The Overlord's Four Children

Alaric the Dragon
Alaric is the eldest of the Overlord's children. His palace is in the north, where he has built a small cult. He has the head of a great lizard, scaled skin, and a long tail. He is swift-moving, brutal and a powerful wizard. He is said to delight in combat, has an arena where combatants fight for his entertainment. It is said that Alaric sometimes eats particularly impressive competitors.

Basilia the Huntress
Basilia the Huntress is cruelly beautiful, with alabaster skin and black hair. He hands end in long, steel-hard claws, and her long limbs are graceful, and her movement swift. She has a palace in the east, where she is served by her harpy servants, made for her by The Surgeon. It is rumored that she catches and hunts men with her harpies in the tunnels below her palace.

Celestina the Beautiful
Celestina is a sorceress with a beautiful voice and an incredible voice. Her head, however, is attached to a long, snake-like body. She is is outgoing and known as a healer and seeress. Her palace is in the south, and guarded by machines loyal to her.

Desiderio the Libertine
Desiderio looks human, but has four arms. He is outgoing, fun, and lecherous. His pleasure palace is in the west, where he indulges many diverse tastes with many, diverse partners. He is a scoundrel of the highest order, and is served by a number of white-skinned pygmies made for him by Vog Mur.

The Overlord

The Overlord, whose name is lost in obscurity, has been ruler over Zamora for at least five decades. Legend says that he was an adventurer who returned to the city from the wastes dressed in magical golden armor which made him invulnerable and gave him mastery over lightning and fire. He brought order to the chaos of the ruined city, rebuilt its core, created alliances with powerful factions in and below the city, while promoting minor conflicts between others to create a city where powers were balanced against each other and the Overlord's might proved to be greatest.

No one has seen the Overlord's face. His "children" appear to be cloned or engineered in the Flesh Vats of Vog-Mur, and tend to be strange aberrations engineered for decadence and degeneracy. Most of these children have set up palaces in the wastes of the city or in the underworld, and have little to do with the others, merely entertaining themselves in their palaces. The Overlord seems to have no concerns regarding them, and they have no influence with him, though many seek their favor as powerful entities.

The Overlord tends to delegate authority to a vast bureaucracy of petty officials, served by Dromian runners and workers, and guarded by his Vat Men who act as his personal guard and retinue. His spies are trained dopplegangers bred by Vog-Mur in his clone pits.

Many of the Overlord's actions seem mad, random, or inscrutible, though few would say that to him directly. His rule is one of fear and mostly benign dictatorship.

The Pleasure-dome of Sshenssu Salessh

Sshenssu Salessh is a Hssu merchant whose focus is in providing services to humans. His Pleasure Dome provides a mix of services that serve the hedonistic desires of humans. His Pleasure Dome is a large building on the edge of the plaza, and it offers three kinds of services: gambling in the casino, a mix of alcohol and recreational drugs (such as ssharu and black lotus) in the bar, and a wide variety of erotic services in the brothel. Salessh is cold and alien, has trouble telling apart individual humans (or even understanding the difference between males and females), and has no concern for human morality or inhibitions, or their value as more than resources for profit. He isn't malicious— he just doesn't really see humans as really equal to Hssu.

"Mad" Hakim Al'Azif's Mercantile Emporium

Hakim Al'Azif, the Mad Mal-Akkan, is known for his huge merchant tent in the plaza, where he sells a wide variety of goods for "prices so low, I must be mad!" Hakim dresses in a colorful kaftan and a great turban adorned with gems and plumes. His great waxed mustachios and wild eyebrows match his wide eyes, and provide a strong sense of frenetic energy. His prices are actually quite average, but his selection is broad, and often includes rare and unusual items, sometimes of dubious origins. He drives a hard bargain, but can be bartered with and will negotiate prices if he sees something in it for himself. He is guarded by two burly, shirtless Mal-Akkans with tulwars named Adbul and Hazrad.

Mother Grubb's

Mother Grubb's, just on the southeastern edge of the Plaza, is a popular eatery and tavern among the poor of Zamora. The place serves a wide variety of meal beetles and meal beetle grubs – roasted, stewed, fried, baked, boiled — all served by a staff of dromian workers for Mother Grubb, a chubby, brick-red matronly woman. Mother Grubb is loud, boisterous and friendly, and her establishment is a respectable place, even if it is filled with the poor and out-of-sorts.

The Surgeon

In the Plaza, he's called The Surgeon, The Alemanian, and The Fixer. His actual name is Deidrich Todenkopf. He is tall, gaunt, and hairless, with ashen blue skin and pale eyes. He dresses an ill-fitting black suit with a red velvet waitscoat, a shiny gold pocket watch, and a stained and ancient lab coat. He wears a device riveted into his left temple that includes armatures with a variety of lenses he can move into a mix of combinations as he looks at objects and surgeries. He moves with a strange, spidery graces and speaks with an almost alient dispassion. His hard, pinched face is almost impossible to read.

The Surgeon is a skilled physician, but his other services are the ones that make him notable and notorious. The rumor is that the Surgeon is skilled in advanced Alemanian medicine, and is able to perform certain enhancements for customers, giving them strange, even superhuman abilities. If it is true, his clients seem to keep their changes covert, since such abilities don't seem to appear where others can see them.

The Surgeon is obsessed with talking about his theory of Transhumanism, that humans can transcend their humanity to a state of physical, mental, and moral transcendence in which they are no longer bound by primitive physical, mental, and moral boundaries. He often rants about such things in detail.

The Surgeon is served by a hunchbacked Alemanian dwarf named Einhardt. Einhardt speaks little, is immensely strong, and deeply loyal.

Draft: Language Table

Following yesterday's post, a language table for Athanor, based on the similar table in Tunnels and Trolls. Players can roll on this for bonus languages based on INT. Alternately, players can choose from results from 01 - 93.

d100  Result
01 - 20  Alemanian
21 - 25  Dromian (can understand but not speak)
25 - 35  Duma
36 - 40  Ghul (no written script)
41 - 45  Hssu
46 - 55  Khitai
56 - 75  Mal'Akkan
76 - 82  Throon (no written script)
83 - 85  Ancient Aquilan
85 - 87  Ancient Saal'Keshi
88 - 90  Ancient Turanian
91 - 93  Ancient Ylumi
94 - 95  Low Speech (dinosaurs)
96 - 97  Low Speech (mammals)
98 - 99  Low Speech (arthropods)
00       Wizard Speech

• Ancient languages are written only — scholars can only guess at proper pronunciation.
  


• Low Speech languages represent the ability to communicate with lower life forms. This grants semi-empathic communication rather than true speech.


• Wizard Speech is telepathic communication, across languages and without need of sound.

Draft: Revising the Magic-user Spell List

I posted yesterday about possibly getting rid of the cleric and making the classes in Athanor a bit more like those in T&T. This would require some reworking of the S&W White Box Edition Magic-user and Cleric spell lists into one big list. Which I have done, with some minor edits of spells I didn't think fit into Athanor….

Level 1
Charm Person
Cure (Cause) Wounds I
Detect Magic
Hold Portal
Light (Dark) I
Light I
Protection from Chaos (Law) I
Protection from Chaos I
Purify (Putrefy) Food and Drink
Read Languages
Read Magic
Sleep

Level 2
Detect Invisibility
Detect Thoughts
Find Traps
Hold Person
Invisibility I
Knock
Levitate
Light (Dark) II
Locate Object
Phantasmal Force
Speak with Animals
Web
Wizard Lock

Level 3
Alter Time
Banish Undead*
Crystal Ball
Cure (Cause) Disease
Dark Vision
Dispel Magic
Fireball
Fly
Hold Person
Invisibility II
Lightning Bolt
Locate Object
Protection from Chaos II
Protection from Normal Missiles
Water Breathing

Level 4
Charm Monster
Confusion
Cure (Cause) Wounds II
Dimension Portal
Giant Growth
Hallucinatory Terrain
Neutralize Poison
Polymorph
Remove Curse
Speak with Plants
Wall of Defense I
Wizard Eye

Level 5
Animal Growth
Animate Dead
Cloudkill
Conjure Elemental
Contact Other Plane
Dispel Chaos (Law)
Feeblemind
Hold Monster
Insect Plague
Magic Jar
Passwall
Telekinesis
Teleport
Transform I
Wall of Defense II

Level 6
Anti-Magic Shell
Control Weather
Death Spell
Disintegrate
Invisible Stalker
Move Earth
Move Water
Project Image
Quest
Reincarnation
Transform II

*New Spell: Banish Undead
Spell Level: M3
Range: 50 feet
Duration: Special

This spell channels magical might to “Turn” the undead,making them flee from the magic-user’s power (or, bringing them to heel as servants and minions). This works as per the standard "Banish Undead" ability listed under the Cleric class in the main rule book.

Draft: The Mountebank

Following up on my thoughts yesterday on customizing and cannibalizing, here is my "Mountebank" class for possible inclusion in Athanor. I may just call it "rogue" like T&T and leave it at that. Not sure if Mountebank as a name really adds anything here other than an inside joke for grognards who know about Gygax's "lost" second edition of AD&D....

The Mountebank

The mountebank is a trickster and an adventurer who uses wiles, skill, a sharp blade, and whatever magic he or she can pick up along the way to get ahead in life.

Mountebanks are second to fighters in their combat skills and second to magic-users in their spell-casting abilities, but they are skilled as jacks of all trades.

Mountebank Advancement

Level	XP	HD	BHB	ST
1	0	1	+0	14
2	1,500	2	+0	13
3	3,000	3	+0	12
4	6,000	3+1	+1	11
5	12,000	4	+1	10
6	24,000	5	+2	9
7	48,000	6	+2	8
8	96,000	6+1	+3	7
9	192,000	7	+4	6
10	384,000	8	+5	5

Mountebank Spell Advancement by Spell Level

Level	1st	2nd	3rd
1	-	-	-
2	1	-	-
3	1	-	-
4	1	1	-
5	1	1	-
6	2	1	1
7	2	1	1
8	2	2	1
9	3	2	1
10	3	2	2

Class Abilities

Weapon/Armor Restrictions: Mountebanks may use any weapons and any armor or shields, but they cannot cast spells while wearing armor or carrying a shield.

Spell Casting: Mountebanks cast spells from the expanded magic-user list, as per the Mountebank Spell Advancement Table. They must prepare spells just like magic-users, and must keep a spell book. Mountebanks start with no spells or spell book and must acquire spells through cunning, adventuring, and from other player-characters.

XP Bonus for Charisma: This class bonus is in additionhigh wisdom attribute.

Should This Be Basic Roleplaying Rule Number 1?

Truer advice cannot be found. If I were to write my own game, this might be part of the rules of play....

Monsters and Manuals: Gaming Advice #1: Don't Be A Dick Head

Cannibalizing and Hybridizing Rules

I find myself teetering between what I like about Swords and Wizardry and the stuff I like from Tunnels and Trolls (the classes, the weird language table, the SR system), and I'm wondering if I can hybridize them somehow. Generally, I like the simplicity of S&W more, and dislike T&T's roll-a-fistful-of dice system, but I like to tinker, and S&W is so tempting to tinker with...

First thought, classes. Keep the fighter, throw out the cleric, and mix in some cleric spells into the wizard lists. Maybe change turn undead into a spell, while we're at it.

But I like the T&T differentiation between fighters, wizards, and rogues (as people with a smattering of informal training in magic, but who live by wits and weapons). What to do with the rogues?

I'm thinking of a class, let's call him the mountebank (in a nod to one of Gary Gygax's lost 2nd edition classes), and give him the combat details and hit points of the cleric, a smattering of low-level spells, and then we have the rogue.

Using the T&T SR system, which I like, might just be a matter of thinking differently about the S&W save system. That leaves me with the weird T&T language table which just means making a new table of my own. And I can do that.

May need to tinker some soon....

Choosing the Rules

That's a good question. Athanor started out as an idea, then I tried to match it to the Grim Tales rules. Then I tried doing my own d20 house rules. Since then, I have tossed around True20, Savage Worlds, Basic Roleplaying, Fudge/FATE, Feng Shui and even Risus as ideas for running the game.

To be honest, all of them seemed like too much game to run and too much game to teach people given the amount of world exploration I hope to present. Except for Risus and FATE, but they brought their own baggage. What I like about using Swords and Wizardry is that it brings three things to the table:

1. Simplicity
An easy system that does not require new users master the system. Instead, decisions made provide a narrative for decision-making by the GM. This makes the game flow more quickly, and relies less on players needing to know how to play the game aspects of the system and more on making choices in the game world.

2. Low "Investment" for Players
Building a character in most systems involves having some idea of their past, their future development, and concept. Using S&W (or OD&D, or BECMI/BFRPG/Labyrinth Lord or Tunnels and Trolls for that matter) reduces this demand on the part of the players. They can read a one-page handout (or ot), roll up their characters, and get right into the game, developing their character as they go and not having to have put too much thought into what the character knows and did in the past. And if a character dies, replacing him or her is really simple.

3. Easily Customizable
In the 2 hours I thought of using the newly-released D&D 4th edition for Athanor I realized that I didn't have a clue how I could easily cobble together classes or adjust power levels for flavor without throwing off the game experience. I don't fear that as much with S&W, since the system is balanced by the DMing process more than the game itself, which makes getting under the hood easier.

Now, other games bring similar things to the table. Tunnels & Trolls 5th edition, for example, is appealing for its saving roll system and the ease of abstract combat, but the system has some weird kinks in it too, especially at higher levels. But a clean, simple system lies in there with only a little digging around. Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord also have some things to offer here, too, as does Microlite d20. And all are floating in the back of my head, too.

Athanor Sketchbook 6

A Stirge.


A Pennanngalen.

Athanor Sketchbook 5

A Shadim.


A Chonchon.

Señor Esparza

Señor Esparza is Vog Mur's representative at the Grand Market. He provides sales and support for the Clone Pits. If you want someone brought back from the dead from even a small portion of themselves, if you want a duplicate, no questions asked, you just need 1000 gold and a pound of flesh (literally) and you, too, can have a clone. Certain restrictions apply.

Use of the clone pits is guaranteed to produce a clone, but often (1-2 in 6), the cloning process has… complications. Such complications are not warranteed against. You pay your money, you takes your chances.

d10 Result
1-6 Minor complication
7-9 2 Minor complications
10 Major complication

d12 Result
01 Completely bald (no hair anywhere)
02 Colorblind
03 Unnatural eye color
04 Small, barely noticeable scales covering whole body
05 Feathers instead of hair
06 Albino
07 Small, shark-like teeth
08 Pointed ears
09 Six fingers
10 Six toes
11 Small, vestigial tail
12 Small horns on head

d12 Major Complications
01 No eyes
02 No tongue
03 Deaf
04 One arm (1-3) or leg (4-6) vestigial and useless
05 Can only eat meat and craves human flesh
06 Smells like the grave, cannot cover up smell
07 Skin is scaled (1-2), furred (3-4), or made of scar tissue (5-6)
08 Hands (1-3) or feet (4-6) now reptilian/bird-like
09 Sex changed
10 Dwarfism (1-3) or Gigantism (4-6)
12 Animals now fear you and want to flee or attack you.

Señor Esparza is bald, with exaggeratedly broad shoulders, beady eyes, an upturned nose, and a constant smile. Any familiar with the Vat Men will know that Esparza is one of these synthetic creatures. However, unlike the majority of the Vat Men, Esparza talks, and does so quite eloquently. This does not diminish the feeling of wrongness he gives off — rather, it seems to enhance it. As does his dress. He wears a crisp, white linen shirt, a narrow black tie, a brocade waistcoat and expensive black breeches and jacket. A black top hat tops his bald head, and black lizard-skin shoes cover his feet, topped by white spats. He carries a silver-tipped cane at all times, and carries a pocket watch on a silver chain.

Hit Points and House Rules?

I'm of two minds about the original D&D hit points rules, and its descendant through different editions (and retro-clones.) On the one hand, hit points are simple to track, easy to understand, and easy to work with. A simple, abstract resource to manage. This is the part of me that likes hit points. There's danger, ease, abstraction. All have their appeal.

On the other hand, it's really freakin' easy for characters to die. Unless it's really hard. Injuries can be too abstract, and characters either fragile or not afraid of damage. Using OD&D or a retro-clone will solve some of the high end hit point problems. But the low-end issues are still there.

That's not quite what I want. Which makes me want to add some house rules.

• Option 1 is from Robert Fisher's Lost City House Rules, in which characters who reach 0 hit points are not dead, but roll on an injury table, which reminds me of the way that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay handles things. However, he plays it that 8 hours of rest for
  
• Option 2 is to raid a book by my old friend T. S. Luikart, who was part of my old game group a decade ago. In the Skull and Bones rulebook he co-authored, they offer 3 ways around the low hit point issue: losing hit points then taking CON damage; having a random number of lives (think less of video games and more of a cat's 9 lives); and an injury table.
• Option 3 is back to Robert Fisher and his Classic D&D House Rules. In this set of rules, he proposes that players at 0 hit points are not dead, but if his friends rescue him, he loses 1 point of CON.
• Option 4 is that if a character is at 0 hit points, they must save or die.
• Option 5 is the old characters die at some sort of negative hit points, either -(level) or -10 (per AD&D).
• Option 6 is Mike's suggestion on a Dragonsfoot thread to use the FUDGE injury track as characters go below 0 hit points, which adds some mechanical effects of injury and some of the fudge room after 0 hit points so characters aren't quite so squishy at first level.

I need to mull this over, since I don't want to detract from simplicity of rules, but I also want some sort of swashbuckling flavor.

Athanoran Sketchbook 4

An Amara.

Athanor Sketchbook 3

An Osquip.


A Dromian worker.

Blurred Lines and Genre

I see Athanor as firmly being fantasy, but in my eyes, fantasy casts a broad net. My good friend Rich and I were playing Heroscape the other day, and while looking at his Marro figures said that it was too bad they had weird organic looking guns, because hen he couldn't use them in his D&D game because they weren't fantasy figures. Meanwhile, I thought about it and decided that I wouldn't really have any compunctions about including those in Athanor, since they were fantastical creatures, which is enough for me.

I know that for some people, the whole idea of mixing science fiction and science fantasy elements into their D&D campaigns is pure anathema. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks might be seen by some as a travesty and having aliens and ray guns in the world just breaks some players and DMs' suspension of disbelief. I get that. But I'm not that kind of DM. I look at my game as a weird amalgam of sci fi, planetary romance, fantasy, and pulp elements. I don't see them as incompatible, especially given the sword-and-planet roots of Athanor.

Athanoran Sketchbook 2

Another sketch from my sketchbook. This time, Azara Zala, Ghul bandit, doing her murderous thing in the underworld.

Athanor Sketchbook 1

This work by Douglas P. Easterly is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Now that finals are done, I have begun sketching out some of the strangeness of Athanor literally, rather than textually. Here is my first sketch: a Hssu merchant, in all his Lovecraftian beauty. I don't consider myself an artist — I doodle, I sketch, and I do so with a workmanlike mediocrity well-suited to going back in time and illustrating the crude game books of the 1970s and early 1980s. Which, I suppose, fits Athanor well.

I will roll out some more sketches while I still have time to focus on sketching. Later today I will scan in a Dromian worker, and hope to finish a sketch of a Ghul bandit.

Arduin's Special Ability Charts and Athanor

Back around 1982, as I was reworking the campaign for my first game group as a DM, one of my players pulled out a copy of The Arduin Grimoire, Volume 1 and wanted to talk about incorporating some elements of the book. In the end, we only pulled in the Special Ability Charts and not the critical hit charts or new hit point system. At the time, it seemed pretty exciting and innovative as characters added some sort of special abilities that set them apart.

Looking through the books now, I find myself a bit astounded by the huge variation in special abilities. They include the incredibly powerful (your character is a young giant, half-vampire, half-efreet, immune to fear), completely baffling (your character is magic-competent, picks locks, disarms traps, and climbs walls but suffers the penalty (?) of a +8 bonus to charisma; +1 with crossbows, javelins and throwing darts, but -1 vs. cold; +5 charisma when lying, but -3 vs. undead), and some really flavorful entries (ex-seafarer, cannot be drowned in armor -- you automatically shed it; taste bad to monsters, they spit you out 95% of the time; chronic insomniac, -5 to charisma but 100% resistant to sleep spells). My favorite has always been the result that gives a character +3 to Int, Wis, and Charisma, but the character is a singing evangelist with all the abilities of both their original priestly class and the bard class as well as the restrictions that they cannot use weapons or armor except for staves and that they cannot keep more than 500gp treasure. Dave Hargrave had an interesting campaign.

Somewhere in the heart of those charts is something interesting that could make a good piece of the Athanor campaign. Just thinking about the possibilities, I whipped out a version of chart that could be used for Athanor, though I'm not at all sure I want to use it....

d% Special Ability
01-03 Airship training.
04-06 Alchemical training.
07-08 Assassin training. You gain a +1 when using poison or sneaking around.
09-11 Courtier training.
12-14 Criminal past.
15 Engineer Training. Can detect stone traps, shifting/slanting tunnels.
16-19 Grew up on the streets
20-22 Herbalist training. Able to detect and treat poisons.
23-24 Medical training.
25-28 Merchant training.
29-32 Military training.
33 Navigator training.
34-36 Outdoors Training. Can find water and shelter and track animals.
37-39 Religious training.
40-43 Scholarly Training.
44-48 Guild training
49-50 Social outcast
51 Affinity for technology.
52 Danger magnet.
53-54 Disowned scion of one of the Great Houses.
55-56 Escaped slave.
57 Falls in love easily.
58 Fearless. +1 saves vs. fear.
59 Glutton.
60-61 Good sense of direction.
62-63 Iron stomach. +1 saves vs. ingested poisons, eats strange foods.
64 Libertine.
65 Member of a cult or secret society.
66 Moralist.
67-68 Natural skill with animals.
69 Natural skill with magic. Memorize 1 (additional) MU 1st level spell.
70-71 Natural skills as a rider.
72 Pacifist.
73-74 Phobia.
75-77 Prodigy. Add +2 to a random ability score.
78 Resurrected in the clone tanks of Vog Mur with no memory of your past
and no clues. You have a terrible scar and a vaguely cadaverous appearance.
79 Sees twice as well in the dark as normal.
80-82 Excellent senses.
83-85 Skilled liar.
86 Taste bad to monsters, they will spit you out if you are swallowed.
87-89 Terrible liar, but others trust you.
90 Unlucky with technology.
91 Wants revenge for a parent's murder.
92 You are a Ghul.
93 Rudimentary ability to communicate with animals.
94-95 Lucky: +1 to saves.
96 Monster magnet
97-98 Roll twice
99-00 Roll 3 times

What I'll play vs. what I'll run

Next weekend, I'm going to go to a friend's house to play a pickup game of 4th edition. Now, I don't consider myself a warrior on the front lines of the Old School Movement. I want to use an old school game because it seems interesting to me as a DM. I have run a lot of things in my day, from AD&D to Champions to Mage to Feng Shui to 3.x edition D&D, and I have learned a lot of things that I like in a system and things that I don't. But when it comes to being a player, I'm pretty much system agnostic.

That means that I'll have fun playing 4th edition, because I like the players and I can find something to like in nearly any system. But when I run Athanor, I'll be going back something simpler, cleaner and more old-fashioned to keep myself happy.

Zamoran encounter tables... sort of.

So, I was thinking about putting together a set of random encounter tables for Zamora, when I went back and reviewed my copy of City Encounters by Matt Finch and I realized that I could just steal that. Matt's tables are filled with nice surprises, hints of background, and tables of names and NPC traits. I had purchased downloads of City Encounters and Eldritch Weirdness, Volume 1 back when I ordered my copy of the Sword and Wizardry Whitebox Edition from Lulu, and with a little modification (mostly to names and flavor to fit Athanor), these can easily become my encounter tables for Athanor.

I like Matt's tables much more than Gygax's encounter tables in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. The tables there were heavy on scary monsters and lethal encounters, which seem out of place in a Swords and Wizardry White Box Edition game. Now, I need to work on organizing encounters.

Too Overwhelmed by School

A sign that you are too involved in your graduate program: when you are tempted to post your amazing insight that the activity of role-playing gaming can be explained using activity theory, particularly by incorporating Yrjö Engeström's model of activity as mediated by the GM/DM/Referee... I even was imagining the diagram showing the distribution of activity.

Then I realized that I needed to finish my paper, take a break, and maybe have a drink.

A simple break and a blogging travesty has been averted.

Weapons, Armors, and Walking Around Zamora

Standard D&D games often feature characters walking around armed to the teeth and dressed in full armor. This makes sense in some ways -- walking around unprepared for combat seems to just be begging the DM to mess with your character. It's punishment waiting to happen.

In Zamora, armor is a sign that you are ready for trouble. It's outright common in the ruins on the edges of the city and in the Undercity. Not wearing armor in either place is just foolish (unless you are  magic-user, I suppose.) Weapons are dictated more by tradition. Some weapons may be worn publicly without concern, while others may not. Swords, daggers, pistols, canes, and quarterstaves are considered common sidearms and are acceptable to carry. Axes, polearms, bows, crossbows, rifles, maces, and the like are considered martial weapons and are only carried by soldiers, mercenaries, hunters, ruffians, barbarians and troublemakers. While such weapons may not be illegal, they will attract unwanted and unpleasant attention.

Magic Items in Athanor

Many, if not most, magic items in Athanor are actually items of Ancient technology. Crystal balls are remote viewers, flying brooms and carpets are actually hover technology that roughly approximates such items, some wands are actually energy weapons, flaming swords are plasma-assisted weapons, magic armor is made of ceramic alloys... most magic in this case is actually sufficiently advanced technology.

It is in this context that I propose some additional magic items for Athanor:

Pyroclastic Lance/Firelance
The Firelance is a three-foot long weapon that looks like a truncated lance with a flared handguard at one end and a hole at the other. A single button on the handle triggers the weapon.

The pyroclastic lance fires a cone of superheated plasma with a range of 30 feet spreading at the far end to a width of 30 feet. Any target in the cone takes 3 dice damage (save for half) and easily ignitible items will catch fire.

A pyroclastic lance has five charges. It can be recharged by placing a specially-crafted piece of orichalcum crystal in a sealed chamber in the handle. Such an item will cost 150 GP.

Personal Shield
The personal shield surrounds the wearer in a protective aura of shimmering light. The Shield is worn as a belt with a simple switch on the buckle. Once activated, the shield will absorb up to 30 hit points of damage, after which the item will deactivate itself to regenerate its circuits. This takes 12 hours. The shield will run out of power after a total of 1 hour of use. It can be recharged by placing a specially-crafted piece of orichalcum crystal in a sealed chamber on the belt. Such an item will cost 150 GP.

Food in Athanor

Scott at World of Thool posted some information on food animals in his campaign quite a while back, and even mentioned agriculture in an early post. I let that stew for a while, and am now thinking about atmosphere in the game, and thought that it might be interesting to consider what an open air market would be like in terms of food. Thus, some notes on food on Athanor.

Fungus

Fungus is a major staple in Athanoran agriculture. Fungi provide fibers for paper, cloth, and as a substitute for wood. Fungi provide dyes and pigments. Fungi are major food crops. Mushrooms, spores, and smut all form part of the regular diets of people across the planet. Fungus and smut peddlers are common on the streets of most cities.

Cacti

Cacti are sometimes eaten, usually in a form similar to Mexican nopales. They are often juiced and occasionally fermented into beers, wines, or hard spirits.

Dinosaurs

Dinosaur eggs and meat are common food items, though meat is generally considered a luxury item.

Creepy Crawlies

A good source of food for most common folk comes in the form of arthropods. Giant centipedes are sweet and moist when roasted, and giant spider legs are considered both delicious and dangerous to obtain. 

But the most common form of arthropod is the meal beetle. The meal beetle is edible as a large, gelatinous egg; as a potato-sized pink grub; or as a full-grown beetle with a fist-sized body and long legs. As an egg, they are bland and sweet, but nutritious. As a grub, they are roasted, turning red and having a flavor and consistency similar to yams, but with a nice, buttery texture. As a beetle, they are roasted. Their legs become meaty and savory and their bodies cook up to a custardy texture with a light, nutty flavor. Meal beetles are commonly served as street food and easily raised at home.

Masks in Zamora

As a result of years of vendettas and assassinations, masks have become a fashion statement among the wealthy and powerful, particularly the Great Families. Each family has a specific theme to their masks, though individuals have very personalized masks, usually decorated in a way to show their wealth, power and prestige. The themes, by House:

• House Amador: idealized representation of the wearer
  
• House Buñuel: abstract art pieces
  
• House Guzman: animals
• House Lucero: mechanical abstractions of human faces
  
• House Nuñez: insects
• House Soriano: minimalistic masks covered with quotes from scholars of personal significance to the wearer.

Criminals and members of illegal cults also wear masks, but these are typically not individualized, serving instead to keep the wearer anonymous. These masks are worn in commission of crime, in cult rituals, or in field missions.

Random Encounters in the Undercity

Undercity Wandering Monsters

d20 Result
01 Bandits
02 Bandits
03 Bandits
04 Undead
05 Undead
06 Mechanical
07 1d6 Osquips
08 1d6 Osquips
09 1d6 Stirges
10 1d6 Giant Centipedes
11 1d6 Compsagnathus
12 1d3 Deinonychus
13 1d6 Dromians
14 1d3 Vat Men
15 Chonchon and 1d3 Minions
16 Rival Party
17 Girallon
18 Giant Spider
19 Gelatinous Cube
20 Slithering Tracker

Bandits

d6 Result
1-3 1d6 Bandits
4-5 2d6 Bandits
6 Notable Bandit Leader

Notable Bandit Leader

d4 Result
1 Azara Zala, Female Ghul F 4, ruthless cannibal, with 2d6 followers.
She has a 1000 GP bounty on her head.
2 Devis Mhal, Zamoran M-U 5, cruel, ruthless and doardly, with d6+3 followers.
He has a 1200GP bounty on his head.
3 Kassht Assur, Hssu bandit with 2 Hssu and d6+1 human followers.
He has a 1500 GP bounty on his head.
4 Antonio Salamanca, Zamoran F 6, swashbuckling scoundrel, with 3d6 followers.
He has a 1200 GP bounty on his head.

Undead

d8 Result
1 1d6 Skeletons
2 2d6 Skeletons
3 1d6+2 Zombies
4 1d3+1 Shadim
5 1d2 Shadows*
6 1 Amara
7 1 Rathaga
8 1 Pennanngalen

Mechanicals

d12 Result
1-4 Bronze Cobra*
5-6 Iron Cobra*
7-9 Small Gizmog of Yothri*
9-10 Medium Gizmog of Yothri*
11 Large Gizmog of Yothri*
12 Retriever*

*See Monster Compendium on Swords and Wizardry web site.

Dromian Workers' Activity

d8 Result
1 Cleaning
2 Repairing
3 Carving arcane and incomprehensible runes on the wall or floor.
4 Dissassembling the walls to work on ancient machinery behind it.
5 Scrubbing blood off the walls and floors.
6 Building a complex trap mechanism in the walls.
7 Sealing up a wall.
8 Placing debris in a room or hall.

Even More Athanoran Monsters

Amara
AC: 7 [12], HD 4, Attacks: Hair 1d6, Special: entangling hair, Move: 12, HDE 4, XP 120

Amara are undead creations of Vog-Mur. They look like beautiful yet feral wild-haired women with wild eyes and shark-like teeth with blue-white skin. They hunger for human flesh and blood. Their hair is actually extremely strong, filled with metallic barbs, and reaches out to grab and entangle enemies up to 10 feet away. Targets struck by Amara must save or be entangled and unable to move or use any weapon longer than a dagger. Their hair takes 2d6 points of damage to cut.

Chonchon
AC: 6 [13], HD 3+3, Attacks: Bite 1d6-1, Special: spells, Move: 12 flying, HDE 4, XP 120

These creatures built in Vog-Mur's clone tanks look like bloated human heads with huge ears that resemble bat-like wings and allow the creatures to fly. Their eyes bug out of the head, and their mouths are filled wih sharp teeth. They cast spells as if they were 4th level magic-users.

Dromians
AC: 9 [10], HD 1, Attacks: dagger 1d6-1, Move: 12, HDE 1, XP 15

Dromians are robed, mysterious insectoids who work in the undercity, doing maintenance and clean-up work. They are inscrutible and alien.

Hssu
AC: 5 [14], HD 5+5, Attacks: tentacles 1d6, Special: chemical attacks, Move 9, HDE 6, XP 400. They Hssu exude several chemicals in a 10 foot radius that they are immune to. This can cause any one of three effects: charm person, cause fear, do 2d6 poison damage. Any chemical could be used at will.

The Hssu are desert traders who travel beyond the land of the Five Kingdoms. They trade in the drug Ssharru, an opiate-like substance known for both its addictiveness and its tendency to cause strange, vivid, and often prophetic dreams. The Hssu are alien creatures, with conical bodies ending in four thick tentacles. The top of their cone ends in four eye stalks and four trumpet-like ears. They have four prehensile tentacles mid-way through their bodies which end in mouths with two long "lips" that can be used to hold and manipulate items. The Hssu speak through their tentacular mouths, and speak the common tongue as well as their own. They are not expressive, and are treated with some trepidation by humans, though they are welcome by anyone seek Ssharru.

Pennanngalen
AC: 6 [13], HD 5, Attacks: bite 1d6, Special: blood drain, horrifying vision, spell-like abilities, undead. Move: 12 flying, HDE 6, XP 240. When a Pennanngalen strikes, it automatically attaches to a victim and does 1d6 damage each round automatically, draining a victim of blood and life. When first seen, so horrifying that all who view it must save or be frozen in fear for 1d3 rounds. May cast charm person and hold person at will. Immune to charm and sleep spells.

An Athanoran vampire, the Pennanngalen are undead creations of Vog-Mur. They are free-willed undead who look like beautiful women. When they feed, their heads and internal organs detach, flying and leaving behind their bodies to feed.

Rathaga
AC: 4 [15], HD: 4, Attacks: claws 1d6, Special: decapitation, undead, Move: 9, HDE 5, XP 240. On a natural attack roll of 20, the Rathaga bites off his opponent's head: save or die from decapitation. A save allows the victim to take 2d6 damage instead.

Rathaga are 12 foot tall skeletal creatures made by Vog-Mur from the bones of several humans. They are silent, mindless brutes, but their coming is forsaged by the smell of spiced oil and a chill in the air.

Shadim
AC: 6 [13], HD: 2, Attacks: claw 1d6, Special: Paralysis, Move 9, HDE 3, XP 60. Any hit from a Shadim will paralyze a target for 3d6 rounds.

The shadim are undead creations of Vog-Mur the Necromancer. They appear to be animated human corpses split in half from crown to crotch, with just one half of a body. They hop on one leg and strike with their one yellowed claw-like hand. They stink of raw meat and decay, and crave flesh to feed their severed bodies.

Vat Men
AC: 4 [15], HD 4, Attacks: sword 1d6+1, Special: regeneration, Move 9, HDE 5, XP 240. Vat Men will regenerate fully any round that they have not been reduced to 0 hit points or fewer.

The Vat Men are constructs of Vog-Mur the Necromancer, made in his laboratories deep below the city. The Vat Men regenerate at a frightful rate, are physically superior to ordinary men, and have great muscular frames. Their faces, however, have small, close-set eyes, a mouth frozen in a perpectual rictus, and upturned noses. They seem strange charicatures of humanity, and fight without fear or hesitation.

Dungeon Dressing and the Undercity

I have decided that I need to be able to quickly generate some color and style for the Undercity. Here are my early tables for doing just that:

Walls (d6)
1 Featureless, polished and very hard black stone.
2 Rough stones cobbled and mortared together
3 Inscribed in an ancient tongue.
4. Inscribed in an ancient tongue, now worn and unreadable.
5. Complex reliefs tell a biographical/historical/mythical story.
6. Complex reliefs that show horrible, inhuman and disturbing scenes.

Minor details (d12)
1. Floor covered with shallow pools of stagnant water.
2. Stench of decay.
3. Chill spots in room with no visible reason.
4. Warm spots in room with no visible reason.
5. Scraping sound intermittently from deep below.
6. Unusual, lingering smell.
7. Small bones scattered on the floor.
8. Human bones scattered on the floor.
9. Broken stone debrish scattered on the floor.
10. Water drips from the ceiling.
11. Weird noise.
12. Mild (1-4) or strong (5-6) breeze.

Smells (d6)
1. Metallic
2. Spice
3. Ozone
4. Smoke
5. Sulfur
6. Urine or Feces

Sounds (d6)
1. Laughting or sobbing
2. Moaning or whining
3. Metallic clanking
4. Footsteps/scuttling
5. Tapping/rapping/thumping
6. Murmuring/whispering


Major details (d20)
1. Altar/Shrine
2. Broken furniture
3. Laboratory
4. Barracks/Living Quarter
5. Abandoned/Empty
6. Filled with junk
7. Storage/Cache
8. Lair
9. Filled with cobwebs
10. Torture chamber
11. Library
12. Kitchen
13. Apothecary
14. Tapestries
15 - 20. Empty

The Zamoran Undercity

The Undercity is a warren of tunnels, rooms, ruined buildings, and ancient catacombs under the city of Zamora. Most of these date back centuries, even predating the foundation of Zamora. Over time, it has become home to a number of unsavory elements, from vermin and pests to bandits, cultists, and undead horrors. Sections of the Undercity have become notorious. Vog-Mur the Necromancer, for instance, has claimed a portion of the Undercity for his vaults, Flesh Vats and Clone Tanks.

Portions of the undercity are filled with machinery that process waste and atmospheric moisture into drinkable water for the city and help maintain clean air under the cracked dome. These areas are maintained by an army of Dromeans and patrolled by elite troops of the emperor's Vat Men. Other portions are part of an underground culture of the poor and outcast. Still others are overrun by fungi and slimes.

Those unfamiliar with the Undercity will find it to be a maze. Certainly, its warrens are complex and filled with danger, and few but the desperate or foolish will merely wander through it.