I haven't posted about it in about 8 or 9 years now, but Scott Driver, known for settings like the World of Thool, had briefly outlined one of the more intriguing settings I've seen, Mandragora: The Mandrake March. As was his habit, when he stopped working on it, he erased the blog, and soon vanished entirely, as far as I can tell, from the internet RPG community. Recently, I was able to recover most of the posts on Mandragora he'd made (and the names of the ones I couldn't recover). None of the pictures survived the recovery process. Leaving out rules-specific ones like his proposed house rules for using Chainmail as the combat system or his eventual decision to use Tunnels & Trolls 5th edition instead of Dungeons & Dragons, here's what I found, after the cut.
Titles of missing posts:
Mandragora, or, the Mandrake March: A Very Brief …
The Mandrake Goblins: A First Look
We're a happy family, we're a happy family
Post: The campaign canon
"It's a mountain with a colossal stone skull. Let's call it, ehhhh, 'Stone Mountain.'"
- An Explorer, Doing It Wrong.
I decided a couple things about the new setting project early on. First, as usual, I plan to do a lot of ripping off from public domain literary sources. Second, as usual, I can't be arsed to do a decent map, so some of my maps are not from public domain sources.
Literature
* Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, which collect many tales from many sources and cultures. The Dover editions are stunningly illustrated by Henry Justice Ford. These are probably the most important inspirations for the setting.
* Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, which I'm re-reading this summer in verse form. If you'd rather not parse the verse -- the language is deliberately archaic even by Elizabethan standards -- the story is rendered in Victorian prose here.
* Lord Dunsany, especially The Book of Wonder, A Dreamer's Tales, The Sword of Welleran and Other Tales, and The King of Elfland's Daughter (which may not be in the public domain [archivist's note: it can be found here]). For once, The Gods of Pegana isn't a foundational text.
* George MacDonald, especially The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, and Phantastes.
* The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.
* The Golden Legend [archivist's note: the original link is broken, but it can be found here].
Art
* Henry Justice Ford
* Arthur Rackham
* Edmund Dulac
* Sidney Sime [archivist's note: original link broken with no archive; here is a collection]
* John Bauer
* Gustave Dore
* Ivan Bilibin
* and any other public domain art that fits the tone of the setting.
Maps
I'm definitely working from a cannibalized wilderness map for this setting. The short list for the initial campaign region is 1) the gameboard from Outdoor Survival, 2) the hexmap of Karameikos from the Expert rulebook with the serial numbers filed off, or 3) the hexmap from X1 Isle of Dread with the terrain re-skinned and the serial numbers filed off.
I'll probably also use some dungeon maps from canned sources, including the Stone Mountain cross-section from Holmes Basic, and Judges Guild's Sunstone Caverns and the 4- and 5-level dungeons below the City-State from CSIO.
Post: "Why D&D;?"
I was just asked in the Comments why I picked Moldvay/Cook B/X as the ruleset for Mandragora rather than a non-D&D system that mechanically better suits the fairy tale genre.
This is a good question. D&D comes famously front-loaded with a mess of -isms, tropes, and mechanics derived from Tolkien, S&S, and historical wargames, not all of which dovetail smoothly with the action and aesthetics of traditional fairy tales. An example given was combat-based XP grinding.
The answer's pretty simple -- I wanted to do a setting for "playing D&D with a fairy tale influence" rather than a faithful genre exercise. I'm just as (or more) interested in playing D&D with all its -isms as I am in reflecting my chosen source literature, and I'm as influenced by Verbosh as by the Fairy Books.
At this point in my gaming life, I only seriously consider three rulesets when I start a setting project -- OD&D, Moldvay/Cook, and Tunnels & Trolls 5th edition. Those systems, with a little kitbashing, cover just about everything I want to do.
(AD&D has too much cruft for me, and I've only recently started toying with the idea of using OD&D with the Chainmail combat system.)
Adventurers in the Mandrake March will still delve dungeons, slay monsters, carry back bags of treasure, and otherwise participate in activities which, at this point, really serve no other genre purpose but the "playing D&D" genre. Players will undoubtedly still choose out-of-flavor names, min/max and obsess over fiddly mechanical bits, and otherwise break genre. So it goes.
But they can also marry Princesses.
Post: Developmental miscellanea
1. Mandragora is very loosely placed in an undefined medieval-to-Renaissance corner of "fairy tale Earth." That's as specific as it's getting. I'm including plenty of references to, and NPCs/monsters/items from, various Earth countries like Persia, Cathay, France, Spain, Africa, and so on. But the action won't ever shift there, and I don't plan to "locate" Mandragora or worry about anachronisms or relative geography.
2. Accordingly, I'm grappling with the decision to a) adapt or create a detailed hex-map of the campaign region or b) scribble something like the Sime "Land of Dreams" and Jaro Hess "Land of Make Believe" maps pictured above, eyeballing distances and the like. Rest assured that mine won't be nearly as arresting as the classic pieces above; I map as if I were drawing with my feet.
3. I'm also still on the fence about system. It really doesn't matter at this point because I'm not running a game, so I'm working with Moldvay/Cook and worrying about making any necessary slight conversions later. The options right now are Moldvay/Cook with OD&D/Chainmail patches, OD&D with Moldvay/Cook patches, or some mix of OD&D, Moldvay/Cook, and the Chainmail combat system.
Chainmail undoubtedly adds a layer of complexity to combat. There are a few things I like about it, though, most of which are noted at Swords of Minaria.
Chainmail combat is less deadly at the lower levels for a well-armored-and-armed adventurer fighting, for instance, Goblins with daggers -- all other things being equal, each Goblin has to roll boxcars to damage a character in Plate Mail & Shield.
And once a character reaches 2nd level, he has a good chance of surviving in combat against even "fantastic" opponents -- at least long enough to run, to bring supporting spellcasters to bear, or to figure out some option other than toe-to-toe melee.
The Chainmail combat system also combines attack matrices and "weapon type vs. armor" modifiers in a single table, and integrates a simple system for weapon speed, parries, and ripostes.
Finally, the Fantasy Combat rules are intriguing and may provide some fun options. Swords of Minaria extrapolates a very interesting "fantastic strike" mechanic that allows for Referee/player negotiation of the stakes and results of attempts at heroic actions.
I'm still reading the Swords of Minaria posts on OD&D + Chainmail, as well as the excellent free .pdf Forbidden Lore to which I was directed by a couple of helpful commenters. At some point, I'm going to have to cobble together a spitwad combat system and run a variety of sample fights. While I puzzle things out, I'm soldiering forward as if Moldvay/Cook will continue to be my ruleset.
4. I may institute a house rule reflecting the old Tunnels & Trolls assumption that each player runs a stable of multiple PCs simultaneously at each session. The rule I'm considering is this: Each player may, at his option, run multiple PCs as long as the total level of those PCs is 3 or less. Thus, early on, each player will likely run three PCs, gradually narrowing down to a single PC of 3rd level as his sole "in play" character, with a couple 1st or 2nd level PCs in the wings as alternates. PCs would still be free to hire or otherwise press into service as many Normal Men, NPCs, and monsters as finances, magic, and Charisma allow.
Post: The Fairy of the Desert and the Yellow Dwarf
Mandragora is a patchwork of tiny kingdoms (sometimes literally, e.g., the Mouse Kingdom or the Empire of the Ants). I'm sifting through my source literature for an idea of who and what I'm placing on the map as significant sovereigns, monsters, and other encounters. The following two NPCs are adapted from Madame D'Aulnoy's "The Yellow Dwarf" as presented in Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book; they are two of the setting's most vexatious Fairy creatures, and are frequently involved in plots to bedevil Men or even Kingdoms. The Fairy of the Desert is, in fact, one of the most powerful Witches in the setting.
[Note: I keep NPC write-ups pretty brief, and don't necessarily follow every detail from the stories.]
The Fairy of the Desert: A malign and fickle Fairy of great sorcerous power, the Fairy of the Desert is a tall crone, hobbling on a crutch, clad in ragged red robes with a black taffeta ruff and red velvet hood. She can take the form of an incomparably beautiful maiden to ensnare youths who catch her fancy, but she cannot disguise her gnarled and filth-encrusted feet, no matter her form.
A variety of monsters serve her as mounts, beasts of burden, and guardians. When traveling by land, she squats in a cart pulled by fire-breathing turkeys; by air, she vaults through the skies in a bat-drawn chariot. She lives in an splendid bejeweled magical palace with emerald walls, diamond arches, and the like.
When wrathful, the Fairy bears a deadly lance and sits astride a fierce Griffin, and swaddles her neck and shoulders with venomous snakes. She is a dab hand at melee combat, but is most fearsome as a Witch.
The Yellow Dwarf: A tiny, ugly little bald man with a yellow face, yellow coat, and long ears, the Yellow Dwarf is fond of lurking in trees, munching citrus, and hatching plots or extracting promises to ensnare this or that Princess or other Beauty in matrimonial durance. When roused to battle, he is a quick and merciless fighter, riding a great housecat and wielding a wicked knife.
The Yellow Dwarf lives deep in the Desert in the Castle of Steel, a polished edifice with red-hot walls. It is here that he sequesters the many pretty maidens who have fallen under his power. He works hand-in-glove with the Fairy of the Desert, often riding in a box in her cart or chariot.
Both the Fairy of the Desert and the Yellow Dwarf are served by, or can summon, a variety of fearsome magical beasts -- sphinxes, dragons, giants, and two-headed red lions.
Because the pair is so infamous and obnoxious, other Fairy creatures, good Kings, Talking Animals, and Spirits will sometimes aid those who contend against them.
Post: The campaign canon inevitably narrows
As is always the case when I start a new setting project, I've started off with a spectrum of source literature that's rapidly narrowing as I get a better sense of what I'm going for. In this instance, I've decided to narrow the source lit to the Andrew Lang Fairy Books only.
This isn't really much of a restriction; Lang collected literally hundreds of stories from dozens of traditions, so the effect is that of a wide range presented in a uniform voice.
For me, the biggest source I'm "losing" is Lord Dunsany, one of my eternal fountainheads. But Dunsany was such a pervasive presence in World of Thool - the Gods of Pegana were the deities of the main campaign region, for instance - that using his works as a major ingredient of the Mandragora setting feels duplicative.
I'm still collecting hard copies of the Lang books (the Dover editions have the original Henry Justice Ford illustrations), and I have no doubt that I can mine that vein in perpetuity. My goal is to adapt at least one setting element, no matter how insignificant, from every story in the Fairy Books.
(As my literary canon contracts, though, my library of evocative public domain illustrations is expanding.)
Post: Languages in Mandragora
The "Common Tongue" of Mandragora is English. All PCs and most NPCs, Fairies, Spirits, Talking Animals, and so on speak English.
For each point of initial Intelligence greater than 12, a PC speaks one additional language. If a player has a particular character concept in mind, the Referee may allow selection of one or more High Tongues rather than random determination.
PCs may not choose to speak a Low Tongue at the start of play, nor can they learn such languages during play in the usual manner except under very unusual circumstances.
The player should have wide latitude to explain how his character came to learn any randomly determined languages.
All High Tongues and some surprising Low Tongues have written forms. Assume that a PC can read and write all languages he speaks (if they have written forms) unless he's Rustic or Simple.
The High Tongue listing is, as usual, rife with oversimplifications, omissions, anachronisms, and outright inaccuracies. It is also highly Eurocentric, as is the bulk of the source literature.
The Low Tongues are the languages of mundane, non-talking animals. Such animals can communicate little in the way of sophisticated ideas, or any concepts at all outside of their limited critter bailiwicks.
There is some overlap suggested by the chart, e.g., a character who speaks the Language of Birds can probably get his ideas across to a barnyard chicken, although he'll doubtlessly come off as intolerably highfalutin to the bucolic poultry. The Low Tongues are intentionally left very vague to allow for Referee adjudication.
The High Tongues (01-75)
01-07 Arabian
08 Backwards
09-11 Chinese
12 Egyptian
13-20 French
21-23 Gaelic
24-31 German
31-35 Greek
36-38 Hindi
39-46 Italian
47-49 Japanese
50-57 Latin
58-63 Russian
64-71 Spanish
72-74 Viking
75 Welsh
The Low Tongues (76-00)
76-77 Barnyard
78 Bear
79-80 Bird
81 Bug
82-83 Cat
84-85 Dog
86-87 Fish
88-89 Horse
90 Jungle
91 Marsupial
92 Monkey
93 Pig Latin
94-95 Rodent
96 Squamous
97 Swamp
98-99 Woodland
00 Pick a Low Tongue. The character speaks that language, and also has great facility in communicating with a particular type of speaker of that tongue, e.g., Canine [Wolf], Bug [Spider], Squamous [Dragon], etc. The selected animal type will, under most circumstances, be sympathetic to the speaker unless severely affronted.
Post: The Winter Lords: St. Nicholas and King Frost
The North and South Poles of the Mandragora setting are, respectively, the domains of St. Nicholas and King Frost. Each Pole is the site of a village from which its Winter Lord sets forth to perform his distinctive winter and Yule functions - St. Nicholas spreads holiday cheer and rewards good children, and King Frost encrusts villages in rime and punishes willfulness and disobedience, sometimes abducting or killing the particularly naughty.
The Winter Lords each have specialized servants: St. Nick has Mrs. Claus, industrious Craft-elves, and Flying Reindeer, and King Frost has the Snow Queen, relentless Snowmen, and swarming Snow-bees.
Note 1: Half the reason I wanted to include King Frost in the setting was as an eventual excuse to paint the "Monstrous Snowmen" figures from Reaper, pictured below. The other half was probably the kick-ass classic Ford illustration.
Note 2: Because of the familiarity of the source material to the general reader and potential player, my notes on Mandragora are much sparser than was the case for World of Thool. Not everyone knows about Hodgsonian Borderlands Pig-things, but there's only so much explanation necessary for what Santa does.
There are other holiday figures with domains in Mandragora, from the well-known (the Easter Bunny, Cupid, Jack-o'-Lantern) to the more obscure (the King of Fools, the Beltane Badger), operating with wildly varying degrees of influence and benevolence. Most are of the vaguely-traditional-but-Americanized stripe, much like myself.
Post: Adventures in the Mandragora Setting
My vision for this project is "a setting for old-school fantasy gaming with fairy tale elements" rather than a warping of the gaming experience around a quest for fidelity to the fairy tale genre and its conventions and trappings. In other words, I want a setting in which groups of adventurers can do the same sort of things they've traditionally done in RPGs - band together in armed groups, enter dangerous locales, fight monsters and other fantastical enemies, gain treasure and experience, then go do it again.
I have quite a few ideas for what sort of adventure opportunities will exist in the initial campaign area, a small sandbox-style section of the greater setting. Because of my to-a-fault tolerance for anachronism and incoherence, the locations I'm considering don't seamlessly dovetail with each other. I consider this a design feature rather than a bug, considering that the Fairy Books from which I'm drawing inspiration include tales from a wide variety of cultures and time periods.
Here are a few of the possibilities for location-based adventures (or "dungeons" or whatever) in the initial campaign area. I've provided placeholder names for the locales; these are certain to change as I get things worked out.
1. "Mordant Manor": Inspired by Gothic and faux-Gothic entertainments like The Castle of Otranto, "The Fall of the House of Usher," Tegel Manor, the Walt Disney Haunted Mansions, and fairy tales involving Bad Houses. Designed around historical floor plans such as may be found here. The usual crumbling ancestral manse of a noble clan gone to perdition. Cobwebs, gables, gargoyles, cellars, attics, mad relatives, premature burials, necromancy, restless spirits, the family cemetery, a hedge maze, etc.
2. "Tulgey Wood": An Enchanted Forest of groves, clearings, cottages, hollow trees, and the like, all accessible only by tunnel-like paths in the thorns, briars, and impassable thickets. Designed as a flowchart ("from here, can go east to _____, west to _____") in the manner of a text adventure game, solo module, or - for practical purposes - any traditional dungeon. Wolves, Woodsmen, Trolls, Bears, a Gingerbread House, etc.
3. "Dwarf-land": Caverns, grottoes, and vaults cunningly delved by a tribe of greedy Dwarfs in service to an evil King. Populated by those malign beings and their pets, as well as a fire-breathing poisonous Wurm and her spawn. Stocked with treasure and captives stolen away by the sinister fairies, including a Princess or three. Designed as a straight-up dungeon.
4. "Sabbat Peak": A mountain peak of ill omen, atop which the Witches of the region hold their Sabbats and Esbats. Infested by Mandrake Goblins, Ghouls, Werewolves, Hell-hounds, Vampires, Devil-worshippers, Black Cats, etc. An extremely dangerous "high level" location, especially on holidays when Witchery is afoot.
I also intend to include plenty of "micro-dungeons" on the map - small-scale lairs, towers, villas, and so on.
And that was the last of it. Scott Driver moved blogs a couple of times, with this being the last capture I can find before Huge Ruined Pile was deleted in turn, from which point I lose track of him.
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