BSSS - Session 3

 Another Sunday, another game of Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel. Since this is going to be the last session for the year (the campaign being on hold until January because holidays), I figured I'd give my players a few hooks, but for the sake of metagame comfort steer them towards the small dungeon that could be cleared through the course of the session.

Summary

The characters explore a sunken temple on a small island and make a lizard friend!

Characters

• Esho- Sorcerer
• Maru the Witch - Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - Sorcerer
• Athra - Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko

A Very Quick Recap

The party did not really want to go back to the temple they visited the last two sessions, so they spent some money and time in their Downtime activities to look for some more hints. They got several, in fact, but the one they went for was a small cave and ruins on an island in the middle of the river, south of the Undying City. 

They hired a ship, since they realized that despite there being 3 PCs, between all the mercenaries and porters their entire party was 19 people. After an uneventful trip down the river (uneventful because I've not gotten around to writing encounters on the river yet) they arrived at the small island. 

The dungeon exploration itself is hardly remarkable, like the dungeon itself - a partially flooded underground ruin of a shrine that was once dedicated to the Serpent of Smoke, the river the island was on. 

The net total of their escapade were two dead mercenaries and a giant gecko that befriended one of the fighters and a magical spear, a magical light armor and a helmet of Telepathy, a treasure map, and of course some coin. 

Satisfied they headed back. 

Observations 

Combat in this game was, finally, not a simple one-sided affair, with a skeleton managing to take down a merc in a single sword thrust, while everyone else managed to bring it and its fellows down. 

A player character also got banged up fairly well, but managed to patch himself up after the fact. We spent probably an hour or so before the actual adventure simply handling downtime, including stuff like Carousing, finalizing a deal with a Mentor for one of the Sorcerers so he can learn spells from that person, getting hints and leads for new dungeons, hiring people, buying stuff and also trying to safely leak information about the Chaos cultists that had taken over the temple in the previous sessions, without the party itself getting under too much scrutiny 

It's up to the players, but things are very much moving in the direction of having at least one session be simply back in the Undying City just to be able to handle all the various threads and activities that are starting to weave together. 

So, the giant gecko...the party ran into one as a random encounter, however the gecko was generally neutral and not that interested in dealing with them, mostly just hanging off a column and observing them curiously. The party decided to leave it be, as it headed down. Later another random encounter roll ended up again with the gecko, so I just decided to rule that it had simply followed them down the stairs (nobody had closed the big rusted doors behind them). 

As they explored the dungeon they ended up running into ANOTHER giant gecko, and after feeding it some food, combined with a very high reaction roll I ended up deciding that it took a liking to the party's Fighter and started to follow him around. It helps that he said he'll use one of his language slots for Beast Speech, a language used by animals, beast men and other such things. Obviously communication with what is, ultimately, an overgrown lizard didn't amount to much but hey, it's something!

They later looped back around to the first one, with the two lizards becoming aggressive, unhappy with the other being their territory - the party decided to kill the first lizard, and with that act the second one officially became a Companion to the fighter, and is now named Gal-Naha! 

It pleases me immensely that the first ever Companion in the campaign so far was not only a monster befriended in the dungeon, but a giant fucking lizard to boot! A great confluence of lucky rolls and treating it quite well. 

Ending on a  more general observation on the game - with OD&D rules, as they are, each HD worth of enemies killed gives the party 100 exp. Yes there is the comically stupid and convoluted formula for adjusting it based on dungeon level, character level and so on - I don't use that. It's impossible to arbitrate, for one thing. So I just stick to 100 xp her HD. 

With that, combat and killing enemies actually now gives WAY more experience in this game than in something like B/X. I am not entirely sure how to feel about that yet, and I am curious if anyone has had experience with running OD&D this way and how it affected progression and general gameplay patterns in their game. 

Slime Priests

Slime Priests are mortal followers of a Chaos Lord referred to as The Decomposition. 

They occupy a strange space in their Lord's army of followers, due to their blessing and curse of sentience. The Decomposition is partial to slimes, oozes, molds and other things as an expression of Chaos - as such it views sentience and intelligence as an unpleasant necessity in some of its followers.

The Slime Priests therefore tend to the various oozes, slimes and molds, helping them grow, feeding them and also creating new variants. 

Slime Priest

HD: 2; AC: 5; Movement Rate: 10; Alignment: Chaos

Attacks - As weapon 

Special Abilities: 
Slime Blast - The priest vomits a torrent a slime at 1d4 targets, which must Save vs paralysis or become paralyzed for 1d6 turns. This ability can only be used once per fight, as it takes a few days for a slime priest to build up enough slime in their guts to use it again. 

Treasure: Slime priests usually only carry a dagger, and 1d3 scrolls with spells on them. 

BSSS - Session 2

 Today we had session 2 of my campaign, and here is a quick recap and observations on it. 

Summary

The PCs head back to the dungeon from last session to try and retrieve the treasure and gear from the dead. It goes very poorly and they manage to all come back alive only through sheer force of luck.

Characters

• Esho - Sorcerer
• Apsu - Fighter
• Athra - Fighter

A Very Quick Recap

The party this time consisted only of 3 player characters (2 fighters and a sorcerer) who  had a good number of hirelings along. They decided to investigate the ruined house they just passed by last time, before going into the main dungeon.

After some random encounters they did get to the house, meeting a Chriot Nomad warrior who was there, in her own words, "looking for Chaos." They split amicably with her and she left, with them exploring the ruins, fighting a seven headed serpent (although it only had 5 heads as they managed to kill off 2 of them which had separated from the main body). They got some very nice loot and went off to the dungeon.

There they beelined directly towards the room with the statue in order to retrieve the gem and possessions of the people who died last session. They found neither, however, and when they tried to leave the room saw a floating orb slowly heading towards them. They closed the door in front of it, then went through the now revealed secret door in the corner of the room, and down some stairs.

Unfortunately for them, there was a slime creature of some kind waiting for them on the bottom of those stairs, and worse still - it had the big gemstone from last session inside it! They tried slashing at it, smacking it with a magically charged copper rod that had a trapped lighting inside it - nothing seemed to do much beyond simply splitting the thing into smaller sections of itself. Luckily for them I managed to roll a 1 five time in a row when rolling its damage! They gave up and just left it down there and ran back upstairs.

From there, once they tried to exit the room, again, they were confronted by the orb which now had two middle-aged men keeping it company. The orb grew and opened a myriad of eyes and through a rather unfortunate roll paralyzed everyone except for 2 hirelings and one of the fighters who was in the opposite side of the room, guarding against the slime. Once he saw things were going badly he ran over...and gat paralyzed as well for his trouble.

Luckily for them the slime-covered priests were in a good mood, and offered them a choice - join the services of their Lord or be killed. The party, once allowed to move and talk again, lulled them that they would join, then a fight broke out in which the party overwhelmed the priests (3 more had come at that point, but it was still not enough) and after looking a whole bunch of magic scrolls from their bodies decided to just head back home.

Due to the small number of player counts and their shockingly good luck TWO people actually got to level 2 - one of them the sorcerer who was in the last session and the other a new character, who's player got an extra boost from the party throwing a feast in his processor's honor and also just getting extra experience for player-roles (you can see what that is like in the Player's Handbook )

Observations

The theme of this session was the luck of the dice. It was the luck of the dice that the slime, despite hitting the players five times, only managed to do 5 points of damage spread over two characters, instead of simply killing them on the spot. 

It was the luck of the dice that the floating orb of many eyes managed to paralyze the entire group, save two people. Normally this would have just been a TPK - in my game a character who is helpless does not have the benefit of any defense or their Hit Points. If you choose to kill a defenseless person they simply die. However, the luck of the dice is also what saved the players - the priests rolled a shockingly high reaction roll, apparently unaware that the group had been here before, and decided to try and recruit/press them into service! 

The party should have died at least twice in this session, and yet luck was clearly on their side and instead they prevailed! They returned with all limbs intact, with a good amount of money and a magical gemstone that one of the players has plans for. 

My OD&D Box

 Some of you may have heard me mention about how this or that thing is going into my OD&D Box. For a while that was mostly metaphorical, as I didn't actually have a box to keep all of the related booklets and other things inside. 

Until now! 

I present to you, my OD&D box with all of its current contents!

What's actually inside the OD&D box currently?

1. Printed version of the Premium edition of the Three Little Brown Books. 

2. White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game

3. Delving Deeper (v4)

4. Holmes Basic D&D rulebook.

5. Chainmail 3rd edition

6. Original Edition Delta Book of War

7. Original Edition Delta Book of Spells

8. Outdoor Survival (for the game board)

9. Printed version of Philotomy's Musings 

10. Printed version of The Original D&D Setting

11. Original Edition Campaign house rules 

12. Printed version of Magic Swords for Swords & Wizardry

Close up of the box art. I tried to keep up with the tradition of writing a needlessly verbose description of what is inside it.

So what's the point of all this? There are so many versions of OD&D, and so many related texts that I all found fascinating, that I just decided to collect them all in there. Plus, it's just plain funny to have a big box with a whole bunch of OD&D booklets all stuck inside it. Speaking of which...

Plenty of space left in there!

What else is going into the OD&D Box? 

Currently I have a few documents that I still have in just pdf that I would like to eventually have a physical version put into the OD&D box. In no particular order, the things I look forward to getting in there are:

* Fantastic Medieval Campaigns (OD&D and Chainmail rewrite) by Marcia B.

* Unchained Fantasy (OD&D with Chainmail combat) by Daniel Norton

* Grognard (Chainmail retroclone) - this one I am not so sure about. 

And potentially anything else that I feel fits within the loose and unspecified definition of OD&D! 

Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel - Player's Handbook

 

Artwork by the wonderful Ellie! 

I figured it would be nice to have this uploaded here. I made a Player's Handbook sort of document for my campaign containing the various house rules, inventory system, weapons, armor and item lists and other such useful information. 

You can get it by clicking >>>OVER HERE<<< to see the pdf! 

BSSS - Session 1

Today was the inaugural session of my new campaign - Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel (BSSS for short). I've been posting a few things about it here as it approached, so now I'd like to talk about how the actual session went.

While I would not delude myself that any of my players actually bother reading this blog, they do have access to it so I will not be sharing any referee-facing information on here, just a quick recap of what happened and some observations and thoughts on it from my own perspective. 

The session had a full table, which in my case means 6 players. I find that 6 is probably close to the maximum number I can really handle well for an OSR game, and even then that is with a help from a caller to keep things moving along. 

People showed up and generated characters, which ended up with a party of 3 fighters, 3 sorcerers. After a quick introduction to the set up they headed out into the Old City ruins, in search of a lead they got from some of the Scavengers back in Riverside. 

Characters

• Shem - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Ushar - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Tibidun - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Maru the Witch - Sorcerer
• Esho - Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - Sorcerer

Overview of the session

As I don't have a finished encounters table for travel outside the dungeon yet, this was uneventful, but the players did wisely mark general landmarks they ran into in order to be able to navigate back to the dungeon later.

Also as part of the pre-game set up the party divided the three major Player functions between them two - a party leader/caller, a mapper and a quartermaster. From my observation during the game all three did their jobs quite well, so good job on that!

Anyway, the actual dungeon itself was not explored that deeply - the party had a fight against eight bandits that were guarding the entrance, managing to negate very effectively four of their archers by one of the Fighter PCs rushing at them from the side and engaging them in melee, making them essentially lose a round in trying to scramble and pull out a weapon. 

What followed was a very quick and brutal fight, with the Players ganging up on individual fighters, one of the sorcerers disabling two more people with blindness and just general mayhem. 

That, unfortunately, did not stop as just as everyone was catching their breath the bandit's leader along with some more people came out from the dungeon, with a second fight ensuing. In the end, one bandit was allowed to simply leave, 2 were pressganged to march in front of the party and act as trap detectors, and the others were dead.

Once into the actual dungeon, their plan paid off as the bandits spotted an obviously raised stone plate on the floor, clearly some kind of trap, and avoided it easily. One of the mercenaries that the party brought along was left to guard the room, and the rest of the group continued exploring, eventually finding a large hall with some more bandits (which managed to spot the lights of the players and ducked into a nearby room). The players followed, another fight happened (I had rolled a 2, 4 and 2 for each of the reactions so far, the bandits clearly not being interested in talking!) and 3 bandits were all that survived.

The group forced one of them to pry open the enormous gem in the middle of the statue that was in the room, while one of the fighters guarded him, two others were near by the braziers with unearthly blue flames lighting up the room, in case something odd happened. The party clearly knew that something would happen when the gem was messed with, but they didn't know what. Well, the captive managed to pry the gem open and they realized what was to happen quite soon - the room started to fill VERY rapidly with a poisonous black cloud, and everyone on near the statue was blasted directly into the face.

Some saving throws later, and the tally was 1 surviving mercenary, and one bandit and 2 player characters dead from poison. The others had only a few seconds to act, most simply booking it out of the door, while one player decided to rush into the poison cloud in order to grab the gem. Another failed saving throw, and another limp body on the floor.

From there the group decided to leave, inspecting a second site they knew of from a map the bandits had given them in an effort to save their lives (it didn't work). They found another ruined building with a merchant's hand-pulled cart upturned in front of it. They got the cart upright, which luckily only had one of its 4 wheels broken, and found a very nice bounty of tanned leather and spices. Deciding to not push it any more for the session, and also with nightfall fast approaching on the characters, they headed back to town and for a month of downtime. 

Observations

* I am so far pleased with combat in the game. Both fights were relatively fast (though could have been faster in real world time. Something to think about), brutal and none lasted beyond I think 2 or 3 rounds. That for me is ideal! 

* Conversely, I was genuinely surprised just how unscathed the party made it out of both encounters. Bad rolls on the side of the bandits I suppose.

* Three dead in the first session is not that surprising, although I did not expect it to be due to a trap. Then again, the party as I said was aware that something was going to happen, they simply would have had no real way of knowing what, and so decided to take the risk of simply "poke it and see what it does." After the fact someone did have the idea that they could have just all stood back and only had the bandit up by the statue, so maybe they will learn from this experience in the future! 

* All of the Sorcerers were tempted by the ability to simply cast extra spells at the risk of Corruption, though also nobody actually decided to take the plunge. For me that's a good sign that Corruption is working as intended - as both a deterrent to Sorcerer power, but also a temptation that...hey if you ever really need that extra spell, you can get it! 

* Something I knew I would need, but was shocked by just how much its lack made the process slow, are quick reference sheets for several rules not easily found within the player's books that I made. Something to try and get done for next week! 

* On first impression it seems the players mostly enjoyed the game overall. How much of that will continue onwards I don't know, but I hope the game gets more enjoyable, not less, as more sessions happen. 

Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel - The Undying City

 

Background

The Undying City wasn't always called that, of course. It was renamed after the fall of the empire as a move of political propaganda, as the city was one of the last to actually fall.

Back in the days of the Empire the city was on both sides of the river, however war, raids and other devastation has made the rulers of the city pull back and concentrate things only on the southern bank. 

The other side of the river is now a vast field of ruins, often crawling with scavengers from the poor side of town, as well as barbarians, travelers and various nasty things that go bump in the dark. 

General Description

A view from the north side of the river into the Merchants' Quarters

Buildings are mostly made from adobe and mud if poorer, or bricks and stone in the wealthier parts of town. The entire city is surrounded by very tall and sturdy brick walls, doted with towers at regular intervals. There are two main gates that enter and exit the city, along with the so called Eternal Bridge that offers connection into the ruins of the old city. 

All but the poorest of slums are at least whitewashed, with richer buildings being covered in ornate patterns painted on their facades. Most people who can afford to have gardens or greenery around their house or on their roofs, which help with the hot sun of the dry season. 

In all areas except the Noble District and around the Great Temple, things are very cramped. The city maintains a population about 3 to 5 times its actual capacity. 

Key Areas or Locations

1 - Riverside or Poortown

A vast slum of tenements, cramped houses and shanties makes up this part of the Undying city. The majority of the population of the Undying City live here in misery and squalor - the few who get enough money to leave usually move into the merchant quarters, or buy out and fortify some of the old larger houses that still stand in what used to be the more prosperous part of Riverside. 

With all of that said, the people living here are still citizens of the city and as such at least have the benefit of being on the inside of the great city walls, as well as having access to clean water wells - a benefit people living in the slums reserved for outsiders rarely get.

2 - Merchants' Quarters

Most of the traders, merchants and free artisans of the city live in the two districts surrounding the grand central market plaza. The area is a curious sight, a mixture of modest one story buildings sitting next to opulent complexes with multiple houses belonging to rich members of the Golden Fraternity. 

If you want to purchase anything beyond simple food or livestock, the Merchents' Quarter is where most of the markets that offer such things are located.

3 - Central Market Plaza

The heart of the Undying City is taken up by the vast Central Market plaza, which is where most of the weekly markets are held. The poor citizens rarely go there to shop, at most just selling their wares in the smaller stalls. The plaza is also where the larger roads in the city converge. Because it is located right next to the internal gates that lead into the Noble and Great Temple districts, violence anywhere around the Plaza is ruthlessly punished and suppressed. 

4 - Noble District

The nobility of the Undying City spend their days in a walled off part of the city living in decadence, leisure and pursuits of fighting and occultism. The entire district houses vast mansion complexes, each of them walled off and surrounded by lush gardens. The entire district is itself walled off from the common parts of the city, the nobles preferring to not see the squalor and overcrowding in places like Riverside. 

Anyone who is deemed to look too poor or like they don't belong will never be allowed through the gates of the Noble District, and carrying a weapon without the explicit permission of a noble is not allowed. Weapons are confiscated at the gate, and anyone found sneaking a weapon will be promptly attacked and put to death by the various bodyguards and mercenaries that work for the nobility. 

This doesn't mean that fights and violence are rare in the Noble District, mind you. It's just that the nobles are very specific about who gets to do it. 

5 - Great Temple District

This walled off district houses the true power in the Undying City - the sorcerer-priests of the Great Temple. Very few are permitted entry into the district, the internal gate leading to it being even more heavily guarded than the gates to enter into the city itself. 

The Undying City has firmly pledged itself with the forces of Law, coming under the protection and patronage of the Lord of Order known simply as The Pale Stillness of Justice. Statues of this benefactor can be found everywhere around the city, and offering of worship, sacrifices and devotion to them is mandatory. The old gods of the Empire are still worshipped, of course, but their religious organizations have dwindled in relevance. 

While the Nobles would never allow for it to be publicly stated, everyone in the Undying City knows that the High Priest of the Pale Stillness is the true ultimate ruler of the Undying City, along with his lesser temple priests. The sorcerer-priests are easily recognized by the pale alabaster masks they wear whenever outside of the Great Temple District - a practice of veiling and masking that has been common among the religious castes even back in the heyday of the Empire. 

Attached to the south-eastern part of the city is a walled off district that can only be entered through the Great Temple district itself. Nobody has any real knowledge or idea of what is housed there, as so few have even seen it. 

6 - Visitor's Quarters/Slums

Just outside the gates of the city are vast sprawling slums filled with hovels, tent cities and the occasional fortified and walled tavern or inn. This is where Outsiders, people who have not been granted citizenship, are allowed to stay. Anyone who travels to the city along the road and not the river must stay in one of the two Visitor's Quarters during the night. During the day people are allowed to enter the city to do trade or to travel through of course. 

In general the north-eastern Visitor's Quarters is much safer and less slum-like, as it is located near the Merchants' Quarters and thus often caravan people, mercenary companies and others tend to stay there instead. 

7 - Old Bridge and Tower Ruins

This used to be the second bridge that spanned the Serpent of Smoke river in order to connect the two parts of the old city. On the sizable island in the middle of the river was located a guard tower which would defend against attacks by ship, along with buildings that housed bureaucrats that kept track of the ship traffic. 

About 20 years ago or so the tower was abandoned and the bridge was demolished, leaving only one single entrance into the Old City. This was done on the command of the Priesthood, with the safety of the city being cited as the reason behind the act. 

More recently, people from Riverside report that sometimes in the night they can see lights from the buildings on the island, however nobody has dared really do much about it. 

8 - The Eternal Bridge

The second of the old bridges that connected the two parts of the city, it was renamed the Eternal Bridge by the priesthood after it withstood a ferocious attack by northern barbarians and their strange beasts. It is now the only way to cross into the Old City (except of course by boat). There are guard towers located on both ends of it, and anyone going into the Old City must be catalogued by the guards there. The main traffic into that dangerous area consists of Scavengers and adventurers, both of which must pay a toll of 10% of any treasure or money they find in their expeditions, before they are allowed back into the city.

While it's absolutely possible to simply cross the river via boat, doing so is dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, boats like that often get attacked by bandits or other scavengers as soon as they reach the other shore. Secondly, crossing into the Old City through any other means besides the Eternal Bridge is technically a criminal act. 

9 - The Old City Ruins

A vast sprawl of ruins from what used to be the old city, along with the various smaller towns and villages that were close to it. A lot of treasures, rare materials and other things are still left there, as going into the ruins is dangerous. They are full of bandits, barbarians, as well as other more inhuman things like dangerous animals, monsters and even demonic forces, keeping an eye on this established stronghold of Law. 

The majority of the citizenry of the Undying City simply refuse to even look at the ruins, let alone go anywhere near them. The only ones to go there are people exiled for various crimes (a punishment often equal to a death sentence), adventurers willing to make their fortunes, and the Scavengers. 

The Scavengers tend to be poor members of the citizenry who make short ventures into the ruins and back. They often are looking for old treasures or valuables left behind, along with precious resources they can sell to the merchants. It is a desperate career with a very short life expectancy, however plenty of the richer people in the Merchants' Quarters actually made their fortune by leading Scavenger bands, and plenty of them still do. 

This is also where most of the initial dungeons and other locales will be. None of them are easy to reach - the closer and safer ruins have long ago been stripped of any value by the Scavenger bands, but deeper into the ruins there is plenty of forgotten things just waiting to be claimed! 

Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel - Setting Primer

Here is a very rough primer on the setting for my campaign, Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel (either BSSS or just Smoke and Steel for short from now on). This is mostly for the benefits of my players, but hey - why not get a blog post out of it while I'm at it?

General Inspiration 

The sales pitch is - Ancient Mesopotamia as written by Robert E. Howard. Though with less racism, hopefully.

So while set in what should be a Bronze Age society, there is still plenty of iron and even steel (I mean it is in the name of the campaign after all), along with borrowing very loosely from the actual historical realities of Sumer, Babylon and Assyria. The Mesopotamian aspect is going to be mostly just an aesthetic coat over fairly typical S&S nonsense. 

The setting is very human-centric. There are no elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes or other such standard fare. Most people you will run into are either humans, or something else, but difficult to identify and put into a neat box. 

Background

The Fertile Lands is the most used name for the territory in the immediate vicinity of the Twin Serpents rivers. The Lands were ruled for several centuries by an empire - not a particularly large one, but a local power in it's own right. However the old empire is no more. About 100 years ago it fell and broke apart under the pressure of the various barbarian groups that had been steadily pushing into its territory for a few decades. That combined with internal problems and pressure resulted in its ultimate rupture and dissolution into a variety of petty kingdoms, city-states, even semi-nomadic groups like the Chariot People. 

The fall of the empire also heralded a more metaphysical shift (or perhaps the shift was what ultimately cased the downfall. It's never easy to say with these kinds of things) in the landscape. The forces of Law, represented by the legalistic, bureaucratic and conservative empire, grew weaker, and an incursion of the forces of Chaos soon followed. Some of those were through mortal agents like the northern barbarian folk, some were a bit more alien, like the enormous chaos worm that devoured an entire city from underneath, leaving a massive gaping wound in the landscape from which hordes of demonic beings spread across the Fertile Lands. 

Violence and death had become very common place around the Twin Serpents. And while the otherworldly vanguard of Chaos was pushed back, Law is still weak. This is where the campaign begins - The city-states, kingdoms, tribes and others all feeling the pressure of this conflict impressed upon their once relatively peaceful lands. Sides are picked, one way or the other, with consequences that mortal minds can only barely comprehend. 

People of the Fertile Lands

Being the territory of a former Empire the Fertile Lands has a fairly wide variety in human appearances. However some trends are still noticed - most people tend to have dark hair, ranging from dark brown to glossy black, skin ranging from dark olive to very deep brown, and eyes ranging in all human ranges, and some not found in Earthly humans, such as red, orange, yellow and so on. 

Material Culture

Being, as stated earlier, a riff on Mesopotamia written by Robert E. Howard the material culture of the Fertile Lands broadly maps to a confused mix of various ancient Mesopotamian cultures, except with way more iron and steel than existed on Earth in that time period. 

Think this kind of stuff, but with way more iron and steel mixed in there.

There are certain things one might expect in a typical D&D fare that are not present - there are no double handed swords, no European Renaissance style plate armor, no lanterns, and so on. Chain armor exists, but is quite rare. Most heavy armor tends to be made of iron or steel scales. 

Due to the dangers from wild animals, bandits, warlords, nomads, demons and other things lurking in the wilds, most humans have retreated to the safety of heavily fortified cities. Most farming is done either close to the city itself, or in the few remaining smaller towns and fortified villages. What is left of the empire's population has become highly urbanized by necessity. 

Culture and Religion

Generally quite rigid, though less so since the fall of the empire. The nobility and priesthood are often one and the same in most cities, though not always. Slavery is common, but also not as widespread as it was during the height of the empire - a lot of slaves got themselves freed during the turmoil and are, understandably, very unwilling to go back to servitude. 

The gods of the cities are distant, if not dead. Magic often comes from either people like sorcerers, or people who gain their magic through pacts with powerful entities like the kings of the Elementals, the Lords of Chaos and Law, or other entities of that caliber. A lot of the common people still maintain the old rituals, mostly out of habit, but it seems the god rarely do much to answer them. 

With law being now fragmented and highly decentralized, those who are daring and willing to risk their life for it can go out and make a name for themselves, where otherwise the system would have shoved them back into their spot. Petty warlords, tyrants, cult leaders, "benevolent" dictators and others spring up everywhere on a daily basis. Maybe with some luck and coin, your character might also be one of them. 

One of the biggest mortal forces to occupy the power vacuum left by the break up of the empire has been The Golden Fraternity. A combination of descendants (and in some cases, actual members using life-extending magics) of the old noble caste of the empire, now turned into ruthless merchant-lords. They control virtually all major traffic up and down the Twin Serpents rivers and they can be found almost everywhere, save for the smallest and most wretched villages. 

The next post is going to give a bit more detail on the Undying City, the starting location for the campaign. 

And to close this off, some more visual inspiration! 

Art credits go to whoever drew all of this amazing stuff. Unfortunately I found most of it through Pinterest, so no way in hell I could figure out the artist for most of these. 

How I got into the OSR

Let's get this out of the way - This is going to be a deeply self-indulgent post. I am writing this thing mostly since I've had to explain it in a few places just to help clear the perspective I am coming from during a discussion regarding older D&D/OSR/Whatever we're calling this right now, so hey, why not just write it up here and then I can link people to it.

Right then. On with the show! 

Some Background

I am Bulgarian, and I was born in Bulgaria. As such I had zero exposure to older editions of D&D (I mean anything from before 3E really) as a child. My first real proper exposure to Dungeons and Dragons was actually through video games - Baldur's Gate 2 along with Icewind Dale 1 and 2. I also spent so much of my youth playing Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum, Diablo, and other classics of the CRPG and Action RPG genres. 

Ok, so then what? Well, after a while, in my early teens, I found out through some of the video game magazines that I read (and I read ALL of them for a span of about 5-6 years. Every single issue of every single one that was published every month.) about tabletop RPGs, and was intrigued.

Except even then...I was in Bulgaria, remember? There was no D&D. Or any other RPG you could find. Instead I managed to find some pirated scans online here and there, and also got in touch with the, then still existing, broader RPG community in Bulgaria through the now dead rpg.bg forums (rest in piece, you beautiful mess!). I did buy a copy of Endival, the first ever Bulgarian RPG, and I read through it though I could not really grasp much of the rules at the time (mostly, on reflection, because they are not good or well written.)

Soon enough I did find a group to play with in my home town, and so my first ever TTRPG experience was playing in a homebrewed system and setting. In fact it took me years to even play D&D for the first time, and that was 3rd Edition. I bounced off it hard - there were too many rules, too many lists upon lists of stuff and it was all different from the AD&D 2e I had been exposed to through video games. 

I spent the next 17+ years playing all kinds of RPGs instead. I even found work in the industry, working as an illustrator and later art director on various Glorantha-related projects. 

Some more Background

While I had become a steady enjoyer of tabletop RPGs, I also didn't get to play them as often as I'd like. I have also spent several years playing in completely freeform roleplay over MSN Messenger, and later on a slightly more structured (slightly) forum game set in the same setting. I also kept playing more video games.

Over the years I got interested in the roguelike genre. I played NetHack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, bit of Angband (but not that much to really get into that branch of the genre), some DoomRL, some Brogue (but not enough sadly), and others. And that got me thinking...why is it that nobody is playing this kind of stuff on the tabletop? I mean I knew a lot of this whole "crawling through a big fuck off dungeon and dealing with resources" style of gaming existed, but the general consensus among the aforementioned Bulgarian RPG community was that this style of play was wrong, not fun and not something anyone did nowadays, so why even bother with it? But I just...knew. I knew there had to be some way to make it fun, because fuck it - it was fun as a video game right? Surely someone out there had figured out how to make this work better at the tabletop! (Foreshadowing!)

Ok, now for the whole OSR bit

I had heard vague murmurings about the OSR over the years. Even if I continued to have zero interest in D&D, and definitely wasn't part of the OSR scene yet, I was still heavily involved in tabletop RPGs so I of course heard of it. Lamentations of the Flame Princess was a hot thing going on, I know people were doing stuff relating to old D&D. 

The first thing that actually got me interested in all this mess was Dungeon Crawl Classics. My LGS had gotten some of their Free RPG Day books, so I decided to grab one just to check it out. I was confused, but charmed and intrigued. A lot of the stuff in that was a bit eyebrow raising, kind of gimmicky (and let's be honest here, as much as I love DCC...it's mostly a gimmick. But a gimmick can carry a lot too). 

But I was hooked! In 2018 I went to my first GenCon and one of the things I got was the full DCC rules, along with some adventures I was recommended. That got me properly excited, and from there on I started to pay more attention to the OSR sphere. That, you might also realize, is also about the time the whole Zak shitstorm finally hit the proverbial fan. It did not deter me though, as I had mercifully had very little direct exposure to the specimen himself (I had spent my G+ days at the Glorantha community, so close yet so far away from the big hot period for the OSR on that platform), so for me it just made me go "Yeah, that checks out."

Once I actually started to read up on what the OSR was aiming for and what people were doing with it - then I really got hooked! All that roguelike stuff I had thought would be cool to do? People were doing it. Fuck, people had been doing it since the very beginning of the tabletop RPG hobby! I felt almost vindicated, to be honest. I mean here I was...not even reinventing the wheel, but pondering how wheels might be a nice thing to have! 

As OSE had already dropped at that point, and a friend of mine who is also a fan of DCC has the Classic tome, I decided to check it out. I was interested in getting a B/X clone to have, and while I was not going to go for LotFP, I wasn't sure which one to pick. I mean if there is one thing the OSR loves, it's its B/X retroclones! 

I ended up settling on OSE just because I really enjoy how useable at the table the books are, and in fact ran and then played in a game with my partners and a few friends, and then started a weekly OSE open table campaign which ran for 4 months and gave me a lot of good insights into how to GM for this style and what I liked and didn't like about it! (You can read more about it if you check out the Greylands tag on this blog!)

While all of this was happening, I spent the last 4 years devouring as much stuff as I could - zines, blogposts, books...anything that explained the principles and practice behind the OSR, the theories and also the history. I tend to dive like that into hobbies - for me it is never enough to simply "do the thing". I want to know how, when and why others also do the thing! 

And so...here I am. Posting on my OSR-focused blog, spending most of my online time thinking about OSR shit, planning and prepping for an OD&D based campaign (more of that hopefully soon on here!), and OSR books and zines having firmly overtaken my gaming bookshelves in terms of quantity and sheer volume!

Why did you tell me all of this?

As stated above, I find it fascinating why people actually do the things they do. This extends to playing tabletop RPGs too. I find the reason behind why someone is into the OSR to be just as fascinating as the OSR itself. Is it nostalgia? For some - yes. Is it a rejection of the RPG mainstream? Definitely from what I've observed. Is it simply thinking at this is just a nice way to play? Absolutely! 

I also find that my perspective, being an absolute outsider and thus having no inherit predisposition towards it, kind of gives me a different (if not any more or less special) view on the OSR and old D&D.

 And if you take anything out of this post, then take this - Write one of these about yourself! Tell me and everyone else why is it that you play the games you play and how you play them! Outline your perspective and background, and this way maybe, hopefully, people will have a better understanding of you and of where you're coming from! 

Magical Corruption

Since Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel will be using Wonder & Wickedness for its magic system I had to address the question of Catastrophes. Now, I do think the Catastrophes in the book are cool, but they are uh...a bit dramatic, let's say? And while my plan initially was to just leave them like that and see where things go, I got cold feet and instead decided to scale things back down.

So instead of Catastrophes, I decided to go for the DCC approach and have Corruption. This way there are still consequences to unrestrained magic use, but they are mostly tied to the sorcerer performing the magic, rather than everyone else. Below is an excerpt from my Player's Handbook document for that campaign, specifically on how to handle Corruption, reposted here for potential and dubious use to other people.

 

What is this Spellbook?

Spellbooks are not always actual books. Or at least, they shouldn't be. Sometimes they are other things. Roll a d10 and see what is the actual object that hosts the spell.

 

1. A small piece of velum, with the spell scribbled in tiny font.

2. A clay tablet that’s always slightly wet. Be careful not to smudge the spell!

3. A piece of starched fabric, stretched tight over a barbed frame.

4. A series of golden, interconnected disks.

5. A codex bound in strange leather. Roll 1d6 to determine what kind of leather: 1. Albino Cow 2. Rhino hide 3. Pig 4. Human 5. Lizard 6. Impossible to determine

6. A delicate papyrus scroll. Very fragile

7. A heavy tome with a bronze lock. The lock has no key, can only be lock picked and can not be opened by magic.

8. A piece of dried skin, the spell being a series of intricate tattoos that were once on someone’s shoulder blade.

9. A ball of thorny vines that twist into the runes of the spell. 

      10.A heavy felt apron, the spell being embroidered onto the fabric itself.

  

D&D and RPGs - So Close, yet So Far Away

 I am writing this down in this blog mostly so I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself in Discord every time the topic comes up.

The main point I have is this - Dungeons and Dragons, in its current iteration is not part of the RPG hobby. 

Yeh that sounds like a bit of a hot take, but let's break it down.

A lot of the marketing that Wizards of the Coast have used since D&D Next was first announced (which eventually became 5E) and what is being done with One D&D right now has lead to that separation. Now, most of that also comes from the broader play culture surrounding it - the streamers, youtubers, opinion pieces, subreddits what have yous. 

D&D is D&D. It is not an RPG, it is simply its own hobby that you can be into and more importantly - consume. Always consume. Because to acknowledge that D&D is simply an RPG means to tell people "You know, if you don't want to  play this, or pay for the books or consume - you could just do something else." And why would you, if you were in WotC's shoes or the "influencers" that have hitched their wagons to D&D, want to do that? 

I mean WotC did do that during the 3E era - it's what got us the OGL and ended up spawning not just the OSR but also stuff like Pathfinder.  This kind of closed off marketing and approach is hardly new - it's what Apple does, it's what Games Workshop do with 40k if you want another example in gaming.

It is removing the actual hobby aspect of the hobby, and simply replacing it with an external authority and consumerism. After all, if you're a hobbyist you might have to write your own scenarios and campaigns, or talk to other hobbyists and see what they've made and steal their shit. Ya know, you'd have to put in the work and effort and have little incentive to actually pay more money to WotC. 

But if Wizards are the final authority on the game, if your "hobby" is simply buying D&D merch and books and running them as written? Then they have you.

And this is what I mean when I say that D&D is not really part of the RPG Hobby. It has deliberately been walled off out of the hobby, made into its own private playground where you don't have to actually put up the swings yourself, the authoritative Wizards will just do that for you. 

Unlocking Classes

 Here's my very messy process on how I handled unlocking new classes in my Greylands game. I've talked about it with other people on the OSR Discord server and there's a few others who also do similar things in their games, though their actual process seems to be slightly different than what I settled on. 

Why bother unlocking classes?

In my specific case, I decided to go down this route after sitting down to do my initial class list for what I was going to have in my campaign. After doing that, I quickly realized that those were probably a bit too many. I know anyone coming from 5E or Pathfinder or any similar game would probably laugh at that notion, but for me the list felt bloated, so I started to trim some classes off.

However, I still wanted those classes to be around. One of the removed classes was the Hill Cantons War Bear, and there was no way in hell I was not shoving war bears into this campaign one way or another! So I made them a possible class that can be unlocked through the course of play. 

Another reason is that letting the players unlock access to new classes through their actions in the campaign just brings a sense of progression not tied to individual character levels or items. They, as a group, have now changed both the campaign and their own options as players through interaction with the game's fiction. 

Class unlock procedure

• Players become aware of a distinct group or faction that I inform them might be unlocked as a playable class.
• They have a positive initial interaction with the group which sets the stage for further relations.
• The players complete 3 distinct actions that help solidify their standing with the group. These vary from group to group and in how difficult or easy they may be.
• Once all 3 actions have been performed that particular class is now unlocked and any future characters may be members of it.

The steps in the procedure don't quite have to happen in order, but I came up with this whole system more or less on the fly and initially they needed 4 distinct actions in order to unlock a class, but those felt too many and kind of cumbersome so I paired it down to 3.

Let's see how this actually worked in the campaign. I'll use as an example the two classes that the group managed to unlock.

Unlocking the Cleric:

1. The party found that the former temple to the Sun Lord in Greytown was little more than 4 ruined walls and no roof. (Party becomes aware of the group, or in this case lack of it)

2. The Acolyte in the party started to gather the locals and any adventurers willing to listen as he tells them tales of the Sun Lord. (A positive interaction regarding the faction/class, and also the first action to unlock the class - restore the interest in having an actual temple with clerics in it in town.)

3. The party gathers and donates 1000 GP in order to have the temple restored and rebuilt. The process takes 1d4 weeks to complete. (Second action to unlock the class - get the actual temple fixed up so that Clerics would even have anywhere to stay.)

4. The party pays to send a messenger out to inform the nearest church to the lack of priesthood and have them send over people. As the nearest town is barely an oversized village and is also 4 days away, it takes 1d4 weeks for anyone to actually arrive in Greytown. (Third action to unlock the class - get some actual clerics!) 

5. The Clerics arrive and start up regular services in the restored Sun Lord temple, unlocking the class for any future characters. 

Fairly straightforward stuff this. I also generally made a point to inform players for what would be the next step in unlocking a class, if the step was obvious enough. 

Let's look at another example, unlocking the War Bear:

1. The party, as they explore the Greylands, runs into a clearing in the nearby forest. The clearing is full of bears armed with polearms, spears and pikes, walking around on two legs and chatting with each other. In the middle there is a large wooden statue of a bear with a crown of leaves, and treasure piled at it's feet. The party is polite and shows interest in what is going on. (The party becomes aware of the faction or class and has a positive interaction with it, also fulfilling the first step towards unlocking the class.)

2. The bears tell the party that their Master will be showing up soon, and the characters should come meet him and bring a tribute to him. The characters agree, and after they find a suitably impressive piece of treasure they bring it to the clearing, where they meet Medved. They are reverent and polite and offer him tribute. (Second action - they show loyalty to the bears and their leader. As a consequences they can now hire 1st level War Bears as retainers, in addition to the human ones they could find back in town).

3.After further visits and talks with Medved and his bears they learn about the strange activities in the forest by odd looking (and clearly evil) elves. Since the war bears are not exactly subtle or sneaky, the party is asked to provide some intel and information on what is going on, which they do after managing to capture an elven prisoner and bring him in for interrogation. (Third and last action - do a service to the War Bears and gain their trust.)

4. Some War Bears decide to settle in Greytown and take on adventuring as an activity, impressed by the deeds of the characters, unlocking the class for any new characters made in the future.

Another opposite example would be the Goblins that reside underneath the ruins of the manor of the local boyar. They were, in fact, going to be a potential unlockable class, however the party not only didn't have a friendly interaction with them, they in fact would use excessive violence (hurling flaming oil all over the place, taking prisoners and then murdering them after they have surrendered, etc) which immediately closed off any possibility of the goblins becoming playable. 

All in all, for something I cobbled together while playing, I'd say it works well enough. My plan for a future campaign is to actually make class selection very restrictive and limited, so I don't know when I'll use it again, but I suppose this could work for getting access to new types of hirelings, or just a new race for characters, if you use separate race and class in your game. 

The Greylands Campaign - Part 3

 Well this is fun. I had half this post written out before Blogger decided to yeet it into the yawning Void. 

Most of this will be just me sharing some player maps, some artwork related to the game and any final thoughts I may or may not have. 

First off though - why even make a post about this? Because I personally love artifacts like these that a game generates. Note sheets, maps, artwork, portraits, sketches and scribbles. This to me is what makes the game last after you actually stop playing. It's what shows that it even happened. 

So, let's start with the player-facing overland map that I gave them at session 1 and that they slowly added to over time:

Player-facing map of the region

Note that there are no labels or notes anywhere on it - I did not put any to begin with, and the players generally seemed uninterested or unwilling to add stuff to the map.  While there's a few extra locations added, mostly in the forest to the southeast, that happened quite a few sessions in.

Player-made map of region and tower.

Compare to this player-made map that the usual mapper in the group drew at some point. While more abstract than the one I made (and the one I made is plenty abstract already!), it does feature notes, labels and annotations for the locations listed. 

Next up we come to player maps made of the various dungeons. While I did not insist on any specific player necessarily taking on a mapping role, I also would not draw a map for any location in a dungeon for the players.

Part of it is because I feel that mapping adds an important step to slow the action down and make it (hopefully) a bit more thoughtful, but part of it is also simply me, as a GM, having to juggle plenty of other elements already. I don't want to also have to do the mapping for the players. 

So, onto the maps!

Player map with extensive notes and annotations.

Here's an example of a rare occurrence in the campaign - a player actually taking notes as we play. I am not sure why there was not that much note taking throughout the campaign. It might be simply people enjoying the game enough to not want to stop and scribble down this or that, or it might be most of my players coming from a more Trad play culture and thus just not used to writing down information, as one of the GM's duties is to keep all that information accessible to the players upon request. After all, can't have a plot-driven game progress if literally nobody has any idea what the plot actually is, can you?

That map, by the way, was impressive enough that another player copied it for a different trek into the same dungeon:

Copy and expansion of the above map by a different player.

Here is an example of a much rougher type of mapping:

Map of the Boyar's Manor, a central dungeon in the campaign.

What happened is that the usual mapper was not playing in that particular session, and the party was venturing into a yet unexplored part of the dungeon, so they could not rely on simply redrawing a copy of an existing map and using that to navigate.

The mapper for that session was quite reluctant in their role. The player didn't really feel comfortable with trying to follow directions (and, in fact, managed to draw the map completely opposite in the first go and had to be corrected by another player. Hilariously the mapper's character is the only one that owns a compass in the entire group.), and it shows in their mapping. This is a cave system, but drawn using squares and lacking in most forms of annotations or navigational aids. 

The party still did okay, but the player declared that they are absolutely not doing that again. This is a player who enjoyed the game immensely and was one of the most enthusiastic for the campaign itself, but even that could not overcome the struggles of mapping it seems.

Player map of a tomb in The Barrows.

Player map of level 1 of the Boyar's Manor dungeon.

Player map of level 2 of the Boyar's Manor dungeon.

A variety of other player maps from different dungeons in the campaign.

In my campaign I also made it a point to reward mapping and session reports, as those required additional effort on the part of players, and also saved me the trouble of having to do either of them. The reward was a standing 100 exp per session spent mapping or report written. However I think in the future I would likely bump up that experience to 100 exp per PC level, thus making still be a relatively meaningful activity even for PCs of level 3or or higher.

Tishomir the War Bear, a hireling.
Portrait by a player.

Landalf the Fragile, MVP of the game and a staunch survivor.
Portrait by me. 

So then, in my first post about this game I laid out my goals - Have a weekly in-person game, introduce people to the OSR style of play, have fun. 

On the first goal I would say I succeeded, even if some weeks were missed for this or that reason. The game became a steady element in my week to week life, and I enjoyed having it. My plan is to return to running such a game once I can.

On the second goal, I think I also mostly succeeded. Different players had different experience levels and expectations of this style of gaming, and some had more difficulty than others wrapping their heads around how to play in this manner, but I think I got at least a few people introduced to this way of play and I hope that it will stick (Only time will tell). 

On the last and probably most important goal - was the game fun? Yeah I think so. It was fun for me to GM, which has been a struggle for me over the years. The players generally seemed to enjoy it, and judging by how many of them ended up joining at least a second session I would say that is a good barometer of enjoyment from the activity. After all, nobody was ever under any obligation to come play. So if they did, it meant they wanted to. Any further notes on this would have to come from the players themselves, not me though. 

What's the future of the Greylands?

Uncertain. I am currently unable to run it as I am out of the country and thus don't really have access to my players or my notes and documentation, and I have zero interest in trying to run the game online. 

Some number of players have expressed interest in continuing the campaign after I return, and I would agree it might be nice to continue it as there is already established connections and story lines have emerged organically from the sessions. 

On the other hand I feel drawn to different things, different campaigns and systems to try and refine my idea of what the OSR is and what it means to play in that play style. The Greylands were very much a testing ground for me, and so while I am attached enough to this little campaign to have written 3 blog posts about it, I also feel no problem moving onto something else. 

The Greylands Campaign - Part 2

 In this post, I am going to just go over some stats that I tracked the duration of the campaign. I enjoy reading bits of info like this about people's games, and I figured that at least one other person out there might be interested in this, so here we go!

STATS!

Sessions played: 11

Players in the campaign: 17
PCs crippled or mangled by the Death and Dismemberment Table: 3
Highest character level achieved: 5
Highest total XP earned in one session: 11,356 xp per character
Classes Unlocked: 2 ( War Bear and Cleric)
PC Class Breakdown

• 4 Fighters

• 4 Thieves

• 1 Magic-User

• 2 Illusionists

• 3 Dwarfs

• 2 Elfs

• 2 Acolytes

• 1 Druid

• 1 Cleric

Most unlucky class: Thief
Most unlucky character: Big Pavol, the illusionist retainer
Longest surviving character: Landalf the Fragile
Longest surviving retainer: Spyro, a porter and torchbearer
Number of war dogs in the party: 3 good boys
Number of war hogs in the party: 1 sort-of-good boy

Number of "nodes" on the overland map explored: 7
Number of dungeons partially explored: 4
Number of lairs cleared: 1
Magical items acquired: 3
Single most expensive piece of treasure acquired: Silver serpent crown worth 5000 gp
Toughest monster defeated: Basilisk
Number of dragons the party ran away from: 3

Players who have played in two or more sessions: 11

Most players in a single session: 7

Fewest players in a single session: 4

Total PCs in the campaign: 20

Rolls on the Death and Dismemberment table: 6

Dead Characters: 1

Dead Retainers: 7

Number of PCs that slept with Medved: 1

Overall MVP of the Campaign so far: Evtim, for getting a level 1 elf with 4hp to level 4 without a single Death and Dismemberment roll. Good on you, man!

Observations

Something I noticed quite early on was how surprisingly forgiving the Death and Dismemberment roll can be. Despite PCs rolling on it 4 times (and on retainer - twice!) it only ever resulted in 1 actual death. Sure, people got their arms and heads broken, suffered concussions and so on, but ultimately they survived. I am seriously considering making the table a bit more brutal, or outright removing it as a rule. 

Another observation might be the rather absurd number of exp listed in there. That's not a typo, and not a mistake - the party had an absolutely enormous haul in session 9. And since I give experience per SP, not GP (while not adjusting treasure numbers in the modules I use to populate my game), it meant the party actually ended up bumping up against the "only one level gained per session" rule! 

Speaking of levels, level 5 might seem high too, but I start all new characters with 2500 exp, meaning that everyone but the Thief and Elf start as level 2. Thieves start at level 3, and Elfs only halfway through level 1. If anything I'm surprised there's nobody at level 6, but I think there's a few characters that might be quite close to that. 

Next post I think I'll write down some more personal observations from the campaign - memorable moments, lessons learned, etc.