TenKeep

  A fantasy map is just right to see what's out there. An isometric map shows heights, and drawing one starts with seeing a cube, like a mesa on the desert plain. That got me thinking. Up from TenKeep, low mountains rise above the crater near Tetrada. North, above the crater, h erders' paths trace the mountain ridges, past halfling burial lands, to a ridge trail that soars above the desert. Stones are smooth up there, from herders stopping for the vista.  Here's the vista - a map drawn with West at the top, and landmarks dropping away from the Old North Road (top edge), past the big mesa, and two maybe three days east to La Gama (bottom edge) , a desert town known for winter farming.   Along the map's southern edge (left side), you can see where the old mapmaker sketched-in the stony steps, from the vista-point back down to the desert. Thanks for reading.

My daughter stopped in the Brooklyn Strategist and bought me two Wizkids drow minis for my birthday, they were "less cringy" than the others. Today, I learned about drow, and painted. In the OSE "Advanced Fantasy" rules, drow are, "...slender, fey demihumans with pointed ears, skin as black as the night sky, and hair of white or silver." That's something I could work with.  As you likely know, Salvatore's Drizzt is the most renowned drow elf - a ranger of novels, and the good story, "Dark Mirror." I learned another in a game with Chris Perkins DMing. A drow agent, an NPC, was leaving the table when Paul Rothfuss' character Viari tried to pick his pocket. It happened almost too fast. Viari failed his roll and the drow poked him with a dagger. Rothfuss' character lived but took 85 hit points, from the poison. This morning, listening to YouTube's about drow, I painted 2-3 hours. Painting quickly, it was great seeing their white ...

There's something about the sincerity of Fritz Leiber. In 1979 I read his name in my Dungeon Master's Guide . It took me 44 years to read him - Leiber's an early dungeon master . This week I read Lean Times in Lankhmar , a short story set in the "City of Thieves" and featuring the heroic duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who've parted ways.  "Exactly what caused the tall brawling barbarian and the slim elusive Prince of Thieves to fall out, and the mighty adventuring partnership to be broken, is uncertainly known..." What's sure is they come-back together. Separated in Lankhmar, the Gray Mouser had gotten fat, drinking hard and enforcing a racketeer's exploits among priests. Fafhrd had gone completely inward, sleeping on cobblestones and inspiring the faith of an Issek priest and his followers.  The story's greatness is in the way Leiber's plot rejoins Fafhrd and the Mouser -  1950's pulp-adventure filled with wine, brute force, ba...

  Sometimes a solo game is a wonderful way to explore my campaign world and to meet new characters. Tonight I'll share a game, and maybe start a story. So, meet Al Shief, a thief out near TenKeep. *** After some rough fighting near Silo Verde, the footpad Al Shief felt an emptiness in his stomach before the throbbing from an oozy place on his head. As night fell, he rose with the moon and marched several miles east, to the high dessert town "La Gama." Hunger driven, Al spied open windows in sleepy adobe house. Seemed like an easy take for something to eat. He moved into shadows to an open window.      [Al's moved silently, 25%, but he rolled a 27]. Somebody's dog came-out jawing.       [Dog's reaction roll, 2d6, rolls a 5, "unfriendly, may attack"].       [Initiative, the dog gets the jump.] Barking for everyone to hear, the damn dog lunges.     [Attack roll d20, rolled an 18, hits, damage, d3, rolled a 6]....

My friend Dan and the RoUL DnD Group have been discussing thieves skills in DnD. We questioned if they were too weak in the OSE rules. Should a thief be better than others at detecting traps and sneaking around? We noted: Any character has a 1-in-6 chance to hear noises behind a door and 1-in-6 chance to find a room trap or a secret door.  Dwarfs and halflings has a 2-in-6 chance to hear noises and a dwarf has a 2-in-6 chance to detect a "room trap." A thief at level 2 has a 2-in-6 chance to hear a noise; also, less than a 1-in-6 chance to detect treasure traps and the same chance as any other character type to detect a room trap. Should we 'home brew" OSE rules to increase the skills of our thief? I studied our  notes in Roll20 and reread the OSE rules. T hieves level-up quickly. You can see it in the bar graph with black bars for a thief and blue bars for a dwarf, halfling, and fighter. A thief is 4th level at 4,000 XP and a halfling, dwarf and fighter are 4th le...

To re-start the TenKeep blog, I'm keeping things simple. Here's just one 'place' in Seamus Heaney's verse translation of Beowulf, near line 1345, a "no good" place,   "...among wolves on the hills, on windswept crags  and treacherous keshes, where cold streams  pour down the mountain and disappear  under mist and moorland."    Here, country people say they've seen "creatures / prowling the moors, huge marauders / from some other world." Word has it,                                        ...A few miles from here a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch above a mere; the overhanging bank is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface."   People say "the mere bottom" was never "sounded." They say,   "On its bank, the heather stepper halts: the hart in flight from pursuing hounds will turn to face them with firm-set horns and die in...

Coming Attractions I’m going to continue this blog but will go to weekly with a new post each week by Thursday.  I hope you’ll check it out, and leave a comment. We'll focus on old school games, good times playing, and great books and minis. Summing-up: What is the OSR? I agree with Rob C, the OSR is a game that fits right-in with TSR rules. Thank goodness for Gary Gygax and the way he tried to write things down. An old school game is great because the real fun happens when everybody’s together, and who knows what s gonna happen! And as a soloist, it happens when I actually play, because, who knows what’s gonna happen? [Illustration from DCC’s 'Chanters in the Dark' module, art by Doug Kovacs or others] OSR October Inspiration and thank you's Podcasts . Down in a Heap, Redcaps, and Bandit’s Keep YouTube . Bandit’s Keep, Hexed Press, Runehammer, and Geek Gamers   I’ll be back later this week, and then weekly starting next week. Thanks for reading. ...

Today, I listened to Daniel Norton’s wonderful YouTube video “ Sympathetic Creatures in DnD ” (on Bandit’s Keep). I’m convinced great tactics in DnD are sympathy, engagement, and other alternatives to combat and "hack n' slash." Think back to the old film “ The Creature of the Black Lagoon ” -   Norton re-imagined him as a fourth-level merman – harassed and protecting. In the video, he seemed to be asking, ‘What’s an alternative to killing a sympathetic creature?’ It reminded me of a great player some years back. In around 2011, I'd rediscovered DnD, and a few years later I ran the 5e module “The Lost Mines of Phandelver.” Near the adventure's end - a player found a spectacular way to handle the unwound Spectator in Wave Echo Cave. [Illustration is from WotC's "The Lost Mines of Phandelver."] When the party encountered the creature, it was lost in time, it misremembered  even the fall of Wave Echo Mine. A player, his half-orc cleric, stood ...

Today, let’s focus on magic in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Tombs of Atuan.” Here, in the world of Earthsea, the name of things is the source of magic. It's a well of ideas for old school gamers. [Illustration by Gail Garraty in the Tombs of Atuan]   Sparrowhawk, the magic user, who in the heart of the novel befriends the captured priestess Tenar, explains the source of magic. Knowing names is my job. My art. To weave the magic of a thing…one must find its true name out…all wizardry hangs still upon the knowledge – the relearning, the remembering – of that true and ancient language of Making. The Tombs of Atuan also are home to are dark, brooding, magical force that would bury Tenar and Sparrowhawk. Tenar had gone only a few steps when she paused. “What is it?” she murmured…There was a noise in the dead, vast, black bubble of air: a tremor or shaking sound heard by the blood and felt in the bones. The time-carven walls beneath her fingers thrummed, thrummed. And yet, Sparrowhawk, ...

Hirelings (a brother and classmates) are the first details I remember about DnD. Looking at Mike Carr’s, “Special Instructional Dungeon Module #B1 IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN,” I remember why. You walked inside an inn and there was “Wilberd the Silent” (human cleric), Pendor (the Halfling fighting man), and “Ralt Gaither” (a human magic user). It seemed as though the world was already happening. Already, the world was sorting me. As Carr, on pg.3 wrote: Seeking hirelings and henchmen is a matter to be handled by the Dungeon Master. A player’s success in attracting either will depend upon the financial rewards offered...or the charisma of the seeker... How keenly the issue of charisma settled in. Carr, on pg. 26 wrote: Hirelings, although not always plentiful, are nonetheless easier to find than henchman. They will serve for a fee….[however,] Henchmen are usually characters who will be willing to serve a particular character out of admiration or respect…in any case, with only first...

A level 1 druid can jostle the natural world, but he’s a good protector. Maybe a low-level party would be okay, even confronting d6 spitting cobras? Here's a look through some level 1 spells in OSE. Animal Friendship Finding a stray hound, a druid invokes an arboreal power. The hound fails a saving throw, and the druid names it - Garond, animal friend. Over three months, the hound learns to retrieve felled game, recognize a scent, return to a hand signal, and defend. In a 5e module about Saltmarsh, I recall a druid in the town. I can imagine an acolyte, a level 1 druid, drinking beer on the back porch. Maybe, he be-spelled the hound. He'd be a great one to solo along the shore near town. Detect Danger A druid, some kind of hedge-druid learned to scan a 10 x 10 area and discern the dangers. She'd learned something odd - six caves near a canyon pass - five were nasty drops - filled with dust, centipedes, and snakes. Another, hid a flurry of sprites. But which one? ...