Music Monday: Ugelmann

This weekend I went to Krakow to see Converge and Kylesa. It was areally good show, and we got to be at the front of the stage when Kylesa played, Julia even managed to get Laura Pleasant's pick.

However this post will be a about the first supporting act - Kvelertak (Norwegian for "stranglehold").

Imagine how AC/DC would sound, if they were from Norway and that's really it. They are a fun mixture of punk, hard rock and black metal, covered in a sauce of viking themed lyrics sang in a clattering language. They can put on a really good show and instantly won the full appreciation of the audience.

Here's how they sound (and look):

What I really found interesting is, that for a reason unknown (at least to me), they have an owl thing going on. There is an owl on every piece of their merch, as well as on the Baizley designed cover of their debut album.


The owl theme goes so far, that at some point of the show, their vocalist put a rubber owl mask on his head. It was really weird, but also kinda cool.

Since there is no photo, just try to imagine the dude from the vid wearing this.

I like owls and I like the folklore surrounding those birds. So here is what I brew up on the train:

Ugelmann

A man with a head of an owl. I see him as a norse rendition/commentary on the minotaur myth.
He lives deep in the forest, perhaps in a natural cave or rock labyrinth. The sages and tale spinners from villages on the borders of the forest say that he was once a powerful warrior-wizard who was cursed by the gods of nature. Others claim he is a man who was elevated by the Mother Goddess to be her husband...

It is uncertain wether he is a positive or evil entity. Some legends say that he is an immortal protector of the forest, other picture him as a mischevious being who follows his duty only because of a powerful curse. Whatever the truth is, some bits of information are present in all tales of the Ugelmann.

A random sighting of the Ugelmann is an omen of near death (of the person or a close relative). Ugelmann's curse or blessing is that upon laying eyes on any humanoid, he sees how it will die.
It is widely believed that he posses great knowledge and that some seek him out to gain insight into the future. Anyone who seeks out the Ugelmann can ask him one question, but will be asked for a favor in return. This favor is an oath and anyone failing to fulfill it will be killed by the Ugelmann.

It is often believed that Ugelmann observes people living on the forest borders, this is why many mothers prompt their misbehaving children, by saying: "Be good, or the Ugelmann will take you!".

Music Monday: Mutant Future Inspirations #1

I am behind with posting my second SAGE request, but since I wasn't the only one writing it and I'm kinda tired and decided to leave it for tomorrow.

Instead, I give you the first of my planned series on my MF campaign inspirations.

Since it's Music Monday (the alliteration day) here are some videos that are both visually and sonically responsible for how I play MF.

Let's start with something weird and perhaps unexpected for those familiar with my previous music references. If you can't stand synthesizers or electronic music, I recommend muting the vid (but do watch it).





Here's something completely different, though the video is also animated. I once heard or read that "Queens of the Stone Age owe as much to Black Sabbath as to Beach Boys". I agree. And that's exactly why they are here. I chose this particular song, because to me, a MF adventure should have the dynamics of a drug trip. It should be really weird and full of surprises while possessing some twisted inner logic. Some fear and joy should also be added into the mixture.




A good MF adventure should have at least one pair of tentacles (or at least tendrils) in it. As an aesthetic statement. It should also be a bit like a b-class horror movie.




This is a very obscure, yet very good band called Fiend Without a Face (after a 50's s-f flick). It's a side project of Mastodon's guitarist - Brent Hinds. They play a very weird mix of surf, psychobilly and grind? They put out only one record, which has been out of stock for a long long time, but I think it's downloadable somewhere off their myspace. Definitely worth checking out!





Speaking of Mastodon...





As I said before, I really like to build my MF sessions on both - the retro-stupid fun and post apocalyptic horror. Here's a band that really helps me achieve the second thing. I really like Grails, they're like Pink Floyd, just less radio friendly and more intelligent.





Finally, this list would be incomplete without this brilliant vid.

The Beloved Rogue*

So there is this thing about thieves. Some OSR people think they are completely disposable, others will defend the rogue or 'specialist' with their lives.

In my opinion this feud seems to be a bit on the stupid side. Thieves are fun and they bring more variety to the game since they allow players to do something else than only fight, cast spells or cast spells while fighting.

The usual objection to the use of thieves is their Find Traps skill. Many seem to think that it tends to kill the "player's wits over character's skill" vibe often associated with old school game-play. I think it's a largely artificial problem that can be easily overridden by modifying the player's attempts at finding traps depending on the description of their actions.

The point is I like thieves (though I'd rather call them rogues). Period.

What I'm really getting at is that I also like bards.

In my 3ed days (and earlier) I often played bard characters and really enjoyed it. I also remember that I was shocked when long time ago, while reading Zak's blog, I found this:

"(...)but the idea of a D&D class defined by the fact that it plays music seems fundamentally dumb to me. Just be a thief/fighter multiclass and be over it. You can have whatever job you want when you're not killing monsters."

For a long time I couldn't understand why someone would hold such a bizarre opinion, since for me - playing a bard was always fun. It allowed me, as a player, to cast illusions, stand my ground when fighting, and on top of it all, charm NPCs into my bidding.

On the other hand, I always hated the portrayal of bards being trained at colleges and being part of specialized organizations. Seriously what a load of bullshit. My bard characters would always represent the oral tradition archetype, be it a Norse Skald, a Celtic Bard, or a Greek Aoidos.

Only recently, triggered by a cheap pulp novella I was reading on the train, did I realize why I really like the bard. The truth is, that it's not the class that I really like. It's the idea of poetry/music/art having magical powers that allow the artist to actively alter reality. It's the humanity old myth of the artist (in this case a musician) as a creator, that really inspired me to pick up the bard class in the first place. Interestingly enough, it's not really present in the class itself.

This is because the bard class is mostly based on the Magic User/Wizard mechanic. The "bardic" element is usually specified by the ability to use, what 3ed dubbed, Bardic Music, which has never been done well and in the 3rd and 4th was just dumb. The class itself doesn't really introduce a new minigame, or a new set of opportunities. It just emphasizes the role playing element of the game. And you don't really need a new class for that.

This is why I decided to abandon the bard and stick with the rogue. In fact any class can be "the bard" if it's built around an idea to role play it as one. The fierce Skald from the north might be a figther, while a Celtic Bard might mechanically be a druid. It's all fine with me.

The before mentioned novella helped me to stick with this decision, as it features Francois Villon as a background character. Now, I am well acquainted with his poetry and it's socio-cultural context, but I have never really investigated the biography of the poet himself.

Turns out, little is known about his life. But what little information survived is enough to illustrate my point. The point is, that the greatest poet of 15th century France was a backstabbing, dagger slinging and gold stealing rogue. So why can't the player characters be (mechanically) rogues with (role-played) love for some dirty verse?

____________________________________________
*The title references this. I highly recommend it.

Mutant Past

This is a writeup of a session that happened over 3 months ago! I wanted to do it for a long time now, but been unable due to my laziness/schedule. Still, it was so much fun that, even after so long, it still feels like it happened just a week ago.

It started with me and Julia trying to convince our friend Adam to play some D&D with us, since we knew he has played RPGs in the past. He said that he would like to, but is afraid that he's gonna kill it, since he always had problems with immersing into the game world. I told him that random jokes and bursting into laughter is nothing bad, but he wasn't quite convinced.

That is when I devised a master plan to lure him into gaming with us.

Since I was already pretty stoked about playing some Mutant Future I decided to kill two pigeons with one rock (or whatever that idiom is in English) and use the gonzo atmosphere of the game to convince Adam. Knowing what he likes, I showed him one illustration form MF handbook (the 50's astronaut sheriff riding a giant spider-chicken from page 23) and said: " Hey dude, look at this! Maybe that's what you'd like to play?"

He obviously laughed and said it's an awesome idea, but he was still kinda nervous about it. I told him not to worry, that we're gonna have loads of fun. Finally when an opportunity appeared, we met at my house.

We started in a most peculiar way. By rolling a joint (another step in my plan to make us feel relaxed and comfortable) and deciding when to order pizza, since the time pepperoni hits the gaming table is crucial to the whole evening. Order it too early, or too late and the game might be delayed/interrupted/suddenly ended by the heaviness caused by the cheese. We settled to eat and smoke in the break between making characters and playing.

And so character creation begun, while the joint lay on the table like a loaded Chekov's gun.

It soon became clear that we won't really need it. Choosing races and rolling mutations was enough to bring us to our knees and laughing to tears.

Adam quickly picked a synthetic android (though I tried to tempt him into making a robot on custom rules), but Julia couldn't decide whether to make a mutant plant or an animal. I decided that they can create two characters each and pick the one they like better, keeping the other as a back up since I still felt a bit uneasy with new monsters and not knowing how fast they can kill the party (a party of only 2 mind you).

Julia ended up with a nameless palm tree (thanks Jeff):

Str: 14 Dex: 17 Con: 16 Int: 14 Wil: 12 Cha: 10
Hp: 49 AC: 7

Mutations:
• Aprehinsile Tendrils (Dex 10)
• Radioactive Emissions (150ft./10d6)
• Pituitary Deformation
• Density Alteration
• Meta Concert
• Echo-location
• Unique Sense (smell water for 1 mile)

Pretty badass, isn't it? Her second character was no less awesome. It's a wolf, with wings and Vampiric Field, Killing Sphere and Control Weather mutations!

Adam was less successful with his rolls (and yes, I made him roll for mutations, cause it's funnier that way). He set out to create an assassin android, but this is what he ended up with:

Mr. Apple, Synthetic Android

Str: 14 Dex: 15 Con: 13 Int: 13 Wil: 11 Cha: 6
Hp: 50 AC: 7

Mutations:
• Chameleon Epidermis
• Optic Emission (3d6)
• Aberrant Form (large legs, twice the speed)

In other conditions, this would be a great character, but compared to Julia's doom bringing dendro-carnivores, his was kinda weak. I was trying to cheer him up by telling him he's rolling mutations that are in line with his original idea of an assassin, but than he rolled those damn funny large legs. He ended up drawing a huge all-star sneaker as his character pic.

His other character was also quite on the other side. It's a duck that spits napalm!

After we finished filling out character sheets and buying useless equipment (like a dog for an android, about which we forgot instantly), we took the aforementioned break. We ordered pizza, chilled for a couple of minutes and smoked that damn joint... This was a mistake.

You see, I especially made it extra light, so that it would just loosen us up and not send us flying under the ceiling. But the moment we started playing and eating pizza, all hell broke loose. In a good sense. Though I was the DM, I felt like watching Mutant Big Lebowski (and not because of drugs).

My players simply blew me away. The dialogues between the Palm Tree and Mr. Apple (aka the cowardly assassin android) were just pure gold. Every several minutes we would all roll on the floor laughing, because of something we would say. It was also the first time in my life I was afraid someone might choke to death on pizza.

Still, I feel that drugs had nothing to do with it. Mutant Future is just a great game and after the game we agreed we didn't need any superficial help in having ultimate fun.

I won't reveal much of what happened during the session, as I used some great stuff from this blog and my players might go back there. Let me just say, they were running away from giant anthropomorphic ants.

What I can say though, is that they solved a mystery of who's killing people in a small mutant western town, run by Roby - a sheriff that's a blend of those two guys.

Everything played out great. There were moments of genuine tension when the players where investigating an abandoned, supposedly haunted house. And some comedy relief when they found out that the strange creatures living underneath the house are actually cowardly Cockroachoids who will sell them the information they need for a nice load of shit.

In the end, both Julia and Adam were screaming for more and that's what is a measure of a good game. I think that, with the exams out of our way, I will try to go for a full on session in a bit darker tone. Still, for retro-stupid gaming, MF is probably unbeatable!

Session Quotes:

Me: " You see ...."
Julia: " I HAVE NO EYE'S DAMMIT!"

2 minutes later

Me: " You are walking down an old, squeaking staircase, it's pitch black and you can't see..."
Julia: "For fuck sake man!"

close to the end of the game

Julia: "Hey man, what happened to your dog?"

Sailing stones gather no moss

I'm back! Though the exams aren't over yet and there is still some work ahead of me, I decided to come back to my blog and give it a bit of a makeover.

The other reason for this and the upcoming entries is that I accumulated a lot of ideas over the past month and I don't want to loose them. Thus, I'll gradually try to improve my posting rate over the next two weeks.

Here is a quick one, that came to me while I was customizing my template.

I've found the new title photo on Julia's tumblr. It pictures the phenomena known as Sailing Stones. Here's what wikipedia has to say on the subject:

"a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in several places around the Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not understood and is the subject of research."

Awesome?! Hell yes, but it get's even creepier:

"Speed is an unknown variable. Since these stones are rarely transported and nobody has witnessed the movement, the speeds at which the rocks travel are not known."

That's right, nobody has ever witnessed it, even though there were many attempts to observe or record the stones movements.

For me it sounds like:

The Secret of the Sailing Stones

Long time ago, a powerful being of unknown origin ripped the veil of time and space, entering the material plane. Scholars still argue about the origin of the being and it's impact on the world. Some say it was a god, others claim it was a demon and few claim it was neither. Though the dilemma has long been labeled as impossible to solve, it is agreed that those long gone events were the source of an ancient legend, that a Great Evil has been turned into stone and than shattered into a million pieces, so that it could never regain it's power.

To this day, magicians and foolish merchants embark into the Clay Desert to collect blocks of black stone-metal. The stones are said to move in mysterious ways drawing strange shapes on the surface of the desert. Many have died in search of the moving Death Stones (as they are often called) and it is said that some men have been found crushed in their sleep by stones that moved overnight, while others, blinded with greed, chased a single stone for days using up supplies left for the journey back.

In common speech the material from the stones is known as Death Metal. It is rumored that it can produce blades that can cut through steel as if it was flesh. However, few such weapons exist as it is widely believed that Death Metal is cursed and any weapon made out of it will eventually betray it's wielder and get him killed. Stories about slabs of the material disappearing over night, or weapons moving on their own only strengthen the fear and prejudice against anyone in possession of such artifact. It is a common saying that "No man can wield death itself and live".

The Imagination Dealer

As you already know, Frank Frazetta died yesterday. He passed away leaving behind a huge body of work, that will outlive most of us and continue to inspire generations to come.

Frazetta, like no other visual artist, awakened my childhood imagination and influenced my approach to the RPG hobby (even though I didn't know it was him at the time, back then I was only familiar with his Conan covers). Although his paintings are full of epic themes and pulp adventure, I think it's important to take some time and look closely at some of his works. Because the fundamental question is:

How the hell did he paint that moss?!

Music Monday: The Green Manalishi

It's one of my favorite Melvins tunes. It has awesome dynamics and tension, feels kinda claustrophobic and dusty, yet remains catchy. And most of all - it fits in perfectly with the rest of the album (The Maggot, 1999).




Yeah. So apparently it's a cover of a song by Fleetwood Mac. It even has a nice, psyched story behind it.

Peter Green claims that he wrote the song after experiencing a drug-induced dream, in which he was visited by a green dog. He understood that the dog represented money and the devil.

"It scared me because I knew the dog had been dead a long time. It was a stray and I was looking after it. But I was dead and had to fight to get back into my body, which I eventually did. When I woke up, the room was really black and I found myself writing the song."

Still, to me, the only Green Manalishi is the Melvins one. And, as much as I like Green's story, for me the song brings more otherworldly and dark imagery.

Perhaps it's just the green in the title, but in my head this song got irreplaceably bound with this page from Mike Mignola's Hellboy (click to enlarge):



It's a whole pulp adventure right here!

A new sect becomes popular among the nobles. It leader is a traveler from distant land, known as the Green Manalishi. He claims to have unlocked the secrets of an ancient civilization. When a heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the state starts suffering from an unknown desease, the Green Manalishi is called.

He claims he has to take the boy on a pilgrimage to a secluded abode in the Horn Mountains. "Only through this holy journey will the boy conquer his illness" he says and the two set out.

After several months, the boy is found in front of his father's mansion. Dirty, dressed like a beggar, changed.

"We tried to talk to him sire, but he keeps repeating one thing over and over again" says the chief of the guards to the boy's father.

"What is it?!"

"The God! The God with the Two Pronged Crown is here!"

Easter NEStalgia

I dunno how you are spending Easter, but I will be eating loads of fat, traditional food and listening to my grandfather lying to me about how he helped conquer communism.

I can't even play D&D because Julia went away to do the same thing as I am, just at different geographical coordinates.

So how to keep boredom at bay!?

Answer #1:



Yes! The ultimate gaming console of all, the one and almighty NES!

I must confess I have never seen it live, not to mention owning one. However I am very well acquainted with it's "polish equivalent" the infamous Pegasus Family Computer:



Here is what Wikipedia has to say about this wonderful and obscure device:

In the early 1990s, the Pegasus system gained massive popularity in Poland, probably due to the fact that until late 1990s there was no official distributor of Nintendo products in Poland. The Pegasus consoles were mass-marketed by most of the major and smaller electronic stores, where buyers even received warranty cards for the product. Numerous VHS rentals offered an option to rent or exchange Pegasus cartridges, as well as entire systems. Pegasus and its revisions received a wide coverage in Polish video game press. This, along with the system's surprisingly high reliability led to a false claim that Pegasus was an "official" video game system manufactured by a "major" company, and as such was considered by many to be an official Nitendo product. To meet its growing popularity a number of obviously pirated NES games were reviewed on regular basis by, Top Secret a major Polish video games magazine. Pegasus was even officially advertised in press and on TV Nintendo took legal actions against system's importer and distributor, right after officially establishing sales of licensed Nintendo products on Polish market in 1996.

So basically it's a NES but with an eye patch and a hook for a hand. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I never owned one. Thus I had to relay on my friends, which, from today's perspective, might have been even more fun.

Right now you're probably asking yourselves: "why the fuck are you taking us on that sentimental journey!?"

The answer is simple: because I am bored and I found this site. It's basically a portal which let's you play all the 8 bit classics (even old gameboy and dos games) in your browser window. How awesome is that? And those aren't some crappy flash conversions, it's the real thing!

Answer #2:

Listen to the Advantage



The Advantage (yes, they're named after this) is a band founded by Spencer Seim, an awesome dude who usually plays syncopated, angular guitar riffs in Hella (here he plays drums). As you might might have noticed by now, they play covers of old NES tunes and they're pretty good at it.

Apparently there are more bands playing this type of stuff. Perhaps it's due to hipster and nerd culture mingling together over the last decade. There is even some Japanese heavy metal band which plays solely Final Fantasy tunes, but I never checked them out (for obvious reasons).

But let's not go so far. The Advantage is much more than just a band covering Nintendo music. They are really skilled and have a unique approach to interpreting those seemingly simple melodies. I recommend checking their second album - "Elf Titled". It might be hard to buy, but should be easily downloadable from the net.




How's that for Old School!

Session Recap #3

It seems like it's high time to post something about actual game play. I've been putting off the writing of this post for some time now, mostly because I still don't know how to constructively re-approach the last session.

Because of this this post will be divided into two parts - a short session recap, followed by my thoughts on my DMing. Here's the actual game bit:

Session Recap #3
The session started with the PCs descending beneath the city of Adamask. As it turned out, the passage discovered in the Iron Sword's cellar lead to the sewers/remains of a much older settlement.

Since the whole session was primarily composed of just wandering around, I'll try to provide the key events in the form of bullet points.

• Shortly after descending into the sewers, the girls made their way into a passage filled with webs and spider eggs. Although they got ambushed by 4 giant spiders, they managed to survive (and torch the eggs) and press deeper into the spiders' lair, just to encounter a gargantuan (and I mean it in the literary sense) black widow, which proved to be a formidable foe. Though dangerous, the fight was short. The players lured the spider into the narrowest passage so that it wasn't able to turn around. There rest was simple - while Kai and Winston were facing the beast, Juchi performed numerous back stabs. In the spiders lair the players found a helmet shining a blue light and a passage leading into a forgotten gem cutters workshop.
  
• Later they encountered a small group of juvenile delinquents who took them into their hideout. The thieves' lair proved to be populated by three more grown men. After some crude role playing from both my and the party's side, a fight broke out. It was short and messy, with two of the thieves decapitated while crying for mercy. The group of street youths decided to not interfere, so when the fight was over, they offered their services to the party (they tried to deceive them and get them killed, but in the end just ditched them on the surface).
• For some reason the girls thought that their main goal is finding out where the rats are coming from. I must say that I found this quite amusing and probably will dedicate the whole post to this issue. Anyway, I did put some were rats on the map so eventually, that's where the girls got. It turned out that within the sewers a group of wererats built a shrine for worshiping some weird god. Inside there was only one rat priest with several rodents, all of which were quickly disposed of due to the extra muscle provided by the street gang.
• After destroying the shrine the players ascended back to the inn in order to finally get some proper sleep. One of them woke up at night hearing screeching noises coming from the ground floor. Soon all three were awake and going down to inspect the main chamber. Down stairs they found two wererats (in the shrine there were signs of 3 inhabitants) dragging the unconscious tavern boy, who began changing into one of them (due to an earlier leg bite)! Needles to say, the ratmen and the half turned boy were dead in no time and the innkeeper, who got woken up by the fight, was crying over the boys body...

Also, this exchange took place:

Julia: looking quite tired from across the table "Can we go to the tavern now and get some spells and rest?"
Katja: "But we rested in the gem cutters workshop!"
Julia: Yawns, " We did? Then why am I so sleepy?", puts head on the table.

____________________________________________
art by Lucas Hardi

It is your destiny!

I promise to keep this short. James Maliszewski claims that Episode IV is the best part of the trilogy*, because:

A friend of mine once said that Star Wars is the only one of the series that didn't take place within the Star Wars universe.

and

Star Wars is the only one of the series that simply tells a story rather than telling a story about Star Wars. To varying degrees, all of the sequels and prequels exist, at least in part, to tell us more about the characters, places, and events of the original film.

And I agree. However, I must note that this assessment doesn't state anything new, it simply follows from the fact that Star Wars is the first film in the series ( which btw. wasn't planned until the movie turned out to be a huge success). As such it had to be a stand alone work of art, constructed around a closed story arc and with no lose ends sticking out.

James also writes:

Certainly there were lots of details established in the first film, but most of those details existed primarily to advance the story it was telling rather than to flesh out the setting of the story. It's the only film of the series that's like that, which probably explains why, even after years of interminable "expansions" to the original through movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, and other media, it still retains a freshness and vibrancy that the others lack.

I disagree!!! While it might be argued that, indeed the other two movies are a kind of an appendix to the first one, it's still The Empire Strikes Back, which holds the lead as (in my opinion at least) the best movie.

Why? Because it's probably the episode that has the most dramatic tension, as well as plot and character development. In fact, compared to the other two movies. it could be seen as not only being numerically and chronologically in the center, but also as the true culmination of the saga.

And I'm not even mentioning the multitude of cultural tropes and motifs which make that movie (and the whole trilogy) one of the most postmodern works in history of cinema.

Blah blah blah

Here is the real reason for this post.






*to me there will always be only 3 Star Wars movies

A challange for artistically handicaped

It's good to have friends who aren't artistically retarded because, even though I draw like a 4 year old, I can always ask someone to draw something awesome.

So last week my friend Adam felt inspired by demonpig. I found his interpretation extremely amusing and asked him to make a drawing of a creepy wizard.

So here it is. I give you: Membrious the Mad!



I still can't decide which one is better... I fucking love the green light (which in my opinion is the creepiest kind of light possible) and the wooden leg is just a stroke of genius!

So.. now it's time for A CHALLENGE!!!

WRITE A BACKGROUND HISTORY OF MEMBRIOUS!
The only rule is: It has to be one comment long.

Ready,

Steady,

GO!!!

____________________________
art by Adam Banaszek

A dungeon from my head

It is a happy day. Why? Because today I got my medical results and I don't have brain cancer, tumors, diabetes, or any kind of neural damage! Yay! I've also felt good for the longer part of the week and there is no sign of my problems returning.

So what was it? I dunno. Truth to be told, no one knows. The most probable hypothesis claims that it was an inflammation of the Membranous Labyrinth.

Now go to this link and look at it! Isn't it awesome? We carry a nice dungeon in our heads (actually two of them. dungeons, not heads).

In honor of our labyrinths, here's a little something to celebrate my well being. Enjoy.


Membrious Parasitic Dungeon

This micro dungeon is the home of Membrious the Mad, a magician of old times who seeking solitude and peaceful environment for his mystical inquiries and strange experiments, moved to live in a pocket dimension.

Membrious arranged his artificial plane in a very peculiar manner. He formed it from usual construction materials - stone, metal and wood, but decided to fill a large portion of the dungeon with a live symbiotic organism that would filter the air and water.

Needles to say, as many powerful (and mad) magicians, Membrious was extremely paranoid about his security. That's why he decided not to anchor his solitude to any particular place in the actual world. Instead he created a magical mechanism, which allowed him to randomly connect his dimension to one of the already existing dungeons.

This means, that every time the mechanism was activated, it "moved" the dungeon entrance (which looks like a normal, iron reinforced, wooden door) into another dungeon from the list of dungeons known to Membrious at the time of creating this apparatus. Unluckily, the mechanism is now malfunctioning and changes the placement of the entrance at random.

The map and descriptions:

1. This is the entrance. After stepping in, the visitors will enter a long spiral corridor. The walls are made of old, copper colored metal, kind of like a big metal tube. The strange thing about it is that no matter which side the players move - in or out, the corridor will always seem to lead down. The DM should place some kind of a pit trap near the entrance.

At the end of the corridor, just before the door, the PC's will encounter a camp of hobgoblins... They are discussing their plans and if the players won't kill them at first sight, they will explain that they entered the unknown door from their dungeon, but now the exit leads to a different place. Moreover, their leader took 3 of their companions and went to investigate the strange place. They are confused and presume he is dead, if the players show some initiative, the hobgoblins will be willing to join forces.

2. The main door. They are made of coppery metal and have a gargoyle face on the surface. They aren't locked.

3. The mechanism. The walls of this whole room are filled with strange instruments and containers. Looks kind of like this. It is also the home of Membrious' clockwork golem.

He was created to keep maintenance of the mechanism, but now the lifeless body of armor lies on the floor covered with some king of plant growth. If the players remove the growth and menage to heat up his body, or put a electrical discharge to it, the golem will awake and demand explanations. He's perception is quite limited and so is his intellect. The players might gain his assistance at restoring the mechanism to its proper state, by (for example) claiming that one of them is Master Membrious, or came to see him. On the other hand if the players bring him back to life and don't come up with something creative, the golem will attack should they try to descend further into the complex.

4. A small corridor leads past a small bathroom and into the hall. The toilet sink restores 1d4 hp after washing hands. On the other hand, the toilet might scare the players by demand "feeding" in the hoarse whisper of an old woman.

5. This is the main hall. All the wall surface of this tall room is filled with book shelves and cupboards containing strange and bizarre objects. The only exception is east wall in the passage to area 7, where a large painting, similar to this one hangs. Some of the PC's may feel like they caught a glimpse of movement within the painting. Perhaps the girl smiled as they were passing by, or winked when one of them was turning his head away? The room is lit by an elaborate organic structure hanging from the celling, supporting several glowing globes. If the players manage to obscure the light, or turn it down in any manner, they will be able to see the true image of the girl in the picture. Should the room be completely dark, she will leave the canvas.

6. Kitchen and dinning room. The players might easily mistake it for an alchemists lab. Cooking utensils, skinning devices, strange glass containers and so on are scattered all over the place. There is a high chance, that any food the players find is poisoned or has hallucinogenic effects. Similarly, any containers with liquids have equal chances of being either heeling/boosting or narcotics/poison. There is a large hole (crawl space sized in the wall) with an acidic substance constantly flowing out and into an elaborate basin.

7. Those are the workroom (on the right) and the bedroom (left) of Membroius. They are mostly filled by many strange memorabilia, some examples:

• a vampire's coffin
• a jar with mind flayer's head that will try to communicate telepathically with the players
• an enchanted lute with a spirit of a bard trapped inside - he will speak only after a skilled musician plays the instrument

In the bedroom lies a concealed entrance to a secret escape tunnel (8) which leads to the main hall (the exit is hidden behind a book shelf).

The workroom, apart from a huge desk with many secrets compartments, contains a weird chair that looks something like this. It's the place from which the mechanism is operated. To change the "location" of the dungeon, one has to place a copper pin ended with a HUGE ruby in one of the holes in the copper tablet map, that is fixed to the wall over the desk. At the moment of entering the dungeon the pin is inserted in one of those places, however until the mechanism is repaired it won't work.

The chair is occupied by the body of Membroius. The remains of the once famous mage look as if something sucked all the water out of his body... The players might notice a thin cable-like thing lying on the floor, connecting the body with a hole in the nearby wall. If they fail their spot checks, the mages carcass will attack them when they are near (for example, when they are searching the desk). He is now controlled by the symbiotic organism, that provides air, energy and water to the dungeon. This organism mutated for unknown reasons and became hostile. Treat him like a powerful construct, that has some of the abilities of the mage he used to be.

9. and 10. those are two "pipes" big enough to crawl in. Pipe number 9 looks like a polished copper pipe with constant flow of an acidic liquid. Pipe number 10 is made of stone and is covered with polyp like tissue, that moves and gives a small breeze. Both lead into space 11.

11. This is the chamber in which the dungeon's "parasite" dwells. The floor is covered with an organic tissue which serves as the organism's digestive surface. It is covered with acidic mucus that is meant to melt any organic mater before it is fully ingested. The half melted remains of the hobgoblin leader and his companions can be found on the floor (perhaps he had a fine magical axe, that is now lying in the acidic fluid). Needles to say, the players standing in the substance will suffer damage to their gear and eventually to themselves. Any contact with naked flesh will cause serious burns.

The parasite itself is somewhat similar to a roper or anything else that is tentacly and scary. I leave the details to any DM. One thing is sure, it is vulnerable to fire. Perhaps he is resistant to non magical weapons? Or maybe he is fully resistant to magic and that is why Membrious got killed? WHat will happen when the organism is dead? Will the lights go out and the vampire/monster/girl from the painting wreck havoc?

I leave this and many other matters (like treasure, stats and touch-ups) to the rest of you.

Sometimes you need just one word to trigger your imagination into full overdrive

Demonpig





Think about it...

Behold The Obelisk pt.3

First, two important things happened while I wasn't writing:

1. I finished my semester tests, so hopefully, there will be more time to write,

however...

2. It seems like I'm finally gonna roll some dice THIS WEEKEND!!!

and that means there are some important preparations to be made!


Ok... But this post was actually planned to be about something else, so let's get to the point.

As you might have gathered from my previous post the City of Obelisk is influenced, more or less directly, by some classical pulp and D&D locations, that I intended to mash into one, that will prove useful to me..

Here are my three (quite obvious) inspirations:

1. City-state of The Invincible Overlord

I learned about Wilderlands from OSR blogs. I think I have read a review of the d20 version of the setting once, but otherwise I was completely ignorant. Until a few months ago. All the gripping tales of that supplement made me want to find it and submerge in the old-school vibe of the whole thing.

Finally, after some struggle, I obtained the City - state book. As much as I like it, I instantly felt, that it won't exactly fit into my setting and thus decided to modify some tables.

But why just mod the tables, when I can actually loot the City-state for ideas and make it my own?




2. City of Thieves

I feel that the Howardian "unnamed city" was the main influence behind the City-state. I love the roguish and adventure friendly character of this location, but who doesn't?!

When I look back at the history of my gaming, I can clearly see that all cities I've ever depicted in my games, were in some way reminiscent of this one.

3. Waterdeep/Undermountain/Skullport

Even though I really dislike Forgotten Realms, I must admit - I do like the concept behind this gaming region.

When I first thought of turning the Palace of Culture into a game location, it was quickly followed by the idea of adopting it's infamous tunnels into a Undermountain like location.

This opens a lot of possibilities for adventuring, as well as a reason for random monster appearances in the city. You get the idea.



Ok. So this is it. I just felt that this post is a necessary addition to my Obelisk general overview.

If you have some city location ideas that could compliment my vision, you can drop them in the comments. All will be appreciated!

Behold The Obelisk pt.2

The Free City of Obelisk is a very peculiar place. It's one of the few cities in the world, that was built on the ruins of an Elder settlement. Until this day it remains unknown whether the site used to be a city or a temple complex of which the famous Obelisk was part.

The beginnings of the City's history are somewhat hazy. Because of the fear of the Obelisk, the fertile land lying in it's shadow remained unclaimed for a long time after the Fall. None of the surrounding kingdoms wanted to take it, as it was said to be cursed.

However, as the trade between the new kingdoms intensified, it became clear that the old Elder roads could handle more traffic and are faster than the new paths. Soon a small group of traders decided to take the risk and lead their caravan near the Obelisk. This granted them an advantage over other traders, however their joy didn't las long.

After few trips near the Obelisk, their secret was spilt by some drunk caravan guards. Others started thinking of taking their rout, however most of them lost their enthusiasm when only one person returned from the original caravans next voyage. This nameless man claimed that the traders felt over confident with their success and decided to break their rule of not spending the night in the shadow of the Obelisk. The man who lived to tell the story died soon afterward.

Some years later, emerged a man with a plan. He wanted to be wealthy and powerful and he knew how to do it. He sold all his possessions to buy equipment and hire people for his journey. The aim was to build a settlement near the Obelisk, where the caravans could safely spend the night. He knew the venture was risky, but succeeding would mean securing a profitable monopoly. And since his wife and children had passed away, he had nothing to loose.

He succeeded in establishing a small stronghold. At first it was just a palisade with a bunch of tents inside. But with time, the settlement grew. First a watchtower was built, than a wooden house for the leader. When the leader was dying, the outpost was already more than a hundred people strong. However, since he died childless, a problem arose, who should be the next leader...

By the decision of all the dwellers, the 9 remaining members of the original, founding expedition would choose the next head of the village. This is how the tradition, that the council of the 9 oldest trader families chooses the next head of the city, came into being.

This is the legend of how the Free City of Obelisk was founded.



Today the City is ruled by the 33rd of the elected leaders, one who took the title of the Magistrate. The agglomeration is one of the larger human settlements and perhaps the most famous place throughout the know lands.

It attracts all kinds of adventurers, traders artist and anyone who dreams of fame and fortune. It is said that the Obelisk Market is the largest trading place in the world and offers any item known to man, be it silks of the far east, frost steel from the far north, or illegal spells and powders from the south.

The Free State is also infamous for it's organized crime, drug trafficking, slavery, but most of all - religious cults and Elder past. The Obelisk attracts all kinds of zealots, flagellants and future sect leaders. Many new comers, who became charmed by one of the new orders, ended their lives sold to slavers.

The fact that the City is built on the old Elder ruins is also not easily forgotten. Although during the day, the traffic on the streets creates the illusion that the city is twice as populated, few are bold enough to roam the streets by night for in the Obelisk City a lone traveler can easily disappear, suffering a fate far worse than life in chains...

Behold The Obelisk pt.1

Few days ago I was rushing to the University, when I looked behind me at the mighty stature of Warsaw's most recognizable landmark - The Palace of Culture.

It was half submerged in the mist, looking like some ancient construction, a tower perhaps, from atop of which the undying gods rule their city and amuse themselves, toying with our everyday lives.

You get the picture.

This is how it looks from a pigeon's point of view:



I won't go into much detail, since crucial info can be obtained here.

However, what's most important for this post is not covered by the wiki article. You see, almost everyone here has an extremely strong opinion about the building. Some hate it and postulate it being demolished as it's "the everlasting mark of the dark times of communism and Russian supremacy", others praise it's original architecture (if I'm correct only Kiev and Moscow have similar buildings) and try to promote it as Warsaw's logo.

Over the years the Palace of Culture has accumulated a number of myths and urban legends. For example, it is officially known that underneath the building and it's adjacent neighborhood lies a whole system of cellars and underground passages. However, officially no plans exist, nor are civilian tours admitted. This has led to many speculations what the "dungeons" were originally designed for and weather they really are as defunct as it is officially stated.

Anyway, here it is...


THE OBELISK





The Obelisk is a gargantuan construction standing in the middle of the Free City of Obelisk.
It is built out of black stone and has no windows, doors or visible entry ways. Most of it's surface is covered with sophisticated spiral symbols and runes. It's undoubtedly the largest architectural landmark in the known lands.

No one knows what the Obelisk is, what it has been constructed for, or even why it's called that way (since it's clearly not shaped like an obelisk). It is still widely disputed wether it's a temple form the time of the Old Empire, or a much older construction. Some claim it has been built in time before time, others say it was the palace of the Elder Emperor. There are also those who claim that it's a prison, protecting the world from unspeakable horrors locked within.

One thing remains a fact, no one has ever managed to get inside and return.

Whatever is the origin of the Obelisk, the dwellers of the Free City got used to it and treat it just as a famous landmark. The big stone square that surounds it has been turned into a lively market that attracts traders and religious zealots from all around the world. It is said that on the Obelisk Market religion is just a good for sale.

Though the city's population got used to the sight of the black tower, newcomers are always thirsty for new stories about the Obelisk. More than one bartender is ready to spin a tale of how he lost a limb descending into the legendary tunnels that run underneath the city, presumably connecting it with the alien structure.

How high is your Resistance to absurdity?

Some of you show interest in learning more about Krysztaly Czasu (Time Crystals).

I decided to quench your thirst and provide an overview of the game. Please note, that I tried to translate things as accurately (not literally!) as possible. However, if something seems weirdly formed, it's probably because I tried to keep the spirit (the difficult, pseudo-historical/scientific/poetic language) of the original.

The Setting

The name of the system comes from a myth within the game world. It is believed that somewhere within the game universe powerful objects (or even entities), known as the Time Crystals, exist. They are said to be more powerful than magic, gods, or the world itself (that's pretty fucking powerful, if you ask me). Those who will come into possession of the Time Crystals will have an almost unlimited control over reality.

The origins or the reason for the existence of Time Crystals remain unknown and many, often clashing theories circulate. Some say they are artifacts from a different universe/dimension, others claim they were made in "time before time", or that they are the remains of the first matter known as the Monolith. Finally some believe they are beings secretly plotting and controlling the world...

The world in which the game takes place is known as Orchia. It's inhabited by typical fantasy races: elves, dwarfs, hobbits [because the game was published in the early nineties, when polish law of intellectual property was liquid, Time Crystals often "borrow" from the fantasy classics] reptilians and orcs.

Orchia is probably bigger than Earth, but the game takes place only on a 4th. part of it's surface, where the Lands of 10 Archipelagos are located. There is 9 so called "close" archipelagos and one "scattered" among them... Some of the islands are very small, others are the size of whole countries or subcontinents. Each of the archipelagos is meant to have a different climate and culture.

It is said that long ago all known lands were parts of a huge super-continent, but due to some events, perhaps a divine intervention, it was scattered.

Adventures usually take place on Orchia's Central Archipelago, most often on it's biggest island - The Great Orcus. It's the homeland of orcs [duh!] and is believed to also be the cradle of all intelligent life.

The game takes place in the time when the orcish empire rules throughout most of the known lands. Though no country can match it's economical and military power, the empire's reign is becoming weaker and it's aristocracy (originally named Uruk'hai) grows more and more decadent.

I don't go into any other details, because there are no interesting ideas concerning culture or the different states. It's the usual, all over the place medieval-fantasy vibe.

Mechanics and Character Creation

The game is based on percentile tests made using a d100.
Each character has 10 primary attributes:

• Liveliness
• Physical strength
• Dexterity
• Speed
• Intelligence
• Wisdom
• Magical Abilities
• Charisma
• Presence
• Faith

Additionally each attribute has a secondary one called Resistance, which works a bit like a saving throw. Here are the ridiculous names, each is a Resistance to...
• to illusions
• to psychology (!!!)
• to curses
• to shock (meaning psychological shock)
• to unnatural effects (my personal favorite)
• to diseases
• to exhalations (or reek, in polish it's the same word)
• to temperature
• to electricity
• to polymorphism

As you can see, the authors were not resistant to stupidity.

Apart from those (20!) attributes, there are some additional ones, which are based on two or
more of the above attributes, each with equally fabulous names. Among them are: LifeEnergy,
Magical Potential, Spotting and (the best character attribute ever) Normality.

Of course there are also lists of skills, languages, weapon proficiencies, jobs, special abilities one might be born with, special abilities one might learn, etc...

Finally we come to character classes. They are divided into castes, but characteristically for this systems treatment of language, meaning of the word "caste" is reduced to "group". Of course additionally characters belong to different social classes and shit, but I won't go into it, since
there is nothing useful or amusing to be found.

Class castes:

Warriors Caste: fighter, ranger, guard,barbarian, mercenary
Knights Caste: knight, paladin, black knight
Rouges Caste: thief, assassin, merchant, bard
Priests Caste: priest, druid, astrologer, half-god
Wizards Caste: mage, warlock, illusionist, alchemist



So here you are! Now imagine many, many unofficial or semi-offcial supplements, articels, rules and stuff like that. When the company publishing Magia i Miecz (the magazine in which this game was first published) decided to make a book edition in 1998, no one knew what to take, what to change and what to throw out the window. The end product was very poor (not that there was much to start out with) and literally killed the system.

Now few crazy hermits still uphold the tradition and publish unofficial materials (so called 3 edition) on the internet. They are...

______________________________
art by Jarosław Musiał

10 ideas that never made it pt.3

4. Using/playing Arrk

I'm really happy that I've never bought the 3e. Forgotten Realms Handbook. However, my friend did and I borrowed it. I've nearly read the whole thing, trying to scavenge it for ideas, locations and NPCs...

Now I can say with full conviction: I hate Forgotten Realms. I used to just hate it's "literary offspring", but after reading the handbook, I'm certain it's not R.A. Salvatore's fault it's unimaginative and boring. Flavorlessness is it's premis.

The only NPC I liked in the whole book, was Arrk. Who is Arrk? This is who:


Arrk's a troll, who left his kin in order to become a mercenary. He's a typical bread and butter adventurer... except for the fact, that he's what adventurers usually kill.

The handbook doesn't say much...

"He sells his services anyone with money as long as the job's doesn't take more than a tenday, for Arrk has a short attention span and tires of other people quickly. He has the unnerving habit of licking his bleeding [due to a curse] sword when he grows bored or nervous, and his hygiene is no better that that of a common troll, so civilized folk can't tolerate him for long.
Despite these faults, Arrk can be counted on to hold up his end of bargain. Given that he tends to eat people who steal from him or refuse him his pay, other folk deal with him honestly."

... but I'm sold!


___________________________________
image by Matt Wilson

This is where I'm at...

As I said in the previous post, before my game begins, I would like to outline the setting my adventure will take place in and the system of mechanics I will use. Since I was reading a lot of blogs bout D&D, I was certain I want to play that system in some kind of a fantasy setting. But before I went on to establish more details, I asked myself what atmosphere and flavor will my game have?

Do I want a game revolving around combat, or storytelling?

Should the setting be a high magic one or a low magic world?

Do I want epic, high adventure, where characters save the world from great evil, or should they be mere mortals, struggling to survive in dark, difficult times?

The answer came from discovering the old school D&D revival movement. The idea of bringing D&D back to it’s roots instantly clicked with me. Even though I’ve never played the original D&D, the experiences of the modern day gaming industry - the present trend of overemphasizing rules and copying mmorpgs (damn you 4e.!), is enough for me to sympathize with anyone who stands by the old ways.

As I was digging deeper into the OD&D scene, I stumbled upon some great articles (namely here and here) outlining the literary inspirations behind the original game. I found the concept of a pulp fantasy game, created by James Maliszewski, especially useful in putting my mind on the right track (the right track = reading Jack Vance, digging up my long forgotten Robert E. Howards). Thus I’ve decided that I want my game to have a darker, raw feel, much in the atmosphere of early Conan adventures, with PCs having to stand against an unfriendly and dangerous world. I’ve also pondered on how magical my world will be. I’ve decided that magic will be much feared and more associated with danger and evil, but all in all not very difficult to find (I do want my players to get magical treasure). Having accomplished that and having read Jack Vance’s Eyes of the Overworld, I came up with an idea of a world that is already over it’s prime, one that used to be populated by some powerful magical civilization which failed and fell under it’s own hubris. I think that is enough for now.

On the mechanics side of things, the encounter with Grognardia made me look for OD&D retro clones like Swords & Wizardry and OSRIC. I’ve dug through them and decided that in fact being unaccustomed to these rules, using them, as they are, would be unintuitive and might in fact slow the game down, instead of making it simpler. I gave that problem some thought, went through all D&D editions available and asked myself; what would be the most intuitive solution for me and my gamers? I arrived at the conclusion that most of my future players are well accustomed with d20 mechanics, it also struck me that using one dice for most rolls and checks would be least confusing to new players. However, my distaste for such 3e. table sprouting features as feats and huge lists of skills, led me to thinking that in fact the 3e. needs a lot of modifications. The final (I hope) conclusion is that I’ll try to make up my own d20 system, which will be more in tune with my recent old school interests.

Summing up. In posts to come I will try to focus on the description of new mechanics, that I am going to use in my game, as well as the description of the game’s setting.