Brink of Calamity live for sale!

As of about 15 minutes ago Brink of Calamity is finally live for sale at DriveThruRPG in both (softcover) print and pdf versions. Note that DriveThruRPG is increasingly their print costs substantially on April 1st and the price of the print version of this book will go up by $3 to compensate (from $22 to $25), so if you're planning to buy the print version and want to save $3 you should place your order today, tomorrow, or Monday at the latest.

Since the adventure assumes you're using the rules and content from The Heroic Legendarium anyone who doesn't already have that should consider buying the pdf bundle that includes both titles at a substantial discount over buying them separately.

This book has been long in gestation and I had doubts at several points whether I would ever get it across the finish line (and I suspect some of you readers did as well) but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and hope people who read about the Perlammo Salt Mines on Prince of Nothing's blog way back in September 2022 will consider it to have been worth the wait. 

Also, while I'm here, I wanted to note for posterity that at some point last fall The Heroic Legendarium became a Gold bestseller at DriveThruRPG (meaning over 500 paid sales on their platform), which is pretty nice. I'm surprised by how it continues to sell, and actually sells as many or more copies per month now as it was 2 years ago, which I can only assume is coming 100% from positive word of mouth because I'm certainly not doing anything to promote it.

Heroic Legendarium Deal of the Day

Hey y’all,

The Heroic Legendarium is the “deal of the day” today (Monday August 7th) at DriveThruRPG.com  - heavily discounted (effectively $10 off both the pdf and hardcopy versions) and featured on their front page for 24 hours (of which there are about 20 remaining). 

I’m assuming most everybody reading this already has a copy, but if you don’t (no judgment) or want to gift someone a copy or pick up a spare hardcopy or two, now is the time to do it!

Edit (8/8/23): The sale is now officially over. Final tally for the day was a bit over 100 copies, which is what it normally sells over about 9 months. I’m pretty happy with that! Big thanks to anybody who bought a copy or helped spread the word.

Milestone achieved

Yesterday, a bit over two years after work-in-earnest began (though the original outline was actually done back in 2017), I finally finished writing up the last encounter area for my D&D adventure/campaign book (working title Brink of Calamity), officially completing the first draft. 

It ended up being even more massive that I had originally intended, with the current draft clocking in at about 133K words and 167 pages (including 20 pages of maps). The original plan was to cover levels 1-6 but a few of the tougher areas may actually go beyond that (playtesting will tell). Here's how the contents break down:

• Roughly 8,000 square mile wilderness area with 30+ detailed locations
• 1 detailed town & 2 detailed villages
• 5 dungeons (including Melonath Falls and the Perlammo Salt Mines) with 16 combined levels (+ several mini-dungeon lairs)
• 3 dragons
• 7 new monsters
• 4 new magic items
• Over 130 named & detailed NPCs
• Extensive rumor and random encounter tables
• Dozens of potential plots and character interactions
• Enough material to fill at least 20 sessions of play

Playtesting is still ongoing (including a couple public sessions in August if anyone reading this is in the L.A. area and interested/available), as is editing/revision/layout work, so it will be still be a while before it's actually available for sale, but for as long as this thing has been gestating and as many fits and starts as I've had writing it just having a complete draft already feels like an accomplishment, so I wanted to take this opportunity to crow about it a bit.

And, while we're here, here are a couple other small things I created recently while procrastinating over finishing up the book draft:

1) An AD&D character sheet incorporating all of my additions and house rules from The Heroic Legendarium and Foster's Miscellany. I will always love TSR's old goldenrod AD&D character sheets, but it was becoming an increasingly large hassle, especially with new (or new to 1E) players, having to tell them to ignore this and add that and to put in X where it says Y. This sheet is purely functional and doesn't have the fun graphical elements and flourishes that I love in the goldenrod sheets, but (at least IMO) their increased ease of use makes up for that. For my own games I've printed them on light blue paper.

2) Even more randomly, a sheet of Character Background Detail Tables for Twilight:2000 1st edition characters. I never owned this game in its day and just recently acquired it (and being a dyed-in-the-wool grognard I of course chose to pick up the vintage 1984 edition rather than the current one published by Free League) and mostly loved it but also found it odd and frustrating that the characters' non-military background and lives and personalities were essentially completely undefined, so I decided to fill that stuff in myself with some Mekton/Cyberpunk-style lifepath tables. I suspect later editions (which I haven't seen) also cover this stuff, rendering this exercise kind of pointless and redundant, but I had fun coming up with it so I've got no regrets.  

Heroic Legendarium is Electrum!

Today, almost exactly two years to the day after its release, The Heroic Legendarium has officially become an Electrum bestseller at DriveThruRPG, which puts it among the top 13% of all paid products on the site. This has no practical meaning, but is still pretty neat for me, proving that the book found an audience and is continuing to sell at a pretty steady clip of a couple-three copies a week that hasn’t really slowed down at all in the past 20 months or so. It feels validating for something that was produced on literally $0 budget and has received no promotion whatsoever beyond customer word-of-mouth, and that I honestly thought might sell a couple dozen copies to my friends and family and then disappear into the ether. 

If you’re one of the people who has purchased a copy (at DriveThruRPG or during the brief time it was available on Lulu) thank you very much. Your support means a lot to me. And if you’re one of those 227 people who has it on your wish list or in your shopping cart at DriveThruRPG, what are you waiting for?! Now is the perfect time to get on the bandwagon and become part of the in-crowd (and help me hit Gold)!  8) 

"Foster's Miscellany, Volume 1" now available for sale

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to compile the various little house rule and addition tidbits that have accumulated over the last two years since The Heroic Legendarium manuscript was completed into a 20 page pdf which is now officially available at DriveThruRPG as PWYW, under the title Foster's Miscellany, Volume I. No print option because it's only 20 pages (and only 16 of them are actual content), and probably nothing new to anybody who's been reading and downloading content from this blog, but hopefully still worth a look for anyone who liked the Heroic Legendarium (or hasn't bought it yet but would like a cheap preview - about half of the new book is Play Aids that combine HL data alongside the original canon data (class and race info, equipment lists, weapon stats) for convenience at the table.

Since it's PWYW I went ahead and made the preview the entire thing, so you can see what you'll be getting if you purchase it. 

The big adventure-campaign book is still coming eventually (progress has been slow the last month or so but I haven't given up, I swear!) but I figured this was a nice little interim thing which will hopefully be of at least a bit of interest to some folks and will also (hopefully) suffice to get me off of DriveThruRPG's "second class citizen" list where they consign publishers who've only released one title. It also allowed me an opportunity to make a little tribute on to dedication page my dad, who passed away last week, following my mom by just over 13 months (and was an easier way to keep my mind occupied than trying to be creative).

Anyway, I hope y'all will take a look and maybe find at least one or two things that you'll find worth using in your 1E/OSRIC games.

Some new house rules & additions

As a way of procrastinating from doing more work on the adventure-campaign book I've been working on seemingly forever I decided to collect my miscellaneous "OSRIC" house rules and additions that weren't included in The Heroic Legendarium, either because I only came up with them after the contents of that book had been finalized or because for whatever reason I forgot to include them there. A lot of this stuff is pretty simple and minor, to the point that it didn't necessarily need to be formalized in writing, but a couple of them are more substantial and impactful. 

While I'm not so naive as to believe anyone besides me would want to actually use all of these rules and rulings in their games (surely anyone running a 1st edition game at this point has already resolved all of these issues to their satisfaction many years ago), maybe some folks will find something they like here, and - as always - I've already done the work of writing it all up so why not share it, right? So, that said:

Google Drive download link

Enjoy!

Update: In a fit of inspiration, I decided to combine this document with the other house rules and play aids I've published here over the last couple years (since the HL text was finalized) into a smallish (20 page) pdf and put it up on DriveThruRPG as PWYW. I'm still a second-class citizen there so it hasn't gone live yet, but should within the next couple days (and when it does I'll probably make another post about it with a link). The Necropolis conversion notes aren't included (both because they're incomplete and because I'm not sure it would actually be legal to upload them for sale there - I know people sell 5E conversion guides for old 1E modules but am not sure what the rules are for that and don't want to take any chances and risk a repeat of last year's Lulu fiasco) but everything else is. Most of you reading this have probably already downloaded anything that you're interested in, but it might still be convenient to have it all in a single file, plus it will at least theoretically reach the people who (shockingly!) don't read this blog.

I was interviewed for a Podcast!

This is sort of old news now (since it was posted on three days ago) but in case anyone hasn't already heard, German AD&D (and other old-school wargames) uberfan Settembrini did a 3 hour interview with me for his podcast, which is now available for your listening pleasure. I've heard from people who've listened to the whole thing (or at least claim to have) that it's not totally boring and incomprehensible, so yay! 

I haven't listened to it (because I don't think I could stand to listen to my own voice for 3+ hours) but from memory we talked about (in no particular order and tending to ramble back and forth between topics) why we like AD&D better than BX D&D, my inspirations and methods for creating The Heroic Legendarium (and the bootleg "AD&D Companion" that preceded it), what makes for good adventures and why Temple of Elemental Evil isn't one, my games with Gary in the 80s playtesting Necropolis (and my attempts at leveraging that experience to create an accurate AD&D conversion of it), using miniatures vs theater of the mind, why I like wargames but am not actually very good at them, why and how OSRIC needs to be updated, whether it's possible to make the Upper Outer Planes a location for interesting adventures, and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting. 

It was fun having a nice long conversation with someone who shares my enthusiasm for this stuff. Maybe it will also be fun to listen in on that conversation... 

Heroic Legendarium print edition now available at DriveThruRPG

Quick note that although my book got pulled off of Lulu it is now available at DriveThruRPG in a print edition as well as the previously-available pdf. If you're one of the people who already purchased the pdf version you should have received an email including a coupon code allowing purchase of the print version at a discount (the difference between the cost of the pdf version and the cost of the print version, to cover printing costs and mirror the bundle option that wasn't available previously).

I hope everybody who's already purchased the book is enjoying it and finding things in it to use in your games, and that everybody who hasn't purchased it yet will now do so since there's no further reason to wait!

Heroic Legendarium available for purchase

Finally, just over 20 months after it was initially announced, The Heroic Legendarium is finally available for purchase from DriveThruRPG (pdf and eventually print as well, once I've approved the proof copy). 

This was an extended labor mostly of love, but also of frustration as I realized I utterly lacked the skills and resources to turn my Google Doc text document into a publishable book. Struggles with that ate up more than a year, before I ultimately decided to just release the book as-is and let its contents speak for themselves. Which means you'll get no art, no fancy graphics, and no advanced pdf features like bookmarks and hyperlinks. But what you will get is 154 pages of solid, gameable 1E content, almost all of it new and original (a few spells, monsters, and magic items are adapted from 1E-era sources but have been revised and modified as presented here, and in any event make up no more than about 5% of the total content). 

If you've seen the earlier (non-OGL-compliant) version of this book, copies of which I know are still being privately traded even though I stopped distributing it several years ago, you're already familiar with about two-thirds of the contents, but even so enough new content has been added to hopefully make it worth taking another look, including:

• Three new PC races (note: the preview at DriveThruRPG includes these pages)
• The savant class, including 68 new spells
• Complete system for territory development and management by PCs
• 32 new magic items
• 49 new monsters
• New essays on tips and tricks for players and GMs, dungeon design, and extra-planar adventuring
• Assorted other minor additions and revisions

The page count of the new version is increased by 42 pages over the old one, but that number undersells the amount of new material because much of the earlier edition's appendix material (i.e. direct copy/paste reprints of magazine articles and monsters and magic items from modules) was removed, or at least reworked and adapted. 

The earlier version had a narrower scope of compiling uncollected Gygaxiana and recreating "lost" system additions that he had mentioned (or were reverse-engineered from his later works). The savant class still fits within that mold, but the scope of the book generally has expanded to include more of my own voice and my own preferences and is less beholden to things that Gygax may or may not have planned or intended to do. While that might make it less valuable or interesting to some people whose interest is more historical or who want to keep their games as "pure" as possible, I am also confident that my additions and modifications maintain a consistency of style and flavor with that other material and are complementary to and will fit seamlessly alongside it. Having spent more than three decades immersed in this material and style of play I have developed a pretty solid feel for it.

Therefore, I would urge everybody who enjoys (or is curious about) the original creative and design paradigm of the First Advanced Edition to check this thing out, even if you already have the earlier version, because I am sure there is at least some material within it that you'll be able to use in your games to expand and freshen them up and help keep your players engaged, entertained, and challenged. 

[And it's all been designated as "OSRIC Reference Content" so other authors and publishers are not only allowed but strongly encouraged to use this material in their OSRIC-branded adventures and supplements as long as you refer back to this book. Nothing would make me happier than to see this material picked up and adopted by others and for my contributions here to become part of the common lexicon of 1E gamers, existing ones and new ones alike.] 

Edit/update: Lulu has unilaterally pulled this title and terminated my account (and will presumably keep the ~$400 in royalties I had earned from sales to date) because they determined that the old "AD&D Companion" (which I had put up on Lulu for private at-cost sale a few years ago) "may" be in violation of their Member Agreement by including third party IP - without any opportunity to appeal or to take down the possibly-offending title while leaving other titles in place. Since that book was uploaded ~5 years ago, the timing of this account termination feels fishy, like possibly some spiteful anti-fan found a link to that private page and reported me. Sorry to anyone who placed an order through Lulu because I have no idea whether you'll actually get the book - presumably if it's already shipped you will, but if it hasn't I'd recommend contacting Lulu customer support.

AD&D Poison Notes

In Dragon magazine #81 (January 1984) the article "Taking the Sting Out of Poison" by author Chris Landsea offered truly exhaustive coverage of the topic of poison in AD&D, filling in many gaps and holes in the official rules. The rules in that article make poison much more interesting, both by providing more details for its use in the game and also some ways to mitigate its effects and make it feel less like a "screw you" when used in the game - especially with low-level characters who don't have access to magical means of neutralizing it. 

However, like many Dragon articles of that era, Mr. Landsea went overboard in presenting 10 full pages of text and 10 tables - too much of a good thing that adds so much extra complication to make things hard to remember and make use of in-game. Therefore, in order to strike a happy balance and achieve the best of both worlds, I've extracted and summarized (and revised) the essence of those 10 pages and 10 tables into a simpler and more user-friendly set of guidelines that allow the additional flavor and options introduced in that article to be incorporated into AD&D games without becoming overwhelming. 

This material is being incorporated into The Heroic Legendarium (which I promise is still going to be released - just as soon as I master the challenges of art and layout in order to transform a roughly-140,000 word Google Doc into a reasonably-professional-looking pdf and print book), but since this blog has been sitting idle for far too long, I figured there's no harm in sharing it here as well, as another preview-of-sorts of what that book will eventually contain:

AD&D Poison Notes

Blade venom: One dose of blade venom is sufficient to coat one melee weapon or up to four arrows, darts, or crossbow bolts. A character using an envenomed weapon has a 5% chance per round (check every round the weapon is in use) of nicking and poisoning him or herself, + or - the character’s reaction bonus for high or low dexterity (i.e. 2% for a character with 18 dexterity). This chance is halved for assassins (i.e. 2% for an average-dexterity assassin or 1% for an assassin with a 17 or 18 dexterity).

Poison Gas: Types are equal to ingestive poison Types A-D, but sufficient gas to fill a 10’ x 10’ x 10’ area costs 10 times more (i.e. 300 g.p. for a vial of Type B poison). Once the vial is opened or broken the gas will expand to fill the area in 1-2 rounds and remain effective for one turn before dissipating. Characters who make their saving throw against poison gas are holding their breath and do not suffer partial damage. Type E poison gas costs 1,000 g.p. per dose and has an onset time of 1-3 rounds but a failed saving throw causes sleep for 1-6 turns instead of damage or death.

Contact Poison: Types and effects are equal to insinuative poison, but only require contact with skin, not injection into the bloodstream. Contact poison retains full effect for one month, drops to 50% effectiveness for up to six months, 25% effectiveness for up to a year, 10% effectiveness for up to 18 months, and after that has no effect. For contact poison Types A-C this lessening of effect equates to reduced damage, while for Type D it equates to a +2, +3, or +4 bonus on the saving throw. One dose is sufficient to coat one regular-sized object (such as a weapon hilt, doorknob, chest handle, or bejeweled item) or up to a dozen coins or gems.

Monster Venom: Onset time for most monster venom is 1-6 rounds, however for venomous monsters with 5 or more hit dice the onset time is one round. An assassin trained in poison use has a 50% chance of being able to recover usable venom from slain monsters: one dose from a size S monster, 1-3 doses from a size M monster, and 1-6 doses from a size L monster. This recovered venom can be used by the assassin as ingestive or insinuative poison, or may be processed in a lab into gas or contact poison. Unprocessed venom retains potency for one week, but once processed it retains potency as per normal poison of its mode. The Assassin’s Guild uses recovered monster venom to manufacture other types of poison and does not sell unprocessed monster venom, so it always must be recovered directly.

Poison Antidotes: Antidotes to ingestive, insinuative, gas, and contact poison may all be purchased at the same price per dose as poison of the appropriate type. While poisons can typically only be purchased from the local Assassin’s Guild, antidotes may also be purchased from regular alchemists. Each letter-type antidote is effective against the corresponding type of poison and all lesser types of the same mode (i.e. Type D ingestive antidote works against Type A-D ingestive poison but not Type E or any non-ingestive poison). Antidote can be taken before the poison is administered and remains effective in the character’s system for up to three hours, or can be taken after the poison has been administered but before it has taken effect in order to neutralize the effect. An antidote taken after the poison has already taken effect will not remove or reverse any damage or effect that has already been inflicted. One dose of antidote will counteract one dose of poison. Antidotes to monster venom are specific to the monster type (i.e. giant scorpion antidote is not effective against giant spider venom or vice versa) and very expensive - the cost is 1,000 g.p. per hit die of the corresponding monster type (e.g. 5,000 g.p. for a dose of anti-giant scorpion venom), halved if the purchaser is able to supply a sample of the appropriate type of venom to the alchemist who is preparing the antidote. 

Use of holy water: In addition to its other uses (as a spell component and against the undead) drinking a vial of holy water will delay the onset of any poison by 3-9 (2d4+1) turns, and will even temporarily revive a character who has already succumbed to poison if fed to them within one turn of the poisoning (cf. slow poison spell). This effect only works once per poisoning (i.e. drinking a second vial doesn’t increase the delay) and unholy water does not have this effect.

Heroic Legendarium By The Numbers

As I inch closer to completion of The Heroic Legendarium and have gotten to the point where the contents are pretty much finalized (I just need to finish writing up the details on a few of them) I thought it would be fun to take a look at what the final book is actually going to contain. I know I'm biased but I really do feel like this is going to be a significant enhancement to the Original Advanced Edition game, both by resolving a lot of problem areas that were left open when design priorities abruptly shifted gears in 1986, and by continuing to expand and develop the original creative vision of the game, adopting new content and ideas in a manner consistent with the conceptual and aesthetic framework of what came before. Now I just need to finish writing (and procure some art...)

New PC races: 4 (cat-blooded, dhampir, dragon-blooded, half-ogre)

New PC classes: 4 (mystic, savant, mountebank, jester)

Substantially revised PC classes: 5 (cavalier, barbarian, acrobat, monk, bard)

Expanded PC characteristics: 4 (social class, birth order, appearance, secondary skills)

New PC characteristics: 3 (joss, knacks & quirks, focused energy activation techniques)

New weapons: 19

New equipment items: 41

New spells: 171 (20 for mystics, 55 for savants, 96 for bards)

Essays and procedural expansions: 7 (hiring men-at-arms, wilderness adventures, adventures in other planes, combat procedure, common locations in towns, deities & clerics, territory development and domain management)

New magic items: 32

New monsters: 40

Topics of miscellaneous expansions, clarifications, and revisions: 22 (demi-human movement rates, halfling characteristics, wild elves, druids, weapon specialization, cantrips, thief skill specialization, high and low value currency types, container capacities, weapon characteristics, mounted combat, casting spells in armor, use of spell books and holy symbols, spell corrections, psionics, falling damage, missile fire, reach advantage, space requirements, racial preferences, random treasure in dungeons, monster characteristics)

Pages: 144 (est.)

Reminder: Plagiarizing other people's stuff = still not cool

A few months ago Gabor Lux wrote a blog post about how some other publishers had "borrowed" some of his creations. "Wow, that sucks," I thought. Alas, yesterday, another example showed up way closer to home.

Anthony Huso is a blogger and publisher at https://www.thebluebard.com whose material has always been of interest to me because he's one of the few "OSR" folks whose interests line up closely with mine, which is to say Gygax-style AD&D with a particular focus on the more complex and heavily-flavored material he produced in the 80s: the rules additions from Unearthed Arcana and the World of Greyhawk boxed set, the details on the planes buried within those books and the Monster Manual II, and so forth. He's one of the only other people I know of in the online D&D fandom scene who leans into the "Advanced" moniker to embrace and explore the complexity and distinctive flavor of that version of the game rather than trying to water down or pave over it.

So, it was with some interest that I saw a new post from him about the bard class, famously an oddball outlier that was consigned to an optional appendix in the rules and was intended to be replaced in its entirety in the second edition of AD&D that Gygax announced but never completed (just as it was in the second edition of AD&D that TSR did release in his absence). That blog post links to a separate page on his site with his detailed set of house rules for bards that includes, intriguingly, an entire new repertoire of 47 new spells for bards based on songs, replacing the AD&D bard's less flavorful use of druid spells. After all, my own set of AD&D house rules that I released in 2016 - the AD&D Companion (which I've temporarily pulled from distribution while I'm revising and expanding it into the OSRIC/OGL-compliant Heroic Legendarium - coming soon, I swear!) - does the same thing, inspired by the treatment of "Spellsongs" in Gary Gygax and Dave Newton's post-TSR rpg Dangerous Journeys: Mythus.

Looking at the list of bard songs on that page, I was immediately struck by several familiar spell names - Darting Dags Adagio, Arrow-storm Aire, Fogveil Barcarolle, Safe-sleep Aria, etc. These are all spellsongs from Gygax and Newton's Mythus Magick that I adapted into AD&D spells (i.e. completely rewrote from a substantially different game-system) in my Companion (and have modified further, including name-changes, for the Legendarium). Cool, I thought. He's doing the same thing I did. I wonder how his versions compare to mine. Or maybe it wasn't a case of parallel inspiration and he's just using my versions. That would be kind of uncool to do without notifying me or giving me some kind of acknowledgment or shout-out beyond a very non-specific and squishy "Many of the songs are my own creation, some might be edited versions of songs made by people on the internet.  I honestly don't remember." But hey, even if a dozen or so out of his 47 new spells are "borrowed" without acknowledgment, that's still okay. It shows he must have liked them enough to want to re-use them, right?

Well, when I took a closer look at the page today, I discovered that in fact it went just a bit further than that: as it turns out, all but 6 of there 47 "new" spells are lifted straight out of my book. A lot of them are renamed, some of them have some modifications or additions (e.g. his "Wild Chanson," renamed from my "Forestfriend Couplet," includes a d10 table of typical animals that can be summoned by the song), but for 41 of the 47 spells the bulk of the details and specific wording of the descriptions are a direct and exact copy and paste from my work. For example, here's my "Revitalize Paen" spell:

Revitalize Paen (Necromantic)

Level: 2 Components: V, S, M  

Range: 1" Casting Time: 1 round 

Duration: Special Saving Throw: None

Area of Effect: One subject per level of the caster 

Explanation/Description: This song restores physical vitality, enery, and alertness to as many subjects as the caster is able to affect. It negates magically-induced sleepiness, drowsiness, fatigue, and/or weakness and otherwise refreshes its listeners to an extent equal to a full night’s sleep after eight rounds of singing (though no damage is healed by this song, nor is the rest sufficient to allow spell casters to refresh their spells).

Compare to his "First Call Refrain":

First Call Refrain  (Necromantic) 

Level: 2                             Components: V, S, M
Range: 1"                          Casting Time: 1 round
Duration: Special                Saving Throw: None
Area of Effect: One subject per level of the caster

Explanation/Description: This song restores physical vitality, energy, and alertness to as many subjects as the caster can affect. It negates magically-induced sleepiness, drowsiness, fatigue, and/or weakness and otherwise refreshes its listeners to an extent equal to a full nightʼs sleep after eight rounds of singing—though no actual damage is healed by this song, nor is the rest sufficient to allow spell casters to refresh their spells).

And for completeness' sake here also is the original version from Gygax and Newton's Mythus Magick that I adapted:

Revitalize Paen Spell (Casting Grade III): 

Time: Special                          Other Heka Costs: 

Area: 1 subject/10 STEEP           R&D: Nil 

Distance: 1 rod                            Other: Nil 

E/F/M: Immediately upon completion of this activation singing, the Effect of the Spell's dweomer restores Physical vitality, energy, and alertness to as many subjects as the spell singer is able to affect thus. It negates magickally or otherwise Heka-induced sleepiness, drowsiness, fatigue and/or weakness. If the subject or subjects are not so affected, the vocalization of this Paen refreshes them to an extent equal to a full nights sleep, for singing equal to merely eight Battle Turns Time, although damage is not healed through this dweomer, nor is Heka regained thus.

Yes, I adapted my spell directly from this one, and tried to match its effects as closely as possible given the differences in rules and terminology between the two systems, even down to retaining the embarrassing misspelling of "Paean" as "Paen" (now corrected in the Legendarium draft!), but there is no chance that Huso independently adapted his spell from the same source and came up with exact same wording I did. And even if by some chance he did it once, he certainly did not do it over and over again, 41 out of 47 times (and I did my comparison quickly - the total might actually be 42 or 43 out of 47). There's really no other possible explanation than that this guy took material that was about 85% mine, made a few very minor edits and modifications to it, and posted it on his site claiming it as his own. Which is plagiarism, and a shitty thing to do, especially in a community as small as this one. Admittedly, I wasn't selling this material for money (though the revised version will be) and neither is he, but if anything I feel that makes proper crediting even more important, since peer-recognition and esteem is the only thing in this for either of us, and that's what he's illegitimately claiming by plagiarizing my work.

If he had reached out to me and said he wanted to revise my stuff and post it on his site with acknowledgment, I'd not only have happily agreed to it, I'd have been flattered - that one of the people whose work I admire and feel like is on the same stylistic and aesthetic page as me liked something of mine enough to want to use it. Something like “these spells are mostly adapted from work by Trent Foster (https://mystical-trash-heap.blogspot.com) whose site is well worth a visit for fans of the same flavor of AD&D discussed here” would have been totally fine with me, and made me really happy because it would've shown that the Gygax-flavored wing of the OSR was growing into a self-reinforcing community building on each other's work to not only preserve but expand that version of the game, which is what I've been hoping for ever since I started talking about the game with my fellow enthusiasts at Dragonsfoot back around the turn of the century.

But not only did he not do that, he didn't even have the decency to remain silent on the subject of stealing my stuff. Instead, he wrote "Many of the songs are my own creation, some might be edited versions of songs made by people on the internet.  I honestly don't remember." The first sentence is a flat-out lie: at most 6 out of 47 spells are his creation - everything else came from me (adapted from Gygax and Newton: with a key difference being that my book is very transparent and explicit about where and from whom I did my adapting) - and if the second sentence is true it makes the whole thing worse by adding such a flagrantly disrespectful insult on top of the injury. He obviously liked my stuff well enough to keep it, edit it, and post it as his own work, so he could at the very least have had the common decency to remember who he stole it from.

So, just as a reminder in case anyone else needs it: plagiarizing someone else's material and claiming it as your own is not cool. And plagiarizing someone else's material and claiming its as your own while also saying "I may have plagiarized a little bit of this from someone, but if so it's so unimportant I can't even remember" is really not cool. If you think something you're about to post and claim as your own work may have actually been stolen from someone else, either have the decency to check and make sure or don't post it. It's really not a difficult proposition.

EDIT: In the comments below Anthony responded with an apology, and has also appended one to his blog post and removed the link to the house-rule document with all the spells. That's a happy ending, and it's refreshing to see someone step up and admit a mistake like that rather than aggressively double-down on it the way people on the internet usually do. I'm glad he and his players are enjoying the spells and will take it as a de facto endorsement for The Heroic Legendarium :)

Another holiday treat

In the same spirit as my last post, here's another preview of content that will eventually appear in The Heroic Legendarium that seems to capture that creepy Halloween-season vibe. This was originally drafted as an encounter area in a dungeon,  but in Gygaxy fashion I realized I could generalize it into a class of monster. There's some conceptual weirdness here that all makes sense in my mind, but I might not have explained clearly. Comments letting me know if you are or aren't able to follow the description here are welcome.

MIRROR-FIEND

FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1-3
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 12
HIT DICE: 4+3
% IN LAIR: 100%
TREASURE TYPE: D
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1 – 4/1 –4/1-10
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Silver or magic weapons to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Very
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
SIZE: M
PSYCHIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil/nil
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: V/ 320 + 5/hp

These nightmarish creatures dwell in non-dimensional space and are only able to access the Prime Material Plane when two mirrors are set up in direct opposition to as to create an endless series of reflections. When such a conjunction is created there is a 5% chance per turn that a group of mirror-fiends will be drawn to it. If so, they will initially appear in the 12th reflection deep (which is typically the very limit of where any detail can be made out by an individual standing before the mirrors) of one mirror or the other, though if more than one mirror-fiend is encountered some may appear in each mirror. When they first appear, someone looking into the mirror only has a 5% chance to notice their presence, but each round they will move 1-3 panes closer, and with each pane the chance of noticing them increases by 10% (so they will always be noticed in the first or second reflection). Moving, covering, or breaking either mirror (or plunging the area into total darkness) will prevent the fiend from approaching, but if the mirrors are again aligned within one hour the fiends will still be there, in the pane they had last reached. Otherwise, they will wander off and a new check will be made to see if a different fiend appears when and if the mirrors are realigned.

While within the reflections, mirror-fiends cannot interact with the reflections of the characters and cannot be affected by individuals in the Prime Material Plane unless they are able to reach into either the Ethereal Plane or non-dimensional space. If the fiends reach the first reflection, they can climb through the mirror into the Prime Material Plane, where they can both attack and be attacked. They will typically attempt to grapple opponents - if both claws hit the victim suffers no damage but is held fast and can only escape by means of a successful bend bars check, or a successful counter-grapple or attack (both made at -2 “to hit” and, in the latter case, limited to a knife, dagger, or similarly small weapon as the character’s arms are held). The next round following a successful grappling attempt, the mirror-fiend will lift its victim and climb back into the mirror. The fiends will usually carry victims back to them lair in the 13th reflection - passing through 1-3 reflections per round - and will then devour them with their oversized and razor-sharp teeth.

Each reflection-space looks identical to the Prime Material Plane space being reflected except that (1) any reflected beings are only silent images that cannot be interacted with, and (2) the space only exists in the area that is included in the reflection plus a few feet beyond in each direction, beyond which is pure black non-dimensional space. Beings within the reflection only appear in the reflection in which they are located, not any of the others and can only be communicated with via telepathy or similar means. If the mirrors are taken out of alignment, covered, broken, or plunged into  while a character is within the reflection then that character is trapped in non-dimensional space unless he or she has some means of traveling across planes. If the character does not move and the reflection-pattern is recreated exactly then he or she will still be present in the reflection when it reappears. Otherwise, the character will be forever lost in non-dimensional space (with perhaps a miniscule random chance of wandering into another reflection-pattern, or perhaps into the back end of a portable hole).

Even if a character who has been dragged into the mirror manages to slay the mirror-fiend, they will still face a considerable challenge returning to the Prime Material Plane, for they cannot cross through mirrors (nor can they break or move them in the reflection-space). Unless the character has some means of traveling across planes, the only ways to get back to the Prime Material Plane are (1) to force or convince a mirror-fiend to carry them, or (2) to cover him or herself with the blood of a freshly slain mirror-fiend. Each mirror-fiend has sufficient blood (a nasty-smelling, sticky black ichor) to cover up to three human-sized individuals and their possessions, but the blood only retains its potency for three turns after the mirror-fiend is slain. A blood-coated individual can pass through one reflection-level per round. If the character wasn’t keeping count it may be a matter of trial and error how many reflection-levels they must pass through to reach the Prime Material Plane, and if there are no companions there to serve as an anchor, it may not be immediately obvious which layer is actually the correct one until they try to move beyond the reflection-area.

Mirror-fiends’ treasure is always stored in their lair on the 13th reflection-level. While this lair can be reached by following the reflections in both directions from the Prime Material Plane, there is only one lair, not two. If two or more characters have entered their lair from opposite directions at the same time they will end up in the same place and temporarily can return to the Prime Material Plane in either direction, unless all of them leave in the same direction.

Mirror-fiends communicate with each other telepathically and do not speak or make any noise.

Description: These creatures generally appear as a distorted, horrible version of the individual(s) looking into the mirrors in which they dwell - their flesh is pallid, their teeth and fingernails sharp, and their eyes featureless and black. Their true, natural form is as thin and gray-skinned humanoids with sharp talons, oversized jaws and pointed teeth, and stringy white hair, but this form is only likely to ever be visible to an individual with true seeing or similar ability.

Three seasonally-appropriate magic items

As work continues on the Heroic Legendarium one of the additions I've made to balance the material I cut is about 30 new magic items. Looking over these, I realized that at least a few of them are seasonally appropriate to Halloween, in a way that would both make for a nice post here to remind people that this blog still exists, and also a preview of things to come once the new book is released, of the 40% or so of the final page count that will be made up of new, original material that wasn't in the previous version. So, without any further ado:

Animated Puppet: This wooden puppet stands 30 inches tall, but can be folded to fit inside a 1’ x 1’ x 6” box, which is how it is most likely to initially be found. If detected, the puppet radiates an aura of alteration magic. A command word is carved onto the back of the puppet’s head in magical runes. If spoken, the puppet animates and will follow the orders of its master, with the following stats: MV 15, AC 4, HD 2+4, hp 20, #AT 2 or 1, dmg 1-2/1-2 or by weapon, SA hide in shadows 75%, SD +1 or better weapon to hit, immune to piercing and blunt damage and mind-affecting spells (but see below), susceptible to normal fire, +1 dmg/die from magical fire. The puppet can wield a knife or dagger in each hand with no penalty, may throw knives, daggers, darts, or throwing stars, or may wield a larger melee weapon (up to shortsword size) two-handed. The puppet follows the orders it is given unfailingly to the best of its ability, however, every time it is activated there is a cumulative 5% chance that it will become alive and free-willed, in which case its Intelligence score is determined by a roll of 2d6+6 and its alignment is determined as follows:

1 lawful good
2 neutral good
3 chaotic good
4 lawful neutral
5-6 neutral
7 chaotic neutral
8 lawful evil
9 neutral evil
0 chaotic evil

The now-living puppet has complete memories of its former pre-life, and depending on how its alignment corresponds with that of its owner it may continue to serve, may attempt to escape, or may plot to murder its former master. To any of those ends, the puppet may choose not to reveal its new status, as even after it comes to life the puppet does not breathe or require food or water, and can remain perfectly still for as long as it chooses.

Puzzle Box: Only six of these objects are known to exist in the multiverse. They were created in eons past by infernal beings, originally as protectors for their soul objects, but may hold other treasures by now. Each puzzle box is a 1’ cube of meteoric metal chased with intricate inlays and patterns - each box is unique in design and distinct in appearance from the others. All of them radiate alteration magic and strong evil if detected. 

The box is opened by twisting and shifting parts of the box in order to arrange the pattern in such a manner to unlock the box. Because of the complexity and intricacy of the pattern, finding the correct combination of moves is extremely difficult and requires three rolls of the character attempting to open the box’s intelligence score or less - the first rolled on 4d6, the second on 5d6, and the final roll on 6d6. A successful Remove Traps roll or Legend Lore (spell or bard ability roll) will reduce the total of one roll by 1d6 (roll all dice normally, then roll an additional 1d6 and subtract it from the total of the first roll). One week of study and research provides a -1 adjustment on one roll (up to a maximum -6 per roll). The box must be physically grasped by an intelligent creature in order to manipulate and attempt to open it, and cannot be operated by means of telekinesis, an unseen servant, a mechanical contraption, or any other means besides direct physical contact. The individual holding the box may follow directions from another as to how to manipulate the box, in which case the intelligence score of the character providing the directions is used in place of the character holding the box. However, if that individual is not operating under their own free will (i.e. if they have been charmed, possessed, hyptonitized, dominated, etc.) then an additional d6 is added to the roll to reflect the partial disconnect between that individual’s mind and body.

Failed attempts to open the box produce cumulative effects. The first failed roll produces no ill effect in itself. However, the second failed roll creates a feeling of foreboding and the character holding the box will have a  -1 penalty on their next saving throw). If that character makes another failed attempt to open the box, on each failed attempt starting with the third, a roll is made on the following table to determine what occurs:

1 the box shifts and resets (erasing all prior successes)

2 the box holder is struck by a poison needle (save at -4 or die)

3 the box releases an acidic cloud (6-36 damage to the holder, 2-12 to all within 10’; save vs breath for half damage)

4 The box-holder is teleported away (1-2 100-1000’ in a random direction; 3-4 100-1000 miles in a random direction; 5-6 to another (randomly determined) plane)

5 The box-holder’s soul is trapped within box and replaced in that character’s body by the soul of last victim trapped by the box

6 A Gate is opened to the box’s creator

Only a wish can reset the count of failed attempts (and even a wish will only provide one success and will not automatically open the box).

If successfully opened, the box reveals an extra-dimensional space of 10’ x 10’ x 10’ size. Anything (or anyone) stored within that space will have been held in a state of temporal stasis that is automatically broken when the box is opened, but reinstated on anything within the space once the box is resealed. The GM must determine what will be contained within the box when it is first discovered - whether a demon’s or devil’s soul object, a hoard of treasure, one or more imprisoned beings, or something else altogether.

Anyone who successfully opens a box once can open that box again without requiring any additional rolls (barring exceptional circumstances such as the individual having his or her memory wiped) but if such a character attempts to open a different puzzle box then the normal process of rolls must be followed again.

Skeleton Key: This device appears to be an ordinary skeleton key made out of bone and approximately six inches long. It radiates alteration and faint conjuration/summoning magic if detected, and also radiates an aura of evil. It will infallibly open any mechanical lock and is 90% likely to open any magical lock unless set by a wizard of 21st level or higher. It can be used once per day safely, but every use beyond that has a cumulative 1-in-6 chance that the portal or object opened will reveal not to its normal location or contents but instead is a gate to the Fourth Hell, where those whose sin was greed meet their punishment. The individual who opened the gate thus is subject to immediate judgment by the devil Belial. A lawful evil character who immediately swears fealty to Belial (or a lawful neutral or neutral evil character who is willing to change alignment and swear fealty) will be geased to perform some service to Belial in order to prove their worthiness. Any other character will be dragged down to Hell by a company of 1-4 bearded devils to face eternal torment unless they are able to defeat the devils in combat or have some other means of escape. In either case the key will disappear, having been reclaimed by its master to be re-seeded on some other world. 

Rulebook art?

What is the minimum necessary amount of art for an rpg rulebook? I know that (with the notable exception of the original "little black book" edition of Traveller) rpg rulebooks have traditionally included a lot of illustrations, and that certain types of products (bestiaries, adventures with scene-setting illustrations intended to be shown to the players, products aimed at beginners who aren't necessarily familiar with the genre and its tropes) need illustrations, but is this also true for a "standard" rulebook aimed at experienced players containing "crunch" info on classes, spells, magic items, and procedural stuff? Other than making the book more attractive to look at, are "filler" illustrations that just exist to set a mood (and fill white space) and aren't depicting anything practical really needed?

This isn't just idle navel-gazing, since I'm working on a product for publication that I am not capable of illustrating myself (at least up to a standard I would consider acceptable) so I'm trying to gauge how much art I'm going to end up having to buy (or beg) for this thing. A cover illustration is surely necessary, but what about the interior? RPG audiences are accustomed to seeing an illustration at least every 3-4 pages because that's what we've been given for the past 45 years, but if a book doesn't include that would it necessarily be seen as incomplete and unprofessional? Do I need little pictures of adventurer-types rappelling on cliffs in my section on wilderness adventuring, or a guy strumming a lute in the section on bard spells? And if I do need to include some interior illustrations, what is the minimum acceptable amount? Would 3 or 4 illustrations in a 128 page book be sufficient or if I'm going to have that few would I be just as well off not having any at all?

On the one hand I'd obviously prefer not to sink all of my potential dozens of dollars of profit (and more) into art, and I especially don't want to feel obligated to buy or accept a bunch of low-quality art because it's the only stuff I can afford, but on the other hand I think the text of this book is of high quasi-professional quality, and I'd like the presentation to be at a similar level if possible. If I'm going to expect people to pay real money for this then they should feel like their money was well spent, and I'm trying to get a sense of how important interior illustrations are to that determination.

I'm wondering how my 12 (!) readers feel about this. Given that a lot of good art isn't an option, what are folks' preferences between (a) no interior art at all; (b) a couple-three pieces of interior art; or (c) the book must be fully illustrated, even if the illustrations are of amateur quality?

The Heroic Legendarium

Most of the 11 readers of this blog are probably familiar with the "AD&D Companion," the book of uncollected AD&D material by Gary Gygax (mostly from Dragon magazine) + original material I wrote based on or inspired by Gary's unrealized ideas and post-TSR games, that I compiled a few years ago and distributed as a pdf. I put a lot of work into that document and was pretty proud of it, but due to the nature of its contents was always leery of distributing it too widely lest I invite a Cease & Desist Letter from Wizards of the Coast or the Gygax Estate, or both.

Those same 11 readers may also remember that there was some D&D rules content on this blog (some new races, spells, monsters, magic items, etc.) that is no longer here. The two are related.

A couple months ago I began revising the Companion to remove all of the content that was directly copied from a prior source - in some cases adapting it, in other cases leaving it on the cutting room floor - as well as editing the whole thing to become OGL-compatible via OSRIC, which consisted mostly of changing references from "DM" to "GM" and not referring to AD&D or any of its rulebooks by name, but also of substituting out a few other "protected IP" terms - such as names of particular off-limits monsters, planes, locations, and characters. [A key point worth mentioning here is that in those cases where the OSRIC rules differ from AD&D - either through that work's editors' legal caution or personal preferences - I have not adapted my work to their standards and in particular have not adapted any of the alternate/substitute versions of AD&D classes found in Dangerous Dungeons (though I have pulled some names of monsters and planes from there).] Doing all of that left about 2/3 of the material from the Companion - those parts I wrote or adapted myself - all safely OGL compliant. From there I started plugging in new material I'd written since the Companion was released, as well as revising and updating the contents to reflect a couple years of additional playtesting and feedback. Some of this material has previously been posted here, but much of it is new.

That effort is still ongoing (a lot of new material exists only in rough-draft or outline form and still needs to be expanded and polished) but I'm making good progress and it seems likely at this point that within a couple of months I will have a document at least the size of the original Companion (if not larger) that consists entirely of original content - some of it adapted from other games, the rest of it original to me, but inspired by the spirit and flavor of Gary Gygax's AD&D. I'm calling this new version The Heroic Legendarium (because I obviously can't use its old name) and I think it's going to be very useful to anyone who plays AD&D or OSRIC in the manner of the original Gary Gygax-penned rules and adventures - that it really will feel like something TSR might have put out had Gary remained in control and the company not shifted directions creatively, a way for those of us who still hold onto and prefer that original creative vision to continue in that direction rather than remaining frozen in amber.

A few items from the old version are gone (Roger Moore's very long and boring article from Dragon magazine about the Astral Plane has been deleted and adapted into 2-3 paragraphs of useful info, the monsters and magic items collected from TSR's 1984-85 modules are no longer included, and neither is the Hunter class) but I feel the new material that's been added in their place all still captures the same spirit more than makes up the difference. I'm also declaring everything in the book to be "OSRIC Reference Content," so that any other OSRIC-licensed product may use and refer back to it: if someone writing an OSRIC adventure wants to use one of the classes, races, monsters, magic items, or anything else from this book they will be able to. I'm probably kidding myself about the likelihood of anyone actually doing so, but it seems kind of cool that they'll at least have the option to.

The downside (for you, not for me) is that now that I will no longer under the cloud of potential C&Ds, I'm no longer going to give it away for free - it will go up on one or more web-stores (as pdf and/or POD) and I too may get to live the dream of earning dozens of dollars as an rpg publisher. I don't have an estimated release date yet because I'm still working on the text (and haven't even begun to tackle the subsequent challenges of transforming that text into a credible publishable product) but I've made sufficient progress, and am sufficiently excited, that I wanted to share this update with all 11 of you, to let you know what I've been up to during the last few months and what's to come in the future. I hope you'll stay tuned!