What Is Out There, In The Dark?

  All DMs have little quirks, little things they do that set them apart. Most that I know have a 'go-to' humanoid and a favorite monster to scare players.
  My go-to humanoid is hobgoblins; Lew Pulsihper calls them 'Rick's Nazis'.
  But the scary monster in my 1e game is - the bugbear.

  The word 'bugbear' is from the 16th Century and means, at heart, 'big, hairy monster that eats children'. A literal meaning of 'bugbear' is close to 'supernatural, man-eating creature covered in fur'.

  The description in the AD&D Monster Manual should be chilling; bugbears are within a hair as tough as a black bear or wild boar, have a good armor class, and are strong. Strong enough to open combat by hurling footman's maces 4"! Plus, they are stealthy and surprise foes half the time. And their description? 'Giant, fur-covered goblins with a shambling gait'.

  I picture (and describe) their movement as being similar to this:

  Odd, unnatural, uncanny valley monster movements.
  Bugbears also see very well in the dark. For players in my campaigns their first encounter with a bugbear is sometimes like this;

  The people of Seaward, especially the peasants, are terrified of bugbears because of their stealth and hunger. Bugbears are known to snatch children out of their beds at night without parents or dogs knowing until it is far too late. The villages in the rill valley sometimes call the Briars the Bugbear Woods to ensure their children stay away.

  What monster do you use to scare players?

Law, Chaos, the UK, America, Teutonic Knights, Orcs, and Just What the Heck is Going On With 9th Level Fighters?!

  This one is going to be weird, folks, so strap in.

  The sons and I were talking about gaming (like we do every day) and about some of our other shared passions; history, the Church, and books. We were also talking about my main campaign and how I was always surprised that the handful of guys that made it to 9th level did not get 'all fortressy' but rather angled to take over existing positions within the game

  What I mean is the few characters to hit name level who could then establish a demense all finagled with NPC rulers to take over existing fiefdoms rather than build from scratch.

  Which is, naturally, fine. My oldest speculated that he, himself, might never build beyond the border because there were so many interesting places on the map already; Dwarf Hill, Wyvern Keep, Skull Mountain, the Vanishing Manor, the Tower of the Air, etc. But then we began speculating;

  Why is the assumption that everyone from warriors to priests to mages will strike out into deep wilderness and hack out a corner for themselves?

  I mean, think about it; that is a tremendous amount of expense and risk. Why not do what people in my campaign did and just - get a promotion and retire rather than contend with plague, famine, and orc hordes?
  And why, oh why, would people flock to follow you if, and only if, you did that hugely risky thing?! And not just guys with levels! 0-level men, their wives, their kids! Pilgrims might come and just - settle. I mean, what is going on?

  For a while we speculated that the default D&D world is a lot like the America of the past - vast, largely unexplored, and daring people struck out to make their way.

  [We had the discussion Sunday, I started writing this Monday, and I saw this in my google+ feed Tuesday. Small world!]

  That might be part of it, sure, especially how followers appear and why random encounters sometimes stick around. But does the 'untouched wilderness' really apply to something so Dying Earth as D&D? As the great blog The Hill Cantons points out, based on the wilderness encounter charts the typical AD&D world is littered with ruins of past fortresses, cities, etc. all thrown down to ruin by war or time. And in a manner very similar to North America, D&D wilderness isn't 'untouched', it is full of intelligent being. Berzerkers, cavemen, orcs, hobgoblins, nomads, goblins, kobolds, etc., etc., etc. Heck, you leave patrolled demi-human areas and the 'wilds' are crawling with intelligent creatures. Sure, they're malevolent, but still!
  Plus the AD&D world isn't modeled after 2015 North America or even 1975 Europe, is it? No, the 'place in time' of the real world that seems closest to the default assumptions of AD&D is somewhere between 770 AD and 820 AD; yes, yes, this is speculation, but I can talk about that in another post. Sure,  there are anachronisms for that but that is my guess.
  Now,  modern Europe looks like this;

In 800 Europe looked like this;

Look at the differences! As I point out in my second most popular post ever, in the year 1000 AD the place that is now the Berlin Metropolitan Area, the 6th largest city in Europe, was uninhabited, howling wilderness. 780 AD is 400 years before the first Germans settled on the banks of the Spree!
  In other words, at the time that seems most like AD&D's assumed setting in history Europe was cheek-by-jowl with howling wilderness and hostile forces.
  This means that in the context of the setting and place well behind the curtain of AD&D (Charlemagne's Europe as described in the Matter of France) Europe looked a lot more like 1870's America than most people realize (Although Andy Bartlett did explicitly mention this in the article I linked above). In both places the average person who wanted a better life and who had the courage and resources (or just a lot of courage!) could, and did, set out into the wilderness and start a new life, Heck, that's where little towns like Leipzig and Berlin came from!

  There is also the very mildly controversial topic of the Northern Crusades. In a very high level gloss not meant to dive into the complex, nuanced issues associated with the Northern Crusades, but only to illustrate how it relates to the point at hand over a century of mutual conflict between pagan peoples in North/Northeastern Europe with the Catholic nations to their West and Orthodox nations of their East, where peaceful missionary and diplomatic activity failed, led to a call for a Crusade and a subdual of the pagans by force in the belief that decisive victory would cause the interminable wars to end.
  What followed was some pretty serious and organized expansion and battles from the West. Part of this was having some of the toughest fighters from the West build fortresses in the pagan areas, establish domains, and maintain the peace.
  Sound familiar?
  Heck, sometimes when there were no opportunities to set up in established areas tough, popular leaders would travel even beyond the pagan lands, set of a stronghold, 'subdue the wilderness', and attract people who wanted a better life who could count on the protection of this leader from bandits, etc.
  That had better sound familiar!
  So there is, interesting enough, at least one historical period where something vaguely like Name-level characters starting the 'domain game' did occur, which is pretty cool.

  But I think there is a bit more meta going on, here. In Three Hearts and Three Lions (as well as other books, like Operation Chaos) the author speaks of Law and Chaos as being opposed to each other in a sort of ongoing struggle. But this concept of Anderson's (that seems to have also influenced Dickson in The Dragon and the George) is a lot more complex and nuanced than the shallow, never actually quantified, Law vs. Chaos of Moorcock. Anderson's Law and Chaos (as well as Dickson's  Chance and History) are very much about Virtue/Civilization/Good (Law/History) against Amorality/Wilderness/Evil (Chaos/Chance).
  This was explicitly stated in Three Hearts and Three Lions;

"Holger got the idea that a perpetual struggle went on between primeval forces of Law and Chaos. No, not forces exactly. Modes of existence? A terrestrial reflection of the spiritual conflict between heaven and hell? In any case, humans were the chief agents on earth of Law, though most of them were so only unconsciously and some, witches and warlocks and evildoers, had sold out to Chaos."

  It is also essentially stated that the Church is Law while Chaos is a tool of the Devil. The faerie and their uncaring capriciousness? Chaos, because they could not be trusted.

Despite the desire of contemporary people to think of the faerie/sidhe as fun-loving hippies in folklore they're are much, much more like the Weeping Angels - inhuman, utterly other creatures that if you were lucky will only cast you decades through time away from all you know and love.

  This sort of 'axis' is pretty clear in OD&D where you are Lawful (good) or Chaotic (bad) and it was very much a fantastical experience of fey vs. man.

  But it is more complex and such in AD&D with both the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis and the Neutral section. But the core concept remains valid: when a party goes into the (wild, uncivilized) dungeon and destroys monsters the PCs are championing civilization against it's opposite, wildness; when a Lord goes into the wilderness, builds a stronghold, attracts followers, etc. he is championing civilization versus wildness, just on a different level.
  And no, I am avoiding the term 'barbarism' for a reason; woad-painted warriors, nomadic tribesman, etc., can be forces for Law or Chaos, it depends upon if they build or destroy, if they are trustworthy or capricious as a people.

  In my post on how I handle religion in my campaign I mention that the big divide between demi-humans and humanoids is if they are (in general) within the Church or outside of it. But the difference is also 'do those races build civilizations or destroy them?'. Sure, hobgoblins, orcs, etc. are organized, they have skills, etc. But they are wreckers, not creators. In my world they have no cities, they live in what they capture from demi-humans and humans; they have no trade, only plunder; they have slaves who often are worked to death; they have at best war chants but no music, enough writing to issue orders but no literature; etc. Where they go they push back civilization, scrubbing away cities and towns, fences and fields, and leaving behind only brambles, thickets, end desolate ruins.

  So a fighter, wizard, or cleric going into the wilds, building a strong place, attracting followers, and all the rest is, in a very real way, pushing back darkness, ignorance, savagery, and evil. Where there were brambles and thickets he puts fields and orchards; where there was a bare hill he puts a cozy home; where there was darkness there are the lights of a village; where there was isolation and fear he puts friendship and hope.
  No wonder those who want a better life follow.

  So why do 9th level fighters spend all that money and take all that risk? Because they are fighting evil an a new, more important, way.

It's the Little Things

  Gamemasters like to work on campaigns; we polish them, we add details, we add histories, we do research. From thousands of years of history outlines to detailed NPCs we all like to make our campaigns not just unique but memorable.
  I've seen guys make:
  -Incredibly detailed pantheons of gods with unique spells, dress, rituals, etc. for each one
  -Unearthly worlds like one where it was set on hundreds of tiny moons in a vast cloud of air and people used flying boats to travel
  -Unique systems of magic that required effort and roleplaying to work

  Great stuff! Very creative, very memorable. I have a lot of things like unique days for the names of the week that are still recognizable [Sunday, Moonday, Twoday, Threeday, Fourday, Fiveday, Starday], unique constellations, etc. And the players do like them, especially when they are dropped into play aids

  "This journal entry is from the 2nd Starday in Midsummer of last year"

and such.

  But I do find that, to my chagrin, even the effort behind my unique systems of weights and measures, the unique languages, the detailed calendars, the festivals, the monsters, the NPCs the most return for the least effort appears to be - mundane plants and animals.
  Here's an example from my Seaward (AD&D 1e) campaign.

  Along the southwest border of the Kingdom of Seaward lies an area called the Briars. The Briars cover the foothills of the southern mountains in addition the the very rough, rocky terrain large areas are choked with briars and brambles. The region is home to some plant and animal life either rare or absent anywhere else including the briar wolf, the briar deer, the brush cat, the hill tortoise, and the hyrax (or the 1/2 normal hit dice deer, the jackal, the lynx, the tortoise, and the groundhog). Plants include scrub pine, juniper, the evergreen oak, the lemonade bush, and the strawberry tree.

  Now, when I wrote up the area and its encounter charts I thought the weasels, giant rats, mountain lions, and kobolds would be the memorable parts.
  Nope.
  The players all remember (and talk about) the lemonade bushes, the strawberry trees, the brush cats, and the evergreen oaks.

  I chalk it up to the effect Heinlein so famously described many years ago about how little things set tone. You can describe mile-long starships all you want but 'the door irised open' really drives home how different things really are..

  So - work on the little things, the odd little bits like green house cats and such. It seems to be memorable.

Monsters from the Id!!

  I very recently wrote about the impact of certain divinations on campaign worlds. My conclusion was that Detect Evil and Detect Lie were either too limited or too high-level to have a large impact on a campaign but Know Alignment had the potential to change a great deal.
  But it hasn't affected mine. I'll tell you why.

  But, since it is me, I will talk about other things first.

  I find that a great many DMs who play 1e (then or now) fail to properly use the encounter tables. The excellent game blog Hill Cantons touched on this some time ago, pointing out that in inhabited/patrolled areas 25% of all encounters were with patrols.

  Quick aside: I recall being a young man and hearing other DMs lament how the PCs were 'too tough' at 5th-6th level and would often just loot villages, burn down temples, etc. I was always surprised. Once when guest DMing a different group I rolled a patrol encounter - the party (3rd-5th level) was rude and dismissive and actually attacked! As I recall the party was dead or captured in 4 rounds - and upset, accusing me of cheating! Turns out none of them had ever read the rules on encountering patrols and all of them, including the usual DM, thought it was just a bunch of 0-level NPCs. That was an important lesson to me - plenty of people never read the entire rule set.

 
  Another section of the rules on encounters almost never used is - psionic encounters.
  Psionic encounters are mentioned in passing  on the 1e DMG page 174 (which is a page I think very few people have actually read in full) and in detail on page 182. If you haven't read them I encourage you to do so when you have a moment.
  Boiled down, the rules state that if you use psionics in your campaign every time there is a positive check for an encounter the DM must determine if
  A) A psionic power was used in the turn previous to the encounter, or
  B) If a spell that resembles psionics was used in the round before the encounter.
  If either is true there is a 25% chance the encounter will be from the Psionic Encounter chart instead of whatever terrain chart would otherwise be used.
  I have always allowed psionics in my campaigns and have enjoyed them, especially since in almost 40 years of DMing I have only ever seen 5 characters with psionics - they are just so very rare for the good guys and so much fun to use on the good guys. I have had many a DM tell me they don't allow psionics because they are unbalancing for the players to have. I disagree because I think the use of the psionic encounters chart makes psionics not just balanced but maybe for trouble than they are worth.
  The reason I say that is many psionic powers have a duration and are used/useful over time rather than in instantaneous use. A psionic using Detect Magic is probably going to leave it one for a little while. Likewise for a psionic using Body Weaponry in a fight. This means that if you use psionics the chance you will have used them within a turn of an encounter check is, well, fairly high. Let's look at this a bit.

  Assume your psionic individual lives in a village near a city in the heart of the kingdom on the plains (this is all to minimize the odds of an encounter). We will also assume she only uses her psionics during the day (also reducing her odds of an encounter) but that the powers she has [Detection of Good or Evil, ESP, and Precognition] are how she pays the bills as a fortune teller and, therefore, something she uses almost every day. With minimal encounter odds (1 in 20 for location, 1 check during the day for terrain, etc.) this means that she will have 4.5 encounters a year that could be from the psionic chart so, if she is careful, she will probably have 2 psionic encounters a year. We'll be generous and reduce this to one psionic encounter per year. What does that mean?
  Bluntly, she's dead. Oh, sure, the encounter might be with a coatl who merely pauses for a moment on the Astral Plane to say 'huh, a psionic' before he swims along, or it might be yellow mold or tritons or something sure. But it will probably be an encounter with a brain mole, intellect devourer, cerebral parasite, or worse. Sometimes much, much worse. Demon prince worse. So, over the years, the odds of her being dragged screaming into the abyss approach 100%.
  And remember, this is while minimizing the odds!. In the dungeon random encounters are checked every 3 turns! Assuming encounters are 1 in 6 any use of psionics means there is a roughly 33% chance it was within the 10 rounds before the check (and the longer the use the more this chance increases) we can assume that someone using psionics in the dungeon should expect 1 psionic encounter per 9 hours or so of routine psionics use.
  I don't know about you, but to me these numbers make it look like psionics are something saved for emergencies!

  Now, about point B)....
  The spells on the list of those which 'resemble psionic powers' includes:
  All spells that start with Tele-
  All Charms
  All Polymorphs
  All Detects
  And all Cures
  As well as a fair few others, including (but not limited to) all Invisibilities, Heat Metal, Augury, and Feather Fall.

  Wow. Let's look at this a little, OK?
  Jerczy, Ahlissa, Brother Reynaud, and Andor were alert for the invisible assassin as they crept rhough the ossuary. A skilled thief, Andor strained his trained senses to hear the slightest sound. Jerczy's sense were honed from his barbarian upbringing. Br. Reynaud focused his attention on protecting the mage, Ahlissa. Ahlissa had cast Detect Invisibility almost 90 minutes before and continued to sweep for the man sent to prevent their quest from succeeding. 
  Without warning Ahlissa utters a soft cry, clutches her head, and slumps to the ground, sitting in the middle of the cavern. Jerczy and Andor searched for a target as Br. Reynaud checked their companion. She seemed perfectly healthy but her eyes were lifeless and her limbs limp. After a few moments he looked up,
  "We must get her out. I will carry her."
  As the cleric slung her over his shoulders Jerczy hissed to Andor,
  "Do you see anything?"
  "Nothing," replied the halfling, "the only creature in this cave besides us is that wee mole."
  The party hurried back the way they came....

  That's right - those long duration divinations that allow you to look for good, life, charms, invisible creatures, etc. also make it more likely that some horrible monster is going to suck your mind dry!

  I know of at least one DM who disallows psionics in his campaign just because of the psionic encounters chart!

  Personally, I have modified this list of spells so that cures and the clerical versions of detects aren't included and have made some other spells less likely to trigger the final scene from Scanners.
  [please note - the last scene from Scanners is pretty grim and gory]
  But it does point out two important things about some 'core ideas' that went into making AD&D.
  One - the world is dangerous: as I have said before, there are hideous things from beyond the walls of reality waiting to drag you screaming from your beds.
  Two, but a bit more subtle - divinations have consequences: whether the notice of a devil in the astral plane or that your target notices the viewing point of your crystal ball, the fact is that divinations are not telescopes or spy satellites, there is a sort of interaction possible and they are not passive but active and noticeable.

A Hot Meal and a Cup of Tea

  When I DM and when I play I am often surprised by the simple little things: player treat horses like bicycles; they never ask about the weather, and they treat fire as nothing but a light source.

  I already talked about the weather a bit and I plan to write about horses, so let's talk about fire.

  We'll start by talking about encumbrance.
  No matter where you fall on the matter of encumbrance (and I am a hard-ass stickler that will slow you down, give you penalties, and expects you to track every 1/10th of a pound) on a long journey it will be very hard to bring enough food and essentially impossible to bring enough water since the minimum a person needs is 10 lbs of water a day. So we must assume that adventurers are getting water from somewhere (streams, springs, and wells above ground. And you have water sources in your dungeons, right?) and that these sources aren't always (maybe never) pure water.
  Have I mentioned my disease and parasite rules?
  In Real Life over 3 million people die each year from water-borne diseases. Even crystal-clear water from an alpine creek can cause lethal diarrhea. Now, there are a few ways of avoiding this ranging from adding 1 part red wine to 3 parts water (which does an amazing job purifying drinking water, thus why the ancients did it) to drinking only beer to Purify Food and Drink to being a paladin.
  But one of the most direct and best is - boiling the water, which also kills parasites.
  There are other impacts, too. A series of studies in America and the UK show that office workers are more mentally alert and observant if they have a hot beverage (tea or coffee) in the morning. World military forces have been aware of the positive impacts on morale of plentiful hot beverages, as well, and I have very rarely seen a canteen, chow hall, etc. that didn't have hot tea or coffee available 24 hours a day.

  Another thing to think about is, well, the temperature. In the modern world where we go from heated home to heated car to heated office it is easy to forget that it gets cold. Imagine being dressed in chain mail on horseback in a biting wind and cold drizzle for 8 hours on a late Autumn day. Or sleeping in the open on the ground in early Spring. The Wilderness Survival Guide had some great ideas about dealing with cold weather (or hot weather, for that matter) but I often just do something simple - at a certain point travelling in the cold without adequate shelter and heat is force marching. Eventually just being out in the elements is force marching, too, even if you aren't moving.
  Dungeons are pretty chilly, I suspect. Remember, it tends to be cool underground and is often damp. According to my friends who are into caving and online caving guides one of the biggest dangers of caving, if not the biggest, is hypothermia. I assume that this is probably a problem in any deep underground place, even a worked dungeon. So PCs are going to need to warm up and/or dry off routinely.

  Last is food. I have certainly lost track of the parties that blithely announce that they will supplement their rations by 'hunting along the way' when in the wilderness. If they are very far from civilization they will also state they are having a 'cold camp' without a fire. I then ask them how they are preparing the food they hunted....
  I did mention my disease and parasite rules, right?

  Rick's disease and parasite rules are included in his supplement Far Realms, available in print and as a PDF. Far Realms also includes new hirelings, such as the healer, new PC classes, like the barbarian, and more than 30 pages of new spells. Suitable for any old-school campaign, please consider buying Far Realms today!

  Anyway, while cooking your food does greatly reduce your chances of dying horribly from disease or parasite hot meals are important to alertness and morale, too. British and American forces in combat reveal that eliminating a hot breakfast has twice the negative impact on soldier morale than doubling the amount of time they are in active combat zones. That's right, soldiers are twice as upset over no bacon and toast than they are about getting shot at more often! Just giving soldiers the ability to heat field rations has a notable positive effect on morale and performance.

  So all this long rambling is to support my actual point.

  Characters in fantasy RPGs should worry about being able to start and maintain a fire.

  So why aren't coal and charcoal seen more often on equipment lists and in character inventories?

  Yes, I am starting another 'stop thinking like a modern person and think like a medieval person' rant, why do you ask?

  People have been making charcoal for thousands of years, so far back we aren't sure when it started. But since charcoal is critical to metalwork, I have always assumed it is readily available in virtually any fantasy campaign.
  Now, actual charcoal looks very little like those briquettes for your grill. Lump charcoal looks like what it is - chunks of charred wood. from finger to fist size. Lump charcoal can range from low quality stuff that has a strong smell and a fair amount of smoke when it burns to expensive types that have virtually no odor and very little smoke when burning.
  In any case, lighting charcoal is relatively simple - flint & steel with a good tinderbox should do it as log as the charcoal is dry. Lump charcoal gets to temperature quickly and burns hotter than briquettes and the more expensive types leave less ash behind. A handful of lump charcoal will burn long enough to bring a gallon of water to a boil and maintain a boil for a full minute; a double handful is enough for 2 gallons and a meal for four-5 people.

  Coal can be more expensive or hard to find than charcoal and its quality varies from lignite to anthracite. Bituminous, which is the type usually used by smiths, is fairly easy to light (easier than charcoal), doesn't burn as hot as charcoal, and makes more smoke and ash than good charcoal. But it will light and burn when wet (although it smokes more) and the same volume of coal burns longer than charcoal. Anthracite burns with much less smoke and ash than bituminous and burns a long time but can be difficult to light. A lrge lump of bituminous coal can boil 2 gallons of water and a double handful can boil 4 plus cook a meal for 4-5 people.

  I should also mention peat - a sort of 'pre-coal' from bogs and mires, when properly dried peat can burn for a long time and produce a nice amount of heat. It has a distinctive smell and a fair amount of smoke, though.

  In each of these cases, charcoal, coal, and even peat, you get more heat for the same space/weight than wood. Also, since most wood needs to cure and dry for a while to make a good fire (and it might be wet, besides) these are great ideas outdoors as well as underground.

  Field cooking equipment is very old. Romans had all sorts of things to make army cooking in the field better and by Medieval times field cooking gear was fairly well developed with small portable iron fireboxes (about the size of a helmet), fire stands, griddles, field cauldrons (again, about like a helmet), and such. Wooden and earthenware mugs we also pretty common back then.
  The small iron fireboxes typically had a lid and such so that the airflow (and thus temperature) of the fire could be controlled. This lets them double as a heater for tents and small areas and for a small amount of fuel to last a long time. In my opinion, each party should have at least one iron fire box, a field cauldron, a small griddle, a fire stand, and some charcoal or coal.

  Which brings us to another point; air. No matter how little smoke is made, fires consume oxygen. Even in AD&D you should make sure there is enough fresh air to safely make a fire.

  No, this post is not a description of camping gear and a safety statement.
  Well, not just those things, at least.

  I concern myself with these details for a number of reasons.
  First, I want verisimilitude in my campaign - I track water usage, encumbrance, weather, etc. because it makes the world I built more internally consistent, which makes the rest of my job easier.
  Second, in my experience it allows the players a better chance to immerse themselves into their characters and the world and gives many opportunities for roleplaying - little bits like who is good at building a fire and who can't cook are fun and add a ton of depth, all on the cheap.
  Third, it is another way to weigh down characters while vacuuming money out of their belt pouches.

  Fourth, it has implications that can be plot hooks.
  For example, where does the coal come from? In Real Life the easily accessible coal was gathered very early. Are there coal mines? Where? You need coal and charcoal to make things like, oh, iron, so - do the dwarves mine it/make it? If they don't they have to get it from somewhere!
  Charcoal can have a huge impact on a region. Interesting fact - no forest in Finland is more than 300 years old. Why?
  They cut down all the trees for charcoal over the course of about 250 years!
  Mainly to get wood tar, but it was the charcoal process and it really, really changed Finland for a century+. In my Seaward campaign colliers slip into the forests between civilized lands and the orcish city-states to make charcoal to sell. Very, very risky, but very profitable. The gnomes of Gladdenstone make a lot of money mining anthracite and selling it to the dwarves. The barbarians of Eiru have to collect peat from the edges of the haunted Moorlands to heat their homes in the harsh winters of their island nation.

  So think about it. Maybe have a henchman demand more pay or have a hireling quit suddenly because there is never a pot of tea at dawn, or have the party suffer a -1 to hit from fatigue after 3 days of near-hypothermia in a dungeon's depths. Gnomes increasing prices for coal might push the dwarves to the brink of war and orcish raids in Autumn could lead to suffering as the poor run out of charcoal to heat their homes in deep Winter.

  Or just imagine going 3 days with no tea, coffee, or hot food yourself and build an adventure from that. Mine would have lots of murder and naps.

When the Wise Man Points at the Moon the Fool Looks at the Wise Man's Finger

  [Sorry for the light writing, but October is a busy month around my house with 3 birthdays in 2 weeks.]
  Over the weekend I was talking with my sons about gaming (ok, ok - that can describe every day) when the oldest, J., and I had this exchange:
  J: "Didn't some of the high-level wizards in Greyhawk keep clones on their moon?"
  Me: "Yup"
  J: "How'd they get there?"
  Me: "How do you think?"
  J: "Well, maybe the air doesn't end between the surface and the moon, there. Or maybe they had something like an Apparatus of Kwalish that could fly."
  Me: "Think easier."
  J: .... "Hey! Teleport! Holy Moley - they can see the destination! It isn't even tough! And if they have Teleport without Error it's a cakewalk! Wow! The implications are HUGE!"

  Yes. Yes, they are.
  Let's talk about Teleport and the implications, shall we?
  First, the AD&D 1e (and OSRIC) description of Teleport is pretty fun: It can't cross dimensional boundaries, but distance isn't a factor. That's pretty cool. Add in that the description says 'instantly' so there is no lag. It can be dangerous, though - if you aren't very familiar with where you are going you might end up rather dead. It is certainly meant mainly as a 'get out of jail free' card - in a tight spot you and your pals can get home. And if you are willing to accept some risk you could ambush the jeebers out of someone.

  But can you go to the moon?
  Well, on a clear night you can see the moon, right? Sure, it is far away, but distance means nothing to the spell. I might argue that your inability to see precise details at the incredible range means you'd max out at 'seen casually' until you actually got there, but that risk isn't that bad, and you could mitigate it a little. And once you got there you could certainly find some place, spend a few days there, and have a 'carefully studied' target location for future trips.
  So, yeah - it looks like any 9th+ level wizard with access to the Teleport spell has Faster Than Light space travel, at least to the moon. And if, like me, you have Teleport without Error in your campaign that means that 14th+ level wizards can do so with essentially no risk!

  "But Rick," you say, "The moon is an arid, airless rock! Who could live there?"
  Well, your moon(s) could be different. A little air, maybe a bit of water like a desert? Or perhaps it is another world; unique plants, animals, even its own humanoids and civilizations.
  Sounds like a lot of work, huh?
  But even if it is an arid, airless rock - that's awesome! Between Necklaces of Adaptation, Helms of Underwater Action, and spells a powerful mage is going to see vacuum as a feature, not a bug. After all, it makes his remote wizard's tower even harder to attack, right?
  Imagine it!  An archmage's tower jutting up from the rim of a lunar crater, the crater itself 'roofed over' with Walls of Force and filled with a massive garden and small forest. Other Walls of Force keeping air within the tower. Occasionally servants of the archmage venture out in an Apparatus of Kwalish to retrieve unique gemstones for their master's research.
  Then ages pass. The overgrown garden is withered and desiccated in the vacuum decades after the Walls of Force failed. The now-airless tower still looms over the lifeless moonscape as the archmage lich, unconcerned with breathing, watches over his sterile kingdom....

  That could be a ton of fun.
  Or perhaps the moon is a secret dock for spelljammers and powerful mages control the (rather exotic) trade with other spheres and treat any newcomer as competition or a smuggler?
  Or the moon is the headquarters for an illithid invasion. Or it is the forgotten birthplace of the elves and is still populated by a strange elven race with access to unique magic. Or there is air between the planet and the moon and the moon is the breeding ground and nesting place for the most powerful dragons - the only creatures powerful enough to fly that vast distance. The catch is only the youngest, weakest dragons remain on the planet, meaning that the youngest, weakest moon dragons are larger, smarter, and tougher than any great elder wyrm ever seen....

  No, I'm not done.
  Think of the planets!

  "Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" you say, "Rick, I might let a powerful mage Teleport to the moon with great risk, but planets?! They're just points of light in the sky! I wouldn't even allow a PC to Teleport as 'casually seen!"

  Yeah. I wouldn't either. Or I might let you and have you end up in deep space or the center of the planet.

  But!

  Let's say your mage has been to the moon. She thinks it is nice, but too crowded. Planets are interesting because they act unusually - what if they're like the moon, but further away? Your 15th level mage knows how hideously risky it would be to Teleport towards something so obscure, but she has an idea.

  Ever read the description of the spell Clairvoyance? I mean, really looked at it, especially since you read about jaunting to the moon? Guess what? In 1e, OSRIC, etc. it's like Teleport:
  No range, it just can't cross the planes.
  So if a curious and ambitious mage of sufficient power were to want to they could, over the course of weeks, easily cast Clairvoyance multiple times on a planet until they 'zoomed in' on the surface and could get a clear look at it. They could scan for a safe place to 'land', learn about any local plant or animal life, etc. long before they actually went there.
  Oh, and Crystal Balls work the same way, even with time limits.

  And I don't know about you, but if a 9th level magic-user had Clairvoyance active and attempted to Teleport to the scryed location, I would probably rule that to be 'studied carefully' and no risk at all for Teleport without Error.

  If I may engage in a little emotional display.
  ahem
  Sweet Baby John the Baptist! Do you know what this means?! This means every wizard that knows both Clairvoyance and Teleport is effectively a one-man space program with access to FTL travel!
  If you have Teleport without Error or similar in your campaign it means there isn't even that much risk involved!

  Let that sink in for a moment. Savor the possibilities. Here's a few off the top of my head:
  - Multi-genre adventures in any campaign.
  - Every intelligent race came from other planets
  - Evil space-thieves smuggling blaster rifles to the Hobgoblin King
  - Encounters with a group of people in strange clothes that ask to be 'beamed up' and then vanish in front of the players
  - The ability to hire mercenaries from another planet
  - Remaking Episode I in my 1e campaign with monks FROM SPACE, bards FROM SPACE, and a horde of zombies for the bad guys

  I mean, talking about what could be done with this would be a year of blog posts.

  So - what are YOU going to do with space-mages?

The Dwarf Chieftain Has What?! Demi-Humans and Intelligent Swords

  All of the discussion in the last article led me and the sons to go through the DMG and Monster Manual (1e, of course) and do some more number crunching. We looked specifically at two things:

  1) the powers of swords with intelligence, and
  2) the number of magical swords in the hands of NPC demi-humans

  The results are very fun.
  First, the Primary Abilities chart has a surprising amount of powers that are, well, demi-human; they mimic the racial abilities of dwarves, elves, etc. Many of the rest of the powers on the Primary Abilities chart are clerical. 38% of the powers are demi-human and 53% are at least possibly clerical, if not exclusively clerical. Only 5% are arguably only arcane (the total isn't 100% because some results are 'see other table', etc.).
  About 95% of magical swords with special abilities only have Primary abilities so the implication is that about 90% of intelligent magical swords are made by demi-humans and/or clerics.

  That changes how I look at item creation, how about you?

  Gary tells us that demi-human NPCs can make magic items, even (maybe especially) powerful ones.

  Quick aside: ever notice that when Gary discusses the creation of really powerful items he mentions that they may have been the result of lost technology?

  And we know clerics can make magic items and, unlike magic-users, they don't risk the loss of constitution to do so.
  This makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Clerics and NPC demi-humans don't risk the loss of constitution to make permanent items - of course a great many weapons would be made by them! Suddenly all those +1 swords and axes make a bit more sense - it is either a cleric praying to God for a weapon to smite evil or a gnarled old dwarven smith chanting a battle hymn over an anvil as he shapes an axe head.

  I mentioned in the last post that one of the reasons most intelligent swords are Good is because good creators are more motivated to do so and good wielders are less likely to kill the sword maker.
  Another reason most intelligent swords are good is because a large number of the creators of intelligent swords are demi-humans.

  The Extraordinary Powers chart, however, is very, very different. Only 6% of these powers are racial (and gnomish, at that!) and 6% are exclusively clerical. The other 82% are arcane (like above, the total isn't 100% because some results are 'choose', etc.).
  This implies that the 1% of swords that are really smart and really powerful are made by magic-users or illusionists.
  This also makes a lot of sense. If a wizard is going to give up a point of constitution (or an illusionist give up years of life) he probably isn't going to make a +1 sword, he is going to make as powerful a weapon as he can!

  Last, but certainly not least, we looked at the Special Purpose powers. As I mentioned previously, only about 3 in 1,000 magical swords have a Special Purpose and the Special Purpose powers are pretty much evenly divided between magic-users and clerics, although clerics have a bit of an edge.
  Say it with me - this makes sense. Really, really powerful clerics and magic-users that can make a powerful swords probably would, but clerics would be more likely to do so because they don't face the same penalties.

  After we did this analysis we did some number crunching on the demi-human listings in the Monster Manual. In the middle of this we realized something; the fact that only humans and demi-humans have specific listings for individual magic weapons, etc. while humanoids do not is entirely consistent with what we are learning by examining these charts - demi-humans and humans can much more readily make enchanted items! While we can assume that shamans and witch-doctors can and do make magic items these are probably almost always scrolls and potions; they rely upon evil humans and gifts from extra-planar creatures for the magic items they do not steal.

  [my oldest son is creating a supplement with write-ups for humanoid shamans and witch-doctors and item creation rules for them]

  Anyway, after crunching the numbers we discovered the following things to be statistically so;

  - 1 out of 2 large dwarven lairs has an intelligent magical sword (this is because dwarves prefer axes and hammers, or the number would be higher)
  - 2 out of 3 large halfling lairs have an intelligent magical sword
  - Each large gnome lair has an intelligent magical sword
  - Each large elven lair has an intelligent magical sword

  As I said in the first post  - HOLY MOLEY! This really changes how we look at NPC demi-humans, doesn't it? After all, it looks like each and every elven chieftain has an intelligent sword!

More on smart weapons next!

Odd Little Facts - No People

  Did you ever notice how very lightly populated Greyhawk is?
  Furyondy is a major kingdom: it is over 400,000 square miles (about the size of Iraq) but has a listed population of less than 1.5 million people. This is a population density of less than 4 people per square mile - this means that Furyondy is more lightly populated than Mongolia!