Spes Magna Games

A couple of blogposts ago, I briefly mentioned Dungeon Master’s Book of Cartography (DMBoC hereafter), which is available over at Amazon for $7.99. Matt Jackson is a talented fantasy map-maker. I’ve used several of his maps, most recently this past Sunday as part of the 5E D&D game I’m DMing.

DMBoC includes several maps, each one facing a lined page on which notes about the map can be written. The maps include a variety of dungeon and wilderness locations. None of the locations are particularly large, making them suitable for short, site-based adventures. As always with Matt, the maps are clean and clear, and they have character. These are not cookie-cutter, computer-generated maps. The last several pages of DMBoC are mapless, featuring a sheet of graph paper with a facing page for notes, encouraging me to add my own cartographical efforts to the collection.

All in all, I’m digging DMBoC. It’s a fine addition to my collection of gaming books, and I’m looking forward to Volume Two, which I assume must be in the works since DMBoC is subtitled as “volume one”. I know the maps in DMBoC will get used, even though I doubt I’ll ever write in the book. Maybe I’ll add some maps of my own on those graph paper pages, but filling in the lines with dungeon details? Probably not. I work better with a word processor than with a pen.

Good job, Matt! Now get volume two done.

Tags: maps, Matt Jackson, reviews

The sokwe arrive from the skies in strange craft made of metal and glass. From these craft drop thunderous bombs and project destructive blasts of energy. When the craft land, the sokwe emerge, protected by remarkable armor and bearing uncanny weapons. Ape-like and intelligent, the sokwe strike with speed and ferocity.

Sokwe
Large beast, neutral evil

Armor Class 18 (power armor)
Hit Points 67 (9d10+18)
Speed 35 ft., 35 ft.

STR 20 (+5), DEX 14 (+2), CON 16 (+3), INT 11 (+0), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 10 (+0)

Skills Athletics +7, Perception +3
Senses passive Perception 13
Languages Sokwe
Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

High-Tech Weapon. Roll 1d10. The sokwe is armed with either a dual phaser (1-5), a blaster rifle (6-8), or a pulse cannon (9-10).

Power Armor. The sokwe wears a suit of power armor. In addition to providing excellent protection, servo-motors in the armor grant advantage on Athletics checks. While wearing power armor, the sokwe counts as one size larger when determining its carrying capacity and the weight it can push, drag, or lift (1,200 pounds and 2,400 pounds, respectively).

Actions

Multiattack. The sokwe makes two fist attacks.

Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+5) bludgeoning damage.

High-Tech Weapon

Dual Phaser. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 50/200 ft., one or two targets. Hit: 13 (2d10+2) fire damage. Nota Bene: A dual phaser can be fired twice with the Attack action. Both attacks must be at the same target or at a second target adjacent to the first target.

Blaster Rifle. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 24 (4d10+2) lightning damage.

Pulse Cannon (Recharge 4-6). Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 35 (6d10+2) force damage.

Tags: 5E D&D, monsters

I’ve mentioned Matt Jackson and his excellent maps before, many of which you can admire at this link. Matt’s maps have made two of my publications better, those publications being Ean Illiam’s Cavern Stores for Dungeon World and Clever Title Using Hack & Class: The Second Edition for The Black Hack.

Matt has a book available over at Amazon. With a $7.99 sticker price, Matt’s Dungeon Master’s Book of Cartography has made it onto my Amazon wishlist. If no one else gets it for me for Christmas, I’ll get it myself. Matt’s book’s blurb reads (in part):

Dungeon Masters should never get caught without a good dungeon map! This booklet contains 15 detailed maps with a note page to allow Dungeon Masters to flesh out write their own adventure.

Sounds excellent, and having seen Matt’s talent as an RPG cartographer and having confidence in his work ethic, I’m excited at the prospect of adding this book to my library.

Anyhoo, speaking of The Black Hack, which is a astonishingly good rules-light game, part of that system’s rules has made it into the Tanelorn Keep Player’s Guide, a campaign starter inspired by my recent revisitation to my 2E AD&D books.

(Nota Bene: The link for The Black Hack is an affiliate link; if you click and purchase, I get some cents.)

Action resolution in The Black Hack is based on rolling against an ability score, which are the familiar six from the various versions of D&D. When your character levels up, you roll to see if certain ability scores improve. I like this idea, and so I glommed and tweaked it to read as follows:

Increasing Ability Scores

When your PC gains a level, choose one of his prime requisites (assuming he has more than one) and one other ability score. For the prime requisite, roll 2d20. If either result exceeds your PC’s prime requisite score, increase that prime requisite by +1. For the other ability score, roll 1d20 and follow the same procedure. Apply all of the benefits of an increased ability score as appropriate.

Tags: AD&D, Matt Jackson, Tanelorn

In the Tanelorn Keep Player’s Guide, the player character race that’s changed the most from the standard 2E Player’s Handbook is mostly likely the gnome.

I’ve always kind of like gnomes, but I’ve got to admit that in AD&D there seems to be little to them. They’re like dwarves, but they have big noses and talk to rabbits, and, even though they’re nonmagical like dwarves, some of them are illusionists. For my gnomes, I got rid of the nonmagical-ness and played up their connections to nature and trickery. As with Deep Sashelas for the elves, I recast an AD&D gnomish deity of lesser repute into the role of creator and patron. I also took some inspiration from the treatment of halflings in the wonderful Birthright setting.

Nota Bene: The illustration accompanying this post is by the wonderfully talented Tony DiTerlizzi.

Gnomes

Diminutive and mercurial, the gnomes live in wooded hills, avoiding the conflicts and temptations of civilization. While dwarves were carved and forged from stone and metal, and elves were shaped from coral and seafoam, Baravar Cloakshadow fashioned his people from twilight and whispers.

Gnomes live in extended family clans ruled by jarls. Internecine conflict between gnomish clans is not uncommon as clans fight to control resources, avenge grudges, and honor allegiances. Against trespassers, gnomes rely on skirmishers reinforced by magic from druids and illusionists. Many tales are told about scouts or bandits venturing into gnomish lands only to be set upon by packs of enchanted beasts or to become lost in mazes of tangled thorns.

The gnomes claim as their own the rugged, forbidding mountains and wooded vales of Bebryx, that region that forms the inhospitable border between the Western Lands to the north and the wilds of Hispalis to the south.

Gnome Abilities

Your gnome PC has the abilities described on PH 22, with the following changes:

Low-Light Vision: Your gnome cannot see in total darkness, but his eyes are adapted to low-light environments. When relying on a campfire, candle, hooded lantern, torch, or the illumination of a magic weapon, the effective radius of light is doubled for a gnome. See Table 63: Light Sources, PH 118, for more information.

Proficiencies: All gnomes receive a bonus weapon proficiency that must be used to learn one of these weapons: blowgun*, khopesh, sickle, or staff sling. A gnome can use the chosen weapon regardless of class. All gnomes receive a bonus NWP that must be used to learn animal lore, direction sense, herbalism, set snares, or weather sense.

Twilight and Whispers: Your gnome is not especially resistant to magic. In fact, he has certain magical powers. A gnome can identify illusion/phantasm effects only, doing so once per day per level. This functions as a spell with an effective casting time of one round. The effects persist for one round. While using the ability, the gnome cannot see or hear anything other than illusions and phantasms.

Also once per day per level, your gnome may dimension door up to 30 yards distance to a location he can see, doing so as a move. This gnomish ability does not move through the Astral Plane, but instead occurs through the Demi-Plane of Shadow. A gnome cannot use this ability if in either direct sunlight or total darkness.

Passing through the Demi-Plane of Shadow is risky. Many creatures, most of them hostile, reside in that plane. Each time in a day that your gnome uses this ability, there is a cumulative 5% chance that some native of the Demi-Plane of Shadow “hitches” a ride back the Material Plane.

* A gnomish blowgun is a size M weapon rather than size L. Its damage, rate of fire, and range remain the same, but attack rolls with a gnomish blowgun incur a -1 penalty due to its lack of power compared to a standard blowgun.

Tags: AD&D, Tanelorn

Back when I played 2E AD&D, I enjoyed tweaking the races and classes to fit a specific vision for a campaign world. Sure, dwarves in the Forgotten Realms might have X, Y, and Z, but dwarves in my world don’t. Instead, they have A, B, and C. I did the same thing for monsters. In one campaign world, my ghouls weren’t undead. Instead, they were cannibals who gradually mutated in feral humanoids. My giant rats possessed almost human levels of intelligent, and they continued to grow through their lives, introducing something akin to dragon-like age category for monstrous rodents.

In the Tanelorn Keep Player’s Guide, I’ve re-imagined elves as a seafaring race of warrior-poets. Deep Sashelas, the elven deity, created elves from coral and sea foam, giving them traits in common with dolphins and sharks. Consequently, my take on elves differ in some ways substantially from elves as described in the 2E Player’s Handbook.

Elves

Deep Sashelas created the elves from coral and seafoam, and blessed them with the playful heart of a dolphin and the predatory calm of a shark. These poet-warriors built cities and ships. The First Age began when elven longships cut through the waves from Avallen, the elves’ ancestral homeland, to land on the Western Shore.

The elves conquered most of Belgica and Gaal, imposing elven administration over the disparate human tribes of the region. The elves controlled the region from the Western Shore to the Duna, along the shores of which they built several fortress-cities to guard against the militaristic dwarven clans that were consolidating their control over the mountains lands and plains of the East.

The First Age ended when those dwarven clans forded the Duna to wage a war of conquest against the elves. Many humans sided with the dwarves, adding civil war to the chaos caused by dwarven aggression. Today, the elves still control a few strongholds along the Western Shore as well as several islands, most of which serve as ports of call for elven pirate-lords.

Elf Abilities

Your elf PC has the abilities described on PH 21-22, with the following changes:

Iron Will: Elves have a +1 bonus on saving throws against all charm– and fear-related spells and abilities. Elves also receive a saving throw against sleep magic, even when the magic does not normally permit a saving throw.

Keen Senses: Your elf’s eyesight is not especially acute or able to pierce darkness, but his senses of hearing and smell are keen. Against a creature that can be heard, an elf adds +1 to his surprise roll. If an undetected, injured creature that can bleed is within 30 feet of your elf, he enjoys a +1 to his surprise roll against that creature. The DM may adjudicate that extenuating circumstances modify the range of this latter ability. These bonuses are cumulative.

Proficiencies: All elves receive a bonus weapon proficiency that must be used to learn one of these weapons: long sword, short sword, longbow, or short bow. An elf can use the chosen weapon regardless of class. All elves receive a bonus NWP that must be used to learn astrology, musical instrument, seamanship, singing, or swimming.

Tags: AD&D, Tanelorn