Tormenting Labyrinth Lord

I will be tying up some loose ends the next couple days before moving on to presenting design goals and playtest campaign for the so-called the Fantasy War Guide (working title mind you). Today we are finishing up our little two-week tour of UnderSigil.

Tacking on a possible Sigil undercity field trip(s) to the HC campaign just cries out for some new, setting-appropriate chrome to bolt unto my Labyrinth Lord chassis. The mini-campaign will likely include some untimely deaths—and a few new bloods from Google Plus—so I threw together some guidelines for new characters in that strange torus city in the sky.

In general, these house rules are also tailored more to reflect a tabletop version of Torment rather than the 2^nd (and later edition) canon. Since the delving tone of the mini-campaign just seems to jive better with the play experience of the computer version better than 2e canon, why not take the opportunity to make them tilt more that way?

Rules for Hill Cagers:

Clerics aren't a playable class for Sigil natives. Blood charms and clot charms giving magic healing effects will be plentiful and relatively affordable topside.

Local magic users will have access to all spells found in Torment, both the special ones of the playable NPCs and the uniquely 2^nd edition ones. Spell effects will be tailored to LL mechanics. Here's your chance to sex up your Magic Missile with a spell called Reign of Anger.

Weapons will also reflect the computer game, though not strictly. Axes, hammers/clubs, and daggers will be plentiful and cheap. Swords and missile weapons will be more rare and expensive as such (twice the price with a small percentage of availability modified by INT).

Armor will also be difficult to find and buy as per the game. Leather will be the norm, metal armors hard to find and generally more expensive (same chance as above). Again charms and other odd items to bolster AC temporarily will be reasonably easy to find.

Attributes will be 3d6 in order. However a player can draw from a pool of 6 dice when rolling each attribute. Regardless of how they are used only the 3 best results are counted for each stat.

An interesting variant mechanic in Torment is that high Wisdom gives you an Experience Point bonus. It makes a ton of sense, the ability to learn from our experiences seems to be a textbook definition of wisdom after all. In a Cleric-less world it further makes the attribute something other than a dump stat, so I'm going to run with. The chart below is taken directly from the game backend.

WIS	Exp Bonus
12 or less	0%
13	2%
14	5%
15	8%
16	10%
17	13%
18	15%

In this Sigil, factions are for squares...err...NPCs (and in the deep background in this delving centered take on Sigil). There is only three-fold alignment, though like factions it won't be strongly emphasized. All native PCs start as Neutral can be moved into Lawful or Chaotic on a session by session basis.

Now for some race-classes: Githyanki sub out for the Elf race-class (fighter/magic-users); Tieflings as fighter/thief race class (maybe use a modded version of the White Ape one in Realms of Crawling Chaos an tack an ability to cast darkness at a certain level); and my favorite goat centaurs the Bariaur (use Halfling advancement table, 60' infravision, 15' movement, STR 13 min). Of the standard demihumans, we'll have dwarves, courtesy of their underground corner of Sigil, Guirncraag.

Further Notes from Sigil Underground

This morning I compiled and synthesized more information cribbed from Planescape canon about the undercity. (Thanks to John and Chris W. for tips about where to look.)

Putting this together, I just couldn't resist the siren song anymore no matter how much candle wax I shoved into my ears. Following Micheal's lead, as of this morning two bright and shimmery gates were penciled into locales in the Hill Cantons for players to discover (or not) as a possible entry-point for field trips to that strange, cold place.

Features of UnderSigil:

The undercity definitely exhibits many of the reality-bending features of the Mythic Underworld, though of a more deliberately fabricated kind. Sigil's underground is not made of stone for example. The underground material is hard, you need a pick and shovel to tunnel through it but it crumbles like rice cake when removed from the underground. Since it's not really rock there are no natural caves or cavern systems.

Many of the passages are unstable, rare localized “cagequakes” will often bring down tunnels causing 3d4 damage (save vs. breath for only half) to anyone caught in such a collapse. Ventilation is bad, travellers can only take exerting themselves at half rate (presumably this is where the old school resting rules come in).

The complex is hundreds of square miles of tunnels and chambers, most of which are empty. The tunnels rarely get wider than 10 feet across with even narrower corridors common.

The upper levels are fairly close to the surface level and are mostly composed of sewers, crypts, and dungeons (the literal kind, the High Houses have deep and extensive ones for prisoners and slaves) . Dabus tunnels, were-rat passages, and vermin warrens connect all of these areas with passages extending to deeper levels. Darkers, mysterious exile communities living wholly without light, live in areas just off these branch-off tunnels.

There are many entrances to the Realm Below scattered through the city. The easiest entrance is through the sewers. You have to wade though the muck and filth for a few hours but you will find mysterious passages and doors leading off. These split-off passages lead downward at very steep angles (presumably long too).

Surface crypts will often lead down into the catacombs too. Cagers (Sigil dwellers) will often dig down underneath the crypts to bury their dead and will enlarge on existing catacombs when they find them. Ghouls who live in large numbers under the Hive and Lower Ward often dig up to the crypts too.

Many ruined surface structures, especially in the slums of the Hive, have entrances into the catacombs. The dwarven neighborhood, Gurincraag is rumored to have several entrances. A deep, 200-foot shaft (in the Lower Ward?) with filth-dripping walls leads straight down in the undercity. There is no visible means of descent but a maze of tunnels branches off in all directions at the base.

The rat-dominated realms have four separate—and vast—networks dominated by collective brain entities called the Four Great Minds. Sewer rats, cranium rats, and were-rats are part of these domains. Were-rat warrens are filled with traps—mostly of the sharp spikey, poisonous and blade persuasion. Entrances to these warrens mostly extend to the walls of the Ditch in the Lower Ward.

The Temple of Darkness is a major complex of sinister Eviiiil underground. It's a refuge for the scheming “yugoloths”, who have nothing to do with crappy Balkan-made cars but are a race of Neutral Evil planars we old schoolers knew and almost-loved as daemons. It's mapped in Faction War, making it one of the only major underground sites (to my knowledge) with a tabletop canonical map. But keep that under your hat this place is secret and hidden.  

Pointcrawling Sigil's Undercity

In yesterday's post about the megadungeon possibilities missed in Planescape's hub city, Sigil, Michael Moscrip asked very nice and polite like for a setting supplement. Since he's ill-advisedly talked about running a Dickensian-like Sigil adventure—even going as far as to create a portal to it from the Google Plus pocket universe's Castle Nicodemus–it's in my enlightened self-interest to help out.

I am way too swamped to do a great sweeping treatment, but here's a stab at a few things to get someone going on creating a Sigil underworld of their own.

First of all, we have to deal with John's good, tough question from yesterday:

“My trouble with the Catacombs is that, in a way, they're too big. On the one hand I like the idea of the entire torus being riddled with dungeon passages. But if I have one entrance in the Twelve Factols and another entrance in the skull library, ten miles away, how can I ever link them up in a way that matters? For all practical purposes they're two separate dungeons. Do I "cheat" with miles and miles of empty passageways? Weird dungeon spatial warping?”

Yes to both seems most appropriate given what we know, namely that most of the undercity was created as work and living space by the tinkering dabus and that as many inter-dimensional gates exist below as they do above. If this section is to be believed you have something as reality-defying as the Mythic Underworld:

“Nobody's ever dug so deep that they come to the 'other side' of Sigil's toroidal surface. Those who dig deep enough simply disappear, presumably stumbling into a random plane, and nobody's ever been able to figure out a pattern to it.”

So how do you run such a sprawling beast? I suggested trying to apply my pointcrawl system (John answers his own question with some interesting remarks about a hex-based solution in the comments).

Above is a pointcrawl map listing every site that gets a mention in canonical material. Underscoring yesterday's point all but two of the sites, the Gurincraag (a dwarven neighborhood under the Lower Ward) and the Twelve Factols Inn (mentioned yesterday), are drawn from Torment.

Large boxes indicate major sites, worthy of a single dungeon level or two. Green boxes indicate a site that has humans or other overworld living creatures living there, blue indicate wholly “monster”-inhabited levels. The smaller uncolored boxes indicate “sublevels”, special areas that would typically be 2-10 rooms in a normal dungeon.

Unbroken lines indicate the more normal walkable tunnels and other . Squiggly lines indicate places joined by a “teleporting” portal (all such portals have some kind of material key to them). Arrows indicate that the connection leads downward in that direction. Connections should be of variable length and indicated on the map (out of laziness I didn't).

What about stocking these places? Here's where I am going to punt. Since the vast majority of this space is treated in the computer game—many of these areas get a highly detailed treatment in the numerous online walkthroughs of the game. You will find a number of useful links to maps and descriptions on the various levels and sub-levels here at Sorcerers.net.

Eyeballing these maps they feel too cramped, too square and oddish in shape to be a perfect fit for tabletop maps—and you have to deal with the meta-gamey knowledge of those who have played through—I would strongly advise using them as a launching pad, expanding the maps and areas over longer dimensions.

End of backseat driving, now go and build.  

Planescape's Missing Megadungeon

It struck me the other day that Planescape is another of those tabletop settings that bitter-sweetly is both well loved and little played. Well...that is except for it's popular computer alter ego, Planescape Torment. Not only was that game played widely in the years around its 1999 release, it's considered a cult hit to this day.

Why the disconnect? Why didn't the tabletop version rocket into cult status too?

Undoubtedly there are many reasons: the rising primacy of computer games over face-to-face, the runaway popularity of the Bioware games of that era, Planescape's appearance at the end of the 2e setting smorgasbord, etc. But it occurred to me that part of it is that Torment managed to hit some deep D&D elements that the tabletop material glossed over in its drive to play toward being a rival with that White Wolf hooha of the time (thanks Robert and other readers for that particular insight).

Namely it made good on the megadungeon lurking under the streets of the setting's literal hub city, Sigil. Enamored by its original bits, most gameplay in the setting revolved around adventure around the planes and less successfully around political intrigue amongst the factions.

Hints at a undercity play arena were only vaguely hinted at. The original Sigil booklet has the haziest of mentions and it's only later with In the Cage: a Guide to Sigil supplement do you even get a peak at what a massively missed opportunity there was:

"The homes of the dabus [the weirdo, rebus-speaking floating worker drones of the city] are deep underground; some Cagers [Sigil citizen] say that the entire torus is a warren of dabus, and that the part of Sigil on the surface is only the face the city shows to the Ring, to travelers. The actual city is a maze of deep tunnels, storehouses, dungeons and corridors...”

That's a hell of a tease. The booklet goes on to continue to tease about the possibility throughout the book, detailing places like the Twelve Factols, an underground tavern where drunken obnoxious diners will on occasion force the serving staff to let them traipse into the deep passages that lead into the Catacombs behind warded doors. You hear a lot about the tavern in that passage but nothing about what lies beyond.

According to the Planewalker wiki this massive underground is only called “UnderSigil” by the Clueless (outworld newbies according to that annoying PS in-game cant), it is mostly known as "down below," "the Catacombs," "the Realm Below," or "the Labyrinths" according to the locals. The mention of it immediately makes me think of the romance of the giant undercities of Tekumel, where the ritual half-millennial clearing and rubbling over of the cities create layer over layer of rich adventure.

Whatever the name it is called (and I am partial to all of them as evocative titles) Torment was the only large-scale exploration of that play area in the setting. Play down underneath in the game simply rocks. Each sub-map of down below just drips with unique flavor and seem ready made for the sub-level punctuation of the sheer mass of a megadungeon.

You have a Buried Village under the heaps of the Trash Warrens. You have an entire underworld realm of sentient skeletons, zombies, and ghouls with a unique civilization, the Dead Nations. Another subrealm, the Warren of Thought, dominated by a collective rodent brain with its cranium rat and wererat minions. An animate skull library, the Bones of the Night, lorded over by a kooky wizard. Weird tombs and catacombs a plenty with talking carved heads and unique critters.

Great stuff in other words.

Play in D&D doesn't have revolve around the eponymous dungeon, but it's often at it's best as a game when the agoraphobia is kept under wraps by the comfort of a tight mortared ceiling. It's a shame that UnderSigil wasn't explored further, but I suppose that's what makes Gygax's famous parting words from OD&D ring so true yet again: “why have us do any more imaging for you?”

Indeed. Go forth and build your own undercity.

The Planescape Look

My Johnny-come-lately exploration of 2e Planescape has gone gangbusters this week. Thanks to hot tips from you fine, but enabling folks, little brown packages from the mail order gods have been rolling in each day.

Contact has left me appreciating much of that old line with only a few tugs of dislike (nothing about that today I am in “jaunty cap” mood). One of the things that really caught me is the conscious attempt to put together a real, unified aesthetic to the products—a shocker for me really since the vast majority of D&D art became so exponentially awful and commercial year after year following the early 80s.

My interest piqued, I went out looking for why TSR had put out such a markedly different feeling and looking line at the time. Fortunately White Wolf magazine (a painfully pretentious and vapid publication that I feel dirty for having bought legally) had some interesting skinny on its development in issue 43.

Of particular interest was an article by the designer himself, Dave “Zeb” Cook, called “Mutating the Planes”. In the piece he talks about the inspiration that went into the month of figuring out what he wanted to do with the new:

“I put on my headphones and cued up Pere Ubu, Philip Glass and Alexander Nevsky. For inspiration, I read books: The Dictionary of the Khazars, Einstein’s Dreams and The Narrow Road to the Deep North. For fun, there was always...Naked Lunch to Wolf Devil Woman [on] the VCR. For some reason, all this started affecting my brain.”

How could that go wrong? Reading that I can't help but think about all my peers (and really myself too) lists of strange disparate influences in Zak's GM questionnaire meme. A right-brained approach to worldbuilding that I can really appreciate.

Now back to the actual look Cook envisioned:

“I could think and write about these things, but the setting needed a look. I already had some images in mind--the gloomy prisons of Piranesi’s Le Carceri etchings, Brian Froud’s illustrations and surrealist art. Foolishly, people believed in me, and Dana Knutson was assigned to draw anything I wanted. I babbled, and he drew--buildings, streets, characters and landscapes. Before any of us knew it, he drew the Lady of Pain.”

Aha, that's what makes it click.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi's 18th-century flights of fantasy (and note how Carceri becomes a prison plane in the setting) has been a longtime favorite from his multilevel crampedness of the prison sketches to the gloomy ruins of Rome to the grand, weird cityscapes. Look at these fine examples and you can see the inspiration points for the work above.

Brian Froud provoked the same reaction, the “Dark Crystal dude”. Just take a gander at some of the concept art for that dark muppetish fantasy flick.

Great stuff.

I like the idea of thinking hard about all your points of internal visualization and pulling them together into a more coherent whole. It beats the pants off thinking about the art as a secondary thing, at best a pretty bow-tied package to wrap up the real meat of the prose.

It seems remarkable to me given the "published setting as schlock factory” that was the bread and butter of 2e-era TSR—a departure I have only really encountered again (successfully at least) in the DIY sections of our hobby in the last few years. Bully for that. 

Planescape oh the Torment

Whipping up a batch of fresh New Year's resolutions early this month, I treated myself to breaking last year's most successful one: thou shalt not play computer games. For an entire year—with the notable lapse with obsessing about uniting the wild Orlanthi clans of Dragon Pass over my Iphone screen—it was a resolution that I not only accomplished, but thrived under.

Computer games—especially the ultra-layered and complex strategy games like Europa Universalis and its love-children—and I have a long history of love/hate. Predictably, I will load one up, getting increasingly drawn in, having great fun at first and then minutely and gradually it turns to something isolating and chore-like.

Stopping cold turkey, a relatively easy thing to do given the tendency of cprgs to become lifeless, cut-scene-dominated railroads these days, freed up more time for an activity that energizes me: face-to-face gaming (and it's close-enough equivalent on Google Plus).

What kind of gaming crack could send my packing back to a computer screen?

Planescape Torment, a game I avoided for years despite my longstanding love for the Baldur's Gates and Icewind Dales—my only real connection to D&D for decades. Never a big fan of the hokey AD&D extra-planar hooha, the setting sounded as appealing as that famous trainwreck Dragonlance to my ears.

I was wrong. Not only is it a great, mostly non-linear game with relatively deep rich layers, but I found it actually inspiring my campaign neurons rather than just glazing them over. A number of ideas intrigued me about the game enough that I want to find a home for them back in my face-to-face gaming:

Scrodinger's Character. In Torment your PC's attributes emerges during actual play than in pre-game chargen--a game concept that Zzarchov employs in Neo-Geek Revival. While not being a big fan of D&D's alignment, I did dig the idea of starting as Neutral through your own choices developing into another. It gives alignment a dynamism, more like a vector, that seems more satisfying and resonant with human character then just picking one at the beginning and staying within its confines unless you make a major transgression.

Likewise the idea of picking class during play, you start as a fighter and can move into other classes as you interact with NPCs and make choices, appealed to me. Granted both ideas I explored somewhat with my zero-level rules, but possibly something to be toyed with in later level play.

Extra-planar Hub City. With the growing energy around open world play with FLAILSNAILS and Google+ gaming, this idea has more appeal to me. I still am not a big fan of the AD&D idea of a multiverse but a cherry-picking of some of the more interesting planes coupled with gates into other campaign worlds on the prime sound like something I'd like to develop.

Spells and Gear with Flavor. This was a big one for me as it's one of the areas I feel like I have to stretch my creativity more. I want a world were magic is steeped more in the specific feel of the setting, where spell names and effects frame around a character's doctrine. Where even a re-skinned Magic Missile, Reign of Anger, drips flavor.

I also want more items like charms made from hardened blood clots and parasitic flies that melt on your tongue and weapons that hold strange backstories and an array of unusual powers and curses.

(If folks are interested I have compiled and edited two documents totaling over a 100 pages all the descriptions and AD&D tabletop mechanics of the magic items, weird gear and unique spells. Bestiary coming next. Drop me an email if you are interested.)

Curious to hear if others have been inspired by the game or another of its cousins. If you have ported back a piece or large section for your own tabletop game.

Now back to Baator.