The Jahnu Prophecy...

What follows is the background information for the mid-level BX psionics playtest I ran this past Friday, and plan to run (probably in 2 parts) at the 2016 NTRPGCon. The youree noted below are the same ones that appear in the Creature Compendium. You'll notice that the mockup image here is designated as P3. My goal is to have it be the 3rd in a series of BX/LL psionics modules. P1 would be an expanded version of "The Auroral Alcazar or Aethaungor" (which will include a psionic boss monster), and P2 would be a dungeon crawl through a ruined temple dedicated to Xumaltet (the the petty god of primal emotions and savage urges who appears in the expanded version of Petty Gods).

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Among the great psionic races of the multiverse (the mind threshers, limbo giths, astral giths, zlaahd, et al.), the youree have mostly been relegated to the status of legend, thought to have been wiped to extinction (by the mind threshers) millennia ago. In truth, the youree retreated from their home plane to "hide" in the small corner of the Material Plane known as the Valley of the Trees. The youree, as a people, seek to live a life of contemplation and meditation and avoid the entanglements of war. They saw this exodus as the only possibility for preserving themselves as a race.

Settling in the Valley of the Trees, the youree erected themselves a home in a place called Shub z'Dha (a youree word for "home away from home")—a temple-like structure that also housed a planar gate (built around a natural rip in planar space) that would allow the youree easy access to various places around the planes. Over time, however, they realized the same gate that would allow them egress might allow others entrance, and that the extraplanar energy emanating from the gate might draw unwanted attention. For safety, the youree “locked” the gate, and hid the gate ’s keystone in a remote cavern deep below the surface, where its natural psionic energies would be naturally muted. Destroying the gate was not an option, for it would only loose the rip and release untold energies, revealing the rip's presence. Anyone would then be able to harness the rip, should they possess the knowledge required to erect a new gate.

The youree moved far to the north, erecting a hidden tower known as "The Crystal Pagoda" by outsiders (those chosen few who came to study with the youree). The youree have no name for the structure. The pagoda is located in a dome constructed under a mountain and protected by a field of synaptic static (which keeps psionic abilities from passing through, whether in or out).

Recently, it has been reported (by non-youree visitors to the Crystal Pagoda) that a small party of limbo giths was seen exploring the ruins of Shub z'Dha. Since the synaptic field keeps youree clairsentients from being able to observe the ruins themselves, the youree wish for this report to be physically investigated. They fear that the gate will be discovered, but as a race the youree must take every precaution to ensure that their presence remains unknown to would-be conquerors. They fear the fulfillment of "The Jahnu Prophecy"—a vision revealed hundreds of years prior to a youree guru named Jahnu which foretold the annihilation of the youree should any of their number ever return to Shub z'Dha. It is for these reasons the youree sardar ("head or authority") has enlisted the PCs to investigate the truth of the limbo gith presence at Shub z'Dha.

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Thats right! The youree are the mysterious people of the trees from VA1: Valley of the Five Fires. Believe it or not, this concept reaches back prior to my actual development of the BX psionics rules. Originally, the youree were just supposed to be an alien race that settled in the Valley of the Trees millennia prior to the events of VA1. Eventually, they would need help from the outside world. As the psionics rules started to develop, it became obvious that the youree would have psionic abilities.

I also intend to wrap the Xumaltet concept into the youree history, with a small Xumaltet reference in the expanded Alcazar adventure as well (though in a very minor way there). I'm trying to weave the story threads through the entire series to create a greater fabric of myth around these stories. (BTW, anyone who has read VA1a: The Lost Caverns of Azgot knows there are references to proto-ogres. It is also intended that the evolution from proto-ogre to standard ogre was related to Xumaltet and/or the youree (although I'm still trying to decided exactly how.)

"Valley of the Five Fires" Lead-in Suggestions

First off, I wanted to say "Thank you!" to all the folks who bought Valley of the Five Fires over the last few days. Next, I wanted to address a very good question that came up over the weekend.

"Because this is levels 4-9, what is the most perfect lead in module(s)
you can recommend to go with this?"

Welbo and I are actually working on a low-level module to do this very thing (tentatively intended to be module "VA0"), as well as plant some seeds for a third module ("VA2") that would act as a companion to the setting AND utilize the BX psionics system I've been developing. That being said, it doesn't really address the need for "now."

When I originally wrote Valley of the Five Fires, a lot of it was designed to be very flexible in terms of character level. For those seeking a lead-in from levels 1-3 or so, I would suggest the following...

Start by downloading The Lost Caverns of Azgot. It's designed to be part of the setting for Valley of the Five Fires. There are some very general area descriptions with complete flexibility for the DM to add his/her own monsters/treasure (it's got those little "fill in your own" spaces like the original monochrome version of B1: In Search of the Unknown). Given that the caves have been sealed off for so long, I'd suggest skeletons (using the armor and weapons specific to the setting; see. p.16-17 of V5F), as well as some giant rats, spiders, beetles, etc.

From there, you can actually get into the module itself...

The "Stupa of Divine Madness" is also very generic in terms of encounters (there are actually very few monsters, with most of the encounters being thinking/problem-solving in nature).

The "Tower Tomb of the Three Brothers (Bandit Lair)" (pp.48-50) is designed with a "scalable" encounter/treasure format. At the low end, you can run this as an adventure for levels 2-4.

By the time you run the three adventures above, the characters might not quite be at 4th level, but they'll likely be close enough to run a couple of other adventures in the book (possibly with minor tweaking).

From there, I'd suggest "Süm Sakhius (Ogre Lair)" (pp.52-52) and "Deathspire Rock" (p.54).

By the time they've complete the above, they'll like be ready for the major quest in the book, as well as the encounters with the chötgor and the phase giants. (BTW, you might want to throw some oil of etherealness as treasure in some of the earlier adventures. It will really help in those encounters with the phase giants.)

Get "Valley of the Five Fires" in PDF for $2!!! (limited time only!)

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Valley of the Five Fires: Update and "Ad" Preview

To cut to the chase, I made the final revisions/updates The Valley of the Five Fires on Friday. The major item was converting some of the clerics to the new steppe shaman class; oddly enough, most of the spells stayed the same, and only the weapons and armor had to change. Speaking of armor... I tell you what, that AC Cheat Sheet sure as hell made it a snap to check (and revise) the armor information for all the NPCs, and there are 34 of them! Now the PDF is in Welbo's hands for a proof review, and then I need to give it another read, and it should be ready to release.

Coinciding with that release, I'll be offering a free PDF of the shaman class through RPGNow. And the final page of that PDF will be a shameless bit of self-promotion for the module itself. For the ad, I really wanted something that felt like it came out of the pages of an old Dragon Magazine, so I opted for B&W in lieu of any color. Below is where I ended up; I think it captures the spirit of those old ads pretty well. (BTW, the "blurry part" is the print/PDF pricing/availability; I'm still working that out, and didn't want to commit to anything via this post.)

Module Meme: Which of Your Modules Has Taken the Most Use and Abuse?

I was referencing X1 this morning trying to remember how the rope bridges were treated on the Phanaton platforms, and it struck me... "no matter how much care I tried to take of my stuff, I still have poor bastards like this one." The cover's come apart, and the last page (the one with the hex map for the players to fill in) is missing. It's not all marked up like my copy of Keep on the Borderlands, but Id rather have scars than missing limbs any day.

I'm sure the missing hit points from this copy of The Isle of Dread are only flesh wounds by comparison to some of your stuff. So... which of your modules (or sourcebooks, for that matter) has taken the most use and abuse? And as a visual person, I think it's cooler to show than tell.

Update to the Player Handout Mapfrom Valley of the Five Fires

I reframed this from the earlier version of the player handout map for The Valley of the Five Fires to visually concentrate on the areas where the pre-generated adventures are placed, not to mention where most of the adventure seeds point.

Preview of Player Handout Mapfrom Valley of the Five Fires

Update: Old-School Adventures™ Module VA1: Valley of the Five Fires

So, only 1 month ago, Valley of the Five Fires was shaping up to be about 48 pages. It is now entering its final stages and looks like it will come in at 56 pages. This includes the shaman class information, a new additional adventure (a location that once cleared becomes a suitable base of operations for the PCs), and a "handout" map for the players (the blank page in the layout below). The final 56-pager is almost double the originally estimated 36-page count from when I announced this back in January!

AND NOW FOR THE FULL-FRONTAL TEASING...
More details to come (probably next Sunday);
this week I'll return to the regularly-scheduled A-to-Z posting.

Before and After: Stupa of Divine Madness

It's always interesting to me to compare my initial sketches with my finished work. The images below are both of the "Stupa of Divine Madness" location from The Valley of the Five Fires. The image on the left is my "2nd" initial sketch and notes (I didn't have my original sketch when I found time to detail the levels and worked from memory), and the image on the right is the final map page from The Valley of the Five Fires

V5F Preview: Steppe Shaman Class

So here's what keeps happening... I have a page or two I need to fill in The Valley of the Five Fires, and by the time I've filled it I've actually created 4 or 5 pages (which throws off my page count, which puts me back where I started... having a page or two I need to fill.)

I had only planned on putting some basic shaman class information, the experience pt./HD/spells by level info, and the list of spells by edition. So I started researching, and realized I needed two types of shamans, black shamans and white shamans... so that doubled the number of charts. And I'd planned on just referencing existing cleric/druid/MU spells, but realized I needed to create some shaman-specific spells for OGL purposes.

And that's how the 2-3 intended pages became the 7 pages below.

Now the debate becomes... do I include it in the module (upping the total page count, probably to 56 pp.) or do I work this up as a free download in support of the module?

BTW, the illustration is a Nicholas Roerich drawing (you know Roerich... he's the guy whose images I used for the post "Classic Rock Song Titles I'd Like to See as D&D Modules").

Preview Illustration V5F Armor Types

This is a preview of the illustration from the Armor of the Steppe page from The Valley of the Five Fires. I know what you're thinking... "the Mongols didn't have plate armor!" Actually, in the later years, a form of partial plate/partial chain made its way into Mongolia from other parts of Asia. But then again, the Valley of the Five Fires is not technically supposed to be Mongolia. It's a "mongolian-inspired" steppe setting.

Yeti Illustration Redo

As Welbo and I have been finishing up Valley of the Five Fires, I started to really hate the Yeti Illustration (which I originally shared back in mid-December), and realized it needed to be revamped. So now that we're close to finishing, I decided it was time to get the damn thing done. And I'm glad I did. I think the new version kicks the old version's ass ten ways to Sunday. It was also a chance to put some mongol/steppe-specific details on the armor and weapons. (After illustration on top, before illustration on bottom).

Update: Old-School Adventures™ Module VA1: Valley of the Five Fires

Like many fellow OSR bloggers, my posts have been thin here due to the demands of the real world. But fear not, work is continuing on the d30 Sandbox Companion, and I'm getting much closer to finishing up Old-School Adventures™ Module VA1: Valley of the Five Fires.

What was looking like a 36-page count back in January when I announced it, is now 48 pages! Since then, I've added 2 pages of weapons and armor information, and 2 new detailed adventure areas (which actually accounts for 5 pages), and the OGL. It was actually the need to include the OGL (which I somehow freakin' forgot) that led to figuring out what to do with the 3 other pages (since it's all about 4-page signatures in a saddle-stitch book), that led to adding 8 pages total. Welbo and I have a bit more proofing/editing to do, but we're VERY close.

AND NOW FOR THE FULL-FRONTAL TEASING...
Details to come.

Sit, ubues. Sit.

If you're even moderately familiar with the history of D&D Module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, then you're no doubt aware of the two versions of the module, and the questionable artwork from the first version.

While doing some digging/scouring yesterday for some public domain artwork, I came across the following Arthur Rackham illustration from the 1922/27 edition of Macmillan's English Fairy Tales. It's an illustration of the three-headed giant from the story Jack the Giant Killer and when I saw it, the first thing that popped in my head was Erol Otus's illustration of the ubues from B3.

Was Erol influenced by the Rackham illustration? Probably. But if I actually make it out the North Texas RPG Con this year, I'm going to ask him for myself!

Valley of the Five Fires: Welbo's Latest Notes

As I mentioned in Sunday's post about the The Valley of the Five Fires, Welbo likes to add a few "asides" in his proofing notes. In the latest round, he proofread the page about nomadic life, and next to the paragraph about the 5 muzzles, he added the following note...

"and every spring, each new generation provides the makings of a delicious soup of fresh testicles"

...and he proffered up
this link.

Valley of the Five Fires Proofing

In addition to the really insightful notes I'm getting from Welbo on the Valley of the Five Fires regarding clarification, phrasing, and adding color, I get PDF notes like the ones on the image below.

Introducing Old-School Adventures™ Module VA1: Valley of the Five Fires

Many of you may have noticed how "thin" my blog posts have been over the past few weeks. Well, in addition to the holidays, and trying to put the finishing touches on the d30 Sandbox Companion, the majority of my time has been consumed with what is now officially Old-School Adventures™ Module VA1: Valley of the Five Fires.

Those familiar with William Dowie's Mongol Month (back in Oct./Nov.) over at his Ramblings of a Great Khan blog, or my various notes about "getting my thoughts together" for said contest (here, here, and here), might recall my trouble refining my thoughts into something "small" for the Mongol-themed adventure design contest. That's because the more I got into it, the larger in scope it became. So I just kept working behind the scenes on my thoughts, and used a little free time during the holidays to and, well...

HERE'S A TOP-LINE OVERVIEW...

• it's a Mongol-inspired setting, with Mongol-inspired adventures/encounters,
but they're not necessarily the villains
(that "not the villains" thing was William's original direction from his contest, and I kept that; the major quest and the smaller detailed adventures are inspired by the setting and the mythos, but the overall vibe is definitely more fantasy than history)

• the single edition of the module supports 0e/1e/BX and comparable retro-clones
(e.g. NPCs' spells are noted to easily adapt to any ruleset, and the new monsters are detailed using a "dual stat" format with separate Oe/1e and BX stat blocks)

• the contents are set up to support sandbox-style play
(e.g., historical information on the area, details on the major NPCs including hidden motivations, info the major settlement including suppliers, plenty of pre-gen minor NPCs, adventure seeds for different types of play, and many of the detailed encounter areas can be placed whereever the DM sees fit)

AND NOW FOR SOME FULL-FRONTAL TEASING...
Since I have a bit more proofing/editing to do (hope to finish up over the weekend), and still need to order a test Lulu print to check the cover color, today I'm just going to tease you with a full preview of the inside of the 36 pages of the book, with complete details on the contents to come next week.

Classic Rock Song Titles I'd Like to See as D&D Modules

This is an idea that came to me back in late summer of this year. I was listening to "Man on the Silver Mountain" by Rainbow/Dio, and I starting thinking about how both Metal and Prog Rock are inclined to title (and write) songs with very "epic" subject matter... and how it all reminds me of module titles. So, in the same parodic vein as my Separated at Birth posts, I'd do a post for classic rock song titles that I'd like to see as D&D modules. All of the images on the cover mockups below are by a very cool Russian painter named Nicholas Roerich (October 9, 1874 – December 13, 1947). Very cool stuff!

Encounter Table Idea I've Been Playing Around With

This is an approach to an adventure encounter key that I've toying around with. I'm looking to possibly use it for one of my mini-adventures. It's not much more than a set of encounters that are "pre-scaled" to several adventure levels. Would anyone find this handy and/or useful if they were using an existing adventure?

"Sandboxing" the Mysterious Mist of Foxpond (Cont.)

As originally mentioned in my post from Sunday a week-and-a-half ago, I decided to take what was originally going to be a "railroad the players to the dungeon" adventure, and take it in a more "sandbox-y" direction -- essentially, converting it into a set of smaller, related adventures instead of one large "forced" one.

To do this, I'm relying on one of my preferred storytelling tools, the flowchart. What this allows the DM to do, is quickly see the various relationships between characters, locations and clues. The strongest of these then act as "pointers" to other locations. The other thing it allows me to do when "scripting" the story (because that's what this really is), is to make sure that pointing the characters (players) to any specific locale is not dependent on a "thin wire" of a clue buried in some dungeon.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of a red herring as much as the next guy, but there's no reason a red herring can't point the players in the right direction for the wrong reason, only to backfire on them.

One of the things I have to be careful of, however, is making any reference to a "higher level" encounter and diverting lower level players before they're ready. Hopefully, things like distance and danger will dissuade them. Why trek hundreds of miles away when there's plenty to explore in the immediate area before moving on?

I know this all probably sounds pretty nebulous, but that's sort of how the relationships stand right now; just look at the sketch of relationships (of locations, characters, and clues.)