DMs and NPCs

DMPCs.

Ever seen them? I have seen a number of different types of DMPCs ranging from the DM admitting he is playing his character while he DMs to a super NPC the DM is running just because he thinks the NPC will be an asset to the party.

The first variety of DMPC is probably the rarest nowadays, but is more honest. We used to see them more when we had a semi-rotating DM seat and the current DM didn't want his character losing out on XP or for the party to lose his abilities for the duration of the adventure. My friend Tim McD. used his Dwarven Thief extensively during the campaign he ran when I was in high school. There are still problems with this style of DMPC though. He will consciously or unconsciously favor his PC, while at the same time giving him the benefits of NPC-hood, like not being targeted during most combats because he hangs back like a good specialist NPC.

The second type of DMPC is where they are dishonestly promoting an NPC (or designing one specifically for the purpose) to essentially be their own PC. Usually they do this to fill in a specified niche or a perceived hole in the party. Sometimes they do it for the express purpose of making sure certain story lines get followed. In my experience players universally hate them.

Now, I have had NPCs that filled specific roles, often a party cleric's role has fallen to me as DM. Occasionally party mage, though more often they just make due without. I try not to, but sometimes the party needs a hint because they failed to pick up a bit of information I dropped so I will re-hint using a wise party NPC. I had one campaign where the party had a powerful wizard as a patron and he saved their bacon on more than one occasion. I have also run my own PC as an NPC back during the rotating DM slot days. So, as a DM, I am not completely immune to the very things I am complaining about here.

My problem is the abuses. I have three stories that show the worst examples I have ever witnessed. The first is a story of Tim's DMPC (and occasional PC) the Dwarven Thief Andemon. Andemon, in his NPC guise, was the head of the thieves guild in Specularum, the port town we used as a base of operations in his campaign. Andemon also was the owner of Andemon's Armory, the only place in town where you could purchase magic items, or sell them for that matter. Andemon also was a regular adventuring companion and kind of served as a kind of foreman for the large number of NPC thieves that we regularly took on as our hirelings. The NPC thieves were more loyal to their guildmaster than to their employers. This turned to my distinct disadvantage once.

I brought in a character I usually didn't play in this campaign, but my PC Lodor (an Elven F/M-U) was in need to replenish his fortunes after a failed expedition that nearly bankrupted him in another campaign I played in. Jumping from one DM's campaign to another DM's was fairly common in those days, you just usually had the DM check out your sheet and make sure your PC was compatible with his campaign, by which I mean of course that you were neither an egregious cheater nor coming in from a Monty Haul situation. It was the DM's judgment in those days, no treasure quotas or point buy builds.

Anyway, Lodor had been pretty well screwed over in another campaign and needed to make some money and get some swag, so I asked Tim if it would be OK if I played him the next time he DMed. He said sure and I thought things would be all right. I could not have been more wrong. Lodor had to hock his on valuable thing he had left to finance himself for this expedition. No one had been willing to extend credit to him, despite the fact that I had played with these guys for a couple of years at this point, they didn't know my character. Fair enough. However, I was also subjected to the most racism I have ever seen in a D&D game. I have mentioned before that Tim's campaign was Dwarf heavy and Elf shy based on our limited selection of miniatures. These Dwarves made no bones about the fact that they hated Elves. I have to say I hadn't seen it coming. No one had ever tried to play an Elf in Tim's game previously.

So, to finance getting new armor and weapons and a few basic adventuring supplies, I had to pawn my 97,000 GP value necklace, to the guild master thief so I could buy some gear from his shop at inflated prices. In addition to paying him back the paltry 1500 GP he gave me for the necklace, with interest, I had to give him one pick of my treasure items as payment. As surety for the "loan" he and a few of his guild thieves were going to go adventuring with us, which was not unusual, just bad under the circumstances.

Over the course of the adventure the Dwarves and Thieves in the party made sure I knew they didn't like Elves. One of the other players implied to me that he knew my character wasn't going to make it out of the dungeon alive. I got more and more uncomfortable playing in this game. Then Andemon took me, alone, to go scout away from the rest of the party. We encountered a neo-otyugh while we were separated from the rest. I got the feeling like this was where Andemon was going to make his move, so I made a move first. When he advanced to attack, moving before me due to his higher initiative roll, I retreated and wizard locked the door behind me. I figured if he survived the encounter I would be strong enough to take him out and then blame his death on the dangers of the dungeon and never bring my Elf PC back to this DM's game.

What happened was, he used a ring of dimension door and popped out in the hallway behind me. He then shot me with his repeating crossbow in the back 4 times using bolts poisoned with the most toxic type of contact poison. He was pissed that I had tried to take out his DMPC. He also never admitted that he had been planning to take out my "stupid elf character", although one of the other players admitted that had been the case.

Lodor, eventually, was revived to life by my buddy Darryl C's character Borg only to perish, along with Borg, in the Mines of Bloodstone (module H2). He really should never have been there, but he was still working off his debt to Borg and Elisha for resurrection, re-equipping and new spell books.

But, before you start thinking Darryl is too awesome, the next two examples come from games he ran. They don't get as much detail, because the games were one-shots. The first was a Boot Hill game that he ran for his brother Keith and I. Our Boot Hill games nearly always devolve into us "riding the outlaw trail" so to speak. Keith especially liked brawling in Boot Hill, so their were plenty of saloon brawls and we both like gunfighting and bank robbing in most of our games, but Darryl had a different plan this time. We would be Lawmen. He had us get word that the combined Wild Bunch and James gangs were headed to our town to bob the bank. We deputized as many men as we could and layed an ambush.

That's where things went wrong for us. Darryl made a "special" NPC to help us out against these super-awesome bad guys that were coming our way. I don't remember the guy's name, but Keith and I both hated him. He was a tall skinny guy with a buffalo rifle. He was faster with that long gun than I was with my quick-draw revolver and way more accurate. When the bad guys showed up he could almost have fought them alone. He was a wild west super hero. He never missed and he hit harder, one shot- one kill, every time. He only needed us there so the bad guys would have someone else to shoot at.

When the combat was over the mayor and his men came out to congratulate Mr. Awesome. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for both me and Keith. We opened fire simultaneously, shooting Awesome in the back repeatedly until we were sure he was dead. I think I reloaded and rolled his corpes over so I could empty my revolver into his face too, just to make double sure. Darryl was both pissed and flabbergasted. Then we had to flee town, killing several townsfolk in our attempt to escape and getting grievously wounded in the process. He never understood why we killed that guy.

His other example comes from a Twilight 2000 (1st edition) game he decided to run for us one night. There were like five or six of us and we killed a couple of hours making characters while Darryl read the rules and the introductory adventure for inspiration. None of us was familiar with the rules, the game had just come out. He and I had previously made characters and his dad was going to GM a campaign for us (although we never got much past the first session of that one either).

Anyway, Darryl gives us a situation report and we start heading for Krakow, like we are supposed to. He eventually decides we need to do something besides creep across the landscape from camp to camp and take days gathering supplies to make more ethanol, so he essentially give us a random encounter with a Soviet mechanized company. Our scouts spotted them and they were headed right for us, so we camouflaged our camp as best we could, then set ourselves an ambush in case they spotted us. Our ambushers got spotted piecemeal though and either bugged out or got captured. At this point, in retrospect, I am pretty sure he was just faking it because he didn't understand the combat rules and had kind of backed himself into a corner.

The room full of teenage boys he was GMing for wanted some combat action and he wasn't sure how to deliver. We were all combat monster PCs armed to the teeth, he was trying to bluff us into fleeing so he could convey the idea that we needed to fear contact with the enemy and how dangerous the world was. We could not have cared less. We didn't care about how dangerous the setting was we were bored with searching for junk. All of us were aching to lay down some serious ass-kicking. We had grenade launchers and ATGMs and sniper rifles and machine guns. We craved action. So of course he captured us all using overwhelming force and we got to spend an hour or so of game time as Soviet prisoners. Nothing we did to escape or negotiate our release even started to work before ultimately failing.

At that point I think he realized he had lost us all. So he did the worst thing he could have done under the circumstances. He brought in a super team of allied commandos to rescue us, which was bad enough, but then they took command of our unit because they outranked us too. Shortly after our rescue we realized that they were immune to everything. If a combat broke out they didn't roll any dice, Darryl just described the effects of their actions. My character, a well trained martial artist, got his ass kicked by their team pansy in a fight over some spoils on the battlefield. I maintain that my PC needed the ammo more because I actually expended ammo on to-hit rolls. We all quit playing after that; calling an early night that night. Then we just played Dawn Patrol for the rest of the weekend. Yes, Darryl made a group of teenage boys from the 80's think that Twilight 2000 sucked.

I guess what I am trying to say here, in my typical long-winded conversational style, is that NPCs need to know their place in a party and DMs need to keep them there. Otherwise we get Elminster of Shadowdale or Drizzt Do'Urden showing up and grabbing all the glory. Everyone over a certain age hates the Forgotten Realms and 2nd edition AD&D for just this reason. I don't think that most people play RPGs so they can be second fiddle to some super NPC. Beware the impulse to play a character in your own games. Tim comes off looking pretty bad here and he wasn't usually, the story about him is an exception to how he usually was as a DM. Darryl comes off looking pretty bad too I guess, but both of the stories about him are just the worst examples of how he typically DMed. He was always long on good adventure ideas, but seemed to want to play the starring role himself too.

Today's Mail

I got a couple of things in the mail today.

First is Star Fleet Battles volume III. I previously have never owned this so I am looking forward to checking it out, despite the fact that many SFB fans consider this to be the straw that broke the camel's back rules-wise. I bought it opened but unpunched really cheap on Ebay. It also inexplicably contained the map for the 1981 edition of Federation Space, a game I never owned or played, but I am familiar with it's successor game Federation and Empire, although I never played it either. I'll be perusing the SFB v. III rules tonight if I finish last book of the Soldier's Son trilogy as quick as I think I will.

The other thing that came in the mail was a package containing 2 AD&D books I won cheap on Ebay. One was a copy of the Fiend Folio. I didn't need another copy of the Fiend Folio, but it was in a package deal with the Wilderness Survival Guide. I have never owned or read the Wilderness Survival Guide, or it's counterpart the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide for that matter. By the time TSR was pumping them out I was pretty much done with TSR, first edition anyway; when second edition came along I jumped back on board briefly.

I have heard some bad things about the WSG (and the DSG), but I am looking forward to reading a first edition AD&D book that will be new to me. Plus, both of those books and the SFB boxed set are in absolutely pristine condition. It's like for less than $20.00 (including shipping!) I got a time machine to a mid-1980's gaming experience.

Curiously, now that I am in my forties, I am starting to rebuild and expand upon the gaming library that I had when I was a teenager. I'd like to blame the loss of so much stuff solely on my mom, but I know I had a hand in this too. My nomadic ways in my twenties lost stuff along the way, I sold a bunch of it because I either needed the money, needed the space or just figured I'd never play again. That was short sighted, I knew I'd eventually have kids and those kids would most likely share at least some of the geeky interests of their parents.

A Short Note

I am still somewhat busy here. I have both armor and garb projects going this week so that I can debut Ashli at tournament this weekend and I have got to try to work through the mountain of books I have gotten over the last month or so. Gaming books and fiction and history and other non-fiction. My lady wife Mona is also working on the garb project and painting minis.

Knights and Dragons?

My friend Darryl C's dad, Big Darryl, used to say I went to college and majored in D&D. I'd laugh because he was kind of right. I was a history major with a concentration on the European middle ages and a medieval and renaissance studies minor. Even for my non-concentration courses I kind of cheated the system and took stuff that enhanced my D&D verisimilitude skills, like ancient history courses, anthropology, ancient philosophy and feudal Japan. I didn't actually play a lot of D&D at the time, although for part of the time when I was in college I regularly played in a 2nd edition AD&D game on Sundays.

My time in college did give me a great appreciation for the real medieval period though (and the ancient world) and it made me a little dissatisfied with “standard” D&D campaigns. I started my long period of trying to make my D&D game settings more realistic with regard to customs and cultures and laws. My style of campaign setting has annoyed some players in the past, and my wife has occasionally remarked that my D&D games come with homework assignments for the players. Having said that, my games have pretty much always been popular with a variety of players whether they were short mini-series style campaigns or one-shots or planned as long-running campaign settings. I have run them all, using the TSR 2nd edition HR series, GURPS setting books and my own library as references or just based on my own fairly extensive knowledge.

What I haven't been able to do is run a “real” medieval/feudal setting. I think that it's because that is the default fantasy gaming setting and the default gets too much wrong. When the culture is very different players approach it differently than they do the pseudo-medieval regular D&D setting. Oriental Adventures means that the players have to make the effort to pretend to be Asian (usually feudal Japanese). My Celtic games or my Viking games or my Roman games get the same kind of effort, if not at the same level. You get the same thing with other genres, Star Trek or Star Wars games make the players think and act like characters from their respective universes for instance. For some reason though, it just does not play with a Feudal European setting and I have to blame the tropes of D&D for that.

In a standard D&D world we have all of the expected medievalisms, knights and castles and what-not. But the players play their characters as, more or less, modern people; even when they are a different race. They don't try to alter their mind set for the campaign setting. The player's mind set for the faux-medieval world of D&D is more like the wild west than the middle ages (which is odd when you think about it because wild west games have never been all that successful) or an Indiana Jones movie. There are no social, political or legal ties for most characters, monsters are commonplace rather than fantastic and religion has relatively little significance in everyday life for the average adventurer even when it is ostensibly their job. Yes, I am looking at you Cleric and Druid. Very often standard D&D games remind me of the movie “A Knight's Tale” with Magic and monsters added. This is probably why most D&D games are set on a frontier of civilization I guess.

I don't really know how to fix this, or even if it's a problem for anyone but me. I have occasionally had my players, singly or in groups, ask me to run a “regular” D&D game next time around. I don't hate it either. I have had a great deal of enjoyment from playing in and DM-ing for “standard” or “regular” D&D games. I just think that maybe it could be fun to play D&D in an actual fantasy medieval setting.

The exception to this rule is, almost exclusively, Pendragon; which is of course an entirely different game from D&D, I just felt I needed to acknowledge that it was possible to get modern Americans to think more medievally. I have considered using the Pendragon setting for a D&D campaign, but I go back and forth on that. On the one hand it would very likely work, making the players fall into the proper mind-set and all, but, on the other hand, there is a lot of work to do there to convert and the Arthurian setting isn't exactly what I am looking for.

Dammit! Kind of.

I just realized my son John turns 16 on Sunday. While that is really cool for him, that means no game this Sunday either. Sorry everyone.

On the plus side, my oldest daughter Ashli will be fighting in her first SCA heavy weapons tourney the following Saturday in the dominion of Myrkfaelinn, so that should be fun to report on. I will also be competing. It's a holmgang tourney, so I hope to do well in it. The holmgang format plays to my strengths as I am large and strong and there is not a lot of maneuver room. Thanks Vikings!

In an odd synchronicity, I also authorized and fought my first heavy weapons tourney in the dominion of Myrkfaelinn and they were holding a holmgang that day too. I haven't seen them hold one since then, but I haven't been to every Myrkfaelinn event so I might have missed it.

Legend of the Five Rings

Legend of the five rings RPG. Anyone ever play it? My only knowledge of it is peripheral, I know it is set in the same world as the CCG of the same name and I loathe CCGs. I am also aware that it shares a common world with the Clan War miniature battle game, which I have never played but have bought a number of minis for and I am looking forward to maybe playing if I can find nearby opponents. I have the rule book headed my way from a recent Ebay purchase anyway. The RPG intrigued me because I have always liked Samurai related RPGs; though, except for Oriental Adventures, I have never had a chance to play any. I blame seeing the TV miniseries Shogun as a youth, roughly coinciding with me starting to play D&D.

Now I have to admit I have held what I can only describe as a hateful grudge against the L5R RPG because of the inclusion of Rokugan as the default setting for OA 3.0. I was a big fan of Kara-Tur and the 1st edition OA, 3.0's version was like a slap in the face to loyal OA fans. They altered everything to make it more compatible with L5R's Rokugan, gone were the classes I expected. I also wasn't particularly thrilled with the decision to make the katana just a masterwork bastard sword. That smacked of design laziness to me.

So, while I had been intrigued by the L5R RPG before OA 3.0 came out, I refused to check it out for quite a while. In fact I still haven't really. I have heard though that L5R fans were annoyed with the D20 treatment of their system too, and they made a ton of WotC licensed OA/L5R books that maybe fixed the issues with OA being squeezed into Rokugan but I am certain didn't fix the problem of Rokugan being squeezed into OA.

Opinions on Rokugan and L5R?

Clan Wars

I got a bunch of new minis in the mail today. Most of them were WotC D&D minis I got real cheap on Ebay. I also got a pretty large lot of Clan War minis for a song. I bought them for a couple of reasons.

First, I wanted to use them for my R&R/OA campaign that I will eventually play again. Clan War minis seem like about the only available option for finding specifically Asian/Japanese inspired monsters and supernatural creatures, so I kind of keep my eyes open for deals on them. Are there any other companies that maybe have current lines suitable for my OA campaign? I know TSR never really supported OA with official minis and WotC's support has been anemic at best since they released OA for 3.0.

Second, my wife is a really good miniature painter and I thought I might be able to sell them at a profit on Ebay at some point. I actually already have a large number of Katana wielders prepped for her to paint for just that reason, although I may snag a few for my own collection. I am curious though whether or not anyone still plays Clan Wars or if they'll just be useful as 28mm Samurai units for a historical miniature battle game?

OSR Zeitgeist

Is there some sort of OSR zeitgeist that keeps making other people blog about the same topics I have scheduled, maybe a collective unconscious to the OSR? Seriously, I am feeling a little blog-blocked by the fact that people whose blogs I read keep posting stuff on topics I have been about to post on, it's a little weird. I keep a document open on my desktop, frequently saved, with random gaming thoughts I am having, so that I can explore them in depth later when I have the time; future blogging projects, and they keep appearing in other blogs. Current topics on my list are, among others, initiative in the various editions of D&D I have played and my own house rules regarding it; Clerics in D&D games and heroic vs. roguish characters and campaigns.

In other news, I am going to have little time for blogging this week, 2 out of three of my kids have the week off and have projects they want to do that they need my help with.

Change of Weekend Plans

No Sunday game this week. This means no Monday after-action-report.

Ashli has the Army Reserve this weekend and Lee Ann has to take her nursing boards. Ashli and Victor broke up this week too, so I don't imagine he'll be coming back at all.

I am thinking about playing a board game with the rest of the clan this weekend or maybe introducing them to painting minis. Maybe a little of both. I was thinking Axis & Allies for a board game, it's a step up from the "family" style games in complexity and, in my opinion, fun. Definitely easier than trying to teach them Star Fleet Battles. Besides Ashli is the only one that has shown any interest there.

Both of the other kids have shown interest in painting minis though, and I have all of those new ones that they picked out from MegaMinis. John was a little disappointed with them because he thought they were too small. Scale creep ruined his expectations for what a miniature figure for D&D should be. He said he was worried that it would be too difficult to decently paint something so small.

Fighters, Rangers, Paladins

Also Barbarians and Cavaliers I guess.

I have a few things to say about fighter types, kind of as a counterpoint to my earlier post about Magic-Users.

First off, Fighters and their associated sub-classes are by far the most favored classes in any game I have ever run and most that I have played in. I don't really know why this is but I have a few guesses.

First- I may be subtly encouraging my players to choose fighters simply because they are my favorite class. I am not sure if my games became combat heavy and trap/puzzle light because I find the Fighter stuff to be easier and preferable or if it's because my players chose to mostly play Fighter types. Kind of a chicken/egg issue with both sides tending to evolve towards a more Fighter heavy milieu. In my games people tend to get "stuck" playing the party Cleric or Thief. My increased use of published material may combat this development.

Second- I think most people playing D&D want to be the hero. Our culture supports this in the myths and legends of the past from ancient Greece up through the Arthurian myths, not to mention sword and sorcery stories. There aren't a lot of cultural archetypes for heroic adventuring Wizards, in fact sorcery of any sort is usually at best tolerated and most often actually employed by the antagonists. Remember Merlin was neither a popular guy at court nor a main character. He was essential to the plot, but a secondary character. Morgan LeFey was the bad guy (girl? at least it's an important and fairly well developed female character from the medieval period, there aren't too many of them).

Anyway, my point was- nobody wants to play the supporting cast. Also, the Wizard may ultimately become the most powerful class, but the Fighter has class specific abilities to use in every round of combat right from level one. Take that Wizard (and Cleric and Thief)!

My third point I want to discuss here is the slow degradation of the Fighter. I have a couple of things to say on this topic.

First- In my first experience with D&D (Holmes Basic) there were no sub-classes. You were a Fighter, a Magic-User, a Cleric or a Thief. Yes you had some race options and Elves were multi-classed. First edition AD&D introduced the Ranger and the Paladin (and eventually the Barbarian and the Cavalier) it occurs to me that they were the first kits. Yes, I used the K-word. Kits from 2nd edition were supposed to be just a way of playing the class you chose. They were exactly like all of those unofficial classes they used to have in the Dragon or White Dwarf. So, in my opinion, Paladins and Rangers were just like 2nd edition kits (or 3rd edition prestige classes)

I had a long running 1st Edition AD&D character named Mandark the Barbarian. As soon as Unearthed Arcana came out I had to change his name to Mandark the Wild and my entire character concept, as played for years, was called into question. That irked me. Stupid Barbarian class shows up and now my “barbarian” character is somehow wrong?

In the old books it says that being a Fighter covers everything from being a gladiator to a samurai to a knight, adding Rangers to emulate Aragorn or Paladins for Holger Carlsen (sp?) was maybe a good idea for EGG when one of the guys wanted to hyper-specialize a Fighter but in the long run it meant that every unique character concept was going to have to have it's own class. Honestly that seems to have been the way EGG was headed with the proliferation of classes in post-core 1st edition AD&D.

Unfortunately, that leads to my second point- class ability inflation. Fighters are supposed to be the best fighters, right? I mean it's the name of their class. Thieves get to be the best thieves. Sadly, Fighters don't get to be the best fighters. The early sub-classes are only better under certain circumstances. Paladins are better at fighting evil, Rangers are better versus giant class foes (which quite perversely include some creatures that are much smaller than humans) and both of them have clear restrictions and need more experience points to level up. Still most people wanted to play the sub-class if they got the stats for it and newer stat rolling methods made getting those stats, even without cheating, not too difficult. So the Fighter got an upgrade- weapon specialization. Weapon specialization was originally only for single classed Fighters. That got thrown out pretty quick (read almost immediately), suddenly sub-classes and multi-classed characters both showed up with it in published AD&D materials. Annoying. For Cavaliers they just cloned the ability and gave it a different name when they decided that they weren't a sub-class of Fighter.

I get all ranting about the slow demise of the Fighter class. Every edition tries to make the Fighter be the best fighter and every edition decides to screw it up. This makes me want to just play OD&D, but the rest of the family insists the earliest edition they will play is 1st edition AD&D. To be fair that's the last edition they will play too. They tried OD&D and it was too lethal for their tastes. They tried Cyclopedia D&D and just didn't like the taste.

In other Fighter news, my son John has refused to play his 3rd level Fighter, the highest level character he has ever had, because he wants to play a Ranger instead. I told him he didn't have to play his old character if he didn't want to, but he'd have to roll up a new one and, if he didn't get the stats for it, he couldn't be a Ranger. With that news he picked up his dice and left the table. He turns sixteen later this month. Did I handle that poorly?

Odinbjorn's Tale- another old character post.

I have been a bit busy lately and haven't had much time to create new content or comment on other OSR stuff. So, just to give you, my loyal readers, some "new" content on my blog; I present the second, and possibly last, of my old character posts from my Steppe Warrior days. This one is a little different in that it is more or less an origin story and that it has vikings as the main characters. I hope you all enjoy it, much of it is based on actual play.

Odinbjorn's Tale

Reaving. That was the root of Odinbjorn's problem, as leader of Norway's chief berserker cult it should be considered a right, nay an obligation. King Harald Fine-Hair saw differently though, and had outlawed Odinbjorn and his followers for damaging his peace with the Danes. A friend in residence with the king had sent word that reached the berserk a day or so ahead of the kings' thanes. Outlawed, property forfeit and likely to be slain; Odinbjorn had gathered his followers, household and every portable piece of property and loaded it on his ships bound for Iceland. Of course goods, women and thralls hadn't fit in his raiding fleet, so he had been forced to raid his neighbors steadings for everything that could float. Reaving had been at the root, it was the branch and the tree too. Neighbors had kin and allies, the king had kin and allies; his floating household was hunted all across the whales road. A couple of small skirmishes had lost him some men and goods but so far his luck and the will of Ygg had kept him alive and he had gained more than glory, not that it mattered; gold was for the giving when you were a chief, not the hoarding. The captives had bled their lives out for the great god.

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The storm kicked up somewhere north of the Orkneys from out of a clear blue sky. “By Odin's eye!” the chieftain exclaimed, “Ran seeks to do what all Harald's men could not. By the Farmatyr I swear we'll not drown like rats!”. He ordered his men to ship sails and ride out the storm, as he idly rubbed the ring on his left small finger; such was his wont and habit before a raid and at other stressful moments. Unbeknownst to him, the ring; spawn of Draupnir, given by Odin to the first of his chiefly line; listened and began to glow a faint silvery glow, it would see that Odin's man would not be lost to the wrath of the sea giantess Ran. The All-Father's will would not be thwarted this day.

They rode the storm out for hours. Surprisingly none of the ships was lost, even the smaller, less sea-worthy ones. As darkness fell the Draupnirling had gathered what strength it could while still protecting the small fleet, it made it's move. Odin's will must be fulfilled, this man and his sworn brothers were the servants of Odin; sworn to work his will in Midgard; and throughout the nine worlds. Storm clouds were swept away from the ships. The northern lights burned the sky. The sea grew calm as glass. The air around the ships crackled with electrical charge. An uneasy silence fell among the crews, their households and their beasts. Unbidden Odinbjorn's left arm rose above his head. The ring flashed a bright white and was no more. Men and women, children and beasts were thrown to the decks of their ships. Ships burst forth from the water and when they splashed down the sea was different. So was the sky, the sun shone above them, night had lasted mere minutes.

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Odin's sorcery had saved the fleet from Ran's doom. Of that the chief was certain. Of other things he was not. When night fell for the second time the stars were not as they should have been, their configurations completely wrong. The gothi had no explanation for this, he was as stunned as his men. The night was spent quietly grumbling and listening to the crying of the women and children. The fleet sailed west though the night, the current pushing them slightly to the north. As dawn broke land was sight to the west, a wooded coastline. Odinbjorn decided to put ashore to effect repairs and replenish food supplies. After many days at sea and the sorcery of the previous night both men and beasts could use some time on land. He left his trusted lieutenant Hrolf in charge setting up camp while he led one of the parties of men inland to scout their surroundings.

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A mile or so inland the one of the gothi's men spotted smoke, as from a camp fire. Odinbjorn had his men make ready for battle and silently invoked the All-Father to grant them victory. As they crept up to the encampment the men were met with a very surprising sight, the camp contained not men but some manner of troll-kin; large, fanged, savage looking beasts in the general shape of men, but with a greenish caste to their skin and long greasy black hair. Their camp was strewn about with bones and rotting meat and one of them was counting out of a sack stacks of gold and silver coins. Grimnir had bidden them to Trollheim then. It all made sense now. He and his men would continue Helblindi's work here then, as Midgard was lost to him and his kind.

He and his men reconnoitered the trollish camp, it seemed the had posted no guards or watchmen. The trolls weapons were of crude manufacture, as was what armor they wore. He observed as one of the vile creatures shat right in the camp then kicked it away from itself. He determined their numbers about twice his, but his men were all battle-hardened veterans with surprise on their side; so he shouted the charge and called down the red rage.

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When the skirmish was over the rage faded. Odinbjorn's great axe had been blackened with the foul juice these beasts used for blood. His and his men's work a feast for the ravens. The whole thing had taken perhaps minutes, but the gothi felt drained and weak as a kitten after the rage fled. He sat down his back against a large tree. His well trained men gathered what loot there was, to be taken back to the brotherhood for their chief to dole out. A few more minutes saw spoils gathered, throats slit and the vikings on their way back to their own camp.

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A few more days saw a proper camp springing up along the seashore, with pens for the beasts and tents set up inside a wooden palisade. Scouts had fared inland perhaps a dozen miles and spotted a road and a couple of burned farmsteads, as well as more and different kinds of troll-kin. Odinbjorn supposed they were on the move raiding as the season was good for it. They had captured a few of the smaller troll-kin with orange skins and Odinbjorn had sacrificed them as was fitting. He had also realized this land was more charged with magic than Midgard had been, his chants and rune-castings more powerful than they had ever been. Truly this was the place where the All-Father's work was to be done. The favor of the Aesir was such that wounds, when the proper healing chants were used, could mend before your very eyes. Morale was higher than ever among his men and they grew restless for war.

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The gothi led his war band south down the coast seeking the larger trollish band that was advancing before them. The woods had emptied on to green rolling hills and farmland, though the crops and farmsteads were burnt. A few times they had spotted groups of stragglers or deserters from the trollish host put ashore and put them to the sword so no word of their coming could be given. At last they spied a city in the distance, under siege. It was a port and the trollish army had not attempted to blockade the harbor, so Odinbjorn would sail his sea steeds into the harbor prepared to sack and burn, then attack the trollish host assailing the walls.

Surprise met the vikings yet again as they drew closer to the city, first in the might of the magics being thrown at both sides in the battle- Lightning, great spheres of flaming death, clouds of fog that killed everyone caught in their path and silver-white darts of light that unerringly struck their targets with the force of flaming arrows; second in that the city's defenders were men. Men against trolls and mighty magics, obviously Odin had meant for him and his men to slay trolls here, the men must be allies. He needed to rethink his battle plan, so he ordered the fleet back around to the north and sought the council of his thanes.

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He beached his longships and his drakkar a couple of miles north of the trollish battle line and, leaving a small guard behind, led his men towards the trolls in the pre-dawn darkness. When the sun rose he charged his men in swine array thrusting into the enemy rear, tearing through their camps and supply trains before hitting their battle formations from behind throwing their already only semi-organized horde into further disarray. Hacking their way towards the trollish siege engines, Odinbjorn noticed that the besieged men sent forth a sallying force to reinforce them on their great raid, but it was repulsed by the trollish sorcerers volley of magic. From the southern side of the city a great party of Jotnar appeared and charged through the ranks of troll-kin towards the vikings. Odinbjorn and his men prepared to go to Valhalla in this moment. Odinbjorn's heart sank, he had led his men to their doom. Baleyg's favor is ever fickle and his blessing of victory can be taken back at any moment, the best they could do now was to die well, swords in hand, like men.

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His men being smashed to pulp by the giants all seemed lost; when a great shout of “URRAH” was heard above the din of battle and a great force of horsemen appeared from the west. Arrows rained down into the trollish host ahead of a mass of heavy lancers and swordsmen that carved their way through towards the remaining vikings. Troll-kin and giants alike fell before the advancing horsemen and all at once the morale of the besiegers broke in the face of the relievers. The city was saved as troll-kin and giant alike broke and ran in whichever direction was furthest from foes. The besieging army was routed and Odinbjorn and his vikings saved to continue to do the All-Father's will.

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When they had chased the troll-kin from the field as far as his battle weary men cared to, Odinbjorn sought out the leader of the horsemen. He was not hard to find. Beneath a horse-tailed banner the leader conferred with several of his compatriots. They were a short swarthy bunch for the most part, but their leader was a huge man, swarthy also and top-knotted like the rest; he pointed to and fro with a battle blackened scimitar issuing commands in a language Odinbjorn did not understand. Men of the city also came to the standard of the horse chief and spoke in another language he didn't understand. He spoke in his own Norse tongue to the gathered men. Several attempts were made at communication in a variety of languages between Odinbjorn and the two groups, all of them trying every language they knew; none of them in common, until a sorcerer stepped forward and chanted a spell. At once everything was clear. The horse chief was called Jagatai, and his people Tuigan; he complimented the vikings on their brave stand versus the enemy host. Long had it been since he had been impressed with any infantry on the field of battle. Upon finding out that the Norsemen were refugees from home as well the Khakhan invited them to make camp with his people who had a lack of decent infantry and a lack of homeland here. The lord, Nasher by name, of the city, which was called Neverwinter, granted the Norsemen rights to farm the burned lands and keep the in freehold, much the same as the Steppe Warriors had been given the plains to the north and west to hold as allies.

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And so it came to pass that the viking berserker cult that had fled Norway and king Harald's wrath, joined forces with the Tuigan horde that protected the lands around Neverwinter; and later, when the great cataclysm destroyed Neverwinter, joined them on their quest throughout the multiverse.

Magic-Users, Mages, Wizards.

I might have called them Sorcerers too, but since 3e that has had distinct connotations of being another, different, arcane spell casting class.

But I digress.

Has anyone ever had a player have them as their preferred class? The arcane arts have been sadly underutilized in pretty much every campaign I have ever run or played in. Most of the time they have appeared as NPCs, either henchmen or patrons of the party. Sometimes, rarely, they have appeared as multiclassed characters designed to offset their combat ineffectiveness with some other useful skill. Elves and Half-Elves have been particularly prone to doing this.

I assume that part of the problem is that Magic-Users do kind of suck to play at low level and in early editions they level so slow. Noteworthy also is that higher level play has been rare in my games, it may well have been not until 3e that anyone in my games ever made 10th level. But mine was never the only game in town and in the games I played in there was an anti-Magic-User stance from the players. Just the players. In my experience DMs love to see them show up. Maybe just for the novelty of it.

Seriously though, in my thirty plus years of playing D&D, I think I may be the only person I know that ever played a single classed Magic-User in regular campaign play. I have seen a few people choose pregenerated higher level single classed Magic-Users for one shots or tournament play. I can only recall a small number of multiclassed Magic-Users ever being played and I ran one of them too.

My friend Darryl C. used to be the go-to guy for spells. How they worked, non-standard uses, even what type of magic they were. He had that stuff down. He was perhaps the most devoted spell tactician I ever met, he certainly taught me a thing or two about spell-slinging. His longest running, most successful and well known character was a Fighter named Borg (technically his name was Aimendale Sebastian Borgstrine DeLaRive, we just called him Borg for short). Borg had a Magic-User henchman named Elisha. Darryl never ran a Magic-User as his player character.

I am considering a house rule that Magic-Users get bonus spells for high intelligence like Clerics get them for Wisdom. That doesn't seem to be a game breaker. My only hesitation is that I don't really like altering core class abilities.

On Human Culture and a bit more

My D&D campaigns and the real world cultures that exist within them are perhaps an unconscious homage to D&D's “The Known World” campaign setting that was introduced in the Expert set I got pretty much as soon as it came out. The Known World (later AD&D-ized as Mystara) was the first world for D&D I ever saw and even as a kid I could tell that Ostland, Vestland and the Soderfjord Jarldoms were Norse lands, that Ylaruam was Arab and Ethengar was Mongol. Sure the Five Shires were a Tolkien rip-off and the other racial homelands were just kind of tacked into place. I also didn't get the other historical human cultures at the time, somehow even missing the fact that Thyatis was just Rome reskinned for this world.

I am not really sure how it happened that my Kingdom of Garnia campaign world turned out so much like the Known World. When I started writing stuff up for it I was consciously aping the World of Greyhawk in format, because it was AD&D and I had moved on from B/X. I guess it started when I gave my world an origin mythology. I wanted to have a world where the people made sense, logic and reason were constantly being thrown at me from all the campaign design articles I was absorbing from the Dragon. So I got a real world culture, the Gaels who are near and dear to me only because my family is of Scottish Highlander origin, and I made them the centerpiece culture for the setting. The were the “People of Ailill”, the semi-legendary leader that brought them to this world to escape the destruction of their culture on ours. Their Druids could open extra-dimensional portals through the use of planar gates constructed in ages past by the Elves. These portals took numerous forms, but were mostly rings of standing stones. Like Stonehenge.

As I learned more about history, particularly the history of the Gaels, I retconned the setting to make it have more and earlier Celts. Celts fleeing Roman aggression, Celts fleeing encroaching Christianization, Celts fleeing inter-tribal warfare, Celts escaping from German aggression, Celts escaping from cultural assimilation from Asia Minor to the British Isles. This may have been partially resulting from a piece of D&D campaign advice I read, probably in the Dragon, where the author said to use language to give your world verisimilitude; something like “if you have a string of border forts all named Dun Something, your players will eventually figure out that Dun means Fort”. That struck a chord with me, because I knew that Dun was Gaelic for fort, and I really was into the whole Scottish Highlander thing back then. It was maybe the better part of a decade after “Roots” had aired, but Americans were still pretty interested in learning theirs and my Grandfather had taken a real interest in making us aware of our Highland heritage. We were going to the Scottish games every summer, listening to bagpipe music and Scottish folk songs. I even got a kilt, which I wore to school on numerous occasions; for the record chicks dig guys in kilts, guys call it a skirt and try to mock you. I liked the attention from the ladies and the challenge from the guys, fornication and brawling are both lifelong hobbies of mine!

Anyway, my campaigns have included both kilt wearing claymore wielders and plaid-trousered head-hunters; immigrants to Garnia from over a millenia of Celtic movements. Officially, by the way, Garnia is Gwarynica Riga in their language. The dominant language of the campaign area is a hodge-podge of Gaulish, Welsh, Gaelic (Irish, Manx and Scottish) and Breton, roughly in that order. I discovered Katherine Kerr's Deverry novels in the mid-1990's, introduced by my then girlfriend- now wife Mona, and I have used some of her Deverrian language to fill in the blanks in a few spots since her and I were working from the same starting point. I have worked hard to not cross pollinate my world with hers, but some was probably inevitable after I discovered her writing.

The earliest non-Celts to make the journey to Garnia were the heathen Anglo-Saxons. They wound up with their own kingdom at the edge of the mapped world almost by mistake. When I started adding realism to my world in the form of real human cultures I started by making them Germanic. I Germanized the entire world, but I didn't like the result. So I de-Germanized the world and Gaelicized it instead. This happened at a key time. I suck at making maps, and I don't particularly like it. I was in 7th grade and my BFF Darryl wanted to help with the project, since it was pretty much all we talked about at lunch. I tend to get a little single-minded when I am working on something and my enthusiasm for a project can be infectious. I gave Darryl some of my material so he could make some maps for me. The bulk of the map I gave him had been altered, but the Wotanic Knights (think heathen Teutonic Knights) were still there at the bottom of the map. I liked the results of his mapping, so they got to stay. I eventually gave them their own origin even.

The Basques made it into the world next. I liked their shadowy pre-indoeuropean origin, so I had the Elves rescue a bunch from Celtic encroachment and give them a place to stay while they looked for a new world for them. The same treatment they gave the Neanderthals in the canon history of the campaign.

Arabs and Turks made it in later, in the late 80's or early 90's for the sole reason that we had some Arab and Turk looking minis. Previous to that I had exactly one Arabic sounding character in the world and he was a powerful mage (necromancer actually), so he could have gotten there on his own. Al-Khalid was just a name I picked out of a hat, basically. But in my long running Dempster: Phase 2 D&D campaign, Arabs and Turks started making regular appearances because of those minis. Hakim the thief was a party henchman and became a huge catalyst for adventure in his own right when he betrayed the party and made off with a flawless fist-sized magic diamond. Ivar , the party's PC thief and Hakim's former boss, tracked him back to his own homeland and attempted to get his revenge. That was easier said than done and gave us an entire campaign arc set in my pseudo-Arabia and eventually led to Ivar taking on Abdul the fighter as a regular Henchman. Turkish mercenaries were a small but significant part of my last AD&D2 campaign in Garnia circa 1999-2001. That campaign had a lot of stops and starts and player changes and ran concurrently with my Mighty Celts campaign that ended with the first colonization by Celts into Garnia.

In the mid-1990's I ran an AD&D2 campaign set in a fantasy Roman empire, so that eventually became a part of the world too. I placed it on the west end of the large continental mass that included Garnia, Frodia and the rest, far from the old campaign areas in what is an approximation of the Mediterranean world. That area also included an old fallen Egyptian empire, where the ancient Egyptians had been completely overrun by Goblins over the course of centuries. The Goblins there had almost completely adopted Egyptian culture and religion and language, giving us a super-civilized Goblin empire, complete with a Goblin Pharoah. Of course the Romans conquered the Goblin Egypt, and non-human slaves were pretty common in that setting. That game didn't run long, but it was interesting.

It was in this era that I started making my own maps. I used the map-maker for Civilization 2 and added the new stuff right on to the western edge of the old maps. I placed the Civilizations on the map and watched how these areas actually interacted with each other in game. It was an experiment that I found quite helpful for rewriting great chunks of the canon timeline. It also influenced me to add a few more cultures into the mix.

The early part of the 2000's, right after the release of 3e was an interesting time for my campaign world. I ran an entirely new viking setting when we started playing 3rd edition, that setting soon became part of Garnia too, off in the southern sea. Now the Vikings were here too. Around 2005 I decided that it would be cool to add in some of the civilizations from my Civilization 2 map, this coincided with me finding out that one of my country's names translated into Chinese was Ming Liang, right where I had placed China on my Civilization 2 world map. Obviously that was a sign. So I added the Zulus too, after realizing that I didn't actually have any black people in my world. The Chinese made me think of an old Oriental Adventures campaign I'd run in 1996-97, so my Japan cognate Tenchuko got plunked down off the main map, but near enough to Ming Liang to make all the stuff that happened there canon for my world too.

After that I got it into my head that, since it was fun to see the cultural interactions of wildly different cultures from across history play out in my campaign world (Civilization series fan here, Hello), I'd add in a few other cultures that have maybe died out or failed to thrive in our world that I would like to see there in Garnia. I sprinkled in the Nubian kingdom, the Mongols (I couldn't leave the inspiration for my beloved Steppe Warriors gaming guild out), the Kung San, Vietnamese Montagnards, the Aztecs and a few others; then I placed them near groups that they were culturally dissimilar to and mixed things up.

The only downside of this cultural/historical experiment is that I then don't get to use these cultures as touchstones for my demihuman and humanoid cultures like so many others can and do. I have worked hard at making my Elves have a unique and somewhat alien culture, but I still need to de-nordic my Dwarves. That would probably be more of a priority if anyone wanted to play a Dwarf. Gnomes fall into the category of their cousins the Dwarves, but less so. Halflings I have a really hard time not seeing as Hobbits. I work at it by looking at the cool illustrations of Halflings from early D&D stuff like module A1 or the old illustration from the Expert Book, tiny bad-asses rather than Tolkien-esque Hobbits.

The Orcs get a slightly different treatment from me. I always picture them as somewhat like Next Generation style Klingons. The Orcs even got their own Garnia adjacent kingom. Hobgoblins get to be somewhat Asian inspired, owing to the illustration in the Monster Manual. Goblins and Bugbears are something like less evolved or devolved Hobgoblins, like the forces of evil only got the mix right with the Hobgoblins. The Bugbears are their less evolved brutish cousins and the Goblins are their degenerate spawn. Trolls are just downright alien, they might as well be the aliens from the Aliens movies for all that we can fathom their culture or their motives. Giants are a tough one for me because I always want to make them like the Fomor and instead wind up with the Jotnar, score one for our Germanic Anglo-Saxon culture over my desire to make a more Celtic world, eh? Dragons are usually pretty alien too, reptilian but owing a lot to Beowulf or Fafnir, I know Germanizing again.

Kobolds get to be little dog-men just like it said in B2, Gnolls are hyena-men; no need to add a lot of culture there. Lizardmen are tribal reptiles, I always just play them as generic primitive tribesmen and have never had a problem. Pretty much every other monster is either rare enough that building them a culture would be a complete waste of my time or hasn't appeared in my campaign (yet). I like the idea of rare or unique monsters, probably as a result of my years of Conan comics, novels and short stories. REH and Marvel comics probably had more to do with how I made my world than Tolkien ever did, despite the Tolkienisms of pretty much every D&D world ever made. Like the great EGG, I have vastly preferred a humanocentric world, which is why my map looks more like Hyboria than Middle-Earth.

Jagatai's Hunt- An old character post I found

This is one of my old posts from the Steppe Warriors message boards.

The ger of the Khakhan was not a happy place this particular day. The Khakhan Jagatai and his wife Monelun were having a very subtle argument, a contest of wills, over what course their children's lives should be taking. Jagatai, for his part, was trying to make his children tough and capable, able to live and lead after his time was in the past. Monelun in turn apparently assumed he wanted them dead. Thirteen years is plenty old enough to raid into the settled lands, Jahanghir is a man, he thought. But that woman and her foals, she keeps them hobbled near the ger. Obviously there is a chance he'll get hurt, but he'll be with his arban! He has trained for this day since he was very small! He stroked the small grey cat sitting on his lap absently, for her part she grabbed his thumb with a paw and bit it gently.

In the old days crockery would have flown and the fight would have been heard throughout the auruq, Monelun had always been a rather spirited woman. These days only a very skilled observer would be able to deduce there was a problem. Jagatai and Monelun had learned to be subtle in their disagreements so as to protect their regal dignity. Jagatai, however was getting annoyed. He was supposed to be sitting here at court listening to the terms of a treaty agreement with a family of merchant princes; but dickering over just how much tribute would be paid to his people, combined with his quiet marital spat was too much for him to take. He motioned to his major-domo Shigikutuku, who then silently slid into position in front of the Great Khan and dismissed the audience. Jagatai set the grey cat on the floor of the yurt and stood up from his stool. He turned and shot one look across the room towards Monelun, whose green-brown eyes pierced him like arrows. So much for reconciliation now he thought as he strode toward the flap of the ger.

Outside the sky was blue and the air chilly. The Khakhan made his way to the corral for his favorite mare, the spirited one that reminded him of his wife, but had never held a grudge against him over anything greater than what treat was brought for her that day. The guards of the Keshik followed at a respectable distance, they knew the Khakhan would be in no mood for company today from long experience; they'd keep their distance with a small contingent and keep him in sight, but barely. These are, after all, well tamed lands; no enemy could get within many miles of the auruq unannounced. Jagatai bribed his mare with a piece of carrot then saddled her up, he'd go hunting today he decided. Handing the reigns to a bo'ol he called for one of the Keshik to bring his hunting bow. Once it arrived he mounted up and rode out from the auruq into the vast plain beyond.

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Hours later, with nothing but a marmot to claim for the day, but happy to be away from governing; Jagatai rode back toward the auruq. Suddenly a peccary burst forth from the underbrush right in front of Jagatai. He gave a whoop of joy and spurred his mare into the chase. The wily peccary ran for a small gully and Jagatai urged his mount into a burst of speed to jump over the edge into the gully after it for a clear shot.

From out of nowhere the world turned bright white, then red; fading around the edges of his vision towards black as the ground rose up to strike him in the back of his head and shoulders. He attempted to shake his head, trying to clear his vision. Enough success came in time to see a great tusked humanoid beast swinging a club the size of a tree trunk into his beloved mare's back. The mare screamed in horsey agony. Before he could make sense of what he saw, it swung again ending the mare's screaming and reducing her body to a bloody, pulpy mess.

Jagatai started to rise, and fell backwards; attracting the beasts attention. He took a quick assessment of his situation. His left eye was swollen shut now, the edges of his vision faded until it appeared he was looking through a cave at the creature; blood sprayed from his mouth and nose with every painful breath. He had no idea what had happened to his bow and his sword was still slung in its scabbard attached to the mangled mares saddle. The mannish thing stared at the fallen Khakhan and laughed a deep guttural laugh, then spoke in its beast tongue some foul words Jagatai could not understand as it took two long steps towards him raising its gore drenched tree trunk weapon for a killing blow.

Jagatai made silent prayer to the Tengri to grant him strength, and in one smooth motion rose, drew his knife and stabbed the beast in the groin, where the leg attaches to the trunk of the body, hoping that it would be made on the inside like a man and this blow would kill, if not instantly, surely. The monster howled with rage and swung it's huge club towards Jagatai, connecting with a glancing blow that sent the Khakhan reeling to his right. Jagatai staggered back into the beast and stabbed it again and again in the abdomen and legs, no longer targeting with precision, merely attempting to cause as much damage as possible before dying. The beast fell over backwards, twitching, it's chest and head sprouting numerous arrows. Jagatai turned his head to the sounds of hoof beats at a gallop and his black clad body guards rushing to his aid, he raised his hand in silent thanks before his vision faded completely.

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He awoke laying on his back inside his own ger, a masked shaman chanting over him and dancing erratically. As the shaman noticed that his patient awoke he stopped his dance and changed his chant, kneeling down next to Jagatai. He removed his mask continuing his new chant, Jagatai recognized him as Teb the chief Shaman of the auruq. The shamans' hands began to glow with a silvery white light and Teb reached down and grasped his stricken Khakhans' face none too gently. Jagatai felt a new wave of pain at the touch followed by the queasy feeling of his bone and flesh knitting back together. Vision returned to his left eye as the swelling receded. One of Tebs' assistants handed him a bowl decorated with the spirit sigils of Tebs' spirit guides. Teb put the bowl to Jagatais' mouth and bid him drink in his hoarse shaman's voice. The substance within smelled foul and tasted worse but Jagatai knew it would be a healing draught, and so choked it down. Pain dissipated throughout his body.

For the first time he took in his surroundings. His wife Monelun was within his sight, flanked on either side by their daughters Altani and Ebegei. All three wore looks of concern so Jagatai determined his injuries must have been severe. He croaked out “Where is Jahanghir?”. Monelun answered somewhat tersely “He left with his arban as you ordered. Yesterday.”. Her concerned look returned and she asked her husband “How do you feel?”. “I've had worse” he lied, and attempted a smile. “Liar.” she retorted and sighed a bit of relief. She knelt next to him, leaned over and kissed him on the brow. “Get some sleep” she said. And so he did.

Secret History of the Steppe Warriors

When the original Neverwinter Nights went offline I wrote a document I titled “The Secret History of the Steppe Warriors” so that I could record for posterity the events our gaming guild had been a part of in that realm while they were still fresh in my head. I distributed electronic copies to all of the Steppe Warriors and I had a copy sitting on our Yahoo Groups site so that anyone with access to the group could re-download it as needed.

However, in a fit of pique, I decided to delete the Yahoo Group as extraneous since no one was posting and the Steppe Warriors had, in essence, disbanded. I did not back these files up to my hard drive at the time because I was certain I already had copies of everything there. On my hard drive, in my documents there is still a folder called Steppe Warriors and it has a number of subfolders that include old copies and current copies and beta versions of every single official Steppe Warrior document; subfolders that have old message board posts and fiction written about our characters. What I don't have is a copy of the Secret History.

Doh!

This is particularly annoying in light of the fact that I have recently restarted the Steppe Warriors Yahoo Group and now I don't have our single greatest history document. I restarted the group largely so I could have some communication with former Steppe Warriors, whom I miss a lot. Kind of an alumni association. I also did it so I could have the guild structure in place for future online gaming endeavors. It is just easier having a ready made group of friends to game with, whether it's an RPG, RTS or whatever.

Now, the old Secret History was not without it's flaws. Complaints regarding it came mostly in two kinds. The Secret History was considered by some to be too unkind to the memory of Ogotai (Darryl C.) who was our first Khakhan or that the Secret History was too easy on the memory of Ogotai. I tried to be as unbiased as possible in my presentation of the facts and to show both sides of any contested arguments, but I know my personal bias showed particularly in the parts regarding the end of Ogotai's reign and the beginning of mine. Ogotai was certainly a polarizing figure of a man.

Sadly, gone forever are a number of minor stories and even vast swathes of history. We fought a number of inter-guild wars, some of them were just to roleplay our characters, some were in deadly earnest. We destroyed a number of guilds that made themselves our enemies and I am not sure I could name the roll call. We spawned a couple of child guilds, but only one comes to mind right now. The Secret History also documented mine and Darryl's entire history of play within Neverwinter Nights up to the formation of the Steppe Warriors. All of the guilds we had previously been members of, whose names I barely remember now for myself. The Secret History contained at least one minor anecdote about every single member we had, even if they left the guild early on, now I'd be lucky to remember the names of most of those people.