Elric Explored - Part 2: Planes

Another staple of the Elric stories that I'm particularly fond of is the concept of many and varied planes of existence. This concept goes to the heart of the Eternal Champion stories. The planes take many shapes and forms. These were no doubt the inspiration of the inner and outer planes of ADnD.

First there are the elemental planes, inhabited by the four classical types of elements: earth, wind, fire and water. Elric visits these on occasion and summons elemental minions to do his bidding from these planes throughout the saga. The elemental planes are 'close' to some planes and 'further' from others. There appears to be no set hierarchy as to the organization and location of these elemental planes. Passage to and from these elemental planes happens most frequently through the corresponding Earthly element (travel through the sea to get to the plane of water, etc.).

The next most common type of plane is that of alternate timelines. The Eternal Champion exists in all the various versions of Earth; each one of these versions is a distinct plane that can be traveled to. Sister to this type of plane is the concept of time as a plane. This provides the possibility of travelling to the past or the future not only within one's own plane but other planes as well.

Then there are all the various realms of Limbo and discarded dimensions inhabited by all manner of men, beasts and demons. The possibilities seem limited only by the writer's imagination. Again, no order or pattern can be discerned. The relationship between each plane is unique as are the properties covering the physical and magical laws of a plane.

There is one last type of plane in these stories, the eternal city of Tanelorn. This city exists in all planes throughout time. It is the final quest of many heroes seeking rest from their adventures. This could be viewed as a mobile plane of sorts, it's location within a given plane may be static (beyond the Weeping Wastes), but it may not always be accessible. From within the city it may appear that inhabitants can exit the city to visit a variety of planes depending on where they happen to be 'anchored' at the moment. This last one is a favorite of mine because it matches thematically with one of my favorite comic book settings: K'un L'un, the birth place of Iron Fist.

Looking at SnW White Box I see that there is no spell for travelling between planes; this is as it should be. SnW has its feet firmly planted in the Old School Renaissance which holds that the adventurers should be heroic, but not superheroic. Heroes who can plane-hop at will is the stuff of comic books. Adventurers of the OSR do travel to other planes, but I see these trips are accidental or arranged by some powerful entity; they are not the stuff of everyday fare.

So this begs the question of how the PCs will be able to access these planes. First there needs to be natural conduits to various planes closely associated to the prime plane of the PCs. This could be a deep sea tunnel that leads to the elemental plane of water, a dark dungeon cavern leading to the elemental plane of earth, and so forth. Also natural conduits should exist to different times and alternate worlds. The most common means of this in the Elric stories is becoming lost at sea; the Seas of Fate bridge worlds and times.

Another means of access would be through powerful entities or agencies. Demons, elementals and beast lords may be able to provide access to various planes. Agents of a particular power may have a magical device that allows passage through the planes - again, the black ship that sails the Seas of Fate is a good example of this variety.

Spells that access various planes are not out of the question, but I would like to limit this as much as possible. Certain planes may be more accessible through spells than others, or may only be accessible at certain times or only through great sacrifice. This will remain to be seen as development progresses.

Finally the eternal city brings an interesting possibility to the mix. Since this city can theoretically be any 'where' and any 'when' it provides the possibility of players creating any imaginable character as well as a way of accessing many planes. There was a time that this would have really bugged me when preparing a campaign. The concept is too big for most games, I didn't want to have Jedi running around in my quasi-medieval world. But now, with a few more years under my belt, I'm not so sure that it bugs me. One final benefit of the eternal city, it provides me with a way of explaining why there would be a monk in a quasi-medieval setting.

Adventurers-from-other-worlds has a solid foundation in fantasy literature: the D&D players in Quag Keep, Holger Carlsen in Three Hears, Three Lions, John Carter Warlord of Mars. Murlynd, one of the hero-gods of Greyhawk is clearly from Earth's wild west. So I'm in good company here.

The Deities & Demigods books of ADnD was the first to put a basic form and order to the inner and outer planes. These concepts were later formalized in the Manual of the Planes. Both of these are fine works, but I feel they are too rigid for Icosa. I may be borrowing some concepts - elemental, etheral and astral planes - but I think I'll keep things loose and flexible. This will let me handle things on a case by case basis. This may need more firming up when giving more depth to the Contact Other Plane spell.

Next time around I'll be looking at the battle between Law and Chaos.

Follow Your Bliss,
JJ

The world is not a 1st level dungeon

If you had asked me a year ago if I was an 'old-school' gamer I would have answered yes, primarily based on when I started gaming. But since I've started my Back to Basics campaign I've been doing a little reading and realized that when I started didn't matter as much as how I played. Based on what I've read (Grognardia, Retro Roleplaying, and the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming) I feel that I can now say with certainty that I was an RPG Grognard.

One example of this is the concept of a sandbox in old school RPGs. A sandbox represents an area in the game world where the players may freely interact with the environment. The GM creates a locale with many areas keyed for possible encounters. This is less story-focused than most games today. Players would wander about and trigger an encounter if they went to the right place.

In this approach, there is nothing that requires the GM to only put 1st level encounters surrounding the starting point for the campaign. Now some new players (especially if they have any experience with MMORPGs) may be asking why would you do that? Why put a potentially Total-Party-Killing encounter right outside the characters' front door? I used to wonder that too, until I got schooled by a true Grognard.

I had the privilege of playing in Hank's campaign during my last two years in college. Hank lived on my floor in the dorm and I quickly learned that he and others on the floor played AD&D, so we started a group. Hank was a frustrating player because he had an idedic memory and could quote from Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters' Guide and all Monster Manuals. I had to resort to creating a lot of new material to keep him guessing, but that is a story for another time.

Hank invite me and a few of the players from our group to play in his original fantasy world. We were nomads who were trying to escape the desert. Every year the nomads send a small party of adventurers beyond the mountains surrounding the desert to find a way to open the portal blocking the only overland passage in or out of the dessert.

His world was not a 1st level world; he even warned us of that. Before we were 5th level (the highest level we ever reached before dying in the Battle of the Gate) we were negotiating with shadow demons, devils, high level magic-users and all manner of potentially party-killing encounters. But we survived (for the most part). We learned to play by our wits. We negotiated, bargained and worked out all manner of deals to prepare for the battle at the gate. We planned and prepared spells and tactics. We made alliances and hunted for magic items to use in the upcoming battle. And though we failed to achieve our ultimate goal, we created a great story in the process.

Yes, story. All that wandering around, encountering, dealing and adventuring became our story. While we set out and interacted with encounters on the map we were able to create a really cool story in the process. James over at Grognardia says it better than I can so check out his post to see what I'm talking about.

Finally I'd like to thank Hank for running some of the best adventures I had the pleasure of playing in. Hats off to a true Grognard.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

What's in a Name?

I have recently finished the first two books of Tales of the Dying Earth - The Dying Earth andThe Eyes of the Overworld - and had started a post reviewing these books in light of their implications for D&D. As I went deeper into the subject I found there was too much information to cover in just one post. So this will be the first of a series of posts covering various topics in D&D that came to mind as I read through the Dying Earth series.

One of the first things that struck me about these stories were the names: Turjan, Pandelume,Phandaal, Laccodel, Kandive, T'sais and T'sain, just to name a few. These names are exotic and colorful and truly help to evoke the strangeness of the far future Earth; they help to set the tone.

This is very important when naming NPCs for a campaign. No plain Tom, Dick or Harry will do. Names of nobles should be noble sounding; those of commoners have an earthy ring to them. Sally the bar wench works, Sally the elven princess does not. Take the time to pick names that fit the character. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of name lists on the web. I just did a Google search of "name lists" pulled up 178,000,000 sites. One is bound to have something to spark your interest.

The previous paragraph applies just as much to PCs as it does to NPCs. It may be fun to play Bob the barbarian, but it does nothing to help set a serious tone for the character, but if the style of play you are going for is humorous, then it is a perfect fit.

In the Back to (D&D) Basics campaign I'm currently running, there are clear styles of names to help foster the sense of culture and depth of background. Based on recomendations from GAZ1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos gazetteer, the two main human populations of Karameikos have very different sounding names. Those of the native Traladaran descent have names inspired by central and eastern European countries, while those of the conquering Thyatians have Roman-like names.

Often times the names of characters mentioned in these stories belonged to great and powerful wizards of the day. Their names adorn the spells that they popularized. This brings to mind all the 'name' spells of AD&D1: Melf's Acid Arrow, Bigby's Crushing Fist, Nystul's Magic Aura, etc.Spells like these really tie the magic to the setting. Which would you rather cast - Acid Splash orMelf's Acid Arrow?

Not just the names of the characters but the names of locales were evocative of alien cultures in Tales of the Dying Earth. The lands to the far north: Grodz, Cil, Vull, and the Mountains ofMagnatz; to the south: Ascolais, the Land of the Falling Wall, Kaiin and Scaum Valley. Give just as much care to the lands in your world. Be sure to say them aloud. Some place names I've read in books and games look nice on the page, but I don't have the first clue as to how to pronounce them.

I really like the Karameikos gazetteer because it helps here as well in my current campaign. Many areas have two names: the name originally used by the native Traladaran's and the name used once they were conquered by the Empire of Thyatia. This layering of names helps build a richness of detail that brings the setting to life.

So next time you sit down to roll up a character or create a new locale for your players to explore, give some thought to the name and see what the reactions are.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

Recommended Reading - Tales of the Dying Earth

One of the most beneficial outgrowths of my passion for RPGs has been my love of reading. Prior to my introduction to D&D I read comic books almost exclusively. Do not get me wrong; I LOVE comics. I also feel that reading comics is reading. Many of the superhero comic book stories I read growing up are still near and dear to my heart. I could not imagine anything better. That is until I started reading background material for playing D&D.

When I started playing D&DB, and later AD&D1, I really had no idea what it was all about. There were humans (ok, I can relate), elves (Santa's little helpers?), Dwarves (Grumpy? Sleepy?), and Halflings (huh?). All the primary classes were understandable enough except for the Cleric (which, ironically, was the first AD&D1 PC I played). I could relate to all the swords and sorcery in only the most general sense. I still enjoyed the game, but it still did not have a lot of depth.

I eventually came to learn that Halflings were modeled after Hobbits. Unlike most of my fellow freshmen, my English class did not read The Hobbit. It was not until my sophomore year that I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even then, only as an extra credit assignment. I do have to thank Bro. Joseph (I went to a high school run by the Brothers of the Holy Cross) for pushing me to read those books; it plunged me into the sea of fantasy (and science fiction) literature that I so love to swim in.

Later (probably when I was a junior or senior in high school), as I explored the Deities & Demigods rule book, I chose to look into Elric as well as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I have the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club to thank for most of the compiled editions of these books and others. And later still I discovered the Inspirational and Educational Reading list in the back of the AD&D1 Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG Appendix N: pg. 224, if anyone is interested). From here I read about the Paladin in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. My list continued to grow from there.

In an effort to embrace the concept of Back to Basics that this blog is about, I decided to go back to this reading list and start working on items I have not yet read and revisit the ones I have to plunge beneath the service of this rich and creative sea of source material. I'll be sharing my experiences as I read these classic works of fiction. To start things off I have selected Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth. This tome is actually a compilation of four novels in the series.

This series of books is most significant because it provides the source for early D&D's approach to magic. Spell casters must memorize or imprint the spells they wish to cast into their mind. Once the spell is cast it is gone from memory and must be memorized again if the Wizard or Cleric wishes to cast that particular spell again. This process has become dubbed 'fire and forget'. In addition, each caster may only retain a certain number of spells in their mind; this number increases with the level of the spell caster, equating level with real-world experience and practice. It is also known that Venca (of lichdom fame) is an anagram for Vance.

I picked up the book yesterday from the library and started reading it immediately. I was hooked before I finished the first paragraph. I'm only two chapters into it at this point, but I am thoroughly enjoying this read. I'll be sure to post more as I delve deeper into it's copious pages. Look for updates and more recommended reading suggestions in future posts.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

In The Beginning... (Part 2)

So, I had just discovered the most interesting game (D&D) I had ever heard of and had no way acquiring it. What was a fledgling gamer to do? The only recourse I had was to create a version of the game myself.

So I spent many long hours in my unfinished basement, a dark and solitary place (probably to help foster that dungeon atmosphere), working on my version of D&D. I created maps and made cut-out miniatures. I tried to imagine how to define the abilities of ghosts and other monsters. I had a lot of fun doing all this, but, ultimately, my efforts went nowhere (good thing the hobby wasn't depending on me to help get it off the ground). I eventually turned my attention elsewhere and forgot about D&D, but D&D didn't forget about me.

A short time later (exactly when I'll discuss shortly), as I remember it, I received a present from a neighborhood friend for my birthday. Low and behold it was a magenta (I always thought it more of a pink) box emblazoned with the title Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (D&DB). This box featured the wonderful Erol Otus painting featuring two adventurers about to encounter a green dragon (I love even more the fact that this painting appeared within the cloud of a clairvoyance spell cast by a wizard which was used for the cover of the D&DX box set of the same edition). I was thrilled. It was more of a surprise because I don't remember telling anybody about this game or my desire to play it.

It's important for me to know when this happened. This was one of those pivotal points in my life; I want to understand it to its fullest. This transpired during the time that I moved from junior high school into high school. So many other things were changing then as well - my friends and my father's health just to name a few. I sometimes feel that I stepped onto a path at that juncture in my life, a path that is leading somewhere I can't yet see. I'm trying to better remember and understand my past to chart a solid course for the future.

I always thought this event took place in the late 70's, but according to acaeum.com this edition of D&DB (the 8th) was not released until 1981. This would put me in the second half of my 8th grade year of junior high school (I just realized the synchronicity of this occurrence - 8th edition in my 8th year of school, in my house we would call that a 'magic number'). I remember playing it over the summer with friends that did not attend the same high school to which I was enrolled. If I had received it for my birthday that year I would have already been in high school and therefore would not have played it with my junior high friends. I must have received it as a late gift or some such event that I'm blocking out of memory. For now I'll go with the year being 1981 when my passion for role-playing games was born.

Some might call it an obsession. It was not long after I received D&DB that I purchased (from the Sears toy department) the D&DX (with the cool, aforementioned Erol Otus cover) released the same year (as a side note, the first edition of D&DB was released in 1977 and D&DX was not released until 1981; imagine waiting 4 years before you could rise above 3rd level!). During my freshman year of high school I was introduced to AD&D1 (which was in full swing by then) and never looked back. By the end of high school I had all the core AD&D1 books, many modules, and my library was growing still. In college I began exploring games outside of the TSR line, but that is a story for another time.

With boxed set under my arm I set off on a journey that continues today, seeking high adventure in its many forms. And all is right in the realm.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

PS. I did eventually find a hobby store that carried role-playing games products. It was a store out in the suburbs of Cleveland, not far from my high school, that carried all the usual hobby supplies - models trains, planes and automobiles. It also had two book cases devoted to RPGs, right next to the war games. It was a small slice of Nirvana.