Spes Magna Games

So, it’s a new year, and, to quote Bilbo Baggins, “I’m going on an adventure!”

The Borderlands

I started a ShadowDark campaign. We’re five sessions in using Gary Gygax’s The Keep on the Borderlands as the setting. Each session is on-line via my Discord for audio and my Foundry for virtual table top. I’ve got nine players, only a third of them being people I’ve met in person. The campaign is an open table game. I schedule the sessions when I’m available. Anyone who can show up for the session shows up for the session. Only one of the five adventures started with a mandatory DM plot hook. Otherwise, the players decide based on previous sessions, current rumors, et cetera, where their PCs go and what they want to accomplish when they get there.

I’m having so much fun with The Borderlands that I started up campaign site via a Scabard. Check it out if you want.

The picture below is a graph view of The Borderlands on Scabard with “The Heroes” in the center. This view shows many of the PCs (living and dead) and their connections to people, places, and events. Clicking the link in the Group box takes you to the displayed page. Clicking a picture circle on the graph shifts that picture circle to the center and displays relationships from the new perspective.

Good times!

Middangeard

with the help of my very own The Hero’s Journal (via www.TheHerosJournal.co), I’ve started an ambitious project. The Middangeard campaign setting has lurked around the peripheries of my gaming for decades. The earliest iterations used AD&D (first and second editions) back in the late 1980s to early 1990s. It popped up briefly with Third Edition. Elements of it have made cameos in other games with other systems.

The simple elegance of ShadowDark and Old-School Essentials have pushed me to break out several of my favorite non-D&D and D&D-adjacent games to mine for inspiration while writing my own old Old-School system set in Middangeard. Since 1 January, the very rough draft player’s guide has grown from 0 words and pages to just over 1,000 words stretched unevenly across seven pages. Another document discussing Middangeard’s theogony and history (influenced heavily by philosophy and theology largely Catholic in sensibility) includes a lot of previously blogged material. It’s about 5,800 words across 12 pages. Much of this will end up in the player’s guide.

My initial goal is to have enough of Middangeard completed so that I can start playtesting it by September 2025. After that will come more editing followed by formatting for publication via print on demand. If successful, Middangeard will be second actual book (the first being my superhero RPG The Four Color Hack).

Also!

If you’ve not backed James M. Spahn’s White Box Cyclopedia, you should. Check it out on Kickstarter. Two of James’s books are pictured above among my inspirational (and aspirational) materials. White Box Omnibus is an excellent expansion of Swords & Wizardy White Box(/strong> and The Hero’s Journey RPG is a masterpiece of writing and game design.

Tags: James M. Spahn, Old School Essentials, Shadowdark, WhiteBox

Today I revisit Old-School Essentials via a portrait from Jeshields – RPG Stock Art.

Through the open flaps of the ragged, colorful tent, you see an unpleasant creature. Stunted and wizened, large pointed ears below his stained turban, the stench of urine thick in the air around him, the aged goblin grins, showing scab-black gums almost devoid of teeth. Rats wriggle in the folds of his baggy clothes. One fat rodent sprawls atop his turban, its shiny eyes studying you.

“Welcome!” the goblin says, “I am Yad Al-shaytan. Enter my shop freely and in peace.”

Yad Al-shaytan appears as an aged goblin, itself an unlikely encounter given how nasty, brutish, and short goblin lives tend to be. In truth, Yad has more than goblin blood coursing through his veins. He has lived several decades beyond the normal lifespan for goblins. Despite his apparent age, he remains healthy and vigorous. Some of Yad’s abilities have birthed rumors that Yad is some sort of half-vampire, but he is not undead.

Yad’s colorful, ragged tent looks to have a diameter of about 20 feet with a 20-foot tall center pole. Its inner dimensions are considerably larger, and tables, chests, barrels, freestanding shelves, taxidermied creatures, et cetera crowd the interior, turning the inside into a veritable maze of twisting aisles. Visitors often catch glimpses of strange shadows moving about, but direct observation fails to reveal the true nature of these fleeting impressions.

Yad Al-Shaytan: AC 4 [15], HD 3+3 (16 hp), Att 1 × weapon (1d6+1 or by weapon +1), THAC0 16 [+3], MV 90’ (30’), SV D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (5), ML 8, AL Chaotic, XP 35, NA 1, TT S x4, T x2
Hates the Sun: -1 to-hit in full daylight.

• Infravision: 90’.
• Regeneration: Yad gains 3 hp at the start of each round, as long as he is alive.
• Summon Beasts: Creatures from the surrounding area: 1d8 x 8 rats, 4d4 giant rats, 1d8 x 8 bats, 3d4 giant bats, 2d4 wolves, or 1d4 dire wolves. Yad uses speak with animals to communicate with these types of beasts.
• Teleport Shop: Within his shop, Yad can cast teleport once per day, causing him, his shop, and all of his property to vanish.

Tags: monsters, NPCs, Old School Essentials

“It was a monster boar indeed–one as huge as a bull, with tusks as great as an elephant’s; the bristles on its back stood up like spear points, and the hot breath of the creature withered the growth on the ground. The boar tore up the corn in the fields and trampled down the vines with their clusters and heavy bunches of grapes; also it rushed against the cattle and destroyed them in the fields. And no hounds the huntsmen were able to bring could stand before it. And so it came to pass that men had to leave their farms and take refuge behind the walls of the city because of the ravages of the boar.”

From “Atalanta the Huntress” in The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived before Achilles by Padraic Colum.

Boar, Monster

AC 5 [14], HD 6* (26 hp), Att 2 x tusk (2d4) or 1 x trample (2d6) or 1 x breath (2d6), THAC0 14 [+5], MV 180′ (60′), SV D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (6), ML 11, AL Neutral, XP 500, NA 0 (1), TT None

▶ Charge: If disturbed or threatened, will charge to attack. Requires a run of at least 20 yards. Make a tusk attack that inflicts double damage on all in the path.
▶ Fearsome Aura: Animals within 30 feet affected by fear (save versus spells resists).
▶ Scalding Breath: 3-in-20 chance per round of exhaling scalding air. 15′ long, 15′ wide, 15′ high cloud. Save versus breath for half damage.
▶ Trample: 10-in-20 chance of trampling each round. +4 to hit human-sized or smaller creatures.

Tags: monsters, Old School Essentials, OSE

Well, the new year is here, and so it’s time to start a new project. With determination and hard work, maybe this project will get done. “What is the project?” you ask. Well, I’ll get to that in a paragraph. But, first!

In December, I leaped into Dicember 2022, posting almost daily something new at least vaguely related to Old-School Essentials. This weekend, I compiled all the posts into a Word document, did some light formatting and editing, and PDFed it. You can download the PDF via this link.

And now back to that project. I’m shooting to complete two different writing projects, combining them into one. That’s right! I’m tackling both Roy Otus’s Gygax 75 and Sean McCoy’s Dungeon 23. You can read about both at their respective links in that last sentence. Nota Bene: Much of the Dungeon 23 link is hidden behind a Substack subscription box.

Now, practically speaking, since I go back to work on Tuesday, I’m not likely to adhere devoutly to either schedule. Also, since with Gygax 75 I’m writing up the start of a fantasy world, much of what I’m doing at the outset isn’t really coming up with a dungeon room a day for 365 days. Still, I think I’m off to a good start, as shown in the pics below.

The first pic shows the Flux’s Flying Fort. The second pic shows the Eastern Reaches, the rugged environs in which the adventure involving the Flying Fort takes place. I’ll likely run some version of the adventure at OwlCon in February. I might attempt a second run at North Texas RPG Con in June. Also, it’s quite probable that some variation of the adventure will kick off my soon-to-begin Old-School Essentials campaign that I’ll run for my Sunday group.

Huzzah!

Tags: #Dungeon23, #Gygax75, adventure design, Old School Essentials, world-building

In years past, I’ve done Advent and/or Christmas-themed posts once December rolls around. For example. I’m not doing that this year, but I am doing something similiar via social media. For example, in the Old-School Essentials (OSE) public Facebook group, I’m participating in the Dicember challenge to follow the Dicember calendar and come up with something for each day of December. I’m going to stick to OSE content for those posts, which I’ll compile into a document of some sort once January hits.

Speaking of OSE, a long time ago, some Germans coined the term Öhrwurm, which was a compound of dried, ground insects used to treat ear ailments. I think in the 1970s, some author used the English translation of Öhrwurm to mean a bit of music so catchy that it metaphorically burrows into your ear and keeps humming away, which brings us to today’s creature.

Ondlibi Worm Infestation
Found in the steaming Ondlibi rainforests, these gray-brown, psionic maggots that hatch from tiny Ondlibi fly eggs, usually deposited in narrow, warm orifices, such as ear canals. Wise travelers wear headgear that covers the ears.

AC 9 [10], HD 1 hp, Att NA, THAC0 NA, MV 3’ (1’), SV D14 W15 P16 B17 S18 (NH), ML 12, AL Neutral.

• Infest: 4-16 eggs hatch in 1-6 hours. Worms burrow into host right after. Symptoms include itchy rashes, low-grade fevers, and psychic cacophony (see below).
• Just a Maggot: No threat at all in combat. At its largest, it’s a fat worm about the size of a human pinky’s terminal knucklebone.
• Psychic Cacophony: Worms detect and mimic host’s thoughts, mentally echoing snippets of them repeatedly. Host cannot concentrate or sleep. Cure disease kills the infestation.

Tags: B/X D&D, monsters, Old School Essentials