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Friday, 19 September 2025

"Minions of the King" (a scenario set in Legend)

A guest post today by Steve Foster, my co-umpire of the Tekumel campaigns that brought together many of the RPG and gamebook authors and editors of the 1980s and '90s. This scenario, though, was from our Legend campaign and has appeared previously in Annwn magazine.

I only included orcs in the original Dragon Warriors rules under sufferance. They were staple fantasy creatures back then, and I had to assume players coming cold to the game might want to include them. The world of Legend had yet to properly take shape, so the setting of early DW was not a lot different from other fantasy RPGs like D&D.

Later I ignored orcs entirely. They had no place in my Legend; neither faerie nor devil nor of any mortal nation, there was nowhere I could see to fit them in anyway. To me they were specific to Tolkien's world. But Steve found another take on the idea.

Minions of the King

by Steve Foster

I ran this scenario pretty much from these notes to give Tim Harford a break in his long stint as referee of our Legend campaign. The player-characters were staying at a minor castle between the lands of Montombre and Aldred. The castle’s lord was Eustace, one of Aldred’s men. A man named Gwylas had just turned up, an important aide to the local bishop. The adventure begins shortly after his arrival and would take the party west across Ellesland to the desolate moorland under the Shriven Hills.

Dramatis Personae

  • Brother Theodoric -- a too-curious friar.
  • Canon Gwylas -- an assistant to Bishop Daniford of Trewyn, and an honoured guest.
  • Sir Hrognar -- companion and bodyguard to Gwylas.
  • Father Damien (Damgharn) -- a spectacularly ugly, though equally holy, priest.
  • Father Alric -- a missionary; still hale, even in his 70s.
  • Sir Cerewyn (Kurwan) -- a pugnacious knight.
  • Freydwina -- a distraught mother.
  • Krazkul -- an aged orcish leader; grandfather of Damgharn.

Plus assorted men-at-arms, peasants, orcs and demons.

The history of Ogsmoor

Ogsmoor is a small village set on a small, high moor of the same name on the edge of the Bleaks. For many years, the moor was shunned for its evil reputation. Folk nearby said that it was the abode of devils and goblins. Strange lights and drums were seen and heard from its misty summit and the surrounding farms were often attacked or raided in the night. Yet, no one in those days talked of a village on the moor.

More than forty years ago, Herolaut, the grandfather of Montombre, put an end to the troubles by taking a sizeable troop and his sorcerer, Broden through Ogsmoor. His journals say that he fought more than one pitched battle, but his well-trained and well-armed troops were in little danger. He built a pyre from the bodies of the orcs that he massacred, and declared the area safe. A few years later, a young priest arrived at Herolaut’s court and asked permission to build a chapel on Ogsmoor. Herolaut, on his deathbed and fearing that his sinful life had doomed his soul, not only granted permission but also money and favours. A few years later, the tithes and taxes began to flow in. No one questioned the sudden springing up of a new village high in the moors, particularly one that paid its taxes.

An untimely death

It is early morning on the second day of Gwylas’s visit. A guard has seen a horse wandering on the edge of the forest. When it is brought in, the load it bears is seen to be the dead body of Brother Theodoric. The dead man has a massive head wound, caused by a stone axe, though it looks like he lived long enough to escape his attackers. There is no sign of the two men-at-arms who would have accompanied him. Perhaps they held off the attackers until Theodoric could flee?

Gwylas knows the unfortunate man. Theodoric had been charged by the bishop with maintenance of tithe records and travelled around various parts of the see. He was also a learned man who brought back records of interesting locations that he had found. A quick search indeed reveals a blood-stained parchment, stuck to his horses neck by the dried blood from his own wound. The parchment bears the words "The Stones at Ogsmoor" and has several marks arranged in part of a circle, a small numeral by each. Theodoric’s blood and brains obliterate the rest of the circle. A guard may have heard of Ogsmoor: "Ugly as an Ogsmoor wife, my dad used to say."

Unless the players react so first, Gwylas will be affronted by the death and request that Eustace dispatch a party to investigate.

An ugly priest

While on the road to Ogsmoor, the party encounter an unfortunate priest whose donkey has thrown a shoe (perhaps in protest at the absurdly heavy load of chests and boxes that it bears). The priest is a singularly ugly man -- jutting jaw, large nose, prominent brow ridges, small and deep-set eyes, greasy hair, bow legs, long arms, barrel torso -- though also well groomed and scrupulously clean. He introduces himself in a pleasant but slightly grating voice as Damien, a recently appointed priest.

Damien explains that he is on his way back to his home village, Ogsmoor, to see his mentor, Fr. Alric and his grandfather. Thanks to Alric’s influence, Damien has been able to study in Chaubrette at the famous Chaunterle Abbey. He has been absent from Ogsmoor for some fifteen years since the age of 10, though he has corresponded regularly with Alric. Damien is something of a scholar. As well as being fluent in several languages and having an excellent familiarity with religious books and doctrines he is also a trained healer. However, he has been away from Ogsmoor for a long time and is unfamiliar with recent events. In all but one aspect, Damien is the mild, pious, educated priest that he seems.

In Ogsmoor

Ogsmoor is set in the middle of the often misty moor. There is a fine chapel, but only a curiously small graveyard. The houses are small and rude but well-maintained. A circle of standing stones can be seen looming in the mist, a short distance off.

The people of Ogsmoor are of a similar appearance to Damien -- squat and ugly, yet exceedingly well groomed and clean. For the most part they are also mild-mannered and courteous. They are delighted to see Damien and greet him warmly and devoutly - they clearly are proud that he is now a priest -- yet they are shy and nervous in the presence of the strangers. One woman, less ugly than most, peers at them from a doorway. She is Freydwina.

While the greetings take place, Alric arrives. He is a lean, silver-haired priest. Clearly in his early seventies, he shows no signs of physical or mental frailty. He wears a crucifix around his neck and the observant will see that there is also a second chain carrying another sign -- a small oblong stone. Alric passes this off as a good-luck charm, a memento from his early days here.

Alric insists on a service of welcome and invites Damien to lead it. Alric steps in to lead some of the prayers, which seem familiar until one additional proclamation and response is added. "Give unto God that which is God’s," says Alric. "And to the King that which is the King’s" respond the congregation. Moreover, a small child begins to say, "For the minions of the King are countless…" but is quickly silenced by those around him. Alric seems unconcerned but Damien’s brow is furrowed.

As the party leave the church, they see the woman Freydwina talking to a knight some distance off. The knight pushes her roughly to the ground and storms off. He is Sir Cerewyn, and he has several men-at-arms with him.

Freydwina says of this incident only that she sought help to find her missing child and that Cerewyn refused. Cerewyn, a short-tempered and brutish man, will only say that the brat was forever running off and could "damn well find himself".

Asking about Theodoric

Alric says that Theodoric and his men left before dawn a few days ago. He is saddened to hear of their disappearance.

Cerewyn says that he doesn’t care what happened and that the men-at-arms probably slew Theodoric for his gold and then fled.

Freydwina will get very upset at the question. She will give several different stories, then just say, "The Minions of the King are Countless," and "They will render unto the King! Oh Sweet God, How could you take my child away!"

Damien’s grandfather

At some point, a player may observe Damien and Alric heading off into the moor. If followed, they will come to a cave, in a low, bramble covered cliff. There is the light of a fire deep in the cave and smoke. On entering, the players will see Damien, Alric and a woman from the village around a litter on the floor. Surrounding the litter are various orcish totems: skulls and animal skins. On the litter lies an ancient orc, Krazkul, too old and near death to be any trouble. It is clear from his features what the secret of the village is. Damien, Freydwina, Cerewyn, all except Alric have the characteristic features of orcs which, cleaned and groomed, can almost pass for human. Alric is clearly respectful of the aged orc. If the players stop to overhear, they may catch something along these lines:

"Pah! It is bad enough that I let a priest overrun my tribe, now my own grandson is a shaven-headed shaman too! Changed your name too, eh, boy! What’s wrong with Damgharn? A good orcish name!"

"Grandfather, you must not talk like that. I’ve come to show you that we can change. I am accepted by men. I am a priest of their god -- no, of my God. You will be accepted too if only you will convert to the True Faith."

"Pah! Though shalt not kill! Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt bathe! What sort of life is that for an orc? Damn you Alric! You have destroyed my tribe."

"And if I had not, Herolaut would have done the job forty years ago. Save my people, you said, and I have done, in more ways than one. They are God-fearing folk, now, for the most part, and have souls for the saving. Your own could be saved too if you’d agree to the baptism."

"Kurwan. Now there’s a good orcish name too."

"Perhaps too good. I believe that he still worships the King. I cannot prove it, but I believe he killed the friar for breaking the taboo, for counting the minions. I believe he has taken Freydwina’s child and will sacrifice him. I believe he is trying to revive the old orcish ways, and if he does then Montombre’s men will raze Ogsmoor to the ground."

From these conversations, it should not be too difficult to fathom what has happened. Alric came here shortly after Herolaut’s massacres. He found a beaten, demoralised people in fear of their lives. Moreover, he realised that these orcs were somehow very similar to men. He educated them and cleaned them up so that they’d pass for men then, bit by bit, converted them to the True Faith. However, he has had to make a few compromises by allowing some of the pieces of the orcs’ old religion to remain -- the worship of the King. Kurwan wants to bring back the old religion and the old orcish ways, and he plans to do so by sacrificing Freydwina’s child to the King.

The King and his Minions

The players will discover Kurwan and his henchmen at the stones. No doubt a fight will ensue and blood will be spilt on the stones, be that the child’s or Kurwan’s. This blood sacrifice is enough to call up the King and his Minions -- a number of stone-skinned orcish ghosts. They are terrible opponents whose skin is almost impermeable. However, their strength depends upon the belief of the people. If only Krazkul, the last unbaptised orc, could be converted to the True Faith before he dies…

How it played

I ran this scenario back in early 1997. I created the blood-stained map as a prop, and people soon wanted to go to Ogsmoor without much prompting. However, we were a bit short of players that week so Hrognar became a useful NPC. Things pretty much followed the route here, though no one attempted to get Krazkul to convert. This was a shame, as I’d planned that the Minions would actually be impervious to normal weapons until that happened. In the end, to avoid a massacre I just gave them a very high armour rating that halved when Krazkul "spontaneously" converted. Of course, a little party blood had to be spilt before this happened.

Steve was inspired to run the scenario by thinking about what happened to Neanderthals. There's no place for multiple hominin species in the history of Legend, of course, where mortals fell from grace after being created by God and where there's no principle of evolution or genetics, but the point is that orcs in this telling became a brutish offshoot of mortal men who could be saved by faith. Steve brilliantly wove them into the world of Dragon Warriors where I'd treated them like a fart not to be acknowledged. Perhaps it helped that, like Tolkien, Steve was raised under Catholicism, and so gnarly questions of belief and salvation are at least familiar to him as concepts to be considered, whereas I have no priors for that kind of thinking outside of fantasy fiction.

Tolkien supposedly derived the word "orc" from a few lines in Beowulf:

þanon untydras ealle onwocon
eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas
swylce gigantas þa wið gode wunnon
lange þrage he him ðæs lean forgeald

There is nothing in the Beowulf poem to say that Grendel and his mother are "orcs" (which seems to mean something like draugr) but we are told that they are descendants of Cain, along with those other creatures mentioned (eotenas = ettins, ylfe = elf). Tolkien couldn't use Cain's lineage as explanation of his orcs as there had been no Old Testament in the Midgard of The Lord of the Rings. But then, we are happy to use words like ettin and elf in our own fantasies -- the elves of Dragon Warriors are not descendants of Cain, for example. Tolkien was merely upholding the honourable tradition of authors as coiners.

Just to prove I've made my peace with orcs in DW, here is the description from Book One:

Orcs are the archetypal henchthings of evil, and have been found in service to many masters: Sorcerers mad and mighty, undead knights, dark demons, priests of chaos. Orcs care not what or who they fight, so long as they are given ample opportunity to indulge their violent ways. The harsh brutality of orcs gives them a slight edge over the average human fighter, but they are too ill-disciplined to properly hone their combat skills. Some orc warriors and chieftains may have the combat abilities of a Barbarian, but they never rise beyond 4th rank.

Orcs see well in darkness, but they hate and fear bright light. If forced to fight in sunlight, an orc must subtract 1 from his ATTACK and DEFENCE scores. Orcs often live below ground, so dwarves are particularly hated enemies. The stats for a typical orc-at-arms are as follows: 

ATTACK 12     Damage depends on weapon used
DEFENCE 5     Armour Factor depends on type worn
MAGICAL DEFENCE 3    Movement: 10m(20m) 
EVASION 3
Health Points 1d6 + 3         Rank-equivalent: 1st

The picture at the top is from the Natural History Museum and is  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Thursday, 18 September 2025

Gamebooks: a lightning tour

I've just heard about a great resource for gamebook fans: thirty-one themes in the medium, from horror to SF to modern to non-fantasy. Duncan Thomson's (no relation to Jamie as far as I know) in-depth post covers hundreds of different gamebook series both classic and modern. Check it out on Rand Roll here.

And if you want to write your own gamebook, Stuart Lloyd has compiled an invaluable reading list to get you started. And trawling through some old posts here (such as this one) might also prove inspiring. I also find it useful to listen to Hieronymus J Doom's perceptive analyses of gamebooks on the Haunted Phonograph and Ed Jolley's Adventure Gameblog.

Talking of gamebooks, have you been keeping up with Prime Games' development reports on the CRPG version of Blood Sword? The latest concerns my favourite character class to write, the Trickster:

"The Warrior holds the line. The Enchanter bends the arcane. The Sage unveils hidden truths. The Trickster thrives where no one else dares -- in shadows, in whispers, in the thin places between honour and survival. Assassin, Knave, Hunter, or something in between, the Trickster proves that guile can be sharper than steel."

Read more about the Blood Sword CRPG and add it to your Steam wishlist here.

Friday, 12 September 2025

Victorian-era D&D

Towards the end of my second year at college, I got a hankering to run a Victorian occult investigators campaign. This was 1978. There wasn’t yet GURPS or Cthulhu by Gaslight, so I used white box D&D rules only with spells capped at 2nd level. 3rd level spells were possible too, but only if found on scrolls. That way it wouldn’t all get too munchkin.

That was the idea. It didn’t stop the PCs slapping charm spells on suspects and just asking if they committed the crime, so investigation took a back seat to the usual OSR donnybrook with demons. If I were running it today I'd use a variant of the Dagon Warriors rules with sorcerers as well as psionics but spell-casting capped at maybe 3rd rank (4th rank from scrolls).

We had three player-characters. Father Simon Arkayne (Steve Foster) was a Catholic priest. A.X.E. Knolsbet (Andy Booth) was a gentleman detective and magic-user. And Tufton Beamish, Lord Beauchamp (Chris Elston) was a nobleman with a penchant for derring-do.

In the absence of a lot of spell-casting, there was much use of revolvers (there were few legal restrictions on those in 1890s Britain), sword-sticks and fisticuffs. The characters investigated murder cases, usually with a cult connection like this, often embroiling them in battles with mummies, werewolves or Babylonian demons. Sexton Blake and the Demon God was on TV and I had been a devotee of Sherlock Holmes in my teens. Blend those influences with Doctor Strange's interdimensional forays and a dash of Carnacki and John Silence (and, though I hate to admit it, Jules de Grandin) and you have a sense of what the games were like.

In fact, talking of Jules de Grandin...


That scene is taken straight from one of our adventures -- which, since it spilled over into the summer vacation, we had to complete by post. Paper letters with stamps, I mean, email not being a thing in those benighted times. Here's part of the very write-up I sent to the players:

The following term we even recorded a session in Steve's college rooms. That was long before actual play was a thing, and I have no idea if the cassette tape (1978, remember) still exists, but if I should come across it in a box in the attic, I'll digitize it and put it online.

Thursday, 11 September 2025

Casket of Fays #17

There's a new Casket of Fays just out with the usual blend of high-quality writing and art, this time with some gorgeous full-colour pieces by Inigo Hartas for Jewelspider

I won't list all the good stuff on offer, but among the articles I liked were Alistair Smith's thoughts on how to cut the "Gallows Wood" scenario from The Elven Crystals down to a single session's gaming. Alistair makes some good points, and I should have done it forty years ago on our DW promotional tour when I had to run the adventure every evening for sales reps and book buyers -- and invariably ran out of time.

Casket of Fays issue 17 is now available on DriveThruRPG.

Friday, 5 September 2025

Doomed Ones (a sorcerous subclass for Dragon Warriors)

Doomed Ones were originally a magic-using character class that I created in 1980 for Adventure, a roleplaying game that Games Workshop commissioned me to write. (The title was their idea.) A Doomed One permanently burnt a point of Constitution to unlock about twenty quite powerful spells. The character got one use of each spell and at any time could sacrifice another Constitution point to get another use of the twenty. Since Constitution both set the basis for the character’s hit points and limited the number of times they could be resurrected, it was a death sentence with a lot of power to use up on your way to the grave.

Even if Adventure (did I mention that was GW’s idea?) had ever been published, I’m not sure Doomed Ones would have made the final cut. They were kind of boring. A player would cross off a couple of Constitution points, then stingily husband their forty spells in any encounter while letting other characters do the heavy lifting. Not that that couldn’t make for an interesting dynamic, just that there was only one story to tell there and it didn’t bear repeating dozens of times.

There’s a certain logic to revisiting the idea using Dragon Warriors, seeing as how DW evolved out of my notes for Adventure (huh, that title…). So here they are.

Doomed Ones

A Doomed One is a Sorcerer who has bound themselves under ominous stars in the pursuit of magical power to the exclusion of all else. The Doomed One is treated like a normal Sorcerer except as follows:

Attack, Defence, Stealth, Evasion and Health Points do not increase with rank. Magic Points increase faster than for regular Sorcerers.

Because Doomed Ones are half in love with easeful death, they are unaffected by fright attacks caused by ghosts and the undead.

Every Doomed One has a fate in the form of a death that has been prophesied for them -- their doom. When creating the character, the player specifies a time of day (night, morning, afternoon or evening) and a cause of death. Causes of death should be reasonably general, not “belladonna mixed into warm milk” or "bitten in the ankle by an adder", say. Pick from this list or (with the GM’s discretion) something similar:

A blunt weapon, a cat, a dog, an edged weapon, fire, a fish, a fungus, a horse, an insect, a lake or pond, a moat, an ox, a pig, a plant, a rat, a river, rope, sand, the sea, a serpent, a tree, wine.

In any situation in which the character is exposed to the fated element, object, or thing at the fated time of day, they are subject to a Magical Attack of 2d6 + (d6 x rank/2). If that overcomes the character’s Magical Defence they are slain, if necessary by a freak accident. Conversely, if they survive, the close brush with death immediately restores their full Magic Points and Health Points scores.

The GM should bear in mind that dying because of a fish could include choking on a fish bone, for example. Further inspiration is available by looking at unusual demises in antiquity, in medieval times, and in the Renaissance. Or even these bizarre 17th century deaths. However, a character who is careful to guard against their fate should not be arbitrarily imperilled. Don’t say, “A horse bolts towards you out of nowhere and knocks you down.” In that example, the character should only risk their doom if they have voluntarily approached a horse or a stable at the preordained time, or if the situation makes an encounter with a horse reasonably likely.

The prophecy doesn't entirely protect the Doomed One from death by other means. If reduced to –3 Health Points in circumstances where their prophesied fate doesn’t apply, they are incapacitated but remain alive. The character can be healed and will recover consciousness when at positive health points but thereafter is a parolee of fate, having cheated death because of their prophecy, and recovers only 50% of their Magic Points each day until such time as they are faced with the preordained circumstances, whereupon they are challenged by the Magical Attack described above; if they survive that then their full sorcerous abilities are restored.

If reduced to –3 Health Points when the foretold cause (but not necessarily time) of death is present, the Doomed One is slain in a way that ensures the fulfilment of the prophecy. (‘She might have dodged that fatal blow if that darned cat hadn’t distracted her at the crucial moment.’) In those circumstances no Magical Attack resolution is needed.

If the Doomed One is slain in a manner that leaves no possibility of doubt – for example, incinerated in a furnace or sliced into small pieces – and the ordained cause is not involved, it is left to the GM’s ingenuity to contrive some way for the cause to take post-mortem effect. For example, the character’s coffin might be dropped in a river on the way to the churchyard, or the funeral procession might be held up by a runaway horse.

It goes without saying that a Doomed One should be careful to keep their prophesied fate a secret. The GM should not reveal it in front of other players until the circumstances apply, and even then conceal the precise details. If our example character is foolishly riding a horse in the afternoon, and the horse stumbles and throws him or her to the ground, the other player-characters won’t necessarily know if it was the tree root in the road or an insect bite on the horse’s rump or the horse itself that was to blame.

OK, look, if you really insist -- and don't say I didn't warn you -- here is part of the original manuscript of Adventure from 1980 in which Doomed Ones first appeared. It's mostly interesting for the glimpse of the Assassins rules, which I used when writing Out of the Shadows (DW book 4), but both Doomed Ones and Shamans (also in the excerpt) would probably have been dropped, at least in that form, if Adventure had ever come out.

Wednesday, 3 September 2025

Wide open worlds

Over the next ten years, artificial intelligence looks set to radically transform almost every field you can think of. Astrophysics. Materials science. Medicine and health. Education. Communications. Particle physics. Energy production, storage and transmission. Space exploration. And, um, war.

Entertainment is low on the list of priorities, but of course I'm interested in the possibilities for games, and I'm delighted to see that Sir Demis Hassabis (my former employer at Elixir Studios) is still excited by that stuff too -- and that he's talking about open world games.

The most revolutionary thing about open world games is not the ability to go in any direction or to make persistent changes to the world. As in real life, what we most care about interacting with aren't things but people. Stories are compelling, at their heart, because of character, not because of plot. 

AI opens up a host of new opportunities there. When I'm running a roleplaying game, I conjure up NPCs as needed. Some NPCs turn out to be more than walk-on parts. They can become as important to the story as the player-characters, which means I need to remember their background and goals. I need to keep them as personae that I can slip on at any time. AI can do that. You leave a magic sword at a farm, say. The farmer's lad you regaled with tales of adventure finds the sword. Much later, you might run across him -- now a renowned adventurer in his own right, jealousy guarding that sword that he really hopes you won't ask him to give back.

But the AI can do more than keep track of NPCs and their relationship to you. It can function as the game referee, judging when you need clues to steer you on the right track or when a lull in the action calls for a random encounter. This is what Jamie and I called the "god AI" when we compiled our design wishlist for the Fabled Lands MMO we hoped to develop at Eidos in the late 1990s. It only took thirty years, but now it's finally within our grasp.