Rogue Games Tabbloid -- April 22, 2009 Edition

22 April, 2009

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fascination with the End of the World in a broader sense. Pretty much every human culture that’s ever existed has considered itself to be the last one, teetering on the brink of collapse and whose passing will herald the destruction of all that is good and beautiful in the world.

Retrospective: Gamma World APR 22, 2009 05:01A.M.

It’s a peculiar kind of hubris and I don’t deny that, for much of my life, I’ve convinced myself to varying degrees that the End was just around the corner. Morbid though that conviction may be, there’s profit in it nonetheless, at least if it makes one consider what’s truly significant about one’s culture and what bits of it are hardy enough to survive the collapse of its supporting structures. If this all sounds a bit pretentious and highfalutin, perhaps it is, but the Gamma World games I ran as a younger person were filled with moments when the player characters encountered some vestige of The World That Was, resulting in comedy, darkness, and occasionally awe — far headier stuff than ever occurred in most of my D&D games. That’s the power of the post-apocalyptic genre, I think: approaching the present day as if it were a lost civilization whose culture and values are utterly alien to us. I’ve said before that, in a sense, most pulp fantasies are post-apocalyptic fantasies. Many take place in a fallen world after the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities. Not only does this set-up lend the weight of history to a setting, it also provides an excuse for ruins to be explored and plundered. As a D&D player, I found Gamma World all too easy to wrap my head around. It’s a game that’s ready-made for sandbox play and where rootless adventurers moving from one pocket of civilization to another makes perfect sense. In some respects, the implied setting of Gamma World makes a fair bit more sense than does that of D&D and it’s eminently gameable. I played a lot of Gamma World once upon a time and have many fond memories of those long-gone campaigns. I still remember a mutant rat PC who died, in a moment I could not have scripted with a straight face, when he ate a container full of Intensity 18 rat poison I rolled up as random treasure from a table in the book. I will also never forget the would-be Knight of Genetic Purity who suffered mutations as a result of exposure to radiation or Davion, the mutant frog, who wore a football helmet and used a shield with arcane word “Yield” emblazoned on it.

Some might argue that Gamma World, written by James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet and first published in 1978, is unintelligible outside the context of the Cold War. There’s unquestionably some truth to that. Gamma World‘s inclusion of mutants and radioactive wastelands is definitely a reflection of Western fears of an apocalyptic World War III that would usher in a new dark age more horrific than any we could imagine. Goodness knows that, as a kid, I more or less expected there to be some final reckoning between the nuclear powers in my lifetime.

Despite my musings up above, Gamma World certainly wasn’t a deadly serious game, but I think that was part of its charm. Unlike D&D, I was rarely tempted to run Gamma World completely “straight.” My campaigns tended to careen wildly between low comedy and high adventure, spiced up by dark meditations on the downfall of our world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I think very highly of Mutant Future and regularly consider running it as a break from the Dwimmermount campaign. I still might one day.

But I’m pretty sure that’s not why Gamma World appealed to me back then. The mutants and the radiation were just window dressing for me, a convenient way to frame what is, I think, a much more primal

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22 April, 2009

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Interviews APR 21, 2009 02:47P.M. ROGUE FEED People seem to enjoy the interviews I’ve done in the past, so you’ll be seeing quite a few more in the future. I’m currently in contact with five individuals associated with the early days of the hobby who’ve all agreed to be interviewed. In some cases, the process of setting up the interviews is taking longer than I’d hoped it would, but I’m patient and willing to wait, since several of these individuals will no doubt have some interesting things to say.

HackMaster Basic APR 22, 2009 03:26A.M. Take a gander at the newly posted cover of HackMaster Basic, illustrated by none other than Erol Otus himself.

One of the goals of this blog, after all, is unearthing as much of the history of the hobby as possible. Since I was a mere child when much of that history happened and because so few people have bothered to record this history, I’m pretty much at the mercy of my sources. So, if you’re someone from the early days (1974-1983, in particular) or you know someone from that era, I’d be very interested in interviewing you. Thanks.

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Indian Summers APR 21, 2009 01:32P.M.

I’ve never really quite figured out how to take HackMaster. It’s too goofy to be serious, but also too serious to be goofy, if that makes any sense. But I have to admit: this one looks tempting. Maybe I can finagle a review copy out of them somehow ...

My love for Clark Ashton Smith — my favorite of the Three Musketeers of Weird Tales — is rather well-known, which is no doubt why several

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22 April, 2009

people directed me toward this article by Adam Ganderson. It’s an overview of the life and writings of CAS, most of which is aimed at a general audience. I noted a couple of small inaccuracies in the article, but they don’t detract from its essential point, that Smith was a unique literary voice whose like we’ve rarely seen.

pity anyone whose job it is, though.

Ganderson wisely turns to Scott Connors, editor of Night Shade Books‘ The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, for some insightful quotes, but it’s actually another Night Shade editor, Jeremy Lassen, whose comments struck a strongest chord with me. In discussing the short-lived Golden Age of the pulps, Lassen explains,

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Glass Golem APR 21, 2009 01:06P.M. Armor Class: 8/2 [12/18] (see below)

Weird Tales and the pulp magazines came along just as magazines––as the centerpiece for popular culture––were going away. Many of the general fiction magazines folded pretty early in the century, but because there wasn’t a lot of weird fiction in radio and movies, the niche magazines,

Hit Dice: 6 Attacks: 2 claws (1d8+1)

whose circulation was smaller than the general magazines, actually lasted longer.

Saving Throw: 11 Special: Distracting Colors, Swirling Shards

I’m not yet prepared to defend the notion, because I’m still thinking it through and, truthfully, lack the evidence to support it, but I see a parallel with the Golden Age of roleplaying games. There are many differences, of course, not least being that gaming’s Golden Age lasted barely a decade rather than two. Even so, I can’t help but think that the early success and later mass market popularity of RPGs owes to the fact that it was one of the few outlets for people whose imaginations were fired primarily by fantasy and science fiction.

Move: 6 Challenge Level/XP: 7/600

Glass golems are magical constructs created from stained-glass windows, and serve as ever-vigilant magical guardians of monasteries, libraries, and wizard’s towers. With bodies composed from numerous pieces of colored glass, these magical constructs are a lethal and serious threat to unprepared individuals.

It was rare in the late 70s and early 80s to meet fans of genre fiction who weren’t also gamers and certainly the earliest gamers consisted inordinately of people who were already involved in science fiction and fantasy fandom, as my recent interview with Lee Gold makes clear. Hard though it is to believe, in those days, fantasy and science fiction were not as pervasive as they are today. Indeed, the distinction between the two genres was esoteric and not reflected in popular conceptions of them, which tended to lump them into a single broad category.

Three times a day a glass golem can distract creatures by reflecting light off its multi-colored body. Creatures of 2 Hit Dice or less who fail a saving throw are rendered stunned and blinded by this effect for 2d4 rounds. The effect lasts for 1d4 rounds for creatures of 3 or 4 Hit Dice who fail a saving throw and only 1 round for those of 5 Hit Dice or more who do so.

I wonder then if gaming was in fact too successful for its long-term viability. Lassen says something similar about the weird fiction market in which Smith thrived:

Glass golems can also shatter their bodies and create a whirlwind of flying glass shards that last for d4 rounds. While the glass golem is swirling, its Armor Class drops to 2 [18]. In addition, melee attackers take 1d8 points of damage from these shards each round (half damage on a successful saving throw). Once the whirlwind is over, the shards fall to the ground and the glass golem cannot attack for one round while it reassembles itself.

Science fiction/fantasy is a declining literature in the broader sense of pop culture, I think, in part, because [science fiction has] conquered the world. Back in 1982 there were one or two big science fiction films a year if you were lucky. Pretty much every video game that comes out these days is a science fiction plot. Everywhere you look there are science fiction conceits and ideas that 25 years ago were not mainstream.

(submitted by Richard Iorio II)

The same holds for roleplaying games, I think, and this may well explain why it is that gaming represents an ever-smaller sub-set of the much larger pool of people who enjoy fantasy and science fiction than was once the case. I don’t personally see this as a bad thing in and of itself, but then I’m not trying to find a way to recreate the gaming fad of the 80s. I

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22 April, 2009

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Ghoul Hound

[Lost Works] Lustria, Part 6

APR 21, 2009 01:04P.M.

APR 21, 2009 11:50A.M.

Armor Class: 5 [15] Hit Dice: 2+3

Slann and their role

Attacks: 1 bite (1d8+1) + paralysis, 2 hind legs (1d6 each; see below)

Lizardmen society is strictly caste based, and the most powerful are the Slann. It is the Slann who know The Great World Plan, and lived during the time of the Old Ones. They are the most intelligent of all Lizardmen and are the guiding force in Lizardmen life. From atop their pyramid temples they guide the race and ensure that The Great World Plan is followed. Slann, even those of the Fifth Spawning, are older then the Elfs. Slann resemble large bloated toads, and all but the Fifth Spawning are unable to move on their own. When they need to move, their Saurian

Saving Throw: 16 Special: Immunities, paralysis Move: 12 Challenge Level/XP: 3/60 XP

temple guards carry them on large ornate palanquins. When the Old Ones arrived they initiated four separate spawnings of Slann. The current spawning, the Fifth, is the last to emerge from the breeding pools. No new spawning has taken place since the warp gates collapsed and none ever will. This is because the Old Ones never shared the creation process with the Slann, and when the Old Ones died, so did the Slann breeding process. The First Spawning of Slanns came when the Old Ones traveled to Lustria. Known as the Old Slann, it was they who created the other races of Lizardmen. The Old Slann were also the ones who taught the younger Slann The Great World Plan. When the Slann of the First Spawning died out, the Second Spawning took the role of leadership among the Lizardmen.

A ghoul hound is a war or wild dog which has been killed and partially eaten by either ghouls or other ghoul hounds. It is now undead, and may be found with as part of a pack of ghoul hounds either alone (65%), or accompanying ghouls (30%) or ghasts (5%). Its attack is a vicious bite. On an attack roll of 20 the ghoul hound has latched on to its victim’s throat and will rake with its back legs for 1d6/1d6 damage if hits are scored. It has all of the abilities and weaknesses of a ghoul, and is turned as a ghoul. The animal mind the beast had while living has been replaced with undead cunning, although ghoul hounds have no language save that they understand the speech (such as it is) of ghouls, and a smattering of those common commands they knew in life.

Slann of the Second Spawning are still alive, and they rule from the largest pyramid cities. Slann of the Third Spawning are a thousand years younger then the Second, and rule the smaller cities of the Lizardmen empire. The Slann of the Fourth Spawning serve as generals of the armies and as administrators in the pyramid cities. Slann of the Fifth Spawning are the youngest of all Slann, but still lived before the rise of the Elfs and Dwarfs.

Ghoul dogs hate druids and elves (perhaps because the latter are immune to paralysis) and will attack them in preference to other foes. Dogs (and possibly wolves) killed by a ghoul hound will rise as ghoul hounds if not properly interred.

Though the Slann do not have a cast system there are rivalries based on a Slann’s regional location. Slann from the four main cities (Tlaxtlan, Xlanhuapec, Itza and Hexoutl) consider themselves the most important in Lustria, and they are always obeyed. Among the four cities another layer of status exists which is based on the age of the city. Xlanhuapec was the first city that the Old Ones and the Old Slann built, thus the Slann of this city see themselves as the most important. Followed next in the social order is Hexoutl, Tlaxtlan and Itza.

There are dark whispers of “Ghoul Wargs”, but none has ever been reported (at least by any witness who lived to tell the tale). (Submitted by John Middleton)

Only the Slann of the Fifth and Fourth Spawning speak, so they act as the go-betweens for the older Slann and the Lizardmen. The older Slann rarely speak and they spend much of their time either in mediation or telepathically communicating with their fellow Slann in other cities. Slann are also able to tap the ley lines that encompass the globe. By doing this they can create a gate and send troops to anywhere a nexus

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22 April, 2009

point exists. There are limits to this. Only Slann of the Second Spawning can create gates, and it takes weeks for the Slann to mentally prepare themselves. Once ready, the Slann can send up to ten Lizardmen through the gate before it closes.

consolidated into four temple cities. The ruins that dot the jungles of Lustria exemplify this decline.

I sit and you ask what I think. I am Lord Frup. It was I who helped build this city, and it was I who emerged from the pools first. You want my thoughts on the Old Ones creations? Listen young one and learn.

It is this decline that has led some of the Slann to tolerate the younger races on their shores. Lord Tepec-Inzi of Hexoutl has embraced the younger races and has worked closely with them. Trade has renewed Hexoutl as well as the influx of new ideas from the Norse. Lord Tepec still views the Norse as children, but he recognizes the good they have brought to the city and to the isthmus.

Elfs were the first creation and though long-lived, their power is but a ripple in the Great World Pond when compared to the Slann. They have an ancient history, but when compared to ours, it is brief. They are children, but with guidance they can live up to their potential. They are the first line of defense against Chaos and their magic, though trivial compared to ours, will be needed in times of

No matter how open Hexoutl is with the Humans, there are still Slann who steadfastly refuse to allow the intruders on their shores. They see the younger races as a threat to the downfall of the Slann. In fact, in Tlaztlan there is a passage in The Great World Plan that reads: “The young races will wash up on the shores and where they walk they will leave destruction in their wake.” This has led some of the Slann to argue that the young ones are a threat and must be removed from the land.

troubles.

Hexoutl argues that since the passage is not contained on any other plaque, the statement might be a mistake. The debate rages on and the have gained Humans gain a deeper foothold on the land.

Dwarfs are the warriors and the Old Ones created them to be the backbone in the fight against Chaos. They are strong, they are unwavering, and their single-minded pursuit of their goals is unrivaled. Still this single-mindness leads to their undoing, as well as down the road to their doom.

Slann of the Fifth Spawning M

Humans, like the green monkey of the Lambaba River Valley, are curious. It is this curiosity that leads them to their doom. Malleable, weak and less imaginative, Humans are the race of Young Ones most tainted by Chaos. This corruption makes them more volatile and less predictable. Although, the Old Ones’ design for their stock never came to fruition, they do serve a purpose: it is the fate of their race to be the impediment in the path of Chaos while serving as allies to the Elfs and dwarfs. The success or failure of the short-lived Humans in fulfilling this role will determine the fate of the world.

WS

Slann dress in simple robes and decorate themselves with objects created from gold and gems. These objects are simple and show the Slann’s spawning and prominence in the society. Slann, when not meditating also enjoy eating. It takes a lot of energy to maintain telepathic contact, and to maintain this energy Slann eat a lot. Slann are carnivorous and eat large quantities of insects, birds and small mammals. It does not matter if the food is cooked, or even dead as many Slann eat their food while it is still living.

4

BS S T W I

57 17 4 4

Table 1: Slann Magic Points 4d4+4 Magic Points/level

17

The Slann and the Lizardmen are a society in decline. The years of war with the Skaven and raids by the Dark Elfs have taken a toll. Added to this is the fact that no new Slann have been spawned since the time of the Old Ones putting the race in jeopardy. The number of temple cities has decreased due not only to war, but also with the older Slann passing away. This leaves less Slann to take leadership roles so power has been

20 A Dex

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22 April, 2009

Ld

4

Int

23

Cl

30

WP

A

Fel

Dex

3

Ld

10

Int

43

Cl

65

WP

60

Fel

60

4

12

10

Alignment: Neutral

43

Psychology: Slann are cold blooded and as a result are immune to fear and terror.

75 70

Special Rules: Know all Petty and 1st level spells of any type; see Table 1 for magic points.

70

Slann of the Fourth Spawning

12 M

Alignment: Neutral

WS

Psychology: Slann are cold blooded and as a result are immune to fear and terror.

BS S

Special Rules: Know all Petty, 1st and 2nd level spells of any type; see Table 1 for magic points.

T

Slann of the Third Spawning

W

M

I

WS

3

BS

49

S

33

T

6

W

6

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22 April, 2009

I

WS

2

BS

41

S

34

T

6

W

5

I

50

1

6

33

A

49

Dex

6

Ld

5

Int

47

Cl

60

WP

A

Fel

Dex

6

Ld

10

Int

66

Cl

85

WP

80

Fel

80

10

10

89

Alignment: Neutral

89

Psychology: Slann are cold blooded and as a result are immune to fear and terror.

95 90

Special Rules: Know all Petty, 1st and 2nd level spells of any type; see Table 1 for magic points.

90

Slann of the Second Spawning

10 M

Alignment: Neutral

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Psychology: Slann are cold blooded and as a result are immune to fear and terror. Special Rules: Know all Petty, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spells of any type; see Table 1 for magic points. Posted in Games, thoughts Tagged: Games, Lost Works, Lustria, thoughts, Warhammer FRP

This issue contains posts from between Apr 21, 2009 07:08a.m. and Apr 22, 2009 03:08a.m.. Visit the Rogues on the web: http://www.rogue-games.net

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