(This is my 300th post on this blog! And what better way to celebrate the anniversary than with a new class for Labyrinth Lord!)

One the PC's in my Dreamlands campaign has been blessed (via a table of random starting equipment) with the companionship of a sheep. At first the sheep was just a walking ball of wool, but inevitably questions started to be asked about its hit points, armour class, combat capabilities, etc. The sheep (named Steve) has now been elevated to the status of a henchman, and I said that the player could give a share of the PC's XP to the sheep, allowing him to advance gradually. That requires a class, thus...

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Sheep
Hit Dice: d6
Maximum level: 5

Of the standard six ability scores, sheep roll 3d6 as normal for STR, DEX and CON. They roll 1d4 for WIS and INT, and have no CHA worth talking about. Comeliness (if used) may be rolled as normal -- there are some surprisingly stunning sheep out there!

Sheep use the same saving throw chart and combat matrix as fighters. Their experience advancement and level titles are as follows.

Level  XP         Title
1         0           Flockling
2         1,000    Ram
3         2,000    Stud
4         4,000    Battle Ram
5         8,000    Flock Lord

Sheep have a natural butt attack which does 1d4 damage. This damage increases to 1d6 at 2nd level, and 1d8 at 4th level. (Note that it is assumed that an adventuring sheep is male, possessing the aggressive nature and full horns of a ram.)

At 3rd level, a sheep gains the ability to charge (as per Labyrinth Lord p. 61).

At 5th level, a sheep gains the ability to rampage. When rampaging, a sheep gains +2 to hit and damage, and a -2 penalty to armour class. Once a sheep has begun rampaging, it cannot stop for 2d6 rounds, and will attack anything which moves.

It should be noted that, as adventuring companions, sheep are contrary and stubborn. They are notoriously difficult to train, and equally infamous for their wilfulness.

I've recently started running a wilderness exploration based sandbox campaign (the Dreamlands). It's actually the first time I've been dealing with overland travel as a regular part of a campaign since I was a kid and didn't care about such things as movement rates and terrain types.

Nowadays I do care about such things, and have found myself fumbling around in the Labyrinth Lord rule book, trying to work out how many miles per day a party can travel through various types of terrain. It's not that complicated, I know, but somehow it's non-trivial enough that I have to spend time each session recalculating it. So I thought I'd try to come up with an easier system. All I've done is pre-calculated all the fractions and formatted it all into a table (see above) so that only a single look-up is required. Simply cross-reference the party's movement rate (i.e. the movement rate of the slowest character in the group) with the terrain they're travelling through, and you get the number of miles they can move in one day. The percentage chance of getting lost is also listed, for convenience.

I hope someone else finds it helpful too!

A simple variant on the standard elf class, invented my myself and Yves for his (sadly now deceased) character in the Dreamlands campaign, Mr. Sporck. In memoriam:

1. Space elves have no ability with magic, being unable to cast spells or use wizardly magic items. They are however masters of an ancient form of mind-over-matter. They use the psionics rules from Carcosa.
2. Space elves have no immunity to ghoul paralysis.
3. Space elves practice a nerve-grip combat technique. If a nerve-grip attack succeeds by 5 more than the required number to hit, the target is stunned for 1d6 rounds.

Players in my dreamlands campaign, here be dragons! Look ye not further.

After my recent experiment with a google drawing, which was a lot of fun, I've just started another. This time it's something entirely fictional -- a map of the moon in the dreamlands.

I've just started running my dreamlands campaign, which is very loosely inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's concept of the world of dream (but with the usual assortment of D&D weirdness mixed in for good measure). One of my favourite parts of the Lovecraft dreamlands is the idea that it's possible to travel to the moon, and that all sorts of weird and wonderful (and horrible, of course -- this is Lovecraft) things may be encountered there. So I've had in mind that the PCs might come across means to make the lunar transit during the course of the campaign.

This google document is, then, the beginnings of a sketch of what lies on the surface of the moon.

Have a look.

It's pretty basic at the moment, but I plan to add more stuff to it as the mood takes me. Anyone else who feels inspired, also please feel free to make your own additions!

The new campaign I've just started running (the Dreamlands campaign) is taking the form of a hex-crawl. So I have a hex map with loads of dungeons placed on it, and a list of descriptions of interesting things in some (eventually all, I hope!) of the hexes.

As I was writing a hex description last night, it occurred to me that writing for D&D is perhaps the perfect occupation for someone who loves to create sketches of scenes, locations, characters, stories; but who has no desire to flesh them out into a traditional "literature" form as full or short stories. I am such a person.

Thinking about it some more, this principle can be seen in many aspects of D&D writing: hex descriptions, dungeon room descriptions, new monsters, new spells, magic items, etc. All these things (at least in OSR circles) take the form of a sketch, with many details deliberately left vague and intriguing -- to be fleshed out during play, as needed.

Not being versed in any theories of literature, cultural studies or suchlike, these thoughts don't really lead me anywhere in particular. But I found it to be an interesting observation.

Here's the hex description which inspired these thoughts:

Players in the Dreamlands campaign, you might want to stop reading at this point!

Valley of hands -- giant stone hands lying in the forest. At the top of the valley, an ancient stair leads up to a hill where stand the remnants of a stone tower. The tower is completely overgrown, but a magically sealed trapdoor leads down to a cellar. In the cellar is: a large chest full of purple/green rugs & silks (600gp), shelves full of books -- how to animate the stone hands of the valley for one night, plus the spells command construct and inhabit figurine. A fey warlock "Malthus" trapped in a cube of green ice. He is chaotic and treacherous, hates Queen Malithandria. A PC can trade his or her soul with Malthus in return for fey powers.

As promised yesterday, my snake-man class for basic Labyrinth Lord.

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Snake-Men
Requirements: STR 9, DEX 9
Prime Requisites: STR & INT or STR & WIS
Hit Dice: 1d6
Maximum Level: 8

Snake-men are an ancient and reviled race of semi-humanoid serpents. They have the long body and tail of a giant snake (up to 10' in length), a snake's head, and human-like arms and torso.

Snake-men are notorious among others races for their depraved religious cults, which often enslave and sacrifice intelligent beings. All snake-men adventurers are trained in both fighting and magic, though they may choose whether to use clerical or magic-user spells. Clerical snake-men have STR and WIS as prime requisites, whereas magic-user snake-men have STR and INT. Note that clerical snake-men do not have the ability to turn undead.

Snake-men may use any weapons and armour, and use the elf combat, saving throw, experience and spell progression tables.

A snake-man must have a 13 or greater in both prime requisites to gain a +5% experience bonus, and a 16 or greater in both attributes is required for the +10% bonus.

In melee, a snake-man can choose to attack with his bite instead of a weapon. The bite inflicts 1d6 hit points' damage. Furthermore, a snake-man can make a poisoned bite attack once per day. The intention must be declared before the to-hit roll is made, and the poison is wasted if the attack misses. The poisoned bite inflicts additional damage equal to the snake-man's current hit points, with a successful save indicating half damage.

Snake-men may also choose to attack with their tail in melee, attempting to coil around an opponent. Constricted opponents suffer 1d3 damage per round and -2 to-hit. A snake-man's tail also allows him to coil around pillars and such.

Due to their unusual form, snake-men cannot wear normal humanoid armour, and must pay double when purchasing armour. Magical armour designed for snake-man physiology is extremely rare.

Snake-man Backgrounds

1. Slaver
2. Temple guardian
3. Magus
4. Astrologer
5. Tomb raider
6. Death priest
7. Embalmer
8. Historian

I previously posted a reptiloid race for Advanced Labyrinth Lord, but I've since then decided to run basic LL instead for my next campaign (which will starting next week, hopefully!). So here's a basic style race-class conversion of the reptiloids.

The eagle-eyed may note the absence of the snakeman variant... Snakemen have become a class in their own right, which I shall post soon.

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Reptiloids
Requirements: STR 9, DEX 9
Prime Requisites: STR, DEX
Hit Dice: 1d8
Maximum Level: 9

Reptiloids are a race of scaly lizard-like humanoids. They are typically of average human height and build, with scaly skin of varying hue (often greenish).

Reptiloids are strictly carnivorous, and have a natural bite attack which causes 1d8 damage. They have a very powerful sense of smell, which means that they are only surprised on a roll of 1.

Due to their scales, reptiloids have a natural armour class of 7. They are able to use any weapons and armour, and use the same saving throw and experience tables as dwarves. A reptiloid with a 13 in one of the two prime requisites gains a +5% XP bonus. A reptiloid with STR and DEX both above 12 gains a +10% bonus.

Reptiloid Variations
Two variant reptiloids are described below. They have weaker bite attacks, inflicting only 1d6 damage, no natural armour, and do not have the normal reptiloid's refined olfactory senses, instead having other abilities.

Gullygug: Gullygugs are a race of amphibious frog-men. When lightly encumbered they can swim at their full movement rate. They can make a hop attack, jumping up to 15' forwards and gaining +1 to-hit and +2 damage if using an impaling weapon. Gullygugs can breathe underwater for 10 minutes. In dry environments gullygugs suffer -2 to-hit unless they have a source of water available to wet their skin.

Troglodyte: A slimy subterranean race. When unclothed, their chameleon skin enables them to surprise on a 1-4. They can also choose to exude a stench which causes sickness (-2 to attack rolls) in other humanoid races within 30', unless a save versus poison is made. Note that a troglodyte's stench affects all humanoids (except other troglodytes) within range, including allies.

Reptiloid Backgrounds

1. Slaver
2. Hunter
3. Spawn guardian
4. Escaped slave
5. Man-slayer
6. Beast rider
7. Cannibal
8. Headhunter

A variant of the elf class with a nod to OD&D.

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.


Phase Elves
Of the many species of elves, phase elves are perhaps the oddest. They originate from an inter-dimensional space which is inaccessible to other races, and about which they never speak.

Physically they appear similar to other elves -- tall and slender, with elegant features. It is, however, always possible to identify a phase elf by his or her eyes, which are either pure black or pure white, without an iris or pupil. Their hair also tends to be of unusual hues such as violet or cyan (though this is not unknown in other species of elf).

What makes phase elves truly unusual is their double personality. Each individual has two independent but interconnected personae. The two personae usually share the same name, and have complete knowledge of the other's actions, but their personalities and goals are often at odds. The two personae are sometimes even of different alignment. On any given day, only one of the two personalities is manifest in the physical world, the other having shifted into the phase dimension.

A phase elf PC thus has two classes -- magic-user and fighter -- one for each personality. At the start of each game day the player can choose which personality manifests. The phasing of personalities typically occurs at the moment of waking in the morning. When a phase elf switches personalities, the only noticeable change is that the colour of his or her eyes invert (white becomes black, and vice versa). However at the moment of phasing the character's personality and class abilities switch.

When a phase elf's fighter persona is manifest, the character functions exactly as a fighter, losing all spell-casting ability. Likewise, when the character's magic-user persona is manifest, he or she gains the ability to memorize and cast spells, but must abide by the armour and weapon restrictions of the magic-user class.

Both personae share the same hit points (d6 Hit Dice), and use the same saving throws (the standard elf matrix). Attack rolls are made using either the fighter or magic-user matrix, dependant on the manifest persona.

Phase elves use the magic-user experience table, and can advance to a maximum of 8th level.

For my new Labyrinth Lord campaign I've decided, for simplicity and nostalgia, to use the basic rules -- so race-classes are back in fashion!

To that end I thought I'd whip up a gnome class, as I've always been fond of the oft-reviled wee folk. I've tried to give them a bit of flavour to differentiate them from dwarves, with whom they are often conflated.

The rest of this post is designated Open Gaming Content according to the Open Gaming License.

Gnomes

Requirements: STR 9, DEX 9
Prime Requisites: STR, DEX
Hit Dice: 1d6
Maximum Level: 8

Gnomes are a wee race of cunning burrowers. They are sometimes mistakenly regarded as relatives of dwarves or halflings – an assertion at which they take offence. In stature, gnomes reach about 3½ feet, and 60 pounds. They tend to dress in shades of brown and green, favouring soft leather and felt. The pride and joy of every gnome is his or her hat. They sport felt hats of a variety of shapes, colours and sizes – a tall red cone being the traditional choice.

Gnomes typically dwell in deep forests and secluded valleys, and have little contact with other races. They speak their own language and the common tongue. They are also privileged to know the secret language of burrowing mammals such as badgers, moles, rats, and rabbits. Such creatures, including giant varieties, are often found in the company of gnomes.

Due to their habit of living in burrows and warren complexes, gnomes can detect unsafe construction when below ground. A gnome must spend one turn searching to use this ability, and has a 2 in 6 chance of success. Gnomes can also always tell how deep underground they are, accurate to within 20', and never lose their orientation underground.

Like halflings, due to their small stature, gnomes gain a +2 bonus to armour class when fighting larger than man-size creatures. Gnomes may use any armour and any weapons except large or two-handed melee weapons, longbows and heavy crossbows.

They use the same combat, saving throw and experience tables as halflings. A gnome with at least a 13 in one prime requisite gains a +5% experience bonus. A gnome with 13 or greater in both STR and DEX gets a +10% bonus.

Gnome Backgrounds

1. Troll hunter
2. Brewer
3. Badger master
4. Tinker
5. Burglar
6. Outcast
7. Hatter (optionally mad)
8. Woodsman

See also: variant gnomes.

Following on from my recent post on B/X character backgrounds, I thought I'd share the one-page PDF I've made for players in my upcoming dreamlands campaign.

One of the concepts of the campaign is that adventurers from virtually any possible world can enter the dreamlands -- thus there is essentially no "campaign setting". The point of this is two-fold:

1. To give players complete free reign over the character they create, with no limitations imposed by the DM's preconceived notions of a campaign world.
2. To encourage an odd mashup of characters. Just for fun.

So, we could have a cleric of St Cuthbert, straight out of Greyhawk, teaming up with a star-faring barbarian and a clockwork dwarf from a steampunk maze-world.

To this end I thought it'd be helpful to produce some random tables for players who like random character generation to roll on. So we have tables for the following:

• Sex
• Sexuality
• Skin colour
• Cultural origin
• Religion

These are, obviously, heavily influenced by Jeff's What Went Wrong.


Here's the PDF.

Recommended for use with JB's B/X Headgear and 100 Reasons tables.

For my upcoming dreamlands campaign, I've been vacillating over whether to run the game using the Labyrinth Lord AEC (that is, with the full range of AD&D races, classes and combinations thereof) or whether to keep it simple and just use basic Labyrinth Lord. I'm veering now towards the latter.

What I love about the basic 4 classes (plus demi-humans) is that each class encompasses so many sub-archetypes, without getting into the arms-race of making each of them a class of its own. So, to convey this idea to potential players (many of whom are more used to AD&D or D&D3, with their respective plethora of mechanical character options) I've been working on some tables of character background ideas. The intention is that players can either roll randomly, choose one from the list, or make up something similar. None of the backgrounds in these tables grant any specific mechanical abilities or bonuses, but are intended to be used in the same way a secondary skills in AD&D are -- as an aid to situational rulings on who can do what.

Here's what I've come up with.

Fighter

1. Monster hunter
2. Wildsman / scout
3. Barbarian
4. Mercenary
5. Sailor / pirate
6. Guard / soldier
7. Gladiator
8. Bandit

Cleric

1. Cultist
2. Monk
3. Monster hunter / inquisitor
4. Zealot / evangelist
5. Mendicant
6. Templar / paladin
7. Prophet
8. Chosen one

Thief

1. Tomb robber
2. Assassin
3. Con artist
4. Acrobat / performer
5. Bandit / highwayman
6. Gambler / hedonist
7. Burglar
8. Spy

Magic-user

1. Astrologer
2. Alchemist
3. Mystic
4. Herbalist
5. Sage
6. Witch / hedge wizard
7. Warlock
8. Cultist

Dwarf

1. Monster hunter
2. Smith / mechanist
3. Miner
4. Guard / soldier
5. Stone mason / gem cutter
6. Drunkard
7. Berserker
8. Outcast

Halfling

1. Gourmand
2. Scavenger
3. Wanderer
4. Tinker
5. Burglar
6. Bard
7. Merchant
8. Sheriff

Elf

1. Noble
2. Duelist
3. Hedonist
4. Aesthete
5. Bard
6. Fey warlock
7. Fated
8. Trickster

(Thanks to Alex for his inspirational tables!)

Continuing on from the rules of reality in the Dreamlands, here's how the game sessions themselves will be structured. As you can see, I'm going for a kind of episodic West Marches feel, where a large pool of players can participate in a single campaign, with different PCs joining forces each session to form an adventuring party and continue their explorations.

1. Each session begins with the PCs drinking the Sardo brew and entering the Dreamlands. The name of a monolith may be spoken at this point, if desired. It is the players' responsibility to remember the names of any monoliths they encounter.

2. The referee shall set an alarm clock, determining the end time of the session semi-randomly. A reasonable time should be set, but with enough variance that the players can't predict when the session will stop. When the alarm goes off, that's it -- the PCs awake immediately, bringing with them any treasure on their persons.

3. Any "in town" stuff (planning, buying equipment, learning spells, etc) shall be conducted between sessions, either by each player on his or her own (using appropriate equipment lists and so on), or in consultation with the referee and/or other players via email or whatever.

4. All characters spend 10% of their total wealth between sessions (to be deducted at the end of a session, after XP has been allocated). This covers their (presumably fairly extravagant) living expenses, equipment maintenance, religious offerings, random taxation, and so on.

Players in my games -- Nothing to see here, move along!

In the planning of my upcoming Dreamlands campaign, I'm intending each level of dream to be a wilderness area scattered with many interesting encounters and/or dungeons. The idea being that PCs can choose to dip into any of the dungeons they come across, exploring more deeply in any which take their fancy.

So, what I need is a lot of small dungeons, and a few larger ones. The larger ones I'm quite happy to take from published sources (Fight On!, for instance), and there are plenty of one page dungeons around which I could slot in as well. But of course, I want to create some small dungeons of my own to give the flavour I'm looking for.

With this in mind, I've conceived a new way of writing adventures -- speed dungeons! The concept is to map and fully key a dungeon (or as far as possible) in an hour or less. So, a single sheet of paper, with a quickly drawn map and loads of scrawled notes all over it.

For the interest of other DMs, I present the first fruits of this experiment -- The Caverns of the Silver Men -- a mini-dungeon which I created last night in about 50 minutes.

I'm not sure if it'll be particularly comprehensible to anyone else, or if you'll be able to decipher my hand-writing, but please check it out if you're interested!

1. Living mortals may enter the Dreamlands via the city of Darhoo, by imbibing the intoxicating brew of the sap of the Sardo tree. The secrets of this tree, its sap, and the brew which can be fermented from it have been known in Darhoo since ancient times. Only Darhoo, on the edge of the Styrgian desert, lies close enough to the dreamlands to enable transit between worlds, and only then on the night of the crossing moons.

2. The Sardo brew transports a mortal, along with their possessions, into the upper level of the Dreamlands, which is known as "the phantasmagoric glades".

3. Nine deeper levels of dream are known to exist, each with their own name and character. The deeper levels of dream are said to be more perilous to mortals, but also riper with wonder and bounty. Gateways from one level of dream to another may be found within the Dreamlands.

4. The effects of the transportative Sardo elixir do not last forever. In Darhoo-time, dreaming travellers return to the desert city after some few hours in the other realm. In Dreamlands-time the duration of the effects is variable. Dreamers have reported weeks of travel during a single jaunt. Others report mere minutes before returning to the waking world.

5. The duration of a jaunt into the somnambulistic sub-reality can in no manner be controlled. The whims of the Dreamlands are at play here, and dreamers may find themselves awakening at the most inopportune moments.

6. The Dreamlands may be disjointed, shifting and phantasmal, when compared to the waking world, but they are in fact every bit as real. Treasures found in the Dreamlands will return with a dreamer when his or her time is over. Equally, death in the Dreamlands is true death.

7. Dreamers report that a series of monoliths exist throughout the Dreamlands, each of a similar type, and inscribed with a name. Speaking the name of a monolith one has seen in dream, while drinking the Sardo juice, effects a return to that spot. A dreamer's companions may also be taken along in this manner.

Clockwork dwarves, and psychedelic gnomes, reptiloids, gullygugs and rat-men! Gather ye souls of wandering persuasion and prepare to enter the shifting sub-reality of the Dreamlands.

Here be the known depths of dream, divided into ten levels, ripe with plunder and comedy death:

1. The phantasmagoric glades
2. The plain of bones & pyramids
3. The prismatic jungle
4. The limnal mists
5. The labyrinth of nightmares
6. The cloud-realm of the seven spheres
7. The geometric wastes
8. Wereport -- city on the sea of somnambulism
9. The outer void
10. The sublime paradise of eternal balance