"Like an Everflowing Stream..."

"...is the lifesblood of slaughtered PCs, let the dice fall as they may." I've been in a very metal mood lately and some of you have expressed enthusiasm for my music posts so I'm opening the floodgates. This lyrics of the below song by Dismember (who are the best live death metal band I've ever seen) could be about the cycle of random, brutal death and new characters in a gritty, lethal D&D game.

Override the overture
Behold the overwhelming power
Trampled and [fucking] mangled
By the hordes of terror

The process of death is our fate to be
From the skies blood drips like rain
Tell me how I suffer, tell me how I'll die
My arms stretched out in eternal pain

The life that we knew drowned in the stream of death
The agony within tears my worthless being

Crushed
By the blasphemous horror inside
Enter a world
Beyond this [fucking] global tomb

Mesmerized
By the visions of things past and gone
My death arrives
My fate to be it must be done

Laid to rest
Shut my eyes
Live no more
Die a countless times

To the burial ground
Our flesh are bound
Our souls will live on
With the powers beyond

At the end
I'm still so cold inside
Once again
I would like to share my memories of life

Show me
The realm where nothing dies
If such a place exists
Please guide my eyes !

Australia's Portal sound like being inside a rusty submarine being thrown about on jagged basalt rocks by a hurricane while titanic monsters battle and mate in the churning black waters. And they also have a creepy Lovecraftian theme done with class and style.



British dirtbag biker doom with songs about Conan and Mi-Go...



Summoning of the multi-headed worm god (Sarku? The Dhol?) from the bottomless black pool of filth in a blasphemous subterranean vault...

"This is the story of a gang of insanely greedy, stupid, merciless cowards trying to bullshit their way to a wholly undeserved victory. .."

A nice little essay about gaming, NPCs, and so forth that encapsulates much of my own opinions regarding D&D, "In praise of poor roleplaying."

"...We generally resort to playing in-character when the situation turns especially farcical: either we’re trying to bullshit someone into giving us some fleeting advantage, or we’re bemoaning how suspicious everyone has become. In other words, we’re in the game to make mischief in a fictional world and keep each other entertained...."

Sky Vessels of Planet Algol

I've known from the campaign's inception that Planet Algol has to incorporate flying vessels, from rocketships and flying saucers to dirigibles and sky-boats.

I'm really enthusiastic about the one-page Sailing the Skies of Mars rules by Sean Willis, as they are simple and utilize the familiar mechanics of Armor Class, Hit Points and so forth, although that naval combat rules from Expert Dungeons & Dragons are simple as well and have an illustrious pedigree.

Sailing the Skies of Mars divides skyships into 4 different categories, based on passenger capacity, from the 1-2 person fliers to 50 person galleons, from which armor class, movement rate and potential weaponry determined by size (hull class?). Elegant and simple, and an easy way to categorize that various concepts I have regarding Planet Algol sky vessels:

Ornithopter (1-2 person flier): A homage to Dune and Hawkmoon, they resemble insectile winged helicopters designed by a Martian Leonardo Da Vinci. There are one and two-seater varieties, and they have limited cargo capacity. The pulp adventurer biplane of Planet Algol.

Sky Chariot (4 person skiff): These generally resemble an Atlantean version of the Star Wars Landspeeder although bird sculpture and miniature flying saucer (with a bubble canopy) versions exist. Planet Algol's flying cars.

Skyship (10 person barge): Resembling a cross between a rocketship and a dirigible, with an open deck on the top, generally silvery, needle-nosed and bearing tail-fins. The yachts of Planet Algol's skies.

Contragravity Barge (50 person galleon): Encompassing vessels ranging from those similar to Jabba sail barge from Return of the Jedi to Stargate-esque flying pyramids (although I prefer ziggurats...).

The Sound of Battling Bestial Mutants in a Ruined Burning City

Chapter 7, Part 2: "The Digestive Functions of Macroscopic Protozoa"

CORPORAL RADAR O'REILEY - Teenaged Earth Man, former member of a failed Terran Exploration Mission, has a metal nose
RODAN THE SCROUNGER - Green-skinned Scavenger and Fighting-Man
RYGARR - Green Man Sorcerer
THORAZ AND KALERVO - Cactoid Brothers, Fighting-Men

Part I Here.

The battered party makes their way to Pit without incident, all the while Kalervo the Cactoid is staggering and oozing sap from his gargoyle injuries. The companions with experience in Pit insist on staying at the Titanium Vault and soon the party are drawing baths and sending their clothing off to be laundered in a spacious, luxurious, and secure brass suite.

Even in these lush accommodations it takes several days for the Cactoid to recover from his injuries. While in town Radar O'Reily, the metal-nosed teenage Earth Man explorer, finds a weapons merchant with a small quantity of shotgun shells available; meanwhile a couple of party members head for the offices of the Lhogar, head of the Black Pickaxe Mining Gang, seeking employment where they meet with the gregarious purple-scaled mining gang boss who plies them with spiced brandy and pungent green cigars as he tells tales of his youth as an adventurer in the lands beyond the Red Sands to the east. Lhogar regretfully informs the party that he has hired a capable band of mercenaries to secure the mining tunnels from the depredations of underworld denizens, but that they may be able to find work guarding prospectors seeking minerals in the Bornite Mountains, a very dangerous area.

After Kalervo recovers, the party decides to make for Jakay to meet up with Buzz Brazelhatch, who had arranged a commission for the party to guard a safari expedition. They make their way southeast across the great span to Fortress Adamant, which had an unfriendly air and afforded no accomodation. Fortunately there is a passable inn outside of the fortress and the party feasts on simple fare before retiring.

The next morning, emboldened by stories about the artifact scavengers of the Rust Desert, the party decides that they should take a detour northeast into the Rust Desert and seek out ruins on their way to Jakay. At midday an ancient rusted hatch is found and opened, Kalervo's fighting hand is crushed in the process, and a huge subterranean rusted iron chamber is revealed. Ropes are secured and the party descends. Although a modest cache of ancient silver coins is found, Kalervo's brother, Thoraz is grotesquely digested by an ocher jelly and the four remaining party members refrain from further exploration of the giant underground iron chamber. The climb back up the rope is painful for Kalervo, not only because of the crushed hand and the acid burned legs from combat with the aforementioned sibling-devouring, oversized single-celled organism, but because of the loss of his Cactoid brother for a few mere silver.

When the party arrives in Jakay they head for the Bronze Engine (which is indeed an Inn constructed out of a massive ancient bronze engine) located next to a throbbing atomic water pump. Neither Buzz or his wealthy patron are present but lurking in a shadowy corner is a feather-crested, downy gray Tikalg man bearing a slender basket-hilted sword in a belt scabbard and clad in fancy red leather pants, a luxurious billowing purple synthsilk shirt and a dashing half-cape. Introductions are made and a round of drinks is bought. Friendly conversation begins and eventually drifts to hushed whispers over possible whereabouts of crashed rocketships, or earthman relics. It is then that the Tikalg man is found to be quite knowledgable and introduces himself as Vrroomish, a sophisticated dandy and adventurer.

Inquiries are made about adventuring opportunities and Vrroomish asks for a small retainer which is quickly paid. He soon returns with an intense, grizzled Lhoyg mountain-man who bears several battered weapons: Hobab of the Bornite Mountains.

Hobab, in a raspy quiet-to-LOUD manner (which occasionally frightens the the jittery teenage Radar O'Reily) tells a tale of a flying saucer and silver-suited beings with powerful rock-cutting rays he spied in the Bornite Mountains. Hobab explains he saw the strange flying vessel land and the silver suited beings emerge to examine and take samples from the mountainside with technological items before returning to their saucer and taking off briefly before some unknown catastrophe struck the vessel. In a sudden change of direction the saucer fell from the sky into the thick white fog of the Forbidden Mist Valley of the Bornite Mountains.

Hobab claims that he could guide the party to the crashed saucer in exchange for first pick of the loot. Vrroomish interjects and explains that as the facilitator of this expedition that he is entitled to second pick of the treasure. The party is eager to loot the crashed flying saucer and agree to the expedition.

Musings on Character Definition and Editions

Now that I'm DMing AD&D instead of the two most recent incarnations of the brand, I'm reveling in the simpler ruleset (yes, I know...). With the simpler character generation the players are able to churn out new characters in minutes. Memorable characters. Without feats, skills or build options. I've been handwaving languages ever since I erased the whiteboard. I don't even use weapon specialization...

And the characters have been distinctive and memorable, even the ones in the heap of dead 1st-levelers. Somehow the stench of their rotting corpses hasn't dissuaded my pool of players.

I'm not a proponent of capital-R Roleplaying, the game comes first. But the characters have personality and an engaging story sometime emerges. This may very well be due to the fact that the players in my game are well versed in the source literature, enthusiastic about the genres and themes I'm exploring in the game, tolerant of my radical traditionalist exploration of Dungeons & Dragons, creative and enthusiastic people, and quite coincidentally great roleplayers. And I don't prioritize roleplaying at all, aside from NPCs speaking in funny voices and acting like characters in Curb Your Enthusiasm or an Oscar Wilde play. I am truly lucky to have such a great band of bohemians at the table, and they may be the greatest group I could ever imagine (aside from Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E Howard (HPL doesn't get invited on account of being a sadsack; plus he'd make a fuss about the bong rips and atonal music), Oscar Wilde, Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Bod Bledsaw, MAR Barker, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Lin Carter).

Aside from the touchy-feely roleplay/story aspect, these memorable characters are also defined by their diverse equipment and tactics. A combination of using the weapon vs. armor type modifiers and weapon proficiency rules (no character class weapon restrictions however!) combined with strength and dexterity requirements for various weapons has helped with this as well as generally random treasure generation with no wish-lists or class/level appropriate "parcels." Buzz Brazelhatch is a great swordsmen simply because the Shunned One he killed was carrying a +3 two-handed sword and he rolled really well for hit points. Rodan the Scrounger is an excellent skirmisher by virtue of his completely random high dexterity score and that he sought out and acquired a random laser pistol. Gan-Ron the Silver Man NPC signed his death warrant due to having a low-intelligence and a magic sword. Sorcerers are cowardly lurkers due to their low hit points and vancian casting, and we're all fine with that (although the acquisition of technological weaponry could very well radically change that despite their -5? non-proficiency penalty with said arms until they finally get a proficiency at level 6? or 11?)).

The genre conventions are emerging as an artifact of the rules. Perhaps an indication of the modern/plastic influences upon that later editions? As much as I tried to run a gritty, pulp romp in 3.5 the system fought me tooth and nail (while chaining me to endless rule lookups). Although anime and videogame/Peter Jackson LOTR superheros are not my bag when the dice hit the table, if they are your thing than definitely the later editions are suitable for such play. Me, I'll be sticking with my musty yellow-spined DAW paperbacks.

R.I.P.Thool and Current Activities

Real Life concerns, my recent purchase of Borderlands and "D.I.Y. Booklet Fever" has been keeping me away from posting. However, I am still banging away at Planet Algol and have been somewhat productive.

I've been meaning to blog about this subject for a while, so I would just like to take a moment AND BEG THE WORLD OF THOOL TO RETURN. The fact that the World of Thool blog is gone is almost criminal, although I appreciate the Thool Wiki. If anyone was smart enough to cut, paste and save Thool content please let me know...the Phasmids are crying!

Fortunately we have Thool's spiritual successor, Athanor, and I am gratified by the recnt news that Doug is working on more Hex Descriptions (one of my favorites in any product) and a Athanor booklet on Lulu. Check out (if you haven't already) the blog and the PDF booklets.

As I said, Planet Algol is still going strong. This last sunday was the Halloween session, with a rare appearance of our gaming group's "Trucker's Wife" Cameron. Much Hawkwind and Spaceart was listened to, a deceased companion and his magic armor was recovered, and the party repeatedly got lost in the Forbidden Mist Valley while seeking the rayguns of a crashed flying saucer.

I have been working on laying out and printing/assembling booklets myself (somewhat digest sized at 5.5"x8.5"), "Planet Algol I: The Iridium Plateau Players Guide"(16-20 pages) "Planet Algol I: The Irdium Plateau Referees Guide"(16-20 pages) and "Planet Algol: Kharhem - Snakepit of Daggers" (32-36 pages). I'm planning on selling these booklets at a modest price in the near future.

Kharhem is a Swords & Sorcery city setting with serpent cults, slavers, assassin guilds, subterranean complexes and an avatar of the black goat with a thousand young. Some of you may be somewhat familiar with it in a previous incarnation.

The booklets will be printed out and assembled by hand, D.I.Y. style, and I'm having a lot of fun with formatting and different papers. I'll be using quality paper and am planning on having great artwork (thanks to Fat Cotton and Douglas) so if everything works out as planned these will be an aesthetically pleasing bundle of weird science fantasy.

Much of the Planet Algol information from the blog will be in the booklets (and I'm not planning on taking any of that down), however much of it will be improved/expanded (I have to fix the terrible jungle symbols on the Iridium Plateau map), without any unnecessary wordcount bloat.

I have some Players Guides and prototypes printed up although the final version will definitely not have the Virgil Finlay artwork (I wish...).