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Lets Create Dark Sun Characters (AD&D 2e): Pyras the Golden – Half-elf Bard/Preserver/Psionicist

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Returning to our Dark Sun character tree, we move on to the second, and most complex, of the characters, the half-elven bard/preserver/psionicst. Already I have a picture of them, so lets try and build a character to match.

On face value, Pyras ‘the Golden’ is a typical half-elven bard, craving acceptance yet at the same time standing apart and remaining self-sufficient, and an entertainer that is accepted to be a spy and assassin.

This is just a facade, a role that he plays well to mask his true nature and calling, for he is an agent of the Veiled Alliance, and with them he has found acceptance and a purpose.

While noted for his graceful and charming performances, Pyras has hidden skills as well, with access to powers of the mind and the arcane. He favours subtle psionics and even subtler preserving magic that he can pass off as psionics should the need arise, using them to aid his subterfuge and investigations.

He knows that as a bard, people will suspect his intentions, but he counts on that to misdirect his foes. After all, if they think they know who he is and what he is doing, and if he lets them do so, then, in the surety that they are right, they won’t dig any deeper.

It is a dangerous game but one that so far he has survived.

We have the concept so lets see what we have to work with and how to build him.

  • STR 10 gives no bonuses.
  • DEX 18 gives +2 reaction, +2 missile attack and -4 defence.
  • CON 11 gives no bonuses.
  • INT 17 gives 6 NWPs, up to 8th level spells, 14 spells a level and a 75% chance of learning a spell.
  • WIS 17 gives +3 magical defence.
  • CHA 18 gives 15 henchmen, +8 loyalty bonus and +7 reaction.

Being a half-elf gives him 60′ darkvision at creation. When he hits 3rd level he gets a free survival proficiency in one type of terrain. At 5th level he gets a free pet of a local animal no larger than man sized. Not a whole lot of bonuses, but he gets the widest array of class options and highest level of advancement in them of any race that isn’t a human.

A preserver is no different from the regular wizard as in the PHB and a psionicist is as described in the Complete Psionics Handbook. It is the Athasian bard that is different than regular ones. They can still influence reactions, inspire and know a little bit of everything as per normal, but they loose the ability to cast magic. In exchange they get to use all thief abilities instead of the limited selection vanilla bards have, though they aren’t quiet as good as normal thieves. They are also masters of poisons; at each level they roll to see if they have mastered a new poison.

Athasian bards are a class of entertainers and storytellers prized by the city dwelling aristocracy. They are also known to lead double lives as blackmailers, thieves, spies and assassins. The nobles often use them as tools, sending them as gifts to other houses. Despite knowing who and what they are, it is considered rude to turn them down, and so a merry game of deceit and subterfuge begins. Consider that – your worst enemy sends a known assassin to your house and you can’t turn them away because it would be rude. After all, you have a reputation to maintain. Yeah, Dark Sun bards are a really cool concept.

As we are a multiclassed character, we start with enough XP to start at 2nd level with our most expensive class. In this case it is the preserver. That gives us enough XP to also be a 3rd level bard, but only enough for the psionicist to be 2 level. So that makes us a 3/2/2 bard/preserver/psionicist.

HP for multiclass characters can be a little tricky. For the first level we roll the dice for each class and then divide by the number of classes we have. In this case it is 1d6 for bard, 1d6 for psionicist and 1d4 for preserver, totalled up then divided by 3. After that, whenever we level up we roll the dice for the class and divide by 3, rounding down. That it the downside of a mutliclass character – you can easily roll badly and get no HP. Especially for multiclass wizards. So we roll (1d6+1d6+1d4)/3 + 1d6/3 + 1d6/3 (for 2 levels of bard) +1d6/3 (for 1 level of psionicist) + 1d4/3 (for 1 level of preserver).

We roll (6+2+2)/3 + 1/3+ 4/3 +6/3 +3/3 = 3+0+1+2+1 = 7 HP. When you consider Arkun our gladiator starts with 28 HP, you can see Pyras is a little squishy. And later, when we do our half-giant, he will look even more so.

Our next choice is kits. The rules for kits were never properly worked out. Some books (like the complete fighters) said that they were only available to single class characters, while others allowed them to be used for multiclass characters. And when it comes to Dark Sun, some races and classes had Athasian themed kits provided for them in some of the supplements, like elves, thri-kreen, gladiators and psionicists, while others got nothing as they never had books. Dwarves, especially, never received any love in Dark Sun. They were rather under-developed.

After searching around a bit, the kit picked for Pyrus comes Dragon Magazine #194, which had an article on kits in Dark Sun. It listed some from the various Complete books that were appropriate for Athas, as well as a few new ones, including a wizard kit called Veiled One. A Veiled One is a member of the Veiled Alliance, an underground movement of preservers and psionicists who oppose Defilers and the Sorcerer-Kings.

To be a Veiled One, a character is required to have WIS 13, which we do. They have a cover profession that they need to carefully maintain, in this case a bard. They receive the free NWPs of Reading/Writing, Disguise and Somatic Concealment, and are required to have at least one craft proficiency related to their cover identify. The benefits of being a Veiled One include access to safe houses and escape routes should you be compromised, as well as access to the spells and research of others wizards, allowing them to add one spell to their spellbooks each time they level. The hinderances of the kit are that they must carefully maintain their cover at the risk of being outlawed and hunted down, and that they have to honour requests for assistance made by other Veiled Ones.

So, with the kit decided, we move on to NWPs. Pyras starts with 4, due to being a wizard, and gains 6 bonus NWPs due to his high intelligence. He receives free for being a Veiled One 3 (Reading/Writing, Disguise and Somatic Concealment. As he has hit 3rd level Bard, he gains Survival as a bonus for being a half-elf. He chooses scrublands for his terrain. And for being a Bard, according to the Complete Bard’s supplement, he gets Play Instrument, Singing, Local History and Reading/Writing again. For Play Instrument, Pyras chooses the Harp and for Local History he goes with Tyr. That is a few bonus NWPs before he even starts spending his slots.

First up, because of his kit, he needs a proficiency related to his cover identity, in this case a bard. For this we go with Artistic Ability (Composition). Pyras is a crafter of songs and tunes, used to impress and inspire. He also picks up Spellcraft, an important proficiency for those involved in magic. For the rest, he chooses one that will help out his spying and bardic activities; Sign Language, Gaming, Tumbling, Etiquette, Dancing, Heraldry, Forgery and Juggling.

Next we move on to Weapon Proficiencies. Pyras has only two. He isn’t much of a combatant, and due to his role, he prefers small and easily concealed weapons. He goes with Dagger, which can double as a thrown weapon, and Ambidexterity from the Complete Fighter’s Handbook. As a Bard is part of the Rogue group, he can wield two weapons at once, in this case, two daggers. Normally he would suffer a -2/-4 penalty to his main hand and offhand, but ambidexterity means it is reduced to just -2 for both hands. Due to his high DEX, those penalties are negated so he can use two daggers without penalty, should he need to.

Now for his Bard abilities. Each level, a bard rolls 1d4 and adds his level to the number to find out wha new poison he has learned to make. On a duplicate roll he learns nothing new. Our rolls are 2, 3 and 5, meaning we know type A, B and D poisons. We missed out on the E poison, which is the best one around. All three are injected poisons with onset times of 10-30 minutes for Type A, 2-12 minutes for Type B and 1-2 minutes for type C. A combat round in 2e lasted 1 minute, to only really Type C is likely to have an impact. Damage is 15/0 for A, 20/1-2 for B and 30/2-12 for D. The first number is for a failed poison safe, the second for a successful save. A bard can make a single does of each poison he knows per day using easily obtainable materials.

Bards also know all thieving abilities, using the same starting values, but with fewer points to spend. They don’t get any at first level and only 20% per level after. As a half-elf, Pyras gets +10% to Pick Pocket and +5% to Hide in Shadows. His DEX gives +10% Pick Pockets, +15% Open Locks, + 5% Find/Remove Traps, +10% Move Silently and +10% Hide in Shadows. Wearing no armour, which he almost never does, gives +5% Pick Pockets, +10% Move Silently, +5% Hide in Shadows and +10% Climb Walls. The bonus points are split as follows; +10% Read Languages, +15% Move Silently and +15% Hide in Shadows. The final totals are’

Pick Pockets 40%, Open Locks 25%, Find/Remove Traps 10%, Move Silently 45%, Hide in Shadows 40%, Detect Noise 15%, Climb Walls 70%, Read Languages 10%.

Now his bardic abilities are sorted out, we move onto his psionic ones. At first level, we start knowing one of the 5 psionics disciplines, which is to be our primary school. At second level we get to choose a second one we can gain powers from, and later on we can add further disciplines. There are some restrictions on what powers we can take – firstly we must know twice as many devotions as sciences in any discipline, and secondly no other discipline can have as many sciences or devotions as they have in their primary discipline.

The five disciplines to choose from are telepathy (used to make direct contact between minds), clairsentience (used to gain knowledge though means other than normal senses), psychoportation (used to move characters or creatures around), pyschokinesis (used to move objects around) and psychometabolism (used to affect the body). (Technically there is a 6th, metapsionics, but it doesn’t really concern starting characters.)

Pyschometabolism especially, as well as pyschokinesis and pyschoportation, are not subtle enough for the style of character Pyrus is. Both clairsentience and telepathy work for a gatherer of knowledge that Pyrus is. In the end we go with Telepathy for his primary discipline, and take Clairsentience as his second one, mostly because telepathy allows the option of extracting secrets directly from other people’s minds.

For powers, at first level he starts with 1 science, 3 devotions, all of which must come from our primary discipline, and 1 defence mode. At second level we can add 2 more devotions, which can be taken from any of the two disciplines we know.

Our first devotion and science are pretty much mandatory – Contact (WIS) and Mindlink (WIS-5). So many other telepathic powers have these are prerequisites. Contact allows the mind of the telepath to touch that of any non-psionicist or willing psionicist mind. If they aren’t willing a psionic contest needs to take place. Mindlink allows for telepathic communication to take place between contacted minds. Our other two starting devotions are Conceal Thoughts (WIS), which prevents the reading or detection of thoughts through magic or psionics unless a psychic contest is won, and ESP (WIS-4), which allows the reading of surface or active thoughts of a contacted person.

For the first of the next 2 devotions, we are going with another Telepathy power, and this one a Telepathic Attack. While all psionicists start with 1 defence mode, chosen from a list of 5, they need access to the Telepathy discipline to choose any of the 5 attack modes. The only way to break through an unwilling psionicists defences to establish contact is through a psionic contest, which requires the attacker to make 5 successful attacks. So if Pyrus runs up against another psionicist, he needs at least 1 attack mode to use most of his powers.

The one we go with is Ego Whip (WIS -3). Not only can it be used against psionicists, but against any contacted individual it hits, for 1d4 rounds they suffer -5 (or -25%) to all dice rolls, such as attacks or saves, and they cannot cast any spells above 3rd level.

For the last of our devotions, we go looking at the Clairsentience discipline, and from The Will and the Way sourcebook released for Dark Sun. The devotion we go with is Sensitivity to Observation (WIS). This is a power that is always on, unless otherwise chosen, and alerts the user to when they are being watched, even by means such as clairvoyance or clairsentience. Very useful for a sneaky character.

For his defence mode we go with Mind Blank. While in some way the weakest of the defence modes, it has no cost and is considered to always be on, even when sleeping.

Now to calculate PSPs used to power his abilities. With WIS 17, he starts with 24. INT 17 gives a bonus +2, but CON 11 gives nothing. At 2nd level, he gains 10 + 2 from his WIS, or 12. So in total he has 38 PSPs.

On to his wizard spells. A starting character has read magic, detect magic and 4 other 1st level spells. Due to our kit, we get one more 1st level spell when we reach level 2, so we have 5 1st level spells to choose from. Given our character description, any spells we do take will have to be subtle, so illusionary and enchantment style spells work best. In the end we choose Change Self (to help with disguises), Audible Glamour (to create fake distracting sounds in the distance), Charm Person (when we really have to get a person to like us), Message (when we need to send a message to someone without telepathic powers) and Hypnotism (to make suggestions to people to do what we want.) At any time he has 2 memorised, usually Change Self and Charm Person, though it can vary depending on the job.

As for a spell book, what he has is a song book, where he composes tunes in – and disguises his spells using Artistic Ability (Composition) to look like tunes.

His saving throws are as follows; Paralyzation, Poison or Death Magic (PPDM) 10, Rods, Staffs or Wands (RSW) 11, Petrification or Polymorph (PP) 12, Breath Weapons (BW) 15, Spells (SP) 12. We do have some bonuses to those rolls. We get +3 against illusions and spells that attack the mind due to our high WIS and +4 to attacks that can be dodged, like lightning bolts, due to our high DEX.

For money, he chooses the best option from his three classes, in this case 3d4 x 30 ceramics for a psionicist. The rolls are 2, 3, 4 for a total of 270 ceramics. And he is going to need them.

For started he needs a lyre, which in the Complete Bard’s book comes out to 75 ceramics. A set of thieves picks is another 30 ceramics. For clothing purposes, he selects a set of plain clothes, which comes out to 5 ceramics and 6 bits when totalled up, used for when he doesn’t wish to stand out. He also needs a flashy set, for when entertaining among the nobles, and so buys another set, paying 5 times the price to make it really good, which comes out at 28 ceramics. For weapons, he goes with a pair of bone daggers, each at 60 ceramics. All up he has spent almost all his money, leaving just 11 ceramics and 4 bits for anything else he should need. Luckily he is good at being a bard, meaning he can earn a living from it.

For his alignment, there is only one option available to us. We have to be good aligned to fit in the character tree, and a bard needs to be at least part neutral, so we are neutral good.

He wears no armour, as it would be a little obvious, but due to his DEX he is AC 6. Still, combined with his low HP, he really doesn’t want to get into melee.

His base THAC0 is 19, due to being a 3rd level bard.

Wielding the dagger he is THAC0 20 (-1 due to being made of bone), speed 2, doing 1d4-1/1d3-1 damage. He can wield 1 in each hand without penalty, attacking twice a round.

Throwing the dagger he is THACO 17 (+2 due to DEX), speed 2, doing 1d4-1/1d3-1 damage, and he can throw 2 a round.

On top of that he can coat the dagger with the poisons he knows.

And now for the physical characteristics. A half-elf starts at 15+2d4 years old and can reach 90+2d20 years old. They are 70+2d6 inches tall and weigh 120+3d12 pounds in weight. For his age we roll 2 & 3, making him 20 years old, and 2 & 19 for maximum age, meaning he could live to 111 years of age. For his height we roll 4 & 6, making him 80 inches (6′ 8″) tall and 8, 10, 11 for weight, making him 149 pounds in weight. For a half-elf, he is rather tall, as tall as some elves, and almost stocky. He certainly cuts a noticeable figure.

Pyrus the Gold; Bd/Pre/Psi 3/2/2; Kit: Veiled One; AL NG; AC 6; MV 12; HP 7; THAC0 19 (20 with dagger, 17 with thrown dagger; #ATT 1 + 1 (offhand attack), 2/1 (thrown dagger); DMG 1d4-1; STR 10, DEX 18, CON 11, INT 17, WIS 17, CHA 18.

Psionic Summary; PSPs 38; Disciplines: Telepathy, Clairsentiance; Defence Mode: Mind Blank (WIS -7, Cost 0, Maintenance 0); Sciences: Mindlink (PS WIS -5, Cost Contact, Maintain 8/rd); Devotions: Contact (PS WIS, Cost varies, Maintain 1/rd), Conceal Thoughts (PS WIS, Cost 5, Maintain 3/rd), Ego Whip (PS WIS -3, Cost 4, Maintain NA), ESP (PS WIS -4, Cost Contact, Maintain 6/rd), Sensitivity to Observation (PS WIS, Cost 5, Maintain NA).

Spell Book; Read Magic, Detect Magic, Change Self, Audible Glamour, Charm Person, Message, Hypnotism. Memorised; 2 x 1st.

Poisons: A, B & D.

Thieving Abilities; PP 40%, OL 25%, F/RT10%, MS 45%, HS 40%, DN 15%, CW 70%, RL 10%.

Saves; PPDM 10, RSW 11, PP 12, BW 15, SP 12.

Weapon Proficiencies; Dagger

Weapon Specialisation; Ambidexterity.

Non-weapon Proficiencies; Reading/Writing (18), Disguise (17), Somatic Concealment (17), Local History (18), Singing (18), Musical Instrument – Lyre (17), Survival – Scrub Plains (17), Artistic Ability – Composition (17), Spellcraft (15), Sign Language (18), Gaming (18), Tumbling (18), Etiquette (18), Dancing (18), Heraldry (17), Forgery (17) and Juggling (17).

Languages; Common.

Gear; Bone dagger x2, clothes (breeches, belt, tunic, cloak, hat, soft boots), expensive clothes (breeches, belt, tunic, cloak, hat, soft boots), thieves tools, lyre, 11 ceramics, 6 bits.

Lets Create: AD&D 2E Character: Faolan Whisperwind: Gnome Cleric/Thief

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Before we return to creating our Dark Sun characters, I want to go back to vanilla AD&D 2e and have a look at it, and one of the most interesting multiclass choices available – the gnome cleric/thief.

For those who haven’t experienced 2e, not all classes were available to all races. The humans could be any class, and the half-elves anything but paladins, but the others had limitations, such as dwarves only being able to be fighters, clerics and thieves. On top of that, there were level limitations for demihumans as well, preventing them advancing far in the classes they did have access to. There were a number of reasons why this was put in place, and it was one of the most houseruled parts of the game.

Another difference between humans and demihumans was that demihumans could multiclass – the ability to be leveling in 2 (or 3 in the case of elves and half-elves) classes at a time. There were also limitations as to what classes could be combined. Only gnomes could be cleric/thieves for example. The classic gnome multiclass combo was the illusionist/thief, but the cleric/thief deserves a look at, if not for the fact that it is the fastest leveling of all the multiclass combos. On top of that, the gnomish gods are generally of the trickster and mischief maker types, so cleric/thief that follows in that vein is pretty thematic.

We are actually going to be looking at two variants of the character, starting with plain vanilla PHB only.

So what do we need to be a gnome cleric/thief. For cleric we need 9 WIS and for thief we need 9 DEX. A gnome needs a minimum of 6 STR, 8 CON and 6 INT, and has a racial modifier of +1 INT and -1 WIS. The last one hurts a little being a cleric but it cant be helped. All in all, not too difficult – we should be able to manage that with our rolls.

For this we are going with probably the most popular method of dice rolling for 2e – 4d6 drop the lowest. The average for 4d6dl is around 12.24, which means we should be able to roll up 2 9s, 2 6s and an 8, and hopefully higher, but it doesn’t eliminate bad rolls due to the small number of dice involved. So lets kick off and see what we get.

Roll 1; 6, 5, 5, 5 = 16

Roll 2; 2, 3, 1, 3 = 8

Roll 3; 3, 6, 2, 2 = 11

Roll 4; 6, 4, 3, 2 = 13

Roll 5; 4, 3, 5, 1 = 12

Roll 6; 6, 4, 5, 4 = 15

Getting a 16 is good while the 8, though not the best, could have been worse. We assigned them as follows;

STR 8, DEX 16, CON 11, INT 13, WIS 15, CHA 12. With racial modifiers that ends up as STR 8, DEX 16, CON 11, INT 14, WIS 14, CHA 12.

We do get a few bonuses from those stats; +1 reaction, +1 missile attack, -2 defense from DEX, 4 bonus NWPs from INT and 2 bonus 1st level spells from WIS.

Gnomes have a number of benefits. One of the languages they can learn is burrowing mammal. Basically they can speak with moles, badgers, weasels etc. It may not get much use but why wouldn’t you take it? They are also highly resistant to magic, getting a bonus to saves vs spells, rods, staves and wands based on their CON, the same as dwarves do. The down side is that they suffer a 20% failure chance any time they use a magic item except for weapons, armour, shields, illusionist items and items that duplicate thieving abilities if they are a thief. They have 60′ infravision, get +1 to hit against kobolds and goblins and when large monsters like giants, trolls, ogres and the like attack them, they suffer a -4 to hit. Also being exceptional miners, they can detect distance, direction and slope underground, as well as how safe walls and ceilings are, though I haven’t seen it used much at all.

A first level cleric gets 1d8 HP and a first level thief gets 1d6. We roll a 5 for cleric and a 5 for thief, for a total of 10. Divided by 2 equals 5 HPs.

Taking the best saving throws per class we get PPDM 10; RSW 14; PP 12; BW 16; SP 15. Due to his CON, he subtracts 3 from the RSW and SP saves for PPDM 10; RSW 11; PP 12; BW 16; SP 12. In addition, if it can be dodged, like a lightning bolt, he also reduced the save by a further -2.

For proficiencies he receives 2 WP and 4 NWPs, with a bonus 4 due to his INT.

One of the conditions of being multiclasses is that he must abide by the weapon restrictions of a cleric, which is they must be blunt only. He takes sling and morningstar, giving him one ranged and one melee weapon. As he is a small creature, he must wield the morningstar 2 handed.

For his NWPs, he can select from the general, priest and rogue groups. He chooses Read/Write (INT +1), Language (borrowing mammal) (INT), Religion (WIS), Spellcraft (INT -2), Tumbling (DEX), Juggling (DEX -1), Ventriloquism (INT -2) and Rope Use (DEX). Its a mix of practical and fun as befits a gnomish cleric/thief who is probably a bit of a trickster and mischief maker.

A 1st level Cleric starts with 1 1st level spell, but due to his WIS he gets 2 bonus ones. The three that he starts with are Bless, Cure Light Wounds and Sanctuary, though that can change as needed.

Next the thieving skills. In 2e they worked a little different than later editions. They were a percentile check where you had to roll under the points you had assigned in them. At creation you had a base score, modified by race, dexterity and armour, and at each level you got 60 discretionary percentage points to assign, with no more than 30 per skill.

As a gnome we get +5% to open locks, +10% to find/remove traps, +5% to move silently, +5% to hide in shadows, +10% to detect noise and -15% to climb walls. Our DEX also gives us +5% to open locks. As long as he is wearing leather armour he suffers no penalties, but going up to studded leather or padded incurs fairly hefty ones, so he will stick at leather. One option is to wear no armour and get bonuses, though that is risky.

We go with putting +15% into Detect Noise, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows and +5% into Read Languages, Open Locks and Find/Remove Traps. Our final totals are;

Pick Pockets 15%, Open Locks 25%, Find/Remove Traps 20%, Move Silently 30%, Hide in Shadows 25%, Detect Noise 40%, Climb Walls 45% and Read Languages 5%.

For gear, we start with 3d6x10 gp as a priest. Our roll gives us 110gp, with which we purchase leather armour (5gp), a morningstar (10gp), a sling (5cp) and 20 sling bullets (2sp). We also get a set of thieves picks (30g), and a holy symbol (25gp). The remaining 37 gold, 5 silver will be spent on gear and clothing, and maybe even a mule to ride.

Leather armour gives him AC of 8, reduced to AC 6 with his dexterity.

His base THAC0 is 20, reduced to 19 with ranged weapons. With the morningstar he is THAC0 20, speed 7 doing 2d4/1d6+1 damage. With the sling he is THAC0 19, speed 6 doing 1d4+1/1d6+1 damage.

And lastly age, height and weight. Faolan is 60+3d12 years old (77), living to 200+3d100 (340). He is 38+1d6 inches tall (44) and weighs 72 +5d4 pounds (87).

So there you have him, a fairly rounded character. Can fight a bit (though preferably from range as they are a little squishy), cam cast a few spells, do a bit of sneaking and has some interesting proficiencies to use.

Faolan Whisperwind: CL/TH 1/1; AL CG; AC 6 (Leather & dex); HP 5; THAC0 20 (19 with sling); #AT 1; DMG 2d4 (morningstar), 1d4+1 (sling); Str 8, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 12.

Saves; PPDM 10, RSW 11, PP 12, BW 16, SP 12.

Weapon Proficiencies; Morningstar, Sling

Non-weapon Proficiencies; Read/Write, Religion, Spellcraft, Tumbling, Juggling, Ventriloquism, Rope Use.

Languages; Common, Gnomish, Burrowing Mammal.

Spells; 3 x 1st (Cure Light Wounds, Sanctuary, Bless).

Thief Skills: Pick Pockets 15%, Open Locks 25%, Find/Remove Traps 20%, Move Silently 30%, Hide in Shadows 25%, Detect Noise 40%, Climb Walls 45% and Read Languages 5%.

Gear; Leather armour, morningstar, sling and 20 sling bullets, holy symbol, thieves tools.

Lets Create Dark Sun Characters (AD&D 2e): Arkun the Bronze – Mul Gladiator

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For the first of our 2ed Dark Sun characters in our chraracter tree, we are going to start with the Mul Gladiator, which is really the simplest of the lot. Firstly we will look at what we have to work with.

The stats they rolled are 20 STR, 16 DEX, 19 CON, 9 INT, 16 WIS and 8 CHA.

20 STR gives +3 to hit and +8 damage.

16 DEX gives +1 reaction and missile attack and -2 AC.

19 CON gives +5 HP a level, +1 poison save and 1 hp/turn regeneration. A turn is one hour, so it is slow but every little bit helps.

9 INT gives +2 proficiencies.

16 WIS gives +2 magical defence against attacks that target the mind.

8 CHA gives 3 henchmen and a -1 loyalty bonus.

Being a mul allows the character to choose if they are human (with unlimited advancement and dual classing) or demihuman (with class limits and multiclassing.) Given gladiators can’t multiclass there is no reason not to go with human, though about the only thing he could qualify for to dual lass in is cleric.

They also only require 8 hours sleep to be fully rested, no matter the amount of exertion they had experienced. And on top of that, they can work much longer than anyone before they need to rest. For heavy labour (such as running, quarrying etc) it is 24+CON hours. In our case 43 hours. So Arkun can run for 43 hours straight before needing any rest, sleep for 8 hours and be ready to go all over again.

Medium labour (jogging, light construction etc) is 36+CON hours. Light labour (combat training, walking encumbered) is 48+CON hours. Normal activity (talking, walking) is CON days. Yup, Arkun can walk for 19 days straight without rest. There is a reason why muls are such valued slaves.

Gladiators do one thing very well – fight. They are automatically proficient in every weapon, even ones they have never seen before and can specialise in multiple weapons. The only other class that can specialise in weapons is the fighter, and they can only choose one. They are experts at unarmed combat, gaining a 4 point modifier to punching and wrestling attack roles. At 5th level they can optimise their armour, reducing AC by 1 point for every 5 levels.

As normal, we start out at 3rd level as we are a single class. We get 1d10+5 HP per level due to our high CON, for a total of 3d10+15. Our rolls are 2, 3 & 8, which is a little below average. Combined with CON it gives us 28 HP, which is reasonable without being great.

For the purpose of building these characters, we will be using a range of options, not just the core rules. This will include the fighters and gladiator handbooks, The Will and the Way sourcebook and more, as needed.

Firstly we are going to work out his psionic wild talent, using The Will and the Way. This has an expanded list of powers and a new wild talent table to roll on. We roll a 1d100, coming up with 95. This means we can get a science, a usually more powerful ability. The second roll on the science table comes up as 37 – choose a psychokinetic science. There are 8 on it, including the extremely powerful disintegrate, though it has a nasty habit of blowing up the user as well. Instead I choose telekinetic flight, which allows Arkun to be able to fly for a short time, a useful ability, especially in combat. It requires a WIS -4 roll (12 in his case.) It also has two prerequisites which he gains as well, telekinesis (WIS -3) and levitate (WIS -3). He doesn’t have full control over them but they are useful to have. On top of that, with three powers he has a sizeable pool of PSPs to power them – 64 in his case.

The next choice is a kit. Kits in 2e added a little bit of colour to classes, coming with a few bonuses in the form of proficiencies and abilities, and usually with some disadvantages too. Instead of just having three fighters in a party, you might have one as a swashbuckler, another as an outlaw and a third as a berserker, meaning they all play a little bit different.

There are a few Dark Sun specific kits, though they only cover a couple of races and classes. It was something I always felt could have been expanded on. There are lists of what kits can and can’t be used from the various Complete books due to whether they are appropriate to Athas or not.

After looking through the Gladiator’s handbook, there aren’t any kits in there that really jump out as fitting the character so I turn to the Complete Fighter’s Handbook. Despite the name, it isn’t just for fighters but for all warrior classes. This was the first Complete Handbook that was released and while later handbooks were specialised for individual classes, this one wasn’t. Though Gladiators aren’t mentioned, as it predates Dark Sun, they are warriors and so qualify for the kits in there.

One in particular sounds really promising – Wilderness Warrior. They are heroes that come from tribes that live on the edge of society, in harsh lands like deserts. Which is Athas in general. For the backstory, I have Arkun come from a tribe of nomadic herders that live in the rocky badlands regions of Athas, forever on the move trying to find food and water for their flocks. It is a perilous existence, forever in danger and one that breeds a tough type to survive it. He will also have a different set of beliefs and values to those who come from places like the cities.

The kit comes with some bonuses. They get 2 free NWPs; Endurance (CON) and Survival (INT) in their home terrain (rocky badlands). Endurance allows a character to perform continual strenuous activity for twice as long as normal. Meaning Arkun can work for a long, long time. Survival allows him to find food, water and shelter and know the hazards of the type of terrain it applies for, enough at least to survive, though not exactly thrive. There are also recommended NWPs, relating to their land of birth. For weapons, they can choose any they want, but the DM could insist they choose culturally appropriate ones, but a gladiator is proficient in all weapons to start with anyway. They may only spend their starting money on items appropriate to their culture, as determined by the DM. As a special benefit, they get a +5 bonus to survival checks, but only in their home terrain. If they pick up other survival terrains later, it doesn’t apply to them. The only special hindrance they have is a roleplaying one, in that in their early years they are occasionally hindered by a lack of familiarity of society out in the wider world.

So with that done we can work out the rest of our NWPs. A gladiator starts with 3 and he gets 1 more at 3rd level, plus 2 due to his intelligence, for a total of 6.

The first one I choose is Animal Handling (WIS -1) to represent his background, allowing him control over pack animals and beasts of burden. Of much use in the arena? Probably not but I want to actual be faithful to the kit chosen for the character. The next two NWPs chosen also tie into his background, as well as being useful – Heat Protection (INT -2) and Water Find (INT), from the Dark Sun Campaign Setting book. Given his low INT, Arkun isn’t exactly good at them, but again they are the kind of skills he would have learned in a nomadic tribe out in the wilderness. Heat Protection means with a succesful check they only need to consume half as much water to avoid dehydration and can also wear metal armour longer. Water Find means they can find enough water to sustain themselves for the day they can’t rehydrate but at least don’t dehydrate.. Unlike Survival it can be used anywhere, though it is water only, not food and shelter.

The last three NWPs go to ones of use for the arena – Tumbling (DEX), Dirty Tricks (WIS -2) and Taunting (WIS). Tumbling is a rogue skill and so would normally cost 2 slots, but in the Gladiator’s handbook it states that a gladiator can learn it for 1. It gives the user +4 AC rather than +2 when going fully defensive and also +2 to hit with unarmed attacks. The other two both come from the Gladiator’s handbook. Dirty Tricks covers things like kicking sand into the enemies eyes, giving a small bonus to the character or penalty to the enemy for a round, though can only be used once or twice against a foe. If the character makes a successful taunt roll, and the enemy fails a saving throw, the enemy becomes enraged, losing some AC and to hit, though doing a bit more damage. NPCs with 14 WIS or higher are immune. An interesting combo would be taunting the foe then going full defensive with tumbling to really make it hard to be hit while friends take them out.

Next we move onto the weapon proficiencies. A gladiator starts with 4 and gets another at 3rd level, for a total of 5. Given they are already proficient in all weapons, what they spend them on is specialisations. It still costs them two slots to specialise though, just like a regular fighter.

Dark Sun is filled with an array of interesting new weapons. There are some in the Setting Handbook but more appeared in the Gladiator’s Handbook and Dragon magazine, and these later actually had a difference to regular weapons – they got bonuses for use when someone was proficient or specialised in them. There is nothing to say we couldn’t go for normal weapons, but it is more fun and thematic to use them.

First up we go to the Complete Fighter’s Handbook for fighting styles. The first WP is spent on Ambidexterity, allowing us to use either hand equally well if something happens to our main hand, as well as reducing our offhand penalty by -2. In 2e, when fighting with two weapons you get a bonus attack with your offhand but suffer a -2 to hit with your main hand and -4 with your off hand and have to be holding a smaller weapon in your offhand. Ambidexterity reduces the penalty to -2 in the offhand. If we chose two weapon fighting specialisation it reduces both penalties to 0 and allows equal sized weapons in both hands. But we aren’t choosing that as we have another option in mind.

We spend two more on specialising in the alhulak, a Dark Sun weapon that looks like a grappling hook, usually carved out of bone, on a short rope. There is a related weapon, the cahulak, which is two alhulaks on a longer rope, and which features in a well known picture of Rikus the mul gladiator. Playing a mul gladiator with cahualks is probably a little plagiaristic though. Merely being proficient with the alhulak enables us to use a medium sized weapon in the other hand at -2 to hit and a small weapon with no penalties. In effect we get the benefit of two weapon fighting for free, but only with the alhualk. A specialist can also ensnare the enemy as if grappling. A hit does reduced damage but automatically grapples them, allowing the wielder to keep them off balance. Which will then make it easier to keep hitting them.

The remaining two WP slots are spent specialising in two-headed spear. From the Gladiator’s Handbook, it is basically a spear with a blade on each end and is counted as a medium weapon, so we can use it with the alhulak. It gets a -2 penalty, but remember our ambidexterity bonus? Yep, we get to cancel that out. It also comes with some interesting special abilities. The proficiency bonus of the weapon allows us to twirl the blades, using both ends in combat against a single opponent. This confuses intelligent foes who have never seen it before, giving them a -1 penalty to hit and damage for 2 rounds. Fun little bonus but is dependent on the whims of the DM – and doesn’t work against non-intelligent foes. The specialised bonus is a little more powerful, as can be expected. It can be used to attack two different opponents at the same time at -1 to damage. This is a extra attack in addition to attacks normally added from specialisation, as long as the targets are no more than a pace apart.

So if he is facing off against two foes before him, Arkun can make up to 7 attacks over two rounds. He gets the regular 3 per 2 attacks with his alhulak in his main hand and his regular offhand attack with the spear which can be split into 2 attacks. And we can swap out the regular alhulak attacks to try and entangle.

His saving throws are as follows; Paralyzation, Poison or Death Magic (PPDM) 13, Rods, Staffs or Wands (RSW) 15, Petrification or Polymorp (PP) 14, Breath Weapons (BW) 16, Spells (SP) 16. We do have some bonuses to those rolls. We get +1 against poisons due to our high CON, +2 against illusions and spells that attack the mind due to our high WIS and +2 to attacks that can be dodged, like lightning bolts, due to our high DEX.

A starting warrior in Dark Sun receives 5d4x30 ceramic pieces to purchase gear with. We roll 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 for a total of 14. Times 30 that comes to 420 cps to spend. We spend 120cp on a set of scale armour, 9 cp on a alhulak and 2 cp on a two-headed spear. Both of those are allowed to be made at 1% cost due to not requiring metal – it doesn’t say what they are made of so we decide on bone. 4 bone tipped javelins for 2 cp are added as well to give him some ranged options. We spend 5 cp on clothes (breeches, belt, tunic, cloak, hat and two pairs of sandals). We also buy some miscellaneous gear – a backpack (2cp), waterskin (8 bits), a fire kit (2 bits), 50′ of rope (1 cp), 1 weeks iron rations (5cp) and a small tent (5 cp). That is just 152 out of our 420 ceramics. We give the two-headed spear bronze blades, costing us 200 ceramics, taking the total to 350 ceramics. That gives us 70 left over which we will save for later, for food and drink and lodging and bribes as needed.

Scale armour is AC 6. With his DEX he is AC 4.

His base THAC0 is 18, dropping to 15 with STR.

Wielding the alhulak, he is THAC0 15 (+1 due to specialisation, -1 due to being made of bone), speed 5 doing 1d6 + 9 damage (+8 STR, +2 specialisation, -1 bone) and can made 3 attacks per 2 rounds if in his main hand.

Wielding the two-headed spear, he is THAC0 14 (+1 due to specialisation), speed 6, doing 1d8+10 damage (+8 STR, +2 specialisation) and can make 3 attacks per 2 rounds if in his main hand.

Throwing the javelins, he is THACO 14 (+1 due to DEX), speed 4, doing 1d4+7 damage (+8 STR, -1 bone) and can throw 1 a round.

As for alignment, the options are fairly limited. As part of the character tree, all characters must be either good, neutral or evil. Given that a ranger, which we have in the tree, must be good, all characters have to be good. Coming from a nomadic background, living away from the cities, Arkun strikes me as a chaotic good type.

Lastly we work out the physical details of the character – age, weight and height. A mul starts at 15 + 1d6 years old and can reach 80 +1d10 years old. They are 66 + 2d6 inches tall and weigh 220 + 5d10 pounds in weight. For his age we roll 4, making him 19, and 8 for maximum age, meaning he might live to 88. For his height, we roll 2 and 5, making him 73 inches (6 foot 1) tall and 1, 3, 5, 5, 8 for weight, making him 242 pounds in weight. In this regards he is about as average as they come.

Arkun is something of an oddity for a mul, born not as a slave but free. His mother belonged to a small tribe of nomadic herdsmen who tended their herd of erdlu through the canyons of the rocky badlands. His father was a dwarf cleric of earth who wandered the same region, aiding those who lived in the badlands. It was during such wanderings that his parent met, and he was the result of that. Though his birth was difficult, with the aid of his father his mother lived.

He grew up among the tribe, learning the handling of the erdlu and how to survive the harsh lands in which he lived. As he reached adulthood, he felt the need to leave the tribe behind for a time, to make his way in the world. As he left, his father gifted him with a bronze bladed double-headed spear. Heading to Tyr, he found the city strange and found that his strength and fighting ability were valued as a gladiator.

Arkun the Bronze; Glad 3; Kit: Wilderness Warrior; AL CG; AC 4 (Scale & dex); MV 12; HP 28; THAC0 18 (15 with alhulak, 14 with two-headed spear and javelin); #ATT 3/2 (alhulak or two-headed spear) + 1 (offhand attack), 1 (javelin); DMG 1d6+9 (alhulak), 1d8+10 (two-headed spear), 1d4+7 (javelin); STR 20, DEX 16, CON 18, INT 9, WIS 16, CHA 8.

Psionic Summary; PSPs 64; Wild Talent – Telekinetic Flight (PS WIS -4, Cost 15, Maintain 4/rd), Telekinesis (PS WIS -3, Cost 3, Maintain 1/rd), Levitate (PS WIS -3, Cost 12, Maintain 2/rd)

Saves; PPDM 13, RSW 15, PP 14, BW 16, SP 16.

Weapon Proficiencies; All.

Weapon Specialisation; Ambidexterity, alhulak, two-headed spear.

Non-weapon Proficiencies; Endurance (19), Survival: Rocky Badlands (14), Animal Handling (15), Heat Protection (7), Water Find (9), Tumbling (16), Dirty Tricks (14), Taunting (16).

Languages; Common.

Gear; Scale armour, bone alhulak, bronze two-headed spear, 4 bone javelins, clothes (breeches, belt, tunic, cloak, hat, two pairs of sandals) backpack, waterskin, 1 weeks iron rations, 50′ rope, small tent, firekit, 70 ceramics.

Lets Create: Dark Sun Characters (AD&D 2e): Planning the Character Tree Part Two

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In the previous entry on creating Dark Sun characters and a character tree, we discussed how it worked and rolled up four sets of stats to use to actually create the characters.

Now the time has come to actually create them.

Our very first choice is about as iconic as you can get for Dark Sun – a mul gladiator. You almost kind of have to have a mul gladiator at some stage.

Each race and class has various ability requirements that have to be met For a mul, we need the following before racial adjustments; STR 10, CON 8. For a gladiator it is STR 13, DEX 12, CON 15. So for this character we need STR 13, DEX 12, CON 15 and the rest can be anything.

The stat array we are going with is 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4.

We could go a couple of ways – one purely stated towards combat, putting everything in strength, dexterity and constitution, or one a little bit more rounded out. In the end I choose the later, assigning the dice as follows;

STR 4, 4

DEX 3, 3

CON 4, 3, 1

WIS 3, 2, 1

This gives a base of STR 18, DEX 16, CON 18, INT 10, WIS 16, CHA 10. When factoring in racial modifiers (+2 STR, +1 CON, -1 INT, -2 CHA) we get;

STR 20, DEX 16, CON 19, INT 9, WIS 16, CHA 8.

He may not be all that smart and is a little bit crude, but he is cunning and very athletic. There are a number of very useful proficiencies that key off wisdom for him.

That is our fighting expert out of the way. Next we will go with one who is more adept with people and in the cities, and for this I am taking full advantage of the many multiclass opportunities available in Dark Sun – a half elf bard/preserver/psionicist.

For a half elf we need a minimum of 8 DEX, a preserver needs 9 INT, a psionicist need 11 CON, 12 INT, 15 WIS and a bard needs 12 DEX, 13 INT and 15 CHA. So we need a minimum 12 DEX, 13 INT, 15 WIS and 15 CHA.

Obviously charisma is very important to the character concept. Intelligence is needed for the preserver but also for the psionicist. Psionicists powers are keyed off one of three stats – CON, INT or WIS. We will concentrate on the WIS and INT powers and mostly ignore the CON ones, as they are more combative ones.

Our stat array for this one is 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 which we assign as follows.

DEX 4, 3

CON 1, 1

INT 4, 3

WIS 4, 3

CHA 4, 4

This gives a base of STR 10, DEX 17, CON 12, INT 17, WIS 17, CHA 18. With racial modifiers (+1 DEX, -1 CON) , that turns out as;

STR 10, DEX 18, CON 11, INT 17, WIS 17, CHA 18.

Not a very physical character, but quick, sharp and very likeable.

This character covers a range of options anything to do with people, cities and magic. Now we turn to a character who can do well in the wilds, and that means a thri-kreen. Specifically a thri-kreen ranger/druid. Okay, that might be a bit of a controversial choice for some who say that isn’t a valid option. Druids need to be neutral and rangers need to be good aligned but I have always read it that they can be any kind of neutral and not true neutral as the rules don’t actually specify that. So neutral-good is an allowed choice. Besides a ranger/druid is thematically very appropriate. That’s my view at least and how I’ve always run it.

The requirements for a thri-kreen ranger/druid are fairly steep. A thri-kreen needs 8 STR and 15 DEX, but can only have a maximum of 17 CHA. A ranger needs 13 STR, 13 DEX, 14 CON and 14 WIS. A druid needs WIS 12 and CHA 15. Why such a high charisma is needed for a druid I do not know. But it makes having a thri-kreen druid tough. They have to roll a 17 for CHA, because that is the most they can have before their racial modifier of -2, which means the actual highest CHA they can have is 15, not 17. And 15 is the minimum required for a druid.

Our stat array is 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 which we assign as follows;

STR 4, 2

DEX 4, 1

CON 4, 1

WIS 3, 3

CHA 4, 3

This gives a base of STR 16, DEX 15, CON 15, INT 10, WIS 16, CHA 17. With racial modifiers (+2 DEX, +1 WIS, -1 INT, -2 CHA) , it turns out as;

STR 16, DEX 17, CON 15, INT 9, WIS 17, CHA 15.

Not exactly smart, but well rounded otherwise. They can do the whole wilderness exploration and survival thing, as well as handling priestly magic and being able to fight fairly well on top of that.

On to the last character and given we have covered most of the different areas you might run into, so this one is a bit more of fun, while still being useful. We don’t yet have a half-giant, so we are going to take one. Rather than the obvious, a half-giant gladiator or fighter, we are going a multiclass psionicist. The other choices for multiclass for a half-giant are fighter, ranger or cleric. While the idea of a half-giant ranger is tempting, having them sneak around dual wielding two handed swords, we are going to stick with a fighter/psionicist, mostly focusing on the CON based psionics powers to boost their combat potential.

A half-giant requires a minimum of 17 STR and 15 CON before modifiers, but can’t have more than 15 DEX and INT and 17 WIS and CHA. Before modifiers. A fighter needs just 9 STR and a psionicist needs 11 CON, 12 INT and 15 WIS. So we need 17 STR, 15 CON, 12 INT and 15 WIS.

Our stat array is 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 which we assign as follows;

STR 4, 4

DEX 2, 2

CON 4, 4

INT 4, 1

WIS 4, 3

This gives base stats of STR 18, DEX 14, CON 18, INT 15, WIS 17, CHA 10. With racial modifiers (+4 STR, +2 CON, -2 INT, -2 WIS, -2 CHA), that gives us;

STR 22, DEX 14, CON 20, INT 13, WIS 15, CHA 8.

While fairly average intellectually compared to other races, for a half-giant he is a genius, as wise and smart as they come. On top of that he is still physically imposing.

So that is how they have turned out stat wise. Next time we will start the builds proper.

Lets Build a World: Part Eighteen: Government Form and Social Alignment

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In the small part of the world we are concentrating on, we have worked out the cultural archetypes, racial makeup and technology of the realms we are working with, resulting in an interesting mix, ranging from the more advanced socially and technologically tabaxi to the rather more backward giants.

Our next step on the path of building the world is to look at how the realms are ruled. Each culture can have a number of realms in it, each with differing forms of government. For this region we have five thri-kreen realms at the heart of it. Studying the maps, I have decided that there is room on it for 1 giant, 1 tabaxi and 2 human realms as well.

We start with the giants to the east, rolling a 1d100 on the Government Form table. The dice come up with a Dictatorship – a supreme ruler holds absolute power, but not necessarily dynastic. For their social alignment we roll another 1d100 and get chaotic evil.

From what we previously knew of the giants, this all fits together. The nation is ruled by the principle of ‘might makes right’, with local strongman bosses and their warbands obeying those above them out of fear, and at the top being the most dangerous of the lot. They may call themselves a king or warlord or by another title. Treachery and violence are an acceptable route of promotion, with one strongman taking down another while being on the lookout for other rivals. Beneath them are the slaves – ogres, orogs, orcs and humans, keeping society running. They are kept in check by the neogi slavemaster, valued and respected parts of the realm. And then there are the dwarves, living a precarious existence where only their valued skills keep them from being enslaved.

Next we come to the tabaxi. They roll confederacy for the Government Form, where individual cities and towns govern themselves but contribute to a league or federation for the common good of all, and neutral good for the social alignment.

Initially we were meant to have three tabaxi realms in the region, including an area across the water to the southwest. After this I decided to collapse them all into this single confederacy and model it in part on the Hansaetic League. The tabaxi are a confederation of mostly independent mercantile city-states that have banded together for mutual trade and protection, where their traders travel far and wide and brought back wealth and knowledge. They believe the well-being of all comes before the rule of law and the rule of individual liberty, and they extend that to all who live among them, regardless of race.

All in all, a place that stands starkly different to the land of the giants.

Moving on, we turn to the first of the human nations. They turn out to be an oligarchy, a small group of absolute rulers who share power, and the social alignment is lawful neutral.

For this I picture a feudal nation that is nominally a kingdom, but the king is weak and ineffective, and the true power in the land is a small group who form the King’s Council, ruling the land in the name of the king. They do it for what they perceive as the good of the nation, ruling through a slowly growing bureaucracy, where law and order is paramount and everyone is treated the same, regardless of circumstances. They see it as necessary to bring peace and stability to the land and to preserve their feudalistic system in the light of outside dangers.

The other human nation rolls up a hierarchy, a feudal or bureaucratic system of government which proceeds through different levels of a religious institution. Basically a highly stratified religious government, with power being concentrated at the top in the form of High Priest. The roll for social alignment also turns up as chaotic evil, which at first I don’t think would work with the stratified nature of the nation, but on second thoughts can see it working if there is a lot of infighting within the ranks of the religion, with frequent assassinations, blackmail, treachery, corruption and the works.

Given the nature of the place, I can see which of the gods they worship, that being the lesser power of fire and war we rolled up back in the deities section, a chaotic evil goddess who reveled in the destructive aspect of war, of burnt offerings and sacrificial victims set aflame. Not the most pleasant of neighbours.

Finally we come to the thri-kreen, with their five small nations that are in effect little more than city-states in the jungles. Given their small size and that they are all of the same culture, it is probable that they are fairly similar in the way they are governed and their outlook. They won’t necessarily be all the same, but I can’t see their being any extremes in differences, which we will have to keep in mind as we develop them.

Rolling up for the first one, we get a militocracy, where military leaders rule under martial law, while the alignment comes out as chaotic-neutral, a place where there is no central authority and no law. At first I consider throwing this out but after some reflection I can see how to make it work. A CN country can be one in the process of disintegration, such as through an invasion. Given the neighbours around them, this seems a good choice – the city-state has been invaded, the rulership fled or dead and the army is all that is left, trying to hold the nation together. It also makes a great place for adventures for players, to try and help stabilise and rebuild in the face of an aggressor army.

Following that up we roll up lawful good feudalism for the next state, a fairly standard state for a fantasy setting, if one that is someone unusual in its racial makeup.

The third is a chaotic good monarchy, one with less laws and more freedoms, which makes it less stratified and lacking the peasants the previous city-state had.

The fourth is another lawful good state, but this one another hierarchy – basically feudalism but with priests in place of nobles. Interestingly there is only one lawful good deity in the pantheon, the sole demigoddess whose portfolios are war, redemption and guardianship. Given who some of their neighbours are, including one that worships the evil goddess of fire and war, I can see how one city-state may have taken to worshiping her.

The last thri-kreen city-state is a neutral-good republic, where government is in the hands of representatives chosen by electors. This is an interesting place, having thrown off the shackles of the old style feudalism that was once common to the thri-kreen and instead embracing new ideas coming from their tabaxi neighours.

All of this does make the concept of giant slaves a bit hard to work in as good societies tend not to have them. What I am thinking is that the giants are actually captured raiders made into indentured servants and prisoners, not quite free but not true slaves either.

The final step of this part of the chapter is what is labeled situations – elements we want to introduce into the immediate area. This is one we don’t roll for but make up, and a number of suggestions are made.

This can range from typical things like raids, famines, wars and the like, to more unusual things like unusual laws, technology, the way magic works and even racial roles. Maybe only gnomes are allowed to be bards or maybe only red-heads can use clerical magic.

We have already come up with some as we designed our small nations – the main one being the invasion of one of the thri-kreen city-states and its fight for survival. The best fit for this is that the neighbouring giants have launched a large invasion. The other thri-kreen are aiding them in the fight, and most likely the tabaxi as well. Meanwhile the humans are not involved, though the evil human nation is probably involved in some raiding for victims to take off for sacrifice, and if keeping an eye out for weaknesses to exploit should the situation arise.

I would like to add some more unusual elements to the tabaxi at some point – it sounds an intriguing place and deserves more fleshing out.

Next time we return to the map and the physical cartography of the region.

Lets Build a World: Part Seventeen: Realm Culture and Technology

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Previously we finished up Chapter Three: Continents and Geography in the World Builders Guidebook. Now we are moving on to Chapter Four: Kingdoms and Sociology.

For this we pick a kingdom or region of the continent map and zoom in on it. For us, given the small size of kingdoms on the map, we will go with a region which contains a number of small kingdoms, though in reality a lot of them will probable be more like city-states.

Like all parts of the guidebook, you could jump in and start here, designing a kingdom before going up or down in size.

For the part we are working on I have chosen this part of the world;

What really got me intrigued was the jungle-dwelling thri-kreen, and so it is there that we will be concentrating. To flesh it out a bit more, we will also include some of their neighbours – giants to the east, humans to the north and tabaxi catfolk to the west. Certainly interesting neighbours.

The first step of the process is not actually working on the map but detailing the people and their culture. There is nothing stopping you doing the map first if you want, as with anything in the guidebook, but we are following the book as it was written.

Each culture has a cultural archetype. There is a list you can roll on but it points out that it isn’t an exhaustive list and that you can come up with your own if you want. I have decided that I won’t roll for the thri-kreen. Instead I am going to chose a Mesoamerican archetype for them, based on cultures like the Aztecs, Incan and Mayans.

For the humans we roll Middle Ages European. Basically your standard fantasy setting then. The giants get Dark Ages Europe. This is a pre-feudal setting, where chieftains and their warbands rule. The Anglo-Saxons are a good example of this. The tabaxi roll up Renaissance Europe, where arts, literature and technology are flourishing and a wealthy merchant class has risen up, resulting in mercantile city-states.

The next step is to work out who lives in the nations. Realms can have any number of different demihuman, humanoid and even monstrous races in them. The number varies, with small kingdoms having less than empires. For this I am saying the thri-kreen are a small kingdom, with 1d2 primary and 1d4+1 secondary races, while the other three are moderate kingdoms, with 1d2 primary and 1d6+1 secondary races. Primary races generally have 25-50% of the total population, while secondary ones account from 1-10%, though there are exceptions where a small group of overlords are a primary race but rule over a more populous secondary race. The giants we rolled up may fill that role.

Rolling up we get;

  • Thri-kreen – 1 primary, 4 secondary races
  • Humans – 1 primary, 6 secondary races
  • Giants – 2 primary, 5 secondary races
  • Tabaxi – 2 primary, 4 secondary races.

For the exact type of each race we can roll up for them on the race table we used earlier when determining the cultures of the region previously. We can also assign or change things up as we see fit.

For the thri-kreen, they are obviously the primary race. For the secondary ones we roll up humans, giants, orcs and goblins. Humans and giants are neighbors and orcs live not far away so it makes sense that they may have communities within thri-kreen lands. Goblins are a new race though, one not powerful or large enough to have their own lands.

The humans are the primary race in their culture, with orcs, giants, dwarves, orges, goblins and kobolds as secondary races. Once again orcs, giants, dwarves and ogres are neighbours or near neighbours. The goblins turn up again, so a pocket of them seem to be spread between the human and thri-kreen lands. It may be that their homelands may have been conquered at some point, something we will have to explore. The kobolds are another new race that has turned up.

For the giants, we make the giants and their ogre slaves the two primary races. For secondary races, we start with humans and dwarves. Then we roll up orogs, who are an ogre-orc cross. From that I decide to add orcs to the mix, to facilitate that. Lastly we get neogi, a race of spiderlike creatures who are generally slavers. We might make them slavers who work for the giants, capturing or trading slaves for them. The other races, including humans and dwarves, may have been captured in slave raids along the borders.

Lastly are the tabaxi. They are one of the two primary races. For the second we roll up gnomes. While there are gnomes on the continental map, those are a long way away so these may be a different type of them. The secondary races are humans, ogres, thri-kreen, again all local races, and yuan-ti, normally depicted as jungle dwelling snakepeople, so they fit the region.

Now we know who lives in each realm, we need to know how they fit in, their status and position in relation to the main race. Once more you can roll, pick or do both.

For the thri-kreen, the humans, orcs and goblins all live among the thir-kreen, though in their own districts but the thri-kreen are the dominant race. It means that they may not be seen or treated as equals to the thri-kreen, may not have the same rights, may be seen as children to be protected or one of a number of other options. In a surprise turn of events, the giants turn up to be slaves to the thri-kreen. That is something we will have to work out how happened, but it certainly puts a new spin on relations with the giant neighbours.

For the humans, the goblins live in human communities in their own districts and are treated as equals to the humans. The dwarves are also treated as equals, but live in their own communities. The others, the giants, orcs, ogres and kobolds, have their own communities but aren’t seen as equals.

For the giants, the orcs, ogres and orogs are made slaves rather than rolling. The humans roll up being slaves as well, but the dwarves aren’t. The live in their own communities, though are seen as beneath the giants yet somehow have preserved their freedom. The neogi turn out to be seen as equals by the giants, living among them, no doubt valued for their slaver ways.

For the tabaxi, the first two rolls see the gnomes and ogres seen as equals, so on a whim I decide that the tabaxi are more enlightened due to their renaissance ways, and treat all others as equals. The gnomes live among the tabaxi, while the ogres, thri-kreen and yuan-ti have their own separate communities.

The next section is on language. There is nothing to roll here, just a short bit on language as social distinction, the common tongue and literacy. We could, if we want, go into depth on working out how it functions, but we will for this example, keep it simple.

There is no common tongue, as such, due to the fragmented balkanised nature of the region. Giantish, dwarvish and human tend to be more dominant due to their spread and size. Among the thri-kreen, they speak their own language. The humans, orcs and goblins who live alongside them do have their own languages but favour thri-kreen in day to day use. The giants are given no choice – they are banned from speaking in giantish and must speak thri-kreen.

Lastly, in this section of the chapter, is technology. The technology used during ancient times was different to that of the middle ages. It is something that we can roll for, or select depending on what we rolled up for cultural archetype earlier, though just because a nation is culturally of the dark ages, it doesn’t mean their technology has to be either. For the giants, humans and tabaxi though, we will do that. The giants have dark ages technology, without much intensive farming but plenty of animal husbandry, with crude warbands and levies as standard military units. The humans are feudal, with kings, vassals and peasants, and the start of the merchant and specialised craftsmen class. The tabaxi are at a renaissance level, with such things as the printing press and waterwheel and improved sailing vessels able to undertake long voyages. They may even have firearms and cannons.

For the thri-kreen we don’t have an indication so we will roll for them. The roll for them comes up as late middle ages, between that of the humans and tabaxi. The feudal system is beginning to break down as the merchant class grows in importance and trade guilds increase production and importance. Power moves away from the nobles into the towns. If firearms are allowed, the first crude ones show up here.

Next time we will move on to looking at the governments of the nations, how they are ruled and what their social alignments are like.

Lets Build a World: Part Sixteen: The Culture Map

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Previously in our world building exercise using the World Builders Guidebook, we started to sketch in the locations of the dominate races on the map. This time around we shall fill in the rest of the races, the major and minor ones.

For some we roll for locations as we did with the dominate races, but for others we just squeeze in where we have room. Given this is a mostly water map, there is a shortage of land and so we have to make do with what we have for the many races that we have.

hat we get is a map that looks like this;

  • 1 – Giants (3 cultures, 6 realms) – Ogre slaves
  • 2 – Dwarves (4 cultures, 9 realms)
  • 3 – Humans (3 cultures, 8 realms)
  • 4 – Tabaxi (3 cultures, 7 realms)
  • 5 – Bullwugs (3 cultures, 12 realms)
  • 6 – Kobolds (1 culture, 1 realm)
  • 7 – Thri-kreen (1 culture, 5 realms)
  • 8 – Orcs (2 cultures, 7 realms)
  • 9 – Ogre-mages (1 culture, 5 realms)
  • 10 – Gnomes (2 cultures, 5 realms)
  • 11 – Aaracokra (1 culture, 1 realm)
  • 12 – Tasloi (2 cultures, 6 realms)
  • 13 – Grell (1 culture, 5 realms)
  • 14 – Beholders (2 cultures, 5 realms) – Lizardmen slaves
  • 15 – Ogres (1 culture, 4 realms)

From studying the map and locations of various races, we can start to form ideas as to what they are like. Some of the cultures are obviously sailors and mariners, coming from the dwarven, human, tabaxi, bullywug and orcish races. The free ogres live alongside one of the giant nations, who keep ogre slaves. The second group of giants is not too far away from them either.

While those two groups of giants live in the warm southern parts of the map, far off in the cold north lives another giant culture. Given the distance, it would seem unlikely that they also have ogre slaves. They may not even have slaves at all.

Meanwhile in the center of the map you have a widespread human culture made up of 2 realms spread across many islands, the center most one of which is the most important in the world. Every since placing it on the map the idea was that it tied into the mythology of the world, except at the time I didn’t know who would live there. It is First Land.

If you can remember back when we designed the pantheon for the world, we came up with Father Earth, the Lord of Volcanoes, whose birth to Mother Ocean resulted in a volcanic eruption that turned into the first island and the first land in the world.

This is that island, the holiest site in the world for followers of Father Earth, where his temple is built upon the volcano there.

But with all the cultures filled in, we move onto the next part of the book, Kingdoms and Sociology. For that we zoom in again, creating a home region and work on the kingdom, or kingdoms, there, making a place for the players to adventure in. Fleshing it out, seeing who lives there, exactly how they are organised and more.

And I have region picked out, which I will reveal next time.

Lets Create: Dark Sun Characters (AD&D 2e): Planning The Character Tree

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Athas is a brutal, unforgiving world, and death is not uncommon, even to player characters. Loosing a character, especially an advanced one, and having to shoehorn in a new starting character is never easy. And low level characters are going to have trouble surviving what high level ones can.

So Dark Sun introduced the Character Tree. For it you roll up four characters to form the tree – at the start of any adventure you decide which is the active character and which are the inactive ones. When a new adventure starts you can switch characters or keep playing with the current ones.

There are some rules though. While any race and class combination is allowed, there are alignment restrictions – all four characters must be good, neutral or evil. The lawful-chaotic alignment doesn’t matter. Which means they are all either LG/NG/CG, LE/NE/CE or LN/N/CN.

While the characters do know each other and are assumed to be working towards similar goals, their gear is their own. No swapping gear between characters – the other characters need it to survive themselves after all. They aren’t going to be giving up that precious magic sword of theirs for anything.

Character swapping is limited to a few situations. Firstly, at the start of an adventure. Second, during an adventure, but only at the discretion of the DM, and usually with a 3d6 day delay to represent sending messages and the other character journeying. Swapping characters when they are in distant cities should not really be considered, but if they are both in the same location it would make more sense. And also when an active character dies. An inactive character arrives within one day to take over and the player rolls up a new 1st level character.

As an active character adventures and earns XP and levels up, the player may advance one of his inactive characters 1 level. It does get a little tricky when dual and multiclass characters are involved, as multiclass characters can only advance one of their classes.

So what to put into the character tree? You could go with four gladiators but that is kind of redundant. The dice rolls do determine the exact make up but a spread of characters able to handle a number of situations would work best. You could have one for fighting, one for wilderness travel and adventures, another for city adventures, someone good at magic or psionics or whatever you decide. Some character may cover more than one area, such as rangers, who can both fight and survive in the wilderness. Given the way 2e works, you can have unusual characters covering various aspects for the group. A high INT, high CHA fighter is feasible in 2e, able to be the social face of the party in a way that isn’t really possible in later editions.

I do have a number of ideas in mind for this character tree, but first we need to roll the dice to see what we get. There are a number of options for how to do it, with more or less control over what we get.

The basic option is rolling 4d4+4 6 times, once for each stat in order. It gets good stats, on average around 14 per stat, but lacks control.

Option 1 is rolling 5d4 twice for each stat, keep the highest.

Option 2 is rolling 5d4 6 times and assigning them as desired.

Option 3 is rolling 5d4 12 times and assign the 6 best as desired.

Option 4 is rolling 6d4, discarding the lowest dice, 6 times and assigning as desired.

Option 5 is each stat starts at 10 and rolling 10d4, with dice assigned as desired. No score can be higher than 20 and all points on a dice must be added to the same stat.

The basic option will probably give you better overall stats than the first three options, while the other two will be about the same, on average.

As an example, I used option 4 to roll 4 lots of stats and got one with 19, 19, 17, 16, 14, 13 and one with 16, 15, 14, 14, 10, 8. It is a shame that first was a test run as they would be a very powerful character.

In the end I go with option 5 and get the following 4 sets of dice rolls;

1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4.

1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.

1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.

1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.

Those are above average, yes. I do have some character ideas in mind that will require them for prerequisites though.

And next time we will start creating those characters.

Lets Create: Dark Sun Characters (AD&D 2E): Thakur Swiftstride

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After the long post about the changes and options for character creation in 2nd ed Dark Sun, it is time to make a character.

Normally we would make four characters as part of a character tree, and we will do that, but first we will do a one off character, using the basic rolling method of 4d4+4 once for each stat.

Six rolls later and we get Str 11, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 16 and Cha 14. A little above average, but not anything exceptional.

The first step to do is to see what we can’t play; the races and classes have various minimum stat requirements needed to play them.

For this character, their low strength means they can’t be a half-giant. They also only just qualify for dwarf and mul, but it is unlikely I will choose them either. The other races are all available.

For classes, we also lack the strength to be a ranger or gladiator, and the charisma to be a bard or druid. That leaves fighter, thief, cleric, templar, defiler, preserver and psionicist available.

It does give us some choices. For this character, though, I am thinking of doing something different to normal, and that is to design a really evil character. The best choices for that are templar and defiler. A templar can be a human, elf, half-elf or dwarf, while defilers are humans, elves or half-elves.

There is only one really option for an evil backstabber, and that is an elven templar/defiler. Elves are duplicitous, templars are power hungry and defilers are plain evil. Together you have something truly unpleasant.

The first choice I am going to make is the characters alignment, as it might help with later choices as to how the character is built. We know they are evil, but what variety? AD&D has an alignment system built on two axis – law-neutral-chaos and good-neutral-evil. That gives us three options – lawful-evil, neutral-evil and chaotic-evil.

Chaotic-evil characters act on evil impulses, do not value any laws and value their own freedoms over everything else. They tend to be a bit psychotic. It doesn’t really work for this character, as, while being a templar gives them some protections, there are always those above them ready to step down hard if they get out of hand.

Lawful-evil characters have moral codes and belief in laws and order and even honour, but it is bent towards evil, repressive outcomes. Peace through tyranny. Again, not I think for this character, as elves tend to be a bit more free spirited.

Which leaves neutral-evil. NE characters are out for themselves, and will do whatever it takes to get what they want. If that involves following the law and working with others, then they will do so, but the minute that is no longer convenient, they will abandon or even betray them. Perfect for an elven defiler/templar looking out for themselves.

Thakur Swiftstride was one of the city elves of Tyr, living in the elven slums there. Always ambitious, always on the look out for a better way, he could see that slum life would never see him obtain the power he craved, and that the only power to be had came through the ruler of Tyr, King Kalak, the mighty sorcerer-king. And so it was that Thakur pledged himself to Kalak, becoming one of his feared and dreaded Templars. Thakur had a secret though – he also was a defiler, a status he kept hidden from all. Through templar magic and defiler magic, Thakur had great ambitions to rise high in the ranks of service to Kalak – and perhaps even higher in time.

So we know his alignment and a bit about him, we are going to look at his stats and what they provide.

Elves have the stat modifiers of +2 DEX, +1 INT, -1 WIS and -2 CON, giving us final stats of STR 11, DEX 19, CON 14, INT 16, WIS 15 and CHA 14.

STR 11 gives no bonuses to combat and a fairly limited carrying capacity. Thakur is on the weaker side for a Dark Sun character. Not that it bothers him – he has no desire to be in combat or to carry much. That is what other people are for.

DEX 19 is quite good, giving +3 to reaction adjustment and missile attack and -4 to AC. He is less likely to be surprised, a definite bonus in the backstabbing world of Templars, is harder to hit and, if it comes to combat, he is better with ranged, which is the only place an elf would want to be.

CON 14 is average, providing no bonus hit points – it would have done without the elven CON penalty. The system shock resistance is 88%, which at least is good, should it ever come to that.

INT 16 provides 5 bonus non-weapon proficiencies, giving him plenty of choices. He can also learn up to 8th level spells, can know 11 spells per level and has a 70% chance to learn a spell.

WIS 15 gives him 2 bonus 1st level clerical spells, and 1 bonus 2nd level (when he can cast them), as well as +1 magical defence adjustment for saves against spells that attack the mind.

CHA 14 means he can have up to 6 henchmen, and that they get a +1 loyalty bonus. He also get a +2 to reaction adjustments. He has some charm and the ability to swift talk others, to get them to do what he wants.

A single class character starts at 3rd level, but multi-class characters start with enough XP to be second level in their most expensive class.

Priests need 1500 xp for first level, while defilers need 1750 xp, so he start with 1750xp in both classes and at level 2/2.

Hit points are calculates as follows for multiclass characters; at first level, add the dice rolls for the classes, then divide by the number of classes before adding bonus HP due to CON. After than, when a class gains a level, roll the appropriate dice and then divide by the number of classes. You round down in all cases which means bad dice rolls can really hurt.

Templars get 1d8 HP and defilers get 1d4 HP per level to start with. For first level we roll a 7 and a 3, totaling 10. Dividing by 2, we get 5 HP at first level. We roll again once per class as both have leveled up. For the templar we get a 3, divided by 2, for 1 HP, and for the defiler we get 2 divide by 2, for 1 more HP, for a total of 7 HPs.

As we are not a psionicist, we get a wild talent. For that we roll a 1d100 on the chart in the psionics hand book to see what we get. Our roll is 80 – Dimensional Door. To activate it requires a CON-1 roll (13 in our case) and allows the opening of a portal to a nearby location briefly. For wild talents, characters get psionic strength points (PSPs) enough to activate it once, and bonus points if it requires maintenance to last for 4 rounds. Dimensional Door requires 4 points to activate and 2 points per round to maintain, which mean we gain 12 PSPs in total. Each time he levels up he gains 4 new PSPs, bringing the total to 16. Its a situational wild talent but could be of use from time to time.

For saving throws we get the whichever is best from our two classes, giving us the following; paralyzation, poison or death magic: 10; rod, staff or wand: 11; petrification or polymorph: 13; breath weapon: 15; spells: 12. Those are the numbers we have to roll equal to or above on a 1d20.

We have two types of proficiency; weapon and non-weapon. Weapon proficiencies enable us to use a weapon without penalty. For both of them we receive whichever class has the most, which is 2 weapons for the templar, and 4 non-weapon for both classes. We also receive 5 bonus non-weapon proficiencies for the high intelligence, giving us 9 in total.

Our choice for weapon proficiences are the longsword, the preferred melee weapon of the elves, and the longbow, the preferred ranged weapon of the elves and also our characters preferred weapon should the need arise. If he is using a longbow and longsword made by a member of his tribe, he gets +1 to hit with them.

For non-weapon proficiences, they have access to general, priest, wizard and rogue NWPs, the rogue being thanks to being a templar. We select a few that we think fit our character and what he does; read/write, spellcraft, somantic concealment, bureaucracy, heat protection, forgery, etiquette and rope use. A number of those come from the Dark Sun campaign guide, designed for the setting.

On Athas, only templars and nobles are legally allowed to know how to read and write, at least in the cities. There are ways around that but generally if you are found out, especially if you are a slave, then the penalty is death. Being a templar, our character doesn’t have to worry about that. Spellcraft helps with his magic, both templar and defiler, while somantic concealment helps disguise the otherwise elaborate gestures that are required to cast a spell. Very useful when trying not to give away what you are. As a member of the bureaucracy, being able to use it effectively is probably a bonus, while being in a boiling hot world, knowing how to protect yourself from the heat and conserve water consumption helps. Forgery covers not just how to forge documents and the like but to also recognise forgeries. A templar should find plenty of use for that. Etiquette covers the correct forms of address and behavior when dealing with people of rank. Probably useful when dealing with nobles and templars of higher rank than our character is. And rope use is for using ropes well, including escaping bonds, but has another important aspect for this character, as we will discuss in a bit.

A second level Templar has 1 1st level spell, but we gain 2 bonus 1st level spells for our wisdom. Unlike Clerics and Druids, Templars have access to all priest spells. His spell loadout can change as required, but his standard spell list is; Command, Create Water and Sanctuary. At his level, Create Water creates enough water for his needs in a day, but obviously can be put to other needs as required.

A second level defiler can cast 2 1st level spells. At first level they start with a spellbook (or not a spellbook) with Read Magic, Detect Magic and 4 other spells in it. (Usually. It all depends on the DM though.) The four he goes with are Charm Person, Armour, Sleep and Identify. He normally has Charm Person and Sleep memorised.

So, about spellbooks. In vanilla they are big, bulky things and very obvious what they are. Given that Athasian wizards of any variety really don’t want to advertise what they are too much, they have found ways of disguising their spellbooks. The exact manner is up to the player, but it could be via tattooing or ritual scaring on the body, woven into cloth, in complicated string and knot patterns, hidden in maps or something else besides. Our character uses his rope use NWP to craft knotted ropes that hide his spellbook in them.

Lastly we have equipment. On Athas, metals are rare, which makes items, including coins, made of metal much more valuable. The common coin used on Athas is the ceramic piece, which are glazed in specific colours and designed to be broken into 10 pie-shaped pieces known as bits. A cermaic bit is worth 1% of a gold coin. All nonmetal items are worth 1% of their vanilla value. All metal items are worth their listed vanilla cost. Given the ceramic bit takes the place of gold coins on Athas, including for starting sums, this makes metal items worth 100 times as much on Athas as elsewhere. A set of full plate normally costs 2000 gold pieces, but on Athas it is worth the equivalent of 200,000 gold coins. Not that you would want to wear it.

Luckily there are alternatives for most things.

Weapons easily made without metal, such as bows, clubs, spears, slings etc , cost 1% of their vanilla prices. For the remaining weapons, such as axes, swords, maces and the like, they use alternatives to metal, such as bone, stone, obsidian and wood. It makes them cheaper, but comes with penalties to hit and damage, and has a habit of breaking as well. Bone is the best, giving -1/-1 penalties, but wood, the cheapest, is worst, with -2/-3 penalties.

For armour there is a limited to what can be done. The lighter armours like leather and hide, are as normal, and others can use pieces of bone and chitin in the manufacture, but the best armours, basically chain and higher, have to be made of metal. You just don’t want to be wearing it – the intense heat on Athas would cook you alive if you wore metal armour.

For Thakur, we would calculate how much money he has based on which class starts with the most – priest for him. He gets 3d6x30 cp. We roll 12, giving him 360 cps. 2nd ed has very large lists to select from for gear, but in this case I am not going to do so. Instead I am only giving him the basics; studded leather armour (made from bone studs) and a medium hide shield comes to 27 cps. A wood longsword costs 10% of vanilla price, which comes to 150 cp. A longbow costs 75 cp and 30 bone sheaf arrows (at 30% of vanilla price) comes to 45 cp. That is 297 cp, leaving him 63 for other expenses. (Note; a multiclass wizard may or may not be able to wear armour depending on the DM. If they are allowed to wear it they can not cast wizards spells while wearing it.)

With that we have largely finished the character. All that remains is to roll up age, height and weight and then stat him out. An elf starts at 15 + 3d4 years old and lives to 100 + 2d20, though very few make it that long. For Thakur, we roll 1, 2 & 4 for starting age, making him 22, and 2 & 4 for max age, meaning 106 is as old as he will be. For height elves are 78 + 2d8 inches high and 160 + 3d10 pounds in weight. Thakur rolls 3 and 2 for height, making him 83 inches ( 6′ 11”) high, rather short for an elf, and 10, 9 & 8 for weight, making him 187 lbs in weight, rather heavy for an elf. So a short elf, which no doubt he has inadequacies about, but heavy as well as a result of the opportunities and lifestyle that a templar has.

Thakur Swiftstride: D2/T2; Al NE; AC 6 (dex), 5 (dex & shield), 2 (armour, shield & dex); MV 12, hp 7; THAC0 20 (22 with wood longsword (21 if tribal made), 18 with longbow(17 if tribal made)); #AT 1; Dmg 1d8-3 (wood longsword); #AT 2/1; DMG 1d8-1 (longbow); Str 11, Dex 19, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 15, Cha 14; Spells 4 1st (templar), 2 1st (defiler).

Psionic Summary: PSPs 16; Wild Talent – Dimensional Door (PS Con -1; Cost 4: Maintain 2/rd).

Saves; PPDM 10, RSW 11, PP 13, BW 15, SP 12

Weapon Proficiences; (Long sword, long bow)

Non-weapon Proficiences; (read/write, spellcraft, somantic concealment, bureaucracy, heat protection, forgery, etiquette, rope use)

Spellbook; Read Magic, Detect Magic, Charm Person, Sleep, Identify, Armour

Gear; Studded leather, medium shield, wooden longsword, longbow, 30 bone tipped sheaf arrows.

Lets Create: Dark Sun (AD&D 2E) Characters

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I have mentioned a few times how much I enjoy the Dark Sun setting, so it is about time I made some characters for it. For this we are going to be using AD&D 2e, because, in my mind, it is the best version of D&D but also because the setting was designed using 2nd ed, which makes it work best for the setting.

There have been fan-made rules using 3rd and 5th editions, as well as the official 4th edition rules. I will look at 4th edition to make characters in Dark Sun at some point – I actually liked 4th ed, more so than 3rd ed, as it has some interesting ideas for Dark Sun, as well as some interesting classes, but for me Dark Sun has and always will be 2nd ed.

Before we get started, there are a few things to cover. Dark Sun characters are a little different to vanilla 2nd ed characters. The setting was designed to turn traditional fantasy on its head, and that is reflected in character creation as well. Races are changed, classes are changed and even character generation is a bit different as well.

Back in 2nd ed, characters were not equal. Players rolled for their stats, which means sometimes you got characters with really good stats and sometimes you got bad stats. Those days are gone, which is sad, because rolling stats was fun. You never knew what you were going to get.

For vanilla AD&D, your stats were in the range of 3-18. The basic methods was you rolled 3d6 for each stat in order and noted what you got, which meant the outcome of the dice often determined what race and class you could play. There were alternative options provided as well, the most common one from what I have seen and heard was roll 4d6 and drop the lowest, then assign the results to the stats you wanted. Then end result was slightly higher stats and more choice as to what you played.

Dark Sun characters had better stats than vanilla AD&D. The basic method for them was not 3d6 but 4d4+4, meaning your stats were in the range of 8-20. The equivalent to 4d6 drop the lowest for Dark Sun was 6d4 drop the lowest and assign, but once again there were other alternatives provided as well.

On top of that, the races had bigger stat modifiers. Vanilla races got +1 to one stat and -1 to one state (except half-elves and humans, who got none.) Dark Sun races had more stats modified, with bigger modifiers. A vanilla dwarf had +1 CON and -1 CHA. An Athasian dwarf is +2 CON, +1 STR, -1 DEX, -2 CHA. The most extreme example is the half-giant, who gets +4 STR, meaning that with good rolls it can start with 24 STR. The maximum possible is 25.

Dark Sun characters also start at 3rd level, so they are a little more capable when they start playing.

And all Dark Sun characters are a little bit psionic. If they don’t have the psionicist class they have a random wild talent, which could be anything, ranging from near useless to amazingly useful. Normally the chance for a wild talent is around 1%, if you play with the Complete Book of Psionicists. Dark Sun PCs automatically get it.

So, yes, Dark Sun characters are a lot more powerful than regular vanilla characters. They need to be just to survive. When you start playing, you make up a character tree of four characters which you can swap in and out as you need.

You are going to need them, as Dark Sun is a setting with a high chance of death. 2nd ed tended to see more character deaths than later editions, which toned that down, but Dark Sun, by its very nature, if run properly, was even more brutal than vanilla 2nd ed.

There were no places of safety; everywhere was a battle for survival. Cities weren’t places of refuge; they were places of corruption, suffering and arbitrary laws, ruled over by ancient and incredibly powerful sorcerer-monarchs who were evil to the core. Outside of the cities was wasteland where every drop of water was precious and everything was dangerous, even the plants, many of which had psionics as well.

For regular D&D, the adventure started when you got to the dungeon. In Dark Sun, getting to the dungeon was an adventure in itself. The oasis you stumble upon? Yeah, in a regular world that would be a nice place to rest, but on Athas if the inhabitants, be it people or monsters, don’t try to kill you then the plants just might. And if there are none of those it might be because the water might try to kill you as well.

Yes it was brutal. Yes, you might lose characters. But it was different, had atmosphere and was fun for it.

So tougher characters, but what else was different?

Well, the races for starters. Standard races had a different spin on them and there were also new races added in.

Humans were pretty much humans, not really that much different than elsewhere, except for on average being a little bigger and maybe having a few cosmetic mutations due to centuries of abusive magic scarring the world. They might have slightly odd colourations, or webs between fingers or limbs of odd length but they could fit in anywhere.

Halflings are not the jovial, relaxed types normally seen. They don’t live in peace in The Shire. No, in Dark Sun they are feral cannibals that live in the last remaining pristine part of the world and kill any interlopers who trespass in their territory. (Technically they aren’t cannibals as they don’t eat other halflings but they see all other races as food.)

Athasian Elves aren’t the wise, long lived types who make their homes in the forests so typically of elsewhere. They are instead taller than humans, live not much longer than humans and are mostly members of nomadic tribes who travel everywhere on foot. To ride a beast of burden is seen as weakness. They are also traders but seen by everyone else as untrustworthy, underhanded, swindlers and thieves.

Half-elves are solitary self-sufficient loners rejected by both their human and elvish sides, as humans don’t trust them for their elvish blood and elves look down on them as not being pure elves. Yet at the same time they crave acceptance of those who have rejected them. They tend to get on better with other races who don’t judge them because of their blood.

Athasian dwarves are bald and beardless. Probably for the best in the heat of Athas. They also love toil, becoming hyper-focused on the task they are attempting. This foci they concentrate on with single-mindedness for weeks, months, years or even decades until they complete it. If they die with a focus unfulfilled, they return as a banshee to haunt their worksite.

Gnomes don’t exist. Technically, they don’t exist anymore. A lot of standard fantasy races, like gnomes, orcs, trolls, ogres and more used to live on Athas but went extinct at some point in the past.

Three new player races were added for Dark Sun; muls, half-giants and thri-kreen.

Muls are sterile half-dwarves who have the toughness of their dwarven parents and the height and cunning of their human parents. They are also noted for their extreme endurance, being able to continue working long after anyone else has collapsed from exhaustion. For this reason they make prized slaves and most are bred into captivity.

Half-giants are large and extremely strong, but not exactly bright, though they are friendly and eager to please. This eagerness sees them tend to have a fluid alignment, mimicking whoever they are trying to fit in with. While their size may give them formidable strength, it is not without its downsides, namely needing to consume much more food and water than others and needing to pay more for larger equipment.

Thri-kreen are a race of mantispeople. 2nd ed’s thri-kreen looked more like actually mantises but later editions turned them into mantismen, walking upright and with a more humanoid look. They are incredibly short-lived, at most reaching 35, but they make up for that by not sleeping, needing very little water, having natural armour, being able to leap, having natural weapon attacks and being able to produce poison. They really are the most alien of all the player races though.

So that is the races, but what about classes?

For starters there are no paladins on Athas. This is because there are no gods (though the sorcerer-monarchs like to pretend they are.) So how does this affect the priest classes? Instead of gods they worship the elements – earth, air, fire and water.

Clerics choose one of the elements to worship and receive a spell list based on that element. As can be understood, a cleric of water is very much in demand as they can produce water, albeit on a much reduced amount compared to vanilla. Their weapons and armour are shaped by their choice of element as well.

Druids nurture and protect a specific geographical feature of the land, and draw their strength from that feature. What element they have access to depends on the feature they protect – a mountain would give them access to earth while a volcanic vent would be fire. Within their guarded lands they get many bonuses but they are enemies to all defilers given the way they have ravaged the lands.

Templars are a new priest class, the disciples and bureaucracy of the sorcerer-monarchs, with access to cleric spells granted to them via the sorcerer-monarchs they work for. Inside their home city they have vast arbitrary powers which get stronger the higher level they are, but outside their city those powers are non-existent, and they really have to take care in rival cities. Even in their own city, infighting and back-stabbing are rife.

Thieves are mostly unchanged from vanilla for the most, with the difference being they eventually find a noble patron to work for. Bards are still entertainers, but they are also spies and assassins. They lose the ability to cast magic and instead pick up the full array of thief skills and also the ability to use poisons, including some very nasty ones, even at low level.

Rangers are also largely unchanged, except that they also choose a elemental plane to worship and get their priest spells from that list. Athasian Fighters are masters of mass warfare. Eventually they begin to attract followers in the form of a small army that grow more and more numerous the higher level they reach. Dark Sun was designed with the Battlesystem rules for warfare in mind, which is what fighters use.

There is also a new warrior class available, the Gladiator. They do one thing, and they do it very well – fight. They can use any weapon without penalty and specialise in more than one as well.

The remaining classes are wizards. Arcane magic draws life out of the land to power it, and rampant use of arcane magic over the centuries is what led to the ecological devastation on Athas. Needless to say, it makes people not exactly fans of wizards. There are two types of wizards, the Defiler and the Preserver. The Preserver takes care to minimise or negate the damage they cause when casting spells but the Defiler doesn’t. They rip what they need from the land, leaving destruction in their path. It means the Defiler gains power faster than a Preserver, but they are hated by everyone, even other Defilers who see them as rivals. Preservers at least have some that won’t hate them.

All this has gone on a bit longer than I first planned, which means next time we will start actually working on characters, rolling the dice and seeing what we come up with.