"You advance down the marble halls and approach the golden doors that tower higher than you can see."

"How much are they worth? I roll my appraise treasure skill."

"More than you can imagine."

"OK, we'll loot them on the way out then. I pick the lock."

"There's no need, the vast golden doors swing open at your touch revealing an enormous throne room, columns of white marble tower into the open sky and above you swirl stars and galaxies. In the center of the room on a throne the size of a castle sits Zeus, lord of the gods, in his hands he holds a thunderbolt. He points a finger the size of an oak tree at you and says 'WHO DARES DISTURB THE HALLS OF OLYMPUS'"

"I attack. Roll for initiative!"

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The time was the early 80's the game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the place was any basement in Anytown USA. For those bold heroes who had already killed their way through the whole Monster Manual, the Fiend Folio and the Monster Manual II there was just one last hill to climb, the ultimate challenge for any adventurer, Deities and Demigods!

Presented as a suppliement to help flesh out your clerics, paladins and other faith-based characters players and DMs soon realized what this really was. The ultimate monster book. And they worked to put it to the test.

For years I had a copy of a later book, Legends and Lore, which had about 80% of the content of Deities and Demigods but it just wasn't enough. You see while L&L had Zeus and Thor and Tou Mu Chinese Goddess of the North Star it lacked two chapters from the original book, the Cthulhu Mythos and the Melnibonean characters like Elrick. It seems that TSR had the rights to those two universes from their rivals in Chaosium but later let them go rather than promote rival games. And I heard stories of copies of the original Deities and Demigods selling for hundreds of dollars. I resolved my young self to never even seeing these legendary rules, much less owning them.

Then last month, in a used book store I happened to see a pile of 30 year old AD&D books. And among them…



At $20 it was $5 more than cover price but still less than the $400 I'd once heard. Now of course with original AD&D now gone for more than 20 years and in this age of ebay and bittorrent maybe that's the proper price, heck maybe I got ripped off. But as far as I'm concerned this is the coolest thing I've found since I got a Boxtree copy of Deathwing at Strands Books for $5. But that's another story…
So tonight let me share my good fortune with you all.

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The book opens with some rules common to all deities. And let's be clear here these guys are not pansies, even the least deity saves 19 times out of 20 and can teleport at will so even if you somehow do wound Joey God of Basket Weavers he'll just teleport somewhere save, heal and come back with an army of fanatical basket-weaving worshipers.



But hey, if they have stats, odds are SOMEONE can kill them.

So let's see how they look.

There's 17 Mythos in the book, 13 are from real myths, 3 are fictional and 1 created by TSR for their non-human races. One thing I really like about this book is less than half of it is European, long before D&D ever created setting for the Orient, Middle East or the Americas they gave them chapters in Deities and Demigods. Kudos to James Ward and Robert Kuntz!

TSR wisely steered clear of giving Moses, Jesus and Mohammed stats but among the clearly fictional deities like Cthulhu and clearly mythical ones like Zeus they did have Hindu and Shinto gods who are still worshiped. I wonder how the world's 700 million Hindus feel knowing that Skullcrusher my 35th level barbarian fighter can totally kick Ganesh's ass?




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We start with American Indian Mythos.



Raven takes the top spot with 400hp and the ability to polymorph into the moon (the moon?!) yeah Skullcrusher is probably going to have a rough time. But he's not much of a trickster god if Nife my 28th level Dwarf thief has a higher pick pocket skill than him!

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The heroes of King Arthur show up next, an interesting pick since they're neither deities nor demigods.



And come on, King Arthur is only 14th level? And look at those stats, I bet he totally cheated!
Though apparently he can totally kick troll ass.





For the living inspiration of all fantasy wizards Merlin ain't so hot either. Sure he's a magic-user/illusionist/druid but he only got up to 14th level. I bet Thrax my 5th level fighter/23rd level magic user could stomp him.



King Pellinore ain't so hot either, in fact I can't even remember any legends about him, but I do love this picture. Nice to see some whimsy in a book like this.

god...
the 2nd edition version of this book is still used weekly by my group...
such a helpful book...

King Pellinore is awesome. I remember him as the guy who could never find the great Questing Beast in T H White's Once & Future King trilogy.

Oh, and I'd argue that King Arthur is a demi-God, at least if you buy into the King that was and King to be aspect of the mythos.

This seems like one hell of a find K_K, and I can't wait to see how the rest of the pantheons stack up. Not sure my old Cleric characters could kick a god's rear, as I didn't start playing until 2nd Edition (The book here is older than I am!)

I am disappointed that there were no stats for the Hebrew mythology figures like Moses etc, as I think it'd be a lot of fun to see how the Mazes 7 Monsters crowd would react to a "OMG! He can kill Jesus!" situation.

cough

I've never played D&D, but I have this book and the monster manual. They have served as a good source of fluff to draw upon for my 40K armies.

Babylon is next on our tour with Anu, God of the Sky taking top honors.



Now he's pretty cool, if you try to cast ANY spell at him you must save (at -4) or be disintegrated. And he can summon dragons. Oh and he created the heavens and the earth so there's that too. Yeah let's think twice before giving him a hard time.



I really love this guy. Most gods would be happy with just having 8 arms and 4 legs but Druaga takes it to the next level with tentacle toes and the face of a young boy. On top of everything else he has a mace that when he wacks you with it, it turns you into a devil under his command. But he's a nice guy under all that, he might send some devils to help you out if you sacrifice a virgin to him. I wish I could have been at the brain-storming/drinking session that came up with these rules.



Y'know you would think star of one of the oldest myths ever written might have gotten past 12th level. But not TSR apparently. And he's only got a Mace +2, I mean come on. By the time he was 12th level Skullcrusher had a 2-handed sword +4 and a negative armor class. What a wuss.

Also he's apparently 1/3 god, 1/3 man and 1/3 monster. How does that even work?



They really didn't do their research for this book, there's not one mention of her being the goddess of really bad movies.



I'll always have a soft spot for this 4-eyed 4-eared fire-breathing bastard. He showed up in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon and he declared himself god of New York. You go Marduk!



And kick Tiamat's butt!

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And with that… off to Ireland for some Celtic myths!



Why is he the dozen king? Cause he can split into a dozen bodies all with the same powers. I think even Skullcrusher will want to stay on his good side.



Tsk, total cheese. Don't these Irish gods know rangers have to be good? Probably too drunk to read the rules. Or maybe he used his double death spell power to convince the DM to make an exception.


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And now we check in on Central America, the really, really hard to pronounce pantheon.
The local boss is a dude named Quetzalcoatl, pronounced KETZ-AL-COAT-LL if anyone should jump out and ask you).



I will never forget this artwork, I traced it to use as the cover of a report on the Aztecs for Spanish class. Got a B in it if I remember right. Did you know he might have been a Christian saint who travelled to Mexico before Columbus? True fact!



Ah Mictlantecuhtli, now that's what a death god should look like! Not like my dad getting ready to shovel snow (yes I'm looking at you Arawn). Note his NEGATIVE charisma stat. That meant he was still pretty charismatic but you followed out of fear not loyalty. Fighting him was a pretty bad idea since anyone who touches him with anything dies (but you get a save).



At first I thought Tlazolteotl was pretty worthless but somehow when I turned 13 I found her a lot more interesting. Endlessly so. Funny how that works.

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And now for the Middle Kingdom (called that because it's not too good, not too bad, just sort of in the middle) RED CHINA! Though I suppose it wasn't quite so red when these myths were created. Still I wonder how many hit points Chairman Mao would have and would he have magical internet blocking powers…

Anyway where were we?



Shang-Ti, supreme god of the heavens and head of the celestial bureaucracy still manages to be a lower level cleric than my sister. But he does have 400hp so that's something. And he is a 15th level bard, y'know in case you want him to sing for you. Pretty much all the chief gods had 400hp. This book is nothing if not even-handed.



And now for the meanest, scariest, nastiest piece of work in the whole damn book. Oh sure you might think the Punisher of the Gods or the Counts of the Wind or the Killer of the Gods would be scarier than the Goddess of Mercy and Childbearing, but you'd be wrong. "No act of violence can be directed towards her by any being in the universe. For example, she could walk safely through 500 different kinds of demons and devils and never be harmed." Of course she has 0 attacks and is not allowed to use her powers to harm another, but I see nothing in there preventing her from giving Orcus a weggie then laughing at him.




Speaking of the Killer of the Gods, here we have Godzilla. Oddly he's not a god himself, just a 16HD monster who's 70 FEET tall and a necklace that can turn into any weapon. So far he's killed 10 minor deities. That's even more than Skullcrusher.

I did a quick google search and can't find any trace of Ma Yuan Killer of the Gods, I wonder where the heck they got him from? Is he a 'real' god or just the result of mixing Godzilla films and maotai? We may never know.

Glad to see the inclusion of Ma Yuan here.
He was one of the entries I liked best... so much, in fact, that he IS a God in my long-running 2e AD&D campaign world (kill enough Gods, and you get to join their ranks!).


Eric

What ? No pic of Aphrodite ??

From what I understand TSR used Cthulhu without permission of the Lovecraft foundation. TSR was sent an order to correct this and so they did.

I came across the particular book with Cthulhu for only $50...but that was 10 years ago.

I believe the Elric mythos was pulled from the second run as well.

I have this book somewhere.

Ah, what a great book. Got a copy of it in Chicago. Actually, I ended up with TWO, so if you would like a copy, PM me.

And yes, the original (A)D&D is still the best.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:For the living inspiration of all fantasy wizards Merlin ain't so hot either. Sure he's a magic-user/illusionist/druid but he only got up to 14th level. I bet Thrax my 5th level fighter/23rd level magic user could stomp him.

In Merlin's defense I will note that not only is this from the edition where levels actually meant something but you also overlooked his psionic ability which at 300 suggests a str of 150 which is incredibly potent.

Also, i have to add I absolutely love these walks down gaming history you do. They are immense fun.

Myrthe wrote:What ? No pic of Aphrodite ??

Indeed. If you're going to do a proper review, do it right ship shape Bristol fashion what what!

There are conflicting stories on what exactly happened there. One tale goes that Chaosium construed their publication rights as exclusive, and basically asked TSR to cease & desist. They cut a deal, but it involved an acknowledgment to Chaosium, which TSR (particularly the ever-reviled-by-lovers-of-old-D&D Brian Blume) decided was too much of a nod to a competitor.

http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/deities.html

Moorcock later stated that he had given both companies permission, and was very laissez-faire about the game publication rights for his work.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/06/michael-moorcock-on-d-and-more.html

Another story says that Chaosium & TSR cut a deal re: the Cthulu & Elric licenses & the Thieves’World license. But I tend to trust The Acaeum’s research; they’re pretty hardcore about this kind of stuff.

http://www.rpg.net/columns/briefhistory/briefhistory3.phtml

Speaking of Godzilla-sized monsters… Guess who comes after China? Yep it's time for the main event!




I can't shed much light on the issue of rights. The copyright page only lists TSR as a rights holder, nothing on the Lovecraft estate, Michael Moorcock or Fritz Leiber owning their works. In the introduction there is a 'special thanks' to Chaosium for permission to use Cthulhu and Elric characters. As I noted before TSR reprinted the book without those two but it was a hasty change. Early reprints still references to them and even had the old page numbers. Eventually they reprinted the book as Legends and Lore without any reference to these lost chapters. So I figure there's 3 possiblities:
1 – TSR produced the book but did not think about rights until the last minute and luckily got permission from Chaosium.
2 – TSR had permission from Chaosium (who ahd the rights to develop games based on Cthulhu and Elric) but not from the authors.
3 – TSR had permission but soon decided it wasn't a good idea to promote someone else's IP.
Or it might be some combination of the 3. But enough with boring IPR stuff let's get back to elder gods!



Coming in at 100 feet tall (that's 30 feet more than Ma Yuan, Killer of the Gods) we have the sultan of squids, the oligarch of octopuses, the titan of tentacles DREAD CTHULHU! Dread Cthulhu not only has his 30 attacks, his 20th level magic user powers and his 400 hit points, if he is ever freed EVERYONE within 100 miles goes insane.

The only thing better than that is his stats in Call of Cthulhu where he just kills d6 characters a round. And if you drop a nuclear bomb on Dread Cthulhu he reforms a minute later. But now he's radioactive.
Ah Dread Cthulhu. Stay classy big guy, stay classy.

He's watching us you know.



Azathoth, Azathoth, round and round he spins!
Center of the Universe, insanity he brings!
Hey!


I hear they hired an artist to depict Azathoth but he ended up poking out his own eyes with paintbrushes and then chewing off his own fingers.

Despite having his size described as 'inconceivable' and a mass the size of a star Azathoth only has 20 attacks a round and 400 hit points.

And they really should have given him a few levels as a bard.



Hastur the Unspeakable is also called He Who Must Not Be Named. Which probably explains the rift opening behind me.

Opps.

Back in a minute!

Anyway, Lovecraft's writing was filled with mad narrators trying desperately to explain things that human senses and human language cannot accommodate. So when artists try to capture them on paper I think we can all understand if they sometimes end up looking like this:



Um yeah, it's a cucumber with wings.



Um OK.



Shub-Niggurath the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young actually does look kind of gross. But not really, y'know, scary. And the less we say about Yog-Sothoth the Key and Guardian of the Gate (and menace to Disney princesses)…



…the better.

By the way just in case you have any doubts what's going on here "in this shape he will mate with human beings, producing the Spawn of Yog-Sothoth" so yes. HP Lovecraft is in fact the inventor of tentacle rape. Something to think about next time you shake your finger at Japan.

And here I thought that octopus woodcut was the inventor of tentacle rape. Live and learn.

LOL i miss those old books and game adventures.... I still Run a campaign once in while of the slave pens of the underworld , that one module links too so many other ones its almost impossible to finish that campaign...



Makes me what to go to the second hand book store now and pick a few books and re live my child hood past at a catholic school..... during lunch recess...

Well now that we've had some time to forget the image of a Disney Princess frolicking through a field picking flowers only to suddenly be assaulted by the probing tentacles of Yog-Sothoth the Key and Guardian of the Gate let use move to healthier and happier pantheon.

EGYPT!



The art in Deities and Demigods is pretty hit or miss but the Egypt chapter is one of the better ones with crisp clear art. I assume it's by Jeff Dee from all the 'D' signatures. Ra is the big boss and he doesn't get any wimpy little clubs or spears, no he straight up zaps you with solar beams that "cannot be negated by any power in the universe". Except Kuan Yin I assume.



Horus also comes out as a pretty cool dude. He triples the power of any weapon he uses and is immune to the first blow from any weapon used against him. So if he picks up a 50 megaton warhead it counts as a 150 megaton warhead. He's also got a flat out 5% chance of aiding and good person seeking righteous vengeance. But why did they give him Paladin levels but make him lawful neutral?



I just really like this bit of art with the entire universe contained in Ptah's eyes. Quite cool.



So did TSR just decide to throw in some bare breasted women? Why yes. Yes they did.





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As surely as F follows E so too do Finnish myths follow Egyptian ones. I honestly know nothing about Finnish mythology but TSR's description of the Kalevala, Finland's epic story about the clash between the good Kalevala and the Pohjola land of evil wizardry, sounds fairly interesting.



This chapter breaks with the pattern by kicking off with a hero rather than the chief deity of the pantheon. Among Vainamoinen's many, many magical items (+5 battle axe, +3 sword of sharpness, magic sled, you get the idea) he had two magic crossbows that load and fire themselves. I kind of like the idea of him going all John Woo on the hoards of evil. I'd pay to see that film.



As with Tlazolteotl Goddess of Vice (q.v.) Loviatar Goddess of Hurt and Mistress of Pain is one of those characters I did not fully appreciate until I was 13. Ah Loviatar Goddess of Hurt and Mistress and Pain and her dungeons of pain of pleasure where the beautiful maidens of Finland are dragged to meet their unspeakable fates…

Sorry what were we talking about?

Oh yes, with 227 hp she's pretty fit for a mere demigoddess plus she has the rather nifty power of making you relive the most terrible injury you ever suffered. Hey Skullcrusher remember that time a Red Dragon got a crit on you? I bet you remember it now.



One problem with AD&D is trying to recreate the middle ages without Christianity. Who exactly do all these paladins in their shinning plate mail worship? Zeus? Well Ukko here is a good substitute. Lawful Good, big strong guy with a white beard, lives in the sky, has a flaming sword and has hosts of angels he'll send to help you out.



Though he's a bit cheap with his magic swords. I mean it seems to me if I get an NPC angel and then 'accidentally' get her killed I ought to be able to keep the sword. Am I right here?

I cannot wait for the Norse and, of course (!) the Elric pantheons...

Thank you for this!

Ah, dear Bast.
Oh, how I missed thy feline beauty.

I also used to have this book. I think the egyptian and norse were my favorite parts.

There was another book of "Demons and devils" or something like that. All I remember from that is Orcus, and his cool staff.

MagickalMemories wrote:Ah, dear Bast.
Oh, how I missed thy feline beauty.

Bah, you and I both know we spent all our time on Blibdoolpoolp...wait...just me?

Ah, so it was in fact Ancient Egypt who invented Furries.

Good to know!

John wrote:I also used to have this book. I think the egyptian and norse were my favorite parts.

There was another book of "Demons and devils" or something like that. All I remember from that is Orcus, and his cool staff.

There are stats for Orcus and many other demons and devils in the original "Monster Manual." Another fine item in my collection of D&D books of which I happen to have a duplicate. That plus Manual of the Planes, another really incredible book. The early sections of this book that explain how the multiverse works are mind-blowing and took the original game to a whole new level. IMHO, no similar work since has done the topic justice.

Vastly enjoying this trip down memory lane.

wow awesome, poor king arthur, but Merlin is pretty damn good for a first ed character could people even get to level 14 back then? I thought elves and dwarves were capped at 12 and only humans could advance beyond that. Now merlin would be like 20 sorc/20 wiz/5 archmage/15 epic mage.

Thor665 wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:Ah, dear Bast.
Oh, how I missed thy feline beauty.

Bah, you and I both know we spent all our time on Blibdoolpoolp...wait...just me?

Well, in dim light, if you squinted and turned your head at just the right angle...
...umm... nevermind.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that 20 was the maximum level detailed under 1st edition (I'm pretty sure this is right) and yes, it was extremely hard to get to Name Level (12th and higher). And if Merlin was max level, well, it would mean that there was nothing more powerful than Merlin in the multiverse, more or less, which is silly.

Also don't you think it would be cool to be able to say, "Level 15 - YES! I'm a higher level than MERLIN! Come GET SOME!"

Solorg wrote:I think the thing to keep in mind is that 20 was the maximum level detailed under 1st edition (I'm pretty sure this is right) and yes, it was extremely hard to get to Name Level (12th and higher).

This is AD&D so there were racial level caps (since now elf wasn't the class and race all in one, ah the glory days when your alignment was either L, C, or N).

Druids and Assassins topped out at level 14.
Most of the demi-human races had class limits that were almost shameful (like 6-8th level) except in a few class/race combos (like half-orc Assassins or really just about every race as thieves for some reason) But they could multi-class.
Humans and other classes (like fighter or mage) were not capped at all and as I recollect the rulebook had info for taking them up into 21+ levels.

Of course this was when leveling up was actually difficult with none of the 3rd edition's XP scaling for encounters that basically means every ten sessions or so you level regardless of your level (and I bet 4.0 is about the same though actually I have no idea).

Now for another chapter I know people have been waiting for…



Got to give credit here to the designers, for a 30 year old book there's some nice touches. I've not been posting them but each chapter title has its own font that immediately sets the tone. They even remembered that a sigma is an 'S' not an 'E'! The art in this chapter by Jim Roslof even has a nice classical look with solid anatomy and good human forms.

So when we think of myths, we pretty much think of Ancient Greece first. I mean Classical Greece is the foundation of our literature, philosophy, science, architecture, art and history. Anything worth doing the Greeks did it first and did it best. They created Western Civilization and since Western Civilization is the best civilization (yeah China, that's right, I went there) that pretty makes them the best of the best.

So how do their gods stack up?



Yeah, Ruler of the Gods. Take that Shang-Ti Chairman of the Celestial Bureaucracy. That's how a real deity does it. 6-60 points of damage (+14 from his 25 strength) no wimpy little 3-26 hp damage attacks from the Ruler of the Gods.

Oh did I mention that if his blood touches the ground it turns into a random monster that fights for Zeus? Well it does. So there.

Our boy Skullcrusher might want to rethink his rash attack back at the start of this review.

How about his kids? How do they stack up?



Ah Aphrodite Goddess of Love, Beauty and Passion. Not much in a fight but she can charm anyone who wants to harm her. Oh she has her priorities straight, her female clerics need a Charisma of 15, but her male clerics, they need a Constitution of 16. If I haven't mentioned it before, writing this book must have been a total blast. I can just see them sitting around a table in Lake Geneva laughing their asses off and wondering how many kids will get that joke. I know I never did till tonight.



Y'know Apollo is just straight out the god of being awesome.


Ares was always my go-to pick for an evil god. Maybe it was too many Wonder Woman comics.



And Athena was my go-to for a good goddess. Yeah must have been Wonder Woman. Or the whole Athens/Sparta thing.



Not much to say about Bellerophon (10th level?) but I love that picture.



Now that is what Herc should look like. A big scary dude with a club and a fricking dead lion hanging off him. Not like Fabio in leather pants. Just saying here.

I could spend all night on the Greek chapter but it would mostly be "Look at that! It's awesome!" so let's move on.



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With India we hit one of the problematic chapters since TSR decided to take the Hindu deities and give them stats. It's one thing to give stats to Cthulhu or Zeus but there's something like 700 million Hindus in the world. I suppose Japan has the same issue with their Shinto deities but India is a bit more hardcore about these things, in India they've burnt down Christian homes and churches for putting up Christmas decorations. So I can't imagine that pointing out Skullcrusher can kill Vishnu is going to go over too well. But apparently TSR is braver than I am…



Indra, ruler of the gods comes out pretty well with a bow made out of rainbows that shoots lighting.



Kali, 'destruction incarnate' is only a lesser goddess. I guess goddess of destruction just ain't the peachy job I thought it was.

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We do back-to-back real religions hitting Japan next. The Japanese are bit more laid-back about these things as my Buddha hand-puppet can tell you.

I call him Chibi Daibutsu-Kun.

Deities and Demigods omits my favorite Shinto god, Inari God of Rice and Commerce. It's probably just as well because if you know anything about Japan you know that no one, NO ONE messes with the God of Rice. He probably has like bajillion hit points and that's just for starters.



Japan is one of the few places with a female deity in charge. And while Amaterasu Omikami is no match for Kuan Yin Goddess of Childbirth she can hold her own. She had the power to turn anything she touches into anything else. Only gods get a save, and they save at -8. Or she can just smack you for 1-100 points of damage.

And she's fully clothed! Go Japan!




Y'know, call me a snob but if you're doing art for Japanese gods, you might maybe want to find out what Japanese writing actually looks like. Copy off a fricking menu if you have to but come on!



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Come back tomorrow as we check in with Elric and the Melnidonean Mythos!

I love this, haha.

I am currently taking a Mythology class at my high school and this is incredibly funny as we just finished studying Marduk and all of that.

Oh man, this book is awesome. I have always loved the simple yet evocative line drawings from this book, which was probably the best-illustrated of its day. Even now, some of those old B&W illustrations do more to call forh imagination in me than some of the full-color, computer-rendered, flashy art they have in RPG books today... Color and shading can cover up so much...

Damn, there I go being a Grognard again....

Congrats on the find, I have many fine memories of this book, but have only been able to score a copy of "Legends and Lore", it's diminished descendant.

Wonderful stuff. My brother and I spent hours debating the way they shoehorned 'historical' gods into AD&D - the whole AD&D alignment thing was wonderfully screwy. We created our own mythos by plundering all the best bits from this book. The numerous instances of breast-baring in the artwork didn't really register then, but now it's suprising to see how sexy it all was. And I didn't get the bit about Aphrodite's clerics until now either

The other great example of AD&D writing from around this time was Ed Greenwood's guide to the Hells. It was a quite amazing piece of work, which described and populated all 9 planes.

And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

Which is why I play Pathfinder. If you liked D&D 3.5, you'll like Pathfinder.

Saldiven wrote:

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

Which is why I play Pathfinder. If you liked D&D 3.5, you'll like Pathfinder.

Yup, I do play Pathfinder!

Kid is the master of building up the anticipation!

I want Elric stuff!!!

I never noticed until now that while the Greek gods are mostly human-sized, Apollo is 20' tall.

A nod to the old Star Trek episode?

Considering the time frame involved, I'd say that's a good guess!

I still maintain to this day that Erol Otus was the best illustrator for TSR. Great style and his inking technique was awesome.

I do have one thing to add to this thread besides my unasked for opinions about TSR illustrators.

My dad got me a copy of this book when it was first published and it lacked the yellow banner across the top left of the cover.

When it was later reprinted, it was supposed to lack the cthulhu and melnibonean deities but were still included in that print run with the new yellow banner.

All other printings lacked the cthulhu and melnibonean mythos.

Ragnar already gave great links to this back story which explains it far better than I could, I just wanted to point out that those $400+ copies of Deities and demigods are for the original copies without the yellow banner. In fact, they go for far more than that due to the obscene rarity of them (150 ever made? or some extraordinarily low number like that according to an old dragon magazine I once owned). The bannerless deities and demigods are to RPG collectors as to what Action Comics #1 is to Comicbook collectors.

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

You can't be chaotic good? Did they just totally rework the alignment system?

Thor665 wrote:

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

You can't be chaotic good? Did they just totally rework the alignment system?

If by "Rework" you mean "Completely and utterly rape to oblivion". They changed it so now there are only 5 Alignments "Good" "Evil" "Lawful Good" "Chaotic Evil" and "Unaligned". Yup, you can't even be a True Neutral Druid. Oh wait, you can't be any form of Druid, because they didn't include them as a base class either!

That's just strange. You're either evil or chaotic evil but it's impossible to be lawful evil? I'm guessing they also reworked the entire concept of how they defined lawful and chaotic.

Chalk it up as another reason I haven't tried 4th edition I suppose (then again it took me something like a decade to come around to 3rd so for all I know in another ten or so years I'll be grumbling about 5th and talking about how sweet 4th is)

Thor665 wrote:That's just strange. You're either evil or chaotic evil but it's impossible to be lawful evil? I'm guessing they also reworked the entire concept of how they defined lawful and chaotic.

Chalk it up as another reason I haven't tried 4th edition I suppose (then again it took me something like a decade to come around to 3rd so for all I know in another ten or so years I'll be grumbling about 5th and talking about how sweet 4th is)

This is why you must return...

Return to the Glory that is 2nd Edition!

Come back to us.

Come back......

Thor665 wrote:Of course this was when leveling up was actually difficult with none of the 3rd edition's XP scaling for encounters that basically means every ten sessions or so you level regardless of your level (and I bet 4.0 is about the same though actually I have no idea).

This is why I don't like the later versions of D&D. I prefer the old school method where gaining a level MEANS something. I only run 2nd Edition, though truthfully, I'd run 1st. I have a nice collection of 1st and 2nd edition books - the two sets are surprisingly compatible - and anything later than 2nd I picked up only in order to play in other campaigns.

The Aphrodite joke above - classic!!! I never caught that, either.

If you're looking for old school gaming in an affordable $16 digital download, look no further than http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/. They haven't moved to advanced yet, so there isn't a druid but they do have rogues, rangers, fighters, thieves, mages and clerics. It is a refinement of the 4th edition hackmaster system which was itself a combination of the best of 1st and 2nd edition. I highly recommend it.

Gitzbitah wrote:If you're looking for old school gaming in an affordable $16 digital download, look no further than http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/. They haven't moved to advanced yet, so there isn't a druid but they do have rogues, rangers, fighters, thieves, mages and clerics. It is a refinement of the 4th edition hackmaster system which was itself a combination of the best of 1st and 2nd edition. I highly recommend it.

I might have to take a look at that...

Hellfury wrote:I still maintain to this day that Erol Otus was the best illustrator for TSR. Great style and his inking technique was awesome.

I do have one thing to add to this thread besides my unasked for opinions about TSR illustrators.

My dad got me a copy of this book when it was first published and it lacked the yellow banner across the top left of the cover.

When it was later reprinted, it was supposed to lack the cthulhu and melnibonean deities but were still included in that print run with the new yellow banner.

All other printings lacked the cthulhu and melnibonean mythos.

Ragnar already gave great links to this back story which explains it far better than I could, I just wanted to point out that those $400+ copies of Deities and demigods are for the original copies without the yellow banner. In fact, they go for far more than that due to the obscene rarity of them (150 ever made? or some extraordinarily low number like that according to an old dragon magazine I once owned). The bannerless deities and demigods are to RPG collectors as to what Action Comics #1 is to Comicbook collectors.

That depresses me. I have a copy without the banner. I did not play D&D as a kid, but liked the art. I cut the pictures out and put them on my walls. Foolish child

Solorg wrote:This is why I don't like the later versions of D&D. I prefer the old school method where gaining a level MEANS something. I only run 2nd Edition, though truthfully, I'd run 1st. I have a nice collection of 1st and 2nd edition books - the two sets are surprisingly compatible - and anything later than 2nd I picked up only in order to play in other campaigns.

I agree, for me 2nd edition was the last true D&D era, everything since is a different game that also happens to be called D&D.

I will say 3rd edition was pretty sweet if for no other reason then they figured out a way to make level draining/aging undead dangerous but not the most horrifying things ever. I can recall once where I, as a 10th level character who was literally only about 200 xp from 11th level, literally turned and ran away when a couple of wraiths showed up.

The other party members were not amused.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:

Gitzbitah wrote:If you're looking for old school gaming in an affordable $16 digital download, look no further than http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/. They haven't moved to advanced yet, so there isn't a druid but they do have rogues, rangers, fighters, thieves, mages and clerics. It is a refinement of the 4th edition hackmaster system which was itself a combination of the best of 1st and 2nd edition. I highly recommend it.

I might have to take a look at that...

You really should. If nothing else you should read Knights of the Dinner Table. Hackmaster is a slight homage/pastiche of early RPGs and all that was great and bewildering about them. Besides, any game system with Sidewinder and Bouncing Betty Fireballs = win.

As my previous post indicated, I’ve spent a pretty fair amount of time checking out old-school D&D sites recently. I now know more than is in any real sense necessary about every edition of D&D (OD&D, Holmes & Moldvay edition Basic sets, Cook Expert, AD&D 1E, Mentzer-edited D&D, AD&D 2E, Realms Companion D&D, “2.5” Player’s option, 3.0, 3.5, and 4th editions), and about the plethora of retro-clones that have sprung up in the wake of Wizards’ current license (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, etc.).

Every version of D&D (and I know of quite a lot, and have tried most of them) has its own charms. Right now I’m running and playing mostly in 4th edition, but I’ve also recently played 1st ed, OD&D, and Labyrinth Lord. If anyone’s considering dipping a toe back in, I’m happy to field questions and help with recommendations.

PS: Yes, I agree that the alignment business is one of the lamest things in 4th ed. That said, it’s incredibly easy to fix.

Mannahnin wrote:As my previous post indicated, I’ve spent a pretty fair amount of time checking out old-school D&D sites recently. I now know more than is in any real sense necessary about every edition of D&D (OD&D, Holmes & Moldvay edition Basic sets, Cook Expert, AD&D 1E, Mentzer-edited D&D, AD&D 2E, Realms Companion D&D, “2.5” Player’s option, 3.0, 3.5, and 4th editions), and about the plethora of retro-clones that have sprung up in the wake of Wizards’ current license (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, etc.).

Every version of D&D (and I know of quite a lot, and have tried most of them) has its own charms. Right now I’m running and playing mostly in 4th edition, but I’ve also recently played 1st ed, OD&D, and Labyrinth Lord. If anyone’s considering dipping a toe back in, I’m happy to field questions and help with recommendations.

PS: Yes, I agree that the alignment business is one of the lamest things in 4th ed. That said, it’s incredibly easy to fix.

OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

Alpharius wrote:OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

In all honesty, (since 4e is the new shiz, so 3.5 redux could technically be called Old Skool) try out Pathfinder, and use the AD&D books as reference material. That's what I do

Alpharius wrote:

OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

My advice is to acquire the original books! Why play a pretender when the original books are still out there? I think the hardest part of playing the old system is finding players who are willing to join up. But since players (strictly speaking) don't have to have the materials in order to play (just have a character creation night) you might not have too much trouble recruiting some likewise nastalgic or simply AD&D Curious RPGers!

My group has been playing 2nd for years - and over time, the players have each acquired a 2nd Ed Player's Guide as well as several other items from the era. You CAN use later editions as reference material, but a lot of it isn't really compatible except as background, which admittedly, you can go a long way with.

Alpharius wrote:OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

Depends on what exactly you liked best about AD&D, and what house rules you had. AD&D is a pretty neat system, and I LOVE the charm of Gygax’s prose, but the editing was absolutely terrible, and parts of the system (like unarmed combat, initiative, and psionics) are terribly broken and/or unclear.

For pure AD&D goodness, I recommend either digging up the original books (with the Gygax prose intact) or picking up OSRIC. OSRIC is actually designed primarily to be a non-copyright-violating clone of 1E, so that people have a reference document and can publish new modules and supplements that are fully compatible with the original. OSRIC itself, however, is functionally identical to 1E, except MUCH better edited and more clearly written and explained. 2nd edition is also extremely similar to 1E, except better explained and simplified a bit, and with a lot of optional house rules included in the books, though usually labeled as such, so you can do easy tweaking.

If you liked AD&D, but want something more comprehensive and consistent, with more stuff explained and spelled out, 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder are all excellent. They codify and clean up a lot of stuff that was really sketchy or unexplained in AD&D, and make monsters and characters all work on a more universal, consistent basis. They also include nice things like a functional magic item creation system. And low-level PCs are not quite as fragile. The weakness of the 3.x games tends to be that they break down and run very slowly at high level. Tons of contingent magical effects, and encounter design for the DM becomes extremely time consuming. But up to around 9th level they’re excellent.

Now we get into the second fictional pantheon (deliberately fictional that is), the Melnibonean Mythos!

If you've not read Michael Moorcock's Elric books go read them now. Or at least listen to the Hawkwind Album Chronicle of the Black Sword. It's OK, I'll wait. They're not very long. Go, go.

OK you're back. The chapter starts with Elric himself.



Ah, Elric the VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné. And cutting a fine figure there. Not the best Elric art I've seen but far from the worst. Stat-wise I'd give some more cleric levels but that's just me.

Moorcock originally created Elric as a parody of Conan. Rather than a big, strong, tan, barbarian who kills wizards Moorcock created a sickly, pale, decadent wizard who kills… well everything eventually. His 45hp may not look like much but that's because we haven't see the whole picture yet.



Ah Stormbringer. Probably the only sword ever to have a game named after it. Except for Excalibur of course. And the Claymore. So um, one of the few swords to have a game named after it.

This +5 sword is actually a chaotic evil demon that has chosen to appear in the form of a sword. As Stormbringer himself said after killing all the gods, destroying the world and stabbing Elric himself in the gut - "Farewell friend, I was a thousand times more evil than thou!" Considering that Elric was a demon-worshipping sorcerer from a city that considers torture both a performing and a visual art and went on to (as previously noted) kill all the gods and destroy the world that's pretty damn evil.

In game terms it drains either half your levels or all of them (50/50 shot, no save) and transfers them to Elric as extra hit points and strength. You just get to die and since Stormbringer ate your soul you can't be raised, resurrected or reincarnated (remember, in AD&D, death was at worst a minor inconvenience). But like all great weapons it has a fatal weakness. It can only drain 200 levels before become sated.

I once played a character named Eric of Melbourne who had a sword with a bound water elemental. I called it Drizzlebringer. True story.



Yyrkoon is the jock prince who pushed around Elric when he was a kid and tried to steal Elric's girlfriend and this one time gave Elric a weggie in front of the whole schoolyard. He even got his own rune sword Mournblade. But no one ever named a game after Mournblade. That's cause Yyrkoon sucks.

The rest of the chapter is filled out with some more of Moorcock's fever dreams. IIRC Moorcock did not create the 'chaos star' but he certainly popularized it.



He explained that chaos was the eight-pointed star showing that it encompassed all things but had no purpose or direction. While law was the arrow, one point, one direction, one focus.



Arioch is the god of chaos in the Elric books and pops up quite a bit. Till he gets 2' of cold Stormbringer steel in his gut!



As the King of Melnibone, Elric has pacts with several deities and pretty much just calls up a new one every time he gets in a jam. I like Darnizhaan, not only he is one of the 'dead gods' who ruled before the coming of law and chaos, he's also much too cool to be contained in the little box next to his stats.



Then there are some less-cool creations. Like Vampire Trees. All the power of a vampire and all the mobility of um, a tree.



I include Theleb K'aarna because, let's face it, anyone who can pull off that hat deserves to be remembered.



Whenever the old monster muse went missing Moorcock went to the reliable trick of mashing together two unrelated animals to create the something new. Such a shame that IPR issues prevent the mighty Vulture Lion from joining the dreaded Owlbear and frightful Tigerpigeon among the ranks of the classic D&D monsters.


D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D

So with the Ms done you might figure it's now time for the Norse Mythos.

Well you'd be wrong. Because you forgot the Nehwon Mythos!

Where is Nehwon you ask? Nehwon is a world not unlike our own, farther than the farthest star but as close as a dream. Nehwon is also copyright and trademark the estate of Fritiz Leiber and don't you forget it!

Starting the 30s (!!) going through the 80s Leiber's stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser basically created Swords and Sorcery as we know it (including the term Swords and Sorcery). Sure there were myths and heroes, sure Conan beat them to press by a few years but it was Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser who created the inn, the mysterious stranger, the thieves' guild and all the rest. They are poorly remembered now but anyone who winced at those cliches owes them a debt. Leiber created the cliches we mock.

Unlike the Cthulhu and Elric material the Nehwon chapter was reprinted. TSR went on to make several adventures using Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser and their city of Lankhmar. Wikipedia (proof IMHO of man's inherently good nature) even mentions that D&D royalty checks that helped support Leiber until his death in the 90s. Considering how much D&D plundered other people's work to build their IP it's nice to hear that one of their inspirations made out OK.

So who were these first adventurers?



Fafhrd is your typical 7' tall barbarian warrior with his own code of honor and contempt for the so-called civilized ways of the modern man.
"Pants! Pft! We Northmen have no need of your civilized pants!"



While the Gray Mouser is refined and subtle, a thief and a minor wizard. Now I know, look it's the big guy and the little guy, the brute and the brain, what cheese. Well yes. Except Leiber was inventing that cliché 80 years ago. Around the time Bugswarm and I were getting into gaming.

Ah Bugswarm where have you gone? We miss you.

And I would give my eyeteeth to be able to balance a knife like that, talk about cool.

Anyway the rest of the chapter covers some of their monsters and supporting cast.



I love the Gods of Lankhmar. They're mummified wizards and priests kept in a vault in the center of town. Whenever the stuff hits the fan (which in your typical fantasy city is twice a week) the townspeople toss gifts through the door of the crypt and hope for the best. With any luck the Gods will come out and take care of whatever's causing trouble this week. Then they trash the town just to remind everyone not to bother them too often.

Nice.



Ningauble of the Seven Eyes was Fafhrd's magical advisor. Pretty cool-looking huh? This is what you get when you let a professional writer create your mythology instead of asking the local lunatic when he's stoned on mushrooms.

Naturally the Gray Mouser's magical advisor was Ningauble of the Seven Eyes' arch rival - Sheelba of the Eyeless face. They were like the Sharks and Jets of Lankhmar, except y'know seven eyes vs. eyeless instead of Italians vs. Puerto Ricans. Same general idea.

Solorg wrote:

Alpharius wrote:

OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

My advice is to acquire the original books! Why play a pretender when the original books are still out there? I think the hardest part of playing the old system is finding players who are willing to join up. But since players (strictly speaking) don't have to have the materials in order to play (just have a character creation night) you might not have too much trouble recruiting some likewise nastalgic or simply AD&D Curious RPGers!

My group has been playing 2nd for years - and over time, the players have each acquired a 2nd Ed Player's Guide as well as several other items from the era. You CAN use later editions as reference material, but a lot of it isn't really compatible except as background, which admittedly, you can go a long way with.

Mannahnin wrote:

Alpharius wrote:OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

Depends on what exactly you liked best about AD&D, and what house rules you had. AD&D is a pretty neat system, and I LOVE the charm of Gygax’s prose, but the editing was absolutely terrible, and parts of the system (like unarmed combat, initiative, and psionics) are terribly broken and/or unclear.

For pure AD&D goodness, I recommend either digging up the original books (with the Gygax prose intact) or picking up OSRIC. OSRIC is actually designed primarily to be a non-copyright-violating clone of 1E, so that people have a reference document and can publish new modules and supplements that are fully compatible with the original. OSRIC itself, however, is functionally identical to 1E, except MUCH better edited and more clearly written and explained. 2nd edition is also extremely similar to 1E, except better explained and simplified a bit, and with a lot of optional house rules included in the books, though usually labeled as such, so you can do easy tweaking.

If you liked AD&D, but want something more comprehensive and consistent, with more stuff explained and spelled out, 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder are all excellent. They codify and clean up a lot of stuff that was really sketchy or unexplained in AD&D, and make monsters and characters all work on a more universal, consistent basis. They also include nice things like a functional magic item creation system. And low-level PCs are not quite as fragile. The weakness of the 3.x games tends to be that they break down and run very slowly at high level. Tons of contingent magical effects, and encounter design for the DM becomes extremely time consuming. But up to around 9th level they’re excellent.

OK, *slight* sidetrack - can someone PM me with all of the 2nd edition AD&D books I might need?

I remember the DM Guide, The Player's Manual, Monster Manual I and maybe II... Anything else I'd 'need' to have?

And, it sounds as if I might like Pathfinder too?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Now we get into the second fictional pantheon (deliberately fictional that is), the Melnibonean Mythos!

More ON topic, thanks for all this KK - a slight favor - I'm trying to see if I want to shell out for this wonderful book, any chance you can list all of the Melnibonean stuff in there?

Or, might I be better off trying to pick up the old Stormbringer games? Hawkmoon and Corum too?

Happy to list it but not scan it both for IPR reasons and because I'm already hurting the spine. I don't mind hurting my copy of L&L but I'd like to keep this book in good shape.

You get:
Elric & Stormbringer
Moonglum
Arioch
Assassinator of the Gods (which as I read it may be the inspiration for the Vrok and the Lord of Change)
Clakar (winged apes)
Darnizhaan
Dharzi Hunting Dog (half bird! half dog! where does he get his ideas!)
Donblas the Justice Maker (god of law)
Elenoin (your token neekid chicks for this chapter)
Fileet - Lady of the Birds
Grahluk (giant apes, mortal enemies of the Elenoin)
Grome - Lord of the Earth
Haaashastaak - master of all lizardkind
Kakatal - the fire lord
Kelmain (savage race from the dimension of Limbo)
Meerclar - mistress of catkind
Misha - lord of the wind giants
Mist Giant
Mordagz (chaos god demoted to mortal status)
Myyrrhn (winged humans)
Nihrain horse (magic horse)
Nnuurrrr'c'c - master of the insect swarm, king with wings
Nuru-Ah - master of cattle
Oonai (shape changers)
Pyaray - Whisperer of impossible secrets (giant octopus god)
Quaolnargn (toad demon)
Roofdrak - master of all dogs
Straasha - lord of the water elementals
Theleb K'aarna
Vampire Trees
Vulture Lion
Xiombarg (chaos goddess)
and Yyrkoon (punk)

It sounds like a lot but only about half have any art and you just get a paragraph or two on each. If you're looking for Elric background I'm sure the Chaosium books are much better (I never owned them but I have no doubt). I played Stormbringer and found it uses one of the 'realistic' combat systems they liked in the late 80s early 90s. So after 1 fight our party was blind crippled and insane and our players voted en mass to play Rifts.

Awesome!

Thanks much for that!

I'd still LOVE to find a good roleplaying game set in Moorcock's worlds.

Mongoose has a new-ish looking Hawkmoon game - I wonder if it is any good...

I should be able to finish the book tomorrow. Any request for the next RETRO REVIEW?

Some I'm thinking of:
Rogue Trader
Leviathan (Kevin Smith mini wargame early 90s)
Mutant Chronicles RPG
Chronicles of Talislanta (crazy RPG early 90s)
Blood Quest: The Quest for Blood (pretty decent 40k comic early 2000s)
Obvious Tactics (pretty awful 40k comic early 2000s)

Requests?

Did you already do Gamma World?

I'll put in a request for Bloodquest, as I only ever found Volumes 1 & 2 (of 3) and I want to know how it all ended!

Kid_Kyoto wrote:I should be able to finish the book tomorrow. Any request for the next RETRO REVIEW?

Some I'm thinking of:
Rogue Trader
Leviathan (Kevin Smith mini wargame early 90s)
Mutant Chronicles RPG
Chronicles of Talislanta (crazy RPG early 90s)
Blood Quest: The Quest for Blood (pretty decent 40k comic early 2000s)
Obvious Tactics (pretty awful 40k comic early 2000s)

Requests?

I would've said Rogue Trader but I recently found it on Scribd (I love that website btw) but it'd be worth it just for your hilarious commentary.

Talislanta sounds interesting!

BTW my updated rules for the Sensei should be coming around soon!

Stuff published in the late 90s and early 2000s as a retro review...now you're just trying to make me feel old.

From your list I'd probably be most interested in the Rogue Trader era stuff though I don't think I've even heard of Leviathan so consider that a second. For the visual medium aspect any of the comic books seem a good idea.

In more general requests I'd vote for Dungeon! (the old D&D board game) or really any of the old classic adventure series (Temple of Elemental Evil, Against the Giants or the epic H series with Throne of Bloodstone - the official highest level adventure ever published (for characters level 20-100 if I recall correctly))

I'm pretty confident whatever you choose will be enjoyable though.

Blood Quest. Loads of comedic opportunities there.

this was great!

Kid_Kyoto wrote:I should be able to finish the book tomorrow. Any request for the next RETRO REVIEW?

Some I'm thinking of:
Rogue Trader
Leviathan (Kevin Smith mini wargame early 90s)
Mutant Chronicles RPG
Chronicles of Talislanta (crazy RPG early 90s)
Blood Quest: The Quest for Blood (pretty decent 40k comic early 2000s)
Obvious Tactics (pretty awful 40k comic early 2000s)

Requests?

You being only the 5th person I have ever heard mention talislanta in the nearly 20 years I have enjoyed it, I am requesting that.

Stephen Michael Sechi, the creator, also is a musician apparently, and recorded three albums as a roleplaying soundtrack for background music. They arent bad either and some are quite good, especially considering most were made during the mid nineties. Finding the last album, wizard hunter, is tough though. Music sample included with the file attachment in this post. I contacted Mr. Sechi about them and he has no way of distributing the old music. Apparently he is now a jazz musician.

If you do talislanta, be sure to include oodles of the art by P.D. Breeding-Black. Thats some fine stuff.

Plus, I am sure you enjoy the main motto of Talislanta "No Elves!"

That's awesome about SMS. I had a couple of the Talislanta books back in the late 80s, and I agree that the PD Breeding-Black art and all the odd ideas and races make it an absolutely ideal candidate for a retro review.

I also agree with Thor that a retro review of stuff from later than the 80s feels premature.

JB wrote:Did you already do Gamma World?

Oh, yes!

I LOVED this game when it was released - the 1st edition one, of course.

I didn't like the 2nd edition one at all...

That Elric section makes me want to go listen to Blue Oyster Cult albums.

I've got this book somewhere - but not the wit that goes with these reviews. Keep up the good work.

Just a quick note on Arioch:

I am sure you are aware that the Knight of Swords was not "the" god of chaos but a god amongst a larger pantheon including Xiombarg, Mabelode, Slortar, etc. that reached across several books. Arioch was notable as Elric's patron and a driving force behind the recovery of Stormbringer. He was never defeated by the blade, IIRC, though he was leery of the blade. Indeed, it is implied by the group from Elric the End of Time (Tales of the White Wolf) that Arioch may be something other than a god entirely!

He is also pretty much the inspiration for Slaanesh.

Gwar! wrote:

Thor665 wrote:

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

You can't be chaotic good? Did they just totally rework the alignment system?

If by "Rework" you mean "Completely and utterly rape to oblivion". They changed it so now there are only 5 Alignments "Good" "Evil" "Lawful Good" "Chaotic Evil" and "Unaligned". Yup, you can't even be a True Neutral Druid. Oh wait, you can't be any form of Druid, because they didn't include them as a base class either!

I'd say it's more an admission that 'alignment' is a concept that has been either ignored, used as DM bludgeon, or misunderstood for most of the game's life. Many groups default on 'Adventurous Greedy' as it's a lot more practical. Sure, a few characters might have been Lawful Good for legal reasons, but that was often ignored. If it wasn't, it could be sued as a very not-fun stick to poke the players with to get them to go in the right direction or their magic powers stopped working.

I can understand some of the complaints about 4th edition D&D, but alignment is a very trivial one. The main thing is the core game concept was changed to better incorporate 'tags' for abilities to key off of, and apparently some designers felt the ancient two-axis system was too many. There aren't many abilities/items in the core materials that tag off 'good' or 'evil' anyway, really.

And the current system seems to include 'druid' as a base class, albeit in PHB1... But PHB2 is a core book, so if you want a druid there it is. The druid is also not just a 'weird cleric' anymore, as it usually was in the base versions. (I think in 2nd edition it got a few extra weapons (but was still no fighter!) and some wacky abilities in return for a different spell list from a normal cleric. The new version is a less flexible shapeshifter (as the 3rd edition version was considered very easy to abuse) but looks a bit more unique as it no longer shares powers with clerics. The 2nd edition version of druid was also very 'setting specific' as I believe the druid hierarchy was essentially rolled into the class structure. (I.E. a level X druid was of a certain rank and there could only be a set number of druids at that rank... So if you wanted to advance you had to hope other high-level druids would die off. Or was that the monk? or both?)

Balance wrote:I'd say it's more an admission that 'alignment' is a concept that has been either ignored, used as DM bludgeon, or misunderstood for most of the game's life. Many groups default on 'Adventurous Greedy' as it's a lot more practical. Sure, a few characters might have been Lawful Good for legal reasons, but that was often ignored. If it wasn't, it could be sued as a very not-fun stick to poke the players with to get them to go in the right direction or their magic powers stopped working.

Depends entirely, I imagine, on the proclivities of the group in question. As a huge fan of Planescape and the D&D multiverse as outlined there; I found infinite fun in the various vagaries of the alignment system. Though, as long as you're defending it can you explain how Lawful only equates with good and Chaos only equates with evil now?

The main thing is the core game concept was changed to better incorporate 'tags' for abilities to key off of, and apparently some designers felt the ancient two-axis system was too many. There aren't many abilities/items in the core materials that tag off 'good' or 'evil' anyway, really.

Tags I'm guessing are effects that trigger off of various character states? (like extra damage versus good, or fighter, or human, et al?) Back in the old days there were a large plethora of effects that triggered off of the good and evil (and law and chaos) alignments. Certainly if they took those aspects out they would also remove effects that 'tagged' off of them.

The druid is also not just a 'weird cleric' anymore, as it usually was in the base versions. (I think in 2nd edition it got a few extra weapons (but was still no fighter!)...
The 2nd edition version of druid was also very 'setting specific' as I believe the druid hierarchy was essentially rolled into the class structure. (I.E. a level X druid was of a certain rank and there could only be a set number of druids at that rank... So if you wanted to advance you had to hope other high-level druids would die off. Or was that the monk? or both?)

In 2nd edition the druid was a 'weird cleric' with a specialized spell list, shapeshifting abilities, and other special quirks. It never felt like a cleric in my opinion. You are correct that the level system equated out to a ranking system for druids. In addition to waiting for other druids to die off (presuming your DM ruled that such level druids were in the area) there was also the ability for a druid to seek out an unprotected area to cleanse and protect and make his own - which could lead to some awesome storylines.

Thor665 wrote:

Balance wrote:I'd say it's more an admission that 'alignment' is a concept that has been either ignored, used as DM bludgeon, or misunderstood for most of the game's life. Many groups default on 'Adventurous Greedy' as it's a lot more practical. Sure, a few characters might have been Lawful Good for legal reasons, but that was often ignored. If it wasn't, it could be sued as a very not-fun stick to poke the players with to get them to go in the right direction or their magic powers stopped working.

Depends entirely, I imagine, on the proclivities of the group in question. As a huge fan of Planescape and the D&D multiverse as outlined there; I found infinite fun in the various vagaries of the alignment system. Though, as long as you're defending it can you explain how Lawful only equates with good and Chaos only equates with evil now?

The main idea is that the concept is based around a single axis system, so "Lawful good" and "Chaotic Evil" are essentially "Supergood" and "Superevil." I'll completely admit it's not the best part of the rules set (I'll explain the parts I like below).

A big feature of 4th edition is that it really tries to level the playing field. D&D, to me, has always been very friendly to the kind of games where the GM is not quite an adversary, but is expected to challenge the players a bit. Some RPGs focus on the GM as an impartial moderator, some as more of a lead storyteller, but D&D has always been more welcoming for the GM who wants to make challenging dungeons, even if it's in a position where the GM has to make 'appropriate' opposition. GMs generally have the power to play the 'Rocks fall. Everybody dies' card but this isn't fun, so the game generally has an unwritten social contract that specifies what the GM can and cannot do.

So 4th edition equalizes the players as everyone has Cool Stuff: The Paladins are constantly using special divinely-powered moves, Fighters and Rouges have tricks to use in combat, etc. The Powers, as these are generalized as, are somewhat MMO-ish, but they're really more like the special abilities seen in various tactics computer games. At each level a power or two is given. The power curves between classes are a bit more level, so the fighters don't go from the only ones who can survive combat to useles smeat shields once the wizards get enough spells.

The GM gets more interesting opposition to use, too. The monster lists aren't just "Ork, Kobold, Goblin" but are more complex. Ork, for example, might have a ready-to-go Ork Grunt, an Ork Veteran, an Ork Warlord, and an Ork Shaman. Each has differing stats, a couple special powers (Often linked, so the Warlord might boost nearby Veterans, and Veterans adjacent to each other might get an additional bonus) and is generally an interesting opponent instead of a tiny ball of HP.

One thing I like is that the system detaches a lot of the 'Role Playing' and 'Combat' bits and tries to make each interesting.

It does this by focusing on the combat side, admittedly, but that is much more interesting for me than previous additions. Powers generally key off four different defensive numbers, so some attacks may roll against AC, while others go after reflex (Like the old touch attacks, or a lot of bursts), will (Mind controlling attacks), or another I can't currently think of. Power also are keyed to various tags such as character states... So a sword might do extra damage to Infernal creatures, or similar. Anyway, i think the loss of a couple alignments was, to me, made up for by the addition of some useful stuff to make combat more interesting.

The 'role playing' side is not completely ignored. There's the expected skills, but to be honest a lot more of talking seems to actually be up to the players and GM, well, talking. One thing that is an interesting switch is that as most combat spells have now been made into Powers, the non-combat spells are now rituals. They take longer to cast and are more expensive, but they're there. However, the game fully encourages a certain amount of 'niche protection' as no character is an island. In previous editions, a wizard could use spells and effectively make other characters nearly obsolete. Knock is either no longer available or is an expensive ritual, so a Thief is again useful.

4th edition D&D isn't the 'ultimate RPG' to me (because I don't feel there is one) but it's a fun system for 'classic' D&D feel: Wander around, fight monsters, be heros. I don't think it would be as easy to use as a base for other settings like 3.0 was (Even including WotC's licensing weirdness), but that's not a problem to me as there's better systems for games with a different focus. D&D 4th is not perfect, but it is Fun.

For Planescape as you mention you could still add the Factions easily. I've heard the upcoming Dark Sun setting does something similar that could be cribbed. Each Faction would be a Feat or similar that gives some sort of bonus or unique Power, and would be a prerequisite for faction-specific Prestige Classes (Level 11-20 class options) or Epic Destinies (21-30). My Planescape is a bit rusty, but joining the Dustmen might mechanically mean roleplaying the introduction (Possibly before start-of-game, of course), taking the Dustmen initiate feat, then considering if the Emissary of Nothing Epic Destiny makes sense when the time comes. (The Emisssary of Nothing was pulled from my rear, by the way).

The druid option of securing a wild area is certainly an option, but the guys I played with would have never liked to have characters settle down like that.

Balance wrote:The 'role playing' side is not completely ignored. There's the expected skills, but to be honest a lot more of talking seems to actually be up to the players and GM, well, talking.

OK, here to me is the massive difference between the old system (2.0 and earlier) and the new system (3.0 and later). In short, with the old system, D&D is more art than science. In the new system, it is more science than art. Read through the early works and the rules are very much like guidelines. The DM is expected to step in and fine-tune. Roleplaying through the tough questions is expected, and more, it is encouraged. To me, this is what makes the old system MAGIC.

As time went on, the rules became more and more important - not as just guidelines and inspiration anymore, but as hard-and-fast commands that characters (and DMs) can never break. I was playing a game of D&D (4.0) where a comrade had fallen. "I step over him," I say, "and I protect him." The DM said, "You can't. That's an occupied square." "But it's 5x5," I say, "There should be at least some room for me to stand." "Nope," says the DM, "The rules don't allow it. It's an occupied square."

This is a metaphor for the entire "new" D&D experience - less room to move. Less for players, less for DMs. Every single question is answered, it is the perfect BOARD GAME, but is this roleplaying? Not the way it used to be. In fact, there are even rules re: how much talking is allowed during a combat round. Where has my grand soliloquy gone? Or the villian's evil retort? Where is the Roleplaying???

Surely it is more than just talking between combats.

Well, that's how I see it. Early D&D - mostly art with just enough in the way of rules to create a framework. Later D&D - just enough Roleplaying to be able to continue claiming that it is an RPG - but mostly, and predominantly, all the significant actions you can and can't take are spelled out explicity throughout the (very tight) rules of the game.

Let's take feats for example. In earlier versions of the game, some of these cool moves were up to the imagination of the players and up to the DM. Now, if you don't have the feat, you can't do it. So what CAN you do? Well, you can do the same "good" attacks every single round and as for the rest, the creative stuff that used to spice up combats, well, they're probably the feats you don't have.

Ah well, that's my take on it! I like the new system, I really am a rules-guy, but as for the magic, the wonder, the open environment where the sky is the limit, well, it just isn't the same somehow.

Sorry for the derail, KK!

Solorg wrote:

Balance wrote:The 'role playing' side is not completely ignored. There's the expected skills, but to be honest a lot more of talking seems to actually be up to the players and GM, well, talking.

OK, here to me is the massive difference between the old system (2.0 and earlier) and the new system (3.0 and later). In short, with the old system, D&D is more art than science. In the new system, it is more science than art. Read through the early works and the rules are very much like guidelines. The DM is expected to step in and fine-tune. Roleplaying through the tough questions is expected, and more, it is encouraged. To me, this is what makes the old system MAGIC.

For my money, 4th actually toned that stuff back from 3rd. 3.x had much more stuff defined and categorized and exhaustively catalogued. While 4th has cleaned up, stripped down and simplified all of the base mechanics. It’s left more room for DMs to add the decorative gubbins. I think a lot of new DMs are scared to do so, though, because the math of the system design appears to be so tightly balanced, that they’re worried about tinkering.

Solorg wrote:As time went on, the rules became more and more important - not as just guidelines and inspiration anymore, but as hard-and-fast commands that characters (and DMs) can never break. I was playing a game of D&D (4.0) where a comrade had fallen. "I step over him," I say, "and I protect him." The DM said, "You can't. That's an occupied square." "But it's 5x5," I say, "There should be at least some room for me to stand." "Nope," says the DM, "The rules don't allow it. It's an occupied square."

This, IMO, is just bad play. Yes, the system is now clear and simple, and the combat grid allows you to play it AS a boardgame, but it’s still not a boardgame. That DM should re-read his DMG.

& I'm back. I plan to finish tonight so this might end up being a long one.


D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D

So with the Nehwon Mythos done naturally you'd think the Norse would be up next.

You'd be wrong. We still have the Non-Human Deities to soldier through!

This is an interesting chapter since up until now everything has been (more or less) drawing on myth or someone else's fiction. But here Wood, Gygax and all the rest really get to create something new, to really show us how original they can be. Let's see how they do.



OK, so the Dwarfs get a 20' tall dwarf with a hammer who likes to forge stuff. Yep. Anyone shocked here?

Let's move on.



Now the elfs, the elfs get 7' tall elf with a sword and a bow who's a multi-classed Fighter/Magic User. Any shocks yet? Well how about this? It seems Corellon Larethian swings both ways, able to appear as male, female, both or neither, making Corellon the most LGBT-friendly deity ever! How's that?

Actually I don't think that counts as a shock either.

Never mind.



Ah Lolth, the Washington Generals of Dungeons and Dragons. While TSR actively discouraged players from going out and trying to beat up Zeus they actually wrote an adventure (Module Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits) where you get to kick down the gates of Lolth's personal lair in the Abyss, storm her giant mechanical spider/castle/fortress thing and kill her in her own throne room. I know I've DM'ed over her death three or four times.

By the way not only does Lolth have her own wikipedia page, Queen of the Demonweb Pits has its own page! Her humiliation will live forever. It's like having the time your pants fell down during your own graduation ceremony up on Youtube. Or um, so I hear.

And really what do you expect from a 'Lesser Goddess' with only 66 hit points? Skullcrusher had more hit points than that when he was just 8th level! Sure she's got AC-10 and 70% magic resistance but like that's going to save her when your typical monty-haul party kicks down the door.

Well that's what you get for being the Goddess of the Dark Elfs. It's kind of like being the most popular goth in your high school. Or the best Dark Eldar player in your league. She should have gotten the hint when they literally put LOL in her name.



I just had to include this for the phrase "a giant kobold (5 ½ feet tall)". Gotta love a 'lesser god' who still can't reach the top shelf at the supermarket. No wonder he hates all life except Kobolds.



It was at this point someone noticed they'd gone almost 20 pages without bare breasts (I don't count the Drow priestess because that's only sideboob). So we get Blibdoolpoolp, goddess of the Kuo-Toa because what else would a bunch of fishmen worship but a naked chick with a lobster head. It's kind of like the two best parts of a seafood dinner date combined into one.




Orcs get Gruumsh One Eye, He-Who-Watches-And-Never-Sleeps. It is said that when the gods were dividing the world they drew lots. Elfs got the forests, Dwarfs got the mountains, Halflings got the hills, Dark Elfs got Hot Topic, Humans got anywhere they wanted (but not infravision) but when they got to the Orcs there was nothing left. The other gods laughed at Gruumsh and mocked him so he took his mighty spear and burnt the woods, he shattered the mountains, he blighted the mountains and said THERE! That is where my people will live.

Don't mess with Gruumsh.

GREAT commentary! Esp the part about the Kobold God. I liked the commentary for Blibdoolpoolp, too (I'd never have her in my campaign, either, just because I never put anything into one of my games that I can't pronounce).

Corellon gets pretty huge later - he is basically THE elf god, though in my campaigns, elves worship human gods, too (mostly Greek Gods/Goddesses in my world), but of course, that's all just personal taste.

The only sad thing here is that humans get HUNDREDS of gods, but if you're an elf, you get - you know - one.

In 2nd Edition they came out with a cool little book called Monster Mythology which helped shore up some of the shortcomings which, until then, DMs were forced to fix themselves (yes, I know in my last post I was complaining about having TOO many rules, etc, but yes, like the god of the elves, I have also been known to swing both ways).

WAAGGHH
Solorg

D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D

So with the Non-Human deities done you might think that NOW it's time for the Norse. And you'd be right!

Thanks to Marvel Comics and um… Marvel Comics (come on, are you really going to tell me you know about them from Wagner?) the Norse gods are some of the best known, probably second only to the Greeks.

With a more violent mythology filled with epic battles and fearsome monsters rather than the Greek's incest and infidelity and more incest the Norse gods are perfectly suited for your typical adolescent's RPG campaign.



Jeff Dee (I assume) returns to give the us some clear comic book-like art. Odin the All Father is of course just scary powerful. How powerful? Well the writer figured rather than list his powers he just listed what Odin can't do (raise the dead and healing people puts him in a coma for 1-10 days). Then the writer spends a full page on Odin's spear, Odin's wolves, Odin's ravens and Odin's horse.




This is Odin's horse Sleipner. Sleipner has more than 3 times the hit points of Lolth AND has a really cool Manowar song just about him.

Y'see kids, the lesson here is if you ever have the choice, you should try and have an army of fierce Vikings worshiping you rather than a bunch of elfs who sit in dark basements listening to NIN and cutting themselves. See I told you RPGs were educational.

Of course they can't all be winners…



Dirty hippy.



Some nice design by David LaForce here. Hel of course does 5 points of damage just by looking at you. Then 20 more if you come within 90 yards of her. Kind of like a restraining order.





He's just so happy. Even if Nife my 24th level Dwarf thief has a better pick pocket skill than him.



Thor the mighty!
Thor the brave!
Crush the infidels in your way!
The powerhead of the universe!
Now scream your never-ending curse!

OK, just because people will complain if I don't…
Mjolnir, Thor's +5 magic hammer has the following abilities:
• It does 10-100 points of damage
• It can be thrown up to 200 yards, and it never misses when thrown. It returns to Thor's hand automatically.
• It can cast lightning bolts at any target within sight, up to a total of 100 dice of lightning bolts a day which can be broken up however Thor desires. (But when wouldn't Thor want to do a 100d6 lightning bolt?)
• It is so heavy only beings with a strength of 25 can lift it (i.e. Heracles) and it requires MORE THAN 25 strength to wield it (Thor has 25 strength then a magic belt on top of that).
• When Thor throws Mjolnir it trails a lighting bolt and when it hits there is a clap of thunder which affects all beings as a power word stun.

So how did Loki feel after the god of thunder hit him? Mighty Thor.

Of course Thor has another nemesis, one destined to kill him…



Infinite hit points?! Infinite?! OK so he's the Midgard Serpent and circles the world but Azathoth is the center of the universe and the size of a small sun and has 400 hit points while snakey here gets INFINITE hit points?

True he has a vulnerable spot, his 300 hp head. Which regenerates completely every round. So you have to do 300 points of damage, to the head in one round or he just regenerates. And if you do… save vs poison or die from his venom.

Sorry Ma Yuan, I really thought you were all that but wow. Now that's a f'ing monster.



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And so we close in on the end winding down with the Sumarian Mythos.



Again Kudos to TSR for giving us three mid-east pantheons, two from East Asia and one from South Asia. If only all gaming companies were so inclusive in their fluff.

Honestly not much to say here. Now of course Deities and Demigods is not exactly a comparative religion textbook but it's interesting how every pantheon is led by some kind of sky god. Never a harvest god or a death god or even god of the sea, nope it's all sun and storm and sky. And usually a big strapping chap with a full beard. Interesting.

So Enlil, magic hat, magic axe, nothing wrong with him but somehow… he just ain't no Odin. I'm sorry.



Now Ki, that's one wild goddess, you can totally tell she isn't wearing a bra under her tiger-print halter top and I don't think she had undies beneath that skirt slit to her waist.

D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D

Now before we close the dusty pages of this ancient tome let's take a quick look at the universe it described.

D&D had an incredibly complex multiverse with both and astral and etherial ghostly planes, parallel universes, elemental planes and the no less than 17 different outer planes to house the afterlife.

And it was awesome.



The inner planes housed the universe as we know it, all the various game settings were there, the Spell Jammer books later clarified how they relate.
Around them were the 4 Elemental Planes and various demi-planes where they touched (i.e. water+earth=the Plane of Mud). Above and below were the Positive and Negative Planes, one drained you d6 hp a round, the other supercharged you d6 hp a round until you exploded.



The whole enchilada floated over the Outer Planes where the gods, demons and others lived.



These Outer Planes matched up to the 9 different alignments in the game. So the Seven Heavens were Lawful Good while the Twin Paradises were a bit less lawful and Arcadia was a bit less good. These were further detailed in the 1st edition Manual of the Planes and then turned into a whole setting with the 2nd edition Planescape books.

I hear they ditched it at some point, silly WoC, sure it's not the best magical multiverse ever (the Chronicles of Talislanta gets that honor) but it was a great one.
Oh well.

So the last question here is, is this worth buying?

Obviously I think so but keep in mind I got it for $20, I grew up with 1st edition and I've been hearing about this book for decades.

If you don't meet most or all of those criteria the more common Legends and Lore book or a more recent book will do just as well.

Besides this review I am really tempted to assemble some aging geeks and do an all out god battle. Everyone take a deity and go!

Y'know, I think I will try it.

My money's on Odin unless Cthulu gets to play.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Or the best Dark Eldar player in your league.

Hah, hah, yeah that's funny, those losers and...hey, *wait* a minute!

Nicely done Kid Kyoto, I see you are wasted in the diplomatic service. You need to do something worthwhile in your life like write for a magazine.

We would all buy wouldn't we guys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I hear they ditched it at some point, silly WoC, sure it's not the best magical multiverse ever (the Chronicles of Talislanta gets that honor) but it was a great one.

You did get this bit thoroughly wrong though. Talislanta is not a patch on Glorantha neither is anything else.

Yeah... I'm going to hell. The Nine Hells.

Gonna have to disagree slightly on Jeebus.
I'm CERTAIN he was part illusionist.

: )

BEST.
REVIEW.
EVER.

Kudos, KK.

Eric

Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Y'know you would think star of one of the oldest myths ever written might have gotten past 12th level. But not TSR apparently. And he's only got a Mace +2, I mean come on. By the time he was 12th level Skullcrusher had a 2-handed sword +4 and a negative armor class. What a wuss.

Also he's apparently 1/3 god, 1/3 man and 1/3 monster. How does that even work?

So, true story: One of my high school religion teachers years back actually wrote the 10th- 12th grades religion book(published by the school itself). He's still teaching there today incidentally. Guy's older than Frazz, and freakin hilarious, to boot, I'll tell you later about the time he and a classmate of mine got into a fake yelling match while he was teaching some 8th graders about how they gave each other genital warts, but I digress.

The reason I bring this up? This VERY ENTRY was in the book during the chapters dealing with the Exile in Babylon. No one got it in my class but me. Someone even asked the teacher(different teacher and a priest) what a Mace +2 was.

In short, Dr. Spitz was AWESOME.

Interesting factoid about the Norse gods in Deities and Demigods...Norse clerics cannot cast healing spells.

Platuan4th wrote: Guy's older than Frazz

Solorg wrote:The only sad thing here is that humans get HUNDREDS of gods, but if you're an elf, you get - you know - one.

In 2nd Edition they came out with a cool little book called Monster Mythology which helped shore up some of the shortcomings which, until then, DMs were forced to fix themselves (yes, I know in my last post I was complaining about having TOO many rules, etc, but yes, like the god of the elves, I have also been known to swing both ways).

I think I preferred the Dragonlance system where the same gods were worshipped by all the races, but each race had it's own point of view... For example, the Minotaurs treated one of the lesser evil gods as their primary patron, and even kind of liked one of the good gods as I remember, and gave Takhisis (The main evil god of the setting) little more than lip service...

What is interesting is that the non-human gods described here did become part of the Forgotten Realms setting, at least. They're still kind of represented in 4th edition's default and intentionally vaguely defined "Points of Light" setting, I think.


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There was a book (3.0 compatible, I think) that tried to do 'serious' stats for the Christian mythos. I think it even hadf some 'variants' like Joe Smith for the Mormons.

It was not well received.

Several comments.

Regarding the appendix which details the Planes of Existence, this is PURE GOLD since it is the first time these were ever described in D&D (as far as I know). They were always mentioned in passing (for example, in the Monster Manual and in the Player's Guide under spell descriptions like that for Gate) but until this point, DMs had to pretty much fake it or (gasp) to to the library to look it up via Real World reference material (The Occult!!!)

Well, with Dieties and Demigods, this VERY IMPORTANT information was introduced for the first time. We don't get a better treatment of the material until Manual of the Planes was released, and though I am not sure exactly when it was released, I think it was several years later - another one of my all time FAVE books!

Some DMs never get into the various Planes of Existence let alone combat encounters with gods and goddesses, but for those who do, Dieties and Demigods is absolutely invaluable. Even in later versions of the game (which start to use more of the made-up gods) the original Dieties and Demigods is a treasure trove for any DM who wants to make use of real pantheons in his game.

Now here's my take on all of it. If you are a DM, and let's say you are making your own made-up gods and goddesses, yes, you can do that (or use the canned gods in D&D), but the players are going to be all like, "so what?" I mean, it is a name and the god is a total unknown to them unless you take lots of gametime describing them, establishing them, and so on.

But with realworld gods/goddesses, for the DM it is INSTANT RESPECT. If I say Bogo the God of Dance commands you to go on a quest, everyone's all like, "Who the $%&! is Bogo?" But if I say, "Zeus, the God of Olympus commands you to go on a quest, then everyone's all like, "Oh, @%$#, better do what he says or he's gonna blast us with lightning, and maybe even turn into a swan and, well, it would be BAD. I mean, you heard what happened to Leta!"

You get the point here. REAL historical gods are the best. Unless you plan to use all your DM time proving to players how cool your made-up gods are (and yes, you CAN do this) Dieties and Demigods gets you off to a running start. And no matter what edition you play, why WOULDN'T you want an outline of a god's abilities at your fingertips? Even if they are all 1st edition, DMs of later editions can still benefit from the outlines presented for each, and with minimal knowledge of earlier HP and AC systems, you can even convert over to the new edition with a little effort. (Or just do what I do - Gods and Goddesses are basically invulnerable anyway).

What an awesome play-by-play! And Jeebus Rice is awesome. I'm cutting him out and pasting him into my Dieties and Demigods book right now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Balance wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
There was a book (3.0 compatible, I think) that tried to do 'serious' stats for the Christian mythos. I think it even hadf some 'variants' like Joe Smith for the Mormons.

It was not well received.

I'd be interested in knowing more about this book. If anyone knows the name of it. I'm sure it is one of those independent publisher books. That was the coolest thing about 3.0 - the open license deal. More than a DM could ever want or need, truly truly awesome.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Yeah... I'm going to hell. The Nine Hells.

I find that funny, Demigod is more or less correct, but as an integral part of something much more powerful. Please dont try to stat the rest up or you will cause offense. You will likely cause offense anyway but with a couple of modifications you can get away with that as they properly account for the core beliefs. The Blood into wine attack is somewhat off but keeps the entry firmly in the category of spoof.

Some corrections.

Alignment: Lawful Good
Worshippers Align: Any (trust me on that one)

This demigod is a firm believer in peace and will never physically attack a foe outside his own holy ground.
He can only be harmed if he allows it, and if slain will return with full hit points in d3 days regardless of the source of the attack.

I highly doubt Jesus was Lawful Good. Chaotic Good is a better fit imo.

Gwar! wrote:I highly doubt Jesus was Lawful Good. Chaotic Good is a better fit imo.

We wont go into this here, but in D&D strict obedience is Lawful.

Solorg wrote: But if I say, "Zeus, the God of Olympus commands you to go on a quest, then everyone's all like, "Oh, @%$#, better do what he says or he's gonna blast us with lightning, and maybe even turn into a swan and, well, it would be BAD. I mean, you heard what happened to Leta!"

That was a magnificent allusion. We are all more culturally rich for being subtly reminded of Zeus's furry proclivities. Bravo, Sir!

Orlanth wrote:

Gwar! wrote:I highly doubt Jesus was Lawful Good. Chaotic Good is a better fit imo.

We wont go into this here, but in D&D strict obedience is Lawful.

And Jesus was soooo the epitome of Strict Obedience, with his not-flipping-off-the-money-changers-in-the-temple and his general defiant attitude to the Romans. </sarcasm>

Gwar! wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Gwar! wrote:I highly doubt Jesus was Lawful Good. Chaotic Good is a better fit imo.

We wont go into this here, but in D&D strict obedience is Lawful.

And Jesus was soooo the epitome of Strict Obedience, with his not-flipping-off-the-money-changers-in-the-temple and his general defiant attitude to the Romans. </sarcasm>

That's why his alignment audit had such severe consequences.

Solorg wrote:Now here's my take on all of it. If you are a DM, and let's say you are making your own made-up gods and goddesses, yes, you can do that (or use the canned gods in D&D), but the players are going to be all like, "so what?" I mean, it is a name and the god is a total unknown to them unless you take lots of gametime describing them, establishing them, and so on.

But with realworld gods/goddesses, for the DM it is INSTANT RESPECT. If I say Bogo the God of Dance commands you to go on a quest, everyone's all like, "Who the $%&! is Bogo?" But if I say, "Zeus, the God of Olympus commands you to go on a quest, then everyone's all like, "Oh, @%$#, better do what he says or he's gonna blast us with lightning, and maybe even turn into a swan and, well, it would be BAD. I mean, you heard what happened to Leta!"

You get the point here. REAL historical gods are the best.

I have a different perspective on this. First off, I am a Helenic Pagan, which means I actually do follow the Greek gods...I've always found pretending to worship real gods being a bit disrespectful to those gods. In my own campaigns, I've created and used my own pantheon (And included it as a handout to players in my campaign). Works well, as most gods follow certain archetypes across cultures.

Obediance to legitimate authority and just laws, Gwar. Or would you require a Paladin in an orc-run kingdom to respect and obey laws which favored, cruelty, murder, and slavery?

Mannahnin wrote:Obediance to legitimate authority and just laws, Gwar. Or would you require a Paladin in an orc-run kingdom to respect and obey laws which favored, cruelty, murder, and slavery?

Obedience without Question would be Lawful Neutral.

And thus my point about 'alignment' leading to many arguments is supported.

To be honest, one of my issues with D&D, at least when the attempt is made to move beyond simple dungeon crawls and similar, is that 'Detect Evil' is way too convenient and easy. I think for a more realistic setting if I didn't just exclude it I'd crib an optional idea from a White Wolf game (Werewolf, I think) and say that Detect Evil is more about sensing a sort of spiritual residue of evil, such that the victim of a nasty crime might detect as 'evil' until they've gotten over it, and a evil person who is avoiding actual evil acts might get away with it for a while.

Consider that in 2nd edition (3rd too, i think), Paladins can Detect Evil at will.

The idea is that with this they might get led to a situation they should be involved in, but aren't told who to smash without applying some intelligence.

Other 'issues' with D&D include the ease of resurrection, the wonky economy, and a host of edition-specific complaints.

Solorg wrote:Now here's my take on all of it. If you are a DM, and let's say you are making your own made-up gods and goddesses, yes, you can do that (or use the canned gods in D&D), but the players are going to be all like, "so what?" I mean, it is a name and the god is a total unknown to them unless you take lots of gametime describing them, establishing them, and so on.

But with realworld gods/goddesses, for the DM it is INSTANT RESPECT. <snip>You get the point here. REAL historical gods are the best.

I completely agree with this, although for different reasons. It is all about context of your gods. If you don't have context or history for your gaming group, then you can manufacture it with a 'known' property.

Although I don't get along with him anymore, I can say that one of my former friends created a persistent mythos better than anyone. 10 years later, I still have references to them in my games because they create known reactions in my players.

Just as Zeus or Odin trigger certain thoughts for people, for my friends Sherrivus, The Queen of Night, the Labyrinth, etc can be just as powerful. Mannahnin will back me up on that one.

The Deities & Demigods cameo in Freaks & Geeks is the best....

Balance wrote:To be honest, one of my issues with D&D, at least when the attempt is made to move beyond simple dungeon crawls and similar, is that 'Detect Evil' is way too convenient and easy.

This all depends on the DM and how well he handles his campaign. Detect Evil can be broken, but it can also be turned useless. First off - if the party depends on it too much it is *very* easy to put them in a bad situation with some simple alingment detection defensive/alteration magics.

Second off - there are shades of evil. A Lawful Evil moneylender can be law abiding and always work within the legal strictures of his profession and can just take a bit of personal glee in seeing poor people suffer. This doesn't mean the party cleric should smite him or that the party shouldn't be locked up if they act against him. In fact it can be quite fun to have the Lawful Good law enforcement being the ones trying to lock the party up for beating up the legally compliant moneylender.

The Chaotic Evil revolutionary who believes the ends justify the means can be a potentially potent and useful ally in taking down the Lawful Evil monarch who rules all with an iron hand.

One of the best villains I ever put my party against was a Lawful Neutral knight who was brutally oppressing a populace in order to defend them from various threats both real and imagined. He wasn't doing it because he was evil, but what he was doing was certainly trampling on liberties. The party itself actually became a bit divided about how to deal with him - and at that point we're in a great RP situation with some great combats that will come out of it and I could of handed them a wand of detect alignment with infinite charges and it wouldn't have helped the situation.

Chaotic evil does not mean they always need to be drenched in blood and screaming while trying to plant a dagger in your face.
Lawful good doesn't always mean they give a toot about the people suffering in the next town over.

If Detect Evil breaks something it's the fault of the user not the product.

Holy smokes. I loved that book. I chucked most of my D&D stuff a decade ago but hung on to Deities & Demigods. It was the second D&D book I ever owned (the Monster Manual was first). I didn't even play the game yet, I just went through the book over and over. It blew my little mind. Even thirty years later, I bet a shocking amount of what I know about mythology today came from that book. Right or wrong...

As Kyoto's review shows, it also helps when listening to heavy metal albums.

I once granted my party a wand that could make an infinite amount cold, bitter tea.

Irony then struck when it saved their lives when the Cleric became Poisoned and Comatose (Completely by random chance) when they were in the middle of the desert, 3 weeks from the nearest town/oasis and all their provisions having been destroyed by the raiders who caught the Cleric with a Poison Arrow.

Great lulz ensued.

skyth wrote:

Solorg wrote:Now here's my take on all of it. If you are a DM, and let's say you are making your own made-up gods and goddesses, yes, you can do that (or use the canned gods in D&D), but the players are going to be all like, "so what?" I mean, it is a name and the god is a total unknown to them unless you take lots of gametime describing them, establishing them, and so on.

But with realworld gods/goddesses, for the DM it is INSTANT RESPECT. If I say Bogo the God of Dance commands you to go on a quest, everyone's all like, "Who the $%&! is Bogo?" But if I say, "Zeus, the God of Olympus commands you to go on a quest, then everyone's all like, "Oh, @%$#, better do what he says or he's gonna blast us with lightning, and maybe even turn into a swan and, well, it would be BAD. I mean, you heard what happened to Leta!"

You get the point here. REAL historical gods are the best.

I have a different perspective on this. First off, I am a Helenic Pagan, which means I actually do follow the Greek gods...I've always found pretending to worship real gods being a bit disrespectful to those gods. In my own campaigns, I've created and used my own pantheon (And included it as a handout to players in my campaign). Works well, as most gods follow certain archetypes across cultures.

One of my players is Pagan (though he favours the Norse mythology). All I can say about respect is that, to me, it does depend on how the god / goddess is handled in-game. Well, I'll give you an example. Let's say I am producing a novel or movie which is fictional, but which includes the Christian God or maybe instead a Pagan god in connection with the plot. The story itself need not be disrespectful at all. If anything, done correctly, it can be homage.

Most importantly, though, it isn't cool to allow players to badmouth or show disrespect toward another player's religion - whether it is while roleplaying or otherwise. I mean, that's just common politeness.

Gwar! wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Obediance to legitimate authority and just laws, Gwar. Or would you require a Paladin in an orc-run kingdom to respect and obey laws which favored, cruelty, murder, and slavery?

Obedience without Question would be Lawful Neutral.

It might be, if you didn't understand and/or agree with the reasoning for the instructions. But if you did, and there were a good reason...

pretre wrote:

Solorg wrote:Now here's my take on all of it. If you are a DM, and let's say you are making your own made-up gods and goddesses, yes, you can do that (or use the canned gods in D&D), but the players are going to be all like, "so what?" I mean, it is a name and the god is a total unknown to them unless you take lots of gametime describing them, establishing them, and so on.

But with realworld gods/goddesses, for the DM it is INSTANT RESPECT. <snip>You get the point here. REAL historical gods are the best.

I completely agree with this, although for different reasons. It is all about context of your gods. If you don't have context or history for your gaming group, then you can manufacture it with a 'known' property.

Although I don't get along with him anymore, I can say that one of my former friends created a persistent mythos better than anyone. 10 years later, I still have references to them in my games because they create known reactions in my players.

Just as Zeus or Odin trigger certain thoughts for people, for my friends Sherrivus, The Queen of Night, the Labyrinth, etc can be just as powerful. Mannahnin will back me up on that one.

Yes indeed. Bad mojo, all three.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hubcap wrote:Holy smokes. I loved that book. I chucked most of my D&D stuff a decade ago but hung on to Deities & Demigods. It was the second D&D book I ever owned (the Monster Manual was first). I didn't even play the game yet, I just went through the book over and over. It blew my little mind. Even thirty years later, I bet a shocking amount of what I know about mythology today came from that book. Right or wrong...

As Kyoto's review shows, it also helps when listening to heavy metal albums.

Hubcap! Great gods of Dakka (or at least patron saints)!

Gwar! wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Gwar! wrote:I highly doubt Jesus was Lawful Good. Chaotic Good is a better fit imo.

We wont go into this here, but in D&D strict obedience is Lawful.

And Jesus was soooo the epitome of Strict Obedience, with his not-flipping-off-the-money-changers-in-the-temple and his general defiant attitude to the Romans. </sarcasm>

I didnt want to get into theology here, and am not offended by Kid Kyotos post but I do suggest you get educated before you start talking about hot topics.

Well you are half right in that he did 'flip off' the moneychangers in the temple (but missed the motive), but you are wrong about Jesus' attitude towards the Romans (and still missed the motive). Anyone educated on the topic, even an atheist with no sympathy to the church would not let you get away with that one, Jesus plainly had no beef with the Romans, quite contrary in fact! This would be obvious with any theological knowledge on Christianity whatsoever, even if you used an atheist text as your source.


In what he did do he was both Lawful and good.

I dont think anyone can claim Jesus had a non good alignment allowing for what he stood for and did. The lawful requires a bit of thought as He did disobey the laws such as sabbaths etc, but while holding to the greater law in detail. I think this is why he might be considered Neutral Good, but does ignoring the petty laws in favour of a greater good entail a chaotic tendency. I argue that the motives were still very Lawful and if not would not oershadow other Laweful rtendencies enough to force an alignment change

Well obviously Jeebus Rice was not meant to be a commentary on Jesus or Christianity, it's a parody of AD&D, my spoof of how they looked at deities (some fictional, some mythical, some still worshiped) and distilled some truly odd and entertaining stats out of them.

Now that I think about it Jeebus should be able to use his powers against demons and undead, oh well.

And now I'm thinking of Bloodquest, the Quest for Blood next which, dumb name aside was actually fairly decent.

Hubcap! Great gods of Dakka (or at least patron saints)!

Alignment: Chaotic Lazy

Now that I think about it Jeebus should be able to use his powers against demons and undead, oh well.

He can also use his Side Hug attack to foil demons of lust.

Well, it confirms what I've always suspected - that D&D is definitely a Gateway Game to Christianity, especially when you add NPCs like Jeebus. Clerics with their "Holy Symbols" (crosses thinly disguised) and Christian-Like miracles (Create Food and Water, Part Water, etc) really hammer down this point.

But you know, it is up to the DM in the end how far he wants to go with this sort of thing, and in all cases, definitely it is best to keep respect for religion in mind when running a game and to remember that YOU ARE NOT YOUR CHARACTER!

Well, that's all. Peace,

Solorg

Solorg wrote:Well, it confirms what I've always suspected - that D&D is definitely a Gateway Game to Christianity, especially when you add NPCs like Jeebus. Clerics with their "Holy Symbols" (crosses thinly disguised) and Christian-Like miracles (Create Food and Water, Part Water, etc) really hammer down this point.

No kidding at all! Actually, in the original D&D little brown booklets, and in the first "Basic D&D" set, the Holmes-edited one, the equipment list included wooden and silver crosses, rather than generic "holy symbols". The original cleric was envisioned as a cross between a templar knight and a van-helsing style vampire hunter from the 60s and 70s movies. Dave Arneson created them for his game because he had a player with a vampire character (Sir Fang) who was getting out of hand.

True story.

The things you know!

Still, that is a rather funny story - I love hearing about where a lot of these things came from...

Mannahnin wrote:

Solorg wrote:Well, it confirms what I've always suspected - that D&D is definitely a Gateway Game to Christianity, especially when you add NPCs like Jeebus. Clerics with their "Holy Symbols" (crosses thinly disguised) and Christian-Like miracles (Create Food and Water, Part Water, etc) really hammer down this point.

No kidding at all! Actually, in the original D&D little brown booklets, and in the first "Basic D&D" set, the Holmes-edited one, the equipment list included wooden and silver crosses, rather than generic "holy symbols". The original cleric was envisioned as a cross between a templar knight and a van-helsing style vampire hunter from the 60s and 70s movies. Dave Arneson created them for his game because he had a player with a vampire character (Sir Fang) who was getting out of hand.

True story.

The cleric spells are very heavily based on accounts of miracles in the Judeo-Christian faith. Part water, lower water, water walking, create food and drink, flame strike, raise dead, cure blindness, sticks to snakes etc. I dont recall Jesus, Moses or Elijah summoning a blade barrier though. Priestly powers of other pantheons, scriptures or mythologies hardly get a look in.

Orlanth wrote:Priestly powers of other pantheons, scriptures or mythologies hardly get a look in.

Augury, Speak with Dead, Protection from Evil, Exorcise, Wind Walk... I dunno - I see solid evidence for Norse, Chinese, Mesopotamian, Japanese, and Egyptian pantheons and once you work in Druid spells Native American myths as well. What do you think they're missing to represent other religions?

Orlanth wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

Solorg wrote:Well, it confirms what I've always suspected - that D&D is definitely a Gateway Game to Christianity, especially when you add NPCs like Jeebus. Clerics with their "Holy Symbols" (crosses thinly disguised) and Christian-Like miracles (Create Food and Water, Part Water, etc) really hammer down this point.

No kidding at all! Actually, in the original D&D little brown booklets, and in the first "Basic D&D" set, the Holmes-edited one, the equipment list included wooden and silver crosses, rather than generic "holy symbols". The original cleric was envisioned as a cross between a templar knight and a van-helsing style vampire hunter from the 60s and 70s movies. Dave Arneson created them for his game because he had a player with a vampire character (Sir Fang) who was getting out of hand.

True story.

The cleric spells are very heavily based on accounts of miracles in the Judeo-Christian faith. Part water, lower water, water walking, create food and drink, flame strike, raise dead, cure blindness, sticks to snakes etc. I dont recall Jesus, Moses or Elijah summoning a blade barrier though.

Leaving aside the question of other pantheons, I was agreeing entirely that they drew on accounts of Biblical miracles for a lot of the clerical spells. As for Blade Barrier, I've generally heard that sourced to the sword mentioned in Genesis 3:24, the description of which is (so I understand) translated variously as "moving to and fro" "flashing" "fiery" "whirling around" or "turning itself around" to guard the way. Blade barrier also describes the blades as "circling" "whirling" and "flashing".

I bought the original book when it first came out...yeah I am that old. The book was pulled from sale as they did not have the rights and publishing stopped. They then printed the book without the fritz leiber, michael moorcock and HP Lovecraft copyright materials. Within 3 weeks of my local bookstore getting the original in the new version without those three was on the shelf and my best friend was pissed he did not have the same info as me! I still have my original copy and it is still in excellent condition. It's what happens when the publisher has a good idea but forgets the legal ramifications of getting permission to use the material.

I know I shouldn't but thanks for the necro! Wouldn't have got to read this great retro review otherwise.

Well it was highlighted on the Dakka homepage. You cant blame people for necroing threads if Dakka itself brings them back ti light.

Besides the amount of times I have made a comment on a picture of a miniature only to find that it was painted a decade ago and nobody had commented in that time. But again, images get reviewed on the homepage too.

great thread though, Kid Kyoto really comes through on these types of threads, always a pleasure.

A pleasure to read through but...

Holy threadcromancy!

It's cool, the thread was just sleeping. That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.

 Orlanth wrote:
Well it was highlighted on the Dakka homepage. You cant blame people for necroing threads if Dakka itself brings them back ti light.

Besides the amount of times I have made a comment on a picture of a miniature only to find that it was painted a decade ago and nobody had commented in that time. But again, images get reviewed on the homepage too.

great thread though, Kid Kyoto really comes through on these types of threads, always a pleasure.

Thanks! This was one of my favorites to do.

Besides, how can you necro a thread about immortals

I know right?

As an Old School 1E AD&D player myself...I approve of this Necro Totally OK and Officially Sanctioned Revival of this thread!

(Plus re-reading it has been great! I love me a K_K Retro Review Thread - more, please, more!!!)