Come fly with me

Page X20 of the 1981 D&D Expert rules includes a section titled "Traveling by Air", which includes this neat section rating who can ride what by hit dice.  For example, human-sized characters can ride (or be carried off by) all the canonical BX dragons because all those winged lizards have at least 6 hit dice, the minimum required to lift a human.  My favorite part is that flying creatures rated from 3 to 5 hit dice can carry halfling-sized riders.  (Pegasi and hippogriffs fall in this hit die range, but are specifically granted an exception allowing them to carry bigger folk.)

So I thought I'd look through the BX monster sections to see what sort of flying monsters a band of pint-sized aerial adventurers could ride.  Here's what I found:

gargoyle - a mount immune to normal weapons will probably get you into more trouble than you want
harpy - might require ear plugs or larynx removal
lizard, draco - goblins on dragon lizards sounds pretty cool
cockatrice - illogical, unfeasible but imagine a halfling sheriff enforcing law from the back of one of these
hawk, giant - sounds cool
pteranodon - maybe you'd think a dinosaur with a 50' wingspan could carry a fullsized human, but with only 5 hit dice that isn't the case, still I'm imagining cave halfings on these babies and that sounds cool
wraith - If you see a halfling wearing a necro-harness and riding the back of a wraith, run.  Just run.

The Erol Otus illo at the top of the post is from the page with the Travelling by Air rules.  I've often wondered about that hippogriff-rider.  Is that a cyclops with a ponytail wearing a crown?  And the woman on the flying carpet looks like she has horns on her head, which contributed to my theory that maybe elves or some elves or elf-women or at least some elf women had horns.  See also this Bill Willingham piece from the inside cover:

Triple badass threat.

Celestial Sects of Sarpedon, part 1

Eventually this will be a big ol' chart (maybe d20) that newly minted clerics roll on.

Celestial Sects

1.

SECT NAME:	The Crimson Arbitrators
GOD:	Arishem the Judge, He Who Judges
SYMBOL:	see below
GARB:	red robes, white belt/girdle/sash, ridiculous cylindrical hat
SPECIAL RULES:	no holy symbol required, instead each 1st level cleric receives a small runic tattoo with special white ink on their right thumb which serves as their holy symbol.  Upon advancing a level the cleric must get the new tatoo expanded.  By third level the thumb and part of the palm are covered, by ninth the hand and forearm.
OTHER STUFF:	Often called upon to settle disputes.

2.

SECT NAME:	Order of the Seventh Eye
GOD:	Eson the Search, Lord of the Seventh Eye
SYMBOL:	hand with eye in palm
GARB:	robes of green and one other color, typical dark red, brown or purple; clerics of this order paint their faces with 2 additional sets of eyes, kinda like this:
SPECIAL RULES:	can use tridents (d6 stabbing 1 handed, d8 2 handed, throw range as hand axe), use 2 MU spells Water Breathing (as Cleric spell level 3) and Wizard Eye (as Cleric spell level 4)
OTHER STUFF:	temples tend to be by or under water

3.

SECT NAME:	Servants of the Gatherer
GOD:	Gammenon the Gatherer, the Golden Cyclops
SYMBOL:	winged eye
GARB:	varies from temple to temple, but lots of golden jewelry whenever possible
SPECIAL RULES:	can cast Web as a second level cleric spell, webs are shimmering red
OTHER STUFF:	clerics of this god tend to use knobby maces painted red, additionally they have access to some high tech weaponry (pistols, rifles, grenades, etc.) they totally swiped from some time-travelling Nazis

4.

SECT NAME:	The Measurers
GOD:	Hargen the Measurer, Lord of the Mountains
SYMBOL:	eye in a triangle or eye on a mountain
GARB:	green and orange robes, split cape
SPECIAL RULES:	none
OTHER STUFF:	temples on or at the foot of mountains

5.

SECT NAME:	The Rune Lords of Jemiah
GOD:	Jemiah the Analyzer
SYMBOL:	a series of special runes worn on a headband/tiara/crown, sometimes a blue heart
GARB:	greens, greys and blues, covered with nonsense runes
SPECIAL RULES:	gains Read Magic as a 1st level Cleric spell, usable for unlocking MU scrolls
OTHER STUFF:	because the Rune Lords can use but not transpose MU scrolls they are widely reviled by magic-users for their ongoing depletion of ancient magics

6.

SECT NAME:	Children of the Smiling Shadow
GOD:	Nezzar the Calculator, the Smiling Shadow
SYMBOL:	a handheld cube, pyramid, octahedron or dodecahedron of transparent glass, crystal, etc.
GARB:	black and blue robes, hooded cloaks
SPECIAL RULES:	may use Phantasmal Forces as cleric level 2 spell, +2 saves versus cold (becomes +4 at level 5)
OTHER STUFF:	According to rumor, the greatest temples of this sect are at Sarpedon’s poles

Five Things You Need to Know About Sarpedon

Howdy!  Back in April of last year I wrote a weird thing about a science fantasy D&D world I called Sarpedon.  I've decided to try fleshing it out a bit.

Five You Need to Know About Sarpedon

1. Sarpedon is a gas giant system. A huge ringed planet looms in the sky. Technically the world that the adventures happen on is Sarpedon E, the gas giant being Sarpedon Prime. However, in daily conversations its clear to most people whether you are talking about the Sarpedon in the sky or the Sarpedon under your feet, so most folks don’t specify.

 

2. Jack Kirby’s Celestials are the gods of the setting. These armored space giants are just as silent and enigmatic as in Kirby’s original vision, so that the various beliefs of the sects and temples on Sarpedon are based upon what people think about the Celestials. The gods are real. The divine power of clerics seems to be based upon them somehow. But they don’t hand out cosmic truths or give commands.

 

 

3. It gets pretty hot on Sarpedon. People dress more like Frazetta’s Barsoom than most Middle Earthy fantasy worlds.  I'm still working on a good simple rule for overheating while wearing heavy armor that uses one's Con score but isn't a complete kick in the pants.

 

 

4. There are two strains of humanity on Sarpedon, with their own histories and cultures. The Cyrannians (see below) are descended from Earth people, while the Gandaharians have their own range of skintones (blues being most common, but reds, yellows, greens, greys and stark whites have been seen). The Gandaharians have a genetic predisposition towards total baldness and some have pointed ears, but otherwise they are physically identical to Earth-type humans. Beyond appearance, there are major cultural differences between Cyrannians and Gandaharians. The Gandaharians live in small matriarchal groups. Their technology tends to be more organic.

5. The Cyrannians are descendants from a minor colony so far in the space boonies that the Cylons didn’t know they existed. They never got the evacuation order. New Cyrannus on Sarpedon E is a colony of the original Cyrannians, though contact with the mother world has been lost for centuries.  Their culture is more classic D&D faux-medieval pseudo-feudal than the matriarchal tech-organic hippy-ness common to the Gandaharians.

is my blog dead or what?

Hey, gang.  Spring break approaches and as a grad student I've got a crapload to do, but I thought I might try to hop on the wagon and start blogging again.  I've got some notes for a new campaign that I could flesh out a bit and at least one really stupid D&D rules idea we can talk about.

The thing is, I've been considering switching venues, possibly to tumblr.  Would that be a big inconvenience for people?  I know that would make commenting a bigger hassle, but honestly I'm not sure if I can resume writing a blog and responding to comments.  And something about the interface just sooths me, whereas blogger has always been a mild pain in the ass.  I dunno.  Please share your opinion.