Arduin Eternal Review

Well, since I actually had time off from the office rather than spending 18 out of every 24 there, I figured it was time to put that time to good use and post something.



A while ago, I wrote up that Arduing Eternal would be shipping "soon." Well, soon turned out to be measured in months when it came to the playtester copies, but they did finally arrive about two weeks ago.

I was excited about getting this book. After all, I had been part of the playtest, so I was chomping at the bit to see the finished product. When I opened my copy of Arduin Eternal, I was sorely dissapointed. First, I should say that, when it's boiled down and we get past the issues, I still think that AE is an excellent system that contains rules that could cover just about everything (a real draw to some) and what I feel is a true inheritor to the original Arduin. I do like the game.

However . . .

The artwork and layout of the book is subpar in many instances. Not all the art, but frequently the illustrations in the book made everyone in our group do a doubletake, especially one particularly infamous illustration on page 98 that has an unfortunately anatomical appearance. Arduin has never been known for innovative or incredible art, but it was always evocative and interesting. This time, though, it invokes mostly a bit of headscratching and laughter. At the same time, even those illustrations that were quite good got crammed into corners and had proportions distorted to force them to fit where they didn't need to be, presumably in an effort to avoid orphaned text giving some of the art a squashed look. And in the meantime, too much of the art looks . . . well . . . the only description is "wrong" that it's distracting. This includes the cover that has what we presume to be a rune weaver but who looks more like a barbarian and whose proportions are so odd that it looks biologically impossible. You can see it there at the top of this post.

The greatest offender here, though, has to be the general editing of the book. It seems that during the assembling of the book and the final work that, in order to keep the book as a single volume, a great amount of material had to be cut. We understand this, after all, the book is already over 800 pages long and any longer would have made it practically unusable. The problem arises when it turns out that a significant portion of what was cut was neccessary to understand how things work, such as something as basic as how a thief picks a lock. You can check out a partial list here that just our group has been compiling based on a day or two of character generation. There are more than these, and a quick dip into the other topics at those fora will show a few of them.

Compounding this problem are numerous editing mistakes such as gramatical and spelling errors and references in the text to versions of other sections of text as they were in either the alpha or beta playtest versions of the game that didn't get updated to the new, finalized version. Readers are forced to hunt through the text hoping to determine where soemthing is, or go to the forums begging for enlightenment. Sometimes, the material is well and truly missing, promised in a forthcoming set of books to include a Culture book and a Bestiary (we hope they make an appearance soon) as well as reworkings of the excellent adventure White Roc's Inn. But for the time being, they're conspicuously absent. And that includes the index of the book which is available for download on the Emperor's Choice website.

In this day and age, and especially in an instance when many of the plyatesters were offering their time free of charge to assist with the editing, or merely in exchange for a copy of the book or two. It smacks of unprofessionalism. We understand, of course, that the author is not a full time RPG author and that his real life has interfered with the execution of this massive project, but there were options that could have certainly alleviated the issues that many have noticed. In the end, this book looks like a strong mid-draft rather than a finished book, and that is unfortunate.

At its core, one supposes that one of the central conceits of the Old School Rennaisance is simplicity. That a core rules set can and should be contained to a mere 100 pages or less and that the rest is entirely up to the GM and players to expand upon. I agree with this model to a certain extent, though I'll allow for more comprehensive rules when they work towards the concept effectively. The problem with Arduin Eternal is that it is so massive that it's daunting even to players who have been at the game for more than 20 years. Character generation is an extensive process that can and does take days of effort if you know what you're doing. I can only imagine what it takes the uninitiated. Here is something that the Compleat Arduin books had in spades. At every step in character generation there were text boxes set aside with examples of the process, and they helped immeasurably to comprehend an otherwise complicated system. They are sorely missing here, and I can only hope that we see something like that in the future, either as a free PDF, or as a fan released document.

This leads to another issue, at least an issue that I have and I'm told it's not universal. To create a character, one is forced into that loathsome concept of "the build." Creating a character is a careful balancing act of weighing pro's and con's of each choice, playing each benefit and drawback against your character's central theme and abilities, always with a plan in mind of where he's going. It's a process that is virtually impossible to avoid a strong current of meta-gaming if you're looking to create a mechanically effective character. Now, I'm told that not everybody feels that this is a drawback. The D20 crowd are certainly no strangers to this and even I will admit right here that it can be fun to spend your time building a character in this way and truly become attached to him from the beginning. But in this instance, it's so antithical to the old school mindset that it seems injurious to one segment of Arduin's core audience. The grognards and neckbeards still playing with the little brown books or the clones of the white box won't find the original Grimoire volumes that were a grab bag of whacky and zaney goodies for their games and if that's what they want, they'd do much better picking up copies of the re-edited and republished Grimoire from Emperor's Choice and calling it well done.

What should have been made clear from the beginning and is not is that this is absolutely not an introductory RPG. This is not a way to cut one's teeth either on gaming in general (I'd recommend sticking with S&W/LL or OSRIC on that regard) or even the idiosynchratic world of Arduin for that matter (better I think to grab up a copy of the World Book of Khaas). A great deal of the game relies on a strong and confident GM who is willing to take the material and work with it until it resembles the shape he needs for the game. Things left unsaid or entirely open (glaringly, the function and nature of lycanthropy, or the entire bestiary) have to bee worked up on a case by case basis to the satisfaction of the individual players and it requires players as well who are strong and on the game. Novices and neophytes will be frustrated and lost.

While D20 players might feel more at home - after all, the secrets and skills are a strong D20 influence I think - they will undoubtedly be daunted by the preliminary inellegence of the game. As clunky and poor as many of us find the 3.x versions of D&D (not to mention 4ed), those games run like a well tuned Ferrari in comparison to this without a strong and sure guiding hand at the wheel. There is no strong advise on how to run the game, no Game Master's guide except for a few pages at the back of the book. There's no advice on how to run a distinctly Arduinian game and we are left to either intuit that or to import what we already know from our old Arduin games and make it so.

All together, I think the game itself is strong and excellent. I look forward to getting into our upcoming campaign and may post a few after action reports. However, I find that this particular book is not quite up to market snuff and that it needs a bit of help in terms of editing and presentation, as well as at least a few planned supplements at least one for the GM exclusively comprised of advice and guidance, in order to feel entirely complete.

Pick up a copy if you are an established Arduin fan, or if you're an experienced gamer looking for a challenging but very rewarding game.

Don't pick it up if you're looking for a book in the style of the Old School Rennaisance, or if you're looking to introduce yourself or somebody else to gaming.

Review: Frandor's Keep

Well, I've had the module in my hands since about release day, so I figure it's about time I gathered myself to say something. Just finished reading through it last night thanks to hectic schedule pushing me to read about 1 page a day, but anyway.

Physical Appearance

The book has absolutely no shortcomings here. The cover art (pictured here) is evocative of certain old school images without being a straight rip off, and definitely evocative of the mood and atmosphere of the module itself. Interior art, maps, and layout are impressive, especially when it is considered that Kenzer employs something on the order of about 6 people irregularly. Old school, reminiscent of Kenzer's HM4 art but without some of the hokiest qualities that could plague that. Most often simple line drawings that are, nevertheless, quite excellent. The quality of the materials used in construction, as well, is evident. Kenzer continues to be plagued by editing mistakes in the text, but they are unobtrusive here, and infrequent. To put it succinctly, the quality of the book makes things coming out of a certain coastal wizards' lair look like crap.

Content

First, a note: this is, very loosely, a sequel to their prior "Little Keep on the Borderland" which was, itself, either an expansion of or a sequel to the original "Keep on the Borderland." It is not, however, dependent that one knows about the previous materials in order to understand the module, nor are their such distasteful elements as plot, merely something that'll make those in the know chuckle to themselves as they read it in passing, something emblematic of the humor that the authors shine at. Of special note is the origin of the mad hermit in the wood, who is not the prior hermit in the wood, who was himself not the original hermit in the wood.

Another important thing to know is that this book is not, in strictest terms, a module in the sense of an adventure. It is, as the cover states, an "immersive setting for adventures" instead. Of course, that's a particularly dry rendering of it, but that is, frankly, what you get: a location based product that goes into extreme effort to detail the areas in and around the eponymous Keep on the Borderland to an extent that would keep a group of players with an uninventive GM busy for months without exhausting all the possibilities or having to add any more. Of course, those of us who laud the qualities of "less is more" and minimalism will likely go into apopleptic fits over the volume of material detailed here, and that's entirely expected. The module is not written in the minimalist mode and no apologies are made for that here. One hopes, though, that even the staunchest of Gygaxian gamers will find something they like about the book.

The first half to two-thirds of the book devotes itself to in-depth descriptions of locations in and around the Keep and the road from the nearest civilized settlement, "Vew." There are some minor encounters mentioned, but for the most part, it's a travelogue and guide more than anything. The marvelous keyed 3-D projection maps (available for free, by the way, from the Kenzer Co. website) list who owns each paticular business/building, who lives there, their personality's, foibles, and involvements and most sections include a note about how the PC's might be expected to interact with each person lest we think this is merely a massively overdeveloped castle out of somebody's home campaign. There's a great deal within the walls of the keep itself to keep players busy and I envision many sessions never leaving the Middel Bailey at all as the curiosity and foolishness of PC's gets the better of them.

Additionaly, there are notes throughout helping a GM to "breathe life into the Keep" rather than just turning it into a static lump in a corner, the six acre gorilla in the room so to speak. That seems to be a strong theme in this product. Frandor's Keep is a learning module as much as the original Keep was. It's filled with not only advice on how to invest the entire assembly with motion and energy, but with notes that help novice GM's and players to test the width and breadth of Kenzer's new game system, Hackmaster Basic without ever devolving into didacticism and always remaining entertaining and challenging.

The new Keep is set in the Kingdom's of Kalamar world, and it is strongly felt throughout the product. The maps are straight out of the Kalamar Atlas volume, and some pains have been taken to link entities within and around the Keep to the larger world outside. It is assumed that groups will play in that world, though with effort, it is possible to transport the whole assemblage to another world. Unfortunately for those who wish to do so, there are more and stronger threads to be cut and rewoven, but it is conceivable that any low/infrequent magic world with a moutainous border region could receive the module without too much fuss.

The greatest difference between this module and the original, the one that everybody will notice first upon picking up the book, is that the Caves of Chaos are not here. This is, possibly, a deal breaker for some, but I don't think it should be. Yes, they're missing from this particular book, but they are due to come out soon in conjunction with the Advanced Hackmaster rules since they are of higher level material than the rest of the area and, as I said above, there's enough material within to keep most parties busy for a long time, especially with the addition of the three PDF modules "White Pallette, Ivory Horns," "In the Realm of the Elm King," and "The Mysterious Shrine," all available on the Kenzer Co. website for free, or for cheap. At least I see three months of gaming time in this book, assuming weekly sessions of considerable length. Those of us who know the joys of gainful employment in this day and age will likely find even more here.

The assumed system of the module is, of course, the new Hackmaster Basic (HMB) which is certainly not to the tastes of all. I confess myself not entirely enamoured of it, though I find it to be excellent on its own merits, just not something that gels perfectly with my own style as I'm sure many others will agree. However, the system does little to influence the wrigting of the material and it would be a trivial matter indeed to utilize Swords and Wizardry, AD&D, or even BRP to play here.

A high note here may be that some of the forced humor and over the top confrontationalism of the HM4 days is absent. There is a bit of "Gary Speak" involved, but it is much toned down and the "joke elements" are much reduced. Those of us who looked on the previous Hackmaster as a joke game will have to re-evaluate our opinions. It remains to be seen, though, if the designers will swing too far in the other direction in their efforts to shed the joke system mantle that saddled them throughout their prior years. For instance, in the new game, the bugbears have an interesting quirk of biology which is definately designed to get at our squick factor: the female of the species must consume an infant of a sentient race in order to go into heat and reproduce which provides one of the primary modes of conflict between humans and the bugbears. On the one hand, it's not over the top, but it does smack of the sensationalist gross out factor that so many mistake for more adult or darker these days. I hope that this does not become a trend in the new material.

Summary

Overall, for quality of production and content, the module earns 5 out of 5 stars. A truly remarkable effort that proves that the folks at Kenzer & Co. can really out do themselves even after years of truly excellent products. They've set the bar high for their future offerings, and I've little doubt that they will exceed our expectations. Frandor's Keep is, frankly, the best RPG product I've seen in a year. While it might not be entirely to the tastes of all gamers, one cannot deny that this book sets a high standard for the entire gaming industry.

Those of us looking for the minimalist approach will be unhappy with what's here, but that is not now, nor has it ever been Kenzer & Co's vision of Old School, and they make no appologies for it, nor should they. Rather than throwing a generic, undeveloped location at the GM, instead the module throws a fully evolved and integrated Kalamar location, complete with links to the larger world without ever devolving into the world shattering events and plots of grand and global scope that so tainted later Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft materials. At its heart, Frandor's Keep is a strong location based adventure locale that takes the extra step that GM's normally would to bring the module fully into the assumed setting. And it does it with true style.

Get this if you're looking for a setting based module for the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting with real life and energy.

Don't get this if you're looking for something in the same style and mode as the original Keep on the Borderlands, minimalist and generic enough to cameleon its way into any world with no effort.

Frandor's Keep, here, takes effort, love, and work to work and play well. It takes a strong and inventive GM, curious and even foolish players who won't get bored by not having a gaff sized hook to lure them on by the nose from A to B to C, and a willingness on both parts to fully engage the material that is presented and build on it. It's worth it though.

Kingdoms of Kalamar

Since not enough people seemingly know about this, I'm bringing it up here and doing my little bit to schill for the Kenzer guys. The Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign setting is something that I think should be more popular than it is today. In my view, this is a setting that learned all of the best lessons of Greyhawk and The Forgotten Realms and produced one of the best campaign settings for sale today. And yes, I'm a great fan of it, why do you ask?

Since Dave can say it better than I can, I present you with his own words on the matter.

From my perspective, what draws me the most about it, is simply the campaign setting book. It's a mark of its quality, I think, that I can open the book to just about any page at random and pick out at least a dozen adventure ideas and long term campaign plans. Liberating the dwarf stronghold Karasta, recently conquered by the resurgent Kalamaran Empire of the Vast. Fighting the slavers and priests of the Overlord of Pel Brolenon, a city where more than 75% of the population is in bondage. Exploring the remains of Kolokar's Barrier, a great wall built to hold back the invading barbarians. There's just so much in every page that, frankly, I actually get giddy with ideas for running a game in this world, and that's what it is, a world. It's not just a campaign setting, it's a fully realized world in so many ways.

The greatest aspect is, in my view, that just about any adventure type is supported. Political and cultural adventure types are the setting's forte for sure, but at the same time, it's easy to shove that into the background and just hurl oneself into dungeon crawling and monster slaying. God killing? Yeah, you can do that.

I recommend it to all the Old Schoolers, Middle Schoolers, and New Schoolers out there that the CS is worth a look, even if you only pick up the PDF copy of the campaign setting and Atlas (currently with 4e mechanics in it, but so few you could count the instances on one hand and still have fingers left over), or grab a used copy of the book from Amazon or NobleKnight. It's definately worth your time.

And now, I'll refrain from further shameless displays of fanboyism.

Review: Castles Forlorn

This isn't so much of a review as it is a retrospective, but I've been unable to come up with a better term that isn't a direct steal from Grognardia, so here we are.

While I don't get any time any more to DM (working 12 hour days can do that to you), I do get to play in a semi-regular weekly game, and for the last two years of real time, our group has been deeply embroiled in TSR's Castles Forlorn module. It's not exactly a great secret that AD&D2nd edition's tenure as the current D&D game represented a profound dearth of good modules. TSR seemed incapable of bringing out modules of the same quality as T1, the G and D series, and pretty much any of the 1st edition modules that truly created the shared experience that was AD&D 1ed. Dungeon Magazine certainly had a few that were noteworthy, even great, but it was hardly a suitable patch for a gaping hole in the time.

So, consider my surprise when, from the player's seat, I found myself dropped directly into one of the huge boxed set adventures that can so easily go so very wrong, from Ravenloft of all places, a campaign setting whose published modules are notoriously bad at times, and finding that not only was it good, but great. I'm going to talk about this module from the perspective of a player, since that is how I have experienced it first, and in the interest of full disclosure I should say that our GM had stitched a number of other modules into the main, most notably the otherwise horrifically bad Feast of Goblyns, one of the first Ravenloft world modules. I've only lately been able to look at the insides of the module books themselves, and I'll talk about that a bit too.

In short, this is adventure appears to be a standard gothic horror type story that Ravenloft made its life's blood on and threw so many gamers into fits because of the heavy handedness of it, with a time travel aspect thrown into the works. Yes, time travel. And it works. At its core, the module is still the story of one of the Dark Lords, the system breaking big bad guys, that rule parts of the Ravenloft world, one Tristane apBlanc. His story is appropriately angsty without ever seeming to go over the top or into the realm of the hokey like so many of the others did. In the end, the main villain here amounted to little more than a colossal prick damned to an eternity locked up in his own ironic prison. All pretty par for the course up until reality itself breaks around the castle and three separate time periods begin to coexist in the same location.

Wandering through the castle, the players stumble upon certain points within the place which will trigger a switch in time between three points in history representing a spread of about 300 years. Clever players will realize pretty quickly what's going on (as a reference, it took the group I play in about 3 game sessions to realize what was actually happening, and a great deal longer to figure out a way to use it to our advantage). In the end, you get a couple of different things. First, you get about three times the dungeon for the price of one as the castle is significantly chnaged between time periods and requires exploring in each to learn enough about what is going on in order to deal with it. Second, and this is more interesting I think, it provides the opportunity for players to "get at" the story of what has happened in this place from a number of different angles and force them to work at piecing it together themselves. What you learn in one time period may shed a differnet light on what happens in a previous time, or a future one.

Yes, this kind of setup will definately throw Old Schoolers into an unhappy place. After all, what has "story" got to do with D&D? In the end, though, I think that what you get is an excellent Middle School style module with a strong balance between the gothic story that gives purpose to the place, but not too much heavy handed material that forces the players to conform to a pre-determined sequence of events (see Ravnloft II: Gryphon Hill for the most egregious example). In the end, it's a huge location based module that hands the DM a place, a story of what has happened in the past, what's going on at the moment, and then sets the players free to deal with it, or to just walk away if they so choose.

There are, though, a number of flaws within the whole product, though. First, and primarily, the presence of a story that many, if not most, would find overwrought and dull. Yes, the story is a little romantic (in the literary period sense of the term, not the genre sense) and melodramatic, but it's believable enough that it doesn't really get in the way. For the most part, it's merely an excuse for the place to exist rather than an integral part of game play.

Second, I have no idea what analytical geniuses playtested this module, but it could have used some more help in that regard. Ostensibly, Castles Forlorn is intended for characters of 4th - 6th level. Truly, PC's of that level range are more than likely going to be slaughtered in short order in this place if they are not tremendously careful to the point of impotence, one of the primary reasons that it took 2 years of real time for us to finish this module. One of the primary foes is the Goblyn, a very excellent creature that I recommend for use everywhere, but one that can easily take a lower level party apart in a matter of moments. The main villain here is even more powerful and posed a significant threat to a party of level 7 and 8 characters. This particular issue, though, can easily be fixed by shoehorning other modules into the periphery of this one. A few side adventures orbiting about the main one will give the PC's a bit more XP and resources that will better prepare them for diving into the heart of this monster.

Thrd, and most damning of all in my opinion, is a truly bad case of Elminster Syndrome. Relatively high level NPC's who are single handedly capable of resolving all the issues at hand lurk about the corners of this module, and they don't do so for no good reason. Players are going to sit back and ask why in hell the 12th level + druid and her cohort of other high level druids haven't just plowed the castle into the ground by now and destroyed the evil that infests it as they could so so very easily, and the text itself provides no real answers on this matter. To its credit, though, the module does not throw the PC's into the role of supporting cast to sit back and watch as more powerful and more important NPC's do everything, nor do the NPC's fall into the equally aggravating role of "quest givers." Perhaps the only solution here, really, is to decrease the levels of notable druids, or merely to push them into the background more.

Came Back Wrong

The Raise Dead spell is one of those iconic spells in D&D and I've never known a player who didn't look forward to 9th level more than any other so that he could bring his companions back from the dead. I've even seen a few who started using the spell as a source of great profit, raising peasants from the dead for a hefty fee. However, once this spell gets into the hands of the players, death can become very cheap. At earlier levels, a significant enough mistake by the players leads to death which cannot easily be reversed if at all. Players may go through multiple characters before they even manage to make it to level 2, but by 9th level, death suddenly has much less meaning.

Of course, by this level, the cleric is casting other spells of equally significant import. At this level, there seems to be a qualitative change in the nature of spells for the cleric, going from localized and immediate effects to far reaching and often permanent effects (Quest, Plane Shift, and Commune by which the cleric may speak directly with his deity). Raising the dead seems to be the quintessance of that trend, so on the one hand, it might be wise enough to leave well enough alone and not fidgit with the spell.

However, I've never been a fan of the revolving door afterlife, and I'm definately a fan of the harsh, stark, and terrifying. That's why I'm throwing a little twist into the concept of any creature returning from the lands of the dead, at least in Thylia where the cosmology of the Great Wheel is not present (but that's a separate post).

Anyone who is raised from the dead via the magic of mortals (i.e., via the Raise Dead, Ressurection, or Reincarnation spells) or via magical artifacts created by mortals has a flat 65% chance of simply "coming back wrong" from the strange and horrifying realms beyond this one. If so, the DM should roll randomly or use his own discretion. The players need not be told.

1.Profound Epiphany: During his time in the realms beyond, however brief or extended, the character has been deeply affected by what he has seen and come to the realization that his life was spent in banality and sin. Due to this, his alignment is shifted randomly at the discretion of the DM and he may abandon a previous career or goal in favor of something more in line with his new ethical views.

2.I Remember Everything!: Rather than having his memory wiped appropriately by the spell, the character remembers everything he perceived in vague and undefinable terms. As a result, he is either 1.manic and incoherent, 2.despondant and suicidal, or 3.catatonic. In any case, he will require the intervention of powerful curative magics or some other method to repair his personality as determined by the DM.

3.Broken Mind: The stress of returning from the grave lands has snapped something within the character's mind. He has developed a type of insanity dtermined from the DMG.

4.Brought Something Home: On his way back, the character has been lached onto by a being from outside the Prime Material reality. Equal chances of it being Good or Evil or an entity entirely designed by the DM. The creature may or may not enter reality immediately alongside the character, or may appear many miles away, or on the other side of the kingdom, but the creature will be aware of the character's location and will feel compelled to seek him out for reasons of his own. Alternately, the creature and the character may find themselves occupying the same mind, vying for control of the body (a successful saving throw vs. Paralyzation during a situation of intense stress is sufficient to gain or retain control on the part of the player).

EDIT: Forgot to add that I intend to increase the casting time of this spell from a single round to a full hour requiring specialized rituals and chants. Never seemed quite right that Raise Dead took only a minute of chanting and wailing and suddenly he's all better again. Such a boon as this would take significant supplications and effort I think.

How Fantastic is Fantasy?

I know I shouldn't, but it's a bit like a dog worrying at a bone. On those dull days in the office when no actual work seems to happen, but a lot of "station keeping" goes on, I typically surf over to the forums (usually at Giant in the Playground since they're terribly entertaining and infuriating at times and the Kenzer & Co. boards since Dave and Jolly and their crew are just so damned cool for refusing to be just "another turd in the pot" company) and pick on the New School folks. It's a bit hypocritical, I know, since I'm not really and Old School kind of guy, but sometimes they just tickle me.

Today and yesterday, though, they actually got me to thinking on a couple of things. Primarily, the discussion of what level of the fantastic is "right" for a game. Just how strange, fantastic, or downright odd do things get before one draws the line? As things on the internet go, there was no real room for moderate views in this discussion. You were either for, what was termed, dull and "Tolkienian" fantasy, or you would permit anything and everything (specifically, everything and anything that a player wanted, but that's another argument entirely). The example that got dredged up from the fevered recesses of somebody's mind was that you could either be playing Greyhawk with nothing but the core Human, Elf, Dwarf etc. core races and classes, or you would play in a game where the players could create a sentient squirrel wizard riding in the "cockpit/wand turret" of a constructed flesh golem mobile platform.

I swear on all that is holy that I'm not making that last bit up. See for yourself.

My first reaction has got to be . . . why the fuck would you want to play such an absurd character? What possible interest would you have in it? I mean that seriously. What connection could you make to even access such a concept as anything other than a monster? Why would it not simply be swarmed by folks the instant it stepped into public and slain for the abomination that it is? And of course, the opposite would be just ye olde boring D&D campaign right?

Now that the thought's been rattling around in my brain, slowly eating at my sanity (if it weren't for my horse, I would not have gone back to school that year . . .), I have to ask myself at this point whether there's a real difference between such a . . . thing . . . and the concept of wizards conjuring fireballs from thin air and giant winged reptiles with terminal halitosis hoarding coins and magical items? I like to say often that there's a difference between suspending your disbelief, and hanging it by the neck until dead, and that this clearly falls on that side of the line, but why is that on one side, and the dwarf on the other? Huge metropolitan campaigns where everybody plays as their favorite monster race on that side, and the race preference charts on the other? I mean hell, I'm in the middle of working through some material for Thylia, and I stumbled across a line where I traced a particular artifact to extra-terrestrials, and I'm OK with that, but still something that wierd as even the sentien necromantic rodent sticks in my craw.

James has talked about this in passing over at Grognardia (and I'm not throwing up a link because I'm far too lazy and if you read this you're most certainly familiar with his work) as it concerns that notable module about and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Gamma World. He termed it Science Fantasy, and I think it's fair to say that in its original inception, D&D was, as much as Gamma World, a science fantasy game rather than a strict fantasy game. In the end, I find myself much more comfortable on the Fantasy side of that equation, even so far as to prefer fantasy literature that reads less like fantasy and more like medieval period pieces - A Song of Ice and Fire as case in point.

Am I wrong to sit here and strip out such things from "my" game? Am I hammering D&D into a mold that it doesn't really entirely fit? The answer is, I don't know. What I do know, though, is that the more strangeness (specifically, the more breaks from our own reality that we are forced to make) in a game, the harder it becomes for the players and the DM to insert themselves into the world and interact with it. It becomes less about exploring, and more about constnatly trying to keep your feet and learn about the next thing that's been changed. The wierder things get, the more quickly I, as a player, get thrown out of immersion.

And I suppose that I'm a real fuddy who should just hang up his dice because in browsing through a PDF of The Savage Frontier supplement for the Forgotten Realms, I'm forced to admit that, while the background material is excellent, most of the interesting locations that they call out to attention just drive me creatively up the wall. The stronghold of Ascelhorn, now fallen after its occupants had dealings with Hell in order to preserve their power, now known as Hellgate Keep (or something like that): good. It's interesting, and provoking. It then goes on to say that the keep is now ruiled by a type VI demon with hordes of minion demons and undead and that it is a terrible place on the brink of conquering the entire North: not so good. As much as I like demons and devils, and I really do, for some unidentifiable reason, this just . . . ugh. And it's largely the same for much of the Forgotten Realms. It seems that magic and "fantasy" are just leaking out of its pores, every page screaming D&D adventure. If anything, the best way I can describe it is that the Realms are just too . . . well . . ."too D&D." They're too heavily influenced by the way the game works, allowing mechanics and rules books to shape the realm than letting the rules serve the world setting, as I see Greyhawk doing for the most part.

I honestly have no conclusion here, other than to say that this is bothering me with some absurd shame about not being fantasy enough. Am I wrong here? Where do others draw their line between what does and does not make it into a D&D, or any other system's campaign?

The Lord's Blade

The Lord's Blade - for its original name and wielder have been lost to time - appears to be a bastard sword of good quality, inscribed with runes the length of the blade along either side of a deep blood groove. The cross guard and pommel seem to be plain, unadorned brass, the hilt wrapped in plain leather the last time this sword surfaced. Closer examination by a competent smith, however, reveals that the blood groove is, in fact, no such thing. While most weapons of this type are constructed of a single bar of steel stock formed into a blade and sharpened, this blade is constructed by 6 thin strands of unalloyed iron welded together and overall clad in a hardened steel jacketing. The result is a bastard sword weighing a full 20% more than a typical blade (12 pounds instead of the typical 10 pounds), but which is of exceptional balance and craft. The runes are deeply incised and no scholar has yet been able to translate them without the aid of magic. If a suitable spell is utilized, they can be translated thus: By this symbol I swear this oath, and by this blade I maintain my oath, that leadership is service.

If subjected to a detect magic spell or effect, the weapon radiates a strong aura of magic of indeterminate type. All efforts to elucidate the abilities of the weapon - whether by Identify or Legend Lore spells, or by some other method - fail unless the oath is taken. If someone capable of wielding the blade holds it in both hands and, under the blessing of a Priest of either Light or Dark, speaks the oath, that person will become bound by the oath and all powers of the Lord's Blade will be apparent to him.

*First, due to its exceptional balance and craft, the speed factor is reduced by three whether wielded one handed or two. Further, the sword has a saving throw of 5 against all types of normal physical damage whether due to extreme stress, fire, lightning, and etc. Extremely powerful magics can overwhelm this. Both of these bonuses are inherent to the blade itself and are not magical.

*During combat, it functions as a +2 weapon in all regards.

*In the hands of an acknowledged leader (whether a king, emperor, baron, or merely a mercenary captain), the sword confers a +4 bonus to Charisma. This bonus does not affect the physical appearance of the wielder (i.e., it does not make them handsomer), but improves their ability to command and influence those around them.

The Lord's Blade, while certainly a very powerful magic item, is a tremendous curiosity throughout Thylia, for though its oath would appear to be at odds with an evil world view, it will serve an evil warrior as faithfully as it would the staunchest Paladin. It is believed in some circles that the weapon possesses some level of intelligence or ego, though this has never been proven or even evidenced. Currently, its whereabouts are unknown.