Forgotten Runes Volume 2

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Forgotten Runes Volume

2

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Forgotten Runes Volume 2

From September 1, 2010 to August 31 2012

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Preface

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Well I picked up my copies of the Rules compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Land. Although I am still reading my way through them, I thought I would post some quick reactions. I liked the selection of contents for the Rules Compendium I think I actually could carry this book, instead of the Dungeon masters guide and Players guide. However I am not impressed with the 320 pages they used to do it. I guess its back to boiling the rules down to four 8.5x11 inch sheets that will fit in my interchangeable Dungeon Masters screen. She-who-must-be-obeyed pointed out the new format does not lay flat and without the hard cover may get ground to shreds in the backpack. Mr. Minmax pointed out on Thursday that although the new character builds are simpler they have lost a lot of power of the old characters, most egregious is the lack of marks for the fighter. If I wasn't addicted to free mods from Living Forgotten Realms I could go back to pushing for old school play. Oh well, at least the rules fit in my nifty new red box.

Addendum: After throwing the Rules Compendium in mt backpack and using it for awhile, it occurred to me that I missed one of the important features in my review. It actually has a DECENT INDEX for a change. It has become my new arbitrator for rules disputes.

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Notebook Doodle Dungeon One

A dungeon level doodled into my spiral bound science lab book. I particually like the large areana in the center whith the illusionary wall marked with dotted lines on its right side. Athough there are slopes and staircases this is the only level of this dungeon drawn.

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Ruins of Thetra Mage College

October 05, 2010

The infamous killer mini dungeon. Outside in the sands. Key

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Ruins of Thetra Mage College: Above Ground Key

October 09, 2010

As promised here is the key to the map posted earlier this week. I am afraid the mountain lion encounter is what gave this dungeon it's killer reputation. He's a bit more than a first level fighter can handle. The Ruins Above Ground

General: The ruins of Thetra lie half a mile east of the village of the same name. The whole area is covered by drifting sand. Taking the road which lead west from the village, the party will round a large sand dune and come upon a ruined wall with a 20’ wide opening in it. The road leads through the opening.

1. 10’ high walls crenelated though many of the merlons are missing with a walkway on top. Generally in a bad state of disrepair

2. Large courtyard paved with flagstones

3. 30’x30’ one story stone building with a pyramidal shaped roof of slates. In each wall there are 3’ 6” tall 6” wide arrow slits.

4. Staircase leading 15’ down to a set of oaken doors studded with iron spikes. The doors are shut and appear to be barred from the inside

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of the window contains a secret compartment with a large iron key and a small gem

6. The trapdoor will drop a person stepping on it 20’ into a corridor heading N and E

7. Bones of some large reptile, probably a dragon, buried in the sand. Underneath the dragon are the skeleton of a man, some pieces of chainmail and a broken corroded sword carved with strange runes thrust into one of the vertebrae.

8. A great gnarled tree. Around the base of the tree will be found the bones of wild animals. Occasionally a freshly killed animal will be seen hanging in the branches. There is a secret door in the trunk which leads to a ladder going down.

9. In this depression are the burrows of a band of 18 desert foxes. One of the burrows leads to first level. All of the burrows are large enough for a small man to crawl through, and can be enlarged fairly easily. There is a 1 in 10 chance of finding the right tunnel without the foxes help and the 8 adult foxes will attack anyone who tries. Encounters (roll a six sided die)

1. Old man with a sieve sifting sand. Old man is a 9th level MU. He searches for the ring of the netherworld. If the party helps him there is a 1 in 100 chance a party member will find it.

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dragon bones. Men are a 4th level mage, a 3rd level Cleric and five second level fighters. Dwarves are 3rd and 6th level fighters.

3. 1-4 foxes. These will run off towards the west (see 9)

4. Mountain lion lurking in the oak (8). He will attack anyone who investigates the oak too closely

5. Large beetle crawling across the flagstones of the courtyard. The beetle is metallic blue with a faint outline of a face on its back. The beetle is a polymorphed 8th level magic user.

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Death 4e Style

October 14, 2010

Well it actually happened! I actually killed a character in 4e, and not some low level but a 15th level wizard. Here's how how it happened:

For some weird reason all my friends highest level characters seem to be wizards. So here they are running through one of the new second season Living Forgotten Realms high level modules (to those unfamiliar with LFR it seems after getting their feet wet with softball mods the LFR writers have stepped it up a notch with killer mods) with a party composed of three wizards and a druid/assassin. They are in the last encounter fighting a solo elite with a couple throw-away 100 hit pointers (against the wizards 100 hits will last about a round and a half). Luckily the solo elite has a few trick up his sleeve, like an interrupt that teleports players attacking allies next to him, a recharge on a 4,5,6 6d10 encounter attack, and a +4 vicious weapon that does an extra 4d12 on crits and action points (Trust me an actual 15th level player swordmage is going to have all this and more). So after the wizard attacks one of the 100 pointers, the elite solo whip the wizard out to the center doing a bit of damage, and hits the wizard on his turn with the encounter, at which point the wizard is down to 2 hit points. Being the kind of DM I am and having played 4e long enough to know that most players can come back from 2 hit point to maximum in a single round, what do I do? I action point. What do I roll 20!? Well the wizards not dead until minus -42 so there's still a chance as crits base damage is only 36, but then the extra 4d12 get rolled 1 point, 2 points O.K. so far but

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then a 9 and a 12 for a total of 60 points. Game over! Of course 4e players are not used to death so the player storms out of the room complaining about viscous DMs, Evil adventure writers, and claiming he's selling all his 4e books on e-bay never playing again, before his fellow adventures can explain they have a scroll in their pocket that will bring him fully back, or the druid/assassin can crank out three 100 point crits in a row to bring the elite soldier down. I think I played the encounter as the rules allow and the writer intended, but having angry players always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. So what do you think? Should I play the dice as rolled , or fudge the damage so he is at -41 unconscious but still alive, or not have used the action point in the first place? She-who-must-be-obeyed points out that since a mere 3 points would taken him out the crit would have been far better spent putting 60 points on the druid/assassin and represents a total waste of 57 points, but that's just the way she rolls.

P.S. Due to the fact that this is the weekend for Con-on-the-Cob, level 1 of the Ruins of Thetra Mage college may not appear until next Friday.

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Ruins of Thetra Mage College level 1

October 22, 2010

As promised, key below the map.

Level 1

1. The walls of this room are covered in soot. There is a large pile of burned timbers in the southeast corner of the room under the stairs Mixed with the timbers is a 3’ metal rod. The rod is a wand of secret door and trap detection. It has only 9 chares left. If it is picked up it will glow indicating the secret door to the south.

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3. On the North wall are five plaques. On each plaque is a name, two dates, followed by many mystic runes and symbols. The first is labeled Gnithil 101-228. Opening it will fire five magic missiles into the party. There is nothing inside. Next is Dloc 228-354. Opening this tomb will release a blast of cold air. The inside is lined with frost. A vaguely human form can be seen in the bottom. Anyone reaching into the tomb will feel intense cold. Anyone persisting in holding their hand in will take 1-6 points of damage per round. Underneath the frost is the body of an ancient man. On the body are a jeweled ring and a pouch of 5 gems. The third is Kesom 354-463 after opening dense black smoke will pour out. The smoke will drive all from the room. The fourth is labeled Powane 463-561. A pair of animated swords will attack the openers of this tomb. The swords attack as fifth level fighters and are not harmed by normal weapons blows, although anything capable of destroying a normal sword will destroy them also. The magic of the swords be disabled by grasping one sword and striking the other with it (roll under half your dex to grab the sword: sword is AC 4 for purposes of hitting). After the swords strike each other both will crumble in flakes of rust. Inside the tomb is a skeleton in rotted robes. Along side the skeleton is a red hide scroll case filled with rotted parchment and a box holding four dry bottles with crystals on the sides. The scroll case is of salamander hide and impervious to fire. The bottles contain the remnants of potions; filling the bottles water will restore the potions to operating condition. The last is labeled Rothi. Inside are a copper crown set with a topaz and a long sword. A voice will warn of dire

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found resealed after the party leaves the area though any item removed will not be found there again.

4. 10 beds line the walls of this room: 6 on the west, 4 on the east. The remains of two more are piled in the south-east corner of the room. In front of the of the second and fifth beds on the west and second on the east, there is a large trunk. In the bottom of the trunk in front of the fifth bed is sack with two gems. In the ticking of the third bed on the east are 185 gold pieces. The whole room is infested with giant rats. The rats will not be readily apparent but anyone looking under a bed will be attacked by 1-6 rats. There are 24 rats in this room, but they will only attack all together if all party members are wounded.

5. On the south wall is a painted mural of blue sky with clouds and sea gulls. In the northeast corner are 5 silk, feather filled pillows mostly rotted. The mural on the south is enchanted. Anyone staring at the mural for long periods of time must save versus magic or fall asleep. Underneath the pillows are two sleeping giant centipedes. 6. In the center of the room is a round oak table. On the table sits a large silver bowl studded with gems. Seated by the table is a human skeleton with both elbows on the table staring at the bowl. The skeleton wears ragged robes and a peaked hat. Anyone touching the skeleton will cause the skeleton to collapse into a heap of bones. Inside the cap is a scroll case strapped in with leather thongs. Inside the scroll case is a magic scroll. Back to the bowl. Anyone looking into the bowl will see a dancing blue flame and must save versus magic or be entranced by the flame. Entranced

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persons will do nothing but stare into the flame until the flame is extinguished or blocked from their sight. The flame may be put out by any normal means, but spread to any burnable item touches. 7. This room is filled with broken furniture. In the back of the room is a large chest. In front of the chest are a scattering of silver pieces (47). The chest is filled with 2000 silver pieces. While the party is investigating the room two large spiders will drop from the ceiling over the entrance arch and attack the party. Hidden in the le of a broken chair is a scroll

8. In this room 12 rats are chewing on a body in the northwest corner. Strewn round the room are the bones of various creatures. Closer inspection of the body will reveal that it is a human adventurer. Its backpack has been emptied and its belt pouch slit. Hidden in the body’s boot is a magic dagger +1, +2 versus smaller than man size. Note: the door to room 9 is locked and has a spy hole.

9. This is the lair of two wererats. Furnishing the room are two beds and a table with two chairs. Normally one wererat will stand guard while the other sleeps. If there is a fight in room 8 both will be up and ready to fight. If the wererats are alerted and the party continues on to room 10 they will set up an ambush in room 8. Their treasure is in a small box under one of the beds. The small box is trapped with a poison dart which will fire at the opener. Inside are 20 platinum, 5 gems, a gold broach and 2 potions

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11. Trying to open this door will cause three spears to drop from the ceiling. One is +1.

12. In the center of this room is a large pillar. On the pillar sits a pillow with a large gem sitting on it. A curtain covers the northeast corner of the room. Behind the curtain is a mural of a man dressed in black whose face is totally devoid of features. Anyone removing the gem will disappear. Following this what appears to be that person will step from behind the curtain. This is actually a doppelganger. The party member will be found with the gem in room 13 Underneath the pillow is a small scroll with the following inscription.

“Canst thou face the faceless man? Seeke ye the light of day while thou still can. See the once proud tower almost gone. Sit ye there and wait for dawn. Underneath the Sun the key does rest. Bring it hence and place it in the place that’s best.”

A small keyhole will be found in the face on the mural

13. In this room is a pile of 3000 gp, a magic sword and a scroll. A small stream of water trickles down from the southwest corner. On the wall is the inscription “Canst thou eat gold?”

14. This room holds 8 skeletons. Two of these stand guard at each exit. Although the guards can be clearly seen from the entering corridors, none will attack until the party members attack or try to pass the guards

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15. This room is the same as 14 except there are 11 skeletons 16. The ceiling of this room has collapsed. It is filled with broken rafters and sand. A minimal amount of digging from the west door will uncover a suit of +1 chaimail.

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Ruins of Thetra Mage College Lower Levels

October 29, 2010

Just enough dungeon to connect all the stairs slopes and trap doors from level 1 and outdoors. Numbered but not populated. C' connects the sloping passage from B14 with the trapdoor from B2, and the hidden staircase from B15.

D' connects the long staircase near B16 with the staircase from A4, and the open area off of B9. E is reached by a secret door in the trunk of the Tree in D3. Had intended to expand these levels as play on level B progressed. However the TPK on level A, followed by a lifetime ban on this dungeon from She-who-must-be-obeyed, rendered that effort moot.

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encountered read this review of Death Frost Doom .

Unfortunately, sometimes even the best sounding dungeons on paper do not click with the players in the field. This dungeon did teach me a lot about player-DM interaction. Most of my modern dungeons are a lot less scripted and adapted on-the-fly to suit the players motivations. Good for playing, bad for producing a module for publication and universal appeal.

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Battle maps coming soon

November 06, 2010

Sorry no old school maps this week. I have been hard at work cranking out battle maps for my 4e 14-17 adventure this week and have not had time for much else (well maybe a little Starcraft 2). I think the rock jumble is one of my best ever. I'll try and get a picture of it up after I see how it plays tomorrow.

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Stones Battle Map

November 09, 2010

I used my 27"x34" gridded flip chart paper and colored pencils to draw a huge pile of boulders from a crashed earth mote. Starting at 30' high and rising to over a 100'. Sprinkled with some monsters that push people off ledges. Of course my players sneaky gits that they are bypassed it with fly spells and teleports.

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Ancient Temple Plaza Map

November 13, 2010

Ancient Temple Plaza within the ruined city of Imrataxi. An evil temple which controls the characters minds combined with a Elder Brown Dragon lurking in the sand. The buildings surrounding the Plaza filled with the dragons lackey minions as well. Rock pile in the North East corner is the start of the Stones Map. Not as much color as the stones map (Hey, what can I say? my hands get tired these days). Should have colored this one first, since it was where most of the battle was fought. If I'd have known someone was bringing a Swordmage who could not only chase down a dragon from 21 squares away, but teleport them both back to where the Swordmage started as well, I'd of planned different. I brought encounter 2 in as reinforcements. When we started to run low on time I brought encounter 3 in as reinforcements as well. A real donnybrook and great fun, but one that only used one of the three battle maps I'd drawn as well. As they say the plan seldom survives first contact with the player characters.

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The French connection

November 15, 2010

*** UPDATE/WARNING weekly spyware checker turned up the main page for world of Selandia as a KNOWN BAD WEBSITE. I am not sure the spyware checker is right and it does not explain itself further, but as a favor to my followers I have taken the imbedded links down. Good artwork,Bad people *sigh* ***

Was catching up on my geomorphs over at dysonlogos where he reminded me of Pascal Faeriss' blog which I forget to check because it is not a Google blog which links to my dashboard. Once again I decided to life on the edge and give my High School French a whorl. After a brief detour where I discovered that jeu de role means roleplaying game and some French sites sell their stuff for cash just like us Americans, I stumbled on a site for the world of Selandia. The language of jaw-dropping artwork for maps is universal. Pascal has even written a few modules for the setting, which I downloaded even though they are in French. C'est bon! P.S. working on translating the key to Locnerac (on the french side of the site), but since I am to entry 5 of 212 after 1.5 hours don't expect it anytime soon.

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City of the Dragon Lords

November 27, 2010

A little Turkey day bonus post (btw a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all). Here's a concept sketch I did while waiting for the turkey to cook, after spending the night before looking at maps of Crater Lake. It's the fabled City of the Dragon Lords (read my Dragon Armies posts for more information) where commands for the Dragon Armies issue forth. My players have picked up a teleport card to this spot while raiding the Fortress of the Black Dragon pirates. Therefore I need to be prepared before some fool ranger decides to bring matters to a head by launching a frontal assault on many thousands of spawn of Tiamat backed by dozens of dragons on his own.

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Cliff Top Battle Map

November 27, 2010

The next battle map. This is the top of the crashed earth mote. It connects to the stones map via the slope in the lower left corner. Key terrain features include the octagonal pyramid, the sinkhole, the rope bridge to a still floating earth mote, and a 40' high cliff on the north end. Assess to the cliff top is via the large boulder in the upper right. The map was also to include trees but these are not marked as I have a very nice set of plastic ones from GW. One tree is of course close to the cliff to provide an alternate route to the top of the cliff

P.S. I left the dragon minis I used as paperweights in this time so you could see them too :)

P.P.S. The tree have become legend, after several sessions of She-who-must-obeyed saying "Did you bring the trees"and me saying "No, you didn't pack them for me". We finally brought the trees to a session, at which point I criticaled three times in a row. Now the current player response is "Oh no! Not the trees!!" so of course I have to bring them every time.

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Rural Longhouse Plans

December 05, 2010

A couple of house plans based on historic buildings. Just right for that creepy farmstead, or abandoned warehouse, you know you'll be needing. Courtesy of She-who-must-be-obeyed.

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Old School City Dungeon layout

December 11, 2010

This diagram shows the Tower and Bridge from the Old School City map overlayed on the first three levels of my old school dungeon. The City is in black, outline of first level is in blue, outline of second level is in green, outline of third level is in red.

*** NEW IMPROVED DRAWING COURTESY of She-who-must-be-obeyed ***

Here's two dungeon cut throughs as well. Top cut through is from East to West; bottom cut through is from North to South.

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Old School City

December 11, 2010

Blydron, the last River Kingdom outpost. Gateway to the Northern Forest and the Great Gorge. This is the City I started to draw to go over the top of my Old School Dungeon. Note: SE corner was never drawn. Overlay map of the City and Dungeon as well as Dungeon Cut-through to follow.

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On combat systems

December 11, 2010

My surfing of the blogosphere led me to discuss critical hits. This got me to discussions of combat systems in general and brought back some thoughts about contrasts in style that I had during the early days of role-playing. When Runequest first came out I though it was cool due to it's hit locations, damage reducing armor and blocked shots. It seemed way more realistic than the d20 to hit d8 damage of AD&D. However, as I actually played the Runequest combat system, I realized most fights consisted of large quantities of misses, followed by a combat ending critical where some vital component of the unluckiest combatant went flying. I also noticed that even the smallest trollkin has the potential of slicing off your Runelords head. I quickly realised it is a combat system completely incompatible with the Conanequese hero versus the 30 pirate scum style combats I like to run. Even if you discount the critical problem, no one enjoys waiting for me to roll the five rolls per attack needed to find out that all 30 pirate scum have missed. Don't even get me started on the hours required by Runequest to roll individual stats for each of the pirate scum. I reverted back to good ol' AD&D and have stuck with it's various incarnations ever since (although 4e is pretty close to failing the Conanequese test as well). Every time I feel the itch to tamper with the combat system (being mathematically inclined I am capable of devising five new combat systems before breakfast) I remind myself of my Runequest experience and conclude the AD&D system is pretty solid and not really in need of replacement. Besides, it gives me time to daydream up new magic systems instead.

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Old School Dungeon Links Page

December 17, 2010

Having recently been adding stuff to my posts of the Dungeon and Campaign I ran from 1976 to 1979, I though it might be a good idea to post a page of links to my posts on the subject. So here it is. Dungeon Maps Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 City Map Blydron Wilderness Map

River Kingdoms Map 3

Layout

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Blydron Environs Map

December 17, 2010

Wilderness map of the environs of Blydron at five miles to the hex flat to flat. Blydron is the river crossing labeled 1. To the southeast you can see the start of the Great Gorge and the Great Glacier in the mountains beyond. To the north you can see the lakes and swamps of the Northern Wilderness. Red lines indicate patrolled regions around towns and castles. According to the interpretation of the rules we played by then one could clear up to 25 miles distant from ones stronghold so red lines are a maximum of 4 hexes out from the center. I marked most of the smaller towns and hamlets as not patrolling that far.

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Hex grid courtesy of that pad I got from Game Designers Workshop in 1975.

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Forgotten Runes for the Forgotten Runes

December 18, 2010

In honour of increased traffic and a free Saturday (She-who-must-be-obeyed is out Chrismass shopping with the Mother-in-Law), I have added a new banner to the website. Background (courtesy of Wikipeda Commons) is from the as yet untranslated Codex Rohonc , a manuscript found in the western Hungarian town of Rohonc. The symbols seem to be in the style of

Old Hungarian runes but there are far too many different symbols. Truely forgotten runes.

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Wilderness Map River Kingdoms 2

December 26, 2010

Here is the wilderness map just East of Blyron. Edge Hexes overlap previous map. This map marks the end of the Northern forest and the beginning of the River Kingdom proper. Patrolled zones on the Eastern edge are the start of the interlocking castles that protect the River Kingdom from wandering monsters.

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Happy St. Stephens Day!

December 26, 2010

Well I didn't quite have enough time on Christmas to get on the blog and post, what with the mother-in-law coming over for diner and the house needing cleaning. Total Christmas swag painting for 12 goblin spider riders I already bought, a sweater, an encyclopedia of signs and symbols, and a check. I guess I didn't get my request for the fabled lands adventure books to Santa soon enough, although I did get a promissory note for more to come from my sister who sent me the sweater. My last minute search for fantasy Christmas images free-of-copyright did produce some interesting images, but none suitable for the PG rating I try to keep this blog at. My search for St. Stephen, patron saint of Hungary, did far better. Here is Emperor Franz I of Austria in the robes of the Grand Master of the Royal Order of St. Stephen. Ermine trimmed red hat with the jingle bell on the end remind you of anyone?

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Wilderness Map River Kingdom 1

December 31, 2010

The heart of the River Kingdom. Proud Vassa (7), the capital of the River Kingdom, plies its ships on the Narrow Sea. Rhys (1) on the isle of Anton would rival Vassa but the Northern Ocean is often too rough for trade. The hill baronies (3)(4)(11) and (12) are notorious for backing the Duke of Rhys against Vassa in disputes. Vassa makes sure the Griffins teeth (5) and (6) are manned by Barons loyal to Vassa. Notice the interlocking patrol zones between the Castles of the River Kingdom. Not all areas are completely patrolled though. There is lots of unpatrolled country in the Coast Hills in the North, and the Crag lands to the South, and the Griffins Leg marsh near Vassa, and who knows what dark secrets lurk in that little grove between (12), (14), and (19)

P.S. This being a sandbox era campaign I usually let the dice determine who lived in what castle when the party knocked on the door. Unfortunately those notes are rather sparse.

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Henrich's Fortress

January 08, 2011

My posting of my River kingdoms maps brought some memories back from She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed. She has the following to say about Castles and wilderness campaigns:

The first campaign I was in was under the original D& D rules. Wilderness was new then and our ref had bought nine pieces of heavy weight hex paper, each measuring two feet by three feet.

When we met to play he would lay them out on the carpet and we would sit on the floor to play. It was an impressive graphic which added a lot to the atmosphere of the game. But we liked the map so much we did not go into any dungeon. “We found another treasure map? I sell it to the npc.” Our ref despaired. So once one of my characters made fifth level he persuaded me to found a barony. The thinking here was that it would make me poor and force me to go adventuring in the dungeons to keep solvent. He also had some untried roll-up charts about finding mines in your barony. Long story short the mines made me wealthy and I never did set foot in a dungeon while in his campaign.

I remember asking about trade. I had to include an existing road and buy a company. My notes include comments about

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making and selling carts at 100 gold each and buying cart horses for 30 gold each from another player. I had seven villages, five of humans, one of elves, but the one village on the road was composed of dwarfs. After that every cart driver we encountered was a dwarf.

This campaign is the only one I have played in where I created a stronghold. I had to not only draw up the fortress but also compose a coat of arms for my character and keep the monthly books. My mage decided to work a deal with my fighter so he could put up a tower within the patrolled land and not need to go through the agony of clearing land, keeping troops or making me keep more books. I also had a cleric and he settled next to my friend who played the dwarf king up on Frog Island. The king (and his army) graciously accompanied my cleric while land clearing. When the ref rolled up the races in my villages his bemused look attracted our attention. “They are ALL dwarfs.” He told us.

And here's a picture of the fortress her fighter Henrich build with the money from the mines:

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New Blog Layout

January 08, 2011

Yeah you caught me. I've been playing with blogger rather than writing cool posts. Now back to work...

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Mapping the World with Hexes

January 15, 2011

****** Warning this post contains mathematics and computer science ******

Working on my old world maps has raised some interesting questions once again, long neglected by real world cartographers like:

How wide are the Rocky Mountains?

How many real world cities fit in a 5 mile hex?

The first step to answering these questions is to lay out the real world on a hex grid. Since the world is really big we need hex which really small, which is the first step.

Pixelating the Hex

After scanning my current 10 hex to inch hex paper into the computer and wasting two hours trying to clean the smudges by repainting the image pixel by pixel I concluded there had to be a better way. I started to work on laying out the smallest pixel pattern I could create which would preserve a hex shape. The hex shape can be build from a 30 60 right triangle. The geometry of this triangle such that if longest side is 1 the shortest side is 0.5 which is quite nice. However, the other side is the square root of 3 over 2 an inconvenient irrational number about 0.866 to three decimal places. All computer scientist know an irrational number is very hard to draw in pixels because one can only use an integral number of pixels per drawing Luckily for me I discovered that the ratio 6/7 (0.857 to three decimal places) is very close (99% of 0.866). I therefore proceeded to lay out a pixel patten for a grid based on the

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6/7 ratio. Here is the result

A pixel pattern 12 squares high by 20 squares wide. Note: the bottom line is part of the next pattern I just left it in so I could see the hex. A little jagged you may say but take a look at in the next picture (Original is at 140 ppi, your ppi may vary depending on your screen). It really looks like hexes.

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but I wish I hadn't". Perhaps it is less headache inducing in a different color. Feel free to experiment yourselves. I am going to use it mostly as a digital overlay for other things.

Finally as the penultimate goal of our project, here the grid superimposed over a nice Dymaxion world map in public domain. I like Dymaxion maps because they are based on mapping the world to a d20 and are composed of equilateral triangles which fit nicely with hexes. You can read more about them here and here. The map is 2008 pixels wide which for a d20 is half the circumference of the earth or roughly 12,450 miles. This works out to 6.2 per pixel, or at our 12 pixels per hex, 74 miles per hex. Enjoy!

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P.S. Future projects may include reworking the map to 50 miles per hex; getting height and vegetation maps to more accurately find mountains, forests, and deserts■; scaling portions up to a 5 mile per hex resolution. However this is about all the math I take for now. Errata: When I posted this morning I had claimed 7 pixels per hex or 43 miles, My pixel grid is actually 7 pixels per side and 12 pixels across or 74 miles per hex.

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Henrich's Barony and the World

January 23, 2011

Some more stuff from the first Campaign She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed played in so long ago. First is the wilderness map surrounding Henrich's castle. Henrich's castle is the crown near the eastern edge. Numbers are villages and mines. One of the numbers is Montgomery the Mage's tower (I'll have to ask She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed which one some time. You''ll see more about Mongomery's Tower in a future post).

Next is the Map of the entire Continent stitched together from several maps of different scales. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed informs me that since she had to draw the maps by borrowing Jerry's Ref

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maps while they were playing the area they played the most (the NW quadrant) has the least detail. ■Luckiy she had some detail maps of the area near Henrich's castle. She also points out that the islands NW of Henrich's castle weren't there originally. However, when one of the players complained that there were no islands left for him to put a castle on, Jerry the DM said "I can fix that that!" pulled out his pens and then there were islands NW of Henrich's castle. **Note: Revised Map posted 2/1/2011***

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Hungarian RPG now in English!

January 24, 2011

Good news! Gabor has published a rules light translation of his Hungarian role playing game Kard és Mágia which I blogged about

here. Now I can take that long standing backburner project off the stove entirely. You can get Gabor's translation from here. I am sure Gabor did a much better job than I could, after all he actually speaks Hungarian ;)

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Montgomery's Tower

February 01, 2011

Here we have today another piece of Jerry's World, Montgomery's Tower. Montgomery decided, that rather than go through all the fuss and bother of clearing his own Barony, he would just live in Henrich Barony. But he build his own tower in the mountains next to Henrich's village number 5. Take a look at Henrich's Barony here to see where. While your there take a look at the revised World map as well. I mentioned that some commentors were less than satisfied with the colors to She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed and she worked furiously on recoloring it until her arthritis flaired up (being old is not for sissies) and she declared it FINISHED. I suggested she might add a key so you could tell what was what and had to make a hasty exit from the computer room (purple is Mountain, grey-brown hills, blue water, green forest, orange desert, and mottled yellow-green swamp). I suggest if you have any further comments on the world map you keep them between between you and me. So without further addo here's Montgomery's Tower (It even includes the costs in case you want to build a duplicate for your OD&D campaign).

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Plan B

February 07, 2011

Well there I was working away on hex gridding over the map of Doomsday England, a pet project to try and figure how many villages actually fit in a five mile hex (from the overlay it looks to be 7-9, you can read more ideas about division of land at Redwald). Suddenly it occurred to me it was probably in poor taste and perhaps a violation of copyright to publish a map taken from a couple of figures from someone else's book, even if I had smashed them together and overlaid a grid upon them. Although the book author seems unlikely to be checking my web site, my status as a someday want-to-be author and game publisher always leaves me leery of violating intellectual property rights. After all, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you want to check out the base maps look on pages 38-39 of H. C. Darby's Domesday

England, Cambridge University Press 1977 (I have the 1986 paper

back edition. Its a reasonable read for a scholarly introduction to the data in the Domesday Book, a Norman survey of the land and loot they got when they took over England {for tax purposes of course}). From the book I gleaned Redwalds division into Hides, Tithings, and Hundreds leaves out many other land divisions in use in near Anglo-Saxon times including wapentakes, ridings, lathes, and rapes. Real life is seldom simple. Never-the-less I am no longer planning on posting my five mile hex map of Domesday England this week. I will not be posting my Domesday map until I find a source for the basic information in open source. As a result this

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Bad Neighbor Mountain

February 08, 2011

Here is a map from my graduate school days in 1982. Since the new Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master Guide suggested using 25-50 mile hexes that's what I mapped the world in. However I found the hexes at this size lacking in gamable detail. As a solution to this I hit on the solution of drawing a detail map of a single hex on one piece of paper. Here is my detail map of one of the Mountain Hex near the city of Anva

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Of course I couldn't draw such a beautiful map and not show it to the players. However I wanted key for where the monsters lair that players couldn't. The solution an overlay of tracing paper with the DM's key on it. Here's the map with the overlay in place on top of it. Note trying to get a piece of tracing paper to line up in the scanner is not an easy task, the key is slightly off, you can spot if you look closely at the crosses that mark the mountain peaks next to the

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numbers giving the mountain heights.

:Here's the key for the numbers

1) The village of Telgrin; Major attraction "Ye Olde Magic Shop" Fireworks and novelties; 10th level Illusionist

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4) Goblin camp: 14 goblins 4 wargs, Hermit 16th level cleric held prisoner will not harm anyone not even goblins

5) Ruined castle 6) Ruined castle 7) Trail to the lost city

8) Wachtower, lost city can be seen from here 9) The dragons roost

and here's a little adventure I wrote (the point of drawing the map to begin with). A brief aside this adventure follows the infamous plague dungeon She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed wrote and DMed in my world after reading A Distant Mirror, If I can cajole my way into the secret notebooks I may post more on that dungeon.

Going after Carsolar

Trin is in plague trouble again. Anva has volunteered Carsolar the mighty cleric to help. But where is Carsolar? Rumor has it he is up in the hills looking for the Snic-ker-snee the famous blade of legend. Carsolar is of course the 16th level cleric being held at 4

Throw in a few wolves on the road into to town to start things off a brief inquiry in town leads to directions to the hermit hut 3 battles with wandering warg riders leave trail back to the goblin camp

a battle in the goblin camp frees Carsolar

leading to a triumphant return to Anva to collect the ample reward Remember this is Old School, none of that purple prose to clutter up the adventure, just some notes to myself to remind me of the theme them improvise the rest, springle liberally with random encouters to liven up the slow spots and throw some curves to delinerize the plot and I'm good to go.

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Hexes and Villages

February 12, 2011

The little brown book's Underworld and Wilderness adventures explains that a barony can clear hexes up to 20 miles away and that within that area there will be 2-8 villages of 100-400 inhabitants (Other editions dodge this bullet by not even addressing Baronies in the core rules).This has always seemed a bit skimpy to me. With my newly created hex overlay and H. C. Darby's Domesday England, Cambridge University Press 1977, I decided to check the village density of Norman England. To this purpose I have created the following 5 mile to the hex map. Please note that Wales and Scotland were not surveyed, so are blank:

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shading of the hexes by density says I should use this information to make a new roll-up chart, but that must wait for another post.

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City of Caen

February 19, 2011

Here is a map drawn from a 17th Century Panorama of the French City of Caen. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed has re-imagined it back to the Middle ages by pulling out the star forts, horn works, and

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Piasa Bird

February 25, 2011

Aldorbans post of his picture of the Piasa bird sparked old

memories which precipitated another dive down the internet rabbit hole. I have a certain fondness for the Piasa Bird, the Piasa bird trail

patch being one of the coolest patches one could get by hiking with the Boy Scouts in '70s Illinois. Believing it to be an Native

American petroglyph I was shocked to discover that not only that the current Piasa bird was painted in the 2000's, but the previous one I admired as Native American rock art was painted in 1934. The original petroglyph was quarried away in the late 1800's for limestone.

First description is from the French Explorers Pere Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet traveling the Mississippi River in 1673. Jean Jean-Bapiste Louise Franquelin drew the following from their description.

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very good one, the description in the text is better. I downloaded the image from the internet and enhanced the contrast to bring the very faint image in the original scan out.

A better old picture is from Henry Lewis's although it does not look like a Native American petroglyph.

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This link here is my favorite Piasa Bird, not being fond of the garish colors most paintings use. Note: I have not posted it here as I am unsure whether the owner has placed it in public domain.

P.S. O.K. I must post now having wasted far too much of my precious "snow" day on this post. Although it has a curious relevance to a map I was planning to post later.

P.P.S. I have spend so much time on the Piasa bird I am now listed on page two of the google search. This of course necessitates posting of even more of the pictures I have found.

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World of Bad Neighbor Mountain

March 05, 2011

Here are several maps of the campaign I ran from 1982-1985. ■My Regulars have already seen the detail map of Bad Neighbor

Mountain from this campaign. I started this map by tracing

coastlines out of my Altas and combining them. The bottom of this map is a backwards outline of Finland combined with the tip of India (Note: I ignored scale for the most part). I then placed the outline on a hex grid which I filled in with mountains, lakes, rivers, and settlements. The hexes are 25 miles across. Note the concept behind this map was to place it in the southern hemisphere, so the climate gets warmer as one moves towards the top of the map. The southern tip I envisioned as glaciated lake country similar to

Minnesota or Finland.

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Once I had the large map done, I took it to the copy store and made several copies to start laying different aspects of the campaign out. Below is an inset of the political divisions. Orange is the Anvan empire, a once great power slipping into decline. Light green is the Free city of Lirpan. Dark green are the Dwarven Holds in the

mountains. Light blue is the southern elven forests. Dark purple are the towns of the sea raiders. Finally magenta is the Valley an area of small feudal states, where most of the adventures took place.

After laying out the political map on the southern tip. I noticed some issue with the map as I had drawn it. First the entire continent was completely mountainous. Second the terrain north of the lake country was completely the same repeat of mountains, rivers and towns BORING!!! So being the creator, I took the part I liked ,used a pair of scissors to cut that part away from the rest of the map, and taped it back down on a blank piece of hex paper which I then

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■Finally, I copied the map again using the enlarge function on the copier to give me a bigger map of the region I was most interested, used a light box to trace the map onto a blank piece of white paper, and worked it over with colored pencils to produce the map below, which I used as my map to show the players.

Of course almost all these steps can be done much easier with a computer graphics program these days (although I am still fond of

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the look and feel of my colored pencil work).

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Crimson Blades of Ara Review

March 15, 2011

My friend Carter Soles over at The Lands of Ara has graciously posted the game system he and and friend Dave Miller wrote in 1989. You pick up the rules for "Crimson Blades of Ara" over at his blog. Although the author claims these are rough notes they are a dam site more impressive than my pencil scribbles on lined paper I call notes. As with many youthful endeavours it is chock-a-blog full with novel ideas and concepts, despite Carters claim that he was reinventing Runequest without knowing it (actually about all that Runequest and His system share are a use of a list of skills to determine abilities and percentile dice to resolve actions). Actually his character point chart with its exponential increase cost as skills move towards 100%, solves one of the great shortcomings of Runequest. Runequests advance system based on dice rolls against skills you use rewards lucky rather than skillful play, and results in great silliness amongst the power gaming crowd of continual weapon switching and trivial skill checks. All in all I was quite impressed, although I have not completed my analysis of the combat system which seems to exude a strong preference for some weapons over others. I am unlikely to attempt to run the whole game as written, but will likely borrow pieces for my homebrew rules. The crown jewel of these rules are the skill and trait level cost chart. I also enjoyed the eastern school mages who cast spells by "the creation of small,

animated beings called golems"; Orge player characters which are immensely strong but forced take quirks to compensate; and the two strikes per round combat system which allows you the ability to

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drop your chance to parry a opponents blow and counter attack instead. I thought having the agility stat determine who goes first, while dexterity and strength determine (for the most part, longsword is agility based) your chance to hit was wise; Fantasty trip and its successor GURPS put dexterity on both who goes first and your chance to hit biasing their games to uber dexers with nothing else. I am intrigued by the concept presented of different weapons having different caps on how much skill one can apply to ones attack, but I'll want to finish my math analysis before I can say I am in favor of it. A big thanks to Carter and Dave for sharing. Pick up a copy and check out for yourself. If you are unhappy you can always ask for your NO MONEY back.

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Dungeon in the Raw

April 01, 2011

Here's a dungeon I call "Palace of the Dragon Prince". I sketched it out a couple of weeks ago■ in hopes of cleaning it up and entering it into the one page dungeon contest. Unfortunately business travel and a nasty computer virus on the computer with the scanner intervened. Everything is back under control, but I ran out of time to improve my entry. I thought about sending it in "as is". However, without clean-up it is unlikely to win, and in order to enter since they want real names I would have to reveal my "secret identity" for all the world to see. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed says she thinks its "cute" the way it is, so I am posting it on the blog. Be aware that even the way it is, it more than sufficient for me to DM it, because that's the way we do it OLD SCHOOL.

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Multipurpose Wilderness/Dungeon Planner, DM Reference, and Char Sheet

April 02, 2011

What we used for wilderness and dungeon planning, dungeon master reference notes, and character sheets, and many other purposes

Old School:

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A is atmosphere, F is for flame on, Z for zzzzzz (loud snoring)

April 19, 2011

Ok I have completed the complete alphabet in a single post, can we move on. Maybe is the fact that its tax day (as usual I did just

enough to make sure Uncle Sam owed me money and pushed it off to October), or maybe its the fact that the stats show that a blank piece of note book paper has shot up to my third most popular post (someone on stumble-on though it was cute), but I feel the urge to complain about the mindless A-Z meme that has inflected my Old School Renaissance. Most blogs are luckily if they can get one post out a week, but it is usually from the heart and thought provoking, but the A-Z meme has led them to believe they can up their

production to one a day with some meaningless trivia. Most of them are sputtering out about O, so soon things will be back to normal, and I can stop skipping over posts at greater than the normal rate. I of course did have to look at P is for Prostitute at Appendix N (little imredave wanted to see it, however he was disappointed). Appendix N does point out that "Old School" it should be H is for Harlot. It did bring back memories of a certain adventure

in She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed running of the city of Karse. We had turned down an alley way into a small square, and encountered a lizard woman in fish net stockings leaning up against the wall near the entrance to the bar, clearly indicating we were no longer in the high class neighborhood. Since we were in desperate need of a certain substance from a certain alchemist shop across the square

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members who shanked him). She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed later reviewed her notes to find out a little more about the lizard lady, and discovered that all it actually said was "Rough Bar". Such is the power of imagination. Well its time to go to work, so this rambling flame must end. Next time something of substance.

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City of the Pyramid

April 23, 2011

At the junction of the great causeway and the great underway lies a nexus of great power. After the fall of the elves during the Golden age it was here the golden ones came to build pyramid temples to their dark gods. Seven tiers for the Burning One, Five for the Breaker of Hope, a mere two for the Mistress of the still pool, an unimportant goddess worshiped only by females and pondlings. Still her pyramid is required to balance the fearsome dread of the

uncounted tiers of the underpyramid of the Drowner in Darkness. The Treader of the Secret Ways required no pyramid, stealing his worship by masquerading as the other gods. Once the pyramids were complete the Sorcerer Kingpriests focused their energy to forge the Great Artifact. During the catastrophe the Great Artifact was split into to the sphere, the cube, and the tetrahedron. As the artifact was split into three so were majority of the golden ones, into the kobolds, lizardmen, and weygn. Their ensuing battles to reunite the Artifact soon destroyed the city, and the inhabitants dispersed into the black swamp which broke the canal walls and swallowed the city whole. Their descendants still squabble, fight, and dream of reuniting the artifact to restore the glory of the Golden age. A mere half days journey from the newcomers Clerics Post on the Great river, the ruined city still lures adventurers to doom and glory. The lizardman "people of the turtle" will lead you there for a few trinkets, but warn that the "people of the shark" who inhabit the ruins proper are not as friendly, and are only fond of strangers as

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Note: The City of the Pyramids served as my anchor dungeon for my great river campaign of the early '90s■.

She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed still remembers this campaign with fondness.It was a bit of a breakthrough in style for me as well as I replaced my megadungeons of the past with little 3-5 room mini

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dungeons which could be completed in a night or two. However most of the mini-dungeons remained connected by the Great Underway a 30' wide straight barrel vaulted corridor leading on for miles leading god knows where (although one was bound to

stumble on to a secret door leading to the next mini-dungeon just in time for the next session). Due to its connection to the Great

Underway my wandering adventurers found themselves in the City of the Pyramids more often then they would have liked.

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Tenochtitlan another City of the Pyramid

May 14, 2011

I am afraid last months posting of my City of the Pyramid has thrown me into to research mode. Although I have known the of Cortez's conquest of Mexico since my youth, I had not appreciated the size of the city. According to my sources it was a city of 200,000 souls at a time when the largest cities in Europe, London and

Venice, were only 100,000. Seville the largest city most of Cortez's had seen was probably only 60,000. To conqueror it with only 600 men took some cojones, definitely not first level fighters. Above is a woodcut from 1524 based on the conquistadors descriptions. Below are a couple of more contemporary illustrations from Wikmedia based on the archaeological evidence.

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Spanish Victory for Cortez with help from Friends

May 15, 2011

One of my commentators to the previous post is certainly correct about the Spanish needing help from native allies. Unfortunately I think that worked out better for the Spanish. The book on

pre-Columbian agriculture, I picked up highlights the precipitous collapse of the native population and a shift in farming from using all the varied habitats to just those suitable for planting with a plow or raising cattle. The collapse can be attributed to old world diseases (Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book on this subject), but the lack of recovery may be more due to the shift in farming. It also interesting that New world seems to have several cultural collapses including the Maya in the 10th century, the Anasazi in the 13th

century, and Teotihuacan, about 25 miles to the north of

Tenochtitlan (and probably a bigger city as well) abandoned in the 5th century. The Spanish spend some time hiding out in

Teotihuacan after being thrown out of Tenochtitlan, before hooking up with the Tlaxcalans for the final defeat of the Aztecs. Central America is certainly a more populous and complex place than the new world campaigns I have run in the past. However, when I try to add complex and interesting large civilizations to my campaign, I am roundly booed by the players for interfering with their exploration and looting of ancient ruins. Perhaps the loudest complainer is She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed who does not see the same drawbacks in her urban based Medieval European campaigns. More on this in another post.

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Now thats a Map

June 29, 2011

Part picture book, part map the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 is an Aztec artifact from 1540. It was for painted the Lords of

Cuauhtinchan to show the Spanish their claim to the territory they ruled. The first part starts with the emergence from the the lords ancestors from the cave of Chicomoztoc (legendary origin point of the Aztecs and several other tribes) and follows their journey to found the town of Cuauhtinchan. The second part shows the environment around Cuauhtinchan. The map is analyzed

extensively in the book Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest: An Interpretive

Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 edited by Davíd

Carrasco, and Scott Sessions, UNM press 2007. You can also listen David Carrasco's lecture at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe New Mexico here. Among other things he explains rediscovering the map in a kitchen drawer of a wealth patron. Now I return to my monastic cell to further contemplate Mesoamerican Agriculture (unfortunately Cultivated Landscapes of

Middle America on the eve of Conquest has far less

interesting maps and a vocabulary that requires a Dictionary close at hand) and the vagaries of web pictures and copyright. There is a good argument to be made that a photo of a map drawn in 1540 isn't really copyrightable. However since I appreciate the work the book editor is doing, and part of the book sales support his work, I elected not to post my scan of the whole map, and merely link to the picture he uses to promote his lecture tour instead.

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Curiouser and Curiouser

July 01, 2011

I am looking at my blog stats and being a bit bemused. My blog had over 9,000 views last month versus a mere 1,000ish the month before. So in a month which due to business travel and the nephews graduation I posted almost nothing I get a ninefold increase in traffic. Whats my most viewed post? A blank piece of notebook paper!

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Swag from Origins

July 04, 2011

Living pretty close to Columbus, a trip to the Origins dealers room is a family ritual. Not a lot of swag for me as

She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed blew one chunk of the budget on

Warhammer bits (well technically the Orc bits are for my army), and my son is equipping the 7th Federation fleet (not sure where the battle star will fit in it, but it was cool so we bought it too). Got some free RPG day leftovers as free was definitely in the budget (mostly WoTC, but Goodman's Dungeon Crawl Classics Starter as well). Limit on free RPGs was two per customer, but this is where having a wife and son with me paid off (my son used one of his picks for something a space ship on the cover). Picked up the new

hardbound Arcanis (enjoyed the beta test version I picked up at Gencon last year so thought I'd give it a go). I'll post a full review sometime soon. Was severely tempted by the Hackpedia of Beasts pre-order, but gave it a pass. I am glad it is all in one book, unlike the book 1 A-C, book 2 D-F, etc of the previous edition (I gave up about L). However, I remembered how unimpressed I was with the monsters in the previous edition (suffered from me-too-ism by re-replicating all the monsters in the d20 SRC with little change). I also don't really need to be buying books just to throw in the box of Hackmaster rules gathering dust in the corner (Hackmaster and I don't see eye-to-eye on taking the core d20 rules and making them more complicated). And finally the real find of the show, White Dwarf 34. I have been after this bad boy ever since

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another module by the same authors "Trouble at Ember Trees ". Five pages of old White Dwarf microprint (I did have to use my scanner to enlarge the print, as my eyes can't handle microprint any more) goodness with FOUR maps and SEVENTY EIGHT

encounters. They just don't write'm that way any more. Heck, five pages will barely fit ONE fourth edition encounter. And where did I find this gem? Was it in the glass case at Crazy Egor's (Talisman Timescape another on the "how did I miss that" list was, but the price was too dear)? Was it got from the Troll and Toad auction after some fevered bidding war? No, it was in the $3 bin of old junk we want to get rid of at the Comic book vendor booth. WOHOOOO! some days the collecting gods smile on you.

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The Grid, the Grid

July 10, 2011

The nice map posted at the City of Iron got me thinking. You see Gavin, the artist, decided to draw his map free hand without a grid, and that got me thinking. If your going to show to the players when I don't see a problem of no grid. If you need to sketch in on a battle map, or describe it verbally for me at least a grid is quite useful. Of course these days drawing the map and adding a grid later is pretty simple (It could be done in the old days but required gridded

chartpak and some skill with an x-acto). I usually tried to grid the room floors and leave the walls blank, the opposite of the artists at the White Dwarf and Judges Guild who tended to grid the walls and leave the floors blank. I'll not comment on his choice of red lines with purple shading,as that is a matter of personal preference. Although, if you are running "Old School" and not showing the map to anyone else, I would not spend a lot of time trying to make the map look "pretty". I would however grid it for the reasons already mentioned.

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Substistance Farming and the Man

July 10, 2011

As a complement to my map of village densities in 11th century England, I have been working on a map of village densities in the Old Northwest territory (which Ohio were I live happens to be part of) during the 18th century. I have nice map of village locations in 1759 courtesy of the Atlas of Great Lake Indian History, Helen Hornbeck Tanner ed. University of Oklahoma press 1987. However, I have run into to issues. First, the Old Northwest territory is too big to map comfortably with five mile hexes. Second, after over 200 years of warfare and smallpox, village densities are measured in hexes per village rather than villages per hex. As such I had set this project aside for a bit.

My recent posts on the Aztecs have let me back to thinking about Native Americans once again. While researching Aztec farming techniques at the library, I peaked over at the Native North

American section right next door and obtained The Miami Indians of

Indiana, Stewart Rafert, Indiana Historical Society. The Miami, a

small tribe, feature prominently in Atlas of Great Lake Indian History for their control of the portage (now Fort Wayne, IN) between Lake Erie and the Wabash River (a substantial short cut to the Mississippi River if you are traveling by Canoe). Since Miami Indians of Indiana was an easy read and allowed me to procrastinate further on the turgid but important sounding Cultivated Landscapes of Middle

America on the Eve of Conquest I read it cover to cover. One of the

most fascinating parts of it is the tribe continuing to live its lifestyle of the men hunting and fishing, and the women growing a little corn

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and a little squash on a mere 10 square mile reservation IN

INDIANA from 1847-1872 (a population of roughly 148-250 people over the time period). I am a bit surprised since 10 square miles (6,400 acres) is only a little bigger than one our modern factory farm which will have 10 people living on it if the farmer has a big family (not sure how many people it feeds I'll have to look that up). The legal manoeuvrings which allow them to stay in Indiana while the rest of the Native Americans forced west at gun point are also quite interesting (a lot of it has to do with the local non-native

American tavern owners and lawyers liking the tap into the yearly U.S. Government hard currency (silver dollars) payment the tribe collected as a treaty settlement. It unfortunately also lead to only the Miami who moved to Oklahoma being recognised as a "tribe" by the U.S. Government. In 1873 the reservation was broken up into 63 farms and divided amongst the residents. Many Miami being brave soles prompt tried their hand more conventional farming.

Unfortunately this involved borrowing the $1,000 from the bank to equip a conventional farm and selling the farm to the bank when the inevitable "bad year" hit and bank could not be paid. The 1994 U.S Government wrangling that the guy who ruled in 1895 that Indiana Miami were no longer a tribe was wrong, but since it had been too long (mostly because the Bureau of Indian Affairs ruled in the several lawsuits since the ruling that because the Miami were not a tribe no lawsuit could be brought) is also a prime example of why people of my generation have a great distrust of government (also known as "the Man). There is an interesting corollary between the treatment of Native Americans and the "screw job" conducted by the

Forgotten Runes Volume 2

Forgotten Runes Volume

2

Forgotten Runes Volume 2

Contents