Campaigns

The Sign of the Oneiromancer

Urgent cries in distant dark. Dying echoes, fading into empty space. A spark—a flash of light, flickering orange. Columns rise high above, stabbing gloomy shade. Tunnels twisting out of sight.

Stumbling, lost, behind lumbering figures, purple-cloaked. Under arch, stepping down. Between close walls, beneath heavy vault, cauldrons crouch on red coals. Chanting priests raise green goblets to a shadowed image. All eyes are closed…

Many are troubled by such nightmares. Some wake, seeking respite. Some lie yet in fitful sleep. Those who talk about them report the nightmares always end with a vision of the Sign of the Oneiromancer.

—Boxed text reprised from “Dreaming Amon-Gorloth.”

The Sign of the Oneiromancer

A glyph in the form of two diamonds, one inside the other, marks the entrance to this public house. Until recently, it was a quiet establishment, doing enough business but not over crowded. Since the nightmares began, townsfolk come here, seeking solace. They share their dreams and quench their fears in barley beer. Some stay through the night, when they can’t bear to surrender consciousness to the horror.

The Sign of the Oneiromancer is an inn, where adventurers can rest between expeditions. In its upper rooms, characters may sleep in relative comfort and safety. In its ground floor entertainment hall, they may restore themselves, meet prospective hirelings, and gather and spread rumors, true or false, about the nearby dungeon.

The Sign of the Oneiromancer
 

Oil lamps cast a yellow glow in the long, low hall. Wooden rafters support mud brick construction. Plaster walls bare painted scenes of the Solar Goddess on one side and the Sun King on the other. The warm, still air is filled with scents of citrus and flowers and fresh baked bread.

Patrons crowd around low tables, sitting on floor cushions. Some, in pairs or groups, play games: senet, mehen, and hounds and jackals.

Others share a meal. They eat with their fingers: grilled fowl, glistening with grease, roasted vegetables and green scallions, and date cakes drenched in honey. With long knives, they cut thick slices from hot loaves of wheat bread. They drink beer from ceramic cups and talk in subdued tones and close whispers.

At the hall’s far end, a harpist plucks a languid tune. A trio of dancers bestows lily flower collars to new comers and offers a dance in exchange for coin.

Background

At campaign start, player characters who live in town, or who have spent a night there, are troubled by the nightmares. All PCs are familiar with the Myth of Amon-Gorloth, and they are aware of the following legend. In addition, each PC might begin play knowing one rumor from the table below. Otherwise, rumors may be learned through interaction with townsfolk.

Legend of the Dreaming Priests

Long ago, evil cultists, called the “dreaming priests,” built a dungeon in the Shunned Cairns. The dungeon is known as the Deep Halls, and within its depths, they sought to revive a long dead god, until the Sun King’s Radiant Host destroyed the cult. Details of the story are lost to history, for to talk about the priests is to wake them from dream.

Rumors

The following rumors circulate in town and especially at the Sign of the Oneiromancer. Some of them are true.

Rumor Table (d12)
1. Some folks don’t talk about it, but everyone in town is having these dark dreams.
2. An old track leading northwest into the Shunned Cairns goes to the Deep Halls.
3. The Deep Halls are like a maze: once you get in, you can’t get out.
4. Getting out of the Deep Halls is easy; just keep right.
5. The Radiant Host vanquished the dreaming priests in a war a hundred years ago.
6. Since the war, it is forbidden by the Sun King’s decree to enter the Shunned Cairns.
7. Now the dreaming priests have come back as walking dead.
8. In the Deep Halls, the ever-flowing waters of a fountain shrine to the Solar Goddess heal the wounded and cure the sick.
9. Demi-humans are known to traverse the Shunned Cairns.
10. A dreaming priest once wielded a powerful magic staff, but after he was defeated, the staff was never found.
11. An old hag, hunched and grumbling, is sometimes seen hobbling along the streets at night on a cane.
12. Outlaws in the Shunned Cairns waylay travelers and raid unguarded sites.

The Myth of Amon-Gorloth

In “Channeling Amon-Gorloth,” we took a first look at what we can divine from the map god’s text. Now, I want to mine the sleeping god’s name for clues to its mythology. Here we deconstruct the name, and drawing inspiration from the constituent parts, we make the myth.

Deconstructing Amon-Gorloth

Amon, from Egyptian mythology, is god of air, fertility, and the creative spark. The name means “invisible” or “the hidden one.” Amon began as a tutelary god, protecting a city and its region. The Egyptian Amon later merged with Ra to become Amon-Ra, chief god of the pantheon.1, 2, 3

Gor appears in ancient Armenia and India. According to baby name websites, Gor has various meanings: “shout, attack, word,” “proud,” and “wild ass, grave, desert.”4, 5, 6

Loth, in English, is another spelling of loath, which means “reluctant.” It comes from an Old English word for “hateful.”7, 8

The Myth

The following myth is commonly known among all people. The text is vulnerable to a redraft, but the essential is there.

Amon

In the time before Gor united the peoples who lived by the Great River, the Hidden One moved across the land. The god came to a river’s edge, where grew the papyrus grass. It breathed upon the surface of the waters and so held the Great River in its bed.

To the people there the Hidden One spoke: “You shall build here beside Ankhet’s waters a city. You will till the soil and reap the harvest. You will have many children, and your children’s children and their children after them will be prosperous. The city will be called House of Amon, and Amon shall be your god.

And so it was that the city named Amwan, which means “House of Amon,” grew. Amwan’s people worshiped Amon as their god. With its breath, Amon held Ankhet, the Great River, in its bed and brought the rains but kept the floods away. Amon bestowed upon the people the creative spark, and Amwan became a great producer of crafts, arts, and engineering, and so was prosperous. From among the clans, Amon chose a line of kings. The kings worshiped Amon, and Amwan became a powerful city-state.

Gor

Then came Gor. Returning from long travels, the hero-mage, heir to the throne, entered the city riding an ass.9 When Gor came into the kingship, he sought ever greater power. He united the peoples who lived either side of the Great River and up and down its length. The whole land became known as Amwan.

Amon-Gor

Gor became the most powerful king the land had ever known, but he was filled with pride. He wanted more. Leaving the city one day, Gor entered the wilderness. After forty days, Amon found him among the brambles and brush grass.

The god addressed the hero-mage. “Why do you seek me in the wilderness?”

Gor said, “Make me a god and let me live in your House.”

But the god refused, saying, “These things are not for the vessel of man.”

Gor replied, “Then I will destroy you and take your place in the House of Amon.”

And the hero-mage and the Hidden One fought. Gor shouted a word of power that would have destroyed the god, but Amon poured its spirit into Gor’s body. Thereby, the god lived in the vessel of man.

But a man’s life force was not sufficient to sustain the god. Weakened, Amon-Gor rested, falling into slumber.

When the people discovered Gor’s body in the wilderness, limp as though without life, they mourned his death and buried him in the mausoleums of his forefathers.

When the Great River dried up the next year and flooded the year after, the people of Amwan knew their god had deserted them. The Great River Ankhet left its bed and no longer flowed by the city-state that was once the House of Amon. The people departed, and the city fell to ruin.

Amon-Gorloth

Now, the people worship the Solar Goddess. The Amwan is ruled from Irthmalq, the great city-state whose name means “Throne of the Sun King.” The Sun King embodies the Goddess’s divine power, and he is ever vigilant.

For while Amon-Gor slept, it appeared to Amon’s priests in their dreams. These priests formed a cult, who now seek to wake the sleeping god, whom they call Amon-Gorloth, which means “the Hidden One, Word of Power, the Loathe,” for the god is reluctant to wake from its dreams.

The priests now lie in the mausoleums where sleeps the dreaming god. Through dark magic, they channel Amon-Gorloth’s dreams and restore its power. When wakened, Amon-Gorloth shall make terrible war on the Solar Goddess.

The Amwan - Outdoor Survival Map Board
“The Amwan,” Land of the House of Amon.
Map from Outdoor Survival. Scale five miles to the hex.
The ancient city-state Amwan lies in ruins within the central forest (Base 5). The Sun King resides at Irthmalq, the city-state on the banks of the Great River Ankhet (Base 3). The other bases are town-sized capitals of subordinate regions, called nomes, each governed by a nomarch, who is appointed by the king. The campaign begins in [yet unnamed town] (Base 2). In the adjacent hex northwest, the dreaming priests constructed the twisted halls, of which the cyclopean original is somewhere in the Valley of Kings, the central desert region.

Notes 1 through 8 are tertiary sources found on the web. Though uncertain, they are good enough for our game purpose. I cite them for easy reference.

1 Amun on GodChecker

2 Ra on GodChecker

3 Amun-Ra on GodChecker

4 Gor on Behind the Name

5 Gor on the Bump

6 Gor on Mom Junction

7 Loth on Merriam-Webster

8 Loth on Wiktionary

9 Buried in the myth, though not lost in the campaign setting, Gor is credited with the domestication of the ass. Using pack animals instead of human labor (possibly slaves) to carry trade goods is more efficient, both less expensive and with a greater range. Here “riding an ass” implies that Gor united the land of Amwan, not by conquest but through trade. Compare Narmer.

Company of the Blind Seer

“I’m starting with the most deadly dungeon level configuration and an overly generous treasure sequence to see if it’s possible that player characters might survive to reach 2nd level. If it doesn’t work, it won’t take long.”

—from “Dreaming Amon-Gorloth”

After the second foray into the Deep Halls, in which the party descended briefly to Level 4, they hauled out goodly treasure. Four characters advanced to 2nd level. One of those, the party leader, is blind, and two party members did not survive.

The Gygax Tax or Where Does All the Treasure Go

Different methods to reduce excessive wealth are discussed under the heading Wealth Extraction in “Running the Campaign.” Our recent delve yielded sufficient treasure to make an example.

Money Changer

All told, the party ported 7,600 coins of ancient mint—in silver, electrum, and gold—and two bejeweled necklaces out of the dungeon storeroom-cum-den of thieves.

The coins are declared at the town gate and taken to the money changer. Their total value, 3,375 g.p., is taxed 10%. The jewelry, worth 4,000 g.p., is not taxed.

Gygax suggests a 1% import duty on goods, such as jewelry (AD&D DMG, 90), but in the campaign we ignore single-digit percentages. The full value of gems and jewelry may be bartered. The money changer collects a 10% luxury tax should they be sold for coin.

So while experience is calculated from the full gold.jpgece value, the party comes away with 4,000 g.p. in jewelry and 3,038 g.p. in coin of the realm.

Restorative Spells

Hathor-Ra escorts Melqart to the temple. They learn that a cure for blindness requires 16,000 g.p.

Blindness from cobra’s spittle may be healed with a cure serious wounds spell (house rule). With the overly generous treasure stocking method, a restorative spell costs its level squared times 1,000 g.p.

Bank

Melqart, cursing ill luck, and Hathor then proceed to the bank, where they rent a small coffer (10 g.p.) to store the gold and jewelry.

Professional Expenses

From their shares, Hathor-Ra tithes 176 g.p. to the temple, and Melqart joins the Magic-User’s Guild, paying 500 g.p. in annual dues.

Upkeep

Upon receiving experience point awards, each PC immediately pays 1% of earned XP—that is, earned during the adventure, not total—in g.p. for upkeep. This includes room and board. PCs pay upkeep for their hirelings.

I pull this rule from OD&D (Vol. 3, 24). Though beneath our 10% threshold, taking a percentage from earned XP is less tedious than a daily or weekly payment.

Inability to pay one’s upkeep in full indicates a level of impoverishment, reflected in the character’s standing and reputation, i.e. NPC reactions. Failure to pay a hireling’s upkeep provokes an additional loyalty check.

I find upkeep’s impact on town encounters to be worth the effort. If a group feels otherwise, upkeep is easily ignored. In that case, we assume that PCs have in pocket whatever small sums are necessary for daily needs.

Company Charter

After a good night’s rest, Melqart considers the options. He proposes that the party form an adventuring company. The party agrees that Melqart will manage the company, with a hired assistant, until his sight is restored. Thereafter, the manager role will rotate through party members.

Treasure division:

  • All treasure obtained on adventures belongs to the Company.
  • Monetary treasure is divided into shares, which are disbursed by the Company.
  • Adventuring party members earn one share, while the Company Manager earns one-half share.
  • Magic items are distributed to individual members to the Company’s best benefit.

Company Manager responsibilities:

  • Submits to member oversight.
  • Keeps financial records.
  • Directs research in the absence of the party leader.
  • Organizes rescue parties.

The Company pays:

  • Necessary adventuring equipment, including that for hirelings.
  • Hireling advances on share.
  • Restorative magic to heal injuries suffered while on party business.
  • Research, magical or scholarly, conducted for party benefit.

The Company does not pay:

  • Upkeep.
  • Hireling fees or bonuses.
  • Professional expenses (tithes, guild fees, gambling debts).
  • Any other extras.
Cobra Staff
The Spitting Cobra, Melqart’s Last Visual Memory.
With 40 g.p. Melqart commissions an artisan to carve an ornament from acacia wood. It is to be affixed on a staff’s head. The spitting cobra becomes the symbol of the Company of the Blind Seer.

Current Party Composition

The following character records include those for the deceased, three new hirelings, and Melqart’s assistant Ur-Zaruund.

The party is not overly wealthy, I think, for 2nd-level characters. Especially considering that they are essentially 16,000 g.p. in debt to the future restoration of Melqart’s sight.

Melqart

Seer

Blind

Magic-User

2

Neutral

 

17 g.p.

50 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

4,700 XP

Hathor-Ra

Adept

Surviving

Cleric

2

Lawful Good

water walking potion

28 s.p.

533 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

2,999 XP

Penlod

Veteran Medium

Did Not Survive

Elf

1

Chaotic Good

Iltani

Warrior

Surviving

Fighter

2

Neutral

water walking potion

4 g.p.

400 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

3,999 XP

Idan Thyrsus

Apprentice

Did Not Survive

Thief

1

Neutral

Zagros

Warrior

Surviving

Fighter

2

Neutral

 

0 g.p.

481 g.p.

1,000 g.p.

3,999 XP

Astarte

Medium

Surviving

Magic-User

1

Neutral

spell scroll: shield

protection scroll: undead

0 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

Kildigir

Veteran

Surviving

Fighter

1

Lawful Good

 

0 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

Haxamanish

Apprentice

Surviving

Thief

1

Neutral

3 arrows

0 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

Ur-Zaruund

Medium

Surviving

Magic-User

1

Neutral

 

10 g.p.

100 g.p.

0 g.p.

0 XP

The Frieze, the Papyrus, the Spitting Cobra

The scene continues from the opening of “Holmes on a Coin’s Weight.”

Melqart and Hathor-Ra loaded treasure. The medium held a sack open at the hem, while the acolyte dumped the contents of an iron coffer into it. Gold coins rattled and clinked, like a stream of metallic pebbles.

Plate-armored Iltani, with sword and shield, stood over a sharper. The thief, bloody hands bound and tethered to an ankle, crouched beside a wall. The charmed harpy fed on three others in the room beyond a door, which was guarded by Zagros, also armor-clad with sword and shield.

The party’s own thief, Idan Thyrsus, lay face down. A dagger protruded from between shoulder blades.

Coins sacked, Melqart and Hathor strung necklaces around their necks, sequestering the jewels beneath robe and tunic.

Iltani, Zagros, and the hobbled sharper would each carry a large sack, Melqart a small. Hathor, otherwise unburdened, would port the corpse of Thyrsus back to base town, where she hired him the previous day.

“Wait,” said Melqart. “Where’s the papyrus?”

Hathor raised her eyebrows. “The oneiromancer said it would be in this room.”

“Maybe here…” Melqart approached the frieze, pushing aside an empty coffer with a foot.

The frieze covered the wall up to fifteen feet high under the barrel-vaulted ceiling. A line of life-size human figures, one foot before another, faced a larger figure, seated on the left. The upright figures were male and female. Males were bare chested, wearing only kilts. Females wore long gowns to the ankle. All were barefoot and held some object in both hands before them: the first a scroll, the second a tall jar, followed by a cornucopia, a jug, a bowl, and so on. The seated figure, male, wore a kilt. Two concentric circles haloed the head. Straight lines, like rays, protruded from the outermost.

Hathor stepped closer with the torch. Melqart felt the relief with fingertips, tracing outlines in smooth alabaster.

“It’s a procession,” said the cleric. “Subjects bring offerings. The king’s halo represents Gor’s double crown.”

“I don’t see any—” Melqart’s fingers slipped over the lip of the tall jar. “What’s this?” He rapped on the jar with a knuckle. It rang hollow.

Melqart gripped the jar by the lip and held it at the base. A tug revealed a crack between jar and relief. Wiggling the jar from side to side, he pulled, and it gave.

“Give me a hand,” said the magic-user.

Hathor lay the torch on the floor. Shadows leapt high up the wall. Together they pulled the jar from the niche and set it down on the floor.

Hathor went for the torch. Melqart stood up to peer inside the jar. From the shadow within, a cobra’s head raised to meet his gaze. Its hood spread, black eyes glinted, and it spat into Melqart’s face.

The medium recoiled with a grunt. Hathor struck out at the snake. The mace came down hard on the jar lip.

The cobra spilled from broken alabaster, coiling its three-foot length. Iltani and Zagros advanced from either side. The serpent soon writhed in two parts.

“Are you well, Melqart?” said Hathor.

Melqart blinked his eyes, opening wide. “I can’t see.”

The blind Melqart and the hobbled sharper in tow, the limp Thyrsus over a shoulder, Hathor-Ra led the party up to the dungeon’s first level. There, she rendered the papyrus, a rolled page with magical writing on it found in the jar, to the witch who called herself an oneiromancer.

Sharpers and Cobra
Sharpers and Cobra.
Sharpers (7th-level thieves) hideout on the dungeon’s 3rd level. A spitting cobra guards a papyrus concealed within an alabaster frieze.

Keys to the Deep Halls

The Deep Halls of Amon-Gorloth, Keyed by Sub-Levels and Encounter Areas
The Deep Halls of Amon-Gorloth, Keyed by Sublevels and Encounter Areas.
Encounter areas are numbered. Sublevels are noted with the level number followed by a letter designator, highlighted in purple. Map by Dyson Logos.

Getting Into the Deep Halls

Dreaming Amon-Gorloth is a dungeon and wilderness adventure campaign for character levels 1 to 9 intended for use with any old-school edition of the world’s most superlative role-playing game.

The should-be simple exercise of keying rooms is already a nightmare. The dungeon, consisting of 180 encounter areas, goes down seven levels. Each level is divided, by contiguous rooms, into 51 sublevels.

The first four dozen encounter areas by sublevel serve to demonstrate its twisted quality.

Sublevel Encounter Areas Sublevel Encounter Areas
2A. 1-3 3C. 23-25
2B. 4-8 2C. 26-29
1A. 9-12 3D. 30-31
3A. 13-14 3E. 32-33
4A. 15-18 4B. 34-40
3B. 19-22 4C. 41-48

A party might enter the dungeon and proceed immediately along 3. Grand Entry Hall (2A.) down to area 34. Nightmare Bazaar (4B.), or they might follow at least five other circuitous routes to the same destination.

Your Favorite Monsters from Holmes

I have worked out much of the campaign scenario, and Melqart and his “Company of the Blind Seer” have explored several chambers close to the entrance—as far as 57. Chamber of the Processional (3F.).

I’m taking your suggestions for favorite Holmesian monsters to place in sublevels and particular halls and chambers in the Deep Halls of Amon-Gorloth.

Recalculating a Coin’s Weight

In “Holmes on a Coin’s Weight,” we take the Editor’s proposed weight of a standard coin—twice that of a quarter—and calculate that 40 coins make a pound. This was prompted by questioning the validity of old-school D&D’s standard, ten coins to a pound, to measure encumbrance.  Now I’m curious about the real weight of coins made from precious metals.

Source of Incongruence

In his review of the TREASURE chapter of the Holmes manuscript, Zach Howard notes that the section with heading BASE TREASURE VALUES (Holmes, 34), in which the weight of a coin is specified as twice that of a quarter, is not present.1 We deduce, then, that neither the 1⁄10 nor the 1⁄40 pound coin is proposed by Holmes. Rather, the incongruous weights entered the publication during editing.

I added a brief mention in an update to the earlier article.

Precious Metal Coin Weights

A US quarter-dollar piece, 1.75 mm thick and 24.26 mm in diameter, has a volume of 808.93 mm3 or 0.81 cm3. By the weight of the precious metals from which D&D realms mint coins, we can calculate the number of coins in a pound by metal. We ignore electrum as the alloy varies in weight depending on its composition.

Precious Metal Pieces
Piece Copper Silver Gold Platinum Average
Volume (cm3) 0.81 0.81 0.81 0.81 0.81
1 cm3 Weight (lbs.) 0.0197 0.0231 0.0426 0.0473 0.0332
Piece Weight (lbs.) 0.0160 0.0187 0.0345 0.0383 0.0269
Pieces in 1 lb. 62.64 53.38 28.99 26.11 42.78

More precious metals are heavier. A pound of copper counts 64 pieces, while less than half that number make a pound of gold or platinum, 29 or 26 pieces respectively.

Forty Coins to a Pound

We could justify a pound of 40 coins by assuming most treasure hauls will have a mix of silver, gold, and platinum, with silver making up a half. We leave the copper pieces in a trail behind us, so we can find our way back to the hoard for a second load.2 The average of 53, 29, and 26 is 36 coins, which rounds up to an even 40.

And let’s take another look at the Holmes quarter-sized coin. Its weight, 0.025 pounds, is practically the average of the ensemble of precious metal coins: 0.027 pounds.

Precious Metal Pieces Compared to the Holmes Quarter
Piece Average of Precious Metal Pieces Holmes Quarter
Volume (cm3) 0.81 0.81
1 cm3 Weight (lbs.) 0.0332 0.0309
Piece Weight (lbs.) 0.0269 0.0250
Pieces in 1 lb. 42.78 40.00

The average number of pieces per pound is 42.78. Adding electrum (not shown) with equal parts gold and silver brings the average down to 41.74.

Aside: Early Calculations

That the average weight of precious metal coins comes so close to Holmes’s twice-a-quarter’s-weight makes me wonder whether some editor might have done the research and made the calculations.

In the Internet Age, out of sheer curiosity, I looked up the precise dimensions of a quarter and plugged them into a volume calculator, found a web page that gives weights of metals by volume, and entered a few simple formulas into an electronic spreadsheet.

Certainly, the average 1970s high school student could accomplish the same,3 though by other means. All the calculations—the coin’s volume and each formula for each metal—must be done by hand, possibly with the assistance of a handheld calculator. Before doing the numbers, the research to find the weights of precious metals—unless one had a set of encyclopedias on the home shelf or a reference work noting specific gravities of metals—required a library trip.

Again, it was doable without the web, but it took more time and effort. Whoever did it, if it was done prior to 1977, had to be motivated.

Ten Coins to a Pound

To weigh one-tenth of a pound, how big would a coin have to be?

The average weight of 1 cm3 of the given precious metals is 0.033178 lbs. One-tenth pound divided by 0.033178 is 3.014. So we need about 3 cm3 of metal. A coin of that volume and, let’s say, twice a quarter’s thickness, 3.5 mm, must have a diameter of 33.1 mm, which is 1.30 inches or just shy of 15⁄16.

Coincidentally, the Eisenhower dollar coin, with a 1½-inch diameter and 1⁄10-inch thickness, has a volume of 2.8958 cm3. It weighs 24.624 grams or 1⁄20 of a pound. So, instead of a quarter dollar, we might say coins in D&D are the size of an Eisenhower dollar and twice the weight.

In a world of fantasy adventure, I could go with a coin of such an important size. It’s treasure, after all. It ought to look like treasure!

Still, even at quarter-size, we could argue for the ten-coin pound. As Moldvay suggests, when measuring encumbrance, we mustn’t neglect bulk. A coin seems to be the antithesis of bulk. It’s small, stackable with others, creates minimal lost space between pieces, and fistfuls of them fill voids between silver goblets and gold statuettes.

But a sack of coins isn’t rigid. I’m guessing that the only difference between a sack of 1,750 metal pieces and a party member’s corpse carried over your shoulder is that one of them will pay for a round at the base town tavern.

Euro Equivalents
Euro Equivalents.
The 2- and 1-euro coins are just larger and just smaller than a quarter: 25.25 and 23.25 mm in diameter, respectively. The 50-cent piece is the closest match at 24.25 mm, though its thickness, 2.38 mm, is a third again that of a quarter.

Notes

1 Zenopus Archives blog, “Part 34: ‘Many Monsters Carry Treasure.’”

2 In adventurer jargon, copper pieces are called “dungeon marks.”

3 In a December 1983 Dragon article, David F. Godwin makes such calculations. “How many coins in a coffer?” (Dragon #80, 9) doesn’t question the tenth-pound coin but addresses the related problem of a coin hoard’s volume. One point Godwin makes is that, due to the heavier weights of metals, the volume of coins in a “full” sack is much less than the sack’s volume. Imagine a stack of ten quarters. It weighs one pound. Make six rows of stacks by ten columns. Rounding to convenient dimensions, a stack of ten quarters takes up a volume 1" × 1" × ¾". Stacked, the 600 coins take up 6" × 10" × ¾". Dump them into a large sack. Any more weight would burst the seams, but there’s still a lot of air in the volume. So much that even four times as many coins doesn’t begin to take up the space.

For an example of a large sack overfull, see the Erol Otus illustration in Moldvay’s D&D Basic Rulebook, B20.

Holmes on a Coin’s Weight

“…for 300 gold pieces are assumed to weigh about 30 pounds” (Holmes, 9).

Melqart raised the torch over his head. Flickering light glinted off gold and silver. An alabaster frieze decorated the far wall. Before it, coins spilled from coffers, chests, and brass urns. A gold chain adorned with precious stones sparkled red and green.

Melqart drew a breath. “How many rounds1 you reckon, Hathor?”

Hathor-Ra stood, shield lowered, mace pointing down, mouth agape.

“Hathor?”

She blinked at the dazzling mound. “Thousands and thousands!”

“How many sacks do we have?”

“Three large, one small… and I’ve got room in my backpack.”

In early D&D editions, the base unit to measure encumbrance is the “coin,” and ten of them weigh one pound. I struggled with that idea for a long time. Even if we assume that encumbrance is “a combination of weight and bulk,” as Tom Moldvay puts it (B20), a one-tenth-pound coin seems hardly credible. Eventually, I came around to accept the absurdity in favor of playability.

Ten coins to a pound started as early as OD&D, in which the average man weighs 1,750 coins (Vol. 1, 15). That the entry tops the encumbrance list is either to set a benchmark—175 lbs. was average for a 1970s American male—or to remind us it’s a dangerous world: there are rules for carrying a comrade’s corpse.

The ten-coin standard continued through AD&D and the “Basic” line (B/X, BECM/I, and the Rules Cyclopedia). It was abandoned in 2nd Edition, which uses pounds to measure encumbrance.

The quote at top from the section on encumbrance in Holmes Basic D&D pulls the heavy coin forward from OD&D. But Zach Howard’s reading of the Holmes manuscript implies that it wasn’t the Editor who wrote the encumbrance section,2 but rather a subsequent editor.3

Elsewhere in Holmes we read:

“All coins are roughly equal in size and weight, being approximately the circumference and thickness of a quarter and weighing about twice as much” (34).

Reading Zach Howard’s discussion of the Treasure section in the Holmes manuscript, I see that Holmes didn’t write about the size and weight of coins either. [22:30 13 February 2022 GMT]

This gives us the idea that Holmes used, at least in his own game, a smaller value for the weight of a coin.4 A US quarter-dollar piece weighs 5.67 grams. Twice that, 11.34, is 0.025 pounds. Using this as the standard, there are 40 coins in a pound.

Do you know what that means? You can carry four times more treasure out of the dungeon. That’s four times more treasure! More treasure for you, more treasure for me—more treasure for everyone!

Laden Thieves
Laden Thieves.
Adventurers carry 9,600 rounds in four large sacks.

Notes

1 A round, in adventurer jargon, is a precious-metal coin of any realm, past or present.

2 Zenopus Archives blog, “Part 6: ‘Fully Armored and Heavily Loaded’”

3 Howard suggests, with compelling evidence, Gary Gygax for the Editor’s editor: “Interlude: Who Edited the Editor?”

4 Written accounts from the Editor himself indicate that Holmes knew and used some rules from an early third-party OD&D supplement called Warlock. I wonder if a coin’s weight is addressed in those rules. Zenopus Archives blog, “Warlock or how to play D&D without playing D&D?”

Having now had the opportunity to read Warlock as printed in The Spartan #9 (August 1975), I can report that, other than that it weighs one unit, no mention of a coin’s weight is contained therein. Nor is any other of Holmes’s unique rules. [18:34 19 May 2022 GMT]

Civilization and Diplomacy Map Boards on the Globe

Apart from Outdoor Survival, two other games have map boards that attract me as campaign world settings. I put them together to imagine the map of DONJON LANDS’ “Known World.”

I always thought Avalon Hill’s Civilization map board looked odd. I couldn’t put my finger on why it didn’t look right, but the shapes on the board didn’t match up with the Mediterranean map in my American-educated mind. I figured the map board artist was obliged to distort coastlines to fit land masses within a limited space or otherwise failed to color inside the lines.

I was surprised, when I laid a scan over a Google Earth screen projection, to see that the board artist only rotated the map a few degrees from north.

Both the geography and history of the Mediterranean and the Near East inspire adventures in ancient lands with seagoing voyages, threatened by mythological creatures from the deep, and desert treks to visit distant realms and explore forgotten temples atop stepped pyramids.

At the same time, pseudo-medieval is the “classic fantasy” I grew up with, before and after my introduction to adventure role-playing games. Northern Europe inspires adventures where vikings plunder coastal towns, armor-clad knights ride out from spired castles on quests for legendary objects, and druids chant rituals amid misty forests.

Unlike Civilization’s map, I thought the Diplomacy board was more or less correct—excepting Iceland, which I assumed was displaced to make way for the elevation legend. Not at all. I had to rotate the Diplomacy map a full 20 degrees to line up the coastlines on the globe. Thule is in its proper place.

Civilization and Diplomacy Map Boards on the Globe
Mappa Mundi.
Map boards from Advanced Civilization (Avalon Hill, 1991) and Diplomacy (Avalon Hill, 1976)—both rotated counterclockwise, 6.2° and 20.6° respectively—laid over a Google Earth image, oriented north (Google Earth imagery: Landsat/Copernicus Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO IBCAO U.S. Geological Survey).

Three Daggers for Protection

After sharing “A Dagger for Protection” in the D&D Basic Set (Holmes) Facebook group, an exchange of ideas with old-school gamer J. Sebastian Pagani yields two more magic daggers that fit the protection theme.

“Since it’s purpose is to help preserve the life of the low level wizard,” Pagani suggests, “what about allowing it to restore 4 hit points, at the cost of its enchantment.”

That power, put into its own item, gives us the Dagger of Sacrifice.

Pagani’s inspiration for the other dagger comes from Argentine literature. In Leopoldo Lugones’s historical novel La guerra gaucha (1905), a threat, directed at whoever might attack its possessor, is engraved on a gaucho’s knife blade.

Quien á mi dueño ofendiere
De mí la venganza espere;

A gaucho is a brave, free-spirited, and rebellious horseman of the pampas. His lifestyle is the theme of Gaucho literature, the epitome of which is the epic poem El Gaucho Martín Fierro by José Hernández.

Martín Fierro, the character, became a symbol of the gaucho spirit, and the poem, published in two parts (1872, 1879), remains a celebrated cultural icon. Hernández is held in high esteem by generations of Argentine writers.

In 1913, Lugones gave a lecture series, collected into El payador (1916), in which he canonizes the work Martín Fierro and depicts the gaucho culture. Detailing the habiliments of the gaucho, Lugones describes the horseman’s weapon as “a great hunting and fighting knife.” The blade often bore chivalric mottos. As an example, he cites the couplet from La guerra gaucha.

Pagani read the couplet quoted in an essay by another Argentine writer, possibly Jorge Luis Borges. Pagani was struck by the essayist’s reaction to the engraved motto: “He was moved that the blade was speaking in the first person, as if it had a life of its own.” Hence, the inspiration for the Dagger of Vengeance.

Inspired in my turn, I stormed around the gray matter for inscriptions on the other daggers, which I include below with brief commentary.

The Dagger of Protection is copied from the earlier article.

New Magic Items

Phrases set off below a dagger’s description may be engraved upon the blade.

Dagger of Sacrifice — a dagger +2. When the possessor reaches 0 hit points, the dagger restores 1 to 4 hit points. It can so save the possessor’s life one time only. Then it becomes a dagger +1 forever after with no other power.

now i am become life the restorer of weal

Fangled from a line in the Bhagavad Gita, which Robert Oppenheimer called to mind on witnessing the first nuclear weapons test: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Dagger of Protection — as a dagger +1 in combat. It is paired with a steel sheath. Only while sheathed does the dagger protect the carrier, adding +1 to armor class and saving throws. Also called a “mageblade.”

to wield or protect

Brainstorming protection quotes got me the 23rd psalm and the LAPD motto. I find the motto more malleable.

Dagger of Vengeance — a dagger +1. If the possessor, whether wielding the weapon or not, is slain by an attacker, the dagger becomes animated and attacks the slayer. Treat the dagger as the same class and level as the slain. It has an armor class of 2. When the animated dagger is hit, or when its vengeance is served, it falls to the ground.

whoever offends my master let him expect my vengeance

Lugones’s couplet translated but otherwise unadulterated.

Engraved Couplet - Leopoldo Lugones - El payador 1916
The motto appeared earlier in Lugones’s historical novel La guerra gaucha. The author recalls the couplet in El payador, shown here. Lugones precedes the inscription with a note that the engraved mottos were “in rough handwriting and worse spelling.”

Progressive Dice, a Misnomer

This is a follow-up article to “Progressive Dice for Effects Durations,” in which I propose a method to roll each turn for the chance for an effect to end. This, in order to maintain the secrecy—and suspense—of an effect’s duration when playing solo or otherwise without a DM.

So-Called “Progressive” Dice

“Instead of rolling for the effect duration at the trigger to know on what turn the effect ends, we roll the same dice at the beginning of each subsequent turn to see if the effect ends in that turn.

“A dice result equal to or greater than the current subsequent turn indicates the effect continues. Roll again at the beginning of the next turn. A lower result means the effect ends.”

—“Progressive Dice for Effects Durations”

I’ve used progressive dice for effects durations and a number of other things for years. My assumption was that the chance for the effect to end each turn stands alone turn by turn, increasing as turns go by, therefore “progressive.” I also assumed that the overall probabilities, compared to the traditional method, were somehow the same.

Progressive Dice - Assumption

Writing the previous article forced me to think a little deeper on the method. I wondered if I’d got it right. Does it really yield a progressive chance, turn by turn, for the effect to end?

The smartest D&D mathematician I know is Dan Collins of Wandering DMs and Delta’s D&D Hotspot. A 40+ year D&D veteran, Dan is also a university lecturer in mathematics and computer science.

So, I sent him a query outlining the problem. Dan’s response, a few lines and a table of probabilities, shows how it is that progressive dice are not so progressive after all. For, using the proposed method, the chance of the effect ending is much higher in the initial periods than the later, so, not at all statistically equivalent to the traditional method.

In a traditional game, the DM rolls a single dice (or combination thereof) when an effect is triggered to determine its duration. A duration of 1 to 6 turns, say, is rolled on a d6. The probability that the effect ends on any turn is ⅙ or 16.67%.

Single Dice Roll [Traditional]

Using so-called progressive dice, “It stacks up differently,” Dan writes. “It’s very unlikely that you’ll get to turn 5 or 6, because you have to survive all the prior rolls to get there. Over half the time you’ll have the effect stop after two or three rounds.”

Here I had to make a saving throw vs. Death Ray. Reading the email, I was talking to Dan through the screen: The progressive dice method is so elegant, man—it has to be right!

Dan goes on to explain: “Computing a compound probability like this is a series of multiplications…” He also includes a table with a note that, if the calculations are correct, the sum of all chances should be 100%. I reproduce the table here.

Progressive Dice, Chance to End After Turn n
Turn Multipliers Product
1 1⁄6 16.67%
2 5⁄6 × 2⁄6 27.78%
3 5⁄6 × 4⁄6 × 3⁄6 27.78%
4 5⁄6 × 4⁄6 × 3⁄6 × 4⁄6 18.52%
5 5⁄6 × 4⁄6 × 3⁄6 × 2⁄6 × 5⁄6 7.72%
6 5⁄6 × 4⁄6 × 3⁄6 × 2⁄6 × 1⁄6 × 6⁄6 1.54%
Total   100%

So, it isn’t just the simple chance (bold) each turn that the effect will end. We have also to factor in the cumulative chance (italics), which is each previous roll inverted, that the effect hasn’t already ended.

Note that, in the previous article, we roll to see if the effect ends at the beginning of the next turn. “Ends after turn n” is a different way to say the same thing.

Progressive Dice - Correction

Therefore, at best, I misnamed “progressive dice.” Though the number to roll increases turn by turn, the chance to make that number is not at all progressive. The chance to end the effect after the second or third turn is much higher than the first or later turns.

Alternatives

So, what is a DM-less player to do? We might accept the statistical difference and use the so-called “progressive” dice in play. Or we might seek out other solutions. We look here at two—one of them works.

Single Dice, Effect Ends on a 1 (Not a Solution)

I thought of an alternative method. Roll the same dice every turn, with a result of 1 signaling the effect’s end. The effect ends automatically at the end of the  maximum duration.

It’s more simple than counting turns. But, if I’m following Dan’s lesson well, we still have to factor in the chance that the effect ended with the previous roll(s).

Effect Ends on 1, Chance to End After Turn n
Turn Multipliers Product
1 1⁄6 16.67%
2 5⁄6 × 1⁄6 13.80%
3 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 1⁄6 11.57%
4 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 1⁄6 9.65%
5 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 1⁄6 8.04%
6 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 5⁄6 × 1⁄6 6.70%
Total   66.51%

Ends on 1

Furthermore, I note that the total percentage is only 66.51, which is 33.49 short of 100. I’m guessing that’s because the effect automatically ends at the duration’s upper limit. The chance that it will end after the 6th turn is, in fact, 6.70 plus the remaining 33.49, or 40.19%.

Ends on 1 - Corrected

1 to n Cards

Dan suggests a card solution: a number of playing cards n equal to the upper limit of the range, 1 to n, one of which is an ace—or, if you have a deck of many things on hand, the Donjon (ace of spades) or the Fates (ace of hearts).

Shuffle the deck once when the effect is triggered. Draw one card from the top of the deck at the beginning of each turn. When the ace comes up, the effect ends.

Here, the shuffling is the dice roll, which determines on which turn the effect ends (on the ace). The chance that it will end in any particular round is 1⁄n, just like a single dice roll. The only practical difference from the dice roll is that the ending turn, while predetermined, is hidden within the deck. Also elegant.

A disadvantage is that the card method cannot duplicate dice combinations. Melqart’s stun duration, 2d4 turns, for example, cannot be reproduced using this method. In this case, it was the first effect duration of the campaign, but dice combinations might be infrequent.

Another disadvantage is that you have to manage an additional tool at the table. The suspense about when the effect ends, though, may well be worth the trouble.

For myself, I love to incorporate playing cards into my D&D, and if there’s an opportunity to get more use out of a deck of many things, I’ll take it.

Other Solutions?

I’m interested to hear your suggestions for maintaining the secrecy of effects durations in a DM-less game. I would also entertain a counterargument showing that progressive dice do in fact produce progressive results. Because it’s elegant, man, it has to be right!

My thanks to Dan Collins for his statistical analysis of the problem as well as an alternative solution. For interested readers, Dan offers several venues to learn more about dice and probability. In an episode of Wandering DMs, Dan gives a course in Basic Dice Math, and in another episode with cohort Paul Siegel, he talks Dice Mechanics. In addition, you’ll find a plethora of articles about dice statistics on Dan’s blog.