Swords Against Madness

The Miria, Edryk, Berle, Raxon, and Kale have their showdown with Haalu; we explore a piece of Edryk’s past, where it crosses with doctor Haidran.

This episode includes my quick and dirty rules for fighting manoeuvres in OSR games:

In the case of grappling, the target cannot move or use a weapon bigger than a dagger until they make a save to break free,

If they cannot break free they become pinned and helpless until they are released.

The party makes a narrow escape. Miria, Edryk, Raxon, Berle, and Kale secretly prepare for treachery.

This episode includes an encounter with a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster that isn’t included in Swords & Wizardry: the Phase Spider. The version I used was from one of my all-time favourite D&D resources, the AD&D2e Monstrous Manual. With a massive selection of Monsters from the first 30 years of D&D from the true classics to the extremely bizarre with amazing art, including David A. Trampier and Tony Di’Terlizzi!

Miria and Edryk recruit new followers and head into the jungle, but discover that one of their own party is plotting against the rest…

Episode 21 begins a fresh hex crawl with 3 additional PCs:

Kale uses a simplified half-elf for Swords and wizardry.

The party has also hired Haalu, who will be treated as a Hireling.

You hare a mixture of human and elf. You see twice as far in the dark as a human. You gain a +2 to saves against ghoul paralysis. You may reach 9th level as a fighter, thief, or assassin, 7th level as a magic-user, or 4th level as a cleric. You may also multiclass as a fighter/magic-user, fighter/thief, magic-user/cleric, or fighter/magic-user/cleric. Multiclass magic users have the same restrictions as elf magic users.

This episode features the vocal talents of

A summary of Episodes 11-19.

Swords Against Madness episode 20 is a summary of the plot from episodes 11 through 19. An opportunity to catch up on the plot or just refresh your memory. It adds nothing to the main plot-line.

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Miria & Edryk return to Nar with the All-Knowing and another pile of treasure. The All-Knowing reveals a path forward, but will the people of Nar trust Miria enough to risk more lives to help her?

Apologies for the delay! This episode is coming out 1 week late due to extreme illness.

In this Episode, Miria & Edryk both return safely to the village of Nar with a pile of treasure, enough for them both to gain a level. I am borrowing the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons method of handling levelling up for Magic-users: PCs can pick one spell from the PHB they would like to know and roll their INT-based chance to learn a spell. If they do not learn that one, they cannot try it again until they gain a level.

We have a fairly substantial treasure hoard this level, and so I wanted to talk about my treasure generation method.

Swords & Wizardry does treasure generation by taking the total XP value of monsters that were guarding the treasure and multiplying it by a base 1d3+1. With 1gp = 1xp for character growth, this means that on average gold will make up 50-75% of your experience gains, which is about the same ratio as using the original treasure types system.

Once you have that base value, it directs you to a d4 table that will tell you how many coins, gems & jewels, & magic items you generate from a number of sub-tables.

To this I added my own tweaks:

The treasure hoard in the Fane of the All-Know ended up being:

Miria and Edryk could not carry it all out, and left behind over 2,009 gp

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Miria and Edryk face a terrifying trap and life-altering choices push on to the deepest chambers of the Fane of the All-Knowing.

In this episode Miria and Edryk narrowly escape a trap that borrows its inspiration from the AD&D2e spell Maximillian’s Stony Grasp, and the D&D3e spell Stone Fist that evolved from it. I discuss spells – and getting them wrong in the episode.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Miria and Edryk encounter the being known as the All-Knowing, which is an extradimensional intelligence.

The voice of the All-knowing is provided by Jon Cohen of Tale of the Manticore, one of the first Solo Semi-Actual-Play podcasts, and one of the biggest inspirations for Swords Against Madness. You can hear Tale of the Manticore wherever you get your pdcasts, and check out his official website here. And hear the trailer for Tale of the Manticore here:

The All-Knowing is a projection of an intelligence from a higher quantum state that has spent aeons trying to understand three-dimensional beings that can move only one way through time. It has spent centuries the prisoner of the Trassi.

Correspond: The All-Knowing can possess a living being that is capable of casting Magic-User Spells, An unwilling being may make two saving throws, if they succeed one, they take 2d10 damage but repel the All-knowing (the head explodes if this damage kills them.) If they succeed both they repel the All-Knowing and take no damage.

A being that is possessed by the All-knowing may communicate with it telepathically. If it tries to direct their actions, they may make a save to resist. While possessed by the All-knowing they may use its Chaos Ray attack, regenerate 1 hp per round, and are immune to and cured of all diseases and poison, thanks to the All-Knowing’s ability to manipulate their body. Neither they nor the All-Knowing may use its Time Warp abilities during this time.

If the All-Knowing’s vessel is killed it is immediately forced to take its physical form and takes damage from its Reality Vulnerability.

Time Warp: The All-Knowing can cast Slow, and Haste at will. It can cast Time Stop, Divination, and Stasis each once per day.

Reality Vulnerability: The All-Knowing takes damage when exposed to the Prime Material Plane or a Plane of strong Law. it suffers 4d4 damage each round it is in such a plane unless it is surrounded by a field of magical chaos of some kind or has possessed a creature that can cast magic-user spells.

While Miria & Edryk face a deadly trap, The Master & his acolyte Halu conspire to murder Miria, and Yanghu extracts a bloody revenge on the crew of the pirate ship Xur.

This epsiode uses a ship layout diagram from Cepheus Deluxe as its dungeon map, but is played entirely with Swords 7 Wizardry. It focuses primarily on the activity of the campaign’s villains. It includes several encounters with human bandits, soldiers, and sergeants at arms as described in Swords & Wizardry.

Yanghu is a very old and powerful Ogre Mage who has been a captain in the Trassi smuggling and irate fleet for centuries. 400 years ago, he discovered a crashed Gorum prison ship on Orbos, and turned it into a thriving business in living weapons. Selling the Gorum as weapons is so heinous that even the rest of the Trassi Syndicate might rebuke him if they knew… which is why he wants to make sure Miria is silenced. The destruction of his Corsair-class starship, the Ko-Dan has put him in a position where he needs to capture a new ship and a new crew.

Like all Ogre Magi, Yanghu can cast a fly spell and invisibility at will. He can also cast the following spells one per day: darkness 15ft. radius, charm person, polymorph self (into humanoid forms from 5-12′ tall), and cone of cold (8d6 damage, save for half)

Yanghu regains 1 hit point per round unless he is harmed by fire (including lasers) or acid.

Note: Due to an error, this entry originally pointed to episode 14. This has been fixed and the correct episode should now play.

In the aftermath of the battle in orbit over Orbos, space pirate comb the hulk of the Ko-Dan for treasure. Miria and Edryk push deeper into the Fane of the All-Knowing, and Miria reminisces about her past.

This episode continues to use material from Cepheus Deluxe, a modern remake of the 1977 Scifi RPG Traveller, along with Swords & Wizardry to create a classic, 1977 D&D experience.

This session used space travel mechanics from Cepheus Deluxe: Enhanced Edition, a retro-clone of Classic Traveller.

As Miria, Edryk, and Nala press deeper into the trap-laden Fane of the All-Knowing, the Ogre-Mage crime-lord Yanghu deals with a vicious sneak attack on his starship.

This adventure mixes classic RPGs, using Swords & Wizardry to simulate D&D as it was played in 1977, along with scenes from Cepheus Deluxe, a modern re-imagining of the 1977 version of the classic Sci-Fi TTRPG Traveller.

Fair warning: This episode includes some mild profanity that, while within the limits of the 1980s PG limit, is worth mentioning.

In this episode I handled outer space conflict using the game Cepeheus Deluxe: Enhanced Edition, by Stellagamma Games, which is a slightly modernized clone of the original 1977 rules to the Science Fiction TTRPG Traveller.

Miria, Rayya, Nala, and Edryk search for their lost companion and the mysterious all knowing in a dungeon full of strange traps, mechanical constructs and deadly illusions. In space, a conflict mounts between the Trassi syndicate and a treacherous business partner.

This episode includes logic puzzles, deadly traps, and a custom monster featured in the show notes. It also has the terrible lethality of Old D&D on full display.

In this episode the party faces a deadly magical foe called the Arcane Guardian.

The crowning achievement of the Order of Stars, this entity of ceramic and crystal is awakened by those who tinker with the machines in the Fane of the All-Knowing without knowing the correct passkey. It uses its powers to create a disorienting Mirage Arcana which hides the numerous traps that it can activate about its lair. It then may cast Push or Pull each round to force its foes into unseen traps.