An Index of the D&D Works of Lenard "Leomund's Tiny Hut" Lakofka

While Lenard Lakofa is perhaps best known to D&D players for his character "Leomund" and his associated "Leomund's Tiny Hut" column in Dragon Magazine (as well as the third-level MU spell of the same name from AD&D), his roots in fantasy gaming run much deeper:

• Lenard attended the inaugural GenCon in 1968, and was contributing to the Spartan and the untitled IFW newsletters in the same year.  See IFW zines at The Tome of Treasures forums by for "lakofka" as keyword:  https://www.tomeoftreasures.com/forum/search.php
  
• Lenard's fantasy miniatures rules were developed and playtested in his Diplomacy zine, Les Liaisons Dangereuses through mid-1975, as well as at GenCon VIII in 1975 and continuing through until at least 1980
  
• Like most TSR and/or TSR-associated tourneys at early GenCons, the titles of the events were very generic like "D&D For Prizes" or "D&D for Novices" or "D&D Adventure" up through about 1979, when event titles began to differentiate:
• 1980 featured "Consort of the Queen" and "The Crypt of Yenoughu" ("A single session game with plenty of hard-and-heavy action for pre-rolled 5th-11th level characters."), "The Town of Grellton" ("An AD&D adventure with pre-diced characters, second through fifth level.) among others
• 1981 featured "Devil’s Spire" ("A party of 8th to 11th level adventurers weather encounters with a Pit Fiend, a Mage and myriads of monsters in an attempt to send Dispater back to the plan of Dis. An AD&D adventure."),  "The Embassy to the Pale" ("Adventurers of 3rd to 5th level are recruited by the Baron Ratik, who seeks to attack the Bone March. The Baron must first obtain the help of the Theocracy of the Pale, and you and your comrades will carry his message to the theocrats."), and "The Lair of the Cloud Giant Feor" ("A vast castle site on the island of Voleax in the Northern Spindrift Isles, Here, a prince of the cloud giants makes his home with an assortment of nasty “pets.” An AD&D adventure with characters from 7th to 11th level.")
• You can explore many of Lenard's GenCon events at http://www.best50yearsingaming.com/programs/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_fields&q=lakofka

Lakofka in Diplomacy and Chicago Gaming Zines

Les Liaisons Dangereuses:  Les Liaisons Dangereuses was published from 18 May 1969 and up through issue #81 (20 July 1977), and most of the LD issues are archived at http://whiningkentpigs.com/DW/kent/l.htm.   

Les Liaisons Dangereuses contains the following pieces mentioning Gary Gygax, GenCon, and Lenard's D&D rules/variants.  This list is not comprehensive, merely what I've found to date, and obviously doesn't include data on issues missing from the Dippy Zines archive link above:

• LD#44 - 18 May 1973, 4th Anniversary Issue, dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien with a Smaug cover illustration:  page 2 includes "A Short History of Liaisons Dangereuses" which recounts Lenard's introduction to the Diplomacy game via Gary Gygax at GenCon I in 1968
  
• LD#57 - 26 May 1975:  page 2 mentions SR#2, ending with "This zine is from the dynamic GENCON group who have produced so many great conventions and excellent miniatures rules from many historical periods"; page 6 states, "Also in LD 58 will be some notes, if not the beginning of a complete set of rules, on Fantasy Miniatures. The Chicago Wargaming group, whose chief members are Gene Leander, Mark Nyderek, Rich Swies, and myself (with respect to miniatures rules--especially Fantasy miniatures) is now writing an entire set of rules for fantasy miniatures. At this time we doubt if they will be made commercially available as some playtesting etc. is necessary.  Your comments on them will be appreciated."
  
• LD#58 - 18 June 1975: page 7 touches on Lenard's proposed fantasy rules, stating that he'll hold off on including them in LD until they'd been tested further;  page 9 includes "Combat tables for fantasy miniatures--compatible with Dungeons & Dragons" which is a basic attack/resolution matrix based in Chainmail
  
• LD#59 - 9 July 1975:  page 10 (and a little of page 1) includes "Casting a Spell--Fantasy Rules Additions" [with the last few words on page 10 in the title obliterated]
  
• LD#61 - 27 Aug 1975:  page 4 includes a GenCon VIII report, with mention of Ral Partha's premiere fantasy line of minis; pages 7-11 include "Fantasy Rule Additions"
  
• LD#62 - 18 Sept 1975:  pages 5-7 feature "Additional notes on spells"; pages 8-10 include "An expedition played under LD rules" and "Cleric Spells"
  
• LD#64 - 5 Nov 1975:  pages 7-9 feature "A sand table battle" summary/report from a Middle Earth Gondor-Mordor battle, played with with Lenard's minis rules from LD#58-62.
  
• LD#65 - 5 Dec 1975:  page 4 includes a letter from Gary Gygax re: GenCon withdrawing its bid to host DipCon 1976, and will shift their hosting bid to GenCon 1977; also states, "Meanwhile, plans for a fantasy battle at GenCon can now proceed. Let us know what day will suit you best, times, etc." and Len adds "for all of you D&D fans he also promises a hobby shop opening soon and knowing Gary it will [be] a great effort" as well as this longer comment:  "I will be gamemastering a fantasy battle (or two) at Gen Con using variable success Spell Rules as outlined in LD.  Since I will be spending most of the week in Lake Geneva I will try a separate game for each of the conventions scheduled days.  I have suggested to Gary a team event using a single elimination system---as we did in 1971 at Gen Con for an armor team game.  The plan for this event will firm up before Christmas once Gary and I have crossed a few letters in the mails."  This seems similar to the scoring system used in the December 1976 Tsojconth tourney from WinterCon V.
  
• LD#66 - 21 Jan 1976:  page 8 mentions SR#5 contents and Len's "Highly recommended!" summary, which Lenard concludes with a note "if it only had a demonstration game of Diplomacy or perhaps a Fantasy Variant-- Gary? I'll GM such a game if you would like to include it.)"
  
• LD#68 - 3 March 1976:  page 1 mentions GenCon 9; page 6 Len writes a play summary/mini-review of Dungeon!; page 7 has an ad for Origins II
  
• LD#70 - 18 May 1976, 7th Anniversary issue:  includes the letter "Dunned for a Dragon Article" by Gary Gygax on pages 11-12 talking about D&D and it shistory
  
• LD#71 - 1? June 1976, Fantasy Special issue:  page 1 mentions GenCon IX and Origins II, pages 5-9 "Fantasy Rule Additions" (dated 16 May 1976, and related to (build on?) those Lenard published in TD#1)
  
• LD#72 - 17 July 1976, the Dungeons & Dragon Special Women & Magic issue:  "Women & Magic" by Lenard W. Lakofka and E. Gary Gygax on pages 2-4, 8-11
  
• LD#73 - 16 Aug 1976:  "Expanding the Combat Table in Dungeons & Dragons" on pages 3; something about Doors on pages 4-5; something about Blackmoor's combat system on page 6
  
• LD#74 - 14 Sept 1976:  "The Pyrologist - A Study in Fire Use:  A New Dungeons & Dragons Subclass" by Lenard Lakofka and E. Gary Gygax; and a review of Lankhmar (TSR 1976)
• LD#75 - 17 Nov 1976:  "Skrying in Dungeons & Dragons" by Lenard Lakofka & E. Gary Gygax
• LD#76 - 14 Dec 1976:  "Dwarves & Hobbits & Magic" by L. W. Lakofka & E. Gary Gygax on pages 3-5
• LD#77:  pages 2-3 = something by LL & EGG about combat and MA at Winter Fantasy (a game report it seems?); page 4 MA review; ad for "A Chicagoland Game Club! The Dragon Seekers" on page 5 (2 Feb 1977)
  
• LD#79 - 25 April 1977:  mentions "Big Anniversary Issue Next Time! D&D and Diplomacy."
• LD#80 - presumed May or June 1977:  "Manufacture of Magic Items in Dungeons & Dragons" by Lenard W. Lakofka in association with E. Gary Gygax on pages 3-18 plus 21, which includes enchanment and guidlines for all types of magic items, and a short section on the identification of magic items ; "Regaining Spell Levels" by Lenard W. Lakofka in association with E. Gary Gygax on pages 18 and 21
  

The Wizard newsletters (1977):  Lenard edited this Chicago newsletter for the Dragon Seekers club (although there may have been another newsletter entitled "DragonSeekers" too?), and articles penned by Lenard appear in issues #3 and #4:

• Issue #3 (1077):  
• "The Pyrologist, a new Dungeons & Dragons subclass:  A Study in Fire Use":  9 pages of codified and cleanly-presented class details and new spells, clearly built from the year-earlier article in LD#74
• "The Gods and Dungeons & Dragons":  I believe that this is the first mention of the gods from the "island of Lendore" pantheons (although not named Sueloise in nature as such at this time---these first gods of Lendore were from the Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythoi), and lays out Lenard's approach to defining the rules that bound deities and their interactions in the campaign setting---including a gods-level saving throw chart! 
  
• Issue #4 (January 1978):   
• "Animals & Monsters: Attack Modes" by Lenard Lakofka and W. John Wheeler (later known as a co-founder of The Companions) on pages 2-5
  
• "Climbing and Falling" by Lenard Lakofka on page 6
•  "Damage and Special Damage" table by L. W. Lakofka in assocation with E. Gary Gygax on page 7
  
• "Dungeonmastering - A Soliloquoy" by Lenard Lakofka on pages 8-9
  
• "Lycanthropy" by Lenard Lakofka on pages 10-11, 14
  
• "A Miniatures battle for up to 12 players - Played on August 20 1977 @ GenCon X" by Lenard Lakofka on pages 12-14
  

Leomund in Dragon and with The Companions

 

From the DragonDex, an extract of all of Lenard's articles from The Strategic Review, The Dragon, and Dragon Magazine:

Lakofka, Len            

                 "Action In the Melee Round"                43(26)        D&D1
                 "Adding Depth To the Flanaess"                52(18)        D&D1
                 "All Good Things Must End..."                31(30)        D&D1
                 "Beefing Up the Cleric"                            58(5)        D&D1
                 "Blueprint For a Lich"                            26(36)        D&D1
                 "Bureaucrats and Politicians"                74(8)        D&D1
                 "Cloistered Cleric, The"                            68(30)        D&D1
                 "Creating Tailor-Made Monsters"                108(9)        D&D1
                 "Experience: By Doing and Learning"            35(14)        D&D1
                 "For NPC's Only: The Death Master"            76(10)        D&D1
                 "Gods of the Suel Pantheon"                87(23)        D&D1
                 "Gods of the Suel Pantheon"                88(8)        D&D1
                 "Gods of the Suel Pantheon"                89(20)        D&D1
                 "Gods of the Suel Pantheon"                90(24)        D&D1
                 "Gods of the Suel Pantheon"                92(22)        D&D1
                 "Good Evening: Are You Wild About Vampires?..."        30(7)        D&D1
                 "How To Make a Pantheon You Can Have Faith In!"        36(17)        D&D1
                 "If You Meet These Monsters, Don't Let Them Bug You"     32(16)        D&D1
                 "Inner Planes, The"                    42(24)        D&D1
                 "Just a Door? Not Any More"                53(56)        D&D1
                 "Keep Track of Quality"                    65(13)        D&D1
                 "Len Lakofka's Fantasy Miniatures Rules"        1(13)        --
                 "Leomund's In a Rut"                    36(29)        D&D1
                 "Let Them Entertain You"                69(54)        D&D1
                 "Magic For Merchants"                    62(56)        D&D1
                 "Make Charisma Count For More"                63(19)        D&D1
                 "Missile Fire and the Archer Subclass"            45(32)        D&D1
                 "Mission Control"                    48(63)        D&D1
                 "Monsters: How Strong Is Strong?"            44(28)        D&D1
                 "New Charts, Using the '5%' Principle"            80(48)        D&D1
                 "New Monsters For Low Levels"                66(54)        D&D1
                 "Notes On Women & Magic"                3(7)        OD&D
                 "Presenting...The Monties"                37(16)        D&D1
                 "Presenting the Suel Pantheon"                86(30)        D&D1
                 "Rearranging and Redefining the Mighty Dragon"        38(10)        D&D1
                 "Recipe For the Alchemist, A"                49(56)        D&D1
                 "'Segment of Action' System..."                34(34)        D&D1
                 "Shield and Weapon Skills"                57(10)        D&D1
                 "Smoothing Out Some Snags In the AD&D Spell Structure"    33(16)        D&D1
                 "Specialization and Game Balance"            104(28)        D&D1
                 "Starting From Scratch"                    39(20)        D&D1
                 "Thief: A Special Look, The"                47(20)        D&D1
                 "Tone Down the Demi-Humans"                105(10)        D&D1
                 "Working Your Way Up To First Level"            51(22)        D&D1

 

With The Companions:  While Lenard contributed to a few of their products, as well as participating in some seminars with them at GenCons in the 1980s, their collaboration began in the late 1970s, as seen in The Wizard issue #4 piece above:

• Treasure Trove I: Cards of Power (1982)
  
• Plague of Terror (1983)
• I'm pretty sure that Lenard wrote for some additional products from The Companions, will pull them out to confirm and add here
  

 

Lenard's More-Recent Work

• The Oerth Journal Issue 1 - May 1995):  "The History of Oerth (Oerik)" written with Steven "Tamarlane" Wilson, et al
  
• The Oerth Journal Issue 10 - Jul 1999):  "Leomund’s Life"
  
• The Oerth Journal Issue 11 - May 2000):  "A History and Timeline of the Suloise"
• Footprints (Issue 5 - Aug 2005)
• Footprints (Issue 6 - Dec 2005)
• Footprints (Issue 7 - Apr 2006)
• Footprints (Issue 7 - Apr 2006)
• Footprints (Issue 8 - Aug 2006)
• Footprints (Issue 9 - Dec 2006) 
• Footprints (Issue 12 - Mar 2008)  
• Footprints (Issue 14 - Jan 2009)
• Footprints (Issue 15 - Jun 2009)
• Footprints (Issue 17 - Mar 2011)
  
• & (Issue 3 - Winter 2012)
• Gygax Magazine (Issue 1 - Feb 2013) 
  
• & (Issue 4 - Spring 2013)
• & (Issue 5 - Summer 2013)
• Gygax Magazine (Issue 2 - Autumn 2013)
  
• & (Issue 6 - Fall 2013)
• & (Issue 7 - Winter 2013)
  
• & (Issue 8 - Spring 2014)
• Gygax Magazine (Issue 4 - Summer 2014) 
  
• & (Issue 9 - Summer 2014)
• & (Issue 10 - Fall 2014)
• Gygax Magazine (Issue 5 - Winter 2014-2015) 
  
• & (Issue 11 - Summer 2015)
• Gygax Magazine (Issue 6 - Sep 2015): Leomund's Secure Shelter  - "Telepathy in First Edition AD&D" 
  
• & (Issue 12 - Fall 2015)
• & (Issue 13 - Fall 2016)
• Dragon+ (Issue 14 - Jun 2017)
  
• Dragon+ (Issue 28 - Nov 2019)  
  

Lenard's RPGgeek entries also highlight some contributions to early D&D-related Netbooks, which I'll dig up and add here too.

Interviews and Livestreams with Lenard

For some basic information about Lenard, see his Wikipedia and RPGgeek entries.

 

I helped James Malizewski contact Lenard in 2008 to conduct this three-part interview series:

• https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/interview-len-lakofka-part-i.html
• https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/interview-len-lakofka-part-ii.html
• https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/interview-len-lakofka-part-iii.html

 

And of course Lenard has been a frequent guest on Jay Scott's LordGosumba Greyhawk-focused livestream on twitch.tv.  I haven't built an index of all of Lenard's appearances on Jay's show yet, but will continue to work on that:

• Lenard Lakofka Q & A !!! - Legends & Lore #47 - This was the first time that Lenard and I "spoke" live together, after corresponding for about 15 years or so
• More to come, but here's a quick search for Lakofka episodes in the meanwhile:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVZnHGQTqjVDJptDRSW7xA/search?query=lakofka
  

 

Research Thank Yous!

My thanks to Mark Petrick for scans of The Wizard newsletters; to Andrew "Fid" Weist, Bryan Fazekas, Andreas Claren, David Prata, and the many L4 and L5 organizers and editors at Dragonsfoot who brought those projects to published completion; and to Fid again for the LD#80 articles.

 

Of course my greatest appreciation goes out to Lenard Lakofka, for sharing his works with us over the decades---our Greyhawk and AD&D gaming has been a far richer experience thanks to your myriad and substantive contributions!  You are missed!

Allan.

Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 13: "The Ruins of Andril" by Ian Melluish

Day 13 - A Module I Like from the 1980s:  "The Ruins of Andril" by Ian Melluish 

I'm picking up Kellri's 18-Day Module Challenge again today, a few days after my last entry (Day 12 - A Module From My Youth:  "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers).  I got busy with work, and my need for sleep time outweighed my need to write ;)

"The Ruins of Andril" was written and designed by Ian Melluish, and published in Dragon Magazine #81 (January 1984) as the winner of the Dungeon Design Content (category A-3, a dungeon adventure for 4-8 AD&D PCs of levels 8-11 ) announced in Dragon #65 (September 1982).  

The Egyptian-themed desert adventure is set in the ruined (and cursed!) desert city of Ruatha within the "Sea of Dust" (not Greyhawk's, though), followed by four small dungeon levels with 42 total encounter areas.  The curse was laid upon the city and its peoples by Thoth, Egyptian god of knowledge, and nerfs divination spells cast within the ruins.

Why I Love "The Ruins of Andril"

Despite the nerfing of divinations (a school of magic I'm quite fond of as a player and DM), "The Ruins of Andril" is probably tied with "The Garden of Nefaron" in Dragon #53 (September 1981) and "The Dancing Hut" in Dragon #83 (March 1984) as my favorite adventure published in Dragon during it's heyday.  

I enjoyed running it a few times back-in-the-day, and these aspects still stand out to me as cool today:

• "The Ruins of Andril" is written for higher-level PCs (8th-11th), and could easily be expanded to include the desert wilderness surrounding the ruined city, as well as the ruins themselves (and the nearby town, for that matter)
• I like desert settings, and this adventure would combine nicely with I9, X4-5-10, UK6, I3-5, and/or C2 (among others!), if desired
• The dungeon site rises from the sands only once every two years, and if the PCs don't escape its confines before it sinks, then they're stuck for two more years (a bit of a Brigadoon-like environ...)
• Three of the levels are connected by shafts rather than stairs
• Well-illustrated by Roger Raupp---I've not always been a big fan of his artwork, but it fits the scenario, setting, and tone of the module fabulously
• Gates to the four elemental planes and excellent monsters selections and tactics round out the scenario

The doesn't really sound like it adds up to much, I suppose, but "The Ruins of Andril" does play well!

Three Runners Up

While I enjoy and admire many TSR module designs, I'm going to highlight three non-TSR ones this time around, to help feature a trio of perhaps-less-well-known adventures:

• Beastmaker Mountain by Bill Fawcett (Mayfair Games, 1982):  a classic delve into the lair of an experimenter wizard who married a demon-conjuring wife!; Fawcett's ]article "Orlow's Inventions Can Liven Up Your Life" from TD#30 (October 1979) is also included for use with the module, and he also wrote a sequel to Beastmaker in 1983, Tower of Magicks
• CH-2 Seren Ironhand by Tom Moldvay (Challenges Inc., 1986):  the middle of a three part module series, but the only title published (the other two are CH-1 The Morandir Company and CH-3 The Halls of the Mountain Kings), Seren Ironhand lures PCs into a raid on some river pirates, who live in the site of an ancient dwarven mountain kingdom
• Garden of the Plantmaster by Rob Kuntz (Creations Unlimited, 1987):  a magical garden grown twisted through demonic influence, Kuntz originally created the Garden for Castle Greyhawk, and expanded it in conjunction with the Lost City of the Elders

My other posts in Kellri's 18 Day Module Challenge:

1. Day 12:  "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers
2. Day 11:  S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary Gygax
3. Day 10:  Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore
4. Day 9:  Pavis and Big Rubble by Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Oliver Dickinson, & Diverse Hands 
5. Day 8:  Angmar, Land of the Witch King by Heike Kubasch 
6. Day 7:  X2 Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay
7. Day 6:  DMG Monastery Dungeon by Gary Gygax
8. Day 5:  S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax
9. Day 4:  "Deep Shit" by Jeff Barber
   
10. Day 3:  A Fabled City of Brass by Anthony Huso
11. Day 2:  Masks of Nyarlathotep by Larry DiTillio
12. Day 1:  Empire of the Ghouls by Wolfgang Baur
13. Day 0:  These are a Few of My Favorite Things...

 

The Theory and Use of Gates in Campaign Dungeons, Part 1: Setting the Stage

Prerequisite to the summoning and binding of demons and their ilk is a deep understanding of gates and of the planes themselves.  How gates inter-relate with planar travel and truenames, with tesseracts and teleportation; the mastery of the magical traits that define planar portals, including how to ‘wrack them to your own purposes; fissuring the gatetrace of a fleeing archmage to follow and slay him within his own sanctum---these are the foundations upon which a demonologist builds her empire.  For without gates there are no summonings.

--- The Witch of Perrenland, The Demonomicon

A Quick Preface

If you have a copy of Ed Greenwood’s “Theory and Use of Gates”---first published in The Dragon #37 (May 1980) and reprinted in Best of Dragon Magazine Volume 2 (November 1981 and February 1986)--- read that before my article below.  You don’t need to read Greenwood’s treatise first, but it sets the stage for this article quite handily, hence my recommendation.  

To A Lesser Degree, Teleporters:  An Introduction

The World of Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are replete with gates and related portals, where they serve as underpinnings that showcase the importance of gates in those campaigns, and in D&D as a whole.  Castle Greyhawk is infamous for its portals to other planets and strange demi-planes---including EX1 Dungeonland and EX2 Beyond the Magic Mirror (leading to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland); WG6 Isle of the Ape (King Kong’s Skull Island); the planets from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars and Venus series; Jack Vance’s Tschai from the Planet of Adventure books; and Oz and Melniboné among many other locales.  Castle Greyhawk also features much intra- and inter-level teleportation as well, perhaps most-famously to Rob Kuntz’s Bottle City on level 2 of the dungeons.  The Forgotten Realms is similarly populated with a network of worlds-spanning portals, including a multitude within, to, and from Undermountain.  The Forgotten Realms use of gates pushed them the closest to approaching the level of ubiquity that they hold within Farmer’s World of Tiers novels, but even in the ‘Realms, gates remain, for the most part, the purview of high-level adventurers, and little is done to explain the processes behind their creation, usage, maintenance, or destruction. 

I see magical portals as a spectrum that range from rope trick to blink, through dimension door, teleport, and plane shift, to phase door and maze.  They reach their pinnacle with gate.  Thus, in my corner of the multiverse, even low-level PCs have access to gate-related magics, although no spells and few magic items directly deal with the structure of gates and related transportation portals. 

Gates present several logistical challenges to a Dungeon Master, in spite of the wonderful havoc they wreak on players (in particular the mappers), and the resultant glee that they bring to a Dungeon Master’s dark heart:  teleporters can separate parties within a dungeon or even scatter PCs across the planes; they may deposit a party into extraordinarily hostile environments for which they are completely unprepared; and they are often viewed a tools of DM fiat, in that PCs have little to no ability to control their own destiny when it comes to gates and teleporters:  PCs are either all-in, or all-out, with few tools to help them decide whether to take the plunge (assuming that they have any choice in the matter at all, of course).  In addition, gates, planar travel, and---to a lesser degree, teleporters---are often deemed the exclusive purview of high-level characters; in part I think this is because gate is, in fact, one of the highest-level spells in the game, but more so because few resources exist within D&D to help DMs and players come to terms with these semi-obscure elements of play.  In the eyes of some, to play in campaigns with a strong Moorcockian- or Philip-Jose-Farmerian flavor, is, perhaps, to step beyond the pale of even high-fantasy D&D into a “Monty Haul” campaign, or even into another rpg altogether.  Part of the intent for this article is to provide a toolkit to fill that gap---to enable gate-loving DMs and players to use gates in their games, and to challenge the perception that teleporters and planar travel fall solely within the purview of high-level characters.

Dissecting Gates, From the Outside In

To begin at the beginning, in D&D a gate is a magical portal that whisks the PCs that enter it to another location.  In general, PCs won’t know the destination of a gate unless they have discovered some information about its creators and/or its current users because in-game there are few, if any, resources available to assist PCs with divining the nature of any magical portal.  Generous DMs may provide magic-users with some intelligence about a gate via detect balance, -evil or -good, detect magic, augury, identify, know alignment, divination, or true seeing, and they can always turn to the ubiquitous last resorts of desperate information seekers---bardic lore, sagely consultation, commune, contact other plane, or legend lore.  Perhaps even such spells as locate object, glassee, project image, and other scrying magics/devices, may allow PCs to “see beyond” to the other side of a gate.  What intelligence such magics will provide, if any, rests solely on the DM’s judgment, and the players’ creativity.  But even assuming the DM allows such spells to work in some manner, what information about a gate should be provided to the players in response to such magics?   

 

Most gates are presumed to operate continuously, and are reliably safe to use:  they are basically Star Trek transporters without the occasional melt-down due to signal lock failure.  These basic assumptions hold true across most editions and settings in the game, but they’re relatively useless if a DM wants to run a multi-planar, worlds-spanning campaign within which gates play a central role.  Consider these scenarios:

• If gates can lead to variable destinations (a la Farmer, Greenwood’s article, and “From Kuroth’s Quill” #1: One-Way Doors, Variable Stairs, and the Accessibility of Sub-Levels), is there some way other than trial-and-error for PCs to recognize such gates?
• If a gate can be trapped, can PCs detect it, and attempt to remove it, and if so, how?---will a thief’s Find and Remove Traps ability function on gates?  what detail will a clerical find traps provide?  would dispel magic to remove a magical trap on the gate interfere with its functionality?
• When knights return from Faerie or other realms of myths and folklore, they often age heavily during the transition---or their age remains constant but time has advanced quickly in their absence (often a century or more); if PCs knew of such risks when choosing to traverse a gate, they might avoid it completely; if instead, however, they have tools to try to minimize such negative effects, the possibility of success (and failure!) raises the tension and the stakes in the game---especially, if they are perhaps “forced” to choose to pursue a foe beyond the gate, or to rescue a friend who fell through, or whatever.

As the usage of gates and similar transporters become more common in a campaign world, specialized magics will be developed to help manage them---not just to determine whether they are working properly, but to divine their destination(s), the arcane rules that govern when they activate, and most especially to identify the nefarious traps that have been created to safeguard their operation and usage.  Providing PCs with gate-related tools gives them a fighting chance in the face of such now-more-common challenges, and these tools make gates an easier pill to swallow, when introducing them as a new element within a campaign. 

In order to make such tools useful in a game, I’ve broken down the functionality of permanent gates and teleporters, along with some related states (trapped or not, for example) into the two sets of properties:  outer traits and inner attributes.  Depending upon how much emphasis you want gates to occupy in your campaign, you may want to combine some of these traits, ignore others, or even collapse them all into two values (all of the inner and outer properties rolled-up into one master trait, and one master attribute).  Like the myriad of the planes that gates are but entry points into, you should customize these rules to suit your own preferences, and as well as the level of detail that your players enjoy:  if none of your players run magic-users that employ detect magic to look for schools of magic or strengths of auras, then this sub-system as I’ve defined it is probably too much detail for them as-written.  Don’t let that stop you from using gates---just modify it and move on!

The outer traits of a gate can be divined via the new spell, detect gate (see part 2, below).  Outer traits include:

• intensity:  a measure of the strength of a gate’s magical aura and planar connections; detection levels are:  none/inactive, dim, faint, moderate, strong, very strong, intense, and overwhelming; gates rated at strong or stronger are more-easily detected; in general, an active gate will read with an intensity one or two levels higher than its inactive state
• recency:  a measure of when an inactive gate was last used; detection levels are:  fresh (used within 1 round/level; detects at +50%), recent (within 1 turn/level; detects at +25%), waning (within 1 hour/level, detects at base), dwindled (within 1 day; detects at -25%), stale (within 1 day/level; detects at -50%), lapsed (within 1 week/level; detects at -75%), atrophied (within 1 month/level; detects at -125%), eroded (within 1 year/level; detects at -200%)
• ethos:  a measure of the alignment components of a gate’s destination(s) (if any); detects as:  none, law, chaos, good, evil, neutrality (no detection modifiers)

Inspired DMs should tweak the increments for recency (and perhaps intensity), based on how common gates will be in a campaign, or how strong you envision their magics to be, and how lingering they are:  if you are playing in Farmer’s World of Tiers, “fresh” may measure turns or even hours per level, for example, with the rest of the values adjusting upward from there (concluding with “eroded” denoting decades or centuries per level).

The inner attributes of a gate are only available to the new spell, identify gate (again, see part 2 for details); detect gate is not sufficient to pierce the veil of a gate’s inner workings.  The inner attributes are:

• activation method(s):  general details about how the gate is activated---by walking through, by command phrase, by proximity of some sort of key or item, by ritual, etc.; specific details beyond walking through the gate often require research via consultation with a sage or bard, legend lore or contact other plane, or similar efforts to glean the full information
• destination(s):  the caster discovers how many destinations to which the gate leads; if the gate can access more than one plane, planes will be identified from most- to least-commonly travelled destinations
• periodicity:  determines if the gate is always on, or periodic; a second check will determine the frequency of the gate’s operative periods---every other round, once per day, upon command, during the new moon, etc.; a third check will determine the duration for the gate’s activity cycle---always on during the full moon, one use during a full moon, for one hour after the third person to walk through during a full moon, etc.
• sweetness:  a measure of the discomfort that passage through a gate causes, based on a 14 Constitution; adjust upward or downward from Con 14 using detect gate’s intensity scale to determine PC impact, if any:  none (no effect; the gate is “sweet”), faint (mild dizziness), moderate (dislocation), strong (mild nausea), very strong (nausea), intense (strong pain), overwhelming (unconsciousness); each level of effect is cumulative, and exact effects are left to the DM to adjudicate
• symmetry:  does the gate shift travellers’ physical positions during transit, or do they arrive in the same positions relative to one another, to the gate itself, etc.
• temporality:  does the gate shift travelers forward or backward in time, or have a discernable lag during transit time
• transit options:  is the gate one-way or two-way?
• traps:  the caster identifies one trap on the gate, if any, along with the trap’s level of threat (use detect gate’s intensity scale)
• usage restrictions:  identifies whether or not the gate restricts usage in some manner, such as by home plane, race, sex, alignment, class, level, eye color, family lineage, etc. ; the first check provides a yes/no response, while subsequent checks provide one restriction per check 

Gaming Bibliography

Ed Greenwood’s “The Theory and Use of Gates” provides an excellent overview of gates-related fiction released through the late 1970s.  Other than Greenwood’s piece and Sepulchrave’s works, I do not reference fiction otherwise in this bibliography.  Instead, I focus narrowly on useful sources about planar architecture and gates,  rather than on content describing the people, places, and things found within any specific plane:  this is one reason why I don’t list most Planescape titles in the bibliography, for example (that I can’t stand Planescape’s cant is another….).  The Dragon Archive details a cornucopia of such content specific to various planes, including the Nine Hells (issues #75, #76, #91), Gladsheim (#90), Hades (#113), and the Demiplane of Shadow (#213), in addition two planar adventures (in issues #67 and #90).  In addition, a wide variety of Planescape and d20 products have provided support content detailing specific planes as well, such as Rob Kuntz's and Necromancer Games’ City of Brass products, most of Mongoose’s line of planar books, and Monte Cook’s Beyond Countless Doorways.

Without further ado, here is my list of preferred sources about gates and planar theory, including many formative articles about the origins of D&D’s “great wheel” multiverse from The Dragon:

• Peter Adkison, The Primal Order, Wizards of the Coast (1992)
• Bruce Cordell, A Guide to the Ethereal Plane, Wizards of the Coast (1998)
• Bruce Cordell and Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel, Planar Handbook, Wizards of the Coast (2004)
• Jameson Ferris, “Tales of Wyre” (Story Hour) and “Eadric et. al. (The Paladin and his Friends)” (Rogues Gallery) in Sepulchrave’s “Wyre” threads on EN World (2002 to date)
• Ed Greenwood, “From the City of Brass… …to Dead Orc Pass… In One Small Step:  The Theory and Use of Gates” in The Dragon #37 (May 1980)
• Gary Gygax, "The Inner Planes " in Dragon #73 (May 1983)
• "Planes" in The Dragon #8 (July 1977)
• "Playing On the Other Planes of Existence" in The Dragon #32 (December 1979)
• "Protection Circles and the Like..." in Dragon #56 (December 1981)
• Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, and David Noonan , Manual of the Planes, Wizards of the Coast (2001)
• Gareth Hanrahan, Classic Play:  Book of the Planes, Mongoose Publishing (2004)
• Dave Howell, Chessboards:  The Planes of Possibility, Wizards of the Coast (1994)
• Steven Kienle with Gary Gygax, "Elementary Ideas for Elemental Adventuring" in Dragon #47 (March 1981)
• Lenard Lakofka, “The Inner Planes” in Dragon #42 (October 1980)
• Steve Marsh, "Elaikaises' Tower #2" in Lords of Chaos #4 (Spring 1978)
• "Elaikaises' Tower #3" in Lords of Chaos #5 (May 1978)
• Mike Mearls, Legends & Lairs:  Portals & Planes, Fantasy Flights Games (2003)
• Phil Reed, “A Dozen Planar Traits,” Ronin Arts (2006)
• Roger E. Moore with Gary Gygax, “The Astral Plane” in Dragon #67 (November 1982)
• Roger E. Moore, “Gates in the World of Greyhawk” originally in the Greyhawk AOL folder, was later available on wizards.com, and is now archived on Greyhawk Online (March 1995)
• Carl Schnurr, Mythic Places and More Mythic Places for Ars Magica, White Wolf (1991)
• David C. Sutherland III with Gary Gygax, Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, TSR (1980)

Other likely gaming sources for planar inspiration include the rpgs Stormbringer/Elric, Everway, Amber Diceless Roleplaying, and Ars Magica.   If I’ve missed any interesting or worthwhile books about gates and the structure of the planes, do please let me know---I’m always on the lookout for these kinds of resources!

Continued in Part 2: On the Destruction of Gates; and, New Magic-User Spells. 

Allan. 

"The Theory and Use of Gates in Campaign Dungeons, Part 1:  Setting the Stage" first appeared in Knockspell Magazine #3 (Spring 2009).