In light of a recent Pulp Fantasy Library entry, I thought readers might enjoy this write-up of Clark Ashton Smith's sorcerer, Maal Dweb. The description originally appeared in the "Giants in the Earth" column appearing in issue #30 of Dragon (October 1979), written by Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay (though I suspect, given his love of Smith, that Moldvay was likely the author of this particular character).
Obvious peculiarities that stand out to me:
ReplyDeleteIntelligence 18(96): Since when does Int get a "exceptional stat" percentile roll like Strength did? What's it going to do for him, let him Bend (Mind) Bars better? Increase his (spell) carrying capacity? :)
Special Iron Golem: Description starts with "Huge brazen automatons..." Very special indeed. Brass is not iron. I suppose Maal might have transformed them with a Wish or something. You know, to help keep the rust monsters away from them. Darn nuisance, rust monsters.
Yeah, the 18(96) jumped out at me as well, but my reaction was a little different. I imagine players might enjoy having this feature attached to the prime requisite for each character type, and I can think of any number of reasonable applications. Might give it a try some time.
DeleteI'm pretty sure I've seen several homebrew articles (maybe one in Different Worlds?) that had "exceptional" percentile rolls and charts for all stats - but it's surprising to see something like that showing up in Dragon itself. Maybe they did an article for it as well at some point?
DeleteIIRC, quite a few Judges Guild products from this era used percentile secondary stat scores like this, as a sort of house format. I don't remember what they were used for, though I think there was a stat advancement mechanic that involved tracking slow increases in the percentile bit until you gained the next point of the base stat score.
DeleteGiants of the Earth often seemed to playing with its own unique version of the AD&D rules, with free multi-classing, percentage stats, more open alignment requirements etc. It's a little odd that presented with obvious evidence that the D&D rules could use some tweaking to better emulate the fantasies that its creators so enjoyed that they didn't put this sort of rules variants into Deities & Demigods or Unearthed Arcana...
Delete@Dave Pulver I've been reminded of the fact that the UE Cavalier class had rules for gradually advancing some of their stats with a similar percentile system, accumulating a % score till it reached 100% at which point the main stat bumped up one and the % re-set. So perhaps there was some lesson taken from Giants In the Earth, even if it might not have been a good one.
DeleteThose stood out to me as well.
DeleteI loved Giants in the Earth. It was such a joy to see all the classic literary characters I grew up with being adapted for D&D. Even if they were wildly over powered, you could feel the love the authors had for the characters.
ReplyDeleteThey explained in an editorial why percentile figures were given for Intelligence (and sometimes other characteristics too) - namely, so many of the "Giants in the Earth" had 18s that it was felt important to try and differentiate them in some way. A slightly odd decision, but I think it is better than giving Maal Dweb and other human sorcerers 22 or something.
ReplyDeleteI too love Giants in the Earth. Thanks for posting this, James.
This is the best big bad evil guy I've read in a while. I was able to visualise the whole description of the special maze spell like I was there. I'm a big fan of BBEG having pocket dimensions they can banish you to.
ReplyDeleteGiants of the Earth introduced me to several fine fantasy novels. The two Maal Dweb stories are among my favorites of Smith's work, and give a good insight into high-level wizardry.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly rival Vance's Rhialto the Marvellous stories for that, albeit with a rather darker tone.
DeleteThis is awesome, and yep, Moldvay for sure.
ReplyDelete