The legend of Saint Inés of Moncada / I went into the wilderness

(Translated roughly from HERE)

Originary of Bilbao, The Alpicats (generously compromised with the cause of the king Jaime I) established themselves in Moncada at the end of the conquest of Valencia. They had an old lineage, prestige, lands and riches, but, halfway through the XIV century, the lack of a male succesor made Na Ángela de Alpicat the absolute inheritor of his parents title and wealth. The farmhouse was big, as her solitude; and the holding too big for her to administer without the help of a man accostumed to deals and businesses of such magnitude. On top of that, the house's blazons claimed for a successor. The orphan needed a husband proper to her caste that lent her tenderness, shelter and the chance to bear a son. And as En Guillermo Pedrós, also a noble, met such conditions, she married him; setting their residence in the stately mansion on the Main Street where she lived.

Fruit of that matrimony, the 25th of june of 1338, a little girl came into this world to whom they called Inés; the only possible inheritor again, as Na Ángela, after the difficult childbirth, became sterile. Their parents received however with enormous enthusiasm and expected her to govern at her time their patrimony after them.

Inés grew fair and healthy, showing notable mystic inclinations since childhood. She was cheerful and sweet, an angel for the servants and the townsfolk foreign to the family; obedient and solicitous with her parents. She shared her mother's duties and devotions, the walks of En Guillermo, who taught her to appreciate nature, countryside knowledge, the names of trees, plants and seeds.

A little after turning five years old, on Christmas day, Inés went with her mother to the temple. It was tradition then, in that day, to celebrate three masses. The first one, called missa d'alba (mass of dawn) was at six in the morning, and the last one at ten. Despite the early waking and the outside temperature (icy and humid) the moncadian parishioners didn't stop attending the solemn event. The girl, behaved but a little stiff with cold, occupied a cot beside a bench of the presbytery, from which Na Ángela de Alpicat followed the liturgy with remarkable absorption, imitated by Inés until, suddently, something unusual upset her in the moment of the Consagration

"mama"

"hush"

"mama, mama!" Insisted the kid, hugging her, with the eyes set on the Sacred Form that Mosén Jaime (a title given to clerics at that time and age) held over his head

"what got you, daughter?"

"Look at the boy child mama"

"What child?"

"The priest's child"

"Hush now! we can't talk at the church"

The rebuke didn't help that the same scene happened again in the two following masses, exactly when the priest raised the bread. Finally, moved by Inés' tantrum (Inés didn't use to lie, and her mother was afraid that her child could be under some spell) Na Ángela decided to communicate this happening to the priest. Mosén Jaime, with crooked eyebrows, decided to put Inés to test so the doubts were dispelled. "Satan doesn't rest nor does he make distinctions on age" he thought. On december 28th, in quality of witnesses, thirty persons were convoked: The Pedrós-Alpicat, the vicar mosén Berenguer Mestre, the sacristan and some town personalities who, in camera, heard the mass; waiting for the smallest reaction from Inés.

At the moment of the Consagration, the priest turned towards the little girl, holding the Sacred Form in her right hand, and a similar but unblessed one on the left.

"What do you see, Inés?"

"I see a fair child to to your right"

Mosén Jaime, impassive, turned on his back to exchange the breads, before formulating the same question:

"What do you see, Inés?"

"The same child to your left", she said, as determined as the previous time. The third time, the priest tried to make it more difficult. He had split the Sacred Form in half, and show her both pieces, one in each hand.

"Tell me, Inés, do you still see the child?"

"There are two of them now, father!", she answered amazed, seized with joy.

"She is a little saint! she is a little saint!", was the general clamor. And after the liturgy was concluded, everyone attested in a written document that extraordinary happening; an eucharistical miracle, in their understanding.

With time, her natural mysticism, added to the stigma of an early santification and the effects that a speech of Saint Vicente Ferrer in the temple of Santa Tecla at Valencia (1406) stimulated a profound religious vocation in her, contrary to her parents' aspirations: marry her to a rich farmer and thus secure their family lineage.

The pressure of his father was stronger: he was a practical man, who didn't even want to hear his wife's reasonings. She was more willing to grant her daughter's wishes to join a convent; but the families of the suitors were already arranging dates for the matrimony.

One evening, when her parents were at the city, Inés shed her jewels and hairpins and cut her hair. Then she took a male garb from her servants' room and abandoned the house with extreme stealth. She knew where she was going, as the place had seduced her when she visited it as a kid: The Cartuja of Porta-Coeli, surrounded by high peaks, embraced by thick pine groves.

She took three days to get to the monastery: as her looks were convincing, the friars, believing she was a helpless boy, received her swiftly. But once inside, after the first night, she gave herself away and asked for confession.

 "Oh, my daughter" Can't you see the mess of this situation? You can't live among us. The sacrament of penitence forgives you from your sins but compels me to silence. You can't stay, unless... unlesss you live on a nearby cave and you take care of our sheep. Then, we will see"

"Do not worry, father, as I will find my way to earn my keep with as much zeal as I long for giving my life to the Lord"

From that accord, Inés was the benjamin of La Cartuja for four years. The pious shepard who, in addition of taking care of the flock, prayed on the quiet, subjecting her body to very harsh penitences reserved for the redemption of lost souls. The curate, seeing she was pale and haggard, tried to admonish her in vain.

"Dear child, you pray more than the friars. Are the rigors of Lent, daily mass and mandatory Sunday prayers not enough for you?"

And that was not little. According to the statutes of the Monastery, the donated brothers and converts did not attend the services of the Community, but on Sundays they were subject to chanting: for the four lesser hours, forty Our Fathers; for vespers, twenty-two; for matins and lauds, eighty-two; and for the deceased, nine. In addition to the so-called monasticism or death of a member of the Order, which included the prayer of three hundred and seventy.

"Father, you forget I didn't came here to serve the house, but God. I want to be a hermit, wear the cartujan habits and I reclaim your blessing to retire into a cave I discovered high in the mountain"

That abrupt cavern would be her last home of the noble Inés, whose weapons, from then onwards, were the sackcloth and praying.

The night of June's 25th of 1428, a strange shining illuminated the mountain crest. It wasn't a fire, because there was not fire or smoke on sight. The monks, pressured by the scared townsfolk who attributed it to a supernatural phenomenon, ascended to the almost inaccesible refuge of Inés. They told that, already near the place, a fresh but indefinite perfume, more fragant than the pines, thyme and myrtus, enveloped them. Soon after, at the foot of a crude cross, they found the fallen body of the virgin from Moncada, shedding a nymbus of blinding light. Her confessor, then, with broken voice, revealed the secret of the false shepard, and, in that instant, the bells of la Cartuja, rung by invisible hands, was heard in all the Lullén Valley. So lingering and intense was that, on the next morning, when they gave a christian burial to the body under the altar of the primitive gothic chapel of the monastery, the bell went deaf, broken in a thousand pieces.

The cave of Santa Inés is still today a centre of popular peregrination. Through the centuries, the memory of the young girl persist despite the house with the coat of arms of the Alpicat's (A red wing over a golden field, and a group of golden stones over an azure field) was demolished. 

 

 

(actual view of the monastery in our days, founded by a 9th level cleric a little before the story above)

 

Last sunday, I went with one of my players on a trip. We wanted to go to sleep in a cave in the woods, the cave mentioned in that story above. He had been there before, but not me. 

It was a 20 kilometers trip from our homes (two six-mile hexes) and we wanted to do it by walking all the way. We were all the time referencing travel rules and extrapolating to our game, waiting for the roll of 1 that would trigger the wandering encounter check.

We started our trip at 3 in the afternoon, after taking a tea. Hung on our backpacks were the bedroll and the sack; my shirt off and rolled in my head to prevent insolations, and we started to walk. He was the guide, being naturally good at it and checking the google maps when there were doubts. The first hex was more civilised, crossing towns, industrial zones, orchards, fields and roads. The last civilized spot we reached it by half past six. We took a coffee before venturing further into the forest.

The second hex was a road with a military area, and then forest on both sides. The moon had not risen when the night came, but the stars illuminated the pathway enough for us to walk, but probably hiding from ourselves any curious fauna that could be watching us (beyond a couple of what seemed to be falcons or eagles). We didn't carry any weapons beyond a small pocket knife, but there aren't any bears or wolves in our part of Spain, neither the owlbears we were joking about. My friend has seen roe deers and boars there, however. We kept walking into a dark valley, until we met the monastery. The size of it was impressive, even if I could only see it from a distance. I passed under its aqueduct and it was like sizing up a dragon by watching only his enormous foot.

The road became an unpaved path after that, and soon we had to abandon it into a forest track that went up into the mountain. I ended up exhausted after some time, and I had to actually take a seat in a rock with my heart pounding fast in the middle of the night, as my (more accostumed to aerobic training) friend told me "don't worry, the cave its only fifty meters away"

It might seem strange but neither my friend nor me are very used to take photographs, so I can't show you the cave (and it was very dark by then, anyways) but it was much more pretty than I had imagined. It has a wide but short entrance (you must crouch to enter) but inside it's height grows a little and it feels like a wide and clear, really confy room of like 2x3 meters, only occupied by a little commemorative tile and a rock bend turned into a small shrine, where other pilgrims have left some offerings.

Soon we scratched off our rations (chorizo, meatballs, almonds and apples) and some water. I was actually worried because we had very little water by then, and we were fucking far from any known source of it. We had to wait until the third travel turn of the day (the sleeping turn) to met our wandering monster. We had not made any guards. The cave felt as clean as to not fear any vermin such as scorpions or snakes (maybe a delusional feeling, maybe the powers of Saint Inés, but the cave "felt" clean) After some time silent and waiting for sleep, broken only by the midnight monastery bells sounding on the distance and the occasional roe deer barking somewhere below, I heard our bags running fast as a motorbike through the cave's door.

My friend though it was me, and when I told him I had seen something big at the entrance of the cave (something that had passed the surprise check) he thought I was fooling him. I went outside with my cellphone's light just to found this precious, big, yellow fox (I didn't knew there were yellow ones) eating our chorizos from the bag. He physically fought with my friend who tried to recover them, biting him on the leg (luckily he rolled 1 for damage) and achieved to run away with 2 of the 4 chorizos (one ration). He wasn't happy with that alone, so he came in five times more that night, trying to eat my bedroll, my shoes, my finger and depriving us from a proper rest (the game master would not allow us to gain hp that night) but for us it was like magical. We haven't stopped talking about the fox in three days. This is the best video I achieved to do, inside the cave, illuminated only by the other cellphone's lantern:

My problem with D&D magic

I must have reworked D&D spell list like 30000 times (the last, a radical GLOG-based attempt can be found here) For me, the way magic is handled is the great flaw of the game; and its biggest missed opportunity.

The greatest points of my gaming history have been when no Magic Users nor Clerics have been involved at all; when the game felt more tangible and, paradoxically, magical. For a while I just didn't even allow them, and it lead me to discover the primal affinity between Fighting Men and Hobbits.

I love Earthsea and the Dying Earth: the hate is not to the Wizard figure on itself, its just that I feel that D&D just doesn't do them right. It works awesome in combat, fighters are solid, every other class makes sense on the practice, but not magic people.

At first I thought, like you are possibly thinking, that the problem was Vancian magic (even if its just ripped of from the aforementioned Dying Earth stories). Now I am putting together a clean, personal rules synthetized from Greyharp's OD&D, and, inspired by this entry, I want to try what it proposes: classic vancian, but with MUs preparing only one spell per day. But then, I start to read the spell list and its all crooked to me. And I think that I've pierced on the problem: they are appropiate for a boardgame such as Heroquest, in which you have a determined drive (kill enemies on dark corridors) and this explains why Clairvoyance, Clairaudience and ESP only need to work just six feet beyond the MU, or why they can cast a Fireball in a given area in squares with scalable damage, yet lighting a bonfire or a torch is not possible RAW. Fireball deals area damage, and Lightning Bolt deals damage in a line.

 

For another example, divination, a great part of magic in real life and in all related media, is messy and fake through a whole sack of specific tricks (detect evil, detect traps, locate object, detect magic, detect invisible, etc) whose use must be preemptivelly divinated by the player so he can prepare by guessing the most important thing to detect. Together with the Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, ESP trio, they seldom have any use outside the dark Heroquest tunnel. And I get that D&D is about dungeons, but its not only about that. It's a game of adventure first, and world exploration and dungeons second. Spells should make the world feel vibrant, but they instead paint it like a bland boardgame. And its worse the higher level the spells get: Wall of Iron? Wall of stone? Wall of Ice? really? But there is more: can you picture getting to level 12 and getting to cast this boring shit? :

 

Because that is the underlying fact on all this: spells are designed to have a given technical specifications in dungeons but are pretty much uninteresting outside them, and not really interesting in dungeons when they are useful. On my opinion, not even combat spells are really needed: thats why MUs increase their to-hits and why they pair up with fighting men. I'd be more invested on a game where they have more utility or even social spells, increasing their use on cities and civilized areas, and less firepower, which they have never needed.

Last but not least, I'd like to remember why magic is in the game at all. It is not to provide gamist buffs. The game doesnt even need that. It is there because magic adds a mood to the game you are living into during the game. It adds the possibility of invoking fire, of unleashing a storm, of creating wonder. The best of having magic is the possibility of introducing wonderful, lush, evocative, epic, thrilling, a e s t h e t i c scenes through it.

I don't know if what I'm describing its even possible, or if I will be able to do it. But now I know a little better what I am pursuing, even if it makes magic irrelevant in battle or impractical in dungeons, though I am sure that all those concepts are not mutually exclusive. A list itself, God willing, will be posted shortly.

Point buy is racist

Racist towards strong people. Or what are you telling me? that if you go to the gym and reach STR +1 its because you are either dumb, clumsy and/or have execrable charisma?

Those are evil stereotypes that might have been created innocently: the dumb brute, the frail genius. Or maybe not? Subconsciously you are being told since childhood that by avoiding physical activity you are not getting weak, but smarter. You are too good to partake in the games of dumb brutes.

Then on the other side, avoiding books, art and philosophy doesn't limit you: on the contrary, you are part of the strong men, who don't need the knowledge of puny men.

Thats one of the many reasons I like to roll for stats, and hate point buy with all my soul.

Actually, the opposites might be true: Strength, Wisdom and Intelligence can make a case to be merged on a super-stat. It is natural that wise people is rapidly aware that strength is a very important thing to hone, even if just a little, and spend some time of their week pulling some bars or equivalent. On the mirror side, naturally strong people has less worries about validation, dopamine hunting and also get much more women. Those worries leave place to much more time to cultivate themselves in any arts and sciences they wish to pursue.

This might be the reason for which quarterbacks are given bonuses to get in their chosen universities in the american movies.
Non-strong kids are assumed to be smart by some, but they are just low key unless they have some charisma (and become emos) or dexterity (play guitar and become super emos)

[bx?] Very variable weapon damage: Sword VS Mace

Enter rule sketch:

All weapons do d6 damage. But fighters, and only fighters, can use certain weapons to their full extent.

For example, swords allow a second attack if the first one hits. This way, swords are better against enemies with light armor or none, and they get exponentially better as the fighting man or woman accumulates attack bonus.

The table below shows the equivalent damage per attack in percentage (where a 100% would be a d6 sword that always hits) and which damage die would deal that amount in a single attack. Notice that it behaves as a common longsword a little above leather armor, and drops a little on plate and shield (17 ac)

On the other side of the ring, we have the mace. Maces, on the hands of fighters, deal double damage on natural 20s. This increment will be hardly noticed against low acs unless the occassional lucky shot, but against highly armored foes, and those who are above your hitting range and require 20s, you will deal much more damage per hit. See below:

 

 

Mace keeps being a d7 (a little better than the d6 it is normally) until plate armor, at which it exponentially rises. I have also calculated the effect of a +1 damage in both cases. For the full effect of a +1 strength (+1 to hit and +1 damage) see the +1 damage at the next best ac. The equivalence to the normal bonus is flawless (+3 numbers in the die as it should). 

And now, my opinion: 

All weapons being equalled one to other both in damage and to hit makes no sense. "b-b-but a dagger can slit your throat just as a broadswooord". NO. If you are so retarded as to not find the flaw on that argument you deserve to be thrown into the roman colosseum with a broomstick.

All weapons being differentiated by their damage dice makes a little to introduce the concept of good and bad weapons. But it fails in the gamist aspect, not as much as it is unrealistic, but because it annuls any meaningful choice in weaponry: the d8 longsword is the best on one hand, and then there is the greatsword. End. "b-but an axe can be used to chop a door". Well, yes. But how are they going to chop it if NOBODY PICKS THE AXE, BECAUSE THE LONGSWORD DOES D8?

All weapons having a VS ARMOR table is wonderful. It comes with problems on its own, of course. Referencing the table is one, and also is when monsters are adjudicated an armor type based on their numerical value instead of their armor type in game. But at least comes close to what it should be the ideal: give weapons small nuances in combat that makes them a valid choice to be carried, even if in a completely marginal case and even if their bonus is almost always negligible (in fact, marginal differences would be the best in my opinion)

My approach here described is just an idea, but fails in the execution as the mace gets too good at 20+ and does it too far from plate armor, which the sword damages very competently anyways. The choice would be viable if the Plate Armor spot was around 18 AC instead. But still, I spent a lot of work tonight on calculating this shit. Let's call it a day, and who knows, this study might be useful at some point.

[osr] shields shall be activated

Have the summer end rains already blessed your part of the world? I can feel them approaching in timid peeks; barely passing through the ranks of their mortal enemy, the ch3m7rails. Welcome to your comfy mood blog where we sometimes post and discuss rpg houserulings. 

I was working on a chart tonight. In my d6 pool d&d there is one rule that proved to be very cool: the shield roll. Shields basically do not add to your AC, but instead block an attack 1/3 of the time (roll a 5+ on a d6)

This means they mean much more protection than the small +1 (5%) they add to AC in B/X. But the increase is not good on itself: its a matter of taste. The good part is that it's relative importance increases as you wear less armor: the percentage of blows stopped increases as you are easier to hit. 

For example, a PC in plate armor can be hit on a 6 (17% chance), so the shield drops the chance by a third (by about 6%). The same PC in light armor is hit on a 5 or a 6 (33% chance) so the shield drops the chance by 11%. At AC four (no armor) and three (no armor and yet a level 1 fighter) the shield will be useful in 17% and 22% of the attacks received, respectivelly.

I made a chart that ports the system to B/X like this: Instead of adding a +1 to your AC, the shield can be activated once you have been hit (before damage). Roll a d20 when you do it: your AC becomes that number against that specific attack.
These are the chances against a monster with no attack bonus. Took a little time to calculate the percentages manually with the Windows Calculator, then I translated it to AC:

As you can see, the relative protection of the shield increases greatly, from their simple +1 ac on the original; being much greater in the lighter armors, but never too big as to make them useless. A fighter in leather and shield has 16 AC! just as if he wore plate. However, a one in plate and shield is just 18 AC, just one pip over his original equivalent, which I like because it mimics how plate armor got diminishing returns from the shield in real life.

Against monsters with actual attack bonuses (which is the norm) this shield boost diminishes gradually, but still getting on a median an extra AC point (around +2) at chainmail levels, with marginal benefits the greater the armor and the greater the monsters, but not reaching total zero. This way, the decision on wether or not to use one is always present.

YMMV about if the increased AC is a good thing or not. To compensate for it, I'd limit the shield activations to one per turn, which will only be relevant against monsters with multiple attacks or against multiple enemies.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT #1: (afterthoughts the next morning)

One more iteration on the concept of Activated Shields. A much simpler method than the previous entry, in which the shield d20 roll replaced the current AC. 

The rule is:

Shields don't provide any passive AC bonus. Instead, they block a succesful hit on a roll of 6 on a d6 (before damage is rolled). This makes their relative AC be better or worse depending on the armor worn (as they are going to "work" more on lower ACs), according to this table.

 

AC (ascending)	% to be hit at +0 bonus	1/6 blocked by the shield	+ ac equivalent (+1 in d&d)
2	95	15'8	3'17
3	90	15	3
4	85	14'1	2'87
5	80	13'3	2'66
6	75	12'5	2'5
7	70	11'6	2'33
8	65	10'8	2'17
9	60	10	2
Unarmored (10)	55	9'16	1'83
11	50	8'3	1'66
Leather armor (12)	45	7'5	1'50
13	40	6'6	1'33
Chainmail (14)	35	5'8	1'17
15	30	5	1
Plate Armor (16)	25	4'1	0'83
17	20	3'3	0'66
18	15	2'5	0'5
19	10	1'7	0'33

 As you see, this makes shields be a liiiitle better on leather and chainmail, not enough to make a big difference, but its a little treat to those fighting man who don't get plate as soon as they can. I want to open the possibility of using less armor in order to open more encumbrance. Not sure if this little boost would be enough.

Below this lines, you can see the same table but for a shield roll that prvented hits 1/3 of the time (5 or 6 on a d6)

AC (ascending)	% to be hit at +0 bonus	2/6 blocked by the shield	+ ac equivalent (+1 in d&d)
2	95	31'6	6'33
3	90	30	6
4	85	28'2	5'66
5	80	26'6	5'33
6	75	25	5
7	70	23'2	4'66
8	65	21'6	4'33
9	60	20	4
Unarmored (10)	55	18'33	3'66
11	50	16'6	3'33
Leather armor (12)	45	15	3
13	40	13'3	2'66
Chainmail (14)	35	11'6	2'33
15	30	10	2
Plate Armor (16)	25	8'3	1'66
17	20	6'6	1'33
18	15	5	1
19	10	2'5	0'66

As you can see, the relative AC of a shield is greatly improved from the original. It is remarkable that with this rule, they can a priori block natural 20s.

The point in which shields will really shine with this rule is when fighting monsters with high attack bonuses. A fighter in plate armor and a shield, for example, when fighting a red dragon with +8 attack bonus, would defend with an equivalent AC of 9 (17 -8).

By this rules, the 16 AC plate would become an 8, and then get the bonus from the shield: +2'17 for the 1/6th version and +4'33 for the 1/3 version; making it a factual AC of 10'17 and 12'33 respectivelly.

Not sure if implement this or on how. I like that the increment in AC can make up for the fact that I want to drop the attribute scores (and with it, the Con bonuses) and it seems appropiate that the con bonuses are more important at higher levels, just as when the monsters attack bonuses are higher and raise the effectivity of the shield. So in a way, the 1/3 version of the shield might not be as OP as it looks in comparison.

On the other hand, there is something so easy on giving normal shields 1/6 of effectivity, and have magical shields (that would be +1 as per the original rules) to work at 1/3.

Non-fighters have also the choice of using shields at a reduced armor rate. Be it taking the 1/6 instead of the 1/3, or using them at disadvantage (roll 2d6, keep lowest). I'm a bit reticent to hard-coded restrictions, and though it may sound ridiculous, the game feels more "real" to me if that kind of things are just severely handicapped instead.

The great downside of the shield roll is that it, of course, adds another roll. On its defence, I'd say that it only comes up on a succesful enemy hit. Personally in my current "D6 D&D rules" I pair it with my variant of Homebrew Homunculus D&D without damage dice, and with the damage rolls gone, I don't find the shield rolls tedious at all.