Order of the Trehean

This is an excerpt from a project I am working on. It is designed to work with Swords & Wizardry. It is inspired by 3rd edition's Sorcerer class but I feel the background is a better fit with tone of older editions than the dragon blood of the Sorcerers.

Wizards, Order of the Trehaen Magic-users may choose to start as members of the Order of the Trehaen. Members of the Order are known as Wizards.

• Wizards Gains 1D6-1 HP/level
• Cannot use any Armor/Shield, permitted to use dagger, staff, and darts.
• Can cast spells limited times as day without preparation. (see below)
• Can cast rituals equal to ½ highest level cast. (see below chart)
• At 11th level a Wizard can establish his own Circle and attract a group of fellow Wizards to follow him.

The Order of the Trehaen has the singular ability to cast spells without memorization. This results from their focus on a deep understanding of magic. The price is that the number of spells at their disposal is limited compared to the other Orders.

The Order of the Trehaen is the oldest order of magic still in existence. It traces its heritage to just after the Uttermost War. It tradition of magic was learned from the elves and has continued nearly unchanged for 8,000 years. It focus on deep study allow the Wizards to cast spells with no preparation or reliance on spell books.

The Order of Trehaen organizes themselves in Circles. A Circle is a loose fellowship of Wizards in a small region. Circles don’t generally maintain a central hall or building. Instead they will meet in secluded groves for a weekend long meeting to exchange stories and knowledge. Often various members of a Circle will specialize in one aspect of magic. When an issue arises involving that area of magic; the other Wizards of the Circle will consult with that specialist.

Wizards from 1st to 2nd level are considered Apprentices in the Order of Trehaen. When they successfully master their 2nd level spell they are now considered Evokers and encouraged to journey in order study with other wizards. When they mastered the 5th level spell (at 9th level) they are recognized as a full Wizard. Those who master 6th level spells are known as Seers. Finally those who reached the lofty heights of 7th level spells and higher are granted the title of High Seer.

In most regions this tradition has been supplanted by those taught by Magic-users An immortal elf would think nothing of taking the next century to relearn another spell. Shorter lived humans began to adapt the Trehaen tradition to allow a greater number of spells to be cast in an exchange for reliance on spellbooks and scrolls.

Advancement


Spell Chart


I am sure some of you are wondering about the meaning of the ritual column more on that next post.

From the Attic: Favorite TSR Modules, Hommlet

There are a couple of TSR Modules I used over and over again. I consider them my utility modules. TSR had plenty of other good modules but these have elements that allow them to be incorporated easily into my Majestic Wilderlands.



The Village of Hommlet is one of my all time favorite. The was the only module I took the time to convert fully into GURPS. I liked however every inhabitant was listed in the module. One thing I did in my conversion was add a little plot to the town itself.

The construction workers are having issues with the regular villagers who view them as "outsiders" who cause trouble. The construction workers live in a temporary settlement of mud and wattle huts near the castle.

Tension is mounting as the workers attempted to erect a tent to serve as a pub. The resulting protest from Ostler Gundigoot forced the Brewer not to sell any more kegs of beer and ale to the workers. One of the workers is currently in jail because he tried to steal a keg from the Brewer. Much of this is inflamed by the two Traders who are secretly evil agents.

Typically the way the events unfold when I run this are as follows

1. The PC comes into Hommlet gets a room at the Welcome Wench
2. That night a rock is thrown into their room shattering the window.
3. The PC track down the kid and find out about the problem between the two groups
4. They get interested and start talking to everyone to find out what really going on.
5. They start seeing that the two Traders are way more involved than they should be and investigate them. Usually by breaking into their establishment.
6. The workers for a mob intent on liberating the jailed worker
7. Evidence in hand the PC expose the trader and help forge a compromise between the two sides.
8. They interrogate the Traders finding out about the moathouse.
9. Goto the moathouse and clear it out.

In general I don't use the Temple of Elemental Evil but instead tie it to the Slaver series which is part of my Set in City-State plotline. In the Majestic Wilderlands Hommlet is located on the Tharian Coast. Northeast of Elixir and halfway to the Coast. (Map 1 (old)/Map 5 (new)).

More Star Trek the Roleplaying Game

I did a few things that greatly enhanced the fun of my players.

Since my game was set during the Original Series, when I ran off the character sheet I made sure they were the correct color!



I had to try a couple different shades before I found the right red that was readable. The yellow was Goldenrod.

Most of my game was set in a Amundsen Class. It was about the size of the Reliant and used as a general purpose exploration ship. As a warship it could pack a hard hit as it was loaded with the best photon torpedoes that could fit on it's frame. A quirk of the Ship Construction System was that photons gave a lot of bad for the space. Probably a lot more than it should have been.

But the best part was that FASA's game system use quarter inch squares as it's full scale (15 mm for you grognards). This made mapping the ships very feasible. Also in these pre desktop publishing time we were lucky that FASA had the entire Enterprise laid out in the full 1/4 inch scale. So we could photocopy what we needed and make NEW deck place.

This is the deck just below the Bridge.



Half of the saucer section that shows the intregretion of pencil and paste ups we used.



These decks were a group effort with four of us working on them. The guy who did the pencils was really good and particularly proud of his work.

One thing that grated on me on GMing any sci-fi game is what I call the parrot problem. When the sensor, comm, computer, etc officer was dealing with something. I would say what they say and either they repeat what I said or just pretend I am putting words in their mouth.

Frankly it was not fun and took away from the immersion. FASA had a nifty solution to this in the form of the Tricorder/Sensors Interactive Display.

Basically they had four decoder wheels. The GM would give you the code for one or more the wheels and you would turn them to read the result. The GM had a table in front of him with the codes. You could tailor the results to give more or less information and you avoided the parrot effect. Plus it put some of the burden back on the player to use the display correct and intrepet the results.

Of course it was high geekiness.

Here some picture of it in Action. The player made a good success with his roll so I told him A21, B10 C11 D11. Read off #15 on Tricoder Strip B for further information.




So the player saw an Approaching Energy Source Solid Lifeform and Topaline was involved. The player was up on his Star Trek lore he would know that Topaline is used in life support system and interferes with sensor readings.

This is the starship sensor side.



The neat thing about using this that player remember certain codes so as they get more experienced they didn't need to fiddle with the dials and just gave the result. This also added to the immersion. Today I would probably just use a chart and the player can read off of it as the dials are fiddly to use.

Imagine what the sensor/hand scanner chart would look like for Encounter Critical!, Gamma World, or Mutant Future.

Fromt the Attic: The best damn game I ever played.

I told the story of the best game I ran here but that wasn't the best game I played. Tim of Gothridge Manor recounts the game here.

I can't add too much to his account. The whole guide thing with a women dressed as man really did throw me on a couple of levels. I figured that the reason Pam was playing a man was because of the Arthurian genre. Another is that I am 50% deaf. My deafness effects different tones differently. My hearing aids help but I often miss things in a general conversation. Half of me was wondering what I missed. But it was really cool once I got over my confusion and explain a lot why she defended me verbally a couple of times.

One moment I remember clearly was encountering an ice palace in the middle of the realm we were in. It wasn't much of an encounter but Tim did such a good job describing it, it still sticks we me today.

I remember the sacrifice as a zen moment. I seen this happen to players as well as myself. There is a moment with all the threads come together and you just KNOW what to do. The sacrifice was one of those moment. My death was made more shocking because I figured it out a step before everyone else. (Not the usual case for me as a player.)

My only regret was that this was a one-shot. The plot couldn't be anything else. However in a later campaign ran by Tim I got to reprise a slightly different Hawk but that is a different story.

So that my story of the best damn game I ever played.

Offically chastised and enjoying it.

I stand officially chastised ;)

This is pure gold. Thanks to Amityville Mike.

Where that Old School Feeling is Important

Feeling does come into play when you are trying to SELL products to the Old School markets. Because the experience of the game is very much dependent on which rule set you use. The Old School market has currently settled on rule systems that take their core concepts from a selection of games developed in the 70s and early 90s. I wouldn't create a dungeon and try to market it using the full D20 rules to this market no matter how much it adheres to the principles in Old School Primer. I would pick OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, or one of the other rule sets out there.

Remember that the Old School market isn't a narrow niche of dungeons and old rulesets. Games like Encounter Critical and Mutant Future are considered part of the Old School market. The former because it looks like it ought been published in the late 70s and the latter because many perceive it as Gamma World done right and it is based on the Labyrinth Lord rules.

In terms of settings it was the original 1974 rules that spawned Barker's Empire of Petal Throne. Carcosa shows there are still people thinking of presenting unique settings using the framework of the 1974 rules. This the area where my own interest lies with my Points of Light series, Wild North, and Majestic Wilderlands.

There is a lot of room to creativity within the Old School Market. However you have to take its personal preferences into account. For example in adapting the Majestic Wilderlands for one of the old school rule systems I made sure that I stayed within the spirit of the rule system. The result isn't quite like how a character is created in GURPS for the Majestic Wilderlands but the point isn't to make OD&D work like GURPS but present the Majestic Wilderlands in OD&D terms. It helped that GURPS 4th edition went into templates in a major way and so did I.

So if you are planning a product for the Old School market plan on using one of the older rulesets. Don't try to market your product as Old School in feel and use Exalted, GURPS, etc as the rules. You will wind up appealing fans of that system and not the Old School market as a whole. You can get away with using D20 as long as you limit yourself to what in the older rules and limit your stat blocks.

Old School is an attitude

Here James M at Grognardia talks about the definition of Old School gaming. I seen the Old School feeling argument made before and I see where James is coming from in that part of his post. However both sides are missing the point. It not about feeling, it is about attitude that makes a campaign old school. This transcends rule systems and setting.

I am not saying that ANY setting and ANY rules system can be used for old school gaming. Some are indeed easier to use for old school than others. But the concepts outlined in the Old School Primer can be used with a pretty large selection of Games and Settings that are out there.

Part of this stems from my experiences. Superficially my experience seems typical of many who write or sell for the current Old School market. I started with Holmes D&D, played AD&D, switched to other game systems (Fantasy Hero, GURPS), tried D&D 3rd, and finally came back to the original material.

Understand while the rule system had changed, the fundamental way I ran my campaigns has not. Instead of ditching what I did in favor of whatever the rule system advocated I adapted the rule system to my campaign. It just I prefer a more detailed combat system from being an avid wargamer. Today I have a lot of fun writing and publishing stuff for everybody in the Old School market. I never left and it is finally good to have a group to share my stuff with and a market to sell to.