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Post by Falconer on Jan 21, 2022 14:04:48 GMT -6
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Post by captainjapan on Jan 21, 2022 14:53:51 GMT -6
Very, very cool!. Thanks, Falconer. And thanks to Shannon Applecline for scanning them into little brown booklets. I can't wait to get home tonight, so I can dive into this!
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Post by jeffb on Jan 21, 2022 15:00:28 GMT -6
This is awesome- ever since Schick's BLOG post years ago, I've been hoping to see more. Thanks Falconer |
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Post by Zenopus on Jan 21, 2022 15:19:59 GMT -6
Holy Thyatis, Batman!
Thanks for the heads up, Falc.
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Post by tdenmark on Jan 21, 2022 15:53:52 GMT -6
What? By the hairy feet of the Five Shires, what a find!
I know what I'll be reading for the next few weeks.
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Post by Falconer on Jan 21, 2022 16:03:12 GMT -6
My campaign with my kids already involves B2 and Orange B3*, and I had been thinking lately of setting it in this setting. I’d say this seals it!
* - and also the Holmes sample dungeon, and also N4 Treasure Hunt
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Post by Mushgnome on Jan 21, 2022 20:09:37 GMT -6
Cool stuff! One thing that jumped out to me, just glancing at the 'Origins of Characters' table, is that Cynidicea is still a thriving city-state in this timeline. Their civilization hasn't collapsed yet into the Lost City from Moldvay's B4 module. Fully 3% of PCs generated using this table will be Cynidiceans!
The 'Race Table' is wild, too. Toad-men, leprechauns, and tharks, oh my!
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Post by tombowings on Jan 22, 2022 2:08:23 GMT -6
Fabulous. I can't wait to check it out.
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Post by retrorob on Jan 22, 2022 4:14:00 GMT -6
Awesome find. Thank you, Falconer.
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Post by jeffb on Jan 22, 2022 9:44:07 GMT -6
Even more of a Kitchen Sink than the actual published Known World.Quite frankly, this is far more interesting, which I've always felt it would be after the original LJS BLOG post.
I'm not through it yet, but some quick takes
I noticed the pantheon is exactly the type thing we did as youngsters. Mix of fantasy and earth mythology, no Christian Clerics or such.
To go with the bit above- A complicated alignment system with deities of each alignment.
I think we found the origins of the "Thoul".
Interesting stuff going on in the revised attribute tables (INT, Luck, Will, Common Sense, etc), and "charisma" based classes like the paladin- Fighter, thief, etc. (bundle A)
Very high level PCs/NPCs with lots of magic/power munchkin stuff. The type of OD&D games TSR was reacting against with AD&D. IME, there were far more of us playing games like this, than what OSR luminaries today would have you believe where everyone ran a more grounded medieval style game with low power levels and PCs were scraping to buy a single torch, and it wasn't until the Forgotten Realms and Dragon Lance that "high magic and high fantasy" became a thing in D&D.... "It's all Ed Greenwood's fault!".
Level 15 spells/ Level 60+ PCs.- perhaps this is also the origin of "why 36 levels for the companion set?"-An arbitrary figure right around the middle.
Neat tweaks on many common monsters (e.g. Hell Hounds)
Overall it looks like from a rules perspective they went nuts with layers of complication. It reminds me of Arduin or Warlock- some cool bits to steal wholesale or in spirit, but a nightmare mess of a game to run as written.
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bobjester0e
Level 4 Theurgist
DDO, DCC, or more Lost City map work? Oh, the hardship of making adult decisions! ;)
Posts: 195 
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Post by bobjester0e on Jan 22, 2022 10:22:43 GMT -6
Wait, this isn't "original" material! This is Bill Wilkerson's home brew!
TraverseTravis at Piazza wrote:
"Bill asked me to post:
"Regarding my written notes for the Known World, they were written after the date of Tom's and Lawrence's creation of the Known World. My intent with these notes was to flesh out some ideas of my own for a home brew campaign. These were intended for my own use, not for publication, and to honor Tom's and Lawrences seminal work with a home brew campaign.""
Still, it's a pretty good home brew!
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Post by Falconer on Jan 22, 2022 10:44:13 GMT -6
Ahh, thanks for clearing the confusion. Sort of a BTPTBD sort of situation, then. Still, good stuff is good stuff!
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Post by retrorob on Jan 22, 2022 13:52:22 GMT -6
I think we found the origins of the "Thoul". What do you mean? The 1st OD&D print has "gnolls, ghouls, toads" on 2nd dungeon level. It was replaced in later prints by "gnolls, thouls, ghouls". I've always considered it a typo that later evolved into a separate monster. |
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Post by Falconer on Jan 22, 2022 14:19:25 GMT -6
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Post by hamurai on Jan 22, 2022 14:54:13 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Jan 22, 2022 16:57:02 GMT -6
Look at the wild "Wandering Dungeon Parties" (page 62 of the compiled doc assembled by Shannon Appelcline)
A few examples:
1st Level = Minotaur Fighter, Bugbear MU/T, Goblin Fighter, 5 Fighters
4th level = Hobbit MU, Lizard-Man Cleric, 6 fighters, 2 clerics, 2 MUs
5th level = Turtle-Man F/MU, 2 Dwarf fighters, 6 fighters, 3 MUs.
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Post by jeffb on Jan 22, 2022 17:40:57 GMT -6
I think we found the origins of the "Thoul". What do you mean? The 1st OD&D print has "gnolls, ghouls, toads" on 2nd dungeon level. It was replaced in later prints by "gnolls, thouls, ghouls". I've always considered it a typo that later evolved into a separate monster. Interesting, but as I never used those tables (or tables, period*) for stocking a dungeon, I was never aware of the mention. They were not listed in the LBB monster descriptions to my knowledge, in Holmes, or the Monster Manual (which was our primary source for OD&D monsters in 77/78) so my first recollection of the "thoul" with a description was Moldvay. * I did use the M&T assortment- but only as a list to choose from. |
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Post by Zenopus on Jan 22, 2022 17:49:30 GMT -6
Interestingly, the Mangroll in the Moldvay/Schick/Wilkerson notes (page 34 of the compilation) shares several characteristics with the Thoul of Moldvay Basic. Notably, they are composed of three monsters, "part troll, part human, part ghoul"; two of these are the same as the thoul (troll and ghoul). They also paralyze and regenerate like thouls can do. A big difference is the Mangrolls have tentacle arms, whereas Thouls instead resemble hobgoblins. Page 55 of the compilation also has "Thoulls" on the Fourth Level table, but there doesn't seem to be a further description of them, perhaps because it was just taken from the OD&D tables. |
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Post by simrion on Jan 23, 2022 8:17:46 GMT -6
Looks like they were shameless appropriators...I approve! Also looks like Arduin was readily adopted? I mean in one of the docs they talk about M-U spells up to level 15 in power. Anyone know if the Psionics they were using were the ones from Eldritch Wizardry or the PHB?
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arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 231
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Post by arkansan on Jan 23, 2022 8:56:15 GMT -6
Very cool!
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Post by asaki on Jan 24, 2022 20:37:45 GMT -6
This is awesome.
It's always weird to see how completely different this stuff was from the Gazetteers, but still really cool to see.
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Post by Starbeard on Jan 25, 2022 14:16:37 GMT -6
The thoul has two lines of invention: the name, which is known to be created by a typo; and the interpretation of what the monster actually was, which as far as I know is still not fully discovered and could have been anyone's invention.
I love the Boots of Banana Peel.
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Post by Zenopus on Jan 25, 2022 14:55:58 GMT -6
The thoul has two lines of invention: the name, which is known to be created by a typo; and the interpretation of what the monster actually was, which as far as I know is still not fully discovered and could have been anyone's invention. If you see my notes above about the Mangroll, it looks like Moldvay used characteristics from the Mangroll from their campaign in creating the version of the thoul for B/X. This would suggest that there wasn't a standard version in play at TSR at the time; or at least Gygax hadn't shared his version (if it existed) with them. James Mishler noted in the Piazza thread that that item and several others (Hawk Helm, Ring of Ruthlessness) are copied almost word-for-word from the Arduin Grimoire Vol 1. It appears the handwritten material was written out by Bill Wilkerson rather than Moldvay or Schick. |
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calstaff
Level 1 Medium
Playing LotRO...as a human.
Posts: 13
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Post by calstaff on Feb 2, 2022 9:37:40 GMT -6
This is the stuff I love! Thanks Falconer for posting this link to the Piazza--I am a registered user there, but don't regularly stop in. I immediately snagged these and will be digesting this for awhile.
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Post by DungeonDevil on Feb 7, 2022 4:54:56 GMT -6
Something's wrong with the files: I could only open up two out of the bunch; the others must have been defective files.  |
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Post by Falconer on Feb 7, 2022 13:12:36 GMT -6
Try downloading and opening with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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Post by tdenmark on Feb 16, 2022 10:23:33 GMT -6
Speaking of the "Known World" that became Mystara, I just found out about Threshold magazine! A fanzine dedicated to Mystara, and it is very well done. All the issues are free:  www.pandius.com/thrs_mag.html |
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Post by Starbeard on Feb 16, 2022 11:32:33 GMT -6
Speaking of the "Known World" that became Mystara, I just found out about Threshold magazine! A fanzine dedicated to Mystara, and it is very well done. All the issues are free:  www.pandius.com/thrs_mag.htmlWow, that's some heavy reading! I don't think I'd ever run a game in Official Mystara, but I appreciate the community's zeal for the setting and their group efforts to add to it like this. I can see myself doing an ad hoc read-through of Mystara books and Pandius entries as an occasional solo game though, wandering my party through the world and taking note of what they encounter. |
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