"A Relaxation of the Rule"

There was an editor's note inserted into "Thrills and Chills: Ice Age Adventures" that I thought worthy of its own separate post. The article's author, Arthur Collins, describes the rules tweaks he recommends for each of the standard AD&D races in order to better reflect the Pleistocene Epoch. When he gets to elves, he says the following:

Elves would be +1 with spear and sling (instead of bow and sword, neither having been invented). While all races would have discovered ritual fermented or narcotic potations, to the elves would belong the specialty of making wine from wild grapes. Also, only wood elves would be around in Ice Age times.

Take special note of that last sentence: "Also, only wood elves would be around in Ice Age times." Appearing in italics immediately after it is the editor's note I mentioned above. It reads:

Since the Players Handbook says all player character elves are considered to be high elves, abiding by this stipulation would make it impossible for player-character elves to exist in this environment. If the issue must be resolved, DMs will have to either ignore the author’s recommendation or choose to allow a relaxation of the rule.

What a bizarre editor's note. Dragon was regularly filled with rules options and variants that ran counter to what was written in the Players Handbook and elsewhere and I can't recall seeing a note like this. Why here in particular? More to the point, it's a relatively minor detail in an article that is explicitly intended to alter the standard rules of AD&D to accommodate an unusual time period. I'm genuinely baffled that anyone would care that, yes, technically, by the book, wood elves are not allowed for use as player characters in 1982 (a rule that would be overturned in Unearthed Arcana just a few years later). 

There's a reason TSR and AD&D were viewed negatively in a lot of gaming circles back then. 

The Articles of Dragon: "Thrills and Chills: Ice Age Adventures"

 

Quite often, the articles from Dragon magazine that I most remember are not those I ever made use of in my own games, but those that I didn't. There are probably many reasons why this is the case, but a big one is that, even in my youth, when I led a life relatively free of responsibility, I still had limited time. There were only so many games I could play at any given time and, inevitably, there'd be lots of ideas I'd have loved to make use of but didn't simply because I lacked the time to do so. To be fair, that's still a problem for me, even today. Consequently, these articles occupy by the same space as "the one that got away" does in the minds of fishermen – a might have been that continues to play on the imagination even years later.

That's certainly how I feel about "Thrills and Chills: Ice Age Adventures," which appeared in issue #68 (December 1982). Written by Arthur Collins, whom I consider one of the great unsung contributors to Dragon during the early to mid-1980s, this lengthy article offers ideas and rules modifications for playing AD&D during the Pleistocene era. Collins explains that he was inspired by Jean M. Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear, but, for me, the touchstone for Ice Age tales will always be Manly Wade Wellman's Hok the Mighty, which I first encountered in old copies of Fantastic my local library kept alongside issues of other SF and fantasy magazines.

For years, I'm not certain I could have explained exactly why I found the idea of Ice Age adventuring so compelling. Rereading the article in preparation for writing this post, though, I now think I understand it. For lack of a better word, the Ice Age is post-apocalyptic setting – not in the sense as it's usually meant, of course, but it's nevertheless a setting in which humanity (and other intelligent races) must struggle to survive in a very hostile world. Perhaps because I've never really lacked for anything in my life, I have a powerful fascination for settings in which characters have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or how they'll shelter themselves against merciless Mother Nature.

Collins spends a lot of time discussing the challenges of living during the Pleistocene, particularly when it comes to food. For example, he offers calculations on just how much game and grains a small tribe of Ice Age would need to gather during the course of a single year to stave off malnutrition. He even goes so far as to translate the meat into hit dice in order to quantify it in a way that makes sense within the context of AD&D. I have no idea how well his calculations would hold up to rigorous scrutiny, but they serve a very useful, practical purpose for referees and players alike, which is honestly what I want in an article like this. 

Collins also includes information on braving the weather of this period of history, though he doesn't go into quite as much detail as did David Axler in his "Weather in the World of Greyhawk." He devotes far more space to imagining what the standard AD&D races and monsters would be like in the Pleistocene world, which makes sense, I think. The key to articles like this is in providing enough new and variant rules to make the setting/time period feel distinct but not so many that employing them in play seems daunting. I feel Collins struck the right balance overall, though I do wish he'd take the opportunity to write a bit more about just what Ice Age adventures and campaigns might be like rather than just how they differ from more conventional AD&D play.

I'll conclude by saying that another aspect of this article that likely appealed to me as a young man was that it dared to stray even a little from the default faux medieval setting of Dungeons & Dragons (and indeed of fantasy more generally). While I was and remain a fan of using the Middle Ages as inspiration, I do find myself wishing gamers would occasionally try something else occasionally, whether based on a real world historical period or something completely imaginary. Fantasy need not be so cramped in its vision.

"Roleplaying Games Aren't About Roleplaying"

Some of you are no doubt familiar with Ben Milton's Questing Beast YouTube channel, which is largely devoted to reviewing recent old school(ish) RPG products. Every now and then, though, Ben also posts videos in which he muses about an aspect of roleplaying games that interests him. His newest video belongs to this latter category and somewhat provocatively proposes that "roleplaying games aren't about roleplaying." Here's the video for those of you who haven't seen it. The video's not long and is well worth your time.

For the most part, I agree with Ben's position, in large part because I've observed what he's talking about in various campaigns I've refereed and played in over several decades. Broadly speaking, it's been my experience that there are two approaches to playing a character in an RPG campaign. 

1. The first approach is closest to what I suspect most of us instinctively imagine when we think of "roleplaying" – a kind of acting, in which the player speaks as his character and identifies with him by saying things like "I attack the orc" or "I check the wall for secret doors."
2. The second approach is much more distant, in which the player treats his characters almost as a token or playing piece, as in a boardgame. "My character attacks the orc" or "My character checks the wall for secret doors." 
3. There's also is a middle ground between these two, with the player vacillating between each extreme, depending on the circumstances.

What I find interesting is that, when I'm acting as the referee, I tend to switch between the two approaches as well. For example, in my House of Worms campaign, there are non-player characters I consider important and whom I fully roleplay, speaking in-character and giving them unique mannerisms. Less important NPCs, like Sákbe road guards or shopkeepers, don't warrant this sort of treatment and they're closer to the "token" approach. I switch back and forth between these two approaches freely, often within the same session, and it's never really been a problem. The players understand and accept what I'm doing without any difficulty.

That said, there are occasions when an NPC takes on a life of his own, almost completely against my will. I'll create this character, intending for him to be unimportant or insignificant, and then – somehow – he becomes more than that, right down to having his own unique voice. As a general rule, even when I've got a strong idea of what a non-player character is like, I don't do funny voices. I'm not an actor and, truth be told, I feel self-conscious about engaging in that kind of play. Despite this, sometimes an NPC will simply start speaking through me, funny voice and all. It's not common, but it happens often enough that I thought it worth mentioning.

 All of this is to say that, as a pastime and entertainment, roleplaying is pretty strange. There's no single right way to approach it. Moreover, it's quite possible, probably even, that not all of the people involved in an RPG campaign might be playing it the same way. Indeed, some people might even change how they play it from session to session or even within the same session, shifting between the two approaches I outlined above. For a game, that's downright unusual, since, as Ben points out in his video, most games require that the participants are engaging with it in the same or very similar ways. RPGs are not like that and I think that's fascinating.

(I suspect I'll have more to say about this topic, but I think this is a good starting point to begin the discussion.)

Retrospective: Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures

I'm a sucker for historical fantasy – or even just fantasy that's heavily inspired by a particular historical period, society, or culture. That's one of the reasons I so eagerly awaited the release of Oriental Adventures in 1985: I saw it as an opportunity for Dungeons & Dragons (or AD&D) to finally present monks and ninjas and samurai within a more suitable context than the riotous goulash in which the game has existed since its inception. In my experience, most (A)D&D players never cared about this as much as I did, even back in the day, but such concerns grew increasingly important to me, especially during my teen years.

Consequently, when TSR announced that it'd be giving the Oriental Adventures treatment to the myths, legends, and folklore of the Middle East, I was pretty excited. Though Bulfinch's Mythology didn't include a section on these tales, I was nevertheless quite familiar with the stories of A Thousand and One Nights, not to mention the charming films featuring Sinbad the Sailor I'd seen as a child. And course D&D had long included monsters like the djinn, efreet, ghoul, and roc, in addition to the flying carpet and ring of wishes, all of which have their origin in Middle Eastern mythology.

Entitled Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures, this 158-page softcover was written by Jeff Grubb with the assistance of Andria Hayday. Grubb was a powerhouse designer at TSR at this time, having previously created Marvel Super Heroes, shepherded the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set to publication, and conceived Spelljammer, among many other influential projects. He brings the same imagination and enthusiasm for Al-Qadim that he did for its predecessors, resulting in a book of which I remain very fond, despite certain shortcomings. 

In the book's introduction, Grubb acknowledges that Arabian Adventures takes inspirations from three different versions of Arabia. The first is the Arabia of history, whose people, culture, and history spread from the Atlantic Ocean to India as a result of the Islamic conquests starting in the 7th century. The second is the Arabia of myth and legend. Finally, there is the Arabia of Hollywood, like the aforementioned Sinbad movies. Of the three, the second and third are the most important to Al-Qadim, which is not intended to be historically or culturally accurate but is, echoing the foreword to OD&D, "strictly fantasy."

Like Oriental Adventures before it, Arabian Adventures is not a stand-alone game but rather a supplement to AD&D, then in its second edition. Its purpose is to provide new and alternative rules for use with 2e rather than being complete in itself. Thus, for example, we get a variety of new character kits, as well as new equipment, nonweapon proficiencies, and spells. All of these are intended to differentiate the inhabitants of Zakhara, the Land of Fate, from those coming from more Western European-inspired locales, just as OA had done for the peoples of Kara-Tur. Al-Qadim is decidedly not generic in its presentation, but instead places everything within a very specific cultural and social context derived from the three sources Grubb mentioned in his introduction.

By and large, the end result is excellent, better in some ways than Oriental Adventures in my opinion. The character kits – a concept that didn't exist at the time OA was published – do a very good job of tailoring AD&D's existing character classes for an Arabian-inspired setting. While most of them are interesting and flavorful, the ones I most liked were those that covered roles uncommon or unknown in other settings, like the barber, beggar-thief, and merchant-rogue. Likewise, the new spells and proficiencies went a long way toward making a Zakharan character feel distinct from his counterparts in other realms.

Where Al-Qadim falls down is its being branded with and tied to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. This is not the fault of Grubb or Hayday, nor does it strongly weaken the quality of their work. In the early 1990s, TSR was very keen on tying all of its AD&D products to one or more of its existing settings. Since the Realms were TSR's "go-to" AD&D setting, the company plugged almost everything into it, including Zakhara (just as had previously been done with Kara-Tur). It's a pity, because I think Zakhara would have been much more interesting had it simply been its own thing, divorced from the rest of TSR's AD&D settings of the time.

One way that this impacts Arabian Adventures in a negative way is that we don't get any unique demihuman or nonhuman playable races. All the standard AD&D races, like dwarves, elves, and halflings, are present in Zakhara and, aside from the usual game mechanics associated with them (ability bonuses, special abilities, etc.), they're really little different from Zakharan humans, sharing the same customs, beliefs, and so on. There's nothing strictly wrong with this approach, but Oriental Adventures gave us several new nonhuman races to play and I think doing so went a long way toward making Kara-Tur feel distinct. I would have liked to have seen the same for Al-Qadim.

The other "flaw" in Al-Qadim is that it's pretty clearly meant to be an alternate Players Handbook. Unlike Oriental Adventures, there's not much in the way of referee material included in this book. There are no new monsters or magic items, for example, and while both those omissions would eventually be dealt with in follow-up products – several, in fact! – their lack in this book was something I felt pretty keenly at the time. I would have preferred something a bit more expansive in its content, but, as I said at the beginning of this post, Arabian Adventures isn't a stand-alone product and, given TSR's approach to publishing AD&D at the time, there was probably little to no chance it would have included such material when it could more profitably be sold in later releases.

All that said, I really like Al-Qadim and regret that, like so many other AD&D products with which TSR flooded the market in the '90s, I never got the chance to make much use of it. One of my friends was a big fan of the line and purchased a lot of the later material, including the Land of Fate boxed set. From what I could tell, all of the setting's support material was of a very high quality – imaginative and fun, with plenty of great ideas to aid the Dungeon Master in refereeing his very own version of A Thousand and One Nights. It's one Second Edition's better supplements and deserves more love than it generally gets.

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "Weather in the World of Greyhawk"

Issue #68 (December 1982) of Dragon was the first issue I ever received as part of my subscription to the magazine, though I'd read it nigh-religiously for some time beforehand. Due to an error on the TSR periodicals department, I received two copies of every issue for the next twelve months, one addressed to me at my actual address in Baltimore, Maryland and the other addressed to me in Baltimore, Mississippi, though the zip codes were the same for each (which is why they both arrived in my mailbox). Having two copies was quite useful to me, since it gave me the freedom to chop up and otherwise disassemble one copy while keeping the other pristine for my collection.

In any event, issue #68 included an article by a writer called David Axler entitled "Weather in the World of Greyhawk." Though presented as an unofficial supplement to The World of Greyhawk, the article was eventually canonized by being included in the 1983 boxed set version of the setting. Axler's article was a well-done early example of what would become a staple of Silver Age Dragon articles: a system for introducing "realism" into one's campaign. In this case, it was weather that got the "realistic" treatment, with tables for determining temperature, precipitation, and cloudiness, in addition to discussions of lunar phases, high winds, and "special weather phenomena," such as wind storms and tsunamis.

In truth, Axler's rules are pretty simple to use and presented intelligibly so that even my 13 year-old self could use them with relative ease. And use them I did. Back in 1982, I was all about adding doses of "realism" into my AD&D campaign where I could and, since this article had done all the hard work for me, why wouldn't I use it? Eventually, though, I stopped doing so, because, easy though it might have been to use, I rarely found that knowing just how much rain had fallen or the effects of high humidity added much to my adventures. The extra "realism" serve no purpose other than satisfying my adolescent sense that a good DM should know these sorts of things about his campaign setting. I abandoned that way of thinking a long time ago and I don't think my campaigns have suffered for it.

Naked Sword

I saw this advertisement in issue #89 of Dragon (September 1984):

Since I can find no evidence of its existence, I assume that it never came out. Is that correct? Does anyone by chance know anything about this? From the scant information here, I can only assume that it was a warrior-centric counterpart to Thieves' Guild, but it's hard to say for sure.

Traveller Starter Pack

In the coming weeks, I plan to write a lot more about Traveller, both because it's a roleplaying game I know, love, and play – and because it's a roleplaying game that doesn't get enough attention in my opinion. To that end, I'd like to direct your attention to the Traveller Starter Pack, available for free through the Mongoose Publishing website. 

The Pack consists of PDF versions of the 72-page Traveller's Explorer Edition and two complete adventures, Stranded and Death Station. The Explorer's Edition is a pared down version of the Traveller Core Rulebook, providing everything you need to play the two adventures. The adventures themselves are updated versions of two Classic Traveller scenarios, Marooned/Marooned Alone and (of course) Death Station, the latter of which is among my favorite Traveller adventures of all time. 

The idea behind the Starter Pack is to give people interested in Traveller an opportunity to read and make use of the current edition of the rules without the need to spend any money. It's a great idea in my opinion, which is why I'm sharing this information here. I'd love to see Traveller more widely played, so anything that helps in that endeavor is good in my book. If you're curious about Traveller, the Starter Pack is a terrific, no-cost way to investigate it further.

Dramatis Personae

A commenter to my recent post about the coming end of my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign asked to know a little bit about each of the characters depicted in this illustration by Zhu Bajiee.

I thought that was a pretty good idea for a post, but I thought I'd expand upon the question a bit and talk about most of the player characters who've appeared in the campaign since it began in March 2015. Doing so isn't just a fitting commemoration of these characters but also reveals something of their range of personalities, a range that's played a huge role in ensuring the campaign for all these years.

I'm going to start with the six characters depicted in the illustration above, since they're the originals who kicked off the campaign. The figure on the bottom left, wearing skull face paint is Znayáshu hiNokór (played by Barry Blatt). Znayáshu is a lay priest (magic-user) of Durritlámish with a keen interest in astrology. He originally made his living creating horoscopes before he became involved in the schemes of his clan-mates. His fiancée, Tu'ásha hiNarkóda, of the Mourning Rock clan of Thráya, died before the two could wed – but that didn't stop Znayáshu, who had her corpse carefully preserved and later reanimated as a Shédra, a form of intelligent undead (who then became a secondary player character). 

Next to Znayáshu is Ssúri hiNokór (played by Ron Edwards). A ritual priestess of Durritlámish with a keen knowledge of dance and acrobatics, Ssúri makes use of these talents in contexts outside her temple, such as when facing off against enemies in battle. Sharp-tongued and no-nonsense, she regularly acted as the public face of the characters, often with boldness equal to her actions in combat. 

Standing in the middle, attired in the robes of a priest of Sárku is Keléno hiNokór (played by Doyle Tavener). Keléno prefers to keep his nose in books when he is able (which, sadly, isn't as often as he'd like). He developed an interest in demonology, after successfully – and unintentionally – summoning dread Srükárum to fight against an army of Ssú in the Dry Bay of Ssu'úm. Keléno has married three times in the course of the campaign, firstly to Hmásu hiTéshku, a priestess of Belkhánu, with whom he shares many interests. Here's a depiction of their wedding, also by Zhu Bajiee.

Standing above Keléno is Aíthfo hiZnáyu (played by Stephen Wendell). He's an adventurer who's the lone member of the original group not to worship Sárku or Durritlámish, instead being devoted to Ksárul. Aíthfo is the groups tactician, commanding an ever-changing group of mercenaries and men-at-arms with great skill. He's also a sea captain who hopes to travel the length and breadth of Tékumel in search of “cash and prizes." During the time when the characters were in Linyaró, Aíthfo acted as its imperial governor, though he much preferred exploring the uncharted Achgé Peninsula to overseeing the colony.

The large bald fellow wielding a sword and spear is Grujúng hiZnáyu (played by Dyson Logos). He's an older, ex-legionnaire (formerly of the 6th Imperial Medium Infantry) who found life in Sokátis dull and so travels around with his clan-mates in search of excitement (and good fishing spots). His dream of one day commanding a legion of his own was fulfilled (somewhat) during the characters' time in Linyaró, when he was placed in charge of the colony's military. Mostly, though, he protects the others from anyone who'd do them harm.

Finally, on the far right is Jangáiva hiTlélsu (played by Jason Ermer). A temple guard of Sárku, Jangáiva gained the patronage of an officer of the Omnipotent Azure Legion, who is testing her for possible formal induction into that august force. During her travels outside of Yán Kór, she obtained a demonic hammer that calls itself “Little Sister” and revels in destruction. Jangáiva does her best to keep the weapon under control.

Of these six characters, two – Ssúri and Jangáiva – dropped out of the campaign within the first year or so. Znayáshu also left earlier this year, leaving only Aíthfo, Grujúng, and Keléno of the originals. However, shortly before the departures of Ssúri and Jangáiva, another character joined: Huné hiNokór (played by Scott Kellogg). Here's an illustration of him by Zhu Bajiee.

Huné is a sickly, scheming priest of Hrü'ü, with a penchant for indulging in dangerous psychedelics. He is not a member of the House of Worms clan, but rather than much more prestigious Dark Flame clan. He joined the other characters in part due to a belief in a common ancestry, as evidence by his lineage name (hiNokór). In addition to his other pursuits, Huné had a keen interest in the Hirilákte Arena and liked to acquire unique gladiators – "freaks," in his words – to sponsor in the fights there. Huné eventually departed the campaign.

Joining not long after Huné was Nebússa hiTéshku (played by Kevin Brennan). A clan-cousin of Keléno's first wife, Hmásu, Nebússa is a member of the Omnipotent Azure Legion and a worshipper of Ksárul. A master of politics and intrigue, he's had a strong effect on the campaign, ever since his first appearance. He eventually married the Lady Srüna hiVázhu, an aristocratic scion of the Iron Helm clan of Mekú. Here's another illustration of the happy couple by Zhu Bajiee.

In time, Keléno acquired an apprentice by the name of Kirktá hiNokór (played by Alex Klesen), a young scholar priest of Durritlámish, who had formerly been a priest of Belkhánu, as well as a member of another clan (Red Sword). While it is not unknown for someone to change his temple affiliation, it's quite unusual for a priest. Changing clans is more unusual still, yet Kirktá did both. In time, the reasons for this strange state of affairs became known – Kirktá is a hidden heir to the Petal Throne – and this secret has proven an important element of the last couple of years of the campaign and, perhaps, its ending as well.

Znayáshu, too, acquired a colleague in the form of Chiyé hiNokór, a magician devoted to Sárku. Chiyé is a schemer and a social climber, hoping to acquire not just knowledge but also political power. For a time, he worked to create a marital alliance between himself and the Livyáni colony of Nuróab, but that unfortunately came to nought. Now, he's more interested in discovering the secret of repairing and manufacturing eyes, the devices of the Great Ancients that enable the user to employ all manner of incredible powers.

The most recent addition to the campaign is Qurén hiQolyélmu (played by Brett Slocum). Qurén is a scholar of antiquities and among the very few humans with a knowledge of the nonhuman Mihálli language. Nominally in the employ of Prince Rereshqála, a revealed heir to the Petal Throne, he joined the House of Worms characters on their planned expedition to some Mihálli ruins to the northeast, with the purpose of acting as a translator. However, events did not go quite as planned and he now finds himself with a front row seat for the upcoming Kólumejàlim, in which his new companions may play a significant role.

All of the foregoing characters played in the House of Worms campaign for at least a year. There are three others who played for less and I've not included them here, since their lasting impact is smaller. Presently, there are seven active characters: Aíthfo, Chiyé, Grujúng, Keléno, Kirktá, Nebússa, and Qúren. It's worth noting that, with the exception of Aíthfo, whose situation is unusual, there have been no player character deaths. To some degree that's because the characters avoid combat whenever possible, but it's also just a matter of luck. For a time, I refereed a second Empire of the Petal Throne campaign in parallel with this one and all but one of its starting characters died (and many more besides). Apparently, Lord Sárku smiles upon them, knowing that, in the end, he will claim them all anyway. Why not grant them a few more days upon Tékumel until then?

Endings

Some of you may recall that, back in August, I opined about the coming end of my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign. Three months later, the reality of that ending is becoming more apparent. I won't say that it's imminent, but it's very much on the horizon. If I had to guess, I suspect things will likely wrap up sometime early in 2025. Sadly, I don't think it'll continue far enough into the new year in order to reach the campaign's tenth anniversary (on March 6. 2025), but them's the breaks. While we human beings seem to like nice, round numbers, real life doesn't always cooperate.

The campaign began with six player characters, depicted in this illustration drawn by Zhu Bajiee.

Within the first year or so of play, two of the original six departed (for scheduling reasons), but were quickly replaced by two others, one of whom still plays and has become one of the campaign's stalwarts. In the years since, many other players have come and gone. By my count, there have been fourteen players involved in the House of Worms campaign, not counting "special guests" who sat in for a session or two here and there. Of those, seven still play, including three of the original six.

The campaign never had an overarching "story." Instead, it was always pretty open-ended, with the characters wandering across Tékumel according to their own wishes and those of the patrons they've served. Initially, the characters were all minor members of the House of Worms clan, doing the bidding of their elders while they tried to make names for themselves and to acquire, in the words of Aíthfo hiZnáyu, "cash and prizes." This set-up made it very easy to referee, since the players drove most of the action, it also afforded them the opportunity to travel the length and breadth of Tékumel (and beyond) in pursuit of their goals.

That open-endedness does, however, make it harder to tie things up in a pretty bow and say, "Done!" That's a thought that's occupied my thoughts for a while now: how does one "properly" end a campaign? Most RPG campaigns, I suspect, just stop rather than conclude in any satisfying way. That's honestly fine. For House of Worms, though, I felt some obligation to do something more, something that felt like it did justice to the nearly a decade's worth of roleplaying my players and I have engaged in. But how to do that?

Though the campaign doesn't have a "story" in the literary sense, there is a thread that's been running through it since fairly early on: the characters' quest for status and influence within the Empire of Tsolyánu. To that end, the characters have frequently worked for, opposed, or stumbled into the intrigues of the various heirs to the Petal Throne. In addition, one of their number, Kirktá, has also been revealed to be an heir. This revelation has, until recently, played a fairly minor – but recurring – role in the campaign. Now that it looks like things are starting to wind down, I decided it might be a good time to make full use of Kirktá's status as an imperial scion.

In our most recent session, the characters learned that Hirkáne Tlakotáni, 61st Seal Emperor of Tsolyánu, "the Stone Upon Which the Universe Rests," has fallen gravely ill and is not expected to survive. The various factions within the Imperium, plotting quietly in the shadows in preparation for the inevitable Kólumejàlim, are at last ready to make their moves, each falling behind one of the potential candidates for the Petal Throne. Since Kirktá is one of those potential candidates, the characters will soon find themselves involved in this world-historical event, whether they like it or not.

Thus, the final sessions of the House of Worms campaign will focus on the choosing of a new emperor (or empress). In the wake of Hirkáne's death, all candidates for the throne must present themselves to the Omnipotent Azure Legion in Avanthár and announce whether they wish to partake in the Kólumejàlim or if they will "renounce the Gold" and retire to a safe imperial sinecure. Before that happens, though, there will be much plotting and intrigue, as each candidate rallies his supporters, seeks allies, and tries to dissuade other contenders to renounce their claims. It's into this maelstrom that the characters will fling themselves, the conclusion of which will result in both a new emperor and an end to our campaign.

Not a bad way to end things, don't you think?

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "The Astral Plane"

A Dragon article written by Roger E. Moore and with an introduction by E. Gary Gygax, where he states that "[this] is about as 'official' as is possible at this time?" For my 13 year-old self, this was as good as an article could get. Appearing in issue #67 (November 1982), "The Astral Plane" was a massive effort on the part of Moore to provide comprehensive rules for adventuring on the Astral Plane. It included discussions of astral encounters, astral travel, the Psychic Wind, movement, combat, and alterations to spells and magic items. There was also an accompanying adventure called "Fedifensor" (written by Allen Rogers) intended to be used in conjunction with Moore's rules. Taken together, it was very impressive package that solidified my sense that, aside from Gary Gygax, Roger E. Moore was one of a handful of Dragon writers whose stuff I could safely assume would be good.

We didn't do a lot of plane hopping in my old AD&D campaigns. I do recall a few visits to the Nine Hells and the Abyss and I suspect the characters did so by means of the Astral Plane on at least one occasion, but, if so, these trips weren't particularly memorable. Ultimately, that's the main problem with "The Astral Plane" – even with all the clever rules modifications that Moore came up with, the place is still deadly dull. That's not Moore's fault, because he was trying to work within the parameters laid down by AD&D up till that point and those parameters paint a rather uninspiring picture. Sure, the Githyanki hang out on the Astral Plane, but, other than that, what else makes this place cool? Why would anyone want to go there for any length of time? "The Astral Plane" doesn't answer that question and nothing in the AD&D books at the time provided a better answer.

That said, I did like the fact that Moore postulates that other planes will operate according to different laws than those of the Prime Material. That's something I strong advocate and think is essential to the feeling of "We're not in Kansas anymore" other planes should evoke. I also think, as was true in Queen of the Demonweb Pits, that "The Astral Plane" goes overboard in the level of specificity about how character abilities, spells, and magic items operate differently, but that's a criticism of implementation not of concept. So, in retrospect, I still like this article a great deal, even if I wouldn't use it as written in any game I am running now. It's still a great idea mine and a useful foundation for an approach to handling weird otherworlds in your D&D campaign.

REVIEW: Wulfwald

A common early complaint about Dungeons & Dragons was that the game's three little brown books failed to provide much in the way of a cultural or social context for its "fantastic medieval wargames campaigns." Correcting this perceived shortcoming was part of the impetus behind the creation and publication of several early RPGs that appeared in OD&D's wake, most notably Empire of the Petal Throne, Chivalry & Sorcery, and even RuneQuest to some extent. All of these games (and others) place much greater emphasis on the ways that culture and society not only intersect with but can offer a justification for adventuring than Dungeons & Dragons did at the time or, in fact, has ever done. 

I was reminded of this when I started reading Wulfwald, Lee Reynoldson's superb roleplaying game set in a world inspired by the folklore and legends of pagan Anglo-Saxon England. I say "inspired by," because, as Reynoldson explains, "Wulfwald is not set on our Earth," but rather is set on "another world," where "the myth and magic that was superstition in Earth's history is a real, if rare, force." As a game, Wulfwald should be almost immediately familiar to anyone who's played D&D or one of its descendants – not merely in terms of its rules but also in terms of its play. All the usual activities you expect in Dungeons & Dragons, whether they be delving in the dark, fighting monsters, or looting treasure, are supported in Wulfwald, but are given a new and compelling context.

Before proceeding further, I'd like to elaborate briefly on Wulfwald's relationship with D&D and its rules. Wulfwald is not "complete" game in the sense of including all the rules you need to play yet another retro-clone of Dungeons & Dragons. Reynoldson assumes you already know what hit points, armor class, and saving throws are, for example. When these and other familiar concepts come up in the text, there's no explanation of them or how they work, except when Wulfwald offers a new take on them that deviates from the way anyone who's played D&D generally understands them. I don't see this as a problem, but it might be surprising or even off-putting to those used to the approach adopted by most other old school D&D-derived games. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to Wulfwald itself. The game comes in a thin, sturdy box, inside of which are five staplebound A5 booklets and a cloth(!) map depicting the land of Wulfwald, as drawn by the late, great Russ Nicholson. The booklets have a clean, simple layout that's easy on the eyes. The covers of each booklet features artwork by Katie Wakelin, while the interior art is done by Stefano Accordi. I like the cover art much better than the interior art, but all the illustrations evoke the dark, early medieval period in which the game is rooted. Nicholson's cartography, of course, is gorgeous and a joy simply to look at and wonder at its details.

The premise of Wulfwald is that all the characters are "wolfsheads," who are outsiders and outlaws who exist outside the law's protection. Their status means that anyone can harm or kill them without fear of retribution. To avoid this fate, the game assumes the characters have banded together in the service of a Thegn or warrior-lord and act as his service. In exchange for such service, the wolfsheads can expect gifts of beauty and value that reflect their newfound honor and status within the setting. This set-up is a clever way to recontextualize adventurers, making them simultaneously rough outsiders but also having a place, albeit an unusual one, in society. 

Unlike "normal" D&D, Wulfwald has only three levels, corresponding (more or less) to the veteran, hero, and superhero levels from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. However, there is a rules appendix that provides for a greater number of levels for those referees and players who prefer them. Characters belong to one of four kindreds: Eorðwerod (Men), Ælfcynn (Elves), Dweorgas (Dwarves), and Réðealingas (Outlanders). Each kindred has three unique classes, each belonging to one of three archetypes: warrior, skirmisher, and wizard. For example, Men have the Scildmægden (warrior), Sperebróga (skirmisher), and Scinnlæca (wizard), while Elves have the Wuduheald (warrior), Scytta (skirmisher), and Gealdor Sangere (wizard). All classes have their own advancement tables, as well as unique results for criticals and fumbles. Warriors also have an ability called "heroic effort," an unusual feat of arms that can be employed once an adventure.

An aspect of Wulfwald that could, I imagine, discourage some potential buyers is its regular use of Old English, complete with odd letters like æ or ð. Speaking as an old Tékumel hand, I know that a lot of people don't like words that require the use of a pronunciation guide to say properly. I can only say that Old English, once you know the rules, isn't all that difficult to pronounce. Moreover, its use in Wulfwald goes a long way toward investing the setting with a distinct flavor. In many cases, the text does provide alternate, contemporary words to use instead of the Old English ones for those who find the others a bit too flavorful, but I much prefer the Old English ones. Your mileage may vary.

Flavor is a big part of what separates Wulfwald from "standard" D&D, even if it makes use of all the expected elements of the game, like magic, monsters, and treasure. I've already noted that each of the character classes is distinctive. The same holds for the systems of magic some of them use. Wulfwald includes four different systems, from runic fateweaving and spell singing to the Forbidden Path and wicce cræft. Likewise, magic items are all unique items, each with its own history and powers. Monsters, too, include a fair number of unique beings, like the draca (dragons) and eotenas (giants).

"Unique" is a word I've used a lot in this review and with good reason. What sets Wulfwald apart from many old school fantasy products is that it's very specific in not just its inspirations but also in the way it's chosen to make use of them. While I'm on record for saying there's nothing wrong with vanilla fantasy, there's also, in my opinion, a distinct pleasure that comes from roleplaying according to the culture, customs, and beliefs of a particular society, whether real or imaginary. That's why my House of Worms campaign has been so enjoyable: the players get to be, if only for a little while, people who inhabit another world with its own rules and ways of looking at things. This is something Wulfwald does very well, too.

The game's five books cover character generation, magic (including magic items and religion), the setting of Wulfwald (including a sample scenario and skirmish battles), monsters, NPCs, and more. Taken together, they provide enough for the referee to kick off a campaign while still leaving lots of room for individual creativity. Wulfwald isn't Tékumel or Glorantha; there isn't an encyclopedia's worth of information to digest. Rather, the game's five books do a good job of painting a compelling big picture with plenty of room to add detail here or a splash of color there. It strikes a nice balance between too much and too little. In short, it inspires, which is exactly what I want out of a product like this.

If you're looking for a well presented new setting for your favorite D&D-alike that draws on real world folklore and history in a fun way, I'd highly recommend yout take a look at Wulfwald. It's one of the best things I've bought this year.

"Don't Be Another Statistic!"

Since my Retrospective on the video game Pitfall! was so well received, I found myself delving a bit deeper into the history of the game. In doing so, I was reminded of several things related to it that I had long forgotten, starting with this advertisement that appeared in various magazines around the time of the game's release.

As advertisements go, this one is pretty well done. I especially like the depictions of Pitfall Harry submerged in a tar pit and being eaten by a crocodile. 

Speaking of advertisements, the television ads for the game famously feature a young Jack Black in his first acting role:

Pitfall! was successful enough that Pitfall Harry (along with his niece, Rhonda, and pet mountain lion) made an appearance as part of the CBS cartoon, Saturday Supercade, in 1983, alongside other video game celebrities like Mario, Donkey Kong, and Q*bert.

Yes, the 1980s were a weird time.

Order versus Chaos

As I mentioned previously, one of the highlights of this year's Gamehole Con was attending Marc Miller's panels, where he talked about Game Designers' Workshop and the many games it published, including my beloved Traveller. During one of these panels, the subject of Twilight: 2000 came up. Given that I've been refereeing an ongoing T2K campaign for just shy of three years now (albeit using the current Free League edition of the game rather than either of the GDW ones), this immediately caught my attention. I was especially interested to hear what Marc had to say about the origin of the game, as well as the path its development took.

According to Marc, GDW had long wanted to produce a roleplaying game in which the players would take on the roles of active duty military personnel. GDW was, after all, a wargames company first and foremost and many of its employees, including Miller himself, had served in the military, so it seemed like a natural fit. However, there was some concern that playing in a military environment, with a strict hierarchy of ranks and a chain of command, might prove, if not stifling, then at least unduly restrictive to the actions of most players. Anyone who's played RPGs for any period of time knows all too well how much players dislike being told what to do.

That's where the idea of setting the game amidst of World War III came in. The designers reckoned that, in such a tumultuous environment, some of the normal strictures of active duty military life could be plausibly loosened, thereby affording players a bit more freedom of action than they might otherwise be given in the armed services. To ensure this further, GDW contrived the starting situation of the game so that the player characters were survivors of a larger unit that had been defeated and its forces scattered to the four winds. Trapped behind enemy lines and severed from both their supply lines and superiors, they'd have no choice but to make decisions for themselves. 

Furthermore, Marc explained that he (and, I assume, many of the other designers at GDW) felt that chaos made for a better gaming environment than did order. His reasoning is pretty straightforward. In periods of chaos, there's much greater scope for individual action and fewer limitations on what the characters can and cannot do. That's not to say there are none, only that there are fewer, which they expected players would find liberating. This perspective runs parallel to what he said above about the restrictiveness of an active duty military. GDW felt that the chaos of the Cold War gone hot was a great way to have their cake and eat it too: military roleplaying but freed of many of its limitations.

In principle, this line of thinking is sound. According to Marc, though, most Twilight: 2000 campaigns of which GDW became aware were very focused on order. Players and referees alike wanted to get the characters away from enemy lines so that they could rejoin NATO forces. Likewise, when characters were unable to do that, they would nevertheless find ways to bring about law and order in whatever locale they found themselves. Despite the game's reputation as being some post-apocalyptic power trip in which might makes right, that's not what GDW found that most people were interested in. Instead, they were interested in re-establishing order and fighting against chaos.

Marc explained that this was true no matter where the campaign was set, whether Poland or the United States. GDW kept doing its best to make the world of Twilight: 2000 chaotic – dividing the USA into three feuding factions, for example – but it didn't work out quite as they had hoped. Players wanted to rebuild and reunite the country, not war over its ashes. This was unexpected, since the whole idea behind T2K was giving players the opportunity to play in a world without central authority of any kind, giving them the ability to forge their own paths. Instead, the players discovered they wanted, if not the opposite of that, something that ran along a very different track.

Even more interesting is that Marc explained this pattern happened again and again in GDW's RPG products. MegaTraveller, for example, took place during an interstellar civil war/succession crisis in the Third Imperium. Shattering the Imperium was intended to open up more options for players, but most players reacted negatively to it, preferring the stable setting of classic Traveller (which, not coincidentally, I am sure, is when Mongoose's edition of the game is set). The same was true with MegaTraveller's follow-up, Traveller: The New Era (set during a dark age following the collapse of the Imperium entirely). It was also true with "the Game," the grand wargame/simulation run to establish the post-Twilight: 2000 future history background for 2300 AD. GDW found that players of "the Game" very quickly worked to put the world in some semblance of order rather than reveling in chaos.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of all this, except to say that I found it incredibly fascinating to hear from Marc Miller. I think most of us who've played RPGs for any length of time would intuitively agree with the assumption that players prefer, even love, chaos and yet Marc said GDW's experience was otherwise. He said that players actually preferred order and would work toward that end when presented with a chaotic situation. Is that true? I'll have to reflect a bit on my own recent gaming experiences before I can provide an answer and, even then, they'll just be anecdotes. What do you think? If you could share your experiences relating to this question in the comments, I'd be very interested in reading them.

Retrospective: Pitfall!

When my daughter was around eight or nine years old, she really enjoyed playing one of those rhythm games that made use of motion controllers. The game was about choreographed cheerleading routines and the player was scored based on how closely she mimicked the moves seen on screen. The more closely the player did so, the more experience points she earned for her cheerleader character, which, in turn, unlocked more difficult routines and other options.

While my daughter mostly cared about the cool new outfits she could earn with sufficient experience points, what held my attention was its use of experience points. Here was a video game about cheerleading, produced in Japan in the early 21st century, and an integral part of its gameplay was a game mechanic introduced to the world through Dungeons & Dragons. I found that incredibly fascinating, if only because it was a reminder of just how influential D&D (and, by extension, tabletop RPGs) have been over the course of the last half-century. 

The other side of the coin is a bit more contentious, namely, the extent to which video and computer games have influenced roleplaying games. With very few exceptions, I can't recall too many examples of tabletop designers who've outright said that their designs had taken inspiration from video games. My general feeling is that it's easier to turn a tabletop idea into a digital one than vice versa, hence why we've not seen many explicit examples of the reverse. Even so, video and computer games are very popular and have been for decades now. My guess is that much of the influence from the digital realm is subconscious, since I'd wager nearly everyone involved in tabletop RPG design has enjoyed playing video games.

Count me among them. I was an enthusiastic early adopter of video games, getting an Atari Video Game System in 1980, with which I played fun games like Adventure and Raiders of the Lost Ark, among many, many more. While there would soon be other, arguably better video game systems on the market, I was quite satisfied with my Atari, in large part because of the excellent games produced by companies like Activision. As I recall, the company was founded by disgruntled former Atari programmers who felt ill-used and underappreciated by their former employer. Their "revenge" was to produce innovative, original game cartridges that outsold Atari's own.

I owned and enjoyed numerous Activision cartridges, but, hands down, my favorite was Pitfall! released in 1982. Pitfall! is an early example of what today we'd call a platformer, in that the player controls a character who must navigate various obstacles and hazards found on various levels (or platforms) on the screen. Nintendo's Donkey Kong is a good example of a well-known platformer. What made Pitfall! so innovative was that, while it did feature multiple levels on each screen, it also featured multiple screens. The player could maneuver his character, called Pitfall Harry, horizontally across the screen and a new screen, with different obstacles and platforms would reveal itself. This might not seem like much, but in 1982, it was revolutionary.

Pitfall! was noteworthy in several other ways. The game's premise was that Harry, a treasure hunter on the model of Indiana Jones, is seeking gold and silver bars, bags of money, and diamond rings that are hidden throughout a dangerous jungle. He has only 20 minutes to collect as many of these valuables as he can, all the while avoiding scorpions, crocodiles, snakes, quicksand, and other hazards. Pitfall! is thus a race against time, as well as a test of skill and ingenuity. Many of the aforementioned treasures can only be reached by the imaginative use of the environment, like swinging on vines, climbing ladders, and moving back and forth between screens to reach areas that might otherwise be unreachable.

Like most video games of its era, Pitfall! was difficult. The player had only three lives and there were numerous ways for the unwary – or just clumsy – to lose them. Rather than being simply frustrating, though, that was a big part of the game's appeal to me. I loved being challenged, even if it meant frequently dying by falling into a hole or being snapped by a crocodile due to a poorly timed swing on a vine. I almost always knew exactly what I'd done wrong and reckoned that I could do better next time (or the time after that or ...). 

This kind of gameplay, this emphasis on challenging the player, is something I directly ported into my D&D games at the time – as well as specific challenges I lifted directly from Pitfall!, like swinging vines and quicksand, to name just a couple. Looking back on it now, I can't help but feel that many early video and computer games included these challenging obstacles and hazardous as an homage to what their designers encountered in playing tabletop RPGs. In the case of Pitfall! I certainly can't prove it, but I'd nevertheless be amazed if its creators hadn't played D&D or some other dungeon crawling game refereed by a Killer DM. 

I'm old and slow now. I no longer have the reflexes or hand-eye coordination necessary to play games like Pitfall! quite as successfully as I did in my youth. That's one (of many) ways that tabletop roleplaying games remain superior to their digital descendants: even geezers like me still have a chance, through our characters, to dodge rolling logs or leap over a giant scorpion, in a way we'd never be able to accomplish if we had only our real world physical skills and abilities to rely upon. The joy of tabletop RPGs is that, even in your mid-50s, you can still grab a vine and swing across a crocodile-infested pool and steal away with an ancient treasure with as much ease as you did when you were a kid. Not a bad form of entertainment, eh?

The Articles of Dragon: "The Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk"

Issue #67 of Dragon (November 1982) is another one featuring more than one article that made a lasting impression on me. The first of these is Gary Gygax's "The Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk." Now, given my rather mixed to negative feelings about Deities & Demigods itself, you'd think I'd feel similarly about this article (and its follow-ups in subsequent issues) as well. However, you'd be mistaken in that assumption and the reason why is, I think, worth discussing.

I have a lot of criticisms of Deities & Demigods, but one I haven't talked about as often as I should is how dull it is. The book presents more than a dozen pantheons for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but the bulk of that presentation is given over to game statistics of the gods rather than information about the beliefs, practices, and role of those gods' worship. That's the kind of thing I wanted out of the book, not Monster Manual-style write-ups of Zeus or Odin. Making the Greek and Norse gods boring is quite the feat, especially for someone like myself, who adored their myths and legends and yet, somehow, Deities & Demigods managed to do it.

"The Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk," unfortunately, still devotes too much space to game statistics. On the other hand, Gygax provides more than that, peppering his descriptions of the four featured gods – Heironeous, Hextor, Iuz, and St. Cuthbert – with information on their worshipers, temples, and place in society, not to mention tidbits of Greyhawk-specific mythology in which they appear. In these descriptions, he's fleshing out the World of Greyhawk setting in a way he never did in its original folio release. That was a big part of the appeal of this article for me: learning more about the details of what had previously been a very bare bones setting, including its myths and folklore. 

It didn't hurt that the gods Gygax chose to highlight in this first article were genuinely interesting ones. In the case of St. Cuthbert, he had finally answered questions I'd had ever since I first opened my copy of the Dungeon Masters Guide and read the artifacts section where he discusses the Mace of St. Cuthbert. Likewise, Iuz was one of the few divine (or demonic) beings mentioned by name in The World of Greyhawk, where he is simply called "Lord of Evil." Nothing else is said about him, so I was largely left to imagine who Iuz might be until this article appeared. Heironeous and Hextor, on the other hand, were completely new to me, having never come across any references to them beforehand. These quarreling half-brothers, one good and one evil, made quite the pair and the divine rivalry had consequences for Greyhawk and its inhabitants.

As I said, Gygax still wastes far too much verbiage on game statistics – statistics that, in my experience, are almost never used in actual play. I don't really understand why AD&D went to the trouble of codifying the armor class, hit points, attacks, etc. of the gods. I can only assume that, by the time this article appeared, doing so was already well enough established that Gygax didn't consider another approach, one that focuses less on game stats and more on the role the gods played within the imaginary setting of Greyhawk. That's a shame, because I think it's a more fruitful approach – or at least one I would have enjoyed more.

Even so, "The Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk" manages to pack a fair bit of setting-specific information in its entries, which I enjoyed. This article and the ones that followed were among my favorites in the pages of Dragon during the early 1980s. They gave the World of Greyhawk some much needed details about its gods and religions, a topic I've long enjoyed. But it was this first article that I remember most vividly, hence its inclusion in this series.

The Ship of Ishtar Centennial Edition

Long time readers of this blog will know that I consider Abraham Merritt a foundational author in the creation of the genre we now call "fantasy" – an opinion shared by none other than Gary Gygax, who listed him among the authors of Appendix N. In the past, I've called Merritt fantasy's "forgotten father" in the past and I stand by that assessment. His "poetic and imaginative prose," to borrow Clark Ashton Smith's description of it is unique, as is his wild and occasionally feverish creativity.

Sadly, many of Merritt's best stories are no longer in print. If they are available, they're in a cheap, unattractive format that doesn't do them justice. That's why I am so pleased that DMR Books, one of the best small press publishers of what I call "pulp fantasy" is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Ship of Ishtar with the publication of a new edition of the novel.

This new edition features Merritt's preferred version of the book's text, as well as an introduction by pulp expert Doug Ellis and an afterword by author and critic Deuce Richardson. Ellis has also assembled a collection of Ishtar-related ephemera in order to give a fuller picture of the novel and its significance. Just as important is the inclusion of nearly two dozen vintage illustrations by Virgil Finlay, one of the most celebrated illustrators of the Pulp Era.

It's a terrific edition of an important early work of pulp fantasy and I couldn't be happier that it's being released by DMR Books, many of whose previous releases now sit proudly on my shelves. DMR has led the way in making the works of lesser-known authors like Clifford Ball, Nictzin Dyahlis, A.B. Higginson, and Arthur D. Howden Smith, among others. available once again. That's an invaluable service and one for which those of us who appreciate older works of fantasy should be grateful.

If you're at all interested in Merritt or the foundational works of fantasy, I urge to take a look at the Centennial Edition of The Ship of Ishtar or indeed any of DMR's catalog of pulp authors. I say this not as someone with any involvement with DMR Books beyond being an admirer and well wisher. Like Merritt himself, they ought to be better known and appreciated for all that they do.

REPOST: Pulp Fantasy Library: The Ship of Ishtar

(Pulp Fantasy Library was, for years, one of the signature features of this blog and, even though I haven't posted a new entry in it in more than a year, it nevertheless remains the largest series of posts I've written. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Abraham Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar, which was serialized in the pages of Argosy All-Story Weekly. To mark the occasion of its centennial, I'm reposting and updating my original entry on it from nearly fifteen years ago.)

Nearly all of the authors whose works I highlight in this space each week are those whose fame was once greater than it is today. There are exceptions, of course -- Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft being two good examples -- but contemporary fame often brings with it misunderstanding, with the author's stories and ideas reduced to mere caricatures. For good or for ill, Abraham Merritt has avoided that fate, his works largely unknown today, despite the fact that he was arguably the most popular fantasy and science fiction writer before World War II.

Dying suddenly of a heart attack in 1943 probably didn't help Merritt's career, but it's still almost inexplicable to imagine how the author of Seven Footprints to Satan, Dwellers in the Mirage, and The Moon Pool, never mind The Ship of Ishtar could be so obscure today. The Ship of Ishtar alone ought to merit (pun intended) its author more than throwaway mentions here and there, usually in reference to more well known authors whom he influenced, such as Jack Williamson, Walter Shaver, and H.P. Lovecraft. Clark Ashton Smith, whose birthday I commemorated just last week, was very taken with The Ship of Ishtar, explaining:

I enjoyed the rare and original fantasy of this tale, and have kept it longer than I should otherwise, for the sake of re-reading certain passages that were highly poetic and imaginative. Merritt has an authentic magic, as well as an inexhaustible imagination.

High praise indeed.

The Ship of Ishtar was originally released as a six-part serial novel over the course of November and December 1924 in Argosy All-Story Weekly. These parts were then collected into a hardcover in 1926, but in abridged form, excising some chapters and rearranging the text. It's this incomplete version of the story that's been reprinted again and again over the decades, with only (I believe) a single 1949 edition including the full text of the novel. The new centennial edition of DMR Books follows Merritt's preferred version of the text, as well as including vintage illustrations.

The Ship of Ishtar is the tale of Jack Kenton, a modern man who receives a package from an old archeologist friend. The package contains an ancient stone, inside of which Kenton finds a remarkable model of a ship. The ship is a magical creation and draws Kenton into it, pulling him backward in time to Babylonian times and into the midst of a struggle between the followers of the goddess Ishtar and followers of the god Nergal – the cursed inflicted because a priestess of Ishtar and a priest of Nergal dared fall in love with one another against the wishes of their respective deities. Now, the lieutenants of the priestess and priest, both of whom, for their own reasons, aided their superiors, are trapped on a ship divided between light and darkness and from which there can be no escape.

Kenton, not being a man of this time and not laboring under the curse of the gods, can move freely back and forth between the two sides of the ship. Having fallen in love with the beautiful Sharane, priestess of Ishtar, he offers to go to Klaneth, priest of Nergal, and attempt to find a means by which to end the conflict on the ship. In this respect, The Ship of Ishtar resembles many pulp fantasies of its time and after: a modern man, thrown into an unusual locale/time, finds himself able to go places and do things that those native to it cannot. What differentiates Merritt's novel, though, is its gorgeous prose and deep characterizations. Merritt is an author who takes his time in telling a story, presenting little details and nuances that other authors would rush past in an effort to get to the action.

This may be why Merritt fell out of favor in the years after the Second World War: he's not a "breezy" author. That's not to say his prose is slow going, because it's not. Indeed, I find Merritt much easier to read than, say, Lovecraft or even Smith, both of whose prose is every bit as adjective-laden and evocative. Yet, Merritt dwells on details, particularly the beauty or ugliness of characters, and it's possible that, for some, these details get in the way of their enjoyment. I think that's a pity, because, as I said, Merritt's text is not plodding and his descriptions and dialog are every bit as appealing as his action, but perhaps he is an acquired taste.

Regardless, Abraham Merritt is an important early fantasy author, one mentioned by Gygax in Appendix N, and The Ship of Ishtar may well be his masterpiece. Many thanks to DMR Books for making it available again. With luck, Merritt may soon gain the wider admiration he so richly deserves.

Tyo-tomat

Yet more glorious Secrets of sha-Arthan art from Zhu Bajiee, this time a Ga'andrin tyo-tomat (or "elixir master"), a kind of sorcerer who supplements his natural magic talents by the regular ingestion of mutagenic chemicals. 

Fantasy ... Taken to the Edge

One of the earliest advertisements for Planescape I remember seeing was this one, which appeared in issue #203 of Dragon (March 1994). Depicting the ruler(?) of Sigil, the Lady of Pain, it certainly piqued my interest. Even now, I think it's a pretty intriguing and evocative advertisement.

Retrospective: Planescape Campaign Setting

When I first acquired the AD&D Players Handbook – this was sometime in early 1980 – one of my favorite sections was Apprendix IV: The Known Planes of Existence. Taking up only a couple of pages, this appendix was the first time I'd ever encountered Gary Gygax's bizarre, mysterious, and wonderfully baroque ideas about the multiverse of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. What made Gygax's vision so weird compelling was its obsessive orderliness, which didn't simply tie the Outer Planes to each of the game's nine alignments, but to every conceivable shade in between. That's why, for example, the Seven Heavens are described as being "of absolute lawful good," while the planes of Elysium are "of neutral good lawfuls." 

Objectively, this is bonkers stuff, but I adored it and spent a lot of time thinking about the Outer (and other) Planes, aided no doubt by my fascination with the demons and devils of the Monster Manual. Despite Gygax's precise distinctions between the alignments of the Planes, AD&D didn't have a lot to say about them for a long time, aside from the occasional article in Dragon, like the ones about the Astral Plane (by Roger E. Moore) and the Nine Hells (by Ed Greenwood). And, of course, we later got Gygax's own developed thoughts about the Inner Planes, which were every bit as eccentric and persnickety as what he wrote in Appendix IV of the PHB all those years ago.

What I always wanted was a better sense of the Planes as a place and, more than that, as an adventuring locale. What sorts of adventures could AD&D characters have among the Planes? What made the Outer Planes different from the Prime Material Plane and how would this impact the kinds of adventures to be had there? The better Dragon articles, like those of Greenwood, did this well, or at least better than did Gygax, whose own ideas, while fascinating, remained largely in the realm of the theoretical. I wanted something more "down to earth," if you'll forgive the phrase. Jeff Grubb's Manual of the Planes was a good first step in that direction, but I wanted more.

As it turned out, I'd have to wait until 1994 to get that, in the form of the Planescape Campaign Setting – and it was not at all what I had expected. As imagined by David "Zeb" Cook and brought to visual life by Tony DiTerlizzi, the Outer Planes were indeed weird, though quite different from how they'd been previously portrayed. Instead of being presented as primarily the dwelling places of gods and demons, the Planes were instead a battleground between various factions of "philosophers with clubs," each of which hopes to remake reality according to their own idiosyncratic perspective. These factions, each associated (in some cases loosely) with an alignment or Outer Plane, were the driving force behind Cook's vision for Planescape. More than that, they provided an easy buy-in for player characters looking to involve themselves in the cosmic struggles of the setting.

"The setting." That's important. One of the clever things Cook did with Planescape was that he made the Planes a setting. They weren't just a place you could visit for a brief time; they were a place you could stay. Further, they were a place where even novice characters could stay, not merely high-level ones with access to potent magic. Further still, they were a place with its own native inhabitants and players could easily take up the role of one of them. Planescape gave AD&D's Planes a life of their own, divorced from the Prime Material Plane where most campaigns were set. Planescape made it possible to play entire campaigns where characters never once set foot on the World of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, or any other "normal" campaign world. 

This was a bold approach and not at all what I or, I imagine, most AD&D players at the time were expecting. Not everyone warmed to Planescape's vision of the Planes. Indeed, I recall quite a few old hands who scoffed at it as taking too many cues from White Wolf's World of Darkness RPGs, which were very popular at the time. I can certainly appreciate the shock and surprise they probably felt upon reading Planescape and seeing DiTerlizzi's Dr Seuss-like depictions of the denizens of the Planes. This was not Gygax's Planes; it wasn't even Grubb's. It was something quite unique, filled with the strange, the odd, and the occasionally silly, and suffused with a punkish vibe that came through most strongly in its use of Planar Cant drawn from the criminal slang of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Many people, even fans of the setting, loathed the Cant, but there's no denying that it helped give Planescape a distinct flavor of its own.

Me, I enjoyed Planescape. It was not at all what I expected, but I enjoyed it for what it was: a strange, whimsical, wondrous take on world-hopping fantasy, with "worlds" in this case being other Planes of Existence, each with its own individual rules and style. And then there's Sigil, the City of Doors, located at the very center of the multiverse – if a series of infinite planes can truly be said to have a center. Home to the various planar factions and serving as a crossroads of the Planes, Sigil could serve as the basis for an entire campaign in itself, but it was also the perfect "home base" for planar characters whose adventures took them across the realms of the Great Wheel and beyond. Like Planescape itself, I really enjoyed Sigil and had a lot of fun with it.

I have lots of thoughts I could share about Planescape, both positive and negative, but my overall feeling for it is one of affection. I first made use of the setting as an adjunct to an ongoing Forgotten Realms campaign I ran in the mid-1990s. Later, I ran a "native" campaign among the Planes in the early days of Third Edition. Both were very well received by my players. Indeed, we still occasionally talk about some of the adventures they had in the setting. That's my usual measure of whether a gaming product succeeds – did I have fun with it? – and by that standard, Planescape is one of the greats.