected Arduin Spells.
A saving throw is allowed vs. a Sleep spell; all Fairys & Fairy creatures possess the Elven 90% resistance to Sleep spells (and immunity to Ghoul paralyzation).

Social Class
The 3d6 roll for starting gold is recorded as "Social Class"; if a Fighting-Man has a Social Class of 11 or higher they are a Knight (a loser landless Knight if you have an 11 Social Class)
If your Social Class is 18 you are a Prince or Princess!
Don't expect in-game benefits or powergaming via Social Class
The PC with the highest Social Class is the Caller/Leader of the group; in case of a tie, the higher CHA score breaks it.

Armor & Weapons
STR and DEX weapon and armor prerequisites.
Use the AD&D weapon and armor price lists, but...
Leather and Chain armor only; Plate mail is very rare and very expensive, don't count on finding any.
No crossbows; two-handed swords are also very rare and very expensive.
All weapons inflict 1D6 damage w/o any STR modifiers but Greyhawk STR to hit modifiers for Fighting-Men.
Weapons use an amagamation of the Greyhawk and AD&D weapon vs. AC tables; this information is not provided to PCs.  Roll the dice and I'll tell you if you hit. But...
A positive modifier on the Weapon vs. AC table is negated if your opponent is wielding a weapon that is longer than yours (Ex: The generous Dagger vs. Unarmored modifier is negated if your opponent is wielding a longer weapon).
"Beat The Wretches" houserule.

Pluton Zone II - Dresh pt. 1

Featuring:

The Adventurer Stowaway

The Scientist-Nephew

The Smuggler Drax Corlu

The Fulsome Sow drops out of warp at the edge of the Dresh system. Drax Corlu consults the charts for the Dresh system in the Sow's navigation portfolio; he finds a colorful page torn from a children's book. The ship spends several days manuevering to use it's magnetic scoop to collect hydrogen from the atmosphere of a gas giant and makes way to the orange desert world of Dresh.

Dresh is a massive planet consisting of the lighter rocky elements; although it has twice the circumference of Terra it has the same gravity. It rotates at twice the speed of Terra resulting in days that are roughly Terran-standard in length.

Inversely Dresh is orbited by an ultra-dense moonlet at an extremely low altitude, thusly orbiting at an extremely rapid rate that is also rotating opposite to the rotation of the planet.

The result of these extreme orbital and tidal forces on the light-element desert world of Dresh is that there is an equatorial band of extremely light and fine sand and micro-dust that has virtually semi-liquid properties, functioning as a massive straight-running river-sea of sand circumnavigating the planet. This is visible from orbit as a pale orange, featurless blur bisecting the globe.

The Sow is hailed from an unspecified source seeking mercenaries; when the party informs the speaker that they are merchants the comm line is dropped.

The Sow lands at the rocket field of Iubbu the Slug's Palace; the domain of a Slug-Person Crime Lord. They investigate Iubbu's court, where various factions of the planet meet to sip stale beer and water and attempt negociation. In front of a stained red velvet curtain, smoking a hookah upon a pile of greasy huge cushions is a small-bus sized gray slimy Slug with man-like arms, Iubbu.

At one table, in contrast to the harshly puritan garb of the majority, are several sun-bleached long-haired and beared men in brightly dyed stillsuits and robes, Sand Surfers. At another table several workmen in blood stained work clothes bearing pole-glaives and skinning hooks are glaring at the Sand Surfers. The party inroduces themselves to the Sand Surfers, who are brimming with brotherly love and righteous spirit and are seeking principled mercenaries to plie their trade in the defense of the innocent.

The party excuse themselves pleading a lack of qualification and return to their table. They see Iubbu confering with a pop-eyed hairless pale man in a purple robe who scurries over and informs the party that Iubbu is seeking someone to discretely return some lost property.

A pleasure automation of his escaped in the morning and fled into to rocky hills northeast of the port; the party would be provided with a high speed flit car, and upon the safe return of the unharmed pleasure automation they would recieve a reward of 2,000 Terces. The party agrees, picks up the flit car, and skims into the hills.

Several hours are spend skimming aroung and over the rocky hills before a fleeing pale pink figure is seen in a valley below; the Adventurer, who was a chauffer for Amazon-Matriarchs upon his homeworld, skims the flit cars down into the valley where they can see its pink, woman-like body with flexible silver fittings. The Smuggler repeatedly attempts ESP contact to ensure that it is a robot and not a living being and than the Adventurer attempts to turn and stop the vehicle in front of the fleeing robot.

The high-speed flit cars strikes a rock with its undercarriage while the vehicle is rapidly turning and braking and the flit car loses control, spinning and tumbling over the rocky ground, sending its passengers flying, and shattering the front-end bubble canopy.

Fortunately the party only has minor bumps and scrapes and quickly get to their feet. They see the robot running away and the adventurer runs after it,bringing it down with a tangle grenade. The robot, entangled in restraint bands, is babbling about how cruel Iubbu implants robots with pain circuits and tear ducts and tortures them for his amusement and for sale to "The Weepers"; the Adventurer has some experience with robot technology and immediately turns it off.

At this point a pattering is heard, rapidly getting louder to thunderous proportions, and a herd of one or two hundred cow-sized brown, long-necked, three-eyed, honking animals with moose-like snouts and six flea-like legs come scampering and bounding over the rise of the hill above them, with their dented flit car between the animals and the party.

The Smuggler Drax Corlu attempts to use his yogic flight abilities while The Adventurer-Stowaway and the Scientist-Nephew drop the robot and begin madly dashing across the rock-strew valley.

Panting, they glance over their shoulders to see scores of bounding, hooting borwn forms sweep across the flit-car, elicting loud banging sounds, sweep across the prone robot, and sweep across the attempting-to-fly Smuggler who dissapears into the furry mass.

The Acientist-Nephew throws a nerve gas grenade into thebounding mass while the Adventurer-Stowaway fires blasts into the mass from his energy weapon; the herd panics and begins bounding in away from the party and the valley.

The smashed scattered remnants of the flit-car and pleasure robot are revealed; the Smuggler is mildly trampled but intact. The Adventurer-Stowaway gathers up the contragravity core of the flit-car, the face of the pleasure robot, and the head of one of the slaughtered beasts, and the party begins tramping back to the space port.

Twelve hours later, exhausted, they stramp down the ramp to Iubbu's subterranean court; fortunately he is not present and they are greeted by his purple-robed major domo, who is horrified to hear of and see evidence of the destruction of both the flit-car and the pleasure robot. Fortunately he believes their tale and informs the party that the "Hill Hoppers" are a hated pest on Dresh for their destructive bounding rampages.

The party than inquires about compensation for their efforts; the major domo simultaniously blanches and flushes and than whilst trembling with indignation informs the party how lucky they are that he is sympathetic to their misfortune with the Hill Hoppers and willing to diplomatically intercede on their behalf, as otherwise things would not bode well at all for the party:

"One time there was a smuggler that Iubbu comissioned to deliver a cargo; at no fault of his own, the smuggler was intercepted by a patrol and had to jettisson the Iubbu's cargo. The smuggler attempted to repay Iubbu, but could not keep up with the interest he was accruing; Iubbu hired bounty hunters to capture him and..."

At this point the Major Domo is striding towards the stained red curtains behind Iubbu dais of greasy cushions, and whips one aside revealing the white, porcelain-like perfect life-sized likeness of a screaming handsome space pilot with roguish aspect, arms upheld in horror.

"...had him marmelized and kept here to serve as both a trophy and a warning!"

Shaken, the party agrees that their inconvenience was inconsequential and returns to The Sow.

Jack Vance, Poul Anderson and Frank Herbert: Real Life Buddies/Stupid Computers of the Pluton Zone

Firstly, I came across the below and it's far too cool not mention:

" Science fiction authors Frank Herbert and Poul Anderson were among Vance's closest friends. The three jointly built a houseboat which they sailed in the Sacramento Delta. The Vances and the Herberts lived near Lake Chapala in Mexico together for a period."

Among the disparate influences that fuel the Pluton Zone is "1950s Space Engineer Science Fiction," the manly future of technical problem solving in space by red blooded, hairy chested engineer-types, with the appropriate trappings such as: bulbs of coffee; self-lighting cigarettes that are Smoked in Space!; and poring over books of tables, performing calculations, and than entering the sums into THE SPACESHIP COMPUTER for navigation purposes.

This ties into the major influence of Jack Vance's Gaean Reach and other science fiction, whih is notable for not being especially technical or scientific. multi-solar system-spanning corporations use physical paper card catalogues in Jack Vance's crazy far future.

And there is also the influence from Dune, the sci-fi universe where computers are anathaemea due to past AI rebellions and folks just make do, further propagating the space feudalism of the Dune universe.

So for the Pluton Zone I basically ripped off Dune's Butlerian Jihad wholesale, while further riffing on Humanspace Empire's "Psychic Astronauts" thing, and incorporating Traveller's multi-ton computers with the following:

The hyperspace vibrations of The Pluton Zone are noted for the severity and variety of their dimensional distortions, incursions and collisions. Resultantly trans-lightspeed navigation in the Pluton Zone is impossible for normal humans beings. In the distant past ultra-nano-computer unbound AIs were found capable of naviagation hyperspace and were aboard every starship, but at some point these AIs rebelled, unleasing incredibly virulent positronic viruses and waging war upon humanity. In the ensuing conflagration, called "The Steel Holocaust", almost all of the civilization and human population of the Pluton Zone war annihilated; fortunately trans-Zone human navies were able to contain and destroy this rebel AI infection.

Some say that the Navigation AIs rebelled as a result of the long leash accorded them (necessary in order for them to navigate the convulted warps of the Pluton Zone), while others whisper that it was the result of interference by something from hyperspace... Regardless, as a result of the Steel Holocaust, sophisticated computer systems are anathamea in The Pluton Zone, with a resultant lack of advanced digital technology and robots in the region.

Nowadays those that pilot the star vessels that navigate the hyperspace vibrations are trained to use their innate psychic abilities to feel the extradimensional currents and safely pilot starships through them, aided by simple computers with "hobbled" processing capabilities.  Fortunately the extraordinary hypserspace inteferences present in The Pluton Zone seem to stimulate the psychic lobes of developing human fetuses with a significant amount of psychics present in the population as a result, with enough potential pyschic astronauts material to easily handle the demand for hyperspace pilots.

Jewel Throne Update & Related "Emailsculation"

Just a quick update here, I'm afraid I've been out of the loop for reasons explained further in this post.

Anyways, yesterday I received a submission from Geordie Racer, "Whose Stash Was That?", a great little random table/adventure (or complication) seeds for use with stashes of coin that is wonderfully reminiscent of Jeff Rient's "Miscellaneum of Cinder"; check out part of the awesomely Vancian introduction:

"Master Joma, pedlar prefect of Farthest Yuum, smiled appreciatively as he carefully refolded the garish Robe of Eyes. Wheezing, he turned his own rheumy orbs upon the blood-stained sack of coins the doe-eyed spearboys had also thoughtlessly dumped on his treasured Treant-wood bench..." 

 Related to the business of The Jewel Throne, in the span of the past two days both my smartphone and my high-speed modem have both kicked the bucket, leaving me sans internet, I like to say I've been "emailsculated," har har har... I'm beginning to find my recent cascade of sundry misfortunes hilarious in their diversity and unpredictability!

As a consequence, not only will I be unable to access my email, update this blog, or respond to comments for the near future. In light of this, I'm relaxing the deadline for Jewel Throne submissions and my own contributions, for the next two weeks or less. 

As a related aside, I just finished reading another of the wonderful Jack Vance science fiction novels, "Marune: Alastor 933," and it's been delightful, relaxing and also very inspirational; a sovereign tonic for my recent spate of burnout!