Knave and Kin (aka Races/Ancestry/Species)

The school year is starting up, and the "D&D" group at the town library has grown past my ability to run it solo. Unfortunately, our library in the year of our Lord 2024 can't do what my childhood library did in 1983 and just set aside two tables in the children's area every Saturday from when they opened until 1:00 for we little chaos goblins to do what we wanted with the funny dice: there needs to be an adult involved, preferably running the game, so that parents can feel reassured that their little chaos goblins are being supervised and the library can track their usage metrics. 

Fortunately, another grown up has stepped up and is willing to run. With 17-20 kids on the contact list, we're dividing it up so each grown up (and I use that term in the loosest, most biological sense) is running 2 games, alternating weeks. I'm continuing my 13th Age game for one, and for the other, I'm introducing Knave. Ben Milton explained that he designed the game for 5th graders to immediately start playing, and while I am running for rising 7th graders and up there have been kids who had consistent problems with their character's mechanics and crunchy bits: a problem Knave solves by not having any. 

But Knave is also designed for easy modification, and while the game itself is classless and raceless, I figure there's a good chance kids will ask about playing elves and dwarves and so on. I could go into a long discussion of the humanocentric nature of the pulp fantasy stories that inspired the earliest versions of D&D, but... naah. Give the kids what they want (this is why I have a Centaur Fighter/Wizard in my 13th Age game and one PC being the wizards cat familiar in my D&D B/X game). 

So here is what I have wacked together for Kin. Why 'Kin'? Because I'm willing to entertain the complaints against 'race', despite being an old white guy myself, but I really don't care for 'species' as it sounds too scientific to my ears. Is that perhaps a Tiffany Problem when it comes to language? Perhaps. But Kin feels right, so I'm running with it. Here's the two pager I put together for this. 

(and are all my rules mods written on landscape paper with four columns designed to be folded into a digest sized book? Do you even have to ask?)

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Kin Basics in Knave

Being an ultralight, classless OSR design, Knave does not have default kin. However, I know my young players are likely to ask for something, given how integral it is to the concept of contemporary D&D. To accommodate this, I have developed the following rules for playing non-human PCs.

Abilities: Kin may have ability penalties or ability minimums. Ability penalties make it possible to start play with a negative ability, applied in the same cases as a positive score; negative CON reduces items slots and wounds before death. An ability minimum means you must dedicate 1-3 starting points to that ability to play this kinfolk.

Kin Enemies and Allies: Most non-humans have kin enemies. Entire parties of that kin make reaction rolls (p. 19) with that enemy with 2d4. When not all of the party is that kin, reaction rolls are made with 1d6+1d4. Some kinfolk have allies for whom reactions are naturally positive. Any parties where some member has a kin ally rolls 1d6+1d8 for reactions. Treat results of 12+ as 12. Otherwise, this is an advantage or disadvantages on social tests.

Senses: Many Kinfolk have minor sensory advantages over humans. This is never darkvision but may include low-light vision, that doubles the visible radius of candlelight. Otherwise, senses are treated as an advantage on a check involving the sense. (Hearing is the sense used in surprise tests p. 19)

Size: Kin may be small or, rarely, large. If not listed, they’re Medium, encompassing everything from dwarf to just under ogre sized. (Andre the Giant was large; Arnold Schwarzenegger? Medium.) GMs will adjudicate non-standard sizes as an advantage or disadvantage as circumstances require. In general, size will apply to stealth, hiding, fitting through small spaces, and for feats of general strength where mass and leverage can be brought into play. (Size lets kin with a minimum of ability changes.)

Combat: My ruling is unarmed melee does 1d4-2 damage (0-2 pts). Some kinfolk have natural weapons that do 1d4 damage unarmed. It is not possible to power attack with natural weapons. No kin gain bonuses to hit in combat (that is covered by minimum STR/WIS).

Careers: Some Kinfolk replace one of their careers with a kin-career, which will provide 3 pieces of starting equipment and advantage on checks for things associated with their kinfolk’s culture.

Magic: Kin that tend to magic use have a minimum INT and use spellbooks as per normal. Some races have an inherent ability to create magic. This is treated as having a permanent Chaos Spellbook (p21) and is always paired with a negative CON, so the lost equipment slot balances the effect of having an extra spell per day that can’t be lost to wounds. Roll 1d6 for spell formula (p. 27) so wizard names aren’t involved.)

Blessings: Some kin are culturally tightly tied with the divinity of their people. Such kinfolk always have an ability minimum of CHA 1, and the player may decide at the start of play if their character is in favor or disfavor with their kinfolk divinity. Being in favor means they begin play with a blessing but need to align themselves with their patron’s goals to keep it. Being in disfavor means that the PC not only loses the blessing, their kin become a Kin Enemy until they are back in their patron’s favor. (p. 32)

Humans: Humans have any additional advantages, but they also do not have any disadvantages. In the original versions of the game was based on the idea of worlds where humans were ascendant or dominant, with social and level restrictions to enforce human primacy. It’s up to the GM how humans interact with other kin.

Dwarves

Short of stature but broadly built, their society is at least partially subterranean with a focus on mining and craftsmanship. They fought ancient wars with goblins and kobolds for resources underground.

Hill Dwarf: spending as much time above ground as under it, these are cosmopolitan and versatile dwarves. Kin Enemies: Goblins, Kobolds; Senses: low-light vision; Careers: pick Miner or a craft career.

Mountain Dwarf: living almost entirely underground, where war against the goblins and kobolds is constant, these dwarves have a strong common guild culture Abilities: minimum STR 1; Kin Enemies: Goblins, Kobolds; Senses: low light vision; Careers: Dwarf (pickaxe, lantern, carving kit)

Deep Dwarves: abiding deep in the earth, they survive on their faith and their clan ties Abilities: Minimum STR 1, CHA 1; Kin Enemies: Goblins, Kobolds; Senses: low-light vision; Careers: Deep Dwarf (pickaxe, religious tract, clan amulet); Blessings: Mordin, god of Gold and Survival (can always retrace steps even in total dark, as long as they’re good with Mordin).

Elves

Long lived, slender of form, possessed of keen eyesight and a gift for magic, elves are one of the last ancient races, with a deep, and mutual hatred of orcs.

Wood Elf: living in deep forests, they are exceptional hunters Abilities: Minimum INT 1, WIS 1; Kin Enemies: orcs, dark elves; Senses: keen vision; Careers: select hunter or some other woods-based career.

High Elf: having dedicated ages to the study, these elves are inherently magical and broadly experienced. Abilities: Minimum INT 1; Penalty CON -1, Kin Enemies: orcs, dark elves; Magic: one Chaotic spell

Dark Elves: Living in the spaces underground, they are a cult for a demon goddess Abilities: Minimum WIS 1; Kin Enemies: other elves, deep dwarves; Senses: low-light vision; Careers: Drow (spider amulet, 50’ rope, lantern); Blessings: Lolth demon queen of spiders and mazes (advantage on climbing and rope use while they are good with Lolth).

Little Folk

Not so much a race as a category of fair folk that can be found in pockets around the world, secretive and shy, and possessed of their own enemies.

Halflings: short, stout, agrarians for whom anything seldom happens until everything happens Abilities: minimum DEX 1, Size: Small

Gnomes: an offshoot of dwarves who have the innate magic of elves Abilities: Penalty CON -1; Kin Enemies: kobolds; Senses: low-light vision; Size: Small; Combat: none; Careers: tinkerer (magnifying glass, tweezers, gears); Magic: one Chaos spell, always illusionary.

Surrah: cat people who are loathed by other magical animals. Abilities: None; Kin Enemies: magical animals; Senses: keen hearing; Size: Small; Combat: claws and bite do 1d4; Careers: cat (ball of string, several dead mice, catnip);

Nature Spirits

Not so much the embodiments of the natural world as the things that routinely dwell in it, these entities combine magic and the outdoors in impressive ways

Centaurs: Half human, half horse, have wild, half wise. Abilities: Minimum CON 2; Size: Large; Combat: 1d4 hooves

Satyrs: half man/half goat nature spirits, musical revelers Abilities: Minimum CHA 1 Penalty CON-1; Careers: Musician (pipes, paper, pen and ink); Magic: one Chaotic spell

Dryad: women born of trees, they go on walkabout before laying down roots Abilities: Minimum CHA 1, Penalty CON-1; Kin Enemies: spirits of other groves, Senses: sense plants; Careers: herbalist (herbs, sickle, herb manual) Blessings: the spirit of the groves (can disappear into trees/travel through when in their own or neutral groves).

Merfolk: with the blessings of their god they can walk among us for a time Abilities: Minimum CHA 1; Kin Enemies: elemental spirits, Blessings: the god of the rivers (become half fish when wet).

On the Nature of a Cruel and Uncaring Universe

An ongoing topic of discussion amongst fantasy gamers - well, mostly D&D players - has been the concept of "evil races" or even "evil monsters", and the belief that such things are socially, historically, narratively, or ethically impossible. It's an interesting discussion that often turns vitriolic as people on both sides dig in, especially around the idea of evil races where there's just so much space to talk past each other in the various play styles and types of fantasy. How much of it is narrative, how much of it is simulation, how much of it is gameplay, to look at the old Threefold Model. 

Lets say your want your heroes to be facing an existential threat to their civilization. So you take Nazis, you reskin them as Orcs to make it fantasy, and bang. It's always ok to punch Nazis, and always ok to kill them when they start the war. There's no appeasing them; only the complete destruction of their ability to threaten anyone around them will be sufficient. In a gameplay sense you have introduced adversaries that provide moral clarity to the combat. In a narrative sense you have actualized the threat of fascism into a physical form for you to engage and (hopefully) defeat. But in a simulationist sense, well, are all the orcs fascists? Are there good orcs? Why is orc culture like this? Underlying it all is the belief that there must be a way to engage past the wartime footing and get to the root causes of why the orcs are fascists, undo that, and convert them to "good"; you can't just kill all of them. 

Well... yes and no. In wartime the goal is completely destroy their ability and willingness to make war. And that means a LOT of collateral damage. Many accounts exist of, even as the Allies were rolling into their territory and the war was clearly lost, 'good' Germans bemoaning the fact that Britain was supposed to have given up before the USA entered the war, sparing the Germans all this strife. Rooting out fascist ideology required the obliteration of the German state, de-Nazification of its politics, and a generation of work that's outside the scope of a fantasy adventure role playing game. At best, the PCs would need to deal with the combat aspect of the threat, and then leave the complete reconstruction of Orc society to the kingdoms that they act as heroes for, if you want this to be a simulation of that reality. This is, of course, a complete back projection of contemporary morals onto the ostensible 'age' of D&D, but that's a minor concern compared to the deformation of 'history' caused by active divinities, various arcane magic, and dipshits claiming there were only white people across Europe before the age of colonization, so run with it if you like.

But if you don't want to deal with that, it's why you make them Orcs, and not people. Orcs aren't real. Orcs are the actualized threat. They are monsters. They are endlessly cruel and completely uncaring because that is their narrative and gameplay function. And that's OK.

This a roundabout way to get to my main point: You are allowed to actualize threats into things that can be fought and killed. These things are monsters. They don't need a real world reason or explanation or tragic backstory. They are embodiments of real threats. You can have dire wolves stalking the deep dark forest as the actualization of the fear of starvation, or of getting lost and dying in the forest itself. You don't need to explain the circumstances that caused this particular wolf to turn to human predation. It is there because the woods are scary and dangerous. 

Because deep dark woods in an era before human action had wiped out most of the apex predators, and there wasn't contemporary medicine, and accurate maps were hard to come by, and food identification was a hard won skill, ARE DANGEGEROUS. Big Bad Wolves in European fairy tales are the embodiment of that. 

There's a great bit in Larry Niven's Beowulf Schaffer stories (Collected in the book Crashlander) where Schaffer is berating an Earth born companion for his ongoing terran-centric worldview, because the cold of space absolutely does not give a shit about you. Earth is your kind and loving mother where the gravity, air content, temperatures, etc. are all inside your tolerances, as are the pathogens and foodstuffs. In SF, Earth loves you and keeps you safe because you grew up inside it. But that's not the case in Fantasy.

In Fantasy, myth, faerie tale... Earth is dangerous. The woods are dangerous, storms are dangerous, the ocean is dangerous, food is dangerous, the very soil under your feet is dangerous as earthquakes can't be predicted or ameliorated. In the pre-science world, mythologies were invented to put a scaffolding around that chaos, to give us some hope of understanding it and transmitting what we learned about it from generation to generation. And in those myths, threats were actualized into Monsters. Things the heroes can defeat with stealth and cunning and steel (or bronze, or really big clubs...). 

If you have actualized the earthquakes as trolls, then when the trolls rampage through they cannot be reasoned with, any more than the earthquake can. Sometimes they come, and destroy the village. But we're in myth, maybe there's a god of the earthquake/trolls, and really the issue is he's angry because we... STOP! Stop centering humanity. The universe isn't cruel, but it is uncaring. The earthquake/trolls didn't happen because you cut down the magic tree, or moved into this area, or whatever. It happened because earthquakes happen. The god of the earthquake/trolls just likes having trolls attack places, sometimes, if it's in the mood - better than the NFL, and it's bored. It is chaotic, and maybe evil. 

Yes, Myths are built around the belief that surely something we can do will stop the earthquakes! In this model, you can stop the the earthquake by killing the trolls, as the trolls are the earthquake. That's the something you can do. 

Not everything is simulation. Sometimes in gameplay and narrative things that are ethically OK to fight and kill is good design. Fantasy is like that. Sometimes let yourself have the fantasy.

Scornbul by Midnight Act II Scene II

"Make a sound and I'll kill you," Melas hisses.  He closes the door most of the way and approaches the man warily, gripping his sharp wood splinter.  He stops about six feet away and whispers, "Who are you?"

The man stammers soundlessly at this insane apparition - Melas can see in the mirrors that he is in quite the state, with tattered, mud stained clothes and the bruise on his temple a livid mark - but follows instructions and closes his mouth with an audible snap of his teeth.

When Melas speaks again, the man's response is quiet and rushed, trying to hide the look of obvious fear of the repercussions of an unacceptable answer. "Antonio. Antonio Andres. Signor Andres." He recovers some of his bearing as he tries to ingratiate himself with his new visitor "I'm a merchant captain, taken by pirates, much as you likely were."

"No, I was fool enough to walk into this house.  But now I must walk out again.  Why are your hands wrapped?"

"Bound?" Antonio looks at his hands and begins to giggle in a way that gives Melas sever concerns about his companion's sanity. That turns into wracking sobs as the fellow struggles to control himself. Ultimately he does so, managing the stammer out, "My... the signora of the house does not... want me..." the giggles start again, but he suppresses them, "to do myself an injury." 

"Well," says Melas as he undoes the bindings, "if I were you, I'd be more interested in doing some injuries to those ruffians upstairs.  Indeed, even though I'm not you, that's what I'm interested in anyhow.  I'm Melas Beliseca, by the way; delighted to make your acquaintance.  Now let's get you out of here.  Is there anything heavy, sharp, or otherwise dangerous in here?"  He looks for oil lamps or volatile perfumes -- and for something sustaining to drink.

The bindings prove remarkably resilient - it takes the use of his small pocket knife to cut them off, and the bandages were literally sewn into his wrists to prevent them coming free. The rope around his neck collar proves somewhat easier to deal with, weak as it is at the junction point.

"N...No, no weapons in here." Antionio shakes his head forcefully, then falls into a reverie looking at his hands, atrophied as they are from disuse. Melas cursory search of the room reveals a pair of storm lanterns - both full, one lit - and, gods be praised, a decanter of port with a pair of glasses. The perfumes, he notes with an expert eye, are not flammable, but - as he knows from sad experience with his cousin - that if sprayed in the eye will do more harm than good.

He fortifies himself with a couple of glasses of port, and takes up the storm lanterns.  Not only will they offset the blind pirates' advantage in the dark, but they pose a fire hazard.  The perfume he leaves behind after reflecting that spraying perfume in the eyes of eyeless men seems deeply pointless.

When he feels suitably fortified, he recorks the port and hands the bottle to Antonio.  "Can you hit someone with this?  Your wife, perhaps?"

Antionio takes the bottle in one hand and almost immediately drops it. He bends down to grab it again, this time getting a firm grip on the neck with both hands. His face jerks up in surprise at Melas' comment concerning his wife. "N...n...no, you can't...can't fight her. Too strong. Flee. We have to run far away, hope she never sees..." he sobs for a second, "finds us again. Inland. Mountains. You can't...I won't...Better to die."

Melas decides that Antonio, mad as he is, has a point.  Even his own opinion of his abilities doesn't suggest he's capable of taking on a  whole houseful of armed men, especially when he still doesn't quite know what's going on. The prudent course is to get Antonio to safety and come back in force.  He takes up the lanterns and his improvised wooden dagger.

"Very well," he says.  "Do you know the way out?"

The man shakes his head. "N..N...No. This isn't our house. Up. Up. Away from water."

Melas himself, by virtue of playing possum, knows that they were moved through the interconnecting house structure of Scornbul, and Antonio is almost certainly right that they are now underground. With luck, he Melas might be able to backtrack to at least an above ground area, or striking off in another direction might prove fruitful.

"Well, then, let us search.  Can you walk?  Because I must confess I cannot imagine we will get far if I have to carry you."

Assuming Antonio is mobile, Melas leads the way to the corridor and tries to guess which way might lead to the stairs.

Antonio shuffles after him, his tread sounding more like that of a ragged monster in a 'Pierre and Pedro" production than a human but Melas' need for quiet lets the weakened man keep up. Lacking any other clues the hunchback heads back the way he had been carried - it might be more dangerous, but it will get him back to the surface.

With the light off the storm lantern Melas can confirm his original assessment - he is in the basement or sub basement of what was once a fine home. Given the lax building codes of Scronbul the home was likely surrounded on all sides by other structures and ultimately consumed, a fine ship run aground and encrusted with barnacles and reef. The chamber that held Antonio was original construction, and judging by the door so was the one next to it - it shares a very similar lock, and would likely be opened by the key he currently holds -  while those on the other side were a crude subdivision of an unfinished storage space. Further along he can see where the wall had been knocked out to provide access to the next buildings basement, and to his left, past whatever finished room lay behind the locked door, was a set of open wooden stairs heading up.

The stairs are very shallow, nearly a ramp (as was the fashion centuries ago) with a landing after 12 steps, doubling back towards the center line of the house. The banister separating the two has finely carved dowels whose paint is all but faded and flecked away. Melas can make out the tread of heavy boots - he has had close contact with the blind pirate's footwear - heading in this direction, and his stomach rumbles as his gourmand's nose detects a whiff of what is no doubt foul stew used to keep the prisoners alive. Lunch, perhaps, but for his body to crave such disgusting nourishment he must have lost track of time, or perhaps slept in the mud of the second cell, at least until evening. The scent gets closer, and the hunchback revises that - breakfast the next morning. Or perhaps the next month.

His stomach rumbles again, loud enough that there is a real fear of alerting the approaching pirate. Fortunately Antonio stands struck dumb with fear, and therefore does not give away their position.

Melas yanks Antonio into concealment next to the staircase, so that he can leap out upon whoever comes down the stairs.  He grips the splinter dagger-style and waits. 

Antonio lets out a squawk at the sudden movement and Melas is certain that the addled man has cost him his one opportunity, but the blind pirate appears not to notice - the man is singing a vile sea shanty to himself as he goes about his rounds! Melas holds his breath, waiting for the sightless jailor, whose hands are full of a tray with three large bowls of slop, to pass them - the fiend is unaware of either the light or his impending demise. 

When he sees his opening Melas moves. He drives his makeshift wooden dagger into the man's back, so that he might pierce his lung and thus silence him. Unfortunately the splinter is snagged by a padded doublet under the man's highly inappropriate valet's garb. The blow does overbalance the fellow, his forward tumble freeing the nobleman's desperate blade along with a trail of threaded woolen padding. Antonio, but accident or design, falls in front of the staggering pirate, bringing both men and stew onto the ground, their collapse partially muffled by Antonio's thin frame. Melas tries again, grabbling the man's hair with one hand and silencing his song forever with a splintered thrust into his neck. 

Dying but not dead the blind pirate hurls himself free from Antonio's ineffective grapple, and, using the wall for support, shoves himself back to his feet. One hand holds his neck wound closed, the other sways a long knife into the hall to ward off further attacks, grasping at the thin reed of hope that the muted sounds of the struggle might summon assistance. 

It would require more willpower than Melas possesses not to kick the wounded blind man.  Remembering his beating at the hands of the villains upstairs, he Puts The Boot In repeatedly until the fellow stops moving. 

That task done, he snatches up the pirate's knife to replace his splintered blade. During this time Antonio regained his feet and the pair ascended the shallow stairs to the next level. The absence of any other light in the hall is indication enough that there are no sighted folk on the floor, but there is also no indication of windows or any other sign that they might now be above ground. Once they have gained the floor they have two options - another stair of similar construction begins directly opposite them, or the building's central hall runs to their right. 

Melas knows that the wall to their left is flush with another building, given how the passage had been expanded to another basement on the floor below. He is also familiar enough with houses of this type, as they were common enough on the southern shores centuries ago and his family owns more than one: these distant stairs are intended for the guests, when even such a minor wasting of space would be considered ostentation. The tradition of the time had showing rooms for artwork in the basement, opposite the wine cellar, both as a protection against thieves and against harsh daylight muting the paints (plus, such rooms had to be carefully maintained to avoid the damp, further evidence of wealth). Melas estimates that the wall to his right is between one third and one quarter oriented towards the sea. There would be no door on that wall, but there would once have been several large windows, both on the wall itself and on the seaward landing, to impress the guests. Perhaps the seaward windows would still open to air, even if they are no doubt covered, but the house might actually be surrounded on all sides. 

The other option, the central hall, would run the length of the house on all floors. If they were on a ground floor it would open to a central entry hall. If not, it is a mass of servants quarters with a tight stairwell behind one of the doors. Melas recalls being carried down such a stair, but it might have been in the Andres residence rather than this one. Cursing the denizens of this madhouse he decided to risk trying to retrace his original path rather than ascend these stairs with no guarantee that they would still contain an exit - the central hall it is. 

The servants stair is found with little difficulty, and as Melas ascended his keen ears could make out voices ahead. Turning down the wick of the stock lantern lest their light reveal them to the lady of the house he motioned for Antonio to stay silent but keep moving - the latter more difficult for the crazed man than the former when the croaking laugh of Signora Hurea echoes down the stairs. Still, the two are able to climb two stories in the circular stairwell until they are in a room whose natural darkness has bee turned to dimness by an occluded light in the direction that Melas considers to be the exit. That light is partially blocked by one of the swinging doors installed to make the day too day work of the blind pirates easier, and beyond it he can hear Signora Huera speaking to. . . no one? 

Melas risks a glance, and in so doing spies a large room that must have once been more than one chamber - all the walls having been taken down to turn a shared fireplace between library and dining room into more of a brick fire pit. The signora's veil was off, but mercifully her gaze was directed into the cracking and blazing tinder. 

"Noooooo," she says before issuing her croaking laugh, "the fool Reme has botched it, no doubt. Oh, he's fulfilled his payment too join the Red Tide, and those fools will take him sure enough, but he's not half so cunning as he thinks. One of our converted heard the paladins raid on the actor's little magpie's nest last night, and their questioning, and one of the new factors asked about Reme and Sebastian." 

There is a moment where the only noise is the cracking fire, and Melas realizes that the Signora is not looking at the fire, but at something she is holding in her hands - an amulet perhaps, or a ring on a chain. Her speaking again makes him jump, and elicits a whimper from his companion. "Like I said, botched it. Still, every little bit helps, and the old thirteen cursed elven bastard is dead." Another croaking laugh that seems to almost echo from the object in her hands. "Now I just have to have a discussion with that misshapen popinjay who stumbled in yesterday, to see if Reme has betrayed us further. How go things in the towers? " 

This line of talk was severed when Melas felt a corded arm wrap about his head, yanking him backwards! One of  the blind pirates had managed to sneak behind him while that fool Antonio neither did nor said a thing in his stupefied terror! Had the man been sighted surely Melas would be dead in moments from a crushed throat, but by great good fortune the man's arm had caught the hunchback's chin instead. Not above dirty tricks in a crisis, the noble dug his teeth into the pirates arm, drawing blood and a scream from both the pirate and Antiono, whose silence had now turned to total panic. 

Spinning madly to keep himself from seeing the Signora's inhuman features again, Melas struck out with his long knife, opening a gash on the blind pirates arm that began to bleed freely. The pirate drew and attempted to return the stroke but his blood slicked hand slipped on the hilt, letting Melas swat the attack away and drive the poniard home through waistcoat, doublet and sternum. Behind him he heard a loud crash, and turned to see the Signora effortlessly holding up her husband with a single arm, forcing him to meet her gaze, his desperate, weakened thrashings overturning one of the room's chairs and a small table. 

"Thought you'd get away, dear? We're bound until death, you and I, remember? And I shall never let you die." The foul mockery of a woman croaked, and she then began laughing her shuddered, coughing laugh as Antonio wheezed, whimpered and fell still. She dumped him in the upright chair before turning to face the bedraggled, blood stained nobleman. 

Melas, too canny an opponent to make the mistake of looking at the signora's features, kept his eyes centered on her abdomen as he hurled the storm lantern. It flared as it spun, and Melas could see that his aim was true, when the Signora uttered a word and the wick died. The lamp found its mark, shattering and drenching the hag's clothes in a useless gesture - perfume in the eyes would have been more effective. "Every sea witch in the fleet learns how to extinguish an errant flame, my broken popinjay." 

Her stride was unnaturally fast, her limbs freakishly long, and Melas had no time too counter as her iron-hard nails batted aside his knife and her long fingers latched like a fistful of hungry leaches around his throat, pulling his feet off the ground and his face closer to hers, where her enervating, accursed state might work its awful power on him yet again. 

Night Chalice and the Dragon Waiting Syndrome

Last week I promised to look at the Night Chalice game as an example of the Dragon Waiting Syndrome. If you're not familiar, the Dragon Waiting is John M Ford's World Fantasy Award-winning novel, where the central characters are: 

• Gregory, a German vampire mercenary skilled at siege engines; 
• Dimi, the exiled heir to the Byzantine throne; 
• Cynthia, a young physician forced to flee Florence; and 
• Hywel, a Welsh wizard, nephew of Owain Gly Dwr,

So naturally the action takes place in Wales, and the characters "wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium, striving to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and make him Richard III." 

Ever since I finished the book, I've referred to the tendency of player groups to make PCs that are not necessarily opposed to the GM's plotline, but disconnected from it. 

This is subtly different from what we in Alarums & Excursions used to call "Special Snowflake Syndrome", before Snowflake took on it's current internet meaning. Back then it was "all snowflakes are unique, but I want my snowflake to be specially unique!" and referred to players who deliberately built characters at odds with the GMs instructions: the canonical example was my saying that the campaign was built around the PCs being officers of a Roman Legion (ala Turtledove's Misplaced Legion books) and one player deciding they wanted to play a camp follower. When quizzed as to why, it was "because I think Roman legionnaires are boring but I still want to play." There was a lot of discussion around this "I don't like the idea but I want to play so you as GM should deform your idea into something I do like" as a valid player response and the conversations that need to be had around it. 

Dragon Waiting Syndrome isn't that. All the players in a DWS want to play with the game premise. None of them are doing passive aggressive campaign rejection. They just waged way further afield in the GM's stated "alternate history Europe with mild magic" in their designs than the GM anticipated. 

This is sort of what I ran into for the Night Chalice. I told the players we were in Eversink, and that they were the last remnants of a thieves guild. I expected some con men, burglars, pickpockets, maybe a legbreaker, and I got. 

• A former inquisitor turned smuggler who can see ghosts (which is discussed here)
• A professional duelist who assassinates under the cover of quasi-legal challenges
• A street physician who patched the gang members up, and dabbled in magic
• The dead guild leader's pet sociopath, his Luca Brasi, but secret and a nebbish. 

Now, all of these are perfectly legal justifiable builds. Just none of them lend themselves to short or long cons, caper style robberies, or any of the other things that I thought the group might be doing. This has completely re-tooled the sorts of adventures they're getting into without changing the "Hey we're a thieves guild!" premise. I could have done a lot more work on my end creating, say, 8 templates the PCs had to choose from that would have resulted in things more like I expected. I'm not sure it would have led to the players being as engaged. 

We play to learn. 

Weekly Book Recommendations (August 23)

The Hidden Halls of Hazakor by Scott Fitzgerald Gray: This is a sizable softcover tome, some 70 pages, full of what can only be described as what The Keep on the Borderlands would be if it were written today, but someone without Gary's prose stylings. I bought the book to read and then pass on to the teen library RPG section, as this is designed for 12+ year olds to read and learn to run their first dungeon. In that it is very well done, providing a fleshed out 'home base' with some internal mysteries for the PCs to work from and the Tomb logically divided up into key-access areas so the PCs don't get in over their heads and the GM knows what's accessible and what to prepare for in any given session, with scattered GM advice on how to handle the sorts of table problems likely to arise in this bit. In general I like it, for all that I'm not a fan of the 5E mechanics its built on: this is an adventure with training wheels on, and we need those. It is fascinating to compare it to the Tomb of the Serpent King, which is the OSR take on the same concept and so much more spare in the verbiage and not looking for teachable moments between players so much as teaching the players how a dungeon works. Now the library has both; it will be interesting to see what the kids do with them.