Chaos Ex Jul 2009

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Volume 1, Issue 1

Table of Contents Editorial

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StormBringer

Opinion: Resources

4

StormBringer

Origins Report

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WJ Walton

Web Treasures Ken Rutsky

BlogWatch

9

ResourceWatch

11

From the Sandbox

12

Sacrificial Lamb

Praxis

16

StormBringer

Small Magic

22

StormBringer

Planetary Law Enforcement Ken Rutsky

Unless otherwise noted, material from The Citadel Monthly is Creative Commons by-nc-sa, v3.0 creativecommons.org Cover Chillingham Castle, Northumberland Back Ilustration from The Raven doreillustrations.com

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What's this all about then? Vintage games are enjoying something of a resurgence these days, and there is always more past to work with than present. While the hobby itself moves along at its own pace, and there are new games appearing on a constant basis, it often feels like we haven't really explored all the possibilities of the earlier rules. Certainly, we haven't explored the possibilities of all the earlier rules; some hit the scene and faded quickly, others have been in the background for three decades, virtually unknown by the larger population of gamers today. Those are the games that will share the focus at the Citadel, as well as recent games that are designed with vintage sensibilities. Since there are already a number of online magazines for vintage games; do we really need another? A valid question; we think there are enough vintage games out there to write about create material to support. The blogs, 'zines and other information out there seem focussed on the early versions of D&D exclusively. Of course, we aren't going to ignore the opportunity to present material for the grandfather of our hobby. We will avail ourselves of every chance to provide material for the other games from that era, however. We will strive for a more rounded approach to vintage gaming, and in the process, we want to show new gamers and those not yet introduced to the hobby of the wide diversity of genres and playstyles in which they can participate. Our aim is to present material that enhances your game. What you can expect is the scaffolding on which to build great games; hooks on which to mount your own creative efforts, suggestions for guiding your play, and tools for a better

experience. We intend to offer random tables to flesh out your sessions, tips and tricks to improve your skills as a player and referee, utilities both online and off for a greater range of play, and NPCs and locations to drop into encounters or to build whole campaigns around to name but a few. These will all be offered with the bare minimum of exposition to increase their usefulness. Ultimately, The Citadel Monthly has no aspirations as the final word on how your games should be run. In short, we want to provide the Power to Create. To support that, the original content of The Citadel Monthly will be available under the Creative Commons license protocol. (www.creativecommons.org). This license allows for modification and re-mixing of the content you find here, but only under certain conditions. Briefly, this means you can use anything you want, however you want, and give that to whomever you want. The CC License we have chosen is the By Attribution, NonCommercial, Share Alike license. This means, first and foremost, that you are required to cite The Citadel Monthly as the source of your information or modifications. You are permitted to post whole sections to your blog or a discussion forum, or print it out for people at your FLGS as long as that attribution is present. Additionally, no content, even if properly attributed, can be re-packaged or distributed in part or in whole for commercial gain. We reserve the right to make money from the content, if we so choose. Finally, any material you derive from Citadel Monthly content must be distributed under these same terms. If you modify it and distribute it, other people can then modify your work and distribute it as well. We believe this license is the best meth-3-

od for encouraging open sharing and expansion of role playing. Not all content will be so licensed, however, and some may fall under other licenses. If you have any questions about which content is which, we will be happy to clarify. There is a bit more to the license than just that, but we will provide clear guidelines for use in a future article. No magazine of this nature will survive without contributions from the reader, of course. At the moment, the Citadel of Chaos discussion forums (citadelofchaos.net/ forums) are an excellent resource for discussing your ideas, and we will eventually have a submission form here if you want to contribute content for future issues. If you have an interesting NPC you want to share, some location your group has fond memories of, or just a topic you would like to see in the public discourse, this is the place to do it. We won't reject any idea due to the game it supports, as we want to have as many vintage games represented as possible. This doesn't mean it will find a place in the very next issue, of course, but we will do our best to find a place for every article. If you think it is interesting, chances are other people will also, so don't keep it to yourself! Welcome, then, one and all to the premier issue of The Citadel Monthly!

R

esources are an important part of vintage fantasy games, the most important part, according to some. Many game elements revolve around resource management; wandering monsters harry the characters, wasting spells, item charges, and hit points. Traps force them to find a different, usually longer, way to their objective, which can mean more random encounter checks. Loitering around usually prompts the bad guys to send more underlings to stop the heroes. Traps and random opponents are also typically treasure light, so you don't even get a decent reward for defeating them. Several of these in a row by a party that tarries or consistently finds the wrong rooms can even lead to the death of one or more characters. Recent iterations of RPGs have eschewed 'save or die' effects for a similar reason. No one wants to lose a character to a string of bad rolls, but even less so to one bad roll. But here is the problem: from that same side of the argument, we also hear that raise dead and the like are too cheap, to where it is only a minor speed bump for mid- to higher level characters. Hence, it was hard coded into the new rules that death is a minor speed bump at higher levels. Bringing someone back from death was a minor inconvenience, with a moderately steep price tag. Now, even the price isn't all that steep. There are many effects under the 'save or die' rubric, naturally, including petrification and the like, where you aren't killed outright, but certainly aren't in the action anymore. Few effects short of a deck of many things or certain artifact level powers will outright permanently kill a character. There is a chance you could fail your resurrection survival roll, and Constitution placed a hard limit on the number of times you could be raised. Death was supposed to be so harrowing, in fact, a point of Constitution was to be deducted perman-

ently for each raising. I recall our group didn't deduct the point, but we did keep the number of previous raises in mind. Naturally, if your group wasn't keeping track of the to hit bonuses for certain weapons versus AC, or the weapon speed of their ranseur, checking for resurrection survival was likely forgotten by the wayside as well. And why not? Taking the broader view, 'save or die' was just another resource to manage. You weren't earning xp while the others hauled your carcass around, and just try to argue for a full share of treasure when your big contribution for half the adventure was 300lbs less gold to haul away. I don't see it really matters how often someone gets raised, really. In and of itself, that will act as its own penalty on advancement, without having the possibility of permanent retirement. Perhaps keep the hard limit on the number of times they can be raised, just so they don't get careless. Unless your DM was a complete hardcase, there really wasn't a lack of money, so it would be difficult limiting things that way. I don't find resources like money or land to be very effective limitations anyway. Why would anyone want to be an adventurer if they were getting the equivalent of a 5gp per month stipend? When your income is no better than a common labourer's, the incentive to go out tomb raiding is lacking. Naturally, you want to make sure players don't haul out enough to demolish the economy of any region smaller than a kingdom, but fistfuls of gold are the best reason to kick the dust of the farm off your boots and pick up a sword. Severely limiting gold is worse than limiting magic items. Raise Dead and Resurrection are both spells, of course, which are another resource. Once the party Cleric can cast those, you no longer have to seek out a town, but you still need a pile of diamonds on hand. So,

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Opinion StormBringer

it isn't really simple matter of just casting a spell to retrieve the character from the last save point. Depending on the adventure at hand, they may not even be the best choice for spells. And as any Magic User or Cleric player will tell you, spell selection can make or break the adventure. This is another resource that must be carefully monitored, as the daily selection of spells is pretty limited until somewhere above mid-level. Naturally, this is what makes playing a spellcaster so attractive for a certain type of player. It is probably one of the longest range strategy elements in vintage games, and requires careful deliberation. There is no perfect mix of spells that will get the party out of every situation. Non-spellcasters have to monitor their hit points and ammunition, which can be as detailed, but rather more immediate. With the power creep that seems to invariably follow each new release, this kind of resource management seem to be progressively stripped away. For myself, the resource management is precisely what keeps me interested in vintage games. It can get too fiddly at times, but nothing beats hashing out spells, torches and wineskins as a party when preparing for the assault on a well defended subterranean financial opportunity. It largely defines the 'game' part of role-playing game for me. It is also what I find distinctly lacking in most current RPG design.

T

he family and I are back from Columbus and the Origins Game Fair, five days of all kinds of gaming in the heart of Ohio, running from June 24th through the 28th. What follows is my official Escapist Origins Report. Because we geeks like to enumerate these things: This was our eighth Origins, our sixth with kids in tow, and our fifth in a row (my partner Paula and I attended in 1991 in Baltimore, and 1995 in Philadelphia before the convention settled in Columbus, and again with our very young daughters in 2000.) Right before the convention I announced to Escapist readers that I would be sending updates to Twitter while I was at the con. The followers on the Escapist Twitter account nearly tripled in a matter of days - it was pretty exciting to see so many people interested in what I was going to be doing there. It was SO exciting, in fact, that I completely forgot to take my

cell phone out of my favorite pair of jeans when I washed them the day before the con, which completely ruined it, and my ability to send Tweets all weekend. (This is but a glimpse of how I manage to sabotage my own plans almost every day of my life.) My apologies if anyone was really looking forward to those updates, and I promise to be more careful next year. As I posted on the main blog before we left, my daughters and I painted the windows of our minivan with Liquid Chalk - "Origins Game Fair 2009" on both sides, and "Gamers On Board" along with the web address on the back. This brought us a bunch of honking and

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waving on the trip to the con, and even a little bit of the same on the way home. (This is definitely something that we're going to make a regular tradition.) I ran eight events this year two more than I did last year. I added a game for grown-ups and ran a session of Fuzzy Heroes as an 'official' event (rather than just running it in my free time for anyone who shows up). When I registered these events back in January, I had considered dropping the seat count from 6 to 5, but in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't - all but two seats were sold before the con had even started, and those last two were snapped up by my friend Sean right after I checked! I should make a special note that Morgan, one of the parents from last year's con, brought another of his daughters to this year's Origins, and they signed up for SIX of my games. So if you had a problem getting tickets for any of my

games, you can blame them! After the con started, word was getting around of some organizational problems, and I did notice a couple minor bugs with my events that were easily corrected: - My Fuzzy Heroes event, which I requested to run in the Kid's Room, was instead scheduled on a table in the wargame room, which probably wouldn't have been too popular with the wargamers OR the con staff when kids started crawling all over the tables to move their stuffed animals around. When I tried to convince the volunteer at Events HQ that I wanted to have it moved, she kept passing me off onto someone else who never seemed to be there. When the time came for the event, I put a sign up directing people to the Kid's Room (complete with map), another volunteer stopped in to tell me "When you move an event like this, please let us know." - My games usually sell out, but there IS a limit - When I checked my events to see how many were full, the volunteer told me that my Mazes & Minotaurs game still had 20 seats left. Somehow, the event was posted for 25 players, instead of 6. This was easily corrected before it became a problem, but for anyone running events in the future, it's a good lesson - check your events early to make sure this doesn't happen to you! To be perfectly fair, these were relatively minor problems, one which involved a stubborn volunteer, and another which was a simple data entry error, so I'm not too disappointed about them. THE GAMES This year, I ran my usual games of Toon, Faery's Tale and Fuzzy Heroes:

I stuck with running two games of Toon, since I didn't have a problem filling them both last year. The Toon - Supertoon! game never got far from the driveway - literally. When the members of L.U.N.C.H. (the League of United Noble Crimefighting Heroes) got the signal that bankrobbers were plying their craft in the First National Bank of Stalwart City, they headed to the L.U.N.C.H. Mobile and got into an argument over who would drive! In the ensuing chaos, Atomic Punk grew to supersize and just walked to the bank, Amoeboy and Ultrapig ended up in outer space, Octogenarian broke his mechanized superwalker, Captain Cheese managed to launch a few cheese balls at the bad guys, and Mr. Cuddle-Wuddle decided to give up on the team and roam the earth (sort of like Caine on Kung Fu). I ran the other game of Toon as a Totally Random Adventure - not only was the scenario generated by the players rolling on the Random Adventure Generator tables in the Tooniversal Toon Guide, but the characters were also chosen at random from all four of the core Toon books. Aliens from the planet Ugfwiz were invading Bike Wars Anytown, and it was up to the six randomly chosen characters to save the day! Sadly, the game was so chaotic that I can barely recall many details, but I do remember the characters discovering that the aliens were allergic to toothpaste (but not squid paste). Oh, and one of the characters kept attempting -6-

(and failing) to Change Shape into a cheetah, but ended up changing into various types of cheesy snack foods instead (including, at one point, a cheetah made of cheese). I'd like to note that this was the second year in a row that Steve Jackson Games offered prizes for my Toon games - and this year, they sent one of their Men In Black to personally deliver the prizes and thank me for running their games! Faery's Tale is always a big hit whenever I run it (and my friend Lauryn and her mom always seem to show up, too!). This year, the faeries were sent to explore a strange and ugly faerie ring in Brightwood that led them to a strange and ugly mortal realm, one with giant, gray towers and big machines that belched nasty smoke and with hardly any grass or flowers or trees anywhere. There they met a sewer troll who just wanted to be left alone, but reluctantly agreed to help them find the other fairy who had travelled to this realm and never returned. Together they fought off nasty rats and made their way into one of the ugly gray towers to a door named "4C," where they found the fairy trapped in a birdcage and rescued him - but never actually figured out how to get back home! (Maybe next year?) The Fuzzy Heroes game ran very smoothly, despite the room change. For those who aren't aware, this is an introductory wargame for kids that uses stuffed animals and other toys as miniatures. Players cre-

ate stats for the toys, such as speed and attack strength, based on the size, color, and features of the toy. Most of my players brought stuffed animals of their own to play with, and we spent the first half hour or so writing up their stat cards. I had six players teamed up against me and my three big baddies (two dragons and a giant centipede), who had captured Santa in an effort to ruin Christmas (in late June, no less). To keep the game short and player interest up, I used side-based initiative, rather than rolling it for each individual player, and I added some special items (file cards with descriptions on them) to the playing area for the players to pick up - a candy bar (restores Energy Points), a squeaky hammer (adds an Energy Die to one attack), and so on. The first attack of the game significantly trashed my chances of winning when one of the kids sent

his fuzzy in to assault one of my dragons (the tougher of the two, in fact), and used his one-shot Frenzy ability to double his attack and damage dice. He scored just enough hits to knock her out, and I was left to fight the rest of them off with two baddies instead of three. I managed to send a couple of them to slum-

berland, but in the end, the kids knocked out my other two baddies and saved both Santa and Christmas. The four new games I added to the mix were Tooth & Claw, Mazes & Minotaurs, Monsters and Other Childish Things, and Cartoon Action Hour: Tooth & Claw went amazingly well. Players took on the roles of dinosaurs in a tribe that had been hit hard by a sudden and severe drought, and needed to travel across the plains and into the mountains where the fabled Skysphere was said to be - a strange relic that brings rain wherever it goes. The characters braved all sorts of hazards, from poisonous plants to nasty carnivores to lava floes, found the Skysphere, and brought it home to save their clan. (And not once did I hear anyone complain about not getting to be a velociraptor or a T-rex, as I had fully expected...) In Mazes & Minotaurs, (the Harryhausen-inspired Greek myth RPG), the characters were travelling to Argos by longboat when the ship was suddenly attacked by fishmen. The party's lyrist did an excellent job placating some of the them with her Song of Calming, and the sorceror of the party confused some others enough to make them attack each other - but it still didn't prevent the ship from being destroyed by the remaining hordes. When the entire party came to on an uncharted island infested with monsters, they found themselves helping the inhabitants remove an ancient curse on the island. But in the end, the day was most definitely NOT saved! Monsters and Other Childish Things was my last event on the last day of the con. It's a charming RPG based around kids and their pet monsters that only they (and other kids) can see. I've been want-7-

ing to run something sort of spooky, so I did this one as a sort of ghost story. The players seemed to enjoy it, even if it was a little simple, but I would have been happier if they'd had more opportunities to get their monsters involved. If I run it again next year - and there's a good chance I will - I'll have to work on improving that. I ran Cartoon Action Hour: Second Season on Friday evening as a game for grownups - but not as an 'adult' game per se. Last year, a parent of one of my players suggested I run something for the grownups, and I took his advice. But, it looks

like I may be getting typecast - the organizers put the game in the Kid's Room, possibly because of my history of running games for kids. This may be why three ticket holders were no-shows, as they may have thought that it was an event especially for kids. Luckily my partner Paula and friends Dru and Sean were there with tokens to fill the seats. Cartoon Action Hour is an RPG about the great action cartoons of the 80s - GI Joe, He-Man, Transformers, and the like, and it is

designed to simulate any one of these types of genres. Naturally, I figured the way to have the most fun would be to throw everything into the mix, so I handed out characters from a bunch of different genres - Dirk Virile (a barbarian from a strange fantasy/tech world), Melvin Doolittle (a geeky teen trapped in a fantasy world due to a malfunctioning videogame), Delta Magnus X (a transforming robot originally designed to destroy humans, but rebelling against her programming), Jaguara (a princess from a planet of catpeople), Sgt. Schrapnel (a tough-as-nails army seargent), and Mr. T. Yes, you heard me. Mr. T. You got somethin' in your ears, fool? The six of them awoke in stasis chambers in a wrecked spaceship, and instantly set about collecting clues as to how they got there and why they had been captured. After fighting some cyber-enhanced T-Rexes and getting the ship off of the ground, Melvin unlocked an AI in the ship's computer - a captured holographic rock star named Amethyst who explained their fate they were captured by the evil Baron Waste in an attempt to take over all of the realms for himself! My favorite parts were Dirk's soliloquies, the jokes in binary that Melvin and Delta Magnus would make with each other, and pretty much everything that Mr. T did. We roleplayed the commercial breaks by letting a player improv a commercial for their toy line once each half hour (as well as rolling for bonuses on the nifty commercial break tables supplied in the rules). At the end, we roleplayed one of the moral segments that you would often see at the end of cartoons (especially GI Joe), and it was so funny

that I can barely remember it because I nearly blacked out from laughing. It was easily the best convention game I've ever run, and definitely in the top 5 games I've run in my 25+ years as a gamemaster. Special thanks to Cynthia Celeste Miller, author of CAH:SS, for sending me an updated version of the rules. OTHER COOL STUFF THAT HAPPENED It wasn't all about the games I ran (just most of it). I got to meet a few people I haven't met before (at least in person, anyway): - Andy Kitkowski, who was promoting Maid: The Role Playing Game, an anime-styled humor game in which maids get into all sorts of trouble. - Dave Mattingly, the vice president of the Christian Gamers' Guild and a heckofa nice guy. - Lou Zocchi, one of our Great Gaming Elders, who was cur-

rently promoting his latest die - the Amazing D-Total, a 24-sided die with multiple numbers and symbols on each face, which can be used to replace every die in your dice bag (and even a few that he hasn't invented yet). I was tempted to get one, but the price tag was a bit steep for my budget. (Though if someone -8-

can come up with a method to simulate a set of FUDGE dice with it, I may change my mind...) Other cool things that happened that I can't forget to mention: - There was a set of Virtual World pods in the hallway running some virtual Battletech games. I got to play against my friends Dru and Sean, and had my butt handed to me. - My friend Brad made me an actual dice clock with actual dice, inspired by my not-actual dice clock (which you can still purchase at the Escapist store, by the way...) - The Red Cross was present in the Exhibit Hall on Saturday, collecting blood donations from gamers (as they have in previous years), but I didn't get a chance to interview any of them to see how well donations were going, or if they've had any problems with vampire raids. I've really got to remember to set aside some time for that next year. And that's about it - another great Origins! Thanks to all of the parents and players who made my games awesome, the Origins volunteers, and our friends in Ohio! See you in 2010!

Game Design Concepts: http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpr ess.com/2009/06/29/level-1overview-what-is-a-game/ The first few entries talk about registering and other resources, like their wiki and discussion forums. However, they make for an excellent overview detailing the syllabus, course schedule, and recommended reading. As of this writing, there are three instructional entries in this blog, as it started on 29 June with updates twice a week. The original idea is stated to be a kind of on-line community based class on game design, and as of the first blog post, over 1400 people had signed up. In that light, it has been wildly successful to date. The author, Ian Schreiber, promotes the experiment as a course in computer and board gaming design, with a splash of RPGs thrown in. In fact, he references Greg Costikyan's "I Have No Words and I Must Design" several times in the first post. Due to the broad nature of the topic, there will be a number of future posts that deal with designs in the context of computer games and specifics to their design process. The second entry talks about computer game design principles, but generically enough so they can be used with any game design:

you test it to make sure the rules work properly, add some graphical polish to make it look nice, and then you ship it. Waterfall is so named because, like water in a waterfall, you can only move in one direction. If you’re busy making the final art for the game and it occurs to you that one of the rules needs to change, too bad — the methodology does not include a way to go back to the design step once you are done. At some point, someone figured out that it might be a good idea to at least have the option of going back and fixing things in earlier steps, and created what is sometimes known as the iterative approach. As with waterfall, you

Historically, the first design methodology was known as the waterfall method: first you design the entire game on paper, then you implement it (using programming in a video game, or creating the board and pieces for a non-digital game), then -9-

BlogWatch Ken Rutsky

first design the game, then implement it, and then make sure it works. But after this you add an extra step of evaluating the game. Play it, decide what is good and what needs to change. And then, make a decision: are you done, or should you go back to the design step and make some changes? If you decide the game is good enough, then that is that. But if you identify some changes, you now go back to the design step, find ways to address the identified problems, implement those changes, and then evaluate again. Continue doing this until the game is ready.

Each post has a comments section for the registered participants who all seem enthusiastic and willing to share resources and tips. As well, the discussion forums look pretty lively, although a registered account is needed to view any of the content. The forums include a number of topics, including tabletop RPG design, as well as board game design. The majority is taken up by various video game design topics, however, given the complexity of the topic. Overall, an excellent resource for whole game design or targeted house-ruling.

A highly useful list from The Society of Torch, Rope and Pole regarding the demographics of medieval cities, in this case, Paris: Butchers, Bakers, and Candlesitck Makers: http://poleandrope.blogspot.com/ 2009/07/butchers-bakers-andcandlestick-makers.html Don't forget to check out the source listed at the bottom of the post, Life in a Medieval City, by Joseph and Frances Gies. The other titles in the Life in a Medieval... series are also filled with great information.

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Insightful commentary by Alexis on The Tao of D&D regarding clerical motivation: http://taodnd.blogspot.com/2009/06/players -cleric.html "Wouldn’t it be preferential for the cleric to seek out their god for reasons of their own? Because there were positive gains to be had? In other words, can we drop the whip and invoke the carrot?", and Alexis proceeds to delineate three motivations which do exactly that.

Beneath the Tower of the Templars http://www.citadelofchaos.net/Cita delFiles/pub/downloads/GroundZ ero/BtTotT_1pg.pdf The 1pg Dungeon entry from our very own Mr Lucas! Watch for the upcoming expansion of this in a future installment and in the Citadel sampler pack scheduled for August.

Junior General www.juniorgeneral.org/load.php? Period=0

ResourceWatch Ken Rutsky

Looking for hoards of opponents, but don't want to drop all that money on plastic or metal miniatures? Junior General to the rescue, with scores of paper minis you can print up in any quantity. The grapics are a bit primitive, but more easily customizable.

Mad Irishman Productions The Phrontistery www.mad-irishman.net/index.html We would be utterly remiss if we didn't include the Mad Irishman in our first roundup of utilities. I can think of no finer place to get your character sheets, especially if you want replicas of sheets you may not have seen for the last several decades

http://phrontistery.info/ihlstart.ht ml For those times when common words are just too common. Punch up your writing, or just drop a couple of these words on the knowit-all at the game store to send them scurrying. Not only are the word lists incredible, it supplements this month's Postulates and Praxis.

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They Fight Crime! http://www.theyfightcrime.org/ He a web page that generates random descriptions for a pair of mismatched and misunderstood planomaniacs, she is a set of insipid NPCs that are as compelling as dishwater in need of personality boosts. They fight crime!

A

nyone reading this might wonder why I began writing this project at all, which is still unfinished and not fully edited, by the way. Writing Random Encounter Tables for AD&D? I mean...what's the point, right? Well, I guess I was just bored, and realized that I hadn't fiddled with AD&D for a while, so I figured, why not create something new? So... I started working on this project one day, which grew... and grew, and still keeps on growing today. The project became a new AD&D resource that both novice and expert DM's could use at a moment's notice without having to look up every tiny little detail and rule. I realized that many AD&D adventure modules have historically been very minimalist in regards to stat blocks, and as a result, I'd often

have to look up important information in the books. So I had an idea. I'd start writing up a mostly-complete stat block to alleviate as much page-flipping as humanly possible. Then I'd focus on making the encounters a bit more detailed and unusual, thus aiding the DM in the creation of a living, vibrant world. Some of the encounters are violent, while others are just strange. Some are both. Hell, some are even just mundane. Overall though, I think these tables should provide inspiration for other people's campaigns, and if I've succeeded at that, even a little....then all I can say is: "Mission accomplished."

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From the Sandbox Sacrificial Lamb

So whether you're a novice DM or an old seasoned pro, with nothing planned for tonight's gaming session....just whip out a couple Random Encounter Tables, and watch the fur fly! I think you'll be glad you did. But don't take my word for it. Check 'em out!

Wilderness Encounter Table 01-04 4d6 Ravens strutting around, picking at a carcass 05-10 Brown Bear foraging for food at a stream 11-12 Green Dragon napping 13-14 Human Ranger crouched in a tree 15-19 Hawk circling overhead 20-23 1d4+1 squirrels fighting over a nut 24-25 Human Druid in a camouflaged tree house 26-35 Rainstorm, lasts for 1d6 hours, -2 penalty to d20 rolls, and -10% to other tasks when in the thick of it 36-38 Large bee hive, has a 10% chance of attracting brown bear within 1d6 turns 39-42 1d6+2 Goblins passing through, armed with short bows and spears, their temperament is nervous and quiet 43-46 Dryad, appears to be an elf maiden with flowers in her hair 47-48 Unattended campfire, still smoking, remnants of unfinished meal, broken sword on ground 49-50 Elven Magic-User with black cat familiar, avoids confrontation if possible 51-52 Dozens of butterflies fly around the PCs, before passing by 53-54 Goat with bell tied around its neck, bleating pitifully, very hungry, will follow PCs that feed it Treant; normally hidden, but will aid injured characters; however, it becomes violent if PCs take an axe to living trees in its 55-56 presence 57-58 Curious rabbit, will flee if PCs get closer than 10 feet, unless PC has Animal Empathy of some kind 1d6+2 Elven hunters, all 1st-level Fighters, armed with longswords and longbows, a bit arrogant, but will possibly aid friendly 59-64 PCs Talking frog, a polymorphed Halfling Thief, 3rd level, will beg for help, and promise almost anything for a way of undoing the 65-66 curse 67-68 Group of 1d8 +4 skeletons armed with short swords, all guarding a well 69-70 Unattended large pile of acorns 6d6 small assorted birds chattering incessantly, their presence is annoying enough to cause a -1 penalty to d20 rolls, and -5% 71-73 penalty to percentile rolls 74-76 1d10+2 Orcs, War party; irritable, hungry, and spoiling for a fight; armed with battleaxes and spears 77-78 1d4+3 Wolves, curious, but only attacks in self-defense Very strong windstorm, lasting for 2d6 turns; within it, creatures suffer a -2 penalty to d20 rolls, and -10% penalty to percentile 79-80 rolls; a curious Air Elemental has a 10% chance of appearing during the storm 81-82 Hungry, but friendly dog, whines and begs for food 83-84 1d4 Centaurs, armed with short bows and spears, curious and cautious 85-86 1d4 raccoons; curious and bold, will approach non-hostile PCs, looking for food 1d4 Ogres, violent and cruel, but can be negotiated with, provided there are no elves in the party; armed with two-handed 87-88 swords 89-90 Moose grazing in the forest 91-92 Wild boar foraging for truffles, will viciously charge PCs that approach within 15 feet of it 1d12 skulls on a pole, all next to a small burial mound; using Speak With Dead on any of the skulls has a 5% chance of 93-94 summoning an angry Ghost 95-96 1d6 Deer cautiously making their way through the forest, will flee if PCs approach Unusual notches cut into the side of some stones, shaped like runes; if touched, 10% chance of PCs triggering some form of 97-98 Magic Mouth spell, curious Earth Elemental has 10% chance of appearing within 1d6 turns 99-00 Small pond and stream, filled with salmon; brown bear has 10% chance of appearing within 1d12 turns

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Air Elemental (AC 2; MV 36; HD 8; HP 40; #AT 1; DMG 2d10; SA in aerial combat, +1 to hit, +2 dmg per dmg dice; whirlwind [truncated reverse cone, 2" bottom diameter, 6" top diameter, 8" height; kills creatures under 3 HD, inflicts 2d8 dmg on all other non-aerial creatures; takes 1 turn to create]; SD +2 or better weapon to hit; AL N; SZ L; XP 1,400) Assorted small birds (AC 7; MV 1/27; HD 1/4; HP 1; # AT 1; DMG 1; AL N; SZ S; XP 6) Brown Bear (AC 6; MV 12; HD 5+5; HP 30; #AT 3; DMG 1d6/1d6/1d8; SA paw hit on natural 18+ enables hug for 2d6 dmg; SD fight 1d4 rounds at 0 to -8 HP, dies at -9 HP; AL N; SZ L; XP 480) Centaur (AC 5; MV 18; HD 4; HP 20; #AT 2 or 2; DMG 1d6 [arrows] or 1d6 [hooves] and 1d6 [spear]; AL N; SZ L; XP 165; Equipment: short bow, quiver, 20 arrows, spear, 1d8 gp, 1d8 sp, 2d8 cp) Deer (AC 7; MV 18; HD 2; HP 10; #AT 1; DMG 1d6; AL N; SZ M; XP 40) Dog (AC 6; MV 12; HD 2+2; HP 12; #AT 1; DMG 2d4; AL N; SZ M; XP 71) Dryad (AC 9; MV 12; HD 2; HP 10; #AT 1; DMG 1d4 [dagger]; SA charm person, save at -3, cast 3/day; SD dimension door to tree; AL N; SZ M; XP 93) Earth Elemental (AC 2; MV 6; HD 8; HP 40; #AT 1; DMG 4d8; SA -2 dmg per dmg dice against aerial opponents; inflicts 2d4 structural dmg against constructions on stone/earth; SD +2 or better

weapon to hit; AL N; SZ L; XP 950) Elven hunter, 1st-level Fighter (AC 6; MV 9; HP 7; #AT 1 or 2; DMG 1d8 [longsword] or 1d6 [longbow]; STR 13, INT 13, WIS 9, DEX 15, CON 11, CHA 11; SA +1 to hit with bows and with short sword or longsword; SD 90% resistance to Sleep and Charm spells; find hidden portals [1 on d6 if passing within 10 ft of door; finds secret doors on 1-2 on d6 if actively searching; discovers concealed portals on 1-3 on d6]; 60 ft infravision; stealth [if alone and in non-metallic armor, surprises opponents on 1-4 on d6; surprises on 1-2 on d6 if opening a portal]; AL CG; SZ M; XP 50; Equipment: studded leather armor, longsword, longbow, quiver, 20 arrows, dagger, 3d20 gp, 2d10 sp, 2d10 cp) Elven Magic-User 7th-level (AC 8; MV 12; HP 20 [24]; #AT 1; DMG 1d4+1 [dagger +1] or 1d6 [staff]; STR 11, INT 17, WIS 9, DEX 15, CON 11, CHA 14; SA spells; +1 to hit with bows and with short sword or longsword; SD spells; 90% resistance to Sleep and Charm spells; find hidden portals [1 on d6 if passing within 10 ft of door; finds secret doors on 1-2 on d6 if actively searching; discovers concealed portals on 1-3 on d6]; 60 ft infravision; stealth [if alone and in nonmetallic armor, surprises opponents on 1-4 on d6; surprises on 1-2 on d6 if opening a portal]; AL N; SZ M; XP 1,375; Spells: [1st-level: Detect Magic, Find Familiar, Magic Missile, Read Magic, Sleep; 2nd-level: Invisibility, Web, Wizard Lock; 3rd-level: Fly, Lightning Bolt; 4th-level: Dimension Door]; Equipment: Ring of Protection +1, dagger +1, staff, Potion of Healing, Potion of Invisibility, Scroll of Dimension Door, 6d10 gp, 6d10 sp, 10d10 cp; [cat familiar] AC 6; MV 15; HD 1/2; HP -14-

4; #AT 2; DMG 1d2/1; SA rear claws for 1d2 dmg [if forepaw claw attack hits opponent]; surprise others 1-3 on d6; SD surprised on 1 on d6; AL N; SZ S; XP 15) Ghost (AC 0/8; MV 9; HD 10; HP 50; #AT 1; DMG touch ages 10d4 years; SA if creatures see ghost, victims must save vs magic or age 10 years and flee in panic for 2d6 turns [clerics above 6th-level immune, humanoids above 8th-level receive +2 to save]; Magic jar within 6"; SD AC 8 on ethereal plane; when semimaterialized, AC 0, take half damage from silver/full damage from magic weapons; only attacked by spells in ethereal state, or by telepathy; AL LE; SZ M; XP 4,900) Goat (AC 7; MV 15; HD 1+2; HP 7; #AT 1; DMG 1d3; SA charge [+2 to hit, +1d2 dmg]; AL N; SZ M; XP 42) Goblin (AC 6; MV 6; HD 1-1; HP 4; #AT 1 or 2; DMG 1d6 [spear] or 1d6 [shortbow]; AL LE; SZ S; XP 14; Equipment: studded leather armor, shield, spear, shortbow, quiver, 12 arrows, 1d6 gp, 2d6 sp, 3d6 cp) Green Dragon (AC 2; MV 9/24; HD 8; HP 40; #AT 3; DMG 1d6/1d6/2d10; SA 3/day breathe poison chlorine gas cloud 5" long, 4" wide, 3" high, dmg equal to dragon's HP, save for half damage; can radiate fear, targets save at +5; SD 60 ft infravision; detect hidden/invisible creatures within 5"; AL LE; SZ L; XP 1,575) Hawk (AC 6; MV 1/33; HD 1; HP 5; AT 3; DMG 1d2/1d2/1; SA 100 ft dive provides +2 to hit, and double damage for talons [no beak attack possible in dive]; beak attack

has 25% chance of blinding an eye; AL N; SZ S; XP 23)

6d20 gp, 5d20 sp, 4d20 cp, 1d2 elven skulls)

20%, CW 72%]; AL N; SZ S; XP 183)

Human Druid 7th level (AC 8; MV 12; HP 42; #AT 1; DMG 1d8+3 [scimitar +2] or 1d6+1 [spear]; STR 16, INT 13, WIS 16, DEX 9, CON 15, CHA 15; SD identify plants, animals, and pure water; pass through overgrown areas without leaving trail at normal MV; immunity to charm spells cat by woodland creatures; assume animal form 3/day; +2 save against fire and lightning; AL N, SZ M; XP 1,415; Spells: [1st-level: Animal Friendship, Detect Magic, Purify Water, Speak With Animals; 2nd-level: Charm Person or Mammal, Create Water, Cure Light Wounds, Feign Death; 3rd-level: Call Lightning, Plant Growth, Summon Insects; 4th-level: Cure Serious Wounds]; Equipment: leather armor, scimitar +2, spear, potion of green dragon control, dagger, mistletoe, 2d10+2 gp, 3d10+3 sp, 4d10+4 cp)

Orcs (AC 6; MV 9; HD 1; HP 5; #AT 1; DMG 1d8 [battleaxe] or 1d6 [spear]; AL LE; SZ M; XP 15; Equipment: studded leather armor, shield, battleaxe, spear, 1d6+1 gp, 1d6+2 sp, 1d6+3 cp)

Treant (AC 0; MV 12; HD 10; HP 50; #AT 2; DMG 3d6/3d6; SA animate trees within 6", inflict 1 point of structural dmg on fortifications; SD fire vulnerability [+4 AC penalty against fire attacks, save against fire attacks at -4, fire inflicts +1 HP/damage dice]; AL CG; SZ L; XP 3,250)

Human Ranger 6th level (AC 8; MV 12, HP 42; #AT 1 or 2; DMG 1d8+2/1d8+8 against giant-class creatures [longsword +1] or 1d6 [shortbow]; STR 17, INT 13, WIS 15 DEX 11 CON 15, CHA 13; SA +6 DMG to giant-class creatures; SD 50% surprise others; only surprised on 1 in 6; tracking; AL NG; SZ M; XP 1,051; equipment: leather armor, longsword +1, dagger, handaxe, shortbow, quiver, 20 arrows, 3d10 gp, 3d10 sp, 5d10 cp) Moose (AC 7; MV 15; HD 4; HP 20; #AT 2; DMG 1d6/1d6; SA charge [+2 to hit, 2d6 dmg]; AL N; SZ L; XP 165) Ogre (AC 5; MV 9; HD 4+1; HP 21; #AT 1; DMG 1d10+2 [twohanded sword]; AL CE; SZ L; XP 195; Equipment: two-handed sword,

Rabbit (AC 6; MV 18; HD 1/4; HP 2; #AT 1; DMG 1; AL N; SZ S; XP 7) Raccoon (AC 7; MV 12; HD 1; HP 5; #AT 1; DMG 1d3; AL N; SZ S; XP 15) Raven (AC 7; MV 1/36; HD 1/4; HP 2; #AT 1; DMG 1; SA 10% chance of inflicting eye loss; AL N; SZ S; XP 9) Skeleton (AC 7; MV 12; HD 1; HP 5; #AT 1; DMG 1d6 [short sword]; SD half damage from edged weapons; immune to Sleep, Charm, Hold, and cold spells; holy water inflicts upon it 2d4 dmg/vial; AL N; SZ M; XP 23) Squirrel (AC 8; MV 9; HD 1/4; HP 1; #AT 1; DMG 1; AL N; SZ S; XP 6) Talking frog, formerly a Halfling Thief 3rd level (AC 7; MV 6; HP 12; #AT 1; DMG 1d2 [unarmed]; STR 9, INT 13, WIS 8, DEX 17, CON 11, CHA 13; SD +3 to saves vs wands, staves, rods, and spells; 30 ft infravision; direction sense [detect grade or slope in passage upwards or downwards 75%; determine direction 50%]; stealth [if alone and in non-metallic armor, surprises opponents on 1-4 on d6; surprises on 1-2 on d6 if opening a portal; thief abilities [PP 50%, OL 48%, F/ RT 35%, MS 42%, HS 40%, HN -15-

Wild boar (AC 7; MV 15; HD 3+3; HP 18; #AT 1; DMG 3d4; SA fights for 1d4+1 rounds after reaching 0 to -6 HP, dies at -7 HP; AL N; SZ M; XP 157) Wolves (AC 7; MV 18; HD 2+2; HP 12; #AT 1; DMG 1d4+1; AL N; SZ M; XP 71)

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sing an invented language can be an exercise in creativity for the whole group. If the referee is the only one responsible for the campaign world and its inhabitants, burn out sets in quickly. Constructing a language is a great way for the players to contribute to the world as well, filling in some background and dropping a few words or phrases from their "native language" into conversations. Along with background notes, the players will have a distinct personality for their characters' culture by combining a few root words for their name, the name of their village or local rulers, or some weapon unique to their race. While the game effects would be the same as a knife or dagger, the half-moon shaped shianboec is a more interesting item to have in one's inventory. Perhaps swearing an oath in a different language annuls the oath or prayers go unanswered if recited in the wrong dialect, giving the players incentives to create a few short phrases in their character's native tongue. Writing out an entire contract would be tedious and timeconsuming in the invented language,

but translating a few key phrases will keep the flavour intact, such as "we the undersigned", the titles of govStormBringer ernment officials , or the boilerplate at the beginning indicating what manner of contract one enters; the preponderance of Latin in current legal documents of any stripe attests may be jarring if other addresses reto this practice. main as 'Market Road' or 'Butcher's Additionally, the familiar Avenue'. This can be avoided by depeerage ranks could be represented ciding ahead of time which terms without having to lock the campaign will use the new language and creatinto a Western European feel. ing a specific list for those, as will be Hence, if Jutgard Hijev demonstrated below. holds the rank of 'duke', he would With a simple table, then, we be called Yuvo Jutgard Hijev, while have created a partial cultural basis his wife would be Yuvomeshi Hijev. useful in rounding out the backThey would be attended ground, be it an individual Duke Yuvo by a vassal, Doechk character, or an entire conIrris-urtif and his Marquis Nuyu tinent. It will take more personal guard, Ome Earl than a few substitutions for Kijse Dergan, Knight of the noble titles to create the ilIvo Realms. As with royalty Baron lusion of an entire culture. of any age, referring to Viscount Doechk Even exchanging vast them by title would be swaths of a natural lanCount Kiyu mandatory, providing a guage with a constructed Chiel method of introducing a Lord language (conlang) only part of the language and Sir provides the scaffolding Ome getting the players more upon which to hang the -meshi comfortable using it. A -ess nebulous concept of 'culvariety of other words would be in ture'. In future articles, we will disthe native language as well, such as cuss methods for creating unique street names, currency, and local cultures as well, but this gives us a cuisine. Use of everyday terms such good foundation. A foundation is as these will also assist players with only a starting point, so what is the adopting the local language. next step? Referring to an address as '8, Rue Naturally, it has taken thouChambiges' or 'Gutshofweg 2' sands upon thousands of years for instantly conveys that the characters natural languages to develop and are in a French or German speaking evolve. How, then, is someone to area. Similiarly, players given invent in an afternoon a language directions to 'Amijo Thadroj' or that sounds natural and is internally 'Amijo Pesktie' maintains the consistent? Unless one has the eduundercurrent of being in a different cation and background of Professland. ors Tolkein or M.A.R. Barker, this Care should be taken to task would take the better part of a avoid adding in these new words at decade, if not more. Creating an random intervals or inconsistently. entire language is well beyond the Place names may vary, depending on scope of most groups, even for just who was in charge at the time of a single race, so it is important to naming; using 'Amijo' for 'street' emphasize that only small portions

Praxis

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of a new language would be needed. Even this would be a daunting task, if not for tools available on the internet to ease the task. A search reveals that many conlang pages have since been taken down; navigating through the web to find resources can be challenging. However, there is an active page which provides the basic tools to create a fantasy language of the complexity with which a group can be comfortable. The above table of peerage ranks was created using the tools available at this site. The Fantasist has other constructed language tools as well, but the ones that are most directly related are the Wordmaker, the Wordmaker 2, and the Word Generator. The links are provided at the end of the article, as the page itself is somewhat difficult to navigate. These three tools have some important differences to note before diving headlong into creating a language. Wordmaker will generate a list of words based on patterns the creator desires. Hence, you can create a random list of words using "consonant-vowel" (CV), "vowelconsonant" (VC), "consonant-vowel-consonant"(CVC), or whatever you like as patterns, in addition to several additional lists to add your own diphthongs and consonant digraphs and trigraphs. However, it only provides a raw list; associating them with words is the task of the list creator. Wordmaker2 can handle that step, if needed. This utility has the same text entry fields for letter combinations, but provides an additional field used for applying the results to your own list of words. Wordmaker2 was used in creating the list of ranks above, for example, and is just as quick with a 200 word list as with a half dozen words. The resultant list is random, so a five letter

word won't necessarily be created from a five letter word in the provided list. Lastly, Word Generator has many defined structures with which to generate lists of words, but again, it is a simple list not associated with any words in a natural language. It creates words that have a similar feel to a number of fantasy and natural languages, such as Albanian, Barsoomian, Egyptian, Gloranthan, Indonesian, Klingon, Lovecraftian, Malay, and Russian to give an idea

however. Where to start? In one way, it doesn't really matter. Whatever words your group feels should be translated is the best place to start. As mentioned before, weapons can be a good category for the initial attempt. It helps create interesting variants on standard weapons, as well as adding the feel of a different culture. Likewise, titles, place names, and local dishes provide atmosphere to any session. Children's and foreign language vocabulary lists tend to emphasize

Heiratic Egyptian

of the range of choices. These are all created randomly from letter combinations designed to emulate the language, so the word lists are unlikely to contain any actual words of the given natural language, giving free reign to use the words as desired. A word of caution: occasionally it may generate actual words from the selected language, so don't be too surprised if a native speaker of that language gives you a strange look. Of course, even using the tools available, a whole language won't spring fully-formed from your printer. Depending upon the time and effort that can be allocated to the task, larger and larger portions can be created. Creating the lexicon of common words can be daunting, -17-

simple, everyday words that are good candidates as well; colours, farm animals, conveyances, or small toys and games. It can also provide an excellent starting point for creating a unique pantheon or religious cult. The names of divine personages may or may not be tied to their sphere of influence, hence a list of matched words works as well as an unmatched list. Creating a list for prefixes and suffixes is also helpful, depending on your own native language. English makes extensive use of prefixes such as un-, de-, in-, and pre-, as well as suffixes such as -ed, -en, -ing and forms most plurals with the suffix -(e)s. Other languages use their own rules, of course, but this is the beginning of rounding out your new

language. Omniglot.com lists common phrases from a large number of languages, which provides an excellent jumping off point; tables presented at the end of this article will demonstrate some further examples. And what is a new language without its own alphabet? This effort is likely well beyond what most groups will find necessary; getting some basic word lists compiled for several languages will already pay great dividends during a session. For those groups who relish the challenge of cryptoquiz puzzles or simply enjoy attractive props at the table, there is the next level: creating an alphabet or set of ideographs for the new fantasy language. Nothing quite so complicated needs be considered initially, of course. Any number of texts, manuscripts, and ancient relics are covered in yet undeciphered scripts. Many natural language scripts can be found at Ancient Scripts from the titular ancient periods to more modern eras, including the corresponding letters or syllables. For example, interest has been re-kindled recently in the Voynich manuscript, and the speculation is fraught with controversy. There are a number of web pages with some images, and some few books written on the subject. Many links are dead ends or broken, and the ones that are still live don't appear to have been updated for some years. They will lead to some fascinating information, however, which may be useful in and of itself, regardless of its use in crafting a fantasy language. A similar manuscript, the Rohonc Codex, has images that are easier to locate on the web. In both cases, the scans are rather crude, but either make for excellent pages from a wizard's spellbook or writings re-

covered from mysterious alien ruins on the edge of known space. Omniglot has information on a variety of different natural languages, as well as a page with information and links for several as yet undeciphered scripts. Using these ancient texts is a very efficient way of producing props, or the appearance of your new language. Adapting these to your lexicon may prove difficult, as

precision deisred, this can be very time consuming. In addition, it can be frustrating without a familiarity of fonts and font design techniques. None of which is particularly difficult to come by, as most font authours are happy to discuss their craft online. The talk is pretty jargon heavy, so be prepared. For the most part, this is something of a solitary activity, but

they don't always follow a known pattern. Additionally, some are not written in left-to-right or right-toleft order, and a few of these may even be entirely fictitious or hoaxes, as some suspect of the Voynich manuscript. If the texts are implemented solely as atmosphere, however, none of this is a concern. For most, several pages of strange symbols is more than sufficient; for a greater level of detail, utilities are available for the creation of a unique alphabet when looking towards emulating an entire language. For complete control over the look of the new alphabet, a number of open source and free software packages can be downloaded to engineer a font from the ground up. These programs provide the means to design each glyph individually from scratch, or to import them from another font or image source and modifiy the glyphs. Depending on the level of

the group can contribute here as well. Interested players can sketch symbols on a piece of graph paper or regular lined paper alongside the letter represented. These worksheets would then be used in the font editing program to form the glyphs. Normally, font software can cost hundreds of dollars or more, but there are open source alternatives that are more than adequate for hammering out a few font sets over a weekend. As the software itself is free, everyone can design on their own sets so one player isn't overloaded with all the work. In fact, the group can discuss the designs during a session, insuring they don't use the same symbols. Or collaborate so that one alphabet would be derived from another, or both from a common ancestor, as natural languages have done. Verisimilitude is enhanced, and the group has a shared sense of accomplishment. Once the alphabet

Alphabet Synthesis Machine example

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is complete, free software means each player would be able to create the font glyphs on their own, instead of having one player invest a substantial sum of money into software that would likely see no other use. Once again spreading the creativity and the effort around to the entire group. A faster method can be found in the Alphabet Creator. This utility will evolve an alphabet from a beginning stroke or shape, then bundle it all up into a True Type Font for downloading and installing. This method trades an exacting control over the shape of each glyph for the ability to generate an entire alphabet at once and convert to a downloadable font. The trade off doesn't skimp on options, though, as the number of parameters that are adjustable is impressive. Once a particular setting is adjusted, the evolution of the alphabet can run for as long as needed, or stepped through one iteration at a time. A fully formed alphabet could be finished inside of ten minutes with default settings. One caveat, it will only create glyphs for the upper and lower case Latin letters, ie A-Z and a-z. No numbers, no punctuation, and no accented characters. These two methods can easily compliment each other. The Alphabet Creator can lay the set of glyphs down as a font, which can then be modified using a font editor. If punctuation, numbers or the accented characers are needed, this is the only way to add them. Likewise, if the overall shape of the glyphs is satisfactory, but a few tweaks would perfect it, the font editor will be needed. Don't miss the bibliography lower on the page, it contains valuable offline resources. Not all of these methods need be used together. Some groups will be more than happy

with word lists, and won't care for all the details of creating a font. Others will be excited about having their own fonts, but aren't particularly interested in translating their native tongue into a fantasy language. In the former case, utilizing the new language will simply be a matter of handing out the lists as play aids before the session. Typing up some short notes using the fantasy language shouldn't be too time consuming, but sometimes a search and replace for lengthier documents may be required. In the latter case, once the font set is completed and installed, several paragraphs of lorem ipsum or some other suitable filler is all that will be needed. Cut and paste that into your favourite word processor, apply the new font to the whole page, and optionally add some images. Print it out for instant pages from a wizard's spellbook, or some instruction manual for an alien artefact. These resources should provide the foundation on which to build anything from a few interesting names for weapons or places, all the way up to the majority of an entirely new language, complete with its own alphabet. Sessions will be more lively and exciting when your players can utter a few phrases in 'goblin' or 'Atlantean', while at the same time promoting the atmosphere of being in a different time and place. The resources below have some starter word lists for conversion, as well as links for the websites mentioned in the main article. Tell us your thoughts and experiences in the comments section, or post your lists of word and letter combinations for generating your lists. You can also send feedback to: [email protected]

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Or discuss your ideas on the Citadel of Chaos forums, and we might post some of the results in a future column.

Sample Word Lists Prefixes

Suffixes

Addresses

Weapons

Professions

Castes

Animals

ab ac an anti be bi co de dis ex im in ir inter kilo mid milli mis multi non post pre pro re un

archy cide cracy cycle ful gram ic id ism ist itude ium kinesis less ly mania ness ography oid ology philia phobia ship ward wise

alley avenue boulevard circle court drive highway hollow lane park path place road route run street thoroughfare tollway track turnpike

arrow axe bow claymore crossbow dagger dirk flail gun halberd hammer javelin knife lance mace pick pike pistol polearm rifle scimitar sling spear staff sword

alderman burgher chamberlain chancellor commissioner councillor councilman docent doctor exchequer foreman governor mayor pastor prefect professor secretary vicar viceroy yeoman

artisan craftsman criminal farmer financial foreigner freeman government labourer merchant military peasant priest prisoner scholar scribe servant teacher undertaker untouchable

alligator bat bear bird bison buffalo bug camel cat chicken cow crocodile deer dog elephant fish fox frog goat gorilla horse lobster ox pig spider

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The Fantasist • Main page: http://www.fantasist.net/ • Wordmaker: http://www.fantasist.net/wordmaker.shtml • Wordmaker2: http://www.fantasist.net/wordmaker2.shtml • Wordgen: http://www.fantasist.net/wordgen.shtml

Alphabet Synthesis Machine

Fontforge • Main page:

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

Voynich manuscript • Various links (many broken): http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/

• Additional links:

http://www.voynich.net/reeds/

Word lists

• Alphabet Creator: http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/ • Bibliography: http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/#references • User created: http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/examples/ index.html

• Many Things vocabulary lists: http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/lists/l/ • Free Vocabulary 5000 word collegiate list: http://freevocabulary.com/ • Oxford 3000 word list: http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/ oald7/oxford_3000/oxford_3000_list? view=Print&cc=global • AAC vocabulary and common phrases: http://aac.unl.edu/vocabulary.html • Alan Cooper's homonym list: http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html • Andrew Saulters' idiomatic verbs: http://www.apsaulters.net/idio.html • Phillip M. Eberz' colour related idioms: http://www.ojohaven.com/fun/color.idioms.html • Jessica Defores' GRE vocabulary list: https://www.msu.edu/~defores1/gre/vocab/ gre_vocab_tab.htm • The Phrontistery uncommon words lists: http://phrontistery.info/ihlstart.html

Omniglot • Main page: http://www.omniglot.com/ • Undeciphered scripts: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ undeciphered.htm • Alternate scripts/notations: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alternative.htm • Alphabets: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ alphabets.htm • Constructed scripts: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/conscripts.htm • Useful phrases: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/index.htm • Grammar tips: http://www.omniglot.com/language/grammar.htm

Ancient Scripts • Main page: http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws.html • Over one hundred scripts with images: http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_atoz.html • Timelines by region: http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_timeline.html

Website Tips • Font tools: http://websitetips.com/fonts/tools/ • Font foundries: http://websitetips.com/fonts/foundries/

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Here is a list of minor magical effects from James Maliszewski:

orize spells without any rest, for example.

• Charm Person: While memorized, the caster gains a +1 bonus all Charismabased effects, such as morale, loyalty, and reaction. • Hold Portal: While memorized, the caster gains the ability to close or shut any open door, window, or other aperture within 10 feet by thought alone. • Magic Missile: While memorized, the caster treats any weapon he wields as having a +1 bonus for the purpose of overcoming the special defenses of certain creatures. This bonus increases by +1 for every five levels of the caster. The bonus does not apply to attack or damage rolls made with the weapon the caster wields; it applies only to overcoming special defenses. • Shield: While memorized, non-damaging falling objects and effects (pebbles, leaves, rainfall, etc.) are repelled from the caster's body. • Sleep: While memorized, the caster is immune to nonmagical fatigue and similar effects. In addition, he requires only four hours rest to regain his full complement of spells until he casts this spell, after which he must "pay back" four hours at his next rest period (meaning it takes him 12 hours of rest instead of 8 to regain his spells).

Using spell slots for minor boosts like this is a great idea. It not only gives Magic Users a bit more versatility, it discourages the 'single use magic item' attitude. None of these are over-powered in the least, and the effect for Shield is only cosmetic anyway. These are perfect for adding a bit of flair to arcane characters.

None of these minor magical effects stack. You can't memorize sleep twice and be able to re-mem-

• Identify: The Magic-User has an uncanny knack for appraisal. The cost of

Small Magic StormBringer

These two ideas mesh very well for a low level or low magic campaign, and are easy enough to create and implement that they can be discarded in the natural progression of levels. Of course, effects for higher level spells are possible, as well as Mr Maliszewski's own suggestion that the effects themselves gain power as the character levels. Taking his example, the Magic User could get a +1 for each Magic Missile they can discharge, or a flat +1 per four levels regardless. Perhaps having fireball memorized allows the caster to ignite flammable items by touch or remotely, possibly up to melting certain metals based on the caster's level. Perhaps a half strength heat metal, which at higher levels would be an appropriate effect. Here are a few more to ponder, from low to mid-level spells. Of course, these effects are only when the spell is memorized, but not yet cast: Magic User: 1st level

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originally presented by James Maliszewski

mundane items will be known to within 5%-10% of the actual value. A sword or a horse, for example. Larger constructed items like siege engines or buildings can also be assessed, but each part will be appraised separately, and a running total must be kept. • Light: The Magic-User's eyes will glow with a pale light only visible at close distances in dark conditions. To a distance of two feet, the caster is able to see as normal daylight; hence studying spellbooks at night or reading runes carved in a dark cave are no difficulty. Further than two feet, normal darkness conditions apply. 2nd Level • Invisibility: The caster will only be seen when looking directly at them, as they cast no shadow, nor does any reflective surface show their image. • Locate Object: The MagicUser carrying this spell will never lose track of any personal items within 30'. They will always know precisely in which drawer they left their keys, and always recall that tome buried at the bottom of a pile of junk. A Wand of Fire left in the tavern across town won't be known until they are within 30' of the

device, but if it is upstairs under the bed, they can walk directly to it. 3rd Level • Fireball: The caster is able to heat items by touching them with their hand. The heat produced is enough to eventually boil water after three rounds, but won't generally cause damage to creatures. The heat produced can be intense enough to light kindling or a pipe from the fingertip, or steady enough to heat a pot of stew. • Gust of Wind: Due to the breeze that constantly swirls around the caster, normal flying insects are unable to come within one foot of the Magic-User. Summoned, crawling, or giant insects are unaffected.

5th Level • Cone of Cold: Any nonmagical, non-living object within 20' of the wizard can be brought to freezing temperatures in just a few seconds. A volume of liquid no more than five gallons, or about 400 coins in weight can be frozen in this manner.

4th Level • Plant Growth: Mundane plants within 30' (generally a household) of the wizard will grow normally despite lack of sun or water. Normal trimming will still be necessary for certain plants. Therefore, herbs can be kept in their pots hidden away under a table and still grow normally. If the Magic-User leaves the area, the plants will wilt and die at a normal rate as well.

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E

very starport or settlement of over 500 people in any Traveller universe maintains a paramilitary police force to establish and keep order. While specifics of structure, policies, equipment, etc. will differ between law enforcement agencies, there is enough similarity between them to enable the creation of a career for the game. The career presented in this article is written for the basic character creation system as found in LBB 1 and Supplement 4. In addition, some notes on how police forces are organized in my own Traveller universe are given to help the referee administer law enforcement in their own game. This article is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of law enforcement (use Wikipedia for that); it merely presents a few oft-overlooked points that might be fruitful for a GM to ponder. This career has been playtested in my own Traveller campaigns and has proven especially useful for the creation of NPCs. I am aware that several versions of police careers have appeared over the years in magazines and online. At the time I created this one, I had not seen the other versions; after seeing them, I am convinced mine is just different enough to present on its own. Hierarchy Law enforcement agencies have a rank structure similar to that of military organizations. Enlisted men form the bulk of the personnel; they handle the majority of lowlevel crime and are always the first respondents to a crime scene. Anything from watch duty (patrol) to customs inspection to crowd control to community outreach and beyond is within the enlisted policeman's purview. Most agencies organize their

enlisted personnel into two-man teams, or Patrols. A Patrol is assigned a vehicle and a specific area of responsibility based on their service branch (e.g. the watch, bomb squad, armed response/SWAT, etc.). Most police serve in more than one branch throughout their career; specifics can be derived by looking at the skills gained during the character generation process. Enlisted police who serve at least two terms can be promoted to Senior Patrolman. While this confers no skill bonus, it identifies them as the ranking enlisted officer of any Patrol unit. The Senior Patrolman takes ultimate reponsibility for the actions of a Patrol unit. Detectives are plainclothes police responsible for in-depth investigations. While they are given a good deal of autonomy and attaining this rank is considered a move up from the enlisted ranks, a detective has no authority over any other law enforcement officer outside the confines of their investigations. Detectives tend to specialize in a specific type of crime (e.g. murder, robbery, counter-terrorism, tax and finance, crime scene investigation, etc.). Most agencies pair Detectives with a partner, one of whom is considered senior to the other, in a manner similar to enlisted Patrol units. A sergeant is in charge of a Squad. Squads are composed of three to five Patrols; detectives are also organized into Squads of similar size. All members of a Squad work the same shifts, and tend to develop a close camaraderie. While a sergeant's duties tend to be administrative in nature (scheduling, Patrol assignments, etc.), they are often known to accompany their men in the field to handle especially complex or high-profile situations. Moving up the hierarchy lad-24-

Planetary Law Enforcement Ken Rutsky der, a Lieutenant commands three to five Squads working in the same department branch on the same shift. A Lieutenant is responsible for coordinating the actions of all Squads under his command, as well as acting as a liaison with other shift and branch commanders when the need arises. They are also responsible for the performance of all men under their command. It is rare for a Lieutenant to work in the field save on very high profile cases. A police Captain is in charge of a precinct. The police Captain commands men from all branches organized into 2-5 shifts (depending on local conditions). Personnel include at least 1 armed response ("SWAT") Squad, a CSI unit, Detective units for specific crimes (at the very least a foll roster of men devoted to investigating Robberies and Violent Crimes, and another for Homicide), and 5 or more watch Patrols for general policing. Captains are generally the face of their precinct to the local media, but almost never work in the field. Directors are high-level police officials, and generally work from their organization's central headquarters. The slate of responsibilities for a Director can vary. Some command districts, coordinating the activities of their component precincts. More senior directors are placed in charge of an entire bureau. The highest rank, that of Commissioner, is given to the person in charge of an entire law enforcement organization. While they will speak to media on occasion, Commissioners are unreachable by

the general public. They tend to work entirely within the confines of their organization's central head quarters. Before leaving this brief overview of police hierarchy, it should be noted that an organization's central headquarters houses Detectives and Detective Squads devoted to uncommon or high-level crimes: computer crimes, financial crimes, anti-terrorist activity, etc. Most police organizations also have extensive public relations personnel at this location, as well. Jurisdiction Police forces are generally limited to operating within clearly defined territories or jurisdictions. For most enlisted officers, their jurisdiction lies within the bounds of their assigned precinct. Detectives and specialists (bomb squad, financial crimes, SWAT, etc.), owing to the nature of their duties, generally have authority throughout the entire area covered by their agency. A police force is expected to work with other government or private enforcement agencies to handle cases that span multiple jurisdictions. Knowing - or at least having a good idea - where these boundaries lie is important because most governments consider an arrest made outside an officer's jurisdiction to be unlawful. There are, of course, exceptions: a hot pursuit situation, for example, that crosses boundary lines might merit special consideration. With a little thought, a good referee can get a lot of mileage out of the concept of jurisdiction. Consider a police agency located on a high population world with a class A starport. An agency on such a world might have nonjump spaceships available for transport purposes, but their jurisdiction

normally does not extend beyond low orbit. Beyond that point, matters are turned over to the local navy for handling. Now imagine that your players' characters are in a GCarrier, on the run from the law for some crime or another. The police are lagging behind in their air/raft. The PCs have a ship waiting in high orbit to pluck them to safety. All in all, it looks like a clean getaway. Unbeknown to the PCs, however, the police know they're losing the race, and send a communication to the local navy patrol cruiser, which just happens to be outside the planetary highport. When they break low orbit, the PCs see the police air/raft turn back and imagine the officers crushing their hats in their hands in frustration, the way sheriffs have done for centuries when their quarry passes the enforcement line. Just imagine their surprise when the GCarrier reaches their ship and they see a big, 800 ton patrol cruiser docking and boarding their getaway vehicle. Of course, the situation could be even more complicated. Consider that a police force is a political entity; whether it is a private organization contracted by the local government or an arm of the government itself, it needs to prove its worth if it is to continue to operate. Turning back to our example, imagine that the local police are behind in their quarterly arrest quota (sure, they say there aren't quotas, but you and I know better...). Let's say they manage to catch the PCs just beyond the low orbit line; surely a sympathetic court would overlook a slight jurisdictional violation in this case. The PCs on the GCarrier are booked, and their starship is seized with the help of local naval SDBs. Our intrepid player group, -25-

however, being typical Traveller players, have racked up an impressive resume of crimes over the course of the campaign thus far. Crimes on other worlds, in other systems. They're wanted men. Interstellar criminals. The local naval command soon realizes that it has a group of major criminals on its hands. It refuses to turn over the starship (and PCs aboard) to the planetary police; further, it demands that the PCs in the GCarrier be turned over to them. Naval command informs the police commissioner that their case is far bigger than petty thievery from the local arms manufacturing plant. But the police commissioner, now aware that the PCs are big, juicy buffs to the agency's arrest stats, protests and demands that his men be allowed to prosecute their case. This leads to a lot of bureaucratic wrangling off-screen, and the PCs themselves are in limbo, awaiting a decision on who gets to put them in what jail. Lawyers or legal representatives will let the PCs know what the situation is. Any PCs with Admin or Legal skill will come in handy here, perhaps managing to get the party off on a technicality. Or you could find yourself refereeing an elaborate escape attempt... The above situation becomes even more interesting if the players are running law enforcement characters themselves and see the credit for their promotion-worthy arrest taken away. The frustrations that accompany dealing with bureaucratic red tape can be fodder for role-playing. Also consider the reverse case where the PCs want to avoid handling a dog of a case (perhaps what murder detectives call a "stone cold whodunit," an apparently random case with no clear motive, no witnesses, no suspects)

and try to pawn it off on a neighboring precinct. They can make friends (their supervisors) and enemies (supervisors and detectives in the neighboring precinct) within the department with such hijinks, and NPC relationships like these can always lead to further opportunities for adventures down the road. It is not necessary to know the exact location of precinct borders on every world in your universe. Stick to worlds your PCs will visit most often, keeping in mind that jurisdictional boundaries are most important on worlds with high populations and law levels. As a rule of thumb, consider a precinct jurisdiction to encompass an area with a population of 5 to 10 thousand people, depending on the size of the settlement. Worlds with populations in the millions or more will probably have more than one agency if settlements are spread across the entire planetary surface. Skills Police train for a wide variety of situations; this is reflected by their fairly broad selection of skills. The Acquired Skills Tables, for the most part, list skills from published Traveller materials. Those not found in LBB1 or The Traveller Book are listed below for convenience, together with the description of a new skill unique to this career. Carousing - Book 5, High Guard. Comm - Book 5, High Guard. Demolitions - Book 4, Mercenary. Instruction - Book 4, Mercenary. Interrogate - Book 5, High Guard. Legal - Book 7, Merchant Prince. Recruiting - Book 4, Mercenary. Investigate - The individual is a keen observer and has training in forensic and detailed analysis techniques. This skill allows for the extraction of clues and information from a physical scene. The characters'

training allows them to learn from this scene than an average person, and to intuit the importance of seemingly mundane items. Generally, players should describe what their character is looking for and how they are going about doing it, and the referee should base their responses on that. Roll 8+ on 2D (DM +skill level) to provide additional hints or insights to the player while conducting a search. The higher the roll, the more clear the clue. Non-Lethal Weaponry While police are authorized to use lethal force in order to keep the peace, most governments limit their ability to do so. Shootings and killings by officers are thoroughly investigated, and the use of force in each situation must be justified for an officer to avoid legal penalties ranging from suspension to termination of duty to imprisonment. Because of this, arms manufacturers have developed a number of nonlethal weapons and devices for use by law enforcement agencies. A few of these are listed here, complete with Traveller combat stats. Non-Lethal Bullets (TL 8): Made of rubber or wax and designed to be propelled at lower velocities than gunpowder ammunition, non-lethal bullets can be fitted for most slug throwers and are used extensively for riot control. At higher tech levels, the rounds can be charged to deliver an electric shock to stun targets who are hit. Non-lethal bullets cost and weigh half as much as their high velocity counterparts. All adjustments for range and armor are in addition to adjustments for the weapon being used. Damage is quartered.

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Tranq Pistol (TL 9): Using the same principle as the gauss rifle, though delivering rounds with far less power, the tranq pistol fires needlelike darts that deliver a fast-acting sedative to unarmored targets, incapacitating them almost instantly. Length: 200 mm. Weight: 600 grams. Base cost: Cr225. Ammo: 10 round magazine: Cr75. Dazzler Gun (TL 9): The dazzler gun is a laser weapon, powered by a battery pack, firing a dual-frequency beam that can defeat most forms of light filtering lenses. A successful attack will blind the target for 1D rounds. Treat blinded characters as if acting in total darkness (DM -9).

Length: 600 mm Weight: 4500 grams Base cost: Cr2250 Battery pack: Cr1000, 2000 grams Recharge: Cr150 Pepper Spray (TL 7): Usable at close ranges, pepper spray comes in an aerosol canister that can loose a highly irritant chemical stream (derived from the same chemicals as tear gas) at targets up to 6 meters away. Contact with eyes or skin will cause irritation (-1 DM to all hit rolls for each hit) or incapacitation (if the modified to-hit roll for the pepper spray is greater than or equal to 12) for 1D x 10 minutes Weight: 300 grams Base cost: Cr50

Sonic Gun (TL 10): A portable weapon that emits short (2-3 second) directed bursts of ultra-high frequency noise at high dB levels, the sonic gun can be directed at up to three adjacent targets in the same range band. The targets must roll END- each round they are exposed, DM-1 for each round of exposure after the first; failure means they can only evade the next round (for animals, use a Flee check with DM+2). The weapon is battery operated and must be recharged after 20 uses.

Length: 250 mm Weight: 800 grams Base cost: Cr300 Recharge: Cr10. Tear Gas (TL 5): Usually delivered in grenade-like cannisters, tear gas acts upon the eyes and lungs, inducing tears and coughing, as well as making it very difficult for targets to breathe. As with grenades, they can be thrown at medium range, tossed inside doors, etc. The cannister will land on target on a roll of 7+; the target and those adjacent will be incapacitated until the gas dissipates (1D + 1 minutes). If the affected figures try to hold their breath and close their eyes to avoid the worst effects, they will be incapacitated for 1-3 rounds, after which they can move at half speed; treat such characters as if acting in total darkness. Gas masks and goggles will allow those in the gas cloud to operate normally. Weight: 1000 grams. Base cost: Cr150 for 20

Blister Gas (TL 5): So named because it can cause severe skin irritation or burning, blister gas is a sulfur- or nitrogen-based agent delivered in the same manner as tear gas. Those caught in the area of effect of this weapon will be incapacitated unless equipped with a gas mask and goggles. Unless they are wearing a full protective suit (e.g. vacc suit), the affected characters will take 1D damage per hour until treated by a medic; their skin will blister and there is a chance that eyesight can become permanently impaired or lost (details left to the referee). Weight: 1000 grams Base cost: Cr250 for 20. Sticky Foam (TL 8): An incapacitant meant to immobilize targets without harming them, this substance is propelled by a pack-mounted air compressor. A successful attack will immobilize the target and disallow evasion; if they are able to roll DEX-, they will only be held for 1 round. The referee should allow for a chance that the target might be able to still use their hands, though a steep penalty should be imposed for any attempted action. Immobilized characters can attempt to break free by rolling STR- on subsequent rounds, but this precludes any other activity during the round. The sticky foam gun is good for 10 uses, after which it must be recharged Length: 800mm Weight: 5000 grams Base cost: Cr1250 Compressor pack: Cr750, 2500 grams Recharge: Cr75 Electroshock Weapon (TL 8): This hand-held device fires two electrodes connected back to the weapon by two thin wires. When both electrodes make contact, the target will take 1D damage and must -27-

roll END- with a DM of +5 or be incapacitated for 1D rounds. A cartridge is good for one shot; reloading takes one round, during which the character can only evade. The weapon itself must be recharged after 50 uses Length: 100 mm Weight: 800 grams Base cost: Cr450 Cartridge: Cr50 Recharge: Cr20 Flash Grenade (TL 8): As with normal grenades, these can be thrown at medium range or tossed inside a door. Grenades hit their mark on a 7+; those within the blast radius of a flash grenade are incapacitated for 1D rounds Weight: 1000 grams Base cost: Cr200 for 20 Final Thoughts No article of this length can hope to treat a subject as complex as law enforcement in a comprehensive or completely accurate manner. The above is meant as a starting point to get you thinking about how to use police forces in your own games. A bit of research on the internet about law enforcement in different countries on our own tech level 8 world, together with the information in this article, should provide the enterprising referee with more than enough grist for their adventure mill.

Weapon Blister Gas Compressor Pack (sticky foam) Dazzler Gun Electroshock Weapon Flash Grenade Non-lethal Bullet Pepper Spray Power Pack (dazzler gun) Sonic Gun Sticky Foam Tear Gas Tranq Pistol

Weapon Blister Gas Dazzler Gun Electroshock Weapon Flash Grenade Non-lethal Bullet Pepper Spray Sonic Gun Sticky Foam Tear Gas Tranq Pistol

Req. 7 6 8 7 -8 4 6 7 7

Weapon Blister Gas Dazzler Gun Electroshock Weapon Flash Grenade Non-lethal Bullet Pepper Spray Sonic Gun Sticky Foam Tear Gas Tranq Pistol

None +6 +2 +1 +5 -1 -1 +4 +1 +4 -1

Wgt. 1000 2500 4500 800 1000 50.00% 300 2000 800 5000 1000 600

DM -2 -3 -2 -2 --2 -1 -3 -2 -2

Jack +4 +2 -2 +5 -2 -1 +4 +1 +4 -1

Rds/Clip -10 -1 -Same 10 50 20 --10

Adv. 11 10 11 11 -11 8 10 11 10

DM +1 +1 +2 +1 -+1 +1 +1 +1 +1

Mesh +5 +2 -4 +5 -6 -1 +4 +2 +4 -4

Length --600 100 ----250 800 -200mm

Close -+3 +4 --1 +4 +4 +2 -+1

Cloth +5 +2 -4 +5 -4 -1 +4 +1 +4 -6

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Price 250/20 750 2250 450 200/20 -50 1000 300 1250 150/20 225

Short -+1 -4 --2 -+2 0 -+1

Reflec +5 0 -1 +5 -2 -1 +4 +1 +4 -1

Ablat +5 +2 -2 +5 -4 -1 +4 +1 +4 -4

Medium 0 0 -0 -4 -+1 -2 0 -8

Combat -4 -4 --4 -8 --6 -5 -8 --

Ammo Price TL -5 75 8 -9 50 (20 recharge) 8 -8 50.00% 8 -7 150 9 10 9 -8 -5 75 9

Long --2 ---6 -0 ----

V Long --4 ---8 --2 ----

Wound incapacitate, 1D/hr blind incapacitate incapacitate 25% irritate/incapacitate incapacitate held incapacitate incapacitate

PRIOR SERVICE TABLE Enlistment 7+ DM +1 if

STR 7+

DM +2 if

INT 8+

Survival

6+

DM +2 if

INT 7+

Commission 8+ DM +1 if

Promotion

Adv. Educ. Investigate Interrogate Comm Tactics Leader Demolitions

Adv. Ed. (EDU 8+) Recruiting Instruction Legal Computer Admin Jack-o-T

10+

DM +1 if

Re-enlist

EDU 8+

ACQUIRED SKILLS TABLES Pers. Dev. Service Skills 1 +1 STR Vehicle 2 +1 DEX Brawling 3 +1 END Gun Cmbt 4 +1 EDU Vehicle 5 Gambling Streetwise 6 Carousing Blade Cmbt

SOC 8+

5+

TABLE OF RANKS Rank 1 Detective Rank 2 Sergeant Rank 3 Lieutenant Rank 4 Captain Rank 5 Director Rank 6 Commissioner RANK & SERVICE SKILLS Enlisted Auto Pistol-1 Detective Investigate-1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MUSTER OUT TABLES Material Benefits Table Cash Table Low Passage 0 +1 INT 2000 +1 EDU 5000 Gun 10000 Gun 10000 Mid Passage 20000 +1 SOC 30000

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