Rom'Myr's Mighty Backstop

 This is my one-two punch for "my" Dying Earth setting in the homebrew world of Rom'Myr. This is a hell of a sturdy foundation to run my game of B/X Dungeons & Dragons. I conjured up the city on the edge of Empire known as Valla'Tair back in 2014, I think. I had only read a few stories by Jack Vance, but I easily saw how much it influenced the flavor of early Dungeons & Dragons. And I like that flavor. Some call it vanilla fantasy, but that isn't it. An end-of-time setting gives a staggering amount of lore and locations to explore and manipulate. The fusion of magic and sci-fi is pretty seamless and monstrosities lurking in the landscape do not need much rationalization. Who the fuck knows, somewhere in the last 5 billion years? 

I have decided an Aeon is 500 million years, give or take a hundred million. Is Rom'Myr Earth? No, I don't think so. I do know it is the end of the story for this planet which begins in the primordial world of Xoth. This is where I run all my REH-inspired pulp fantasy. Matter of fact, I just received A Means to Freedom, the written correspondence between Lovecraft and Howard. Fascinating. Anyone who loves the "art" of writing would do well to read the compilation. Don't be scared off by the open racism in their thoughts. It is a good look at white American thought of the early 20th century. You know, like a fact of existence which still stains our culture to this day. No, the treasures in these pages is the fount of pulp fantasy and its far-reaching influence to come.

The DCC: Lankhmer boxed set is to help fill in my campaign home base of Valla'Tair, situated on the eastern edge of the Sea of Salt. The DCC: Dying Earth boxed set gives me a wide choice of nations and cultures which can be found north, south, and further east of the city and the Yanni'Hor Mountains. This homebrew stew of published material mixed in with my own ideas gives me the DnD game I have always wanted to run. But it is not just a wish or a dream. It had a great 2-1/2 year run back in 2014. It is getting some traction once again here in 2025. Huzza!

 

Start Playing New Listings

 I have two new campaigns  available on startplaying.games; B/X Dungeons & Dragons Rom'Myr, a  Dying Earth and Gamma World 2e Metal Earth!

I am old-school after all. Gamma World was the first ttrpg I purchased with my own money. Basic Dungeons & Dragons was the first ttrpg I ever had, a Christmas present from my parents. They had seen me since 1976 bringing home other people's books so I could learn to play the game. They were a little concerned of my fast friendship with kids much older than me, but I was hooked. I was not to be denied! 

It was a heady brew as the 70s came to a close. Besides ttrpgs, there were all the science fiction and fantasy paperbacks I was devouring by the hour, and a raft of Savage Sword of Conan and Heavy Metal magazine underneath my mattress. Not to mention the starting collection of Star Wars action figures!

So, like a newborn chic, these two gaming properties define much of how I view, and play, roleplaying games.   

Castle Xyntillan and the World of Xoth

 Out of sheer frustration I tapped my brother in Virginia to play Gabor Luxe's fantastic funhouse dungeon Castle Xyntillan. He was under insufferable heat and humidity so was keeping inside. This gave him the time to jump in! This was completely a nostalgia-grab back into the past when we would play B/X with a bunch of first level characters and the Isle of Dread or some such thing. A summer afternoon with the afternoon free to play DnD. Good times.

He "rolled" up 4 first level characters and spent some time briefly in the local township, a crap-hole called... whatever. They approached the castle in daylight and went right for the opening at the west side into the rose and vegetable gardens. There they were accosted by a troop of 8 bandits and their leader, one of the undead Malevelloooo, something. Neither one of us could pronounce the Hungarian script so we just called them Mulleaveys. So nine against four. Not good odds, especially because the bandits were hiding behind the rubble.

But there was nothing for it. He had just spent an hour rolling up characters so it was time to get into the action. It was a two-on-two with the missile weapons. Crossbows against short bows. Not being surprised and winning the initiative, Mike began what was a long string of high numbers, and the bandits rolling a string of low numbers. The bowmen were taken down in the first exchange! Then it was nothing but bloody melee, and even though the bandits continued to roll garbage, three of the PCs were dead and five of the bandits. This left 3 with the leader staying in the rear looking for a handy bow. Renee' the Thief took this opportunity to run back to town. I took an hour break while he rolled up 5 new 1st level characters.

And the other news I have is Book 3 Worlds of Adventure for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery is up at DriveThru. Or it should be, it is only available in PDF right now. The POD files need to get loaded and approved. But it does close the loop on USR Sword & Sorcery, for me. There is one or two more adventures to write for the game, but for what it is worth the game and myself have rung what we can out of each other and it is time to move on!

What I am working on now is Space Acid, my FGU Space Opera retro-clone, and MEGS the MEGS retro-clone. Two big works with little small dungeons in between to snap me out of a narrow view and redundant ways of thinking. My online games as well as what I am writing.

And so back to Xyntillan, he rolled up 4 fighters and a cleric. With Renee' at the head of the troop, they assaulted the castle again. This time they went through the Great Entrance which lead into the Vestibule. They interacted with the Mulleavey paintings in the hallway and the cleric almost had his head devoured by the hat in the cloakroom. 

They continued to poke around looking for something of value when the triggered the butler to show up. His ghostly form wanted to know why they were breaking down the bricks walling off a door in the Clerk's Office? He had not heard there was any construction scheduled to start today. He insisted they cease at once. Grubb, a Fighter, had collected much of the dried parchment filled with mad scribblings and showed James the Butler the party's "authorization" for work to be done. This satisfied the butler immensely, so when the PCs asked where they could heal up James led them to the Inner Courtyard and pointed out where to enter the Grand Bath. The cleric bathed in the pool hoping to be healed. Instead, they triggered the badness, failed the save, and turned into a pillar of salt. Dead. We are up to 4 corpses now in two hours of play. He hastily left the bath, Grubb did take another stab at the pool and became immune to poison for a week. Returning to the vestibule again and again, my brother reconnoitered the immediate hallways surrounding. When Ben the Fighter walked into the Glittering Cloud and started having his blood sucked out of him he called it quits for the day. 

We will pick up again tomorrow as he returns to town, makes some meager gold, and figure out his next step.

And Book 3 Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery is out on PDF at Drivethru!

OSR Wilderness Fundraiser Delivers, again (cont.)

Continued from this initial announcement, that is. 

Mission OSR II can be reported a success. This "ascent" is happening much later in the hiking season than should be attempted for the seriousness of the mission so I do not feel bad about just getting to the Highlands Center at the Zealand Trailhead. This time of the year the actual trailhead is gated. This has the effect of turning a 5-1/2 mile hike into an 11 mile hike. In icy snow with higher than usual river crossings. The weather on Wednesday was for shit too. Whiteout conditions closed in on I93 just as I hit my old hometown and punched through Franconia Notch. My brother took the right onto Route 302 towards Bretton Woods and pointed the way to the AMC Center's dusted lot. The wind was fierce and icy blasts bit hard into my face as I hustled across the snow-drifted entry into the massive conference center. My triple layer of base layer, fleece, and down sweater were pathetically inadequate for any real hiking on a day like today.

Luck was with the Irish though. The caretakers for Zealand Hut Croo were scheduled to attend high-level meetings the very next day. The front desk receptionist was sure to make sure the game kit got into their hands and into the cabin. I was too tired to take any photos on site, but here are the photos of the finished product which was delivered. 

Super Simple Death Save for Dungeons & Dragons

 This is an old-school take and most likely not relevant to 5e of the worlds most popular board game. But for your OSR game it fits the tropes of early play. Also, someone has probably already thought of this and has put it out there. I just haven't seen it yet. 

When the PC reaches zero Hit Points, instead of death they may choose to reduce their Hit Die to the next smaller die size. Only have a d4 Hit Die? To bad, no death save for you.

This means Magic-User and Thief class do not get a death save, they follow the standard zero Hit Points and you are dead. Outside of the Fighter, all other classes have a d6 Hit Die, so these classes get to cheat death once. With the Fighter having a d8 Hit Die they get to save from death twice. 

It should be noted the save is automatic, there is no roll to make. And just to be clear, this does mean, moving forward, the PC rolls this new lower die for all additional levels reached.

Madison Hut Received BFRPG

 It was wet, it was steep, it was a typical hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I started out like this, 

under some sun and 80% humidity on the valley floor. And then you end up here,

After the slog I collapsed in my bunk at Madison Springs Hut and surveyed the map for on the morrow we would assault the summit of Mount Washington.

But till then there was coffee to drink and spaghetti to eat and an evening cigarette to smoke. When the Croo finished the dishes and the thru-hikers fought over the left overs before they had to camp on the sodden ground I presented the Hut Master Trevor with the hand made slip case containing BFRPG, Castle by the Sea adventure anthology, the Field Guide to Monsters, and of course Purging Woth N’Rld Oakwyn’s Muddy Hole.

Trevor was taken aback but quickly grasped the nature of the gift. When I showed him the Dice bag tucked into the slip case he thought the whole package was an amazing gift for the cabin and its revolving Croo.

 Thanks to all the donors who helped fund this dream of mine. Only seven more remote mountain huts to go!

That Rule in B/X I Missed...

I'm sure there are a couple of more I could find, but this one, this one I can testify I never internalized, or had it come up in play, hmmm. Anyways, it is a good optional rule and I am writing it down here so now another piece of B/X lore is firmly cemented into the space in my brain labeled "If it isn't about ttrpg's I'm not interested". 

It is on page B25 and it goes like this; "ATTACKS ON 'UNHITTABLE' CREATURES (OPTION): Some creatures can be hit only by silvered or magic weapons. The DM may want to allow two other kinds of attacks to hit such creatures. First, attacks by other 'unhittable' creatures may be allowed (for example, a lycanthrope could attack a wight). Second, attacks by monsters with more than four hit dice may be allowed (an owlbear could attack a wererat)."

Seems reasonable to me. I like it. I also like being reminded the clarity of Tom's language usage in writing the Basic Rules. Many rules can be written with some running of the mouth by an author. Tom Moldvay commits none of these sins. I still use this book as a style guide when considering the words I'm using when writing rules.

New B/X Class, the Scumbag

The Scumbag

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special

1st            +0            +1   +1    +1    Garrote 1, Lurk 1, Listen 1

3rd         +2         +2 +2 +2 Garrote 2

2nd         +1         +1 +1 +1

4th         +3         +2 +2 +2

5th         +3         +3 +3 +3 Lurk 2

6th         +4         +3 +3 +3 Garrote 3

7th         +5         +3  +3 +3 Listen 2

8th         +6         +4  +4 +4

9th         +6         +4  +4 +4 Garrote 4, Lurk 3

10th         +7            +5    +5 +5

11th         +8         +5 +5 +5

12th         +9         +6 +6 +6 Garrote 5

13th         +9         +6 +6 +6 Lurk 4, Listen 3

14th         +10         +6 +6 +6

Is the Cleric spell Protection from Evil too powerful?

This question, one of many from Mark, regular gamer and commentator on all things Vanishing Tower (VTP), is definitely an issue I put in the undecided box. And is a spell, much like Read Magic, which I struggle with cap-stoning with a definite and unequivocal opinion. The tendency for myself and players is towards specificity. The nebulous definition of “Evil” in a variety of fantasy relevant context is rendered more apprehensible with hard walls. Hard and fast definitions. “Elves are good, Orcs are evil.” Black is back and white is just alright with me, just alriiiight, oh yeaaah. 

But my game world, my fantasy campaigns tend to begin with the question, or nature, of evil relatively unanswered. Outside of societal norms defining moral and its opposite, evil, the nature of a roleplaying game is to have these big questions answered in play. And so is why everyone wants to know the answer to these type of questions before play, or when they come up.

So my answer is the bullshit one, it depends. What is the right call at the moment? Everything in a roleplaying game is case and or context dependent. Some one has to decide what is or isn’t evil in the game world and that job ultimately ends in the DM’s lap. My best efforts have come to a couple of “best practices” I’ve adopted for myself. Have the player define what their god considers good and evil. Accept it and incorporate their ideas into the pantheon developing. And when I say accept it I don’t mean make it all true. Just be super-mindful of it and you can be prepared for when you have something they believe their spell would protect them, and it doesn’t! If they really start to push on it sucking ask them if they have considered their god may not be correct in all things? Maybe their god is fucking with them? Maybe their god lied about this subject? It makes sense to attack, or frame, the PfE spell with less specificity on the front end because it preserves the fascinating feature of emergent play.

A Caller Questions the Conversion Guides; previous post addendum.

One of my players poised a question on the podcast recently on some of the wherefore and why's of my 1e ADnD adventures fascination, specifically what was the genesis behind the DM Guild's 5th edition conversion guides, and perhaps what new found appreciation I may have uncovered. You can listen to the episode here - What is up with the 5e Conversion Guides?

Using 1e ADnD modules in your own game world...

I did not intentionally start the new campaign of Rom’Myr so as to stuff as many 1e AD&D modules as I have into it, but once I reviewed S4 I wanted to try. The Rom’Myr campaign is a homebrewed Dying Earth setting offering the trappings and tropes of an original Vancian city, and the colorful denizens to be found therein. I started with Jack’s own stories of his fabled dying earth. My cardinal rule of source and inspiration of a genre is to reread the original material. By and large a ttrpg setting is devoid of the magic and juice the original creator transfused into their work. Carcosa would be an exception here, but the author and setting writer are one in the same. An organic kernel of fucked-upness which birthed a nation. So, I was quite convinced when reading S4 it was utterly the most Vancian module Gygax wrote. I needed a sharp range of mountains to hem-in the sword and sandle city of Valla’Tair, the campaigns home starting point. S4 is on my shelf so I was eager to make it “work”. The nuanced harmony with Vance’s stories S4 has made hacking the module a simple process. Many, many things of the original module were left intact.

Remember in high school when the DnD adventure recently purchased was going to be the adventure to be played that weekend? That is how I remember it all. The only elements of a traditional DnD campaign would be using the same character for each adventure, giving the character survived the previous one. Rather unsatisfying considering the true potential of the medium. Hence the idea was born, and gauntlet thrown down. I became determined to weave as many classic DnD adventure modules into the campaign as I could! Not in any slap-on, haphazard methods of old, but only when the module “fit”. I was betting the best use of this material was exactly how the authors said to use it; make it your own! Now this does require re-skinning the mod. Changing names, replacing monsters with your own, tossing out material that doesn’t work for you, this will need to be done to slot correctly into your game. But if you have chosen wisely then the work is brisk and intuitive.

Here are the AD&D modules (among many, many other sources) used so far:

S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

T1 Village of Hommlet

X2 Castle Amber

C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess

WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

The early DnD modules, or at least the ones I have used, are masterful tools which willingly support whatever the DM is attempting to build with their players. I subscribe to the notion that other people’s ideas are intrinsic to a successful campaign world (also known as a “living world”). These different (they don’t always need to be good, I learn from bad) ideas and adventures help link my best ideas together. There wasn’t any connection by players of the classic modules they are battling through.  This is because the players were pursuing their goals, their advisories, the consequences of their actions. Enough slight-of-hand achieved so Tsojcanth is the Yonni’Hor mountains and the mysteries lying within. Tomoachan is the lower catacombs and sewers hiding the Cult of Sleep. Castle Amber and Hommlet is the home of the eccentric Ansulex family and their strange studies, werewolves in thrall to the Archbishop are stalking rebels and radicals, and the whimsical Palace of the Silver Prince is lost to the macabre house of the vampiric Knight of Gore. I don’t think I would have thought of a martial order of ghouls if it wasn’t for using B3. That dinner party was the shit!

I know Gygax and others tied their unique creations, eventually, to an official setting. Just like coming up with unique traps and challenges weekly is hard work, having all the answers to the player’s questions is unrealistic. Having some fleshed-out pantheon provided, or collection of kingdoms presented, saves time creating buildings, towns, and secret labs. There is only so much time in the day. But I’ll say you have to have your own unique campaign world to give a good game a chance. You must have horizons you are passionate to reveal. A DM is on the right track world building when prewritten adventures are easily adapted to situations at hand. One, they are good. They are good spaces to move around in, there are ample examples of what threats can be encountered there, major NPCs to make your own supervillains out of. I’ve hung the best, weirdest stuff I can on these old modules and I’ll tell you, it isn’t nothing they haven’t seen or can’t help make better.

A Present of, and a Review of Castle Xyntillian by Gabor Lux

Gabor Lux is a fantastic person. He is undeniably generous. His output under the Echoes from Fomalhaut label numbers 60 individual publications spanning more than a decade of OSR creations. This not only makes Mr. Lux prolific, but an artist who has printed content throughout the history of the OSR movement from 2003 to the present. His blog Beyond Fomalhaut should be recognizable to most OSR aficionados and needs to be added back into my blog’s recommendation list. His zine Echoes is comfortably weird and always worth a read.

So, this guy is mind-numbingly good and a great example of how gaming product should be made when offering to the consumer-at-large. I recently purchased EMDT 57 The Nocturnal Table from his line. I wanted another generator for random city encounters and this 2019 digest-sized release looked like a smart choice. Well, really, I knew it would be a smart choice because it is from Gabor and Gabor’s shit does not suck. The price was very affordable considering the book was coming from Hungry and the bouquet of DIY chewy usefulness packed between the pages. And it was an extremely fortuitous time to order as well. Seems my transaction was his 1,000 foreign commercial exchange and Gabor acknowledged this by sending me a beautiful hard-bound copy of EMDT 60 Castle Xyntillan, a 131page OSR adventure tribute to Judges Guild’s Tegal Manor. Tegal Manor is known as an original example of a “funhouse” dungeon, a module packed with interesting, unpredictable encounters with a loose or even no overall relation to another.

It is not a small book, not digest size. More like hardcover catalogue size? The cover art is original, a Peter Mullen creation. There is a liberal amount of original and public domain art and uses the wonderfully efficient presentation of two-column text on white paper for easy reading and scanning.

Besides a large dungeon the book includes 5 pages of useful tables, a DM’s traditional tool which has come of age. Ordered in a sensible method these pages are there to squirt out hirelings and NPC’s with personality and information. The duplication and addition of maps, another sign of OSR haute couture, is present throughout the book, including the end cover pages. The addition of interior end cover pages with the castle’s map is something you cannot get from a Drivethru POD and gives a traditional publishing house a reason still for living; providing a print run tailored to a ttrpg adventure book. Castle Xyntillan has been designed for the Swords & Wizardry game and is suitable for 1st to 6th level characters. Castle Xyntillan has been designed to be versatile, open-ended, complex, and accessible. This module should provide ample opportunities for exploration, confrontation, and subterfuge. Whether you would like a dungeon for one-off expeditions and convention play, or repeated forays and full campaigns, this book should suit those demands.

Seeing as I have recently acquired it, I cannot divulge the value of the majority of the book, the keyed dungeon itself. But it has been extensively play-tested. You know this because the introductory pages list all the Player Characters (not players) that survived and died in their forays through the dungeon. It is a long list. Besides, it is Gabor so you know it must be good. The cherry on top of this lovely book is the location marks for each and ever Player Character which died in the dungeon. The big spreads on the end pages contain the dungeon maps and the location and name of the dead PC is placed on the map. There even is an MIA list, adventurers who’s fate remains unknown. Sweet.

Death in Rom'Myr

The last session was a continuation of coming to grips with the denizens of the Pale Knight's Palace. They had indeed returned to the Aticorn with the 8 threads from the vampire lord’s cloak, and the creature of Faerie did release the party from the peculiar geas laid upon them. But they had left the young Violet behind in the nightmarish palace. None of the warriors could look each other in the eye if they left their potential meal-ticket lost and uncashed. So instead of pushing on to the realative safety of Le Freniae, the party turned around and marched back to the ruined structure which just last night held an alien conclave and was racked by terrible explosions. The daylight did little to relieve the gloom saturating the steep, forest hollow. Once inside they wasted little time plowing to the room of dragon eggs and the broken throne room. The 3 eggs which were left behind last night appear now to be gone. The throne room was appropriately barren, but the unbelievable events which overtook the group last in this room left behind signs of the awful reality which had transpired. 

Clues wrapped in a dropped communique hinted at deep conspiracy on now a cosmic scale. But nothing yet seen prepared them for the colossal marble snake coiled in the center of it’s room of rampage. Not a hallucinatory dream after all. Stone it was made and still it breathed and slumbered. Above the beast, as if suspended like an acrobat, the silvery beauty, the alien and powerful Aladonia floated like a billowing cloud over the rubble. Her advisory, the grotesque talking hair-skin thing, was no where in sight. An unoccupied alchemy lab provided insight on the child-snatching which they were bearing witness to. Their bowels turned to water as a closing, suffocating trap threatened a TPK and still no sign of the lovely Violet. Questions dogged their every step; what with the stealing of children? What was the significance of multiple dimensions filled with strange beings? And how was all this going to pay? 

My Rom'Myr Campaign

is my online game and I have been enjoying the taping and recording of these sessions. But with the crash of G+ and YouTube I cannot seem to get a reliable audio (or video) recording of these sessions. These recording issues have forced my hand once again to write in review of the games held in Rom’Myr Dying Earth Campaign. This current blog post is a quick summation of Sunday’s game...

The party is of 5, not all from the same world. Traveling the Averoigne wilderness they encounter the mule-thing Farthingnay. This enchanted beast of fairei compels the PCs to collect 8 threads from the Pale Knight’s cloak.

The party finds and penetrates the Pale Knight’s ruined palace. It is a crumbling pile haunted by dark obscenities. Feasting on the dead appears the main form of sustenance for the palace’s denziens. In the lower level dining room the party crosses blades and hammers with the Order of the Maggot, a martial order of ghouls. They claimed to be the personal guard and escort of his grace the Lord Bishop of the Pale. It appears the Pale Knight is holding audience!

An artifact of ancient evil was uncovered, a black cauldron. Toth, with his mighty hammer Jyfryth, sunder the cauldron in twain. The two thieves of Valla’Tair lead the way into darkness. It is not long before the palace responds to the party’s intrusion. Red and Silver Dragon soldiers, terror gnomes of in-between, clash with the PCs in a large chamber deep in the dungeon. Knives and axes snicker-snap in orange torchlight. The fight is sharp and swift. 8 of these creatures lay dead on the floor, for no race of man were these terror gnomes, while the party suffered wounds to the paladin Toth and Lumin of the Hidden Hand. The terror gnomes wielded short side swords in battle and capable of wicked wounds. It took much faith and bandages to restore their health. Vari’dell and Cree, the thieves of Valla’Tair, are only covered in gore from the soldier they slew. La Batard was equally unscathed.

The palace had more to throw at the brave party, the palace walls itself! Mere doors turned into mystic portals, dividing the party and leavining others truly lost. Cree, a monster-hunter by trade, is left stranded in an unknown cavern, vast and dank. He must move swift and silent, he must brave the terrors of the living dead and eventually return to the radius of the party’s torch. Erstwhile, the two warriors of faith, Lumin and Toth, scout and thief, all of them slay the petty-lych Skeelos, and restore Aladona to life.

How will the temporary alliance with the lady called Aladona and the PCs last? What awaits them in the throne room? Only the next game session can reveal!

The DM’s Guide is System Neutral

Or at least can be used with any game you may be running, regardless of genre. There are many useful random tables and information any Game Master usually feels are essential at the table while running. For myself, I am constantly turning to the Non-Player Characters section on page 100. Regardless of genre I am running I can always turn to this section and quickly get an NPCs personality whipped up on the spot. This makes for legitimate apprehension in the PCs. If they know the Game Master is rolling up personalities randomly they can’t get all mad at you when the last three armor smiths turned out to be sociopathic cheerful aesthetics! There are twenty tables alone on these two pages, no NPC ever has to be like the other. I don’t even use all of them. I roll randomly four or five times to get the tables I am going to roll on and then roll for results. This mix and match of character traits assures me and my players will have unique NPCs to engage with whenever this level of detail is warranted.

Here is a list of other tables which are useful at the table, no matter the genre!

p. 25, Value and Reputed Properties of Gems and Jewelry

p.12, Character Age, Aging, Disease and Death

p. 215, Appendix F: Gambling

p. 82, Effects of Alchol and Drugs

p. 53, Waterborne Adventures, excellent resource for manual and wind-driven craft!

p. 29, Description of Occupations and Professions

p. 32, Sage Fields of Study and Special Knowledge Categories

p. 36, Loyalty of Henchmen & Hirelings, Obedience and Morale

Really, you should get your own copy of this 1^st edition book and mark it up for all the tables you find useful. If you are running any type of fantasy game the book becomes even doubly useful with the more fantasy specific sections and tables in the book. It is dubbed a “Special Reference Work” on the title page. I would go so far as to call it an “Essential Reference Work” for the serious Game Master as well as the fantasy codex it is.

AD&D armor types for Ascending Armor Class

One of the players in our BFRPG Rom’Myr campaign wanted to know if other armor types were available in the game. Specifically Ring Mail, Studded Leather, Splint Mail and the like. All the additional armor types you will find in 1E AD&D Players Handbook. At the time I said no, you’ll have leather, chain and plate and that should suffice.

For the record it isn’t that I was opposed to additional armor types. I was opposed to taking the time to shake out the details during game time. Now I have had the time. To assign Armor Class values at least. Still haven’t settled on price yet. I don’t want to take the prices right out of the book because in Rom’Myr your cost for armor is substantially higher than traditional OSR equipment lists. 

Here is the breakdown for BFRPG’s Ascending scale;

Padded Armor: AC 12

Ring Mail, Leather & Studded Leather: AC 13

Scale Mail: AC 14

Banded & Splint: AC 15

Additional OSR Spells for Clerics of Odxit

On page 129 of Petty Gods Revised & Expanded Edition is the god Odxit. I'm currently writing up an old school dungeon crawl through a forgotten shrine to this forgotten god. This has prompted me to wonder what abilities would be unique to the god of unexplained smells, and how would this translate into unique spells for this type of cleric to cast?

The Eldolon of Inexplicable Odor provides its Clerics with the following additional spells. They become available to the cleric per the usual spell acquisition rules particular to your campaign.

Level 1

Produce Aroma; Range 120', Duration 2 turns/per level. The cleric is able to produce any smell they have experienced directly, pleasant or foul. It will occupy a volume of space up to 30' in diameter.

Seduce; Range 30', Duration 12 turns. Only affects members of the same species as the caster. The cleric is able to produce pheromones which will make the target of the spell have positive feelings towards the caster. Any reaction roll will be at a +2, +4 if making sexual advances.

Befriend Animal; Range Self, Duration 12 turns. The cleric is able to produce pheromones which will make all animals of a similar type to be friendly, or at least not hostile, towards the caster. The effect moves with the caster and extends 30' feet in all directions.

Level 2

Predict Weather; Range Self, Duration 12 turns. The cleric knows what weather can be expected in the immediate area (10 square miles) for the next two hours.

Level 3

Conjure Wind; Range 60', Duration 1 round. The cleric casts a gust of wind approximately 50 mph.  This gust will do anything a sudden blast of air would cause; candle and torches to blow out, fan a fire, heel over a sailboat, etc.

Level 4

Wall of Smell; Range 120', Duration 1 round/level. The cleric creates an opaque wall of smell up to 60' long, 20' high and 1' thick. How the wall smells is up to the caster. If the smell is noxious or otherwise intolerable a Save vs. Spells is required for anyone to pass through the magical barrier. If the smell be pleasing those who can smell it must Save vs. Spells or approach the barrier and sniff it for 1d6 rounds. The summoning cleric may choose any person within his range of smell to remain unaffected by this magic.

Kellen Vapor; Range 120', Duration 1 turn/level. This discreet vapor is breathed outwards by the cleric and invisibly charms the target with any chosen emotional state. The cleric is using smell to trigger overpowering or important experiences and past memories which would trigger the chosen emotional state. This doesn't convey any knowledge of the personal experience. It isn't a form of mind reading. Failing a Saving Roll and the degree felt is up to the caster. Pass the Saving Roll and the caster may only add or subtract one (+1/-1) to the next reaction roll against the target.

Level 5

Gognogulla Bile; Range Self, Duration 1 round. The cleric is in direct commune with Odxit. The resulting experience prompts the cleric to vomit violently for the round after casting. The paroxysm of the cleric's senses  provides an omen about the results of a specific course of action within the next 3 turns.