theodric-the-obscure

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@flambolt I just started a new campaign, which I am calling Delicious on Robinson Crusoe’s Monster Island

Still working on project but when I finish I need to make dungeon meshi cast in total drama island style afterwards 

[theodric-the-obscure]

Toot to-to-toot!

I am now trying out the Fediverse via Mastodon. You can find me <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://<a rel="me" href="https://chirp.enworld.org/@DrObscure">Mastodonhere!

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Tsuyoshi Nagano’s Valkyrie

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#book (at Houston Public Library Collier Branch) https://www.instagram.com/p/CN2ngxOrbPV/?igshid=hmwu3x5n1bdz

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Such a cool book! (at Houston Public Library Collier Branch) https://www.instagram.com/p/CNX_RhBh1VA/?igshid=1au3gp29jgerc

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Some art I’ve been enjoying lately: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLNwR_3hzmU/?igshid=1ly3ipgo3dqk0

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Do you wanna build a PC? (at Satsuma, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ1tjwBhhJb/?igshid=q8is0fboucg6

[theodric-the-obscure]

Going Mediæval on Names

Going Mediæval on Names

An unrelated picture I always recommend this site to people, but I don’t seem to have every done it in the blog. Since I have been benefitting from it for years, it is high time I do so!The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources I can only think of two criticisms of this wonderful project. One, I wish they had been more persnickety about the spelling of Mediæval, and two, I wish…

[theodric-the-obscure]

Online Player Commercial

Cover art by Erol Otus, I assume it is the property of Gregg Gillespie. I’ve referred to my Roll20 Old-School Essentials games before, and I am currently running a dungeon crawl in the Barrowmaze. But did you know that YOU could be in that game? Take a look: https://app.roll20.net/campaigns/details/8530683/old-school-essentials-barrowmaze (And, if you just want to take a look at on indefinite…

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My Thing About Orcs

My Thing About Orcs

-OR- PORCS NOT WORCS!

Orcs are one of those ubiquitous D&D monsters that have been picked up and transformed. At some point, Warhammer (and later WarCraft)’s view of orcs came to dominate D&D and Pathfinder. This great green brute is not my preference for orcs. (Or, for a time in the 3.x age, hairy fierce gorilla-men.)

Orcs are one of the monsters that D&D picked up from Tolkien (the others…

[theodric-the-obscure]

By the Frosty Rings of Saturn!

By the Frosty Rings of Saturn! We have ascended to the height of invention, where ancient magic provides a class with the plenty and power to do wonders!

The highest heaven in the Ptolemaic model is ruled by the planetary star Saturn. I have assigned the ancient figure of this god of the golden age to the magic-using caste. His associations with plenty and with time also fit with magic. Given the levels of power that magic-users ascend to in D&D, it is appropriate that the primus-inter-pares of the gods would be the exemplar of the magical caste.

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Again, by Jove! Or the Bifrost Bridge

Again, by Jove! Or the Bifrost Bridge - further ruminations on the cleric class' ruling deity.

I later thought of another association of Thor’s that strengthens the view that he is the cleric among the gods, and a clarification of a point raised last time only briefly. Jove and Thor are both gods of the storm, and rain cases rainbows. The Bifröstbridge is famously identified with the rainbow as the bridge between the heavenly and earthly realms. (This is the case in Norse mythology and not…

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By Jove! or Thor's Clerics

By Jove! or Thor's Clerics -- the penultimate installment in my series on the Basic/Expert classes of D&D imagined as a caste system modeled on the planetary deities.

Photo by Yintan and used under a CCA 4.0 license.

That unintended hiatus lasted a lot longer than intended. I can only plead the craziness that is Covidtide together with the lovely fact that I have actually been running a weekly (and sometimes more than weekly!) B/X-OSE game on Roll20 that uses what I’ve posted about in this series as a part of the setting assumptions. Better to game than…

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Fighting-Men of Mars!

Fighting-Men of Mars! The martial caste and its place in my current world-building, based on B/X Dungeons & Dragons and the geocentric model.

The association of Mars and fighters needs no introduction for anyone with basic mythological literacy, and has perdured even in contemporary popular culture — an example from the early 20th century that many of you will appreciate is above. At this point, we have passed the half-way point of the Sunne, and we now move on to Mars and the upper heavens — and their corresponding castes. In the Greek…

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Elves of the Sunne

Elves of the Sunne

We have reached our fourth planetary star of the geocentric model, the sun, and the fourth B/X class, the elf. This was another no-brainer correlation for me. All the Apollonian characteristics, harmonious, measured, orderly and balanced I relate to the high conception of elves in fantasy. They are beings of rationality, music, and light. Indeed, we say elf, but we are talking now about the…

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Monsters!

I was one of those (many) little kids who loved monsters. So this post is going to interrupt my planetary castes of the fantasy city-state for B/X series for purposes of nostalgia and resources. First the nostalgia.

I was positive that I had blogged about this before, and was shocked when I failed to turn up the post that I apparently falsely remembered. Sometime between 5 and 8 — maybe about…

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Dwarves of Venus

What could the squat dwarf possibly have to do with the goddess of love and beauty? Bear with me. I can feel the reaction of some readers at this strange pairing, which should soon seem right as rain.

The WHAT?reaction is the exact dynamic in place in classical mythology between Venus and her husband, Vulcan. But the god of volcanoes, smithery, and the forge is the most natural choice for…