The Spells of Retep, the astounding, the crazy

These are the spells of the master mage Retep, penned by his own hand devised by his own incredible mind... but... whatever happened to the Astounding Retep?

Retep's Contagious Dance with the Fairies
Level: 1
Upon casting, the mage suddenly begins an uncontrollable dancing jig. There is no music - well at least that anyone else can hear, but nevertheless the caster continues to move in the most spasmodic, disjointed and downright disturbing way for 2d4 rounds. During this time, she is extremely hard to hit and gains a +6 AC bonus but cannot do anything except this strange, alluring dance except maybe accompany it with grunts, oohs, aahs and perhaps a little singing.
Anyone who attacks the mage risks getting caught up in the magical dance. They must make a saving throw vs wands or be compelled to join in the dance for the duration of the spell. Dance partners - as they become - cannot act, only dance, adding their own weird movements into the mix. They too gain a +6 AC bonus and any who attack them risk joining the frivolities too.

Retep's Massive Frog Jump
Level: 1
Range: 15'
When cast, the mage can make a single jump up to fifteen foot upwards and across, while gribbeting like a frog. The leap can be over obstacles and other creatures and the caster always lands safely, albeit in an embarrassing heap!

Retep's Spinning Bastard Beard
Level: 2
Duration: 1 round per level.
Upon completion of the spell, the caster's beard grows to extraordinary lengths and hardens into sharp points at the end and begins whipping around like a propeller. The Spinning Bastard Beard grants an extra melee attack per round to the mage, which inflicts d3 damage and automatic knockback on any enemy it hits. If the wizard forgoes all other attacks, he may powerswing the Bastard Beard.

Retep's Flash of Inspiration
Level:3
Many people suffer from a lack of ideas when confronted with an unusual problem. In such a situation, this spell proves invaluable. Upon casting, the mage faces the dumbfounded individual in question and lifts (or opens) his robes. Something, previously hidden, is revealed!

Whatever happened to Retep?
Level: 4
Range: 100'
The mage points at a target after completing the spell and says simply 'You... or me?'. Roll a d3. On a 3, the target is instantly and irrecovably destroyed and can never be raised and is replaced with a bowl of petunias. On a 2, the mage and the target simply switch places and there is a distinct whiff of Old Spice in the air. On a 1, the caster is instantly destroyed, except for her boots, which simply smoulder.

Mimic vs Smoke monster

My most recent game session, last night, featured some crazy but cool moments. Recently, the party mage and thief had pulled a couple of artefacts from a dream world into the real world (a dagger that can poison anything and an orb that can imprison souls). The most recent session 's star of the show was probably not a player, but the orb.

The group entered a room with a chest at the back of it. The room was clearly an armory as it was lined with racks of weapons. As they entered the room, one of the fighters accidentally stepped on a trip wire. A bladed pendulum swung downwards, hitting the hero, but he survived. This understandably made the group nervous of other traps within this room, so the wizard decided to release a skeleton that he had previously trapped within the Orb of Dominion, further into the room, to set any remaining traps off.

Everyone else in the group left the room and the mage did indeed do this. Three quarters of the way down the room, the skeleton appeared and came running at the mage to attack him (the imprisoned creatures emerge in a berserk state!). Prepared for this, the mage dispatched the skeleton and trapped it back inside the Orb. Now happy that most of the room did not contain traps, he decided to do the same thing again, but this time to place the skeleton next to the chest.

What the group did not know, was that the chest was a mimic, so when the skeleton appeared bang next to the chest, the mimic attacked! A mouth formed upon the chest and it gobbled up the skeleton!

That was a funny moment!

Cue the rest of the group storming in to the room to fight the mimic, who was then imprisoned with the Orb. A little later, in a fight against a dozen Vokes (smoke monsters) the mimic was released and began gobbling up the enemies. Another funny moment!

After all the monsters had been killed, the party re-defeated the mimic and the wizard once again trapped it within his Orb. I wonder what will face the party's pet mimic next ;-)

Dm interpreted magical items

One of the biggest problems with roleplaying games and magical items is that they are not really magical. They are more like appliances of science (e.g. technology) where the science behind the device is not known. Sort of like Arthur C Clark does magic items.

Magic really needs mystery to feel right. A wand of lightning bolts, for example, is infinitely cool and does provide some roleplaying possibilities, but it is too predictable and known to ever feel magical. In fact, its more like a sort of cannon that a wizard carries around with him.

Numerous attempts have been made in the past to address these issues, like for example nerfing the identify spell so it doesn't identify the mechanical attribtues of magical items. This is quite good, as the players do not necessarily know everything about an item; although knowing an item is a wand of lightning is pretty much all they need to know to figure out everything about it because they already understand the lightning bolt spell.

I'm wondering if the problem is not the players, but the source material. The item flows out of the pages of the rulebook to the adventure, the DM and finally the player. But what if the item text was very different?

Instead of saying a wand of lightning, what if it simply said a wand that hums with static? What does that mean? The onus would be on the DM then to create something new and unique. Does it throw lightning bolts, electrocute people, create loud noises like thunder, power devices ... or something else? The DM would be forced to make decisions, appropriate for the players, as to what the item does, what it is called and how much information identify can give about it.

Magical items might just feel magical and unique.

A year of Labyrinth Lord

So it's been a year since I starting playing Labyrinth Lord now, woohoo. I've been DM'ing for it ever since with a fairly steady gamer group, and have been running it every sunday evening, give or take a couple over the whole year.

What a blast it has been too!

I've run adventures against the white skinned Morlocks, tempted the party into a den of carrion crawlers and into old ruins populated by ghouls. The party have been snowed in and forced to take refuge in a haunted monastery, have ventured inside a nest of giant ants, have explored ancient elven ruins, have freed a village from a curse that turned them into lycanthropes, have journeyed across crystal fields deep underground and accidentally freed ancient evils, have cleared out the city of spiders, have entered the tower of the Ghoul King and reduced half his reserve army to dust, have stormed the city of serpents and finally, have adventured within a dream realm to try and pull a powerful artifact back into real life. Phew!

There have been casualties along the way. Many brave heroes (and foolish ones) have died. We even had one total party kill against goblin spider riders in the wilderness once. We've had many, many near death experiences where one more die roll would have ended a heroes life... and yet it didn't. Perhaps fate does smile on these heroes after all (I roll my dice out in the open and do not fudge them)... a fate which is more powerful than the DM!

The heroes are now 6th-7th level and well capable, in their own right, of defending themselves. It's been a terrific journey to this point... when the party decided to save the world from a potential orc tribal alliance was one of my highlights as a DM and led to a terrific battle to play out, too.

I'll leave you with one of the scenes from last night as a parting thought. The heroes hear a scratching noise in a room as they approach it, but as soon as they open the door, the noise stops. They never hear it again, nor can they find any sign of its source. It bugs them so much that, after they have explored the whole level and the one above it, they come back to investigate once more. Still finding nothing, they decide to douse the walls of the room in oil to burn the green moss that covers all the surfaces in the dungeon and reveal what it is underneath. Four flasks of oil later, they find the charred stone under the moss... and still they do not find the source of the sound. Still, it made me laugh, imagining the mighty heroes attacking some humble moss with burning oil, discussing how much they might need and then working out if they needed to somehow cover the ceiling too... all because they heard a little noise... ;-)

Soulceror

While I was off work last week I made a little card game in flash because my girlfriend couldn't get the time off work at the same time. It's a fantasy themed card game where you play a wizard and must defeat the enemy player who is also a wizard, by playing heroes against him. He then plays monsters, traps and spells to try and get rid of your hero; then he tries to play a hero on you and you do the same back.

Anyway, here it is if anyone wants to take a look and see how many victories over the computer player they can rack up:

http://www.third-impression.com/

Best played with sound to hear some of the amusing voices!

Betraying the ghoul king and living to fight another day

Yesterday's game of our Labyrinth Lord campaign has changed the dynamic somewhat. In the previous week, the party moved up the tower of the Ghoul King, clearing it out floor by floor. Literally two hundred skeletons were smashed to pieces and another fifty zombies went the way of undead to plain dead. The party was feeling good; the Ghoul King's reserve army was not exactly in good shape - it was no more!

Yesterdays session went a little differently, however. In the first real battle against enemy mages, the party kicked the door in on the Ghoul King's council chamber and attacked the council. The leader of the council arrogantly ordered their immediate surrender - which they didn't do. The party leader was hit by magic missile after magic missile and in one round went from full health to being pounded to the ground and knocked prone. That was a shock to the system!

The party rallied quickly, however, with the party mage passing on his broach of shielding to negate the effects of further pounding. Battle commenced for real now, with the council members proving to be no match for the fighters at close range. The party mage even went one on with his quarter staff and started cracking skulls. Mirror images did not help the council, soon they were all dead. The group learned an important lesson here though; No matter what your armour class - even though the Wyvern Hunter's is -2 - doesn't matter a jot against magic missiles!

A little later, the party entered the throne chamber of the Ghoul King himself. Guarded by a skeletal dragon, the party were happy to talk with him a while, discovering he intended to 'emerge from the shadows with his army and sweep upon the world like a plague of rats'. I think this probably confirmed to the players that they should get rid of this guy. However, they did not feel they were in a fit state to attempt this and so made a deal with the Ghoul King. He would let them live, if they agreed to steal his ally's dark magics. His ally is the Queen of the Serpent City. The group agreed to this and rested up to full health in the tower.

Now at full power, they stormed back in to the Ghoul King's throne room and attempted to rid of the world of this guy once and for all. It went disastrously wrong for them!

The two fighters got within ten feet of the skeletal dragon and hit its aura of fear. Two failed saving throws later and both are cowering in fear on the floor. The dragon then advanced and began clawing and biting one of them, bringing him almost to death.

The party immediately surrendered, having been well and truly humbled. They received a prompt telling off from the Ghoul King after he ordered his dragon back to his side and the party once more agreed to steal dark magic from the Serpent City for him. After resting up, that's exactly what they set off to do - well at least it was their destination - as they now intend to tell the Queen that her ally is betraying her and come back with some Snakemen to help finish him off!

Starting ages

As I am now adding level draining monsters to my random encounter tables (shock!) I'm considering swapping the level draining rules for instant aging rules, ala ghosts. I'll probably go with one level drained means you've just been aged by five years, and have some stat decreases on hitting specific age milestones. This means I need tables to work out how old the characters are when they begin their adventuring careers.

Class based characters are not created equally. That is to say, I can see that characters of differing classes will start at different ages. The mage, who locks himself up in the library, studying spells, is very likely to be older (and consequently frailer, which the mechanics of the system do bear out) than his fighter friend, who may have just ended his military service. With this in mind, I have created the following table:

Class...	Starting age...	Learned trade in...
Fighter	d8+18	Military school, guild or in battle
Magic User	d20+30	Library, apprenticeship or in self study
Thief	d6+14	The streets, thief's guild, or the marketplace
Cleric	d12+25	Temples, holy tomes or in silent contemplation

Note that I haven't included ages for demihumans on the table, at the moment we have none in the party and I'm a little unsure about their lifespans. I suppose I could consult my 2e PHB which I still have from all those years ago, but for the moment, this should suffice.