Friday Fantasy: Hidden Hand of the Horla

In ages past there stood on the edge of the kingdom the dwelling of a great wizard. He was known as the Hand Mage, for the tower in which he experimented and hoarded his magics and his treasures was purportedly shaped like an open hand. After standing at the edge of the kingdom for many years, the Hand Mage’s Tower disappeared without reason and without a trace. Of course, the Hand Mage being a wizard meant that there were rumours that he had offended the gods and been cast into hell or that the pact he had made with a demon for his powers had run its course and he was paying his due, likely having also been cast into hell. It has been so long since the disappearance of the Hand Mage’s Tower that it has passed into legend, a mere footnote in the history of the kingdom and some sage’s dusty notes. Now though, the Hand Mage’s Tower has reappeared exactly where it once stood. Where has it been? Is the Hand Mage still inside? If not, what has happened to him, let alone the tower itself? And can his secrets and treasures be found within its walls?

This is the set-up for Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla, a short, but detailed scenario for use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steven M. Marsh. It is published by Appendix N Entertainment and is part of the publisher’s ‘Gateway to Adventure’ series of supplements. What this means is that adheres to an ‘Old School’ ethos in terms of its design. So, there will be encounters and threats in the adventure that will be too challenging to defeat or overcome for the Player Characters of the Level that it was written for, although there is nothing to prevent players using lateral thought or cunning; traps and puzzles rely on the players solving them rather than a mere roll of the dice; player creativity is encouraged; and adventures are designed as toolkits with scope for the game Master to develop details during play. Certainly, this applies to Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla, as there is one threat which will be difficult for the Player Characters to defeat.

Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla is designed for Player Characters of First to Third Level, and can be easily slotted into a campaign and played through in a session or two. It uses Dyson Logos’ ‘The Stone Sinister’ as the map of the Hand Mage’s Tower and includes new monsters and new spells. What brings the Player Characters to the Hand Mage’s Tower is essentially treasure, which feels rather drab. The adventure includes a table of rumours, but most of them are not very interesting either. What is interesting is that the Player Characters are not the only ones with an interest in the tower. A tribe of Chaotic Goat Folk, led by the shaman, Sha’aazra’aak, is set on looting the tower for its magical treasures and will already have been in the tower and barricaded the most obvious entrance for a number of days before the Player Characters arrive. The scenario includes a table of options for what the Goat Folk have done and what they are up to. This is to make the scenario replayable, but it is debatable as to how replayable the scenario actually is, given the fact that the whole scenario consists of a tower with thirteen locations and four options in terms of Goat Folk actions. Plus, the tower is shaped like a hand, so it is highly memorable and if the Game Master wants to run it again, she really has to give a good reason why the characters would want to return to the Hand Mage’s Tower, let alone have the players play through it again.

In fact, there is a reason why the Player Characters might want to return to the Hand Mage’s Tower, but it requires a magical item which enables control of the tower and which the scenario only mentions, but does not detail, and finding that magical item lies very much outside the scope of the adventure. Of course, in the event that the Player Characters obtain this item, by the time they return to the Hand Mage’s Tower, it will have changed as the Goat Folk will no longer there and the Player Characters will have looted all of its valuables previously. Now perhaps a table of motivations and hooks beyond simply looking for treasure could have supported the scenario actually being replayable, but again, as written, highly debatable.

Once the Game Master has decided upon what the Goat Folk are doing, the Hand Mage’s Tower is nicely detailed with particular attention paid to the Hand Mage’s working areas. Careful investigation of these will reveal some of what happened to the Hand Mage before he disappeared and thorough searches will uncover plenty of treasure to take away if the Player Characters came equipped for haulage! In fact, the Hand Mage’s Tower is a treasure in its own right. Claiming it though means facing the true danger that lies hidden in the tower and then the Game Master developing the means to take control outside of the adventure itself. This danger lies behind the scenario’s big puzzle—depicted very nicely in the scenario’s on handout—and is insidiously nasty. This is the Horla, based on the short story ‘Le Horla’, published in 1887 by the French author, Guy de Maupassant. An invisible creature, it will attempt to possess a Player Character and then proceed, in the long term, to betray and kill the rest of the party. This then, is the threat that the Player Characters are unlikely to be able to overcome at their Level, merely be lucky enough to make a successful Saving Throw to avoid being possessed. That said, destroying the Horla may be a good reason for the Player Characters to return to the Hand Mage’s Tower. Of course, handling the possession and roleplaying the betrayal requires careful play upon the part of both Game Master and players.

In addition to the scenario, Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla includes three appendices. In turn, these detail the various monsters in the adventure, such as Animated Books and Winged Vipers as well as the Goat Folk and the Horla; a selection of spells with a hand-theme, like Mage Hand, Forceful Hand, and Crushing Hand, with a guide to spells beyond Sixth Level (and thus outside the scope of Old School Essentials); and a list of Inspirational Media. The latter does include ‘Le Horla’ alongside Twin Peaks and Diary of a Madman.

Physically, Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla is very nicely presented. The layout is clean and tidy, and the artwork is good as well. Naturally, the cartography is excellent. The adventure does need an edit in places.

Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla is a toolkit in that it will need working into a campaign given that it has consequences beyond the limits of the Hand Mage’s Tower and it really does need a hook or three to get the Player Characters involved beyond mere treasure hunting. Further, its claims of replayability are dubious at best as written and so again, will require some development upon the part of the Game Master. Module T1 – Hidden Hand of the Horla is a decent mini-scenario, an easy to run introductory adventure, though one which does have a sting in its tale that needs careful handling.

[Fanzine Focus XXXV] The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a non-professional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Then there is also Old School Essentials.

In the early days of the hobby, following the publication of first Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, and then Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the nascent hobby was awash with creativity much of which would find an outlet in the fanzines of the day. Yet due to the vagaries of time and history, much of the content of those fanzines have been lost. What though, if a creator today, could delve back into that history and resurrect that content for today’s audience? This is the conceit behind The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes, ‘A GATEWAY TO ADVENTURE supplement for use with the Original Edition Fantasy and Old School Essentials Retro Adventure Game’. Published by Appendix N Entertainment, this is an attempt to resurrect two Classes for Dungeons & Dragons that never made into print and present them for use with the Old School Renaissance. Conceit, because truth be told, the author has relatively little on which to base the new Classes he creates for the fanzine, and consequently, they are more his creation rather those of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. This does not means that the four Classes presented are bad, but rather that their heritage is perhaps not as strong as the author might wish it to be.

Further, it should be noted that two of the four Classes are not Arnesonian and feel as if they are drawn from other sources, being the creation of the author. The two Arnesonian Classes are the Merchant and the Sage, whilst the two that are not are two of the Beast Folk Classes, the Chimpanzee Folk and the Duck Folk. Then, both the Chimpanzee Folk and the Duck Folk are presented as Races rather than Classes. In this way, The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes supports both the ‘Race as Class’ of Basic Dungeons & Dragons and the ‘Race & Class’ of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, or in contemporary terms, the ‘Race as Class’ of Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy and the ‘Race & Class’ of Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy.

The two Arnesonian Classes, the Merchant and the Sage, are highly skill-based. The Merchant knows more languages, and besides ‘Find or Remove Traps’ and ‘Open Locks’, has ‘Bargaining’ and ‘Appraisal’ for dealing with the buying and selling of goods (and treasure found too), and ‘Equivocate’, the ability to hide the truth, avoid commitment, and so on. Combined with the ‘Know Direction’ ability, and what you have is a Class dedicated to travel and trade. The Merchant is also a member of, owes dues to, a merchant’s guild, which the Game Master can use as a factor and influence in the Player Character’s life and career. The Sage also knows more languages and is a member of his own guild, but primarily specialises in ‘Sage Knowledge’, an academic area like Botany/Herb-lore, Astronomy, Theology, and Archaeology. The more Intelligent the Sage, the more areas of expertise he specialises in. Although not a spellcaster, the Sage Class can use arcane magical items, such as wands. Lastly—quite literally—the Sage has one special ability that he can use when dying due to a malicious act. This is the ‘Sage’s Cure’. If bestowed by a high-Level Sage, it can be really powerful, like not being able to make any Saving Throw ever again!

Both the Merchant and the Sage Classes are interesting, the latter perhaps more familiar because it was included as an NPC type in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Both though, are limited as adventuring Classes in the classic sense. The Sage in particular, has limited adventuring skills and whilst he knows a lot, the problem really is how to bring that knowledge into play and have it be useful in a game, since this is not a feature of Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. This is less of a problem for the Merchant, since the Class does possess abilities and skills that can be useful in a game. Nevertheless, the Game Master is going to have cater for the trading aspect of the Merchant in her campaign for a player to want to play it and use all of the Class’ abilities, whilst working extra hard to bring the areas of knowledge and expertise of the Sage into play and make them pertinent and useful. This may well be so challenging, that the Sage may still be best suited to an NPC role.

The other two Classes in The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes are the Chimpanzee Folk and the Duck Folk. The Chimpanzee Folk is like the Sage in having ‘Chimp Knowledge’, which works like ‘Sage Knowledge’ and extra languages, but otherwise more physical with the ‘Climb Sheer Surfaces’, ‘Falling’, and ‘Tightrope Walking’ skills, whilst the ‘Evasion’ ability enables a Chimpanzee Folk to tumble out of melee and avoid an opponent’s usual bonus to hit. The Duck Folk is viewed as an aberration, touched by Chaos, by almost everyone bar other Duck Folk and the most knowledgeable of Sages. A Duck Folk has the innate abilities of ‘Know Direction’ and ‘Natural Swimmer’, but also loathes the undead, so can ‘Turn Undead’ and has bonuses in combat against the undead with ‘Undead Slayer’. Rounding out The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes is a more detailed examination of both the Chimpanzee Folk and the Duck Folk as Races and the fanzine’s own ‘Appendix N’. In the case of the descriptions of the Chimpanzee Folk and the Duck Folk as Races, it does flesh both out, whether they are being played as ‘Race as Class’ or ‘Race & Class’.

Of the two, the Chimpanzee Folk feels more sensible than the Duck Folk. In both cases, the inspiration is obvious. The Chimpanzee Folk is inspired by Doctor Cornelius and Doctor Zira of Planet of the Apes, whilst the Duck Folk feels inspired by the Humakti undead-hating Ducks of Glorantha of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in the Glorantha as much as Howard the Duck and Duck Tales.

Physically, The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes is well presented. It is well written and the artwork decent enough even if the major inspiration upon the illustrations of the Duck Folk is Disney.

The usefulness of The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes is debatable. The easiest Class to play and include in a campaign is the Duck Folk and that is also the silliest, the one most likely to stick out in a standard campaign, and the least interesting. The Chimpanzee Folk is not quite as silly, but not as easy to bring into play, because catering for the knowledge aspect of the Class, as with the Sage Class, shifts some of the emphasis of play away from action and adventuring. As does the need for trade and barter with the Merchant Class, but that Class does include adventuring skills alongside those required for trade and barter. This does not mean that the Classes in The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes are unplayable, but rather that in many cases they make demands of a campaign that will need to be accommodated. Consequently, the best use of the Classes in The Lost Classes: The Arnesonian Classes is to create worlds where they fit rather than shoehorn them into standard fantasy worlds where they do not.