Blair's Lifeblog

or "It's My Turn To Make One Of These Posts..."

In addition to a full time gig as a Lead Hand Mechanical Insulator in the construction industry, I'm currently engaged in "academic upgrading" involving 3 hours of classes Monday through to Thursday nights in preparation to pursuing a Physics degree; this is in addition to having a home life with Her Nibs, commencing band practices, and being an insomniac. Obviously this is a weak sauce burden in comparison to full-time studies or being a parent, but it is a huge adjustment from a leisurely lifestyle of reading Jack Vance novels; listening to records; bong rips; working on dungeon maps; playing video games; and the like, and come mid-week I've been coming up exhausted. While doing some exercises in preparation for Monday's exam, my math skills took a turn for the "Chris Farley-esque..."

I'm still doing the D&D & -ishes, DMing, playing, mapping, writing; and I'm just waiting on a couple of pieces of artwork before laying out The Jewel Throne. I'm also enthused to have lined up an "administrator figure" to handle the administration of handling the Doctors Without Borders donations.

Regarding Algol, the Babbling King is waiting, muttering...

And local Red Boxer and all-around awesome dude Johnstone is running an Algol hack of Apocalypse World; I'm stoked to see what ensues with that.

Anyways, posting will likely be sporadic for a bit; come mid-June some schedule changes will be implemented that will free up some of my time & energy. Right now, I get to sleep!

Another Jewel Throne Artwork Preview

By secret surprise mystery very genre-appropriate artist...

Jewel Throne Artwork Preview

Here is a portion of the Robot-Fighter Character Class illustration by the estimable Jason Alexander Scanlon. Holy crap, this cat can draw! How come I don't see his stuff on products?

The Robot-Fighter class seems a worthy candidate for porting into Humanspace Empire, as well as Dune (Butlerian Jihad era) or Saberhagen Berserker mileus.

Jewel Throne Artwork WIP Preview

By Jason Alexander Scanlon...

Jewel Throne Update-ish Post and d10 Random Aristrocrat Possessions Table

I'm currently waiting on a couple of articles and pieces of art (all of which sound like they'll be great!) and than I'll commence with the layout. The quality and quantity of submitted material is considerable, including two adventures that are pretty much the equivalents of old-tyme TSR 16-page modules; it'll be at least 70 pages. It will be a free PDF, and I'll make sure and format a version meant to easily print out and assemble into a booklet.

This post is pretty boring, albeit possibly of some interest to some folks, so I really should include a random table.

d10 Random Aristocrat Possessions Table
1 - Ivory and platinum snuff box (contents d4: 1 - candy, 2- cigarillos, 3 - cocaine, 4 - cranberries)
2 - d20 x 1,000 gp worth of gamblings markers from other Aristocrats.
3 - +3 Stiletto, silver and sapphire hilt
4 - Folding mirror (minor magic item)
5 - Scandalous diary with many compromising details regarding both the author and associates.
6 - Outlawed Chaos-Demon Cult Unholy Symbol! (d4: 1 - Arioch, 2 - Belial, 3 - Cthulhu, 4 - Demogorgon)
7 - Either a fake mustache or fancy ladies undergarments (dependent upon gender of said aristocrat...)
8 - High tech communicator!?!?
9 - Vial of especially puissant poison
10 - A writ of "Get Out of Jail Free" from King/Emperor/Senate, negotiable by the bearer!

Fat Cotton Knocks Another One Out Of The Park & AD&D Spell Analysis Request

Another great piece by Fat Cotton, this time for Fight On! magazine...between FO and Petty Gods I'm thrilled to see folks availing themselves of his surreal, whimsical talents!

Also, does anyone know of any online analysis of AD&D spells and their casting times? With all the hobbyist Gygaxian research floating around on the net, someone must have done the number crunching regarding AD&D spells and how many segments it takes to cast them? The discussion regarding The Black Lasher made me realize that I need to include AD&D/OSRIC information with the Gramaree spells in order for full-universal-oldschool D&D utility.

Jewel Throne Preview - The Black Lasher

Artwork by Johnathan Bingham

The Black Lasher

Level: Magic-User 3

Range: Caster

Duration: 10 minutes

The caster's left arm becomes a whip-like tentacle of thorny black rubbery flesh that can stretch out to a length of 30 feet. The caster may attack with this limb as a monster with as many Hit Dice as the caster's Levels, inflicting 1d8 points of damage on a hit and on an unadjusted attack roll of 20 the tentacle can wrap around and constrict the target, automatically inflicting 1d8 points of damage per round. The tentacle has an Armor Class of 3[16], with all successful attacks against it injuring the caster; it can take up to half the casters maximum hit points of damage before it is severed, dissolving into black slime and requiring the caster to make a successful Saving Throw vs. Death or lose their left arm.

Jewel Throne Update & 'Catholic' Retro-Clone Stat Block

Firstly, I HAVE THE JOESKY BARBARIAN CLASS WRITE-UP ON MY COMPUTER!!1 It emulates the over-the-top cartoon shirtless cliche, and also has an Encounter Critical style level advancement scheme! Between this guy and the Netherwerks Robot Fighter, one of the themes of this issue will be "Comic Book Character Classes," which is pretty cool. I wish someone would make a retro-clone-ish RPG designed to emulate eighties fantasy comic books like THE WARLORD and ARION: LORD OF ATLANTIS...

Secondly, I have a rough assembled document of all of the material I have so far, and at digest-size with 10-point Arial type, it's over sixty pages.

Also, Red Box Vancouver stalwart Johnstone has a submission he's working on, "...a random technology generator for Planet Algol and other Swords & Saucers style games. Or Gamma World and post-apocalyptic settings. And Jack Kirby settings." Jack Kirby settings!

As I'm compiling and editing the material, I'm trying to make it as "catholic" as possible, with the goal of including the information needed to quickly use the material with a variety of retro-clones & D&Ds (without going overboard and bloating the text!).

Here's examples of a stat-block format I'm using:

Bloakang Drongthur
AC 5[14]<16>, Fighter-1, HP 6, Move 90'(30'), Attack hooked pole-hatchet (1d10), Save Fighter-1[14], Morale 9, Alignment neutral (evil); chain mail, hooked pole-hatchet, dagger, 16 gp in a belt pouch.

Beslimed Moat Lurker
AC 6[13]<15>, HD 2+1, HP 9, Move 60'(20')/swim 120'(40'), Attack 2 suckered limbs (1d4/1d4 + attach and blood drain), Save Fighter-2[16], Morale 6, Alignment chaotic (evil), Special on an attack roll of 20 a suckered limb will attach and automatically inflict 1d4 points of damage through blood drain every round; a successful open door roll is required to pull an attached limb off, inflicting another 1d4 points of damage to the victim.

The Armor Class value within the '< >' is the value for use with LOTFP WFRPG, with the preceding brackets containing the ascending Swords & Wizardry value. I find the standard Swords & Wizardry AC notation elegant, buy my "triple" version is pretty clunky. Movement is presented in B/X format to accommodate those of us with poor math skills. The Save entry includes both the standard D&D reference and the Swords & Wizardry value in brackets. I am considering including Fortitude/Reflex/Will values for compatibility with Kard & Magica/Swords & Magic and the forthcoming Goodman Games DCC RPG, but I don't want to bloat the stat-block. I'd like to include XP values for the different standard D&D variants, but again, I don't want to bloat the stat-block.

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!

Kudos to Noble Knight Games & Jewel Throne Update

Firstly I just wanted to heap accolades upon Noble Knight Games. They support the OSR, have a great selection of RPG material, and have developed a reputation for being reliable and fast.

I recently ordered a copy of Holmes Basic (in Fair condition) from Noble Knight Games, and after receiving it I was dismayed to find that it was missing the first and last pages, which includes the awesome Sutherland illustration of a wizard and two knights battling a horde of pig-faced orcs!

After emailing Noble Knight Games regarding this predicament, I receive this response:

"We’re very sorry about that. That was cataloged Fair because of some loose pages but apparently they vanished somewhere along the way. We’re mailing out those missing pages asap."

Today I received an envelope from Noble Knight Games. Imagine my surprise when I opened it, and instead of it containing the missing pages there was another, complete, copy of Holmes Basic!

That was very awesome of Noble Knight Games, and I appreciate it very much. Thank you Aaron Leeder & co.!

Anyways,  here's a quick update regarding The Jewel Throne. Below is a tentative table of contents for it's inaugural issue:

Ancient Tombs - A dungeon that is an ancient tomb.

The Barbarian Character Class (By JOESKYTHEDUNGEONBRAWLER!) - Face Stabbings ahoy!

Cave & Lair Geomorphs - 36 of them, usable for everything from a bear den to a sprawling cave complex.

The Complete Earth Man (By Lester/B. Portly) - Means for randomly generating time & universe displaced Earthling characters and their belongings for use with fantasy RPGs.

Grammaree - Over 20 spells; mostly weird spells in the vein of Eldritch Weirdness and Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets.

On Account of the Flies (By Patrick of Henchmen Abuse)- An awesome scenario.

The Robot Fighter Character Class (By Netherwerks) - Trained to smash robots! I can see this guy just wreaking havoc in Carcosa, Mutants & Mazes or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!

Serpent Men - The Serpent Men of RE Howard's Kull & Conan stories, and nothing else, a scalable monster/NPC option.

D20 Sorcerers - No, not some D20-system sorcerer rules, but a D20 table of twenty fully detailed sorcerers for use as adversarial, allied, or indifferent NPCs.

War...War Never Changes - Fallout and Wasteland influenced firearms for use with Mutant Future or other, similar, post-apocalypse RPGs with the initials G & W.

In addition to the credited authors above, a couple of the articles include material by Netherwerks & C'nor (Outermost_toe), in addition to what is looking to be some awesome illustration by some terrific artists!

I have to gush a bit regarding "On Account Of The Flies." I've been a big fan of Henchmen Abuse since I came across it, and the early draft I received it just full of the same sardonic grotesqueness...and it strikes me an very Vancian. A snippet from the introduction:

"The village of Louisburgh (commonly known as Stinkborough) is renowned for two things: the horrible stench of rotting meat that permeates the place, and its fabulous Succulent Yellow Spinefruit. This variety of spinefruit has the amazing property of overcoming impotence in elderly men, and thus is in high demand amongst the well-off gentlemen of the great city of Denethix."

You can keep your Dragonlances and Ringbearers guys, this, to me, is the stuff of High Adventure!

Anyways, I'm horribly sleep deprived right now, so I'm going to take a nap, cook supper, and than try to write up a summary of last Sunday's Planet Algol game.

Jewel Throne Preview - Addathon Xilcholthraze "The Lord Of Spines And Master Of Brigands"

Addathon Xilcholthraze by Jason Alexander Scanlon

Below is one of the Twenty Sorcerers from the eponymous feature in the upcoming Type I issue of The Jewel Throne; special thanks to Jason Alexander Scanlon for his spectacular artwork!

Addathon Xilcholthraze, “The Lord of Spines And Master of Brigands”

10^th level Chaotic Evil Human Magic-User

STR: 12, INT: 15, WIS: 12, DEX: 10, CON: 11, CHA: 11

AC: 8, HP: 25

Memorized Spells (4/4/3/2/2)

1 – Charm Person x 2, Magic Missile, Sleep

2 – ESP, Scare, Stinking Cloud, Web'

3 – Dispel Magic, Fireball, Fly

4 – Confusion, Polymorph Other

5 – Call Servitor Polyp Of The Upper Vapours*, Cloudkill

Spells in Spellbook

1 – Charm Person, Detect Magic, Enlarge, Feather Fall, Floating Disc, Magic Missile, Sleep

2 – Darkness 15' Radius, Detect Invisibility, ESP, Knock, Ray of Enfeeblement, Scare, Stinking Cloud, Web

3 – Dispel Magic, Explosive Runes, Fireball, Fly, Gust Of Wind, Invisibility 10' Radius, Monster Summoning I

4 – Confusion, Enchanted Weapon, Fire Trap, Polymorph Other, Remove Curse, Wall Of Ice, Wizard Eye

5 – Animal Growth, Call Servitor Polyp Of The Upper Vapours*, Cloudkill, Extension II, Faithful Hound, Transmute Rock To Mud, Wall Of Force, Wall Of Iron

Magic Items

+1 Ring of Protection; Ring of Free Action; Robe of Eyes; +2 Dagger; Rod of Absorption (34 charges); Potions of Invisibility, Extra-Healing and Gaseous Form; Scroll of Infravision

Addathon Xilcholthraze is the leader of a band of 240 depraved brigands, “The Red Handed Riders,” but also leads a secret double life as “Quod Kwillith,” a respectable travelling spice merchant, which affords him opportunity to seek out rich caravans for The Red Handed Riders to raid. While in his role as Addathon the master of brigands he wears a mesh mask, like that worn by a fencer, in order to conceal his visage. He has a terrible temper and is fond of having those that displease him impaled.

Nine Cave & Lair Geomorphs

Above are nine of the thirty-six cave/lair geomorphs I'm working on for the Jewel Throne. The idea behind this is to present a system for a DM to quickly assemble caves or lairs when the party has random wilderness lair encounter; a treasure map; comes across a hex key lair entry sans map; and so forth, much like the example cave maps from X1: The Isle of Dread. They are also designed to be "semi-compatible" with Dyson's geomorph system.

Grammaree (Jewel Throne) Preview

The Eyes of Far Death

Level: Magic-User 5

Range: 7 miles

Duration: Ten minutes or until discharged

The caster gains the ability of telescopic vision, being able to zoom in on anything within both their line of sight and the range of seven miles, magnifying it at will until it looks like its is directly before the caster. The caster may choose to discharge the spell at one target within their vision, which will manifest as an invisible particle beam from the caster's eyes that will inflict 1D6 points of damage per level of the caster upon the target, with a saving throw versus spells allowed for half damage. If a man-sized or smaller target is slain by the spell it's body will explode into a mass of superheated chunks. If the caster attempts to focus on a target within 200 feet they must make a saving throw versus paralysis or suffer such extreme vertigo and disorientation that they fall in a faint for 1D20 rounds, with a 50% chance of the spell discharging and inflicting damage upon the target.

Mass of Serpents

Level: Magic-user 4

Range: Caster

Duration: Ten minutes per caster level

The caster becomes a 10' diameter mass of venomous serpents, with an Armor Class of 9, a Movement Rate of 90' (60' while swimming or climbing), and the ability to attack all within it's area. On a successful attack the target will suffer 1-3 points of damage and will have to make a saving throw versus poison or die in 1-6 turns.

Psychic Reaping

Level: Magic-User 4

Range: 1 Sentient creature within 30 feet

Duration: Permanent

The caster sends a probe into the target's mind and gains knowledge of all of the target's shameful secrets and perceived weaknesses. The target will be aware of this occurring as well as who is responsible, and will forever suffer a -1 penalty to all die rolls directly involving the caster, such as attack rolls, saving throws, damage rolls and so forth, with the caster gaining a +1 bonus on all such equivalent rolls involving the victim. The target is allowed a saving throw versus spells, and if they roll a 20 on their saving throw the effect of the spell is reversed, with the target instead gaining knowledge of the caster's shameful secrets and perceived weaknesses, with the attendant bonuses and penalties.

Raise Drowned Vessel

Level: Magic-User 5

Range: 1 mile per caster level

Duration: 24 hours

This spell will raise one sunken ship from the bottom of a body of fresh or salt water to temporarily float at the surface level; while casting this spell the caster may choose to specify the name of the vessel, if so only the aforementioned vessel will be raised (if it is within range), otherwise the nearest sunken vessel will be raised.

Speak With Cats

Level: Magic-User 1

Range: Caster

Duration: 24 hours

For the duration of this spell the caster's speech will be understood by cats and other felines. If the caster is able to see a feline's body language and can hear it's utterances, the spell will translate the aforementioned feline's communication into eloquent speech heard inside the caster's head.

Jewel Throne Update

Regarding The Jewel Throne, I'd like to thank everyone for both their kind encouragement, as well as those who have generously offered to contribute in any fashion to the project.

In true Gamer-ADD fashion, I've been shuttling between several different articles for first issue of the Jewel Throne, and here are some of the contents:

- "War...War Never Changes:" Wasteland & Fallout inspired equipment for Gamma World & Mutant Future.

- Cave/Lair Geomorphs: A set of 36 geomorphs for quickly assembling caves and lairs; they conform roughly to the Dyson Logos format, but not entirely...they don't always "play nice with others."

- Snake Men: Statistics for strictly Robert E. Howard style Snake Men of varying levels.

- Twenty Sorcerers, with statistics, details, backgrounds, personalities and spellbooks; their spellbook selection ties into the following.

- "Grammaree:" Twenty-odd Magic-User spells, inspired by Eldritch Weirdness (one of my favorite OSR products) and Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets. Incantations to become an iron colossus; raise a sunken ship for 1 day; know all of your target's shameful secrets; possess telescopic vision particle beams; curse a victim to slowly transform into an ape; summon a polyp of the upper vapors to serve as a flying carpet; and so forth. Some of these are inspired by my own Magic-User PC going "Fricking heck, why isn't there a spell for X so I can do Y!", others by the events of current and past campaigns, as well as fantastic literature. EDIT: Here is a list of the spells I am working on:

Become the Form of the Mog-Molarch
The Black Lasher
Black Vapours of Anthrophagic Fever
Call Servitor Polyp of the Upper Vapours
Crystal Armor
Curse of Lunar Possession
Exhale Cloud of Stinging Flies
The Eyes of Far Death
The Golden Spheres
Luminous Purple Mist
Mass of Serpents
Psychic Reaping
Raise Drowned Vessel
Ray of the Ape Curse
Returning Missiles to Their Sources
Shaft to the Underworld
Shroud of Shining Shards
Speak With Cats
Swarming Leaves of Death
Uproot by Black Storm

The focus for this issue will be "material that can be immediately useful for GMs in a wide variety of campaigns." For possible future issues some of the ideas I'm considering include D&D-compatible Fighting Fantasy/Tunnels & Trolls style solo adventures and  mini-rpgs such as "Action Movie D&D" (with random fire-escape determination tables and explicit rules for jumping from rooftop to rooftop ;D).

Also, JDJarvis has posted some great one-hour dungeon maps Here, Here and Here.

War....War Never Changes

One of the articles I'm working on for the first issue of The Jewel Throne is "War...War Never Changes," being a selection of Wasteland and Fallout inspired equipment, with a focus on firearms; a project I'm working on in preparation for running some Gamma World games.

My goals are twofold: as most of the players in our group are familiar with the Fallout series, this provides a certain "resonance" for the gameplay; secondly to provide a wider selection of firearms than that provided in Mutant Future including more lethal varieties. With Gamma World and Mutant Future PCs having significantly more hit points than beginning PCs, as well as the creatures in both games having, on average, more hit points than D&D monsters, I'm interested in gun having more "oomph" to them. With your average beginning Mutant Future Human PC having 47-48 hit points, it's going to take a fair amount of d12 damage assault fire rounds to take him down.

Anyways, here's some early drafts of some of the fictional firearms I'm working on for this article:

22-3 STRIKER
Effective Range: 400'
Maximum Range: 800'
Damage Inflicted: 3d6
Shots per Round: 1
Ammunition Type: .223
Capacity: 5 round integral magazine
Experience Point Value: 850
Based on a modified rifle design, the 22-3 Striker is a bolt-action pistol designed for hunting large game. Due to the weight and recoil a Physical Strength of 12 or higher is required to effectively use this weapon.

AK-57
Effective Range: 450'
Maximum Range: 900'
Damage Inflicted: 2d8
Shots per Round: 2
Ammunition Type: 7.62 mm
Capacity: 30 round magazine
Experience Point Value: 1300
The last descendant of the AK-47, featuring an integral folding stock, the AK-57 was manufactured by China but saw distribution throughout the globe. Thousands were smuggled into North America, many by fifth columnists.

M2049A1
Effective Range: 150'
Maximum Range: 300'
Damage Inflicted: 1d12
Shots per Round: 1
Ammunition Type: 10 mm
Capacity: 12 round magazine
Experience Point Value: 250
A durable, heavy frame autoloader resistant to harsh conditions, the M2049 was the standard US military sidearm as well as being used extensively by federal agents. A more reliable revolver variant, the M2050, holds 7 rounds in a side-loading cylinder.

M2039-ACR
Effective Range: 600'
Maximum Range: 1200'
Damage Inflicted: 2d8
Shots per Round: 2
Ammunition Type: 5.56 mm
Capacity: 40 round magazine
Experience Point Value: 1500
A descendant of the M16 featuring a gas-vent system and a integral optical sights, the M2039-ACR was the chief weapon of US marines.

VP41
Effective Range: 150'
Maximum Range: 300'
Damage Inflicted: 1d10
Shots per Round: 1
Ammunition Type: 9mm
Capacity: 18 round magazine
Experience Point Value: 150
A reliable West German pistol that was popular with survivalists due to it's high ammunition capacity.

 Also, here's a first draft of the first Jewel Throne cover:

The Jewel Throne Zine

"... to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet...."

- Robert E. Howard

"Once prayed to my gods, searching for the whistled memories
Empty eyes are staring now, to my feet a land of sorrow
I'm the king, sitting in the dark hiding from the shadows of the wind
Wafts of might, wine of fire, I was called to taste

Silver horses brought us here, to the edge of the universe
We left the falling walls as the stars' collapse began
Now I rest on the highest steps, revealed the eternal frontier
As I gaze from the Jewel Throne to the portal of infinity

Fallen have the "chosen ones", debris remain in the dust
Far behind, beyond the sands, the wind sings to those who fell
Forever now, my hands laid down the poisoned weapons
I will pray to my gods, searching for the mysteries"

- Thomas G. Warrior

As I've previously mentioned, I've been mulling over doing a RPG zine as a means of getting past the stress related burnout that's been plaguing me recently (speaking of stress, as I was writing this my boss phoned me to talk about possibly being laid off, good grief!), and with the positive reaction it has elicited (and the possibility of having a buttload of free time soon) I've decided to do so.

I presented a selection of names for the zine I had been considering, and "Jewel Throne" won by a considerable landslide with two votes. Although I'm sure Netherwerks will be gratified to see that I managed to work a Black Ziggurat into the logo.

This zine will be digest sized, done in a underground metal/punk style, with dodgy illustartion by myself, and will focus of sword & sorcery, weird fantasy, science fantasy, post-apocalyptic, and science fiction gaming. The intention is to present a selection of D&D-compatible resources in those genres...one-page sandboxes, mini-dungeons, monsters, spells, technological artifacts, random tables, and so forth. Although I would like to include material compatible with Runquest, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, and other great RPGs, both old and new.

My original intent was to do this as a free-to-download present to the community. Now, with the potential of impending financial hardship, I'm reconsidering this solely as a means of mitigating the aforementioned scenario.

Several of you expressed interest in contributing; originally I was wildly enthusiastic about that, but with the possibility of this being a for-(meager)profit venture I can certainly understand any that would wish to rescind their offer; however, anyone who did contribute would, if it ends up not being a free-to-download production, receive fair compensation for their effort.

My plan is to begin working on material, with a two-week deadline before commencing with layout and than publishing in some form or other. If I end up printing this myself I have some ideas regarding pull-out maps that could be quite nice.

I'd love to hear any feedback regarding this project. Suggestion, criticisms, it is all welcome.