Odd Bard Instruments

Many a conversation starts with Laura lying on the couch and telling me about things she's reading on Tumblr. (I don't do Tumblr personally--Facebook and Twitter already eat up enough of my time.)

Today, she was telling me about a Tumblr post that included a strange list of possible instruments found in the Complete Bard's Handbook from 2nd Edition D&D. The list of instruments is pretty comprehensive, from drums and flutes to citterns and sistrums. Laura seemed doubtful that some of these instruments would be terribly inspiring or practical during battle. After all, while a pipe organ might sound incredible, it's not exactly easy to carry onto the battlefield. And then there are one-note instruments like gongs and castanets--not exactly ballad material.

These possibilities had me intrigued, though. While I can't really comment on the instruments I've never heard of (a hurdy gurdy sounds fascinating in theory...), I immediately had some ideas about some of the more familiar instruments.

Campaign Setting

The scientists loved to speculate about the nature of the universe. They measured it, saw that it was expanding, and figured it would just keep on expanding forever.

They were wrong about that.

It's only been about a thousand years since the universe started contracting. It's weird being on this side of eternity, knowing our universe's days are numbered. Even though it's a long way away, even though each generation knows that the end won't come in their lifetime, we're all taught the important dates: the year and time that the universe will cease to be, of course, but also, more importantly, the moment Earth will cease to be. We won't even see it coming. The stars will look exactly the same, they say. And then: Nothing. Our planet will cease to be.

D&D as a Player

For the second time in my life, a player from my own D&D campaign is planning a campaign of their own, and I'm likely to be a player in that campaign. It worked out pretty well the last time this happened, and I have some vivid memories of the my friend Aaron's Valendia campaign. To this day, it is the only D&D campaign I've been in from start to finish. Hopefully, the new campaign is even half so successful.

Either way, though, I'm excited at the prospect of being a player again. Playing Dungeons and Dragons with a good group is one of my greatest pleasures, and one I don't often get to enjoy anymore.

D&D Campaign Idea: It's the Journey

Ever get a really good campaign idea and realize you can't implement it, and that by the time you can you'll probably have moved on or, more likely, forgotten about it?

I just had one, so I'm going to talk about that today instead of politics or race or education and all those other things I've been talking about. I just... I have to write this down.

D&D #45: A Dying World

As Percy’s door closed and the train dove back into the fiery lake, The party got a much clearer view of their surroundings. On the other side of the lake, resembling nothing so much as a group of towering stalagmites reaching up toward the dark ceiling far above, is what can only be the city Percy had described. Lights pour out of many of the tower windows, signs of civilization.

D&D #44: More Dead Ma'ari

After driving through a river of lava in the previous session, the party landed on a large dark island. Lit only by the glow of the lava that surrounded it, the island seemed dark and barren. An excursion away from the ship revealed signs of cultivation, though, and soon zombified farmers appeared on the horizon--zombified farmers that were apparently content to ignore the party and focus on their farmwork.

This Realm of Stone was turning out to be very strange.

Deities, A Review

Whew! I managed to write a series of nine blog posts in a row without getting distracted by a different subject. That's a new record, I think!

Before I get into my backlog of topics (I've watched two movies and ran a D&D session, all of which deserve a review) I want to take one more look at my pantheon, their relationships to each other, their relationships to their followers, and some other curious observations I've made about them.

CRAZY Evil

I remember having Chaotic Evil described to me as basically just being the criminally insane. Looking back, though, I think that was a gross misunderstanding. First of all, that's a terrible misrepresentation of mental illness: even psychopaths function well in a structured system they can manipulate. It seems like labeling Chaotic Evil people "raving lunatics" is just a convenient way of dismissing a group of people who might otherwise have a legitimate grief with their government and a Machiavellian approach to solving that problem. Revolution is a bloody affair.

That said, my Chaotic Evil deities are all about explosions and ending existence.

Naughty Eternally

Neutral Evil is evil without regard for civilization one way or the other. Such evil can exist normally with or without the laws that work to, say, Belkar and Bialey's advantage. As a result, there's something very common-feeling about a Neutral Evil villain. They almost seem evil without a cause. I kind of struggle with it, since it almost seems like Neutral Evil is primarily evil for the sake of being evil.

That makes this alignment the most uninteresting to me, to be honest. I mean, really who's evil for the sake of being evil? Jerks, mostly.

Laughing Evilly

Ah, Lawful Evil. If you want a one-off villain you can have a party encounter and beat quickly, countless Chaotic Evil characters are lined up to take that role. If you want a truly terrifying villain that's always one or two steps ahead of you, though, Lawful Evil is the way to go. A truly powerful Lawful Evil character could be right beside you, grinning smugly to your face, yet completely untouchable. Think Al Capone, living a life of luxury in Chicago for over a decade, a veritable celebrity and known gangster, yet nobody could touch him due to lack of evidence and fear of both legal and violent repercussion.

Granted, if you're good enough, you can turn someone from any alignment into a villain, creating a truly interesting situation that causes the players to doubt their own cause and reflect on their actions. Still, I think Lawful Evil is the most satisfying alignment to defeat. Assuming you can actually defeat them in a satisfying manner, rather than just arresting them on charges of tax evasion.

Coolest Neutral

In my experience, Chaotic Neutral is one of the most popular alignments for players to choose. In fact, I'd say it's right up there with any of the Good alignments. This is based on my limited sample size, though. Curiously, a search of the Internet could not find a proper poll showing the most popular alignments. Someone should get on that.

Anyway, most of the time people seem to take Chaotic Neutral to mean a license to be a dick without necessarily being evil about it. You can steal, you can lie, you can cheat, you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you don't murder people too regularly.

I think the Good Samaritan scenario is useful for illustrating Chaotic Neutral: imagine for a moment a man lying beside the road, calling out for help. A Chaotic Good person will help that person, then steal his wallet. A Chaotic Evil person will kill that person, then steal his wallet. A Chaotic Neutral person will simply steal his wallet, then maybe call the guy a loser for good measure.

Not to say I dislike Chaotic Neutral characters. I think they make things interesting. I challenge you to find me one that's not also a jerk, though.

Truly Naive

Ah, True Neutral. Probably the most popular alignment among sentient species, and probably the hardest alignment to maintain as a player character. As a character with the passions to try and enact change in the world, players naturally tend toward one side or the other, along one axis or the other. Not to say that it's impossible to play a True Neutral character, but over the course of an adventure the time will inevitably come when a character must choose one side or another. And a side, once chosen, is difficult to un-choose.

On an unrelated note, I would say that robots are much more True Neutral than Lawful Neutral. Like animals, they are what they are programmed to do. The exception would be true AI, but true AI would be whatever it wants to be, like any sentient creature. So, I take issue with the Lawful Neutral robot stereotype.

Looking Nice

"Law" gets a bad rap in D&D, but it's one of the most important concepts in civilization. In fact, it is the very essence of civilization. Law is what separates a society of basic human rights from a "might makes right" society. Sure, evil can still exist in a lawful society, but here's the difference: in a Lawful society, evil forecloses a house after a single missed payment and forces a family out on the street, or raises their payments to levels that keeps them in poverty yet will still never allow the debt to be paid off. Without law, evil simply enters the home and slaughters the family, or else simply forces them into slavery at the point of a sword. Of course, if slavery is legal then that's a whole different set of problems, but regardless there are rules in a lawful society, and if you know the rules you can work with them.

Still, Lawful Neutral has a reputation for being cold, logical, or otherwise stuck up. Actually, the stuck-up part is a common thread among all Lawful stereotypes. Stripped of the idealism of Lawful Good or the cool, malevolent machinations of Lawful Evil, though, Lawful Neutral seems to be left with all the rigidity but none of the flavor of its Lawful brethren.

With my deities, though, I tried to give them their own flavor.

Crazy Goobers

Chaotic Good is where things start getting weird in my pantheon. I had to figure out what "chaotic good" even means before I could really figure out what makes sense for a couple of CG deities.

I think to some degree it helps to note that each deity in each alignment focuses a little more on one alignment axis than the other. For instance, Waymon is more Good than Lawful while Decchio is more Lawful than Good. Likewise, Milana is more Good than Neutral, and Palindae is more Neutral than Good.

So, here we have Kiryn, who's more Chaotic than Good, and Tas, who's more Good than Chaotic.

Good Lawd

If I'm going to describe my deities I should probably start by reading the alignment chart left to right, top to bottom. So, here I'm going to describe my Lawful Good deities.

My D&D Mythology

When I first created a D&D campaign back in 2004, after having only a session and a half of experience, one of the first things I did was sit down and create new deities for my campaign setting. The D&D books have their own deities like Pelor, Whosit, and Whatsisface, but none of them really called to me.

Oddly, I was familiar with the Dragonlance setting long before I started playing D&D, and their deities seemed way more interesting. Moreover, there was a theme of balance in that setting that attracted me. Rather than simply lift Paladine, Takhisis, and the rest straight from Weis and Hickman's pages, though, I created my own pantheon using the Dragonlance one as a loose template. The result was 18 deities, two for each alignment. I'm going to talk about the general mythology in this post.

D&D Session #43: Dead Ma'ari

Last session ended with the arrival of a familiar face aboard the party's airship. Just as the party was about to enter the Gate heading toward the Realm of Stone, a tall, gangly man named Miles appeared. Miles was chamberlain to Mal, who was a prince in the Realm of Air. Mal's true father, a powerful wizard, switched Mal with the newborn child of a king and queen. Mal's father planned to use Mal to take over the human kingdoms, but was thwarted by the Hot Water Party.

Kirtan kidnapped Mal and brought the cunning child to the Nexus, along with the Hot Water Party. However, apparently Mal's true mother, a powerful wizard in her own right, wishes for her son to be returned to her. Miles is searching for Mal on her behalf.

Also, Miles is a Ma'ari demigod, though he doesn't really act the part.

D&D Reference: Rune Guide

Just one more blog post for my D&D group, then we'll get back to my regular types of blog posts.

This is a guide with information on the runic tattoos the party has earned, as well as details on how these things work.

D&D Addendum: Kirtan's Report on the Realm of Fire

My Lord, as we begin the journey back to the Nexus I finally have a moment to sit down and compose my thoughts regarding this realm. To begin, suffice to say that this realm is quite unlike what we imagined.Armed with the knowledge I have gained here, though, I believe that next time we will be prepared.

D&D Session #42: Chapter 2 Finale

Armed with the knowledge that the door to the Citadel has been unlocked, the party escapes from the labyrinth. Jeff remarked out of character that he'd had enough of dungeons and was ready for some dragons.

However, nobody is every really ready for dragons. This became abundantly clear as the party exited the cave and found a massive dragon terrorizing the people waiting at the gate of the Citadel.