Icons of Chirak in 13th Age

One of the more interesting and campaign-dependent features of 13th Age is the Icon system, which is a mostly role-play driven mechanic in which players pick up to three iconic entities of great power or influence and each game session you roll dice to see if there's a chance you interact with, gain benefit from (or advantage against) or otherwise influence or are influenced by that particular icon. The mechanic is really simple: roll a D6 per icon point. Each 5 is a "benefit with complications" and each 6 is a benefit without strings. You can have positive, conflicted and negative relationships with icons.

Icons as presented in the core rules are designed to conform to a specific template of fantasy and do so remarkably well; they map almost perfectly to key figures in my Ages of Lingusia campaign, for example. However in more exotic and detailed worlds you may need more specific icons, or even icons designed specifically for certain regions. What follows is an example of how I mapped out the Icons for the Realms of Chirak...

13^th Age Icons in the Realms of Chirak:

Lady Poe – The Dark Queen (ambiguous)

Lady Poe is the queen of Kasdalan, mother to more than a dozen magically gifted daughters, and nearly immortal. Her reach from the south is felt throughout the Sea of Chirak region. Thanks to Lady Poe the dark kingdom of Kasdalan has a great reach, and she relies on her loyal daughters to enforce that power. Though regarded as a sorceress of darkest power, Lady Poe is not inherently evil or even inimical to the world at large, and would prefer to keep the realms as they are, a  world for her to conquer and rule rather than let the forces of chaos…including her ex husband….gain any ground towards its destruction.

An iconic relationship with Lady Poe will almost always be complicated, but a dedicated servant can earn her trust in time. Lady Poe will not always crush enemies….but she takes exception for male sorcerers and wizards, who are despised in Kasdalan and killed by her orders on sight. A male sorcerer who has a complicated or negative relationship with Lady Poe is almost certainly one who has met one of her daughters and earned the queen’s ire for it.

Zam Redar  - The Diabolist (villainous)

Zam Redar is the most potent and conniving of the Thousandspawn, who most recently attempted to utilize the demiurge Apophis to change the past so that he may permanently create a future in which he ruled all. He is currently lying low in the north, near Maegar territories. Zam Redar was once the husband of Lady Poe, and his centuries of adventure and mischief have led him down the path of the conqueror and the destroyer on many an occasion. It is his close connection to his father-deity, Ga’Thon, which makes him most dangerous.

An iconic relationship with Zam Redar is always dangerous for both allies and enemies alike. Zam Redar sees those who would court him for power, knowledge or to benefit from his own machinations as tools, regardless of their outlook on the relationship. A negative relationship with Zam Redar is a very dangerous thing to have, for the thousandspawn has a wide reach and many resources to destroy you.

Marcus Darego – The High King (heroic)

The uniting king of Espanea, Marcus Darego has survived a great war and recovered his throne from the schemes of Minhaurous himself. Darego fosters knowledge and unity in the Sea of Chirak region wherever he can, and employs heroes of the land to get the job done.

Many heroes have strong affiliation with King Darego, and he also spends much effort to track and eliminate the enemies to his kingdom and the Sea of Chirak. A negative relationship with King Darego could be for any number of reasons, from being a bandit or pirate against Espanea to having the blood of the Old Sea Kings in your veins.

Mardieur Mardieux – The Prophet (heroic)

Mardieur Mardieux is the first new true avatar of this last century, though others are manifesting. He bears the weight of a unified Aquarius Stone, and is guided by the spirit of Akquinarios as well as the voice of Kalie’yana.

Mardieur Mardieux is a young avatar and his inspiration has led to the resurgence of cults dedicated to the memory of Akquinarios. He is careful in what allies he chooses, and equally involved in crushing his enemies.

Milina – The Daughter of Chaos (ambiguous)

Milina, daughter of Minhauros is a potent demiurge who travels the planes of existence as well as the physical world seeking relics of lost power and lore, while trying to recover the missing aspects of power that her father deposited across the many realms of existence. Her nature makes trust difficult; she means to do well, but finds the chaos in her soul often leads to betrayal.

Milina, like her father, is prone to using and discarding allies and enemies alike; she often works both with and against those who swear fealty to her, and her motives are never clear. Despite this, many seek to attain a portion of the power one can get from serving the daughter of chaos.

Kalie’Yana – The Maiden of Lore (heroic)

The demiurge of the seas has an active interest in thwarting the efforts of Piscrael in the Sea of Chirak region, and works actively with trustworthy heroes to aid them with divine lore whenever possible. She does all she can to steer the Sea of Chirak region toward betterment and greatness where she can, though she has only been on the path of the divine for six centuries.

A relationship with Kalie’Yana is usually one of trust, where she seeks to aid those who truly need it and do great deeds. She may on occasion see goodness where none is evident and set about a process of trying to reform an otherwise irredeemable villain, as well.

Piscrael – The Conqueror (villainous)

Piscrael is another potent demiurge who stole power from his predecessor Malib, and uses it to turn himself into a charnel beast of chaos. He has designs on enslaving all of the peoples of the Sea of Chirak to his will, and an army of demons from the aquatic Chaos Rift to do it.

Piscrael seeks out agents and allies to build a relationship with, and he seeks to destroy or harry those who would thwart him.

Kal Vassos – The Archmage (heroic)

Kal Vassos is a lord of the Tower of Kaledon as well as secret master of the Chronomancers from the Island outside of Time. He is the most portent near-immortal to achieve his power through the mastery of sorcery in the world and has worked across the centuries now to defeat enemies such as Piscrael and Tiamat that would complete the dark goals of the Betrayer Gods.

A relationship with Kal Vassos is one of comraderie and reliance; Kal depends heavily on his agents throughout the world to set aright the deviations put in place by the chaotic relics of the world. He also likes to keep close tabs on potential enemies.

Minhauros – The Vestige of Darkness (villainous)

The only relic of The Twelve known to exist (for Malib’s imprisonment in death is largely unknown) is Minhauros, and even then his vestigial spirit was believed to have been locked away, never to be released again. Only recently did this spirit escape by virtue of happenstance, and Minhauros’s dispossessed form once again roams free to determine how he will restore himself and fulfill his destiny as the destroyer of worlds.

A Relationship with Minhauros is fraught with danger for the one seeking some sort of allegiance or servitude. Minhauros uses allies as readily as he seeks to destroy enemies, and he is desperate to find a means of corporeal resurrection; his spirit can only be destroyed when someone at last integrates all parts of the Taurus Stone into one and makes it their own as a semiurge…until then, his mind seeks a means of at last fulfilling his destiny, and he will use his agents to any ends to do it.

The Demon Gods – The 113 (Villainous)

The demon gods are the one hundred and thirteen warlords of Perdition as well as other being, such as corrupt spirit lords, immortals, and thousandspawn who collectively amount to the old generals and support for the Betrayer Gods. In truth there are probably far less than 113 still active, alive or not imprisoned, but they are given strength by the worship of the Xoxtocharit and other cultures that revere them, and allow them to creep back into the mortal plane through planar gates.

A relationship with the 113 is a relationship of great peril whether it be positive, negative or ambiguous though some groups such as the Xoxtocharit revel in these connections. The specific demon gods which might take particular interest will vary, but the results will always be the same: chaos and suffering.

Malenkin – The Lich King (ambiguous)

The sorcerer who was Malenkin preserved his soul in undead centuries ago and bides his time in the Kraggit Mountains of Mercurious, working behind the scenes to attain more power and seek to gain advantage against all other icons. He has allied himself with Minhauros in the past but regrets it. He has entertained the idea of allying himself with other icons at different times, but his self-serving nature makes this difficult.

To have an iconic relationship with Malenkin is to be a mercenary for one who seeks to accumulate power and knowledge at the expense of all others. Malenkin is opposed to the chaos forces that would destroy the world only insofar as it would set him back on his own quest for sorcerous immortality and lore. Those who would thwart these goals are his sworn enemies.

Rovas, Kaos, Tyriath and Shadamas – The Wyrmlords  (ambiguous)

The Wyrmlords are the council of the dragons, the ancient dragon lords who still try and hold the diaspora of their kin together while they await the final resolution of Tiamat. These particular wyrmlords have determined that the manifest destiny of Tiamat is necessary, although it is opposed by Kaos, who is the immortal reincarnation of Bahamut, and it is regarded as a grim necessity by Rovas, the guardian of the goddess who is also the reincarnation of ancient Marduk. The wyrmlords operate under the principle that all dragons everywhere must be ready for the great rebirth, when Tiamat destroys the world and remakes it in the image of dragonkind….for better or worse.

Tiamat is a force of nature as much as anything, and she is currently loose in the planar realms, but her destiny seems to be to have her followers coax her back to Chirak to initiate the destruction of the material plane, allowing for its rebirth into the Next World, an idyllic paradise the dragons have foretold will happen when the world is unmade. This incarnation of Tiamat is conflicted, for her spirit is that of the draconian Von, who flinches at the power she wields even as it overwhelms her with power and lust.

Iconic relations with the wyrmlords means a generally better relationship with dragonkin in general, but it also means a grim acceptance of the manifest destiny of the dragon goddess….be that destiny one where she destroys the world now, or in some future incarnation. To stand in opposition to the wyrmlords is to stand against the manifest destiny of Tiamat.

Addeas Immortas – The 13^th Divinity (villainous, ambiguous or heroic…time will tell!)

Recently reborn, laboring under a curse in which his mere existence is forgotten by all, the being called Addeas Immortas possessed the mind of a common band named Madaran Sath it in the south while seeking to fulfill a vague destiny as the 13^th God. Forged from a shard of each of the twelve Zodiac Stones, the divine stone which Addeas Immortas holds contains an amalgamation of all other divine powers combined. His worth to those who would control him is immeasurable. His value to the other icons is unknown or suspect, but his own aims and goals are equally suspicious, for his last incarnation was not unifying as intended but instead sought to destroy the other gods entirely. He works now with his vampiric spouse Irtralia while avoiding the Razaphar, ancient seraphim charged with his containment…or destruction.

Those who have been contacted by the mind fo Addeas Immortas are sought for their singularly unique abilities and the need of the “god” to seek out their talents to aid him. Those he marks enemies are watched carefully that they may be contained or destroyed. His reach in the Sea of Chirak so far is limited, for he is a young unknown by the standards of the current era but he is also the oldest known being in existence right now upon the world.

The Solidification of 13th Age as a Go-To Game

Roleplaying games in my gaming circles generally fall into one of three types:

--Interesting games we might talk about but never can spare the time to actually try (Numenera, FATE, Edge of the Empire). They either have some flaw (weird dice, exotic mechanics), some level of buy-in (too many tomes, no PDF available) or are just a bit out of the overlap on the venn diagram of the local group's interests to permit it a chance.

--Games that are a fun occasional "break game" or alternatively the "beer & pretzels" rpg; something you play when you're looking from a temporary break from the regular game (Tunnels & Trolls, Savage Worlds, about 90% of all indie games out there)

--And last but most importantly is the bread-and-butter "go-to" game. This is the one (or two) that your group will play religiously....the one which brings everyone to the table. You can usually identify this one by how many of your regulars actually buy copies of the game; buy-in is serious business among gamers.

Until recently for me that "bring them to the table" game was Pathfinder (with BRP as my backup), but lately it's slowly but surely starting to turn into 13th Age. With two regular 13th Age games going now, one weekly Wednesday and one every other Saturday....and Magic World on the off-Saturday, it's basically the first time in ages that I am essentially "D&D free" depending on how loosely you want to define the D&D term. 13th Age feels like an offspring, not quite the same as the real deal....but it's damned interesting that it's apparently got the muscle to tow two game nights and more than half my players seemed to have bought copies...and at least one of my cohorts plans to run it soon. Good stuff!

Makes me wonder how August (assuming D&D 5E is still on track for an August release.....) is going to play out....

Gear Maidens in Magic World/BRP

The gear maidens as a B/X D&D monster appeared a week or two back, but I have been steadily converting all that material plus the Pergerron setting to my Magic World campaign that is ongoing. Here then are the Gear Maidens D100 style...

Gear Maidens (The Maidens of Sar)

STR        3D6+6   16-17

CON       3D6+6   16-17

SIZ         2D6+6      13

INT        3D6+3    13-14

POW      12+1D6  15-16

DEX       2D6+6      13

APP       3D6        10-11    

Move 10

Hit Points  15

Damage Bonus +1D4

Skills: Climb Dodge 40%, Listen 50%, Hide 40%, Move Quietly 40%, Jump 80%

Armor: natural metal plating 1D8

Attacks: Unarmed (slam) 50%, 1D8+1D4 or arm blades (two) 75%, 1D6+1+1D4 each

Traits: healed by electrical damage; immune to cold damage but are slowed to Move 2; immune 

to mind-affecting magic

Terrain: any ancient ruins

Gear maidens are an unusual construct sometimes found in the ancient ruins of Pergerron. Each gear maiden has the appearance of a suit of armor or a mannequin made to look like a woman comprised of complex clockwork moving parts. Most of the gear maidens appear to be one of three types: jackal-headed, elvish-looking, and on rare occasion smooth, featureless faces with a mirror of silver where eyes, nose and mouth would be located.

Gear maidens may have served some other purpose in the ancient past, constructs designed for amusement, or to serve as guards perhaps. Today they are relics which haunt the ancient ruins, acting erratically and without purpose. When a gear maiden (or group of such) is encountered roll to see what their pattern of behavior is (D10):

1-4 - the gear maidens function as if the ruin around them is still alive; they prop skeletal remains up on chairs, serving them empty platters of food while serving long-dried bottles of wine. They will grow antagonistic to anyone who tries to point out the absurdity of their actions or the deathly nature of those they "serve."

5-7 - the gear maidens are mad, and appear to have suffered some sort of mania, which they may call "malfunctioning" to those who can prompt them to speak coherently. These are deadly, usually attacking randomly before fleeing, only to circle back later and strike again.

8-9 - some may be found which are coherent, usually hunting for parts. These gear maidens salvage relics of lore and preserve them, as if enshrining the lost civilizations of old Sar and other empires of the past. They are not above cutting down maddened versions of their own to salvage parts to repair themselves.

10 - Occasionally a cunning and vengeful gear maiden will be found. These are the deadliest, for they remember the fall of the old empires, and the destruction of those they served. They will seek to hunt down and exterminate all humans and demi-humans they come across, and will do so with great cunning and relish.

Aside from the retractable blades (about as long as a short sword, but much sharper) gear maidens have the traits of other constructs, and are immune to any gaseous or poison attacks, as well as any attacks that affect life force (POW draining, for example); they also can never increase their initial POW score. They are immune to mind-affecting spells, for their magical artificial brains cannot comprehend or react to the magical influence of the mind. Lighting damage heals them. Cold damage deals 1/2 damage to them but they are slowed to Move 2 for 1 round after being subject to the cold-damaging attack.

An entrepreneurial fighter with some weapon smithing skills could extract the arm blades of a destroyed gear maiden to find that they will make enchanted short swords of amazing quality (+10% attack and +2 damage).

Source

Unfettered! On Comics, and Other Stuff

Free to write whatever I feel like for the first time in three months --following February's Savage Worlds in Space Daily, March's 13 Days of 13th Age and April's 30 days of B/X D&D....gah!-- I now have may resume writing whatever springs to mind at any given moment, including boring blog posts where I talk about not much at all.

Hidden behind the focused run for three months has been my secret "actual focus" going on in real life: comics. Lots and lots of comics. My years-long drought of staying away from the medium of comics is at an end, and thoroughly staked through the heart now. I have hoarded so many graphic novels, so many series both current and past that I accidentally booked my comic reading for the next couple of years, I think.

Hoarding is a problem that runs in my family. I like to think my manifestion of it is more benign, albeit expensive at times.

Given that I'm now subbing (via the local Comics Warehouse) to around 20 or so titles (maybe more) on top of the heaping mounds of graphic novels I have acquired, I think I have more than enough to sustain me through to the point at which I snap and get tired of it all again. Assuming I reach that point...I actually love comics as a medium, but the price point over the years reached a critically dangerous "dollars to fun" ratio that regular novels, RPGs and video games seriously outstripped. Now, thanks to the generous price point of many graphic novels (DC's pricing is very nice for its New 52 books) as well as judicious use of Ebay and Amazon it is once again possible to buy TPBs without feeling guilty, or like I should be shoveling all this money into my retirement. Even though I probably should.

So it is with all this discussion that I am implying, but not announcing, that I may be talking a lot about what's going on in comics these days. It may not all be current.....I am really enjoying catching up on the complete Brian Michael Bendis run of New Avengers, for example (acquired the New Avengers Omnibus I for about $35 on Ebay....over 1,000 pages in the damned thing!) but it's quickly becoming apparent to me that Marvel really owes Bendis for making them so great. Hope he's well paid, he deserves it!

Likewise I am neck-deep in the New 52 now, and am reaching a saturation point with DC, enough so that the visceral thrill of getting back into the swing of reading comics is now being replaced by a scrutinizing, critical eye on certain books, especially ones that someone thoughtlessly turned over to Rob Liefield, a guy who seems to be very good at damaging the IPs entrusted to his care; the travesty he made out of Grifter and Deathstroke....seriously, there's some bad writing going on in these books. Just painful stuff. I could only hope the Wildstorm characters were popular enough to get a Flashpoint/Crisis style retcon, or maybe a reboot in their own universe again....the way they were subsumed into the DC continuum with the New 52 is endlessly painful; only Voodoo's two book run really did something to make the character better than it had been. And there's no good excuse for Deathstroke, DC's quasi-Punisher type, who was getting better, more coherent stories and presentation thirty years ago in the Teen Titans as a proper villain.

Anyway....more to come, just enjoying a chance to write a blog without a chosen theme for once!

B/X D&D Month XXX: Finale

This was a long month.....no more! I am going to take a break from daily posts on a defined subject for a while. To wrap up my month of Basic/Expert/Rules Cyclopedia D&D I am going to discuss what this game has meant to me over the last 34 years, and how it's versatility and value has shifted to me over time. 

Late in 1980 as a young man I acquired the Dungeon game, and sometime early in 1981 (I assume 1981, as it looks like the Mentzer Basic set came out that year) my parents were gracious enough to purchase the game for my sister and myself. It wasn't until I found Gamma World that the game "clicked" for me (I was only ten years old at the time) and I figured out what it was all about. Thereafter things were never the same and one could argue for better or worse that I was destined for a certain kind of path in life thereafter.

Basic and Expert D&D served me well initially as introductions to the concept of RPGs and later as rules addenda to AD&D, which was a convoluted but fascinating mess. When I couldn't figure out what the hell Gary Gygax was going on about with initiative and sequence of actions in the DMG I would instead turn to Basic and Expert D&D as the clear rules which explained how it worked. Back then it wasn't entirely clear to me that B/X were mechanically that different from AD&D....just more cleanly written. So for most of my AD&D days I spent my formative years using the PHB/DMG/MM as supplements powered by the core mechanics of B/X D&D.

Later on I lost my obsession with AD&D as I discovered more games and branched out, but at some point in 1987 I must have rediscovered B/X in a sort of purist fashion as I tried writing some scenarios for that edition, including a solitaire, which I published in my fanzine of the day, "The Sorcerer's Scrolls." I was revisiting AD&D and B/X at that time, with the intent of "relearning" them from my later-day high school perspective, and the mindset of one who now regularly ran Dragonquest, Runequest, T&T and DC Heroes RPGs. There must have been something I liked in B/X back then from the "revisitation" because I wrote several articles specifically and only for that version of the game around that time.....but this wasn't really going to go over all that well, of course, in a fanzine primarily dedicated to non-D&D games and T&T in particular. C'est la vie.

B/X D&D remained "out of my life" for a long time. In 1991 the Rules Cyclopedia appeared and I got a copy, but I was deeply into AD&D 2nd Edition at that time and couldn't appreciate the system for what it was, although I admired the fact that the entire BECM set could fit into a single rulebook.

Basic/Expert wouldn't resurface for me until some thirty-odd years later, with the OSR movement. Labyrinth Lord and others got me started back on the track, and WotC releasing the dndclassics.com website made it possible to resume collecting these books once more in a clean, easy to read and print format. Daniel Proctor deserves a great deal of credit for keeping B/X and its concepts alive; Labyrinth Lord is far and away the best of the OSR retroclones in my opinion (with the caveat that in a world of porterhouse steaks cooked to perfection I am simply declaring one porterhouse to be more succulent than the others...)

Today, as a middle aged gamer who's been through a lot, gamed consistently for three decades and moved with the currents of game design from the era of the classics to a modern age where game design can somehow take a rule as simple as "roll a D20 and aim for a high number" and turn it into a 600 page rulebook. What's happened is that eventually you crack: you reach the apex of complexity, the pinnacle of system mastery and design, and you realize that you are so far removed from your very roots, that you can't even remember what it was like to be there on the ground anymore.

People like to say the OSR movement is driven by nostalgia, but I ask....how can one be nostalgic about something that seems so far away, so distant? I rather think there's something else going on....

OSR retroclones, the "D&D-likes" as I call them, helped rekindle an effort not to remember the good old days so much as realize that there was never anything wrong with the good old days, the way we played. Finding B/X D&D again for me was a realization that the quest for verisimilitude and depth in gaming doesn't come from the rules, it comes from the people playing. The rules are a fantastic vessel for adventuring, for creating a good story....but they are only hampered by one's perception of the rules as a necessary conformity to that process. Seeing B/X D&D now, at an age where I am a career businessman with a son and wife, and so very little time, makes me realize that sometimes the best rulebooks are the ones that give you the smallest starting point, but within that point they pack a whole lotta punch to get you started. Basic and Expert D&D did that extremely well, and with absolutely no need for more than those two books (though they had many great adventures and gazetteers,all of it was optional). No edition of D&D since the days of B/X has managed to do this, and the Rules Cyclopedia was the grand last hurrah....until now.

So....that's my story about B/X D&D and why I find it such a great "new" discovery, a game that got better with age, and is now perhaps my favorite iteration of the game. Now....time for a break! Honestly, one of the reasons it was grueling to write an entry a day for B/X D&D was that the game is so generally complete that it's really hard to do much more than generate new monster and magic items ideas for the game. Next time I do this I think I'll pick a system that's not so damned self contained!

B/X D&D Month: XXIX: adding some exotics to treasure

A few more ideas to toss around: every edition of D&D (and other games too) seems to revel in the myriad weird currencies you can encounter while adventuring. Something worth considering, though: not all these currencies were common coinage for much of the middle ages (the ostensible not-Europe era in which D&D's fantasy world takes a suspicious resemblance). Platinum, for example, manifested as a viable metal in Pre-Columbian America and wasn't even known until its discovery by Europeans (first reference to such in 1557 according to Wikipedia). Made all the more amazing its the high melting point necessary to work with platinum (3214.9 F)...Europeans didn't accomplish this extraction process until 1700s and even then it was with many trials and errors due to the lack of understanding of the metal. I'm no metallurgist so my advice is read the Wiki for details, but seriously....this is a metal that's just as exotic as orichalcum or adamantite when you consider it in the context of the more medieval fantasy realms D&D typically depicts.

Imagine for a moment a world in which a defining trait of all magic-forged weapons and jewelry was that it was made of exotic metals. Platinum would be a fine example of a true exotic, one perhaps which might be found in ancient ruins, used by the lost cultures of old or the so-called "savages" of the jungle kingdoms, much to the bafflement of alchemists in the known world.

A few other exotic materials to consider lacing your magic items with, or as alternative weird things to find:

Orichalcum - known to the Greeks, this metal may or may not have an Atlantean connection and is depicted as having a pink or gold hue with bronze qualities. The exotic nature of orichalcum makes it great as a metal which bestows magical abilities such as...say....levitation; plate a hull with the metal and you could get a flying ship!

Adamantite - this term was less one for a specific metal and more a substance so hard it defied the efforts of other creatures and substances to damage it. Admantine gets an early start in Greek myth but appears often in later archaic literature, eventually being conflated with lodestones. For the purposes of fantasy metals admantine is a potent metal, worked through magical forges to create invincible weaponry and armor, ideally suitable to lace magical devices with, and explaining their unnatural resistance to destruction, too. Heck, get ahold of some adamantite and a means to work it and you could make pefectly normal but indstructible weapons!

Cobalt - although cobalt itself is real, it's been mined for thousands of years and used to tint glass and jewelry with its lustrous, deep blue hue. Cobalt has an interesting connection to kobolds, and it's worth thinking about this connection (the name Cobalt derives from kobold, for ex). When smelted for metals, miners found instead that they made cobalt oxide, which in turn produces arsenic trioxide, a toxic substance that is a byrpoduct of smelting efforts and notable poison. If you're tired of adventurers beating up your kobolds for gold teeth and candles, maybe they should be mining for the lustrous cobalt instead....imagine kobolds who have a corner on the market for cobalt as an additive to glass jewelry and pottery.....and poison!

Amber - the substance created from fossilized tree sap was often considered to have a curative element. Imagine instead of finding a healing potion you instead find an amber stone which you can rub once a day for a healing burst, or which, when dropped in a suitable liquid, turns it into a healing potion.

B/X D&D Month XXVIII: Black Shamblers

Black Shamblers
Armor Class: 0
Hit Dice: 8+3**
Move: 90' (30')
Attacks: slam attack or engulfing attack
Damage: 1D8+3 slam plus engulf (see below)
No. Appearing: 1D4 (3D6)
Save As: F8
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: E
Intelligence: 9
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 2025
Creature Type: extraterrestrial (enchanted)
Terrain: the depths of the void

 These beings are huge, averaging seven to nine feet in height, and are like great ebony warriors, covered in ichorous black tar that never stops running. They have barely visible humanoid features, and are silent, emotionless, and highly obedient. An organization known as the Guild of the Spheres are known to employ them as thugs, which is how most normal people first encounter the black shamblers. It is only when nosy adventurers poke and prod that they discover the black shamblers are in fact an inuman, alien race from beyond the stars, utilized by the agents of the Guild of the Spheres as protectors and enforcers in their operations, which involve the acquisition and theft of priceless artifacts and magic items on the worlds they seek to plunder.

The Black Shamblers are native to a distant world called Canopis, that composes part of the stellar constellation of Set. Canopis exists in a murky, eternal twilight, and certain mages have learned to cull a special plant to produce a substance called the Black Bane which makes the shamblers submissive to the wills of the poisoner. As such, they are captured for use as thugs and shock troops. 

Black shamblers are vicious opponents, with a startling resistance to most weaponry (they take half damage from all weapon attacks). Black shamblers exibit amazing regeneration and wiull heal 5 hit points per round; only cold damage will stop this regenerative ability.

A black shambler which slams into an opponent may immediately attempt to engulf that target; they can attempt to do this on up to four human sized opponents before running out of room. A target struck by the black shambler must make a save vs. paralysis or be trapped in the tar-like mass of the shambler; each round the target takes an automatic 1D8 points of crushing, choking suffocating damage and must make a new save vs. paralysis to try and escape.

Black shamblers tend to regenrate over time even after seemingly destroyed. A shambler which has been dispersed over a wide area or dismembered may take 1D6 months to begin regenerating. A shambler which suffers enough fire damage to deal the negative of its hit points has a 25% chance of being permanently destroyed. Disintegration will destroy a black shambler as well.

B/X D&D Month XXVII: Looking at more alternate rules

There are some rules that could be introduced into B/X D&D that I don't really think would impact the game.....at least, not in ways that would be problematic, provided the DM is ready for the consequences. A few ideas:

Tougher Characters

Although I think the notion of low starting hit points at 1st level is part of D&D's charm --it emphasizes that these are really green adventurers for whom one sword his could be deadly-- the idea of a higher starting hit point total could benefit very small or solo groups. The easiest way to handle this is to allow the players to roll hit dice and then add their total CON score (instead of modifier). That'll add at least 10 hit points on average and make the character as resilient as a 3rd level character out of the gate.

Fighters and Hitting Things

Nobody in B/X D&D hits better from 1st to 3rd level, but the fighter could. Instead of a matrix where the fighter's proficiency in hitting improved by 2 every other level,  let the fighter's attack rate go down by 1 at each level they advance. So: start at level 1 with the attack matrix as presented. Then, at level 2 and each level thereafter let the values on the attack matrix drop by 1 per level for the fighter (in other words, the way 2nd edition AD&D did it). This will give the fighter something to look forward to every level.

Multiclassing

The rules for multiclassing in AD&D could easily be transplanted to B/X without much trouble. You'd have to track two sets of XP for each class, and apply the XP rules for calculating hit points and determining what weapons and armor the multiclassed character defers to, but it's perfectly doable in B/X. Racial classes would benefit in that you could have that halfling/thief, dwarf/cleric and elf/thief. The only exceptions would be whether a DM wants to allow an elf the ability to multiclass into magic-user or not. Also, if you have Labyrinth Lord and it's Advanced Edition Companion you could treat it like a big B/X rules expansion (and I am sure many do).

The Power of Used Book Stores

I snagged a mint condition copy of the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia for $10 at my friendly local used book store today (one of only about 3 in the area, actually). I also snagged a near mint set of 2nd edition AD&D rule books for about $35 in total. Thanks goodness for book sellers who aren't also collectors!!!

B/X D&D Month XXVI: Three New Swords

The Sword of Truth
   This +1 blade is usually a longword, shortsword or other straight blade (never a cutlass or scimitar). When held the blade compels the owner to speak only the truth about matters (though this is truth as he/she sees it). Moreover, anyone struck by the blade who takes damage must make a save vs. spells or also find themselves compelled to answer truthfully any three questions asked of them for the next 30 minutes.

The Elemental Blade
   A +2 scimitar, this blade is a wicked curved weapon that reflects a sheen of rainbow colors in slick patterns which run in scintillating colors up and down the blade. When held the weapon can invoke the properties of any one element, with different effects as follows. Each effect can be invoked once per day:
Earth - any creature struck by the weapon must save vs. petrification or suffer as if struck by flesh to stone.
Air - the wielder of the weapon may fly for one hour.
Fire - the weapon spits out a 5D6 damage fireball in a chosen direction as the spell.
Water - the wielder of the weapon gains water breathing for one hour.

The Gunblade
   This sophisticated looking broadsword +1 appears to have an unusual set of notching, grooving and a tunnel-bored hollow running along the length of the blade and leading to the hilt which serves as both ordinary hilt and guard as well as the hand grip of a matchlock pistol. The "blade" strikes as a broadsword but also fires a single shot powered by elemental fire (so no need to reload, assuming gunpowder has even been invented!) down the barrel along the blade. The weapon can fire 6 times before it needs to be recharged, which takes an hour; the weapon can be fired at distance as a normal ranged weapon, or as part of an attack that strikes and deals normal damage (provided it was a stabbing attack).