P is for Parley

A Meeting of Parley

Parley. Not something most players ever use. apparently, Gary didn't think much of it either as there is only a paragraph in the DMG (p. 63). To wit:

 

Parleying:

Upon encountering another party, the party with initiative can always

elect to attempt some form of communication. This can be a friendly

gesture, a throwing down of arms, offering of treasure, or some spoken

word or phrase. Just what this effect will be is determinable only by the

DM considering the prevailing circumstances. It is safe to say that a group

of elves attempting to parley with a red dragon will find their efforts

generally unsuccessful unless they also have some obvious advantage

which the dragon is aware of. It is common for player characters to attack

first, parley afterwards. It is recommended that you devise encounters

which penalize such action so as to encourage parleying attempts -- which

will usually be fruitless, of course!

 

The last sentence is not one of Gary's best. Why should parley "usually be fruitless?" Not always, but occasionally it should work and work well. To penalize the players for not parleying and then penalyzing them for parleying is, well, dickish. It's like a game of oneupmanship.

 

Does that mean that a parley, especially with evil NPCs, should turn into a mutual admiration society meeting? Not by any means; expect the evil characters (and the players too!) to try to jockey for their advantage, possibly stabbing the party in the back just before the conclusion of the pact. I could see a cleric or cavalier of Hextor teaming up with a mostly good party to fight the return of the Temple of Elemental Evil in Hommlett. Said cavalier might be evil but he would have more in common with a Lawful Neutral character than with a Chaotic Evil one. Sometimes, there truly ARE greater evils!

 

 

D is for Deities

Today's is running late. work caught me up so it'll be a little short.

The deities of Toneeze Wurld (officially Hackmaster Wurld #162) are varied. They tend to be primarily Greyhawk deities. However, there are others, mostly due to the transposition of the City of the Invincible Overlord as the major urban hub for the continent.

Mighty Hextor, Many-Armed Herald of Hell, grants us the strength to dominate and rule!

The chief deities of the CSIO are Odhinn (CN), Thoth (N), and . . . .Hextor (LE). Hextor has long been one of my favorite deities for LE characters. I replaced Morg and the largest temple in CSIO is the Hellbridge Temple of the Herald of Hell. I portray the City-State as old and decadent like ancient Lankhmar. Thoth has one of the oldest temples in the city as God of Magic and Scribes. Odhinn is a more recent transplant, his priests coming in with the latest Overlord and taking up shop in a long abandoned and shuttered temple of some ancient and forgotten war god. There are minor shires to dark deities and good deities and even the Frog God and Wastri the hopping prophet.

One of the more popular deities on the Wurld is Ehlonna, the Lady of the forests, worshiped by Elves, Halflings, fairy and sylvan creatures and even many humans. The Dwarves worship their deified kings, the long-death Fathers of their Race. 

Familiar deities to most of us are gods of the Southern deserts (Egyptian) and the gods of the frozen North (Norse) are also present. Their are few worshipers of the Greco-Roman deities these days, but they are remembered and occasional relics of Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva are found.

Until tomorrow, dear friends, look to the heavens for aid!

D is for Dalgard's Decomposition, Dalgard's Forked Lighting and Dalgard's Total Inversion!

The above image is a cartoon of my "main" PC Lord Dalgard drawn up for the World of Greyhawk web comic. Back in the day we really didn't play with level limits so the infamous half-elf mage and cleric of Hextor Dalgard Nolendor reached the exalted levels of Cl19/MU17! Of course, this took from 1984 to 1994, but hey, what can I say? The pic is a homage to a rather funny story (at least I think it's funny). One of our DMs had decided to try to kill us all off and so stuck us in the Nine Hells. It was like a fantasy Kobyashi Maru scenario...Pit Fiends kept showing up. We'd kill one, three more would show up; kill them, five more, etc.

We had two characters down and were trying to find a way out. Teleports weren't working etc. I was thinking furiously. "I can't banish the pit fiends, they're not extra-planar creatures..in..Hell...Eureka! I can banish the party!" The DM's jaw dropped to the floor. One well-used sanctuary, adjure, and word of recall later (which apparently did work because it was Divine magic), everybody was safe and sound.

Anyway, after reading that story, the artist decided to portray Dalgard in place of Gandalf at the Bridge of Moria. :) Note that the minotaur skeletons are Dalgard's "followers." He hunted down a tribe of minotaurs and animated them to use as his shock troops and bodyguards after he built his tower. Also, I always described Dalgard as wearing Eleven maille under black velvet robes and smelling of incense and rose petals (from his various material components).

Today's post isn't just to regale you with the typical "no shit" gamer stories. Really. No, Dalgard has 3 spells of his own that I've statted out for S&W Whitebox: Dalgard's Decomposition, Dalgard's Forked Lightning, and Dalgard's Total Inversion. Note that the original version of Dalgard's Total Inversion was a specialized version of the Finger of Death spell. Since S&WWB only goes up to 6th level in spells and Death is a bit more powerful, it has undergone yet another revision!

Dalgard's Decomposition

Spell Level: M3

Range: 30 ft. or touch

Duration: Instantaneous

This spell prepares a number of corpses (1d6 + caster level) for use as animated skeletons by removing the fleshy parts of the corpses while leaving the ligaments and tendons intact. The spell can be used against a living creature in combat as a touch attack for 1d6 points of damage per caster level, though a successful saving throw halves damage. A creature reduced to 0 hit points by the spell collapses as a pile of dust.

Dalgard's Forked Lighting

Spell Level: M4

Range: 240 ft.

Duration: Instantaneous

A variation of the Lightning Bolt spell, this spell allows the caster to split his bolt up to 4 times. The number of tines affects the length of each: 2 tines are 30 feet long each, 3 are 20 feet each, and 4 are 15 feet each. These forks still rebound. Damage is 1d6 per level of the caster, though a successful saving throw halves damage.

Dalgard's Total Inversion

Spell Level: M6

Range: 240 ft.

Duration: Permanent

A variation of the Death spell (q.v.), this spell also has the effect of turning its victims inside out.