Quickly, Quietly, Carefully

Thanks, Professor

2012-03-16T20:09:00.000-04:00

M.A.R. Barker, one of the foremost founders of our hobby, passed away today. Although I never played Empire of the Petal Throne, I know it's very special to a lot of gamers. The 1975 EPT rulebook has had a big influence on my D&D game. (I blogged about Tékumel-style underwords here and here.)

If you cherish Professor Barker's work, consider making a donation to the Tékumel Foundation.

Ides of March

2012-03-15T22:22:00.001-04:00

You should read this. It's super bloody and awesome. It's from Plutarch's Lives:

A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: "Well, the Ides of March are come," and the seer said to him softly: "Ay, they are come, but they are not gone."

Caesar went in, and the senate rose in his honour. [...] Tullius seized his toga with both hands and pulled it down from his neck. This was the signal for the assault. It was Casca who gave him the first blow with his dagger, in the neck, not a mortal wound, nor even a deep one, for which he was too much confused, as was natural at the beginning of a deed of great daring; so that Caesar turned about, grasped the knife, and held it fast. At almost the same instant both cried out, the smitten man in Latin: "Accursed Casca, what does thou?" and the smiter, in Greek, to his brother: "Brother, help!"

So the affair began, and those who were not privy to the plot were filled with consternation and horror at what was going on; they dared not fly, nor go to Caesar's help, nay, nor even utter a word. But those who had prepared themselves for the murder bared each of them his dagger, and Caesar, hemmed in on all sides, whichever way he turned confronting blows of weapons aimed at his face and eyes, driven hither and thither like a wild beast, was entangled in the hands of all; for all had to take part in the sacrifice and taste of the slaughter. Therefore Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin. And it is said by some writers that although Caesar defended himself against the rest and darted this way and that and cried aloud, when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he pulled his toga down over his head and sank, either by chance or because pushed there by his murderers, against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood. And the pedestal was drenched with his blood, so that one might have thought that Pompey himself was presiding over this vengeance upon his enemy, who now lay prostrate at his feet, quivering from a multitude of wounds. For it is said that he received twenty-three; and many of the conspirators were wounded by one another, as they struggled to plant all those blows in one body.

Caesar thus done to death, the senators, although Brutus came forward as if to say something about what had been done, would not wait to hear him, but burst out of doors and fled, thus filling the people with confusion and helpless fear, so that some of them closed their houses, while others left their counters and places of business and ran, first to the place to see what had happened, then away from the place when they had seen. [...] Brutus and his partisans, just as they were, still warm from the slaughter, displaying their daggers bare, went all in a body out of the senate-house and marched to the Capitol, not like fugitives, but with glad faces and full of confidence, summoning the multitude to freedom, and welcoming into their ranks the most distinguished of those who met them. Some also joined their number and went up with them as though they had shared in the deed, and laid claim to the glory of it.

But when the will of Caesar was opened and it was found that he had given every Roman citizen a considerable gift, and when the multitude saw his body carried through the forum all disfigured with its wounds, they no longer kept themselves within the restraints of order and discipline, but after heaping round the body benches, railings, and tables from the forum they set fire to them and burned it there; then, lifting blazing brands on high, they ran to the houses of the murderers with intent to burn them down, while others went every whither through the city seeking to seize the men themselves and tear them to pieces.

Miniature Monday

2012-03-12T09:24:00.000-04:00

Stonehell session 7

2012-03-10T08:31:00.000-05:00

Having recovered a little loot, the party spends the week squandering it on performing freaks, a dance competition, eccentric religious research, and the usual mix of drink and drugs. They take one short break from carousing to research the inscription found on a stone door in the dungeon, discovering the cryptic runes translate as "those beyond do not rest easily".

Their funds exhausted, Slim Charles, Pope Leo, and Balian return to Stonehell with their remaining hirelings, Darric, Colwin, Gilgrim, and Narton. The obsequious kobolds greet the the nonplussed party with a gift of meat (species unknown) as a thank you for slaying the "dragon".

Working up their courage, the party returns to the room with the gaming wheel. Each of them takes a turn. Slim Charles wins big when an enormous emerald clatters from a heretofore hidden shoot in the wall. (This was an extraordinarily lucky treasure roll that I thought about scaling down. Ah, well. Let the dice fall where they may!)

They leave the gaming room to find a group of orcs lying in wait. The pig-faced bastards reduce Colwin to 1 HP, but the party prevails, with Pope Leo bludgeoning the final orc into a pulpy mess.

Pushing their good luck, the party decides to make a quick recon trip of the inscribed stone door they researched in town. This proves to be an embarrassing but non-fatal mistake.

The ruckus of chipping open the door attracts a giant beetle. Slim Charles spots it approaching soon enough that they're all able to duck inside and hold the door. And then they realize they should have taken their huge windfall emerald and run. The party spends a tense hour cowering quietly before the beetle finally loses interest. They make a beeline for town.

It wasn't the most heroic of sessions, but everybody leveled-up and no one had to die (for once).

A dungeon map for you

2012-03-09T16:17:00.002-05:00

Demonicpedia

2012-03-08T15:30:00.002-05:00

Demonicpedia exists as a reference and educational resource for demons and demonology. Let's stat these guys up. [via Metafilter]

Definition of cities

2012-03-06T11:51:00.000-05:00

Last night, I listed to an iTunes U lecture about ancient Greece (this one from Yale, I think) that offered a definition of cities which struck me as slightly more useful than a simple population threshold. Cities are inhabited by a significant number of people whose daily activities do not directly involve producing their own food.

Google Maps with historical maps mashup

2012-03-05T17:09:00.000-05:00

Old Maps Online lets you look around with Google Maps, and see what historical maps are available in online collections for the area you're viewing. Neat.

Miniature Monday

2012-03-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

Fund Dwimmermount!

2012-03-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

Surely, anyone who might read it here has read it there, but take this as a reminder to go fund Chevski's Dwimmermount kickstarter. Reading about Dwimmermount got me into this OSR thing, and I'm eager to finally hold the book in my hands.

Davy Jones

2012-03-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

This same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.*

Miniature Monday

2012-02-27T09:21:00.000-05:00

20 Questions

2012-02-24T23:29:00.000-05:00

Brendan asks 20 questions, and I answer.

1. Ability scores generation method?

Roll 3d6 in order, and hope for a good Charisma score.

2. How are death and dying handled?

Zero hit points is death, but once per session a character reduced to zero or fewer hit points can choose to roll on the Dismemberment table to survive with 1 HP.

3. What about raising the dead?

It varies by campaign. In this campaign, Raise Dead is widely available for 1000 gp per level or a Quest.

4. How are replacement PCs handled?

If the average party level is three or lower, newly rolled characters start at first level. Otherwise, new characters start at one level lower than the lowest-level party member.

5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else?

Something else. It's based on Judges Guild weapons priority. Long and short weapons switch places after the first round.

6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?

Nope, and none of the players have mentioned missing them.

7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?

You get to roll on a fun headgear table that's pretty much like B/X Headgear.

8. Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?

If you miss, the missile gets a second to-hit roll against a random target (including friendlies).

9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?

Run!

10. Level-draining monsters: yes or no?

Yes.

11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?

Yes.

12. How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?

Not super strictly, but don't ignore them. If you only have one light source, you better hope you don't drop it when surprised. Time is the most important resource; if you dilly-dally, wandering monster checks start rolling. Encumbrance only gets strictly calculated when running from monsters or removing heavy treasure from the dungeon.

13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?

PC's need only pay their upkeep/taxes to gain a level. Since only treasure removed from a dungeon grants XP, leveling-up happens back in town. Beyond a new PC's first three spells (two 1st level, one 2nd level spell) all spells must be found during an adventure.

14. What do I get experience for?

A pittance for killing monsters, one XP for each GP removed from the dungeon, and some for carousing.

15. How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?

By listening, asking question, and liberal use of a 10' pole.

16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?

Retainers are vital at lower levels. Combat morale only affects monsters, but a retainer who fails a loyalty check won't return to the dungeon next time.

17. How do I identify magic items?

Experimentation or consultation with a sage. Sages are your best bet.

18. Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?

Nothing doin'.

19. Can I create magic items? When and how?

Magic-users of any level can create magic items or new spells by conducting research. Magical research involves time and money.

20. What about splitting the party?

Sounds like fun. [Evil laugh.]

Is print Carcosa worth buying?

2012-02-22T21:28:00.000-05:00

Having bought Geoffrey McKinney's original Carcosa PDF, I was on the fence about purchasing the LotFP PDF. I eventually bought it, but promised myself I would not buy the print version. Too pricey.

But then I saw unboxing photos on a blog. Damn, that's a nice looking book, I thought. More pics on another blog? Really nice. I finally broke down and bought the print edition—the third time I've paid for Carcosa. The mailman delivered it yesterday.

It's beautiful. James Raggi seems to get a better handle on the publishing business with each project, and he outdid himself by a wide margin with Carcosa. Holding Carcosa in my hands erases any qualms about the price. This is one of those books that, once it's out of print, I would have kicked myself for not buying.

Miniature Monday

2012-02-20T09:19:00.000-05:00

Barrowmaze Initial Impressions

2012-02-16T12:34:00.001-05:00

VERY MILD SPOILER ALERT: this review discusses the structure of the Barrowmaze dungeon in a general way.

These are my initial impressions of Greg Gillespie's new Barrowmaze megadungeon.

First, it has an awesome cover, and the interior art is good too. I'm a sucker for Stefan Poag's work.

A few minor quibbles aside, the format of the book/PDF looks fine. Barrowmaze will work well at the table.

The pregen characters—complete with character portraits—are cool, and even include a hireling. Also included are a bunch of new monsters, some new magic items, a couple of new spells, and several random tables for dressing the dungeon.

The Barrowmaze premise is rich. It's atmospheric, and makes the dungeon factions an integral part of the milieu.

Unlike Stonehell, which divides dungeon levels into quadrants and presents each quadrant in the one-page-dungeon format, Barrowmaze presents the dungeon as one large map. Whether this a good or bad thing comes down to personal preference.

The map is drawn in blue. I was concerned that a half-tone screen might make these difficult to read when output to a B&W printer, but they're perfectly legible from my laser printer.

"Although Barrowmaze is presented in the tradition of classic dungeon crawls – there are a few interesting twists. Instead of a multi-layered dungeon with levels stacked vertically, The Barrowmaze is constructed as a series of crypts, tombs, and sepulchers spread out horizontally across a vast area - what I affectionately refer to as a dungeon sprawl. As the players move across the map, the monsters increase in power and the treasures increase in value."

This structure differs considerably from the one handed down in U&WA or EPT. The traditional stratified dungeon provides two related benefits: added interest and non-linearity through vertical movement, and guidance to help the players choose their own risk level. Barrowmaze is sufficiently non-linear, especially with its multiple surface entrances, that I'm not too bothered by the former. The latter... I'm not sure about yet. I would have appreciated slightly expanded discussion about this in the design notes.

Overall, Barrowmaze makes a very positive initial impression. It looks like a ton of fun, and the price is right ($6.66!). Go buy it!

Dungeon stocking dice drop table

2012-02-15T11:54:00.000-05:00

Chris from rolang.com posted a fun dice drop table for dungeon stocking.

Miniature Monday

2012-02-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

Gather the Black Acolytes

2012-02-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

Gather the Black Acolytes
Magic-User Spell Level 3

By the drawing of certain lines and curves, the caster slips into an extra-dimensional space, leaving a creature from another universe in his place. The caster can't know or control the type of type of creature, and the creature will vary from once casting to another. The caster appears in a special dimensional space—a space also occupied by anyone (or anything) else that cast the spell during the same time. It's a sort of meeting room. The caster may choose to return his original location after either three minutes, three hours, or three days.

Medieval occupations

2012-02-08T16:09:00.000-05:00

The next time you're looking to fill a WFR-esque table, use this list of medieval occupations. It includes the usual coopers and reeves, but also the less familiar—egglers, knifemen, hetheleders, etc. [via kottke]

Non-railroady investigative scenarios

2012-02-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

Zak has some smart things to say about one possible structure for non-railroady investigative scenarios. Bookmarked for the next time I run Call of Cthulhu or whatever.

Miniature Monday

2012-02-06T09:15:00.000-05:00

AD&D modules

2012-02-05T11:06:00.000-05:00

With Wizards reprinting the AD&D books, some new and old AD&D players will be looking for AD&D adventures/modules. One of our illustrious OSR bloggers assembled this AD&D module list (a Google Docs spreadsheet). It's a handy reference for anybody that needs a quick link to a level-appropriate 1e D&D adventure. Included are links to over 100 free and commercial adventure modules.

The AD&D reprints ship in April. Spread the word about this link (http://tinyurl.com/ADDmods), so everyone will be able to find the spreadsheet in a couple of months.

Giant ant hill excavation

2012-02-02T09:59:00.002-05:00

With fungus gardens!

Castle Ünderheap

2012-02-01T12:44:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm near completion of my Swords & Wizardry house rules (I'll likely share PDF's at some point in the next few months), my attention has returned to preliminary work on my Castle Ünderheap campaign. I'm not in any hurry, as I probably won't run it until our current Stonehell game ends.

Ünderheap draws heavily on the rubber masks, prop rayguns, and painted backdrops of 1970's Doctor Who, with an even mix of Lovecraftian horror and gonzo silliness. The crawling tunnels of the megadungeon complex below Castle Ünderheap will be the tent pole of the campaign, but (without going into true sandbox mode) I want to give players plenty of opportunities to visit other castles in the area. I'm pleased with the names I've come up with for those castles. They strike the right tone, I think.

Castle Morcorant
Castle Ratgriped
Castle Feignshirk
Castle Arcacara
Castle Hunthact
Castle Brawler
Castle Thac
Castle El Panic
Castle Ogose
Castle Gainfulwoe
Castle Flicker
Castle Awefouling
Castle Dampburden
Castle Ripsnapped
Castle Chidewort

I was like all young demons

2012-01-31T11:02:00.000-05:00

I'd like to share this passage from Clark Ashton Smith's Sadastor, which reminds me of Roy Batty's "tears in the rain" soliloquy in Blade Runner:

Long, long ago, in the red cycles of my youth (said Charnadis), I was like all young demons, and was prone to use the agility of my wings in fantastic flights; to hover and poise like a gier-eagle above Tartarus and the pits of Python; or to lift the broad blackness of my vans on the orbit of stars. I have followed the moon from evening twilight to morning twilight; and I have gazed on the secrets of that Medusean face which she averts eternally from the earth. I have read through filming ice the ithyphallic runes on columns yet extant in her deserts; and I know the hieroglyphs which solve forgotten riddles, or hint eonian histories, on the walls of her cities taken by ineluctable snow. I have flown through the triple ring of Saturn, and have mated with lovely basilisks, on isles towering league-high from stupendous oceans where each wave is like the rise and fall of Himalayas. I have dared the clouds of Jupiter, and the black and freezing abysses of Neptune, which are crowned with eternal starlight; and I have sailed beyond to incommensurable suns, compared with which the sun that thou knowest is a corpse-candle in a stinted vault. There, in tremendous planets, I have furled my flight on the terraced mountains, large as fallen asteroids, where, with a thousand names and a thousand images, undreamt-of Evil is served and worshipt in unsurmisable ways. Or, perched in the flesh-colored lips of columnar blossoms, whose perfume was an ecstasy of incommunicable dreams, I have mocked the wiving monsters, and have lured their females, that sang and fawned at the base of my hiding-place.

Miniature Monday

2012-01-30T09:05:00.000-05:00

Stonehell session 6

2012-01-27T09:56:00.000-05:00

Slim Charles, Pope Leo, and Balian don't screw around in town. They lead hirelings Darric, Guy, Colwin, Gilgrim, and Narton directly to Stonehell.

The party finds a room with a giant stone gaming wheel, but they're too shy to give it a spin. Leaving the wheel, they find and (for some reason) burn a storeroom. But the party grows careless with pyromaniacal giddiness. Running from the choking smoke of the fire, long-time hireling Guy falls down a pit trap, breaking his neck.

Undeterred by that setback, the remainder of the party executes their plan to head into the lair of a giant reptile of unknown species. After a pitched battle, the bloodied adventurers find a small but valuable treasure, including a beautiful gold circlet. They beat it back to Halesnug.

With well over a thousand gold pieces in treasure, this delve is the most successful in many weeks, despite the hireling fatality.

Stonehell session 5

2012-01-26T09:31:00.000-05:00

New fighting-man Balian of Ibelin joins Slim Charles and Pope Leo. Accompanying them are the hirelings Darric, Guy, Colwin, Gilgrim, and Narton. In town, Slim Charles commissions the manufacture of a tarred intestine hose, and purchases two dogs (Donner and Blitzen). Soon after entering the dungeon, the party runs into a band of orcs. Slim Charles finishes the last one with a very lucky dagger throw, but not before an orc plucks out Derric's left eye and Narton loses a finger. Zero treasure.

Stonehell session 4

2012-01-25T09:11:00.000-05:00

Player characters Slim Charles, MacDonald, and Pope Leo return to Stonehell. Accompanying them are the hirelings Darric, Guy, Colwin, Gilgrim, and Narton. Before leaving Halesnug, they visit the blacksmith to collect Slim Charles' new harpoon hand and a large ear-shaped listening horn. In the bowels of Stonehell, MacDonald the fighting-man decides he'll see what happens when he opens a mysterious valve, and is surprised when a cloud of green poison gas fills the room. His throat swells, his face turns blue, his inflated black tongue protruds from the green foam frothing copiously from his mouth, and MacDonald joins his brother MacDougal in the afterworld. Another session with no loot.

Stonehell session 3

2012-01-24T09:05:00.000-05:00

Player characters Slim Charles and MacDonald return to Stonehell, along with the new party member Pope Leo IV, a cleric. Accompanying them are the hirelings Darric, Guy, Colwin, Gilgrim, and Narton. Before leaving the town of Halesnug, however, they visit the blacksmith to commission a door listening horn and a harpoon hand for Slim Charles' stump. In Stonehell, the party finds little except green slime and some battered decorative shields. No gold, but for the first time no deaths.

Stonehell session 2

2012-01-23T08:59:00.000-05:00

I haven't been keeping up with my Stonehell campaign reports. I know not everybody likes reading other people's play reports, but they are a useful reference for the referee and players. So, this week I'll summarize the sessions from the last couple of months.

I already documented session 1.

Session 2: player characters Slim Charles (m-u), MacDonald (f-m), and Brother Archibald (c) return to Stonehell. They're joined this session (guest player) by Faroah the elf, adventuring as a magic-user. Accompanying them are the hirelings Darric, Guy, Colwin, Gilgrim, and Narton. Darric's admiration for Slim Charles grows, and the magic-user agrees to consider taking the boy on as his apprentice someday. The walleyed Friar Tuck, Brother Archibald, is savagely gnawed limb from limb by giant rats. The others finish off the rats, but not before Slim Charles' hand is bitten from his wrist. They cauterize the stump with a torch.

Unicorns for the digital age

2012-01-19T18:24:00.000-05:00

Typo of the day: "Unicorns telnet once per day...."

AD&D reprinted, hazzah!

2012-01-19T09:21:00.000-05:00

I didn't expect Wizards to reprint AD&D. That's nice news to wake up to. Now if they'll only reprint the whitebox....

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T09:35:00.001-05:00

SOPA and PIPA are a really bad deal for the net.

Please take a minute today, and let your legislators know where you stand.

And remember how they voted when they're next up for election.

Carousing and saltboxes

2012-01-17T14:47:00.000-05:00

I've been working on carousing rules for my game. I looked at the Orgies, Inc. article in Dragon and Arenson's implementation in First Fantasy Campaign, went through a few iterations, and came back to something that looks very much like Jeff Rient's carousing rules. I think the carousing write-up he did for his Wessex campaign shows them off to best effect.

In richard's comment to Jeff's Wessex carousing post, I learned the word "saltbox". Excellent! I'm not sure if this is a recently coined term or if it's been around for ages, but I'd never heard it before.

Coincidentally, richard posted a new Sea of O'sr island today.

Miniature Monday

2012-01-16T11:49:00.000-05:00

Lum's castle name generator

2012-01-13T19:39:00.001-05:00

I really like Lum's castle name generator. The huge castle map linked in that post is inspirational too.

Beejallyla's Creature Splice

2012-01-11T09:04:00.000-05:00

Beejallyla's Creature Splice
Magic-User Spell Level 4

Beejallyla's Creature Splice combines any two different types of creatures with total hit dice equal to or less than the caster's hit dice. The referee determines the result of the splice—the monster's intelligence, temperament, abilities, fusion of physical traits, etc.

The new creature has a 3 in 6 chance to survive the combination. Creatures that do not survive have a 1 in 6 chance to rise as undead on the next moonless night.

Maps from memory

2012-01-10T09:22:00.000-05:00

Check out Mapstalgia, which posts hand-drawn maps of video games drawn from memory.

Something Lovecraftian to read

2012-01-08T19:54:00.000-05:00

While culling my bookshelves (a painful and endless endeavor), I discovered that Monte Cook and John Tynes' d20 Call of Cthulhu book includes quite a good bibliography. I select from among the listed works those I never read, read but forgot, or feel it's high time to read again:

Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing", "The Suitable Surroundings", "The Moonlit Road", "Haita the Sheperd", and "An Inhabitant of Carcosa"
Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows", "The Wendigo", "Ancient Lights", and "Entrance & Exit"
Robert Bloch's "The Shambler from the Stars", "The Shadow from the Steeple", and "Fane of the Black Pharaoh"
Jorge Luis Borges' (read him!) "The Book of Sand", "The Zahir", "The Circular Room", "The House of Asterion", "The Aleph", and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
extra points for including Johnathan Carroll's not explicitly Lovecraftian but excellent Land of Laughs
Robert W. Chambers' "The Yellow Sign"
All of Lord Dunsany's stories, but especially:
- "The Deeds of Mung"
- "A Shop in Go-by Street"
- "Alhireth-Hotep the Prophet"
- "The King That Was Not"
- "The Highwayman"
- "The Ghosts"
- "The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth"
- "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow"
- "Bethmora"
- "The Hashish Man "
- "Poor Old Bill"
- "The Field"
- "The Hoard of the Gibbelins"
- "How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles"
- "Ghu-bu and Sheemish"
- "The City on Mallington Moor"
- "The Bureau d'Echange de Maux"
- "A Narrow Escape"
- "Taking Up Piccadilly"
- "The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts)"
- "The Trouble in Leafy Green Street"
- "Lobster Salad"
- "How the Office of Postman Fell Vacant in Otford-under-the-Wold"
- "The Sac of Emeralds"
- "The Return" (presumably they mean "The Return of the Exiles")
- A Night at an Inn (a stage play)
William Hope Hodgson's "The Hog", "The Whistling Room", "The Voice in the Night", "The Derelict", and The Boats of the Glen Carrig
Henry James' "Count Magnus" and "The Jolly Corner"
Henry Kuttner's "The Salem Horror", "Hydra", "The Eater of Souls", "The Invaders", and "Bells of Horror"

Frank Belknap Long's "The Hounds of Tindalos" and "The Horror from the Hills"
Fritz Leiber's "To Arkham and the Stars" and "Terror from the Depths"
Thomas Ligotti's "The Sect of the Idiot", "The Last Feast of Harlequin", and "The Dark Beauty of Unheard Horrors"
Arthur Machen's "The Novel of the White Powder", "The Novel of the Black Seal", "The White People", "The Inmost Light", and "The Shining Pyramid"
A. Merrit's Dwellers in the Mirage and The Moon Pool
All of Clark Ashton Smith stories (many of which I've lately read), but especially:
- "Genius Loci"
- "The Double Shadow"
- "The Return of the Sorcerer"
- "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros"
- "The Door to Saturn"
- "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis"
- "The Plutonian Drug"
- "The Empire of Necromancers"
- "The Charnel God"
- "The Maze of Maal Dweb"
- "The Nemesis of the Unfinished"
- "The Holiness of Azedarac"
- "The Beast of Averoigne"
- "The Enchantress of Sylaire"
- "The Mandrakes"
- "The Maker of Gargoyles"
- "The Colossus of Ylourgne"
- "The Disinterment of Venus"
- "Morthylla"
- "The Seven Geases"
- The Dead will Cuckold You (a stage play)
W.B. Yeats' "Rosa Alchemica", "The Tables of the Law", and "The Adoration of the Magi"

Dice!

2011-12-26T12:30:00.002-05:00

Dice come in a variety of shapes.

The Door to Saturn

2011-12-19T12:49:00.002-05:00

I learned of Clark Ashton Smith relatively recently—around the time I discovered the OSR. I just read The Door to Saturn. What a fun story!

UPDATE: Black Gate magazine posted surveys of Smith's Averoigne, Hyperborea, and Zothique story cycles. The essays are worth a read if you'd like an overview of his work.

And this is just awesome:

...Malygris, who lay dead for years while men believed him living; who, lying thus, still uttered potent spells and dire oracles with decaying lips.*

I've been sick

2011-12-13T09:22:00.000-05:00

I've been sick, but I'm on the mend now. I have a lot of work to catch up on, so posting will probably be light through the new year.

Ditlana and dungeon architecture

2011-11-24T11:41:00.001-05:00

Thanks to everyone who commented on Wednesday's post! I'm only the most casual of tourists to Tékumel, I'm afraid, and have never read beyond the 1975 EPT book. Rob L's comment from yesterday had me wondering if ditlána was the default origin of dungeons in EPT. Some of the quotations in my previous post undoubtedly focus on the ditlána of the city of Jakálla, but Professor Barker leaves plenty of latitude for a variety of underworld origins:

Scattered over Tékumel are innumerable half-buried, half-forgotten ruins. There are fragments dating back to the prehuman ages, when the Ssú and the Hlýss vied with one another for control; there are tunnels of melted rock and steel constructed during the days of man's first glory; there are jumbled heaps destroyed by the cataclysms which rent Tékumel when the planet was cast into outer dimensional darkness; there are catacombs and subterranean labyrinths dating from more recent empires, cities, temples, pyramids, and fortresses dedicated to the lost and unremembered gods of half a hundred kingdoms. Another factor is the custom of Ditlána, the ceremonial "renewing" of many cities every 500 years: cellars and foundations of an old city are filled in and roofed over, upper floors are razed, and then new and more splendid edifices are built upon this foundation. Such earlier buried habitations are now full of burrows and tunnels built by humans, half-humans, nonhumans, and the many parasites and predators of Tékumel who subsist upon man's leavings.

This reminds me of How to Host a Dungeon.

As I currently see it, there are three major aspects of big-picture dungeon architecture:

the physical origin of the space: natural caves, mines, nonhuman excavations, ditlána, etc.
the spacial relation of levels in terms of number, depth, and interconnectedness
the configuration and type of areas or neighborhoods within a single level (randomly generated interstices, Saturday Night Specials, scenario/faction areas, empty regions, etc.)

Just as in How to Host a Dungeon, each of these will be modified over time, by nature and with use. Natural caves will be expanded and adapted for habitation. Commercial mines will be abandoned, and later repurposed. New connections will be tunneled between levels. Geological evens will reshape sections.

Tekumel-style underworlds

2011-11-23T14:35:00.001-05:00

While doing some megadungeon research, I re-read a couple of Planet Algol posts about Saturday night specials (1, 2) that include this EPT quotation:

"Here too, the role of the "Saturday Night Special" cannot be overemphasized. Aside from the deliberately or randomly determined "normal" contents of Underworld areas, it is interesting to develop large complexes inhabited by special beings. These should have special histories, and players should hear legends of their existence on the surface. Their abilities and treasures should be individually devised, since these add interest and spice to the game."

So, I dug into the Petal Throne PDF, and found this:

An Underworld should consist of a number of levels of passageways, rooms, catacombs, shrines, tombs, etc., etc. Each level is drawn on a sheet of graph paper (10 squares to the inch provides sufficient room to develop large temple or tomb complexes). Levels are interconnected by stairways, sloping passages, chutes, vertical shafts with or without ladders—etc. Levels need not be exactly one on top of the other, nor need they all join neatly: i.e. one may have a level off to one side which is approachable only by a stairway down from some upper level and which is not connected to any further upper or lower levels, Thus, the Underworld of Jakalla has a very extensive first level, drawn on a 17" x 22" graph paper. Stairways and other types of passage lead downwards from this to other levels, but those levels themselves are only occasionally interconnected. Certain passages branch off to tie in with still other Underworld complexes; some of these connector tunnels run for miles, being survivals from the ancient pre-cataclysm underground transport system.

And this:

It is much more realistic and desirable to have an Underworld developed upon logical, "scenario" lines, with large complexes of tombs, temples or other contents carefully worked out. These can be cut off from one another, of course, by empty labyrinth areas or by randomly selected regions.

Further, about scenarios:

Countries, parties, Temple factions, nonhuman races, etc., etc., all will have objectives of some sort, and the referee should sketch these in... Thus, players will encounter members of different factions within the Imperium, various foreign agents with schemes of their own, individuals with a variety of plans and goals, nonhumans, and other beings.

This makes a Tekumel underworld sound very different structurally than an OD&D dungeon (or, at any rate, an OSR megadungeon):

a HUGE first level—drawing on 17" x 22" graph of 10 squares per inch
a limited number of lower levels
most lower levels connect directly to the huge first level, with only limited connections to each other
long "trunk" connections to a network of other dungeons

More interesting to me is the classification and arrangement of different types of spaces within a single level:

Saturday Night Specials, which consist of:
- rumors or legends the characters hear before finding the special
- a unique monster or monster type
- a large complex
- unique treasures with a history
Scenario areas (where factions pursue their goals)
randomly generated or empty areas that divide the Specials and Scenario areas

Belladonna and Wolfsbane

2011-11-20T16:53:00.001-05:00

While perusing the S&W Whitebox rules today, I noticed that the Adventuring Gear section lists both belladonna and wolfsbane. Neither item is described, nor does the lycanthropes section mention either herb. In fact, the rule book never mentions either herb again.

So, I surveyed our family of rules to get a consensus on belladonna and wolfsbane.

Swords & Wizardry Core doesn't mention belladonna. Core's equipment description for wolfsbane says it will "often keep werewolves at bay... temporarily." The monster entry for werewolves says, "wolvesbane keeps them at bay." The lycanthropes entry in the Monster Book doesn't mention either plant.

(Incidentally, I haven't spent much time with the 4th printing of Core, but I like what I see. It's an improvement over the third printing.)

Labyrinth Lord (and OEC) lists wolfsbane, but not belladonna. It's noted as a ward against all lycanthropes ("the lycanthrope must succeed in a saving throw versus poison or free out of fear"). LL Advanced Edition includes belladonna, but only as an herb "used to relieve aches and pains, reduce inflammation, relieve coughs or used as an anesthetic."

Holmes includes wolvesbane in the equipment list, although makes no mention of how it affects were-sharks and other lycanthropes.

Moldvay lists only wolfsbane. The lycanthrope entry says, "if a lycanthrope is hit by wolfsbane, it must save vs. Poison or run away in fear. The sprig of wolfsbane must be swung or thrown as a weapon, using normal combat procedures." Moldvay doesn't mention any curative properties for those infected by lycanthropy.

The AD&D PHB lists wolvesbane and belladona [sic] in the equipment lists. The DMG says that when a character who has been bitten by a lycanthrope "eats any belladonna within an hour after being bitten, there is a 25% chance the disease will not manifest itself". The Monster Manual lycanthrope entry reiterates that. The only DMG mention of wolfsbane is as a treatment of last resort along with belladonna:

If the adventurer decides to be cured and the methods mentioned thus far have been unsuccessful, he or she may take refuge in a holy/unholy place such as a monastery or an abbey. There the clerics can administer to the afflicted one holy/unholy water laced with a goodly amount of wolfsbane and belladonna prepared by the spiritual methods of that particular religion. This potation is to be consumed by the victim at least twice a day from a silver chalice. No adventuring may be done by the character while he or she is being treated by the clerics. After a month or more (depending upon how advanced the disease is) the player character should be cured and somewhat poorer in the purse, as this procedure is very costly.

OSRIC doesn't include belladonna or wolfsbane in its equipment list, but the lycanthropes entry says: "if a victim ingests belladonna within one hour after the attack there is a 25% chance the disease will be cured." It makes no mention of wolfsbane.

Men & Magic lists wolvesbane and belladona [sic] in the equipment lists, but the lycanthropes entry in Monsters & Treasure mentions neither. The supplements don't mention either plant.

The d20 SDR says that a character afflicted by lycanthropy "who eats a sprig of belladonna (also called wolfsbane) within 1 hour of a lycanthrope’s attack can attempt a DC 20 Fortitude save to shake off the affliction."

Outside the game, wolfsbane is properly known as Aconitum, a genus of pretty flowers in the buttercup family. Atropa belladonna is a flowering shrub from the nightshade family. Though unrelated, both wolfsbane and belladonna are toxic---the roots in the case of wolfsbane, and the leaves and berries in the case of belladonna---and both have medical uses.

My very cursory research didn't reveal any strong folkloric associations of either plant with lycanthropy apart from twentieth century pop culture. (Flying ointment and twilight sleep are interesting.)

So, depending on your rules and your referee, wolfsbane might drive away lycanthropes, and belladonna might cure a character infected by lycanthropy if administered within an hour of infection. But they might not do anything. I sort of like that uncertainty, and I'm inclined to let the efficacy of belladonna and wolfsbane remain uncertain for players and their characters.

Fonts for your PDF's

2011-11-17T17:12:00.001-05:00

Even though a content creator has a valid license for a font, that license may not allow embedding the font in a PDF document for commercial sale or even non-commercial public distribution. The issue is ambiguous, but of sufficient concern that Pat suspended PDF sales of Anomolous Subsurface Environment.

I did a little research, and the key phrase seems to be "free for commercial use". The following links offer more than two dozen high quality fonts that can be freely embedded and redistributed, even for commercial use.

This font embedding license gotcha is another reason I'm happy with LaTeX.

Kindle Fire

2011-11-16T23:20:00.001-05:00

I'm posting this from my new Kindle Fire. There are a few rough edges, but it's a great value for the money. It'll be handy at the game table, although ezPDF is a must-have upgrade from the built-in reader.

SCIENCE! Specimen 632

2011-11-14T12:12:00.001-05:00

Burg "Sawmill" Houri discovered specimen 632 in one of the deeper chambers east of the Pits of the Rapacious Uberbeast.

The device's suitcase-sized voice controller connects wirelessly (via the controller's extensible "rabbit ear" antennae) to its pink-bubbling-nuclear-fluid-filled transparent, cylindrical power unit (12-ounce capacity). During operation, the controller makes "boop, boop... boop, boop..." noises, and the power supply sprays glowing dust into the air. The dust smells faintly of strawberries (long-term exposure not recommended).

Given a properly specified voice instruction, the devices alters two discrete events that occurred within the last 24 hours by switching two of the involved persons. Everyone remembers the events as they originally occurred, except for the two swapped individuals.

Man of Science

2011-11-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

Stuart's science-based cleric class is fun.

Villagers with torches

2011-11-06T12:19:00.000-05:00

I thought you might enjoy this pick of actual villagers with torches at the annual bonfire celebration in Lewes.

[via Age of Uncertainty]

Awesome OD&D poster

2011-10-25T07:40:00.000-04:00

This OD&D wandering monster poster from Blog of Holding is pretty great.

Languages and aliens

2011-10-15T19:52:00.000-04:00

FrDave at Blood of Prokopius posted about the importance of languages in his games, and this paragraph particularly resonated with me:

In LL and B/X, demi-humans begin with the ability to speak several languages. One of the interesting consequences of this in my own game is that the demi-humans have become essential for interpreting the languages of monsters who occupy the ruins. To my mind, this does a nice job of re-enforcing the alien-ness of the demi-humans. It suggests that they are closer to monsters because they can converse with them, as opposed to the human characters which do not begin the game with the same kind of linguistic ability.

I'd like to "re-enforcing the alien-ness of demi-humans," but haven't done much with it rules-wise. I'll be writing up FrDave's idea for my game.

Modular D&D platform (request for comments)

2011-10-13T11:23:00.000-04:00

Zak posted about D&D as a modular platform, which is alway how I've viewed it.

Half the time you see a new table or chart on this blog it's because I went "Ok, for my next session I'll need a fortress--hey why don't I spend the amount of time I'd spend designing that fortress adventure making a little subsystem to generate fortresses." This isn't always the best approach but when I do it that way it generally works out--the brainstorming I do to get the entire table might give me ideas I wouldn't have thought of if I'd just been focused on building one location. And, naturally, it saves a lot of time down the road.

Computer programming nerds call this "writing reusable code."

The quirky little subsystems are one of the things I love best about OD&D. Unfortunately, few of those subsystems survived to later editions and the retro-clones.

I'd love to see an anthology called Quirky Little Subsystems. Start with Swords & Wizardry Whitebox or Labyrinth Lord: Original Edition Characters as the platform. The book, then, would contain dozens of modular subsystems by various contributors. Individual referees could stick them together or adapt them as desired.

This isn't quite a call for contributions, but I'd enjoy editing and typesetting Quirky Little Subsystems. Is there any interest in such a project? Please comment.

FEED THE CROCODILES POISONED MEAT

2011-10-07T08:15:00.001-04:00

The Hack & Slash post On the Creative Crocodile Conundrum nicely formulates some points against skill checks and for letting players play.

In a couple of weeks, I should have the time to resume regular posting here.

OSR Oktoberfeast

2011-09-25T11:11:00.000-04:00

I'm still swamped at work, or else I'd be all over Sword & Shield's OSR Oktoberfeast—a Halloween advent calendar with 31 single-evening old-school adventures. Fenway5 is looking for adventure writers and artists.

Men

2011-09-14T15:30:00.000-04:00

I've been busy at work (and will be for a couple more weeks), but I did have time to read Nathan's post about the Monster Manual entry for Men. Men types underpin much of OD&D, and Nathan's post makes me realize that I haven't given them enough thought.

Awesome Stefan Poag art

2011-09-01T11:38:00.000-04:00

I've started commissioning art for my house rules booklets, and thought I'd share this excellent piece Stefan Poag drew for me.

If you're looking for an artist, by the way, I can tell you that Mr. Poag has been a pleasure to work with.

What rules do you play, and why?

2011-08-26T00:48:00.001-04:00

If you don't care about other referee's naval gazing about rule sets, skip this lengthy and somewhat rambling post. Fair warning....

For the last couple of months, I've played ad hoc rules while trying to decide between totally custom house rules (based on Torch and Sword), pure 1974 LBB OD&D, pure Labyrinth Lord, OEC Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Core Swords & Wizardry, or Whitebox Swords & Wizardry. I know that the choice of rule system matters surprisingly little during actual play, but for some reason it's something I think about a lot. I established these criteria:

A living rule set relatively free of intellectual property entanglements, which unfortunately rules-out OD&D
Something that looks more like LBB OD&D than any other edition, which eliminates OSRIC (with which I've been increasingly impressed), Labyrinth Lord, and (to some extent) Core S&W
Something I can tell people I play by name, without having to qualify with a million house rules

I'm looking forward to Delving Deeper and Champions of ZED, but for the time being the above criteria directed me to Swords & Wizardry Whitebox. Labyrinth Lord Original Edition Characters was also in the running at that point, but I chose Whitebox because I like many of the new rules like AAC, and Whitebox leaves more room for referee rulings (compare the spell descriptions, for example). The only problems I have with Whitebox:

The 6x9" format of the PDF is great for Lulu, but makes it hard to print a quick copy on 8.5x11" (or 4.25x5.5")
Marv's prose style is slightly too conversational and verbose to suit my idiosyncratic minimalist preferences. That's nothing against his great work, it's just my Strunk-n-White-ish bias.

I took the Whitebox RTF and created a LaTeX document that gives me tremendous flexibility in output format—I can easily output an 8.5x11", half-page booklet, or whatever other format I want. It also lets me split the rules into as many booklets as I want; I decided on a player booklet and a referee booklet. I made some minor edits that satisfy my stylistic leanings without modifying any rules.

I still want to make a lot of house rules, but I've decided that I'll isolate those changes to the referee book. Amazingly, I only felt compelled to make a couple of minor changes to the player booklet.

"Languages: For campaigns that give each race its own dialect, Dwarves should be able to speak with gnomes, goblins, orcs, and kobolds."

I changed to:

"Dwarves speak the dwarf, gnome, goblin, and kobold languages."

"Languages: For campaigns that give each race its own dialect, Elves should be able to speak with gnolls, goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins."

I changed to:

"Elves speak the elf, gnoll, hobgoblin, and orc languages."

Those are the only actual rules changes to the player rules. The next most dramatic change was to the wording for alignment.

"Alignments in the game are described as Law, Chaos, and Neutrality. In general, Law also corresponds to being “good,” Chaos corresponds to being “evil,” and Neutrality simply means that the character is indifferent between the two moral polarities. It is quite possible for the Referee to make the alignment system more complex: perhaps Lawful only means that you are in favor of centralized hierarchies in society, in which case you could actually be Lawful Evil as well as Lawful Good. It is a matter of preference if you want to make the alignment system more complex."

became:

"Choose an Alignments: Law, Chaos, or Neutrality. Law promotes the order of human civilization, while Chaos favors a world beyond human reason."

Everything else in the player rules is very minor grammar/style stuff. The changes to the referee booklet will be more dramatic.

In short, you could sit down and play with me using the stock S&W Whitebox rule book without any problem, and I can publish stuff without having to explain or standardize a bunch of house rules.

The only thing that would be better would be if I could distribute my house rules with art (although I understand why Matt put that stipulation in the license). I'd love to commission or license a few pieces from Peter Mullen, Stefan Poag, and John Larrey.

If anyone wants the LaTeX files or PDF sans art, just let me know. Most likely, I'll publish the referee stuff that deviates from stock Whitebook here in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: Here's a ZIP file of the PDF and LaTeX files for my house rules player booklet.

GM merit badges

2011-08-22T15:57:00.000-04:00

Stuart made GM merit badges. I awarded myself PC Death Is Likely, "Rule Zero" Is in Effect, I Mirror Back Player Ideas, Focus on Exploration & Mystery, Prepare to Run!, Rules Tinker, and Player Skill badges.

I'd like to earn the Roll in the Open, Tactics, and Gonzo badges.

I almost never fudge results these days, but I still roll behind a screen—mainly because it's a convenient place to hang my reference charts, and rolling in front of it would mean standing up. Maybe I need a smaller screen or some way to do without one.

I appreciate the importance of tactics, but I don't feel like they figure significantly enough in my games to justify the badge. That's partially me and partially my players. I need to include more affordances for tactical play, particularly exploitable environments.

Gonzo. I have pretty strong gonzo tendencies, but don't give them much play in my current game. That's largely because I'm running Stonehell for the first time, and want to see what it's like before drastically altering its tone. The campaign I'm writing myself has a significantly higher quotient of gorilla kings, robots, and masked aliens. When I get around to running that, I'll feel better about earning the Gonzo Badge.

Thanks, Stuart. The GM badges provide a good vehicle for self evaluation.

Building a better GM

2011-08-21T11:40:00.051-04:00

On Hill Cantons, ckutalik asked GM's to list their three best practices, techniques, or tricks used at the table.

I don't claim to be an exemplary referee. After all, it was only a year ago that I started playing again and discovered the OSR. However, I've found the following techniques help me at the table:

Always say "yes" to players.
If the players, in their deliberations at the table, theorize about something more interesting than what you actually planned, drop your plans and use the more interesting idea.
Never keep the players waiting—not even for 30 seconds—while you look up something in a rule book. Just make a plausible ruling and move on. You can check the rulebook after the session.

Death or dismemberment

2011-08-20T10:03:00.018-04:00

This is a house rule I recently created to replace critical hits. If a character would be killed or rendered unconscious by an attack, the player can instead opt for the character to survive with one hit point and roll on the following table.

Elective Dismemberment (2d6)

2. Arm severed at shoulder
3. Arm severed at elbow
4. Hand severed
5. Eye plucked out
6. Ear lopped off
7. Lost a finger
8. Ear chopped off
9. Nose cut off
10. Foot severed
11. Leg severed at knee
12. Leg severed at hip

Re-roll if the character can not be further dismembered in the way described (e.g.—both legs already lost).

One of the characters in my game is already down a hand. The blacksmith made him a little something for his stump.

First Fantasy Campaign on incentivizing carousing

2011-08-19T15:35:00.000-04:00

From page 50 of Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign:

"Many characters wonder what they should spend their money on and what it will get for them in exchange. [...] Wealth: Merely the stockpiling of Gold, Silver and similar items of value by the player. If these items are stolen, the player loses full value immediately upon discovery and may lose levels as a result."

That will only happen once or twice before reluctant players take advantage of the carousing rules!

Trimming the spell lists

2011-08-17T11:53:00.000-04:00

Roger of Roles, Rules and Rolls asked what the magic-user spell list should include if limited to six first level spells and three spells of higher levels. I made my picks, and I think you could have an interesting game within these constraints.

1st Level:
1. Charm Person
2. Detect Magic
3. Hold Portal
4. Light
5. Shield
6. Sleep

2nd Level:
1. ESP
2. Invisibility
3. Knock

3rd Level:
1. Dispel Magic
2. Fireball
3. Fly

4th Level:
1. Charm Monster
2. Polymorph Other
3. Remove Curse

5th Level:
1. Animate Dead
2. Contact Other Plane
3. Teleport

6th Level:
1. Geas
2. Enchant Item
2. Reincarnation or Stone to Flesh

7th Level
1. Cacodemon
2. Limited Wish
3. Simulacrum

8th Level
1. Mass Charm
2. Permanency
3. Symbol

9th Level
1. Prismatic Sphere
2. Shape Change
3. Time Stop

Speculation about Gary's Greyhawk

2011-08-12T13:05:00.000-04:00

I think all of us who have seen this picture of Gary Gygax running Greyhawk have spent a few minutes speculating about it.

Since Evan at In Places Deep asked about the map key...

A cursory count puts the number of rooms in the neighborhood of 120. Gary's key has 18 numbered lines. Additionally, there are two color codings (pink and green).

At least some keys correspond to multiple rooms. It looks like seven or more rooms are labelled "2".

If we imagine that each key corresponds to seven rooms, that accounts for every room on the map. (I doubt that's actually the case, and clearly some rooms are unkeyed.)

Even if only one key corresponds to one room, that would be about one in six rooms keyed. If each key corresponds to 2-3 rooms with non-keyed rooms empty, that's close to U&WA ratio of empty to non-empty rooms.

Cyclopeatron's observations about running Arneson's Blackmoor Dungeons may be instructive:

"[...] the keys have virtually no information beyond what treasure and/or monsters might be in a given room [...] the generally empty nature of the dungeon causes an interesting tension to build. Empty... Empty... Empty... Empty... Screaming, confusion, blood, fire."

I don't see anything to make me think the page in the picture is not the complete key for the facing map, particularly if checks for wandering monsters happen every turn.

Appendix N electronic book availability

2011-08-10T16:28:00.003-04:00

I got a new Kindle, so.... Of those books and writers mentioned in the DMG appendix N, the following are available electronically—many for free.

Brothers Grimm
Andrew Lang
Leigh Brackett
Fredric Brown
Edgar Rice Burroughs
L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall (non-free)
August Derleth
Lord Dunsany
P.J. Farmer
Robert E. Howard*
Sterling Lanier's Hiero's Journey
Fritz Leiber's free and non-free works
H.P. Lovecraft
A. Merritt's works here and here*
Michael Moorcock (non-free)
Andre Norton
Fletcher Pratt
Fred Saberhagen (non-free)
J.R.R. Tolkien (non-free)
Jack Vance (non-free)
Stanley Weinbaum
Manly Wade Wellman
Jack Williamson free and non-free
Roger Zelanzy (non-free)

Most of the above works also appear in Moldvay's Basic reading list, but the following are in addition to those listed in the DMG.

Lloyd Alexander (non-free, young adult)
Robert Asprin (non-free)
L. Frank Baum (young adult)
John Bellairs (non-free, mostly young adult, though The Face in the Frost is usually cataloged as adult)
Thomas Bulfinch
Lewis Carroll (young adult)
E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros
Robert A. Heinlein's Glory Road (non-free)
Tanith Lee (non-free)
Ursula K. Le Guin (listed as young adult)
C.S. Lewis (young adult, non-free)
Talbot Mundy's Tros of Samothrace ~~Tros of Samothrace (which should be in the public domain because it was first serialized in 1925, but I can't find a free version)~~ and free works not named in Modlvay
Clark Ashton Smith**
Bram Stoker
Thomas Burnett Swann (non-free)

UPDATE: I don't know how I overlooked William Hope Hodgson, but thanks to Scott for noticing.

* As these works may still be under protection in parts of the world with copyright terms as insane as those of the United States, it would be naughty of you to read them for free in such a jurisdiction. I couldn't possibly recommend it.

** I suspect many of C.A. Smith's works are now in the public domain, though Smith's estate and Arkham House claim otherwise.

Observations about Judges Guild map 1 from JG17

2011-08-08T17:05:00.000-04:00

In 1976, Judges Guild released a pack of four dungeon level maps (JG17). I believe the maps were originally from the Thunderhold installment. I spent a few minutes last night making notes about the characteristics of the first map, with an eye to producing original maps with similar features.

No closed doors near starting area
Early & obvious descent to level 2
Access to various deeper levels
A couple of very large rooms
Environment hazards (slippery bank)
Notes written directly on map
Dimensions noted on map (no counting squares)
Blank lines for color key (used how?)
Sounds noted on map (buzz, grunt, etc.)
Smells (stinky) noted
Curved & diagonal passages
Multiple pit traps
Peanty of odd shaped rooms—almost a third
A couple of dead ends
Blank lines for revisions (used how?)
What goes on the first set of broken lines/labels? A dungeon complex and level number?
Water feature
Statue
Mix of rough (cave?) & regular/constructed rooms
Some dimension not evenly divisible by 5 or 10—especially the rough/cave areas (108', 62', etc.)
34 rooms total

A PDF of the four maps is available from RPGnow.

Stone coins

2011-08-03T12:50:00.000-04:00

I know some of you like to play with currency in your milieux—silver standard rather than gold, etc.—so you might find something of interest in this history of what happened when an outsider expoited the giant stone coin based economy of the island Yap.

Stonehell session report 1

2011-08-01T17:35:00.001-04:00

Slim Charles the Medium, Rabbi Spellberg, and MacDougal the Veteran arrived in the town of Halesnug. At the Wayward Slough Tavern, they hired the men-at-arms Gilgrim (a black market dealer), Colwin (with a vendetta against orcs), Durdoon (a peasant), and the linkboy Darric. After bargain hunting for rumors (you get what you pay for!) from the bartender Martin Knockteeth, they set off for their first foray into Stonehell.

Across the Fathomless Nerb River, they guided their mule to the canyon mouth, and paused to read graffiti before hurrying past the gatehouse. They explored several small cave systems opening onto the canyon. They put to rest several animated skeletons, narrowly avoided an evil magical trap, and discovered an unusual piece of sparkly chalk-like material. (The wall of cave 4 may or may not bear the magical or invisible message "Slim Charles is a badass"). Darric the linkboy was wounded in the melee with the skeletons, but was later cheered to find a pack of playing cards with naked ladies printed on them.

Descending down, down, down to the prison proper, the party met a group of unusual beings.

These short, round, furry ewok-like creatures have scaly yellow noses, huge yellow pointy ears, tiny red eyes, and row upon row of serrated shark-like teeth. They wear too small Errol-Flynn-Robin-Hood-style hats and boots and belts (but no pants).

Despite their strange appearance, the creatures claimed they were "just collectin' da guano, boss" and left the party in peace.

After their efforts to explore an old well proved inconclusive because the too short rope left linkboy Darric dangling, the party pushed somewhat recklessly though a series of increasingly deadly encounters.

Giant centipedes took MacDougal's life—a fitting end for the amateur entomologist. Slim Charles cast sleep on creepy crawlies, and dispatched one in a such a manner as to leave it suitable for mounting. The magic-user plans to honor the fighting-man's memory by sending the specimen to the MacDougal clan along with his body.

Rabbi Spellberg was crushed by a giant stone block. His body could not be recovered. As Slim Charles crawled around the floor collecting those silver pieces not crushed with the cleric, a pair of brigands attacked.

Slim Charles and the henchmen defeated the brigands, but it was such a near thing that Slim Charles declared an end to this first expedition.

Climbing up, up, up from the bowels of the vast stony Hell, they discovered the mule—left tied-up in the canyon—had disappeared, only its halter remaining. Slim Charles stowed the halter in his backpack with care, and led the wounded hirelings back to Halesnug in silence.

The dice favored the party—particularly in the sparseness of wandering monsters. Even so, they cleared a lot of rooms for one delve. I don't feel bad about killing two of the three PC's. MacDougal was a little unlucky with the centipedes, but Rabbi Spellberg would still be alive if he'd taken a few minutes to scrutinize his environment. That all the henchmen survived is remarkable. It was a good session. Stonehell is fun to run, and I'm looking forward to next time.

Reference Numbers

2011-07-20T17:51:00.000-04:00

Zak said:

(Reference Numbers: I do this "You find a scroll of unknown origin, write #68 on your page" then when they use it I can look it up and don't have to remember from nowhere which mystery scroll Satine found at the bottom of a well a year ago based on a hasty transcription of an ad hoc description)

Thanks, Zak. I'll start using something like this immediately.

Foldable dodecahedron!

2011-07-19T10:27:00.001-04:00

Perhaps I'm the only LaTeX junkie in the OSR. I understand that it's harder than MS Word or Pagemaker, but it's free, flexible, and beautiful. Just look at this foldable dodecahedron package! Surely we can put this to use.

The Lesser Gods of Oerth and sweaty pseudopods

2011-07-17T09:35:00.001-04:00

I never ran or played in a Greyhawk campaign, but I did get the 1983 boxed set as a kid. Reading it today for the first time in many years, this passage caught my attention:

The people of Oerth worship many gods. Only deities of the central Flanaess are detailed here, and of those, only the lesser gods (in most cases) have been detailed. In general, the greater gods are too far removed from the world to have much to do with humanity, and while they are worshiped, few people hold them as patrons.
These deities have been known to intercede directly in the affairs of men... a demi-god and a godling might well become embroiled in human affairs...

In my games, the gods—big or small—remain distant, their existence implied only by the granting of cleric spells, which is strange, since my imaginings about such things were founded on youthful readings about Homer's compulsively meddling, all too relatable pantheon. Maybe that one DM who used an uber-powerful archmage to lead our characters by their noses through his epic Lord of the Rings knock-off made me over-vigilant.

I'm changing-up to radically familiar gods in my new campaign. These minor deities have only a handful of spell-casting clerics, and they appear personally to replenish spells.

Imagine: you're a cleric, sleeping after an exciting adventure that exhausted you and all your spells. At some point in the night, your god—with his sweaty hands (or pseudopods or whatever) and coffee breath—shakes you awake and whispers divine revelations in your ear. Sort of like Santa Claus or your creepy uncle.

Well, maybe...

Origin of names in Harry Potter

2011-07-15T20:47:00.000-04:00

I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but character names are something I always notice. I saw this Wordnik post about language in Harry Potter on Kottke, and though it worth reposting.

Characters’ names are often also common words. A dumbledore is a bumblebee. Snape is a ship-building term that means “to bevel the end of (a timber or plank) so that it will fit accurately upon an inclined surface.” Hagrid is the past participle of hagride, which means “to harass or torment by dread or nightmares.” Skeeter is a term for an annoying pest, and not just Rita Skeeter, blood-sucking journalist. Mundungus is “waste animal product” or “poor-quality tobacco with a foul, rancid, or putrid smell,” a good name for a sneaky thief.

Torch & Sword Beta 1

2011-07-14T11:24:00.000-04:00

My 0e/LBB retro-clone Torch & Sword is nearly complete. Since I'll be taking a little break from it to work on my new campaign, I decided to release this beta version (PDF, LaTeX source files).

In a few months, I'll give it a final edit and add one or two bits and bobs, but it's now pretty close to a complete implementation of the original rules. I also added some art.

Castle Owners & Their Principal Retainers (d8)

2011-07-13T17:39:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I'll use this custom table to stock the castles in my new campaign rather than the standard table in U&WA.

Amorphous Tentacled Horror
1. Dimensional Shamblers (d8) 7 HD
2. Hunting Horrors (d6) 8 HD CC
3. Polypous Horrors (d10) 6 HD RCC
4. Shoggoths (d8) 7 HD RCC
Ancient Idol-God
1. Basilisks (d6)
2. Druids (d8) 7HD
3. Medusae (d12)
4. Oozing Guardians (d12) 5 HD RCC
Evil Hight Priest
1. Hell Hounds (d8) 7 HD
2. Spectres (d10) 6 HD
3. Vampires (d8) 7 HD
4. White Apes (d12) 5 HD (Barsoomian)
Gorilla King
1. Gargoyles (d12)
2. Hounds of Tindalos (d12) 5 HD RCC
3. Robots (d8) 7 HD
4. Weretigers (d12)
Masked Humanoid Alien
1. Reflection from Another World (d8) 7 HD
2. Dopplegangers (d12)
3. Serpent People (d10) 6 HD RCC
4. Star Vampires (d8) 7 HD
Patriarch
1. Blink dogs (d20)
2. Ents (d6)
3. Hippogriffs ridden by Heroes (d4)
4. Werebears (d10)
Ruthless Overlord
1. Giants (d4)
2. Ogres (d12)
3. Rocs ridden by Heroes (d4)
4. Wereboars (d12)
Wizard
1. Avergnoids (d8) 7 HD
2. Balrogs (d4)
3. Basilisks (d6)
4. Chimerae (d4)
5. Dragons (d4)
6. Manticores (d6)
7. Robots (d8) 7 HD
8. Wyverns (d4)

Castle owners are either hostile (1--3 on d6) or neutral (4--6 on d6) towards player characters.

Google Plus

2011-07-11T10:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not much of a social networks guy, but as Stuart says Google Plus might be good for gaming. Comment if you need an invitation.

OD&D-style castle occupants

2011-07-09T21:21:00.000-04:00

Inspired by Scott's recent work on the Castles of Dwarf-land, I decided to start work on my new campaign by making a custom table to stock castles. To get a base-line for my custom table, I pulled some averages from the Type of Guards/Retainers in Castle table on p. 15 of U&WA:

                    Castle Owners
                    =============
    Owner Min HD    Owner Mean HD    Owner Max HD
    ------------    -------------    ------------
         8                9               11


                  Principal Retainers
                  ===================
Min HD    Mean HD    Max HD    Min #    Mean #    Max #
------    -------    ------    -----    ------    -----
 3+1        6+3         9        1        4.6       20

Based on those numbers, I can pick suitable retainers and the quantities thereof:

Hit Dice	4	5	6	7	8	9
Quantity	d20	d12	d10	d8	d6	d4

I plan to finish and post my custom castle occupants table later this week.

Strigoi

2011-07-07T13:02:00.002-04:00

Hit Dice: 4+1
Armor Class: 6
Move: 90'
Treasure: 2d4 x 100 gp in assorted coins & 15% chance of one non-weapon magic item
Alignment: See below
XP: 417

Like a lich, a strigoi (f. strigoaică) is a normal man transformed by magic. Unlike a lich, men can become strigoi either in death or while still living. Strigoi haunt the place they lived as men. They often try to maintain relationships they had while human—particularly romantic relationships—but their twisted efforts frighten those who knew them as men.

Lawful men transform into Neutral strigoi, while Neutral men become Chaotic strigoi.

Scholars differ regarding what causes a man to become a strigoi. These are some of the theories:

A bad love affair
A non-fatal bite from a strigoi
Breathing bad air from graveyards or crypts
Birth defect of the head or face
Corpse walked-over by a cat
Cursed by a witch
Died unmarried
Frequent (perhaps intimate) contact with goblins
Infectious disease
Left to sleep alone beneath the moon as an infant
Met a squinting man at dawn
One parent was a strigoi
Possession by an evil spirit
Saw a crone on New Year's morning

Any given strigoi possesses three of the following powers:

Can remotely possess one person between dusk and dawn
Invisibility
Never ages
Only harmed by fire
Only killed by beheading
Only killed by stake through the heart
Shape-changes into a cat
Shape-changes into an owl
Shape-changes into a snake
Shape-changes into a wolf

A strigoi suffers three of the following weaknesses:

Become trapped by confusion if lured to a crossroad
Can not abide the smell of burning hemp
Can not abide presence of garlic
Die if it holds a candle
Discomfort in daylight (-2 to hit and save)
Drinking alcohol causes complete amnesia
May not approach within 10' of a straw broom
Must drink blood from a living human weekly
Paralyzed if pierced by a sowing needle
Paralyzed by the cries of an infant

I, Paul Gorman, created this text about the folkloric strigoi based on material in the public domain, and in turn release this strigoi text and its presentation into the public domain. Use it as you wish.

This bugs me too.

History of Cartography free PDF's

2011-07-04T11:07:00.000-04:00

The first two volumes of The History of Cartography are available as free downloads. I wish the images were scanned at higher resolution, but there's still lots of inspiring material.

Tithes, chaos, and soforth

2011-07-01T14:59:00.000-04:00

This passage from page 16 of U&WA confuses me:

Clerics will require passersby to give a tithe (10%) of all their money and jewels. If there is no payment possible the Cleric will send the adventurers on some form of Lawful or Chaotic task, under Quest. Generally Evil High Priests will simple [sic] slay Lawful or Neutral passersby who fail to pay their tithes.

This passage could be read in a number of ways. I find the most likely reading is that lawful clerics assign Lawful quests to lawful or neutral indigents, while chaotic clerics (EHP's) assign Chaotic quests to chaotic passersby and kill those of other alignments.

That leaves unanswered the question of what lawful clerics do with chaotic passersby who are unable to pay. Any guesses? Or is there a better reading of the text?

Göbekli Tepe

2011-06-25T13:55:00.002-04:00

A site in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe, built much earlier than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid, has caused some mystification in archeological circles, as it seems to show that at least one particular group of pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers constructed advanced stone monuments. Check out the photo gallery for inspiration.

Cataphract armor

2011-06-21T16:33:00.000-04:00

Monster fingers, Lovecraftian aedicula, and a frog prison

2011-06-20T10:47:00.000-04:00

The often interesting book blog The Age of Uncertainty posted about a trip to France. Drop these into your game:

Crossroads, boggles, and an exemplary map

2011-06-12T13:07:00.001-04:00

Tim at Gothridge Manor posted a nice list of random encounters for crossroads. I'm a sucker for local legends. Tim's post caused me to grab one of my favorite inspirational references, The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends, which relates this:

The boggle infecting Bringham Lane end, where four roads meet, is a white dog, known as Willie Sled's dog. Willie Sled used to attend to those who came to Bringham sand-pit; and as nearly every pit in Riding has its goblin, this one is named after him...

Boggles are, of course, shape-shifting bogey beasts that haunt places of transition, like crossroads and streams. They're prone to play (sometimes deadly) tricks on passersby.

While I had the book open, I noticed this map and key:

The key would be a good basis for a series of random tables to spice-up a hex map.

Churches & holy places
Devils & demons
Ghosts, apparitions & screaming skulls
Giants
Heroes & villains
Hidden treasure
Humorous tales
Legendary beasts
Local landmarks
Phantom beasts
Place-name stories
Prehistoric remains
Royalty
Sunken cities
Witches & wizards

Fun play situations

2011-06-10T08:37:00.000-04:00

I playtested A Stranger Storm, the starter module included in LotFP: Grindhouse Edition. During play, I wrote myself this note: "it's not that the premise is so original (it's not), but that the ideas make for fun play situations. Start adventure design with a situation and work backwards?"

In retrospect, that's close but not precisely on point. James' most recent post exposes the core lesson—giving players meaningful choices leads to fun play situations.

LotFP does a better job than most rule books of encouraging design with meaningful choices, so painting it as didactic nihilism... well, you can't preach both meaningful choice and nihilism. What's the alternative, really? A game based on predestination? Isn't that the sort of pre-scripted story-based play we've been trying to escape?

Consolidated surprise roll

2011-06-09T14:06:00.001-04:00

In OD&D, a 1-2 result on a d6 indicates surprise. A second d6 roll indicates the distance at which the surprised group becomes aware of the other party: 1-2 means 10' distant, 3-4 means 20' distant, and 5-6 means 30' distant.

I thought of an alternative method that's nearly equivalent and slightly faster.

Roll a d8 to check for surprise. A result of 1-3 indicates surprise. Multiply that same roll by 10 to get the encounter distance in feet. Since the non-surprise encounter distance is 40-80', that same roll is still good for the encounter distance if there's no surprise.

Using that method, the chance of surprise increases 4%, and the average non-surprise encounter distance goes from 50' to 60'. I think it's close enough to be worthwhile.

Art in Dungeon Crawl Classics: Wow!

2011-06-08T19:48:00.001-04:00

Since I saw Peter Mullen's art a few years ago, he's been one of my favorite fantasy artists, but I always liked his color work better than his black & white stuff.

His new B&W pieces in Dungeon Crawl Classics, though, are inspiring. He's really taken his craft to a new level of excellence. Top notch!

Stefan Poag has some great pieces in DCC too. I particularly like his freewheeling panorama spread across a couple of pages in the wizard spells section.

Some of the other artists' illustrations don't hit my personal sweet spot as hard as Mullen and Poag, but the quality is generally high.

Small text for a small complaint....

The only thing I can point to as a problem (and I only mention it because feedback is the point of a beta release) is that the scans of certain pieces make the inking look unnecessarily sloppy. The issue doesn't stand-out if your monitor is calibrated to a more sane level of gamma than mine.

Not that the above detail looks "sloppy"—I was just trying to show that not all the blacks reproduce quite a blackly as might be desirable, and the lines that you definitely want black and crisp may look a little fuzzy printed at that color depth and resolution.

When magical research fails

2011-06-04T21:21:00.000-04:00

In original D&D, as described on page 34 of Men & Magic, magic-users and clerics can conduct magical research to invent new spells.

The player proposes a new spell, and the referee assigns it a spell level. The character must conduct research for a number of weeks equal to that spell level, and spend a minimum amount of gold pieces based on the spell level.

Spell Level	Research Weeks	Min. Cost
1st	1 week	2000 GP
2nd	2 weeks	4000 GP
3rd	3 weeks	8000 GP
4th	4 weeks	16,000 GP
5th	5 weeks	32,000 GP
6th	6 weeks	64,000 GP

At the end of the research period, there's a 20% chance of success. The player can spend more money to increase the odds, gaining an additional 20% for each multiple of the minimum cost spent.

What happens if that roll fails? Men & Magic doesn't say, so roll d6:

Review previously collected research data for another week to correct a flaw in your calculations. It's unnecessary to expend further research funds, but the odds of success will be the same as before.
This line of research hit a dead end, but you've narrowed the possibilities. After d6 weeks of additional research, your odds of success increase by 20%.
You nearly found the answer, but your laboratory lacks the proper equipment to conclude the research. Spend an amount equal to the minimum research cost to purchase the new gear, and you will have the answer within a day. Of course, someone could liberate the equipment from the laboratory of a rival spell caster....
The problem is more obscure than you anticipated. Spend the minimum cost in gold and weeks again. Your chance of success increases by 20%.
Your hypothesis is flawed. Modify the spell description, and start from scratch.
You will never succeed researching this spell without further experience. Try again after gaining a level.

The bricked-up wall

2011-06-03T11:14:00.001-04:00

Kiltedyaksman of Discourse & Dragons posted about including bricked-up doorways in dungeons. It's an excellent idea—one I'd thought of before, but keep forgetting to use.

Art in gaming products (as landmarks)

2011-06-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

Today, I read a bunch of posts about art in gaming products. Stephan Poag often writes thoughtfully on the subject. As one might expect from an artist, he is firmly in the pro-art camp. James Maliszewski tolerates art in moderation. A minority actively dislike art as "a very superficial unthinking gloss for fantasies," but they are asses.

One thing about gaming art that I haven't seen mentioned—perhaps because it's so obvious—is its practical value as an aid to navigating texts. I tend to mentally index gaming books by their images, even when the content of the images doesn't directly illustrate nearby text. It's just a lot faster flipping through a book to recognize a picture than to recognize a block of text.

I suspect that's also why new editions with replaced or rearranged art are so jarring—they disrupt that pattern recognition.

This is not to say that I think of art as a merely a superficial unthinking gloss.

My (incomplete) OD&D retro clone available for free download

2011-05-31T11:00:00.001-04:00

Remember when I quit working on my retro-clone, Torch & Sword? I might as well release the completed portion. Here's the PDF, and here are the LaTeX source files. I may or may not finish it some day, but one or two of you may find bits of it useful now.

UPDATE: the beta version is now available.

Monuments from the future

2011-05-23T09:59:00.000-04:00

If you run a scifi game, take a look at these real but improbably futuristic Yugoslavian monuments.

Summon Library

2011-05-19T20:18:00.000-04:00

I love reading the gaming ideas on OSR blogs, but among the many fine ideas presented only a few immediately strike me as something I know I will use in my games. Telecanter posted such an idea today: Summon Library.

A magician casts a spell that summons something bulky, awkward, and incredibly useful at that precise moment. What things would you want to summon? An alchemical lab, a troupe of actors, a font, a barge, a forge?

One page dungeons

2011-05-16T08:16:00.000-04:00

Behold: the One Page Dungeon Contest winners. Congratulations, winners! Perhaps I'll have my crap together enough to enter next year.

Today's delivery from LotFP

2011-05-13T15:00:00.000-04:00

These books make a very good impression in person. The Vornheim experience in particular is far better on paper than as a PDF.

My payment to you (gift culture in the OSR)

2011-05-06T09:17:00.001-04:00

Mythmere's post about blog popularity, the comments to that post, and Matthew Schmeer's related post about free vs fee content deserve consideration by members of the OSR community.

I have no problem with people who charge money for their work—particularly when the prices are reasonable. Even Lamentations of the Flame Princes, which I consider something of a luxury brand* by OSR standards, offers good value in terms of creative inspiration.

For me, though, it's not about popularity or money or the (low) number of comments on my posts. I view the OSR as primarily a gift culture, wherein any individual who freely releases their work increases the wealth of every other member of the community.

The content I've already read on your blogs and PDF's is the reward I want. The content I produce and distribute (and I think this applies for free or fee content given the total revenue of the OSR) is my payment to the community.

For example, I read every one of Dyson Logo's posts. I rarely comment on his posts, but I value them enough that I released a few pages of geomorphs myself.

What the hell is the point of this community if not to inspire each other?

* Although my perception of LofFP as a luxury brand may partially be driven by exchange rates and the cost of overseas shipping.

A-M of the A-Z challenge

2011-05-05T19:26:00.000-04:00

Hmm... I guess I failed to cross the finish line on the A-Z challenge, but I congratulate everyone who did finish. Carter Soles summed-up his experience, pointed-out some of his favorite A-Z winners.

M is for Mascaron

2011-04-15T17:14:00.001-04:00

The middle of the alphabet is rich in architectural dungeony things. There are almost as many good M's as L's, like Madhouse, Malt House, Mall, Mantel, Martyrium, Mastaba, Mausoleum, and Maze.

Mascarons are stone carvings of grotesque faces—some human, some beasts, and most a mix of the two. The majority of mascarons in a dungeon are ordinary (if unusual looking) stone carvings, but some are magical.

This mascaron's eyes rove continually, wildly, and not in the same direction. It will jibber and try to bite anyone or anything that comes close:

This one truthfully answers one question posed by any Lawful character:

This one tries to loudly spit on anyone passing below (then look innocent):

Animal noises emanate from this one, although it never moves:

This one hurls foul insults (in a long-forgotten language) at anyone who passes. If the PC's somehow manage to communicate with it in its own tongue, it will reveal the location of treasure in exchange for the PC's telling it salacious stories. When it doesn't know any more real treasure locations, it will invent treasures to keep the PC's interest. It leers, and ogles any female party members regardless of their charisma.

The Creative Commons images above were created by wallyg, takomabibelot, Landahlauts, and Xavier de Jaureguiberry.

(This is for the A-Z Blogger Challenge.)

L is for Library

2011-04-14T20:55:00.000-04:00

There are so many great L things that I could almost do a whole month of them: Laboratory, Labyrinth, Lamp-Post, Lantern of the Dead, Laundry, Lavatoire, Letterbox, Lich Gate, Lighthouse, Loculus, Lookout, and Lunatic Asylum.

I've tried to pick lesser-known architectural features in previous entries, but today it's Library. I'll take this opportunity to compose a table I've been meaning to write for a long time: random generation of library books for inquisitive PC's.

Optional supertitle:

History of
Natural History of
Encounters with
Mother's
Some Observations on
Encyclopedia of
Dictionary of
Illustrated
The Truth About
First-Hand Accounts of
The King's
The New
Jokes for
Almanac of
Back to Basics
A Lady's
A Gentleman's
Diary of
The Big Book of
The Art of

Part the earlier:

Northern
Southern
Eastern
Western
Misleading
Revised
Condensed
Elritch
Night
Collegiate
Rapid
Surefire
Zero Tolerance
Preventing
Foundational
Childhood
Equestrian
Naval
Incomplete
Culinary

Part the latter:

Wars
Birds
Stars
Apprentices
Navigation
Bottling
Brewing
Grammar
Sewing
Worthies
Rules
Anecdotes
Test Preparation
Success
Etiquette
Mating
Travels
Cities
Flowers
Faith

Optional subtitle:

Explained
(A Life)
For Beginners
Yearbook
In Conversation
In Style
For Little Ones
In Brief
And Other Adventures
A Structural Analysis
And Other Secrets
Avoid The Pitfalls
Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
Bilingual Edition
On Parade!
In 24 Hours
Making It Pay
A Journey of the Spirit
A Space Odyssey
Like A Pro

Find more lists in my forthcoming book Jokes for Northern Wars.

(This is for the A-Z Blogger Challenge.)