Southwest Rockhome

Southwest Rockhome is similar to other parts of the dwarven realm - settlements in lowlands near the lake, surrounded by mountains that according to the gazetteer map seem devoid of interesting sites. However, as I concluded with Karameikos, an absence of interesting sites on an official map does not mean there is nothing there, only that it is up to the DM to decide what places there are to be discovered. 

Greenston (population 6000 and detailed here) and Evemur (population 12,000) are both substantial towns - Evemur is close to being a small city, and the fertile lowlands outside both their walls are put to good use by farmers. Karrak Castle (pop. 2500) stands guard over the main road into Makistan and then into the rest of Ylaruam. The Darokin Tunnel runs from the hills outside Greenston all the way across the border into Darokin, emerging in the mountains near to Fort Hobart, not far from both the dreaded Orclands and Alfheim.

My ideas for the area

Map based on original cartography by Thorfinn Tait (source)

Note that the dwarf strongholds have the title Torrak - this is from the dwarf language section in Gaz6, combining the dwarf word Tor (for strong) and Rak (castle) and is a common word to describe dwarf strongholds.

Agate Delve is a large cavern inhabited by a family of stone giants. They leave other creatures alone, but their home is littered with semiprecious agate stones, thus making it a tempting target for thieves and other trespassers. The stone giants consider Agate Delve to be an ancestral home and should be respected - thieves are dealt with harshly. There are also lone stone giants in the area who occasionally visit Agate Delve. Right at the back of Agate Delve there is said to be a crystal cave with a portal to the Elemental Plane of Earth. 

Dalsorris Tower: This is a wizard tower built on top of an abandoned dwarf stronghold. The human wizard, Dalsorris, is still very active, and will regularly patrol around his lair mounted on a griffon. He is territorial and does not like intruders but otherwise leaves dwarves and other folk alone. Dalsorris is something of an enigma - nobody knows why a human wizard has settled here or where he is from, or what he is doing. 

Geth-Orggor is a large limestone cave-system that has been taken over by a tribe of 20 hill giants and 50 ogre followers. Dwarves give this location a wide berth as the giants and ogres attack dwarves on sight. An armed expedition to drive out the giants and ogres has been suggested several times but never actually carried out. Scouts have reported the giants have domesticated some dire wolves and brown bears.   

The Lost Forge is where a Forge of Power, unclaimed by any clan, lies forgotten 

Torrak Halstoron: This is an abandoned stronghold that used to hold 200 dwarves of the Bluehammer family. However, about 50 years ago it was infiltrated by a cult of chaotic dwarves who tried to murder the leaders and enslave the rest. Many of the family heads were killed but most of the dwarves escaped to Greenston. Reclaiming Halstoron would be an admirable task. Torrak Halstoron is haunted by dwarven spirits, not malevolent undead but the trapped souls of dwarf citizens who were murdered by treacherous chaotic dwarves. They can be laid to rest by giving their mortal remains a proper dwarven burial. 

Torrak Sorros: This dwarf stronghold has 250 members of the Gneisscracker family and unusually also 150 gnomes. They are nominally loyal to the Torkrest clan but are quite slow in paying taxes and fealty to the clan chiefs. 

Torrak Tellis: This dwarf stronghold is home to the Copperhelms, a family nearly 300 strong and loyal to the Torkrest clan. They are renowned for the quality of their crossbows and ballistas which they sell at a premium price. Some of their crossbows are enchanted. 

Torrak Trugdon: This is set into the walls of the river valley and includes an outside village with a stone wall. The family here, the Hornhelm, is part of the Wyrwarf clan and has 270 members. Living with them in the surface village are 120 humans and 50 halflings. They specialise in farming and herding sheep and goats. Although the meat, cheese, leather and wool they provide is appreciated by other dwarves, their professions are not considered to be traditionally dwarvish. 

Image by Chris-Karbach, source

Torrak Veig: This dwarf stronghold is home to the Grayquartz family who have specialised in both mining coal (very useful for smelting metals as well as cooking food and keeping homes warm) and brewing malt beer. The stronghold has 160 members and all are loyal to Syrklist Clan.

Zepharan's Roost: Zepharan is the dwarven name to a large red dragon that has made his lair here. Although several ventures to slay the dragon and loot his gold have been launched, none have been successful and only a few badly burnt survivors returned. They say he has a number of hellhounds guarding his lair, but his wealth is truly astonishing. 

Zugguth Peak: This is a goblin stronghold dug deep into a mountain top. They have excavated extensive warrens and the approach to the top is littered with rubble from their digging. Nobody knows exactly how many goblins there are but they are skilled at constructing traps including hidden pits and tripwires unleashing poisoned darts. It is believed the goblin tribal leader is in contact with important warlords in the Broken Lands and the Orclands. 

Koriszegy Keep

 

art by andreasrocha, source

Official Version

Koriszegy Keep is only one of two ruins to be described in Gaz1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, making it one of the few official dungeons to exist in the Grand Duchy. In the Gazetteer it gets a short write-up.

"Koriszegy Keep: One of the famous haunted places of Karameikos is Koriszegy Keep, which was once the seat of power of the Traladaran Koriszegy family. As legend has it, some 200 years ago a great calamity befell the Koriszegys, breaking down their walls and destroying their family, and people who wander too close to the ruin often disappear. The legend is true; those centuries ago, the head of the family tried to forge a pact with evil forces and, for his trouble, was changed into a vampire - but cursed so that he could never leave his own castle for more than a day."

 The gazetteer goes on to detail 8 areas on two simple maps. 

This Blog's Version

In my version of Mystara I will keep the background but expand the site so that it becomes a proper dungeon. 

The vampire is Baron Balthazo Koriszegy, and as the gazetteer says, he tried to make a pact with dark forces of Chaos. In his arrogance he demanded more power than would be offered to chaos warriors, chaos clerics or twisted summoners. He thought that as the ruler of south-western Traldar he should be entitled to becoming a Chaos Prince. The powers of Chaos had a different opinion. 

As he was transformed into a vampire, a massive lightning storm erupted over the castle, shattering walls, turrets and windows. In his rage and frustration of what was happening to him the newly vampiric Balthazo Koriszegy went on a bloodthirsty rampage through the castle, killing all those who did not flee. He slew his own wife and eldest son, while his two young daughters escaped with their nanny to the relative safety of Luln. It is believed they renounced the Koriszegy name and thus the lineage ended. 

In matters of architecture Koriszegy Keep has been left in ruins. As well as the main keep there is an outer wall with various towers and turrets and a gatehouse, all of which are in serious disrepair. Although some of them still have roofs, Balthazo does not consider these outer buildings sufficient shelter from sunlight, and only visits them at night. The main keep is still intact below the uppermost floor and sunlight cannot reach the first three storeys. Beneath the keep there are the dungeons, excavated by animated undead under the direction of the Baron after his transformation. 

Baron Balthazo Koriszegy is quite mad and perpetually dreams of conqering southern Karameikos, which he sees as reclaiming his original lands and maybe adding some more by right of conquest. Those who dispute his claim or point out that he is trapped in his castle will provoke a murderous rage. At other times he is consumed by a deep melancholy and self-loathing for what he did to his loved ones and his current predicament. He wanders the dungeons and at night the parapets of the keep muttering and berating himself. His attitude towards visitors is normally paranoid defensiveness combined with a thirst for blood - he generally attacks first and asks questions (usually to himself) later. There are occasions when he actually wants to talk to mortals, usually for information or some transaction: companionship no longer interests him. During such meetings he can maintain a veneer of aristocratic respectability and decorum for a while but he finds this difficult to maintain as the night draws on. More than two hours in the company of mortals and he starts twitching and salivating, trying to keep his savage impulses under control. 

However, as the gazetteer mentions he cannot be away from Koriszegy Keep when dawn comes - he must sleep in his own home during the day. It is a compulsion similar to a Geas spell that he must obey and if he is visiting a nearby town during the night, he will always depart with enough time to reach his home before dawn. Luln, Radlebb Keep and Fort Doom are all within a night's travel but Specularum and Threshold are safe from his visits. He tends to feed once per month, and may either visit one of the nearby settlements, or snatch travelling victims off the road. His resting place within the keep is the family crypt where his main coffin is inside a stone sarcophagus with a stone lid that requires a combined strength of 19 to move. There is also a small hole in the side of the sarcophagus and the baron can get through this either in bat form or in gaseous form. He also has back-up coffins stashed around the keep and dungeon in case the crypt is discovered by his enemies. 

He has minions, both living and undead. He has not yet created any other vampires but his family slain during his initial rampage have become wraiths, haunting the keep and seeking targets to vent their pain and despair. Many of his faithful servants have become ghouls while his guards have become wights. Nobody is sure why he has not created new vampires from his victims. Perhaps he does not want any rivals, only lesser undead as servants, or maybe there is an aspect of the curse that means unlike normal vampires he cannot infect others with the curse of vampirism.  He has used his necromantic magic to animate various skeletons and zombies including some types not seen before.  

He has a few human followers who act as his agents and spies in living settlements such as Luln and Radlebb Keep who report to him, though only briefly (they know he starts getting hungry after more than an hour in the presence of fresh blood). He also has a loose alliance with a band of werewolves that live in the local woods. Their ability to appear human during the day makes them useful for infiltrating villages and towns. However, they can be rebellious and argumentative, so the Baron keeps them at arm's length. They are also aware that Baron Koriszegy is not entirely sane, and although they go along with his fantasies of conquest, they are well aware this will not actually happen.

In terms of combat stats there are several options:

• The Basic D&D option which has just one stat block for vampires, and Baron Koriszegy conforms to the statistics for a standard vampire. 
• AC 2, HD 9**, Mv 120'/Fly 180', Att 1 touch  + special, Damage 1d10+ energy drain, Save F9, Ml 11, Align C, XP 2300, spec abil: 
• polymorph to bat or wolf at will, 
• gaseous form, 
• attack drains 2 levels per hit, 
• immune to non-magical weapons, 
• Charm Person as gaze attack at -2 to save vs spells
• Summon Bats, Giant Bats, Rats, Giant Rats, Wolves & Dire Wolves (each once per day) 
• regenerate 3hp/rnd, forced into gaseous form at 0 hp
• undead immunities (immune to mind-affecting spells, poison, disease & death magic)
• The AD&D option which allows certain vampires to retain spellcasting abilities they had in life. If this is the case, Baron Koriszegy has the spells of a 10th level magic user, but otherwise uses the stats given above.
• The Van Richten option, which draws from the 2nd Edition AD&D book Van Richten's Guide to Vampires where the older the vampire is, the more powerful it gets. At over 200 years old, Baron Koriszegy would be considered to be in the Old category. Stats would be AC 2, HD 10+2,  Mv 150'/fly 180', Att 1 touch  + special, Damage 1d10+ energy drain, Save F10, Ml 11, Align C, XP 2300, +2 or better magic weapons to hit, special abilities as above. He also casts spells as a 10th level magic user. 

art by Bill Willingham

From Mystara to Tekumel: B/X Adventures in the Empire of the Petal Throne

I am aware that this blog is focused on Basic & Expert D&D and the world of Mystara (the Known World from the Expert set) so I will try to make this post a one-off. 

I reckon that the original Empire of the Petal Throne (EoPT) rules are close enough to B/X that it does not take much to convert or mash-up the two sets of rules. They are both derived from Original D&D, and as such have stats such as descending AC, Hit Dice, movement. I myself have the magenta rulebook (pictured above) so I will be working from that as the EoPT rules. 

Character classes in EoPT are Warrior, Magic User and Priest - these can considered equivalent to the Fighter, Magic User and Cleric classes of B/X. However, the treatment of spells is quite different. Here in EoPT rather than memorising and preparing spells in a Vancian way, priests and MUs have skills.  These are far fewer in number than B/X spells, though they are mostly usable once per day, becoming reusable after a rest. These skills are (in order of escalating power):

Magic User:

• Control of Self
• Illusion
• Clairaudience
• Clairvoyance
• Telekinesis
• Astrology
• Medium
• Nature Control
• Necromancy
• Control Underworld Creatures
• The Gray Hand

Priest:

• Know Two Modern Languages
• Know Two Ancient Languages
• Production of Light
• Detect Good/Evil
• Cure Light Wounds
• ESP
• Telepathy
• Protection From Evil/Good
• Cure Serious Wounds
• Control Person
• Remove Curse
• Revivify

Then there are the Bonus Spells, and I believe that priests and MU share the same list of bonus spells, split up into 3 groups of escalating power. How the DM wants to handle this is up to them. Personally I would ignore the skills-based magic of EoPT and give spellcasters of Tekumel the Vancian spells of B/X. Although this is quick and easy, I admit one loses some of the EoPT flavour. Perhaps some of the skills and bonus spells could be converted into B/X spells?

Thieves are conspicuous by their absence in EoPT. Are they just hiding in the shadows? Personally I would allow thieves to operate within Tekumel as normal. However, they are socially and legally in a tenuous position, so they do not make their presence known to the authorities and keep their activities as discrete as possible. They operate from the shadows, both figuratively and literally. Nonetheless I can see other DMs disallowing thief characters in order to maintain the Tekumel flavour.

Non-human races is where things get rather weird. Tekumel is intended as a deliberate break from the traditional inspirations of D&D. There are no dwarves, elves or halflings - instead there are a variety of alien races, ranging from the vaguely humanoid (Pygmy folk, Hlutrgu) to the utterly bizarre (Ahoggyas). From what I can tell, there are no rules for players to use these alien races as PCs. Although outside the scope of this post, I am sure it is possible to create rules to use them. Since B/X uses race-as-class, I would suggest that each race that the DM approves of should be given its own class. In fact, such races need not be limited to just one class - my own variation of B/X gives elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings a spell-casting class and a non-spellcasting class each. However, for a brand new world I would not try to introduce a whole slew of classes at once but perhaps create and introduce them one at a time perhaps testing them out as NPCs before allowing players to use them as PCs. 

Alignment is close to B/X D&D, with Stability and Change replacing Law and Chaos, and each side having 5 greater gods and 5 lesser gods.This shows the common roots of these games in OD&D.  Treating Law as Stability and Chaos as Change should be feasible. I get the impression that while Change definitely has evil tendencies, Stability is not always as benevolent as B/X Law - in AD&D terms Change is Chaotic Evil, while Stability is more Lawful Neutral. 

Movement is measured in inches, which hark back to OD&D's origins as an offshoot of Chainmail wargaming rules, and thus the measurement in inches would be on a tabletop with miniatures, not in the game world. But this can easily be multiplied by 10 to get the B/X movement in feet/yards.

Saving throws are against four categories:

• Poison
• Spells
• Paralysis/Hypnosis
• Eyes (see below)

These have some equivalence with B/X although fudging with unusual cases may be required. 

There are other rules, the majority of which are close enough that conversion should not be a problem.

The World of Tekumel 

Tekumel is alien and bizarre, in its wildlife, its culture, its languages, its architecture and so many other aspects. As I mentioned before, it is a deliberate avoidance of the Tolkein-based tropes and archetypes that had already (1975) become well-established in D&D. No Greek, Norse, Celtic or Egyptian mythological creatures such as dragons, centaurs, goblins or medusae. Instead Tekumel is an alien planet, settled by humans millenia ago and then catapulted out of Earth's universe into a different universe where magic works. There is a gradual shift between the earth-based species introduced by humans and the native wildlife, a sort of ecological war of attrition. 

Getting there is up to the DM, but there are various methods, including Spelljamming, World Portals, being transported by curses or Wish spells. 

Mundane equipment that new adventurers might buy is quite different due to the absence of iron, bronze or other metals Instead arms, armour and tools are fashioned from Chlen hide, great armoured beasts domesticated by humans.

Magic items have a different range and include magical books (not listed in B/X but touched on in AD&D) and Eyes (small, gem-like devices that offer a particular effect each, such as the Eye of Aerial Excellence that allows the user and some companions to fly). 

 Language is one area that I am not brave enough to delve into fully. The author, MAR Barker, like JRR Tolkein, used his fantasy setting as a basis for an entire fantasy language, Tsolyani. I admit that I just use it for proper names (individuals, settlement names etc) and alien species. Mind you, I suspect most fans of Tolkein are not fluent in Elvish. Barker also devised Tsolyani script, the fictional world's alphabet, which I am not going to learn, but it definitely adds to the world's sense of depth and otherness. 

Dungeons and the Underworld in Tekumel have a unique premise that I like but is difficult to implement in Mystara. Every few centuries, cities in the Empire of the Petal Throne are expected to undergo a process of Dintlana, or Renewal. This involves covering over the entire surface of a city and building on top of the covered remains. Although the lower buildings and their cellars and basements are supposed to be filled in, this is not always done properly, and chambers are buried deeper and deeper as the centuries and millenia progress. 

Culture is very much centred on tradition, rituals and rigid social structure of great and ancient empires (which fits in with the alignment system of Stability vs Change), the greatest of which is Tsolyanu, the titular Empire of the Petal Throne. It is loosely inspired by various Meso-American (who also did not use iron until Europeans came along) and south Asian cultures but then very much goes off in its own direction. 

Monsters include unique types of undead, as well as weird and inhuman intelligent races and animals, few of which resemble species on Earth (and then it is probably coincidence). Demons are mentioned but not really described though I'm sure a motivated DM could introduce them with appropriate stats. Turning undead is not mentioned as far as I can tell, so whether B/X clerics can have any effect on Tekumel undead is up to the DM. 

Clearly I have only given the briefest glimpse of this vast and fascinating world. Much more information is available both in the published game books available on DriveThruRPG, and  the Tekumel Foundation, as well as fan-generated material on the web. 

As far as this blog is concerned, I probably won't do more articles about EoPT/Tekumel - there is plenty of scope for more material, adventures and grand vistas on Mystara But as far as I cam concerned Tekumel is still in the same fictional multiverse as Mystara, and if your players are getting bored with the same old dwarves, elves and goblins, you can shake things up by dropping them into the great city of Jakalla with its sprawling underworld beneath. 

Art by Jeff Dee, source