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Elfland’s Ethics & World Building | World-Building: Causes & Consequences | World-Building: Geneses | World-Building: About Alignment | World-Building: The False Light | World-Building: The Elves

Today a shorter post to clarify a couple of things that the elf introduced as game mechanics not native to B/X D&D.

Multi-Class Options

A character of any race can multi-class, giving the character one additional class. So, an elf could be a cleric/elf or an elf/thief (owing to my love for alphabetizing). The system I’m using follows AD&D in many respects. XP is always divided evenly between the classes. This means, for example, that a cleric/elf levels up in cleric faster than in elf, but slower than either a cleric qua cleric or an elf qua elf.

Hit points are determined by the average of both classes’ Hit Dice when those dice are different. The cleric/elf would just use d6 for Hit Dice, but the elf/thief would use (1d6+1d4)/2 to determine hit points. Constitution modifier applies to the quotient. Saving throws per category follow whichever class has the best number. The multi-class character uses the least restrictive armor and weapons, except for thieves (who are limited in armor) and clerics (who are limited in weapons).

Ability Checks

The ability check system I want to use is still under construction. Ability checks are used for determining the success of actions that are not “to-hit” rolls or saving throws. The DM determines the difficulty based on the player’s description of the action, the circumstances surrounding the action, et cetera. The action attempted is either Easy, Average, Hard, or Nigh Impossible. The DM also determines which of the six ability scores best fits the attempted action.

I’m uncertain about how I want to handle the dice results. I’ve got two ideas:

First Idea: The action’s difficulty tells the player how many d6 to roll. The harder the task, the more dice the player rolls. The dice are totaled. The total is compared to the character’s ability score relevant to the check. If the total is less than the ability score, the action succeeds. Or, if the total is less than or equal to the ability score, the action succeeds. Using this system, the elf’s -1d6 to ability checks to locate secret or concealed doors makes it easier for the elf to succeed.

Second Idea: The action’s difficulty tells the player how many successes are needed. Every even number counts as a success. Every odd number counts as a failure. The character’s ability modifier adds to the number of successes. Additional successes over the minimum needed may grant additional benefits. Using this system, the elf’s -1d6 for locating secret or concealed doors means the player gets to ignore one odd-numbered die, making it easier for the elf to succeed.

Right now, I like the first system because it’s straightforward. Roll X dice, total, and compare. But, also right now, I like the second system because it’s an opportunity to introduce mechanics that adjudicate degree of failure and degree of success. I enjoy other game systems that use these sorts of mechanics (such as Fate and Dungeon World).

In either case, retooling certain racial abilities to be a dice modifier fits.

Tags: B/X D&D, world-building

Elfland’s Ethics & World Building | World-Building: Causes & Consequences | World-Building: Geneses | World-Building: About Alignment | World-Building: The False Light

Nota Bene: The descriptive preface has changed a bit from earlier iterations. Elven abilities have changed quite a bit from the B/X D&D norm.

Har Marei, the Queen of Waves and Lord of the Moon, created the elves from coral and seafoam. She brought to life Indóar and Lona, the first elves, through an infusion of her own blood, and she blessed them with the dolphin’s playful heart and the shark’s predatory instincts. He also made their forms changeable and cyclical, like the tides below and the phases of his lunar abode above. Har Marei gave Indóar and Lona dominion over the seas and all coastal places.

Elven warrior-wizards 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 crossed 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.

Prime Requisite: Strength, Intelligence
Hit Die: d6
Level Limit: 10
Multi-Class Options: Cleric, Thief

Elf Special Abilities

These special abilities replace those described in the standard rules.

Armor and Weapons: Elves can wear any armor, use shields, and wield any weapon. They excel with bows and one-handed swords, gaining a +1 to-hit bonus with these weapons.

Duality: All elves are both male and female, both martial (makar) and magical (istar). When an elf PC is created, the player must decide which sex corresponds with which adjective. Thus, an elf can be a magical male and a martial female, or vice versa. The player may modify ability scores to generate two sets of scores, applying one set to each form. At moonrise each day, an elf’s sex changes. An elf can attempt to resist this change by making a saving throw versus spells. When an elf changes form, the elf recovers 1d6 lost hit points. In either form, elves are immune to the paralyzing touch of ghouls.

Keen Senses: Elvish eyesight is not especially acute or able to pierce darkness, but their senses of hearing and smell are keen. Against a creature that can be heard, elves adds +1 to their surprise rolls. Against an injured creature that can bleed and that is within 30 feet, elves enjoy a +1 to surprise rolls against that creature. The DM may adjudicate that extenuating circumstances modify the range of this latter ability. These bonuses are cumulative.

Languages: Elves speak Common and Elven. (Nota Bene: Additional languages specific to certain races are still under construction.)

Skilled: When making an ability check to locate secret or hidden doors, reduce the difficulty by 1d6.

Istar Special Abilities

Combat: In istar form, an elf resolves attack rolls using the same table as magic-users.

Saving Throws: An elf in istar form receives a +2 bonus on saving throws against charm and sleep. The elf also receives a saving throw against sleep magic, even when the magic does not normally permit a saving throw.

Spellcasting: Like the magic-user, an elf owns a book of spells, which does not necessarily include all of the spells on the standard lists. Reading from this book, the elf presses select spell formulae into the mind, thus “preparing” those spells to be cast. Once a prepared spell is cast, the spell formulae disappears from the elf’s mind, and must be prepared again before another attempt can be made to cast it. However, it is possible to prepare a spell multiple times using the available “slots” in the elf’s memory. If the elf finds spell scrolls during an adventure, those can be copied into the spellbook.

Warrior-Wizards: Elves in istar form can wear any armor while casting spells. They cannot use shields or wield weapons at the same time since spell-casting requires that the caster’s hands be free.

Makar Special Abilities

Blood Frenzy: When engaged in melee against an injured creature that can bleed, elves in makar form gain a +1 to their “to hit” rolls. This bonus stacks with the bonus received from using a one-handed sword.

Combat: In makar form, an elf resolves attack rolls using the same table as clerics.

Saving Throws: An elf in makar form receives a +2 bonus on saving throws against fear and sleep. The elf also receives a saving throw against sleep magic, even when the magic does not normally permit a saving throw.

Tags: B/X D&D, character races, world-building

Elfland’s Ethics & World Building | World-Building: Causes & Consequences | World-Building: Geneses | World-Building: About Alignment

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about multiple creation stories explaining the existence of B/X D&D player character races. The geneses of dwarves, elves, and humans are all incorrect. The creator-deities worshiped by those races are not deities; they are creatures, albeit very powerful creatures known as Werdaz. The only true deity is Iesmi, knowledge of whom has been preserved by the halflings against the machinations of Deorcynsse, the first of the Werdaz, who disguised himself as Valsch Witan in order to seduce many away from the Way of Iesmi.

Iesmi created the Werdaz and appointed to them the task of regulating creation. The Werdaz were created as immaterial creatures. They are what medieval scholastics called intellectual beings, existing without any material form at all. I write about intellectual beings in this post from April 2012.

The First Lie

Deorcynnse, the first of the Werdaz, resented that Iesmi had created the halflings. He hated their weakness, and he coveted their favored status. That Iesmi permitted the Werdaz to partner with him to create other races did not quell Deorcynnse’s pride and envy.

Disguised as Valsch Witan, Deorcynnse convinced many Werdaz that they lacked necessary experiential knowledge. To better see Iesmi’s injustice in favoring the halflings over the other races, it was necessary to experience life encumbered by material form. Only by experiencing the limitations of Iesmi’s material creatures would the Werdaz be able to fully empathize with the travails of mortality.

Those Werdaz who accepted Valsch Witan’s words then took on material form and substance, believing that the limitations in activity and knowledge they would experience as material creatures would make them more compassionate. Thus Valsch Witan ensared innumerable Werdaz, locking them into a mode of existence by which it became all the easier to manipulate them.

The Second Lie

Those Werdaz who surrendered their immaterial nature found themselves locked in material substance. Their new bodies, although powerful, lacked an intellectual being’s apprehension of knowledge unmediated over time through physical senses. As a result, these fallen Werdaz became subject to further errors. They realized they had lost direct, immediate knowledge of Iesmi, and they despaired.

Valsch Witan comforted them with another lie. He told them to let conscience be their guide. As long as each Werdaz acted in accordance with conscience, nothing could be wrong. The Werdaz, still unfamiliar with the errors of judgment that material beings are subject to, took Valsch Witan’s words to heart. These Werdaz then took this new commandment to the races that they had formed (but to which Iesmi had given life). Each Werdaz, dedicated to their own race’s advancement, taught conscience-guided doctrines to the masses via their clerics.

And the errors multiplied. Every creature sought to follow its own conscience, often too uncritical of their misperceptions and misjudgments. Conflicts increased. Sophistry grew regnant. Elves had elvish truth, dwarves had dwarven truth, et cetera. That the multiplicity of truths contradicted each other was not seen as defect of judgment. Instead, each came to see the contradictions as proof of strength misused. So, for example, if elves insisted on pressing the claims of their truth over dwarven interests, then the dwarves would answer with force.

The Third Lie

The “doctrine of conscience” led to the widespread belief that contradictory propositions can be simultaneously true. Having destroyed the intellectual and moral order of so many of Iesmi’s creatures, Valsch Witan’s next target was the physical order. Magic, a force regulated by several Werdaz, many of whom fell into Deorcynnse’s clutches, became the means by which creatures need not be bound by the accidents of their birth. An individual could use magic to reorient their body to fit the form conscience deems best. Rulers could likewise make the same sorts of decisions about their subjects and, most especially, their enemies.

Among the first results of the Third Lie were the Gargoyles. Deorcynnse himself formed them deep in the earth, binding to them elemental spirits, lesser immaterial creatures responsible for the form and substance of the material world. Then came the Gargarizein, when the Gargoyles burst from the world-under, bringing an age of destruction to the Western Lands. The resulting Dark Age further fragmented societies, giving a firmer hold to Deorcynnse’s machinations over the hearts and minds of both fallen Werdaz and mortal creatures alike.

Tags: B/X D&D, Catholic, world-building

Elfland’s Ethics & World Building | World-Building: Causes & Consequences | World-Building: Geneses

B/X D&D presents three alignments. These are “basic ways of life” that “guide the acts of both player characters and monsters.” The three alignments are Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Implicit in the rules are three important ideas:

1. Alignment guides a creature’s actions. Thus, a Lawful creature will behave in a Lawful behavior at least most of the time.
2. The cumulative moral weight of a creature’s actions determines that creature’s alignment. Thus, a Lawful creature who starts to behave less Lawful and more Chaotic may experience a shift in alignment at some point in time determined by the DM.
3. At no time does a creature’s alignment dictate that creature’s actions. Thus, a Lawful creature is free to act in a non-Lawful manner.

The fundamentals of moral philosophy/theology fit in well with alignments. These fundamentals, adapted to B/X D&D terminology, tell us that:

1. Actions have an objective moral quality. Every action is either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. The creature’s opinion about the action it performs do not change the action’s objective moral quality. Murder does not become a good act just because of the murderer’s opinion about murder.
2. The seriousness of an action’s objective moral quality falls into two categories: minor and major. Once again, the creature’s opinion about the action’s seriousness does not change the action’s seriousness. Murder does not become a minor action just because the murderer thinks murder is not seriously wrong.

All of this results from my son Christopher asking me about the alignments of the false deities who rebelled against Iesmi, the One and True. Let’s draw some conclusions from the previous world-building post.

Iesmi’s alignment is Lawful. Iesmi is the only actual deity; consequently, only Iesmi can justly demand worship from his creatures. Isarn Egni, the Forge Lord, claims to be the creator of the dwarves, and this claim is partially true, but Isarn Egni is not a deity. He is one of Iesmi’s creatures. Iesmi gave life to the lifeless dwarf form made by the Forge Lord. This means dwarves who worship Isarn Egni worship a false god. What’s more, Isarn Egni knows he was created by Iesmi. The same must be true of the other so-called deities.

So, Christopher reasoned, that means the false deities are Chaotic and those who worship them are also Chaotic? Not necessarily. We further complicate matters by addressing the issue of culpability. To be fully culpable for a seriously evil action requires both:

1. That the creature freely chooses to commit the act.
2. And that the creature understands the objective moral quality of the act.

Thus, someone who is forced to murder is not fully culpable for the act of murder. Someone who does not know murder is seriously evil is not fully culpable for the act of murder. In either case, however, the act of murder is still evil (or Chaotic, to return to B/X D&D terminology).

Since I am not interested in a campaign world where player characters who follow deities other than Iesmi are automatically Chaotic, that means I must expand on the two criteria used to determine culpability. In the process, we can find a way through the dilemma posed by Christopher’s question. So, in the next world-building post, I’ll take a closer look at Deorcynsse and his guise as Valsch Witan, the entity that the halflings understand is the False Light opposed to Way of Iesmi.

Tags: B/X D&D, Catholic, world-building

Elfland’s Ethics & World Building | World-Building: Causes & Consequences

At the end of the last post, I said that this post would look at the different B/X D&D player character races, focusing on those races’ patron deities and creation stories. I also said that none of those patron deities are really deities, and that none of the stories are fully true.

I’ve got to backpedal a bit here. Most the patron deities are not deities. Most of the stories are not fully true. One race, however, has maintained authentic worship of the Sole Creator. That race’s religious traditions preserve the Sole Creator’s truth insofar as mortal creatures can understand it.

Let’s start with the three races that get it wrong before looking at the one race that gets it right.

Dwarves, Elves, and Humans

Isarn Egni, the Forge Lord, mined iron from the depths of the First Mountain. He purified the metal with the heat of his gaze, and then hammered it on the Dread Anvil into the forms of Heled and Murgeda, the first dwarves. Isarn Egni gave his creatures life by plunging them into pure spring water untouched by sunlight. He then gave Heled and Murgeda dominion over all lightless places as well as the lands surrounding the entrances to the world-under.

Har Marei, the Queen of Waves, created the elves from coral and seafoam. She brought to life Indóar and Lona, the first elves, through an infusion of her own blood, and she blessed them with the dolphin’s playful heart and the shark’s predatory instincts. She made their forms changeable and cyclical, like the tides and the phases of her lunar abode. Har Marei gave Indóar and Lona dominion over the seas and all coastal places.

Drit Watar, the Father of Morning, formed Kras and Aefen, the first humans, from the dust of the ground. Drit Watar then implanted in each a mote of light, bringing his creations to life. Kras and Aefen received from Drit Watar dominion over all lands, including the plants and beasts of those lands.

Halflings

In the beginning, Iesmi, the One and True, created the Werdaz, immaterial beings of immense power. Iesmi then created the cosmos: time, the stars, the worlds, and all the plants and beasts living on those worlds. He assigned the Werdaz to watch over the myriad aspects of his creation, commanding the Werdaz to benevolently care for their charges. On one world, Iesmi created the halflings, shepherds and farmers, material creatures limited by their bodies and senses. Iesmi gave the halflings dominion over that entire world.

At first, the Werdaz marveled at Iesmi’s newest creatures. They desired to imitate the One and True. Iesmi gave the Werdaz permission to take the material of that world and form new creatures. Iesmi then gave these forms life, and a multiplicity of mortal creatures came to be. But Deorcynsse, the first of the Werdaz, resented the halflings. He hated their weakness, and he coveted their favored status.

So, Deorcynsse plotted treason, seducing many other Werdaz to his cause. These rebels sowed discord among the other races, asking why the halflings should have dominion. In the guise of Valsch Witan, Deorcynsse claimed to be Iesmi’s messenger. His false light led many astray from the Iesmi’s Way. The seduced Werdaz corrupted their charges, bringing disorder and violence to the world.

Tags: B/X D&D, Catholic, world-building