It's Eric Woodward (dotcom)

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to run a one-shot version of Lawrence Schick’s classic AD&D adventure White Plume Mountain for some friends and family, and I thought I do a bit of a post-mortem on it here.

Background

For context, this was my second attempt at running a classic module in a single session, the first one being my Halloween game from last year, One Night in Ravenloft. In that game, a party of adventurers (mostly made up of my old 5E group) practically strolled through Strahd’s castle, slaughtering everything that tried to stop them, before steamrolling the vampire lord himself. Heck, the automaton fighter “Gus the Party Bus” even stole a piece of Strahd’s iconic organ to give himself a “toot-toot” horn. It was a cakewalk.

So it was that mostly the same group signed up for One Night in White Plume Mountain. The idea was to run a 4-5 hour version of the module where the PCs have been hired to retrieve the 3 lost items from the wizard’s dungeon. Then, to put an extra time pressure on the game, I made the volcano somewhat more active than usual, intimating that they needed to get out before it blows (intended to happen at the “hard stop” time for the session, about 4.5 hours from the intended start time).

As per usual for my games, I ran it in Roll20 (with voice chat / memeposting via Discord), and since I had already purchased them, I used the excellent maps from the Tales from the Yawning Portal pack. Also as per usual, we used my custom B/X-inspired heartbreaker ruleset, HOSR.

I made several changes to the base module, “renaming” (and lightly re-theming) several of the named NPCs (ex: Burket the fighter became Bur-Ket the barbarian, Snarla the werewolf magic-user became Snar’la the werewolf bloodmage). I also changed the missing artifacts slightly, rebuilding them based on some ideas I’d been toying with from my astral campaign (I don’t particularly care for the “classic” rules for sentient weapons, but using elementals…). Of course, none of it got used in the actual session, but how was I to know…

One issue the first game ran into was not having all of the characters ready by the start time, so the session started early for those that still needed to finish their character builds. As we were using HOSR, the character creation was pretty quick, so by the start time (4.5 hours until deadline), all of the characters were ready with the exception of their GM gift: a random magic item culled from various sources (primarily OSE Advanced Fantasy). I usually have the list ready ahead of time, but it was one of the parts I hadn’t gotten around to yet, so… 30 minutes burned before we even started. 🤦

Finally, with just 4 hours left on the clock, the adventurers stepped into the dungeon.

Entering the Dungeon

To start out, I filled them in on some backstory, both from the adventure (the poem) and with my own twists on top. The fire priests warned of the impending eruption, and the white plume was turning yellow, so the eruption ws well-telegraphed. Additionally, they were blessed by one of the priests of Kud (the dwarven god of law associated with the missing hammer, Wylm, the Eternal Rest), who told them “as long as one remains, the quest may continue”, and gave them a bag of holding loaded with healing potions and scrolls (most of which they never used).

Their first stop was the (rather soggy) gynosphinx in area #2. Unfortunately for them, their reaction roll with her was a 3, which usually means a combat encounter, but since she was just “doing a job” (and based on some suggestions I found online), I played her as the most disinterested teenager I could, giving the party zero help (despite their frequent attempts at RP-ing something out of her). After much hemming-and-hawing, they chose the central hallway.

Finding the drain room (area #9), they decided to cast light on the party’s sole automaton, the thief Dungeon Ken. This turned out to be a good move on their part, as he continued to glow brightly over the rest of the session, serving as the requisite illumination for all of the darkvision-less party members. They found and turned the crank, starting the long process of draining, before continuing down the hallway.

The next room was the kelpie pool (area #10), which, to my mind, has to be one of the oddest encounters in the adventure: a pair shape-shifting seaweed women who can each cast charm only once per day and who use this ability to lure adventurers into the water so they can drown themselves. As far as I can tell, in the adventure-as-written, if said adventurer fails a lone Save vs Spells, they jump in the water and immediately start drowning (2d10 damage per round). This seemed… unfair, to say the least. So when Tarin, the dwarven thief, failed his roll and jumped in, I decided to treat it like a death save: he had to make Save vs Death each round to prevent himself from drowning (taking 1d8 damage per round).

The other weird thing about the kelpies is that there’s only two of them. In an adventure designed for 6-11 players, having at most 2 PCs cursed in such a way just seemed like an odd decision (almost as odd as not even giving them a simple claw attack or something to fall back on). Still, with one PC drowning and most of the rest afraid to jump in the water (lest they drown as well), this sequence took a while before mercifully coming to end (although the still-glowing Dungeon Ken was useful for finding the kelpies’ treasure).

With 2 hours left to go, the party reached the Spinning Cylinder of Doom (room #11). On a whim, Dungeon Ken ran and slid across the tunnel, safely landing on the other side, and encouraging others to do the same. This meant that, by time Bur-Ket tried to fire his flaming arrow, he already had 3 adventurers right next to him, including the tea-obsessed dwarven mystic Iroh, who (thanks to the Sword of Quickness obtained as a pre-game GM gift) managed to leap in front of the flaming arrow, preventing it from setting the rest of the group aflame.

As the rest of the party slid across the tunnel, those who had already made the trip picked the lock on the door to area #12 and busted in, taking on the bloodmage and her barbarian boyfriend. Tarin managed a critical hit with his dual light hammers, and before long, Bur-Ket was dead. This enraged his girlfriend, who promptly turned into a werewolf. Unfortunately for her, she was stopped by Kallor Zeph, the party’s nihilistic human cleric of Xar’Kos, who cast darkness on her eyes, blinding her, and giving the rest of the party ample time to finish her off.

Searching the dead couple’s inner sanctum in area #13, the party was disheartened to find only gems and coins, and no trace of any of the weapons they had come for. They knew time was running out (only about 45 minutes remained until the end of the session), so they rushed through the double doors (which had already been somewhat explored by Kallor, the human wizard Okalis “Okey” Baker, and the giantkin barbarian Olive), and headed into battle with the Beast of the Boiling Lake in area #17.

The party (mostly) tried to draw the Huge Giant Crab ™ away from the treasure in hopes that one of them could go grab it. Olive, in particular, took the beast head-on, wounding it some, but taking 3 claw hits in quick succession for her trouble, dropping her to 1 HP. At this point, Dungeon Ken decided to cast Wall of Stone from a scroll he had received as a pregame GM gift, wrapping the HGC in a 2’ solid stone wall. As we were already 5 minutes past the cut-off time, the party grabbed the trident Wha’yve, the Flood just as the volcano came to life, so they ran back down the hallway, headed back out the way they came, and made it out of the volcano with one of the three artifacts.

Or did they? I’ll get back to that.

Results

So, how did they fair overall? If I had to award XP for their misadventures, I’d say:

• They solved the sphinx’s riddle: 650 XP (for bypassing her)
• They beat the kelpies and found their treasure: 175 x 2 (kelpies) + 600 (gold) + 2000 (necklace) = 2950 XP, and that doesn’t include the suit of chain mail +3 that no one wanted (and thus they intended to sell).
• They defeated both Bur-Ket and Snar’la, and took their treasure: 175 (Bur-Ket) + 1250 (Snar’la) + 500 (gold) + 1300 (gems) = 3225 XP
• They trapped the Huge Giant Crab ™ and took its treasure, including the trident: 1350 (HGC) + 1000 (gold) + 11,000(!) (gems) = 13,350 XP, and that doesn’t count the magical goodies they would have gotten:
  • Ring of Infravision (60’),
  • Luckstone,
  • Wand of Frost, and
  • Wha’yve, the Flood: a magical trident with an elemental bound to it, and one of the three main artifacts they were looking for.

That brings it to 19,525 XP, divided among 6 PCs = approximately 3300 XP each.

Retrospective

Looking back on the adventure, here are some key takeaways for me:

• As much as it pains me to admit it, it seems that running games with more than 4 or 5 players on Discord / Roll20 is prohibitively difficult (at least for me). Between the long pauses, talking over each other, and waiting to see who’s going to make the first move, it took over 3 hours just to clear the first handful of rooms. I mean, I love getting everyone together like that, and some games work better for it than others, but I can’t see trying to run another online RPG like this for more than 5, and might even aim for 4 on my next one (possibly running it multiple times for different groups, if there’s enough interest).
• I should definitely have had some pre-rolled magic items. I probably could even have used Necrotic Gnome’s own magic item generator just to figure out options, as that ate a full 30 minutes out of the game - at least enough time for them to start on another hallway (and get to know Wha’yve a bit, which they didn’t really).
• Because of how my last few months of games have lined up, I haven’t run a good, old-fashioned #dungeoncrawl in quite some time. I forget sometimes that this is where the older systems really shine, exploring darkened (and flooded) corridors room-to-room, listening at doors while checking for locks and traps and secrets…

As soon as we were done, some of the players expressed an interest in going back in and trying to grab the other 2 items. Part of me wants to do that, but since the volcano exploded at the end, I feel like it’s not really a viable option without some type of “magical intervention”, so I guess it’s a good thing it’s a mad wizard’s dungeon…

I’m thinking about treating it like Groundhog’s Day or Happy Death Day scenario: once they entered the dungeon, they got locked in a time-loop, and the only way to get out of it is to collect all 3 relics. Or maybe defeat the mad wizard Khyr-Aptis himself. Or maybe both! 😄

But, yeah, I could definitely see running this adventure again, possibly with a few more (slight) tweaks.

If nothing else, I think I’ll do another one of these types of adventures soon. As I mentioned before, I have the Tales from the Yawning Portal pack, and it includes maps for several iconic modules, so doing a One Night in the Forge of Fury (or the Sunless Citadel) might be an option… Or maybe even the dreaded Tomb of Horrors?

Anyways, I’d like to thank my players (as always) for putting up with me, my inane rulings, bizarre ruleset requirements (and exclusions), and other GM-ing idiosyncrasies.

Until next time…

Last year saw the release of the “Universes Beyond: Doctor Who” set for Magic: the Gathering, which included 188 new (and mechanically unique) cards based on various doctors, companions, villains, and other characters from the long-running TV show(s). As a lifelong Whovian^[1], I thoroughly enjoyed the set and loved how they wrote each cards mechanics to be representative of the characters. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that a few characters were missing^[2] (well, one for sure, the second only in a vaguely-related way, but I digress…). At the same time, I stumbled upon the highly-functional (if somewhat overly ad-encumbered) MTGCardBuilder.com, so I thought - why not make the missing cards myself?

Of course, unlike my usual custom card fair, I wanted something that would still be legally playable (or at least, legal in my weekly Magic game), so I decided to make them as Skinned Cards - that is to say, skinned version of other, legal (real) magic cards. This allows me to use them as proxies for other cards I already have in my collection.

In truth, both of these are also in my “15 Doctors / Tribal Timelords” deck (coming soon), and coming up with themed proxies just makes them fit better with the rest of the cards.

Jack Harkness, Torchwood Captain

First up is everyone’s favorite flirtatious immortal, Captain Jack Harkness. His omission was a grave mistake, IMHO, but making a proxy for him almost broke me. After sorting through the 683 legendary humans in the Gatherer (as of writing), I finally found the one that had just the right abilities (and subtypes):

Dr. Who, Eccentric Scientist

The second one came about a bit differently… I started working on (what would become) the 15 doctors deck about a month after the set dropped. It was basically the best cards from the Blast from the Past and Paradox Power decks, plus a handful of singles for the missing doctors and other Timelords, and next thing I knew, I had a 5-color deck full of Timelords and their companions… That is to say, legendary Timelords and their legendary companions… Hmmm…

So, who do you choose to lead a tribal legendary deck? Only the best commander the job, Jodah the Unifier^[3]. But he’s a human wizard, how can I tie that in the any version of Doctor Who?

And that’s when I remembered the strange, Technicolor-saturated Peter Cushing “Dr. Who” movies of the 60s, wherein the good Doctor is actually a weird, whimsical, human inventor who fights off evil alien robots with his time machine, a description close enough to a “wizard” for me:

I hope someone enjoys these and finds them useful. If you do like them, you may also like my other custom magic cards. And a word of advice: if you want to get them printed at your nearest corporate print-shop, you’ll probably want to use the “self-service” copiers to avoid any uncomfortable conversations with the staff about copyright and fair use.

Oh, and while I was working on these, I went ahead and did another round of custom (and completely broken) Saturday Night Planeswalkers.

Until next time, share and enjoy!

Announcing the arrival of the most important interplanar publication since the great Encyclopedia of the University Eternal; a wholly remarkable tome, more popular than the Idiot’s Guide to Running an Astral Business, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Subjective Gravity, and more controversial than Balyx Balator’s trilogy of metaphysical blockbusters: Where the Gods Went Wrong, Infernus: Fairy-tale or Fiction?, and The Lie of Alignment…

It’s The Planar Vagabond’s Guide to the Multiverse!

This incredible (but exceedingly portable) guide includes everything you might want to know about the various planes of existence, the creatures that inhabit them, and the strange (but potent) magic items that one can encounter while traveling among them.

If you want to know how to get around the astral plane on less than 5 silver pieces a day, this is your guide!

GET YOUR FREE COPY TODAY!!

OK… Truth be told, the PVGttM is a new website that I recently launched which serves as a dumping ground for all of my OSR RPG homebrew (including classes, races, creatures, and magic items), as well as a place for documenting the rules that my friends and I use in our Monday night astral RPG^[1] and the multiverse we’re building together.

From a technical standpoint, the site uses more-or-less the same engine that this site does, combining a custom markdown-based parser with some EJS templates to render static HTML, served with a smile by the same Pi4 + nginx combination that this site runs on.

There’s already a fair amount of content published there, and I plan to start posting here about some of my favorite things from the site, so stay tuned!

And until next time, Feare Naught!

Way back in 1997, I released my first (and, so far, only) computer game, Camp Happy Island Massacre (hereafter referred to as #CHIM), a comedy-horror text game for the DOS operating system. Originally written while I was still in college, the game is about a cursed summer camp and the 3 surviving counselors who try to stop a horrific force before it claims them. I put it out for free (more-or-less) on the internet of 1997, and though it was never a huge success, I’ve always been proud of it.

Fast forward to 2018: although I’ve known about the Internet Archive’s MS-DOS Software Library for some time, I’d never really thought about the specifics of how it works until I read an article which talked about the Em-DOSBox project. Em-DOSBox is a port of DOSBox emulator which runs in the browser via the Emscripten JavaScript library. As I was reading the article, a thought struck me: could I get CHIM running in the browser?

I decided it was at least worth a shot, so I began with step 1, building Emscripten from source. That went off without an issue, so I moved on to the next step, building the DOSBox JS files, and that’s where I ran into my first snag: the only way I was able to get it to build was by disabling the “emterpreter sync” function (emconfigure --disable-sync ./configure). It complained about the lack of empterpreter sync, but it built, and that lead me to the next step, packaging the dosbox.js file for use in a browser via the ./packager.py command. Even though this seemed to work great, there was obviously something wrong with my resulting files, as the JavaScript engine in my browser kept throwing an error (“missing function in Module”). After toying around with it for a while, I found that, if I used ./repackager.py (the Emscripten-less version of the packager) to package my files, I could get an empty DOSBox window to come up, but it still wouldn’t load the actual EXE.

By this point, I was flummoxed, and was about to give up. And that’s when I found the answer: js-dos!

After 30 minutes with this tutorial (and some source viewing on a couple of js-dos game pages), I was able to get CHIM working.

But my work wasn’t finished yet. Even though I’d kept nearly all of the files for CHIM for the last 21 years (with the exception of the game’s original C++ source files, which were lost in a hard drive crash shortly after it was released), I hadn’t really messed with them much in the last decade, so there was some cleaning up to be done. I updated some of the questions (and answers) in the FAQ, replaced the license, and generally tried to clean up the supporting text files. And that’s when I ran into one last unexpected issue: text encoding.

You see, I had forgotten that, when I first wrote the game and the supporting files, I had used some primitive ANSI graphic characters in an attempt to enhance the look of it. And now, when I tried to view those files on my Linux laptop, those graphics came out… weird.

The fix was to convert the files from the “IBM-862” format to the modern UTF-8 format:

> iconv -f IBM862 -t UTF8 INTRO.TXT -o INTRO.UTF.TXT

This allowed me to edit the files in Mousepad (and serve them up with Nginx), while still keeping the graphics intact. Finally, I added the Unicode Byte Order Mark, which makes it display correctly in the browser, even when served from a file:// URL (you can add the BOM via Mousepad, under “Document -> Write Unicode BOM”).

So, if you’d like to try the game out, check it out here, and good luck - you’re gonna need it!

TL;DR - I made a game and got it published, so I made an app to help people play the game, and published that, too.

ICYMI, the card game I designed and ran a Kickstarter for was finally published a few months ago.

<gratuitous-plug> It’s called Mythic Wars: Clash of the Gods, and it’s available now at many fine gaming stores, or directly from either the Excalibre Games website or Amazon! </gratuitous-plug>

I had alot of fun designing and playtesting the game, and I’m quite pleased with the finished product. While I admit that I found the entire Kickstarting and publishing process to be somewhat less fun (and quite eye-opening), overall, the fact that I can now hold my game in my hands (and see it for sale at my friendly local game store) makes me enormously happy.

Since I am a code monkey by trade (and a web developer by choice), I wanted to complement the game’s publication with the release of a simple, searchable database of all of the cards available for it. Taking inspiration from the Gatherer, the official database for Magic: the Gathering cards (the best example of such an application that I’m aware of), I mocked up something over the course of weekend, tweaked it over the course of a couple more weekends, and soon, The Codex Mythica was born.

It’s my first publicly-available Node / Express application, so the code’s kinda ugly, but I think it has some neat features, like a responsive layout designed to work well on different screens and devices, and a category-based searching / filtering system for sorting and selecting cards (along with the obligatory word search functionality). Plus, each card has links to both its art and to the Wikipedia entry for the its subject (or the Lovecraft wiki entry, in the case of some of the Outer Gods and their minions).

It also (finally) gave me an excuse to share something on GitHub! You can find it at https://github.com/ItsEricWoodward/codex-mythica

<gratuitous-plug> So, if you like games about gatherings of mages, ascended beings, or worlds where war is crafted, check out Mythic Wars: Clash of the Gods, available now at many fine gaming stores, or directly from either the Excalibre Games website or Amazon! </gratuitous-plug>

(Sorry, I’m contractually obligated to get in one more of those.)

Anyways, if you have any suggestions for The Codex Mythica, feel free to open an issue on GitHub or drop me a line (I can’t guarantee I’ll implement it, but I always appreciate the suggestions).