Pulp Fantasy Library: City of the Chasch

Reflecting on the primary literary inspirations of Dungeons & Dragons, one does not often hear Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure" series mentioned. This is odd, as Gary Gygax frequently made mention of these stories in his recollections of his Greyhawk campaign. Indeed, he makes explicit reference to the stories in the Dungeon Masters Guide and notes that they could be used as models for adventures by the enterprising referee in his own campaign. The series began in 1968 with the novel, City of the Chasch, and continued through three more books published between '68 and 1970.

City of the Chasch tells the tale of two scouts sent from Earth to investigate a mysterious signal sent from a world some 200 light years away. When the scouts arrive at their destination, their spacecraft is attacked by a torpedo from the planet's surface. The scouts, named Adam Reith and Paul Waunder, escape the destruction of their craft in a smaller vessel, which is itself damaged in the attack. Nevertheless, they manage to eject from the smaller vessel and land in a forest on the world below.

To their surprise, Reith and Waunder discover that the planet is inhabited by humans of a primitive sort, some of whom are attracted to the crash site. While stuck in a tree and unable to get down, Reith watches these humans arrive and kill Waunder, as well as the arrival of not one but two other groups of human, both of which seem to be slaves of different alien races, the blue-skinned Chasch and the tall, thin Dirdir. The wreckage of his ship hauled away by the Chasch and their "Chaschmen" slaves, Reith is eventually "rescued" by Onmale Traz, whose own tribe of humans makes him a slave.

While among this tribe, Reith learns a little more about this strange planet, which is called Tschai. Tschai is home to several alien species, each of which uses humans as slaves in their seemingly-eternal war against one another for dominance. Reith becomes convinced that these humans had been kidnapped from Earth some time in the distant past and, therefore, the aliens pose a threat to his home. Fortunately for him, Traz comes to like and trust him and aids him in escaping the tribe before its magician-leaders castrate him as punishment for his lack of docility.

Once free, Reith and Traz join a caravan that is traveling across Tschai, going from city to city. This enables the pair to visit many strange locales and meet many people, thereby pushing the story forward, as Reith attempts to find his stolen ship, repair it, and escape from Tschai. Of course, things are not quite so simple, as Reith soon learns, and it will in fact take several more books his adventures are resolved. Of course, like most Jack Vance stories, City of the Chasch is a picaresque; the journey is more important than the destination. And also like most Jack Vance stories, the tale is told engagingly, filled with exotic vista, bizarre situations, and fascinatingly quirky characters. It's a very fun read that reminiscent of many earlier sword-and-planet stories and yet still possessed of its own unique flavor. I heartily recommend it and its sequels if you've never had the chance to read them.

Getting There

The layout is getting better, I think. There are still a lot of rough spots to tweak, but it's shaping up quite nicely. Here's a nice two-page spread, complete with illustrations and revamped tables.

Capital Ship

Some more Thousand Suns artwork, because ... why not?

©2011 David Dietrick

October is shaping up to be another busy month for me; fortunately, it's also looking to be a productive one. I make no promises about anything (except Thousand Suns, since it's being laid out right now), but it looks like a number of long-delayed projects are breaking free from the logjam and that makes me very happy indeed. With luck, it'll be an emotion shared by others. More details on this soon.

Open Friday: Other Games

Though initially RPGs and RPG campaigns were heavily inspired by literature, it didn't take long before other media made their influence felt -- including other games. This was true even of myself, who generally tried to avoid mixing one game with another back in the day. But, for my 12th birthday in 1981, I was given a card game called Dragonmaster and I fell in love with its beautifully illustrated deck, whose suits depicted four contending noble families. In fairly short order, I found myself using the cards to represent NPCs in my campaign, a practice I continued for a very long time.

Though I no longer have the game -- though I wish I did -- I think back fondly on how I used it in conjunction with D&D. So, my question for today is: did anyone else do something similar with a non-RPG? If so, what non-RPG game did you incorporate into your roleplaying campaign and how?

Progress

I'm continuing to get a handle on the basics of laying a book out with a word processor, but progress is definitely being made. Again, it's nothing fancy, but it's legible and, more importantly, it's getting done, which isn't something I could have said a little while ago.

Ever onward.

The Articles of Dragon: "Modern Monsters"

When I was a kid, the idea of mixing magic and technology was (largely) blasphemous. For some reason, it offended my youthful sensibilities, which insisted that fantasy and science fiction were two separate genres of literature, the division between which was impermeable. It took my purchase of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (and, later, Blackmoor) to soften my stance on this question, but, even then, I was still instinctively opposed to the notion, despite ample evidence that the older generation of gamers, to whom I looked up, had no such qualms about it.

Consequently, I was equally baffled by both the sections of the Dungeon Masters Guide that included guidelines for converting Gamma World and Boot Hill characters to AD&D (and vice versa) and by articles like "Modern Monsters" in issue #57 (January 1982) of Dragon. I can't be certain, but I think this was the first article I ever read written by Ed Greenwood and I didn't think much of it at the time. Stats for cars and bazookas? Advice and guidelines regarding the functioning of magic in modern, technological worlds? Why? What was the point?

Now, there was no question that Greenwood's article was well presented and made ready use of ideas and suggestions from earlier articles (like James Ward's "Monty and the German High Command," for example). Heck, the article even had footnotes, citing not just previous Dragon material but a host of classic fantasy and SF literature where magic and technology contended. But none of that moved me and I found myself unable -- or unwilling -- to shake off the staid notion that six-guns and sorcery should never appear side by side. It's only been in recent years that I've abandoned my adolescent scruples regarding genre mixing and happily included robots and laser pistols in my fantasy without regret. Live and learn!

Retrospective: Barbarian Prince

One of the many odd phenomena of the glory days of the hobby was solitaire gaming. Many wargames and even RPGs, such as Traveller, touted their suitability for solo play, which, at the time, I found bizarre. Why would you want to play a game by yourself? Of course, this was back before computer and video games were widespread, but, even after they became more commonplace, I still tended to look on them as different than games that had physical components. Playing a game that had fold-out maps and cardboard counters by yourself struck me as almost perverse, especially since, back then, I never had any difficulty finding players for just about any game I really wanted to play.

Regardless, games like 1981's Barbarian Prince, while not commonplace, were common enough that I often saw them on store shelves. Designed by Arnold Hendrick and published by the miniatures company Heritage USA, Barbarian Prince was a solitaire game in which the player assumes the role of the dispossessed Cal Arath, rightful heir to the throne of the Northlands. The game centers on Cal's attempts to acquire 500 gold pieces in 10 weeks in order to raise an army to defeat those who usurped your place in the Northlands. The game comes with a keyed hex map that is used in conjunction with an events booklet to represent Cal's travels on his quest. In addition to acquiring treasure, the barbarian prince can also engage in combat, explore ruins, meet people, and many other things. There's a remarkable amount of depth to the game and, because of random factors, it's quite possible to play the game many times with each time being different.

On each of the 70 game days available to the player, he can choose to undertake several actions, from traveling to exploring to seeking audience with NPCs and more. Each of these actions takes a certain amount of time and effort and, owing to the aforementioned random factors, none are guaranteed to pay off. It's a bit like playing a mixture of a sandbox hexcrawl and a choose-your-own-adventure book, though it's not as heavily scripted as the latter. It's also a lot more difficult than in most choose-your-own-adventure books I remember reading, since, like many sandbox campaigns, there's no way to be sure that the ruin over the next hill isn't inhabited by foul demons beyond your ability to defeat. At the same time, you really can go anywhere (on the provided map) and do almost anything and Barbarian Prince is noteworthy for the wide variety of actions it covers in a fairly simple ruleset.

If you're the least bit curious about Barbarian Prince, you can download a legal copy for free here. Reaper Miniatures apparently holds the rights to Heritage USA's catalog of games, including this one, and has released them as freeware PDFs. I can't applaud them enough for this, both because they've decided to do this at no cost but also because they've made a classic game of the Golden Age of the hobby available to new generations of gamers. Too many great designs from days of yore languish in limbo because the person or, worse yet, corporation that owns them foolishly believes that they're inherently valuable and thus should only be released if they can find a way to profit from doing so. That's a shame on many levels, which is why Reaper deserves kudos for their actions with regard to Heritage USA's games.

The Articles of Dragon: "Singing a New Tune"

Last week, I said I was going to be starting a new series of posts relating to Dragon magazine. Today, I kick off that series, "The Articles of Dragon." I wanted to do this series because, while I was re-reading this venerable gaming periodical for "The Ads of Dragon" series, I frequently found myself looking over many articles that I remembered fondly from my younger days. Back in ancient times, before the Internet, the monthly arrival of Dragon was an important part of many gamers' lives, as it was one of the main sources of information about the wider hobby. Just as importantly, it was a place where we could read other gamers' ideas, some of which were good enough that we adopted them into our home campaigns.

A good case in point is Jeff Goelz's "Singing a New Tune," which appeared in issue #56 (December 1981) of Dragon. The article presents a single-class bard for use with AD&D rather than the multi-class monstrosity included at the end of the Players Handbook. At the time, never having read Doug Schwegman's original bard from Strategic Review #6 (February 1976), the idea of a bard that didn't require levels in fighter and thief beforehand was nothing short of revolutionary. In addition, Goelz's bard had a high degree of intellectual coherence. For example, his bard could cast illusionist spells in addition to druid spells, which made sense for a class of wandering performers. However, this new bard's selection of both types of spells was limited to those that made sense for the class. No longer, for example, could bards cast healing spells.

Goelz's bard is probably my favorite version of the class. If I ever decided to include them in my Dwimmermount campaign, I'd be sorely tempted to base them on this one. The PHB bard never made much sense to me and, in any event, they were unduly powerful given the archetype they were supposed to represent. I only ever allowed one PHB bard into my campaign back in the day and it did not end well. Later on, I readily used Goelz's bard and it proved a popular option for many players.

My Feeble Skills

One of the projects I want to complete and get out there fairly soon is the first part of my Dwimmermount house rules document. Lots of people ask me about this, but, until recently, I didn't actually have anything I could give people that'd make sense if you weren't me. So, today, I've been playing around in OpenOffice with the document, trying to whip into something intelligible to normal human beings. Here's a capture of one of the pages:

It's nothing brilliant, but it's legible and I did it myself, so I'm not going to complain. And, yes, before anyone asks: it is an ape of the Holmes Blue Book layout. I am nothing if not a hypocrite.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The First Book of Swords

Published in 1983, Fred Saberhagen's The First Book of Swords is, as its name suggests, the first book in a series -- a trilogy, as it turns out -- that is itself a sequel to an earlier series of books, one of which was included in Gygax's Appendix N. Like its predecessor series, The First Book of Swords skirts the line between fantasy and science fiction, though, without the benefit of knowing the novel's deep background, it would like appear to be a (mostly) pure fantasy. That background includes a destructive nuclear war that nearly wipes out the human race in the ancient past and that paves the way for the return of magic and the gods (or so it seems). It should be noted, though, that Saberhagen's approach to magic is very scientific, by which I mean that it's predictable and operates according to intelligible rules. This is a function of its origins in the setting of The First Book of Swords, but it also has consequences for the unfolding of the story he's telling.

That story involves the forging of twelve magical swords by the god Vulcan. As part of some plan whose ultimate end is not revealed, Vulcan intends to place these twelve swords in the hands of human beings. This novel deals with only four of the swords, named Townsaver, Dragonslicer, Coinspinner, and Sightblinder, the first of which is given to a smith named Jord who, along with several other smiths, is chosen by Vulcan to be his assistants in the crafting of these mighty weapons. Of course, Vulcan needs the humans primarily for their blood, which he uses in quenching the blades. Jord is the sole survivor but even he pays a price for his aid to the god. He loses an arm but is gifted with Townsaver, which Jord says is "for me, and for my son after me."

It is Jord's son, Mark, who is the true protagonist of The First Book of Swords. He comes into his own at the age of twelve, when he wields Vulcan's gift to his father, Townsaver, in defense of his home. Unfortunately for him, his actions result in the death of an innocent man, the cousin to a powerful nobleman and Mark is forced to flee for his life with the sword. Thus begin his adventures, where he, in typical fantasy novel fashion, sees many places and meets many people, some of whom stay with him, as he unravels the mystery of not only Townsaver and the other swords, but also of himself and his destiny.

The First Book of Swords isn't great literature by any means, but it has a lot of interesting ideas in it, particularly the relationship of the gods to mortals and the effect that these swords have on events in the human world. The characters themselves are less interesting, being very archetypal, especially to those of us who've read more fantasy stories than they care to count. Likewise, Saberhagen's style is strangely spare, lacking in bombast or romance. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to each reader to decide.

I've always found it intriguing that Gary Gygax frequently include Fred Saberhagen amongst his favorite fantasy authors. In retrospect, it makes more sense than I'd realized. Saberhagen's magic, as I already noted, is very scientific in character, almost technological, which is very much in keeping with the way magic functions in D&D. Likewise, the twelve swords of this series are potent but idiosyncratic artifacts, as much banes and boons to those who wield them. I wonder, too, if they might have served as the inspirations for the "final word" broadswords introduced in Unearthed Arcana, since this novel came out only a few years before the release of UA and I'd be amazed if Gary hadn't read it.