Showing posts with label clerics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clerics. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2012
AD&D Spell Overviews *unfinished*
Probably the most useful of the bunch. This document crams all the essential information for AD&D spells in just a few pages. Contains detail on range, duration, casting time, spell components, etc. So far, I have:
Cleric spells - up to 4th level
Druid spells - up to 4th level
Magic-User spells - up to 4th level
Illusionist spells up to 2nd level
CLICK HERE TO VIEW - and you should probably download it, cause google hates displaying PDFs.
Labels:
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,
clerics,
druids,
illusionists,
magic-users,
spells
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Monster-Based Campaign Design: Characters!
After many, many hours of thinking. I've come to a few major decisions about my monster-based campaign setting. One of those is the available character types and what they represent. Another is that the character's home Kingdom, a Grecian island kingdom known Kull, has no more than bronze-age technology. But more on those later: this post is about characters.
Fighter
A Fighter is a proud and haughty noble, veteran hoplite, or expert wrestler of Kull. Due to their extensive training and coordination, two or more Fighters fighting in close proximity may form a shield wall, improving their AC by 2, but always act last in the initiative order unless all members of the group are wielding spears, in which case they always act first. If any member of the shield wall breaks or is killed, it requires a full round to reform the wall.
Cleric
A Cleric is a priest or priestess of the Olympian gods. A Cleric worships the entire Greek pantheon while also serving a patron god or goddess. Some choices include: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Athena, Area, Aphrodite, or Demeter.
Clerics have no restrictions on weapon use or Turning ability, and there is no need for a cleric to meditate, pray daily, or study to use spells. Instead, there is a cumulative 5% per day since the cleric’s last sacrifice that the cleric’s request will not be heard or simply ignored. The sacrifice must be worth at least 100 gold pieces per cleric level to be accepted, otherwise, the offering is taken as an insult.
Magic-User
A magic-User is a philosopher who studies the ancient, magical lore of Babylon, Egypt, or Atlantis. They have no restrictions on usable weapons and may wear armor, but there is a 50% chance their spells will merely fizzle and fail (no matter the type of armor worn).
Thief
A thief is a miscreant of ill repute or a criminal exiled from Kull. A Thief may wear copper scale or plate armor, but while wearing such physically taxing armor the thief’s skills are halved. In additional to its more conventional uses, the Hear Noise skill can be used to fight in darkness or against invisible creatures.
Barbarian
A Barbarian is a furious warrior from uncivilized lands. They are treated as B/X dwarves, but do not possess infraredvision nor have any particular familiarity with stonework or weapon restrictions. Instead, they have a 4 in 6 chance of spotting traps, ambushes, etc. in the wilderness. When completely unarmored (other than employing a shield), a Barbarian adds twice his strength adjustment to damage in melee.
Pygmy
A pygmy is miniature savage. They are known for their deadly slings and riding goats into battle against armies of cranes. Pygmies are treated exactly as B/X Halflings.
Labels:
Bronze Age of Kull,
Campaign Settings,
Campaigns,
Characters,
Classes,
clerics,
Fighters,
gods,
House Rules,
magic-users,
Thieves
Friday, March 11, 2011
OD&D clerics and Zoroastrianism
History classes are great inspiration for roleplaying games. Today in the Ancient Near Easter History class, we talked about Zoroastrianism, the major religion in Persia during and after the reign of Darius the Great.
In OD&D, clerics are split between the forces of Law and Chaos. While for some time a cleric can remain undecided between the two, "Clerics of 7th level and greater are either "Law" or "Chaos", and there is a sharp distinction between them" (M&M p. 7).
While the clerics of OD&D were most likely meant to represent medieval orders of Christian knights (Gary himself was a practicing Christian and often inspired by his faith), I find Zoroastrianism a much better fit.
Zoroastrianism was [is] a dualistic religion, meaning that it was neither mono or polytheistic. There were two gods: Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda. Ahriman was the god of darkness while Ahura-Mazda the god of light. According to Zoroastrianism, these two beings are engaged in an epic cosmic conflict over the universe that is thought to last 12,000 (about 6,000 years from the present day).
Some of the minor, but defining features of Zoroastrianism beliefs are demons that were once gods, the resurrection of Ahura-Mazda, angels (of both Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda), and fire alters and the centers of religious worship, all of which fit quite well into the OD&D framework.
If you had to sum up Zoroastrian ethics with a single line from the Zend-Auestra (the sacred Zoroastrian text), that line would be "good thoughts; good works; good deeps."
What really strikes me is the cosmic battle between light and darkness, or, in OD&D terms, Law and Chaos. I also find that reverse spells fit very will into this paradigm.
In OD&D, clerics are split between the forces of Law and Chaos. While for some time a cleric can remain undecided between the two, "Clerics of 7th level and greater are either "Law" or "Chaos", and there is a sharp distinction between them" (M&M p. 7).
While the clerics of OD&D were most likely meant to represent medieval orders of Christian knights (Gary himself was a practicing Christian and often inspired by his faith), I find Zoroastrianism a much better fit.
Zoroastrianism was [is] a dualistic religion, meaning that it was neither mono or polytheistic. There were two gods: Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda. Ahriman was the god of darkness while Ahura-Mazda the god of light. According to Zoroastrianism, these two beings are engaged in an epic cosmic conflict over the universe that is thought to last 12,000 (about 6,000 years from the present day).
Some of the minor, but defining features of Zoroastrianism beliefs are demons that were once gods, the resurrection of Ahura-Mazda, angels (of both Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda), and fire alters and the centers of religious worship, all of which fit quite well into the OD&D framework.
If you had to sum up Zoroastrian ethics with a single line from the Zend-Auestra (the sacred Zoroastrian text), that line would be "good thoughts; good works; good deeps."
What really strikes me is the cosmic battle between light and darkness, or, in OD&D terms, Law and Chaos. I also find that reverse spells fit very will into this paradigm.
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