TenKeep

GK Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote fifty-three Father Brown short stories about a familiar figure in old school games - the cleric. One story, The Green Man , teems with green men, and reveals much about Father Brown's wisdom. *** First, an exhibit of green men in The Green Man: In the story's coastal setting, the Green Man is the name of a 'shabby fisherman's tavern.'  Another green man is Admiral Sir Michael Craven, postmortem, with a stab wound in his heart: 'He was found,' said the Inspector, 'in that pool by the coast...all covered with green scum and weeds so as to be almost unrecognizable.' Still another is Father Brown, horror-struck, when he saw Admiral Craven's killer: I suddenly felt sick and turned green. I dare say; as green as the Green Man. A green woman is Admiral's Craven's surviving daughter - Olive.  With the killer unconfined, fearfulness overtook Olive's thinking, and more green men appeared! The Green Man became ...

In some forgotten places, a lazy visitor might find long tables where an antiquarian had labeled and displayed shards, stones and arrowtips of a fading past. Here, extracted from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , find these fragments of decapitation, and marvel . *** The Green Knight's Head In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - with an ax - Sir Gawain struck a 'shattering' blow, and separated the Green Knight's torso from its head. The fair head fell from the neck, struck the floor / And people spurned it as it rolled around. (translator, Brian Stone) In 14th Century English, "spurned" would mean 'struck away with the foot.' Notwithstanding all, the Green Knight grabbed the gruesome 'head by the hair,' 'pointed the face' to King Arthur's court, and the head hideously 'spoke with its mouth,' "Be prepared to perform what you promised, Gawain / Seek faithfully til you find me.../ Go to the ...

For an old school player, Patricia McKillip’s The Riddle-Master of Hed is a good hit of a very personal sort of 1970's high fantasy art - fantastic creatures, sage-magicians, and the feeling of magic itself. *** Reading McKillip, the action's so warm and close, you feel it. [Morgon, the titular riddle-master] saw the private world of Osterland...a white owl's nest in the hollow of a high tree, a herd of starving deer in the sparse, cold backlands, a farmer's simple house, the plain walls gleaming with tools, his children rolling like puppies in front of the fire.  *** Likewise, Morgon's encounter with the deer-like "vesta" is a first-hand experience. ...he saw eyes watching him…The eyes blinked. There was a gathering, a soft stirring; then a vesta walked into the firelight. In the novel, the vesta were ... huge, broad as a farmhorse, with a deer’s delicate, triangular face. Its pelt was blazing white, its hooves and crescents of horn were the co...

That Dixieland jazz loving, Jack Vance’s story – Liane the Wayfarer – carries the torch for many an old school game. Only nine-pages long, the wayfaring is just a start.   *** There’s Liane. He’s no good – killed a merchant this morning then fussed about blood on his shoes this afternoon. Got good advice from a wanderer, then killed him: ...dropped a block of granite large as his head. A thud, a croak, a gasp – and Liane went his way. No good and yet he's human. Confronting unknown, arcane power, Liane panics. Enraptured by a golden witch, he swoons. Preening with newfound power, he oversteps. *** Liane the Wayfarer ’s a tale of (un)courtly love. Liane’s no Lancelot, not Sir Gawain. In Vance’s tale, Lith (as in lithesome) is Liane’s lady – and he must serve. ‘I am Lith,’ said she, ‘I am what you say I am. I ferment, I burn, I seethe. Yet I may have no lover but him who served me. He must be brave, swift, cunning.’ He serves her with a quest, or, for Liane, “wayfaring” ...

Today, I was studying the first level, magic user spell "Floating Disc" in the Old School Essentials (OSE) rules. I discovered an error my earlier comment on Jack London's "All Gold Canyon." I was wrong about the value of the huge nugget of gold in the story. Let me explain. [image from Old School Essentials] In OSE, the rules state that a "Floating Disc" can carry "a maximum load of 5,000 coins (500 pounds)." That's a useful spell for sure, but this information also tells me that a GP in OSE weighs 0.1 pounds. In my earlier comment on "All Gold Canyon," I estimated that the value of the prospector's 200 pound gold nugget was 10,000 GP. I had looked online and found a reference indicating a GP in DnD weighs 0.02 pounds. I reasoned: 50 GPs to a pound and 200 pounds = 10,000 GP. Well, that would be correct - in 5th edition! An old school GP weighs 0.1 pounds. To calculate the gold nugget's value, I should have reasoned:...

Jack London’s story “All Gold Canyon” is bedrock for some wonderful themes in old school DnD – character, law and chaos, and gold. The main character’s Bill, a gold prospector digging for Mr. Pocket , a huge nugget of gold. Just hearing Bill talk, you know him. “‘My…but I’ve got an appetite. I could eat iron-filings an’ horseshoe nails an’ thank you kindly, ma’am, for a second helpin’.” “Ah, ha! Mr Pocket! I’m a-comin’, an’ I’m shorely gwine to get yer...I’m gwine to get yer as shore as punkins ain’t cauliflowers!” He’s high in constitution. He walks away from being shot in the back. His Dex is good. London compares him to a mountain goat! Of his eyes, London said, “They were laughing and merry…and yet…contained much of calm self-reliance and strength. *** Lawful and bright as Bill is, that stranger, revolver in hand, has an “aura of things hostile.” That stranger is Chaos: …a feeling as when a cloud passes over the sun…something dark and smothering and menacing; a gloom ...