Spes Magna Games

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

The various iterations of D&D have more than a handful of silly monsters. One of my favorites I first saw in AD&D’s Monster Manual II, wherein on page 114, we meet the giant black squirrel.

These semi-intelligent, neutral (evil) rodents “are found only in old, dark forests possessed by Evil.” Love the use of the significant capitalization there. The forest isn’t evil; instead, Evil possesses it. The book goes on to warn us that “[t]hese creatures are malicious and will attack weak or helpless creatures.” Since the giant black squirrel has the same HD as a hobgoblin, pretty much every 0-level person in the campaign world numbers among the weak or helpless.

Also, giant black squirrels covet. “They will steal from careless individuals, taking small, shiny objects (coins, rings, jewelry, flasks, etc. to secrete in their nests.” Ew! Not sure why giant black squirrels need these things to secrete, and I don’t want to know what they secrete either.

I’ve used giant black squirrels in adventures. They love to creep into wilderness camps at night, relying on their speed and small size to get past guards. Then, some of them deliver painful bites to sleep victims while others abscond with shiny items. Giant black squirrels do not stick around for the fight. They bite, grab, and flee, rushing back to their lairs high in the trees.

In the wilds around Tanelorn Keep, a vicious variant of the giant black squirrel exists. Known locally as kateritsas, these wicked rodents often work with jermlaine allies.

Kateritsas excel at ambushes and setting snares. They seldom kill their victims, not really having the stomach for violent confrontation. Instead, kateritsas strike quickly by surprise and then retreat after only a round or two of combat. They steal food and small valuables left unattended. Their paths of retreat lead into snares or dangerous natural hazards, such as quicksand.

Tags: AD&D, Tanelorn

I entered active duty in the U.S. Army on July 12, 1985, about a month and a half after I graduated high school. While stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I gamed regularly with two different groups, usually in civilian domiciles. Of course, there were soldiers in those groups, but our hosts were not always military. Wayne’s group alternated from his house and Marty’s house. Marty was a supply sergeant somewhere in the 82nd Airborne; I forget which unit. The other group met at Lewis’s house. This particular Lewis was Lewis Pulsipher, game designer and author of early Dragon articles as well as the Fiend Folio stats for the Princes of Elemental Evil.

With Wayne’s group, we varied our gaming diet. I don’t recall AD&D often being on the menu. We played Traveller, Champions, and DC Heroes. Those I remember. Lewis’s group had a steady diet of AD&D, all 1E because that’s what was available for AD&D back then. I remained at Fort Bragg for about four years and then re-enlisted.

My next duty station was Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and I arrived there roundabout the fall of 1989. Shortly after, I found a new gaming group that met in Ron’s on-base housing. Ron was an Air Force guy, and this new gaming group was all military. They introduced me to 2E AD&D, although we did brief forays in other game systems, such as Torg, Rifts, DC Heroes, and Stormbringer.

I didn’t touch 3E D&D until years after my honorable discharge in January 1993. Back in Houston, Texas, I started gaming again with a few friends who I’d gamed with in junior high and high school. I switched to 3E D&D not long after it was published. Before that, we still mostly played 2E AD&D. I made the switch because my good friend Fred insisted. He DMed The Sunless Citadel as our first adventure. My character was a half-orc barbarian.

Along the way to 3E D&D (and after), new gamers were met. Most of them didn’t make the cut, but two of them I still game with regularly. My good friend Fred, whom I met in junior high, died from an aneurysm several years ago. Ben, whom I gamed with in high school, got married and vanished. No one I game with today is someone I gamed with way back circa 1978 after I found a Basic D&D book in a desk at school.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve pulled out my 2E AD&D stuff. It’s still a great game, with better mechanics, I think, than 1E AD&D, which is itself a great game. I’ve typed up about 20 pages of notes for a 2E AD&D player’s guide for a campaign that starts in a frontier area centered on Tanelorn Keep. While piecing together the player’s guide — tweaking this race, modifying that class, importing this idea from that other game, system, et cetera — I’ve remembered why I enjoyed 2E AD&D so much for about a decade.

And, just so it doesn’t seem like this post is nothing but a grognard grognarding, here’s an excerpt from the Tanelorn Keep Player’s Guide:

Dwarves

Moradin Forge-Lord carved the first dwarves from stones and forged their souls on the Dread Anvil. During the Second Age, dwarven culture reached its pinnacle. The dwarves expanded to the westward across the Duna, driving the elves from their cities and liberating the humans whom the elves had ruled. Dwarves built and controlled the most powerful cities, crafting an empire that radiated out from Ironspyre, the mightiest dwarven mountain home.

Dwarven hegemony shattered during the Gargarizein, when gargoyles erupted from Elemental Earth into the Deeps of several major dwarven strongholds. Thousands of dwarves died defending their domains. Thousands more abandoned their homes when it became clear that hope was lost.

Today, dwarves are uncommon. The surviving clans have scattered, forming enclaves in a handful of cities along the Duna, the great river that separates the western lands from plains beneath the Sundered Chain, that range of mountains that was once the backbone of dwarven military and political power. Within these enclaves, dwarven guilds dominate all aspects of metalworking while the scions of once-great clans dream of reclaiming their ancient mountain halls.

Tags: AD&D, Tanelorn