Alchemy, Sages and the OD&D World

Alchemist: Given a formula, the Alchemist can duplicate it to make a similar potion at a cost of one-half the potion's value. Alchemists may conduct research, but the time and expense are twice that of a Magic-User, and they may only work on poisons.
– OD&D, Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures

Specialists, which have been part of the game since 1974, are one of the more neglected ways to spend money in Dungeons & Dragons. Which is a shame, because they are both a good way to remove excess gold pieces, and a powerful tool for world-building.

OD&D's basic economics don't stand up to much scrutiny, but we can figure the back of the envelope numbers for how much a potion is worth. The listed cost for a healing potion is 250 GP, and it takes 1 week to make one. An alchemist costs 1000 GP per month, so a week is close to 250 GP, making the cost of having an alchemist copy a healing potion about 375 GP. If brought to market, 500 GP is a reasonable price. (This is ten times the amount that the 5e D&D rules list for potions, which are standard equipment in that edition.)

U&WA specifies that specialists are available "to those in positions of power, i.e. with their own strongholds." This suggests an atmosphere like the famous Italian patronage system, where the rich and powerful sponsor alchemical laboratories to their benefit. They are joined in this by the intriguing Sage type, who have the stipulation: "They are employable only by Fighting-Men." This is a curious requirement that fits in with Supplement II: Blackmoor's idea that Sages are regulated by a Guild, which is jealously guarding its knowledge from wizards and priests, who it logically sees as "the competition."

Alchemy was an interesting mix of chemistry, astrology and occultism, influences that play an unfortunately small part in a lot of D&D. I think there's a particular richness to working it into a background – although perhaps not so subtly so that it gets missed. The overlapping alchemical and astrological symbols are a rich visual vocabulary for a D&D game.

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One of the advantages of this approach is that it solves the reference problem where the players don't have knowledge their characters should have. By using our world's alchemy and astrology for that of the fantasy world, you create an accessible basis for things like clues, puzzles and riddles in the dungeon that both the players and their characters can and should understand.

Of course you could create your own as well, but it seems intriguing enough to me to insert references to these patterns and ideas in the D&D world.

Worldbuilding and the Reference Problem

A well-known episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation, "Darmok," uses the concept of a race of aliens that eludes the Trek convention of a universal translator because they speak in metaphorical references to their history and mythology. Picard doesn't understand what they are talking about until the myth about uniting against a common foe is explained to him.

This closely resembles a problem that worlds built for fantasy roleplaying will naturally have. Unless the referee invents an elaborate cultural history and the players study it, there are very few ways to create symbols, signs or references that the players can put together on their own initiative. For instance, most people reading this would recognize the symbolism of a white rabbit, a mad hatter or the Red Queen, because Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are part of our shared cultural history. Puzzles, riddles or clues based on Carroll's Alice novels are something that a referee can use and reasonably expect players to figure out what they are doing. But not so for an arbitrary fantasy equivalent of the white rabbit.

One way around the problem is what I'll call the Tékumel solution. In the original Empire of the Petal Throne game, the assumption was that the players start off as outland barbarians entering into Jakálla for the first time. The elaborate culture only had to be detailed in broad strokes; specifics would be learned later in the campaign. Generally this works by having an elaborate history that exists, but is not known by the players or their characters. But until a substantial amount of information is revealed to the players, references are not something we can rely upon as drivers for puzzles and clues.

A second solution is to set everything on a fantasy Earth. Lamentations of the Flame Princess has chosen this approach; the game is now set in 17th century Europe, leaving it ripe for reference to real-world literature, myth and superstition. This solution works, but sharply limits the amount of worldbuilding we are able to do. You get Earth and all the baggage that comes with it, good and bad.

But I do see a middle ground that still allows players to understand references without resorting to either fantasy Earth or barbarians in Jakálla solutions — what I'll call the Deities & Demigods method. D&DG, like its predecessor Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes, was not an encyclopedia of original deities, but rather a listing of real-world mythological beings, mixed with a smattering of common fantasy pantheons (Hyboria, Nehwon, and in early printings, Cthulhu and Melniboné) that referees could incorporate into their own campaigns. Inserting them into a fantasy world allows you to have real heroes, legends and deities accessible, and the attendant literary references.

None of this precludes having fantasy religion in the campaign as well. Real-world religions can be one pantheon among others, and it can also be incorporated in a way that's entirely appropriate to D&D: just like in the real-world middle ages, ancient paganism can be a thing of the distant past, that is nevertheless known as history to the characters. This is a good way of making it so that the PCs have about the same level of knowledge about your mythic references as the players do.

There are still challenges, such as the fact that the putative language the PCs are speaking is not really English and real English puns and jokes shouldn't work, but this is at least a framework I think can be useful for incorporating real-world mythology and creating puzzles, riddles, and other references that make sense to the players and their characters alike.

Dark and Ancient Groves

The only temples in Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions so well suited to their own interest.

Anyone studying late Roman and Byzantine history has to come in contact with Edward Gibbon's epic History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, whether or not you actually agree with its basic premises. Despite some faults in his analysis, Gibbon was generally a remarkable writer and created some vivid pictures.

Gibbon's picture of the Germanic religion draws mostly on Tacitus, who of course was writing not as a disinterested observer but as a partisan for Rome. But the description strikes me as excellent fodder for a type of hexcrawl location. This was doubly confirmed when the picture I found when poking around for a good illustration was one of St. Boniface – the "Apostle of the Germans" – hacking down a tree dedicated to Donar or Thor (actually recorded as "Jove" but theorized as one or the other according to the interpretatio romana).

I generally see pagan religions as sitting outside of the cosmic conflict of law and chaos. The powers worshipped are ancient but are deeply of this earth. This fits squarely into the picture that we see of these "invisible powers" that were the residents of the Germanic groves. Gods of this world, as opposed to the cosmic deities, are similar to the chthonic deities of ancient Greek paganism, earthly deities, frequently associated with snakes and the underworld.

D&D does have one type of forest spirit associated with it, in the dryad. This is quite possibly going to lead to a PC being Charmed and led off from the party, never to return from the forest. I have rarely or never seen referees using this sort of encounter, but to me it strikes a tone of mystery and danger that is something a bit more than just damage. And it is fitting that dryads sit solely in the Neutral column of OD&D's alignment chart.

None of this is to say that forest spirits can't possess the threat of physical violence, but I really love the theme of losing a PC not just physically but spiritually to the forest. It's a fascinating way to make PC loss much more than something easily remedied by a Raise Dead spell (though other spells such as Wish may suffice). Perhaps the central tree of a sacred grove has such powers, and can ensorcel unwitting PCs – unless a Lawful cleric comes along and plays the role of St. Boniface.

What I find most important in this location is the way that they instantly convey a sense of dread by virtue of lacking a central cultic focus. Nature religion was generally not a hippie celebration of the earth, but a fearful and tentative glimpse of the supernatural. We see elements of this in the strange vision scenes of the History series Vikings, where characters often have powerful, even terrifying glimpses of the future. This kind of atmosphere should be fair game if PCs spend time in the groves, including weird and possibly unreal encounters with animals laden with symbolism and the like.

The fear that Gibbon saw at the core of ancient paganism is something that so often feels lacking in D&D's take on religion. These locations are excellent ways to change that.

Replacing the OD&D Monsters: Selenites

So in my science fantasy world and associated megadungeon, I want to swap out the monster listing for OD&D. A few things will be classically Dungeons & Dragons, but even those will be somewhat modified. I think the general size of the monster list in Monsters & Treasure is good, and want to talk through it.

After Men, who deserve their own entry, we get the cursus honorum of humanoids: goblins, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, ogres. I've always seen these as the bread and butter enemies at lower levels, making up megadungeon factions and holding various roles in the dungeons.

I mentioned in a previous post that Selenites would be replacing goblins, so it's worth taking a bit of a look at them. In The First Men on the Moon, Selenites are pretty easy to kill, being moon creatures; starting them off at 1-1 HD and assuming they're a little more solid will approximate that. One note is that I also want larger, more dominant Selenites to replace gobgoblins on down the line; this is in line with the hierarchical Selenite culture that Wells laid out in the novel. I particularly like this because it lets me vary hit dice and armor class within the same monster.

The main occupation of Selenites is herding mooncalves, which are absolutely massive creatures. I like that; having big mooncalf caverns gives a very definite ecology to the question of the dungeon. Mooncalves graze on underground fungi, Selenites eat fungi and mooncalves.

One of the big advantages is that Selenites are fundamentally underground creatures. Their civilization is in the underworld, and the ones in my dungeon will have taken control of some part of a complex in the early levels. I'd sort of like to play it where only people who've been down in the underworld have any idea that they even exist; it's not like they're the lizardmen, who the PCs would know about, but rather a totally alien creature as soon as they go down.

As subterranean entities, I think Selenites should still get the goblin's -1 to hit in bright light. OD&D also carries a note that goblins "attack dwarves on sight." This one suggests a possibility, that dwarves who came to this planet with the setting's humans have possibly had some run-ins with Selenites in the past and there is now a standing order to attack any dwarves they may run into. This would also be an interesting twist if dwarves spoke the Selenite language where they currently speak Goblin.

(This is one of the fun things about bouncing ideas off of OD&D - the dwarf idea was not in my plans but actually works out.)

So that's how I'll be replacing goblins. Next, kobolds.

World Building: The Look and Feel

So as I am starting to flesh out a new world, the logical question came up: what, exactly, are the influences and works that have inspired this take?

There are literary influences, but most of them are safely "Appendix N" - Burroughs, Vance, Lovecraft, Dunsany, Merritt, Brackett, Norton - and if I listed some others a lot would be token. There's a bit of H.G. Wells (The Time Traveler, The First Men in the Moon) and some ostensible nonfiction like Chariots of the Gods? - but its not that interesting.

But that's all words. What really inspires me in terms of setting are look and feel. Perhaps because I've never been very good at art, I've always loved visual sources. When something strikes my eye, it makes a much deeper impression than a story.

As to why there's a city underground, well, it's because of this drawing.

It's a Holmes thing I guess - sticking that city under the dungeon is something I've wanted to do for a long time, an explorable high-level ruined metropolis.

Recently I saw Mike Mignola's concept art for Disney's Atlantis. This is what I want my ruined city to look like. I know the Disney city is supposed to be underwater, but think of it in a massive cavern instead. Those long staircases are simply epic. The towers have this ancient astronaut vibe to me, which I've covered before and want to use for some of the "looks" of ancient weapons and such. Mignola's characters also fit my vision of the blue-skinned underground humans, who I see having various tribal-esque tattoos. It's just such a different thing to see in a D&D game that I love it.

Another favorite of mine is Jean Giraud/Moebius's concept art for Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune. Dune is maybe my favorite novel, and the mad vision of Jodorowsky may not be very close to the original, but people made absolutely stunning visual art for it. Moebius's characters have a visual flair that makes me want to create a world where they fit. There will definitely be suits of armor that resemble the Sardaukar here, and I really want to have people in my world who look like this.

Another big visual influence is feathered dinosaurs. Like a lot of kids, I was obsessed with dinosaurs when I was a kid. The modern vision is radically different. I love dromeosaurids, partly because "Velociraptors" were popularized by Jurassic Park, partly because the real things are also interesting. Besides, how much fun would it be to have turkey-sized raptors where most dungeons have kobolds? Scaled dinosaurs, of course, have a part to play as well; but the variety of colors and shapes is endless, and prevents things from getting repetitious.

Selenites (right) from an early French film of The First Men in the Moon are one of my favorite weird races, and conveniently they live underground, tending monstrous "mooncalves." Moreover, they are "specialized" based on their particular function in society. What a perfect alien race for science fantasy D&D! The French art makes them look perfectly bizarre while retaining a "humanoid" feel. I think with some variety, they could take up a good chunk of the role played by the goblin / hobgoblin / bugbear part of the cursus honorum of humanoids.

One of the things I really want to accomplish is a world that looks different from standard D&D. I really like the vision of how radically out of place the PCs will look in medieval gear, and the possibility that as the game goes on, they'll have more of a mixed aesthetic.

So that's the look, which is a lot of the inspiration.

Some World-Building

Image from Wikimedia Commons

In addition to my B/X campaign, I've been working on some concepts for a combination of a world setting and a megadungeon. But it's a bit different from what I've been doing previously. I want to talk a bit about where I'm thinking of going in terms of world creation, theme and influences.

A big thing thematically that I want to achieve with this setting is to do a world that is, at the same time, both recognizable as Dungeons & Dragons, and isn't at all a generic fantasy setting. Hence the deinonychus above.

What I'd really like to get down is a science fantasy world that doesn't have a gonzo, crazy-go-nuts feel. I know that's an odd balance to hit when your goal is wizards and laser rifles, but I feel that it's a time-honored part of Dungeons & Dragons that should still be able to take itself with a modicum of seriousness. Part of that is doing things like dinosaurs but having them be scary rather than wacky. Again, hence deinonychus.

The basic assumption of the Dungeons & Dragons setting is that it's a pseudo-medieval world. I'm not going with that, although the PCs still look and act basically the same. The underlying idea is that the main human civilization are themselves literally aliens. The world that the PCs (well, their ancestors) come from is a high-magic world with all of the standard fantasy trimmings. They no longer live there. During the magical equivalent of a global thermonuclear war, the Second Empire opened a gate to another world. The first brave and hardy settlers had wizards helping them; much of their resources and knowledge were lost, but fragments remain. Now it is two centuries later, and the human realm (name TBD) has gone into a semblance of normal life.

So there are several sources of monsters. One is the other civilizations of the world that the humans came into; at this point the one they have the most contact with are lizardmen, who live in a vast swampy kingdom to the south of the human settlement. They have some weird technology, mostly a mix of found tech from previous civilizations – nothing orderly and modern, but enough that humans pose no fundamental threat to them.

As to the megadungeon itself, it's a multi-level dungeon that happens to be built near the ruined and long-since buried capital of an Atlantis style civilization, a mix of high technology and high magic. There are tribes of primitive blue-skinned humans living underground, the descendants of the last survivors of this world; they are savage and have no memory of their lost homeland, only a sort of religious worship of some of its artifacts.

I want to play a lot with megafauna in this setting, both dinosaurs and giant creatures. I'm particularly inspired by this description from Holmes's manuscript (reproduced on the Zenopus Archives):

Giant rats, spiders, scorpions and other horrors are naturals for dungeons. The Dungeon Master should adjust the monster's hit dice to the depth below the surface and assign a suitable armor class. These creatures fight ferociously, have special abilities, and there are many interesting possibilities.

I really love that bit about "have special abilities." Yes, you know what a fire beetle is in a standard D&D world, but the beetles in this world might be based on the bombardier beetle.

Future posts will talk more about this as I flesh out the world and solidify more of its aspects. But I'd be interested in reading what thoughts and ideas folks have for developing this kind of setting while keeping it feeling like a more or less logical world, not a zany mish-mash.