Friday 23 September 2022

BECMI Intelligent Swords

During a recent discussion on the NSR discord server the subject of intelligent magic items popped up, and I was immediately reminded of the rules for generating intelligent swords in the Frank Mentzer Expert Set.

Drawing of a  magical—possibly intelligent—sword by Larry Elmore

There are other, similar rules for intelligent swords in Moldvay. Seeing as this is the go-to old-school ruleset (and likely the basis for any similar rules in OSE or Basic Fantasy), I'm ignoring those. Likewise—as with my [positively ancient] post about dwarf clerics— this is a paraphrasing of existing mechanics. I'm not adding anything original here.

I have a more interesting stab (ha!) at this topic over on Iconoclastic Flow:
https://flowiconoclastic.blogspot.com/2022/10/blades-with-brains.html

...and yes, it's swordtember, so I suppose the timing is germane.

Sunday 18 September 2022

Villainous Sidekicks

 

A villainous sidekick if ever I saw one

This was supposed to be several 1d100 tables spliced together, but I ran out of time. Enjoy my villainous sidekick generator, available below.




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Friday 16 September 2022

What I write about when I think about Zedeck Siew (a poem called pome)

 

The image above is a spread from Mr Kr Gr (Zedeck Siew, Centaur).
Illustration by Munkao

The people of the old world made these as prisons for their gods. They made them beautiful, so captivity would sting.

Wear your gold bells, o Lord of Dances, and leap for our pleasure! Cherish your ruby garlands, o Lady of Loves, chained to our bed!

The old world was drowned by the river. But its slaves could not be set free. So they wander buried hallways and vine-choked pavilions – maddened, hateful, plotting.

- Mr-Kr-Gr (Page 20) by Zedeck Siew

Friday 9 September 2022

What has that wise one got on their head?

Wise-ones and witches, sorcerers and summoners, ghost-talkers and spirit-walkers...

...they've always got something on top of their head.

Text from wikipedia: The Sorcerer is one name for an enigmatic cave painting found in the cavern known as 'The Sanctuary' at the Cave of the Trois-Frères, Ariège, France, made around 13,000 BCE. The figure's significance is unknown, but it is usually interpreted as some kind of great spirit or master of animals. The unusual nature of The Sanctuary's decoration may also reflect the practice of magical ceremonies in the chamber.[1] In his sketches of the cave art, Henri Breuil drew a horned humanoid torso and the publication of this drawing in the 1920s[2] influenced many subsequent theories about the figure.[3] However, Breuil's sketch has also come under criticism in recent years.[4] A single prominent human figure is unusual in the cave paintings of the Upper Paleolithic, where the great majority of representations are of animals.
Sketch of a drawing of The Sorcerer, a 13,000 year-old cave painting

(Even as I write this I realise masks would be much more interesting, but I don't want to jump on the bandwagon of the latest psychedelic mesolithic RPG, Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland CW: images are "AI generated")





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