Yearly Archives: 2022

The Shunned Cairns

A narrow band of craggy rocks breaks through the semiarid plain to form the foothills of the northern mountains. Scattered throughout, heaps of lose stones appear to have been piled high by giant hands.

Tender grasses and thorny scrub brush push up between rocks. Orb-weaver spiders stretch webs between the brush. Feral goats, escaped from plains herders, crop the grasses to the root and trim the lower leaves of the thick-branched lentisk trees that block passage through narrow ravines.

Location: One hex northwest of the base town (Base 2 on the Outdoor Survival map).

Points of Interest

Old Track

An old cart track runs northwest out of town. Apart from the Radiant Host, which patrols the border of the Shunned Cairns, few tread its path.

Stela

About three miles from town, a granite stela rises above a briar thicket in the middle of the track. The brush is cleared away from the stela’s near side coming from town. Breaking through the thicket, PCs may examine the other sides.

  • South: Interdiction
  • West: History
  • North: Sigil
  • East: Commemoration

Traces in the dust circumvent the thicket to rejoin the track opposite the stela.

Interdiction

On the stela’s near side, the nomarch’s seal is carved above an epigraph in the glyphic script of the common language:

FORBIDDEN
NONE SHALL PASS BEYOND THIS MARK

Below the inscription is engraved the Resplendent Medallion, the Great Seal of the Sun King, which lends the weight of the monarch’s authority to the nomarch’s edict.

History

IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF HIS REIGN THE SUN KING AKHOTAHN CAME FORTH AT THE HEAD OF THE RADIANT HOST

THE SUN KING ANNIHILATED AN EVIL CULT IN A WAR THAT LASTED THREE MOONS

THE SUN KING LAID LOW THOSE WHO DREAM

NINE HUNDRED MERCENARIES WHO FOUGHT FOR THE CULT WERE CAPTURED AND BEHEADED

ALL OTHERS WERE OUTLAWED

THE SOLAR GODDESS SHINES FOREVER ON THE SUN KING

Sigil

Facing the Shunned Cairns, the stela’s north side bares a symbol in the form of an open eye beneath an inscription:

NO DREAMER SHALL APPROACH

Detect magic reveals the eye to have an aura of protection.

Commemoration

THE SUN KING RELINQUISHES TO THE WEIGHER OF HEARTS THOSE WARRIORS OF THE RADIANT HOST FALLEN IN BATTLE

THE SUN KING HONORS THE ARDENT CHAMPION MENTUROC AND THE NINE COMPANIONS WHO FELL IN THE STORMING OF THE INNER REDOUBT

Outlaw Hideouts

A band of outlaws scrounges a living within the Shunned Cairns. The outlaws move frequently, holing up in numerous remote locations. They hunt feral goats and raid demi-human trading caravans, who travel to and from the town and the Deep Halls.

Faneforlorn

Where the Shunned Cairns climb into the mountains, a stonework barbican projects from the base of a cliff. Behind it, a dwarf clan carved homes from a series of natural caves and set up workshops in the larger caverns. Over the centuries of their habitation, the dwarves have left no surface unchiseled, for they are skilled stonemasons and sculptors. The dwarves sometimes take commissions for work in the town, but they are hesitant to interact with the human community. The clan symbol and maker’s mark is the silhouette of a step pyramid.

The Deep Halls

A couple miles after the stela, the track leads by a dark opening in a hillside. This is the main entrance to the Deep Halls (Level 2A). Atop the hill, about 200 yards west, is a secondary entrance (Level 1B).

Upstream Egress

A half mile southeast of the Deep Halls is a narrow gorge. One side suffered a landslide some long time ago. Obstructed by the escarpment, where a tangled copse of lentisk trees now hold the scree, a narrow tunnel winds down to the subterranean river that flows into the Deep Halls. The exit is not discernible from the exterior. It must first be dug out from the inside.

Wilderness Encounters

On or off the track within the Shunned Cairns, roll a 6-sided dice in the morning and the evening. A 6 result indicates a wilderness encounter. The Radiant Host, marked with an asterisk (*), is encountered only on the town side of the stela.

Wilderness Encounter Table: The Shunned Cairns, Track (2d4)
2 Dwarves (3-18)
3 Radiant Host (20)*
4 Elves (2-12)
5 Outlaws (4-16)
6 Gnomes (6-36)
7 Gnolls (2-12)
8 Trolls (1-2)
Wilderness Encounter Table: The Shunned Cairns, Off-Track (2d4)
2 Outlaw hideout, occupied (60)
3 Outlaw hideout, unoccupied
4 Outlaws, hunting party (3-12)
5 Giant Centipedes (2-5)
6 Cockatrice (1)
7 Gnolls (2-12)
8 Trolls (1-2)

Dwarves:1

  • Stonemason work crew from Faneforlorn.
  • Avoid contact with humans.

Radiant Host:

  • Patrol of soldiers (chain mail and sword) led by a warrior (2nd-level fighter).
  • Patrol does not go beyond the stela.
  • Leader warns any citizens (all humans are citizens) headed toward the Shunned Cairns that entry into the territory is forbidden.
  • Penalty is one year of indentured servitude.
  • Patrol arrests any citizens coming out of the Cairns and takes them before the nomarch.

Elves:1

  • Reconnaissance patrol from elf-land (northeastern forest).
  • Elves monitor activity in the Shunned Cairns.
  • Parley with travelers to discover news.

Gnomes:1

  • Trading caravan from the northern mountains, pushing carts, makes stops at the Deep Halls and the town.
  • One cart for every six gnomes.
  • All wear chain mail, armed with light crossbow and war hammer.
  • Leader 2nd to 7th level.
  • These gnomes are metal smiths.
  • All goods (fine metalworks and jewelry) are hidden and trapped.

Gnolls:

  • Attack any party using hit and run tactics.

Trolls:

  • Hunt on the trail when hungry.

Outlaws:

  • Treat as bandits.
  • Raiding party:
    • Attacks weaker, treasure laden parties, from ambush.
    • Otherwise, surveys from hidden position.
  • Hunting party:
    • Avoids confrontation.
    • If party carries wealth, outlaws survey movement while reinforcements arrive.

Outlaw Hideout:

  • Outlaws move frequently, staying not more than 10 days in a place.
  • Move hideout whenever discovered.
  • Take care to remove evidence of occupation when leaving.
  • Occupied:
    • 60 bandits.
    • Plus 15 non-combatant females and 25 children (100 total).
    • Live under rocky overhangs and in temporary, make-shift tents.
    • Make small cooking fires in pits.
  • Unoccupied:
    • 1 in 6 chance to discover a discarded burnt branch, other burn mark, or forgotten bit of human detritus.
    • Otherwise, only evidence of occupation is small fire pits covered by stones.
Stela - The Shunned Cairns
Stela on the Old Cart Track into the Shunned Cairns.

1 I am considering ancient Near Eastern variants for demi-humans. They may not stray far from their special abilities given in Holmes, but their culture and appearance should not be medieval European.

Pandemonium Society House Rules

This is the third of a continuing series of articles called Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules. Previous articles:

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

The following text is from L’avant garde #32 (August 1980). In transcribing, I fix spelling and punctuation errors, but I leave grammar as is.

Pandemonium Society House Rules

by Phenster

I was talking to Ivanhoe at the Game Hoard one day. I invited him and the other big kids from the store to join the Pandemonium Society and play D&D with us. He asked me, "What version do you play?" I said, "What do you mean? We play D&D," and I showed him the rulebook. He said, "Basic is for kids. We play Advanced D&D. It's more sophisticated."

I didn't know what he meant by that. Then he showed me the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks. There's three of them and they have hard covers with colored pictures on the front. The rules look more complicated than ours do, but more sophisticated I don't know about.

In the Pandemonium Society, we only have one D&D book. It has 46 pages and a soft cover. And we use some extra rules too. Hazard calls them "house rules." We make up house rules when we need them, and sometimes we write them down. That makes our game plenty sophisticated. I'll give you some examples.

The rulebook says all weapons roll a 6-sided die for damage. That's nonsense though, because some weapons are heavier than others. So, we say that the light weapons do one less damage point and the heavy weapons do one more point. Some weapons that are extra-heavy, like a two-handed sword, do TWO more points.

Another thing it says in the rulebook is that some weapons go more or less times in a round. That's hard to keep track of, and a weapon that doesn't get to attack in a round is pretty useless. So everybody wanted to fight with a dagger, except Beowulf. That's his campaign name, but we like to call him "the Bully," because he's always getting into fights. When Beowulf the Bully gets into a fight, he likes to use a two-handed sword, so we figured out another way to do it.

We play it where all the weapons only go once per round, except the heavy crossbows, which shoot every other round, so they're still pretty useless. But if your crossbow is already loaded, you can fire it fast, so you shoot first, but only for that go. Both crossbows always shoot last in the round. After bows are fired, if you don't move or do anything else, you can fire again at the end of the round.

Daggers always go last on the first round when you're fighting something. After that, they go first. Two-handed swords, et. al., always go last in the round, unless it's also a long weapon. Long weapons, like pole arms and two-handed swords, go first when closing to hand-to-hand combat, then they go last after that. So, when Beowulf is charging into a horde of orcs with his two-handed sword, he gets the first blow against the first orc that's fighting with an axe. But after that he goes last, until he wins the fight and goes to fight another orc.

Starting with this issue and sporadically throughout the next years, L’avant garde printed a series of articles, under the byline Phenster, describing various house rules used by the Pandemonium Society of Neighborhood Dungeons and Dragons Players.

In Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules, I reprint parts of Phenster’s articles, reedit the house rules into a form more comprehensible to the modern reader, and discuss certain points I find interesting.

Coming Up…

Forthcoming articles in Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules:

The Sign of the Oneiromancer

Urgent cries in distant dark. Dying echoes, fading into empty space. A spark—a flash of light, flickering orange. Columns rise high above, stabbing gloomy shade. Tunnels twisting out of sight.

Stumbling, lost, behind lumbering figures, purple-cloaked. Under arch, stepping down. Between close walls, beneath heavy vault, cauldrons crouch on red coals. Chanting priests raise green goblets to a shadowed image. All eyes are closed…

Many are troubled by such nightmares. Some wake, seeking respite. Some lie yet in fitful sleep. Those who talk about them report the nightmares always end with a vision of the Sign of the Oneiromancer.

—Boxed text reprised from “Dreaming Amon-Gorloth.”

The Sign of the Oneiromancer

A glyph in the form of two diamonds, one inside the other, marks the entrance to this public house. Until recently, it was a quiet establishment, doing enough business but not over crowded. Since the nightmares began, townsfolk come here, seeking solace. They share their dreams and quench their fears in barley beer. Some stay through the night, when they can’t bear to surrender consciousness to the horror.

The Sign of the Oneiromancer is an inn, where adventurers can rest between expeditions. In its upper rooms, characters may sleep in relative comfort and safety. In its ground floor entertainment hall, they may restore themselves, meet prospective hirelings, and gather and spread rumors, true or false, about the nearby dungeon.

The Sign of the Oneiromancer
 

Oil lamps cast a yellow glow in the long, low hall. Wooden rafters support mud brick construction. Plaster walls bare painted scenes of the Solar Goddess on one side and the Sun King on the other. The warm, still air is filled with scents of citrus and flowers and fresh baked bread.

Patrons crowd around low tables, sitting on floor cushions. Some, in pairs or groups, play games: senet, mehen, and hounds and jackals.

Others share a meal. They eat with their fingers: grilled fowl, glistening with grease, roasted vegetables and green scallions, and date cakes drenched in honey. With long knives, they cut thick slices from hot loaves of wheat bread. They drink beer from ceramic cups and talk in subdued tones and close whispers.

At the hall’s far end, a harpist plucks a languid tune. A trio of dancers bestows lily flower collars to new comers and offers a dance in exchange for coin.

Background

At campaign start, player characters who live in town, or who have spent a night there, are troubled by the nightmares. All PCs are familiar with the Myth of Amon-Gorloth, and they are aware of the following legend. In addition, each PC might begin play knowing one rumor from the table below. Otherwise, rumors may be learned through interaction with townsfolk.

Legend of the Dreaming Priests

Long ago, evil cultists, called the “dreaming priests,” built a dungeon in the Shunned Cairns. The dungeon is known as the Deep Halls, and within its depths, they sought to revive a long dead god, until the Sun King’s Radiant Host destroyed the cult. Details of the story are lost to history, for to talk about the priests is to wake them from dream.

Rumors

The following rumors circulate in town and especially at the Sign of the Oneiromancer. Some of them are true.

Rumor Table (d12)
1. Some folks don’t talk about it, but everyone in town is having these dark dreams.
2. An old track leading northwest into the Shunned Cairns goes to the Deep Halls.
3. The Deep Halls are like a maze: once you get in, you can’t get out.
4. Getting out of the Deep Halls is easy; just keep right.
5. The Radiant Host vanquished the dreaming priests in a war a hundred years ago.
6. Since the war, it is forbidden by the Sun King’s decree to enter the Shunned Cairns.
7. Now the dreaming priests have come back as walking dead.
8. In the Deep Halls, the ever-flowing waters of a fountain shrine to the Solar Goddess heal the wounded and cure the sick.
9. Demi-humans are known to traverse the Shunned Cairns.
10. A dreaming priest once wielded a powerful magic staff, but after he was defeated, the staff was never found.
11. An old hag, hunched and grumbling, is sometimes seen hobbling along the streets at night on a cane.
12. Outlaws in the Shunned Cairns waylay travelers and raid unguarded sites.

The Postlethwaite Collection

Some months ago, I helped a friend move. Kevin bought the new house from the children of the previous owner, who passed away. Our first job was to clear out some things they left behind.

There was a big cardboard box in the attic. It was full of old comic books and magazines. The magazines were National Geographic and Elle, the comics DC. Kevin knows something about comic books, so we left the box. He would sort through it later.

Recently, he invited me over. He said he found some things at the bottom of the box that I might know what to do with. He showed me a stack of pages folded in half. The paper was yellowed. The typewritten text was photocopied. Tiny holes and tears on the open edges suggested they were stapled together. A hand-drawn banner across the top read “L’avant guard” next to a figure with rifle in uniform complete with epaulets and bicorne headdress.

I said, “Wow! These are a wargaming group’s old newsletters.”

He said, “Yeah, do you want them?”

 

L’avant garde was the “Newsletter of the East Middleton Wargamers Association.” The association’s address shows Middleton, Kansas. The recipient’s address box names the subscriber as Andrew J. Postlethwaite of Batesville, AR. Kevin’s new house is not in Arkansas, and he tells me the previous owners were named Thompson.

I said, “Wow! These are a wargaming group’s old newsletters.”

He said, “Yeah, do you want them?”

What I call the Postlethwaite collection counts 43 issues of L’avant garde plus a half dozen numbers of Paradigm Lost, an excerpt from whose first issue I cite in “The Pandemonium Society.”

L’avant garde usually runs between 20 and 30 pages. The front page displays the banner at top and contains a letter from the editor and sometimes a contents table. The back page reproduces the banner on the top half and shows the sender and recipient addresses on the bottom half. Folded and stapled, it makes a mailable package.

Each issue is numbered, most are dated by the month and year. A few numbers are missing—I presume lost or the subscription lapsed. One number is repeated in a later issue.

The newsletter was published at irregular intervals, the longest between October 1970 and March 1972. The earliest I have is issue #3, dated July 1967. The latest is #78, [no month] 1986.

The contents are standard wargame fare: battle reports; game rules; reviews of games, game books, game magazines, and miniature figurines; gamer classifieds: game dates, players seeking games, used games for sale or trade; and ads for games sponsored by the Game Hoard, a local shop.

Early issues are all wargames, mostly Napoleon-era. The first reference to fantasy comes in 1969, and in March 1974 the first mention of D&D appears. In the next year or so, D&D articles are sparse, but “fantasy wargaming” takes up more and more space as issues go by. A 1978 letter from the editor states the goal to maintain “a 50/50 balance between fantasy adventure and historical wargaming.”

Paradigm Lost apes L’avant garde’s layout. Its page count varies wildly from six to 44 pages. Its contents, notably more juvenile, are strictly D&D.

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

The Myth of Amon-Gorloth

In “Channeling Amon-Gorloth,” we took a first look at what we can divine from the map god’s text. Now, I want to mine the sleeping god’s name for clues to its mythology. Here we deconstruct the name, and drawing inspiration from the constituent parts, we make the myth.

Deconstructing Amon-Gorloth

Amon, from Egyptian mythology, is god of air, fertility, and the creative spark. The name means “invisible” or “the hidden one.” Amon began as a tutelary god, protecting a city and its region. The Egyptian Amon later merged with Ra to become Amon-Ra, chief god of the pantheon.1, 2, 3

Gor appears in ancient Armenia and India. According to baby name websites, Gor has various meanings: “shout, attack, word,” “proud,” and “wild ass, grave, desert.”4, 5, 6

Loth, in English, is another spelling of loath, which means “reluctant.” It comes from an Old English word for “hateful.”7, 8

The Myth

The following myth is commonly known among all people. The text is vulnerable to a redraft, but the essential is there.

Amon

In the time before Gor united the peoples who lived by the Great River, the Hidden One moved across the land. The god came to a river’s edge, where grew the papyrus grass. It breathed upon the surface of the waters and so held the Great River in its bed.

To the people there the Hidden One spoke: “You shall build here beside Ankhet’s waters a city. You will till the soil and reap the harvest. You will have many children, and your children’s children and their children after them will be prosperous. The city will be called House of Amon, and Amon shall be your god.

And so it was that the city named Amwan, which means “House of Amon,” grew. Amwan’s people worshiped Amon as their god. With its breath, Amon held Ankhet, the Great River, in its bed and brought the rains but kept the floods away. Amon bestowed upon the people the creative spark, and Amwan became a great producer of crafts, arts, and engineering, and so was prosperous. From among the clans, Amon chose a line of kings. The kings worshiped Amon, and Amwan became a powerful city-state.

Gor

Then came Gor. Returning from long travels, the hero-mage, heir to the throne, entered the city riding an ass.9 When Gor came into the kingship, he sought ever greater power. He united the peoples who lived either side of the Great River and up and down its length. The whole land became known as Amwan.

Amon-Gor

Gor became the most powerful king the land had ever known, but he was filled with pride. He wanted more. Leaving the city one day, Gor entered the wilderness. After forty days, Amon found him among the brambles and brush grass.

The god addressed the hero-mage. “Why do you seek me in the wilderness?”

Gor said, “Make me a god and let me live in your House.”

But the god refused, saying, “These things are not for the vessel of man.”

Gor replied, “Then I will destroy you and take your place in the House of Amon.”

And the hero-mage and the Hidden One fought. Gor shouted a word of power that would have destroyed the god, but Amon poured its spirit into Gor’s body. Thereby, the god lived in the vessel of man.

But a man’s life force was not sufficient to sustain the god. Weakened, Amon-Gor rested, falling into slumber.

When the people discovered Gor’s body in the wilderness, limp as though without life, they mourned his death and buried him in the mausoleums of his forefathers.

When the Great River dried up the next year and flooded the year after, the people of Amwan knew their god had deserted them. The Great River Ankhet left its bed and no longer flowed by the city-state that was once the House of Amon. The people departed, and the city fell to ruin.

Amon-Gorloth

Now, the people worship the Solar Goddess. The Amwan is ruled from Irthmalq, the great city-state whose name means “Throne of the Sun King.” The Sun King embodies the Goddess’s divine power, and he is ever vigilant.

For while Amon-Gor slept, it appeared to Amon’s priests in their dreams. These priests formed a cult, who now seek to wake the sleeping god, whom they call Amon-Gorloth, which means “the Hidden One, Word of Power, the Loathe,” for the god is reluctant to wake from its dreams.

The priests now lie in the mausoleums where sleeps the dreaming god. Through dark magic, they channel Amon-Gorloth’s dreams and restore its power. When wakened, Amon-Gorloth shall make terrible war on the Solar Goddess.

The Amwan - Outdoor Survival Map Board
“The Amwan,” Land of the House of Amon.
Map from Outdoor Survival. Scale five miles to the hex.
The ancient city-state Amwan lies in ruins within the central forest (Base 5). The Sun King resides at Irthmalq, the city-state on the banks of the Great River Ankhet (Base 3). The other bases are town-sized capitals of subordinate regions, called nomes, each governed by a nomarch, who is appointed by the king. The campaign begins in [yet unnamed town] (Base 2). In the adjacent hex northwest, the dreaming priests constructed the twisted halls, of which the cyclopean original is somewhere in the Valley of Kings, the central desert region.

Notes 1 through 8 are tertiary sources found on the web. Though uncertain, they are good enough for our game purpose. I cite them for easy reference.

1 Amun on GodChecker

2 Ra on GodChecker

3 Amun-Ra on GodChecker

4 Gor on Behind the Name

5 Gor on the Bump

6 Gor on Mom Junction

7 Loth on Merriam-Webster

8 Loth on Wiktionary

9 Buried in the myth, though not lost in the campaign setting, Gor is credited with the domestication of the ass. Using pack animals instead of human labor (possibly slaves) to carry trade goods is more efficient, both less expensive and with a greater range. Here “riding an ass” implies that Gor united the land of Amwan, not by conquest but through trade. Compare Narmer.

The Pandemonium Society

I have discovered a treasure—all in my mind. A treasure no less.

Welcome to PARADIGM LOST

My name is Phenster. Least that's my campaign name. Me and the kids in my neighborhood play a game called "Dungeons and Dragons." In a game of D&D, we pretend to be heroes and wizards, and we go on perilous adventures in a fantastic world of dangerous dungeons. The dungeons are filled with terrible monsters that guard fabulous treasures. We explore the dungeons, slay the monsters, and take the treasures. It's like a game of make-believe, but with paper and pencil and dice.

All our adventures together make a campaign. We all made up campaign names that we use for our heroes and wizards. There are about 20 of us who play, so we made a club. Not everyone always shows up for games at the same time, but sometimes there are quite a lot of us.

One time, Hazard--that's his campaign name--invited all of us over to his house to play. It was a cold and rainy Saturday, and almost everyone was there. The kitchen was full of kids. We had to sit two to a chair, and some kids were standing up or sitting on the countertops. We were all talking and laughing, because there's a lot of talking and laughing when we play this game, and sometimes shouting and swearing, too. Hazard's mom came in and said, "What's all the pandemonium?" We all got quiet and jumped down from countertops and sat straight in our chairs. She said we were behaving like little demons and told us not to swear. Then she took a jar down from on top of the fridge and gave us all cookies. Homemade chocolate chip, my favorite.

After that, we named our club "The Pandemonium Society of Neighborhood Dungeons and Dragons Players." This is the first issue of our newsletter. There's one of Hazard's dungeons and a story about our adventure in it, so you can see what it's like. If you want to play with us, you can join our club and make up a campaign name. Call Hazard: [redacted], after school but not at dinner time.

—from Paradigm Lost, the Pandemonium Society Newsletter, #1 (April 1980)

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and D&D are registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. Use of these trademarks is not a challenge to the trademark and does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by Wizards of the Coast or its parent company.

Weird, Complicated—Accessible: Seven Years in Petal Throne

I only ever saw the box. It was the late ’80s, and I was with a friend, who was a veteran gamer, in a game store—a rare visit to such a wonderland.

The box was among a display of obscure games in a far corner of the shop. The cover art was a colorful map in an ancient style. The colors were blues and reds, yellows and greens.

The map depicted portions of two continents either side a calm sea. The continents were edged in cliffs and sandy beaches. Port cities, fortresses, and temples were drawn in perspective, not the icons I was used to seeing on fantasy maps. Oversize human figures dressed in decorated armor or elaborate garb stood among buildings or sat on them or waded shin-deep in the sea.

My friend came up beside me and followed my gaze.

“What’s that?” I said.

“That’s—” He hesitated. “…An old game. It has a whole world with its own different cultures and languages. It’s kind of weird and complicated.”

“…a whole world with its own different cultures and languages. It’s kind of weird and complicated.”

I picked up the squarish box. Smaller in length and width than D&D’s Basic and Expert Sets, and thinner too, it was heavier than I expected.

I hardly recognized the compass rose in an upper corner, as its four points were marked with curvy glyphs instead of Latin letters. In the lower corner opposite, two figures held an unrolled parchment between them. It read, “Empire of the Petal Throne.” The author was M. A. R. Barker, the copyright date 1975, and the publisher—the only thing I recognized—was Tactical Studies Rules. The spelled out name, already then, signaled a relic from the hoary past.

A small white sticker, rectangular with rounded corners, put the price at $45—far out of my modest reach.

Still admiring the cover, my last question was, “Is it D&D?”

My friend’s response: “Not really.”

I put the box back in its display. We left the shop empty handed.

The image stayed with me though. As did the idea that a fantasy setting could have its own unique cultures—apart from medieval European—as well as languages. And during the 2000s, when I had a salaried job and a mounting interest in old-school games, the 1975 edition of Empire of the Petal Throne did not escape my acquisition.

So when, in 2015, James Maliszewski intoned this popular sentiment, lamented that it was so, and proposed to run a Petal Throne campaign to debunk it, I was in.

Still though, the dense text, sparse black and white drawings, numbered paragraphs, accents hand-drawn into the copy, and names made with awkward syllables stuck together as if they had been speared one by one onto a skewer, like a shish kebab, does not foster comprehension or encourage play.

So when, in 2015, James Maliszewski intoned this popular sentiment, lamented that it was so, and proposed to run a Petal Throne campaign to debunk it, I was in.

House of Worms

Other than one of the initial six players, we were all fresh off the boat, so to speak, on Tékumel, though James did not use the standard barbarians-come-to-Jakálla starting scenario. Instead, the campaign began much like any other. The PCs are Tsolyáni citizens. The campaign is named after the clan to which most player characters belong.

The player with prior experience in the setting is Barry Blatt, who blogs Petal Throne and other RPGs at Expanding Universe. The party looks to his magic-using character, Znayáshu, for guidance. Barry’s expertise has been an assistance to our group of neophytes, though not a crutch. Barry is at times able to expound on the setting’s cultural aspects, saving the GM’s breath, but the details, known to the characters even when the players are ignorant, don’t necessarily save us from any dangers.

Aíthfo hiZnáyu

I generated my character’s personal name using the method Barker describes in a Strategic Review article (Vol. 1, No. 4) “Tsolyáni Names Without Tears.” I cried anyway. The first generated name had five syllables and a comical number of Ss. The lineage name, I chose from a list of families provided by the GM. The prefix “hi,” pronounced hee, translates to “of” in the Tsolyáni language.

Aíthfo is an adventurer (a spell-casting fighter character class of James’s invention). He is motivated by exploration, discovery, and the acquisition of “cash and prizes.” He is most comfortable at the helm of a sailing vessel and in combat.

Travels and Calamities

Over the years, Aíthfo and his clan mates have traveled to the far corners of the planet Tékumel, sometimes of their own accord.

Objects unique to Tékumel are “eyes.” These magically charged devices fit in a palm and are roundish, like a gem, with a stud, which is the trigger, and an aperture, which is the business end. Eyes exist in numerous sorts and of verbose nomenclature. There are, among others, Eyes of Hastening Destiny (which is to say haste) and Being an Unimpeachable Shield Against Foes (invulnerable to weapons), the Splendid Eye of Krá the Mighty (pushes down walls or inflicts six dice of damage), the Terrible Eye of Raging Power (lightning bolt), and the Eye of Creeping Fog of Doom (what it sounds like).

A time early in our careers, in some tight fix and not seeing our way out of it, we decided to test an unidentified eye on our opponents.

Upon finding them, we usually have no idea what they do. A test, by trial and error, is required. But because eyes are so powerful as are their effects diverse, even a trial might go awry. A time early in our careers, in some tight fix and not seeing our way out of it, we decided to test an unidentified eye on our opponents. Instead of destroying the enemy, the Eye of Departing in Safety displaced our entire party to a far corner of the continent in an instant. The return was a picaresque journey across vast deserts and through enemy lands, a veritable sight-seeing tour across Tékumel. Six months passed in the game over about a year of play.

Since then, we have sailed to the Southern Continent, which runs off the edge of the game map, and zipped across the length and breadth of the planet via an ancient underground “tube car” system; we have been to the Battle of Dórmoron Plain, a sort of demi-plane where the gods and their armies fight one another in an eternal war; and we slipped from one time line to another, only once as far as we can tell.

In all our travels, we saved the world from certain destruction a couple times. We may have provoked the destruction once or twice.

Clan Mates

Though our characters began as family, their players were mostly strangers to one another. I suppose it happens faster when the venue is a game table, but after so many years of weekly gatherings with these folks around this small window into a virtual world, where we share co-imagined experiences in a fictional one, we have got to know each other. Though at some distance, we have shared a number of triumphs and tragedies—the best and the worst. I’ve grown to think of the players behind Aíthfo’s clan mates as my own. I am affected by what’s going on in their lives, excited for the good things and concerned for the bad.

Metal-Clad Spell-Casting, Divine Intervention, Resurrection, and Apotheosis

Through Aíthfo, I have experienced a number of iconic moments in fantasy role-playing. The least of which is becoming governor of a remote province, the classic domain ruler.

Aíthfo once cast a spell through the blade of a sword while wearing armor, both metal. When he did not survive, priest and clan mate Keléno called for divine intervention. This failed, but not before sword and armor, both also magical, were sacrificed. The party, far from home, negotiated with a local cult to have him raised from the dead. The deal was that Aíthfo, once raised, would be invested by an aspect of their god. After his raising, he found he could speak the local language and see magical auras. Later, this divine power was sapped to halt the invasion of the planet by a malign deity.

The adventurer was his old self again until recently, when he suffered a critical hit. An attack roll result of 20, in Petal Throne, deals double damage to the target and triggers a second roll. On this roll, a 19 or 20 kills. We count four instances when a party member has defeated an opponent by this rule. Aíthfo was the first of us to be on the other end of it.

For Aíthfo, though, the game is not over. He was returned to life a second time. This time through some divine power, possibly a vestige of the god still within him. We haven’t quite figured that one out yet. Now, he has a heightened sense of military strategy and an unreasonable fear of fish.

It’s about time he begins work on an autobiography. Working title: “The Life and Deaths of Aíthfo hiZnáyu.”

House of Worms Party Portrait
House of Worms Party Portrait.
The cast of original characters: Aíthfo, at top, and from left to right, Znayáshu, Ssúri, Keléno, Grujúng, Jangáiva.
This drawing by Zhu Bajiee appears on the cover of The Excellent Traveling Volume, No. 6. There are so far 13 issues of Maliszewski’s old-school fanzine dedicated to Empire of the Petal Throne.

Anniversary

House of Worms’ numbered sessions are scheduled every Friday. We play when at least four players are in attendance. When not, we usually fill the two-hour period with friendly game chatter.

Being an online game, I get an invitation every week for “House of Worms.” My habit is to respond Yes and delete the message from my inbox. So, every week at game time, when I need the meeting link, I search “in: trash worms.”

This week, we celebrate seven years of the House of Worms campaign. Today’s is session 259. As it is also GMs Day, let me say, James, on behalf of myself and my House of Worms clan mates, thank you for showing us that, while Empire of the Petal Throne remains weird and complicated, it is wonderfully so, and it isn’t as inaccessible as its reputation might lead us to believe.

House of Worms Elsewhere

Grognardia:

Dyson Logos’s reflections on the game and the campaign:

The True Impact of D&D

I am a long-time professor of D&D’s influence on contemporary culture. The thesis, familiar to many of us, begins with the concepts of hit points and experience levels, borrowed from D&D and incorporated into the earliest video games. Where it ends is expressed in eloquent fashion by Jon Peterson at the close of Game Wizards.

Back in 1980, a reporter who asked if D&D was only a passing fad learned that “Gygax and Blume think not. D&D, they say, will last fifty years or more.” As unlikely as it was in the 1970s that this esoteric offshoot of the wargaming hobby might become a pop-culture phenomenon, it is just as unlikely that in 2021 the game would be more popular than ever. As a new generation grows up playing the game, it may be that the true impact of Dungeons & Dragons has yet to be felt.

Jon Peterson’s Triptych
Jon Peterson’s Triptych of D&D History:
Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games, San Diego: Unreason, 2012 [currently out of print]; The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity, Cambridge: MIT, 2020; and Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, Cambridge: MIT, 2021.

Peterson’s work is thorough, well-researched, and written from the historian’s objective perspective in a clear, concise style. Jon Peterson carries the lantern by which we explore the labyrinth of D&D’s obscure past, from its creation throughout its continuing evolution.

Find Jon Peterson’s books and read more about D&D history on his blog at playingattheworld.blogspot.com.

Company of the Blind Seer

“I’m starting with the most deadly dungeon level configuration and an overly generous treasure sequence to see if it’s possible that player characters might survive to reach 2nd level. If it doesn’t work, it won’t take long.”

—from “Dreaming Amon-Gorloth”

After the second foray into the Deep Halls, in which the party descended briefly to Level 4, they hauled out goodly treasure. Four characters advanced to 2nd level. One of those, the party leader, is blind, and two party members did not survive.

The Gygax Tax or Where Does All the Treasure Go

Different methods to reduce excessive wealth are discussed under the heading Wealth Extraction in “Running the Campaign.” Our recent delve yielded sufficient treasure to make an example.

Money Changer

All told, the party ported 7,600 coins of ancient mint—in silver, electrum, and gold—and two bejeweled necklaces out of the dungeon storeroom-cum-den of thieves.

The coins are declared at the town gate and taken to the money changer. Their total value, 3,375 g.p., is taxed 10%. The jewelry, worth 4,000 g.p., is not taxed.

Gygax suggests a 1% import duty on goods, such as jewelry (AD&D DMG, 90), but in the campaign we ignore single-digit percentages. The full value of gems and jewelry may be bartered. The money changer collects a 10% luxury tax should they be sold for coin.

So while experience is calculated from the full gold.jpgece value, the party comes away with 4,000 g.p. in jewelry and 3,038 g.p. in coin of the realm.

Restorative Spells

Hathor-Ra escorts Melqart to the temple. They learn that a cure for blindness requires 16,000 g.p.

Blindness from cobra’s spittle may be healed with a cure serious wounds spell (house rule). With the overly generous treasure stocking method, a restorative spell costs its level squared times 1,000 g.p.

Bank

Melqart, cursing ill luck, and Hathor then proceed to the bank, where they rent a small coffer (10 g.p.) to store the gold and jewelry.

Professional Expenses

From their shares, Hathor-Ra tithes 176 g.p. to the temple, and Melqart joins the Magic-User’s Guild, paying 500 g.p. in annual dues.

Upkeep

Upon receiving experience point awards, each PC immediately pays 1% of earned XP—that is, earned during the adventure, not total—in g.p. for upkeep. This includes room and board. PCs pay upkeep for their hirelings.

I pull this rule from OD&D (Vol. 3, 24). Though beneath our 10% threshold, taking a percentage from earned XP is less tedious than a daily or weekly payment.

Inability to pay one’s upkeep in full indicates a level of impoverishment, reflected in the character’s standing and reputation, i.e. NPC reactions. Failure to pay a hireling’s upkeep provokes an additional loyalty check.

I find upkeep’s impact on town encounters to be worth the effort. If a group feels otherwise, upkeep is easily ignored. In that case, we assume that PCs have in pocket whatever small sums are necessary for daily needs.

Company Charter

After a good night’s rest, Melqart considers the options. He proposes that the party form an adventuring company. The party agrees that Melqart will manage the company, with a hired assistant, until his sight is restored. Thereafter, the manager role will rotate through party members.

Treasure division:

  • All treasure obtained on adventures belongs to the Company.
  • Monetary treasure is divided into shares, which are disbursed by the Company.
  • Adventuring party members earn one share, while the Company Manager earns one-half share.
  • Magic items are distributed to individual members to the Company’s best benefit.

Company Manager responsibilities:

  • Submits to member oversight.
  • Keeps financial records.
  • Directs research in the absence of the party leader.
  • Organizes rescue parties.

The Company pays:

  • Necessary adventuring equipment, including that for hirelings.
  • Hireling advances on share.
  • Restorative magic to heal injuries suffered while on party business.
  • Research, magical or scholarly, conducted for party benefit.

The Company does not pay:

  • Upkeep.
  • Hireling fees or bonuses.
  • Professional expenses (tithes, guild fees, gambling debts).
  • Any other extras.
Cobra Staff
The Spitting Cobra, Melqart’s Last Visual Memory.
With 40 g.p. Melqart commissions an artisan to carve an ornament from acacia wood. It is to be affixed on a staff’s head. The spitting cobra becomes the symbol of the Company of the Blind Seer.

Current Party Composition

The following character records include those for the deceased, three new hirelings, and Melqart’s assistant Ur-Zaruund.

The party is not overly wealthy, I think, for 2nd-level characters. Especially considering that they are essentially 16,000 g.p. in debt to the future restoration of Melqart’s sight.

Melqart

Seer

Blind

Magic-User

2

Neutral

 

17 g.p.

50 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

4,700 XP

Hathor-Ra

Adept

Surviving

Cleric

2

Lawful Good

water walking potion

28 s.p.

533 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

2,999 XP

Penlod

Veteran Medium

Did Not Survive

Elf

1

Chaotic Good

Iltani

Warrior

Surviving

Fighter

2

Neutral

water walking potion

4 g.p.

400 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

3,999 XP

Idan Thyrsus

Apprentice

Did Not Survive

Thief

1

Neutral

Zagros

Warrior

Surviving

Fighter

2

Neutral

 

0 g.p.

481 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

3,999 XP

Astarte

Medium

Surviving

Magic-User

1

Neutral

spell scroll: shield

protection scroll: undead

0 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

Kildigir

Veteran

Surviving

Fighter

1

Lawful Good

 

0 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

Haxamanish

Apprentice

Surviving

Thief

1

Neutral

3 arrows

0 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

Ur-Zaruund

Medium

Surviving

Magic-User

1

Neutral

 

10 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

The Frieze, the Papyrus, the Spitting Cobra

The scene continues from the opening of “Holmes on a Coin’s Weight.”

Melqart and Hathor-Ra loaded treasure. The medium held a sack open at the hem, while the acolyte dumped the contents of an iron coffer into it. Gold coins rattled and clinked, like a stream of metallic pebbles.

Plate-armored Iltani, with sword and shield, stood over a sharper. The thief, bloody hands bound and tethered to an ankle, crouched beside a wall. The charmed harpy fed on three others in the room beyond a door, which was guarded by Zagros, also armor-clad with sword and shield.

The party’s own thief, Idan Thyrsus, lay face down. A dagger protruded from between shoulder blades.

Coins sacked, Melqart and Hathor strung necklaces around their necks, sequestering the jewels beneath robe and tunic.

Iltani, Zagros, and the hobbled sharper would each carry a large sack, Melqart a small. Hathor, otherwise unburdened, would port the corpse of Thyrsus back to base town, where she hired him the previous day.

“Wait,” said Melqart. “Where’s the papyrus?”

Hathor raised her eyebrows. “The oneiromancer said it would be in this room.”

“Maybe here…” Melqart approached the frieze, pushing aside an empty coffer with a foot.

The frieze covered the wall up to fifteen feet high under the barrel-vaulted ceiling. A line of life-size human figures, one foot before another, faced a larger figure, seated on the left. The upright figures were male and female. Males were bare chested, wearing only kilts. Females wore long gowns to the ankle. All were barefoot and held some object in both hands before them: the first a scroll, the second a tall jar, followed by a cornucopia, a jug, a bowl, and so on. The seated figure, male, wore a kilt. Two concentric circles haloed the head. Straight lines, like rays, protruded from the outermost.

Hathor stepped closer with the torch. Melqart felt the relief with fingertips, tracing outlines in smooth alabaster.

“It’s a procession,” said the cleric. “Subjects bring offerings. The king’s halo represents Gor’s double crown.”

“I don’t see any—” Melqart’s fingers slipped over the lip of the tall jar. “What’s this?” He rapped on the jar with a knuckle. It rang hollow.

Melqart gripped the jar by the lip and held it at the base. A tug revealed a crack between jar and relief. Wiggling the jar from side to side, he pulled, and it gave.

“Give me a hand,” said the magic-user.

Hathor lay the torch on the floor. Shadows leapt high up the wall. Together they pulled the jar from the niche and set it down on the floor.

Hathor went for the torch. Melqart stood up to peer inside the jar. From the shadow within, a cobra’s head raised to meet his gaze. Its hood spread, black eyes glinted, and it spat into Melqart’s face.

The medium recoiled with a grunt. Hathor struck out at the snake. The mace came down hard on the jar lip.

The cobra spilled from broken alabaster, coiling its three-foot length. Iltani and Zagros advanced from either side. The serpent soon writhed in two parts.

“Are you well, Melqart?” said Hathor.

Melqart blinked his eyes, opening wide. “I can’t see.”

The blind Melqart and the hobbled sharper in tow, the limp Thyrsus over a shoulder, Hathor-Ra led the party up to the dungeon’s first level. There, she rendered the papyrus, a rolled page with magical writing on it found in the jar, to the witch who called herself an oneiromancer.

Sharpers and Cobra
Sharpers and Cobra.
Sharpers (7th-level thieves) hideout on the dungeon’s 3rd level. A spitting cobra guards a papyrus concealed within an alabaster frieze.