Below Gwarnath: Bestiary – Converting "All the World's Monsters" to OSRIC (Part 1)

In developing my own stocking tables for the megadungeon, I want to incorporate not only AD&D/OSRIC monsters (including Monsters of Myth), but also thematic creatures from other sources like the Fiend Factory/Folio, Monster Manual II, Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, Dragon Magazine, etc. I also want to use the classic, 3-volume "All the World's Monsters" from 70s-era Chaosium.

ATWM Vol. I

For those not familiar with that series, ATWM was a collection of monsters from various homebrew sources. Many of the authors are rando contributors, but quite a few are luminaries of the early scene. In addition to being edited by RuneQuest designer Steve Perrin and Jeff Pimper, contributors included Dave Hargrave, Lee Gold, Paul Jaquays, Steve Marsh, Glenn Blacow, Steve Henderson, and Clint Bigglestone.

I was introduced to the ATWM books via my high-school DM's megadungeon, Darconea—a 20-level stack of Dungeon Geomorphs. The DM used lots of ATWM monsters throughout the dungeon, and they provided many harrowing battles and persistent nuisances. Several of the monsters (Doomguards, Gnomes of the Yippurai, Scrubbing Bubbles) became frequently-encountered elements of the dungeon's ecosystem. 

The books were landscape-oriented, written in all-caps, dot matrix letters, and featured crude ink drawings of some (but not many) of the crazy creatures. The stat blocks (example at right) were atypical of D&D, most notably featuring dice ranges for Intelligence and Dexterity, and frequent use of non-d8 Hit Dice that sometimes scaled to make the monster tougher. The stat blocks include details on encountering the creature (lair, wandering, treasure type, etc.) Armor Class is sometimes also a range, or has unexplained modifiers.

The mechanical ranges for the various stats often lack game-logic and seem up to the designer's whim. Some of the numbers get absurdly high. No real explanation is given in this book as to the mechanics of the system the monsters are designed for (maybe OD&D?). Volume II describes the "Perrin Conventions," which was an alternative system of OD&D used by West Coast players (similar in many ways to Dave Hargrave's Arduin system) and, I presume, the native system for these books as Jeff Perrin is the series' editor. Later ATWM volumes also give instructions for converting the stat blocks to RuneQuest and Tunnels & Trolls. I'll discuss the example monster above a little later, as it is on my Level 1 list. I'm sure all the vagueness is related to copyright law and early TSR's eagerness to squash any unlicensed third-party products.

Once I started DMing and learned more about how the AD&D system actually worked, I realized that most of the monsters are horribly designed and mechanically broken. The system is only OD&D-adjacent and seems to bear little resemblance to the mechanical underpinnings of that game. It also bears little relation to Chaosium's alternative-D&D game: RuneQuest. The stat blocks are wildly inconsistent and the dungeon levels assigned to some of the monsters are totally out of whack. You have to adapt all these monsters to D&D standards to use them properly.

Despite the books' many flaws, and though many of the monsters are complete garbage, there are still quite a few unpolished gems sprinkled throughout all three volumes. I want to take these diamonds-in-the-rough and convert them to OSRIC in a way that retains the core creative idea but fixes their broken or half-baked mechanics.

Each ATWM book contains tables of its monsters by creature type, terrain, and dungeon level, so I made lists of the monsters by levels 1–3 (for starters), and then I read them carefully to figure out which ones I wanted to convert for use. I'll discuss each one, but I'm not going to bother converting all of them because many aren't worth it. Not necessarily because they're bad, but because they're pointless or redundant with existing monsters. But make no mistake, a lot of them are just terrible.

This post will deal with the listed "Level 1" monsters from All the World's Monsters, Volume I (according to the index):

• Demon, Serpent (Lesser)
• Goblin, Glass
• Kill-Kill
• Maggot, Mind
• Plink Plant
• Weakling
• Worm, Mind

Several of these monsters are quite deadly for 2nd and 3rd-level characters, much less 1st (if we take the given that "dungeon level" equates roughly to "character level"). When I choose the monsters I want to use and then convert them, I will definitely realign their xp value and level designation. Let's dive on in...

Below Gwarnath – Level 1 Map Progress

I've finished mapping zones L, M, and N, and am finishing up zone O. I've been documenting the actual process of generating the random dungeon, recording my rolls and accounting for my creative decisions. I thought I would write a step-by-step tutorial for using the system, and I'm taking plenty of screenshots to show how the dungeon map evolves with the rolls.

I'm really impressed at how much interesting architecture you can create with just 24 short tables, and I'm sorry I didn't figure out how to use them earlier in my DMing career. The tutorial is already pretty long, so I'll probably break it into several smaller entries, which I'll start posting soon. As with my earlier progress posts, the map is too big for blogger, so this is a lower-res image. A full-size (7200 x 7200 px) image can be found here.

The basic concept I'm developing for this campaign is that the dungeon levels beneath the ruined city are not built to be a deliberate maze, but are simply the basements and sub-basements of Gwarnath which have been compressed under eons of construction layers, and broken by tremors and shifting earth, forming a disjointed, labyrinthine complex.

There have ended up being lots of circular rooms and chambers on this level, which I imagine are the bases of the city's once-soaring towers. For this level, all the stairs and shafts that "go up one level" on the table emerge into the ruins. Once this level map is complete, I'll use those routes and some of the other interesting features to anchor a map of the city ruins above, which I'll draw next. 

My immediate goal is to have the city level and at least 2 dungeon levels completed by Fall, when I will likely be ready to start the campaign. I still haven't decided if this will be for my Roll20 guys or my tabletop girls (or maybe both on different nights...it might be fun to have competing parties).

The Heart of St. Althus for OSRIC Is Now Available at DriveThruRPG

My latest adventure is now live on Drive-Thru RPG. I discussed the background and development of this one in an earlier post, so here's the cover and a few sample pages to check out.

 

Below Gwarnath – Level 1 Latest Progress

The Heart of St. Althus has been uploaded to Drive-Thru RPG, so while I'm waiting for it to be approved for sale, I turned attention back to developing my next campaign's mega-dungeon. Since my last post, I've filled in zones C, D, H, and I (including some creep back into neighboring zones that still had room to squeeze in some more dungeon).

Other than the four initial zones, I haven't rolled out any of the contents of the keyed areas yet, as I'm still developing customized tables for this campaign. I intend to stock each zone individually and post about the results when I get to that point. Below is a look at the map thus far, and here's a link to a higher-res (7500 x 7500 px) version.

To this point, I've been using the OSRIC tables to generate everything, but the more comfortable I get with these tables and the ones in the DMG, I'm liking the DMG version more. One of my main complaints about OSRIC's tables over the DMG's is one little result on one table. When following the course of a dungeon passage, you make a roll at the end of each corridor length to determine what's next. It's called "Table 18: General" in OSRIC, while in the DMG it's called "Table I.: Periodic Check."

They largely mirror each other, with the main differences being the placement and percentages for the same line items (for example, OSRIC provides for a 25% chance to come across a door, compared to the DMG's 15% chance). I'm dissatisfied with the OSRIC table due to the absence of the "Trick/Trap" result from the DMG. I've read that many of the little math differences in OSRIC come down to not wanting to emulate AD&D too closely, so perhaps that's the reason it wasn't included in this table, but I'm missing the presence of the occasional hallway trap.

I don't like the Wandering Monster result in both tables, either. I think it's there to facilitate solo play, but that's a different procedure than generating a dungeon, one that's already accounted for elsewhere in the rules. Is a solo player ALSO rolling an encounter check every proscribed period? In any case, I don't get it. So, as a compromise, I've decided to continue using the OSRIC tables, but treating all "Wandering Monster" results as a "Trick/Trap" instead. Same percentage chance as in the DMG, too.

I'm well into mapping zone L, and now that I've completed my latest publishing project, I may start properly keying the map soon as a test run for my new encounter tables. 

In addition to working on this, I've begun work on my next adventure for publication, an update to/adaptation of an older adventure entitled "Bugspittle's Hive." I'll have more to say on it in the near future, but it's a magical fairy mound full of insect ickyness. I've often referred to it as a "spiritual sequel" to "Etta Capp's Cottage."

The Heart of St. Althus – Finished Cover

Cover illustration is done, and the manuscript is complete and formatted. I'm giving it one final review and then I'll upload the file to Drive-Thru this weekend. Should be available sometime next week.

Adventure Sites III Now Available on DriveThru RPG

Coldlight Press has put the Adventure Site Contest III compilation up on Drive-Thru RPG, featuring the top-rated 8 submissions (out of 30 total). My submission, Ophidian Temple, is one of them. The price is FREE, so check it out if you want some good creative sites to drop in your campaign for your players to visit.

Also, my adventure, Aethelberd's Tomb, received a "No Regerts" ranking on tenfootpole.org. Woot!

The Heart of St. Althus – Cover Progress

My upcoming adventure was formerly known by its casual campaign name, The Haunted Chapel. I didn't really need to call it anything else, as I knew what the name referred to. I wanted a more interesting title for publication, however, so I renamed it after the holy relic enshrined inside the temple: The Heart of St. Althus.

Recovering the relic may or may not be the explicit goal of the adventure, depending on how the DM running it wants to involve the party in investigating the site. They may not even be aware the relic exists at the start of the adventure, but its presence in this site will be felt almost immediately by any Good clerics who enter the area. The item is based on a real-life holy relic: The Preserved Heart of St. Camillus.

I considered several ideas for the cover. One was an image of the chapel ruins, to give players a visual reference of the site, similar to what I did for the cover of Bergummo's Tower. Another idea was an action scene of some of the monsters encountered in the undercroft, like the Aethelberd's Tomb cover.

I ultimately went with an image of the relic as it seemed like an easier (and quicker) thing to illustrate, so I drew a quick sketch:

After scanning the sketch and drawing some blue lines for perspective, I converted the sketch into the basic shapes of the illustration. I still have lots of details to incorporate, and then need to color the whole thing, but its taking shape nicely, I think.