Magocracy of Tula: in our thesis we invented the Owlbear as a cautionary tale

Sarpedon the Shaper: at long last, I have invented the Owlbear from the classic grimoire Don’t Invent The Owlbear

Mere pigment won't do for spell scroll ink; the letters have to shine.

https://valinard.writeas.com/colours-of-magic

This weekend I found myself in an apartment by the sea, put up there by a friend I hadn't seen in years.

She had a busy weekend, so when she was free she showed me all of the beautiful sights and enchanting little community spaces of her town, and when she wasn't I was left alone to write in an airy seaside apartment full of plants.

It was an ideal situation and I got a lot written, including this little article on the nature of magic.

https://valinard.writeas.com/on-magic

Recently I've started using my blog as a way of thinking out loud about game design and the heartbreaker I'm working on.

Setting out not just the rules as I write them, but the concepts and the decision making process that led to them.

Here I talk about one of the first design decisions I made back in 2020:

https://valinard.writeas.com/under-over-rolls

My Saturday game for the fall is going to be based around the old Known World modules for D&D.

I'm hoping it'll be relaxed and low-prep, focused on nostalgic dungeon-crawling, give me plenty of opportunities to test mechanics for #redhack, and provide a good experience of old-school D&D for any new players we can bring in.

We're starting with Beyond Castle Caldwell. The last time I ran this module I was caught out by how sparse it was - the map is lazy and most of the NPCs don't even have names.

This time I was ready for it - the nice thing about sparse materials (like the Wilderlands maps) is how much space they give you to be creative. I gave the castle a new backstory, fleshed out the NPCs within, and looked out an improved map for it.

I had a feeling someone would have made one, so thanks to the Warlock for doing so a decade ago:

https://warlockshomebrew.blogspot.com/2009/12/b9-castle-caldwell.html

Tried out some new Encumbrance rules for #redhack -

• Every full 6 items you carry gives you a 1d6 Encumbrance die.
• When you spend an action for extra moves in combat, or take a Reaction, you have to roll your Encumbrance dice under CON or the action is wasted.
• When you start to move on the dungeon or hex map, you must make the same roll or take twice as long until your next rest.

The intent here is to minimise counting - items only need to be counted in multiples of six, which is easy if you arrange them that way on the table or on the sheet.

And that the effects of carrying too much are not "you're 1lb over the limit and now cannot move" but things becoming gradually more difficult.

Some more rules:

• If on a failed roll the excess dice exceed your STR, you cannot move at all without dropping items.
• If you don't have a backpack, encumbrance dice are d8s.
• Conversely each sack or similar container carried turns a d6 into a d4.