Spes Magna Games

The Borderlands

My The Borderlands campaign continues, as does the growth of the campaign’s Scabard site.

Middangeard

I’ve made more progress on my homage to D&D of the late 1970s to early 1980s. The player’s guide to Middangeard now sits at almost 5,000 words. I estimate that puts it about 20-25% complete, at least in rough draft form.

Also!

A new monster!

Bear, Gelatinous

A mighty, translucent bear-shaped slime that thrives in arctic environments.

AC 12, HP 29, ATK 2 slams +5 (1d10 + toxic), MV near (climb), S +4, D +1, C +3, I -3, W +1, Ch -3, AL N, LV 6

Arctic-Born. Cold immune.

Crush. Deals an extra die of damage if it hits the same target with both slams.

Engulf. If crush hits, DC 12 STR or trapped inside cube. Engulfed targets automatically take 1d8 damage each round. DC 12 STR on turn to escape. Fail checks if paralyzed.

Rubbery. Half damage from stabbing weapons.

Toxin. DC 15 CON or paralyzed 1d4 rounds.

Tags: Middangeard, monsters, Shadowdark, The Borderlands

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

Source: Dungeons & Dragons, Volume II, Monsters & Treasure by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Published in 1974.

Gnole
Roughly man-sized, green-skinned and white-haired, a cherubic face split by a fanged maw, leathery flesh marred by stone-colored warts. Territorial and avaricious, lusting for gems and prey, lairing in dank caverns.

Spelling of the monster’s name and original inspiration likely Lord Dunsany’s “How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon The Gnoles” (from The Book of Wonder, first published in 1914).

AC 13, HP 19, ATK 1 pick +4 (1d6) or 1 javelin (near) +4 (1d4) or 1 bite +3 (1d8), MV near, S +3, D +2, C +2, I +0, W +1, Ch +0, LV 4

Regenerate. Regains 1d6 HP on its turn unless its wounds are cauterized with fire or acid.

Stone Meld. 1/day, underground only. Turn invisible for 3 rounds.

Tags: monsters, Shadowdark

Speaking of ShadowDark (which I did a bit last post), I’ve started working on a new Spes Magna Games project, the first one in quite awhile, that combines my fondness for folklore and my occasional mania for making monsters.

The Denham Tracts are a collection of mid-nineteenth century English pamphlets collected into a single publication by Michael A. Denham. The pamphlets deal with history, poems, proverbs, sayings, slogans, and stories. This collection is most perhaps most famous for its list of creatures popular in folklore, a list that some allege is from where J. R. R. Tolkien took the word “hobbit”.

It is this list of creatures that is the subject of my new Spes Magna Games project. I’m not making a monster for every creature on the list. There is some repetition as it lists the same creature under different names. That said, ignoring repetition, The Denham Tracts provides plenty of inspiration.

For example:

Black Dogs
Black dogs are not truly canines, although they often resemble man’s best friends. A black dog is a supernatural creature, one that possesses uncanny powers and often appears as a harbinger of some terrible, impending fate. All black dogs have a dangerous howl as well as these two traits:

Impervious. While incorporeal, only damaged by silver or magical sources.

Incorporeal. In place of attacks, become corporeal or incorporeal. While incorporeal, ADV on WIS checks to track living creatures.

Gallytrot
A large dog with shaggy fur white like fresh snow, its outline indistinct, hazy, as if the creature fades from canine to fog. Its eyes are featureless, dull blue orbs.

The gallytrot preys on cowards. Its howl sounds like a cacophony of screeching cats and angry hornets.

AC 14, HP 26, ATK 1 bite +3 (1d6), MV double near, S +2, D +2, C +2, I -1, W +1, Ch -1, AL N, LV 4

Howl. Living creatures within near must make a DC 12 CHA check on turn or become scared for 1d4 rounds. While scared, suffer a -2 penalty on attack rolls and checks. If a scared creature is attacked, on its next turn it must only move away from its attacker.

Tags: monsters, Shadowdark

Today, another new (sort of) monster for Shadowdark but this time the art is by the wonderful JE Shields JE Shields. The art is used by permission.

Shifter, Tusked

Bizarre sort of great cat with dark fur over taut muscles. A whip-like tail. From its back barbed tentacles grow. Armored skull, beak-like nose, large maw full of fangs flanked by long, curved tusks. Heavy talons on its paws.

AC 12, HP 39, ATK 2 barbed tentacles +4 (1d6) and 1 gore +4 (2d4), MV near, S +4, D +2, C +2, I -2, W +2, Ch -2, AL C, LV 6

Charge. Move up to double near in straight line and make 1 gore attack. If it hits: x2 gore damage.

Shifted. Appears to be about a yard from where it is. Attacks relying on sight against it have disadvantage. It makes saving throws against directs attacks with advantage.

Tags: monsters, Shadowdark