Carthagos, Jewel of Naxas

Population: 800,000
Government: The Assembly, the Council of the Wise
Military: Polemarch Archaeus Neledos
Law: Archon of the Court Olymfa Philaidos

THE CITY GOVERNMENT
The city is ruled by the Council of the Wise, which oversees the Library Assembly. The Assembly acts as a deliberative body and the Council as an executive one. Beneath these two organizations stand the Archons and the Polemarch.

The Polemarch, Archaeus Neledos, is in command of the city defenses and all necessary preparations for war. Technically Archaeus is also in charge of the Carthagan fleet, but practically this job falls under the Council of the Wise and the Archon of the Market.

The Archons have the following tasks:

The Archon of the Market, Philemon Execedos, is tasked with maintaining order in the Agora, enforcing the trade laws, and keeping the trade routes to Carthagos and Naxas open. In this capacity, the Archon of the Market has broad authority to issue detentions, command the Carthagan fleet, and serve as the head of the Sworn of Carthagos Agorikon.

The Archon of the Court, Olymfia Philaidos, is the chief magistrate of the city. She oversees the court system and prepares court trials. All lawsuits are handled by means of court trial.

The Archon of the Temples, Taireseus Philaidos, is the head priest of Carthagos. This is an official position, not a mystical one. He arranges the sacrifices in each temple, ensures there are sufficient burnt offerings, and interprets the will of the gods before the Assembly. He also commands the ranks of the Sworn of Carthagos Naulikon.

The Council of the Wise is composed of Wise dating back 150-200 years to the death of Phantigor of Carthagos and the establishment of the Library. Although each could easily have founded their own powerful lineage, the Councilors have instead foresworn heirs and rule Carthagos through its library. These men and women are Nessos, Orpheos, Polikrates, Pythagoras, Antikos, Melite, Hypatia, Aspasia, and Nikarete.

THE EUPATRIDAE
There are five major lineages in Carthagos and countless minor ones. The five larges and most important are the Alchmaeonidae, the Execedai, the Megacloi, Neledes, and the Philaidae.

The Gates of Carthagos
Carthagos boasts six gates. Clockwise from the north, they are the Eliagic Gate leading to Elia and its olive groves, the Diogene Gate, leading to Diogares and its stone quarries, the Piraeon Gate and Port Gates, both leading down to the port of Piraeos, the Nekropolis Gate, which leads directly to the Nekropolitan Hill, and the Diplyon Gate, leading to the town of Diplyon.

These gates make the line of the five main streets of Carthagos, which each run toward the Agora.

GEOGRAPHY
The city of Carthagos is the chief city of Naxas and rules the other minor cities on that island. It sits in a commanding height in the valley of Koilos at the head of the Bay of Limnos.

The Acraeus is the tallest hill in Koilos. Once the site of the Temple of Nyx, it was then converted to the shrine of Lysos Acraeus. It was joined by the Palace of Phantigor, which was converted to the Temple of Bel-Amon when that Divinity descended on the city with his winged helm. Atop the old Acraen Temple there now stands the Great Library of Carthagos. Together with the Temple of Bel-Amon these two monuments can be seen for cords and cords in all directions. Even out at sea, the first that a ship can see of the city is the statue of Bel-Amon atop his Acraen temple.

Carthagos stands between the rivers Eridamnon and Menandrion, both of which provide water to the city. The Eridamnon was dammed (legendarily by Bel-Amon, but potentially by the first Lawgiver, Ptolos) and redirected beneath the city walls to provide water pressure, public fountains, and sewer drainage to the city.

The city proper is girdled by a white wall said to have been originally built by the Old Gods in the days when this was a fortress of Nyx. They are impervious to magical assault and wide enough across to mount onagers and other siege machinery. They follow the line of the nearest hills.

A flat black volcanic rock stands near the Acraeus, just to east. This is the Cyclon Stone, sacred to Nyx. It is also where public festivals that require the expenditure of holy myrrh take place. A depression in the heart of the stone is said to be a bowl carved by Nyx to spill the smoking blood of her children.

DISTRICTS AND LOCATIONS
CRAFTSMAN'S DISTRICT
The craftsman's district is somewhat tighter and more compact than the rest of the city. The buildings are smaller here, and the alleyways that run between them are often unpaved. The Street of Forges is the largest road within the district not counting the main Nekropolitan Way. All smelting activities in the city are required to place at the City Smelters on the Street of Forges.

Perakletes Ironjaw. This smith is famous throughout the city for forging bronze. He is a master weapon smith, and Carthagan bronze blades, spears, and polearms that come from Perakletes' shop are well-known throughout the Circle Sea. He is a gruff, middle-aged, black-haired, man who lost three of his teeth in the last Khian War and thus has a deep hatred for people of that race. He earned his name from his thick and brooding jawline.

Prices at Perakletes are usually half again as much as the open agora, but Perakletan weapons of bronze crit on a 19 and a 20.

Lysa the Shieldworker. Lysa makes shields from yew, bronzewood, and ash. She uses bronze to plate them, and her workshop (which employs twenty slaves) produces the distinctive hoplon of Carthagos. Her painters are always working to paint Carthagan blue and silver on armor.

MARKET DISTRICT

THE ACRAEUS

DYONIC DISTRICT

CYCLON DISTRICT

FOREIGNER'S DISTRICT

Classes in the Tai Shan Republic: Barbarian and Bard

Barbarian

There are many indigenous “slave race” groups that were never fully conquered and integrated into the Dragon Empire. From the swamps of the Seven Sorrows, these people are often called the “boat people” or the “river people.”

The Barbarian class represents these swamp warriors, who raid Shai Tang Republic and Red Banner troops and towns alike.

There are two types of barbarian-warrior found within these indigenous tribes, and they are represented by the paths below.

Raging Waters

For some barbarian warriors, attacking from aboard the deck of a ship is as natural as swimming or swinging an axe.

            Shrieking Leap.

            At 3rd level, you can jump twice the normal distance you otherwise would be able to in a long-jump as long as you are in a rage. The Raging Waters barbarians often use their well-developed thews to propel them onto enemy boats.

            Deckclearer.

            River barbarians are also known to stand alone atop the deck of a ship and slay all and sundry, guild champion and soldier alike, that come at them, from all sides. At 6th level, whenever you rage you can also make a two melee attacks as bonus actions against two separate targets in your flanks or directly in front of you each round. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.

                       

            Unstoppable.

            Beginning at 11th level, if you succeed at a relentless rage check, your strength bonus is doubled for the rest of the fight.

Blazing Fire

Others among the boat people focus on the use of the best weapon there is against the craftships of Tai Shan: fire.

            Brand.

            At 3rd level you may whisper the secret words of fire to your weapon; tongues of flame will leap up and down it. These flames will last for one battle, but they will severely damage your weapon (it will be unusable at the end of the fight). Anyone struck by a flaming weapon takes an additional 1d4 points of damage and may catch on fire.

            Igneus Mastery.

            At 6th level, you know the secret words to keep your hands safe in fire; you can reach into, grab, touch, and manipulate burning objects, blazing coals, etc., without penalty. They deal no damage.

            Fire Ward.

            At 10th level, you have a chance of deflecting incoming bullets and fire-based magic. You may now save to take no damage from bullets (they are deflected off course), save to take half damage from large gunpowder weapons (mortars), and if you save against a fire-based magical attack, you take no damage; if you fail, you take half instead.

Bard
Musicians, writers, and propagandists under the old Empire often journeyed to An’an for training;
there, at the so-called School of the Amber Quill, they would learn some of their master’s secrets:
that is, they were taught to utilize limited applications of spellcraft from the dragon-princes
who deigned to teach there. Since the fall of the Empire, control over this training technique has
lapsed somewhat; while there are still scholars of the Amber Quill, folk techniques for
replicating the dragon’s magic have also given birth to ten thousand “chattering pens.”

Bards in Edero do not have the ability to use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus.

Amber Quill.

Members of the Amber Quill are all trained in An’an by the remains of the School there. They

possess certain degree of hauteur, knowing they are the most elite of the writer-magicians in the

Empire.

            Master Historian.

At 3rd level, Amber Quills are awarded the rank of master historian from the school. Choose

two intelligence skills to gain double your proficiency bonus on.

           

 Deep Lore

At 6th level, you learn two spells of your choice from any class. A spell you choose may be

from any level you could cast, if you were the appropriate class. The chosen spells count as

bard spells for you, but don’t count against the number of bard spells you know.

Mystic Defenses.

At 12th level, you are able to construct brief-lived defenses against magical attacks by using

secret words taught by the School. You may expend a bardic inspiration to add that roll to

your saving throw against any spell.

Chattering Pen.

Members of the Chattering Pen are self-taught, and are also known as hedge mages. They may serve

the powerful guild interests, the Red Banner, or any number of bandit groups, but they are known for

their cunning.

Bonus Proficiencies.

Those who never join the School of the Amber Quill gain proficiency with medium armor, shields,

and martial weapons at level 3.

All Together Now.

At 3rd level you can help your allies in combat, whether by exploiting openings or by buoying up

their spirits. Anyone that has a Bardic Inspiration Die from you can roll that die and add it to a

damage roll made by a weapon or a spell.

Iron Pen.

At 6th level, you learn to imbue a brief enchantment to your quill tips. You can hurl these quills as

darts. They have a +1 magical bonus when thrown by you. If you spend a bardic inspiration when

throwing one, it will gain a magical bonus equivalent to 1/3rd your level (maximum of +5).

Dazzling Swordplay.

At 10th level, you can make one weapon attack on a turn you have cast a spell, as a bonus action.

A Proposal: Eder'o

The Dragon-Emperors have fallen. The Imperial Wars have drained the once-proud nobles of the Heavenly Empire. Strife, strife beyond imagining has depleted their strength. Now, the cities of the Seven Sorrows must do without their emperor, without their nobility, and without the caste of sorcerer-lords that once ruled them. From the wreckage, the Heavenly Empire re-emerges onto the world stage... in a time of nation-states, absolutism, and mercantile adventurism.

This is a pitch for a 5th Edition D&D setting. It would use modified 5e rules, backgrounds, and races. Rather than a traditional pre-industrial feudal period, the Heavenly Empire posits a modern, industrializing, landscape with political formations that are much more similar to those in the modern period. States, as we now conceive of them, play a huge role, rather than the feudal model of personal loyalty.

BACKGROUND. Before the Imperial Wars, the Heavenly Empire was made and governed by the Dragon-Emperors. These lords were literally dragons, descended from the Primal Dragons who originally divided up the world. In other regions, those dragons were overthrown by the so-called slave races: men, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs. The tieflings, heirs to the demonic sorcery of the Old Ways, served as the dragon's lieutenants in the Heavenly Empire, and the royal houses in many other lands.

The world was divided between the Empire and the Barbarian States. Those Barbarian States now sit at parity with the former Empire, for the Heavenly Empire has fallen. The Imperial Wars consumed her, with dragon-lords vying for power. The great houses are all but exterminated, and only a handful of dragons remain. The mightiest servants of the Empire, the dragonborn, retain much of their rights and privileges, and make up the burgeoning burgher and merchant classes, along with some of the newly emancipated slave races.

The Imperial Wars began with the death of the Gaolong Emperor and the war of his seven children. Each child took for their base of power one of the seven great cities of the Empire, along the vast and winding river that cuts through its heart and is fed by six lesser rivers: the legendary Seven Sorrows. For that reason, the Imperial Wars are also known as the War of Seven Sorrows, and the heirs to the throne were often colloquially known as "the Sorrows."

After centuries of internecine warfare, the Sorrows were no closer to the throne; whenever a contender died, other pretenders stood up to join the fray in their place. It was, at last, the High Landmenn Council of the great financial city of T'ai Sha that overthrew them and drove out the living Sorrows. A compact between the powerful tiefling sorcerers and dragonborn merchantile class resulted in the expulsion or execution of the living dragons.

Of course, this rebellion, called alternately the T'ai Sha Rebellion or the Devil's Bargain, made liberal use of a surge of anti-draconic feeling in the slave races. The Chained, as they called themselves, formed a faction to themselves, and when the dragons were executed or gone, they threatened to swamp the great cities in violence. The Landmenn, the most powerful of urban burghers in the realm, and the sorcerers quelled the Chained Revolutions and established the Writ of Perpetual Freedom: in exchange for ending their fight, the slave races of the Empire would agree to be freed from servitude and land-bondage.

This worked in most places, except for the city of T'ai Sha. The Chained there had a strong backbone of support from young burghers and students at the University of Celestial Knowledge, where the sorcerers were trained. They seized the city in the name of what they called "Universal Brotherhood", executed every priest within the walls, set her junks on fire, and proceeded to take control of all land and goods for the Universal Revolt.

They were eventually put down by powerful dragonic forces, recruited from amongst the ranks of the former restorationists. The Dragon-General Tunwen attacked T'ai Sha with his iron steamships and flying wizards, and put an end to the Universal Brotherhood -- or so he thought.

Tunwen was named the Grand Marshal of the new Republic of T'ai Sha, but before three years were out, escaped members of the Universal Brotherhood could be found preaching rebellion in the provinces. They warned that the so-called "free wage labor" of the new Republic was little different from the chains of the Empire. "One is made of iron, one of gold, but both bind," Sister-Scholar Lema warned.

The Brotherhood could not stand against the uniting armies of the new Republic, and were driven into the Red Mountains, far to the west, where they raised their banner of rebellion. To this day, the Revolutionary Red State holds the richest iron, copper, tungsten, coal, and oil lands in the former Empire. The Republic of T'ai Sha considers the Red State to be a carbuncle within its borders, an existential danger. The other nations of the world agree: so long as the Red State continues to exist inside of the Republic like a tumor, it gives the lower classes of the world a rallying cry and a red banner to wave.

Oh Right, That's Why I love 2e

Having had the chance to play Fifth Edition and Second Edition in close proximity to each other now, I can say this: in comparison, there is clearly one edition that I favor, and it is the second. Fifth edition is nice, but it is, in essence, a diet soda.

Last week we played 5e again. The players had gained a level in the first session because they fought six orcs. Six orcs is not recommended for three level 1 characters. According to the formula in the DMG, six orcs are worth 1,200xp when encountered together. Three level one characters are only recommended to fight 300xp worth of enemies in any given encounter, and that would be "deadly." They should all really have been level 3 in order to effectively fight six orcs.

During this session, they were all level 2. The maximum "deadly" encounter experience recommended is 600xp. As part of a strategy to overcome a somewhat large band of orcish raiders (15+1 captain), they got into a one-on-one fight with the orcish captain. Who turns out was worth 1,100xp. Twice the "permissible" limit for the players. Any given stroke by the captain could have killed a character, and it made two attacks every round. They won. They're level 3 now.

This idea of balancing is grating to me. The fact that the game is designed to have such a huge variance in monster ability between a regular orc and a slightly better orc is grating to me. I'm used to players fighting whatever they want whenever they want and fleeing if it's big or has a lot of magic or turns out to be a very good fighter. But for the most part they can estimate how dangerous things are.

An orc warchief can be estimated at a certain level of competence. Even if an orc chief is around level 4, a group of well-equipped and wise level 1 characters could take him down if he was alone. Generally, humanoid monsters don't scale their attack damage by level. That's not the case in 5e. A regular orc can deal, let's say, 1d12 damage with his axe. An orc captain deals 1d12+1d8+6 or somesuch. That's a LOT OF DAMAGE. The scaling effect of high-damage to high-hp means that powerful enemies can annihilate low level characters with a single hit and creates a sort of treadmill between the hp of the characters and the damage output of the foe.

There have to be ways to remedy this, I'm just not sure what they are. The damage treadmill is one of the most irritating aspects of CRPGs; the independence of ability and damage output is what makes most roleplaying games work. The world-setting would make very little sense if certain enemies could simply stride through hordes of their foes, killing one with each stroke. These creatures would be more-or-less unstoppable to small groups of level 0-3 knights and militiamen.

I'll find a way to cope. My wife really prefers 5e. I think Jason might as well.

Tomb of the Nightmare-King: The Order of the Golden Swan

The Order of the Golden Swan was founded by joint order under the Autocephalon's bull Against the Unbelieving and the Imeprial edict For the Safety of the Faith during the reign of Emperor Telmidon and Autocephalon Burastis. In that same year, the Endarch of Deyas, then the infamous Auregon II, issued his own bull Against the Swan and denounced the creation of the order, establishing the infamous Knights of Ruyael.

Structure of the Order
The order serves the Custodian of the Swan, currently Auriliac of Benat. The Custodian himself rules over a council of four other knights who are known as the Knights of the Sacred Stone and comprise the governing council of the order. They all report directly to Emperor Voemydas.

There is a threefold order of servants of the Holy Flame and  the Golden Swan: these are the lay brothers, the Knights, and the canons regular. Lay brothers comprise the sergeants and men-at-arms that serve with the knights. The Knights proper are paladins. Canons regular are priests sworn to the service of the Custodian of the Swan.

Aspirants are knighted upon reaching level 3 and swearing the Oath of Empire (below). They will progress through the ranks of bailiff, knight of the gate, knight of the ankh, knight of the flame, and knight of the swan. Ranks beyond these are Knight-Captain (who command squadrons of the Order) and Knight-Commander (who command one of the Order's three fortresses).

Oath of the Empire
Paladins swearing the Oath of Empire pledge their support to the empire itself, its integrity, the faith of Deyas, and the laws of the civilized world. All paladins entering the Order of the Golden Swan must swear this oath upon achieving 3rd level. They also swear to protect the empire from the nobility, explicitly excluding them from the oath of protection.

Tenets
Law. Paladins of the Order of the Golden Swan must obey the laws promulgated by the Emperor. They may not transgress against them, as it is only through these laws that the empire exists at all.

Faith. The Autocephalon and the Emperor represent two poles of faith that the Golden Knight must obey and respect. Deyas is the chief above all things, however, and the paladin must not blaspheme, or through his actions or inactions allow a temple of Deyas or its clerics to be harmed or fall into ruin if he could prevent it. The tenet of faith also requires Golden Knights to root out the secretly unfaithful and undevout—worshippers of the Old Nightmares or nobility working against the empire must be punished.

Loyalty. Golden Knights must be absolutely loyal to the Autocephalon, the Emperor, and the imperial successor.

Decisiveness. When the time comes to act, Golden Knights act. They do not allow corruption to fester and grow strong.

OATH SPELLS
3rd   zone of truth, command
5th   Hold Person, Protection from Poison
9th   Crusader's Mantle, Dispel Magic
13th  Staggering Smite
17th  Geas

CHANNEL DIVINITY
Doom of Judgment. The Golden Knight may pronounce someone guilty of a crime against the emperor merely by saying it is so. This doom expends the channel divinity and gives all allies advantage when attacking the target for purposes of restraining them until the target is restrained, dropped to 0 hp, or the target breaks line of sight with its attackers.

Tactician's Command. The Golden Knight may use his channel divinity to allow any ally within 120 feet to take an action immediately.

COMMAND OF THE LAW
At 7th level, the Golden Knight may issue a command of up to 5 words when casting command.

NO POISON SHALL HINDER ME
At 15th level, the Golden Knight gains resistance to poisons.

BEACON OF DEYAS
At 20th level, the Golden Knight may use the Holy Nimbus power of the Oath of Devotion.

The 5th Edition

I've had the opportunity, now, to play the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons with my wife, Frank, and Jason. In person, even! Jocelyn didn't like it (not enough dungeon in the dungeons and dragons, and too many farmers, orcs, and above-ground fights), but otherwise I thought the session went alright. Jocelyn and Frank insisted on making two rogues, leaving Jason to play a paladin-aspirant of the Order of the Golden Swan.

My own rule of thumb in 2e games has been that paladins, knights, etc., generally aren't recognized as such until 3rd level. How refreshing, then, to find that levels 1-2 in 5e are sort of pre-levels that go by very quickly and that you actually choose an "archetype" at third level. Paladins swear their oaths, rogues get their thieving skills on, etc. Vury vury interesting.

IN play, the rules are simple but effective. They're not my beloved finicky 2e, which requires the precise calculation of every little detail, but perhaps they're better at what they do for that. 5e appears to be a game you can jump into fast, play a bit, and then leave lying around. Where 2e is a commitment, 5e is an evening's entertainment. A lot of the 5e improvements come in character creation, where you select gear packages rather than being given a load of gold to go and spend as thou wilt. Buying equipment has always been the longest and slowest part of AD&D character creation, and its interesting to see ways in which it can be optimized.

The old race-as-class dragon rears its head a little as well; elves get a single cantrip that they know, because elvish society is magical and everyone learns a little magic. Interesting! I once proposed something similar for a certain 2e setting.

Obviously the game is, at default, much higher magic than 2e--that dungeonpunk creep has been going on since 3e. That's fine, as the Nightmare-King setting is specifically designed to be higher magic; rather than relying on the alternative universe style ("what if?", or "what would the world be like if x, y, and z were the case") I've been exploring a 70s fantasy satire a-la Vance; more of a ridiculous way to highlight the foibles and worst aspects of mankind.

The important thing is that the rules feel like an older edition. Advantage is a handy way to get rid of the need to memorize bonuses (+2 for attacking from behind, +2 for the enemy being unaware, +1 for attacking from up a slope... so now I have... +5? And that means I get to do my backstab, so...) and provides a lower bar for system mastery to new players. I know, I have ranted and raved about system mastery being important and required, and the high bar weeding out those who really want to play and those who just want to have a power trip... but that's neither here nor there. Perhaps I'll address that in another blog.

Combat is sufficiently brutal. Tactics that worked in 2e still work here (flank 'em, surprise 'em, ambush 'em, etc.) Frank went down in the second round after shooting some arrows. Interesting that the charge mechanic has been removed (maybe it's in a feat?), replacing it with dash, which simply allows you to use your attack action to move a second time.

Spells aren't interruptible anymore because they only take the time of your actual initiative count to cast them. AH WELL! Magic, in fact, looks wholly different, but I haven't had the chance to sample it because no one is playing a wizard, warlock, or sorcerer.

At the end of the day I will always prefer 2e to 5e. However, 5e is a light-hearted cousin that does well at emulating an OSR playstyle. When it's time for a quick romp in the old megadungeon, 5e probably does that better. When I want to immerse myself in a fully realized world, it'll be 2e I turn to, as an old friend and companion.

I can't believe I don't hate a new edition of D&D.

Understanding Oroylus

The city of Coyn, Capitol of Orolyus

There are a few things you'll need to understand in order to comprehend the Empire of Oroylus. The first is its history. Founded by King Oroy during the Dark Ages when the Nightmare-King Böenthal ruled the entire East, it began as one of the hundreds of tiny kingdoms in the West, hemmed in by valleys. The ancient pagan ritual-site of Coyn was where Oroy was born, under a panoply of signs and monstrances indicating that he was destined for greatness. Astrologers from the Aragol spewed warnings which Böenthal the Eternal, having ruled his realm for longer than human memory, ignored.

Oroy was a capricious boy, and was crowned King of Coyn when he was but fourteen. Already, he had mastered certain arcane arts that he promised would lead his people to wealth undreamed of. When the Nightmare-King flexed his arm and swept the ancient cult-city of Ruyael under his dominion, King Oroy was given the chance he needed: the Endarch of Deyas settled his exile in Coyn. With the blessing of Deyas, father of the Old Gods, Oroy launched on a series of pacification wars, folding ever-greater swathes of territory into Coyn.

By the time he reached his thirtieth year, Böenthal the Nightmare-King had taken note of the prophesied child and begun to lay plans of war against him. When King Oroy turned thirty-one, the war began. The Endarch blessed his armies and with him marched a number of powerful sorcerers and wizards, all recruited to serve against Böenthal—some from within the Nightmare-King's own ranks.

After the Fall of the Nightmare-King and the sealing of Böenthal's Tomb, King Oroy went on to conquer all of the neighboring tribes and kingdoms, lifting the shadow of Aragol from the East and establishing the Empire of Oroylus.

High nobility of Oroylas

The Marchlands

The Endarch of Deyas

After the end of the Nightmare Wars and the Fall, the Endarch of Deyas, then Collac the Fourth, returned to Ruyael. A special relationship sprang up between the Endarchs and the Emperors, and Oroy was crowned Emperor of All Aragol and Coyn by Collac the Fourth shortly after the defeat of the Nightmare-King. This continued for two centuries before the creation of the Autocephalon.

The Autocephalon of Oroylus

Emperor Hyval, after a long and drawn-out power struggle with Endarch Mithis, appointed a new head of the Deyan temple who he declared free of the taint of politics in Ruyael. This position has become known as the Autocephalon, a sort of anti-Endarch dwelling within Oroylus.

The Sacred Order of the Golden Swan

This order of knights serves the emperor as his right hand. All its ranking members are, in fact, paladins who have sworn a special oath to the Autocephalon and the Emperor. Paladins of the Sacred Order may be any lawful alignment. Though they are very few in number, they serve as the empire's most powerful magistrates and enforcers.

The Imperial Collegeon

The Imperial Collegeon is a collection of magic users and war-wizards that serve the emperor directly. Much as the Sacred Order's knights enforce the emperor's will, the Collegeon disciplines rogue wizards for transgressing the law and serve in the emperor's armies against the empire's foes.

The Sycophanti

Rumored to exist as an official assassins arm of the empire, it is said that the sycophanti are the imperial spy network. Their existence has never been publicly confirmed or denied.

The Great Temples

Worship in Oroylus and the West is consolidated in a single unified but multi-threaded pagan worship; Deyas sits as the master of the pantheon, and every temple in which an idol to Deyas is housed may house any number of other, smaller cult idols. Saphis, the Goddess of Knowledge, has her cult-site in Coyn.

The Tomb of the Nightmare-King

So, because I have promised to review some 5e tools (particularly a character record/designer) and because the normal 2e game didn't go forward this week due to family obligations and illness, we have undertaken to playtest the D&D Next rules. This is the setting we'll be using.

The Empire of Oroylus
This ancient and decadent empire now heaves its final death throes as corruption runs rampant through its body. It is riddled with the cancers of factionalism and deceit. Emperor Voemydas rushes hither and yon to suppress rebellion, execute traitors, and bring the avenging arm of the imperial court to the far corners of his massive and decaying land. Barbarian tribes gnaw the empire from without, invited by corrupt regional commanders to serve as mercenaries in her internal wars. Oroylus, golden, ancient in magic and wickedness, dreams even as she dies.

The Marchland
In the dismal easterland of the empire is the vast Marchland, bordering the muddy Steppe of Bogros. This is the frontline in the failing empire's war with all the kingdoms and peoples of the east; from here, mounted orc tribes pour down Gullet Pass and lay waste to the farmlands of the March. Powerful regional lords, the Marchions, rule their fiefdoms with absolute power.

The Tomb of the Nightmare-King
Three hundred years ago, when Oroylus was young and King Oroy was its ruler, the fledgling kingdom stood against a vast and awful foe: Böenthal the Nightmare-King, a sorcerer out of some forgotten hell, who threatened to drown the world in his dark magic. Only a coalition of Oroy, the wizard Vathas, and the mighty hero Aeschl, could bind the Nightmare-King. When the reign of Böenthal was finally ended, the great treasures and vast contingents of slaves that made him mighty flooded into Oroylus and the Empire was begun.

But Böenthal was made of more than mortal stuff. He could not be slain, but merely imprisoned in an elaborate and awful tomb, built over his royal palace. For three hundred years, the tomb has remained sealed and safe; the Imperial Scholasticon, the high league of wizards, ensured its safety with inspections and regular increase in the wards which bound Böenthal the Eternal.

Last year, a foolhardy group of adventurer-mercenaries, seeking plunder, drunkenly pierced the outermost veil of the Nightmare-King's tomb. Since Voemydas and his sorcerous allies are busy on the far side of the empire, no one has done anything to re-seal the seeping evil... and now it begins to stir.

Argull
The town of Argull is a little Marcher village just south of Gullet Pass. It has remained on the fringes of the Marchland since the Fall of the Nightmare-King. Now, it serves as the jumping-off point for adventurers seeking the legendary magic and treasures imprisoned with Böenthal the Eternal in his shadowy grave.

Shaking off that Hoarfrost

Every so often, writing the blog becomes a daunting task that consumes too much of my time (or I convince myself does, which is worse). I have been writing (two plays, a book, a second book) and running games (two D&D games and a nascent Shadowrun) and generally fucking about. 5th Edition came without fanfare for us—no one even bothered to check it out. I glanced over the rules, but they still seem to not be the Second Edition rules, so I have no real interest in them.

I've been reading a lot as well, and not your regular run-of-the-mill stuff. I just finished The Anabasis and the Dictionary of the Khazars. I've been listening to the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, which is a wonderful podcast by Peter Adamson and amounts to several free courses in philosophy back to back. I'd skip most of the interview episodes, since the interviewees rarely seem to have anything to add, but overall I highly recommend it.

The drive to produce the 10th Age as a product available to other people is slowly petering out. Maybe because I received my final rejections from Medieval Studies programs and now know that I'll probably never possess a PhD, maybe because the looming certainty of law school means I have to focus on writing things that I think have a chance of giving me some kind of return before I don't have time to write anything at all.

That being said, the 10th Age game I started in Miles as a pilot for the setting is actually running really well. The Ironbreakers (as they've come to be known) kick ass each monday night. Some of them have even managed to achieve the vaunted LEVEL TWO.

Anyway, this post is mostly to assure you that no, I'm not dead and that yes, there are more posts coming. I'm going to take some time and write a fair number all at once, so I may appear to go into hibernation for another week or so. After that, we shall return in full force and glory. Though probably Fiction Friday is dead for a while, as I concentrate on other fictions.

The Ever Changing Appendix N

I've been thinking recently about the sea-change in pen and paper attitudes that marks the difference between the old, hard, "realistic" games from the 70s and the newer, shinier, "fun" games from the now. Since the OSR blogosphere is abuzz with additions to, discoveries in, and reviews of things from Appendix N, my thoughts recently turned to what exactly is going on here in the pen and paper world. Games have certainly changed, and they have changed because the people who play them have changed. Gygax was 36 when he and Arneson released the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons (or so my rapid and poor calculation skills tell me). He certainly wasn't in high school, and he already had a lifelong dedication to wargaming.

But that's not the big difference. The difference between games of today and games of yesteryear are their Appendix N. What sources do they draw on? What the are they trying to be, trying to emulate? What's the feel that inspired them? It's different now than it used to be, in large part because the intended audience of D&D keeps getting younger. Like a cigarette company, Hasboro wants to hook 'em young, hook 'em strong, and keep 'em stringing along. TSR had bad penetration into the very young demographics, probably because of the language of their books and the relatively strenuous weight placed on simulation.

Flash, not substance

The mainstream rpg market, the one dominated by games like Paizo's Pathfinder and WotC's D&D, has changed a lot from the roots of the hobby. Where once most gamers would have been content with a photocopied manual made in their local library and purchased through the mail, the format of the books has become of greater and greater import to the people buying them. We want books that look good and have lots of pictures, presumably because our imaginations are no longer working on overtime, so we need to have illustrations on every page to remind us what our own particular fantasy worlds look like.

This is really an aspect of the DIY problem spilling over into book design. D&D, like most modern well-known and mainstream pnp games, isn't about coming up with your own stuff anymore but rather purchasing stuff that you find in a store. The shiny pages, the full-page artwork, and the strange layouts are themselves a selling point now with the content taking second place. The encyclopedic style of late-stage TSR  has been supplanted by a very simple and easy-to-read method of writing.

As the writing of the books has gotten less complex their layouts have taken up the slack. They are now shining examples of overdesign. Yes indeed! I said it once and I'll say it again! They have less content and more glamor than any books that came before them. Paizo is perhaps slightly less guilty of this (their Pathfinder book is as gigantic a paperweight as I've ever seen and I confess that I couldn't be bothered to read it thoroughly as I despise 3.x in all its incarnations) but WotC has taken this design schema to heart and so have many lesser companies following WotC's wagon train.

Canned D&D

The first feedback I received on the Adventurers' Guide was that player's don't want to read more than one page of setting material. Bundled right along with this revelation was the fact that any DM who writes a setting manual of any kind is suspect, that they are automatically placed into a dangerous category of nutjob who probably won't run a good game. To me, this is bizarre; it led me to think about the way that D&D has changed since I started playing it, which is a topic that seems to get a frequent workout here.

The assumption that home-made D&D settings are somehow inferior to the boxed products seems to underlie that statement. Let's not even begin to try to unpack the sadness of the claim that reading a book is too much work for someone who wants to play a roleplaying game; the inherent contradiction there must rest for another time. But really, it brings home a shock that I've experienced all over the internet: people simply don't like homebrewed material. It looks like D&D has gone from something you make to something you buy, which is a true loss for the community. The same clearly can't be said about the OSR, so there's some hope yet, I suppose.

These waters are wide but shallow

A lot of players that grew up using 3.x and 4e have a real problem when coming back to 2e. I've noticed it repeatedly, and its very persistent across the board. Even one of my longtime regulars was once of this mindset before his complete and ultimate conversion to AD&D (I believe at my own hands). It's a strange hang-up that has to do with player choice and freedom and character creation, and I believe I can explain its root causes and the types of character it actually winds up creating.

I feel like I might be flogging a dead (or at the very least dying) horse here to state it, but 3.x and 4e are, (as 5e will be also, I'm sure) the product of a player's revolution. To protect themselves from bad DMs the players established ground rules about what they would allow and what they wouldn't. The chief and most noxious of those rules is that player choice means everything, and what the player wants goes; after all, the game is about fun, right?

The problem that I'm talking about specifically is the lack of creativity in character creation. Players of the later editions have come to identify creativity with playing monstrous races and picking strange classes. It's an easy sign of creativity if you are allowed to be a race that is rarely played (say, gnolls) and a class that is extremely specific (say, magical chef). These "concepts" dominate play in the modern systems. Elves, dwarves, etc. are often derided as being boring or even, in one case that I speak of from life, un-fantastical.

Every Table is Sacred

A few days ago I broke my silence on the Wizards of the Coast website concerning D&DNext. The question posed by the developers was one concerning the new feats in 5e and namely whether or not they should have roleplaying effects, combat effects, or exploration effects or all three. I was irritated at the very way the question is posed, and I posted a response that suggested that new abilities should make sense in totality; if someone can breathe fire, it makes sense to allow a ruling that says their fire breath also sets things on fire, boils water, etc.

I received a lot of positive responses... but amongst those, I was soundly schooled by a nameless lizard-avatared woman about why rulings were bad. She put forward the argument that rules should be ironclad and stay the same from table to table. The game system must be our baseline, and only from there, with a complete and comprehensive all-encompassing ruleset mapped out should individual tables modify them. I couldn't disagree more.

Tee Arr Yew Ess Tee

There can be no pen and paper roleplaying game without a game master. This is a dictum that, aside from a few games (that I would classify as collective story telling and not games at all), has held true throughout time. Players, you need to trust your game master. There's no game without him; he needs the leeway to make the game function and shouldn't be hamstrung by your trust issues.

That having been said, game master: you must be worthy of trust. I've addressed the poisonous Player's Rights movement that has informed so many of the modern pen and paper rules, but so far I've not actually spoken about the key issue that lies at the very root: the lack of trust between player and game-master that so permeates modern roleplaying games. Where does this lack of trust stem from? It is most likely not a flaw on the part of players, to be fair. So who do we have to blame for this virulent movement? Why, none other than the abusive GMs that put the fear into people so badly that they felt they had to design rules to protect themselves!

Luckily, there are ways to tell if you're an abusive GM; you can change, I promise, and you won't even have to have a player-held intervention.*

Encountering Balance

There's a mania going around about balancing encounters. Its poisonous grip has slithered around 3.x and 4e alike, and I'm sure it will make it into 5e as well. We are told that encounters need to be fair, survivable, carefully crafted to allow players to use their resources but not difficult enough to kill them. This is a common thread in a lot of modern pen and paper games, presumably to give the Game Master some idea of around what the players can handle without having the floor totally mopped by their foes. However, I would argue that, like many modern pnp conceits, this is actually a result of the vague player's bill of rights that I have discussed on many occasions; namely, in this case, the right to have fair encounters.

Steve Winter mentioned this problem somewhat in his discussion on dragons and on another secondary discussion on encounters, but I'd like to take it in a slightly different direction and trace the benefits of both systems so that we can compare what each method does (fair vs. unfair) and leave the reader to choose for themselves which they prefer. Clearly, I'm going to be in the Winter camp as I agree with Steve on almost every subject; it was his notes in the 2e DMG that taught me how to be a DM, after all. That doesn't mean I can't attempt to list their perks semi-objectively, though.


Let's begin with the fair and balanced encounter. We all know this one, as it is in vogue right now. The fair encounter promises the illusion of threat, which is an important element in any roleplaying game. Perceiving danger is integral to the function of not only what we call "roleplaying games," but any game in which you engage in the role of a character; video games more commonly qualified as action games, etc. Perceiving a danger to your character is part of the fun!

By that same token, this could be a danger to your game. If the threat to your players is simply illusion (i.e., the encounters are so well balanced that only by a series of awful dice-rolls or idiotic tactics could they lose) they may realize this. Indeed, they may realize this just from being familiar with the system. The problem here is, of course, that once the players know that encounters are balanced and are not going to be too hard, they'll know there is a set solution. "If we just arrange our tactics a certain way," they say, "We can definitely win."

This turns combat from a risky endeavor into a puzzle. That's fine, if that's the game you're looking for, but I have never thought of D&D as primarily a puzzle-game. This reduces the adrenaline and fear of combat, ensuring that players are going to survive if only they find the correct solution to their problems. As long as the tactics they choose are the ones that are "correct," they will almost certainly be victorious.

I suppose this can be fun. Who am I to say it can't? That's not the way I want to play D&D though. This seems like a strange way to approach the game, which I see as a reflection of events truly occurring in the fantasy setting of your choice. That sounds insane, I know, but bear with me on this. Maybe I'll even write about it further in another article. Here it goes: perception, as far as I am concerned, is reality. Whatever I perceive is what is real. The seat of perception is generally relegated to the senses, but in the case of imagination we can pretend to sense things that we do not. If we collectively imagine a place, is it not then, in some sense, extant?

And with that fresh in mind, we can look at the other approach. Under this rubric, one does not decide whether or not the PCs can "handle" a fight; rather, whatever makes sense for the region and adventure is present. It matters little if the PCs are level one and fighting ogres, or if they are level 10 and fighting goblins in terms of balance. Balanced encounters, in this mode, are simply not even a question.

The reason for this, of course, is because unlike a video game wherein you must approach problems from a limited number of starting points, in a real pen and paper game you are not forced to approach anything from a particular direction.

Let's take an example: Level 1 party is aware of a group of ogres they want to kill. In a video game, they would have to choose one of the developer approved approaches to getting rid of them. In that sense, the fight would most certainly be "unfair," since there might be one or two possible solutions to allow the party to overcome the ogres.

However, in a pen and paper game the level 1 party has an infinite variety of options. They could hire men to help them, trick the ogres into a narrow defile and rain boulders onto them, dupe them into fighting each other, bait some trolls to come down and destroy them, etc. The game is no longer about finding the right solution, but rather about working with the information you have to solve problems using any tools that could potentially exists in the gameworld.

This is, in my mind, a truer expression of the benefits of pen and paper than the carefully tallied fights designed to waste your resources and make your dead heart feel alive.