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Post by foxroe on Feb 14, 2017 17:50:28 GMT -6
The inspiration for Tasha is accurate (per EGG's introduction of the new spells in Dragon #67 IIRC), but shouldn't necessarily be applied to Iggwilv at all. Thank you Allan! Interesting. So the equation Tasha = Iggwilv was pure conjecture on someone's part? I don't have a copy of Bottle City; is there anything in the text possibly hinting at "Tasha" being Iggwilv, or is she a separate entity? |
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Post by foxroe on Feb 14, 2017 6:39:02 GMT -6
Starting digging into her sordid past this weekend, and I was a bit disappointed. It seems much of what one can find on the internet, that is accepted as "canon", comes from post-Gygax-era TSR sources.
So, I'd like to field a few questions about the Witch-Queen of Perrenland and how Gary viewed her, and hopefully some learned individuals can set me straight. My intention is to use her in my campaign, but I want her to be as "pure" as possible (if that makes sense).
What I believe to be the list of "Gygaxian" facts (mostly from S4):
- She is inspired by the crone Louhi of Finnish legend
- She was an exceptionally powerful Archmage, specializing in Demonology
- She apprenticed with Baba Yaga, under the name Tasha
- Her alternate name of Tasha (and the laughter spell of the same name) were inspired by letters to Gary from a young girl Just the spell; no association with Iggwilv
- She discovered the location of the Caverns of Tsojcanth/Tsojconth and established her HQ at the Horn of Iggwilv in the Yatils
- She wrote the Demonomicon
- She had a vampire daughter named Drelnza of unknown paternity
- She is a lover/enemy of the Demon Prince Graz'zt - Iuz is their son
- Raised an army and attacked Perrenland, ruling for only about 10 years or so before the battle with Graz'zt
- She is destroyed by Graz'zt after he escapes her control (maybe*)
Is that it, or are there other things we know about her prior to Gary losing creative control of Greyhawk?
Did Rob Kuntz and/or other Gygax-era employees have creative input to her story?
Here are some other tidbits, but my belief is that these are all things added much later (3rd/4th edition) - please feel free to correct me:
- She also apprenticed under Xagyg/Zagyg/Zagig and they were intimately involved
- She took part in the imprisonment of Fraz-Urb'luu in Castle Greyhawk
- She stole a demonology text (Tome of Zyx) from the Mad Mage which became the basis for her Demonomicon
- She bound Tsojcanth to her service (thought he was dead?), which was overcome and Tsojcanth weakened her for the battle with Graz'zt
- She was turned into a crone (or split in two?)
- After some time in the slammer (Abyss), she now resides in Hades
In art, she is always depicted as having long inky black hair and a slightly olive(?) complexion, but I also seem to recall her being referred to as having alabaster skin and blonde hair elsewhere? Which is it? Do we know?
Of what origin is she (Baklunish, Flan, Oeridian, Suel)?
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* In WG6 (Isle of the Ape), she is revealed to be alive and rather pissed off that her daughter was killed. IotA was written by Gary, so I'm willing to accept this, but the publication date of WG6 is 1985, which is the time he was hanging out in Hollywood and the year he left TSR. Was IotA published under his purview, or was it possibly edited before publication without his input?
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Post by foxroe on Feb 13, 2017 22:25:16 GMT -6
Sweet! A unique way to present your campaign reports...
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Post by foxroe on Feb 13, 2017 22:05:29 GMT -6
Sorry for the delay... real life and all that rot...
The plan looks good to me.
The Leftenant will go with Jack. She carefully conceals her revolver under her jacket in the small of her back and straps her sword to her back (wait... what's the law level here?). She has Electronics-1 as well, so she will also try to get a lock on Janet's comm device on the way. I assume there is some sort of public transportation system (rail, subway, tube, whatever)?
Mother will hang out at the watering hole for a bit. She'll use her Electronics-1 as well to see if she can get a trace, but she's also checking out the cargo prospectus... She'll use her Streetwise-1 to see if any of the locals can give any hints to any particularly juicy cargo jobs, as well as trying to dig up any gossip/rumors about the Lombard clinic beyond what we already may know.
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Post by foxroe on Feb 4, 2017 8:27:34 GMT -6
Oh, and this one too. (PS) Read the only review. I was in stitches for an hour. |
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Post by foxroe on Feb 4, 2017 8:22:05 GMT -6
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Post by foxroe on Jan 31, 2017 5:18:13 GMT -6
I'd build a life-sized Castle Greyhawk!  I sure hope it would be open to the public! Unfortunately, I would probably be removed from legal ownership soon after breaking ground, and the castle and its dungeons would never see the light of day in any official capacity.   PS: I'm down with the swords.  |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 28, 2017 21:38:31 GMT -6
OK, the maze and wereboar level. Thanks Scott!
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Post by foxroe on Jan 28, 2017 8:24:53 GMT -6
Does anyone know which level the Enigma resides in? My gut says it's the second level, but I don't know for sure.
BTW, I'm interested in it's location in the original castle, not in later products/imaginings (if it's there at all).
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Post by foxroe on Jan 28, 2017 6:42:47 GMT -6
Do we want to split into two groups maybe? One group does trade speculation and the other investigates the disappearance of the Leftenant's friend?
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Post by foxroe on Jan 27, 2017 20:07:10 GMT -6
Thanks Allan! I'd come across that thread in my searches, but it didn't contain much that I didn't already know, and the link in the first post was dead. However, since you pointed to it, I persevered and used my mad hacking skills (deleted the "3" after "proboards") and was able to reach the link. What a trove of insight into the first level of CG! |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 27, 2017 11:58:07 GMT -6
Couple of questions maybe some folks around these parts may know the answers to: 1. Which level was the GSFE on? 2. Was it ever revealed what its purpose was (just if it was... I'd rather not know what that purpose was ), or was it something that Gary used to deliberately mess with his players? My Google-fu Duck-Duck-Go-Fu isn't turning up much. |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 27, 2017 11:39:05 GMT -6
I would build a life sized castle grayskull I'd build a life-sized Castle Greyhawk! |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 17, 2017 6:44:19 GMT -6
Interesting... but "graphic novel"? And do bookstores really prefer that now?
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Post by foxroe on Jan 8, 2017 8:12:05 GMT -6
Having done nothing wrong in my original post, I was not out of line taking offense at a blanket rebuke. Also what is uncivil about my post? Since you did nothing wrong in your original post, there was no need for you to react to someone else being moderated. There is nothing uncivil about your post, but its content has nothing to do with the rest of the thread because no one had objected to Frazetta. If you have additional complaints about this, we should handle it by PM instead of here in the thread. Yikes! Sorry guys.
I was feeling a bit frisky (read that as "clownish") in my original post and made references to members of an illegal profession and the use of an inhalable narcotic. It was, in retrospect, inappropriate for these forums - even in jest. Rafael edited my post and substituted the aforementioned Caniforms of Unusual Passion and Spreading of Emotional Fervor, likely before most folks read the original post.
It's all good. I joked about it with Raf in my follow-up post, so now it's water under the bridge. I apologize for causing any trouble. 
<continues to feverishly scratch away at lottery tickets>
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Post by foxroe on Jan 8, 2017 7:30:22 GMT -6
Well, I still have mine. It just seemed odd to me that they're rebooting/reinterpreting it, unless of course, the original is no longer available.
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2017 20:14:41 GMT -6
Neat. Haven't read through it yet, but it sounds like it would make for a pretty darned cool campaign at the very least - it seems to have a Barker (the Professor) + Barker (Clive) vibe, with a healthy dose of Smith (CA). Might be a great place to place your own El Raja Key megadungeon, too.
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2017 20:09:08 GMT -6
Enjoy!
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2017 20:02:41 GMT -6
Nice! What's the scale on those maps? Are the major hexes the same size as the hexes on the original Blackmoor map?
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2017 11:34:01 GMT -6
The Hanging Azure Madness -- based on Odin hanging on Yggdrasil to gain knowledge of the runes? For this ritual, the sorcerer must sacrifice an eye (-1 on all future attack rolls) and hang upside down by one leg from the Tree of Ineffible Deaths in hex XXXX for 1 day. For the duration, he must inhale specially prepared incense made from the Blue Lotus, and single-mindedly meditate on the pointlessness of life. At the end of the ritual, the sorcerer will know the runes necessary to banish the Serpent of Nthug-yaggth. |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2017 11:18:58 GMT -6
I bought a reprint of the original MA a few years ago from Mr. Ward. Are they no longer available?
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2017 11:11:18 GMT -6
CoC is a great option (when I played as a youngster, our group consisted of only three people, including the Ref - it was awesome fun).
Traveller (classic edition) is always a winner!
Also, I haven't tried it yet (my son has it), but the Dragon Age RPG (Green Ronin) has super simple rules (roll 3d6 to beat target number) and looks like a lot of fun.
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Post by foxroe on Jan 5, 2017 19:59:24 GMT -6
Have you seen what passes for PG-13 these days? And carebears!? Well at least it wasn't "My Little Pony".  I am definitely buying that rating system and doing something about it... everything has its price... everything. Mu, ha, ha, ha!  |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 5, 2017 11:41:55 GMT -6
I'm with PD: buy the rights to D&D and all the old OOP stuff... and reprint it! Oh, and I'd hire a bunch of CAREBEARS and SPREAD A LOT OF LOVE off of this thing. (OK, maybe I'd just buy the table... or several) |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 3, 2017 20:35:48 GMT -6
[Mother to Logan:] "She's been telling me that a good friend of hers is 'missing'. I told her she's probably fine and will turn up soon, but she insists something is up; says she has a nose for that sort of thing."
[Sharron to Jack, with a mischievous grin:] "Let's go meet the crew, then!"
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Post by foxroe on Jan 3, 2017 2:16:51 GMT -6
Awesome, thanks Geoffrey! I know you're always hesitant to reveal the secrets of the Isle, so this is shiny, shiny gold. I had always suspected that the distinct lack of undeath on the isle was linked to the chimeric creatures ('though admittedly, I was thinking a more "reincarnation of lost souls" angle). In my own campaign I'm probably going to include undead, but they'll be rare and "unique". A cleric's turn undead ability will likely then be relegated to 1st level spell status, which will affect one target, which gets a save modified by the difference in the cleric's level and the undead's HD. I'm also strongly leaning towards a "Jakalla"-style mega-dungeon in the center of the isle where the upper levels are more "modern", and lower levels progressively go back in archaeological time. The primordial caverns in the lowest level will of course be the lair of Echidna. |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 2, 2017 4:08:17 GMT -6
I'm starting to flesh out the Isle for my own use, so I'll dump some ideas here for sharing if you don't mind. It'll be more or less "by the book": - The isle will be located in a pseudo-European medieval fantasy setting (likely using OD&D/WB:FMAG). The current "Young Kingdom" of the isle is built on an "Old Kingdom" of warlords, which in turn was built upon the dead remnants of "Atlantis". This means there will be plenty of ruins everywhere.
- Towns, city, and geographical features will have a quasi-French flair to the naming conventions since (for me at least) the setting invokes a combination of Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne, peppered with some Dunsany and Malory. The island map was inspired by the actual French isle of Corsica, so I flipped, rotated, and stretched the IotU map and laid it transparently over a real-world map of Corsica. From this, I associated actual Corsican town names with those on the IotU map.
- There will be a monotheistic, "Lawful" religion, a few demonic/diabolic cults, and several mysterious cults dedicated to the "Old Gods" (a Greco-Roman pantheon, with a smattering of Egyptian myth).
- Character classes and races will be BTB (O)D&D.
- The Zodiac mages will be major NPC's/powers on the Isle, but I haven't worked out their true purpose yet.
- I will be using undead and other traditional D&D creatures on the Isle, but mostly as one-off uniques in dungeon settings; the Chimeric beasts will be used as-is.
- I'm toying with the idea of an island-central mega-dungeon in the vein of unpublished CG. The upper levels are the maddening laboratories of a long-gone sorcerer who was studying the magics of the Isle, the middle levels will encroach upon the haunted crypts and such of the ancient Atlanteans, and the lower levels will be where the Atlanteans forged their own doom in the ruins of a still-older civilization (this will be where the Isle's crazy monsters come from).
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Post by foxroe on Jan 2, 2017 3:28:15 GMT -6
Somehow, this slipped under my radar for the last few years. So, as my first purchase of the year, I downloaded and read through Dungeon of the Unknown today and thought I would give it a quick review for anyone who hasn't gotten this yet (though most of this may be old hat for some, or at least previously covered here and elsewhere):
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Post by foxroe on Jan 2, 2017 0:29:50 GMT -6
Not exactly sure how I missed this. Downloaded and read it today - good fun, but not as revealing as I thought it would be. EDIT: Did a mini-review in this thread. |
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Post by foxroe on Dec 31, 2016 7:36:27 GMT -6
Did some serious Sirius digging on the inter-webs today. Probably not worth its weight in e-ink, but I thought I'd share some interesting finds. Sirius. The brightest star. The Dog Star. Canis Major. In the astrology of the Middle Ages, Sirius was a Behenian fixed star, associated with beryl and juniper, and the planet Venus (the Morning Star... a name also synonymous with Lucifer). The Behenian fixed stars are a group of fifteen stars considered useful for magical applications in medieval astrology throughout Europe and the Arab world. However, Geoffrey mentions that Sirius' significance is not related to the Zodiac... Back to the books (or just the book in this case). There are (that I can find) only two references to Sirius in the text: - Hex 1106 - Anubis statue causes weight change while Sirius is in night sky
- Hex 1601 - Proclus sect knows mysteries of Sirius - venerate (but don't worship) statue that is an amalgamation of man and dolphin
Let's break it down and postulate. Anubis is the canine-headed Egyptian God of the dead, and is known as the protector of graves, shepherd of the dead, and judger of souls. He is associated with Sirius in Egyptian myth (Sirius = Dog Star). In the Book of the Dead, Anubis is pictured as weighing the hearts of the dead against an ostrich feather. If a heart was heavier than the feather, the soul was fed to Ammit (an Egyptian demoness of destruction, part lion/hippo/crocodile --> Chimeric!) and doomed to eternal restlessness (undeath, or sentenced to Hell?); if lighter, the soul was allowed into the afterlife. Does the Anubis statue in hex 1106 pre-date the ancient "Atlantean" civilization of the Isle? The weight-increase effect seemed a bit thin to me (pun intended) until I came across a reference to the Dogon: The Dogon, a real-life isolated primitive tribe in central Africa, have extensive astronomical knowledge of Sirius, which is a central part of their beliefs. They appear to have possessed this knowledge before any accurate astronomical observation had ever been made. They had always believed that a small white star (Po Tolo) orbited Sirius every 50 years (now an established astronomical fact: a white dwarf called Sirius B orbits the primary Sirius A). They call it "the heaviest star" being made from a metal known as "sagala" which is heavier than all the iron on Earth. They claim to have been given this knowledge by a race of half-fish men called the Nommos, who descended from Sirius. Perhaps this hints at the beliefs held by the sect in hex 1601 who pay respects to a mongrel dolphin-man? Thanks for all the fish, Geoffrey! Members of this sect are of the Proclus school. Proclus was one of the last classical Greek Neoplatonic philosophers and an ardent worshiper of Athena. He was a champion of the metaphysical, especially as it pertained to the origins of the universe, the Gods, and the soul. It was also said that he spent a year of his life traveling and joining various mysterious cults. Surely there is some significance to this. |
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