Rule of the Dice

This weeks Saturday Sorcery idea comes form India, the land of a billion gods and kick-ass action flicks . I love India, it is hands down the best place on earth for all things strange and wonderful. I first saw this on the National Geographic Channel and it got stuck in my head. I apologize in advance to any Indian readers who actually know what I'm talking about, and am poorly relating (and embellishing) to others to use in a game. The Cave of Spirits The cave of spirits is a place to imprison malevolent spirits that have been exorcised by a sorcerer or priest. The front is often a temple or magical hermitage, but it's what's hidden in the back of this unassuming place that is of real interest. Down a long hallway is a sealed door that few ever enter or see. This is the door to the cave of spirits. This door is guarded night and day, sealed physically with a very strong lock, and magically with powerful runes and wards. This is not a place that is meant to be disturb...

Hi everyone, my name's Joe, and I'll be tormenting you with inane banter acting as your host this fine day. I suck terribly at writing introductions, so let's just say that I am not an old hand at RPGs, having only found this hobby in the last year or so, meaning much of what I say will be redundant and filled with modern hipster slang such as, 'groovy', 'radical', and 'funky fresh'. Try to keep up, please. Today, I'll talk about something that doesn't get nearly enough coverage so far as I am concerned: Gaming online. No, not World of Warcraft. In fact, I'm not talking about any so-called MMORPG. I'm talking about playing real roleplaying games over the shiny box known as a computer. There are a couple of ways to play, each with advantages and disadvantages. None are quite as satisfying as playing face-to-face and watching the expression on your friend's face turn to one of sheer dread when his character wakes up and discove...

It was the summer of 1992. Super Nintendo was still all the rage, and Final Fantasy II was my favourite game (still is, actually). A bunch of artists from Marvel comics started their own upstart comic company, Image, which featured lousy stories but very pretty pictures. Batman Returns was in the theatres, though it was actually Basic Instinct that my 12-year old self wanted to see. Of course, being 12-years old, I couldn't get in. 1 I was about to go into Junior High, an awkward, pimply, unpopular kid with ugly glasses (why parents let their children wear ugly glasses, I will never know), and spent my afternoons hanging out on my friend's patio. One day, one of my friends (I can't remember if it was Carl or Chris) pulled out these green-lined character sheets covered with arcane runes like "THAC0," "Bend bars/lift gates," "Constitution" and "Save versus Death." The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons logo was featured at the top. ...

This spell idea came from my friend James . We were out on one of our hikes in the woods ruminating over various fantasy and sci-fi related geekiness, when we started on the topic of magic. This was the coolest idea that came out of our long meandering conversation. I am going to try and write it up in fairly generic terms, with an old school D&D slant Shadows to lead Casting Time: 1 round Range: Max 500' Duration: 3 Turns + 1/ 3 levels of the caster Save: Spells or Will or whatever is applicable. Components: The material component for this spell is lead shavings covered in black ink. Description: When cast this spell makes the victims shadow the weight of a giant mass of lead weighing 600lbs + 50lbs per level of the caster. If the victim can actually carry/lift this type of weight the spell acts only as a slow spell. But if the vitim cannot bear the weight they are pulled down to the ground and held there under great duress. The victim must make a strength che...

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson In an old campaign world I created (the one associated with these two maps ) magic was practically non-existent.  The only people who had access to any type of magical powers were despotic theocrats who worshipped an alien and malevolent god. They used their powers to control and corrupt people, and generally acted like a bunch of bad guy douche-bags. But all of this was foreseen by the ancient keepers of the occult traditions. These seers knew that one day their secrets would be needed, but they also understood that their was need of subtlety in their transmission. They decided that rather than perishable forms, such as books and scrolls, they would hide their secrets in nature. So they hid all of their knowledge in an unassuming little plant called Yarapay, there to abide until such time as those who have eyes to see should uncover these ancien...

Seeing that everyone seemed to like the last old map I posted , I figured I'd post another one. This map is actually part of the same world as the previous map. This is the southern part of the world and the other map is the northern part. There is a little evolution in place naming, (not everything is stolen directly from what I was reading at the time) but most of the place names are still pretty cheesy. Click to embiggen This map was created exactly the same way as the other map (hand drawn and painted with watercolours), and made at roughly the same time. I have unfortunately lost most of my notes about this world. What I do remember is that there were psychedelic drugs that granted magical powers and spaceships flown by the evil priests of an alien god. I still love both of those ideas. I have several maps that I've created over the years, I'll add some more to the site over time.

The following two magic items are inspired by supposed real world magic items. I came across descriptions of them in a book called Supernatural England by Eric Maple . It is filled with a metric tonne of macabre weirdness from England's sorted past. A really fun read if you can find a copy. I have written the descriptions in generic terms so that you can figure out the mechanics for whatever your game of choice is. Let the sorcery begin... Wizard Post A wizard post is made from the wood of a sacred tree, etched with runes of warding and blessed under the light of a full moon. The post is then placed, most typically, between the users house and barn. The wizard post protects roughly a 1 mile radius, preventing any curse like spell from being used in that area. It also prevents any otherworldly beings (demon etc...) or undead from entering the radius, although regular monsters can still get through. These items are often highly personalized and are a type of hedge magic ...

So yesterday I was digging around my RPG stuff. I don't have a lot of books or anything, I mainly have an extensive collection of things I've created over the years. Most of what I've written looks like the scrawling of a madman and only makes any coherent sense to me, and the vast majority of my maps and dungeons have unfortunately been lost or destroyed. But then I found this... Click to embiggen I had thought that this map was lost for sure. I made it when I was around seventeen or so, and It's the first real campaign world I ever created. The names are mainly rip-off's from the Forgotten Realms or pseudo-Tolkien in nature, but it was my first real attempt to create a game world of my own. The map itself is hand drawn in ink and coloured in watercolours. My friend James and I played off and on in this world for nearly three years and many of the seeds for my later ideas were first planted here. It's always nice to find something that reminds you why yo...

Since July I have been working very hard at designing a role playing game to go with my campaign world. Don't worry I have no intentions of becoming a serious game designer and only using this blog as marketing tool for my pet projects. I just really want to create a game that's all. But the process of creation has raised a lot of interesting questions for me.  One of the things I've realized is that a lot of newcomers don't know what they are expected to do in a game. Frankly this is something I've never given much thought seeing that most of my players and myself  have been playing for so long that it's just old hat to us. So I started writing out some ideas so new players could get an idea of how to play a game. This, of course is just my opinion but maybe some other people could get some ideas from it. I might also add that these tidbits are most definitely of an old school leaning. The role of the Player The moving force for any role playing campaign...