HOLMENTZER BASIC

While DMing the last few years, I've seen myself spiral from simply using Moldvay Basic & Cook Expert (B/X), to falling down the OD&D rabbit hole (thanks OSR!) & having a stack of LBB/Supplement print-outs, Holmes, B/X, sometimes Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry White Box, various modules, AD&D books, OSR supplements, etc., basically whatever I grab before play @ my side, & when/if something comes up, I just choose which to refer to on-the-fly. While I have no probs w/ this approach, obviously, & it can be fun for me, esp. when I'm itching to use something I've recently read, as of late, I've been feeling the need to simplify.

In retrospect, I could never get into using the LBBs, only. While I dig the idea & openness of OD&D, which in many ways carries into Holmes Basic, it can be a pain in the ass when you're looking for anything specific in a timely manner, even just a monster stat (I've made lots of stuff up on the spot b/c of this (not sayin that's a bad thing, just sayin)). As for the retro-clones, though I've been inspired by them & enjoy looking @, & reading them, I find I always end up reaching for actual TSR stuff during play. So I got to thinking: while I'd settled on Holmes being a choice median between OD&D & Moldvay, what other book could I cross reference w/ Holmes that's 1) fairly well-organized, 2) adds a lot of the stuff I dig in Moldvay, & 3) can fit into Expert if I decide to go that route vs. AD&D as Holmes suggests? Recently reading through its "Procedures and rules" section, I found my answer: Mentzer Basic Dungeon Masters Rulebook.

HOLMENTZER BASIC SET

Holmes Blue Book & Mentzer DMR? At least until I change my mind again. I plan to blog about some of the stuff I come up against during reconciliation. Supposed to rev the Furthermoor Adventure Express back up next week, so I might be posting again more regularly. We'll see.

MOOR'S END - 6 & 7

The party comes up on Clone the Berserker, worshipper of Thor, who's sitting around a small flame, apparently he has lost his party & been traveling for weeks through these caves from Kush, trying to find Furthermoor, he asks if there's anyway the party can help him find the eastern exit... He joins the party & they indeed wrap around a bit, find familiar territory, as well as 4 kobolds who are not much of a match for them, 3 killed easily & one fleeing... On the kobold bodies are found 5 gp, 4 sp & a scrap of paper w/ something in kobold written upon it. The party cannot read the paper. Jin, inspecting his map, feels he now can place the exit, & sure enough, around 8 PM, the party is exiting the caves to the west of Moor's End... Clone cannot believe how close he was... Hope swells within him, & he is grateful to the party. He decides to follow them to the Inn of the Forgotten Worm. Mattie takes leave of the party, returning to the Church of the White Widow after one more time reminding the party of what it is she & her church need from them, if they are able (the diamond studded spider relic that may or may not have magical properties, stolen by bandits during one of their ceremonies).

At 8:30 PM the party enters the Inn of the Forgotten Worm to find 12 other folks around the room, some @ the bar, some @ tables, etc. One man in particular, a human wearing a deerstalker cap, a black cape of sorts, smoking a long cigarette, steps from a table where two others sit, two male half-elves. The man introduces himself as Apricot Shandly from Debthaven & within seconds of introduction, is grilling the party about what they know in regard to Gil Kruger the Blacksmith's house going up in flames. Apricot has been hired for a sizable sum to investigate as there was an important item regarding the town's safety that was stored there, & apparently, it is nowhere to be found among the ashes. Gileegan takes center stage in dealing w/ Apricot, & as the conversation gets heated, Renfro slips away & moves through the door into the common sleeping room where he removes Delilah (Gil's two-handed sword) from under his bed & hides it under the mattress of one of the vacant beds across the room. On Renfro's return, Apricot is demanding a search of the party's belongings.

Gileegan refuses & begins working the room to build support for his views on the matter, which brings the party in contact w/ a few other notables. One lady halfing @ the bar, Lo Leland, from Hood's Hollow, who is here on business delivering kegs of Leland Lager to the inn. Then, @ the other large table in the room, sits a cleric of the Great Church named Grego Flunk, he is a haughty individual, older, who doesnt think much of the Church of the White Widow when the topic arises. With Grego, is a paladin of the Great Church, named Guerrand. Gil takes an interest in Guerrand given his youth & strength & a long conversation ensues as the voting commences on whether the detective should be able to search the party's belongings. The entire bar votes & it comes to an equal split. It is then, put on chance, & the party comes out victorious, Apricot Shandly not able to search their things in the other room. This brings Gil joy & he toasts the room. During this celebration, Oogy of the Curiosity Shop, who has been @ the bar, comes over to show the party an item he just acquired. It appears he needs more $ for drinks, therefore offers to sell them the "Shimmering Sand" for 20 gp. They agree to the deal. It apparently will increase the reach of sleep spells.

Lastly, as mentioned, a long conversation takes place between Gileegan & Guerrand, the young paladin. Gil is urging the paladin to join up w/ their cause; however, Guerrand is steadfast in his desire to aid Grego in their current quest for the Great Church. With an eloquent soapbox speech, Gileegan just about convinces the paladin to consider the plight of their party... But one catch: the party must first aid he & Grego in locating a specific book, an evil book which Grego says must be burned. Their belief is that a scholar, here in Moor's End, has this book. Guerrand tells Gileegan that if they can help them destroy this book, he is willing to join their quest to help the local church.

11:00 PM, Friday, 15th day of the month of the Hummingbird, Moor's End, Furthermoor

PUNK ESKIMOS

Punk Eskimos* are found in the far northern reaches of Furthermoor & the southern regions of Kush. They are immune to freezing temperatures & their saving throws for freeze & cold spells, etc. are very good. They can track like a ranger & they cannot wear metal armor (this is mainly b/c they only choose to pad themselves w/ animal hides & such, i.e. fur of their own victims). Punk Eskimos can also create a flame & fire w/ the tips of their fingers. Generally to light something else, though in emergency, they can let their finger flame for up to 1d12 turns w/o consequence. The flame puts off light like a candle.

As for the "punk" bit, they are referred to this way b/c of their DIY ethos. Given a choice, a Punk Eskimo would much rather create his/her own weapons & items out of things they kill or things foraged around them than they would use something already made. E.g. a Punk Eskimo would rather wield a spear they carved from a branch themselves than they would a magical sword handed to them. Given this fact, they take extreme care when constructing their weapons, & when doing so, given that they have the raw materials, it will take 1d6 days to finish the project. Also, there is a 17% that any weapon constructed by a Punk Eskimo will have magical properties. These properties come from the god of most all Punk Eskimos, the Hooded Ice King who is said to reign over the ice worlds far, far away, a glimpse of which can be seen by Northern & Southern Punk Eskimos alike @ various times of the year, as the alignment brings pause to those to reveal the wonderous Eskimo Nebula.

Level & Title          Experience Pts.          Hit Dice 10-sided
1  Illiyardjuk           0                                 1
2  Afuyiuqti            2100                           1+4
3  Issumatar            4200                           2
4  Illamareit            8400                           3
5  Nektoralik          16800                         4+1
6  Miortok              33600                         5
7  Issorartuyok       67200                         6+2
8  Sangiyok            134400                       7

Lastly, for a character to consider this class/race they must have a STR of 13+ & a CON of 15+

*Punk Eskimo is a race/class combo, i.e. one cannot be a Punk Eskimo magic-user... @least not right now.

[More details to come as I flesh it out more...]

MOOR'S END - 4 & 5

In which the party continues w/o Farley, experience more bubbles & fight Bandits, Orcs & Goblins...  Two separate staircases are located...  Rest is taken & new bubbles are inspected & realized...  Mapping is done, a secret room is located w/ green glowing spectacles on a table...

PARTY CAST:
Gileegan, hobbit thief - MN
Jin the Cautious, monk - RM
Renfro the Regarded, magic-user - JT
Mattie the Mournful, cleric of the White Widow - NPC
Link, neanderthal - NPC
Ylgu Cro, charmed orc - NPC

After Farley's request for map w/ payment & exit, the party took the other scrap of map they had & started anew. First though they inspected the room the skeletons had flooded from. They found 100 sp in a bag among some bones. When they passed back through the door, they saw that more bubbles had appeared in the room. Skirting the wall, they moved to the NW passage from the room. There Gileegan through a rock & burst one of the bubbles which on bursting brought a howl from Mattie.

The party continued NW wrapping around coming across a few bandits which they dispersed of fairly easily, killing one, the others fleeing SW ---- upon the dead was found a brown bean w/ red dots & 33 gp; there was a door ahead on the NE wall, they busted in, surprised three sleeping orcs, killed two & charmed one. Link took a bit of damage. Locating a number of bags of coin from the orcs, who seemed to be lookouts of some sort in their attire, the party took in 500 sp & 60 gp.

Moving SW & then into a mazey section, the party located two separate staircases, & looking down one saw two goblins coming up... The party took out one of the gobs coming up the stairs & found 9 pp, 18 gp, 5 sp & a goblin book of beat poetry that Jin was able to read the title as "Nightscreams & Whispered Curses" by Reom Ferfak. The party decided to return to the room where they found the orcs to get some rest as it was about 2:00 AM. They moved one of the dead orcs out the door & propped them up w/ things to make them look like guard outside the door, "Weekend @ Bernie's" style.

The party slept well, & after the prev night's deep discussion w/ Gil, Mattie prayed a bit for Cure Light Wounds.She had reminded Gil of their mission & agreed to heal folks, but was worried about healing an orc, versus others, given her experience. The party moved back to the bubble room, where first, Renfro inspected the bubbles, noticing one that floated close to him has Ylgu Cro's reflection in it. He then noticed others that barely missed him had other of the party in reflection. They decided to skirt the walls & move to the NE corridor... On the way, Link had a bubble pop upon him which made him scream, then a bubble darted & popped on Renfro's head which made Mattie scream... They found the NE corridor & funneled in...

From that point they traveled mainly SE, working on mapping, found a cavern room where Jin & Mattie located a secret door where they found a pair of spectacles glowing green. Renfro put them on & his face charred, burned, around the nose area & took damage, he tossed them away. The green was gone. Other tried them on but nothing happened. They moved out of that room & whipping around found themselves back in the chalk room, wetn back north, then evading a few unresponsive Giant Toads, they moved into a room where Jin, outfront, a cavernous room, saw a person across the room around a flame of some sort, someone in armor w/ a helmet w/ horns on it...

4:00 PM, Friday, 15th day of the month of the Hummingbird, Moor's End, Furthermoor

TALBOT AUTOMOBILES

It is said that @ the height of their barony, the Talbots had commissioned the construction of a number of "vehicles" called AUTOMOBILES. Apparently two of them were actually produced & in working order, though no one knows what became of them. They were produced in Furthermoor City by a magical chap that went by the name of Hoody Paris.

TOWN DESIGN: PART 3 - THE INN SHOULD COME LAST

Is this the way out? Faces turn to the windows, but no one dares ask, not out loud. Rain comes down. No, this is not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into---they go in under archways, secret entrances of rotted concrete that only looked like loops of an underpass... - Gravity's Rainbow, pg. 3, Thomas Pynchon

If you're anything like me, when you work up a town/village, the inn/tavern is the first thing you deal w/: innkeeper's name, random NPCs that happen to be there, etc. For the inn/tavern is generally the first place PCs check out, right?

I now realize that going this route will keep deeper development of a town in limbo. An Inn by itself, or w/ two other buildings @ a crossroads is one thing, but when dealing w/ a sizable settlement, that may be a campaign hub, you need to seriously consider fleshing out the rest of the town before focusing on the Inn.

Here's WHY:

I. The more framework you have to your town, the more your random NPCs will make sense & come to life, i.e. their reasons for being in town will become simple to work in.
II. The more framework you have in your town, the more possible intrigues to weave together during play - the knowledge & entry into these divergences can all web into & out of the tavern.
III. The more framework you have to your town, the easier it is to place random townsfolk (see below) into the tavern/inn that arent just generic townsfolk - their purpose in the town will be known & this will help immensely during in-play elaboration.
IV. The more framework you have in your town allows the inn/tavern to be the eye of the storm, versus an unprepared storm for the GM.
V. Lastly, having a solid framework to your town before focusing on the Inn will allow ideas to present themselves that will seem organic to the town, vs. sitting around trying to think of adventure hooks from inn outwards... In other words, again, let the town weave into the inn & then out again...

So let's say you have a basic layout of buildings, you know what goes on in each one (e.g. that building is the miller, that's the blacksmith, those are farms, etc.), you know generally how many people live in each (e.g. there's a widow here w/ one son, in that place are 2 clerics, etc.), you have a few religions that correspond to your alignment rules & you have a basic idea of the hierarchy in town...

In Hommlet, you get the Inn of the Welcome Wench. The first key for the Inn is rather simple. You get the basics: innkeeper's name is Ostler Gundigoot, he has a wife & two daughters. Also living @ the inn is a young stableboy, a groom, a serving wench or two & a pair of potboy apprentices. Stats are only given for the young stableboy (who is a member of the militia) & for Ostler Gundigoot.

The meat of the Inn of the Welcome Wench does not come, however, until the key for the map above. Here we learn how to handle the COMMON ROOM and who is there, as well as those NPCs that are staying in the PRIVATE ROOMS. As you know, the COMMON ROOM of the Inn, & those NPCs that stay in the PRIVATE ROOMS are generally always adventure springboards, so given my spiel above, lets take a look @ what Gygax gives us here (italics are passages straight from T1).

The COMMON ROOM is 1:

How many customers are present there? 4d4 (4-16) & these are travellers of various sorts-merchants, tinkers, and peddlers-and local folk in an even mix. One thing I would also suggest, is for locals, guessing that your buildings are numbered on your town map, using those numbers & the appropriate die/dice to determine what locals (see above) are present @ any given time. In the evening, there will always be more people, so double the number rolled.

What about them NPCs? In addition to the normal patrons, there will be a 50% chance that the NPCs who have chambers above... will be in the common room. Roll for each, once per hour.

NOW, ABOUT THOSE NPCs & their PRIVATE ROOMS:

There are 5 of them, 80%, or 4 of them, have actual objectives to their stay in Hommlet. They have deeper ties to the goings on of Hommlet & nearby, they have motive, they have depth... If & when players encounter these NPCs it will most likely shift the game. These NPCs either have specific places, or folks, that they are searching out, if not a specific mission altogether. Only one of them is a rambler, who appears to possibly roam from town-to-town only aware of his present circumstance.  Generally, they have come knotting into Hommlet.

LAME WRAP-UP:

Where I think it is easy to create unattached NPCs for inns, being what an inn is, a place for those passing through, the bottom line is that if you create your inn first, w/o the rest of the town, it will be next to impossible to create this depth (well, it could be possible if you are a highly dedicated DM, but you understand what I'm getting @). Given the importance of the inn to your game, if you save it for last, just think how those NPC ideas will float w/ ease & how the webs of adventure will form all around. Next time I start a new town, the inn comes last. Perhaps I will post more about it then.

[for other parts of series click "town design" label below]

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