Back in the wilds of the last century, a Neopagan named Isaac Bonewits successfully became the only person to get a BA in Magic from UC Berkley. Among other publications, he wrote Authentic Thaumatology, and outlined in it a system by which magic could be more realistically used in games.
Unlike Jack Vance, He did not espouse a “Fire and Forget” style of spellcasting; rather he thought it to be a skill at which one would get better the more one did it, up to the limit of how much energy could be reserved for it. I can’t say for certain that Jim Butcher has read him, and I know for certain that Christopher R. Rice hadn’t read him when he wrote Meta-Tech, but similar ideas come up in each of their works.
Similar to mnemonic palaces of the mind, where one can build storehouses of knowledge (the Method of Loci) Bonewits (and Butcher by way of Harry Dresden) both describe a means of slowly accumulating visualized astral energies through ritual and storing them in astral engines that are essentially theoretical flywheels (like prayer wheels) that can be charged like capacitors and released when a spell is activated.
This is similar to both tapping resources in Magic the Gathering, and the GURPS Magic Energy Reserve advantage, when combined with the passive spell, Recover Energy.
This becomes important in my DF game; My spellcasters are often spamming away spells that are ‘free’ in cost due to skill levels of 15 or 20, but there are a few outliers, like the Guild agent Mancini who is using his wild talent to cast the very expensive Banishment at various demons, and the kind souls casting Lend Energy to keep him from dying from FP and HP loss from taking on potent beings.
This has led to sudden needs for the party to rest, even when it isn’t quite safe. Cash based power items may end up being cheaper to get than boosting Energy Reserve, even at 3 character points per point of reserve… it might even be cheaper to get henchfolk with high energy reserve and selfless….
In any case this energy crisis might not resolve too soon, as the Adventure where this is happening the most has a very poor cash return when compared to some of my homebrew adventures; such as the quest for the lost pay train, where the rewards for (among other things,) fighting a colossal earth elemental and killing a lich and its minions. was 28 lbs of silver- where the $20 silver coin is dime sized, and there are around 250 to the lb. At least one of those who participated in that run is in this current game, and weighs in at a hefty 290 pts… probably one of the highest level characters in the game at this point, due to continuous play, over 12 years of play by post.
Another Quarter day has come, Blessed Samhain to all.
I have been dealing with some rough news at the house.
I am not going to go into that here, but only into some trivialities in my game.
I had one group of characters, some just back from the otherlands, and prior dealing with the purists, who had decided to become bill collectors. Some of the group did not want that kind of work, so I had to think of something gentler. I wasn’t sure what I would be able to use, but remembered I had a thick stash of notes in one of my boxes of doom from years prior… 23 years before when I was running a 3e GURPS fantasy dungeon crawl over on Playbyweb, the parent website of RPOL.net that currently houses Northport. I even had a roster of what characters were involved, and two of them I had carried through and used as npc’s in the game after it was reincarnated as 4e Dungeon Fantasy in 2013.
Monorith the were-lion was a member of a rival party dealt with years ago by my group that went looking for the lost pay train in Shevnia. That group eventually found the treasure in a Lich’s lair, and went on to be attacked by the hired Monorith and several previous foes reanimated by a necromancer.
Dagon the junior necromancer and his undead minions Carron and Snafrun has been hired by the sub-juniors group to help corral undead and stuff them into a barrel for sale to the thanatology obsessed Sage Bertrand.
Of course the guild is full of some of my early characters written back then; Aemon McCain and his mottoes were snatched from the old Apple ][ Wonderful World of Aemon’s Beginner’s Cave adventure.
The adventure itself involves a disaster occurring in the proving grounds (Not influenced by Werdna at all…) where randomly assembled adventurers would head into one of three areas. The obstacle courses were set up with mostly shifting temporary walls, and nonlethal traps, paid (or indentured) actors would attack with padded and chalked weapons, or throw eggs and rotten fruit at the would-be heroes while they attempted to solve the maze puzzle or rescue the damsel, all while under the scrutiny of admins.
In my only pull from HP (to hell with JKR) The guild masters had a map that showed the movements of the Magic Marked badges that all guild members (and employees) wear. I had worked out which GURPS Magic spells would enchant such a thing, and had equipped the primary Guild mages with the means to have enchanted it.
Aside from that, I had been largely inspired by the (now-defunct) Advanced Goblins & Grottos website, which had been a great resource for a GURPS 3e AD&D conversion, and still handled somethings better than GURPS Fantasy 2e did. As the site was taken down before the Wayback Machine was developed, all I have left are some faded printouts from 2002.
My Group of juniors who are now back from their encounter with Praxillaus and (once his Wyrm was defeated) Persephone, had received some divine gifts. Gordab the half ogre was granted wisdom, Anita strength of will and body (that she had traded her voice at the goblin market for better ammunition leaves her with shyness and disturbing voice (whisper) could not be undone). Rosewood the emo Pixie was granted a vampiric adjustment to their magic bolt, Dyrr enhanced Dex, and Pyrr resistance to normal weapons. Gathika was given a chinchilla familiar, Shawn was relieved of his accursed dietary requirements, and a bunch of points. Nagga, who had acquired the Sword of the Night, was given greater weapon bond to it, and some spare points. They are currently heading off to do some debt collecting in a much more mundane setting than their trip to the underworld, and are hoping not to meet any more deities.
Pointwise, the highest level character in this game would be Christine the fire witch, who weighs in at just over 320 pts, and they have been playing for 11 years.
She and her crew defeated the giants who had been hurling rocks at the ice mage, but discovered that the ice mage may have been creeping on the Frost Giant’s daughter, but they did not pursue the matter further, despite my readiness to have a pitched battle.
The tenants of the former vampire tower accomplished a curse removal at the shrine of St. Hubert, and defeated a number of werewolves who sought to interrupt the proceedings. I now have them heading off the another published adventure, The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford.
This one reminds me of Eustace’s misadventure in the Narnian Chronicles. The group has fought a dragon-like foe before (a legendary fire slorn) but their prior techniques may not work on the titular foe. (I will provide my conversion stats after they defeat it).
The sub juniors have, with the assistance of a hired npc necromancer originally played as a PC in the game back in 2002, along with his zombie minions, captured a wight (not the master wight that goes by “Nobody” after the fashion of Odysseus, but a significant one) on behalf of the Sage Bertram, who is seeking all manner of undead in hopes of becoming a lich.
The trading with trolls bunch have met and parleyed with the lich whose undead they were butchering, and escaped due to his distraction. The lich in particular had been another PC in the game some years back, and had been the one responsible for naming my version of the Plated Mage from Stonehell “Flax”, whom a couple of groups have run into before. They just trounced a gelatinous cube and are nearly back at the troll warrens originally cleared by Christine the Fire Witch.
My original junior group has finally decided to use the bone gate, to investigate a castle in a wintry surround, which they suspect is inside a snow globe they snatched from the demonically run shop of curiosities a few years back.
In the land of winter, my other group of demon hunters have defeated a Bone devil along with several doom children.
The primary demon hunters in the devil’s workshop managed to defeat a number of demons… Several of the watchmen with their tridents were dispatched, including one obliterated by one of the flaming skulls from the land mines, and another warrior demon that had belonged to a long since gone demonologist player. He has shown up a couple of times, a basic Warrior of Hell type from Magic with enhancements of winged and steelskin, and armed with a polearm instead of a sword and shield.
He was Banished at an extreme cost of unconsciousness and near death from FP loss, and given his high DR, was only being affected by a skull spirit he defeated and by one character’s magic bolt.
They were able to defeat a Peshkali demon, that came through the gate before Ardenas the martial artist used power blow to destroy both the gate and the magic mirror, mostly because it critically failed an attack, and smashed its flung scimitar through the window on the gremlin tank, causing it to be triple cursed. My demons do not play well with each other, and with -3 on all rolls, it fell down the stairs and With Suleiman keeping it Dazed, they were able to cut off its arms, despite the two fighting types being primarily equipped with spears, which do the wrong damage type against limbs and homogenous foes.
Once again, I find that almost all of my players seem to be surprised when an opponent has more than 2 DR, even in the case of the werewolves, and the Bone devil, who had conditional DR.
I have played with a variety of ways to replicate “Can be hit only by magical weapons” ranging from full on invulnerability with Achilles heel of silver or magic, to using Damage tolerance the halves mundane damage (per level), allowing for some catastrophic attacks to still do something, to the simpler method of high DR vs mundane attacks. The werewolves as written have DR 10 vs everything but silver or fire, and the earth priest was lobbing boulders at them to no great effect. The Bone devil, for example
AD&D Monster Manual, image by David Trampier
had ludicrous Armor class and could only be hit by magical weapons and had magic resistance, so I gave it DR5, DR 10 vs mundane, and enhanced magic resistance. It was flying and invisible until it attacked, which was principally against the celestial in the party, and had this nifty weapon, which shattered when parried critically by the celestial’s orichalcum staff.
One BookShelf isn’t showing it right now, but I have 50 titles that contain my work.
The problem has to do with the most recent product featuring my stock art, the RPG Pundit’s Lion & Dragon
Despite not currently having an artist’s listing due to OBS `accidentally ` deleting the listing for this entry and then reinstating it incompletely, you can see that the book has quite a bit of my art.
There is some other lovely stock art as well, some by Jack Badashi, and several nice pieces by Henry Justice Ford. Production quality is as good as found in Dark Albion and Chaos Cults.
The system itself is very OSR, although the magic system is supposed to conform to magical traditions of the fourteenth century. There is a serious nod to DCC in the startup at 0 level with extra characters.
I was approached last year to do some work on this project, but either my rates were too high or my politics too far to the left for the Pundit’s taste, and he settled on buying a few stock bundles instead.
My family set me up with some excellent gaming and drawing things for Yule, from a light board and steel ruler, and a microphone for Discord, to a stack of gaming books for 5E, GURPS and SWCL. I love my Family!
I am looking to run a tabletop game at a minicon this month, using SWCL and Beneath the Fallen Tower. I have to get writing it…
And I have some commissions for John Stater’s monster book 2 for Blood & Treasure.
Recently, I was asked on social media if I made use of Creatures of The Night, a GURPS product line of fairly disturbing horror creatures. I own the 3rd edition of the book, but rarely use it, as my current game line is 4e DF, and that particular volume is scaled more for modern Horror. I immediately responded to the questioner that I had made some heavy uses of a critter called the Interloper. As one of my favorite things in D&D like games was the Mind Flayer, right along with the assorted races of Gith, the tentacle headed, intellect devouring playable race was right up my alley. They weren’t genius level psionic villains intent on subjugating the world and darkening the sun, they were slightly oafish beasts compelled to consume the minds of sapient beings to avoid degenerating into imbeciles hellbent on breeding. It makes for a much more angsty enemy. At some point I will re-stat them, and brand them as Elder Things and drop them in on my delvers.
Currently, the Jugger playing henchmen have been joined by a debased elder touched elf, along with another archer, a pair of weird mages and a necromancer. Definately, I am going to include some elder things. Nothing as fierce as a Mindwarper, but maybe a Ymid. Of course, the party of full strength delvers heading back into troll country are going to probably face some of the enemies of the trolls… the people of the pit.
This week I purchased a pdf of Pits & Perils, by Old House Rules. The artwork actually comes from medieval woodcuts, the font is typewriter and the feel is of a mid seventies gaming zine. The game is wonderfully minimalist, almost like Searchers of the Unknown,except you do roll for an exceptional attribute – only one (unless your roll boxcars). The presentation is wonderfully evocative of the very beginings of this hobby, and a great bargain, as it is currently running for $4.99.
Pursuant to my current commissions, I also bought Blood & Treasure Compleat. John Stater, I must say is insanely prolific, with 27 issues of his mammoth zine, in depth reviews of old Dragon Magazines on his blog, and new micro game rules being released regularly, I must say he is probably one of the most prolific designers I know.
In any case, B&T reads like B/X as 3.0, with great little subclasses simply designed and an easy flow. I like it, but as most of its art is open source, and while not bad, I can see where my work will be cut out for me. The book was made with love, and is worth it for those who recoiled at 4e, but like a little more complexity than most Whitebox Retroclones, or even Labrynth Lord Advanced Companion, which I happen to enjoy.
Northport 