What It Is: Something Unholy Stirs

What's unholy is that I paid money for this crap.

I was bumming around on DriveThruRPG, looking for some cheap adventures to help populate my sandbox.  I came across the OSRIC-compatible Something Unholy Stirs, by Sancrosanct Games.  It looked interesting and had a decently old school cover.  The premise is kind of interesting.  The typos and poor editing are painful.  I went to the Sacrosanct Games website to see of maybe they are a foreign company and English is their second language, but it doesn't appear to be the case.  The title page reads "individual artits[sp] may retain copywrite[sp]".  Dude.  When even your CYA statements are spelled wrong, you need some help.

The plot of the module sounded good at first.  A necromancer was using a village's prime location as a stop along a booming trade route as cover for her nefarious activities.  The players stumble upon said activities and attempt to put a stop to it.  Well, this necromancer is about as subtle as a rhinoceros running wild through a crowded marketplace.  Any players older than 12 will probably see through to the plot and go straight for the fairly straightforward dungeon delve.  In fact, that's what this adventure reminds me of: something I would have come up with when I was 12 writing my own adventures for the rest of my middle school friends.

This is seriously the most poorly written and edited RPG product I have ever paid money for.  Do not go anywhere near Something Unholy Stirs.

The Toolbox: Putting Level Caps Into Practice

Okay, last night, I whipped up five OSRIC characters.  As you can see from my previous post, one of them was literally unplayable.  That still blows my mind.

Anyway, I made my characters for the campaign.  Straight 3d6s in order.  I focused heavily on demi-humans, since the point of this exercise was to base a campaign off of level caps.  I won't go into the weeds of it, but here was the party I ended up with:

Stor Valans, Male Human Magic-User
Ral Goldenleaf, Male Elf Cleric
Potter Neel, Male Halfling Fighter/Thief
Teris Jan, Female Half-Elf Thief
Gelda Spearbreaker, Female Half-Orc Fighter

This party actually doesn't have much in the way of level caps.  Ral tops off at 7, Gelda at 10.  Potter's fighter levels will stop at 4, but the sky is the limit with the rest of them.  Since he can progress in thief levels, we'll plan for the campaign to end around the 7th or 8th level.

It's been an awful long time since I wrote anything for an Old School Rules set, so it will be a bit before I have more detail.  My first thought are sixteen "episodes" which I hope will fit into a night of play each.  There will be much tweaking as I go on, for sure.

Before we fill in the details, the general structure will look like four episodes taking the players through Levels 1 and 2.  Some light foreshadowing, but generally light plot to give the players time to feel out the characters and the personalities.  I want the last four episodes to be the dramatic conclusion, so maybe the dungeoncrawl into the villain's lair comprising levels 7 & 8.  The middle--buildup.


The dilemma for me has been what to make the big bad guy.  I looked through the monster lists, but then realized that the answer was in a different project I was working on.  One of the things I noticed in the earlier D&D works is that there was a mechanism built into the Orcs akin to the "Animosity Roll" from Warhammer.  The caveat in the 1e Monster Manual is that a powerful leader can keep these different tribes together.  So, if I'm going old school, I'm going OLD SCHOOL.  The villain will be a powerful (well, given the party, like 11th level) magic-user who will have an army of humanoids and undead at his disposal.


I'll work into all of the PCs backstories either a personal loss or a spiritual motivation that predisposes them against the wizard.  While it won't come into play immediately, by the time they are 3rd Level and the plot buildup begins, those motivations will be tweaked and the plot will move forward.

With this as a base, you'll see blogs in the future in the "Against the Dark Lord" category.  Those will be this virtual OSRIC campaign.  Too many potential players read this, so while the details might not be practiced, future players of mine can certainly learn the theory of how I plan campaigns.

Rogue's Gallery: Even More Pathetic than Monahan (OSRIC)

I have been playing D&D for 26 years.  I have never had this happen before.

I made an unplayable character.

No really.  He is unplayable.

A dwarf with the following stats:
Str 13, Dex 8, Con 17, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 3

He cannot be part of any character class under the OSRIC rules as written.

I win.

The Toolbox: Using OSR Level Caps to Help Write a Campaign

When I was talking with a friend on Facebook about Monaghan, the lovable loser from my previous post, I was thinking about some of the other aspects of OSR character creation.  In particular, I was thinking about level caps.  Assuming Monaghan doesn't suffer a horrible fate, he has unlimited potential as a thief.  If is Wisdom was one point higher, he would have been a fighter with a maximum level of 6.

I know a lot of people think level caps suck.  As I understand it, they were put in place to balance out the exceptional abilities non-human characters get at first level.  Makes sense, but how many campaigns really get that far, anyway?  From my experience, most OSR campaigns died out between levels 5 and 10.  Epic campaigns are generally the exceptions, not the rule.

Why not embrace the level cap and the general short life a campaign and plan for both to end around the same time?  Upon generating the characters, look at the limits of your non-humans.  Write a campaign that will naturally end a bit after that level cap is reached and before the other players outstrip the capped one.

Putting my money where my mouth is, here is what I will present to you.  I will, using OSRIC, create five brutal characters.  Brutal being how the die rolls treat them, not what they will be able to do to the monsters.  With these five characters, I will take the roles and the limits and plop them down in my all time favorite Old School world--Greyhawk.

With that, I will write the beginnings of a campaign.  Stay tuned.

Rogue's Gallery: Monahan Grutain (OSRIC)

Okay, so there was a blog about rolling back to a previous edition of game rules if you are feeling a little overwhelmed by splatbooks.  I decided to take 5 Stone Games up on their challenge.  The only modern OSR set I have on my laptop is OSRIC, and I didn't feel like investigating others to see if they were available for download.  That's for another day.

I rolled up a strict character--3d6 in order of abilities.  No tweaking the bell curve with 4d6 drop 1 or placing the stats where I wanted them.  WOW.  I forgot how harsh that could be.  Thanks the a 6 Wisdom requirement, my character with a 15 Strength could not qualify for fighter.  In fact, the only class and non-human race I qualified for was Half-Elf Thief.  Looking at the stats, I've got a reasonably likable fool with a penchant for getting sick, even though he is built like a brick shithouse.  I named him after a guy who plays LFR in Colorado Springs that no one really likes, because I see this guy being not too loved by the local underground community.  He's a little dim and has the worst decision-making skills out there.  On top of that, he's not terribly good at thievery.  I reckon he'd be adventuring by default, having been encouraged to leave the local guild community.  Since he's got a decent (which is to say average) Charisma, I'm thinking they pity him more than hate him and just made him leave town.

NOT at all heroic.  Wow. I made a pathetic character.  Maybe that's what will make him heroic.  In SPITE of his mental shortcomings, he manages to become a hero and show those around him the true meaning of friendship and love.  Yes, I made the D&D equivalent of Forrest Gump.

*FACEPALM*  FML.

Here are the idiot's stats:

Monahan Grutain
Male Half-Elf Thief Level 1 Age 29
Str 15, Dex 9, Con 7, Int 8, Wis 5, Cha 10

Armor Class 8
Hit Points 6
Alignment True Neutral

Attribute Effects
+20 Encumbrance, 2 in 6 Minor Strength Tests, 7% Major Strength Tests, 60% Survive Resurrection, 55% Survive System Shock, 1 Additional Language, -1 Mental Saving Throw Bonus, 4 Henchmen Maximum

Racial Abilities:
30% resistance to sleep and charm spells, Detect secret doors 2 in 6, concealed doors 3 in 6 when searching, Detect concealed doors 1 in 6 when passing within 10’, Infravision 60’, Movement Rate 120 ft.

Thief Abilities:
Backstab (+4 to hit, double rolled damage (modifiers unchanged)), Climb Walls 80%, Find Traps 10%, Hear Noise 10%, Hide in Shadows 15%, Move Quietly 0%, Open Locks 20%, Pick Pockets 30%, Read Languages 1%

Languages: Common, Thieves’ Cant

Weapon Proficiencies: 2

Saving Throws:
Aimed Magic Items 14, Breath Weapons 16, Death, Paralysis, Poison 13, Petrification, Polymorph 12, Spells 15

20 hits AC 1 through -4

Thieves’ Tools
Leather Armor
Long Sword
Damage 1d8 (s/m) 1d12 (l), encumbrance 7