Ibn Shisha's Old-School Gaming

  In the first two episodes of this series I took a look at what makes up the Fighter and the Magic-User in the Original D&D Three Little Brown Books. Today we're diving into the third remaining class, the Cleric. We are told on page 6 of Volume 1 - Men & Magic that, "There are three (3) main classes of characters." (I am inordinately amused by that emphasis on "three (3)!") The final class listed and described is 'Clerics,' and we are told that Clerics are limited to Men only. The full class descriptions follow this.  Clerics get three paragraphs taking up about one-third of page 7. Clerics are described as having some of the advantages of the each of the other two classes. Clerics are allowed the use of magical armor, as well as all non-edged magical weaponry.  As far as I can tell, this is the only point in the original box where it states that Clerics cannot use edged weapons, and then only as pertains to magical items.  However, we know from...

  I've been silently for a little while - work and also cataloging some of my other collections, but it's time to dive back in to the Eldorian Isles! So far, in the Cultures subseries of these Setting the Setting posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area - Eldorian Humans - our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs - and three of our minor cultures - the Vindhyaksha Goblins, the Hearthwarden Halflings and the Drak'Thul Lizard Men. I'm saving our second Human culture for last, so next up we have the last culture before them - the Orcs. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled on the World Builder's Guide Cultural Characteristics Table on page 43, and got... Viking!  Quite fitting for our oceanic, archipalegic world setting, and an interesting contrast to our tropical local campaign area. Viking: While the Vikings of northern Europe could probab...

  So far, in the Cultures subseries of my Setting the Setting posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area, Eldorian Humans, our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs - and two of our minor cultures - the Vindhyaksha Goblins and the Hearthwarden Halflings. I'm saving our second Human culture for last, so next up we have Lizard Men. For the Cultural Archetype, I eschewed rolling and selected Barbarian. With our Minotaurs, Goblins and (yet-to-be-posted) Orcs having all gotten different cultures by rolling, I knew I wanted to have Barbarian on there somewhere and this was the best fit. Barbarian: The realm is a tribal group or kingdom of people considered barbarians by their neighbors. These can be historical barbarians such as the Celts, Picts, or ancient Germans, or you may prefer to mold your kingdom after fantastic barbarians such as Robert E. Howard's ...

In the first episode of this series I took a look at what makes up the Fighter in the Original D&D Three Little Brown Books. Today we're diving into the Magic-User (a class name that would stick up to AD&D 2nd Edition). We are told on page 6 of Volume 1 - Men & Magic that, "There are three (3) main classes of characters." (I am inordinately amused by that emphasis on "three (3)!") The second class listed and described is 'Magic-Users.' We are told that Magic-Users include only Men (humans) and Elves. The full class descriptions follow this - with Magic-Users getting one paragraph taking up about one-fifth of page 6, and about half of the next page (though half of that  is a table of costs of manufacturing magic items). Magic-Users are described as potentially the strongest characters in the game at high levels, but initially weak, requiring protection from other characters. Magic-Users are allowed the use of all magical items except weaponry ...

  So far, in the Cultures subseries of my Setting the Setting Posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area, Eldorian Humans, our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs. Last post we looked at the Feudal Indian inspire Vindhyaksha Goblins, one of area's minor cultures. Next on the list is Halflings. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled, getting European Middle Ages, the same as the Eldorians. I considered rerolling, but then I thought about Pathfinder, where, aside from a few distinct groups, Halflings tend to blend into and take on the cultures around them, and decided to let it stand. European, Middle Ages: The classic AD&D setting, this presents a fantastic kingdom of knights and ladies. It is an age of chivalry and castles. Power lies in the hands of the landed nobility and the various churches or temples of the realm. Now, with the seed of the idea of...

So far, in the Cultures subseries of my Setting the Setting Posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area, Eldorian Humans, and our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and most recently the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs. Now, it's time to start on our five minor cultures, and we'll begin with the Goblins. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled. I was expecting maybe to get something like Savage, or Barbarian, or even Ancient or Viking. What I got though, was Indian: Indian: The campaign is modeled after medieval India. India's social structure was feudal in nature, with an amazing number of independent rajahs, moguls, and princes each governing over one of hundreds of small kingdoms. Now that description did kind of make sense to me, with the typical tribal band structure of Goblins straight out of the core books of most editions, translating that into multiple petty kingdoms instead does...