Appendix N: Leigh Brackett III

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, so the final three volumes in the Planet Stories series reprinting classic Leigh Brackett stories are going to get the short treatment.

The Hounds of Skaith and The Reavers of Skaith complete Brackett's John Erik Stark trilogy begun with The Ginger Star and introduced in The Secret of Sinharat. In my last exploration of Brackett's work, I mentioned that her writing generates world building ideas for me. That statement remains true with both of these continuations.

Brackett's writing is ripe with several world building concepts for the hungry DM's mind. I'm still fighting the temptation to scrap my own world of "the Dark Ways" and base my world upon Skaith. No doubt, several ideas will emerge that are steeped in her writing.

I don't want to give away particulars of the story itself, but I do wish to mention that I feared there would not be a satisfactory ending to the trilogy. In my opinion, The Reavers of Skaith does conclude nicely. I can not say it does so without the use of deus ex machina.

The Sword of Rhiannon delivers just as well as her Stark stories; perhaps even a bit better. As much as I enjoyed the Stark works, I enjoyed Rhiannon even more so. It is a well told, fast paced, action packed work that has just as much imagination as her other works.

In D&D terms, the actual Sword of Rhiannon of the stories name sake serves as an excellent example of how an artifact can be used well to form an excellent story. Other then that, I saw no direct examples of tropes from the game that were obviously influenced by Brackett's works. No doubt, the level of action and adventure were what the games designers were shooting for. In that way, there is a direct influence.

I have a tendency when reading works written around the same time period as Tolkien to see if the old scholar had any influence upon the author. In Brackett's case, it is easy to say no he did not. While there are parallels with Edgar Rice Burrough's works, there is a definite lack of High Fantasy Tolkienism. "High Fantasy" as a sub genre does not apply to her either.

Her stories that I have read would most likely be classified as Sword and Planet; for this reason, Edgar Rice Burrough's name shall always be tagged to her. I believe that to classify her as a Burrough's mimic is a naive assumption. Yes, she does work with the tropes first made popular by ERB, but her writing is too original for her to be called an imitator.

Overall, I have enjoyed Brackett's writing immensely. Of the Appendix N writers I reviewed for this series thus far, I've enjoyed her writing the most, with Poul Anderson being a very close second.

I do have to state a criticism towards Planet Stories itself. The typos continued through all three of these books. Please Pazio, hire better copy editors.

Game On!

There has been a long silence on the gaming front for me, at least as far as my face to face group goes. I've been away from home for two weeks, but tonight is the night. It is time for some more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Gaming has continued for me. I've done a bit of solo delving into Tunnels and Trolls: City of Terror, which I need to do an update post or two for. More exciting then that is I have joined an play by post game, and more to come on that as well.

Come to think of it, I have lots of posting to do. So little time, so many dice.

Solo Delving - The City of Terrors - 2nd Delve

I sat in my hotel room tonight with the sad short delving life of Halk the Pretty eating at my soul. I couldn't let it rest. I rolled up a new character: Miss Greta the Ugly.

Greta was betrothed to Halk the Pretty. She knew that of all the trolls he could have had, she was the last he would want. When he ran off for the City of Gull several months ago, he claimed he was going to win his fortune then return. Greta didn't believe him. For months now she as sat in her cave stewing. She just knows that good for nothing pretty boy Halk is probably looking for a new trolless to share a cave with. So she has decided to go to Gull in search of him. If she finds him, oh is he in trouble. In fact. He is lucky that he is dead!

I rolled Greta up with the same method I used for Halk, 4d6 and drop the lowest die; however, I arraigned. I also stole a house rule from Cartomancer. I determined starting gold by rolling 3d6 and multiplying by my highest stat. The short life of Halk indicated to me that a starting character would need a few advantages. Is this cheating? I don't know. I don't care.

Miss Greta the Ugly
Kindred: Troll
Type: Warrior

ST: 42
INT: 14
LK: 15
CON: 48
DEX: 14
CHR: 8
SPD: 10

ADDS: Melee +35/Missile +37

Armor: Complete Mail (11 Hits doubled to 22)

Weapons: Doublebitted Ax (6d + 3 Adds), Common Spear (3d + 1 Add 40 yard range)

Trappings: Warm dry clothing and pack, 1 days rations

Gold: 3 gp

The wealth advantage was huge. I was able to buy some good armor for Greta and she has a massive damage wielding weapon. It was nice that I was able to buy her some sort of a missile weapon as well.

SPOILER ALERT, THE REST OF THIS POST GIVES AWAY DETAILS FROM THE SOLO ADVENTURE. YOU SHOULD NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO PLAY IT YOURSELF.

Text in [brackets] indicates directions and choices made in the solo adventure The City of Terrors.

Text in italics indicates crunchy rules stuff.

[115] Greta arrived in the City of Gull by the same method as Halk. Standing outside her hotel Greta tried to determine which way that cheating Halk would have gone. Asking about, she was told the Black Dragon Tavern was nearby. If she knew that scoundrel Halk, he was most likely looking for drink. She went there.

[109] At the Black Dragon, she saw it was the type of establishment that one could buy anything for the right price. She was glad that she only loaned Halk a pittance of gold; however, after buying armor, weapons and trappings for herself, she only had three lonely gold coins in her purse. A gentleman to her left offered to arm wrestle her for a wager.

[73] The gentleman offered to make it more interesting, or she could just make a wager. Greta was supremely confident in her arm wrestling capabilities and told him "Three gold is interesting enough.

[15] The man's name was d'lcsta. He was a formidable opponent.

Each opponent was to roll 2 dice and add in adds. Damage was subtracted from constitution, but the first one reduced to half constitution lost. Greta's half con was 24, d'lcsta's was 20. He had 31 adds, I had 35. No damage was soaked by armor. The combat lasted nine rounds and went back and forth.

d'lcsta was a worthy opponent! However, in the end, Greta won and collected her 3 gold, doubling her wealth.

[109] Greta decided it was time for a drink.

[22] At the bar were two orcs who had obviously had a few. They remarked upon Greta's heritage saying that she could no doubt trace her ancestors back to the four legged variety. Being ugly is old news to Greta. She'd heard much worse from the other trolls while growing up. She decided to ignore them.

[60] That was a bad choice. Greta didn't notice that they had drugged her drink and now she had to fight them!

Greta's constitution was reduced to half for the combat. The orcs had a combined MR of 80, giving them 9 dice and 40 adds to her 6 dice and 38 adds (she was attacking with her doublebitted ax). The combat lasted for 20 rounds. After 8 rounds, it was pretty obvious that they were too evenly matched. They were winning every round, but Greta's armor allowed her to soak 22 hits per round. They would have to roll exceptionally high to do any damage to her. I decided to use "Spite" damage. Each 6 rolled would do 1 point of damage regardless of armor. After 12 more rounds, Greta received 9 points of spite damage total, and eventually she defeated the orcs. On round 19, she did enough damage to reduce their MR to 29 (killing one orc). The next round, she easily defeated the remaining orc.

[6] The orcs put up a good long fight, but in the end, Greta was victorious. Searching the orcs she found a pouch of Wombat Venom.

[115] Greta left the Black Dragon Tavern and returned to her inn where she decided to sleep off the effects of the drug the orcs slipped into her drink and call it a night.

Greta survived and earned 129 Adventure Points! 49 for d'lcsta and 80 for the orcs. Plus she doubled her gold and now has some nifty Wombat Venom! She is hurting; once the effects of the drug wears off she will have a current constitution of 39.

The armor is a huge advangate, but I will definetly be using Spite damage for all of my combats from now on.

Dice

Tim over at Gothridge Manor made a quick post today entitled "The Way I Play". He mentioned how he enjoys the sound of dice. Yes. I too enjoy the rattle of dice. One of the reasons I always find myself eventually returning to D&D, or one of its clones, is I love all the different shapes of die; however, I really dig the d20.

I have a favorite d20. I'd post a picture of it, but I am out of town and my dice are 300 miles to the North. It is white with black numbers. The corners are slightly rounded. It rolls really well, typically high. If there were a game in Vegas that involved the d20, I would take it, my toothbrush, about $200, and return with 10 times the cash.

It even has a nickname: The PC Killer +20. My players have considered making it disappear on me. I hope they never do. I love that die.

I don't allow virtual dice rollers at my table. No Sir. Real dice only.

I really wish I was in town to game tomorrow evening.

Sigh.

Solo Delving - The City of Terrors

In anticipation of a play-by-post, Tunnels and Trolls game that I have joined, I decided to give a solo adventure a go.

I own a small number of them, but have never given them much thought. I've always intended to try them; however, I had not gotten around to it. I decided upon Michael Stackpole's The City of Terrors. From what I read, I knew I was picking a tough one to start out with, but I've wanted to dig into this one since I bought it. The edition I own is pictured in this blog. It is a Corgi edition.

From what I've read and the little I've chatted with other T&T enthusiasts, this is a classic. The adventure takes place in the city of Gull. From what I understand, this solo is detailed enough to stand as a gazette of the the city.

For those that care about such things, I used the standard rules included in the solo itself. One change I did make, is I rolled 4d6 for character creation stats, dropping the lowest die and keeping the highest three.

My stay in Gull was short lived.

My character:

Name: Halk the Pretty

Kindred: Troll

Type: Warrior

ST: 45

INT: 15

IQ: 13

LK: 16

CON: 36

DX: 11

CHR: 13

SPD: 11

Personal Adds: +35

Armor: Complete Leather (6 Hits Taken doubled for being a Warrior to 12)

Weapons: Scimitar (4d+0 adds)

Trappings: Warm dry clothing & Pack (I didn't have enough money left to buy anything else)

Money: 5 gold

Halk the Pretty, named so for his charisma score of 13, didn't last long.

SPOILER ALERT: For those that wish to play this solo, be warned I'm handing out spoilers beyond this point. The text in [brackets] indicates where Halk went and/or the decisions I made for him.

Halk, after finding himself a room and paying a rather exorbitant amount of money for it, made is way to the city square [115] just outside his hotel. Wishing to explore, he headed east on the Dark Way [152] .

On the Dark Way, Halk entered a room in the center of which was an old woman. The old lady was gray haired, wore a shawl and had cats everywhere. Halk decided to speak with her [8].

She told Halk her name was Madame Chayalla. Apparently, she does not like intruders and deals with them ruthlessly; however, Halk is "Halk the Pretty" (and since he is a troll, the old bat is obviously near sighted), she told him that since he was so handsome, she would grant him one chance to save himself. Behind her were two doors. Halk was told to choose one: left or right. Halk flipped a coin, and chance took him to the right [51].

Fate was not kind to Halk. Beyond the door was a vicious tiger with an MR of 100. Combat lasted two rounds, neither of which went well for Halk the Pretty.

Thus ended the short adventuring life of Halk the Pretty.

I do believe the next time I give this a go, I'll fight with two weapons. I may even find a solo meant for starting characters and give it a go first.