Any Sage With a Hole in his Head Shall be Put to Death

In a certain city state there was an ancient decree, “any sage with a hole in his head shall be put to death.” It was not a place with many sages. Those that remained confined themselves to the study of geography and history. This edict was put in place to prevent chimeras.

A chimera is formed when a sage seriously applies himself to metaphysics and tries to understand the process by which humans imagine:

When our soul applies itself to imagine something which does not exist—as to represent to itself an enchanted palace or a chimera— and also when it applies itself to attend to something that is solely intelligible and not imaginable—for example, to attend to its own nature—the perceptions it has of these things depend principally upon the volition that makes it perceive them. That is why they are usually regarded as action rather than passions. Descartes, Passions of the soul Article 2, Steven Voss Translation.

Chimeras grow inside the sage’s head when a sage begins to mix ideas of volition, action, soul, and thought. His soul begins to fertilize his absurd fancies and odd hypotheticals. As the sage struggles to imagine these new things they begin to exist. They exist inside the sage’s head and they want out. As the chimera gestates it grows inside the skull causing immense pain and madness. In order to release the pressure a desperate sage will drill a hole in his head.

All chimeras look different. Some are ghostly or invisible some are amalgamations of creatures. They can crawl back into a sage’s head to hide. Once back inside a sage’s head the chimera can regenerate and may even grow more powerful if the sage continues his work. Some chimera will live inside a sage during the day, leaving at night to hunt. Others will roam, coming back only periodically

The best thing a sage can do once I chimera starts to form is end his own life. If he can die before the chimera escapes his skull, the chimera is trapped. When the time comes most sages are unable to go through with this.

My Second Floor of the Mentzer Basic Dungeon

This is from a campaign I ran in 2009 or 2010. If I remember correctly the bandits and kobolds were enemies and the bandits had recently pissed off Bargle.  I have typed it up faithfully and with minimal comments. The kobolds were hard drinking party animals. They were not in any way offensive Asian stereotypes. I have no idea why the kobold clan is named that. I am pretty sure it is an unfortunate coincidence. The bandits were depressed. Bargle was an outgoing sociopath. The adventure hook was that Bargle would go into town every two weeks and go on a bender forcing the town to do humiliating stunts for his amusement and also bandits kidnapped the mayor. Bargle also made the town change the name of the tavern to Bloody Bucket of Elves because he thought it sounded “badass.” I am pretty sure the wandering monster table had giant ants on it.

40. Sign by stairs WING WONG KLAN HYUMANZ GOWAWEY. 4 kobolds hp 1,1,1,2. Cards gross wine and booze on table 2gp, 3sp,  4cp

matting pots for piss door to 44 barred.

41. Gallery with kobold portraits.  Chandelier lit with oil. 10 flasks of oil.

42. Kobold art studio. well lit.

            kobold artists ac 7. Trained fires ants with paint cans on their backs. Paint brushes, canvasses.

43. door from 67  trapped. Open without disarming and powder that makes you tasty to giant ants falls on you. Two door knobs top = trap bottom = ok.

44. 5 dead kobolds

45. empty cell

46. suit of plate mail

47. a mosaic of people being tortured. Garbage.

48. a fountain with a statue of a serpent man. If you walk around it in a circle it turns into a statue of a man wearing a crown. The water looks fresh.

            Drink: 1 save vs polymorph or turn into lizard man

                        2 detect secret doors and traps on 1-5(d6)

                        3 speak lizard man and kobold for 1d6 days

                        4 +2 on all saves for 2d4 turns

                        5 +2 on attack rolls for 2d4 turns

                        6 partial map of the level

49. stairs hidden behind sarcophagus of serpent man thing

50. 6 bandits  ac 7

51. bandit leader ac 6.

Treasure 3gems 100gp, 50gp, 500gp, 1000gp. Jewelry necklace 9000gp, crown 1100gp, arm band 1000gp. Treasure hidden under dead fern plant pot.

52.  5 bodies

53. crab spider ac 7 hp12

54. empty cell

55. torture equipment everywhere

56. painting of Bargle painting says “Don’t ever try to fuck with me you filth dogs!” if you touch save vs. rod or 1d4 electric damage.

57. ghoul ac 6 hp16. Doors are barred to get in this room

58.  empty

59 10 kobolds partying pretty loud.

60. Cell, Table. Mayor in the cell, hungover.

61. Skeleton 7hp. Throw rug. Skeleton attacks if you lift up rug. Under rug is a wooden trap door containing 500sp and 20gp.

62. Must say "Bargle has a big Dick” or skeleton will attack when you try to open door to this room.

63. 3 bandits are hiding in this room waiting to ambush some kobolds.

64. Statues: orc, hobgoblin, white ape, giant beetle, gobbling, human female, ghoul, gnoll, ogre.

65. chiefs room (kobold)

            Kobold chief ac7 hd2 hp 9. 4 kobolds. Hp 2, 1, 1, 2. 8 Kobold babes

30cp 500sp jewels worth 300gp(ring) 1300(cool scepter), 1000(mask) 200(belt buckle)

66. bunk, firepit 8 kobolds

67. kobold pantry/morgue

68. obligatory giant rats hp 1, 2, 3, 3, 1.

69. collapsed area if cleared leads straight to level 4.

70. empty. Smells really bad.

71. Everyone does their business here.

72. Fountain. I stole this room from a blog. Let me find the post. Can’t find it.

            Fountain 10’ diameter anything that touches the water in the fountain turns to stone.

            4 statues:  male halfing, drinking, male elf standing sword through stomach, human woman crawling

            There are also several stone rods and swords in fountain. Anything removed from fountain becomes normal again/alive again. One sword is +1, +3 against undead.

Bargles Stash

Pics and House Rules from an Old Holmes Campaign

The old campaign started in Salt Marsh, Port Town's trading partner.

Pictured above is one of the clans that ruled my version of Salt Marsh.

You can see I am staying true to the art style of the original booklets.

I was running an old Holmes campaign where although survivability was low, some characters began to level up. I was keeping the rule that all weapons do 1d6 dmg. As the players grew more comfortable with the rules I decided to Tinker. I wanted to give fighters a special class ability so I gave them a rudimentary weapon mastery ability. It does subvert the Holmes rule that all weapons do the same damage, but I thought it kept the spirit of it enough while doing something to make fighters special and provide a mechanical reason to use different weapons in different situations.

FIGHTER WEAPON SKILL PROGRESSION

Daggers: do 1d4 dmg
levels 1-3: one attack per round
levels 4-6: two attack per round
levels 7-9: three attacks per round

Swords
levels 1-3: 1d8 dmg
levels 4-6: 1d10 dmg
levels 7-9: 1d12 dmg

Mace
levels 1-3: successful hit raises (makes worse) metal armor's by 1
levels 4-6: successful hit raises (makes worse) metal armor's by 2
levels 7-9: successful hit raises (makes worse) metal armor's by 3
This set of rule also worked on armored monsters like giant ants etc.

A member of another ruling clan of Salt Marsh.

Each clan had their own funny outfits.

The fighters in the group liked it. Everyone thought it was kind of cool but I am not sure if it made the game more fun to the extent that it justified the added complexity. I think maybe a different group of players would have gotten more mileage out of it.