TEXT: fr
  
  1
  Tabl of Contnts
  What  a Referee?.............................2
  Rules..................................................4
  The Fundamentals..................................4
  Rule Zero...............................................4
  Rule One................................................5
  Dice and Randomness...........................5
  Finding Your Groove.............................5
  The Weird........................................7
  Fear, Terror, and Sanity.........................7
  How Graphic?........................................8
  Mystery..................................................8
  Science and Magic.................................9
  The Twist.............................................10
  The Adventure................................11
  What is an Adventure?........................11
  The Basics of Adventure Design.........11
  Step 1........................................11
  Step 2........................................11
  Step 3........................................11
  Adventure Form...................................11
  Event.........................................11
  Exploration...............................12
  Location....................................12
  Personage..................................13
  Adventure Basics.................................13
  Who?.........................................13
  What?........................................14
  Where?......................................14
  Why?.........................................15
  How?.........................................15
  The Five Elements of Every Good
  Adventure............................................16
  Deadly Situations......................16
  Freedom of Choice...................16
  Success and Failure..................17
  Rewards....................................19
  Variety......................................19
  Railroading..........................................20
  Definition..................................20
  Definition of What it is Not......21
  Consequences................21
  Situational Events..........21
  Random Events..............21
  Obstacles..............................................21
  Encounters................................21
  Traps.........................................23
  Tricks........................................24
  Maps....................................................25
  When is a Map Needed?...........25
  Communicating Maps to Players
  ..................................................25
  Good vs. Bad Maps..................25
  Potential Experience Awards...............26
  Placing Treasure.......................26
  Adventure Pacing................................27
  Time..........................................28
  Random Encounters..................29
  Using Published Adventures...............31
  Fit the Adventure to the
  Campaign..................................32
  Don’t Change Anything Else!..32
  The Campaign..................................33
  What is a Campaign?...........................33
  The Campaign Concept.......................33
  Expanding Your Milieu............33
  The Big Picture....................................34
  Using Earth as a Setting............34
  Using a Published Campaign
  Setting.......................................35
  Of Canon and Eternal Woe
  .......................................35
  The Campaign Map.............................36
  Adventure Locations............................36
  The Wilds.................................36
  Monster Placement...................37
  Civilization..........................................37
  Religion...............................................37
  Cosmology and the Gods..........39
  Culture.................................................40
  Languages............................................40
  Town and Social Structure..................40
  Scarcity................................................41
  Fees and Taxes.....................................41
  Law and Order.....................................42
  PCs as Landowners..............................42
  Territory Development.............43
  Interactions of Different Cultures........44
  Settlement Chart..................................44
  NPCs...............................................45
  The Role of the NPC...........................45
  Generating the Stats.............................46
  NPC Personalities................................46
  Breaking the Rules...............................46
  NPC Chart............................................46
  Monsters.........................................48
  Animals................................................50
  Constructs............................................50
  Humanoids...........................................51
  Oozes and Slimes.................................51
  Undead.................................................52
  Sample Monster: The Vampire............54
  Magic Items....................................56
  Sample Magic Item: The Ouija Board.59
  Sample Magic Item: Purple Lotus Type
  II..........................................................60
  Sample Magic Item: Malefic Eye of
  Putrescence..........................................61
  Other Topics....................................62
  Gathering Players................................62
  Contact gamers that you know,
  and ask your non-gamer friends if
  they'd like to play......................62
  Advertise Your Game...............62
  Screening Potential Players......63
  Start Playing.............................64
  Handling Troublesome Players 65
  Alignment............................................65
  Replacement Characters......................66
  Excellence in Gaming..........................66
  “Ask Yourself Why”................66
  Because It’s
  Fun!/Cool!/Awesome!..............67
  Because the Players Like It!.....68
  Fun............................................68
  What Else  Out There?.................69
  Compatibility Issues............................69
  General Concerns.....................69
  Alignment.................................69
  Saving Throws..........................70
  Clerics.......................................70
  Thieves and Specialists.............70
  Race vs Class vs Multiclass......71
  Odd Classes and Races.............71
  Spells........................................72
  Magic Items..............................72
  Monsters...................................73
  Armor........................................73
  Treasure and Money.................74
  Companies Making Adventures and
  Supplements for Traditional RPGs......74
  Basic Fantasy Role-
  Playing Game................74
  Black Blade Publishing. 75
  Brave Halfling Publishing
  .......................................75
  Expeditious Retreat Press
  .......................................75
  Fight On! Magazine.......75
  Frog God Games............75
  Goblinoid Games...........75
  Goodman Games...........75
  Lamentations of the Flame
  Princess..........................76
  OSRIC...........................76
  Rogue Games.................76
  The Society of Torch,
  Pole, and Rope...............76
  A Stranger Storm............................77
  The Changeling....................................94
  
  2
  Being a Referee is like being an artist, a man-
  ager, an accountant, and that crazy old guy that
  lives in the park that everyone avoids because
  he’s always talking to himself, all in one.
  Although hopefully you won’t be talking to
  yourself. At least not while anyone is listening.
  Welcome to the Referee book. You will �nd
  that this book is much more loosely written
  than the other material in this game. This is me,
  the author, James Edward Raggi IV, talking to
  you, the reader. I have been running role-
  playing games since the winter of 1984 – 1985,
  I’ve also played in a variety of games, and I will
  be giving you some advice I picked up along the
  way. You don’t need to slavishly adhere to any
  of this (I am a far better writer than I am a
  Referee, for sure), but by contrasting your
  preferences to what I write here, you can get a
  better handle on how you want to present a
  game. The only important thing is to have an
  ethic behind your decisions, an overarching
  idea, and not just randomly squirm around in
  your running of a game.
  A Referee has three prime duties:
  - Presenting  challenges  and  aivities  to  do
  within the game, generally in units of play
  called Adventures
  - Creating a Campaign which encompasses all
  of the adventures that take place, forming a
  stable framework around them
  - Running  the  aual  game  sessions  in  a
  disinterested and impartial manner
  In addition, the Referee has a secondary duty
  of being the group leader and organizer.
  Generally, one of three types of people becomes
  a role-playing Referee:
  - The guy that loves having power over his
  friends
  - The guy that gets stuck with the job because
  nobody else in the group wants to do it, and
  someone has to or else nobody plays
  - The guy who is extremely imaginative and
  is very enthusiastic about presenting his
  creations to the group
  Honestly, it’s the second guy that is most likely
  to become the best Referee. The �rst guy will
  likely be unpleasant to play under, and the
  third guy is likely to become upset as the
  players run roughshod over all of his carefully
  construed ideas. However, with discipline, all
  three types can become quite decent Referees.
  Now you may think all this makes it sound like
  being  a  Referee  is  an  awful,  overly  eﬀortful
  undertaking all for the sake of playing a damn
  game.
  And you’d be right.
  But there’s one thing that makes it all worth it.
  One thing that validates every spare moment
  making maps, coming up with tables and lists
  and ideas of how to entertain those… those…
  players… who show up every session expeing
  to be entertained.
  The Referee  the game. The Referee becomes
  the de fao leader of an entire little real­life
  social clique. Referees make all the magic
  happen.
  Now put away that social life, pick up that graph
  paper, and let’s get to work.
  What s a Rfr?
  
  3
  “What ls ahad wll rqur th uſ of all your ſll, put a ﬅran on your
  magnaton, brng your cratvty to th for, tﬅ your patnc, and xhauﬅ your
  fr tm. Bng a [Rfr] s no mattr to b tan lghtly!”
  Gary Gygax
  
  4
  Ruls
  The rules to a role-playing game are more of a
  rough  concept  than  anything  that  aually
  governs play. In some ways, they de�ne the
  game world and a somewhat like the laws of
  nature within the world. Players base their
  in-game decisions on the rules, as well they
  should. The rules tell them how the world
  behaves. “Falls cause this much damage, an
  average man has this many hit points and
  attacks are made at this rate with armor being
  this eﬀeive against a set range of damage done
  by particular weapons.”
  The rules are not there to de�ne what aions
  are allowed or disallowed, but rather to resolve
  situations which come up in the course of play.
  They will fail you. They do not, can not, cover
  all possible aions that a player would wish his
  charaer to perform.
  One of the Referee’s prime duties is to recog-
  nize when the rules do not adequately cover a
  given situation in play and then to invent a way
  to resolve the present situation outside of the
  rules, but in the spirit of the overall rules.
  Here are the fundamental parts of this game:
  -
  The six ability scores which give certain
  adjustments for all charaers
  -
  Charaer classes with capabilities separate
  from ability scores
  -
  Levels gained by experience points and
  the accumulation of abilities based on that
  level
  -
  Hit points, armor class, how to hit
  -
  Saving throws
  -
  Memorized/prepared spells
  And that’s it. What the ability scores are, what
  they adjust, what the classes are and what their
  powers are, what experience is awarded for,
  what happens when one gains a level, and the
  categories of saving throws, all of these things
  can be changed. Everything not related to these
  points is completely irrelevant for de�ning
  what the game is and can be discarded or mod-
  i�ed or replaced as you like.
  You are the Referee. If you don’t like some-
  thing, change it.
  But it is always a good idea to understand the
  rules and see what they are trying to do before
  you decide they should be changed or replaced.
  The Referee is the �nal authority in all matters
  for his campaign, above the letter and the spirit
  of the rules.
  The rules are not the game. The game is what
  happens at the table when all the participants
  are playing. With RPGs being such open-ended
  games, the situations that come up in play, even
  if nominally covered by the rules, may not be
  well-served by the rules.
  In this instance, the Referee should make a
  ruling, and that’s that.
  Just as rules do not limit the charaer’s aions
  to what is contained in them, so too do they not
  grant unlimited freedom just because a certain
  aion is not speci�cally prohibited. If a char-
  aer is trying to do something that is ridiculous
  (“The rules don’t say I can’t use my torch under-
  water!”), feel free to allow good sense to prevail
  
  5
  over the rules (or gaps therein) and over the
  wishes of the players.
  The Referee shall realize that Rule 0 is for the
  purpose of establishing the desired atmosphere
  for his campaign, and not as an excuse to abuse
  players or a license to be a despot at the game
  table. Rules should be applied consistently, both
  for and against players, and players should be
  advised of any permanent rules changes in a
  Referee’s campaign ahead of time.
  The Referee’s role is to challenge players, not
  viimize them.
  Dice rule the game. Even the Referee, who
  makes all decisions within the game, cedes
  authority to the dice once they start rolling.
  The trick is to know when to call for a roll and
  when not to. If you make the decision to roll the
  dice, or if the situation diates the roll of the
  dice, you must be prepared to use the result.
  Hours of preparation may be ruined by an odd
  result  of  a  roll.  Charaers  may  be  killed  by
  things never intended to be a serious threat,
  and serious threats may be reduced to toothless
  jokes by bad die rolling. Anything can happen
  when the dice are rolled.
  This is a feature, not a bug. The most important
  thing about RPGs, the thing that makes them
  worth playing and the thing that has drawn
  people to this hobby for almost forty years now,
  is that nobody knows what will happen! The
  outcomes of most any aion are unprediable,
  and  it  is  that  unprediability  that  creates
  excitement in the game.
  Don’t make the �nding of vital clues dependent
  on a single die roll unless you really are willing
  to stop the adventure short if the roll fails, for
  one example. Even if the chances are heavily in
  favor of the PCs being able to continue on
  under a random table scheme, whether it’s a
  roll to determine foraging for needed food or
  getting lost or just about anything, the possibil-
  ity on a die roll that it will come up as the one
  adventure-killing result is there. This must be
  accounted for in your preparations.
  Nobody starts oﬀ being a good Referee. It takes
  time  and  a  lot  of  praice  aually  running
  games. Your �rst attempts will hopefully be
  enjoyable but they won’t be good.
  Don’t worry.
  First  level  charaers  are  wonderful  for  the
  budding Referee. They are entirely disposable
  and quickly replaceable. A new Referee, and
  even an experienced Referee with a group of
  new players or players unfamiliar to him, will
  have some adjusting to do. It is likely that some
  incorre  assumptions  between  players  and
  Referee will result in charaer slaughter.
  If  the  charaers  are �rst level, this is not a
  problem. Nobody should ever feel guilty about
  killing a �rst level charaer, and nobody should
  ever get upset that their �rst level charaer
  dies. It is during this developmental time in a
  campaign that everything about the campaign
  is established: The campaign tone, the Refer-
  ee’s  style,  the  fas  of  the  campaign  world.
  
  6
  Taking shortcuts because some people think
  �rst level charaers are “lame” also shortcuts
  the greater rewards of a campaign. Those seeds
  are sewn early on, when PCs are minor, negli-
  gible parts of the world and not yet ready to be
  major players in it.
  Player and Referee skill can also be measured
  by  the  level  of  charaers  in  a  campaign.  A
  group of players that begin with �rst level
  charaers and work their way to tenth level,
  for instance, will be vastly more eﬀeive in play
  with  those  charaers  than  a  group  that  just
  receives those same tenth level charaers at
  the beginning of a campaign.
  And by the same token, an experienced Referee
  will provide appropriate and exciting chal-
  lenges for those tenth level charaers if they’ve
  been built up over time. A new Referee
  running a game for experienced players with
  high level charaers will have their adventures
  eaten alive.
  Being a good player requires playing many
  diﬀerent charaer types in a variety of cam­
  paigns run by diﬀerent Referees. And being a
  good Referee means having run games for a
  great variety of players in a wide range of
  circumstances.
  There are no shortcuts. There is just play. Lots
  and lots of play.
  So don’t worry if you’re new and you suck. Just
  try. Learn what works, and keep doing that.
  When you stumble, adjust your game and don’t
  trip over the same thing again. Don’t worry
  about your players. New players won’t know
  the  diﬀerence,  and  they’ll  understand  your
  problems because they’re learning too. Experi-
  enced players will remember that they too used
  to be new and clueless, and will help you.
  Players who give you a hard time because
  you’re learning are the type of players you
  won’t want to have around anyway even after
  you become an experienced Referee.
  Now go and master this game.
  
  7
  Th Wrd
  The main thing that separates a Weird Tale
  from a conventional horror story is the forces
  completely out of the control of those who
  encounter them. A thing that cannot be
  explained, cannot be defeated, cannot be solved.
  This is easy to do in a story, as the writer can
  easily manipulate the entire tale in order to
  serve the purpose of inducing the reader to feel
  as the writer wishes. In a role-playing game,
  this is not so simple.
  Player  charaers  must  have  agency.  They
  cannot be puppets or mere observers to events.
  The Referee is not telling a story (this must be
  stressed as often as possible), but presenting an
  environment and situations within that envi-
  ronment. The story is the summation of what
  happens during play.
  The feelings of vulnerability and helplessness
  are important to Weird tales. Unfortunately,
  fantasy literature, motion piures, and gaming
  have all conspired to murder these feelings –
  and don’t even get me started on “horror”
  examples of the same. Knowledge equals
  power, it is said, familiarity equals boredom,
  and empowerment is an easier sell than fear.
  Take away player knowledge by using your
  own creations. Destroy familiarity by not using,
  or by subverting, cliché elements of game
  worlds or adventures. Players may show up
  expeing  the  usual  six­ability­scores­with­
  classes game, with opponents taken out of a
  manual and treasure generated oﬀ of a chart or
  list. Don’t give it to them! As soon as it is estab-
  lished that the “standards” of the genre are
  gone, players will take notice, come oﬀ auto­
  pilot and start interaing with the world. And
  then you can hammer them with the Weird.
  In game terms, particularly horrifying or
  bizarre happenings or circumstances can
  trigger a Loyalty/Morale roll for NPCs in order
  to continue on/not run away. But Referees
  should refrain from imposing any sort of fear
  or sanity rules upon Player Charaers. Before
  long they will be aing in ways that the locals
  will consider insane anyway (professional
  adventurers  do  not  a  like  normal  civilized
  folks!),  and  it  is  but  a  cheap  eﬀe  to  try  to
  simulate fear by rolling a die and saying,
  “You’re scared stiﬀ!”
  It is suggested that you use as “normal” a cam-
  paign world as possible. If monsters and magic
  are everywhere in a world, then fear and terror
  becomes harder to portray. If the average vil-
  lager has never seen a monster, never encoun-
  tered a real magician, then those who deal with
  such regularly (the PCs) will be distrusted and
  shunned, and that villager’s reaions to super­
  natural events can then be used to highlight to
  the players how macabre the situation really is.
  The average game will quickly see PCs becom-
  ing well-acquainted with the supernatural, and
  so it might be diﬃcult to come up with some­
  thing frightening after they’ve already dealt
  with the living dead, skeletons, and a cult
  engaging in human sacri�ce. The best way to
  instill fear in the players (and even so, it will not
  be true fear, but rather a concern for their
  charaers within the game) on a regular basis
  is to make terrifying situations terrifying. In
  many games, player success is assumed, leaving
  the adventure details to be mere dressing. In a
  
  8
  game where charaer death and/or failure are
  forever  possible,  then  players  will  respe
  things that are supposed to be fearsome within
  the game. They won’t need to be poked with
  any rule, because they will know that if their
  charaers a rashly or nonchalantly towards
  the supernatural, the supernatural will kill
  them.
  It is assumed that players of this game are
  either mature or willingly juvenile (both work
  well for the strange and horri�c), and so a
  Referee exploring the Weird can push the
  content of his games past the usual limits of
  “family entertainment” and perhaps even
  general good taste. To truly inspire wonder, or
  generate a sense of dread, or to engage modern
  players in an “olde tyme” setting and get them
  to suspend disbelief and accept the game as
  anything but absolute farce, you’ve got to be
  willing to take creative chances and push your-
  self to come up with ideas that work. And to do
  it session after session over the long course of
  a campaign? It’s diﬃcult, and of course many
  sessions will deal with far more mundane situ-
  ations, but truly nothing makes refereeing
  more satisfying than knowing a player has been
  put into a situation they could not previously
  even conceive of.
  Go for it.
  But when dealing with surreal, mind-bending
  horror, one must be careful. Although every-
  thing that happens in a role-playing game is
  pure �ion, it is still an immersive pastime and
  people can be uncomfortable with participating
  in  aions  and  situations  which  they  might
  enjoy reading or viewing in more passive media.
  To be plain: Just because a player enjoys watch-
  ing pornography or excessively violent horror
  movies or any other “extreme” content does not
  mean he wants to a any such thing out with
  or in the presence of other people. With other
  media, you observe stories that other people
  tell. In a role-playing game, you are participat-
  ing.
  The same thing applies to the art in this game.
  Reading these game books is a passive experi-
  ence; playing this game is not. The art in this
  game is intended for �avor, to impress upon the
  reader an intent and atmosphere diﬀerent from
  similar games. That certain things are depied
  in the art does not mean they will suit your
  group if inserted into your game any more than
  ideas gleaned from other media.
  Know your players. Communicate outside of
  the game, and �nd where the limits lie. Your
  job as Referee is not to shock, scare, scandalize,
  or assault the senses. Respe for the real person
  sitting before you playing the game comes
  before any idea for the game you aually have.
  A  player  truly  oﬀended  by  the  content  of  a
  game will very likely not play with you again.
  It is quite essential to presenting a Weird
  atmosphere  that  the  players,  and  charaers,
  not have a true understanding of the situation
  as it is presented to them. They may come to
  realize what exaly is going on, but they very
  well may not.
  “Th tru wrd tal h ſomthng mor than ſcrt murdr, bloody bons, or a td form clanng chans
  accordng to rul. A crtan atmohr of brathlß and unxplanabl drad of outr, unnown forcs muﬅ b
  prſnt; and thr muﬅ b a hnt, xprßd wth a ſrouſnß and portntouſnß bcomng ts ſubj, of that moﬅ
  trrbl concpton of th human bran­­a malgn and partcular ſunson or dfat of thoſ fxd laws of
  Natur whch ar our only ſafguard aganﬅ th aßaults of chaos and th dæmons of unplumbd ac.”
  HP Lovcraft, Suprnatural Horror n Ltratur
  
  9
  The best way to keep mystery alive in gaming
  is to never use stock elements as a focus in
  adventures. Don’t just pull a monster out of a
  book. Don’t pull a magic item out of a table.
  Come up with an idea divorced from gaming
  �rst, and then apply the game to it. Mold the
  rules to the idea.
  And when players encounter this new and
  unusual thing, they will have no procedure for
  it. They’ll be forced to role-play their attempts
  to understand, use, intera with, or destroy the
  element in question, because the game books
  will provide absolutely no help.
  The ability to create this mystery is why a
  verisimilitudinous campaign world is recom-
  mended. If everything is fantastic (as it is in
  Sword and Planet genre stories and games),
  then nothing really is. It’s exotic, to be sure, and
  this isn’t to disparage the enjoyment of such
  things, but it becomes very diﬃcult to diﬀeren­
  tiate “normal” from “abnormal” in a game world
  that is fundamentally alien from the start. With
  a real-world, pseudo-historical base, players can
  more easily tell when things just aren’t right.
  This is a fantasy role-playing game, generally
  assumed to be taking place in a pseudo-histori-
  cal setting. Part of that “fantasy role-playing
  game” experience is the presence of other races
  (elves, dwarfs, and hal�ings from the rules, for
  starters) and magic.
  But there can also be science, and not all magic
  has to come from the rules.
  Stories are full of odd things that are built or
  conjured once and never repeated. If it helps to
  build an adventure hook, or creates the story of
  a location or situation, then as Referee you are
  fully authorized to simply make it so.
  The important thing to remember is that just
  because it is “Science!” or “Magic!” does not
  mean it can be replicated. In most fantasy
  worlds, the populations and society at large are
  ignorant of scienti�c principles. Even the
  mightiest of wizards do not perform true scien-
  ti�c research, because magic is art, not science.
  If one madman creates a formula for surviving
  death, or builds some sort of strange machine,
  there is no reason to allow a player charaer to
  replicate it if he has the opportunity to examine
  it or analyze it in­depth. In eﬀe, it is “magic”
  in its own way, save that it does not radiate
  magic when a deteion spell is cast.
  Magic can be handled the same way. While it is
  encouraged that Referees invent all sorts of
  bizarre spells and have them available to be
  discovered in spell books for player charaers
  to learn, not all magic abilities must be cata-
  loged in this way. If you wish a particular
  charaer to have a particular trait or ability,
  then that’s all the justi�cation needed.
  The Referee is not bound by the same rules as
  the players. The players and their charaers
  represent the mundane world. Yes, they can
  grow to be extraordinary examples of that
  mundane world, but for all the potential �ght-
  ing prowess and magical abilities, they are still
  mere mortals founded in the everyday, explor-
  ing out into the bizarre.
  If it can be explained by logic or anything in
  nature, or by the rules of the game, it isn’t
  Weird.
  
  10
  Every good Weird Tale has a strange twist
  which turns the original premise on its head.
  Now a good role-playing adventure certainly
  can’t  be  struured  as  a  proper  story,  as  that
  removes the agency of the player charaers.
  But the twist can still be used.
  This should be conceived at the very start of
  location or adventure creation. There is the
  general setup, the Who What Where Why How.
  There is the initial presentation of the adven-
  ture to the players and their charaers’ per­
  speive.  But  at  the  heart  of  the  matter  is
  something  unexpeed,  or  unintuitive  given
  the basic premise, that will mentally disarm
  those learning of it.
  This is not to say that there should be random,
  nonsensical twists. The very best twists are
  those with hidden clues and signs, so that when
  they are revealed, those concerned don’t feel
  ripped oﬀ, but rather have that double amaze­
  ment that not only were they taken in, but they
  should have seen it coming. Start with your
  twist and work backwards from there to conceal
  it.
  An example: You want to feature a vampire as
  the “bad guy” for an adventure. But wait! This
  vampire will walk in the daylight and be forced
  to hide from the moonlight! What a twist!
  Wanting to keep this a secret until the PCs
  show up at the vampire’s lair at high noon in an
  attempt to catch it in its slumber, you set up all
  the  clues  and  viims  and  happenings  to  be
  misleading and ambiguous. One man that is
  found dead (with bite marks!) in the morning in
  an out of the way area will be assumed to have
  been murdered the previous night, but only
  careful questioning will reveal that there were
  still hours of daylight left after he was last seen.
  Another viim is deathly ill and can’t place the
  time of the attack precisely. Any number of
  contrivances leading up to the reveal of who
  and where the vampire is can be set up, and it’s
  up to the players to look past the obvious, or fall
  viim to a nasty surprise at the end.
  Never worry if a twist is original, because it’s
  all been done. Never worry if it turns out that
  a twist is too obvious and the players see it
  coming far in advance. It will happen, so just
  stick with it and ride it out. The players will
  appreciate that sometimes they can get ahead
  of the Referee a little bit. So too will players
  sometimes never become aware of the twist at
  all, and the Referee should make no eﬀort to
  steer players towards it.
  Remember that not all adventure and aivities
  need be infeed by the Weird. Also remember
  that even when the Weird is involved, it’s not
  always necessary to use a twist. Red herrings
  can  keep  players  guessing  and  distra  them
  from any of the above concerns.
  Keep players oﬀ guard by never being predi­
  able as a Referee.
  
  11
  Th Advntur
  An adventure is the basic unit of play in role-
  playing. When the players gather to play, the
  situation or scenario they play is the adventure.
  Adventures may be episodes of a continuing
  campaign or they may just be played on their
  own.
  Stp 1
  Come up with a location that's interesting on
  its own without any players getting involved
  with it.
  and/or
  Come up with a situation that's interesting on
  its own and can resolve on its own without any
  players getting involved in it.
  Stp 2
  Introduce PCs to the location/situation.
  Stp 3
  Step back and see what happens without having
  an investment in any particular outcome.
  There's more to successful adventure design
  than that. Read on...
  Adventures commonly follow just a few general
  forms, each of which has its own charaeristics.
  These are detailed below, but remember these
  are just broad generalizations. Once you have
  some experience with writing and running
  adventures, you will �nd that you are freely
  combining these types of adventures.
  Evnt
  Event-based adventures involve some greater
  event in the game world occurring, and the
  charaers become involved because they are
  present as the event unfolds. These can be
  natural disasters such as earthquakes or tidal
  waves or hurricanes, or more political events
  like a civil war, foreign invasion, or even the
  sudden imposition of draconian laws, to smaller
  scale events such as bandit attacks, a �re in the
  building one is occupying, monster attacks, or
  anything  that  demands  that  aion  be  taken
  now in order to not get swept away by the event.
  Event adventures are often written in the form
  of timelines, where certain things will happen
  at certain times no matter what the players do.
  The important decisions that the players make
  are often in between the important timeline
  events, with their decisions in�uencing how
  prepared and advantageous their position is
  when the next thing happens.
  Event­based adventures can be diﬃcult to run.
  In the �rst place, players may feel forced into a
  particular storyline. Even easygoing players
  who follow most any adventure hook may take
  oﬀense  at  being  pushed  into  an  adventure
  without being properly “asked” through an
  in-game hook. Also, when is an adventure over?
  Riots and �res don’t last forever, but things like
  the aftermath of an earthquake, or larger
  events like a civil war, invasion, or zombie
  apocalypse are bigger than any single adven-
  ture. Knowing what the adventure is supposed
  to be within the event, and when the present
  
  12
  adventure ends and when the event becomes a
  backdrop for other events, are important con-
  siderations when designing Event adventures.
  Exploraton
  Travel through unknown and unbounded areas
  can be an adventure in itself. Whether there is
  a speci�c goal or not, wandering through
  unknown terrain presents certain dangers and
  challenges not present in other adventure
  forms, and these challenges and dangers are
  unique depending on both the type of environ-
  ments being traversed and speci�c areas as well.
  The Exploration adventure type is more than
  a large-scale Location because it can never be
  “cleared” or thoroughly scouted. Even deciding
  to tame a small area of land in the wilderness
  can become a full-time campaign, as passing
  through an area doesn’t mean seeing every-
  thing in it, and even if completely cleared of all
  hostiles will be quickly “restocked.” Nature
  abhors a vacuum and all that.
  Exploration adventures are dead-easy to set up,
  and fairly easy to run. All that is required for an
  exploration adventure is a map of territory
  unknown to the players, and either a list of
  features to be encountered, or random genera-
  tion tables, to �ll in the map. Referees that are
  skilled at running games without preparation
  don’t need anything more than this, but of
  course  more  time  and  eﬀort  can  be  made  to
  detail an Exploration adventure before playing.
  As long as the environment to be explored is
  interesting, either for its features (parts of the
  landscape) or contents (the encounters or
  “quest” to be ful�lled within the environment),
  it is suitable for adventure.
  There is a method of adventure-writing called
  the Sandbox. Basically, a seion of wilderness
  is mapped out and then the players are let loose
  to explore as they will, without any demanding
  adventure hooks to drive them.
  This method is essentially an Exploration
  adventure, with multiple individual, self-con-
  tained Locations placed within the greater
  landscape. As the PCs explore and they learn
  more about the environment, these campaigns
  will resemble other types of campaigns, only
  with the situations and consequences of the
  players’ own aions driving play rather than
  hooks being oﬀered by the Referee.
  Megadungeons, those dungeons which are
  never-ending in their scope and are intended
  to carry entire campaigns within their depths,
  also roughly fall under this same Sandbox cate-
  gory.
  Simple sandboxes are static, as the world stands
  still until the PCs move to each location.
  Advanced sandboxes are a good deal more
  diﬃcult, as any number of events will play out
  beyond the awareness of the PCs. In this style
  of play the Referee advance timelines of
  various events and charaers so that what the
  PCs encounter will be wildly diﬀerent depend­
  ing on when they arrive at certain areas.
  Locaton
  A location-based adventure is one that is con-
  cerned with an easily identi�able single area,
  be it a dungeon, tower, castle, estate, cavern, or
  some such. The location is mapped to scale, the
  individual areas within this location are
  detailed, and the adventure consists of the
  charaers entering this location and experienc­
  
  13
  ing  the  diﬀerent  areas.  Once  the  location  is
  explored, it’s eﬀeively �nished as an adven-
  ture area.
  Exploration of large �nite areas (islands, large
  cave systems) can straddle the line between
  being an Exploration or a Location adventure.
  And of course many Locations may be found
  during an Exploration adventure.
  Location adventures are the easiest to create
  and to run. The interesting points and the
  rewards and the challenges are in a contained
  environment. Making an excellent adventure
  out of a location is no easier than making an
  excellent adventure from the other possibili-
  ties, but it is much harder to make a bad adven-
  ture from a location.
  Prſonag
  A personage-based adventure is all about char-
  aer interaion. NPCs are planning, plotting,
  and aing, and only through interaing with
  the NPCs and learning their motivations and
  conneions and using this information can the
  party advance its own goals.
  This is by far the most diﬃcult type of adven­
  ture to properly execute. In all other adventure
  types, there is a de�nite feeling of doing some-
  thing tangible. In this adventure format, there
  is often a lot of talking, which many �nd to be
  the least enjoyable aivity in this sort of game
  – whether your de�nition of “this sort” is adven-
  ture, fantasy, horror, pulp, or something simi-
  lar. There is the danger of a Personage
  adventure crawling up its own rear end if the
  Referee buys into the notion that swordplay
  and monsters and magic are somehow lowbrow
  and  that  charaer  interaion  is  inherently
  more sophisticated or better.
  Still, if done right, it will cement the reality of
  both charaers and setting like no other adven­
  ture type.
  Personage adventures are related to Event
  adventures in much the same manner that
  Location and Exploration adventures are
  related. They are diﬀerent magnitudes of the
  same concept. In an Event, the players are
  caught in a situation that can’t be avoided. An
  earthquake and its aftermath will aﬀe every­
  one. A foreign invasion can’t be ignored by
  anyone in the invaded area. A Personage adven-
  ture is a far smaller, and dare I say, personal
  issue. Perhaps a merchant is trying to squeeze
  out his competitors in the local marketplace.
  Perhaps  a  love  aﬀair  is  having  dire  conse­
  quences for those close to the couple (think
  Romeo and Juliet). These are adventures that
  can be intense and important to those involved,
  but it is quite possible to avoid involvement.
  No matter the adventure type, there are ele-
  ments that need to be addressed in order to
  keep the adventure focused and memorable.
  Again, following the paths that answering these
  questions will open up is not a guarantee of
  creating an excellent adventure, but it sure is
  a great defense against creating a bad one.
  Who?
  Who are the NPCs that the players will encoun-
  ter? Potential friends, foes, and those in
  between must be detailed, with game stats in
  most cases but general personality and motiva-
  
  14
  tions must certainly be known to the Referee.
  The exa amount of information prepared for
  any particular NPC depends on the role they
  are expeed to take in the adventure. The NPC
  seion of this book has more information and
  advice for developing your NPCs.
  Note that the NPCs do not necessarily have to
  meet the PCs for it to be relevant in terms of
  this question, and neither do they need be
  present in the adventure at all! The classic
  dungeon complex, whether full of beasts or
  laying empty, was built by someone for some
  purpose, and detailing Who built it and why
  will give the entire adventure a memorable
  charaer that it would not otherwise have if
  such eﬀort was not given to the setting.
  Know Who is in your adventure and Who is
  behind the elements of your adventure.
  What?
  This is the meat of the adventure. What is the
  point of this adventure? What is the goal? What
  is to be done? All details �ow from this. What
  are the obstacles preventing this from being
  easily done?
  This is perhaps the easiest of all adventure-
  building questions, as it usually contains the
  initial spark of an idea, all the cool stuﬀ that
  inspires a Referee to make such an adventure
  in the �rst place. “It would be cool for there to
  be a quest for some golden idol, with a rival
  adventuring group also searching for it at the
  same time!” “I really liked that story about
  Shub-Niggurath I just read, so maybe I’ll do an
  adventure about a cult terrorizing a city!” The
  possibilities, as they say, are endless.
  But the “What” is not always the �rst inspira-
  tion. If the inspiration for an adventure came
  from elsewhere (usually a “Where?” concern –
  “I want an adventure to take place inside a
  volcano!”), the “What” of an adventure is still
  crucial, because the backdrop for an adventure,
  no matter how awesome it may be, is still only
  the backdrop. The players have to be doing
  something in that environment.
  Make sure it’s interesting. And remember that
  “interesting” does not have to mean “original.”
  Playing RPGs isn’t like telling a story. Remem-
  ber that the criteria for judging successful
  role-playing is based on how interesting and/or
  exciting the participants think it is during play,
  not how interesting and/or exciting the in-
  game sequence of events seem during a later
  recitation.
  So if a bit of originality helps keep interest
  when telling a story, in RPGs, uncertainty and
  the ability to make a diﬀerence in the course of
  events keeps interest.
  Whr?
  Every adventure has to take place somewhere
  or other. So Where is the adventure? Is it in an
  underground complex? A city? Some portion of
  wilderness? In a single room? The details of the
  location must be known by the Referee and
  described well enough that the Referee can
  present it properly to the players and answer
  any questions they may have during the course
  of the game.
  The workshop from the second adventure in
  the Tutorial book makes for a wonderful exam-
  ple. The map shows the size of the room, where
  
  15
  the exits are, and the basics of the contents. The
  Referee should have notes describing the exa
  nature of each of the elements, in particular for
  this room the colors of the potions on the
  workbench  and  what  eﬀe  each  has  when
  imbibed (and/or mixed!).
  Why?
  Why are the PCs involved? The setup to any
  adventure must have decent reasons, some-
  times called “hooks,” to inspire players to want
  to play the adventure. This shouldn’t be too
  diﬃcult, as players who show up to play want
  to play! Those that show up and then a like
  they need to be impressed in order to aually
  play once present are not players you want in
  your group to begin with. But the eﬀort must
  be made in order to facilitate the illusion that
  the charaers are real people in a real world
  doing things because they are motivated to do
  them.
  At the same time, Why are the PCs the ones to
  be involved in the situation? Why isn’t someone
  else looting that tomb, saving that princess,
  solving that mystery? Again, it shouldn’t be
  diﬃcult to answer these questions, for if there’s
  nothing for the PCs to do there’s no game. But
  a few minutes of thought and a token eﬀort to
  provide an aual in­game explanation can have
  unexpeed bene�ts. Inventing answers for all
  of these questions develops the game world,
  may suggest future adventures as the players
  rea  to  certain  information  about  the  way
  things are in the game, and help form a guide
  to resolving what happens if the PCs do things
  you  never  expeed  them  to  do  during  the
  adventure.
  How?
  How do the PCs �t into all of this, and How does
  the adventure turn from a concept and a setup
  into aual play? You’ve answered Why the PCs
  might get involved, but How will that be pre-
  sented to them? How will they get to where the
  adventure is located? How will they get to
  intera with the NPCs involved? How will the
  PCs achieve the goals of the adventure?
  The important thing to remember is that the
  assumed answers to these How questions must
  not be de�nite. There should be multiple
  answers if at all possible, even if there is a
  primary and obvious answer to be presented.
  For example, say that the adventure involves
  the PCs traveling to an evil shrine down a river.
  What you have planned for the adventure is
  that the charaers will have to hire a boat and
  the boatman will insist on going a certain way
  to get to the shrine for one reason or another.
  But the PCs pool their money together and
  discover they have enough to buy their own
  boat, and decide to go a diﬀerent way, just so
  they are not at an NPC’s mercy. An in�exible
  Referee will just say, “You can’t do that.” A
  �exible Referee may decide that several water-
  ways  interse  and  there  are  other  ways  to
  travel to this shrine. However, any planned
  
  16
  encounters along the route the boatman would
  have taken them – whether they were danger-
  ous or contained clues – would be missed.
  Dadly Stuatons
  There is a reason why the common man doesn’t
  throw down his laborer tools and march oﬀ into
  dungeons and wilderness. Adventuring is a job
  with a very high mortality rate.
  This should (potentially) apply to PCs. If they
  go into a dark hole �lled with monsters, or work
  to stop the machinations of an evil cult (or mad
  scientist) (or evil wizard), if they sign up to be
  special agents in war, if they help the peasants
  revolt against the local noble, they are putting
  themselves in danger. This should not be mock
  danger.
  Every adventure should have elements in it
  that the Referee fully expes to slaughter the
  party if they are not approached intelligently.
  This can be in the form of a monster that is
  clearly beyond the ability of the party to �ght,
  or a devious trap that really is designed to kill
  whoever triggers it, or any number of things
  that could lay a charaer low.
  This is not unfair, and this is not antagonistic
  refereeing. This is including true challenge
  into the game and making sure that the players
  take their play seriously, else their charaers
  won’t survive to advance and participate in
  adventures of greater scale. A Referee presid-
  ing  over  a  game  in  which  player  charaers
  never do seem to die is surely not presenting a
  great enough challenge for his group.
  This is not to say that every situation in an
  adventure should be deadly. In fa, most situa­
  tions should not even be equal challenges to the
  PCs, as you don’t want them to retreat and rest
  after every hostile situation. But the deadly
  elements should be there, and there should be
  clues as to the presence and nature of the
  threat, to give the opportunity for good play to
  make a diﬀerence in how the adventure turns
  out.  Randomly  killing  charaers  proves
  nothing about a Referee’s skill and it just pisses
  oﬀ the players.
  But the players have to know that the entire
  world isn’t scaled to their charaers’ capabili­
  ties. Their charaers are part of the world and
  exist within it. They are not gods walking the
  earth.
  Frdom of Choc
  Every adventure must have meaningful choices
  that the players must make, and these choices
  must signi�cantly alter the �ow of the adven-
  ture for them to have any meaning.
  The absolute key to good gaming is the ability
  of players to choose their charaers’ aions.
  Any adventure which diates what a charaer
  thinks or feels or does (barring magical
  enchantments, of course) is a terrible adventure.
  “Barring magical enchantments” is an excep-
  tion, but one that must be used with care. In the
  Tutorial adventure, for example, Iri-Khan’s
  Charm could have lasted for days, or weeks, or
  months. But that’s a very lame thing to do,
  taking away control of a player’s charaer like
  
  17
  that. Khan’s releasing of the Charm may have
  seemed convenient, but it’s good gaming. Long-
  lasting enchantments and curses are not strily
  forbidden, however. They merely need to be
  done in ways that still allow the player to
  control his charaer. A curse that diates that
  a charaer will a in certain ways in certain
  situations is fair game as long as those situations
  are rare. In the case of long-term curses, the
  player should be secretly informed that they
  are cursed, and in what way. A good player will
  keep this information from the other players
  and make decisions for his charaer based on
  the nature of the curse. A bad player will con-
  trive ways to communicate this information to
  the other players and behave in ways that
  subvert the nature of the curse.
  The choices made must be real choices. “Float-
  ing locations” of the “Well, whichever inn they
  stop at will be where the adventure happens”
  sort is not a real choice, it’s an illusion. Some
  Referees disagree, and feel that unused loca-
  tions may be recycled into other adventures, so
  long as the players did not make a conscious
  decision to avoid the location to begin with.
  Choices should not only be oﬀered, but forced:
  Things are happening, and the players have to
  do something, and none of the options seem to
  be all good. Of course, if they choose not to
  decide, they still have made a choice and the
  consequences should be diﬀerent (and perhaps
  more severe?) than if they’d done something.
  Note that “Freedom of Choice” does not mean
  total freedom to do anything, at any time. The
  situation at any particular point in time may
  de�nitely suggest, if not require, a certain
  course of aion, and circumstances will always
  reward some behaviors over others. Certain
  tricks  or  traps  may  cut  oﬀ  a  party’s  escape,
  forcing them to �nd another way out.
  But an adventure should never be a “you have
  to do this, in this order, with this outcome.”
  Player aions should be able to have a dire
  eﬀe on how an adventure plays out, even to
  the point of completely unraveling the adven-
  ture to the players’ advantage.
  A good rule of thumb: Ask yourself, “Are the
  situations the PCs will face a logical conclusion
  of the course of aion they have chosen to take,
  or are they being put in these situations solely
  because I want them to do certain things?”
  A good way to prevent the “railroading” of
  players (more on this later) is to simply have no
  set resolution for an adventure. Exploration
  and location-based adventures are easiest to
  leave without conclusion, while event and per-
  sonage  adventures  can  be  quite  diﬃcult  to
  avoid steering towards a pre-de�ned outcome.
  Just remember that while there may be more
  important forces at work in the greater game
  world, the game as it is played at the table by
  the real people present is all about the PCs and
  the choices they make. So make sure they
  indeed have such choices they can make.
  Succß and Falur
  A good adventure is designed so that the PCs
  have a reasonable chance of success and a rea-
  sonable chance of failure during the adventure,
  and the sign of a quality Referee is the ability
  to let the charaers succeed or fail by their own
  devices without in�uencing the outcome either
  way. If the adventure is more or less random
  
  18
  exploration and treasure hunting, this means
  hiding the treasure in clever places, or having
  it guarded by �endish traps and �erce guard-
  ians, so that the PCs not �nding the treasure is
  a truly possible outcome. For more plot-based
  adventures, the failure to achieve the adven-
  ture goals must always be a possibility.
  As a Referee, your job is to be completely
  impartial during game play. You have absolute
  power at the game table and can bequeath
  success or mandate failure at any time. Doing
  either of those things ruins the game, as both
  give no incentive to play well.
  Do not fudge the dice. Luck is a part of the
  game, and the dice are there for a reason. Resist
  the temptation of sparing charaers that fail or
  even die due to “bad luck” or a “stupid die roll.”
  Good game play will tip the scales of fortune
  and those that rely on pure luck deserve what
  they get, for good or for ill. At the same time, if
  an incredibly lucky roll derails the entire
  adventure and gives the players a quick viory,
  it should stand. It needs to work both ways.
  When the dice go badly for the players, they
  should be thinking of how to not let a roll of the
  die be the sole determiner of their fates. And
  when the dice go a little too well for the players,
  the Referee should note what he needs to do to
  prevent a single die roll from determining the
  course of an entire adventure.
  Note that failure does not have to mean the
  death of the adventurers. Unsolved mysteries,
  unfound hidden chambers, pure cowardice, and
  simply missing obvious things are all possibili-
  ties that could lead to failure without new
  charaers needing to be rolled up.
  There are consequences of deciding to play this
  way.
  The party is just lost and sitting around because
  they didn’t �nd the secret door that leads to the
  next  seion  of  the  dungeon?  Tough.  It  goes
  unexplored.
  The party missed a vital clue and has no idea
  where to turn next in a murder investigation?
  Tough. The killer gets away.
  There are too many options to choose from, and
  the players are disorganized and can’t agree on
  an option and look to the Referee for guidance?
  Tough.
  This does mean that “save the world” style
  adventures, and others with unpleasant cam-
  paign rami�cations, should be avoided unless
  you are perfely willing to change the face of
  the campaign if the PCs fail to complete your
  pre­decided “viory” conditions.
  Playing this way also means that the game can
  “stop” at any time because a battle wipes out
  the PCs, or some other disastrous result that
  means the mission will come to an abrupt end.
  Oh well. Of course success is always more fun
  than failure, but if failure is not an option, then
  the success is but an illusion, it’s fake, it’s a lie.
  And by taking the attitude that the end result
  determines the fun of the game, then suddenly
  the process of playing the game is not fun in
  and of itself.
  Be  prepared  for  both  charaer  success  and
  charaer failure. It's all good and well to say,
  "Let them fail!" but even if that is the end of the
  adventure, that should not be the end of the
  game. There is a whole wide campaign world
  
  19
  out there. Players may be demoralized if they
  hit a dead end in an adventure and spend time
  milling about expeing that you will tell them
  how to proceed. But if they literally do not have
  anything else they could be doing if they were
  just willing to drop the current situation, then
  you have seeded adventure hooks in your cam-
  paign quite poorly.
  Rwards
  Players generally like their charaers, they like
  success, and they like to feel they are accom-
  plishing something when they sit down to play.
  Saying, “You should enjoy the very experience
  of playing this game!” is all good and well but if
  there  are  no  tangible  in­charaer  rewards,
  players will become unhappy.
  There are two standards that adventure
  rewards must meet: They must be enough, and
  they must be not enough.
  They must be enough that everyone involved
  doesn't think that they've completely wasted
  their time... and not enough to leave anybody
  really satis�ed with what they have. They need
  more! Where next to plunder?
  Rewards can come in many forms. The stan-
  dard reward in these sorts of games is treasure
  and  experience  points  for  the  charaers.
  Magical items are another common reward
  (that perhaps shouldn’t be quite so common).
  In­charaer  favors  and  personal  conneions
  are a type of reward that isn’t commonly used
  in this sort of game, but in a continuing cam-
  paign this could be extremely valuable.
  Be sure to mix and match available rewards in
  your adventures. Make sure some of the
  rewards are easily earned, but of course make
  the more worthwhile rewards the most diﬃcult
  to earn.
  Note that concealing the rewards well may
  wind up with the players not �nding them.
  That's just tough. As a Referee, just make sure
  the rewards are there. Don't help the players
  to aually �nd them.
  Another important faor to remember when
  coming up with the rewards in an adventure is
  that rewards do change the game. Rewards
  increase  charaer  power  levels,  as  magical
  items give charaers new capabilities and trea­
  sure gives charaers experience which allows
  them to gain levels. An adventure at 1st level is
  a diﬀerent beast than an adventure at 4th level,
  for example. The rate of reward direly con­
  trols, it eﬀeively , the pace at which the game
  changes due to power level.
  Varty
  No rule is universal, and even things which are
  necessary for good adventures aren’t necessary
  to place in every adventure. If you run a fre-
  quently-played campaign, playing once a week,
  that’s going to be 52 sessions in a year. This is
  great fun, intensely rewarding, and also a large
  commitment and a lot of work.
  Change elements of your adventures, and
  change them often. Tone, genre, environment,
  foes, goals, pacing, style, rewards, everything.
  If you can identify an element of an adventure,
  you can change it and twist it and do something
  diﬀerent. Stylistic patterns will naturally occur
  in a campaign, and the Referee shouldn’t see
  them as a bad thing, but they should be iden-
  ti�ed and occasionally intentionally shrugged
  
  20
  oﬀ. Purposefully establishing a rhythm, a way
  of doing a certain thing, just so you can surprise
  the players later by breaking that rhythm is one
  long­term trick that pays oﬀ.
  Keeping a campaign fresh through constant
  variety is the key to maintaining interest, for
  the players and for yourself.
  Repeat after me:
  “My adventures and campaigns will have no
  pre­set endings. Charaers are not required to
  a as I wish them to a during the course of
  the game. It is natural player behavior to trash
  scenarios and take the game to places unfore-
  seen.”
  One more time. Say it out loud.
  “My adventures and campaigns will have no
  pre­set endings. Charaers are not required to
  a as I wish them to a during the course of
  the game. It is natural player behavior to trash
  scenarios and take the game to places unfore-
  seen.”
  Got it?
  Dfnton
  Railroading is roughly de�ned as not allowing
  players the freedom of choice for their char-
  aers for the purpose of making sure an adven­
  ture runs in the way the Referee intends. No
  matter what the players do, and no matter what
  the dice say, the adventure will come to a
  predetermined end. The “railroad” name comes
  from the idea that the adventurers are on a
  train track, and must follow those tracks until
  they reach the station. To go oﬀ the tracks is to
  derail  everything,  so  the  Referee,  aing  as
  conduor, does everything possible to keep the
  train on the tracks.
  This is an awful thing in a game.
  Basically, railroading happens when the play-
  ers’  choices  do  not  impa  the  events  in  an
  adventure.
  If a certain sequence of events is really neces-
  sary  for  a  game  to  funion  properly,  the
  Referee should discuss it with the players out-
  of­charaer before play. “Hey guys, I have a
  great idea for an adventure, but it’ll require you
  doing th at that point in order to get to the
  good stuﬀ. Is that cool?” Since the players are
  showing up to the table to game, they’ll usually
  be quite accommodating. Of course you can
  always just present it as an in-game choice, but
  the danger is that the players won’t recognize
  the adventure hook, or won’t care to follow it
  even if they recognize it. Stopping a game to
  explain such things out­of­charaer, or using
  strong­arm  taics  in­game  to  make  sure  the
  “proper” aions are taken, can completely ruin
  the role-playing experience for many people.
  Remember, the entire game is the answer to the
  question, “What do you do?” There must be
  meaningful  choices  leading  to  diﬀerent  out­
  comes, or the question is meaningless, and so
  then is the game also meaningless.
  A quick piece of advice for avoiding railroading:
  Never narrate what the PCs do, or at least be
  very  ready  to  accept  correions  if  a  player
  points out that his guy is doing something
  diﬀerent instead. Never narrate what a player
  charaer feels. Merely describe situations, tell
  
  21
  what the charaer sees and hears and smells,
  and always let the player decide how their
  charaer responds.
  Dfnton of What t s Not
  Railroading is not anything that prevents PCs
  from doing whatever they want, whenever
  they want.
  Adventure locations are not static, and as char-
  aers  adventure,  their  decisions  will  leave  a
  mark  on  the  world.  As  charaers  adventure
  more and more, the results of their adventures
  will be a palpable, physical thing. Allies of
  enemies vanquished will be unhappy. The Dark
  Evil not quite eliminated in the proper way will
  awaken. The residents of that one village where
  the PCs killed that one guy (in self defense, but
  all the villagers know is they found a corpse and
  the travelers had skipped town!) will be hostile
  if they ever see the PCs again.
  All of these aions taken during play, and an
  in�nite variety of alternate possibilities, have
  consequences. Introducing those consequences
  into play, against the PCs, is not railroading.
  Freedom of aion is not freedom from conse­
  quences of those aions.
  Adventures are often construed with pinch
  points. They’ll often have a reasonable freedom
  of choice and movement, but certain triggers
  in an adventure then restri choice. As long as
  the decision to pull that trigger, or at least the
  decision  to  take  the  aion  that  unwittingly
  pulls that trigger, is freely made by the players,
  then  the  more  restried  situation  that  the
  party �nds itself in is not railroading.
  If using random tables to generate events in
  your campaign, the results of those rolls are
  never railroading. Railroading requires a willful
  and circumantially unreonable restriion on
  charaer aion. A randomly generated circum­
  stance or challenge cannot be a willful
  restriion made by the Referee, so…
  Every adventure is going to have obstacles for
  the PCs. In fa, an adventure is pretty much
  just a series of obstacles, with the hook and the
  rewards being simply window dressing to the
  whole aﬀair. This doesn’t mean that those are
  unimportant, it just means that at the end of
  the day it’s going to be the struggle that the
  players remember, so you need to pay due
  attention to it. Players may forgive “an old man
  approaches you in the tavern” as a way to get
  them into the adventure – they did show up to
  play after all – and they might consider a big
  pile of gold to be a suitable, if boring, �nal
  treasure/reward,  but  if  all  the  tough  stuﬀ
  between the two is uninspired and mundane,
  then the most fantastic adventure hook and the
  most speacular treasure won’t really mean a
  thing.
  Encountrs
  Encounters are those situations where the PCs
  meet NPCs or monsters. It does not have to be
  a hostile situation to be an encounter; indeed,
  even meeting a kindly Cleric on the road who
  
  22
  is generous with healing spells is considered an
  “encounter.”
  When setting up an encounter, there are a
  couple of things to keep in mind.
  What is the purpose of this encounter? Every
  encounter should have an in-game purpose or
  justi�cation, but not necessarily be conneed
  to any plot or storyline that is happening.
  Sometimes the setting will diate encounters,
  as a cave lair of a primitive tribe will have
  certain things that need to be there for the
  tribe to make sense as a whole, and the same
  goes for a village, or fortress. More fantastic
  locations may need a little more thinking. Of
  course those demonic lava lizards in the
  chamber below the erupting volcano are there
  because you think the party needs a �ght right
  around there, but the game will be altogether
  more satisfying if there is a reason that makes
  sense within the setting for them to be there as
  well.
  How does this encounter relate to other
  encounters placed in the adventure? It is all
  well and good to create a large adventure
  environment with a great amount of variety,
  but make sure things that are close together can
  coexist. It is very important that you don’t
  sidetrack players with nonsensical things that
  are entirely irrelevant as real mysteries will
  become the focus of the adventure.
  Encounters should not often be static occur-
  rences. Even when an encounter is noted in a
  speci�c place, and the NPC/monster will most
  often be in that place, circumstances should
  always diate what happens during aual play.
  In a fortress where all of the designated guard
  posts are listed as standard encounter areas
  (those planned and detailed ahead of time), for
  instance, the guards will not all simply wait at
  their posts. If there is a general alarm raised, or
  suspicious noises nearby, the guardsmen will
  a appropriately. Remember that in the game
  all of these NPCs and monsters aren’t supposed
  to  be  game  elements,  they’re  aual  living
  beings. They should behave as such.
  Even in adventures designed to be combat-
  heavy, do not place too many combat encoun-
  ters, and certainly not too many evenly-
  matched combat encounters. While you might
  think you are making an aion­packed exciting
  adventure, what you will really be doing is
  causing a lot of downtime between �ghts as the
  players seek to rest and recover and avoid all of
  these tooth-and-nail battles.
  For a combat heavy adventure, it is aually best
  to make each individual encounter quite weak
  in comparison to the PCs. Not pathetically so
  (although there should be some of those), but
  weak enough that the party doesn’t consider
  the average encounter to be a real danger. In
  this way, you don’t encourage frequent retreat-
  and-rest, and the question of stopping or press-
  ing on becomes an aual decision rather than
  a mathematical equation.
  Just don’t forget the rather strong or over-
  whelming possible encounters as well!
  
  23
  Traps
  Traps are often designed to incapacitate,
  restrain, or kill those that set them oﬀ.
  A very brief and incomplete list of common
  traps:
  - Area that Fills with Water
  - Closing Walls/Lowering Ceiling (with or
  without spikes)
  - Collapsing Ceiling
  - Gas
  - Net
  - Pendulum Blade
  - Pits (with or without spikes)
  - Poison Needles (commonly in locks)
  - Snare
  - Tripwire (triggering another trap type)
  Traps may be as simple or convoluted as you
  like, and a hallmark of the expert Referee is the
  ability to come up with absolutely �endish
  traps. Traps need not be simple mechanical
  devices, and they need not have simple eﬀes.
  When adding the possibility of magic to the
  idea of a booby trap, you'll quickly be able to
  come up with more ideas than you could possi-
  bly ever use.
  Four things must be thought through before
  placing any trap. First, what triggers it? Second,
  what are the eﬀes of the trap once triggered?
  Third, how do people who are supposed to be
  in the area avoid the trap? And last, why hasn’t
  the trap been triggered by all the wandering
  monsters (and regular nearby inhabitants)?
  In instances such as a tomb or mad wizard’s lair
  or some such, these are easily answered.
  Nobody is supposed to be there, period, and it
  makes sense to booby-trap the living hell out of
  the place. Locations with living inhabitants, not
  so much. But each trap should have a clear
  purpose.
  Think before placing traps. Really, there is no
  quota for placing traps and they should never
  be thrown in there “just because.”
  Be descriptive about placed traps. It should be
  possible to dete and disarm almost any trap
  without making a die roll. In fa, if the proper
  way of dealing with a trap is nothing more than
  a couple of Specialist skill rolls, then the trap is
  boring and no good. You can do better.
  “Gotcha” traps keep players on their toes, but
  are also detrimental to game play. Merely
  entering an area shouldn’t be enough to trigger
  a trap, and with the slow rate of exploration
  movement, it should be assumed that the party
  is on the lookout for such traps as a default
  condition. But barring PCs moving at a full
  normal walk, there should be some speci�c
  aion that triggers a trap. Poison needle traps
  are a perfe example here. If a charaer does
  not attempt to open a chest or pick its lock, they
  have no problem. It’s only by taking a speci�c
  aion that they put themselves in danger.
  Not that this is a screed against pit traps and the
  like. They have their place – especially if
  nobody is bothering to use a ten foot pole
  anymore. The problem with such traps is that
  they are often in areas where many creatures
  travel. Not even the most diligently trained or
  �endishly clever beast will walk amongst traps
  unless there is an ongoing siege or other des-
  perate situation. Any “triggered just by stand-
  ing or walking in a particular place” trap that
  
  24
  does more than sound an alarm is simply not
  going to be found in areas where people, or
  creatures, ever go.
  Obvious, no-roll-needed-to-�nd-them traps are
  simply awesome. They dare the players. For
  example, there might be a six-armed statue
  with weapons in each hand, and a hole in its
  base and a gem in the statue’s forehead. This is
  eﬀeively  a  big �ashing warning sign to
  players that something will happen if they fool
  around with this thing. But chances are, they
  won’t be able to resist.
  The last consideration to make is whether this
  trap is eﬀeive. Too many Referees place traps
  as “obstacles” in their adventures to be “over-
  come.” Traps should be placed with the full
  intention of being triggered. Whoever set the
  trap was certainly aiming to kill (or imprison,
  or immobilize, or whatever) whoever triggers
  it, and was certainly trying to keep people out
  of a speci�c area, so it must be able to do what
  it sets out to do or the whole thing’s worthless.
  If you’re going to place a death trap, set it up in
  a way that will kill, and count on a charaer
  dying from that trap during the adventure.
  When (if!) the traps are discovered and
  bypassed, it becomes a real accomplishment
  (even if it was dead easy and the players don’t
  understand what might have happened), and
  not just something that happened because it’s
  “supposed to” in these types of games.
  Trcs
  Tricks are the features within a game that are
  designed to delay, distra, and generally drive
  players crazy. They have a lot of overlap with
  traps, as they can be dangerous and even
  deadly, but they are not designed to be simply
  disarmed or avoided, but ﬁgured out.
  This is where the Referee gets to go completely
  wild. Anything can be a trick. This is where you
  can throw in your logic puzzles, riddles, chess
  games, a dozen pools of liquid that all do diﬀer­
  ent things, talking doors, anything of the sort.
  Here is a list of more mundane and common
  tricks. Remember, this doesn’t even begin to
  scratch the surface of possibilities; these just
  deal with mapping or preventing easy comings-
  and-goings…
  - Chutes that drop PCs to areas below
  - Door hidden by an obje covering it
  - One-Way Door: It can be opened easily from
  one side, but not at all from the other.
  - Rooms or passages which rise or lower, or
  spin without those inside knowing
  - Sliding walls which block certain passages
  - Stairs which collapse, sliding everyone to the
  bottom
  Tricks are most often attached to objes. Stat­
  ues, doors, idols, altars, pools, machines… any-
  thing! Such tricks are usually triggered on an
  if/then basis. If the player does a certain thing,
  then it has a certain eﬀe. Maybe it reveals a
  clue,  subjes  the  triggering  charaer  (or  an
  area) to a spell eﬀe, gives an item… anything
  can happen.
  Again, there should be a purpose, or at least an
  origin, of the particular trick. It shouldn’t be
  purely random and out of context with its
  surroundings. Other than that… go nuts.
  
  25
  Maps are a classic prop in gaming, to the point
  where many gamers pass time by drawing maps
  to places they will never use in a game, nor
  develop in any greater detail. People like
  drawing maps. Make maps a major part of your
  game and players will respond.
  Whn s a Map Ndd?
  When the spatial relationship between areas is
  important, you need a map. A multi-level under-
  ground complex always needs a map, as the
  vertical conneing points need to be lined up,
  if nothing else. Most underground complexes
  need maps anyway, as movement rates are
  important for a good many reasons.
  For other sorts of adventures, a map is always
  handy because you never know where players
  will go and they’re going to notice the lack of
  consistency if you’re just making things up in
  your head. It’s all good and well to say, “The
  villages are three hours’ journey apart,” and
  then talk about a third village that’s two miles
  oﬀ the path from the second village, but you’d
  better have accurate information handy when
  players want to go between the �rst and third
  villages dire.
  Use maps.
  Communcatng Maps to Playrs
  As players move through the adventure envi-
  ronment, the environment should be commu-
  nicated verbally. Maps should never be shown
  to players (unless of course it is a map that their
  charaers aually �nd). One or more players
  will have to learn to interpret the Referee’s
  description and make their own map as they
  adventure, if they want to have a record of
  where they’ve been. The Example of Play in the
  Tutorial book depis this process.
  There will be exceptions, of course. Some
  adventure locations may be excessively
  complex and impossible to communicate
  eﬀeively.  In  these  limited  cases,  a  Referee
  might help the player out with his sketch.
  However,  Referees  shouldn’t  corre  minor
  errors made in maps. If an entire complex, for
  example a realistically rendered cavern, is
  beyond all ability to communicate without
  constant Referee sketches, then the players will
  have to make-do with approximate descrip-
  tions. The exploration movement rate, which
  allows for mapping with exa measurements,
  is still not equivalent to full-�edged surveying.
  This is, by the way, why most gaming maps
  follow a grid. Realistic struures and maps are
  diﬃcult to communicate, so for the purposes of
  gaming expediency the maps conform to graph
  or hex paper.
  If players don’t want to make their own map,
  they don’t have to. But that doesn’t mean you
  show them any of your maps.
  Good vs. Bad Maps
  A map is good when it tells you what you need
  to know. The artistic quality of the map, beyond
  that which allows the map to be clearly read, is
  of secondary concern. Useful maps are better
  than pretty maps, although admittedly useful
  and pretty maps are awesome.
  A superior map gives players choices as to
  where to go and what to do, it allows players to
  
  26
  plan eﬀeive strategies and make discoveries
  just for having made the map!
  A bad map is boring to look at and imparts no
  further information than a textual description
  would. Linear maps are no good. Very simple
  locations don’t always need to have an oﬃcial
  map.
  When designing an adventure, one thing you
  must decide on ahead of time is what the total
  experience award is likely to be. This can drive
  the entire process of adventure design. A good
  rule of thumb is that you total the amount of
  experience the party needs to gain a level (so a
  group of �ve �rst level Fighters would have
  10,000 for this number) and have the adventure
  have a quarter to one-third of the experience
  necessary to gain the level. This should stop
  increasing when the highest level PC reaches
  about fourth or �fth level. Yes, higher levels are
  supposed to take successively longer to reach.
  If  everything  went  mathematically  perfely
  during the game, this means that a party would
  level up every three to four sessions. However,
  this perfeion should be quite rare. Treasure
  will be missed, not every possible foe will be
  confronted or defeated, PCs will die, there will
  be retainers that will be getting shares, so you
  should perhaps consider that it may take �ve to
  ten sessions between levels – perhaps much
  more at higher levels.
  Placng Traſur
  Once you know how much experience you wish
  to have available in a particular adventure, you
  have got to place it within the adventure. The
  vast majority of experience in an adventure is
  gained by treasure, not by defeating enemies.
  Treasure is generally divided into three forms:
  Treure which is both valuable and worth
  experience points, money and goods which
  have value but aren’t counted for experience,
  and magical treasure.
  First, the dividing line between “money” and
  “treasure,” which items of worth give an expe-
  rience point value and which do not, must be
  determined by the Referee. It should be
  obvious when it is found and players should be
  given this information immediately. It should
  never be a mystery whether a stash is experi-
  ence or just a bit of cash. In general, purely
  political, criminal, or economic gains do not
  count for experience, while treasure that is
  gained through legitimate adventuring (that
  adventuring involving exploring of unknown
  areas) does count for experience purposes.
  As appropriate treasure amounts for an adven-
  ture grow as the charaers increase in level,
  transporting the treasure should be a more and
  more challenging experience. Not all treasure
  should be placed as coins, and certainly not as
  easily-transported gems or jewelry. Great
  works of art, either fragile or not easily moved,
  are a wonderful way to represent treasure.
  Would a party even think to take those large
  paintings  oﬀ  the  walls?  How  would  they  get
  them back to town without damaging them?
  And that magni�cent statue, sculpted by one of
  the masters… how to move it?
  Treasure should also be spread around the
  adventure. Placing all of the adventure’s trea-
  sure at “the end,” or beyond only the greatest
  
  27
  challenges, is somewhat unfair. Lesser amounts
  should be available here and there, some in
  quite hidden places. To place the vast majority
  of treasure at the end forces the players’ hand
  and really makes it diﬃcult to choose to go on
  or not; that choice is obvious if no gain has been
  made halfway through. Deciding to be safe and
  take far longer to accumulate treasure and
  advance in levels versus taking more risks for
  the hopes of quicker advancement should be a
  choice to be made by the party.
  Magical items will be discussed more later, but
  they  should  be  quite  rare.  Aively  useful
  magical items should never be less than vital to
  the history or development of an adventure,
  and never placed “just because.” Less obviously
  useful items and one- or limited-use items, can
  be placed a bit more liberally but still never
  haphazardly. Magical items, even if sold, are not
  counted as “treasure” for experience point
  purposes. Besides, who would sell a magic item?
  What kind of farcical campaign is being run if
  a magical item is so useless as to be discarded or
  surrendered, even for money?
  Remember that not all treasure need be cashed
  in to count for experience. If the PCs’ mission
  is to retrieve some valuable item, and they
  complete their mission and return the item to
  civilization or other safe haven, that item
  should count for experience equal to its value,
  even if it is turned over to a third-party quest-
  giver and never cashed out for gold.
  Common gaming wisdom today states that if
  the  aion  has  slowed  and  the  players  either
  don’t know what to do or don’t want to do
  anything, the Referee should make something
  happen to give the players something to rea
  to.  I  declare  that  this  ruins  the  pro­aive
  element in traditional gaming, causes the
  Referee to be biased towards charaer aion,
  and creates a disincentive for players to control
  their own destiny.
  But what do you do if all the obstacles described
  in the Success and Failure seion aually stop
  the party?
  You do nothing.
  If a player complains that he’s bored and that
  nothing is happening, look at him and say, “I
  agree. So are you going to do something or not?”
  It is not the Referee’s job during a session to
  provide excitement for his playing group. His
  job is to administer the setting and resolve
  charaer aions. If the charaers are taking
  no  aion  and  are  not  interaing  with  the
  setting, then the Referee has literally nothing
  to do. The players are wasting his time.
  However, this advice depends on the PCs au­
  ally having other things they can do! If the
  players are only presented one possible adven-
  ture, and they run into a roadblock in that
  adventure, then it’s not the players’ fault if the
  game just grinds to a halt.
  If there are multiple adventure hooks �oating
  about (as there should be!), then a roadblock in
  one place doesn’t stop play cold. The players’
  stubbornness might at that point, refusing to
  accept that they can’t go on in one place, but
  that really isn’t your problem. Yet it is vital that
  the Referee makes it clear that there are other
  things to do. Too many Referees indulge in
  
  28
  “this is the adventure of the week and this is
  what you will be doing” play-styles, so it is
  essential that a good Referee never falls into
  this habit, and important that players know the
  Referee is not working under common, and
  inferior, methods. As long as players know that
  there  is  adventure  in  every  direion,  the
  Referee never need worry about the outcome
  of any particular adventure.
  Other common standards of pacing become
  obsolete when dealing with a player-driven
  adventure. Traditional games commonly
  feature a “retreat, rest, and recharge” element
  of play, and in fa almost demand such a thing.
  This  creates  a  bit  of  diﬃculty  in  trying  to
  struure an exciting adventure if the party is
  going back to rest after every �ght of even
  slight challenge.
  Don’t let the players turn the game into a series
  of “Scout out the next room, ambush the beast-
  ies,  colle  the  loot,  and  then  retreat  back  to
  camp and get all the spells back.” Or don’t let
  them complain of monotony and boredom if
  that is what they choose to do. Missions with
  time limits are a possibility, but the meticulous
  planning needed to make such an adventure
  just challenging enough to get the PCs to the
  climax will tend to cause the Referee to become
  too invested in the adventure outcome.
  The �rst reliable way to control pacing issues
  is through the proper use of wandering mon-
  sters and random encounters (described below).
  Never skip a random encounter check, and
  never hand-waive the results. Do this for the
  area that the PCs decide to rest as well. If their
  recuperation is not just a matter of saying, “We
  go back to camp,” maybe the players won’t be
  so quick to do so.
  Tm
  Time management is an oft­overlooked aspe
  of adventure gaming. So many things are
  dependent on time, and yet so many players
  and Referees disregard it as a faor in their
  games.
  Keep a stri record of time! This wisdom was
  presented in bold in an important early gaming
  publication and has been laughed at ever since.
  But it’s excellent advice. Endless searching for
  secret doors and traps takes but a second to roll
  for the players, but a good deal of time for the
  charaers. How long does that torch burn? How
  quickly is that lantern burning oil? How long
  does that spell last? So many Referees simply
  make sure that there’s a torch or lantern
  present (and if the Referee is on the ball, he
  might make sure that somebody with a free
  hand is aually the one carrying it) and then
  ignore it. Players will pick up the pace if the
  torches and lanterns keep going out… and
  keeping close track of encumbrance means
  they can’t just buy a hundred �asks of oil,
  either. These oft-ignored rules aren’t there to
  simply be a pain in the ass, they are there to
  push play along in a system that otherwise
  rewards charaers moving at a snail’s pace.
  Let’s use light as an example. Adventures often
  take place underground, and no PC race can see
  in the dark. So how to deal with the problem?
  Multiple torches and lanterns take up space and
  someone needs a free hand to hold the thing.
  But they only last a limited time. Spellcasters
  can use a spell instead, but most usually think
  
  29
  that resource is better spent in another way.
  Planning for light is an important consider-
  ation in an adventure, and dealing with the
  issue does limit, in its own small way, what the
  party is able to accomplish. If you just hand-
  wave the issue, “Oh, somebody’s got a torch,
  that’s covered then for the whole adventure,”
  the game takes on a diﬀerent tone, one where
  planning and choices really don’t matter.
  The same can be said with trap checking at
  every door, in every passage, and searching for
  secret doors in every room. In many ways, this
  is a smart thing to do, for a serious adventure
  will reward this behavior. But where is the
  challenge if there is no recording of the passage
  of time, or any consequences for spending this
  much time searching? You might as well not
  even place any traps for a half-decent party, or
  bother making any doors secret. There must be
  a balance, a choice to be made by the players,
  between thoroughness and expediency. Adven-
  tures usually take place in hoile environments.
  They should be treated as such.
  An adventure may be construed so that such
  concerns are not real, but they should have
  other dangers that exist becae the PCs have
  no time pressures.
  Random Encountrs
  Random encounters are encounters and situa-
  tions that PCs may run into that are not a
  pre-planned part of an adventure. They are a
  surprise to both the players and the Referee.
  Random encounters are checked once every set
  period of time, and this will vary from location
  to location. You might decide, in one dungeon,
  that encounters will be checked once every
  three turns, and in another place you might
  decide that there needs to be a random encoun-
  ter check once every six turns.
  In underground areas, or other spaces where
  game movement by turn is important, checks
  should be made every few turns. But in wilder-
  ness travel, where often entire game days pass
  in a matter of real-world moments, checks
  should be made far less often, perhaps two or
  three times per game day, depending on cir-
  cumstances.
  When a check is called for, it is traditionally
  made on a d6, with a 1 meaning an encounter
  occurs. Depending on the adventure or situa-
  tion, checks can occur much more frequently
  and with a greater chance of an encounter.
  Certainly if the PCs make a lot of noise (such as
  breaking down doors, arguing in the middle of
  a passage about their next course of aion, etc.),
  a check could be made on the spot no matter
  when the next scheduled check was supposed
  to be made.
  Deciding how closely the players’ behavior is
  mirrored in the game world is something a
  Referee must do and communicate to the play-
  ers. If the players spend twenty real-life
  minutes deciding what to do at any particular
  point, does that equal two full turns in the
  game? If players are excited and raise their
  voices and talk over each other in such negoti-
  ations,  does  that  mean  their  charaers  are
  doing the same?
  When a random encounter does occur, the
  Referee should consult a table he has prepared
  for this purpose. This table should be unique to
  every area, and the entries on a table should
  
  30
  help de�ne the experience of adventuring in
  an area.
  Random encounters encourage players to not
  spend exhaustive amounts of time on searches
  and �ddling with absolutely everything. If
  searching every last seion of wall for secret
  doors means a potential parade of enemies
  stumbling across them, they might keep
  moving, complete their map, and then �gure
  out likely places that the doors might be. Play
  will move much faster. Also, if every adventure
  location has unique random encounters, those
  encounters help the location be more memora-
  bly unique in your players’ minds.
  Note that random encounter tables do not have
  to be, and should not be, simply lists of hostile
  encounters! Appropriate and atmospheric hap-
  penings  are  perfely  legitimate  random
  "encounters." Neutral or friendly encounters
  can  provide  an  unexpeed  twist.  A  cave­in,
  �ash �ood, creeping mist, or other random
  event can easily �ll a random encounter table
  slot.  A  good  praice  is  to  make  some  sort  of
  "background element" into a random encoun-
  ter. Perhaps some far­oﬀ sound, or shifting of
  the ground, something of that nature. On one
  slot on the table, that's all there is. On another
  slot, it is the harbinger to an attack or other
  dangerous event. When that same thing
  happens next time, if there was a battle previ-
  ously, the players will go immediately on their
  guard, whether there is reason to or not! If
  there was not a battle last time, they may well
  completely ignore it, much to their eventual
  chagrin.
  Random encounters are a wonderful tool. They
  keep players from ever feeling secure about
  their position in an adventure location, they
  can turn tense situations into complete chaos,
  and they are just good all around fun.
  When coming up with random encounters,
  while most of the possible encounters should
  not be major battles, there should be at least one
  possible encounter that will be a roughly equal,
  major �ght, and one entry which will probably
  be too much for the party to stand toe to toe
  with.
  Take care that the random charts make sense
  within the adventuring environment. These
  creatures roaming around will also be coming
  into  conta  with  the  placed  creatures.  Why
  aren’t they killing each other? If they are
  random monsters, it’s a good bet their lair isn’t
  keyed on the map. Where do they live? How do
  they get from there to the adventure location?
  If the party is closing doors behind them as they
  go, many creatures won’t be able to “randomly”
  appear.
  One solution is to make random monsters
  conneed to a keyed area. This can happen in
  several ways. The �rst is to just assume that
  every (or most, or whatever’s appropriate)
  keyed area’s inhabitants have an extra member
  or two running around the environment. The
  second is to increase the number of creatures
  in the set encounter areas, and assume that a
  certain number of them are gone at any partic-
  ular time, and it is those creatures that turn into
  random encounters.
  Note that completely tamed areas can still have
  a wide variety of random encounters. Roads in
  civilized lands always have travelers on them,
  and creating customized encounter tables for
  
  31
  diﬀerent areas of civilization can help diﬀeren­
  tiate Vaguely English Barony A from Vaguely
  English Barony B. "There sure are a lot of
  beggars in this area, Lars."
  Over the past 35+ years, a tremendous number
  of adventures have been published that are
  compatible with Weird Fantasy Role-Playing.
  Published adventures have one downside:
  Because they are not your creations, you need
  to read and study them well in advance, and
  take note of how all the details �t together in
  ways that may not be apparent (or at all men-
  tioned) in the text.
  Published adventures have three important
  advantages:
  They will expand your capabilities as a Referee.
  Because you are working from someone else’s
  ideas, the adventure should be diﬀerent than
  anything you would present, perhaps radically
  so. This is a great advantage, as the one short-
  coming of a Referee that presents only his own
  adventures is that they are indeed all his. No
  Referee is so creative as to create an entire
  world from whole cloth and adventure after
  adventure for his players without his stylistic
  trademarks being left all over them. This
  unique quality of a Referee is a good thing most
  of the time, but a great Referee is also �exible
  and willing to experiment and learn. Running
  adventures written by a variety of authors is a
  useful means of learning �exibility.
  At the same time, the players will be doubly
  challenged. If they have played under a partic-
  ular Referee for some time, certain things will
  be considered standard. Those unique qualities
  of a Referee may create “business as usual”
  procedures on the player end. Using an adven-
  ture written by someone else forces them out
  of any sense of being on autopilot, removes any
  chance of guessing the dangers based on
  knowing the style of the Referee, and forces
  players to prove their skill under a whole new
  set of adventure assumptions.
  The third thing is that it is diﬃcult to be an
  impartial Referee with your regular home
  group. Honestly, if you’re running games for
  your friends, and creating the adventures too,
  there is hesitation to really go all-out in chal-
  lenging them. Is it fair to use their particular
  playing style as a basis for defeating them in an
  adventure? Are you really trying to challenge
  them when writing an adventure and then
  aing  as  an  unbiased  Referee  during  aual
  play and discovering whether the players are
  up to the challenge? Chances are you’re balanc-
  ing things in favor of your party, at least ever
  so slightly. You know you are. Published adven-
  tures give you the opportunity to be the disin-
  terested game master. You are not responsible
  for the adventure or its contents, the writers
  don’t know your group, so it’s a neutral ground.
  You can play the adventure to its fullest poten-
  tial, being as dastardly as you like with the
  monsters and bad guys, without feeling any
  guilt or questioning whether you’ve made
  something unfair. Let the dice fall where they
  may!
  Some Referees are great creative thinkers and
  make excellent adventures, but not every
  Referee can manage these things. Running a
  great game requires diﬀerent skills than creat­
  ing a great adventure. Never feel like you’re
  
  32
  doing something wrong just because you didn’t
  write everything that you use in your campaign.
  Ft th Advntur to th Campagn
  Very few adventures are ready to be inserted
  as-is into your campaign. Generally the geogra-
  phy and cultural surroundings of an adventure
  are fairly unique. You need to �gure out exaly
  how this adventure �ts in to your campaign
  world, and �le oﬀ the bits that con�i with the
  world. Most of the time, changing some minor
  appearance detail and changing names to suit
  your campaign is enough.
  You should also carefully scan the adventure
  for hazardous treasures and other potential
  reward issues. Adventure writers will have a
  wildly diﬀerent idea of what appropriate trea­
  sures should be, and you need to make sure
  you’re not dumping an undue amount of trea-
  sure or magic items into your game.
  Because adventures written by others do have
  much diﬀerent base assumptions than adven­
  tures you devise for your own campaign, it will
  often be necessary to isolate the adventure
  location to explain why things that are true in
  the adventure are not true in the greater cam-
  paign at large. But that shouldn’t be too big an
  issue, as adventures happen away from home
  anyway!
  Don’t Chang Anythng Elſ!
  The very advantage of using adventures
  written by others is defeated if you change
  every detail to more closely match your style.
  After you take away the elements that could
  harm your campaign and change the names and
  other such details to �t your campaign, leave
  the adventures alone. Run them in the spirit
  they were written. Try to get in the head of the
  writer, and run it as you imagine the writer
  running the thing. It will challenge you and
  expand your abilities as a Referee, it will chal-
  lenge your players and expand their abilities,
  and these are good things.
  
  33
  Th Campagn
  A campaign is the overall environment in
  which all of your adventures take place. That is
  to say, if your adventures each take place in a
  speci�c local environment, then the campaign
  is the greater world around those locations.
  Campaign play is the default assumption for
  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, but of course the
  game can be played simply as a succession of
  episodic adventures with nothing between
  them.
  There are two primary means to construing
  your campaign: Through Prior Design or by
  Accumulated Play.
  Accumulated Play means the campaign world
  is a blank slate but for what occurs in play. The
  �rst adventure establishes fas about the cam­
  paign world, and every subsequent adventure
  adds to the campaign, but nothing exists until
  it is established in play. Most of this establish-
  ment will be formed by answering player ques-
  tions, and as they ask about their charaers’
  surroundings, you will be setting precedent to
  be followed forever more. This style of cam-
  paign building tends to be fast, loose, and full
  of really crazy ideas.
  Most of the rest of this seion is of no real use
  to you if you’re using the accumulated play
  method. Simply make an adventure. Then make
  another one. And play!
  Then there is the Prior Design approach. This
  involves designing a world beforehand and
  making a great many decisions about play
  ahead of time. The great disadvantage to this
  method is that once set, a good many later ideas
  may be unusable within the campaign without
  breaking the consistency of the setting. The
  advantage of this method is it very much pro-
  motes the idea of the campaign world as a real
  place with an identity of its own beyond what
  the players are doing within it. Players appre-
  ciate the feeling of exploring an aual place
  rather than being constantly reminded that
  they are in a mere game constru.
  Expandng Your Mlu
  All of the advice given for construing a cam­
  paign world is best applied locally, for as much
  background and territory needed for the char-
  aers’ current adventures to make sense. Other
  areas can be de�ned in general terms, but the
  �ne details should be left until they are needed,
  if for no other reason than you’ll always have
  great ideas that come to you well after the start
  of a campaign.
  As charaers travel, more areas that begin as
  mere concepts can be �lled in and become true
  locations. Your world will grow organically.
  The true richness of the campaign world will
  not reveal itself with any single group of char-
  aers or even players. Only by continuing to
  use, and develop, the same campaign world
  over the course of many games with multiple
  groups  adventuring  in  diﬀerent  areas  of  the
  game world over a course of years will the
  campaign world reach its fullest potential.
  
  34
  Do note that while this game re�es  the
  author’s Western and Northern European his-
  torical, literary, and mythological tastes, your
  campaign is free to make diﬀerent assumptions.
  Class names, spell lists, and what equipment is
  available for purchase are all allowed to be
  changed according to Referee wishes. If the
  Referee wants it to be diﬀerent in his game,
  then diﬀerent it is. It’s that simple.
  In this way you could decide that your cam-
  paign could have an Asian �avor, an Aztec or
  other Native American
  �avor, Egyptian,
  Roman, Greek, Arab, Indian, or even something
  not based on a real-world Earth culture or time
  period, whether it be inspired by literature or
  other media or your own imagination. What-
  ever form of fantasy you feel attached to and
  comfortable with is OK to pursue.
  Adventure locations, they can be wild and far
  out and without concern for any sort of internal
  consistency if you wish. Even if you decide your
  campaign will feel something like the Holy
  Roman Empire under Charlemagne, you can
  have aliens landing in the mountains, krakens
  in the ocean, and pixies kidnapping children in
  the forests. But the campaign world as a whole,
  especially the civilized, “safe” areas, should feel
  familiar to your players so the game sessions
  are about the adventure, the exciting bits, and
  not all about learning the very basics of the
  world  that  the  charaers  have  taken  for
  granted since birth.
  The most important thing to remember is that
  the campaign world, self-contained creation it
  may be, exists �rst and foremost to be adven-
  tured within by the players. Don’t make a
  design so airtight that there is no room for a
  crew of anarchistic ne’er-do-wells to run around
  and screw everything up. But what the cam-
  paign world is about does not need to match
  what the players will be doing in it. The cam-
  paign world is the backdrop, the setting for the
  adventures, and should be independently con-
  ceived.
  Usng Earth  a Sttng
  You might ask, “If you’re suggesting to us that
  the baseline situation in the game world should
  be realistic, why not just use the real world and
  its history?”
  Great question, and the answer is simply:
  “People know too much about it, and not
  enough about it.” No one person is an expert in
  every area of knowledge that would be
  required to accurately model the real world,
  even if it will be altered for fantasy purposes.
  The problem is a good number of people are
  highly educated about speci�c topics.
  If you are saying, “This campaign takes place in
  the historical Real World, but with Weird
  elements,” these educated folk will make
  assumptions based on their knowledge in the
  game. If you, as a Referee, don’t have this
  knowledge, it’s going to break their belief in
  the  game  world  as  you  contradi  what  they
  know in their specialized area. If you have a
  particularly well-educated and diverse group
  of players, this will be a problem with every
  player at your table.
  Or, perhaps the Referee is the best-educated
  person at the table when it comes to historical
  matters. This is great, unless he makes assump-
  “Bnath th magc, drrng­do, and othr glamour, an magnary world h to
  wor rght.”
  Poul Andrſon
  
  35
  tions about things people are “supposed to
  know” about history, and things could very well
  fall apart when he realizes that isn’t the case.
  Fa: People are generally ignorant of the world
  around them unless it pertains to a past or
  present job or hobby. Their ignorance about
  historical matters is far greater.
  Also fa: Gamers generally hate having their
  immersion in the game disrupted whereas they
  may fully enjoy a game that doesn’t falsely
  advertise such a level of immersion in the �rst
  place.
  Saying “The Knights of Yobbo-Toy is an order
  similar to the Knights Templar,” for your own
  campaign world establishes many associations
  and references in players’ minds. They get a
  good thumbnail, a rough idea, yet they realize
  these aren’t the Templars and will be accepting
  of information which is new or horribly inaccu-
  rate historically. If you use Historic Earth as
  your  setting  and  then  introduce  the  aual
  Knights Templar, any change or departure
  from  player  expeations  (even  if  a  player’s
  expeation is based on incorre knowledge of
  the  subje!)  is  going  to  create  friion  and
  disrupt game play. Even two fully educated
  people may disagree about interpretations of
  how a real­life group would a towards situa­
  tions common in the game but non-existent in
  history (undead, magic, etc). Settling these
  issues will sidetrack the game.
  It is recommended that you focus on creating
  a verisimilitudinous campaign world rather
  than striving for a realistic one. The Referee
  should be the �nal authority about the cam-
  paign world, and using the Real World gives
  authority to the world beyond the Referee’s.
  Avoid that.
  Usng a Publd Campagn Sttng
  There are many settings created speci�cally for
  use in role-playing games, and many more
  already-detailed settings in literature, and
  choosing to use one of those for your campaign
  could save a lot of eﬀort in creating a campaign
  world, and will also save a lot of time if you are
  already quite familiar with the setting.
  Using available settings for your campaign has
  the same risks of using the real world, with the
  potential for even greater silliness. Some set-
  tings have upwards of one hundred published
  books  about  them,  not  to  mention  unoﬃcial
  interpretations and additions on the internet
  and elsewhere.
  How much of it are you going to use? All of it?
  A speci�c subset? Elements that you cherry-pick
  out of all available sources, while not including
  other elements?
  How  are  your  players  going  to  rea  to  this?
  What happens when you decide that your
  campaign will take place in Famous World, and
  one of your players starts quoting chapter and
  verse from some failed novel published twenty
  years ago that’s set in that world? Do you warp
  your campaign to the vision of writers you
  haven’t even thought to read, or do you basi-
  cally penalize the player by dismissing his
  in-depth knowledge about the setting you’ve
  told him you’re using?
  Avoid the issue. If using an extant setting for
  your campaign, de�ne which speci�c sources
  
  36
  you will be drawing from so the players clearly
  know what is “real” in your campaign and what
  is not.
  The de�ning  element  of  any  aspe  of  any
  world is geography. It determines everything
  from lifestyles and cultural development to
  available resources and trade routes, prime
  settlement areas and therefore population
  density patterns, territory worth �ghting over,
  and how cosmopolitan certain areas are. It’s
  huge. Whether you draw a map and then decide
  everything that follows, or decide how you
  want things to be and then draw a map to
  support that, geography must be a prime con-
  cern, and must be treated as a creative priority.
  You don’t need to be any sort of college wiz kid
  to draw maps as long as you keep a few things
  in mind. Rivers �ow downhill. Large amounts
  of vegetation needs decent amounts of water.
  Settlements will only exist where there is water
  and food available, and large settlements will
  only exist on major trade routes. Water allows
  people, commerce allows size. This isn’t just
  nitpicking, as realistically conceived worlds
  allow players to make sensible decisions
  without the Referee needing to give them an
  inordinate amount of description or exposition.
  Even if doing the top-down prior design cam-
  paign approach, you only need to fully detail
  the areas which the players aually travel to.
  All other areas can remain rough ideas, a large-
  scale map with major features and cities
  without small­scale details, until they are au­
  ally visited.
  When developing the details of your campaign,
  you have to think about where the adventures
  will be had. Since these areas are where aual
  play will tend to be focused, it should be a �rst
  priority. Of course you don’t have to plan too
  far ahead, but most adventures do not happen
  at home, and if they are too close to the civilized
  areas, then the powers-that-be will have taken
  care of the problem (and if they can’t, charaers
  at the start of a new campaign aren’t likely to
  be able to either!). So plot out those areas oﬀ the
  beaten path where adventures are most likely
  to happen.
  Th Wlds
  Surrounding adventure locations will generally
  be areas where man simply doesn’t go. Being
  away from towns and villages and well-traveled
  roads isn’t enough to really be “the wilds.” True
  wilds are not roamed by hunters or trappers,
  prospeors or loggers. Nobody but adventurers
  and well-prepared explorers, bandits, and
  unfriendly creatures can be found there.
  Each distin wilderness area should have its
  own random encounter tables. You don’t want
  every dark forest to feel the same, and you don’t
  want every mountain range to be identical. The
  �rst adventure locations should probably have
  few, if any, random encounters, because begin-
  ning charaers probably can’t survive running
  wilderness battles and then the adventure
  location, but beyond the �rst three or four
  adventures, you should introduce the tables so
  the  players  realize  the  diﬀerence  between
  civilization and the wilderness.
  
  37
  Monﬅr Placmnt
  In addition to adventure locations and random
  encounters, you also might want to assign
  speci�c monsters to speci�c locations in the
  wilderness. These become adventure locations
  anyway, for all intents and purposes, but
  perhaps without all the detail that normal
  adventures require. Deciding that these woods
  are the lair of a satyr gives the place a distin
  feeling, as does deciding that those hills hold
  the lair of a fearsome dragon. As with normal
  encounters placed in adventures, you will have
  to decide how these placed creatures intera
  with the world around them.
  Civilization is a straightjacket for adventure.
  Government and its enforcers abhor powerful
  individuals aing as they will, they abhor chaos
  and unleashed danger, they abhor the
  unknown, and it is these which are the heart of
  adventure.  Charaers,  especially  low­level
  charaers,  need  a  safe  haven  in  which  to
  retreat. Pure economic gain, that is treasure
  that is simply money and not treasure, does not
  provide experience.
  It is recommended that civilized areas conform
  to real-world norms as much as possible. Magic-
  Users do not sit on the throne, priests in the
  church are not Clerics to heal the wounds of the
  populace. Civilized lands suﬀer famine, plague,
  oppression, poverty, and all the ills that pre-
  industrial  society  had  to  oﬀer.  The  poor  are
  poor. The people have little power, and
  wouldn’t know what to do with it if they had it.
  Honest labor perhaps allows one a bite to eat
  and a roof against the rain, maybe, but it is not
  in any way a guarantee of a life. Player Char-
  aers have the wealth to be above the worst of
  it, but surely they want to escape such drudgery
  – else why become an adventurer?
  Exciting adventures in civilized areas are quite
  possible (even commonplace in some cam-
  paigns).  Aivities  which  would  seem  “mun­
  dane” yet still quite exciting (think of every
  non-supernatural thriller or crime drama
  you’ve ever seen) can be used as adventure
  fodder, but this is distin from what this game
  normally terms “adventure.” If the focus of a
  campaign is on exploration, the recovery of lost
  treasure, and conta with Weird forces, then
  the adventures should primarily be out there.
  Yet there are elements such as haunted houses,
  hidden cults, secret temples, and all sorts of
  strangeness which do happen, and in some cases
  can only happen, in the heart of civilization. But
  even these are distin from everyday life, as
  the local powers do not interfere and these
  things  do  not  (openly)  impa  everyday  life.
  They are “out there,” away from the world,
  even while situated in the middle of it.
  Religion  is  the  most  powerful  faor  of  any
  civilization of consequence. For fantasy/non-
  technological settings, in emulating any sort of
  historical era, decisions made about religion
  will de�ne the greater features of a civilization.
  That said, religion can be completely transpar-
  ent in the campaign world if you don’t wish to
  deal with it. Many games aively encourage
  keeping religious matters “oﬀ­camera” so as to
  not risk real-life religious feelings becoming
  
  38
  entwined with depiions of in­game �itious
  religious praices.
  Fantasy settings have the great advantage of
  not needing to use real-world religions in the
  game. One always could use them, of course,
  but some players may take great oﬀense, espe­
  cially when a real religion is used as a vehicle
  for rather weird and horri�c game plots.
  Creating a religion from the imagination is
  both  very  easy  and  very  diﬃcult.  It’s  easy
  because all you need to do is come up with four
  or �ve quick fas about the religion, and that
  can be enough if religious matters aren’t all that
  important in your campaign world. However,
  in a game that often has multiple pantheons of
  gods existing side by side, with many demons
  and other things masquerading as gods and
  providing hooks for adventures, there is more
  work to do.
  Answer these following questions for each
  religion in your campaign:
  - What is the god’s name, including epithets?
  - What is the god’s sphere of in�uence?
  - What does the god look like? Is the god male,
  female, both, or neither?
  - What is the origin of the god?
  - What does the god’s places of worship look
  like?
  - What are the common rituals done in honor
  of the god?
  - How do the priests of the religion dress?
  - When are the major holy days of the reli-
  gion, and what do they represent?
  - What is the god’s symbol?
  - What is the religion’s attitude towards other
  gods?
  - What is the religion’s attitude towards
  heretical praices?
  - What is the religion’s attitude towards non-
  believers?
  - What is important to followers of the reli-
  gion?
  - How might one please the religion?
  - How might one oﬀend the religion?
  - Does the religion claim any sacred animals,
  monsters, devices, or phenomena?
  - Are  there  any  unusual  aions  that  the
  priests of the religion perform?
  Note that the answers to these questions should
  be from the point of view of the religious
  organization and not the deity itself, and only
  the questions that impa the charaers need
  to be answered ahead of time. As with all cam-
  paign preparation, worry only about what is
  likely to appear in aual play.
  Also keep in mind that in cultures whose reli-
  gion includes an entire pantheon of gods,
  people (and clerics) will worship the pantheon
  as a whole, and those who single out any partic-
  ular god to the exclusion of others will not be
  in the mainstream of society.
  In all cultures, followers of minority faiths will
  have to deal with the followers of the primary
  faith. Even in enlightened and tolerant societ-
  ies, the common rabble will not often be quite
  so enlightened and tolerant. In some cases, it
  may be illegal to praice certain religions, or
  to not be a part of the “home” religion. Reli-
  gious criminals have a very low recidivism rate
  because they are generally executed immedi-
  ately, and often not by the authorities.
  
  39
  Also remember that in a pre-modern age, reli-
  gion is not a private matter and is not some-
  thing  simply  praiced  every  week  during
  services.  Religion  permeates  every  aspe  of
  life, from the foods eaten to the clothes that are
  allowed to be worn. Think of the most archaic
  restriions and praices from the history of
  real­world faiths, and then faor in that rulers
  will also seize greater levels of control using
  religion as an excuse, without those laws really
  having much to do with religion.
  All religions are local phenomena. Religions
  that grow to be great do so because the political
  entity from the area the religion originates
  from has itself spread out. But unless part of a
  current or former empire, most areas will have
  their own praices and their own gods.
  Note that this entire seion speaks of religion
  and belief, and not aual deities. The nature of
  divinity, and the truth of the religions of the
  world, are entirely up to the campaign Referee.
  The only question that needs to be considered
  is, “Where do Clerics get their magical power?”
  Maybe the religions worship real gods who
  grant spells. Maybe there are no gods, and it is
  the Cleric’s own supreme will that powers the
  magic (which makes spells like Commune inter-
  esting…). Maybe the mass belief of the religion’s
  followers creates a magical “well” of power
  from which Clerics draw. Or maybe the real
  answer is something else entirely. You never
  have to de�nitively answer this question, by the
  way, or even make a decision about the reli-
  gious truth of your campaign.
  … and then we have cults. Cults are awesome for
  gaming, because they always worship some foul
  demon (what if all gods are demons?) and
  threaten the stability of the society they
  secretly exist within, and are full of all sorts of
  Weirdness that allow a Referee to exercise the
  full extent of his imaginative powers. You can
  go to the outer limits of your imagination to
  come up with obscure gods and rather unpleas-
  ant means of worship.
  Coſmology and th Gods
  A �nal word, relating to the development of
  religions and gods in your campaign. Many
  games and game worlds (and mythologies!) not
  only detail the truth about the gods, but also the
  makeup of the greater cosmos. Where the gods
  live, what alternate dimensions exist, how to
  travel between them, that sort of thing.
  The best way to handle this is to never de�ne
  the layout of the planes or dimensions or the
  dwelling places of divine (or infernal) beings.
  Keep it as folklore and legends within the
  campaign. This diﬀerent sources have diﬀerent
  and contradiory beliefs, and the players can
  never know who is wrong. As soon as this sort
  of thing is codi�ed, it removes mystery from
  the setting, and if you or the players know The
  Big Piure, then the campaign world, which is
  the important piure, seems small in compari­
  son.
  This isn’t to say you can’t have adventures
  dealing with other dimensions or such things,
  just don’t codify the relationship between the
  one dimension in the current dimension and
  any others. Keep it mysterious.
  
  40
  Government. Song. Dance. Fashion. Theater.
  Art. Craftsmanship. Games. Scholarship. Philos-
  ophy. Architeure. Food. Technology.
  Even aside from religion, which will be a huge
  in�uence on all of the above, societies will be
  diﬀerent from one another through basic habits
  and lifestyles. Inventing all of these things from
  scratch for a game campaign is a very intense
  and time-consuming job – at least it is if the �nal
  result is to feel like a living, breathing culture
  – and so this is why many campaign worlds
  work from a historical base. “It’s like 16th
  Century England,” for example, says a great
  deal, even if it winds up being a series of
  popular misconceptions about what that exaly
  means. Everyone at the table will get the
  general idea and that’s enough to get the world
  out of the way and get direly to the adventure.
  Language, like religion, is a great indicator of
  cultural similarities. Information about a cam-
  paign world can be subtly imparted by desig-
  nating which languages are spoken where, and
  the presence of the language rules requires a
  Referee to come up with at least a rough list of
  languages, and their relationship to one
  another, when planning a campaign world.
  Avoid  “racial”  languages.  Yes,  diﬀerent  races
  will  likely  have  diﬀerent  languages  than
  humans, but only if they have isolated societies.
  And at distance these races will have diﬀerent
  cultures and languages, just like humans do.
  There is no need to go into real-world depth as
  far as your campaign’s languages, but putting
  just a bit of eﬀort beyond having a “Common
  Tongue” (a default language spoken every-
  where in a campaign world) in your campaign
  world will do wonders to further the illusion
  that it is a real place.
  The social dynamics of a population center will
  vary greatly depending on the dominant
  culture (and having multiple cultures present
  in one area will change that dynamic as well).
  It really is diﬃcult to generalize.
  However, some things will be universal. Any
  sizeable community that we’d recognize as a
  “town” – with a large population and commerce
  – requires a huge amount of farmers or �sher-
  men to provide food for it. The ability to simply
  buy food, instead of having to grow it oneself,
  is quite rare, so any town will have an entire
  network of smaller farming villages around it.
  The general populace will be quite poor by
  modern standards, with entire families living
  in smaller one or two room houses, with few
  possessions beyond personal tools, clothing, and
  cooking implements. Socialization is primarily
  done around worship services or at public
  houses.
  Commerce will be regulated by guilds who
  decide who may sell and what the prices will be.
  Strangers will not �nd bargains. One may
  escape the guild monopolies by dealing with
  the criminal underworld, but this has its own
  complications.
  
  41
  Streets will be narrow and dark. On cloudy or
  moonless nights it will almost be as dark out-
  doors as in dungeon corridors. Fire is rivaled
  only by plague as the greatest fear of a city
  dweller. There will not be streetlights of any
  sort without guards, so only the richer distris
  in town will be lit.
  Towns of any size will be walled, and getting
  into a city will cost money, as city gates (along
  with bridges and other such points) will always
  require a toll.
  Of course PCs will quickly acquire enough
  money that all of this will merely be a nuisance
  rather than the state of daily life. But make no
  mistake, the lower classes toil and break their
  backs until they die. In the country they are
  covered in dirt, in the city they are covered
  with the �lth of the masses.
  Regardless of social station, arms and armor
  will simply not be tolerated in towns and cities.
  Commoners will generally �ee at the sight of
  armed men if possible, with the local authorities
  being summoned quickly. “Gentlemen” (and
  ladies, let us not forget, as forcing historical
  prejudices and restriions on female PCs in a
  fantasy game is more than slightly low and a
  bad idea… it can exist for the populace at large,
  but the PCs should generally be treated in
  equal  esteem  until  an  individual’s  aions
  diate otherwise) can get away with carrying
  minor weapons or rapiers in town (that’s why
  that weapon is included as its own entry in the
  weapon charts, after all), but anything heavier,
  no way. Referees will have to determine how
  the  authorities  dete  and  deal  with  such
  oﬀenses in his campaign.
  There can always be exceptions to the general
  rules of campaign civilization. Frontier towns
  will not be so restriive as the populace will be
  expeed  to  fend  for  itself.  A  city  ruled  by
  thieves will look diﬀerent than one ruled by a
  traditional power struure. There are as many
  exceptions as can be imagined, but as in all
  things, the less constant a “standard” is, the less
  unusual the exceptions will be.
  Just because something is in the equipment lists
  doesn’t mean you have to have it in the cam-
  paign world. Moreover, just because something
  exists in the campaign world doesn’t mean that
  it is available everywhere in the world, or that
  it will be available at the same price in every
  location.
  The Referee is encouraged to develop custom-
  ized  equipment  and  price  lists  for  diﬀerent
  regions of his campaign world.
  Fees and taxes are not part of the normal price
  lists, and are only assumed for the Property
  rules. If you assume that only landowners pay
  taxes, it can simplify the game immeasurably,
  at the expense of realism.
  Adding this layer of realism isn’t so hard. Just
  come up with minor fees to use bridges, gates,
  etc. Adding a percentage to the cost of certain
  types of goods (certainly weapons and armor,
  although taxes should never be applied to
  beginning equipment) is also an easy way to
  represent general taxation. Windfall taxes (all
  that treasure that the PCs are carting around…)
  
  42
  are another great means of letting the players
  know that there are greater authorities in the
  world, but if you use these taxes you may �nd
  that the players spend more time trying to
  evade taxes than aually adventuring.
  Every authority has a means to enforce its
  power.
  Keep in mind that if using a historical base for
  a campaign world that the treatment of crimi-
  nals could be absolutely brutal. Executions,
  dismemberment and mutilation, branding, and
  crippling have all been legitimate punishments
  in history, with civil rights and fair trials being
  unknown in many times and places.
  Guards and watchmen would primarily be 0
  level charaers, so PCs in many ways outclass
  them at the start of play. Yet unless under
  oﬃcial sanion, most every common adventur­
  ing aivity will be illegal in civilized lands. If
  someone dies, even justi�ably beyond any
  shadow of a doubt in terms of good-and-bad, the
  local authorities will be after the perpetrators
  if they are known. If guardsmen or other
  authorities are killed, rewards and bounty
  hunters will come into play. Tomb raiding is
  most certainly a capital crime.
  PCs should respe the power of the law in a
  campaign, even if this respe just means avoid­
  ing notice while engaging in illegal aivity, or
  else the campaign will be entirely about �ght-
  ing and avoiding the law.
  At the same time, players will be perhaps
  expeing and assuming a more modern, liberal
  approach to law and order. Any oppressive
  government by those standards, no matter how
  “realistic” or “historically accurate” it may be,
  could derail the focus of the campaign as
  players rebel against the assault on their free-
  dom. Beware how heavy-handed you are in
  establishing the laws and their enforcement in
  your campaign.
  Remember that “rights” in a historical context
  often means in legal terms, “Whatever the
  authorities declare is right.” Not to say that
  there aren’t �ne details within the law or
  lawyers to argue them, but such things gener-
  ally concern business and land disputes and
  other things that concern only the very wealthy.
  The retainer charts and equipment lists show
  that the average person in the campaign world
  is assumed to not have very much money. Even
  the starting money that PCs receive puts them
  in a signi�cantly greater economic position
  than common folk, even if most of that gets
  immediately tied up in adventuring equip-
  ment. The rules for gaining experience being
  treasure-based, along with an examination of
  how  much  experience  charaers  need  to
  advance even a single level, make it clear that
  PCs will be accumulating great amounts of
  money over the course of their adventuring
  careers.
  But what to do with all this money?
  Magic-Users have ready uses for their money,
  as do Clerics to a lesser extent. Others can
  surely �nd ways to get rid of piles of cash, such
  as hiring Retainers and equipping them hand-
  
  43
  somely. But there will still be large amounts of
  cash in the hands of the PCs.
  A good Referee will make it diﬃcult for PCs to
  carry massive amounts of gold around with
  them. Even if they get smart and invest in gems
  and jewelry to make their money more porta-
  ble, the risk of carrying great sums of money
  should always be great. Where to keep it? In a
  room at the inn? On the horses outside an
  adventuring location, guarded by retainers of
  questionable loyalty? Players will protest and
  complain if you have their belongings robbed
  without their having a chance to chase down
  the thief, but at some point it’s their own damn
  fault.
  Inns are priced depending on their quality, and
  lower quality inns should have a markedly
  higher chance of having customers’ rooms
  robbed. If retainers are left to guard vast sums
  of money, there should be morale checks to see
  if they just take the money and run, because
  that money is surely years’ worth of pay. And
  when such theft does happen, it is not supposed
  to be an adventure hook. That money (along
  with whatever other belongings) is just gone.
  The players will be furious and they will
  attempt to track and investigate and �nd their
  stolen wealth, but barring fantastic means of
  tracking them down, there is no reason for you
  to allow them to bring the matter to a satis-
  faory (for them) conclusion. Not that thieves
  are completely untraceable, but PCs need to
  prioritize their time: Do they want to chase
  thieves to recover old wealth, or do they want
  to adventure and win new treasure?
  Owning property is a great way for PCs to use
  their money, and the Property rules, along with
  the Investment rules, are intended to be a
  solution to the “problem” of charaers accumu­
  lating hundreds of thousands of gold pieces
  worth of treasure over the course of their
  careers. By investing in land, and the attendant
  retainers, the PCs get to spend some money,
  have a place to aually put all the money they
  will recover from adventuring, and generally
  it helps them to care about the campaign world.
  Political upheaval and the threat of war will
  become serious concerns for them as they now
  have something at stake.
  Of course the PCs will still be away from their
  property and wealth a good deal of the time
  (this is a game about adventuring, after all), but
  the risk that absence brings to their wealth
  shouldn’t be so great as it is when they travel
  with it. At least one member of the staﬀ is likely
  to be loyal, if the players are intelligent about
  the money they pay. They can hire guards. And
  they’ll likely have very speci�c ideas about
  security when it is clear that they need it.
  So “You’ve been robbed!” becomes a cruel
  Referee trick in this case, whereas it was once
  a justi�ed occurrence. Property should be more
  secure, and players who intelligently approach
  such things should be rewarded by not having
  to really worry about it.
  Trrtory Dvlopmnt
  The property rules assume that a player is
  merely buying land and a house, and not
  attempting to become an aual ruler of an area.
  If they do want to aually rule land, then things
  become more complicated. The greater ruler
  will want more than taxes, he’ll expe military
  service.  If  the  charaer  was  not  properly
  
  44
  granted lands and a title from the ruling mon-
  arch, there will be political upheaval and the
  rival local nobles will surely be greatly oﬀended
  by the establishment of a new domain, and the
  monarch will likely be unhappy as well. War
  may be a result.
  If a PC wants to become an aual sovereign
  ruler, thereby no longer paying taxes according
  to the rules, then he has a problem. In a civilized
  area, such an aion will surely bring war, and
  a king will bring all necessary force to bear to
  crush such a rebel. In the trackless wilderness,
  this will not be a problem, but a ruler without
  subjes isn’t much of a ruler at all.
  A land without its ruler suﬀers, and becoming
  a  ruler  should  eﬀeively  end  a  charaer’s
  career as an adventurer. If the player thought
  it was unfair that his room at the inn was
  getting robbed, just wait until he learns �rst-
  hand what political corruption will do to his
  treasury if he’s spending any appreciable
  amount of his time in unexplored wilderness
  or in deep dungeons instead of aively ruling
  his land.
  People fear things diﬀerent from them, and in
  worlds with poor education, slow communica-
  tion, and a very real supernatural presence,
  xenophobia and all the superstition in the
  world become the default state amongst the
  people of the world.
  Those speaking the same language and having
  the same religion may be seen as kindred spirits
  (and these cultures will share a common history
  in most cases), and all others are suspe. Mer­
  chant and ruling and scholar classes will have a
  better understanding of the world, although
  their biases will still be strong.
  Foreigners will generally not be trusted, even
  by those who bene�t from their presence.
  Those of diﬀerent races will be treated even
  worse. Look to real world history (and even
  current events in some areas) where certain
  classes of people were blamed for bad weather
  and natural catastrophes and supernatural
  phenomena that wasn’t real. Imagine how
  much worse it would be in a world where magic
  is real.
  And some of the accusations may in fa be true.
  The back cover of this book has a series of charts
  to help you �ll out the details of any particular
  settlement in your campaign world if you need
  the boost.
  
  45
  Non  Player  Charaers  are  every  human  or
  demi-human or intelligent being in the world
  that  is  not  direly  controlled  by  a  player.
  Townsfolk, rulers, soldiers, retainers, bandits,
  small children, lepers, all of it. Sometimes the
  de�nition of NPC overlaps with that of the
  monster, but if it can communicate with the
  PCs, for our purposes here it is an NPC.
  NPCs are the element that separates a proper
  RPG from a mere combat or exploration simu-
  lation. Through NPCs a Referee communicates
  information, conveys the tone of the setting,
  creates the illusion of reality within the game,
  and allows the players to display the personali-
  ties and quirks of their own charaers.
  Imagine a game with no cities, no nations, no
  faions. No churches, no guilds, no farmers, no
  shopkeepers, no pilgrims, no children. No rival
  adventurers, no villains, no innocent viims,
  no despicable spies, no saboteurs.
  Boring!
  Every NPC has two roles: What he does in the
  game world when there is no game play
  involved, and how he interas with the players.
  Sometimes the roles are identical. The villain-
  ous Sheriﬀ of a territory certainly comes into
  con�i with the PCs as a result of what he’s
  theoretically doing when the PCs are not
  around, for example.
  Sometimes the roles are not identical, but the
  charaer is so inconsequential that they might
  as well be. The woman selling fruit in a market
  has a life beyond selling rations to the PCs, but
  who cares? Only a foolish or insane Referee will
  �esh out the lives of these incidental charaers.
  Some may say that since outside of their place
  in the game (their interaion with the PCs), the
  charaer is just a �gment of the imagination
  and so none of them need any more detail than
  that. And that is true, for many games.
  But some games are as much about charaer
  and setting as adventure and exploration.
  Sometimes a player will take an unexplained
  interest in an NPC. Sometimes a Referee lures
  a player into caring about an NPC that is unim-
  portant to the matter at hand. At these points
  such lines of inquiry can be discouraged in
  favor of moving on to the “real adventure.” But
  the Referee can also create depth to his cam-
  paign by encouraging such things.
  An NPC that is a true charaer would have a
  full life, if all this was real. Friends, family,
  hopes, disappointments, habits, hobbies, a per-
  sonal history. Players interested in exploring
  the world as if it were real, interested in getting
  to know the “supporting cast” as if they were
  real, will be interested in such things.
  There is no need to spend great amounts of
  time on this. Make it all up as you go along, and
  jot down notes to keep it all straight. Come up
  with a record-keeping system to keep track of
  which NPCs you’ve already named, where they
  are, and what information you’ve revealed (or
  prepared) for them. Players will appreciate
  seeing familiar faces when they travel through
  territory they’ve been to previously. And they
  may not notice or appreciate it if all of these
  familiar NPCs have consistent personalities,
  but they will surely notice if they do not.
  NPCs
  
  46
  Sometimes the detail of certain charaers is the
  adventure!
  The trick is to know your players. Some players
  will be bored to death by this sort of thing. To
  others, this will be the one thing about RPGs
  that allows them to enjoy it at all. Most will be
  somewhere in between, with their attitudes
  changing session to session depending on their
  mood and what other things are happening.
  NPC stats are the least important part of a
  charaer and also the easiest to create. Do not
  randomly roll ability scores for most NPCs.
  Assume NPCs are average - start with 10s across
  the board for ability scores. Then lower below-
  average stats and raise above-average stats as
  diated by the needs of the charaer.
  The vast majority of NPCs in the game world
  should be 0 level, and this includes rank-and-�le
  soldiers and guardsmen. 0 level charaers have
  d6 hit points, but of course the warrior types
  should have closer to 6 and more sedentary or
  sickly types closer to 1. Giving a class and levels
  to an NPC means that this charaer is special,
  and requires some thought and detail.
  Don’t cheat on the scores. A Referee is perfely
  capable of just assign a big villain or rival or
  whoever 18s across the board with maximum
  possible hit points, but that’s crap to do. It’s lazy
  refereeing and a sign that you can’t deliver a
  true challenge without pumped up stats. But
  you don’t want the Ultra-Dangerous Enemy
  Leader to just be a normal guy.
  Quick rule of thumb: Average NPCs that don’t
  need a name unless a player asks just have
  average stats. The important NPCs get +3 in
  modi�ers to spread around. Whether this
  means one 18 giving a +3 modi�er, or three 13s
  for +1 each is up to you. Next-step-down NPCs
  get +2 in modi�ers, and more common “lieuten-
  ant” personalities just get a +1. If you want to
  give more plusses, you then have to assign a
  minus somewhere.
  An NPC’s personality is a separate thing from
  their in-game role or their profession. NPCs
  aren’t just there to die (or impart information,
  etc.), and you never know who might become a
  recurring NPC. You don’t need full write-ups
  for everyone, but just a few one-word notes to
  riﬀ  oﬀ  of  and  to  keep  the  charaerization
  consistent from appearance to appearance can
  go a long way into making your players com-
  fortable about investing importance in an NPC.
  Remember that NPCs do not have to be built
  using the same rules as PCs. If you want a
  charaer to have some sort of strange power or
  ability, then just assign it. However, this sort of
  thing should be rare, and always an important
  point of an adventure. The more you give
  special and unique abilities to NPCs, the more
  potential there is that players will �nd their
  charaers less special. Avoid that.
  The back cover of this book has a series of charts
  to help you round out the details of any partic-
  ular NPC in your campaign world if you need
  the boost.
  
  47
  
  48
  One staple in fantasy and horror �ion  and
  gaming is the monster. From the �re breathing
  dragon to the werewolf to the fairies to �erce
  man-eating apes, unnatural creatures are an
  important part of the proceedings. However,
  fantasy gaming tends to overuse monsters,
  turning adventures into a safari.
  Less is more. A monster should be the center-
  piece of an adventure, a sign that things aren’t
  right. Their presence should be consistent with
  the setting and the situation, not outside con-
  cerns like, “There needs to be a �ght here, that
  would be exciting.” When making out-of-game
  decisions, implement nothing without justify-
  ing the results in-game.
  Always be conservative. One monster played
  up as a central focus to an adventure will be
  more memorable than any of the twenty mon-
  sters in a forty-room dungeon would be. Once
  a monster makes an appearance, it won’t be so
  interesting, and de�nitely not as threatening,
  as it was the �rst time. Stretch the use of mon-
  sters out over time.
  You are in no rush.
  In role-playing games, animals are also consid-
  ered “monsters.” So the guard dog, pack of
  wolves, that grizzly bear, they are all monsters
  for the purposes of role-playing games. Prehis-
  toric versions of real world monsters may roam
  your campaign world, and giant versions of
  natural animals are common in many settings.
  The giant snake and giant spider are clsics.
  Things that could be part of a natural world can
  be more easily inserted into adventures
  without disrupting the natural �ow of the
  setting. Still, be conservative with the more
  beastly examples or “you are attacked by a giant
  snake!” will quickly become as mundane and
  about as exciting as, “the housecat hisses at you!”
  You will note that unlike almost every role-
  playing game ever, there is no “stock” list of
  monsters included with this game. Because
  monsters should be unnatural and hopefully a
  little terrifying, using stock examples goes
  against the purpose of using monsters to begin
  with. Again, this is from an in­game perspeive.
  That the players need challenges and �ghts is
  understood, but the temptation is always too
  great to skim through a standard monster list
  to lazily �ll out an adventure. Don’t do this. Not
  ever!
  Let the scenario and the setting and the situa-
  tion decide what monster would be appropri-
  ate. Take a moment and think something up for
  yourself. If you do use established monster
  books, if something jumps out at you, put it
  aside and design an adventure around that
  monster that you �nd interesting. But don’t
  pull one out simply for the sake of �lling out
  Room 5b on a map. Players can tell when some-
  thing is inspired and when something is
  included “just because.”
  So avoid lazy monster placement and embrace
  creative monster invention.  As a campaign
  moves along, a Referee should have a notebook
  of creatures utterly unique to that campaign.
  When detailing monsters, there are only a few
  stats which are essential to their use in the
  game. Most of the details of a monster such as
  their appearance, behavior, the things that
  make them interesting, have nothing to do with
  Monﬅrs
  
  49
  statistics or game mechanics. Yet the mechanics
  are important, especially for combat purposes.
  Even creatures you do not intend to use as
  combatants should still have these stats noted.
  You never know what players will decide to do,
  and during a game anything can happen. That
  benevolent leprechaun that was just there to
  talk might end up in combat with a pack of wild
  dogs for all you know.
  The essential stats that de�ne monsters:
  -
   How diﬃcult the monster is to
  hit. This should relate to how tough the
  monster’s hide is, as well as quickness if that
  is a faor. There will be a tendency to rep­
  resent a monster’s toughness with AC. Do
  not do this! Monsters, even those with thick,
  hard shelled or chitinous skin, should have
  ACs relatable to charaers (the unarmored
  12 to plate armor 18) in most cases. Even
  tough, monstrous creatures will be hurt by
  an average man swinging at it, after all, and
  in this game where only Fighters improve
  with their attacks, an ever-escalating AC
  �gure for tough monsters will make the rest
  of a party useless in a �ght.
  -
   This determines how many hit
  points a monster has (1d8 per Hit Die), how
  well the monster �ghts (Attack Bonus +1 per
  Hit Die), what their saving throw values are
  (as a Fighter of the same level), and how
  much experience is gained for defeating it,
  so this is possibly the most important of the
  monster’s stats. Whereas the hit points of
  charaers represent a variety of faors, for
  monsters hit points are simply a measure of
  physical toughness.
  -
   This is most easily �gured as it
  relates to humans. 120’ is the standard char-
  aer movement rate, and thinking “half–”
  or “twice–”  or “as as fast as a man” is much
  easier than �guring out land-speeds and
  such. The movement rate of monsters can
  also be used to encourage certain behavior
  in PCs. By making exceedingly tough mon-
  sters slower than an unencumbered char-
  aer, but faster than a heavily encumbered
  charaer, you can encourage players to keep
  their charaers lightly equipped. Monsters
  can  have  diﬀerent  methods  of  movement,
  such as �ight, jumping, swimming, tunnel-
  ing,  etc.,  each  with  a  diﬀerent  movement
  rate.
  -
   This is simply the
  number of times a monster can hit in one
  combat round. Unlike charaers, monsters
  can be assigned multiple attacks. Monsters
  with  distin  methods  of  attacking,  or  the
  ability to damage more than one enemy at
  once, may have multiple attacks. Multiple
  attacks increase the deadliness of a creature
  more than any single other faor, so beware
  when assigning them.
  -
   Each attack needs its
  own damage information. Keep in mind how
  much a sword does (1d8), how many hit
  points an average human has (1d6), and the
  fa that monsters shouldn’t auto­kill people
  as result of a hit.
  -
   Unthinking, fearless monsters
  should be Morale 12. Cowardly, sniveling
  creatures should be about 5 or 6. Your “aver-
  age” fearsome, courageous monster should
  be about a 9.
  -
   These are the added abili-
  ties that a creature has that allow them to
  
  50
  ignore certain rules or give them extra
  abilities above and beyond simple stats and
  basic attacks. Camou�age, a poison attack,
  �re-breathing, immunity to certain weap-
  ons, mind control, �inging mucus which
  slows  the  viim  down…  a  monster  can  do
  anything you wish the monster to do, but
  after coming up with the concept you should
  describe it in terms of how it works in rela-
  tion  to  the  rules  and  charaers  that  will
  come into conta with the creature before
  it is introduced in play.
  Aside from these game stats, everything else
  about a monster is pure imagination.
  But everything is not always made from
  scratch. Many monsters, unique as they may be,
  fall into common categories. These categories
  can be a great shorthand method for eyeballing
  the general behavior of a monster, as well as
  suggesting special abilities.
  Many “monsters” in games, literature, and life,
  are simply animals. They may be fearsome, they
  may be relentless killers, and in �ion  they
  may be entirely impossible, but they’ll conform
  to animal behaviors. They eat, they breed, they
  crap. They have territories, patterns of behav-
  ior, and generally could be studied in their
  natural habitat.
  This does not make them any less fearsome
  (think of man-eating sharks, hungry polar bears,
  or even a rather aggressive guard dog) or
  bizarre (think of various deep-sea creatures, the
  platypus,  and  various  inses  and  their  cre­
  ations). When creating great beasts, whether
  giant or prehistoric or slightly changed varia-
  tions on real world beasts, or truly bizarre,
  unrealistic creatures, thinking of them as
  animals may help create credibility around the
  creature as you present them as a (Weird) part
  of your natural landscape.
  As for the capabilities of animals, remember
  that pound for pound, almost everything is far
  more deadly and much faster than a human
  being. A decent ballpark �gure for HD and
  attacks could be:
  Note that this is not a hard and fast rule. Domes-
  ticated herbivores, for instance, should have
  half the listed Hit Dice and attack capabilities.
  Construs are any monsters that are purpose­
  fully crafted, assembled, or otherwise created:
  Frankenstein’s monster, the Golem of Prague,
  empty suits of armor or statues that come to
  life, that sort of thing. Many will be mindless
  < 100
  ½
  d4
  1 point
  100
  1
  d6
  d3
  250
  2
  d8
  d4
  500
  4
  d10
  d6
  1,000
  6
  d12
  d8
  2,000
  8
  d12 + d4
  d10
  5,000
  10
  d20
  d12
  10,000
  12
  2d10
  d12 + d4
  
  51
  servants, but others will be fully independent
  and perhaps even freethinking creatures.
  Construs will often be made out of material
  other than �esh, and their Armor Class and/or
  Hit Dice should re�e this. Solid metal would
  probably be AC 22+, stone 20+, wood 15+, etc.
  Humanoids are basically man-like creatures
  who have a gimmick and are present merely to
  give PCs intelligent, organized opponents
  which can be slaughtered wholesale with little
  re�eion, remorse, or consequence.
  They’re not useless in fantasy gaming, but are
  nearly always overused. Certainly an abun-
  dance of humanoids will detra from any sense
  of the Weird that your campaign may generate.
  Too many commonplace nonhuman societies
  give the entire campaign an exotic �avor that
  works against horror and Weirdness. If every-
  thing is fantastic, then nothing is.
  Whenever you think to introduce a humanoid,
  just ask yourself, “Why would these not work
  as humans?” Much of the time it is of the desire
  to not portray humans of a barbaric bent as
  savages. Resist this impulse – 19th and early 20th
  century literature, not to mention the entirety
  of human history, is full of, shall we say, “racially
  insensitive” portrayals. Cultures clash in any
  campaign world even remotely conneed to
  humanity. If your players enjoy such drama
  (and can handle the disconne from how “civi­
  lized” Westerners behave in the real world),
  then play it up. If they don’t, that’s all the more
  reason for them to go oﬀ into the unknown to
  escape such happenings.
  Dwarfs, Elves, and Hal�ings get a pass from this
  because the stereotypical examples of each race
  are generally so ingrained in fantasy fans’
  brains that their presence is considered normal.
  But even these should be quite limited within
  a campaign except when chosen as PCs. Tribal-
  ism and distrust will rule the day.
  However, there are good answers to the ques-
  tion, “Why would these not work as humans?”
  and thus good uses of humanoids. The trick is
  not to stoop to cliché in their presentation, and
  don’t overuse them. Don’t make any of the races
  globe-spanning entities. Localize them. And
  you don’t need an entirely new race every time
  you change the monster’s Hit Dice.
  … and jellies and puddings and molds and all
  sorts of fun have been part of fantasy gaming
  and horror �lms for ages. Sometimes more trap
  than monster (especially those that are station-
  ary or simply fall on their targets with no
  further attack capability), slimes are always
  good for instilling fear in players for their poor
  charaers.
  But the “ooze” category can apply to much
  more than your common everyday man-eating
  gelatin. Many of the Lovecraftian horrors
  including Cthulhu, shoggoths, and the like,
  could be considered “ooze” creatures in terms
  of the rules, if not form.
  The most important mechanical elements of
  Oozes and Slimes are their immunities and
  special attacks. Typically oozes, being made out
  of sludge, have limited vulnerability to normal
  physical attacks. Having no internal struure,
  
  52
  they can squeeze through the tiniest spaces.
  They also tend to be highly acidic, eating
  through a wide variety of materials, including
  the armor of their viims and weapons used to
  attack them.
  Oozes will tend to have one particular form of
  attack they are absolutely immune to (say, cold,
  or heat, or lightning) and/or have strange
  reaions  to,  a  particular  form  of  attack  that
  they are especially vulnerable to, and perhaps
  a few attacks that have diﬀerent eﬀes than
  usual.
  Horri�c oozes will have power over the mind.
  Charm, Confusion, and straight-up mental
  assaults are all abilities that these amorphous
  entities have possessed in various literature and
  gaming sources.
  The undead are, even more than otherworldly
  demons, the ultimate in transgression and
  corruption. Even demons are natural inhabit-
  ants of somewhere, no matter how alien that
  place might be. The undead simply are an
  oﬀense.
  With this in mind, above all other such consid-
  eration for monsters, only use undead in your
  adventures if there is a reason for undead. The
  �rst time that they are used as random combat
  fodder, their mystique is lost.
  Undead traditionally have a number of possible
  special abilities:
   Undead don’t feel pain or experience
  shock. Often, one has to hack them to pieces to
  stop them at all. This is simulated in various
  ways. Skeletal undead might only take one
  point of damage from stabbing/thrusting
  weapon hits. Another possibility is to have only
  attacks which do the upper half of their damage
  potential aually do damage at all (for example,
  if a weapon does d6 damage, only damage rolls
  of 4 – 6 aually aﬀe the creature), as minor
  wounds are ignored.
   Even if in physical form, some
  undead are enchanted creatures and immune
  to mundane weapons. Magical weapons will hit
  these types, and usually weapons of another
  speci�c material such as wood, silver, cold iron,
  etc.
   The most feared and hated of all
  undead abilities. On a successful hit in combat,
  the charaer simply loses a level of experience
  with no saving throw. This is supposed to simu-
  late the trauma and terror of being touched by
  the unliving and the loss of vitality this brings.
  For those wanting a severe eﬀe that’s perhaps
  equally as bad but doesn’t involve losing abili-
  ties, try using a permanent CON drain that
  lowers  the  viim’s  CON  to  the  next  lowest
  modi�er.  For  example,  if  a  charaer  with  12
  CON is energy-drained (modi�er: 0), his CON
  falls to 8 (modi�er -1). Still brutal, but does not
  involve the loss of gained experience or
  acquired abilities, and the bookkeeping is easier
  as well. Alternately, the viim may be aged by
  some notable amount.
   While most other undead abilities
  are mix-and-match, this is universal. All undead
  are immune to magic that aﬀes the mind, and
  some other magic as well. They are immune to
  any poisonous or paralytic eﬀe as well. Sleep,
  Charm, Hold, and Cold spells have no eﬀe on
  
  53
  the undead. However, they are susceptible to
  the Turn Undead spell and Holy Water
  damages them.
   Certain undead are so infested with
  disease that they slowly kill those they damage.
  Those damaged by such undead must making
  a saving throw or turn into the same type of
  undead within a set period of time.
   Spirits not bound to bodies
  may not be able to intera with the physical
  world. They can walk through walls, are
  immune to being hit with weapons, etc. It gets
  worse if the spirit is able to touch the physical
  world when it wishes, as this means it can touch
  but can’t be touched. And it gets horrifying if
  it’s also invisible… Magic and magical weapons
  do aﬀe insubstantial undead.
   Ghostly undead may not be able to
  be seen. In some cases this is something the
  spirit can control, in some cases not. Invisible
  spirits do not become visible when they attack.
   The necromantic touch of the
  dead sends a paralyzing chill through their
  viims, and so any successful hit by a monster
  with  this  ability  paralyzes  the  viim  for  a
  period of time if a saving throw is failed.
  The abilities that undead may possess are
  unlimited, as evidenced by vampire myths
  around the world and the odd zombies of Lucio
  Fulci’s City of the Living Dead.
  
  54
  The vampire is a dread creature which has died,
  yet lurks among and draining the vitality of the
  living. Vampires do not age and do not die
  unless killed in speci�c ways.
  The signature of the vampire is the draining of
  blood, which is necessary for its existence.
  A vampire is automatically able to drain blood
  from helpless, sleeping, knocked out, or other-
  wise unable (or unwilling!) to resist viims. If
  a target is not helpless, the vampire must �rst
  successfully grapple the target, at which point
  the viim does become helpless. The vampire’s
  bite creates a euphoric eﬀe within the viim
  so they are unable to a while the vampire is
  feeding, but also distras the vampire so that
  they are automatically surprised if discovered
  while feeding.
  There are three methods the vampire can use
  to drink blood:
  - Tear out the viim’s throat. This is done if
  the vampire is in haste and there is no need
  for heavy feeding or stealth. The viim dies
  instantly and the vampire gains d6 hit points.
  - Total drain. This takes d4+1 turns and is used
  if a vampire is in dire need of feeding and is
  con�dent that it will not be interrupted. The
  viim loses all Constitution points and the
  vampire gains a like amount of hit points.
  - Regular feeding. This takes one turn and
  drains d8 Constitution points from the
  viim,  with  the  vampire  gaining  a  like
  amount of points. Vampires living among
  society often prefer this method for it
  creates less suspicion (viims will instinu­
  ally attempt to hide the signature bite
  marks), as the eﬀes are often mistaken for
  natural disease and alarm is less likely to be
  raised if there are no aual deaths. That this
  also preserves the feeding stock of an area is
  an added bonus.
  Vampires may feed on animals rather than
  humans are loathe to do so. They regain hit
  points as normal, but every time they feed on
  a non­human (or demi­human) viim they lose
  one point from each of their ability scores.
  Vampires  suﬃciently  removed  from  human
  existence often take other liberties with their
  viims. Recently created vampires often try to
  retain as much of their humanity as possible
  and feed only because it is too painful not to do
  so, but over time the burden of being a vampire
  becomes too much and any human moral con-
  cerns disappear.
  Vampires may create other vampires. Any char-
  aer drained to 0 Constitution by a vampire
  over multiple sessions – not through a total
  drain – will rise at sunset d6+1 days later as a
  vampire with one hit point. A vampire has all
  of the same abilities and statistics that it did in
  life, but with +d6 Strength and +d6 Constitu-
  tion. Vampires do not age, they do not gain
  experience, and they do not gain or regain hit
  points in any way other than draining blood.
  Vampires have the ability to enslave the living.
  They can charm any human that meets their
  gaze or touch. Vampires carefully choose such
  slaves, as they may only have but one and they
  may not sele another slave until the current
  one is dead. Vampires typically do not feed on
  this slave, instead needing this person to be
  healthy to help them in certain manners that
  
  55
  are inconvenient to the undead. On stormy
  nights the vampire may send this slave mental
  commands no matter the distance between
  them, although the assistant’s mind can not be
  read by the vampire.
  Normal weapons will not aﬀe a vampire, nor
  will most magic (including but not limited to
  Sleep, Hold, or any other paralytic or mind
  controlling  spells  or  eﬀes).  Damage  will  be
  in�ied, but vampires can only be brought to
  zero hit points or lower through the use of
  blessed weapons, holy symbols, holy water, or
  a wooden stake through the heart (a hit with a
  wooden weapon doing maximum damage). A
  vampire slain but not properly disposed of will
  rise again d6+1 days later as a vampire with one
  hit point. Mutilating the body in some way can
  delay  this  resurreion  (even  by  years  if  the
  destruion  is  thorough  enough)  but  only  by
  giving the vampire’s body a proper burial, in a
  grave consecrated by an ordained priest, will
  the vampire be permanently slain.
  Vampires often have a number of abilities
  involving shape shifting or animal communion.
  Some vampires can �y, others merely can climb
  walls much like inses or spiders. Some are able
  to become insubstantial, others transform fully
  into mist. Some vampires transform into great
  wolves or bats, others command such creatures.
  There seems to be regional variations concern-
  ing what vampires are able to do, how they
  appear, and even how they drain their viims.
  Why this is the case remains a mystery, but
  some theorize that some traits of animals used
  to satisfy a vampire’s hunger are passed on to
  the vampire’s unholy progeny.
  Vampires, for all their power, are more vulner-
  able to divine forces than other undead.
  Anyone presenting a holy symbol in which he
  believes may attempt to turn a Vampire
  without needing to cast Turn Undead. If the
  attempt  to  turn  fails,  however,  the  charaer
  attempting to turn must make a saving throw
  versus magic or the holy symbol bursts into
  �ames, destroying it and in�iing d4 damage
  upon its holder. Vampires are never destroyed
  as a result of turning.
  Even if not being used to turn, the mere touch
  of a holy symbol that the wielder believes in
  in�is d4 damage upon a Vampire.
  Vampires lose 1 hit point every sunset. Only by
  drinking blood do they regain these hit points,
  at a rate of one hit point per Constitution point
  drained.
  Vampires have certain sensibilities brought on
  by the curse of the original vampire which
  begot all subsequent vampires. They can not
  abide the smell of garlic. Wearing garlic is
  enough to keep vampires away from a sleeping
  would­be viim, and vampires will avoid enter­
  ing a portal ringed with garlic if at all possible.
  Vampires will also never enter a private resi-
  dence without �rst being invited, although
  they will of course often resort to the foulest
  trickery to earn such an invitation.
  Contrary to popular myth, vampires are not
  destroyed by sunlight. However, during day-
  light hours they lose all vampiric powers (but
  retain their enhanced Strength and Constitu-
  tion) and show their true chronological age, and
  as the years pass this causes vampires to hide
  away during the hours of light.
  
  56
  Magc Itms
  Magic is power, and how that power is distrib-
  uted may de�ne a game more than the aual
  setting details, aivities performed, or the rules
  used. Magic in the hands of a charaer in some
  ways de�nes  that  charaer,  and  a  charaer
  with a surplus of magical capabilities will be as
  a god walking upon the Earth. In order to
  preserve the grounded nature of a campaign,
  the existence of, and access to, magic items
  must be controlled. Keep magic rare, unique,
  and above all, keep magic mysterious.
  However, in a fantasy game, and certainly
  (especially?) in a Weird fantasy game, there will
  be magical artifas present in the game world.
  When including magic items in an adventure
  or as part of the aivities within the world, be
  sure, even more so than with monsters, that the
  item in question is justi�able entirely in in-
  game terms. The details of a magic item should
  always be conceived in terms that would be
  applicable to the charaers in the game world,
  with the game mechanics detailed afterwards.
  Here are some tips and strategies to creating
  eﬀeive, interesting, and magical (to players as
  well as charaers) magic items:
  - All magic items are artifas, unique items of
  great power, and not mere tools or trinkets
  or armaments.
  - Never create a magic item that merely
  improves game mechanics. No +1 swords, +1
  shields, or anything of the sort. These seem-
  ingly increase the options and scope of the
  campaign as it allows greater threats to be
  faced. But this quickly means that the
  average person, even squads of well-armed
  0 level men, are absolutely no bother to PCs.
  Charaers  of  equal  level  to  the  PCs  then
  have to be equipped with equivalent magic
  items or else they too will be hopelessly
  outmatched. Escalation will be unavoidable.
  The game rules and the magic spells are
  built with the assumption that the world at
  large is mundane, and magic items are van-
  ishingly rare. Place magical treasure in your
  campaign accordingly.
  - Know a magic item’s history before placing
  it in your game. If you can’t be arsed to
  invent a suitable origin for the thing, and a
  history of how it came to be in its current
  location, then chances are there is no
  justi�cation for the item to be there. Magic
  items should never be placed “just because,”
  and magic items should never be treated as
  standard elements to a game.
  - Most magic items have no obvious combat
  or adventuring funion, and many will not
  be portable. Are you placing only magic
  items that are useful to adventuring types?
  - Most magic items should be usable only
  under certain conditions. Perhaps a speci�c
  aion  needs  to  be  taken  before  the  item
  works (a sacri�ce?), only under particular
  conditions, certain time periods, etc.
  - Most magic items should have some sort of
  usage limitation on them, rather than allow-
  ing constant use. Whether this be charges, a
  certain number of uses in a set period of
  time, or other limitation, is up to you.
  - Many magic items should have a speci�c
  funion, maybe involving a speci�c location.
  - Magic items should have speci�c methods of
  aivation.
  - Magic items should have some negative
  eﬀe to them. Magic is not technology to be
  used for mortals’ gain. It is dangerous and
  �ckle. There should be side eﬀes to its use.
  
  57
  - Note that potions, scrolls, and staves and
  wands, because there are standard genera-
  tion methods given in the Rules and Magic
  book, can be more liberally placed.
  - Note that Dispel Magic can permanently
  disenchant items. Enemy casters will be well
  aware of the transitory nature of magic in
  the world, and will a accordingly, both in
  aggressively attacking their enemies’ items,
  and in proteing their own.
  Possible magic item forms (note that funion
  doesn’t have to follow form, or be related to it…):
  Abacus
  Acorn
  Amulet
  Anchor
  Ankh
  Anklet
  Antenna
  Anvil
  Apple
  Apron
  Arm
  Armor
  Arrow
  Astrolabe
  Awl
  Backpack
  Badge
  Bagpipes
  Balance Scale
  Ball
  Ballista
  Balloon
  Balm
  Banner
  Bardiche
  Barge
  Barrel
  Basket
  Bass
  Battering Ram
  Battle Axe
  Beacon
  Beaker
  Bed
  Bell
  Bellows
  Belt
  Bench
  Beret
  Berry
  Bill-Guisarme
  Blanket
  Blouse
  Blowpipe
  Bone
  Bonnet
  Book
  Boots
  Bottle
  Bow
  Bowl
  Box
  Bracelet
  Bracers
  Brass Knuckles
  Brassiere
  Brazier
  Breeches
  Brooch
  Broom
  Brush
  Bucket
  Buckle
  Bugle
  Building
  Bullet
  Button
  Cabinet
  Cage
  Camp�re
  Can
  Candle
  Cane
  Canoe/Rowboat
  Cap
  Cape
  Caravel
  Carpet
  Carriage
  Cart
  Carving/Etching
  Castanets
  Catapult
  Cauldron
  Cello
  Censer
  Cestus
  Chain
  Chair
  Chariot
  Chest
  Chimes
  Choker
  Circlet
  Clasp
  Cloak
  Clothes Rack
  Coat
  Coﬃn
  Coin
  Cot
  Crate
  Cream
  Crossbow
  Crowbar
  Crown
  Crystal
  Crystal Ball
  Cube
  Cup
  Curtains
  Cymbal
  Dagger
  Dart
  Deck of Cards
  Desk
  Diaper
  Dice
  Disc
  Door
  Drawing
  Dress
  Drum
  Dust
  Earring
  Egg
  Elixir
  Eye
  Fan
  Fauchard
  Feedbag
  Figurehead
  Figurine
  Finger
  Flail
  Flask
  Floating Stone
  Flower
  Flute
  Foot
  Footstool
  Forge
  Fork
  Fountain
  Galleon
  Gauntlets
  Gel
  Gem
  Girdle
  Glaive
  Glaive-Guisarme
  Gloves
  Goblet
  Gong
  Gown
  Guisarme
  Guisarme-Voulge
  Halberd
  Hammer
  Hammer, War
  Hammock
  Hand
  Hand Axe
  Handkerchief
  Harp
  (Hand/Floor)
  Harpsichord
  Hat, Formal
  Hat, Stovepipe
  Hat, Wide
  Brimmed
  Head
  Helm (Pot/Great)
  Holy Symbol
  Hookah
  Horn
  Horseshoes
  Hose
  Hourglass
  Incense
  Ink
  Inkwell
  Jacket
  Jar
  Javelin
  Jerkin
  Jug
  Kayak
  Key
  Kilt
  Kite
  Knife
  Ladder
  Lance
  Lantern
  Lasso
  Lens
  Liquid
  Lock
  Locket
  Longship
  Lucern Hammer
  Lute
  Mace
  Machine
  Magic Circle
  Mantle
  Marble
  Mask
  Mast
  Medal/Medallion
  Military Pick
  Mirror
  Miscellaneous
  Piercing
  Mittens
  Moccasins
  Monocle
  Morning Star
  Mug
  Muzzle
  Nail
  Necklace
  Needle
  Net
  Oar
  Oil
  Orb
  Painting
  Pan Pipes
  Pants
  Parka
  Partisan
  Peg Leg
  Perfume
  Phylaery
  Pigments
  Pike
  Pill
  Pin
  Pipe
  Pipe Organ
  Plate
  Plerum
  Pole
  Poncho
  Pot
  Pouch
  Powder
  Powder/Dust
  Prism
  Purse
  Pyramid
  Quarrel
  Quarterstaﬀ
  Quill
  Rack
  Raft
  Rake
  Ranseur
  Rattle
  Rickshaw
  Ring
  Robe
  Rope
  Rudder
  Ruﬀ
  Sack
  Saddle
  Saddlebag
  Sandals
  Sarcophagus
  Sash
  Saw
  Scarab
  Scarf
  Scepter
  Screen
  Scroll
  Scythe
  Seeds
  Shell
  Shelving
  Shirt
  Skirt
  Skull
  Skullcap
  Sled
  Sledge
  Sleeping Bag
  Sling
  Slippers
  Snowshoes
  Soap
  Sofa
  Spade
  Spear
  Spetum
  Spoon
  Stairs
  Statue
  Stockings
  Stone
  String
  Stuﬀed Animal
  Sundial
  Suspenders
  Sword, Long
  Sword, Short
  Sword, 2-Handed
  Table
  Tablet
  Tambourine
  Tapestry
  Tent
  Thread
  Tiara
  Toe Ring
  Tooth
  Torch
  Trebuchet
  Tree
  Triangle
  Trident
  Tub
  Tuba
  Turban
  Urn
  Vest
  Vial
  Violin
  Voulge
  Wagon
  Wall
  Waterskin
  Wax
  Wheel
  Whip
  Whistle
  Window
  Wing
  Xylophone
  Yoke
  
  58
  
  59
  The ouija board is a board on which are
  written/printed/carved a complete alphabet
  and series of numbers (commonly also with Yes
  and No markers). It is paired with a planchette.
  To use a ouija board, one or more people must
  sit calmly around the board for at least one turn,
  each participant touching the planchette with
  their �ngertips, meditating or quietly chanting
  to dire their energies.
  After this time has passed, one of the partici-
  pants may ask a question. At that point, the
  planchette will move from space to space on the
  board, spelling out the answer as long as at least
  one person is touching it. There is a 75% chance
  that the answer will be truthful if there is only
  one participant, -10% for every additional par-
  ticipant. There may be as many questions asked
  as desired, but they must be asked one at a time.
  If  there  is  any  distraion  in  the  immediate
  vicinity during the use of the board, or if
  anyone but the one participant asking ques-
  tions speaks at all during its use, there is a
  further ­10% chance of a corre answer. All false
  answers will be as plausible as possible.
  Each question must be one with a very limited
  answer: One word or very short phrase, a
  number, or yes/no.
  After the board is used, the Referee makes a
  secret saving throw versus magic for each
  participant. If any of the participants succeed,
  then there are no ill eﬀes. There is a ­2 cumu­
  lative penalty to the roll for everyone for every
  participant after the �rst that speaks during the
  use of the board, and a -1 cumulative penalty for
  every question asked after the third. If all of the
  saving throws fail, then a random participant
  (which may be one that succeeded at the save!)
  is possessed by a spirit. The players should not
  be informed whether there were any failures,
  or even that saving throws are being made.
  A possessed charaer shows no undue eﬀes
  (but appropriate deteion spells will reveal a
  problem). The Referee is able to declare one
  aion on behalf of the charaer at any time he
  so chooses, and the possession will end after this
  aion. The aion will always be something that
  is very harmful to the charaer’s companions
  (although not the possessed charaer direly),
  and the spirit will wait patiently within the
  charaer  for  the  perfe  time  to  strike.  The
  more devastating the better, and it will be
  well-deserved for meddling with powers that
  mortal man should leave alone.
  
  60
  Purple Lotus is an exotic plant cultivated in
  lands so far­oﬀ they are known more by legend
  than fa. They say the Lotus is from a world
  beyond the stars and that those who know how
  to prepare the Lotus can work magic with it.
  These legends are all true. There are many
  ways to prepare the poisonous Lotus to create
  magical eﬀes. The second known way requires
  the seeds to be planted inside a skull �lled with
  dirt. After the plant matures, it is pulled out of
  the skull, roots inta, left to dry, and then its
  eternal seeds are crushed into powdered form.
  The powder must be ingested or snorted to
  have any eﬀe. Voluntarily using the powder,
  or if it is forced upon a helpless viim, allows
  no saving throw, but doing something like
  throwing it in someone’s face allows the viim
  to save versus poison to avoid the eﬀes.
  Those who are aﬀeed by the Lotus powder go
  into a trance for one turn. During this trance
  they are able to observe events that happened
  in their current location at the time the Lotus
  �ower was harvested. The user is self-aware and
  the experience feels like an out of body
  experience, and they watch events of the time
  period happen about them for the time they
  remain in the trance.
  Any people or creatures being observed during
  this time can not see the aﬀeed charaer (and
  if  multiple  charaers  use  the  powder  in  the
  same location, they do not see each other)
  unless they are able to see across space or time,
  in which case they may observe and intera
  with the charaer, but not touch.
  Every time the powder is used, there is a 5%
  cumulative chance of becoming addied to it.
  Addis lose 1hp per day they go without using
  the powder, all recovered as soon as the powder
  is used but otherwise non-recoverable until
  that time. Purple Lotus powder addiion can
  be cured with the Dpel Magic, Remove Curse,
  or Cure Dee spells.
  Purple Lotus Type II powder is often found in
  pouches which contain 2d20 doses. Purple
  Lotus Type II powder has a 1% chance to be
  found in settlements per 1,000 population.
  Those who possess the powder can usually
  recognize addis and will charge 1,000sp per
  dose, and one quarter of that to those showing
  no signs of addiion.
  
  61
  The Male�c Eye appears as an occluded and
  jaundiced eye as if from a diseased dead man. It
  can only be used by an individual who removes
  his own left eye and replaces it with this
  heinous artifa. Upon so doing, the individual
  immediately  suﬀers  both  a  permanent  ­2
  penalty to their Charisma score (as now they
  are unmistakably marked as being aligned
  with the malignant arts of necromancy)
  and all missile weapon range penalties
  are doubled (as the eye does not funion
  as a visual organ). Further, when the eye
  is �rst placed, the user must make a save versus
  poison or suﬀer the lethal eﬀes of the evil eye
  himself.
  Once the eye is in place, the wielder possesses
  the ability to literally cast a withering gaze at
  his opponents. This gaze will require the
  viim to make a saving throw versus
  poison or die horribly by rotting
  from the inside and ultimately
  ending as a putrid pool of reeking
  oﬀal. All others within a 20' radius of
  the targeted viim must save versus
  poison or be nauseated for 1d10 rounds
  (-1 penalty to attack and damage rolls).
  Each daily use of the gaze forces the user to
  save versus poison as the Male�c Eye
  slowly causes the wielder to putrefy. The
  �rst use per day has no modi�er to the
  saving throw, the second use is at a -2
  penalty, and further uses that day are
  at a -4 penalty. A failed saving throw
  means the user loses one point of Con-
  stitution - permanently. If the user is reduced
  to zero Constitution, he is reduced to a noisome
  pile of rotting oﬀal, with only the Male�c Eye
  left whole and waiting to be wielded by another
  future viim.
  The eye may be removed and replaced by the
  user with no danger, but of course the original
  eye can never be made to funion again.
  
  62
  Othr Topcs
  Conta gamrs that you now, and aſ your non­gamr
  frnds f thy'd l to play.
  A lot of gamers know other gamers already. A
  lot of gamers even have friends. Present the
  game and the time for game play you've
  decided to them.
  Some of them might say “Well, I'd love to play,
  but I'm free on this day, not that one." If several
  people say the same thing, and that other day
  is good for you, consider changing it.
  Ask your friends to join your game. ALL of
  them. Even people you don't know all that well.
  Co-workers. Classmates. One of the worst
  things people can do is only game with close
  friends. This often cripples one’s ability to �nd
  a game, as if these certain other people don’t
  want to game, that’s it. Branch out. New people
  bring new perspeives and new challenges and
  every good role-player will welcome such
  things. Don’t drop old friends over gaming (did
  that even need to be said?), but if they are
  getting in the way of your gaming, you need
  new gaming friends.
  Role-playing historically has a poor reputation
  in some quarters, but this needs to be forgotten.
  When  asking  the  acquaintances,  don't  a
  ashamed of gaming by doing things like corner-
  ing "certain" people away from everyone else.
  Be plain and don’t do anything to suggest that
  what you’re asking is odd or socially awkward.
  Just ask. If someone says no, that’s that. If
  someone is rude in response to you, then that
  should tell you what you need to know about
  that person.
  One important point: if someone says “I might
  be able to show up now and again," don't count
  on him showing up at all.
  So maybe you've got some people that want to
  play. Maybe you don't. Maybe you just moved
  to a new area and don't know anyone, much less
  gamers. Not a problem. In fa, it may be pref­
  erable. It's always good to meet new people that
  have something in common with you.
  Advrtſ Your Gam
  If you do not personally know enough people
  interested in your game, you have to advertise
  the fa that you will be running a game. The
  cheapest way to advertise for new players is to
  make a �yer.
  Flyers need to have a few vital pieces of infor-
  mation on them: The game to be played, when
  and where it will be played, conta informa­
  tion, and most importantly, a �ashy piure. The
  importance of listing the time to be played on
  the �yer can not be underestimated. You can
  waste a lot of time dealing with people that
  want to play but are only available at times you
  are unavailable, and even time coordinating
  with people that do have compatible schedules
  can be saved by just putting possible times on
  the �yer.
  Flyers can be construed using a computer, but
  it doesn't require high-tech know-how. Just cut
  and paste something together if you must. Just
  make sure there is something about your �yer
  that stands out – whether the paper it’s printed
  on is bright and eye­catching, or use a speac­
  ular piece of art. Print a bunch at home or run
  down to your local copy shop and get 20 copies
  run oﬀ. Make tear­away tabs with your conta
  
  63
  information (email and/or phone number).
  Don't forget to cut the tabs before placing the
  �yer, and always tear a tab or two oﬀ before
  hanging them up, as that gives the idea that
  there is interest.
  Now you've got the�yer, put them everywhere!
  Do you have a local game store? Put a �yer
  there, of course. Comic book shops might be a
  good place for the fantasy-inclined. General
  hobby shops, even if they have no other gaming
  material, are excellent for �nding people. Book-
  stores often have bulletin boards, and that's
  always a good bet. Libraries! If grocery stores
  or convenience stores in your area have bulle-
  tin boards, use them! Also post �yers in those
  areas where people post �yers and posters for
  upcoming  concerts,  and  on  school  or  oﬃce
  community boards. If there's a bulletin board
  that you know about, get a �yer up on it. How-
  ever, make sure not to be a nuisance to the
  community. Don’t post your �yer where it
  would not be welcome.
  Note that while some places may be better for
  snagging gamer-types (bookstores and comics
  stores), you're not looking speci�cally for
  gamers. You're looking for people who might be
  interested in playing in your game.
  Unless you live in a sparsely populated village,
  you're going to get responses. This works.
  There are other methods for recruiting for
  your game. Many internet sites, both general
  interest and role-playing speci�c, have virtual
  bulletin boards. Don’t just make a text posting
  on such a site! If possible, post a graphic of your
  �yer so it grabs interest.
  The local newspaper likely runs classi�ed ads,
  and most communities have free advertising
  circulars as well. These options might cost a
  little bit of money, but not so much, and there
  are times when you have to go the extra mile
  to get a game together.
  Scrnng Potntal Playrs
  Once people start containg you, you'll want
  to meet them before inviting them to play. Go
  out for a drink or something. Kind of like a date.
  In  fa,  the  goal  is  the  same  as  a  date,  but
  perhaps with less at stake. You're attempting
  to see if this person is compatible with your
  ideas for a fun time. Gathering a group of
  complete  strangers  together  and  expeing
  everything to go smoothly is rather optimistic.
  Be sure to do this screening somewhere other
  than your home. Neutral territory is always
  good for meeting new people, especially when
  the entire point is to �gure out if you want to
  be around them at all.
  No, this isn't perfe, and no, you won't screen
  out all the complete freaks. In fa, your house
  may be full of weird people if everything works
  out. Role-players tend to be a creative,
  idiosyncratic bunch. Putting aside your
  personal prejudices would be recommended.
  You're not looking for people that you want to
  be “friends" with. That's nice if it happens, but
  what you're looking for here are people that
  you can game with, and this screening is just a
  way to make a basic eﬀort to �nd out if these
  people are idiots. What you're basically looking
  for is a person that can be respeful around
  strangers. Who cares what religion they are, as
  long as they aren't going to go all Biblical (or
  blasphemous) at the game table. If someone
  
  64
  doesn't bathe (you know, that stereotype), best
  to �nd out before gathering your players. Come
  up with a few conversational cues that will
  bring  up    sensitive  subjes.  If  someone  is
  homophobic or racist or sexist, you want to �nd
  that out before exposing a group of strangers
  (who may include women, gays, or ethnic
  minorities) to them – that will kill a group
  before it gets started.
  Also talk about your gaming goals - a completely
  reasonable,  pleasant,  respeful  person  could
  still be a complete disaster and drain on your
  game if he's showing up with one thing in mind
  and you're presenting quite a diﬀerent thing
  in your game. Do talk about what games you've
  played, what problems you've had at the game
  table in the past and how you've resolved them.
  See what experiences like that this other
  person has had. Find out how committed
  they're willing to be about the game and what
  potential responsibilities they would have that
  could pop up from time to time on game day.
  This step is a fair bit of work, but you'll be
  seeing a lot of this person if they join your
  group, and if you're shy about meeting and
  talking to them, what kind of Referee are you
  going to be? It's a job that really doesn't work
  with shy people who possess no people skills.
  Do not have a stri idea of who you want to be
  answering your ads. You might get the unem-
  ployed, the underage, and the disabled. You
  might get people that have never role-played
  before and have no real idea what it is. Be
  patient with them all, and don't immediately
  dismiss people without aually talking to them.
  With enough responses, it is guaranteed you're
  going to get a completely unsuitable freak or
  two, but you'll also have a good pool of promis-
  ing players to work with. And because you were
  up-front about game-day on your �yer, it's even
  a pool that can show up to game with you.
  If the number of appropriate people are equal
  to or less than the maximum size you've
  decided for your group, great! You can go to
  the next step! If you have attraed more inter­
  ested people than you want to have in your
  group, you're going to have to make decisions
  of who to not invite to the game. Do conta the
  people that you do not sele, don't just ignore
  them or not let them know. If it's someone
  you'd be interested in gaming with if not for
  group capacity issues, let them know and be
  ready to conta them when a chair becomes
  free at your table. Reasonable people will
  understand, unreasonable people you don't
  want around anyway, and if you conne up to
  a larger gamer community around you, you can
  enjoy a good reputation if you have a “waiting
  list" of people wanting to get into your game.
  Start Playng
  Once the group is assembled, there’s nothing
  left to do but begin play. Consider the �rst
  couple of games to be “test” games. If there
  needs to be adjustments made to the group
  (remember, groups of strangers won’t always
  get along), do so. And once the issues are cleared
  up, you are on your way to many years of good
  gaming, and hopefully many years of new
  friendships.
  This is all a fair amount of work, but then so is
  conduing  a  role­playing  campaign.  If  you
  
  65
  want to play and there's no obvious pool of
  players, you are going to have to make an eﬀort.
  Everything  in  this  world  requires  eﬀort,  but
  few things pay oﬀ in the end like making that
  eﬀort for something you do for no reason other
  than enjoying it. It is important to never cancel
  the game if you can help it. There will be games
  when people don't show up, or too few people
  to continue the regular game. Have a variety
  of card and board games (“gamer” related
  rather than mass­market stuﬀ if you can �nd it)
  just to help establish that “This day is game
  day," to establish attendance habits from the
  people that can be there every session. Those
  people are the core of your group and you do
  not want to give them a reason to think they
  should always have other plans in case the game
  is canceled again.
  Make the game area as pleasant as possible. Be
  a good host. Clean the place up. Bake fresh
  bread or rolls for the group. It's a simple and
  inexpensive thing to do and if your group is
  �lled with younger people or single guys, home-
  cooked anything will impress them to no end.
  Yes, the assumption is the game location will be
  at the Referee’s house, but even if that’s not the
  case the Referee is still the group leader and he
  should  a  as  a  host  wherever  the  game  is
  played. If a player (or two) doesn’t show up, the
  game goes on. If the Referee doesn’t show up,
  there is a big problem.
  Handlng Troublſom Playrs
  Role-playing gaming is a social hobby, requir-
  ing at the very least a mutual understanding
  that everyone present will do what they can to
  maintain respe at the table. However, there
  will be times when people simply don’t get
  along.
  The Referee has to listen to his players, for
  without them there is no game. If one player is
  making the rest miserable, he must either
  change his behavior, or he must be removed
  from the game. If there is an irreconcilable split
  of opinion among the group as a whole, then
  the Referee must decide which group he
  prefers to play with and side with them.
  Communication and compromise is best when
  it works, but this hobby invites a strong invest-
  ment in it. Approaches and attitudes can’t
  always co-exist. Referees should do what they
  have to do in order to keep the peace and
  continue gaming.
  And by all means, if players are in agreement
  that the game is suﬀering because of the Ref­
  eree, they are well within their rights to
  remove the Referee from his post.
  In all honesty, Alignment in this game is purely
  a  game  constru  to  allow  certain  spells  to
  operate in a traditional manner. The meaning
  of “Law, Neutrality, and Chaos” is intentionally
  vague.
  So it is not necessary to worry about it any more
  than “Chaotic is for magical beings, Neutrality
  is for normal beings.” If you want to involve
  Alignment in your cosmology, it is recom-
  mended that you read the works of Michael
  Moorcock and Poul Anderson, as the basic ideas
  of Alignment were originally taken from their
  works.
  
  66
  Charaers will die. It is part of the game. In
  terms of including the player, a new charaer
  should be immediately created and the Referee
  has a responsibility to get that charaer into
  the game quickly. Even if there is no conve-
  nient in-game explanation for it, the Referee
  has to get the new charaer into the mix.
  But there are other issues to consider. Do all
  new charaers start at level 1 with zero XP? If
  so, how do you handle parties with great level
  disparities? If the group is all 5th – 6th level, for
  instance, it will be diﬃcult to replace a fallen
  charaer and have a �rst level charaer be able
  to contribute equally.
  At the same time, there should be a reward
  in-game for survival. Just handing over a new
  charaer  an  equal  level  to  those  who  didn’t
  manage to die seems a little unfair. There are
  several ways to work things so that the new
  charaer isn’t so far behind the party while at
  the same time penalizing charaer death in the
  game so it is desirable to avoid.
  - New charaers start with half the XP of the
  deceased charaer
  - The new charaer starts at a level equiva­
  lent to half the amount of XP the deceased
  charaer had, but starts with 0 XP
  - The player takes control of one of his
  deceased  charaer’s  henchmen  instead  of
  starting over at �rst level
  The details of your policy dealing with replace-
  ment charaers is not so important as long as
  you aually have one and communicate that
  policy to the players at the start of the cam-
  paign. It may aﬀe how they play their char­
  aers.
  This work is merely one possible set of proce-
  dures, with in�nite other possibilities available
  to you. Following the advice in this book may
  help you run a good game. But because styles
  are so unique, the advice in this book may
  hinder your ability to produce the best game
  possible.
  Excellence in gaming goes beyond casual enjoy-
  ment of the game. It requires a greater commit-
  ment to the game, and requires greater time
  and eﬀort than just casual playing. This focus is
  not for everyone, but many people �nd it quite
  rewarding.
  To start your journey, you simply need to play.
  When you want to take that next step, you need
  to step back and examine your gaming.
  “Aſ Yourſlf Why”
  Role-playing games give a Referee unlimited
  opportunities. The Referee can literally do
  anything within the context of the game. How-
  ever, indulging one’s every whim is not to the
  advantage of the individual. Discipline and
  focus are the keys to excellent gaming.
  But sometimes the temptation to follow the
  muse is indeed overwhelming. Strange ideas,
  perhaps inspired by a movie or odd item in the
  news, demand to be included in the game. This
  keeps the creative process of managing a cam-
  paign fun rather than work, so it should not be
  discouraged. But sacri�cing the integrity of a
  campaign for the sake of a passing fancy is not
  
  67
  worth it. Many campaigns have been tanked as
  a result of, “I have a great idea!”
  Whenever you have an idea that you want to
  put in the game that at �rst seems out of sorts,
  just ask yourself “Why?” Not in real world
  terms, but in game world terms. “Why is this
  here? Why is this happening? Why? Why?
  Why?” As long as you can invent answers that
  �t into the grand scheme of the campaign, then
  whatever it is cannot hurt the campaign simply
  by its presence. Each answer to “Why?” may
  trigger more questions as more elements are
  brought into the discussion. Follow those tracks.
  As soon as you can not reasonably invent
  reasons why something or other makes sense
  in the milieu you have created, you know to
  stop asking why and to begin removing ele-
  ments of your idea.
  Say you want to introduce a kingdom that has
  �ying airships without having �ying airships
  be a regular part of the entire campaign world,
  with citizens of the kingdom using them the
  way others travel by sea. If this one kingdom
  has them, why don’t others? Why hasn’t one
  been captured and studied to learn the secret
  of air travel? Why hasn’t anyone involved in
  their  construion  sold  the  secrets  to  their
  construion or defeed to a foreign power or
  allied himself with a would-be ruler? Whether
  the airship is magical or technological in
  nature, these would be concerns. OK, say that
  the secret of their making has been lost – some
  ancient knowledge or magical process that
  nobody can �gure out anymore (and for some
  reason can’t be divined from studying one of
  the remaining ships). If the ships are limited in
  number, why would they be used for shipping
  and transportation and not strily reserved for
  military use? Hmm, perhaps the ships are
  extremely fragile, with any real amount of
  damage causing them to lose �ight capabilities,
  so they have little military value and no use for
  pirates who would use them to plunder. So why
  were  these  ships  restried  to  just  this  one
  kingdom or area back in the days when they
  were able to be built? Surely isolation wouldn’t
  be an issue for a people building �ying ships.
  Obviously the people using them now aren’t of
  the same civilization that originally built them,
  which helps explain why they can’t build any
  more. And because these ships are fragile, over-
  land travel is too risky, and therefore the ships
  are only used in this one area well within the
  settled and calm areas well within their borders.
  Bcauſ It’s Fun!/Cool!/Awſom!
  Players always want to test to see what they can
  get away with. It’s natural, as this game adver-
  tises that player skill matters. It’s only natural
  that they would want to see exaly where their
  limits are. It is these limits that will de�ne the
  tone of your entire campaign.
  This most often becomes an issue during
  combat. Because combat is abstraly resolved
  using “to-hit rolls” and “hit points” which do not
  represent exa blows and wounds, any sort of
  narration can be attached to the mechanics.
  Players, in�uenced by all sorts of media, may
  try a variety of stunts, ranging from attacking
  multiple foes and other rules-disallowed
  maneuvers to pure speacle, wishing to do �ips
  and acrobatics (while in armor) during �ghts.
  There is no right or wrong answer how to
  handle this, but there is this:
  
  68
  De�ne the tone of the campaign and communi-
  cate this tone to the players before play begins.
  Then when a player wants to do something
  against the tone of the game, you can say “no”
  with extreme prejudice.
  You are presenting a world for the players to
  explore, not a theme park to amuse them. Only
  you can know where the dividing line is
  between those two in your own campaign, so
  be sure you do know it.
  Bcauſ th Playrs L It!
  This is the worst reason on Earth to include
  something in your campaign. A Referee is not
  a monkey that dances for the bene�t of his
  players. It is very important for players to enjoy
  playing in a Referee’s campaign, else the
  Referee will have no players, but that enjoy-
  ment should not dominate all other consider-
  ations in making decisions for the campaign.
  Of course nothing should be done at the play-
  ers’ expense (although this can be diﬃcult to
  judge when one prime Referee duty is to
  provide challenges, obstacles, and opponents
  for the charaers), and the best things are those
  which both �t seamlessly into a campaign and
  are greatly enjoyed by players, but this will not
  always happen. Sometimes the players will
  pursue  courses  of  aion  which  do  not  at  all
  interest the Referee, but he must remain
  impartial as he runs these parts of the game.
  And so does the pendulum swing the other way,
  and things will happen in the campaign which
  the players may �nd dull or disagreeable. The
  Referee must be aware of such things and do
  everything possible to move the game past this
  point, but not to the degree that such things are
  omitted entirely if there was a logical and valid
  lead-in to the undesired situation.
  A campaign may be meaningless without
  people to play in it, but a campaign is bigger
  than anyone playing in it currently. It is easier
  to �nd new players than it is to resurre inter­
  est in an idea that has been poisoned by bad
  decisions. Your �rst duty as a Referee, over and
  above the enjoyment of your players, is to
  prote  your  campaign,  as  that  is  the  very
  foundation of what you have to contribute to
  any gaming group.
  Fun
  The purpose of games is, ultimately, to have
  fun. But worrying about the “fun” of any par-
  ticular detail of the game is the surest way to
  suck the fun right out of it. When preparing an
  adventure or a campaign, when running a
  game, don’t worry about “fun.” Never ask if
  something is “fun.”
  Worry about whether it’s good. Worry about
  whether it’s intereing. Worry if it advances the
  ideas you have about your campaign.
  A well-run, interesting campaign will provide
  unlimited hours of fun for all involved. A cam-
  paign expressly designed to provide the most
  “fun” will likely succeed for only a certain value
  of “fun.”
  Don’t micro-manage the fun right out of your
  game.
  
  69
  What Elſ s Out Thr?
  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing is merely a varia-
  tion on a series of games that have been
  released since 1974. Therefore, LotFP Weird
  Fantasy Role­Playing is unoﬃcially, but fully,
  compatible with a wide variety of games. In fa,
  retaining compatibility was one of the highest
  priorities when creating the unique elements
  of this game.
  These games are often called “Old School” or
  “Traditional” games, because the underlying
  “engine” has remained unchanged for over 30
  years. In the past several years, the release of
  games based on the older, out of print games,
  using the Open Game License, have given
  individuals the opportunity to share and
  publish versions and supplements for the game,
  legally and legitimately. This simultaneously
  fed  oﬀ  of  and  inspired  enthusiasm  for  these
  games, and it is this resurgence that has
  inspired and allowed Weird Fantasy Role-Play-
  ing to be conceived, written, and published.
  This game is a hopefully unique twist on some-
  thing that others have developed.
  This allows you to use an amazing library of
  gaming adventures and supplements in your
  LotFP games. This also allows you to easily
  bring ideas that you like from Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing into other games and vice versa
  without greatly changing the entire game.
  All of these games are similar enough to be
  cross-compatible, but each one has its own
  quirks and small diﬀerences that can trip you
  up if you’re not paying attention.
  Gnral Concrns
  Most of the diﬀerences between Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing and similar games are in the
  process of play. Encumbrance, spell casting,
  saving throws, initiative, and so much more are
  diﬀerent than other games, sometimes to the
  point where entire subsystems have been com-
  pletely replaced. However, this causes no com-
  patibility problems. Simply use the Weird
  Fantasy Role-Playing rules and adventures will
  not suﬀer for it.
  When it comes to de�ning  charaeristics  of
  charaers  and  monsters,  there  are  true  con­
  cerns.
  For example, many other games impose
  restriions on certain classes concerning what
  weapons and/or armor they are allowed to use.
  Weird Fantasy Role­Playing has no restriions,
  but this should not be a problem. Simply use
  charaers  in  published  sources  as  described,
  but if circumstances allow it and it makes sense
  to do so, they will upgrade their equipment.
  Algnmnt
  Other games use Alignment as a morality
  marker separating the good guys and the bad
  guys. When using other games’ material, con-
  sider any Magic-Users or those showing innate
  magic powers or coming from other planes of
  existence to be Chaotic, Clerics to be Lawful,
  and all others to be Neutral.
  When converting Weird Fantasy Role-Playing
  material to other games, be aware that there
  are two ways these games measure alignment.
  
  70
  Some games use the same three alignments that
  this game does, but Lawful, Chaotic, and
  Neutral have diﬀerent meanings. Lawful means
  The Good Guys, Chaotic means The Bad Guys,
  and Neutral means Doesn’t Much Care About
  Good Guys and Bad Guys.
  Other games use a nine-alignment system:
  Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil,
  Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil,
  Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, Neutral. This is
  more of a speci�c morality system, so check
  against the speci�c de�nitions of these align-
  ments in the game’s rule book and assign an
  alignment based on the charaer’s known traits.
  Savng Throws
  No game in this little family seems to use the
  same saving throw categories, and at least one
  has gotten rid of multiple categories altogether
  in favor of a single saving throw score. When
  an adventure or supplement written for one of
  these other games calls for a saving throw,
  instead of using their categories, determine
  which category the situation would fall under
  using the Weird Fantasy Role-Playing rules.
  Clrcs
  In Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, Turn Undead
  is a spell. In other games, Turn Undead is an
  innate ability that Clerics possess. When Clerics
  appear in supplements and adventures pub-
  lished by other companies, simply review
  whether there is a need for the Cleric to have
  Turn Undead at the time they are encountered.
  If there is, simply swap out a �rst level spell for
  Turn Undead.
  Thvs and Spcalﬅs
  The Specialist class is a unique creation of
  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, and does not
  appear in any similar games. However, it is
  based almost direly on the Thief class which
  does appear in various games. It is also some-
  times called a Rogue.
  Several common abilities in other games have
  been modi�ed somewhat for Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing. Sleight of Hand replaces what is
  commonly called Pick Pockets, Stealth replaces
  both Hide in Shadows and Move Silently, and
  Tinkering replaces Open Locks.
  Unlike those versions of the Thief, which use
  percentile-based skills, Specialist skills are d6
  based. If percentages are given in a stat block,
  conversion is easy.
  Remember that a 6 in 6 skill still requires die
  rolling, and a double 6 still fails.
  Other games follow a steady progression rather
  than allowing a Specialist to customize their
  skills. Use the following table for a rough con-
  version of an assumed Thief/Specialist skill
  spread:
  1 in 6
  16 2/3%
  2 in 6
  33 1/3%
  3 in 6
  50%
  4 in 6
  66 2/3%
  5 in 6
  83 1/3%
  6 in 6
  97.22%
  
  71
  Rac vs Claß vs Multclaß
  Some games otherwise quite similar to Weird
  Fantasy Role-Playing separate races and classes.
  So instead of being just a Dwarf, a charaer can
  be a Dwarf Cleric, or Dwarf Thief, for instance.
  When encountering this sort of thing, simply
  combine all the special abilities of both the race
  and class in Weird Fantasy Role-Playing terms.
  Some other games also allow charaers to be
  more than one class at a time. Again, just
  combine all the abilities of the race and classes.
  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing uses the most
  simpli�ed format for race and class purpose-
  fully. It allows the quickest charaer creation,
  promotes the idea that humans are the domi-
  nant race in a campaign, and helps take the
  focus of the game away from where it doesn’t
  belong  (“What  can  my  charaer  do?”)  and
  places it where it belongs (“What is my char-
  aer doing?”).
  Odd Claßs and Racs
  “Advanced” or “First Edition” games will have
  all sorts of added classes: Rangers, Assassins,
  Paladins, Druids, Illusionists, and Monks most
  commonly. Bards, Cavaliers or Knights, and
  Barbarians are also common sights.
  Simply treat Barbarians, Cavaliers, Knights,
  Paladins, and Rangers as Fighters. Assassins and
  Bards are Specialists. If the adventure or sup-
  plement text mentions speci�c powers that
  these classes might have in other games, just
  grant it to the particular NPC. They don’t have
  to follow all the same rules as PCs, after all.
  Druids, Illusionists, and Monks are more
  diﬃcult  to  convert.  The  quickest  solution
  would be to say that Druids simply become
  Clerics and Illusionists become Magic-Users,
  but it is not so simple. Druids and Illusionists
  have their own unique spell lists, and even
  though many traditional Illusionist spells have
  been brought into the Magic-User spell list in
  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, an Illusionist
  1
  5 in 6
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  1 in 6
  2 in 6
  x2
  1 in 6
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  5 in 6
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  2 in 6
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  1 in 6
  2 in 6
  3
  5 in 6
  2 in 6
  1 in 6
  2 in 6
  x2
  1 in 6
  2 in 6
  4
  5 in 6
  2 in 6
  1 in 6
  2 in 6
  x2
  2 in 6
  2 in 6
  5
  5 in 6
  2 in 6
  1 in 6
  2 in 6
  x3
  2 in 6
  2 in 6
  6
  6 in 6
  2 in 6
  2 in 6
  3 in 6
  x3
  2 in 6
  3 in 6
  7
  6 in 6
  3 in 6
  2 in 6
  3 in 6
  x3
  3 in 6
  3 in 6
  8
  6 in 6
  3 in 6
  2 in 6
  3 in 6
  x3
  3 in 6
  3 in 6
  9
  6 in 6
  3 in 6
  2 in 6
  3 in 6
  x4
  3 in 6
  3 in 6
  10
  6 in 6
  3 in 6
  2 in 6
  4 in 6
  x4
  4 in 6
  4 in 6
  11
  6 in 6
  4 in 6
  3 in 6
  4 in 6
  x4
  4 in 6
  4 in 6
  
  72
  charaer  presented  in  an  adventure  or
  supplement will probably have many spells that
  aren’t in the rules here. The Druid is an even
  worse case, as few of their spells have been
  brought over into the Cleric spell lists here.
  Monks are an anomaly even in the games that
  originally presented them, with a great list of
  special abilities unique to them. If all else fails,
  simply call them Fighters who are able to in�i
  Minor, Medium, or Large weapon damage with
  their bare hands at levels 4, 7, and 10
  respeively.
  If you have easy access to the original game
  texts that these classes come from, you can of
  course run them as originally intended.
  Additional races are easier to convert. All Elf
  sub-races become plain Elves for rules purposes,
  Dwarf sub-races become simple Dwarfs.
  Gnomes can be considered Hal�ings, and Half-
  Orcs become humans. These changes are
  merely in rules terms; they can remain as
  Gnomes or Half-Orcs or whatever in terms of
  the campaign world.
  Splls
  Diﬀerent games use diﬀerent spell lists. They
  all look similar and do similar things, but none
  are identical to any of the others, in names or
  eﬀes. For spells that have the same names as
  those in Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, or nearly
  so, simply use the description in these rules.
  Spell progressions are another area where
  diﬀerent games are all slightly diﬀerent. You
  could alter the listed prepared spells in adven-
  tures and supplements to match Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing, but it is often easier just to leave
  them as they are, not worrying if they can cast
  a spell less here or one more there. Do the same
  thing if a spell is listed at a diﬀerent level in
  material published for another game – just use
  it as it is, that one time it’s used there.
  If a spell appears on a list of prepared spells for
  a monster or NPC in a published adventure or
  supplement that is not in these rules, you have
  three choices. Change the spell to one in these
  rules, reference the spell details from the orig-
  inal source, or just make up details about the
  spell according to its name.
  Remember that spells on Magic-User scrolls or
  in spellbooks may well become a regular part
  of your campaign, so consider that when decid-
  ing how to handle these spells.
  Magc Itms
  Other game systems have standardized magical
  item lists and it is expeed that charaers will
  gain useful magical items almost from their
  very �rst adventures. This is contrary to the
  recommended state of things in Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing, and it is here that most adven-
  tures not written speci�cally for Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing need to be edited. Most combat-
  ready magical items, including armor, weapons,
  rings, cloaks, etc., should simply be deemed
  non-magical. Go ahead and make them ornately
  decorated examples and thus valuable as trea-
  sure, but try to avoid including things in your
  adventures that in�ate AC and chances to hit
  and damage. Some such items are integral to
  the plot or situation in the adventures or sup-
  plements and can not be completely disre-
  garded, but they should be saddled with
  
  73
  appropriate drawbacks to put them more in line
  with the Weird Fantasy Role-Playing outlook.
  One-use magic items can probably be left alone,
  because at most they can upset the balance of
  one encounter or situation. Items with a limited
  number of uses, such as staves or wands, a
  somewhat more problematic but in general will
  not destroy a game so long as there are not a
  steady stream of such items being introduced.
  Permanent items without dire combat appli­
  cations are much more diﬃcult. Some of them
  are quite Weird, but all eﬀeively give super
  powers to a charaer, often without much in
  the way of penalties. Putting limits on these
  sorts of items before introducing them into play
  would be one solution, or substituting mone-
  tary treasure instead would be another.
  In all cases, because Weird Fantasy Role-Play-
  ing does not describe stock magic items, the
  Referee will have to make a judgment call about
  what these items can do. Items that duplicate
  spell eﬀes are easy enough to judge. However,
  when confronted by an item that is not so easily
  converted, the Referee may choose to consult
  the original text of the game the supplement
  was speci�cally written for, or simply make up
  an eﬀe based on the name of the item, which
  does not necessarily have to resemble the “cor-
  re” funion of the item at all.
  Unlike its eﬀe in other games, Dpel Magic is
  able to permanently disenchant magic items in
  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing. However, players
  become attached to their magic items, and
  often come to identify them as integral parts of
  a charaer, and may be oﬀended by the use of
  a  spell  to  take  away  their  charaer’s  special
  thingy. Referees shouldn’t hesitate to do so
  when it in fa makes sense for the situation,
  but intentionally setting up an adventure or
  encounter for the purpose of getting rid of PC
  items should be considered bad form.
  Monﬅrs
  All other games have standard bestiaries. This
  is usually not a problem, as adventures and
  supplements you might use with Weird Fantasy
  Role-Playing give stat blocks. In most cases, it
  is only AC that needs to be converted at all.
  Of course, since most of these games do use
  standard bestiaries, the majority of the mon-
  sters listed will be standard and by-the-book,
  and that’s not very Weird. Take a few minutes
  to create new descriptions of these creatures so
  they do not seem familiar to your players. It is
  not necessary to change the aual statistics.
  Because some of these monsters are so stan-
  dardized, in some instances there are no stat
  blocks. You can either reference the rules the
  module or supplement is speci�cally designed
  for, or simply make up the stats yourself.
  Armor
  Cross-compatible games generally have their
  own Armor Class schemes. Most are similar
  enough to simply ignore the diﬀerences during
  play, but for one faor: The most traditional of
  these games use a descending Armor Class.
  That is, AC uses smaller numbers to represent
  better armor.
  At the end of this seion is a handy conversion
  chart, using Leather, Chain, and Plate armor
  AC values for reference.
  
  74
  High level charaers and powerful monsters
  in other systems tend to have in�ated ACs.
  When  using  such  charaers  and  monsters
  under the Weird Fantasy Role-Playing system,
  simply adjust the statistics to more sane levels.
  Also keep in mind that in the other systems,
  shields do not give an extra bonus against
  missile �re so that must be taken into account.
  Traſur and Mony
  LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, as of the
  2011 Grindhouse Edition, uses a silver standard
  for treasure and experience. Most other similar
  games use the gold standard. When using “gold
  standard” releases with a silver standard game,
  simply change all mentions of “gold” to “silver,”
  and “silver” to “copper.” Also, Platinum Pieces
  are worth 5gp and Elerum Pieces are worth
  ½ a gold piece.
  Over the past several years, there has been a
  Renaissance of interest in both playing and
  publishing for the family of games. Weird
  Fantasy Role-Playing is part of this Renaissance.
  It should be noted that none of these companies
  at the time of this writing are making material
  speci�cally for Weird Fantasy Role-Playing.
  Many are supporting their own game lines, but
  because these game lines have the same lineage
  (and are based on the same Open Game
  Content that Weird Fantasy Role-Playing uses),
  the material can be used more or less inter-
  changeably with this game, and all material
  published under the Lamentations of the Flame
  Princess banner can be used with these games.
  Mix and match, use what most appeals to you
  and jettison the rest, no matter what label they
  are published under.
  Here is a partial list of companies releasing high
  quality material. There are also an almost in�-
  nite number of hobbyists releasing material,
  both for money and for free, physical print and
  pdf, and there is really a limitless amount of
  original and new game material to be found on
  message boards and blogs.
  Before developing Weird Fantasy Role-Play-
  ing, BFRPG was my game of choice. In addition
  to a simple, yet comprehensive rules set, there
  are a variety of adventures and supplements
  available for use with it detailing new spells,
  monsters, classes, and more.
  www.basicfantasy.org
  
  75
  Black Blade partners with smaller publishing
  studios to release material compatible with
  old-school games, including Faster Monkey
  Games and adventures from Rob Kuntz which
  date back to the old Lake Geneva days.
  http://black-blade-publishing.com
  Brave Hal�ing publishes Delving Deeper, a 0e
  simulacra, as well as support material and
  adventures for Labyrinth Lord.
  http://bravehal�ing.com/
  This company publishes a series of Advanced
  Adventures using the OSRIC rules (essentially
  First Edition) which are readily compatible
  with all of the games described here, as well as
  the monster book Malevolent and Benign for
  these games. Their Magical Society series
  might be of interest for ideas in putting
  together a campaign world.
  www.xrpshop.citymax.com
  Fight On! calls itself “A fanzine for the Old
  School Renaissance.” It is a freewheeling,
  wildly adventurous magazine that is full of
  enthusiasm for our form of gaming. Highly
  recommended!
  www.�ghtonmagazine.com
  Frog God, run by half of the old Necromancer
  Games management, publishes the Swords &
  Wizardry game and supplements. Matt Finch,
  the man behind Swords & Wizardry, is one of
  the better adventure writers of the modern
  age, and certainly captures the Weird vibe
  better than most. Highly recommended.
  www.talesofthefroggod.com
  Labyrinth Lord is the closest game currently
  available rules-wise to Weird Fantasy Role-
  Playing, yet promoting a more high-fantasy
  feel. They have published extensive rules
  options, adventures, supplements, and play aids
  to support their game. Goblinoid Games also
  publishes a post-apocalyptic science fantasy
  game Mutant Future, which is compatible with
  all of the games listed here and has unique rules
  for mutations and technological experimenta-
  tion. (Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future are
  trademarks of Daniel Proor.)
  www.goblinoidgames.com
  Goodman Games publishes a good deal of mate-
  rial for these sorts of games. Most notable are
  The Dungeon Alphabet by Michael Curtis,
  which is an inspirational work more than a
  how-to guide, The Random Esoteric Creature
  Generator for Classic Role-Playing Games and
  Their Modern Simulacra by James Edward
  Raggi IV, and the Points of Light books by
  Robert Conley. They also have a small number
  of adventure modules suited to the game as well
  as other system-neutral releases.
  www.goodman-games.com
  
  76
  The publisher of Weird Fantasy Role-Playing
  produces adventure modules that are not spe-
  ci�cally for any particular game, but are com-
  patible with all of the games mentioned here.
  If you enjoy Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, you’ll
  also enjoy the other material we put out.
  www.lotfp.com/RPG/
  OSRIC is a freely available set of rules emulat-
  ing the �rst advanced edition of the game with
  the title that cannot be mentioned for legal
  reasons.
  www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/
  Rogue Games publishes a number of games, but
  for our purposes the important items are the
  adventure modules The Cursed Chateau, which
  surely �ts under the designation “Weird,” and
  the Dwimmermount megadungeon. Their
  author, James Maliszewski, also writes the
  hugely in�uential blog Grognardia.
  www.rogue-games.net
  This is the personal label of Michael Curtis,
  author of The Dungeon Alphabet. His big
  release to date has been Stonehell Dungeon and
  its support material, which has been met with
  universal acclaim.
  http://poleandrope.blogspot.com/
  12
  9
  10
  11
  9
  10
  13
  8
  11
  12
  9
  14
  7
  12
  13
  8
  8
  15
  6
  13
  14
  7
  7
  16
  5
  14
  15
  5
  5
  17
  4
  15
  16
  4
  4
  18
  3
  16
  17
  3
  3
  19
  2
  17
  18
  2
  2
  20
  1
  18
  19
  1
  1
  21
  0
  19
  20
  0
  0
  22
  -1
  20
  21
  -1
  -1
  23
  -2
  21
  22
  -2
  -2
  24
  -3
  22
  23
  -3
  -3
  25
  -4
  23
  24
  -4
  -4
  26
  -5
  24
  25
  -5
  -5
  27
  -6
  25
  26
  -6
  -6
  
  77
  A Strangr Storm
  A Stranger Storm is a challenging adventure
  for beginning players and Referees.
  If you are not a Referee and will be playing this
  adventure with others, I very strongly urge
  that you do not read this seion until after you
  have played through the adventure. Knowing
  what is to happen will spoil everyone’s enjoy-
  ment.
  It is assumed that the Referee, if not the play-
  ers, has read and played and absorbed all of the
  information in the Tutorial book. That book
  covers the basics of the game’s mechanics. This
  adventure does not stress mechanics so much
  as  charaer  interaion,  a �owing series of
  events, and the improvisation which will inev-
  itably result. Mechanics are the simplest
  element of role-playing games and in many
  ways the least important to master; it is a very
  common thing for even the most experienced
  Referees and players to forget or misapply
  rules in the heat of the game and nobody cares.
  The real skill of Refereeing is the ability to keep
  an adventure together and maintain the illu-
  sion of the imaginary reality without letting
  the seams show too much. If that is not accom-
  plished, everyone notices and everyone cares.
  This adventure will throw a new Referee
  straight into the deep end of the Refereeing
  pool and demand that he begin developing
  these essential skills immediately.
  Before running the adventure, the Referee
  should read it in advance very carefully,
  perhaps even taking notes about how he will
  handle certain situations. Pre-made adventures
  can not possibly take into account how an
  individual  group  is  likely  to  rea  no  matter
  how well designed, and this adventure is guar-
  anteed to account for every aion your group
  might take. It is the Referee’s job to be aware
  of possible issues and address them and impro-
  vise as things run oﬀ the rails.
  As this adventure is all about the changelings,
  it is essential that the Referee be familiar with
  the changeling description as given immedi-
  ately following this adventure. In particular the
  procedures given for what happens when a
  changeling mimics a PC are very important
  because without following those procedures (or
  procedures of your own that accomplish a
  similar goal) this adventure will have little
  challenge. That the PCs should be in constant
  confusion is pretty much the whole point of the
  adventure. The jewel that each changeling
  carries in its heart is also the sole source of real
  treasure and experience in this adventure.
  Assume, unless the text speci�es otherwise, that
  all NPCs mentioned in the adventure are
  unclassed humans with 3 to 5 hit points and all
  average stats.
  Becae  th    an  introduory  adventure
  intended to be ed by new Referees, there will be
  extra advice given that would not normally be
  present in an adventure such  th. Th advice
  will be in these italicized seions.
  Once taking a form, a changeling will generally
  not change forms unless it can do so without
  being deteed. Even if attacked, it will retain
  its form (unless otherwise speci�ed), becoming
  almost euphoric (but not to the point of disrupt-
  ing its imitation) from the lingering doubts that
  it creates in its attackers. This is sweeter to a
  
  78
  changeling than death. Only if its attackers
  seemingly are sure about it being a fake copy
  will it attempt to change again (and most likely
  into the form of one of its attackers).
  If a PC is ever left alone with a changeling, that
  is another matter entirely. If imitating the PC
  can potentially cause more grief and con�i
  than the person currently being imitated, the
  changeling will morph instantly, and then the
  real fun will begin.
  Changelings do not concern themselves with
  power; they will happily change form from a
  very powerful person to a sickly old maid if they
  believe it will cause more strife and discord.
  Let them. The players have control of their
  charaers. The PCs are not designated viims
  and players are not obligated to be involved in
  the events of the adventure at any time. Free
  will is paramount once the game begins.
  If they choose not to get involved, they will
  indeed avoid all complication, danger, rewards,
  interesting situations, excitement, and fun. If
  players want nothing interesting to happen to
  their charaers, oblige them.
  The players are showing up to play, yes? Why
  should they have to be strong-armed into par-
  ticipating once they’ve already shown up?
  Not that this means that players should walk
  into every trap and just be patsies for whatever
  the Referee decides will be done this session.
  They should have agency – but as players
  playing a game they should also have the cour-
  tesy to aually play the game instead of avoid­
  ing it.
  Players should create their charaers individ­
  ually. They can discuss their charaers or not
  with each other as they wish, but the Referee
  should not prompt them either way. The
  Referee should be sure that spellcasting char-
  aers have noted which spells they have pre­
  pared for the day.
  This adventure assumes that the PCs are trav-
  eling from their tranquil homelands to the
  frontier where opportunity awaits for adven-
  ture. One thing’s for sure, if they stayed at
  home they’d have to become farmers or some-
  thing equally depressing.
  But their journey to the less-settled lands does
  not go without a hitch. Soon after the journey
  began, the heavens opened up and the �ercest
  storm in recent memory started to drench the
  land. While passing through the previous vil-
  lage, the PCs’ coach busted a wheel. The PCs
  and their equipment escaped the incident
  without damage, but the coachman was badly
  injured. He can not (or if a Cleric’s player notes
  that the coachman can be healed – refuses to)
  continue. This is a small town, without even so
  much as an inn or professional tavern, and no
  more coaches are scheduled to pass through for
  days. The PCs must travel ahead on foot.
  All campaigns mt begin somewhere. Some groups
  know exaly how they want a campaign to pro­
  ceed, and have plans from beginning to end. Those
  types don’t need, or necessarily want, introduory
  adventures.  For  the  re  of  you,  get  ready  for  a
  bumpy ride…
  
  79
  The PCs will be traveling far slower than usual
  due to the rainstorm. The normally packed dirt
  road is a muddy disaster. It is well past nightfall,
  the PCs are tired and wet and likely in a foul
  mood, when they see the lights of a roadside inn
  up ahead. They also notice, sticking out of the
  bushes nearby, a pair of legs.
  Again, a bit of narration to set the age. Normally
  adventures  would  continue  from  the  previo
  session, but here again we have to set the age and
  begin somewhere intereing. Note that a road in
  “pt times” (th adventure sumes a 16th – 17th
  century sort of culture)  not going to have reet
  lights. If the PCs do not have a light source – and it
  would have to be a lantern becae a torch won’t
  remain lit in th downpour – then of course they
  wouldn’t see the legs. They’re doing well enough to
  ay on the trail!
  If anyone says they’d rather camp for the night
  rather than continue on after dark, tell them
  in­game they know from talking to psersby on the
  trail that an inn w along the road here, but the
  travelers mt have eimated the travel time by
  ual,  good­weather  andards.  Out­of­game,
  sure them that th bit of narration  jt to get
  arted, and at the point of seeing the legs (or the
  tavern lights if they do not see the legs), the intro-
  duion ends and the game truly begins. No more
  hand-holding, the players are now on their own.
  Ask the players, “What do you do?” In fa, k that
  at any time that they seem to be anticipating
  something with no dcsion or intention of aion.
  There is a body thrown in the bushes, obviously
  hurriedly, so as one would think someone doing
  this wouldn’t want the legs to be visible from
  the road. If searched, the man can be described
  as utterly average looking. He is wearing
  clothes,  but  has  no  other  gear  expeed  of
  travelers. No backpack, weapons, money purse,
  anything of the sort (however, he does have 7
  copper pieces hidden in his right boot). His face
  and knuckles are bruised and scraped, and he
  has a deep wound in his back. Fighting types
  would recognize this as likely being from a
  sword thrust.
  Do not volunteer any of th information unless the
  players say that their charaers are doing things
  that would reonably allow them to observe these
  things. For example, merely pulling the body out of
  the bhes and looking at it would be enough for
  the general description of clothing and the facial
  contions,  but  someone  would  have  to  specify
  looking at the hands, or turning the body over, or
  taking oﬀ the corpse’s boots to learn the other pieces
  of information.
  The body is that of a changeling.
  Changelings are dcsed immediately after th
  adventure. At th point, there  not much of a
  chance that players can dete th. In fa, if they
  even spe such a thing then they have probably
  read the adventure already. Change who  and 
  not the changeling in the adventure if you spe
  th  the ce.
  Let them. No problem.
  
  80
  The inn up ahead is The Incontinent Vicar, a
  two-story building with a garage in the back.
  The �rst �oor is lit up and through the windows
  can be seen a middle-aged fat barman sitting
  behind the bar. The common room is otherwise
  empty.
  In the garage, if it is checked, are two coaches
  and sixteen horses.
  No “oﬃcial” map  given for th adventure. One
  important  Referee  skill    being  able  to  quickly
  sketch out, mentally or otherwe, a location and
  communicate that location to the players. To help
  you develop those skills, th location  not ill­
  trated for you.
  The Inn  a small two­ory aﬀair. There  a front
  door leading direly into the bar, and the airs up
  to the rooms  in the bar  well. There  a kitchen
  between the bar and the back door. The garage 
  behind the main building and  not vible from
  the road. A wooden fence surrounds the entire
  complex.
   Becae the players can do anything they want,
  the PCs may very well want to eal the horses and
  jt ride oﬀ. See In the Garage seion below if they
  try th…
  If the PCs enter the inn, the barkeep welcomes
  them warmly. If the PCs bring the body from
  the road in with them, he will be very con-
  cerned. He will suggest that the PCs go to
  Argyle (a nearby village about 30 minutes’ walk
  away) in the morning to report it, but suggests
  they stay here for the night due to the weather
  and late hour – not to mention the obvious
  danger on the road if someone’s been mur-
  dered. He will get a blanket from the closet
  underneath the stairs and suggests the PCs put
  the body in the garage and cover it up, as a bar
  is not the proper place for a body.
  If the PCs merely report the body without any
  evidence to show the barkeep, he will seem
  much less concerned. He doesn’t believe that
  this is a dangerous area and strangers do often
  tell tall tales to seem more interesting.
  If the PCs inst on going to Argyle now, of course
  you mt let them. The barkeep will tell them the
  way. You will have to improve what happens,
  but in a nutshell it  Father Naylor that the PCs
  will have to deal with, and he will not feel the need
  to come to the inn. Nicole Gingerbottom certainly
  won’t travel to work th day  news will quickly
  spread of an attack on the road. When the PCs
  return to the crossroad where the Incontinent
  Vicar sits (there  no other way to go out of the
  village that doesn’t jt lead to other unintereing
  and unimportant farming villages, the exa sort
  of thing the PCs are traveling to get away from!),
  see the Back at the Inn seion and adjt for the
  time of day.
  If there is no body, or after the issue has been
  addressed, the barkeep will introduce himself
  as Cameron Fiddlesticks, “but everyone calls me
  Doodles. Used to be a bit of an artist, you see.”
  He will tell the PCs that unfortunately his inn
  is small and the rooms are full, as the weather
  forced both an entertainment troupe and a
  group of traveling merchants to stop here
  unexpeedly. The merchants sell spoons, and
  he will oﬀer up a few samples he was given by
  
  81
  the merchants. They are �nely wrought,
  attraive, and identical. “Wooden spoons are
  good enough for me and my customers,”
  Doodles will shrug.
  He will apologize about the lack of accommoda-
  tions but oﬀers the PCs free drinks for the night
  so they can stay inside and warm by the �re-
  place. Besides, he explains, all the guests went
  to bed early and he wants some company and
  conversation.
  He will ask all sorts of questions about the PCs.
  What are their names? What town are they
  from? Any family there? Do they know each
  other? How did they meet? Are they adventur-
  ers? What did they do back home before start-
  ing the traveling lifestyle? Where are they
  headed? Any juicy rumors of monsters or trea-
  sure?
  Th  where the players have to invent some fas
  about  their  charaers  if  they  haven’t  already.
  Charaers who seem tight­lipped or unwilling to
  drink will be ridiculed in a good-natured way by
  Fiddleicks. He  ed to friendly conversation
  and th  h place. If he’s oﬀering a warm dry
  place and free drinks, he can get some conversation
  or he will kick everyone out.
  Players are often a ubborn lot, and th can eily
  escalate. If players get to the point where they’re
  willing to ﬁght a bartender (especially with weap­
  ons!) becae they don’t want to talk to NPCs, jt
  end the game and ﬁnd new players, becae these
  current ones are crap and will suck the fun out of
  your game every single time.
  After hearing the PCs’ stories, Fiddlesticks will
  tell some tales of his own (which the Referee
  will have to invent). His clientele is mainly
  menfolk from Argyle (they don’t have their
  own tavern there) and the occasional traveler.
  His stories shouldn’t be that interesting.
  At about 2am (how long it takes to be 2am
  should be determined by the Referee depend-
  ing on how interesting the conversation with
  Doodles is to the players. They should all talk
  about their charaers a bit to establish them­
  selves, but after that it’s purely a judgment call)
  a man will come downstairs. He is dressed in a
  nightshirt and slippers, carrying a full chamber
  pot (#2). He will empty it outside the front door.
  If the PCs have brought the body in and he sees
  its face, he will be visibly shaken, but in any
  event he has a long day of travel ahead of him
  and he will prefer to go back to bed instead of
  chit-chat.
  If the players are interested in continuing to
  play out the conversation with Doodles, then
  do so. Otherwise, just assume random chitchat
  is happening until…
  Cameron Fiddlesticks comes downstairs in his
  bedclothes. This should be quite surprising
  considering Cameron Fiddlesticks is also at the
  bar conversing with the PCs (in his regular
  attire). When the new Fiddlesticks reaches the
  bottom of the stairs and sees the Fiddlesticks at
  the bar, both of them will freak out, declaring
  there is witchcraft afoot! They will begin
  arguing with each other and then move to
  violence. The one the PCs have been talking to
  all night will grab a club located behind the bar,
  and the newly arrived one will grab a chair.
  Unless restrained, they will attempt to kill each
  
  82
  other (assume their weapons do d3 damage) and
  they will not stop until one or the other is dead.
  Regardless of what happens, if there is any
  shouting or �ghting then the inn’s guests will
  be awakened. Ten rounds after the start of the
  shouting, there will be a rush downstairs as they
  try to �gure out what’s going on. They will all
  be in their night clothes, and there will be two
  distin  groups:  Younger,  in­shape  men  (the
  entertainers) and middle-aged, considerably
  obese men (the merchants). If there is a body in
  the bar room, or if Doodles is being forcibly
  restrained (either of them!), there will be a
  furor. A couple of the younger men will bran-
  dish rapiers or daggers, thinking that the PCs
  might be robbers (or worse). Doodles, if he is
  free and the other is either dead or restrained
  (which one is which is not important) will vouch
  for the PCs (unless they don’t deserve to be
  vouched for!) and defuse the situation.
  Regardless, if there is anything out of sorts then
  the guests will all decide that perhaps they
  should move on, and will return to their rooms
  to get dressed and pack their things.
  The entertainers are a traveling troupe of
  morris dancers on their way to a city about
  three days’ journey from here. Their names are
  Kerry Porter, Joshua Newton-Potter, Thurston
  Stillriver, Ian Barclay, Patrick Rocktar and
  Gerald Tuckford.
  Thurston is the one that came down to empty
  the bedpan. Patrick looks exaly like the body
  the PCs may have found at the side of the road,
  and will be wearing an exaly matching set of
  clothes after dressing as the body was wearing
  when it was found.
  The fat men (Kirk Tomlinson, Satchel Higgen-
  botham, Rex Manley and Remus Fogerty) are
  spoon salesmen on their way to make a deal
  with a wealthy owner of a series of taverns in
  the same city the Morris dancers are traveling
  to.
  Unfortunately the two groups do not like each
  other. The morris dancers are young, laid back,
  jocular and gay, while the merchants are Type-
  A personality grumbly bastards who have no
  time for fun or anyone that does.
  Th situation will require you to improve and
  make  judgment  calls  the  entire  way,    there  
  simply no way to determine what the players will
  do. How they deal with there being two Fiddleicks
  will determine how the dturbed gues will rea,
  and from there how they rea to the PCs and each
  other will jt have to be played by ear. Th  the
  uﬀ that Referees have to deal with all the time,
  conantly,  no  matter  how  well  prepared  the
  adventure notes are. Dive in and invent individ-
  ual personalities for all these NPCs and play it for
  all its worth. The one rule , though, to not let NPC
  interaions with each other overshadow the PCs.
  Start the interaion, then pull back and jt say
  to the players that the situation continues, so that
  the players have space to a.
  PCs may become interested in the fa that one
  of the morris dancers is an exa match for the
  body at the side of the road. The dancers will
  support each other and refuse to answer ques-
  tions, but not to the point of violence. If one of
  them is cornered, or if violence is threatened,
  then all will be told:
  
  83
  It was earlier in the day when they were trav-
  eling through the rain that they overtook a
  wandering minstrel on the road. Feeling sorry
  for the miserable sod caught in the downpour,
  they oﬀered him a lift in their coach. However,
  after  he  got  in,  he  changed  shape  to  exaly
  match  Patrick  Rocktar.  A  scuﬄe  ensued  as
  everyone was quite disturbed, and in the end
  one of the Patricks was stabbed in the back.
  Fearing the hangman’s noose for a murder
  charge, for who would believe what had really
  happened?, they decided to dump the body at
  the side of the road right there. If anything
  came of it, well, Patrick’s still with them. The
  fa  that  there  are  now  two  barkeeps  both
  relieves and terri�es them. They are glad that
  something strange is going on here because
  that makes them less worried about being
  murderers, but it also alarms them because
  indeed something strange is going on here!
  They have not even considered the possibility
  that they killed the wrong Rocktar. “After we
  got here we had him do our troupe’s specialty
  dance, and he did. No one else could do that on
  demand!”
  The merchants (who behave almost like stereo-
  typical money-grubbing Robber Baron types
  despite being just traveling salesmen) just want
  comfort and excess, and anything getting in the
  way of that will be harshly criticized. If the PCs
  make any eﬀort to aid them, the merchants will
  repay them by giving them some sample
  spoons, “crafted by the most modern means!”
  And to clear up one loose end, the Cameron
  Fiddlesticks that the PCs have been talking to
  all night is the changeling.
  The chaos caused by a second Fiddlesticks
  appearing should take time to sort out. In fa,
  though everyone wants to leave, they don’t
  want to go out at once to the garage in the
  pouring rain; they’ll likely spend time plan-
  ning, arguing, and hypothesizing in the bar.
  At 5am Nicole Gingerbottom, the young and
  ugly serving girl of the Vicar, will arrive. She’s
  walked from Argyle, and will go in the back
  door, put up her umbrella, and begin breakfast.
  She  will  not  rea  to  noise  in  the  bar  unless
  aual violence is breaking out. If there is com­
  motion in the garage, as in people already
  packing to leave, she will stick her head out the
  door and scream in a rather unladylike manner,
  “Breakfast is included with your rooms, you
  gits! Get back in here for your ham and eggs!”
  She will panic, going almost catatonic, if she
  sees a dead Fiddlesticks, a restrained or seri-
  ously injured Fiddlesticks, or two Fiddlesticks.
  Otherwise, breakfast takes about twenty
  minutes and then is ready to be served.
  Nicole Gingerbottom arrives to work from
  Argyle. She will come in, put up her umbrella…
  and be very confused that breakfast has already
  been cooked (or at least the kitchen area pre-
  pared). She will then come into the bar to �nd
  out what’s going on… and here we go again.
  Remember that all of these events are bed on an
  sumed sequence of events. If the PCs ph events
  in a diﬀerent direion, improve!
  This new Gingerbottom is the changeling.
  
  84
  At some point the PCs are going to inspe the
  garage, whether before heading inside the
  Incontinent Vicar in the �rst place or when
  everyone realizes that the rain isn’t going to let
  up and they go get packed.
  There are two coaches parked in the garage.
  One is plain and black (belonging to the spoon
  salesmen) and one is rather colorfully painted
  in bright yellow and orange (the morris danc-
  ers’). The coaches are empty, as all personal
  eﬀes  and  cargo  have  been  brought  to  the
  rooms. Also crammed in the garage are sixteen
  (!) horses.
  The morris dancers had two horses to pull their
  coach as well as two extra riding horses. These
  are all white horses, their manes are braided
  and ribboned in diﬀerent ways. The merchants
  have four horses to pull their coach. These are
  all chestnut-colored and rather unremarkable,
  but all branded with both the company’s seal
  and individual identity numbers.
  Each of the eight horses has an exa duplicate,
  down to the braids/ribbons or brands.
  Once the inn’s guests discover this, there will
  be even more chaos. The morris dancers will
  see this as a sign of great evil and bewitchment.
  Someone must go fetch a priest! Where’s the
  nearest village? Yes, someone must fetch the
  priest from Argyle then!
  The merchants will have a diﬀerent point of
  view. There’s no evidence that any of these
  duplicates are in any way malevolent. All of the
  con�i thus far has been because of panic and
  assumption of wrongdoing. Don’t animals
  usually sense unnatural evil? Half these horses
  must be the originals and they are calm! The
  spoon salesmen will say that all of the horses
  with their branding are theirs to do with as
  they wish. If the morris dancers want to delay
  their trip by involving a priest, more power to
  them, but their business can’t be delayed any
  more. They wish to leave!
  Gingerbottom at this point (either or both,
  depending on how that situation was handled)
  wants to go home, and is now scared to go alone.
  If someone is going to Argyle, she wants to go
  with them and will show them the way and
  where to �nd the priest. Note that if both
  Gingerbottoms are still around, neither will
  agree to go to the village with the other one –
  the “witch” imposter must not be allowed to
  Gingerbottom’s home!
  If everything stays at the discussion/argument
  level, there is something of an impasse. The
  entertainers don’t trust the merchants to stay
  put if they get the priest. The merchants just
  want to leave as soon as possible. Fiddlesticks
  will want to stay at the inn to make sure no real
  trouble starts. It will be suggested that the PCs
  take Gingerbottom home and bring the priest
  back.
  Remember that there is still a torrential down-
  pour through the day, so anyone outside will
  quickly become uncomfortably wet.
  
  85
  While it  true that no changeling h to th
  point been an aggressor if the original w not
  also becoming violent (the Gingerbottoms will
  certainly break down in tears upon seeing their
  counterparts rather than attack), it  no longer
  so  senseless  to  think  that  there    a  serio
  problem.  And  when  serio  problems  are,
  killing  often not far oﬀ.
  Minor  bouts  of  violence,  such    attempting  to
  rerain or punch individuals, will be met by like
  restance from the target and the target’s cohorts.
  Fiddleicks will always side again the aggressors.
  If blades are drawn, then everyone, the entertain-
  ers (with their rapiers), the merchants (with dag-
  gers),  and  Fiddleicks  (with  h  bare  hands  if
  necessary) will unite again the aggressors.
  No one will condone violence again the horses, 
  the merchants want to keep them and the enter-
  tainers want to have a prie give judgment before
  doing anything. Truth be told, they like the idea of
  owning extra horses if they ﬁnd out it  OK to do
  so. The merchants are willing to sell an extra horse
  or two, but the morr dancers are again th.
  If the PCs snoop around the garage at night,
  especially before going into the Vicar, they may be
  tempted to take some horses and run. Not much to
  be done since there are no watchmen, but there are
  complications. Fir there  the fa that half of
  them are changelings. On a more mundane level,
  it should be made clear to the PCs that horse
  thievery  a hanging oﬀense, and there should be
  a 1 in 20 chance that any particular merchant
  recognizes the brands on the merchants’ horses and
  begin king queions…
  The village of Argyle is a small farming commu-
  nity of about twenty families. There are no
  shops, no inn, no tavern, and no constabulary.
  There is a blacksmith and a church, but other-
  wise everyone generally takes care of their own
  needs, with neighborly assistance when neces-
  sary. The villagers are a typically suspicious and
  superstitious lot for a community this size, and
  in fa the proximity of the Incontinent Vicar
  is a source of some controversy amongst the
  housewives.
  Nicole Gingerbottom lives with her parents and
  �ve brothers, and will want to go home imme-
  diately. If both Gingerbottoms are present,
  they will both scream bloody murder in order
  to get the village’s attention – and in this case
  the �rst instin of the villagers will be to string
  everyone up – both Gingerbottoms and the
  people who brought them – just to be sure. Not
  even the priest will be able to allay this fear and
  bloodlust.
  Gingerbottom will dire the PCs to the church,
  but the imposing struure is the only one that
  can be called impressive in this community.
  The solid, distinive struure symbolizes the
  devotion these people have to their faith.
  The church is run by Father Quincy Naylor. At
  23, he is quite young to preside over a church
  (the former priest died six months back from
  natural causes, Naylor will volunteer if asked,
  and the diocese appointed Naylor as the
  replacement), but is well suited to the job. His
  one distinguishing feature is his preternatural
  tranquility. Absolutely nothing startles, spooks,
  disconcerts, unhinges, perturbs, scares, annoys,
  
  86
  angers, or excites him (think Fred Kwan, not
  Mr. Spock). He will always speak in a calm, even,
  yet polite tone, and will generally only speak
  when spoken to or when a situation demands
  his interjeion. This is not to the point of total
  oddity, as he is fully capable of chit-chat, and
  will remark upon the “Awful spat of weather
  we’re having!”
  Note that Father Naylor  simply a prie and not
  a Cleric.
  How Naylor reas to the situation will depend
  on how it is explained to him.
  If informed of the happenings back at the inn,
  Naylor will seem completely unconcerned. It’s
  another day on the job for him. “I suppose
  taking a look is in order.” He will grab his coat,
  hat (a stylish tricorne), umbrella, and his black
  bag (containing stakes, a hammer, a holy book,
  one vial of holy water, a spare holy symbol and
  two already packed sandwiches) and suggest
  leaving immediately. The only delay he will
  condone is dealing with Nicole Gingerbottom.
  If both Nicole Gingerbottoms have somehow
  been brought back to town, Naylor will
  summon a few sele townsfolk to lock them in
  separate home cellars (“There are no jails here,”
  Naylor will remark if asked why).
  If only one Nicole was returned, Naylor will
  again have her locked in a cellar. “How do you
  know she is the real Nicole Gingerbottom? We
  must be sure before allowing her to walk
  amongst proper folk.”
  Naylor will not explain himself further to the
  PCs until they are all on the way back to the
  Vicar. “From your description, it sounds like a
  case of mimics,” he will explain if indeed the
  PCs have been frank with him. Along the way
  he will say that he’s heard legends of such
  creatures. “It is said that no matter what form
  they take, a jewel lies buried in their heart.” He
  says that method really isn’t any good though,
  since it can’t be used to tell a real person from
  a mimic until after death, and mutilating a body
  to �nd a jewel would be a mortal sin anyway.
  However, there are other ways to tell, devel-
  oped by the foreign witch-hunters Franz
  Voight and Hermann Kampﬀ. He will not elab­
  orate but to say that it takes some time with the
  accused to �nd the truth.
  If Gingerbottom has been detained, he will
  mention  that  he  will  praice  these  other
  methods on her/them to determine her human-
  ity. If pressed for details, he will say, in his
  rational manner, “Don’t worry, she’ll be just
  �ne. She’ll probably recover from the ordeal in
  just a few short weeks, and with her already
  unfortunate appearance the scars shouldn’t
  make her chances of �nding a husband any
  worse than they already are.”
  Details about Argyle are purposefully vague,  the
  town  not where the aion . Referees who want
  to do more with Argyle are perfely within their
  right  to  do  so,  but  they  mt  underand  that
  making the village too intereing may dtra the
  PCs from events already in motion.
  It’s perfely possible that the PCs won’t want to get
  caught up in th mess and jt continue on their
  way, leaving everyone to sort their own aﬀairs.
  
  87
  Th  does  not  end  the  adventure!  Inead,  the
  encounter with the Knights Medical later on will
  simply be an aﬀair of psing them along the road
  (the PCs had better engage in some talk and learn
  about the twenty children!), and then later on will
  meet Ster Carpenter on her way to catch up with
  the Knights speciﬁcally about the extra child, so the
  portion of the adventure which takes place at the
  orphanage may ill happen).
  When the PCs return to the Incontinent
  Vicar, they will �nd the place deserted. No
  barkeep, no merchants, no entertainers, no
  bodies, no coaches, no horses, no luggage, no
  prisoners. And nothing to suggest where
  anyone went. Just an empty inn...
  ...except for Peter McFarther, pot boy. He’s
  thirteen years old, spotty as hell and lives in the
  woods with his forester father. When he got to
  work today, the place was deserted. He will be
  in the kitchen or the bar when the PCs arrive
  back at the inn, and will attempt to hide from
  them unless Father Naylor is with them.
  If the PCs want to follow up on McFarther’s
  father, he lives about forty-�ve minutes away
  in the woods, and is involved in nothing
  unusual or interesting.
  Once at the inn, Father Naylor will walk
  through all the inn’s rooms as well as the
  garage. He will ask the PCs to repeat the whole
  story again. If there are no contradiions in
  their story, he will believe them. He will thank
  them for their attention but as everyone is
  gone, there is nothing more to do here. He
  announces his attention to return to his church
  and write a letter to the bishop about the aﬀair,
  and the PCs should continue on their way.
  Note that th adventure makes several sump­
  tions about the area’s religion, ing terms such 
  father, bhop, and diocese. Feel perfely free to
  alter these terms to better ﬁt your campaign.
  If there are PCs present at the inn, they will be
  witness to all the trouble. However, unless all
  the PCs remain at the inn, run the events that
  happen there after the rest of the party returns
  and discovers the results.
  What will happen is that the merchants decide
  they are going to leave, no ifs, ands or butts.
  They will begin loading their luggage on their
  coach and are preparing to hitch their horses
  as well when the horses attack. They will take
  one round to attack the merchants and then
  will change forms to each imitate one of the
  (armed!) entertainers. If an armed or especially
  armored PC is present a horse will charge at
  him and then mimic him when close.
  A split party is going to be in trouble as they
  will likely be overwhelmed by the force of the
  changelings. However, remember to use the
  procedures described in the changeling
  monster description – the changelings won’t
  attack each other. After the battle the players
  involved shouldn’t be certain whether they are
  now playing their charaer or the changeling,
  so there is still potential for confusion when the
  rest of the PCs return.
  If the PCs simply refused to leave, things may
  go  diﬀerently.  If  they  are  a  strong  force  the
  changelings might not attack at all.
  
  88
  The bottom line is if the merchants leave, they
  will be in the coach and faster than the PCs on
  foot so the rest of the adventure can go as
  planned. If the merchants do not leave for
  whatever reason, the encounter with the Order
  Medical  later  on  will  simply  be  an  aﬀair  of
  passing them along the road (the PCs had better
  engage in some talk and learn about the twenty
  children!), and then later on will meet Sister
  Carpenter on her way to catch up with the
  Knights speci�cally about the extra child, so the
  portion of the adventure which takes place at
  the orphanage may still happen.
  In any event, neither the merchants nor enter-
  tainers will travel with the PCs, period.
  Travel is still miserable as the rain will not let
  up. The road is in disastrous condition. It will
  be another �ve or six hours of traveling (which
  is a depressingly small distance, in these condi-
  tions) before they see anyone or anything. The
  fa that the road is empty is unusual, although
  weather conditions may explain it.
  Remember that if the merchants did not leave
  before the PCs, th entire seion will have to be
  reworked.
  The �rst noteworthy thing they encounter is
  the merchants’ coach overturned on the road.
  There are spoons scattered everywhere along
  with smashed luggage and oversized clothing
  strewn about. A couple hundred yards up the
  road is a dead horse (riddled with sword
  wounds), then another, and another. Four in all.
  At the place when the last horse fell, the sounds
  of battle can be heard around the next bend in
  the road.
  If anyone investigates this, they will see two
  identical warriors facing oﬀ. At their feet are
  six warriors, who if examined later will be
  found to be three diﬀerent sets of two identical
  warriors. A horseless wagon, canvas canopy
  ruined, lies tipped at the side of the road.
  The warrior (well, both of them now) is Sir
  Boris Corsica of the Order Medical, a martial
  order dedicated to defending and aiding inno-
  cents threatened by war. He is a third level
  �ghter with 17 hit points, he has 16
  Strength and 13 Constitution, and he is
  wearing chain armor and carrying a sword
  and shield. Sir Boris and his duplicate are
  still sizing each other up and have not yet
  begun combat.
  They will very soon begin combat, and the PCs
  may rea however they wish.
  If the PCs engage in hostility with the change-
  ling (by accident or no), it will immediately
  mimic the most impressive-looking of them in
  order to create the confusion it so craves, oth-
  erwise it will continue to imitate Sir Boris for
  the rest of the adventure.
  Sir Boris is a proud man and will insult and defy
  any who capture him – he will be free or strug-
  gle to the end! He will also not cooperate in any
  way whatsoever if his double is allowed to live.
  Honor demands that the demon die!
  After the situation has calmed down and there
  is but one Sir Boris to deal with, he will explain
  what happened if asked. Note that if it is the
  88
  
  89
  changeling being talked to, it will tell the same
  story:
  He and his cohorts, the Order Medical, had
  delivered twenty orphaned infants to the Saint
  Petra Home for Unwanted Children. That had
  gone smoothly, so they continued on their way.
  They came upon an empty coach stuck in the
  muddy road.
  The coach had eight horses hitched to it, so the
  knights tried to �nd the owners of the coach.
  After searching both the coach and surround-
  ing area and calling out in an eﬀort to �nd those
  who had been traveling in the coach. Were they
  injured? When they found no sign of anyone,
  they decided to free the coach from the mud
  and take it to the next waystop on the road – a
  place Sir Boris believes is called the Incontinent
  Vicar.
  While distraed during the work of getting the
  coach out of the mud, the horses suddenly got
  free and attacked! Some changed into human
  form, others just ran wild. The knights’ own
  horses got free from their wagon during the
  battle and ran oﬀ. The PCs just happened to
  come along at the end of the �ght.
  Note that Sir Boris would not realize that only
  half the horses were changelings, and a change-
  ling Boris would not bring this fa up. The dead
  horses the PCs found are real horses. The four
  changelings present all mimicked knights.
  What happened to the merchants? The oﬃcial
  explanation is the changelings attacked and
  killed them, as for whatever reason mimicking
  them didn’t seem like a good idea. In horse form
  the merchants were carried into the woods a
  bit – far beyond the search radius of the knights
  – and dumped.
  Sir Boris requests that the PCs aid him in
  burying his comrades – and their doubles.
  Burying a monster hurts no one and doesn’t
  help a devil, but negleing to bury a proper
  knight could impa the proper migration of
  their souls. Best to be sure all the proper
  humans are buried. Sir Boris will not condone
  mutilation, or looting, of the corpses.
  If the PCs help, this will take the rest of the day.
  Sister Barbara Carpenter is riding a horse at a
  full gallop in an eﬀort to �nd the knights of the
  Order Medical. If the PCs helped bury the dead
  knights, she will catch up to them as they �nish
  that task. If the PCs just continued on, they will
  encounter her on the road.
  Sister Carpenter is a rather tall, burly woman,
  also a �rst level �ghter (8hp) wearing chain
  armor under her habit. She also has a rather
  intimidating battle axe hanging from her belt.
  She is the go-to troubleshooter from the order
  of nuns that run the Saint Petra Home for
  Unwanted Children.
  Any Cleric in the party will know the name
  Saint Petra. She is a mistaken martyr, a staunch
  atheist who was seized by religious-minded
  folks who thought she belonged to a rival se.
  After long weeks of torture, she was put to
  death for refusing to convert.. This enraged
  those who belonged to the religion that the
  torturers thought Petra belonged to, so they
  rose up and slew their would-be oppressors, and
  89
  
  90
  
  91
  later on Petra was sainted for her unintentional
  inspiration.
  Details like th can ﬂesh out a campaign world. If
  you  don’t  like  th  explanation  of  Saint  Petra,
  invent your own. But do include details like th in
  all of your adventures, and soon enough you will
  have  built  your  own  campaign’s  unique  htory
  and mythology without having to prepare it all in
  advance.
  Whether the PCs are with Sir Boris or if she’s
  just asking if they’ve seen the knights, she will
  freely divulge why she is looking for them: That
  morning the Order Medical had delivered
  twenty-one babies to the Home. The knights
  couldn’t stay because adult men are not allowed
  to lodge at the Home, and they weren’t going
  to wait in the rain, so they continued on their
  way as the Sisters processed the children and
  their paperwork. They only have papers for
  twenty of the children, so either the knights
  had misplaced one set of paperwork which the
  Sisters need in order to legally take custody of
  the children, or if necessary a signed statement
  from the knights that the identity and parent-
  age of the �nal child is unknown or unveri�able.
  The PCs will probably guess what’s going on
  immediately, but when Sir Boris hears this
  story, he will explode with rage. He is positive
  they only transported twenty children, and
  after the attack on the road, the extra child
  must obviously be a devil in disguise!
  He will begin travel to the orphanage at once,
  even if it is dark and the storm continues. No
  real warrior of faith can do less.
  Note that it does not matter here if Sir Boris is
  the changeling or not. He will rea the same
  way (to continue the perfe imitation even if
  onlookers  wouldn’t  know  the  diﬀerence)  but
  not for the same reason. The real Sir Boris
  wants to rid the world of supernatural evil,
  while the changeling �gures this is a wonderful
  opportunity to feed oﬀ of even more discord.
  It will take several hours to reach the orphan-
  age. During this leg of the journey, the storm
  breaks.
  The Saint Petra Home for Unwanted Children
  is in a rather foreboding building a few minutes
  oﬀ the main road. All its ground �oor windows
  have been �lled with bricks and the doors are
  treated as gates. The children are not only kept
  here, they are kept here, until such time as they
  are adopted by a properly approved family (the
  PCs will not qualify for a multitude of reasons)
  or they turn 14, at which point they are sent on
  their way.
  Th  another location where an “oﬃcial” map
   not provided, and you may or may not need one.
  If the PCs are only in the orphanage with the
  permsion of and escorted by the nuns, then  a
  map needed at all? However, if they try to sneak
  in or if they come up with a complicated plan
  invvolving  dtraion  or  splitting  up,  you’ll
  deﬁnitely need a map. So what does the orphanage
  look like? How  it arranged? You need to be able
  to decide such things about vario locations at a
  moments  notice.  At  let  for  th  one  you  have
  advance warning to prepare something.
  One hundred thirty-eight children (not includ-
  ing the new arrivals) of various ages live in the
  Home, cared for by sixteen Sisters of Saint
  Petra. The children are separated by sex and
  91
  
  92
  age categories (under 2s, 2 - 4, 5 - 9, 10 - 13) with
  the older children residing on the upper �oors.
  The Sisters, ranging in age from 25 to 64 (the
  eldest being their leader, Sister Magda), care
  for and educate the children The older children
  help with the upkeep of the Home and work the
  gardens around the Home.
  The Sisters have lived very sheltered lives,
  never having been outside of the con�nes of
  stri  religious  life.  The  two  exceptions  are
  Sister Magda (who is well-informed about the
  world but hates it for its corrupting in�uence)
  and Sister Carpenter who had earlier in life
  joined the army pretending to be a man, and
  even passed for a short while (she became a
  Sister to hide - when she was discovered one
  night in the barracks the men decided to “teach
  her a lesson," but she escaped after killing one
  soldier and seriously wounding two others).
  The  Sisters  will  be  very  proteive  of  their
  children, trying to keep them away from any
  outsiders. The children are all from broken
  homes, but have also been told for the entire
  time they have been here that the outside
  world is nothing but danger and wickedness.
  Those that stay here until turning 14 are not
  well prepared for the world and often go into
  Church service for lack of ability to do anything
  else. Exaly as Magda desires.
  Being  that  the  Sisters  are  very  proteive  of
  their Home, they will not let anyone in that
  seems like trouble. “Armed” is a prime indicator
  that someone seems like trouble. If they are
  with Sir Boris, he will vouch for them and let
  them in. If they have explained the situation to
  Sister Carpenter, again they will be allowed in.
  Otherwise they need an absolutely outstanding
  story to convince the Sisters to open the thick
  metal door and let a band of lawless adventurers
  in and have access to the children.
  Under no conditions will they be allowed in
  carrying weapons or wearing armor. This is
  non-negotiable. Sir Boris, being a member of
  the Order Medical, may enter with his full gear,
  but the PCs must disarm. Even so much as
  grumbling about this will not convince the
  Sisters that the PCs’ intentions are good.
  If the PCs do not cooperate and the Sters do not
  let them in, it  up to the Referee to improve what
  happens if the PCs attempt to either force their
  way in or sneak in through other means.
  Once inside, Sir Boris requests to see the
  nursery where the new children are kept. Once
  there, he draws his sword and demands to know
  where the undocumented child is so he can slay
  it. At this point all hell breaks loose as the Sisters
  will attempt to physically restrain him – and
  the PCs, if they came with him the Sisters
  assume they share his agenda. One of the
  Sisters will run to an oﬃce and throw all the
  childrens’ paperwork into the �re so their
  identities can not be tested.
  If Sir Boris can not determine the identity of
  the false child, he will attempt to slay all of
  them, just to be sure. If he is thrown out of the
  Home, he will try to burn the place down. He
  will not care about anything but rooting out the
  evil and avenging his fallen comrades, no
  matter what the price. The nuns will, if they
  
  93
  can manage it, restrain Sir Boris and lock him
  in one of their prayer cells.
  Sir Boris will a this way even if he is a change­
  ling, as the strife it causes is chicken soup for its
  soul. If it can make nuns witness the slaughter
  of infants, so much the better. It will of course
  kill all the real children �rst, and then imitate
  a nun rather than kill the changeling baby.
  There is indeed a changeling in the bunch, but
  it will not be easily found. This changeling is
  slightly inferior in its powers – it can not
  imitate exaly. But it is clever and has discov­
  ered that it can still cause anguish through near
  duplication. So the PCs will not �nd any exa
  duplicates among the twenty-one babies that
  have recently arrived here.
  If things calm down, the Sisters will want to
  know what is going on. Sir Boris will be a raging
  madman, demanding the head of the evil trick-
  ster, so it is the PCs that will be tasked with
  explaining just what in the hell is going on.
  They will believe most any plausible story told
  to them. Telling them the truth will leave the
  Sisters in a great panic, as they realize that
  every living being inside the Home is in deadly
  peril. They will quickly chatter amongst them-
  selves, and then tell the PCs that they must take
  a vote to decide what to do. The PCs must wait
  outside pending the result of the vote as there
  won’t be anyone to spare to watch them to
  make sure they behave.
  The vote will come down to this: There is a 50%
  chance they will vote to side with Sir Boris.
  Letting an inhuman thing live endangers
  everyone, so even if it means the death of a
  handful of innocent children it is better to
  sacri�ce the few to save the many. They will
  wait another twenty-four hours to see if
  another solution comes up (although neither
  they nor Sir Boris will look for another solu-
  tion), then they will smother the children one
  by one.
  And there is a 50% chance that the Sisters will
  do absolutely nothing about the situation and
  will not allow any child to be harmed without
  absolute proof that it is an inhuman �end.
  That is how the situation will unfold if the PCs
  do not intervene. It is their responsibility, if
  they so choose, to work with, around, or against
  the circumstances and NPCs in order to accom-
  plish their goals, whatever they may be.
  “Oﬃcially,”  if  everything  goes  as  expeed?
  They were replaced by changelings and left
  ahead of the spoon salesmen and went to what-
  ever town the performers were originally
  trying to reach. Once there they performed,
  duplicated  other  travelers  going  in  diﬀerent
  direions, and then continue to spread chaos.
  In your game? Up to you.
  93
  
  94
  Changelings are wicked unnatural beasts which
  are  able  to  duplicate  exaly  the  physical
  appearance (including clothing and equip-
  ment), personality, memories and stats of
  another being. They literally gain nourishment
  and survive from feeding on the distress and
  distrust suﬀered by other beings.
  Changeling transformation is not only instant
  but rather literally stunning to witnesses. If a
  changeling is within reach of a being it dupli-
  cates (although no aual conta is necessary),
  observers will not be able to tell which is which
  after the transformation. That they know their
  true comrade was there on the right before the
  transformation means nothing – after the trans-
  formation they simply can no longer be sure
  because their senses bend in order to preserve
  their minds.
  Changelings always recognize other change-
  lings, no matter their form, and will work
  together to cause the ruination of natural
  beings.
  Only one changeling will ever duplicate a
  particular being at a time, due to the fa that
  personality traits and individual memories
  would otherwise be distributed amongst all
  copying changelings rather than each making
  perfe complete copies.
  Changelings do not revert to any sort of “natu-
  ral” form upon death. They have no natural
  default form, and so retain the last assumed
  form upon death.
  There are several ways to dete a changeling,
  some due to the natural defenses changelings
  possess:
  - Dete Evil will reveal a changeling.
  - Changelings are immune to Sleep and Hold
  spells, and this immunity may be used to
  reveal who is a changeling.
  - Changelings can not cast spells or duplicate
  the magical properties of equipment.
  Changelings for this reason prefer not to
  duplicate known spellcasters or those with
  magical equipment and will seek to transi-
  tion to another form as soon as possible upon
  discovering any such mistake.
  - Changelings have a small jewel in their heart
  (worth 500sp) that does not transform as
  they do. Performing an autopsy (or cruder
  examinations) upon a changeling will reveal
  this jewel.
  Note that Charm spells and mind-reading spells
  such as ESP  do  not  have  the  desired  eﬀe.
  Mind-reading spells merely pick up the
  thoughts of the creature the changeling is
  impersonating – since they do copy memories
  and personality – without revealing the crea-
  ture’s true nature. Likewise, changelings will
  not be aﬀeed by Charm spells, but will pretend
  to be aﬀeed should their save be failed, as per
  how  the  duplicated  creature  should  rea,  in
  order to continue their deception.
  The changeling will always remain in its
  current form as usual until alone with a human-
  oid being it is in a position to safely murder.
  Changelings do not eat for nourishment and
  thus  will  merely  dump  their  viim’s  bodies
  somewhere (and then seek to ruin lives in their
  
  95
  new guise – a changeling in the form of a priest
  that takes confessions is just one example where
  such a creature has destroyed entire towns),
  although they can eat and drink normally in
  order to maintain their disguise. As duplicating
  non-�esh material is distasteful to the change-
  ling,  it  will  strip  its  viims  and  use  aual
  equipment whenever possible and “reabsorb”
  their own duplications of the same.
  Changelings impersonating PCs is a special
  case, as the player’s agency creates issues that
  do not exist when NPCs are duplicated. Simply
  put, even the player being duplicated should
  not know whether they are playing their char-
  aer or the duplicate.
  It is quite likely, if not certain, that there will
  be a combat involving a PC and a changeling
  duplicating that PC. In this case, the changeling
  will always have the same statistics as the PC.
  The Referee should list two sets of stats and hit
  points. For the �rst attack, the Referee will
  randomly determine which is being attacked.
  Others may then attack the same one, or the
  other one, without random determination but
  they still won’t know whether it’s the PC or the
  changeling. The Referee will then mark any
  damage done to the appropriate target in
  secret. In this way, the duplicated charaer’s
  player does not know if he is being attacked,
  and even he does not know if he is controlling
  his charaer or the changeling’s aions.
  No aion the player takes, other than spellcast­
  ing, will diﬀerentiate the PC from the imitating
  changeling. The creature has perfely dupli­
  cated the charaer’s personality and memory,
  and therefore mannerisms. Someone married
  to the charaer wouldn’t be able to tell that a
  changeling  has  impersonated  that  charaer
  even if spending every moment together for
  �fty years. The idea is that none of the players
  – even the player of the charaer being mim­
  icked – should know which is the real one and
  which is the imposter without taking extraor-
  dinary measures. Changelings will only rarely
  make things easier by duplicating someone else
  as they approach death, as the resulting doubt
  and mistrust strengthens their spirits even
  after death.
  The confusion, doubt, and mistrust caused by a
  changeling goes that far.
  Once either the PC or the changeling is
  defeated, the Referee gives the information
  about remaining hit points, etc, of the other one
  back to the player to run as normal. He still
  won’t know whether he’s running the change-
  ling or his original charaer until the appropri­
  ate measures are taken, however. Only when
  this happens should the Referee roll a die to
  determine whether it was the PC or the change-
  ling that was defeated.
  Since changelings gain the memories of their
  duplicated forms, they will be as aware of a
  duplicated PC’s comrade’s abilities, and will
  often seek to sabotage their eﬀorts and cause as
  much discord if possible, or simply run oﬀ and
  duplicate someone that is safer to mimic.
  95
  
  96
  
  97
  1
  Geyser/Hot Springs
  Fishing
  Appointee from Capital
  Great Church
  Human Traﬃcking
  2
  Ancient Odd Tree
  Farming -  Cereals
  Democratic
  Unique Statue
  Organized Crime
  3
  Weird Rock Formation
  Farming - Vegetables
  None - Mob Rule
  Birthplace of a Saint
  Repressive/Authoritarian Government
  4
  Sinkhole
  Farming - Livestock
  Oligarchy
  Famous Marketplace
  Political Strife
  5
  Lake/Pond
  Farming - Fruit
  Merchant Association
  Architeure of Previous Culture
  Religious Strife
  6
  Biseed by River
  Mining
  Feudal Lord
  Struures Made of Unusual Material
  Insular
  7
  Nearby Cave System
  Craft Work/Manufauring
  Council of Elders
  Ancient Wall
  Forbidden Cult/Witchcraft
  8
  Cliﬀs
  Lumber
  Military Rule
  Great Tower
  Plague
  9
  On a Hilltop
  Spice or Dyes
  Theocracy
  Castle
  Famine
  10
  Inside a Valley
  Alcohol
  Wizard
  Stadium/Arena
  Poverty
  11
  Waterfall
  Trade Stop
  Communist
  College/University
  War
  12
  Canals
  Military/Government
  Despot
  Stone Circle
  Raiders
  2
  Friendly
  3 - 5
  Indiﬀerent
  6 - 8
  Neutral
  9 - 11
  Unfriendly
  12
  Hostile
  1
  Skinny
  Jolly
  Paci�st
  Bully
  1
  2
  Fat
  Sarcastic
  Group Before Self
  Delusional
  2
  3
  Beautiful
  Grim
  Libertine
  Addiion
  3
  4
  Scarred (Wound)
  Competitive
  Work is Good for the Soul
  Lech
  4
  5
  Scarred (Disease)
  Depressed
  Might Makes Right
  Racist
  5
  6
  Acne/Boils/Blemishes Argumentative
  Letter of the Law
  Religious Extremist
  6
  7
  Missing Teeth
  Pessimistic
  Petty Criminal
  Jealous/Vindiive
  7
  8
  Missing Eye
  Toadying
  My Country Right or Wrong
  Psychopath
  8
  9
  Missing Digits
  Stubborn
  Familial Loyalty
  Sexually Deviant
  9
  10
  Athlete
  Religious
  Word is Bond
  Liar
  10
  11
  Dirty
  Pretentious
  Do Unto Others...
  Thief
  11
  12
  Utterly Average
  Shy
  Equalist
  Roll Twice
  12
  < 1
  5
  1
  10
  2
  25
  3
  50
  4
  75
  5
  100
  6
  250
  7
  500
  8
  750
  9
  1,000
  10
  1,250
  11 +
  1,500
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Lamentations of the Flame Princess/LotFP Grindhouse Edition/LotFP Grindhouse Edition Referee Book.pdf