The Life and Reproduction Cycle of the Medusae

Medusas who die of old age regenerate by turning into stone. They are "reborn"  with an infantile body when they crack through their own petrified statue's hollow head like an eggshell. 

Incubation lasts a year and one day, the same to reach full maturity. Infant medusas are called "nagas" because they resemble a tiny human head on a serpentine body. Their face and skull is covered in scales. 

They grow rapidly into "newts," sprouting arms from a human torso at two weeks. Buds form all over the newt's scalp and quickly grow into writhing snake tails. These tails grow eyes and develop the snake heads during as they mature into adolescence. 

An adolescent medusa is called a "snipe." It's important to note that medusas don't develop their petrifying gaze until adulthood, though a snipe's gaze can stun. The last thing it develops before its petrifying vision is the menacing rattle at the end of its tail. Until the medusa becomes an adult, it must feed its ravenous hunger by constantly hunting for fresh meat—which explains a medusa's penchant for archery. Unlike adults, adolescents must sleep.

To "hunt snipe" means to search for an adolescent medusa's den. A dangerous quarry, snipe are cunning and alert. They often set traps and defenses around their lair. With a lethal aim, they attack with envenomed arrows from the shadows. This is origin of the word "sniper"—one who shoots victims from a great distance.

Lair of the Medusa: A Random Level 4 Dungeon Part 2

It's fun to roll a B/X dungeon! It really gets the creative energy flowing. One doesn't even need a map!

Last post, I rolled a 25-room level 4 dungeon on the table in the Basic Set, p. 52. The monsters were rolled using a 20-sided dice on the table in Rules Cyclopedia, p. 94. (I rolled a 12 three times, resulting a lot of medusae!)

The treasure will not be rolled randomly. Instead, the dungeon will be designed to raise six, level-4 characters to level 5 once cleared. Cash and magic items will be designed and placed accordingly.

As for placing cash treasure; six PCs going from level 4 to level 5 require 8,000 xp each or 48,000 xp total. We want them to level about every five sessions, so we want the dungeon to take about five sessions to clear, and 5 rooms a session is a good, general, rough estimate—thus the 25-room dungeon design.

This post, I'll begin writing an outline consisting of one sentence describing the dungeon as a whole, the name of each entry (e.g., "1. Entrance"), and one to three sentences describing every entry other than empty rooms. As I haven't drawn or selected a map yet, I'm going to be very sparse on the physical details of the rooms.

This is not meant to be evocative text! This is just an outline of the most essential information; GM notes. After I finish the outline, I'll re-write all the text to bring it alive in the reader's mind.

Below are the first six entries.

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Lair of the Medusa

Areas 1-6

This maze of stone corridors and chambers lays 100' beneath an ancient ruined temple of toppled columns and smashed statues.

1. Entrance
Trap #1, Treasure #1
At the center of this round pit of stairs, surrounded by skulls and bones, is a bronze statue of a warrior holding a decapitated medusa's head in one hand. [Beneath the bones circular bronze plate. Anything stepping on the plate or touching the statue takes 4d8 electrical damage. Pressing both eyes of the medusa's head will cause the pit to descend 100' into the ground revealing dungeon's the hidden entrance—an impassible stone door. The round elevator will raise in one week. By that time, whatever is on the platform has died, thus all the bones.]
Treasure: a small chest of 8,000 gp hidden beneath a floor tile at the foot of a medusa statue. (Treasure Map I leads to it.)

2. Mirrored Antechamber
Empty #1
Mirrors, mirrors, all around; not what you'd expect in a medusa's lair. [These 7'-tall medusa wear porcelain masks that prevent the living from turning to stone.]

3. Petrified Chimera
Empty #2, Treasure #2
In the center of this opulent mirrored statuary is a roaring chimera standing on its haunches that will come to life if the medusa who petrified it is slain—potentially blocking the exit from escape. 
Treasure: Gold and silver decorations worth 8,000 gp.

4. Pit Trap
Trap #2
An illusionary floor in the center of this round chamber hides a cylindrical abyss 50'-wide and 100' deep. It can be bypassed by walking behind the statues surrounding it.
5. Mirrored Walls and Floor
Empty #3

6. Monster #1 (Medusa × 2)
These two 7'-tall medusae wear white porcelain masks and are extremely narcissistic. Trapped in the labyrinth for ten centuries, these immortal women have writhing serpents for hair and scaly green skin beneath their revealing satin dresses. They constantly preen their snakes and scales and can hardly look away from their own reflection. [The four medusae each have a class; magic user, cleric, fighter with a bow, or thief. Their class reflects the enchantments on their masks, jewelry, and equipment.]

Each is convinced she is more beautiful than the other. They ask the players to be the judge . . . "Who is the more beautiful sister? Surely this is an easy test of your veracity."

Lair of the Medusa: A Random Level 4 Dungeon Part 1

It's fun to roll a B/X dungeon! It really gets the creative energy flowing. One doesn't even need a map!

This 25-room level 4 dungeon was stocked by rolling on the table in the Basic Set, p. 52. The monsters were rolled using a 20-sided dice on the table in Rules Cyclopedia, p. 94. (I rolled a 12 three times, resulting a lot of Medusa!)

However, the treasure will not be rolled randomly. Instead, the dungeon will be designed to raise six, level-4 characters to level 5 once cleared. Cash and magic items will be designed and placed accordingly.

As for placing cash treasure; six PCs going from level 4 to level 5 require 8,000 xp each or 48,000 xp total. If we want them to level in three sessions (knowing it will likely take five), that would require 16,000 xp per session, or about 2,700 xp per session individually. Players are unlikely to find it all, and some PCs need more xp to level than others, so we'll add a little.

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Lair of the Medusa

1. Trap #1, Treasure #1 (8,000 gp)

2. Empty #1

3. Empty #2, Treasure #2 (8,000 gp)

4. Trap #2

5. Empty #3

6. Monster #1 (Medusa × 2)

7. Special #1

8. Trap #3

9.  Monster #2 (Medusa × 1), Treasure #3 (8,000 gp)

10. Empty #4

11. Monster #3 (Hell Hound × 1), Treasure #4 (8,000 gp)

12. Empty #5, Treasure #5 (8,000 gp)

13. Empty #6

14. Monster #4 (Medusa × 1)

15. Monster #5 (Troll × 2)

16. Monster #6 (Harpy × 4), Treasure #6 (8,000 gp)

17. Special #2

18. Trap #4

19. Empty #7

20. Monster #7 (Rust Monster × 1)

21. Monster #8 (Gargoyle × 2)

22. Monster #9 (Werewolf × 2)

23. Special #3

24. Special #4

25. Trap #5, Treasure #7 (8,000 gp)

Results: 

Monster: 9 (36%) 

Trap: 5 (20%)

Special: 4 (16%)

Empty: 7 (28%)

Treasure: 7 (28%)

Total Treasure:

56,000 gp

Notes:

The above process, including typing, took 45 minutes (10:30 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.)

To be continued!

Next time, I'll write a sentence describing the dungeon and one sentence describing each room, trap, treasure, and encounter.

 

A trap and treasure in the first room. Ooo, I wonder what it is!

Multiple Medusae in the early rooms, then a Hell Hound guarding a treasure vault. Wonder what's in there . . . 

A Medusa, two trolls, and four harpies are all together in the same region, it would seem. That dynamic should prove interesting to detail. 

In a different area, a rust monster, two gargoyles, and two werewolves all nearby; another interesting combination.

At the exit—or alternate entrance—we have another trap and treasure. Hmm . . . I wonder if it could be similar to Room 1 . . . Maybe to gain entrance, you have to leave the treasure alone? Or, maybe you have to take the treasure, springing the trap, and revealing the entrance . . . 

Tune in next episode! 

On Killing Monsters and Taking Their Stuff

"The OSR" is like a tiny parasol held aloft by an elephant. It's too small of an umbrella to do any good. 

However, it's all I have to work with right now! 

What I consider an "OSR encounter" is one that challenges the player's imagination, creativity, role-playing, and critical thinking skills. The less it has to do with rules in the books and rolls on the table, the more "OSR" I consider the encounter. 

As a B/X player, that's what I'm seeking when the GM introduces an encounter. Yes, sprinkle a few pitched battles in there sparingly, but in a game that's billed as OSR, I don't want to roll a d20 back and forth for an hour of play, let alone two, maybe even three. It's usually boring if not tedious, but it can be grueling when the dice are disagreeable. 

Yes, we want to kill monsters and take their stuff by attacking in combat. Yes, we want to explore a maze of corridors using the procedures detailed in the books. However, if that's all we wanted to do, we would be better served by a more robust rules set such as AD&D or a later edition.

Let's examine a common example of a dungeon encounter that can be fun, but I don't want to dominate my time at the table: 

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There is a platoon of six goblins with shields and spears at the edge of your torchlight in this 10'-wide hall. One shouts, "Death to the day-dwellers!" and readies his javelin. 

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A little "fluff" combat, especially in a level 1 starter adventure, is okay—but just throwing dice at the bad guys until their hit points run out is an insipid grind, especially for the initiated OSR player. Rolling dice can be fun, but isn't intellectually challenging, and that's something I want in a table-top fantasy role-playing game. 

Basically, designing an "OSR encounter" is an exercise in making it not just combat. 

Perhaps the most well known example of an OSR encounter is "There's a moat with crocodiles. How do you cross?" Yes, you can fight the crocs, but it can be more fun to come up with all the different ways to get over the moat other than "I hit them with my sword." 

Part of the fun in the OSR is in thinking of things like, "I hunt for wild boars in the woods to use as bait to lure the crocs out of our way."

In Stonehell Dungeon, one of the first "patrol of humanoids" encountered is a handful of kobolds. They're a great, memorable OSR encounter. 

They have mining equipment like pickaxes and hammers. They have no intensions of attacking the players—they just want to pass. Simple as that.

Sure, the players can attack and kill them all. Or, they can devise countless other ways to have a great deal more fun with them. For example, at the price of a few measly trail rations, they make good guides. Only a fool would make enemies when they could make allies!

As another example—only half as a joke—this one is a great OSR encounter from The Caverns of Steel:

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"Three steel crustaceans challenge the party to a dance off, by pointing at them with a claw and then doing a little dance. If you win, you get a loyal metal-crab follower." 

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It's too silly for my table. I'd never actually use it, but it's great example because it shows how a good OSR encounter relies entirely on the player's imagination, wits, and strength at role playing. 

A bad GM will screw this up by making it a contest of CHA rolls or whatever. Ouch. That's the exact opposite of what I seek in an OSR encounter. 

For B/X players, the OSR is "rulings not rules." We "play worlds not rules," and, "The answer isn't on the character sheet." It's a test of the players' skills and creativity, not of their characters. 

Two Tips for OSR GMs

Though I've been an active game master for more than 30 years, I don't like to give GM advice for several reasons. There's so much of it already out there. Everyone has their own opinions. What works for some tables, doesn't for others. I digress. 

That said, I have two suggestions for experienced OSR game masters of the B/X persuasion . . .

 

1. To become a better game master, play the game. 

Yes, being a good GM takes practice, but playing will increase an experienced GM's skill more than running. You'll find things you like and things dislike about the game you're playing and apply that knowledge to your own. 

A "forever GM's" skill plateaus; often, they don't even realize it. If you've been running games and "almost never get to play" for years now, it's likely that you're a "forever GM." 

Forever GMs usually—but not always—run at least a "pretty good" game. However, they're never "great" and they all judge their own ability as far better than it is in reality. 

Forever GM's are the "only childs" of game masters. Don't be a forever GM.

2. Roll a B/X dungeon straight out of the book. 

If you've never actually went through the whole process from beginning to end of rolling a random dungeon from page 52 of the 1981 Basic Set (or page 47 in 1983's Basic Set), you will learn things and you will be inspired. I promise. 

When I start writing a dungeon, if I don't draw my own, the first thing I do is generate a map, or select a blank one from somewhere like Dyson Logos' blog, or Paratime Design. A dungeon with around 25 rooms should suffice. 

I number the rooms if they're not already, then roll on the chart from page B52 for each one in order. Yes, chances are, 1 in 3 rooms are empty; that's because the game emphasizes exploration. Empty rooms help create a cadence or rhythm to the game that is part of the B/X dungeon crawl experience.  

I then roll for all the monsters and treasures. Here's where I gather all the stat blocks and rules mechanics for my GM's notes. 

After that, I go through and write three sentences or so for each room. I try to describe the various NPCs and treasures with one sentence each, no more. Short, concise, sentences help me to actually finish the process. Once I'm done, then I'll get creative! 

That whole process shouldn't take more than a day or two of casual effort. After that, you have the rough ashlar for a B/X dungeon that you can chisel into your own unique design using your creativity.

Shadowmist Vale: Cave of Grundar the Terrible

Up late working on Grundar's Cave, what's currently the 11th adventure in my grim-dark fantasy campaign, Shadowmist Vale. It's a third-level dungeon with some bugbears and goblins, a troll, and, of course, the titular hill giant.

Grundar the Terrible, in my imagination, looks like a bearded, 12'-tall Lobo from DC comics. He wields the wicked Greataxe +2, Ochiron's Demise. Its black blade casts Continual Darkness on hit, turning its victim's eyes into pools of blackness and blinding them. It can only be recharged by killing a friend or family member. 

In another cave in another hex, there's a related hill giant, nicknamed Grunt, who's blinded and scarred from a stroke of his evil brother's greataxe. PCs who cast Continual Light on his eyes, curing him, could gain a powerful ally.

A sulfurous miasma hangs about the cavern like an ochre haze. Hot Springs bubble and steam. The opaque greenish water is scorching hot, but it’s not boiling. Air bubbles rise from below.

Careful! There are water weirds swimming in them!

Creature Catalogue p. 79

In Room 3, there's Vorkha the orc Thief who's stolen Gauntlets of Ogre Power and a Sword +1 from Room 11, the giant's treasury. She's soaking wet, having swam from the pit in Room 7, where her two accomplices, the gargoyles Crong and Razaad, are too afraid to follow her through the secret escape route. They can't gather the courage to swim underwater or to sneak past the bugbear guards on the precipice in Room 6. So, they sit locked in terrified indecisiveness.

Shadowmist Vale

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Other than the Undercrypt, the dungeon in the center of the wilderness map, I haven't talked much about Shadowmist Vale on my blog. I currently plan for my first release to be titled Shadowmist Vale: The Road to Ebonshire. The mini-campaign will feature at least 15 adventure locations for players to "explore or ignore," as a friend says. Some of the locations are sizable dungeons; others are small spots. Ebonshire is a free city-state in the 6-mile hex flower. Though it is self-governing, it stands in the long shadow cast by castle Black Gate Castle, abode of the fearsome and shadowy Lord Gulthor.

I've moved and re-named the locations on the map so many times, and some of them are placeholders, but here's the map as it is currently:

A hex flower of 6-mile hexes

Grundar's Cave yawns open in the foothills of hex 17.04, just north of what I'm calling the Dark Forest for now. It's a placeholder name, like a lot of them. 

There's nothing I like about my map. It's just for my planning purposes. The finished map, I expect, will share some similarities with the GM's Map for the Barony of Twolakes Vale from CM2 Death’s Ride.

DragonStrike as an OSR Campaign

Everyone loves Games Workshop and Milton Bradley's 1989 fantasy board game, HeroQuest, but its younger sibling, TSR's 1993 fantasy board game, DragonStrike, is mostly remembered for the campy VHS video included in the box. DragonStrike deserves a better legacy because it's a better game—take it from a guy who was the target audience of both at the time they were released.

HeroQuest's dungeon furniture and plastic miniatures were far superior to anything DragonStrike had to offer. Gary Chalk's wonderful artwork put anything of DragonStrike's to shame (with the exception of Robin Raab's endearing battle map art).

None of that made it a better game, though.

Simply put, HeroQuest isn't even a role playing game. It's a straightforward hack-and-slash dungeon crawl—but it's really not that great of one. It's fun for three or four games, but it gets repetitive. I imagine modern dungeon-delving games like Descent provide more sustainable entertainment.

Not only is DragonStrike an RPG, it's a good one. I've talked about it before: TSR's DragonStrike in 1993

It's a rules-light system that encourages players to speak and act in character, and to interact with the world in anyway they can imagine. It encourages the game master to adjudicate the outcome fairly and generously. By my definition, that's an OSR role-playing game!

DragonStrike's Design

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Whereas HeroQuest had a single quest book that contained the map and adventure, DragonStrike's Map Book and Adventures Book were separate. The digest-sized (6" × 8.75") Adventures Book had 32 pages and 16 adventures. The Map Book was magazine-sized (8.5" × 10.75") and staple-bound paper; it had no cover. Each quest in the Adventure Book had a one-page map in the Map Book.

Adventures Book cover and contents.

Map Book, first quest.

It's set up to be played exactly like a regular Dungeons & Dragons adventure module. The GM, called the "Dragon Master," even had a tri-fold stand-up screen. The adventures were played on one of four boards: a castle; a cave; a city; and a wilderness map.

I recall so fondly playing what was essentially Dungeons & Dragons on those four game boards. I wrote and ran so many adventures. Ah, those were the good ol' days! 

DragonStrike as OSR Adventures

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As written, DragonStrike's adventures are a little too straightforward for the OSR. If the OSR is "problems without prescribed solutions" like the mantra says, then converting DragonStrike into OSR adventures might simply require writing them as if players have complete freedom to do as they wish. 

"The OSR is the players story, not the GM's," is another OSR mantra. Rather than a single goal like "slay the dragon," an OSR adventure should consider the many predictable motivations the players might have. Instead of "Save the princess in the dungeon," we simply state, "There's a princess in the dungeon." Players might set her free, ransom her, kill her (e.g., they are the Duke's paid assassins), or leave her to rot. We don't write the plot; that's the players' job. 

For example, let's take the first adventure for a party of 2-3 players, "Against the Giant:"

Page 3 of the Map Book on top; pp. 6-7 of Adventures on bottom.

The Adventure Book says, "Put the giant in [a cavern chamber]. This is Grunt. If questioned, Grunt has but one response: 'Fee, fie, foe, fum! I smell the blood of hero-scum! Grunt kill you now.'" 

Yikes. That's not going to cut it in the OSR by a longshot. We could re-write it to say something like: "Grunt the hill giant reaches under his bearskin tunic and scratches between his legs as he lounges near the fire." Short descriptions are best; the most important part of the game is the back-and-forth between the GM and players.

We need to give Grunt a motivation, and we need that motivation to be anything other than "kill the players." The story says, "Grunt plans to raise an entire army of creatures, which will march upon our lands." This must be a smart and charismatic giant. It's usually evil wizards who try to raise humanoid armies. 

Elsewhere, it says there's an orc who stole a trove of powerful magic items from Grunt. Right there we have an easy motivation: Grunt wants his stuff back. We also have some opportunity to add some intrigue and diplomacy. Why does a giant have powerful, orc-sized magic weapons and armor? Why is an orc stealing them from him?

These questions need to have interesting answers, because this how we give players reasons to use diplomacy rather than swords. If "just kill the orc and take the stuff, then kill the giant," is the best answer this whole scenario, then this will be a simple hack-and-slash. That's the antithesis of the OSR. Choice becomes an illusion as players lose agency. Maybe they don't want to kill the monsters and take their stuff. 

The story says the giant is raising an army and has orc-sized magic equipment, so it's probably a payment to the orc's chief to fight for him. This nameless orc thief must have a motivation to make sure that doesn't happen.

All we know about the orc is that he or she has stolen the some radical magic equipment: Gauntlets of Ogre Power are a bad ass treasure! Let's give our thief an identity and motivations. 

Vorkha the orc Thief knows what will happen if her small tribe of orcs goes to war with Lord Narran: they'll be slaughtered. She's sabotaging the negotiations by stealing the giant's payment to her chief. Lets make her sympathetic to humans; she's known their kindness. She's also greedy as a dwarven miner and not afraid to take what she wants. She's not a warrior, but she'll fight to the death if players try to take her spoils. She'd rather have gold than the magic junk she can't use; but she suspects the set is very valuable.

Gargoyles inhabit the cave as well; two of them just down the hall. In DragonStrike, they are an interesting encounter: "The gargoyles here are chatty cowards who fight only if attacked." They have an empty chest also stolen from Grunt. They think there's treasure in it. (Quite a coincidence, but the book doesn't expound.)

Crong and Razaad, gargoyle brothers, have just been given the slip. They helped Vorka steal the equipment in return for whatever else they found. They found the chest, which Vorkha convinced them contains gold and jewels. In reality, it's trapped and full of worthless junk, but they don't know that. They're simply waiting on her to come back from scouting ahead for trouble. Spoiler alert: she's not coming back. 

There is a troll and another orc in a chamber with a treasure chest. There's a small band of bugbears with a treasure chest as well. The book doesn't say those are stolen, so we can infer they've met with Grunt and have accepted his payment for their services. Let's say the troll is Grunt's lieutenant and the orc is his sergeant. They'll need identities and motivations, but we're drawing near the end of this exercise. 

The bugbears are visiting and have just accepted payment. In the book, they ambush, so we can infer this truce with the giant and his other henchman is a new and uneasy one. They're just waiting for an attack. Let's say the door is barred from inside. 

The two orcs guarding the entrance (room G), crossbows ready, are on watch for intruders. They rotate one out every six hours. If they detect intruders—a certainty if they're carrying torches and talking—one will run to the giant's chamber. The other will shoot his bow down from above.

Grunt's treasury has three more lockboxes in it suggesting there are three more factions yet to arrive. That can make for all sorts of interesting future encounters. As is, it's a great place to put a lot of treasure, and that's what all players are after!

To Be Continued . . .

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That's all the book gives us for "Against the Giant," but it's more than enough to create a fun, exciting, and interesting OSR adventure. 

If all 16 adventures were converted, it would make quite an OSR campaign. There's the "good" king Halvor and the "evil" wizard Teraptus (a play on S2 White Plume Mountain's Kerpatis), not to mention the titular red dragon, Darkfyre.

If I get time, I'll re-write "Against the Giant" and upload it as a PDF. Who knows, maybe I'll convert some other DragonStrike adventures in the future.

Until next time! 

BoT's Third Anniversary

Happy birthday, Blood or Treasure! 

Another year of OSR. It's been a fun hobby. 

The OSR Pick-Up Games Discord server hit 1,000 memebers! Yay! 

Last April I published my entry for tenfootpole's contest, Wyvern's Roost. It won a "No Regerts" (silver star) award, I'm proud to say! 

A few excerpts from the review:  

"A delightful romp in a simple lighthouse, its got some decent imagery and nice interactivity. A B/X adventure, in the most laudable sense of the phrase."

"What’s notable, here, is this being a Level 1 adventure with a Wyvern, a Troll, and a Vampire . . . with only the Wyvern being an outright obstacle. And that leads to a wonderful tone, the kind most of us enjoy, where you’re not just hacking shit down but, rather, scheming and talking to the people inside."

"What this is is a great example of a B/X type adventure that is short. It feels like a good adventure, and like a good BX adventure."

Wyvern's Roost is available here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/392795/Wyverns-Roost

My hope is that by this day next year, I'll have published my mini-campaign Shadowmist Vale to wild success and acclaim. I can dream, right? 

Here's to another year of OSR!