The Perpetual Campaign

Last year, I wrote a couple of posts about the need for long campaigns, the second of which riffed off a post on the same topic over at Monsters and Manuals. Lately, I've been thinking about this topic again, as my ongoing House of Worms campaign crosses the six and a half year mark of regular play. And, in a remarkable display of synchronicity, Monsters and Manuals published a post the other day that mirrors much of my own thinking. Please go read it if you haven't already, because it's very good.

Before the latest House of Worms session began, my players and I talked for a little while about the state of the campaign and its current events. This wasn't a "meta" discussion about the campaign and its setting in an detached, objective way. Rather, it was a discussion from within, meaning how their characters viewed current events, what their immediate and longer term goals were, and even why they were proceeding as they were. It was a very fruitful discussion and proved quite helpful to me, the referee, in understanding how the players, through their characters, were approaching the campaign. Mind you, we have these kinds of discussions every few months, since there's so much going on in the campaign at any given time that it can be very easy to lose track of things (helped in no small part by my own laziness and forgetfulness).

One of the things that quickly became clear as we talked was the fact that, while the players were all largely on the same page, this wasn't completely true. For example, in the last session, the characters were scouting out an ancient ruin they had been told had become a flashpoint for conflict between several factions on the Achgé Peninsula. The ruins were of unknown origin and had recently partially collapsed, with portions of them falling into a huge crevasse at their center. Chemical-smelling smoke was wafting out of the crevasse and military forces engaged in battle seemed to be under the influence of some sort of mind control that was causing them to turn even on their comrades. Further scouting showed that the military forces were large and entrenched, meaning that any attempt at scouting was potentially dangerous and they simply lacked the numbers and resources to do this without danger to themselves. So, they decided to leave the ruins behind and make their way back to the colony city of Linyaró instead.

This decision was not to the liking of all the characters. At least a couple of them preferred that they brave the dangers of the ruins to find out both the source of the smoke and the reason the various armies were fighting over the ruins. They saw it as their best chance to learn something about the big events of the Peninsula, from which they'd been separated for about eighteen months of game time. Though the dissenting characters went along with the decision of the group, I suspect they'll eventually want to learn more about the ruins and might well undertake endeavors to achieve that end and they'll enlist the aid of various NPCs who share their point of view, even if the other player characters do not. Whatever they ultimately decide, there will be reverberations in the campaign, reverberations that will add to the glorious mess of the overall campaign setting.

But then that's how things go for the House of Worms. Over the course of the campaign, I've been assembling a huge list of NPCs, each one with a short description to jog my memory. Every time the characters encounter anyone, from the administrative high priest of a major temple right down to a street vendor, I add them to my file. That way, I can refer to them again should the need arise. This helps create a feeling of continuity, not only between sessions, but in the world itself, as if it exists outside the characters' control. There's nothing quite like the look of recognition that occurs when the characters encounter a NPC they've met before. There's a special kind of fun in this, as it not only helps with immersion in the setting, but also recalls earlier sessions and the events therein. These moments of recollection are vital to a campaign's success and longevity. They also provide more energy for keeping all the campaign's metaphorical wheels turning.

Bit by bit, the players and I, working together – and sometimes working at cross-purposes – have built up the campaign setting to the point where we've described, detailed, and catalogued so many elements that, if we want to, we could probably keep the campaign going forever. There are minor, personal elements, such as Keléno's complicated family life; mid-level ones, such as Aíthfo's efforts to keep the colony running; and high-level ones, like the power politics between the Naqsái city-states of the Peninsula. All these and more are there to form the focus of many sessions of play, in the process spawning even more. While I hesitate to say that the world of Tékumel is now "real" to the players of the campaign, there's nevertheless a certain truth to it. After six and a half years, their characters now "live" there full time and the choices they, the players, make concerning them are motivated primarily by what makes sense for the characters in this fantasy world filled with almost as many options as the real one. It's a lovely thing to experience and I consider myself fortunate to have found a group of players with whom we could realize this.

As I said, at this point, I don't see an end to the campaign. It's possible, I suppose, that enough players could lose interest in it that we simply lose the necessary "critical mass" to keep it going, but that seems unlikely. Over the years, we've lost more players than we've kept (though four of the original six from 2015 remain). Likewise, we've picked up new players, some of whom have stuck with the campaign longer than those who've departed (and we sometimes get old players back for "guest appearances"). Furthermore, the House of Worms campaign isn't just about one thing. At various times, it's been about underworld exploration, wilderness travel, espionage, clan business, imperial politics, military conflict, occult investigations, and too many others. If asked what the campaign is about, I would probably say something like, "The lives of seven Tsolyáni and their allies as they make their way through the world of Tékumel." That answer might sound somewhat glib, but it's nevertheless true. 

That's the secret to a perpetual campaign: slowly build up a world with as much depth and detail as you can and you'll never run out of things to do. If my players are to be believed, it's definitely worked for us.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Footfalls Within

I've been on something of a Robert E. Howard kick lately, which is why I'm again returning to the works of Two-Gun Bob for this week's post. Much as I admire stories of Conan the Cimmerian, they're not my favorite series by REH. In fact, I hold the tales of Puritan swordsman Solomon Kane in even higher esteem. I've thought about my feelings on the matter for some time, attempting to determine why I Kane has eclipsed Conan in my affections – and I'm still thinking. That said, I think part of Kane's attraction for me is his mystery. We know very little about his origins or the events that led him to take up the life of a wandering avenger, which I find appealing. 

That leads to an uncomplicated directness in most of the dour Puritan's adventures, as we can see in "The Footfalls Within," which first appeared in the September 1931 issue of Weird Tales. 

Solomon Kane gazed somberly at the black woman who lay dead at his feet. Little more than a girl she was, but her wasted limbs and staring eyes showed that she had suffered much before death brought her merciful relief. Kane noted the chain galls on her limbs, the deep crisscrossed scars on her back, the mark of the yoke on her neck. His cold eyes deepened strangely, showing chill glints and lights like clouds passing across depths of ice.

"Even in this lonesome land they come," he muttered. "I had not thought –"

Kane has a particular hatred for slavery and, especially, slavers. The sight of this dead young woman, whose body bears the telltale marks of bondage, enrages him. He vows to find the slavers and mete out justice on them.

"Woe unto ye, sons of iniquity, for the wrath of God is upon ye. The cords be loosed on the iron necks of the hounds of hate and the bow of vengeance is strung. Ye are proud-stomached and strong, and the people cry out beneath your feet, but retribution cometh in the blackness of midnight and the redness of dawn." 

This is precisely what I mean about Kane's stories being uncomplicatedly direct. Howard wastes no time in giving the Puritan adventurer a goal to pursue, nor does he tarry in presenting him with a foe against which to pit him. Kane soon sneaks up on a train of slaves – "More than a hundred blacks, young men and women … stark naked and made fast together by cruel yoke-like affairs of wood" – and spies their drivers.

Of the drivers there were fifteen Arabs and some seventy black warriors, whose weapons and fantastic apparel showed them to be of some eastern tribe – one of those tribes subjugated and made Moslems and allies by the conquering Arabs.

Kane "followed like a brooding ghost and his rage and hatred ate into his soul like a canker. Each crack of the whip was like a blow on his own shoulders." He ponders how best to deal with the slavers until he sees them about to kill another young woman in a most unpleasant fashion – and he acts without thinking.

A pistol was smoking in his hand and the tall butcher was down in the dust of the trail with his brains oozing out, before Kane realized what he had done. 

The Englishman then fights with divine fury, taking down three guards before they overwhelm him. He's then divested of his weapons and taken before the leader of the slavers, a tall, lean man with a hawk-like face named Hassim ben Said, who asks his name.

"My name is Solomon Kane," growled the Puritan in the sheikh's own language. "I am an Englishman, you heathen jackal."

The dark eyes of the Arab flickered with interest.

"Suleiman Kahani," said he, giving the Arabesque equivalent of the English name. "I have heard of you – you have fought the Turks betimes and the Barbary corsairs have licked their wounds because of you."

Kane deigned no reply. Hassum shrugged his shoulders.

"You will bring a fine price," said he. "Mayhap I will take you to Stamboul, where there are shahs who would desire such a man among their slaves."

Now a captive of the very slavers he hoped to defeat, Kane travels with them as they continued their trek toward the market where they would sell him and the others. Along the way, a "lean, gray-bearded Arab" approaches him, identifying himself as Yussef the Hadji. He bears in his hand a wooden staff, one Kane had carried with him and that had been tossed aside during the ill-advised fight that preceded his capture. Kane tells him that the staff had been given to him by his blood-brother, N'Longa the magician. 

Yussuf is impressed with the staff, which he claims to have read about "in the old iron-bound books" and that Muhammad "himself hath spoken of it by allegory and parable!" He goes on to claim that it is none other than the staff by which "Suleiman ben Daoud drove forth the conjurers and magicians and imprisoned the efreets and the evil genii!" Sheikh Hassim scoffs at these claims.

"It did not save the Jews from bondage nor this Suleiman from our captivity," said he; "so I value it not as much as I esteem the long thin blade with which he loosed the souls of three of my best swordsmen."

Yussuf shook his head. "Your mockery will bring you to no good end, Hassim. Some day you will meet a power that will not divide before your sword or fall to your bullets. I will keep the staff, and I warn you – abuse not the Frank …"

As you might expect, Yussuf's words are prophetic. Later, when the slave train passes by some ruins "of a pre-pyramidal age," the staff and Kane's ability to wield it proves decisive, but I will say no more, for the benefit of those who wishes to read the full story. "The Footfalls Within," like so many tales of Solomon Kane, is fast-moving and equal parts spare and bombastic in its verbiage as the circumstances demand. It also contains a goodly dollop of horror in its final half. The result is a terrific story and a personal favorite of mine.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 90

I've written a previous post in this series about page 90 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, which discusses economics, broadly defined. One of the sections on this page bears the lengthy title "Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes, and Tolls." Despite the seeming dryness of that title, the section contains some interesting details that, I think, offer us a few insights into Gary Gygax's conception of the game and campaign play. 

He begins this section by asking

What society can exist without revenues? What better means of assuring revenues than taxation, and all the names used in the title of this section are synonymous with taxes – but if it is called something different perhaps the populace won't take too much umbrage at having to pay and pay and pay . . .

Joking aside, he then wastes no time to explain why he's actually including this section in the DMG.

It is important in most campaigns to take excess monies away from player characters, and taxation is one of the better means of accomplishing this end.

I really like Gygax's directness on this point. If you take a look back at the earlier post linked above, you'll see that he mentions by name "mythical heroes such as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Kothar, [and] Elric." These names were well chosen, since an important element in the stories of these characters is their regular need for influxes of cash. The books mentioned in Appendix N might well have been simply those that Gygax most liked, but that's not all they are. AD&D in Gygax's mind is reflective of the content of those books, including the impecuniousness of the characters.

The form and frequency of taxation depends upon the locale and the social structure. Duties are typically paid on goods brought into a country or subdivision thereof, so any furs, tapestries, etc. brought into a town for sale will probably be subject to duty. Excises are typically sums paid to belong to a particular profession or practice a certain calling; in addition, an excise can be levied against a foreign currency, for example, in order to change it into the less remarkable coin of the realm …

Gygax goes on at great length, defining each of the types of taxes mentioned in the section's title, along with the circumstances in which player characters might encounter them. I won't reproduce everything he says here, in the interests of space, but the section I just quoted should suffice to give a sense of what he intends. The whole paragraph is genuinely useful to the referee, if only because it demonstrates the wide variety of options available to him when it comes to extracting money from characters. I think it's also worth noting that Gygax reminds us that "the form and frequency of taxation depends upon the local and the social structure." It's a helpful reminder of the necessity for such details in any campaign setting.

If the Gentle Reader thinks that the taxation that he or she currently undergoes is a trifle strenuous for his or her income, pity the typical European populace of the Middle Ages. They paid all of the above, tolls being very frequent, with those trying to escape them by use of a byway being subject to confiscation of all goods with a fine and imprisonment possible also. Every petty noble made an extraction, municipalities taxed, and the sovereign was the worst of all.

I am no historian, but I think Gygax exaggerates slightly here – or at least he errs in treating the real medieval economy, which was largely agricultural in nature, with later cash-based economies. Even so, his large point stands that there were a considerable number of different taxes to which medieval folk were subject. He then offers an example of how he might use medieval-style taxation in an AD&D campaign.

As you can see, Gygax is quite inventive here – but also quite tedious. I completely agree with the notion that the referee ought to use taxes and similar levies to separate the characters from their wealth, but the system he puts forward here, though perhaps simpler than that at use in the actual Middle Ages, would be a pain to adjudicate in a campaign. I simply can't imagine making use of this more than a couple of times before I decided to give up, but perhaps I simply lack the necessary intestinal fortitude to be a properly Gygaxian AD&D DM.

Much more intriguing to me is what Gygax says about foreign currency and money changers.

The town does not encourage the use of foreign currency. Merchants and other business people must pay a fine of 5% of the value of any foreign coins within their possession plus face certain confiscation of the coins so they will typically not accept them. Upon entering the town non-residents are instructed to go to the Street of the Money Changers in order to trade their foreign money for the copper "cons," silver "nobs," gold "orbs," and platinum "royals".

I find this section interesting for a couple of reasons. First, I've long been a fan of the idea that there ought to be specific currency for each kingdom. In my old Emaindor setting, I took great pains to elucidate the currencies of every realm, along with their value in the standard AD&D monetary system. I never used generic "silver pieces" or "gold pieces" in my games after a certain point and I'm glad to see that Gygax suggests something similar here. The second thing I find interesting is the list of names Gygax offers for the various local coins. These are, so far as I know, unique to the DMG and don't reflect, say, the coins of the Free City of Greyhawk. I suppose they might be the names adopted in some other locations on Oerth, but, if so, I can't place them. Anyone with greater knowledge of the setting should feel free to school me in the comments.

Retrospective: Casino Galactica

When it came to "adventures among the stars" science fiction roleplaying games, Traveller was my preference. Consequently, FGU's Space Opera was merely a game of which I was aware but of whose unique pleasures I did not partake until many years after the fact. This was partly the result of not knowing anyone who owned, let alone played, the game, as well as the fact that, for whatever reason, the hobby shops and bookstores I frequented never seemed to stock Space Opera products. Looking back on it, this strikes me as odd, since there were actually a large number of these products – not as many as Traveller but more than, say, Star Frontiers. 

Today, I think the Space Atlas series tends to get a great deal more attention and perhaps understandably so, since it's in these volumes that we get a sense of the wider "kitchen sink" setting of Space Opera. Yet, FGU also published a fair selection of adventures for use with the game and some of these are well worth examining, starting with Casino Galactica, published in 1984.

Written by Steven B. Todd (of "Gnome Mountain Workshops," a would-be third party publisher of Space Opera support material under license from FGU) and illustrated by Steven S. Crompton, Casinto Galactica is billed as an "adventure setting & scenarios" on its front cover. That's a good description of its contents, as we'll see. The bulk of the book consists of an extensive description of the eponymous Casino Galactica, a luxury resort hotel on Arcturus VI established by Cosmo Filroy, a wealthy man with a mysterious – and possibly criminal – background. It's a decidedly clichéd set-up for a location, but clichés are Space Opera's bread and butter. I don't mean that as a criticism. Clichés persist because they're useful and fun; one of the genuine joys of Space Opera, in my opinion, is the way it leverages pulp SF clichés to present lively, if not necessarily coherent, settings and situations for roleplaying.

Casino Galactica is divided into several sections, the first of which focuses on "personalities," which is to say, important NPCs. Each NPC is given game statistics, as well as a background and suggestions for using them in an adventure. Accompanying many are illustrations by Crompton. The NPCs run the gamut from Filroy himself to the staff of the casino to notable guests. As one might expect, many of the NPCs have hidden agendas and goals, with some being agents of governments both foreign and domestic. The book also includes maps of the casino and its environs, along with keys of the same. Much like the NPC descriptions, some of these include suggestions for their use in an adventure. This being a casino, the book discusses the various types of gambling that take place here, along with rules on how to use them in the game. There's also a series of random encounter tables, for use with the NPCs descriptions. Likewise, the flora and fauna of Arcturus VI (with illustrations) get write-ups, completing the description of the planet on which the casino is located. 

The final section of the book outlines a series of six scenarios set in and around the casino. I use the verb "outlines" advisedly, since none of these scenarios consist of no more than three or four short paragraphs presenting a skeleton of an adventure. If you're expecting fully fleshed out, ready to run scenarios, you'll be disappointed. On the other hand, if you're simply looking for a few hooks on which to hang your own ideas, they're not bad – nothing amazing, mind you, but enough to get the referee started if he's in need of a quick adventure to drop into an ongoing campaign.

I really like RPG supplements like Casino Galactica. They're reflective of an approach to refereeing that largely matches my own. I prefer to be given lots of "raw materials" from which to craft my own adventures. Give me lots of NPCs, maps, and hooks rather than a highly structured scenario anytime. Of course, I rarely use any published adventure as-is, so perhaps I'm biased. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel positively toward a book like Casino Galactica, which is both gleeful in its use of pulp SF tropes and very flexible in the hands of a confident referee. It's not for everyone, but what is?

White Dwarf: Issue #10

Issue #10 of White Dwarf (December 1978/January 1979) features a striking cover by Eddie Jones. It's the kind of funky blend of science fiction and fantasy I so strongly associate with the 1970s and that remains a fascination of mine. Ian Livingstone's editorial focuses only fairly mundane matters, such as the attendance figures of the Games Day IV convention and the release of the AD&D Players Handbook. The magazine will return to both these topics later.

The first article is "Talismans of Tekumel" by Jack McArdle. You'll notice that the cover calls the article "Talismen of Tekumel" and I won't comment further on that. Despite its title, it's more a collection eight new magic items for use with Empire of the Petal Throne than a discussion of talismans as such. Articles like this interest me greatly, since I'm curious about how EPT was received and interpreted in the wider world outside of M.A.R. Barker's circle. If this article is any indication, such people saw it as an exotic form of Dungeons & Dragons. None of the magic items described strike me as being particularly Tekumeláni; most aren't even that great as vanilla D&D magic items. A shame!

The "Fiend Factory" offers up nine new monsters for D&D, only a couple of which I recognize from the Fiend Folio. Meanwhile, "Treasure Chest" presents eight submissions to the magazine's tricks and traps competition. These entries range in length from a couple of sentences to several paragraphs accompanied by Grimtooth's Traps-style illustrations. The letters page is filled with discussion of "realism" in RPGs in response to various discussions of it in previous issues. Reading these letters, I am reminded of the perennial nature of the topic, which still bedevils the hobby to this day. "Games Day" is a report by Ian Livingstone on the UK convention of the same name. Most interesting is the fact that its attendance topped 2500, making it the second largest games convention at the time. That's a remarkable fact on multiple levels, not least of which being that 2500 attendees was considered a significant number. Those were the days!

"Light Sword" by Wilf Backhaus is a strange little "simulation" game of combat with laser swords. It's short and simple and is not directly associated with any RPG. "Open Box" reviews four projects, two of which it receive high marks and two of which do not. The highly rated ones were Gamma World (rated 9) and the AD&D Players Handbook (rated 10). The two low-rated ones are The Realm of Yolmi (rated 2), of which I've never heard, and The Manual of Aurania (rated 4), with which I am somewhat familiar. All the reviews were written by Don Turnbull, who'd eventually go on to be head of TSR UK. Mike Ferguson's "The Experienced Traveller" continues in this issue. Here, he presents the possibility of a Traveller character attending university to learn new skills. The system presented is workable enough, though not one I'd personally use. On the other hand, I did find it amusing, since it includes a random table for determining a character's attitude toward his studies. "Only here for the social life" and "Only here for the beer" are two (bad) results. The issue ends with part three of Rowland Flynn's "Valley of the Four Winds."

Grognard's Grimoire: Thedlani

Thedlani (Horned Lumberer)

Thedlani are large horned animals that stand 12–14 feet tall at the shoulder and support their 5–7 ton weight on four thick legs. Originating in the subtropical forests of Chametkani, domesticated thedlani can now be found across sha-Arthan, where they are used as both mounts and pack animals. Generally docile, these creatures will fight fiercely if attacked.

AC 5 [14], HD 9 (40hp), Att 1 × bite (2d4) or 1 × trample (4d8), THAC0 12 [+7], MV 120’ (40’), SV D10 V11 P12 B13 S14 (5), ML 8, XP 900, NA 0 (1d20), TT Horns

• Trample: 3-in-4 chance of trampling each round. +4 to hit human-sized or smaller creatures.
• Maronma: The horns of the thedlani are made of a bone-like substance called maronma much valued in many lands. Each horn is worth 1d6 × 100gp.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Screaming Skull of Silence

Among the creations of Robert E. Howard, Kull of Atlantis occupies a strange place. On the one hand, he might reasonably be called a "first draft" of the vastly more famous Conan the Cimmerian. Both are crafty barbarians who rise to the rulership of a civilized, if decadent, kingdoms, for example. On the other hand, Kull, when he is remembered at all, is thought of primarily as King Kull, ruler of Valusia, whereas Conan's reign as king of Aquilonia is less celebrated than his time as a wandering warrior (and occasional thief). This is somewhat ironic, given that Conan's first published appearance, "The Phoenix on the Sword," features Conan as king and is in fact a rewrite of another, unpublished story, "By This Axe I Rule!," whose protagonist is Kull. 

The relative obscurity of Kull, at least in popular culture, can to some extent be ascribed to the fact that only three of Howard's stories of him were published during his lifetime. The other were largely unknown until the 1967, when Lancer published King Kull. As you can see from the cover accompanying this post, the book's editor, Lin Carter, shares authorship with Robert E. Howard, thanks to Carter's having "completed" three fragmentary stories originally penned by Howard in the 1930s. Like most so-called "posthumous collaborations," I don't think much of Carter's efforts, but there's no question that King Kull was an important publication for appreciating Howard's broader literary legacy. If nothing else, it gave fantasy fans a fuller picture of Kull and his world so as to distinguish them from Conan and the Hyborian Age.

"The Screaming Skull of Silence" is one of the stories first appearing in the 1967 collection, where it's simply titled "The Skull of Silence" (the longer title being given later after an examination of Howard's papers). After his success with "The Shadow Kingdom" and "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune," he submitted this yarn to Weird Tales for publication but the capricious Farnsworth Wright rejected it and I can see why. "The Screaming Skull of Silence" is quite short in length and filled with philosophical musings about the nature of reality and our place within it – hardly the stuff of thrilling pulp adventure. But then Kull, moreso than Conan, is prone to such musings; it's an important part of his character and why I find him every bit as compelling as the storied Cimmerian. 

The story opens with Kull, seated upon the throne of Valusia, "listening idly to the conversation of Tu, chief councillor, Ka-nu, ambassador from Pictdom, Brule, Ka-nu's right-hand man, and Kuthulos, the slave, who was yet the greatest scholar in the Seven Empires." 

"All is illusion," Kathulos was saying, "all outward manifestations of the underlying Reality, which is beyond human comprehension, since there are no relative things by which the finite mind may measure the infinite. The One may underlie all, or each natural illusion may possess a basic entity. All these things were known to Raama, the greatest mind of all ages, who eons ago freed humanity from the grasp of unknown demons and raised the race to its heights."

The idea that the world we inhabit is actually an illusion of some kind is an old one and one Howard has pondered elsewhere. In this tale, though, it serves as the starting point for a larger discussion that, in turn, ties into its plot. In any case, Ka-nu, the Pictish ambassador, recognizes the name of Raama and dubs him "a mighty necromancer." Kuthulos objects to this simple characterization of him.

"He was no wizard," said Kuthulos, "no chanting, mumbling conjurer, divining from snakes' livers. There was naught of mummery about Raama. He had grasped the First Principles, he knew the Elements and he understood natural forces, acted upon by natural causes, producing natural results. He accomplished his apparent miracles by the exercise of his powers in natural ways, which were as simple in their manners to him, as lighting a fire is to us, and as much beyond our ken as our fire would have been to our ape-ancestors."

From this description, Raama would seem to be a scientist of some sort. The councillor, Tu, seems to understand this as well as asks Kuthulos why Raama did not "give all his secrets" to mankind, to which the slave replies, 

"He knew it would not be good for man to know too much. Some villain would subjugate the whole race, nay the whole universe, if he knew as much as Raama knew. Man must learn by himself and expand in soul as he learns."

Hearing this leads to more objections from Kuthulos' interlocutors, leading to further discussion of the nature of things and whether sight or sound have an essence of their own, apart from our perceptions of them. Kuthulos acknowledges that, yes, somewhere, there exists the essence of such things. Ka-nu pipes up saying that the essence of silence – its "spectre" – does indeed exist and that had long ago been shut up in a great castle by none other than the very Raama they had discussed earlier. Brule agrees.

"I have seen the castle – a great black thing on a lone hill, in a wild region of Valusia. Since time immemorial it has been known as the Skull of Silence."

"Ha!" Kull was interested now. "My friends, I would like to look upon this thing!"

Needless to say, Kuthulos tries to discourage Kull from this path, telling him "it is not good to tamper with what Raama made fast," but the Atlantean is undeterred. He then sets off with his companions to find the Skull of Silence and see for himself if the legends of what it contains are true.

"The Screaming Skull of Silence" is short, as I said. Yet, within the span of a few pages, it contains several engaging ideas that I think elevate it above many similar pulp fantasies. I can't completely disagree with Farnsworth Wright's rejection of the story, as it's not the most exciting sword-and-sorcery yarn ever written, nor is it even Howard's most genuinely thought-provoking one. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and found myself inspired by some of the ideas it plays with. Given its length, I think it well worth a read.

Random Roll: DMG, pp. 111-112

Toward the middle of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, there's a section entitled "Intervention by Deities" that has long fascinated me. In it, Gary Gygax addresses several questions pertaining to the action of gods in an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. He doesn't treat the topic at any length, but what he has to say is nevertheless provocative in places.

If the supernatural powers of the various Outer Planes could and would continually and constantly involve themselves in the affairs of the millions upon the Prime Material Plane, they would not only be so busy as to get neither rest nor relaxation, but these deities would be virtually handling their own affairs and confronting each other regularly and often.

This long opening sentence comes close, I think, to laying out Gygax's broad perspective on the gods and their activities: the gods, by and large, have better things to do than meddle in mortal affairs on a regular basis. This makes sense from a, shall we say, dramatic perspective, in that it ensures that mortal actions – such as those of the player characters – have their unique weight. This also makes sense from a logistical perspective, as he explains.

If an entreaty for aid is heard one time in 100, surely each and every deity in the multiverse would be as busy as switchboard operator during some sort of natural disaster. Even giving each deity a nominal number of servants able to supply aid to desperate adventurers, the situation would be frenzied at best. Add to this the effects of various spells – commune, contact other plane, gate – it is obvious that intervention by a deity is no trifling matter and it is not to be allowed on a whim, even if the characters are in extremis. 

There are a couple of things to note here. First, Gygax does not envision the gods of AD&D to be in any sense omnipotent, let alone omnipresent. Instead, they are limited beings, albeit extremely powerful ones, on par with, say, the deities of classical myth. Second, I think it's fair to surmise that Gygax's vision of the gods is at least partially grounded in his concern that the player characters deal with their own problems rather than looking to Heaven to aid them, this being the better basis for a game of heroic fantasy. That said, he is not entirely opposed to the idea of divine intervention.

This is not to dictate that deities will never come to characters. Serving some deity is an integral part of AD&D. 

That second sense is a remarkable one, particularly in light of occasional statements elsewhere that suggest or even outright state otherwise.

The mighty evil gods, demons, and devils are prone to appear when their name is spoken – provided they stand the possibility of gaining converts to their cause. The forces of good might send some powerful creature of like alignment to aid characters on a mission in their behalf. Certainly in the case of some contest between opposing deities all sorts of intervention will take place – but always so as not to cause the deities themselves to be forced into direct confrontation! 

The gods of AD&D prefer, it seems, to work at a distance and/or through intermediaries rather than directly. Again, this makes sense from a dramatic perspective, since it ensures that mortal actions are meaningful in their own right. Likewise, I might argue, this is in keeping with the traditions of pulp fantasy, where the gods, with some notable exceptions, rarely take center stage.

Otherwise, the accumulation of hit points and the ever-greater abilities and better saving throws represents the aid supplied by supernatural forces.

That's quite a statement! Yet, it's simply a reiteration of something Gygax has repeatedly maintained, namely, that the increase in a character's abilities, most especially his hit points and saving throws, represents, among other things, the favor of the gods. One might well quibble about this from a variety of points of view, but this is not a new statement by Gygax.

In most cases, therefore, you will have to determine the involvement of deities as you develop the scenario or series of scenarios of your campaign. (In my own Greyhawk Campaign there have been 9 demigods, 3 demon lords, and a handful of Norse and other gods involved in the course of many years of play. Once or twice there has been divine intervention – and twice the powers of the infernal region have at the mention of a certain name . . . .) 

I assume the 9 demigods mentioned are those imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk by the mad archmage Zagyg. More intriguing to me is the reference to "a handful of Norse and other gods." Did Gygax's campaign include the Norse pantheon before he created his own unique pantheons? In any case, Gygax then lays out a rough system for handling the likelihood of divine intervention.

Spur of the moment intervention can be handled as follows: If the character beseeching help has been exemplary in faithfulness, then allow a straight 10% chance that some creature will be sent to his or her aid if this is the first time the character has asked for help. If 00 is rolled, there is a percentage equal to the character's level of experience that the deity itself will come, and this chance is modified as follows:

Each previous intervention on behalf of the character                           –5%

Alignment behavior only medial                                                            –5%

Alignment behavior borderline                                                              –10% 

Direction confrontation with another deity required by the situation                                                                                                                                –10%

Character opposing forces of diametrically opposite alignment            +1%

Character serving deity proximately (through direct instruction or by means of some intermediary)                                                                     +25%

As you can see, Gygax clearly felt that, except in extraordinary cases, divine intervention, even of an indirect sort should be very rare indeed.

Note: Deities will not intervene on the planes which are the habitation of other deities, i.e., the Outer Planes. They will neither venture to involve themselves in the Positive and Negative Material Planes. Intervention in the Elemental Planes is subject to DM option, based upon the population he or she has placed there. (If there are elemental gods, the deities from the Outer Planes will NOT go there.) Intervention occurs only on the Prime Material, Astral, or Ethereal Planes in most cases. 

Whenever I read passages like this, I get wistful for the lost Gygaxian second edition of AD&D, which would surely have expanded upon his conception of the Planes. Judging from some of his later work, I think it certain that Gygax had begun to develop an elaborate understanding of the Planes, their inhabitants, and relationships to the mortal world, an understanding I would have liked to see. The Planes were, in my opinion, an underdeveloped aspect of AD&D and it's a pity Gygax was never able to present a fuller vision of them in print. 

Retrospective: Top Secret Companion

Top Secret was one of those games I adored but didn't get to play as often as I'd have liked. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that I don't think my friends liked the espionage genre as much as I do. Another is that it's hard – but not impossible – to justify a "party" of spies, necessitating a smaller group of players than most other RPGs. Even so, I very much enjoyed Merle Rasmussen's articles in the pages of Dragon and kept my eyes open for new releases for the game.

Until the appearance of the Top Secret Companion in 1984, all those releases had been adventure modules. Don't get me wrong: I have fond feelings toward several of those modules, but, since I didn't get to play all that often, I didn't get as much use out of them as I might have liked. The Companion, on the other hand, was the kind of support material I could simply read without having to use it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I never used anything the Companion introduced, which is why I want to talk about it in this post.

As presented, the Companion is a collection of new and expanded rules, along with some clarifications of rules from the original game. In principle, I should have loved this book – and, in principle, I did. There's a great deal of genuinely interesting stuff here, starting with an alignment system that accounts for a character's views on politics (democratic vs authoritarian), economics (capitalist vs communist), and change (radical vs reactionary). There are also new personal traits, areas of knowledge, bureaus, divisions, missions, and more, in addition to many, many random tables for generating every conceivable detail for player character agents. There are also new and optional rules for weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and equipment, not to mention a genuinely interesting system for improving a character through enrolling a character in special training courses. Topping it all off is a lengthy mission entitled "Operation: Meltdown," dealing with, among other things the space race between the West and the USSR. 

If all of the foregoing sounds interesting, you'd be right. I loved reading the Top Secret Companion and thinking about all the ways I could use the new material in my infrequent games. Unfortunately, when the time came to run a session of Top Secret, I never actually made use of any of it. Partly, it was because it simply didn't seem worth it to add new rules to a game I played so rarely and partly it was because so many of the new rules and expansions were of the kind that are simply too fiddly or hard to remember to make good additions to regular play. The Top Secret Companion was thus the first time I encountered a "theoretically good" RPG book, one that seemed to satisfy my desire simply to read rather than to play. 

I don't know that the Companion was uniquely perverse in this regard. Indeed, I am sure that there were many people who made good use of the book and its expanded options for Top Secret. If so, I am happy to hear this. For myself, though, this book represents the start of a period in my later teens when I found myself increasingly drawn towards the ideas contained in a game book than I was in actually using them at the table with my friends. In fact, during my later years of high school, I had less and less time to play RPGs at all and yet, despite that, I continued to be an avid consumer of roleplaying game products, many of which I neither used nor, in my opinion, could have used. 

From what I have gathered talking to others, my experience was not unique. Many people continued to acquire the latest roleplaying games and supplements for them, even though they never had the chance to play them. From my current vantage point, that strikes me as perverse, but, at the time, reading a book like the Top Secret Companion was a good substitute for playing with my friends, which I did less and less, as the demands of school increased and I had less free time to engage in gaming. Looking back on it, I can't help but wonder to what extent companies like TSR understood this about their customers and so published more and more material that might continue to appeal to people who still considered themselves roleplayers even though they didn't actually play RPGs all that much anymore. It's something I continue to wonder about even today, as I look out on a market saturated with so many games and game products that there is simply no way most of them are being played by anyone.

Perhaps unfairly, I look back on the Top Secret Companion as a harbinger of a change within TSR and the hobby as a whole. The faddishness of the late '70s and early '80s was dying down somewhat and the earliest generations of gamers were starting to drift away from the hobby. Even I, in my mid-teens by this point, played the games that had meant so much to me just a few years prior a lot less. Much of my "gaming" activity was no devoted to thinking about playing rather than doing so. That's probably why a book like the Companion appealed to me so much when it was released. My feelings about it now are decidedly less positive, but maybe that says more about my own personal history than it does about the book itself.

White Dwarf: Issue #9

Needless to say, I love Christopher Perigo's cover to issue #9 of White Dwarf (October/November 1979), but then I am a fan of non-equine mounts in fantasy. Ian Livingstone begins the issue with an intriguing editorial. He broaches the subject of "realism" in fantasy roleplaying games in a somewhat negative fashion. He wonders whether this drive toward a "realistic game" serves any useful purpose and indeed whether it comes at the expense of fun and enjoyment. He then muses that "Taken to its logical conclusion, it would necessitate … rolling for the percentage chance of being stung by nettles whilst picking blackberries or bleeding gums whilst brushing teeth." In conclusion, Livingstone concedes, "If people want this, fine, but they should try to force their method of play down somebody else's throat, claiming that they are 'authorities'." As ever, I really have to wonder what was going on in the late 1970s UK gaming scene.

Complaints about the experience rules – or lack thereof – GDW's Traveller are commonplace and have been since the release of the game in 1977. Mike Ferguson's "The Experienced Traveller" introduces a system for in-game skill improvement, if one is so inclined. While I have never had a problem with this aspect of Traveller, I don't object to its introduction in campaigns where the referee deems it appropriate. However, Ferguson's system is odd in that it makes use of percentile dice to determine whether a skill improves after successful use. Traveller uses only six-sided dice, so the use of percentiles seems profoundly off to me, but I'm a purist about such matters.

"The Fiend Factory" gives us nine more monsters for use with Dungeons & Dragons. Most of these did not see publication in the Fiend Folio (unless my memory is poor – a distinct possibility!) and some of those that did saw changes (such as Svarts becoming Xvarts for some reason). I should also note that the feature's habit of using unique, hand-drawn typefaces for each monster's name is frustrating, as it's sometimes difficult to read the names. Part Two of Rowland Flynn's "The Valley of the Four Winds" story continues in this issue and I don't have much to say about it or, for that matter, the next installment of the "Kalgar" comic, which has completely failed to hold my attention.

On the other hand, Albie Fiore's "The Lichway" is well worth your time. It's an excellent trap-filled dungeon, intended to test the mettle of 1st-level characters. Most interesting to me is the presence of several groups of NPCs already present in the dungeon, including one made of man-beasts. The prospect of having to deal with so many mutually antagonistic factions sets this apart from many other introductory adventures, as does its general ambience of death and decay. It's not for nothing then that this is perhaps the most famous adventure ever published in the pages of White Dwarf. 

"Open Box" reviews Superhero 2044, Legions of the Petal Throne, the three Gygax-penned giants modules, and Citadel of Fire. All but the giants modules receive middling reviews (6 out of 10). Following it "Foresters" by Trevor Clarke and Ed Simbalist, which is in fact an extract from the Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook. The article deals with what are effectively Tolkien-style rangers for use with C&S. Meanwhile, this month's "Treasure Chest" offers up seven new "tricks & traps," along with an amusing percentile table of "useless items" (like an Albanian dictionary, a sack of stuffed voles, and a copy of "Greyhawk on 10 g.p. a Day"). There's also a handy chart for quickly generating the ability scores of monsters, should they be needed in play.  

This issue of White Dwarf feels a little thin to me. I certainly observed many pages devoted to advertising, a trend that's been building over the past few issues. I can't say for certain that there actually are more ads than before, but it certainly seems that way, a perception helped in no small part by the largely lackluster content of the issues ("The Lichway" being the primary standout). But, as I have said many times before, this has always been the nature of gaming periodicals. Perhaps next issue will be more impressive.