Notes On The Notes

Let's have some "behind the scenes director's commentary" about the notes I presented on my upcoming AD&D campaign.

The Tetradic Church is mainly inspired by an article in Dragon magazine issue 77 by Nonie Quinlan, titled "Elemental Gods". It argued for a less monster-style approach to gods and religions, presenting a model based on the classical Four Element system. The names of the gods are in Indonesian, Banteng meaning "bull, ox" and representing strong, solid earth, Kucing meaning "cat" and manifesting a sort of playful/cruel, almost-Dionysian air/wind, Naga Emas meaning "gold[en] dragon", the Church's understanding of fire, and Bidadari meaning "angel, nymph, beautiful woman", who is ever-changing water and the Moon.

The Church of the King of Life is inspired by the story game, Dogs in the Vineyard, and so is a fantasy version of the LDS/Mormon church. Like that game, my current plan is to leave specific scriptural justifications up to the players who choose to play adherents, or to the exigencies of play as I need them, but the patriarchal culture and Branch system of organization are the general basis of that religion. Padishah, of course, is Persian for "monarch".

The Weaving Goddess of Fate is my version of Gary Gygax's "Istus, Lady of Fate" from his World of Greyhawk setting, by way of the three Norns/three Fates, Islamic and Norse fatalist ideas, Irish weaving prophetesses, and so on. Her name is from Inanna, because I wanted that Middle Eastern connection.

The traditional D&D/AD&D cleric class fits best with those three religions, whose gods don't have hit points, per se. 

The Alien God is based mainly on G.R.S. Mead's analysis of what we know about Simon Magus. Aśundǒr and Śukar are words in Romani meaning, respectively, "listener", which is more or less the meaning of "Simon", and "brilliant, shining", a rendering of Helen, who was Simon Magus's partner, probably taking the role of Gnostic Sophia in his theology. I like the mix of Stoic, Neoplatonic, and Gnostic/Manichean ideas that Mead derives from the Simonian fragments we have. Plus, Mead's work is also a major influence on Tierney's and Rahman's "Simon of Gitta" stories, which are excellent sword and sorcery/sword and sandal/weird story yarns. There may come a time in the future of the setting when clerics of the Alien God travel the world of Dunia, but for now things are more personal, less involved with intermediaries.

I explained most of my take on Druidism already. Erodia is a rendering of Aradia, hero of an allegedly ancient Italian witchcraft poem collected by Charles Godfrey Leland. The name is related to the Biblical Herodias, but may also be related to Diana (I believe "Herodiana" is attested). Dunia, who gives her name to the world of the setting, is a Gaea-type (or Terra, Demeter, etc.) Briga's name comes from Celtic languages and means "High One" or "Powerful", the same as Brig in Irish legend, St. Brighid, Briginda, Brigantona, and so on. The particle also finds its way into Irish briocht/Gaulish briχtia, both meaning "magic spell", which I adapt as similar to "heka" in "Hekate/Hecate". Artor and Medraut come from Arthurian legend, being versions of Arthur and Mordred, and take roles in my game setting's Druidism from Robert Graves's poetic inventions that he tried to impose over historical ideas (and which have been adopted by some modern neopagans/Wiccans). The idea is, basically, that the Summer/Oak King and the Winter/Holly King meet in combat twice a year, representing the turning of the seasons, with the victor taking up the White Goddess as wife until the next combat. In reality, pretty weak sauce as theology in my opinion, but it has its supporters. Karnon is derived from "Cernunnos", a lightly-attested Gaulish deity of largely unknown (but perhaps not unknowable) character who was adopted by early neopagans/Wiccans as the Horned God of their craft, inspired by Margaret Murray's unfortunately flawed reconstructions. Whatever the historical flaws, I hasten to note, it does carry great meaning and depth for many. Mixing that with material from the Barddas of Iolo Morgannwg and other sources I mention, I get a fun naturalistic/esoteric philosophy that easily carries and supports the flavor of AD&D druids.

My vision of polytheistic cults worshiping/forging relationships with localized spirits is in part from long consideration of the place of gods depicted as a sort of monster in D&D-style games going back to Supplement 4: Gods, Demi-gods, & Heroes for original D&D (which used to be the only book from that edition I owned; it has since vanished from my collection, but at least I still have my original copies of Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror). As noted in my writeup, I'm looking to an article from Dragon magazine as the mechanical basis of this cleric-free religion cluster, though also including a version of the "warlock" class adapted to 1st edition AD&D terms and other approaches. I'm pretty sure there won't actually be any Zeus or Athena gods, those were merely examples demonstrating the idea of local epithets.

As an aside, I'm still working out the exact places of demons, devils, daemons, and so forth in the setting. Was it the demons or the devils who built the world-prison in opposition to the Alien God? Not fully sure. I'm actually leaning toward the devils at the moment. It will give them more purpose in the setting, and make Hell a somewhat meaningful place.

I didn't mention it, but that wasn't a comprehensive list of religions in the setting. Notably, I skipped over the Church of the Serpent, found among the Drakkonern people, my adaptation of the Dragonlord people found in Mayfair's Dragons supplement in their Role Aids line. I really liked the dragon civil war situation laid out in that supplement, and often work to fit it into my settings. The Dragon religion looks to four great elemental dragons, so it fits with my Tetradic Church, but I can also mine the Palladium Role-Playing Game, which also includes four elemental dragon-gods, for ideas. Another religion I have in mind is the Loathesome Toad Gods, inspired by Jeff Rients's Miscellaneum of Cinder, but also John Tynes's vision of the Lovecraftian gods laid out in Delta Green (as well as its supplements and follow-on games) and, especially, the D20 adaptation of Call of Cthulhu.

AD&D Game Notes

Bryn Celli Ddu, a barrow mound

Time for a post, to remind you I am alive.

I started off working on the Gygax75 Challenge, though I didn't stick strictly to its schedule. Mainly, I decided that the opening location would be a version of Portown, of Ruined Tower of Zenopus fame, with an additional megadungeon of my own devising located a short journey away. Further, though I don't mention it in the following notes, I've also placed Quasqueton, from B1 In Search of the Unknown, nearby. I figure that the Tower, smugglers' caves, and ghoul tunnels, a megadungeon/mythic underworld, Quasqueton, and the usual port city-based activities should give the players any number of hooks on which to hang their adventures.

My megadungeon, as noted, is found beneath goblin-haunted barrow mounds, which hold entrances to a mostly classic mythic underworld, a place where adventurers, through bravery, skill, and luck, might make their big score. 

In  addition to a house rules document (that remains somewhat in flux as I keep running into rules interpretations to consider; at least it's short, only four pages plus a couple of pages on changes to experience point awards), I've written up the opening situation as the initial player-characters arrive by ship in Portown, and a précis of the religions of the setting, noting how most of the additional character classes I plan to make available fit into the world's religious landscape. Here are those:

Introduction

The players have sailed from a town on the Gold Coast, where they grew up. Choosing a life of adventure rather than waste their bodies in the rapidly diminishing mines or live the quiet lives of peasant farmers, they’ve come to a town they’ve heard might reward a brave, and lucky, adventurer.

Portown is a small but busy trading port on the coast, with a population of perhaps a couple thousand or so, including people from all over the known world and perhaps beyond. Rumored to be built up from foundations standing on the ruins of an ancient city that may predate the coming of humanity, it lies a short distance, perhaps three or four leagues, North of a field of goblin-haunted barrow-mounds.

Stories tell of an underworld kingdom beneath the mounds full of riches and magical terrors. Many have gone into the mounds, never to return, but some few have come back to the surface with loads of jewels, gold, and magical swords, enough that there are always some brave, foolish, or desperate enough to try their luck.

The players step off the ship they’ve arrived with onto the wooden dock. Seagulls call in the overcast, leaden skies, and a strong smell of decaying fish and seaweed in brackish seawater permeates the air. North of the docks, the harbor is protected by a narrow spit of land reaching from East of the town, making the harbor into a cold lagoon. The dock leads up to shore, where large warehouse buildings line the boardwalk promenade, beyond which hints of other buildings can be seen through the alleys between the warehouses, and a few taller buildings peek over the roofs of the storage buildings. To the West, across a part of the harbor that projects south of the main lagoon, the fisher’s quarter hosts dozens of fishing vessels along a shore that leads back to hundreds of decaying houses. North of that quarter a peninsula stretches into the sea, with a lighthouse tower overlooking a cliff side at the North end. Access to the sea lies between the end of the protective jetty and the lighthouse. Beyond the fisher’s quarter, further to the West, a ruined tower overlooks the town from the top of a hill. Between the tower hill and the fishing quarter, a cemetery can just be seen. Not far from the tower ruins, a few hundred feet at most, on a smaller hill to the southwest of the tower hill, is a smaller tower in much better repair.

There is much bustling of working sailors along the docks and boardwalk, much shouting and strong language in a dozen different tongues, ropes being tied or untied, boxes of cargo being moved and carried, and some passengers lugging their own baggage to or from the shore themselves.

 

Religions of Dunia

Tetradic Church – The Four Elemental Gods: Earth “Bantəng/Banteng” (Solidity/Strength/Emotion, masculine), Air “Kuching/Kucing” (Wind/Weather/Intellect, androgynous), Fire “Naga Emas” (Sun/Craftsmanship/Manifestation/the World, genderless), Water “Bidadari” (Moon/Magic/Illusion/dreams, feminine) – clerics, cloistered clerics, exorcists, warrior monks, witch hunters.

Church of the King of Life – Padishah, God of Life – clerics, cloistered clerics, exorcists, paladins, warrior monks.

Church of the Alien God – exorcists, magic-users, warlocks, warrior monks. Aśundǒr  says he has come to rescue the souls of humanity, demihumans, and humanoids from the world, which is a prison built by the Demons to trap human/demihuman/humanoid souls, which are the fragmented light of the Alien God. Also, the Aion of Wisdom was lured into the trap and degraded by the Demons, finally incarnating as Śukar, a slave-prostitute he found and bought away from the brothel which owned her. Aśundǒr and Śukar are living humans who are teaching the philosophy of the Alien God with a retinue of twelve Disciples. 

polytheist sects – see note on gods in "Demonology Made Easy" – exorcists, magic-users, steppe shamans, warlocks, summoners, witches. Local gods may be manifestations of "deity-types", sometimes with related or even the same names as others of the type, usually given a location epithet (like "Zeus of Stonedale", "Parisian Athena", or whatever). 

Druidism – Erodia, Dunia, Briga, Artor, Medraut, Karnon – bards, druids, monks, rangers, witches. A sort of mix of Wicca and Taoism with other random influences, with three goddesses, Erodia the Huntress, Dunia the Earth Mother, and Briga the Wise, and three gods, Artor the Oak King, Medraut the Holly King, and Karnon the Antlered God. There's a philosophy of manifest Summer and potential Winter as the fundamental energies of the universe that combine and recombine as the Four Elements, the Eight Trigrams, the 64 Hexagrams, and other symbolic indications. I'm taking ideas from the Barddas of Iolo Morgannwg, European alchemy, Chinese Yì jīng and wǔxíng, Japanese kusei kigaku and onmyōdō, and mixing them all up with whatever takes my fancy. Dunia embodies the Summery Feminine, Artor the Summery Masculine, Briga is Wintry Feminine, Medraut the Wintry Masculine, while Erodia and Karnon are varieties of androgyny and “non-binariness”.

Denialism – "world is illusion", spoken by Kuhare Nadi the Enlightened One – exorcists, illusionists, monks, psionicists. Kuhare Nadi saw through the illusion that is the world and learned how to impart that knowledge to others. Some Denialists learn how to manipulate the illusion and create Phantasms or even create substance as Shadow. 

Fatalism – Inan, the Weaving Goddess of Fate – clerics, cloistered clerics, dervishes, exorcists, paladins, warrior monks.