[Magic Item] Swashbuckler's Cape +1

Appearing to be a cape of luxurious, effete manufacture, it's dweomer allows it to be held in an hand and used as a shield +1 by any being capable of using a shield; if used by a fighter of the 5th level (and no higher!) it will function as a shield +3.

Firestorm Coming Closer - Napalm To The Bone / The Claw!

Nowadays 99% of the music I listen to is Motorhead. I listen to Motorhead to keep awake on my way to work. I listen to Motorhead when I'm about to come uncunted with the endless shit buffet of work. I listen to Motorhead when I'm trying to stay awake on my way home from work. I listen to Motorhead to get psyched up on my way to write night exams.

There's 3 reasons I can't stop smoking. Work, school and Motorhead. When I need guidance from a higher power I play a random Motorhead song. When the missus gives me hell for wearing trashed clothes I'm confused, they'd be good enough for someone in Motorhead to wear.




THE CLAW

This magic item appears to be a heavy articulated gauntlet of rusty iron adorned with images of skulls, chains, iron crosses and some sort of helmed, tusked boar-monster.

Once every night the wearer may select a member of the opposite sex (or of the same gender if they are of homosexual or bisexual inclination); the wearer will have an 18 charisma in regards to their target until dawn, who must also make a save vs. spells or fall under the equivalent of a charm person spell until dawn while also disregarding all current romantic and/or sexual partners.

When worn The Claw functions as a +1 magic weapon, striking for 2-7 points of damage.

Magic Item - Vroat Vase

Once per day one may, if the vase is at least partially full of fresh water, place a quantity of tadpoles, frogs or toads within this vase, 1d6 of which will, over the course of the next ten minutes, take the form of miniature (normal frog-sized) Vroats (see Arduin Grimoire I or Arduin Trilogy); once they leave the confines of the vase they will rapidly transform into fully-grown 4+1 hit die Vroats. The possessor of the vase is granted no preternatural ability to communicate with, empathize with, influence or control these Vroats. In many climes care must be taken to not leave water in the vase unattended, lest one inadvertently unleash a plague of Vroats upon the locale.

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.

Cursed Magic Item - Sword Handle Umbrella

AKA - Eventually Someone is Going to Get Shot by a Police Officer *

These items appear to be an umbrella with a sword handle instead of the usual umbrella handle. If used as a weapon they inflict 0-3 points of damage on a hit. These items are actually cursed: the bearer will operate under the misapprehension that this item grants a +3 bonus to charisma whereas the bearer's charisma will actually be halved (round down). The DM must make a reaction roll whenever the bearer encounters guards, bouncers and other security personnel. On a result of "hostile" the aforementioned security personnel will assume that the sword handle umbrella bearer is reaching for an actual sword and will attack with lethal force.

* I'm not badmouthing Tenkar or any other public safety personnel here...carrying an umbrella that looks like a sword is just plain stupid.

Magic Item - Stuffed Crocodile

A lot of the childrens'/young adult fantasy fiction I've read features a stuffed crocodile a part of the Wizard's lair set dressing...

This item is a roughly man-sized crocodile taxidermy, with two chains attached to the dorsal surface, one above each pair of legs.

When hung from the ceiling of a magic-user's laboratory, workshop, and the like, it reduces the time and cost associated with magical research; spell transcriptions; potion brewing; and scroll scribing by 10%.

If a combination of the Speak With Animals and Speak With Dead spells are used, the stuffed crocodile will turn out to be quite the chatty gossip.

Kirk vs Cthulhu, Asteroid Adventure, Imaginitive Monster Lists, Stat Inflation, Intelligent Magic Items, and Music

I received some great comments regarding my off the cuff "Just Imagine" Kirk vs. Cthulhu post; two dealt with past efforts in that direction:

From DearGod:

"I once began running a CthulhuTrek game. It only lasted a couple sessions--mostly because school and work broke up the game night.

In my game Dagon had granted the deep ones knowledge of space travel. I had the players come across a derelict ship that was completely flooded with water. The deep ones knocked out the ship's shields, uploaded a virus that caused the replicators to mass-produce water, and then transported on to the ship to steal away all of the humans to sacrifice them to their fish-gods."

From Chris Hüth:

"A few years ago, when I was more enthused about 'running' Beyond The Final Frontier, I started writing an article on exactly this topic, called 'The Doom That Came From Space' or something like that.

The first part was ideas for converting Call of Cthulhu adventures to Star Trek, including series outlines for SoYS and MoN, and talking about horror in Trek, both in running it and examples of it from all the series (and negotiating the humanism-antihumanism Trek-HPL divide in tone).

The second part was conversions, revisionings and fittings of CoC things into Trek (including examples of mi-go spaceships, sinister interpretations of regular Trek species (like why the Breen wear suits), and episode outlines for each. I've got a few crazy ones (The Ruins of Aldebaran III and 65 Million Years To Earth) I still really want to run.

The SFier interpretations of Mythos elements in Trail would also be a big help here, especially for stripping out the cliche cultist/tome parts where they don't fit." 

As a relevant aside, I believe that one version of the Star Trek rpg used 3d6 stat & percentile skill system that at first glance looked to be quite compatible with Call of Cthulhu...


I've been working on a new Planet Algol adventure/"dungeon"; this one is set on an asteroid and is very influences by 60s & 70s television & movie sci-fi such as Star Trek, Doctor Who and Space 1999. Hopefully my players will take the bait tomorrow...


As part of the research for this project, I dug up some great OD&D monster lists from fellow OSR bloggers I remember really liking, and it would be despicable of me not to share them with you guys (nevermind having a compiled set of links for use in my own game):

From Aeons & Auguries: Lunar Encounter Tables.

From Sham's Grog 'n Blog: The Dismal Depths Bestiary; More Monsters; and Even More Monsters.

Dig those terse/spartan stat blocks! Especially compared to the sprawling 3rd/4th edition monstrosities, although I wish they had treasure type and morale scores ;) Not to be an edition-jerk, but it's a lot easier to write up monsters when you just need to come up with a couple of reasonable numbers as opposed to figuring out ability scores and calculating ranks in basket-weaving.

This brings to mind something I've been meaning to blog about for a while, the "stat inflation" in D&D over the editions. Reading the monster design booklet in the LOTFP referees booklet really hammered in how it may not be the best idea to inflate a creatures AC, HD and attacks; I know some B/X and AD&D monsters kind of become ambulatory tree-chippers with their multiple attacks as compared to OD&D versions, and things get crazy with 15 hit-die humanoids with armor classes of 33 in more recent editions.

This is mitigated by the inflation in stat bonus; weapon specialization; larger hit dice for PCs; more magic bonuses, and the like as D&D changed from OD&D, but I'm really coming around to the OD&D-ish paradigm of less bonuses. It makes for a faster game with less "processing cycles" needed for both the DM and players to do the math, and as long as the numbers are less for both the monsters and PCs everything should work out fine.


I've been thinking more about magic items, some of it inspired by reading about the awesome-sounding Dicitionary of Mu. I'm thinking that you have the awesome weapons and armor made by ancient master trademen using skills lost to modern man, such as Wolfe's Terminus Est; than you have the mysterious technological items, "sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic" such as the Eyes of Tekumel; and than you have the capital-A Artifacts, often intelligent and aligned, the sort of things that were wielded by legendary warlock-villainsm or are extradimindensional beings bound into a physical item, such as Stormbringer or the Shining Trapezohedron.


I haven't been posting much about music lately, which is practically criminal on my part. I've lately been revisiting a past obsession of mine, the Sun City Girls, instigated by Planet Algol campaign participant Pete's introduction of the Sublime Frequencies "Cambodian Cassette Archives" into Planet Algol background music rotation.

While reading about Sublime Frequencies releases I investigated Group Doueh, which plays some absolutely sublime Moroccan guitar freakouts!

I also read about the Sun City Girls-related Master Musicians of Bukkake. In the past, not knowing much about them, I dismissed them due to their name; but Fat Cotton told me about a great show of theirs he saw, and when I found out about the Sun City Girls connection I had to check them out..and I'm very glad I did, I highly recommend them to anyone into ritualistic/trance-inducing weirdo music!

Random Intelligent, Aligned Magic Items

As I mentioned previously, I've been musing about aligned, intelligent magic items. Now this is more of a thought experiment that anything I'm planning on using in any of my regular games, but would be awesome for a Rientsian/Arduin/Encounter Critical gonzo one-shot!

And the more I think about intelligent, aligned magic potions the more I like the idea!

Anyways, here's two such items I randomly generated using the magic item & intelligent sword procedures from the Expert & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules...

Basic/Expert Item:

Potion of Speed
Intelligence: 12
Powers: Read Magic, Detect Magic(1/round), Detect Metal(1/round), Detect Sloping Passages (1/round), Levitation (3/day)
Method of Communication: Speech
Languages: Lawful + 2 more
Alignment: Lawful

Advanced Item

A Potion of Extra-Healing was the first roll; although I dig intelligent potions, I'm going to re-roll until something else comes up. 3 more potions and a scroll come up before I hit:

Chain Mail +3
Intelligence: 12
Abilities: Detect precious metal, kind and amount, in 20' radius.
Communication: semi-empathy
Alignment: Neutral good

There's a lot of potential for humor here...intelligent armor that can detect gold and silver, but is good aligned and would not cotton with robbery, burglary and the like. It's too bad it can't talk, "Sorry Darth Conan, I refuse to detect precious metal an account of your unscrupulous behavior!"

I also dig the super-powered Potion of Speed...that's some serious booster-juice!

Aligned Magic Items Idea

Especially if you are using the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic alignment system, but what if every magic item was aligned, the same way all magic swords in OD&D were aligne?. Even potions. Maybe when you used a potion,for the duration your alignment changed with appropriate behavior? Or you could just take damage, or have a varying duration dependent upon alignment differences. Most magic items, ring, axes, helmets, staves and so forth, would be aligned, and possibly intelligent with attendant ego scores, psychic powers, and so forth.

It strikes me a somewhat genre appropriate...the sorcerous gear of a blasphemous warlock corrupting those who dare use their foul magic; the holy relic inspiring the bearer; an enchanted wine-cup making the owner abandon their former 'good' or 'villainous' nature for hedonism. You could emulate that by having some, many or all aligned objects follow the AD&D procedures for 'personality conflicts' and ego score for swords; and that section of the Dungeon Masters Guide does seem to conflict with the previous rules for hit point damage accrued for holding a weapon of incompatible alignment.

Magic Item - Dagger Of The Akhtholanduvian Karcists

Chalk fondled the sinister dark, curved dagger.

"I wish you'd get rid of that thing already!" Koram harshly whispered as the party crouched behind a fragment of the massive brassteel girders that supported the lilac dome above them.

"Quiet!" whispered Valance, "there's a pack of rubbery things with metal limbs coming out of that hole in the ground."

Koram quickly raised the strange silvery weapon that fired lines of violet energy.

"My mistake, it's just spider venom hallucinations again."

"This whole fucking world is like your fucking spider venom hallucinations!" muttered Chalk as he continued caressing the malicious looking knife.

The signature weapon of the aforementioned Karcists, a shadowy destruction cult of Assassin-Sorcerers from the Flying Mountains of Ylesh who terrorized the regions below tens of thousands of years ago during the Aeon of the Ivory Autarch.

The weapons are single-edged crescent-bladed daggers of dull, dark hepatazon, tarnished a almost black by the millenea. They are +2 to hit and damage, and if the wielder strikes with a natural 20 on the attack roll the target loses one life level to energy drain and the wielder takes 1-4+2 points of damage.

"Cursed" Treasure Emerging From Play

No, this isn't about that -2 cursed backbiting hayfork or transgendering girdle, but about treasure that acquires a "cursed" nature due to the greed, betrayal, misfortune and death that it engenders. There have been a couple of such items in my current Planet Algol game...

Gan-Ron's Silver Needle Sword

One of the first adventures in the Planet Algol Campaign involved the party being commissioned by intoxicant distributors to retrieve a synthetic prostitute that had run away with a  "Hero," Gan-Ron the Silver Man, a dim witted but good hearted crusader. The party sorcerers befriend, ensorcel and than murder Gan-Ron and take his magic, silvery, needle-bladed long sword as loot.

The party members were excited to acquire their first magic weapon...and than every character that wielded the sword died. Every character. It was random happenstance, but it was ....appropriate.

Eventually Kalervo, the folksy, stoic cactus man bore it, and even though he died a few times always managed to come back...until the "Eye of Restoring Life" ran out of charges while Kalervo lay there, a mass of pulpy green shreds and splintered wooden bones...with Gan-Ron's Silver Needle Sword lying broken next to him (failed save vs. crushing blow from the BIG monster that slew him). The curse ended with the shattering of the blade and the loss of beloved, useful member of the party.

The Magic Helmet

In their adventures the party came across a friendly, good-natured gossip that told them all sorts of tales of treasure and adventure scattered across the hexmap. One of his tales involved a cache of loot including a magic helmet.

An expedition set forth to fid this treasure. They defeated the guardians, but were slain by nocturnal emissions from poisonous blossoms before they found the treasure.

Another expedition set out, on a R&R (recovery and resurrection) mission. The dead characters are found, and Kalervo is resurrected (leaving only one charge in the party's Eye of Restoring Life). The treasure is found...several thousand gp worth of jewelry and a magic helmet. Identify is cast upon the helmet and it is revealed to be a Helm of Teleportation...a real top-shelf magic item.

The party sets out on their long, grueling return journey and during the next night a roll on the "Which Wilderness Encounter Table Do I Use" table results in the Arduin Wandering Monster Table. Which results in a crazy badass wandering monster, which results in the wholesale slaughter of every party member that can't outrun said monster (Dave Hargrave...he was a maniac!).

Kalervo...dead. Buzz Brazelhach...dead. Sleestakuras...dead.

One of the survivors, a new 1st level character that also managed to nab the jewels and Helm of Teleportation by virtue of finding them in a tank of slimy alagae water, returns to the scene of the carnage, loots Buzz Brazelhach's corpse for all of his valuables (Buzz had been rude and pushy with him), and uses the last charge of the Eye of Restoring Life to bring back Rodan the Scrounger...who sees his rescuer wearing the Magic Helmet and carrying his dead companion Buzz's magic sword reacts by reaching for his laser pistol to blast the 1st level character to atoms for his impudent greed.

The bearer of the Helm reacts by using it's power of Teleportation to escape back to "safety" before the laser pistol clears leather and Rodan is left in the wilderness, sans companions or supplies (ruined by the monster) and with much of his gear ruined by the same monster (including all of his radiation crystals...power cells for his energy weapons).

To me, that is an epic pulp adventure tale of greed and death. Sure, an expedition ended disastrously, characters died, but The Curse of Fucking Greed In Effect!! ...just fucking harrowing, the stuff of legends...How Many Men Died Seeking That Helmet and How Many More Will Yet Die? As Kalervo died and Gan-Ron's sword was broken in this misadventure, did the curse transfer to the helmet? I know not...but I am eager to see what ensues.

Also, now we have a PC with a serious murderous vendetta against another PC that possesses the power of teleportation...crikey, the drama that may unfold!

Also, here's some sublimely transcendent Krautrock I've been listening to a lot lately, perfect tunes for psychedelic space deaths...

Musing on Magic & Technological Items

Traditionally in D&D & derived rpgs magic items and technological items are interchangeable. In a fantasy game what may be called a wand of fireballs, whereas in a sci-fi game an item with the same effect could be called an incendiary micro-grenade launcher (aside from the class requirements for many magic items in standard D&D).

In Empire of the Petal Throne the line is further blurred, with magical and technological items being treated interchangeably.

While working on the treasure & item material for the Planet Algol material, what really struck me is that many classic D&D magic items such as healing potions, flying carpets, wands of lightning and the like not only can easily be presented a technological items, but when their functionality and "reliability" are concerned they come across as virtual technological items. A magic-users suite of magic items could easily be some sort of advanced technician's supply of advanced equipment.

When one considers how magic items are treated in much of the "source fiction," they are generally more mysterious than D&D magic items. Enigmatic, possibly dangerous artifacts of lost-lost eldritch forces. Generally not the "utility items" that most D&D magic items are, but instead "Artifacts" similar to those of the Artifacts of classic D&D.

The conclusion I've come to while considering such matters is that in the Planet Algol setting as I present it, technological items generally should be the "generic, utility" items such as contragravity harnesses and medical nano-injectors whereas magical items generally should be "Artifact-ish." Powerful, mysterious items of legend such a the orichalcum encrusted skull of an ancient sorcerer infused with his knowledge or the ritual implements of an extradimensional sage.

My goal is to present an array of standard technological items as well as both a selection of example "weird, classic sword & sorcery" magic items and the tables for generating such items.

Now I would like to include some allowances for minor charms and amulets created by contemporary sorcerers, but I would like to avoid magic items being something that are created by nowadays sources, instead being the remnants of lost civilizations or from distant spheres and dimensions.

One motif in many science fantasy settings, such as China Mievilles Bas-Lag milieu (which is a big influence on Planet Algol), is techno-magical items. Although I enjoy the way such items are presented in the Bas-Lag novels, in my interpretation of the Planet Algol setting I would like to avoid such magitechnology, as I would like to keep magic items weird and mysterious, and also with access to technological items such magitech is somewhat redundant.

The Stellar Luminous Tablet

Said to have belonged to a powerful sorcerer from beyond our galaxy, this rectangular tablet is composed of a slab of shining crystalline white mineral that is always cold. It bears two columns of angular sigils, one column beneath a crescent-glyph and the other beneath a circle-glyph. This tablet has often been sought by alien beings trapped on Planet Algol seeking a means to return home.

Level 8
Gatewalking (from Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia)
Lunar Attraction (from Eldritch Weirdness)

The Three Loathsome Tomes of Kral-Ugott And The Tales of Leigkhu the Scoundrel

As I was discussing earlier, I've been working on putting some flavorful grimoires of repute in my campaign. One of the design goals was to elegantly incorporate "non-core" spells into my campaign.

The below are the results of some thought on the matter, the specific goal being to provide an agency for some of the spells from Ancient Vaults and Eldritch Secrets, Beyond the Black Gate, Secrets of Acheron, and Eldritch Weirdness to enter my campaign. Interestingly enough, I now have the archetypal "Infamous Nasty Evil Tome..."


The Three Loathsome Tomes of Kral-Ugott
An infamous collection of blackest sorcery compiled by a reviled Sorcerer-King of the Ancients Kral-Ugott. There are three tomes in this compilation, although rumors persist of a collected omnibus edition containing additional rituals and incantations.

Volume I, "The Putrid Green Tome of Kral-Ugott"
A large grimoire bound in battered scarred filthy manskin, mottled with disgusting green moulds. The filthy pages are full of crabbed black sigils and when opened emits a choking fungal odour.

Level 1
Evil Eye (soa)
Grave Torment (soa)
Vile Weapon (soa)

Level 2
Cloak of Shadows (btbg)
Corruption of the Leaf (aves)
Strange Shadows (aves)
Strangulations (ew)
Tamu's Collaring Coiffure (ew)
Touch of Pain (aves)
Yxagyg Coil (btbg)

Volume II, "The Slavering Red Book of Kral-Ugott"
This large volume is bound in red scales encrusted with blackish-brown residue. When opened a strong smell of old rotting blood permeates the air.

Level 3
Blessing of Og Sohoth (btbg)
Talons of Yrg (btbg)

Level 4
Aura of Terror (aves)
Beast of Chaos (ew)
Breath of Death (aves)
The Curse of Xurgk (btbg)
Deadly Bliss (ew)
Rain of Evil (aves)
Shadow Armor (aves)
Syblymyr's Dark Compulsion (btbg)
The Wind of Pestilence (aves)

Volume III, "The Utmost Black Grimoire of Kral-Ugott"
This massive book is has two sharp-edged heavy plates of glistening black metal plates for covers. These metal plates are quite bloodthirsty and often cut the hands of those perusing the book's contents. It emits a strong burnt metallic smell.

Level 5
Agonizing Doom (soa)
Breath of Yizil (soa)
Deadly Dissolvative (ew)
Infestation of Astral Vile Incarnates (aves)
Most Horrible Absorption (ew)
Six Mouths of Horror (ew)

Level 6
The Cohesive Cocoon (ew)
Twilight of Thieves (ew)

Level 7
Enslave (soa)
Enterragate (ew)
Your Heart is Mine (soa)

Level 8
Borrowed Time (ew)


Tales of Leigkhu the Scoundrel, Volumes I & II
Collections of episodic picaresque and erotic tales detailing the adventures of a lusty, cunning and greedy vagabond-magician, Leigkhu. These tales are collected in two small, slim volumes with elegant black leather covers, and feature several pornographic plates. Often Leigkhu is accompanied by two additional rogues from a "distant sphere," Khor-Aam the Fighting-Man and Chaalyk the Magic-User. Embedded in the text and illustrations are the encrypted formulae for several spells that Leigkhu, Chaalyk and their adversaries employ. The actual tales themselves are light reading but are also quite entertaining, albeit of a scandalous bent and capable of shocking the reader by the depths of amorality plumbed by Leigkhu and companions in the contained exploits.

Volume I, "Leigkhu and the Eight Grasping Barons"

Level 1
Rope of Steel (aves)

Level 2
Casting Aspersions (aves)
Glamour of False Healing (aves)
Mastery of Puppets (aves)
Mutinous Limb! (aves)
Summon Peasant (aves)
Zeralazar's Blazing Trail (aves)

Volume II, "Leigkhu and the Seven Lusty Sorceresses"

Level 3
Memory Thrall (aves)
Nesztor's Vastly Improved Spell of Levitation (btbg)
Roles Reversed (aves)
Things Out There (aves)

Level 6
Reveal True Name (aves)


aves - Ancient Vaults and Eldritch Secrets
btbg - Beyond the Black Gate - Congratulations on your "Birthday."
ew - Eldritch Weirdness
soa - Secrets of Acheron

"The Immaculate Weeping Amputation" and Artifact Swords

There's always someone talking about making magic items "unique(er)," which is a commendable goal. I'm rereading Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" series and I've been really jazzed on all the hubbub concerning the perfectly-crafted executioner's sword Terminus Est and it's maker. This provides one template you can use to make magic swords "unique(er)":

• Perhaps "magic swords" aren't magic, but just the product of ultra-master swordsmiths of the distant past who used art lost to modern men to forge their blades.
• Perhaps there was only handful of legendary swordsmiths and almost all "magic" swords are the handiwork of one member of this small pool. Those knowledgeable in such matters can recognize the individual craftsmanship of different sword makers.
• "Magic" swords could have some high faulutin' name. Maybe not so much "Heavy Metal Names," but Haiku or Formal/Euphemistic style names.
• "Magic" sword doesn't really work in this context if the swords aren't actually magic but the product of super-forging. I'd call them Artifact Swords myself but I can appreciate how one would want to avoid Artifact confusion. You could even give them all sorts of "magic" sword properties such as injuring ghost/insubstantial beings; bonuses versus certain types of foes; radiating light; etc. by attributing such properties to the special materials used in the manufacture of the blade.

I made a table of 100 descriptive words and 100 nouns to generate sword names and it came up with some pretty choice examples, such as:

Inscrutable Scarlet Wing
Disemboweling Virtuous Lady
Impeccable Weeping Amputation
Bloody Bright Fist
Flowing Discerning Thorn
Cleaving Flowering Scythe
Utmost Exterminating Scourge
Dancing Impervious River
Avenging Courageous Blossom

Not everyone's cup of tea but I'm digging the results, especially "The Impeccable Weeping Amputation!" I imagine the sword's name would be graven in ancient glyphs along one side of the blade and the maker's name or sigil would be on the tang or on the blade in smaller script.

Next I came up with the names of some legendary sword-makers of the lost ancient past: Ezvenarian, Zhaiyeen, Srikalvia and Abdieo. I'm thinking that different craftsmen specialized in different styles of blades. Ezvenarian was known for his square-tipped straight-bladed broad, bastard and two-handed sword and Sriklavia for flowing, wavy, almost flame or leaf shaped short sword, falchions, scimitars and broad swords.

Now I need to come up with a sword properties table...

New Magic Item - George's Lucky Green Twenty Sider

Today I picked up two sets of Gamescience dice (for $5/set!) and while inking them came up with the following "tribute" to the Colonel and his dice.

George's Lucky Green Twenty Sider
This object appears to be a small, green plastic polyhedral dice with twenty sides numbered either from one through to twenty or zero through to nine twice. If closely examined one will observe that it is slightly "egg-shaped."If the bearer of this dice ever dies as the direct result of a failed saving throw they are allowed to "turn back the clock" and make a second saving throw with a +5 modifier. Once a character's life has been saved by this dice it disappears forever.