B6: The Veiled Society and Urban Investigations

 

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My thoughts on B6: The Veiled Society

A few days ago I bought the PDF version of B6 from DrivethruRPG and I have been browsing through it. Full disclosure: I have not actually played through it so my point of view is limited in that respect. It's written by David Cook, co-author of the Expert Rules and X4 & X5 modules. The module does not have a great deal of information about the city of Specularum and I suspect the author assumed the DM would have access to Gaz1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, where Specularum is given more detail. Actually given the differences between Specularum in this module (5000 population) and in Gaz1 (50,000 population) I suspect TSR had not hammered out the details of what the capital city was actually like when they commissioned this module.  

I won’t give away too much of the plot but it involves three competing families, the Radu, Torenescu and Vorloi, who each hold considerable power and influence within Specularum. Then there is the titular Veiled Society, a criminal group that is stirring up trouble and may be linked to one of the houses. There are a number of urban encounters - a religious procession is interrupted, the PCs are confronted by masked men and there is a riot that the PCs get caught up in. There is a dungeon under a widow’s house that then leads to a murder mystery and political shenanigans.

Would I use it as written? I think I would give it a go with the caveat that improvisation on the DM’s part may be required to link the various encounters together (see my thoughts below). Some of the situations in the module seem a bit arbitrary such as requiring the PCs to split up between different inns, and at one point if they don’t face questioning by a clerical tribunal they will be hanged for murder within a week. DM discretion is a good idea, particularly for this adventure. The author is keen on the idea of different PCs dealing with different factions, thus splitting the party somewhat. My feeling is that this should not be necessary and only done if the players and the DM feel they can handle it. 

I feel like this could be a good introduction to Specularum and the groups and factions within it. After the adventure the PCs could get involved in other schemes and investigations or perhaps delve into previously forgotten dungeons underneath the city. The three families may have had some upsets and some deaths as a result of B6 but they are still functioning and will want to reestablish their power bases whether criminal, courtly or mercantile. Maybe new factions and groups want to establish themselves, perhaps the Dmitrov family or merchants from Minrothad Guilds or even a cult of Chaos.  And of course Duke Stefan Karameikos III and his own ministers and officials will want to maintain their governance.  

Personal Thoughts on Urban Investigations

Those of you who follow my blog will know that I tend to stick to dungeon adventures. This module is quite a radical departure from that format, both for myself and I suspect for early TSR - the previous module in the B series, B5: The Horror on the Hill, was a combined wilderness trek and dungeon crawl beneath a ruined monastery. One of the things about a dungeon is that rooms, corridors and locked doors are very good at keeping a controlled flow of the adventure. The PCs have to get through one room to get to the one beyond, or when they reach a junction in a passageway it is a simple (though not always foreseeable) choice of which passage they take. Dungeons are in some ways flow diagrams made solid. 

Urban adventures like this are considerably more up in the air, with the PCs coming up with unusual ideas for how to handle situations and NPCs, sometimes clever, sometimes stupid. The adventure author cannot predict how player characters will react, and usually neither can the DM running the adventure. The bottom line is that these urban investigations can have a certain amount of structure - in B6 this is the various events such as the interrupted procession, the widow asking for help (which leads to a relatively conventional dungeon under the streets) and the riot. But getting the PCs from one event to the next is far more fluid. Trying too hard to steer PCs in the right direction can turn into railroading, but in a city like Specularum (and here it is only 5000 people, nowhere near the size of some fantasy cities) it is very easy to get distracted or go off chasing red herrings. The investigation aspect can be quite unpredictable and some parties may solve it quickly while others just don’t put things together or even notice the clues. Occasionally the PCs figure things out before the author expects them to and they will rush straight to confront the bad guy. It is tempting to me to add side encounters that adventurers in a city might come across but the PCs might well assume they are part of an intricate plot connected to the main adventure. This module (The Veiled Society) has a section at the front where random encounters are discouraged. Understandable though perhaps rather boring and timid. The author also has the interesting idea of coopting the PCs into fleshing out the shops and NPCs, encouraging the players to make notes on where newly created establishments and NPCs are and what they are like. 

I may be a bit harsh and pessimistic here. I’m sure that most DMs can run this adventure relatively smoothly and most adventuring parties can pick up the clues and figure out whodunnit. Of course a certain amount of improvisation will be needed by the DM, both when PCs get into conversation with NPCs and also when they want to explore the city, perhaps taking their investigation into corners the module author had not considered. This requires a different set of skills, both character skills and player skills, and indeed DM skills, than those required for traditional dungeon crawls. And sometimes I’m not entirely confident in my own skills here. 

One of the ways I have approached this style of plot-based adventure is to not enforce a strict order of events - or at least if the events do happen in an order, it is not dependent on the players and their characters doing the expected thing. It is more of a sandbox but with things going on around the PCs that (hopefully) the PCs will notice and get involved with. You've heard of dungeon crawls and wilderness hex crawls? I introduce to you the street crawl. I don’t like the idea of PCs being expected to follow a specific storyline and having to be guided back on track if they stray. Strict storylines in a relatively free and open environment like a city impinge too much on player agency - are the PCs allowed to make meaningful choices about how they solve mysteries and deal with complex situations? Admittedly this still requires considerable improvisation from the DM, but I suspect they were going to need to do that anyway. 

Regardless of my hesitations, fantasy cities have been a major part of fantasy worlds, whether in the Hyborean age of Conan the Barbarian, Lankhmar where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser call home, Immyr, the dreaming city that is the capital of Melnibone where Elric used to rule or Greyhawk City where the first D&D games were set or Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms. It is cities where politics, crime, trade and magic are most concentrated and therefore are the obvious place for so many adventures above ground. 

My thoughts about Gaz8: The Five Shires and high-level Halflings

 

Art by Clyde Caldwell, source

I like this one. Interestingly it is written by Ed Greenwood, who of course is famous for being the creator of the Forgotten Realms. It's interesting that TSR also asked him to work on other worlds such as Mystara here, and I think he rose to the challenge well. 

It's difficult to write about D&D halflings without thinking about Tolkein's hobbits. The name of the nation, the Five Shires, is a clear homage to the Shire where Frodo and Bilbo Baggins lived and where Tolkein's most famous adventures (The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings) started. So are these halflings just hobbits with a name changed for copyright reasons? Not exactly. There are similarities, with the rolling countryside and sylvan forests. But these halflings are tougher and are more willing to both defend themselves and explore the wider world. In fact there is a halfling militia, halfling commandos/vigilantes known as Fangs and halfling pirates on whom there is a whole chapter. This differentiates them from Tolkein’s hobbits sufficiently to grab my interest. 

And they do need to defend themselves. The biggest and most obvious threat is the orcs of the Cruth Mountains. Throughout the history of the land the orcs have raided, invaded and occasionally tyrannised the halflings. However, the hin (the halflings' name for themselves) have also had major problems with both humans and dwarves. The dwarves are no longer a substantial influence in the area. The most significant human threat is from the Black Eagle Barony in the east, just over the border in Karameikos, though pirates on the Sea of Dread (from Ierendi and possibly Minrothad and other coastal realms) have also been an occasional problem, particularly around maritime trade. Halflings have also had horrible experiences with mages of Glantri, whom they now fear and distrust. Although it can be assumed that orcs and halflings are automatically enemies, the halflings of the Five Shires have enough friendly and business interactions with humans that many more opportunities for intrigue and diplomacy can be found. Is that merchant from Karameikos actually a spy for the Black Eagle Barony? Is it possible to persuade the pirate captain to leave the coast of Seashire alone? The wandering Glantrian wizard has generated a lot of suspicion but is he responsible for some disappearances in nearby villages? 

And despite mostly being peaceful villages and rolling countryside, the Five shires have their own collections of carnivorous monsters, particularly the Deep Glaurant. Unlike some gazetteers, the opportunities for adventures and dungeons are plentiful in the borderlands of the Five Shires, and I am glad for that, even if the resident halflings have reservations.  

High level Halflings

One of the aspects of halflings explored in this gazetteer is what happens with halflings after 8th level. According to the B/X rules, halflings can reach a maximum level of 8 (Sheriff, or in this gazetteer Knight-Guardian). This is a severe restriction even in Expert-level campaigns where halflings will find themselves left behind while human characters are continuing on to name level, and even elves and dwarves have a bit more growth available. There are two possible answers to this. Firstly the attack ranks and accompanying abilities detailed in the Companion Rules are a solution for those halflings that prefer to keep a martial focus and develop their weapon skills. Secondly this gazetteer introduces the Halfling Master, a sort of prestige class that gives halflings that qualify powers similar to druids. However, at least according to the Gazetteer these halfling masters are guardians of the Five Shires, not wandering adventurers. If DMs stick to this idea then perhaps becoming a Master is not a good option for a halfling PC hoping to join his high-level adventuring companions in far off lands and deep dungeons. If the DM drops this requirement then Masters could become a bit too popular, eclipsing the martial halflings progressing through attack ranks. I have not quite decided on my prefered way of handling this. 

This does sort of reflect my post on high level elves where borrowing ideas from Gaz5: Elves of Alfheim, I went with the idea of high-level elves progressing as either Elven Lords (with relatively simple advancement) or Elven Wizards (who require specialist training in Alfheim to progress to the next level).  What if halfling masters could wander from the Shire and join their human and elven adventuring party, but when they are ready to level up they need to spend time (two months or so) in the Shires, training with their fellow masters?  If they don’t or cannot return to the Shires then their progression is paused. This seems like a reasonable compromise though I have not playtested it. 

Long-running followers of this blog might remember I created the Halfling Defender class long ago, a sort of fighter/cleric for halflings. But that was for Kaelaross, long before I got hold of this gazetteer. I have barely noted its existence since writing about Mystara, and as such I don’t think I’ll use it, at least not in Mystara. In some ways this is a bit of a pity. Dwarves have the standard dwarf warriors and also dwarf clerics (a class from Kaelaross that I have brought over to Mystara) while elves have their standard elf spellswords (casting magic user spells while wearing full armour) and the elven ranger. Halflings, at least at low levels, seem to just have one class to choose from. But seeing as Halfling Masters fulfil the role of halfling clerics, Halfling defenders now seem rather redundant. I shall ponder this but for the moment defenders are out, masters are in. 

Left brain/Right brain gaming

There are a wide range of gaming styles and gamers out there. One particular way I tend to categorise games is how emotional or how logical is the approach.  This ties in to the old idea (maybe with scientific validity) of the right side of the brain being involved in emotion, intuition and social interaction, and the left side of the brain being used for logic, analyis and spatial awareness. 

The old school were definitely veering towards the left side. They came from wargamers where there was no social interaction on the battlefield, only tactics, troop statistics and resource managment. This carried on into the dungeon where a lot of the action was focused on resource management - rations, torches, arrows, memorised spells, hit points, time itself, treasure (the whole point of the exercise and the main way one gained XP and therefore levels) were all expected to be tracked carefully. 

You didn't get too attached to your character, at least not to start with, as their life expectancy was short. Character quirks and background were often ignored. You only bothered with that sort of stuff after a few levels of play, and it was often emergent, ideas about one's character coming as a result of interaction in game. 

Mapping was a major part of dungeon exploration which partially explains the slightly weird designs of some early dungeons such as B1: In Search of the Unknown. Without VTTs, dungeons were verbally described by the DM and the players would try to map their way - vital if the adventurers needed to exit the dungeon in a hurry. 

But as D&D grew more popular the possibilities opened up. Although many would cite the Hickmans with both their Ravenloft and Dragonlance modules as a shift in AD&D in the early 80s, it could be argued that Gary Gygax also took a more right-brained approach in D1-3 (I watched a rather good video about this on Daddy Rolled a 1 on Youtube). In those modules the adventurers' interactions with both the Kuo-Toa and the various drow houses in D2 & D3 are not expected to be hack and slash. 

Of course, I1 Ravenloft with its plot-based structure and its charismatic and interactive villain who was more than just combat stats was a landmark in adventure design and approaching play. These days purely map-based dungeon-crawls and hex-crawls are relatively rare: there is nearly always some plot or storyline the PCs are expected to follow. I think one big sign of the changes is how XP is given out. It used to be it was almost all about the treasure, with monster xp a small side dish. Now XP awards are for completing goals which may have nothing to do with monsters or treasure, or even better, XP is ignored in favour of levelling up when the DM (or adventure author) feels like it. One less resource to keep track of! 

These days I feel a lot of folks who would have got into the left-side logical analytical side of RPGs find their fix in computer games where a lot of the maths is automated. The Diablo series really has translated the hack and slash approach into a computer game, while World of Warcraft is a little more interactive - having a lot of other players in the same gaming environment encourages at least conversations and connections between players, particularly within guilds. Min-maxing becomes a lot more clear when dealing with computer rules rather than printed rules. 

I wouldn't say current D&D has completely switched over to the right side of the brain and become a Ren-fair soap opera - the 5E and 5.5E games I've been running still have plenty of combat, navigation and problem solving. But also since the 2000s WotC has realised that they need to offer a table-top experience that computer games currently struggle to convey - that means the human element, the non-game-mechanical interactions. I do wonder whether AI will be able to run NPCs as effectively as a human DM - just look at the constant development of chatbots. And this is more likely to be in an MMORPG environment than a virtual tabletop. 

Where Am I in all of this?

I definitely lean toward the left hand of this scale, though not at the far end. Looking through my blog articles, a lot of them are monsters, spells and map-based (rather than plot-based) adventures. There are relatively few stories and the NPCs I introduce are generally not particularly deep in terms of personality and motivations. I am sometimes baffled by some of the D&D posts on Tumblr about anime-inspired OCs (Original Characters) who are often dressed more for a stroll along a Victorian promenade than into the Temple of Elemental Evil. And the idea that a player's character ought to follow a particular arc seems to clash with my ideas of emergent stories from game play. If you have already decided what is going to happen to your character, write a book rather than expecting the rest of a gaming group to go along with your preconceived story. I think it’s interesting (at least to myself) that the one time I tried writing a blog post from a character’s point of view,  Tilphon’s Journal of the Shadowdeep, was intended to be a series. I have not posted the second one - not because I can’t write about the Shadowdeep, but because I find it difficult writing from a character’s point of view. 

This fits in with my preferences outside of TTRPGs. I've always preferred documentaries to dramas on TV, and in film I am far more interested in action and science fiction than romance. I have interests in dinosaurs, computing, space exploration and military tactics and equipment. I am not interested in celebrity gossip. I have never watched an episode of Love Island. I'm not even particularly good at distinguishing good acting from bad acting. I suspect there might be a bit of neuro-divergence going on there. 

However, I do not tell anybody they are doing it wrong. This is purely a matter of taste and personality, not correctness. Finding the fellow gamers and the right DM who are where you at in this matter is a factor in whether you are enjoying your D&D. I might not get what other folks are doing in D&D but I don't feel the need to tell them (except perhaps in this blog post...). 

 

Druids? In Mystara?

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In most editions of D&D, from 1st Edition AD&D, there have been druids - priests of nature who are similar to but not the same as clerics that follow more personal deities. In Moldvay Basic and Cook/Marsh Expert druids do not exist. By all means have a neutral cleric that worships nature, but they still function as clerics. 

This changes in the Mentzer Companion Set where druids are introduced as an option for 9th level neutral clerics. This means that according to BECMI all druids are 9th level or higher. This may be a deliberate design decision, or it might simply be a result of introducing druids in the Companion Set that focuses on characters of 14th-25th level. 

My proposal is simple. Take the BECMI druid but make it an option at 1st level. The down-side is that druids are restricted to non-metal weapons and armour (clubs, staves, slings, leather armour, wooden shields). The upside is they can choose a druid spell instead of a clerical spell for any given spell slot. As per BECMI they use the same saving throws and attack tables as clerics. Druids cannot turn undead. 

I admit this is not exactly balanced - with substandard equipment and no spells at 1st level, the druid will be distinctly squishy, only a little better in combat than a 1st level magic user who has already expended their one spell. On the other hand it does explain why druids are so rare - there is a survival of the fittest that seems appropriate for a follower of nature. I see druids as more of an NPC class than a PC class for adventuring. Also culturally the druid is much more likely to be found in cultures that are still very close to nature and the elements, such as Traladarans and Atruaghin clans. 

Elven Druids

Many druids are human, but there are elven druids. They must abide by the same restrictions on weapons and armour as their human druid counterparts and also have to use the XP progression for elves, which is a lot slower than clerics and human druids. However, they have one major advantage: elven druids retain the ability to cast magic-user spells as normal elves alongside their clerical/druidic spells. They use the spells per day of an elf, but each slot can be used for a magic-user, druid or cleric spell, thus greatly broadening their magical repertoire .  They use the attack tables and saving throws of elves and also have the racial traits of elves  - improved detection of secret doors, immunity to ghoul paralysis and 60ft infravision. 

I know a few months ago I wrote a post about character class options for elves. Right now I am considering replacing the Elven Mystic (poor choice of name given the Rules Cyclopedia) with the Elven Druid. I see them having a similar role in society, but slightly simpler to run. 

New spells and magic items

There are many new druid spells that can be brought in from other editions, starting with 1st edition AD&D. However, these are subject to the DM’s approval. Similarly there are magic items suitable for druids that can be found elsewhere. 

A few years ago I wrote a post about unusual materials for magic items. Ent-heart wood and crocodile hide are both suitable for druids, being non-metallic. Imaginative DMs might also add new items crafted from other natural materials such as ivory or antler, or even weirder stuff such as the chitinous carapaces of giant insects. 

Other Subclasses?

I have recently watched a Youtube video about assassins and monks. The Mentzer BECMI rules, particularly the Rules Cyclopedia, has the Mystic class, while the Headsman NPC is the BECMI equivalent of the assassin. I haven’t yet included in my Mystara world building but they are there ready to appear,

This opens up a lot of possibilities  regarding subclasses. Although not described as subclasses, the Paladin and Avenger described in the Companion rules are variants of the fighter that are nearly as different from the basic fighter as the druid is from the cleric. Am I going to include them? And how does the Avenger fit in alongside the other chaotic fighter subclass, the Chaos Warrior?

Subclasses and World-Building

One thing I’ve realised is that choosing which subclasses appear is a big part of world-building - it shows what sort of folks inhabit your campaign world (in this case my variant of Mystara). Subclasses link into culture and also themes and moods. Paladins tend to indicate heroism and chivalry, assassins tend to indicate cynicism and brutality, monks & mystics tend to indicate exotic cultures beyond faux-Europe, druids tend to indicate times and traditions from long before the high medieval default assumptions. Samurai, ninja and Sohei are all cultural variants of the base classes suitable for the flavour of Japan, or in this blog’s case the Pearl Islands, my Japan-inspired culture in Mystara. Chaos warriors and Twisted Summoners are not so much cultural so much as tying in with my campaign’s themes of the forces of Chaos and its ability to seduce and recruit the power-hungry and selfish humans. Gnome tinkerers are this campaign’s main practicers of magi-tech which, though not central to my campaign’s themes, is nonetheless present. 

The demihuman classes I have introduced are all indicative that demihumans are not just one-class cultures, and that all demihuman cultures have more than one set of abilities that can be used to go adventuring. 

The bottom line is that I am not going to open the floodgates and allow any and all possible subclasses into this campaign. It is unlikely that this blog will see AD&D-style rangers, paladins, illusionists, bards or the like. However, I will allow them as and when they seem appropriate. Some subclasses are rare and this is absolutely fine. Some editions of D&D (particularly 3E and later) treat all classes as being as equal in power and ease of getting started in, and apparently equal in distribution among PCs and NPCs. I do not see subclasses like this - they are much more specialised, more specific than the very broad and common core classes of Cleric, Fighter, Magic User Thief. Subclasses are definitely not core: They are optional and the DM should treat them as such. 

The Shadowdeep and the Underdark

Out of the Abyss

 After my last gaming group ceased I am now gathering a new band of adventurers and hoping to start a new campaign at our local boardgames cafe. This time rather than Descent into Avernus, I am going to run Out of the Abyss, another 5E hardback book for a campaign that should take the PCs from level 1 all the way up to high level (enough to take on demon lords at the end). This adventure combines two well-known aspects of D&D - the Underdark and demons. 

Out of the Abyss starts with the characters as prisoners of the drow, along with a motley crew of fellow prisoner NPCs with their own backgrounds and motives. The first half of the adventure is about escaping the drow and the underdark and making it back to the surface while realising that demon lords are being summoned to the underdark and wreaking havoc. A bit like Descent into Avernus, I get the impression that the book contains the framework and major plot points of the adventure, but as the DM I will probably be fleshing out a lot of the encounters and obstacles along the way. I might be posting some of my homebrew stuff for Out of the Abyss in a similar way to my Descent into Avernus posts: we'll see how things turn out. 

The Underdark 

Although man-made dungeons (or at least humanoid-made) have been part of D&D since its inception, and smaller natural caves and caverns likewise, the idea of the Underdark, a sprawling network of natural caves miles deep beneath the surface containing races and monsters that have never seen the light of the sun really started with D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth, written by Gary Gygax and set in Greyhawk. That series of modules introduced the kuo-toa, the svirfneblin and drow (technically making their first appearance in G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King but really making their presence known in D1). The authors of the Forgotten Realms picked up that idea and ran with it, particularly R. A. Salvatore and his novels about Drizzt Do'Urden (I remember reading and enjoying the Dark Elf series, especially Homeland, which gives Salvatore's dark and gothic view of drow society in Menzoberranzen). Since then it has been a regular feature of D&D through the years. 

There have been numerous products that have looked at the underdark. Off the top of my head and from my own bookshelf, I would list

• 1st Edition AD&D D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth
• 1st Edition AD&D D2: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
• 1st Edition AD&D D3: Vault of the Drow
• 1st Edition AD&D The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide
• 2nd Edition AD&D The Night Below (boxed adventure)
• 2nd Edition AD&D Drizz't Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark
• 2nd Edition AD&D Menzoberranzen boxed set
• 2nd Edition AD&D The Drow of the Underdark (FR sourcebook) 
• 3rd Edition D&D The Underdark (FR sourcebook)
• 3rd Edition D&D City of the Spider Queen

And of course there are plenty of fan projects and products

I may be speculating here, but I think it scratches a particular itch for exploration in a truly alien and dangerous environment. Real world caves are still a dangerous place to go if you are inexperienced and unprepared. And they do have ecosystems of sorts, from bats and bears near the surface to blind fish and albino insects much deeper. The ancient civilizations (Greeks, Meso-Americans and others) knew of these caves and thus began the idea of the mythic underworld, leading to the realm of Hades. It is no coincidence that many depictions of Hell from the real world place it deep underground. 

The D&D Underdark is a mythic underworld of sorts, albeit codified and statted out for game rules. In a way it is the ultimate megadungeon - no party can hope to clear it out or even explore it entirely. For the most part the PCs will be away from safety, supplies and other benefits of towns and cities. It requires an expeditionary mind-set with preparation, plenty of supplies and an awareness of the challenges. Light is almost entirely absent, navigation is very difficult, food is hard to find and sometimes even the air one breathes cannot be taken for granted. Combine that with the psychological effects of isolation, claustrophobia, the threat of underground hazards such as cave-ins and chasms and it becomes clear why the Underdark takes on a reputation of being one of the most hostile environments a D&D adventurer can enter. 

Mystara's Shadowdeep

Does Mystara have an underdark like Oerth or Toril? Yes, although it is generally refered to as the Shadowdeep. A while ago I posted Tilphon's Journal of the Shadowdeep, the account of an Alphatian explorer starting his journey in the Shadowdeep beneath Brun. It has not yet received a part 2, but I think that is more because I am not used to the in-world journal style that I had a go at with that post rather than the environment being explored - I nearly always write from a DM's point of view not that of a character.

Nonetheless, in my version of Mystara the Shadowdeep is there, albeit one of the least explored aspects. One of the things I have drawn upon is issue #14 of Threshold Magazine. Threshold is an amateur magazine put together by members of the Vaults of Pandius and its associated Mystara forum on The Piazza. 

Another important source has been the Gazetteer books, particularly Gaz13: The Shadow Elves. There are hints of underground realms in Gaz2: Emirates of Ylaruam, Gaz7: The Northern Reaches, Gaz4: The Dwarves of Rockhome  and quite a lot in Gaz10: Orcs of Thar. Nonetheless, the Shadowdeep is a lot less developed than Faerun’s Underdark, probably because Mystara and B/X D&D has a vastly smaller audience than the Forgotten Realms and whatever the current edition of D&D is. The bad news is that this means more work for DMs wanting to run Shadowdeep adventures and campaigns. Good news is that the DM has a much more free hand in what they want to put there. And of course just because something in the gazetteers is canon, it doesn’t mean the DM has to stick to it in their campaign. If they want to replace shadow elves with drow or have drow as rivals to the shadow elves, that’s really up to them.

Having said that, I feel it is a good thing to keep the Shadowdeep distinct from the Underdark. I do not intend to bring drow, mindflayers, duergar, svirfneblin and the like to Mystara in this blog - the Shadowdeep is its own thing. To be honest I have mentioned kuo-toa in a post involving fish-folk. Although amusing at the time, I am not sure if it was sensible in the long run. A long time ago I did  a similar post about my homebrew world of Kaelaross and its possible underdark, but I really didn’t come up with anything concrete or playable. And it is a big topic (and geographical volume) to explore and develop. 

My current view is that it is something I can work on in various blog posts. I have a tendency to flit between realms and topics on this blog - Karameikos one week, Norwold another, then new spells, then a homebrew mini-adventure. So I’m not going to make a grand commitment to produce a new quasi-gazetteer, but I’m leaving the Shadowdeep open for me to visit in later blog posts. 

My Experience of D&D through the Editions

 

art by Jeff Easley

This post is my opinion based on my own experiences and is not intended to be a definitive history. 

I have recently gotten hold of a PDF of the Holmes Basic edition of D&D. For those that don’t know, this was the edition that was intended to smarten up and clarify Original D&D (the three white books), then encouraged players to move on to Advanced D&D, yet was also the direct ancestor of Moldvay Basic D&D, which is the set I first had and was my introduction to this hobby. I was going to write about just Holmes Basic and what can be borrowed from it in my B/X D&D Mystara campaign, but I’ve ended up thinking about all editions of D&D. 

My Feelings on the Matter

I think a lot of people can get defensive and close-minded about editions. In my 40 years in the hobby I have seen a number of edition wars, waged in the Forum pages of Dragon Magazine, the early Usenet forums on the nascent world wide web and of course other online places like Reddit, EN World and various blogs. One thing that irks me is when people decide quite arbitrarily what is or is not “proper” D&D. This is often based on what edition they grew up with and played with their friends when they were discovering  the game. I think it’s quite normal and natural to have a favourite edition, and that is probably going to be influenced by nostalgia. I myself wrote this blog because I wanted to get back to Moldvay Basic D&D, which I was given for Christmas 1982. It still is my favourite edition. But I try not to confuse nostalgia with being the “correct” edition, especially when talking to others. 

I have always acknowledged that D&D is always changing. It has ever since it was first published. There are those who denounce the the three supplements to the white booklets, Supplement 1: Greyhawk, Supplement 2: Blackmoor & Supplement 3: Eldritch Wizardry as deviating from “proper D&D” which should be the three booklets (Men & Magic,  Monsters & Treasure, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures) and nothing else. Thieves? Variable damage dice for weapons? Different hit dice for classes?  Bah! Newfangled nonsense!. And I believe the game will continue to evolve. 5.5E probably won’t be the final edition. That doesn’t mean I will definitely play 6th or 7th edition if and when they are published, but I’ll try to have an open mind about them and not be bitter about WotC abandoning MY edition, or resentful to those who play the new ones. Players and DMs who prefer the older editions can still continue with the books they already have - the two downsides are that firstly WotC (or whatever publisher) won't be putting out more support for that edition; secondly new editions will split the fan base and a large number of players will move along to the new edition, reducing the number of potential players for the old edition. 

I also think it is quite reasonable to like or dislike rules and mechanics within each edition. Some will veer towards the crunch-heavy side (5E and 3.5E spring to mind) while others will go for as rules-lite as possible (OD&D or its OSR imitators).  Rules vs Rulings is often a matter of taste rather than objective quality. Sometimes the size of the books is more dependent on the options available rather than explaining the underlying mechanics - new races, feats, classes, subclasses, prestige classes, kits, spells, equipment, magic items and the like can all add to the page count.  And I have seen lots of discussions (sometimes heated) about the pros and cons of different mechanics and rules, usually on the internet. 

WotC can piss people off. And as a big corporation they have made some bad business decisions. That Pinkerton incident (yes I know it was about Magic the Gathering, not D&D, but it is still the same corporation) will haunt them for a long time. Good - they deserve to be reminded of it. And that attempt to rewrite the OGL did not go down well with anybody else. But I don’t think we should look at TSR through rose-tinted glasses either. Gary Gygax’s treatment of Dave Arneson, Lorraine Williams ousting of Gary in turn, TSR’s ferocious approach to amateur D&D work on the early web all show that big businesses will behave like big businesses. I remember on the Usenet forums before TSR went bankrupt it was regularly referred to as T$R, and some players were regularly advocating piracy as T$R didn’t deserve their money. Despite all these corporate shenanigans I have not been put off from buying TSR or WotC products as long as I am interested in the actual product. Other people can boycott WotC if they want, and I’m not going to argue with them. But I don’t have to join in either. 

My personal experiences with D&D Editions

OD&D (Gygax & Arneson, 1974): I do have the PDFs, but I have never actually played it. Seeing as I don’t have Chainmail rules, I don’t think I’ll even try as it looks like a disorganised mess. But I do know that other people still play it and that retroclones of it have done well. 

Holmes Basic D&D (Eric J Holmes, 1977): Like I said earlier, I have recently acquired the PDF. It is interesting and is the branching point for B/X from AD&D. I probably won’t use anything in it but it is nice to read as an important part of D&D history. The presentation and explanation has greatly improved from OD&D.  

B/X D&D (Moldvay, Cook, Marsh, 1981): The first rules I owned (the magenta Basic D&D box with Keep on the Borderlands), and the rules I played with in prep school (ages 10-12). Very formative years, and lots of nostalgia. I still like the relative lightness of the rules even if I have sometimes found the race-as-class idea somewhat restrictive. 

BECMI D&D (Frank Mentzer, 1983): I was given Mentzer's Expert boxed set rather than the Cook/Marsh one, with the Larry Elmore cover. I reckon BECMI is so close to B/X that they are effectively the same edition though with very different presentations - perhaps Basic D&D 1.5. I also have the Companion rules and the Masters Rules (though the Masters Rules are only as a PDF). Honorable mention goes to the Rules Cyclopedia, the most complete game in one book that I own, and it is often the D&D book  I take on holiday. Incidentally this is the edition I used to play D&D with nephews and nieces a long time ago (we had a week's holiday together and they were between 8 and 12 I think - the oldest is now 26). 

1st Edition AD&D (Gary Gygax, 1977+): This is what I started playing at boarding school, particularly the earlier half (age 13-15). Again lots of nostalgia during formative years. I had nearly all the hardback books.  The fact that it was Advanced, not Basic, made us feel more grown-up.... There are things about this edition that I still enjoy and refer to, such as the appendices in the back of the DMG. 

2nd Edition AD&D (David Zeb Cook, 1989): The later years of boarding school (age 16 to 17) saw the introduction of 2E and my D&D friends and I switched. There was of course the assumption that newer is better, but we ended up playing a mash-up of 1E and 2E, with older modules, assassins, monks and half orcs making their appearances in our 2E games.  I still like how 2E clarified the rules, improved the Ranger and Bard classes, actually had a consistent mechanic for surprise and was a little less arbitrary than Gary’s 1E. However, it was also somewhat less flavourful and played it a bit too safe (I was disappointed at the initial lack of devils & demons, though they were brought back later). I bought more 2E books at university (including Dark Sun, Planescape and lots of Forgotten Realms books) but at university I never really found a group I was comfortable playing with. 

3rd Edition D&D (Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, 2000): I bought a lot of the books but I didn't get to play much - this was definitely a dry period, where I spent a lot of time world-building and dreaming of creating great adventures and supplements but never getting them further than my hard drive. There were some things about this edition I really liked, but others I was less enthusiastic about. One of the great things was the Open Game License which allowed all sorts of third-party products including adventures, settings and even whole games based off D&D, which led to retro-clones and the OSR. The thing I least liked about this was the increasing complexity  - the skills system, calculating monster XP, the massive bloat in terms of feats and prestige classes. A lot of my world building and unpublished adventurers ended up summarising NPCs as race, class & alignment rather than doing proper stat blocks, which could get really big for high level characters. 

4th Edition D&D (Rob Heinsoo, James Wyatt, 2008): I skipped this one. I did actually buy the three core books but on perusing I decided I didn’t like it. I didn’t even get to try the mechanics - I was put off by the radical changes to things like races, alignment, adding new classes & races, dropping established ones and telling players and D&Ds  “Don’t bother trying to convert your old campaign to 4E, just start a new campaign with these new classes, races & cosmology”. And I just went “Nope.” The best thing that 4th Edition did was to push me towards the OSR (Old School Revival) where I found retroclones such as OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry and of course my favourite, Labyrinth Lord, which led me back to Basic D&D. To be fair there wasn't much opportunity for actual play during this period either. However, I became more active on the internet, including joining EN World,  Dragonsfoot and the now-defunct Goblinoid Games forum. And of course I started my blog during this period. 

5th Edition D&D (Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, 2014): I bought the core books fairly early on, soon after each one was released, but I didn’t get to play until a few years ago at a board games cafe. Since then I’ve played more 5E than almost any other edition. The current edition always has a competitive edge over out-of-print editions, and although I was hoping to run a B/X game, the demand was for 5E. It turns out to be a pretty good, decent system - the campaign would not have lasted 2 years if I thought the rules were complete crap. It is more rules-intensive than B/X or AD&D, but not intolerably so. The campaign I have been running has recently ended unexpectedly. This is sad, but I do not regret the time and effort I spent running it. The two years or so DMing the campaign has meant I have gotten used to 5E and perhaps even some confidence in running it. Beforehand I had the books but really didn’t know what it felt like to play: Now I do. 

Ideas about Creating NPCs in 5.5E

source

This has been bouncing around inside my head and I'd like to just write down my current state of thinking, which has evolved a bit since a previous post. A lot of this stuff is not just for 5.5E but also applicable to 5E and perhaps 3.0/3.5.  

Creating by-the-book PCs for 5.5E can take a while - typically an hour or more for each character (higher level characters taking longer than 1st level ones). This is absolutely fine if this character will be used by a player for lots of adventures and all the details on the character sheet will be at least considered if not actually used. 

For NPCs who won't see the same level of use as a player character the two main options presented in the DMG are:

1. Creating a character using the rules in the Players Handbook. This will take time, and if I want to create quite a few NPCs (populating a town, an organisation or a rival adventuring group), this is really not feasible.
    
2. Using one of the stat blocks in the Monster Manual. The 5.5E MM has them scattered alphabetically through the main book, while 5.0E MM has them confined to the appendix B at the back of the book. Although these stat blocks are okay, they just don't quite have the customisability or range that I would like. Maybe I'm being fussy. 

I think there ought to be a 3rd way. 

Firstly whatever the NPC is or can do, it ought to fit into the Monster Manual stat block. This may mean not explaining how or why stats are what they are. If an NPC is using a background from the PHB then I don't need to explain on the stat block how the background affects their ability scores, skill proficiencies or equipment. I believe that a clear, easily useable stat block is more important than one that is cluttered but technically accurate.

Secondly NPCs are not required to abide by exactly the same rules as PCs. I suspect this will be in the form of leaving out details and special features that a PC of similar class and role would have, and instead focusing on things that the NPC will be expected to do in game play.  My general idea is that many of these NPCs will be based on a combination of class/subclass/background/species/level. This will add up to a lot of things to go onto a character sheet, more than would be suitable for an NPC stat block, particularly if the PCs are going to kill them 3 rounds of combat after first meeting them. Not all the subclass features or species features will make it onto the stat block. 

And of course, I can ignore subclasses and do NPCs as just "plain" members of classes. Maybe not as colourful or with the same range of features as a PC with subclass, but these are NPCs and do not need the same depth and complexity. And according to the rules, subclasses don't apply until 3rd level anyway. 

Same goes for backgrounds. The 5.5E backgrounds look more streamlined with less than half a page each but even these are an optional extra when creating NPCs. I suspect that not much from a background will actually show up in the stat block. 

I've already done this in a previous post detailing a Thayan enclave in Elturel. There I have given stat blocks for Red Wizard Neophytes and Red Wizard Juniors. These are based on 2nd level wizards and 4th level wizards respectively. They are also envisioned to cover many NPCs who fit that role, like the Monster Manual stat blocks, rather than what might be considered individual stat blocks for named NPCs found in adventures. 

Red Wizard Neophyte:
Medium Humanoid (Human), Neutral Evil, based on 2nd level wizard
AC: 10, HP: 9, Speed: 30ft
Str 10 (0), Dex 10 (0), Con 13 (+1), Int 15 (+2) Wis 12 (+1), Cha 10 (0)
Saving Throws: Int (+4), Wis (+3)
Skills: Arcana (+4), Insight (+3)
Senses: passive perception (12)
Languages: Common, Thayan, Abyssal
Challenge: 2 (450xp)
Special Equipment: Dagger, red robes
Action: Dagger, melee attack (+2 to hit, 1d4 damage)
Spellcasting: Red Wizard Neophytes are spellcasters of 2nd level using Intelligence (spell save DC 14, +4 to hit with spell attacks)
At Will Cantrips (3 known): Acid Splash, Fire Bolt, Light
1st L spells (3 slots): Charm Person, Fog Cloud, Silent Image

Theoretically I could ignore classes, levels and species altogether and completely wing it with the stat block, but something inside me feels more comfortable when NPCs use the same rules, or at least the same basic ideas, as PCs. This has been how I've done it for many editions, since I first started D&D - just look at the various NPCs I've created for B/X in Mystara.

In a previous post on creating PCs in 5.5E, I suggested that rather than shoehorn the new races and classes into an established setting that didn't have them, it would feel better to create a new setting, Xerros. Let's continue with that. In that post I talked about the Spirit Touched (about 1% of the population) having a capacity and power about them that the other 99% (the mundanes) don't. The spirit-touched are created using the PHB, while the mundanes will use the stat blocks in the Monster Manual. This still applies - this 3rd way I am suggesting is about adding more stat blocks for mundanes, borrowing some elements from the PHB but not all that might apply. 

Remember that this is for NPCs and therefore rules are more flexible. This means I should look at other sources. The 5.0 and 5.5 rules are compatible enough that stuff from Xanathar's Guide to Everything and other 5.0 sources can be used, at least for NPCs. I'm working on a spreadsheet to list all of these options from official 5.0 & 5.5 books. There was stuff in the PHB 5.0 book that got left out of the PHB 5.5 (Nature & Tempest domain for clerics, School of Necromancy for wizards), including plenty of subclasses for bad guys (see 5.0E DMG). Bring it back. 

Can I use stuff from even older editions? I have books for 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions; there may well be ideas such as kits from 2nd edition or prestige classes for 3rd edition that I like the look of. Here I need to consider the cost-benefit balance. I’m supposed to be coming up with relatively quick and easy way to create NPCs - unless I’m going to use that prestige class again and again I don’t think I need to worry too much about a conversion. But I can always borrow the ideas in a loose way.  

Commoners, nobles and guards are treated as 0-level. Understandable, but I remember 3E having NPC classes of Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert and Warrior. I could borrow these and adapt them to the 5E stat block. I don't need to stick rigorously to the tables from 3E DMG, but just use them as a rough guide for things like burly bar tenders who don't put up with drunken troublemakers, or a blacksmith who is quite tough for a commoner, or a sergeant of the watch who isn't quite as skilled as a captain but could certainly best the rank and file under his command.  

Finally about formatting. I know the stat blocks in 5E & 5.5E look beautifully presented in their tan/beige boxes with dark red lines. I don't think I'm going to do that. I think the word processed version that I've used for the Red Wizard Neophyte is good enough. As long as the order approximately follows that of the Monster Manual stat block, I'm sure I and hopefully other DMs can use it in the middle of game play. 

Law, Chaos and Further Ideas

This post is really in response to listening to the most recent episode of one of my favourite D&D Youtubers - Daddy Rolled A One. In his latest video he talks about alignment particularly in the early editions of the game and it has got me thinking about alignment, cosmic forces and related stuff in my Mystara campaign as I have been presenting it in my blog. 

As regular readers know, this campaign primarily uses the Moldvay Basic & Cook/Marsh Expert rules. As such it has generally used the single-axis three alignment system of Law, Neutrality and Chaos. Furthermore, I have already established that these are not just shorthand for behaviour but are vast cosmic forces battling for control of reality. The forces of Law and Chaos are inspired by the fiction of Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock, and went on to influence Warhammer Fantasy as well as D&D. 

Daddy Rolled A One suggests that alignment should not be about individual behaviour and ethics but about which side you take in this cosmic struggle. Law and Chaos should be divorced from Good and Evil. This is somewhat at odds with Moldvay Basic where it says on page B11 that "Lawful behaviour is usually the same as behaviour that could be called "good"". Conversely it also says "Chaotic behaviour is usually the same as behaviour that could be called "evil".  So how do I want to handle this? 

This does bring me to various posts on this blog, particularly about the Heldannic Knights of the Iron Eagle Monastery and the theocracy in the Ylari city of Abbashan where there are NPCs who strongly believe in law and order yet are really thoroughly unpleasant to others (either subordinates or those outside their organisation). Here the Basic D&D alignment system might not seem to work, and the AD&D alignment system of Good and Evil being independent of Law and Chaos becomes very useful and I have described such NPCs as being Lawful but  in terms of AD&D they are Lawful Evil. Conversely there are NPCs and creatures that could be considered chaotic good - the creatures that are almost openly stated in the rules as being Chaotic Good are the Djinn from the Rules Cyclopedia. In the Cook Expert set they are given Neutral alignment, but in the Rules Cyclopedia they are officially Chaotic, but with the descriptive caveat that "Djinn are basically good-hearted, in spite of their Chaotic alignment". I'm sure many DMs would treat other NPCs and monsters such as Pegasi, Storm Giants, Werebears and others that are Chaotic Good in AD&D the same way - benevolent but not necessarily bothered with rules and authority.  

My way of resolving this? "Lawful behaviour is usually the same as behaviour that could be called "good"". Usually, not always. This gives me enough lee-way to argue that lawful creatures can occasionally be evil and chaotic creatures can occasionally be good. So where do they fit in the grand clash between the cosmic forces of Law and Chaos? Their alignment in terms of Law and Chaos still stands. The cosmic powers are not as worried about individual morality as some might think, as long as mortal beings are fighting for one side or the other (even if unwittingly). This goes back to the old definition of alignment - not about individual behaviour but allegience. What team are you on in this cosmic struggle?

This may result in strange and perhaps awkward team-mates. A cleric of the Church of Law fighting a cult of Chaos may well find help from a Heldannic Knight, but then be shocked when the knight executes prisoners without trial. Chaotic sylvan creatures such as satyrs might well love freedom and individuality and might be just as opposed to ugly and uncaring civilization imposing its order on their idyllic wilderness as the brutal and savage orcs, but that does not mean that the two groups get along with each other even though they are both fighting for the forces of Chaos. 

In this campaign I don't envision cosmic forces of Good and Evil like in Tolkein's Middle Earth or AD&D. These are choices for individuals. However, I do envision that a lot of creatures that are on the side of Law will have benevolent tendencies and most creatures on the side of Chaos are malevolent. Chaotic good and lawful evil are relatively rare but not impossible. In fact when they do occur, I will typically say so in their stats or descriptions. If I just say that a creature is Lawful then it is reasonable to assume I am thinking of Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral. Similarly most creatures I say are Chaotic will be effectively Chaotic Evil unless I say so otherwise. 

Just to really complicate things I could say that just because a creature is aligned to Law or Chaos does not necessarily mean their behaviour is that obvious. Chaotic creatures are capable of being logical, restrained and organised. Lawful creatures are capable of being impulsive, selfish and tempermental. The way I have envisioned Arvorians is that although they worship beings of utter Chaos and are therefore aligned to Chaos, their behaviour is closer to AD&D's idea of Neutral Evil - capable of organisation, rules and society where convenient, but devoid of compassion or empathy and relishing cruelty and power. 

So what do the forces of Law and Chaos stand for? What do their most prominent champions believe in? Here I think I will revert back to the Moldvay Basic descriptions of Law, Chaos and Neutrality. 

Law (or Lawful) is the belief that everything should follow an order and that obeying rules is the natural way of life.  Lawful creatures will try to tell the truth, obey laws, and care about all living things. Lawful creatures always try to keep their promises. They will try to obey laws as long as those laws are fair and just. 

Chaos (or Chaotic) is the opposite of Law. It is the belief that life is random, and that luck and chance rule the world. Everything happens by accident and nothing can be predicted. Laws are made to be broken as long as a person can get away with it. It is not important to keep promises and lying and telling the truth are both useful. 

Neutrality (or Neutral) is the belief that the world is a balance between Law and Chaos. It is important that neither side get too much power and upset this balance. The individual is important but so is the group; the two sides must work together.

 I am reminded that way back in the early days of this blog I wrote a post about unaligned creatures. Although I have not used that term for many years, I believe the idea that some creatures (druids, blue dragons, actaeons and the like) are deliberately neutral is entirely reasonable - such creatures will strive for balance and try to curb the excesses of both Law and Chaos.  And there is also the notion that there are many creatures that are either uncaring about Law and Chaos or even simply not aware of Law and Chaos, particularly those of such low intelligence that they cannot make ethical decisions (animals, vermin and the like are effectively unaligned). I probably won’t try to reintroduce the term Unaligned when dealing with the alignment of monsters and NPCs on this blog: I reckon I will simply describe them all as Neutral. But there is a range of attitudes within neutrality that DMs should be aware of. 

Elemental and Para-Elemental Planes in this campaign

In this Mystara campaign I am writing, the Ethereal and Elemental planes are still there beyond the Material Plane, and can be accessed by either powerful spells or interplanar wormholes. The four elements are of course Fire, Air, Water and Earth. This metaphysical map illustrates the inner planes as I am using them here.  It is a modified version of my old one posted back here. 

My previous descriptions of the elemental planes still stand:

The Elemental Plane of Earth is nearly solid stone and earth, with only a few pockets of air, water and lava found. Finding an air (or maybe water) pocket is essential if a human visitor is to avoid being crushed and suffocated. However, if a pocket of air can be found, the plane is tolerable in temperature and not many dangerous inhabitants. A few valuable minerals can also be picked out by those with skill in prospecting and mining. 

The Elemental Plane of Water is like a vast, dimly lit ocean without a surface. There are pockets of air and earth (but no fire pockets). Any visitor who can cope with breathing underwater should be able to stay on this plane for a while. Creatures of seas and oceans of the Material Plane are occasionally encountered here, adding weight to sages' theories of gates between the Elemental Plane of Water and deep abysses in the oceans of Kaelaross. 

The Elemental Plane of Fire has two major problems - firstly the intolerable temperature will kill any mortal creature without some sort of protection. Anyone travelling to this plane must be able to tolerate hot flames, or their death will be a quick one, with cremation rather than burial. Secondly the Plane of Fire is home to some quite dangerous and volatile creatures - Fire salamanders and efreet. Being able to either negotiate or else fight off these creatures is necessary for any extended stay where encounters are inevitable. There are some pockets of clear air, while lumps of rock from the plane of earth either melt into pools of lava or else glow like burning coals. 

The Elemental Plane of Air is in many ways the safest of the elemental planes. The biggest problem is the electrical storms. This plane has no gravity, so everything - clouds, natives and visitors, float around. There are occasional spheres of earth and fire that float around. Any water here tends to evaporate and turn into clouds within a matter of hours, and visitors are recommended to bring water as they are likely to get thirsty. The djinn are found here, but they can be tempermental and fickle in dealing with those who intrude on their domain.

Para-Elemental Planes

As well as bordering the ethereal plane, the elemental planes also touch or overlap with some of each other. This is closer to AD&D elemental planes than BECMI's version, so bear with me.  Although I do not have the stats for para-elementals that might be summoned to the material plane, I believe they were given stats in AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual II. 

Between Fire and Earth is the para-elemental plane of Magma.  It is a land of volcanic eruption and lakes of lava. There are some metals found here - the more easily melted ones (gold and lead) are found in molten pools while the less volatile ones (iron and tungsten) are usually still solid though often glowing with heat. The Efreet’s City of Brass is on the border between the Plane of Fire and Plane of Magma. 

Between Water and Air is the para-elemental plane of Ice and is an arctic wasteland of glaciers, crevasses, ice caves and constant snow. Ice-related creatures such as Frost Salamanders are now associated with the para-elemental plane of Ice not Earth (a change from the BECMI rules). Other cold-based creatures such as white dragons and frost giants are also capable of surviving here even if they are not truly native. The air is so cold as to freeze the lungs of an unprotected human but anyone who can survive the intense cold can 

Between Water and Earth is the para-elemental plane of Ooze which is seems to be a vast and bottomless quagmire with few plants on the surface, filled with sticky, slimy mud and pools of acid. Many ooze creatures are found here, including black puddings, ochre jellies and green slimes.

Between Air and Fire is the para-elemental plane of Smoke. It is a very mysterious plane, and very few creatures live or visit here because of its poisonous fumes. Various levels of toxicity, from mildly irritating to silently lethal carbon monoxide. There are also frequent lightning storms suggesting a link to the quasi-element of Lightning. Sages have no idea what sort of native inhabitants if any are found here as any expedition by mages to investigate have either had difficulty seeing anything or else simply not returned. 

Other quasi-elements may be found on the elemental planes although these quasi-elements do not have their own planes. 

• Lightning is closely associated with air and also the paraelemental plane of smoke
• Acid is closely associated with Ooze but also to some extent with both Earth and Water
• Metal is closely associated with Magma and to some extent with Earth and Fire

Elementalist Mage

Elementalist Mages are magic users, nearly always human, who tap into the powers of these elemental planes. Many spells already use the elements in one form or another, from Fireballs to Ice Storms to conjuring elementals themselves to fight for and serve the caster. Elementalists take this one stage further and specialise in elemental magic. 

This usually means ignoring spells that do not involve the elements - enchantments, illusions and mind-affecting spells are rarely learnt by elementalists. Most elementalists will take a general approach and treat all the elements equally, though some focus on just one element. Most famously there was an ancient rivalry between the Air Elementalists of Alphatia and the Fire Elementalists of Glantri. 

In terms of game rules the Elementalist mages are magic users with the same saving throws, hit points and spell memorisation. They have access to a different spell list that accentuates spells that involve the elements and elemental planes, while ignoring spells that do not. 

Specialists in one element will usually also use spells from one of the neighbouring para-elemental planes. So a Water Elementalist may use spells that involve Water (obviously!) and either acid or ice but not both. Focusing on just one element may seem overly restrictive but any creature targeted by an one-element elementalist will suffer -2 to saving throws against any spell the elementalist cast that belongs to their favoured element. So when a Fire elementalist casts a fireball spell, any creature in the area of effect who needs to make a saving throw suffers -2 penalty on their saves. 

Elementalists who don’t specialise will happily use spells that draw from any of the elemental or para-elemental planes but saving throws against their spells are at normal difficulty. They are often known as pan-elementalists. 

Specialist elementalists require plenty of spells in their selected element in order to function effectively. Low level spells that use either earth or water are really not found in the standard spells of the magical colleges, i.e. the 12 spells per spell level listed in the B/X rules or 13 per spell level in the Rules Cyclopedia. Therefore elementalists tend to work best when they have access to lots of non-standard spells from magical research, i.e. places with large magical institutions and lots of mages such as Glantri and Alphatia. 

BECMI Rules Cyclopedia and AD&D 1st Edition PHB Magic User spells by associated element

Spell Name	Source	Level	Element
Affect Normal Fires	AD&D	1	Fire
Burning Hands	AD&D	1	Fire
Create Water	AD&D	1	Water
Dust Devil	AD&D	2	Air
Endure Cold/Heat	AD&D	1	Cold
Feather Fall	AD&D	1	Air
Light	B/X	1	Lightning
Magical Stone	AD&D	1	Earth
Predict Weather	BECMI	1	Air
Shocking Grasp	AD&D	1	Lightning
Continual Light	B/X	2	Lightning
Faerie Fire	BECMI	2	Lightning
Fog Cloud	AD&D	2	Air
Fools Gold	AD&D	2	Metal
Heat Metal	AD&D	2	Metal
Levitate	B/X	2	Air
Melf's Acid Arrow	AD&D	2	Acid
Resist Cold	AD&D	2	Cold
Resist Fire	AD&D	2	Fire
Stinking Cloud	AD&D	2	Air
Acid Ball	Blog Post	3	Acid
Fireball	B/X	3	Fire
Flame Arrow	AD&D	3	Fire
Fly	B/X	3	Air
Gust of Wind	AD&D	3	Air
Lightning Bolt	B/X	3	Lightning
Meld into Stone	AD&D	3	Earth
Protection from Normal Missiles	B/X	3	Air
Water Breathing	B/X	3	Water
Water Walk	AD&D	3	Water
Explosive Rune	AD&D	4	Fire
Ice Storm	B/X	4	Cold
Stoneskin	AD&D	4	Earth
Wall of Fire	B/X	4	Fire
Wall of Ice	B/X	4	Cold
Cloudkill	B/X	5	Air
Cone of Cold	AD&D	5	Cold
Conjure Air Elemental	B/X	5	Air
Conjure Earth Elemental	B/X	5	Earth
Conjure Fire Elemental	B/X	5	Fire
Conjure Water Elemental	B/X	5	Water
Rock-Eating Slime	Blog Post	5	Acid
Stoneshape	AD&D	5	Earth
Transmute Rock to Mud	B/X	5	Earth
Wall of Stone	B/X	5	Earth
Chain Lightning	AD&D	6	Lightning
Invisible Stalker	B/X	6	Air
Lower Water	BECMI	6	Water
Wall of Iron	BECMI	6	Metal
Weather Control	BECMI	6	Air
Delayed Blast Fireball	BECMI	7	Fire
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere	AD&D	7	Cold
Statue	BECMI	7	Earth
Explosive Cloud	BECMI	8	Fire
Imprisonment	AD&D	9	Earth
Meteor Swarm	BECMI	9	Fire

Note that this list is by no means exhaustive and there are many other spells out there in official, third-party and fan-made sources that could fit into this table. For example my Slimy Spells of the Arvorians would suit a Water mage or an Earth mage.

More spells could be added if the in-world description for the effects is given an elemental twist. For example Protection from Normal Missiles is generally considered to involve a magical barrier. But what if it is the air around the caster that solidifies and catches missiles that try to pass through it? This change in flavour would make it suitable for Air elementalists. Similarly there could be elemental variations on Magic Missile (Icy Missile, Flaming Missile, Stony Missile) with a bit of reskinning.