New Oe/BX/1E Monster: Mudloc

DESCRIPTION Mudlocs are a race of frog-like semi-humanoids who make their homes in the mud pits of active volcanic areas. They are grayish brown in color and are able to camouflage themselves in active (bubbling) mud pits, allowing them to surprise on a 1-2 (on 1d6) under such conditions. The physiology and dense skin that allows them to live under such extreme conditions further provides them with an immunity to all flame- and heat-based attacks. A mudloc’s main form of attack to is take into their mouths either a large amount of hot (volcanic) mud or a moderately-sized rock (approximately 4-6” in diameter, including hot or flaming rocks), and then “spit” the mud or rock at a target. The amount of damage caused by such attacks is determined by the type of item spit, per below: - rock (normal): 1-4 - hot mud: 1-6 - flaming rock: 2d4 Any attack with a flaming rock does 1/2 damage (or 1d4) to any creature immune to the effects of flame-based attacks.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 4-40 ARMOR CLASS: 5 MOVE: 9” HIT DICE: 2 % IN LAIR: 50% TREASURE TYPE: Q (x 2) NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: Immune to flame/heat MAGIC RESISTANCE: See below INTELLIGENCE: Animal ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: M PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 5 HIT DICE: 3 MOVE: 90’ ATTACKS: 1 special DAMAGE: 1-2, 1-4 or 1-6 NO. APPEARING: 4-40 SAVE AS: Fighter: 1 MORALE: 7 TREASURE TYPE: L (x2) ALIGNMENT: Neutral

From the Vault... StoryCode AG Sketches (mid-1990s)

This weekend, I dug pretty hard through the garage, trying to get rid of a lot of trash and preparing for the upcoming garage sale my wife and I are having. As is inevitable every time I dig in the garage, I find old game stuff (e.g., my previous posts regarding the undertemple map and the map of the wizard's keep.)

While going through some old sketchbooks, I came across (or should I say "finally found") the sketchbook with my initial sketches for the anime RPG I started working on in the mid 1990s (originally titled "Gokko" but renamed "StoryCode AG"). Regular readers of this blog (particularly those that have been around a while) might recall my posts about the tri-color dice mechanic, or the quick-character generator (all characters in StoryCode AG were to be randomly created - very OSR in my opinion.)

Anyway, here are some of the sketches I worked up in the mid-'90s. (The first one is the sketch I did for the cover, with a recent envisioning of the cover layout.)

d30 DM Companion Discount + Lulu Sale = Save $2.50!

For the duration of Lulu's silver medal "Olympics" sale, I've discounted the list price of the d30 DM Companion print copy to $8.05 (from $8.95). Add in the 20% savings for Lulu's sale and that means you get the d30 DM Companion for $6.44 (a $2.51 savings over the standard price.) But you'd better hurry, because by the time the first events get going GMT on Saturday, the sale will be over and the discount price goes back up.

Click here to go to there.

New Oe/BX/1E Monster: Giant Woodpecker

I've been wanting to do this one for a LONG time. I finally got off my butt and did the illustration (which is the time-consuming part of coming up with a new monster for me). Best of all, this one feels particularly BX to me, and fits right alongside with things like the giant shrew. My favorite part of the illustration is the (what to me was meant to be a) female elven druid controlling the giant woodpecker (though she technically has to be half-elf, since elves aren't allowed to be druids, though I suppose she could just as easily be a magic-user).

DESCRIPTION Giant woodpeckers are carnivorous, and normally found in forests and woodland habitats, particularly those inhabited by giant insects and worms. Like the smaller variety of woodpeckers, giant woodpeckers have a "sticky" tongue that aids in capturing prey. On any natural "to hit" roll of 20 against an opponent of 4' or smaller, the victim will be pulled into the giant woodpecker's beak (in addition to the damage caused by the beak attack). The victim does get the chance to attack the giant woodpecker and if a successful "to hit" roll is made against the bird, the woodpecker will release its victim. However, should the victim fail to make a successful attack, the giant woodpecker will have succeeded in pulling the victim into its beak and will begin to chew, doing 1-4 points of damage per round, beginning on the following turn (from the successful attack), and will continue to chew until the victim is dead, or until the woodpecker has been killed or fails a morale check. The brain of the giant woodpecker is particularly small, giving it a relatively poor AC (despite its size) and a inordinately high morale.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 1-12 ARMOR CLASS: 9 MOVE: 6"/36" HIT DICE: 4 % IN LAIR: 10% TREASURE TYPE: Q NO. OF ATTACKS: 2 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6/1-6/2-8 SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Animal ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: L (18' wingspan) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 9 HIT DICE: 4 MOVE: 60'/360' ATTACKS: 2 claws + 1 beak DAMAGE: 1-6/1-6/2-8 + special NO. APPEARING: 1-12 SAVE AS: Fighter: 2 MORALE: 11 TREASURE TYPE: L ALIGNMENT: Neutral

The 3 Tenets of Magic I've adopted* as I put my head back to The System: Expanded

I. Magic is a talent

II. Magic can be learned and mastered if the talent exists

III. Magic is dangerous (at any "level" of experience)

Inspired by Faust Aleph-Null, the serialized version of the book Black Easter by James Blish.

Should Druids be Allowed to Cast the Spell Hallucinatory Forest?

Simply put, Hallucinatory Terrain is the only clerical or druidic spell in the 1e Player's Handbook that falls under the "illusion/phantasm" classification. I can understand the rare divination spell like locate plants and even necromantic spells like cure disease. After all, those types of spells seem to fall into areas where a cleric or druid would have some spiritual "domain". But there just seems to be something out of place about a single illusion/phantasm spell from out of approximately 150 cleric AND druid spells (counting individual spells available to both, like cure light wounds, as 2 spells) that is an illusion/phantasm spell.

Discuss.

New Oe/BX/1E Monster ("Zine Style"): Leech-man

In celebration of my recent purchase of a long-reach stapler (from Staples), as well as three reams of legal paper (for about a buck each at an estate sale), as well as anticipation for what that means... I present today's monster of the week... ZINE STYLE!

Giant Week Day 5 + d30 Day: Updated d30-based Giant Generator

Today's conclusion to Giant Week is an updated version of the old d30 Giant Generator (from back during the A-to-Z challenge.) This new version includes the addition of a roll for alignment and intelligence.

To download a free PDF of the updated d30 Giant Generator, click here.

Giant Week Day 4: Free Oe/1e/BX Mini-adventure for Characters level 6-9 - Foray to Filmarion Wood

I know that on Sunday when I announced Giant Week, I mentioned that I would have a free adventure today that would start to fill in the Nimmerland Hex Crawl. That was my intention, anyway. But as I started to flesh things out for the stone giant encounters on Rock Island, it got unwieldy... quickly. I will continue to flesh out those ideas (which I'm really digging), but it may be a while before the world sees them.

Instead, submitted for your approval, I present an adventure based on Tuesday's new monster, the dirt giant. (I guess it's too late for a spoiler alert at this point.)

Foray to Filmarion Wood
The link to download Foray to Filmarion Wood, an Oe/1e/BX mini-adventure for characters levels 6-9, can be found over on the Old-school Adventures™ page.

Giant Week Day 3: Separated at Birth - Giant Edition

Tramp's fire giant and Madonna. Yeah, I know this one isn't that great. That's why I started with it.

The hill giant and Brittany Spears. I wonder which one is smarter.

The storm giant and giant douche Rick Perry. Look... I'm from Texas AND I'm a republican (sort of), so I can say that.

The frost giant and actor/turned rapper/turned back to actor Joaquin Phoenix.

Tramp's stone giant and John Hamm as the stone-hearted Don Draper from AMC's Mad Men.

The cloud giant (another Tramp classic) and super-funky-thump-slap-bassist Flea from the RHCPs.

The giants from BX blue and the cast of Reno 911.

Giant Week Day 2: New Oe/BX/1E Monster - Dirt Giant

If you downloaded yesterday's Monster Index: Giants PDF, you might not have realized there were so many giants, all of which have previously existed save for one or two. The dirt giant is my addition/creation. Compared to most giantkind, it's on the relatively weak side (HD: 8+3, doesn't throw rocks), but if the party of PCs is investigating a burrow expecting to find a handful of giant shrews and come across a dirt giant instead... well, you get the idea.

Giant, Dirt

DESCRIPTION Dirt giants dwell in underground burrows and lairs found in almost any type of locale or climate. These burrows are often of the dirt giant’s own construction, created with the aid of its powerful, oversized hands and talon-like fingers (burrowing movement appears as second “move” indication above). In combat, the gouge of each of a dirt giant’s hands does 1d6+2 points of damage (per hand) on a successful “to hit” roll. From years of living underground, dirt giants have lost the use of normal eyesight, but have developed the ability to “see” in darkness through a type of “radar” that is accomplished with the aid of “clicking” sounds from their mouths. In turn, dirt giants are unaffected by light (e.g., flashing blindness attacks or visual illusions), but are essentially “blinded” in the presence of any type of silencing spell or effect (disabling the use of their clicking). Under the effects of this blindness, a dirt giant has an effective Armor Class of 6 and suffers a -4 penalty on “to hit” rolls. Description: Dirt giants have calloused light to medium brown skin, wiry brown hair, and eyes that always appear to be squinting. They are 13’ from head to toe, but usually scurry around on all fours (second movement rating, same as burrowing) and rarely stand upright (first movement rating), appearing “hunched” when they do. Their large hands feature imposing talon-like fingers and are often caked in clay and dirt. They rarely wear anything at all and are never seen holding a weapon of any sort.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 1-6 ARMOR CLASS: 2 MOVE: 9”//15” HIT DICE: 8+6 % IN LAIR: 50% TREASURE TYPE: E NO. OF ATTACKS: 2 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1d6+2/1d6+2 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil SPECIAL DEFENSES: Not affected by light MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Low to average ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: L (13’ tall) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 2 HIT DICE: 8+6 MOVE: 90’//150’ ATTACKS: 2 hand gouges DAMAGE: 1d6+2/1d6+2 NO. APPEARING: 1-6 SAVE AS: Fighter: 8 MORALE: 8 TREASURE TYPE: E ALIGNMENT: Neutral

Giant Week Day 1: Oe/1e/BX Stats for 50 Giants!Free PDF - Monster Index: Giants

AN EXHAUSTIVE INDEX OF GIANT INFORMATION!
Let me start by saying, this is not a "pocket-sized" index. It is a 7-page letter-sized PDF and the image above is for effect. I just don't want anybody saying, "Awww. I thought it was going to be tiny. That would have been cool!" (Yeah, sure. Until you tried to read it.)

Like the Lycanthrope Index, I've combed a couple of decades' worth of 1e, 2e and BECMI editions, manuals, appendices, and Drag-mag articles for stats and information on all the giants I could find that still felt old-school, adjusted a few other so they would be, and then added 1 or 2. In this 7-page PDF you'll find stats for 50 different giants, including the physical description (incl. height), treasure type, intellgience, alignment, locales in which they're found, and type of lair (and in some cases, their in-lair animals).

Click here to download a free PDF of Old-school Adventure Accessories™
item MX2, Monster Index: Giants from MediaFire.

Announcing Giant Week!

Partly based on the success of Hex Crawl Week, and partly based on the fact that I need a kick in my pants to keep the posting up to an acceptable level around here, I'm doing another themed week of posts. So if I can keep my $#!+ together this week, this is what you'll be seeing.

MONDAY: GIANT INDEX
This 7-page PDF is the giant equivalent of the Lycanthrope Index. Included are OSR stats and info on 50 giants from cyclops to verbeeg. Like the Lycanthrope Index, I've combed through all the resources I could find to give you an exhaustive list of all the giant types and put them in an OSR context. And like the Lycanthrope Index, I've added 1 or 2, which bring us to...

TUESDAY (New Monster Day): DIRT GIANT
The stats for the dirt giant will appear in Monday's index PDF, but Tuesday's post will feature the full listing/description with an illustration. This one is relatively "low level" as giants go (but still stronger than, say, an ogre), but really feels (IMHO) like a nice addition to the "extended" basic types (which, to me, include bog, fog and mountain).

WEDNESDAY: SEPARATED AT BIRTH - GIANT EDITION
If you've ever seen my "Separated at Birth" posts (here and here), then you know what to expect.

THURSDAY: DANGER ON ROCK ISLAND (FREE MINI-ADVENTURE)
If, during Hex Crawl Week, you downloaded the Map of Nimmerland, or the background on Nimmerland (now both available on the Old-school Adventures™ page), you might recall Rock Island, and the pirate tales that a tunnel leads to the islands, and tell of the stone giants living there. Well, without giving away too much, there is a tunnel, and there are stone giants (sort of), but there's a darker secret that eventually ties into the ruins north of Aglar Bog. Thursday's download is a detailed map of the tunnel, Stone Island and Rock Island, and the encounters therein.
This thing started getting WAY to unruly for a "throwaway" mini-adventure (started getting too complicated, involved too many encounters, etc.), so I'm going to be replacing it with something a bit "easier to handle" from a writing perspective.

FRIDAY (d30 Feature Day): UPDATED d30 GIANT GENERATOR
This is an updated version of the original Giant Generator posted during the A-to-Z challenge, but now includes alignment and intelligence.

d30 Feature of the Week: Tavern Name Generator

This week's d30 feature is another one slated for the d30 Sandbox Companion, and it generates approximately 27,000 different tavern names.

All I ask in return for your download is this... once you've downloaded the PDF, get out that "big plastic boulder of nerdiness" and give it whirl three times. Then post your results in the comments section below!

To download a free PDF of this d30 Tavern Name Generator from MediaFire, click here.

Free Download: Treasure Type Comparison PDF (Oe, Holmes, 1e, BX)

I've been very fascinated for quite some time with the early edition treasure type charts. I really started to dig into them when I "re-imagined" them for the d30 DM Companion (reducing the number of rolls required as much as possible.) And now, as I continue to work up new monsters with dual stats, I'm constantly trying to figure out which treasure types I should be giving them so they "jive" not just which each other, but with comparable monsters and treasure types for those editions (Oe/BX).

While I thought I'd seen some sort of treasure type comparison spreadsheet before, I couldn't find one. (Then I realized I was probably thinking of this spell comparison.) So I created one.

The PDF compares the treasure types from the following editions
(listed by the notations in column 2 of the pages in PDF):
Oe: per W.B. Monsters & Treasure (1974)
H: per Holmes Basic (1977)
1e: per Monster Manual (1977)
BX: per Moldvay Red (1981)

My takeaways, as briefly as possible:
- Holmes seems to be a "direct expansion" of Oe (adds types J to T, little %/amount changes)
- 1e expands to Z the same time (year) as Holmes, but w/ a few noticeable changes in %/amount
- BX shares most of Holmes's %/amount but re-orders individual types, throws in a couple of new types (BX types U and V differ any prev. types), and stops at V (1e went to Z years before)

DOWNLOAD THE PDF VIA THIS LINK!

New Oe/BX/1E Monster: Giant Two-headed Snake

This week's new monster is much more about the illustration than the monster (though, like giant spiders, I'm sure you can never have too many giant snakes). For a while, I feel like some of my illustrations have not been living up to their potential, so I'm "re-dedicating" myself to trying to raise my bar. I also thought you'd enjoy seeing my process. At the bottom of today's post, you'll find a composite image showing the 3 stages of this drawing: 1) sketch, 2) inked drawing, 3) computer final.

Snake, Giant Two-headed

DESCRIPTION Giant two-headed snakes are little more than what they sound like. Unlike the amphisboena, a giant two-headed snake features its two heads on the "same end" of its body, essentially "splitting at the neck" into twin heads which are able to attack 2 different opponents up to 10' apart from one another. These ominous ophidians reach lengths of 30' and share traits with both vipers and pythons. Each head is capable of delivering a poisonous bite that does 1-8 points of damage on a successful "to hit" roll and kills in 4-12 rounds (unless a save vs. poison is made). Additionally, if both bites are successful against a single opponent, the snake is able to constrict around that opponent, delivering an additional 2d8 points of damage per round, beginning automatically after the second bite. The snake can be "uncoiled" if enough characters (6+) of sufficient strength (16+ ea.) can grasp the beast at each extremity (2 characters at each head and 2 characters at the tail end). This "uncoiling" process will take 2-5 rounds to complete.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 1-4 ARMOR CLASS: 5 MOVE: 12" HIT DICE: 6 % IN LAIR: 0% TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-8/1-8/2-16 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Posion, constriction SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Animal ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: L (25'-30' long) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 5 HIT DICE: 6 MOVE: 120' ATTACKS: 2 bites/1 squeeze DAMAGE: 1-8/1-8/2-16 NO. APPEARING: 1-4 SAVE AS: Fighter: 3 MORALE: 8 TREASURE TYPE: U ALIGNMENT: Neutral

Illustration Steps for Image Above

Need Your Input: Monster Stats Format/Order

For a while now, I've been posting new monsters with "dual" format stats (including Oe/1e and BX versions). The dual format seems to be popular so I'm not going to eliminate it. However, I have been posting those stats in the orders established by the 1e (for Oe/1e) and Moldvay/Cook (for BX) versions of the game. As I look to try to refine the Creature Compendium for publication, I'm considering altering the order of the stats for the way I (as a DM) prefer them. What I'd like your input on is how YOU would prefer seeing them, especially those of you who've already put some of these into use. So, take a look at the graphic and let me know if you have a preference between A and B (for Oe/1e and comparable clone players), and between C and D (for BX and BX-clone players).

BTW, I figured a post with place for comments would spark a better discussion than the limitations of something like a SurveyMonkey questionnaire.