Hey, Wait A Minute . . .

From Reaper Miniatures' 2017 Bones IV Kickstarter Campaign:

From Reaper Miniatures' current Bones V Kickstarter campaign:

Nine for the Mortal Men, doomed to die . . . 

Anyway, said current Reaper Bones Kickstarter ends in about 21 hours, and there's way more cool stuff than just finally bringing their number of not-Ringwraiths up to code. Check it out!

Breakthrough in Gygax/Tolkien Studies!

The question of how much Gary Gygax was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien in the writing of the first few versions of Dungeons & Dragons is one of those topics that generates a great deal of chatter on the Internet these days, usually producing more heat than light. Personally I hold to the idea that Gary was fairly indifferent to Tolkien's fiction, but included the Middle-Earth elements at the insistence of his players. However, it did occur to me recently that in addition to the occasionally-superficial borrowing of monsters and classes, there is an element of old-school play which is closely modeled by The Lord of the Rings - the Appendices, even! - than any other source I can think of.

As is well known, D&D characters who attain high levels gain the ability to build strongholds and accumulate followers. The precise rules for this vary by edition - some retroclones* being especially well-known for expanding on this playstyle - and by class, but it's a pretty universal element.

Art by Ted Nasmith

Universal in the game, at least, but perhaps not so much in the inspirational literature. I've read a bit of discussion around AD&D's Appendix N, including Jeffro Johnson's tome on the subject, and don't recall seeing this ever mentioned. As for the Appendix N works themselves, well, we have Conan famously becoming king-by-his-own-hand of Aquilonia, and maybe John Carter becoming the Warlord of Mars if we stretch the definitions some, but these both of these involve taking over an existing power structure rather than carving out a new one. For that, the best example I can think of is the later careers of Legolas and Gimli:

"After the fall of Sauron, Gimli brought south a part of the Dwarf-folk of Erebor and he became Lord of the Glittering Caves. . . . Legolas his friend also brought south Elves out of Greenwood, and they dwelt in Ithilien, and it became once again the fairest country in all the westlands." - The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A

Now, despite my clickbaity headline, I doubt this passage had much to do with what we call the "Domain Game" of early D&D. In fact, I would tend to think the concept as driven more by gameplay needs than anything in fantasy fiction at the time, though I welcome further examples. Still, it's a remarkable correspondence in concept, and one that I certainly wouldn't mind exploring at the table someday.

*Affiliate link.

Requiem For Google+

Well, it's finally happened. After much sound and fury, the Google+ social media experiment is officially over. Being something of a late adopter to things like this I was only on for the last couple years, but during that time I saw a number of informative, amusing or useful things, some of which I was able to salvage:

Mappi Monday: Forgotten Ruins of the Middle Hyborian

For some time now, the minds behind the acclaimed military-space-opera novel series Galaxy's Edge, Nick Cole and Jason Anspach, have been working on a fantasy setting. There's not a great deal of information yet, although some bits can be gleaned from the Facebook page and the dedicated website. For example, yesterday the former revealed this amazing map:

Blog Zeitgiest Roundup: Pulp Middle-Earth

Perhaps it was the release of the Players Guide for Cubicle 7's official 5E Dungeons & Dragons Middle-Earth adaption* at the end of August, but it seems to me that in the last month or so there's been a lot of good discussion in the vein of playing Tolkien's masterpiece with a decided Howardian bent.

While some had explored similar ideas earlier this year, it was really Trey at From the Sorcerer's Skull that really kicked things off, with his post "Middle Earth with More Pulp":

"Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Númenor and the gleaming cities, and the years of the Fourth Age, there was an Age undreamed of, when realms of Elf, Man, and Dwarf lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. . . Hither came Aragorn of the Dúnedain, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a ranger, a wander, a chieftain, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the thrones of Arda under his feet." 

- The Red Book of Westmarch

Pitch-perfect bit of writing, that. And I'm not the only one who thought so, as Joshua Dyal at Dark*Heritage was inspired enough to not only dig up some of the most perfect artwork for a project like this, but to brainstorm some of Middle-Earth's pulpiest bits of history.

Frank Frazetta's Gollum

As the month went on, both Josh and Trey revisited the idea specifically to address what to do about the non-humans - Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs (Hobbits being lumped in with the Big People) - and come up with some pretty neat ideas.

Finally, at Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque CJK points out something very familiar in what's supposed to be a Lovecraftian symbol:

Oh, Ftghan.

Which brings up, at least to my mind, a whole other point - Howardian Tolkien is one thing, but Lovecraftian Tolkien? Quite another. From a slightly different perspective Gollum seems very ghoulish, for example, and just what is up with that thing Watching the Doors of Durin, anyway?


*Disclaimer: This, as well as most if not all other links to DriveThruRPG on this blog, go through an affiliate link that pays me if you click it and then buy something.

The Oldest School

Via Doc Grognard at Crawdads and Dragons comes news of Balrogs and Bagginses, an intriguing little document that is billed by Lars Dangly, the author, as a rules supplement for playing Dungeons & Dragons in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth setting.

Truth be told, it's practically a retroclone unto itself, with a number of interesting variations on the usual theme. Classes, for example, do not appear as such but are custom-built out of Backgrounds and Abilities. One particularly noteworthy feature here is the Hit Die, which can be bought up from d6 to d12, or bought down to d4.

Another fascinating design choice surrounds the available races - while the main character creation rules support the standard human-elf-dwarf-hobbit choices, the bestiary listings for troll and the various sorts of orcs list the attribute modifiers for playing those races, making an orc-campaign (or even a mixed group!) a supported possibility while keeping the Tolkienian feel.

The rest of the work supports this feel as well - Turning Undead, to pick a rather random example, is based not on the non-existent Cleric class, but the Light of Valinor or Elvish Gift abilities. There's a few other pieces that don't  fit quite as neatly - such as the hilariously hardcore Madness rule - but it's definitely worth checking out if you have any interest in Middle-Earth as a setting.