QuasiWizard

Alchemy: that ancient and esoteric art that turns rags to riches. Lead to gold. Makes the small and worthless into something wonderous. This is magical. But "alchemy," as a general art, has been turned to other purposes. 1. Haemalchemy (from RuneScape): The process vampires use to refine and concentrate blood. When the final product is consumed, the vampire not only is satiated, but grows in power according to the refinement technique. They can gain extra transmutation powers (turning into a giant cobra, for instance), or influence over nature (cause quakes and floods). 2. Detritus alchemy: the sentient fungus people of the forest carry the materials to rapidly decompose organic material. In a matter of minutes, a log or freshly dead creature can be turned into a stinking pile of mush. 3. Ent alchemy: Turns saplings into sequoias. A botanical growth acceleration. In a matter of minutes, anything more than a seed becomes overgrown, nearly cancerous in its expansion. The result...

I posted on tumblr recently about an epiphany I had with regards to dice in the OSR. I'll quote my original text here (with some editing notes): I think I get one of the roles dice play in OSR games, that I didn’t get before. I used to think dice were for randomly deciding between things a human  [at the table] couldn’t fictionally determine, or it would be wrong for one to do so: e.g. does an attack hit in combat? Hard to say in the fiction if all that is said is “I swing my sword” and not super fair for any one person (GM or player) to simply declare. I though this philosophy was also valid for random encounters, reaction rolls, open door checks… but I think there’s something else dice can do. I re-read this blog post , this one too , and watched this Bandit’s Keep video . The first discusses “the oracular power of dice,” th...

I have been thinking about OD&D recently. I've been thinking of hacking it into an existing product setting. But I think the classes bug me, at a conceptual level. I have no problems with the mechanics of any of the basic 3 classes; the fighter, cleric, or magic user, nor the optional thief. But I think the classes, being only broad concepts, are a bit lackluster. I think they point to no concrete view of how they fit into the setting, and conceptually tighter classes give better diegetic information. Let's take the fighter for instance. There are many types of armed combatants in fantasy, from soldiers and mercenaries to brawlers (e.g. "barbarian" classes, problematic as that can be). So if you decide to be a fighter, you are supplied with mechanicals, but nothing else that directs how your character fits into the setting. I think this can genuinely detract from play. Let's examine parley. Consider the charisma description in Book 1, which says "the char...

Every dungeon should be weird. Living in confined, underground spaces attracts and magnifies weird characteristics. Only the most bizarre of beings and creatures would choose to do such a thing. If you woke up one day and thought, "That old castle outside of town? Oh yeah. We're moving in," then you must have a screw loose. It's absolutely deranged to do such a thing. So, make your dungeons weird. There are different types of weird. All of them could lead to dungeon dwelling. There is garden-variety Just Plain Weird, where you can function but have some unusual lifestyle preferences. You might find cultists, goblins, and generally pretty well-mannered humanoids in a dungeon for that reason. When intrepid adventurers encounter this type of weird, it should be noticeable and juxtaposed with some sorts of normality and acceptable behavior. For example, making your bed after rising in your dank cave, and going to brush your teeth. Then committing unspeakable acts to a for...

This spring I ran a megadungeon. As far as campaign statistics are concerned, it was not so impressive. I think we played 7-8 sessions, had a stable of 8 players, some of whom would not show up every session. Still, it was a fun and educational experience. The genesis for this campaign was listening to the "Into the Megadungeon" podcast by Ben Laurence (available via internet search on a variety of platforms). I was particularly enamored by Luke Gearing's lunchtime megadungeon sessions. Sometime later on a flight, I had the idea for the premise of the megadungeon. The original campaign pitch was the following: There is an island at Urth's north pole. It is the last truly wet place. The future was once buried here, in the form of millions and millions of seeds for posterity. But now they have sprouted. They have grown together, genes splicing, mixing, and blending. They have grown, both up and down and into other beings as well, creating a bizarre ecosystem. The old va...