Pulp Fantasy Library: Eaters of the Dead

Eaters of the Dead is a short -- less than 300 pages -- novel by Michael Crichton, published in 1976. Subtitled "The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan, Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922," it's not technically a fantasy, at least not in the sense of including magic and (non-human) monsters. I suppose it could be rightfully called a historical fantasy, since the events it depicts not only didn't occur in the history of our world, they're also not likely to have been able to occur -- unless our understanding of the world is very mistaken. On the other hand, Crichton is very good at presenting unlikelihoods in a plausible way to make for entertaining stories and Eaters of the Dead is very entertaining.

As its subtitle suggests, the novel presents itself as if it were a translation of an actual medieval text that preserves details of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's journeys amongst "the Northmen," which is to say, the Vikings. These Vikings kidnap him while he is part of an embassy between the Caliph of Baghdad and the king of the Bulgars and it's this event that provides the frame for most of the novel. Crichton carefully maintains the pose that all he is doing is presenting a real historical text by providing footnotes and occasional editorial commentary to explain details missing from the original source material. In addition, Eaters of the Dead doesn't read like a contemporary novel; it's much more akin to a classical or medieval travelog, like The Histories of Herodotus or The Travels of Marco Polo. There is a narrative in the novel, but it's a meandering one that spends a lot of time discussing the customs of the alien peoples Ibn Fadlan meets on his journeys.

Of course, Crichton's ruse is helped by the fact that there really was an Ahmad ibn Fadlan and he did journey far north of his homeland, though not as far as he is depicted as having done in the novel. Likewise -- and this is where the novel takes a turn into pulp fantasy -- the heroic quest on which Ibn Fadlan finds himself is nowhere to be found in recorded history. While he is among the Vikings, their leader Buliwyf learns that an ancient foe has reappeared and threatens his father's kingdom. Furthermore, an oracle tells Buliwyf what must be done.

Then into the hall entered the old crone called the angel of death, and she sat beside Buliwyf. From a hide bag she withdrew some bones -- whether human or animal I do not know -- and these bones she cast upon the ground, speaking low utterances, and she passed her hand over them.

The bones were gathered up, and cast again, and the process repeated with more incantations. Now again was the casting done, and finally she spoke to Buliwyf.

I asked the interpreter the meaning of her speech, but he did not attend me.

Then Buliwyf stood and raised his cup of strong drink, and called to the assembled earls and warriors, making a speech of some good length. One by one, several warriors stood at their places to face him. Not all stood; I counted eleven, and Buliwyf pronounced himself satisfied with this.

Now also I saw that Thorkel appeared much pleased by the proceedings and assumed a more kingly bearing, while Buliwyf paid him no heed, or showed any hatred of him, or even any interest, although they were formerly enemies a few minutes past.

Then the angel of death, this same crone, pointed to me and made some utterance, and then she departed the hall. Now at last my interpreter spoke, and he said: "Buliwyf is called by the gods to leave this place and swiftly, putting behind him all his cares and concerns, to act as a hero to repel the menace of the North. This is fitting, and he must also take eleven warriors with him. And so, also, must he take you."

I said that I was on a mission to the Bulgars, and must follow the instructions of my Caliph, with no delay.

"The angel of death has spoken," my interpreter said. "The party of Buliwyf must be thirteen, and of these one must be no Northman, and so you shall be the thirteenth."

I protested I was not a warrior. Verily I made all the excuses and pleadings that I could imagine might have effect upon this rude company of beings. I demanded that the interpreter convey my words to Buliwyf, and yet he turned away and left the hall, saying this last speech: "Prepare yourself as you think best. You shall leave on the morning light."

What follows after this is the true story of Eaters of the Dead and, as I said, it's an enjoyable one, at least I found it so. Without spoiling the novel, I'll say only that what Crichton offers up is a retelling of a classic fantasy story of Western literature but disguised and rooted in history. Naturally, there are a lot of flaws in his effort, not least being that the story classic story on which Eaters of the Dead is based was likely written before the events of the novel take place, though there is enough scholarly disagreement about it that Crichton can make his case nonetheless. Regardless of its real world accuracy, it's a fun book and one that could easily inspire plenty of roleplaying adventures.

Worth Remembering

In working on the second volume of the Dwimmermount Codex, I often found myself poking around in the D&D III SRD, since there are some monsters and magic items in it that don't appear in other retro-clone products (at least so far as I am aware). What I discovered -- or, rather, was reminded of -- was just how much of the DNA of OD&D and AD&D made it into 3e. I'm not just talking about the ideas of those earlier editions; I'm also talking about the actual words used to present those ideas. For example, fireball is described as "detonat[ing] with a low roar," which is exactly how Gygax described it in the Players Handbook. I could cite dozens of other examples just like that.

Stuff like this is why, for all my many problems with 3e, I'm still grateful for the role it -- and the SRD/OGL combo -- played in preserving and transmitting the ideas and words of previous editions, for which every one of us involved in the old school community should be grateful. Were there not a strong family resemblance between D&D III and the TSR editions we all love, the creation of the retro-clones would have been that much harder to accomplish, perhaps even impossible. We've been given an amazing gift, one that only seems more amazing as the years wear on.

Entropy

Looks like my monitor has decided to die on me, so at least some portion of today will be spent trying to find a cheap but reliable replacement. Such fun.

The Goblinoids of Dwimmermount

With the first volume of the Dwimmermount Codex nearing completion, I've been turning my attention to the second volume, Monsters & Treasures. Yesterday, I got my first piece of art from it (from Kelvin Green) and it perfectly captures the distinct appearances and personalities of the goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears of my Dwimmermount campaign. Enjoy!

©2011 Kelvin Green

One Man's Nostalgia

By now, I'm pretty sure everyone in the old school community is very much aware of Goodman Games's upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, which is currently in open playtest and is on schedule for a February 2012 release. I haven't paying as close attention to the playtest as I'd intended to, in part because I've got my own projects to work on. But another part of my inattention is that, while there's a lot I do like about the DCC RPG, there's also a lot I don't and, perhaps more importantly, I'm not really in the market for another fantasy roleplaying game right now. So, I keep half an eye on DCC RPG's development, checking in every now and again to see how things are unfolding.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the game line's development are the upcoming adventure modules to support it. Take a look at the covers of a couple of them:

Those are both really awesome, right? They scream pulp fantasy in a way that adventure module covers haven't since I first entered the hobby. That they're reminiscent of the covers of both Weird Tales magazines and 1970s paperback novels, without being apes of either, is also a point in their favor. For me, they hit that sweet spot between nostalgic evocation and unique vision.

On the other hand, this does nothing for me. Indeed, it almost looks like a parody cover.

It looks like a crossover between Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser -- and while that's probably awesome in some people's eyes, I find it silly. Of course, even sillier in my opinion is another DCC adventure module:

Now, winged apes are cool and, of course, Michael Curtis is even cooler, but basing an adventure off Tramp's iconic DMG illustration? That's not so cool. I find myself uncomfortably reminded of some of those HackMaster adventures of old, the ones that turned me off them to such a degree that I never bothered to give the game a fair shake. That's what Emirikol Was Framed! does for to me: it turns me off DCC RPG and it's not even out yet.

I'm just one guy, of course. I'm sure many other old schoolers looked at those second two covers and pumped their fists in enthusiasm. They looked at them and found them as delightfully evocative as I found the first two. Nostalgia, just like esthetics, is a funny thing; one man's "delightfully evocative" is another man's "Hell, no!" I bring this up not as a criticism of DCC RPG at all. Despite my own qualms, I'm actually glad that Goodman Games has decided to forge ahead with a game that looks like it's the product of a clear and idiosyncratic vision of fantasy. It's hard not to applaud that, even when it's not wholly something I would have done -- but then, that's part of the point.

A Hargravian Oddity

I'm not an uncritical admirer of Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire series. There's a lot of creativity in the pages of these books, but also a lot of nonsense. Despite that, I find myself regularly re-reading them, because, like the LBBs, I regularly find new things in them that I'd either not noticed before or that I had noticed and somehow had forgotten. Last night, when I was paging through the "General Notes on Monsters, Combat and the Like" from the original Arduin Grimoire, I came across this odd little note:

6. All fireballs and other offensive area effect weapons, have their damage points divided among all of those that are caught inside its limits. That means that if there are 4 people caught in a 6 dice fireball that does 20 points of damage on the dice roll, then each of the four takes 5 points of damage if they fail their saving throw, and 3 points (2-1/2 rounded up) if they make their save, NOT 20 point [sic] each!!!

Among old schoolers, Arduin has a reputation for being both gonzo and deadly, so I was bit surprised to read the passage above, because it severely weakens the power of spells like fire ball. It's also an interpretation of area effect damage in D&D that I don't think I ever encountered back in the day. That's not surprising, since I didn't start playing till late 1979, by which point AD&D had been released and this issue, among others, had been definitively clarified. But back in '77, using only the LBBs, Hargrave's interpretation wasn't implausible (though examination of Chainmail would have shed further light on the matter).

I won't be adopting Hargrave's interpretation in my own campaign, but I like reading about rules variants like this. One of the great things about OD&D is the way that it unintentionally demands judgment calls and interpretations to make it playable. And Arduin, for all the things about it I dislike, is nevertheless a terrific example of one referee's "deciding how [he] would like it to be, and then mak[ing] it just that way!" 

Table of Contents

As a further preview of the nearly finished first volume of the Dwimmermount Codex, here's the table of contents.

Open Friday: Fear and Horror

It being October, my thoughts naturally turn to horror and fear. Mind you, I'm a big fan of horror and suspense movies, so it's not unusual for me to be thinking about such things. Of course, I'm also (obviously) a fan of roleplaying games. What I've concluded is that, unfortunately, RPGs aren't a very good -- or, at least, very reliable -- medium through which evoke feelings of horror and fear (or, indeed, any particular emotion). That's not to say that it's impossible to have a creepy or edge-of-your-seat gaming session, but there's no way to ensure this.

In truth, that doesn't bother me at all. I'm increasingly of the opinion that the quest for genre emulation is one of the great banes of our hobby, so the fact that no RPG can guarantee an emotional response of any type isn't a cause of concern. But there have been times when I have played or refereed RPG sessions that did elicit feelings of horror or fear from the participants. Such times are easily replicable; they can't be reduced to a formula, let alone a set of mechanics.

So, for today's question: have you ever had a game session that was memorably frightening or horrific and, if so, was there anything you or your fellow players did that contributed to this feeling? Or was it just one of those things that happened without any real explanation?

The Articles of Dragon: "Cantrips: Minor Magics for Would-Be Wizards"

The appearance of a new article by Gary Gygax was always a special treat for me. Back in March 1982, when issue #59 of Dragon was published, I was still very much enthralled by the idea that Gary's word was law when it came to Dungeons & Dragons. Needless to say, I ate up articles like "Cantrips: Minor Magics for Would-Be Wizards" and dutifully incorporated them into my campaign -- or, rather, I tried to.

The problem was that, much as I liked the idea of 0-level spells, they simply never caught on with any of my players. And, really, who can blame them? Even at an exchange rate of four cantrips per 1st-level spell, they aren't particularly attractive, at least not to an adventuring magic-user. I honestly can't recall a single time that a player ever made use of a cantrip. For that matter, I don't think I ever made use of them for NPCs either.

Looking back on it now, I recognize a couple of things. First, I think Gary came up with cantrips because they were a natural outgrowth of his world-building. That is, he'd given a lot of thought to what a magical society would be like and the existence of minor spells to teach neophyte magicians seemed perfectly logical. Second, I think Gary had tired of dungeons and much of his thinking was occupied with the world outside them. If you look at his output from at least 1981 on, what you see are rules expansions and elaborations that make more sense if one imagines a campaign where dungeons are, at best, a sideshow compared to other adventuring activities. In such contexts, cantrips might have a place.

This specific article didn't undermine my devotion to Gary Gygax; as I said, I liked it a great deal. But it was one of the first times where something Gygax wrote went over like a lead balloon in my gaming group and that was significant. For that reason alone, this article was a significant one for me.

Historical Armor

The other day I was browsing the website of the Sierra Toy Soldier Company, specifically its Medieval Knights Collection. Their products are much too expensive to even consider buying, but they're nice eye candy. They've got a very wide selection of stuff and I found myself wasting way more time just staring at its images than I ought to have done.  Plus, how can anyone not waste time on a website that includes 54mm miniatures of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Jacques de Molay at the stake?

Anyway, the website reminded me of just how much I like the look of historical armor. It's one of the things I like most about David Sutherland's early D&D artwork: his fighting men and clerics are usually wearing armor that, while it probably wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny by medievalists, is nevertheless close enough for my purposes. There's a "groundedness" to this sort of armor that I actually think helps to heighten the fantasy elements of the game, something that I think has been missing in it since the 2e era at least.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mark Allen is doing a historically-armored fighting man for me in an illustration that will accompany my first Dwimmermount release ...