Category Archives: Games

LL/AEC Rogues Gallery: Sub-Classes Assemble

Wherein your humble scribe, endeavoring to get his ass back into the swing of blogging, finally gets around to presenting the final entry in his Labyrinth Lord/Advanced Edition Companion Rogues Gallery series. This time, it’s a passel of characters from the ranks of the sub-class classes.

As noted in earlier installments, these characters are all 1st level, were granted maximum HP (default LL/AEC HD, not the Advanced option), and have a bare minimum of equipment. They were all created with 3d6 for stats, more often than not in order. I did throw out the absolute weaklings, though.

Assassins

Crowbeard / Dwarf Assassin 1 NE
STR 13 INT 12 WIS 9 DEX 15 CON 13 CHR 10
HP 5 AC 6 Gold 136
Scimitar, Dagger, Leather Armor, Shield

Grimskull / Half-Orc Assassin 1 CE
STR 16 INT 13 WIS 6 DEX 13 CON 12 CHR 9
HP 4 AC 6 Gold 105
Battle Axe, Dagger, Leather Armor, Shield

Druids

Danaar / Human Druid 1 N
STR 11 INT 9 WIS 15 DEX 12 CON 14 CHR 15
HP 7 AC 7 Gold 82
Scimitar, Sling & 10 Bolts, Leather Armor, Wooden Shield
Druid Spells: Detect Snares & Pits; Entangle; Faerie Fire; Invisibility, Animal

Savareen / Human Druid 1 N
STR 16 INT 10 WIS 17 DEX 9 CON 9 CHR 16
HP 6 AC 7 Gold 100
Sickle, Sling & 10 Bolts, Leather Armor, Wooden Shield
Druid Spells: Entangle, Locate Creature, Purify Water, Shillelagh

Monks

Maartense / Human Monk 1 LN
STR 14 INT 10 WIS 17 DEX 17 CON 13 CHR 10
HP 9 AC 9 Gold 13
Hand Axe, Light Crossbow & 10 Quarrels

Ling Po / Human Monk 1 CG
STR 12 INT 13 WIS 15 DEX 16 CON 9 CHR 6
HP 8 AC 9 Gold 24
Quarterstaff, Sling & 10 Bullets

Illusionists

Rhodanthe / Human Illusionist 1 CG
STR 10 INT 15 WIS 10 DEX 18 CON 13 CHR 9
HP 5 AC 6 Gold 150
Quarterstaff, Spell Book
Illusionist Spells: Detect Illusion, Phantasmal Force

Arvo Tir / Gnome Illusionist 1 LE
STR 9 INT 17 WIS 9 DEX 16 CON 13 CHR 10
HP 5 AC 8 Gold 120
Dagger, Spell Book
Illusionist Spells: Color Spray, Hypnotism

Paladins

Etienne The Chaste / Human Paladin 1 LG
STR 14 INT 16 WIS 16 DEX 14 CON 14 CHR 18
HP 9 AC 4 Gold 10
Long Sword, Scale Mail, Shield

Sorvan Of The Candle / Human Paladin 1 LG
STR 13 INT 9 WIS 13 DEX 8 CON 12 CHR 17
HP 8 AC 4 Gold 85
Mace, Banded Mail, Shield

Rangers

Alyx / Half-Elf Ranger 1 CG
STR 14 INT 12 WIS 17 DEX 12 CON 15 CHR 14
HP 13 AC 5 Gold 35
Long Sword, Long Bow & 20 Arrows, Scale Mail, Shield

Jorn / Human Ranger 1 NG
STR 11 INT 12 WIS 15 DEX 10 CON 15 CHR 9
HP 13 AC 5 Gold 21
Long Sword, Hand Axe, Heavy Crossbow & 10 Quarrels, Chain Mail

Green Demons Of The Fevered Dream

When the mighty sorcerer Krug Jas cast Prince Asaam and King Riaz into the realm of the Fevered Dream, he trapped them in eternal battle against the Green Demons who live there.

Though 1,000 years passed in Kaalmuria, time all but stood still for the warriors who fought beneath the Golden Eagle banner of Kharnum Dhrynn. There they remained, fighting a ceaseless horde of demons who all-but-completely resembled their original foes, the army of their nation’s chief rival, the Emirate of Bateer Falim.

Bereft of its leaders and army, Kharnum Dhrynn fell before the might of its enemies (as they themselves would later fall when Krug Dras had squeezed them dry for his own benefit), leaving little but legend of the once proud nation in its wake.

Today all that remains of Kharnum Dhrynn are three strange onion-domed towers hidden in a canyon deep within the Great Western Desert. There, atop her decaying throne, sits the ancient, undying body of Queen Svetla, who works slowly at the embroidery she holds in her dry, brittle hands as she awaits the return of her husband and son from their campaign against the minions of Krug Jas.

The Green Demons appear as human soldiers armed with swords, axes, or whatever one-handed melee weapons are used by the foes they mimic. Except for a slight greenish cast to their skin and a wolf-like lengthening of their canine teeth, the Green Demons are indiscernable from those they are meant to resemble.

The Green Demons are classified as rabble.

Attributes
Strength 2
Agility 0
Mind 0
Appeal -2

Combat Abilities
Brawl 0
Melee 2
Ranged 0
Defense 0

Career
Soldier 2

Lifeblood 3

Protection: 1d3 (light armor & shield)
Weapons: Swords, Axes, or other 1-handed weapons, 1d6

Barbarians Of Lemuria GM Screen

Here’s a quick & dirty Barbarians of Lemuria GM screen I put together a while back. It’s also available at the BoL Yahoo group, but since the BoL Forum has kind of taken over and no one really goes to the group anymore, I thought I’d post it here.

Notes:

This was put together prior to the Legendary Edition, so it still has the old armor approach (i.e., fixed values for specific pieces of armor).
I can’t remember if there were any additions to ways to spend Hero Points in the LE or not, but if there were they’re not included in the summary of spending Hero Points.
I had house ruled in initiative rolls prior to the release of the LE, and that’s reflected on the screen. The good news is that my house rule matches the change that was implemented in the LE, so this fits with the new rules just fine.
Again, since this predates the LE version of the rules, there are no references to the “new” Priest/Druid magic approach.

Also, all the art is from ClipArt.com, so I take no credit or blame for the art itself. If you need to praise or rail against the art, I’m only culpable for the choices made in which art to use. 🙂

Enjoy!

BoL Bestiary: Vaarloi Death Worms

Vaarloi Death Worms are 5′ long with smooth blood-red skin covering their thick bodies. Though they are often found in deserts, these creatures avoid the heat of the day and are only active at dawn and dusk, unless skies are overcast.

Vaarloi Death Worms attack by discharging static electricity from their bodies. They begin combat by “spitting” their full charge (to a range of 30′) at foes as they are approached. After this large discharge, the worms are left with only small electrical “bites” until they have had a significant amount of time to recharge (typically longer than any given encounter).

Vaarloi Death Worms occasionally bleed off excess electrical charge with a crackling burst that creates a small cloud of ozone in their vicinity, which smells like an approaching rain storm. This aroma may be the source of the ancient warning against traveling through the desert when rain is likely.

Attributes
Strength 1
Agility 2
Mind -3

Combat Abilities
Attack with electrical “bite” +2; damage 1d3
Attack with electrical “spit” +0; damage 2d6 (once per encounter)
Defense: 2
Protection: 1d2-1/1d6-1 vs blunt weapons (rubbery skin & body)
Lifeblood: 5

On A Magic Carpet Ride

So, I ran an Arabian Nights style BRP game for some friends last night. It went well.

Strangely, it turns out that no matter how much (or how little) I prep for a game it is exactly twice as much as we have time for. So that means the adventure isn’t finished. Folks do want to get together and complete it, though, so that’s nice.

The downside to not having finished is that I can’t post the notes I made, compiled together brilliantly by me into the PocketMod format. I’m insanely proud of the work I did (as in, it’s really not that impressive, and yet I’m inordinately pleased with myself) putting pretty near all the notes I needed into a little eight 1/8th page book. It’s kind like the whole 1-page dungeon thing, but cuter and without a map.

Anyway, since there’s a chance that one of the players could stumble across it, I’ll save posting it until after we’re done.

Also, I want to wax rhapsodically for a moment about the player who took the bait and swung down from the party’s flying carpet, high above the desert, to the one that had come up beneath them, whose passengers were trying to cut the party’s carpet. It was very exciting pulpy genre action and the dude gets points for diving right in. Big fun.

Oh, and the good thing about not having finished is that it doesn’t actually impact my ability to work on the blog, since I already did the prep work. Expect more content soon.

Lastly, are any of you folks who read this thing baseball fans? More to the point, are any of you the type to play fantasy baseball? If so, let me know in the comments. I might have a proposition for you.

In The Weird Dungeon Of Makes No Sense At All

I abhor writing up “actual play” type posts, so I won’t do that here. But I will say that a good time was had last night. There was combat. There were puzzles. There were traps and tricks and travails. And, most important of all, there seems to be a consensus to continue sometime before next March. So maybe a regular(ish) group has been born. I’ll keep you posted.

In other news, if I draw the short straw I’ll be running something in BRP this coming weekend, which would likely delay the next installments of the Demons of Adad Untash yet again. With any luck I’ll know by tomorrow night. In either case, keep the faith. There’s plenty of demonic nastiness coming your way. Trust me.

Labyrinth Lord GM Screen, v1

Well, here it is, my first draft of a

It’s nothing ornate, but it should get the job done. It’s definitely skewed towards (a) Advanced Edition Companion usage and (b) immediate in-game reference. I’m sure there are things that could be added (and for my purposes I have a little more than full page to spare still), and I’m open to suggestion from the peanut gallery (that’s you), though I make no promises that I’ll do anything more with this.

Also, just so you know, I pulled all the tables from the old Word doc of Labyrinth Lord, so there might be some numbers in here that don’t quite match up with the newest printings. In other words, I haven’t really gone over the numbers with a fine-toothed comb. Use at your own peril and all that.

Finally, it’s not exactly stunning to look upon. But hopefully it’s not painful to look upon, either. Maybe the theoretical v2 will be fancier. Maybe 🙂

My Own Private GaryCon

Ok, so here’s the deal. For the past two years I’ve run a little game near the anniversary of the death of Gary Gygax. The first year it was on a complete whim and we used Castles & Crusades to get through roughly 50% of the very enjoyable Dungeon Crawl Classics module #31 The Transmuter’s Last Touch.

The group featured my wife, Kira, who played some D&D when she was a kid and is very understanding of my geekitude. Also involved were one of my regular geek friends (Parker) and his wife (Chloe), who’d never touched a d20 in her life. Fun was had, and when the pizza delivery guy arrived he saw what we were up to and asked if it was a regular thing or was specifically in honor of Gary. I love this town.

The next year (2009), we got together again with the intent of continuing the module, but we added a new person – Ren, a friend of Parker’s – and so decided to start fresh rather than shoehorning him into the middle of a module. Once again we used C&C, though with a number of tweaks to make it even more old school (no thieves!) and I decided to try out DCC #28, Into The Wilds. We bashed our way through precious little of the module itself – thanks to the players going in an utterly unexpected direction – but still had tons o’ fun. We vowed that we’d continue it sooner rather than later, but for various reasons (including the birth of a child to Parker & Chloe) we didn’t.

Late last year (or was it early this year? who can remember?) Parker decided to run a game of Mutant Future for the same group (blame me, I gave him a copy of MF after he’d related what a fan of Gamma World he’d been). We played two sessions of that marvelous game, finishing an adventure and learning just how deadly a giant poisonous chicken can be. This, naturally, brought us back around to trying to “finish” what we’d started last March.

So here we are, on the eve of our own personal GaryCon ’10. The date and time are set. Dice will be thrown. The only hitch is that we’re switching over to Labyrinth Lord so that there’s a bit of rules continuity from the MF game (to assist the not-really-gamer types – oh, and because I loves me some LL while at the same time I’ve become quite disenchanted with C&C).

What this means in practice is that I’ve got to do some work on character conversion (started, but not finished) and possibly a little bit of prep in re-reading the module, doing some stat work, and figuring out just how much I’m going to use from it at all, given the wildly off course position we’ll find ourselves at the beginning of the game.

“So, Venomous Pao, what are you getting at?” you ask.

Well, all of this long-winded junk is just a way of saying that I’m not sure, given the limited time I have in a day, how much stuff I’ll be churning out for Strange Stones this week.

I know, I know. You’re waiting (impatiently) for the next round of entries in the Demons Of Adad Untash. You’re hoping for more posts in the LL/AEC Rogues Gallery. Or maybe you’re just jonesing for some more Barbarians of Lemuria content. And believe me, I want to give you such things (I’m a giver, after all). And I will. But right this minute I wanted to prep you (my small but adoring audience) for what may turn out to be a very quiet week ’round here.

What I will almost certainly do in my offline work this week is put together a Labyrinth Lord DM’s screen for use at my game. And unless I somehow don’t do that (unlikely – I love playing with InDesign), I’ll be sure to post it here for people to grab. Think of it as a bribe for not giving up on me while I’m working on stuff for an actual game.

Thank you for your patience and support, amigos. Wish me luck in the actual play!

LL/AEC Rogues Gallery: Multi-Classed Characters

Wherein your humble scribe, taking a break from things that go bump in the nether hells, finally gets around to presenting another entry in his Labyrinth Lord/Advanced Edition Companion Rogues Gallery series. This time, it’s multi-classed characters.

Silvermoon / Elf Cleric/Magic-User 1/1 LG
STR 11 INT 17 WIS 14 DEX 8 CON 17 CHR 7
HP 7 AC 5 Gold 9
Mace, Chain Mail, Shield, Wooden Holy Symbol, Spell Book
Cleric Spells: Command, Cure Light Wounds, Remove Fear
Magic-User Spells: Message, Unseen Servant

Irmiel / Elf Cleric/Thief 1/1 NG
STR 11 INT 11 WIS 18 DEX 17 CON 12 CHR 9
HP 5 AC 6 Gold 6
Long Sword, Dagger, Leather Armor, Silver Holy Symbol, Thieves Tools
Cleric Spells: Cure Light Wounds, Purify Food & Drink, Sanctuary

Carsten / Half-Elf Magic-User/Thief 1/1 CG
STR 10 INT 14 WIS 13 DEX 14 CON 10 CHR 10
HP 4 AC 6 Gold 54
Short Sword, Dagger, Short Bow & 20 Arrows, Leather Armor, Thieves Tools, Spell Book
Magic-User Spells: Enlarge, Mending

Levon / Dwarf Fighter/Cleric 1/1 LN
STR 15 INT 10 WIS 14 DEX 9 CON 13 CHR 8
HP 7 AC 4 Gold 69
Battle Axe, Banded Mail, Silver Holy Symbol
Cleric Spells: Cure Light Wounds, Protection From Evil, Remove Fear

Milo / Halfling Fighter/Thief 1/1 N
STR 13 INT 12 WIS 7 DEX 15 CON 11 CHR 10
HP 6 AC 7 Gold 45
Short Sword, Sling & 10 Bullets, Leather Armor, Thieves Tools

Gromsley / Gnome Illusionist/Thief 1/1 CN
STR 9 INT 16 WIS 13 DEX 16 CON 11 CHR 8
HP 4 AC 6 Gold 87
Short Sword, Dagger, Leather Armor, Thieves Tools, Spell Book
Illusionist Spells: Auditory Illusion, Wall of Vapor

Kaelmag / Half-Elf Assassin/Cleric 1/1 LE
STR 12 INT 13 WIS 14 DEX 15 CON 14 CHR 12
HP 6 AC 7 Gold 19
Long Sword, Silver Dagger, Leather Armor, Silver Holy Symbol, Thieves Tools
Cleric Spells: Cure Light Wounds, Detect Magic, Light

Malea Shadowwalker/ Elf Fighter/Magic-User 1/1 NE
STR 11 INT 15 WIS 8 DEX 9 CON 10 CHR 13
HP 6 AC 7 Gold 10
Scimitar, Longbow & 20 Arrows, Studded Leather Armor, Spell Book
Magic-User Spells: Darkness Globe, ESP

Urlen / Half-Orc Cleric/Thief 1/1 CE
STR 11 INT 8 WIS 14 DEX 15 CON 13 CHR 9
HP 5 AC 7 Gold 59
Scimitar, Dagger, Leather Armor, Silver Holy Symbol, Thieves Tools
Cleric Spells: Command, Cure Light Wounds, Darkness

Well Hello There, Everybody

And welcome to Strange Stones!

It seems that my pictures of the just arrived Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox Boxed Set have turned out to be pretty popular. So welcome to all you new visitors (and old friends, too) who’ve stopped by.

I don’t have any new content today – I’m far too hungover from a night of EuroRails in which I lost the game but won the “Who gets to polish off this bottle of ’91 Glenrothes?” contest – but I thought for the sake of the new visitors I’d point out my main project on the blog right now, The Demons Of Adad Untash.

This project will wind up consisting of a whole passel of demonic baddies for use with Labyrinth Lord & the LL Advanced Edition Companion (though, clearly, they’re usable with a whole bunch of other games that share a certain DNA, including S&W). I’ve just recently completed the lower order demons and the standard order beasties are up next. They should start rolling out a little later this week.

Meanwhile, here’s one more picture of the WhiteBox, alongside its grandfather and its cousin.