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 Kid beat the fire salamanders and the drow turned Glabrezu demon. 

Reading Dying Earth more - Jack Vance

Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Good stuff. It's many short stories put together... the first 5 or so are all related. Super entertaining. 

[[[Btw, search for “Gaun jack vance”… trying  to find art of the white long armed, furred legged monsters… instead found many book covers of Vance, many are excellent. 

And I just drew my own Gaun… less ugly drawn than my imagination, heh. 

Also, read “Night Lamp”, one of Vance’s best after the first book]]]

I might be on 2nd to last story. First story still favorite.

 

I need to come back to this and update it with all the references to D&D spells I keep finding... I know I did a little of this on an older post, but now I have seen more. 

• The Excellent Prismatic Spray - such an excellent battle in chapter 1. Comes up again in maybe ch. 2. 
• A weird ring that you can pass over your head to feet and become inviz... the light becomes darker from the inside. Can pick it up and carry it around, then you and "it" are both inviz. 
• In chapter 4 or 5, there was a Wizard Mouth... placed on a dude's forehead. It spoke with the dude's voice, not the wizard, so... not precisely the same.
• An imp (demon) in a jar.
• There was the crazy demon or gy thing where they summoned / captured the visage of a goddess, and started shooting spells at her which seemed to harm her a little. 
• Swapping someone's face with a demon. Weird! I guess you could almost say it's like "alter self", but definitely more like a permanent curse. 
• Evil lady summoned 3 winged monsters for transportation. They would normally eat you. So cast a sort of charm on them to prevent harming.
• Charm/geas/compulsion type spell - a very strong one. But also a loophole, where you can command someone to use their own willpower/decisions and they go back to normal. 
• Bounce back spell Rune. 
• A really weird spell, sort of like a reverse gravity/telekinetic grab, but it then would spin the enemy faster and faster until ripped into pieces. 

Random:

• I love when the Deodand comes to the door and asks rather politely to open up so it can eat someone. So freaky

Monsters

• . Gaun
• Deodand
• Monsters

Larry Elmore’s famous red box Dragon has one horn

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmMt2iDJLuU&t=1745s

Time 28:30. Wow, yep I don’t think I noticed before. Kinda weird. Kind awesome dragon though, but the horn throws me off now that I look at it. 

TONS of stuff I never saw, plus oldies, plus new ones: https://larryelmore.com/store/ (warning, a couple of the zoomed in ones are distorted so I think if you buy you get the good version no distortion... example the one near the bottom from the beCmi Companion book B&W knight vs. scary knight monster face with fur, the fur is distorted). 

Larry Elmore is a damn stellar artist. From Kentucky. The other super good fellow was also from Kentucky and he brough him in... darn it, I know the name and I'm blanking cuz in a hurry.

And this same fellow… born jan 1974, a video game art guy (call of duty)… loved dnd as a kid. His dad made him throw away all, satanic panic. Which lead to him missing them all and him becoming a collector later. 

Since the Jennel jaquays interview (and before) been reliving the 1974 od&d into 1989s and allows adnd 1e etc and dragon mags at the table AS they come up on the timeline. Wow, epic. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0MgGJIa573M&t=1122s&pp=0gcJCS0MAYcqIYzv He mentions half of that from about time 17:00 to 18:40. 

And check out that TIMELINE of all tsr stuff. I need it. 

The Red Box Basic D&D set, 1983. That's the one I knew. 

His original draft even had the one horn. 

Jennell Jaquays didn’t use roll straight down the line

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yS8KuVg-20&t=1050s

She says at 17:00 that they quickly “got over” rolling 3, put it at top, roll 3, put it at next stat. Right, very quickly they used roll 4, pixk best 3, place where you want, so that you could CHOOSE THE CHARACTER you wanted.  

TSR and OSR top 20 lists

 https://figcat.com/lists/osr-and-old-school-dnd-adventure-modules/#the-list

And https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12ualp8/i_compiled_a_list_of_the_most_frequently/

The Garden of Ynn sticks out bcuz like th dns cartoon’s Garden of Zinn. Review and author responds here… $3 on drivethru https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=4134

1e, B/X, OSR , power creep elimination was a goal

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5DsYWvslEyE&pp=0gcJCS0MAYcqIYzv

Time 7:00 explains well the issues from 1e Unearthed Arcana (Barb was OP, weapon specalization and dbl specialization) and in OD&D they at some point allowed +4 to hi and +6 dmg in a 18:00 fighter… silly bcuz 20% higher chance hit and approx Dbl dmg. 

Undead tools & Lich-Dragon from Dragon mag #234

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ugpPReoVTBY

Via Dragon magazine #234 from October, 1996. 

Dracolich named Daurgoth - Greenwood wrote. Wants to take over. Breath weapon actually turns ALL corpses into undead!!

Chalk of Barriers - 5000 gp. chalk that can prevent undead, any undead, from crossing the line. Doors, windows… and do a whole room (all walls) vs. strong undead. Weaker undead would explode if forced to cross line. CHARGES PER STICK OF CHALK- 30 charges equalnto 30 ft. of use. Normally het 1d4+1 in a box of chalk. Made from undead skeleton bones, by a necromancer or similar. 

Shroud of Sol/Sun - faery queen gave to elves. Absorbs sunlight one day. Open up and yse it for one hour. 

Great B/X BECMI starter module

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9CSI4ZuCZYc&pp=0gcJCS0MAYcqIYzv

QUEST FOR THE SILVER SWORD

Captcorajus does review. THERE ARE a half dozen more related box modules, in THUNDER RIFT. 1992 era. 

Short w lotsa cool magical happenings. 

Magic scare then +1 int for MU/wizard and elf, this is B/X Basic style module, eh? . 

Ice spider thing freeze (but ur alive) … pcs would have to thaw, correctly guess.

Ice sword  

Ice throne  

Air pollution removed by area of Plant root

 https://m.youtube.com/shorts/UDE2LGfWnDI

It’s all the other things living in the soil near the roots that remove petrol related pollution. So the more they r exposed, the more of the microbes grow that help, the more air flow near roots the better. 

Australian researchers. 

FF #4 - Starship Traveller

 Starship Traveller

Starting Starship Traveller tonight!

Initial thoughts: Very Star Trek influenced... like a ton. Captain, science officer, medical officer, engineering officer, security officer + 2 guards. Beaming down to planets. Etc. 

A TON of stats you gotta roll up, for ship and crew. I got near max on ship weapons, but then the LOWEST for ship shields, meaning you die easily. Hell. Avg stats for the crew mostly. 

Well, I stumbled around and saw a few interesting things but couldn't find the black hole I wanted... it forced me to try something and wham, dead. 

TRY 2 NOW:

• The Ganzig reptilian guys ... reminds me of the name Danzig. Maybe someone is a ... dark/punk/goth/metal fan. 
• 
  

Against the Cult of the Reptile God - Shadowdark Campaign 2nd night

Against the Cult of the Reptile God

Playing with a group online. Shadowdark. 

First night was fine, bar fight, rolling char.s. 

Second night sure was fun! Our DM like me, never got to do the classic 1980s modules in the 80s, but sure wanted to. Now we're doing one and more to follow I do believe. 

The DM: He's great at describing scenes and characters... short and sweet, but very evocative. Also easy going, patience for all, and keeps things moving and entertaining. I'm damn lucky I found this group. Now if we can balance out the players so everybody gets equal "turns", we'll be in bang up shape. 

Convert TSR modules to Shadowdark (old AC to newer ascending AC)

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=08LZ-52WvAU&t=324s

For each hitdice, that’s a +1 to hit. 

AC is basically 20 - (the TSR era AC) = modern ascending AC. 

So like 0 tsr AC is 20-0=20 new school AC, I think. 

Ideas - Our Campaign rules vs. 5e dnd vs. any version really

 How about, to make higher levels more challenging in 5e, you CANNOT get surrounded? Feels more real. What happens? 

Let's codify it for real. 

NEW RULE TO TEST:

1. If you are a melee guy (spellcaster pc requirements should be 4+ guys maybe) and are surrounded by 5 or more bad guys, they can use a group swarm feature to basically mob attack you and wrestle you to the ground. 
1. So you become prone or... maybe incapacitated for a while. 
2. No saving throw or something very strong like that. 
3. No insta-lose, but put in a bad situation if you neglect tactics... like in real life you could not possibly survive when being hit from 5 guys at once. This ain't Shaw Brothers 1978 Kung Fu after all. :P
4. What's the counter? We need counters, besides just being in the perfect position to begin with. 
2. This strongly encourages positioning with friends to your back. 
3. You have to weight whether you want to flank... heck level 15+ PCs in 5e D&D don't need to flank, their to hit is super good. But the MONSTERS do need to flank. Is this going to prevent the DM from ever getting a flank? 
4. Is it going to be so restrictive that every fight looks like 4 PCs with their backs to each other? 
1. Or will they be encouraged to spread out so they don't get an AoE spell on top of the whole group? Assuming AoE / area attacks is common at that high a level.