The calendar of Threshold

OK, not the Threshold that anyone that has the Gazeteers knows, but the one I made up for myself and spent 30 years tweaking.

The Grand Duchy is, to my mind, something like Greece or Italy in the Middle Ages - a generally Mediterranean country for a start, and also, a lost province of a failing empire.

The religion of my corner of the Known World (as it was still called when I lost touch with anyone else who played there) is a mish-mash; different cults (based on real-world religions as culled from the pages of DDG) overlain with some continent-spanning religions derived from the Nehwon Mythos (though I'm only using Nehwon in a similar way to other mythos, I'm not actually setting the campaign there). Karameikos, Thyatis and Minrothad, all being former provinces of the more or less 'Greco-Egyyptian' Empire of Thyatis, have a mix of Greek and Egyptian deities under generally (partly-)anagrammatic names, and some of the Nehwon gods as well.

So, where is all this going? Well, I've made a table of religious festivals in Threshold, as that's where my PCs are at the moment. The main gods and goddesses of Threshold all have their own holy days and I've gone through and calculated dates for them over 2 years.

I've split the holidays into 3 kinds: greatest importance, normal importance, low importance. Low importance festivals are those of lesser gods and goddesses; middling-importance festivals are those of greater gods or goddesses that appear with regularity; highest-importance festivals are yearly events of significance to greater gods and goddesses, or synchronicities in frequency that render regularly-occurring festivals significant.

In recent years, I've run with the idea that the cult of Issek of the Jug (from Nehwon) is beginning to assume something of the role of Christianity in the Late Antique-Early Medieval period. It hasn't managed to stamp out the pagan cults but it has started the process of colonising both space and time. It does this through martyr-cults (the theology of Issek being one of suffering, and his greatest devotees being those undergoing torture). I have as part of the 'fluff' both the appearance of 'Tassit, Servant of St Cuthbert' from B1 (St Cuthbert is I believe still a feature of D&D Lore) and the Monastery of Osterlin from 'A Box of Old Bones' (WD71) which houses '... the bones of St Giles the Martyr'. So, I decided that the 'saints and martyrs' should be the devotees of Issek, persecuted in previous centuries, and now venerated by the Church of Issek, which may have departed somewhat from the ideals of its founder.

I also divided the calendar up into months. For simplicity's sake (no, really) I divided the year into 12 months of 30 days, and began the year at the Winter Solstice. This leaves 5 days left over, which I put around the Summer Solstice. I'm ignoring Leap Years. Maybe in 40 years of campaign time some Arch-Theogonist of the Church of Issek will decree a new calendar. Maybe not. I named the months after modern astrological signs; they may as well serve some purpose, and personally I think my D&D campaign has much more reality to it than astrology. If asked, any sages in my campaign will say that the names of the months come from 'old superstitions'.

The other day I happened upon a fine publication, issue 5 of 'Brave the Labyrinth' for Labyrinth Lord, which contains a list of 'Saints of the Church of Law and Order', which is more or less what the Church of Issek is in my version of the Grand Duchy. So I have purloined the list, added 'St Giles the Martyr' to it, assimilated 'St Cuthbert' with the 'St Keth' of the list, and randomly determined two more saints by splitting the now-48 saints into a d4 and d12 determination, followed by finding out which d12 month, d4 week and d8 day of the year their feast-day is held. This is a bit rough-and-ready; on an '8' for the day of the week, I assigned the feast to a day not covered by the dice. I will use the same method to calculate a set of festivals for all the Saints, a religious calender for the Church of Issek, with 48 saints' feast-days on it; this will probably be observed no-where in the Known World except the biggest temple of Issek in Specularum, I guess, because I get the idea that many of these saints might be quite local. Would an Issek worshipper in Thyatis or Tel Akbir have heard of St Giles? Perhaps not, though he's an important Saint in the Grand Duchy. Would an Issek worshipper in Threshold have heard of St Tara, who looks after sailors? Maybe not, as Threshold is in the mountains and several days' travel from the sea.

Then I calculated the New and Full Moons, on the basis of a 29-day lunar cycle. If, as in the case of Alol (a rather sexy god of archery, music and sometimes bears who has both a 10-day holy 'week' and a 29-day lunar cycle of New Moon festivals) two sets of festivals repeat on different cycles, I have counted the points in the calendar where the cycles come together as being significant. In Alol's case, I have taken the first New Moon after the Winter Solstice as being his first festival and calculated the rest of his 'year' of 36 holy 'weeks' from there.

So here it is - Threshold's religious calendar.

Threshold calendar, Yr 1701:

(Goat-month)

1 – Winter Solstice & New Year: Offerings to Issek: sacrifices to Huran and Rosh

2 – New Moon: Offering to Alol & Alol's Day

12 – Alol’s Day

16 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

22 – Alol’s Day

(Water-month, sacred to Efun)

1 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

2 – Alol’s Day

11 – Feast of St Ronnad of the Flagon

12 – Alol’s Day

15 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

22 – Alol’s Day

30 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

(Fish-month)

2 – Alol’s Day

12 – Alol’s Day

14 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

22 – Alol’s Day

29 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

(Sheep-month)

2 – Spring Equinox: Burnt offerings to Kos: Alol’s Day: sacrifice of animals to Efun, prayers to Orem-Thep at home

12 – Alol’s Day

13 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

22 – Alol’s Day

28 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

(Cow-month)

2 – Alol’s Day

12 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas: Alol’s Day

22 – Alol’s Day

27 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

(Month of the Twins)

2 – Alol’s Day

11 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

12 – Alol’s Day

22 – Alol’s Day

26 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

(Midsummer)

1

2 – Alol’s Day

3 – Midsummer’s Day, sacrifices to Ekes, Huran and Rosh

4

5

(Crab-month)

5 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

7 – Feast of St Luwagen of Castel: Alol’s Day

17 – Alol’s Day

20 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

27 – Alol’s Day

(Lion-month, sacred to Huran)

4 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

7 – Alol’s Day

17 – Alol’s Day

19 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

27 – Alol’s Day

30 – Feast of St Cuthbert (St Keth)

(Maiden-month, sacred to Tas)

3 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

7 – Alol’s Day

17 – Alol’s Day

18 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

27 – Alol’s Day

30 – Autumnal Equinox, prayers to Orem-Thep at home

(Balance-month)

2 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

7 – Alol’s Day

17 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol: Alol’s Day:

27 – Alol’s Day

(Scorpion-month)

1 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets

7 – Alol’s Day

16 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

17 – Alol’s Day

27 – Alol’s Day

30 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

(Archer-month, sacred to Alol)

7 – Alol’s Day

14 – Feast of St Giles

15 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

17 – Alol’s Day

27 – Alol’s Day

29 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

Threshold calendar, Yr 1702:

(Goat-month)

1 – Winter Solstice & New Year: Offerings to Issek: Sacrifices to Huran and Rosh

7 – Alol’s Day

14 – New Moon: Offering to Alol & Alol's Day

24 – Alol’s Day

28 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

(Water-month, sacred to Efun)

1 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

4 – Alol’s Day

11 – Feast of St Ronnad of the Flagon

13 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

14 – Alol’s Day

24 – Alol’s Day

27 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

(Fish-month)

4 – Alol’s Day

12 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

14 – Alol’s Day

24 – Alol’s Day

26 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

(Sheep-month)

2 – Spring Equinox: Burnt offerings to Kos: sacrifice of animals to Efun, prayers to Orem-Thep at home

4 – Alol’s Day

11 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

14 – Alol’s Day

24 – Alol’s Day

25 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

(Cow-month)

4 – Alol’s Day

10 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

14 –Alol’s Day

24 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas: Alol’s Day

(Month of the Twins)

4 – Alol’s Day

9 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

14 – Alol’s Day

23 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

24 – Alol’s Day

(Midsummer)

1

2

3 – Midsummer’s Day: Sacrifices to Ekes, Huran and Rosh

4 – Alol’s Day

5

(Crab-month)

3 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

7 – Feast of St Luwagen of Castel

9 – Alol’s Day

17 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

19 – Alol’s Day

29 – Alol’s Day

(Lion-month, sacred to Huran)

2 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

9 – Alol’s Day

16 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

19 – Alol’s Day

29 – Alol’s Day

30 – Feast of St Cuthbert (Keth)

(Maiden-month, sacred to Tas)

1 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

9 – Alol’s Day

15 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

19 – Alol’s Day

29 – Alol’s Day

30 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol: Autumnal Equinox, prayers to Orem-Thep at home

(Balance-month)

9 – Alol’s Day

14 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

19 – Alol’s Day

29 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol: Alol’s Day

(Scorpion-month)

1 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets

9 – Alol’s Day

13 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

19 – Alol’s Day

28 – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

29 – Alol’s Day

(Archer-month, sacred to Alol)

9 – Alol’s Day

12 – Full Moon: Offerings to Isi and Ets and sacrifices of snakes to Tas

14 – Feast of St Giles

19 – Alol’s Day

27  – New Moon: Offerings to Alol

29 – Alol’s Day

The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The War of Grom the Paunch - alternative timeline

From the earliest annals, which may or may not be the most correct, the following rough timeline can be constructed.

Grom kills Wulfrun Willowhand, King of the Northern Dwarfs, beginning the Dwarf-Goblin Wars.

At some point subsequently, Mudat Brokenbone sacks Nuln; around this time, Bogdan Legbreak, a Goblin warlord with many chariots, and his Ogre ally Golgfag the Rutdrogg, kill Bono Bugman.

Following the sack of Nuln, Mudat lays siege to Helmgart.

Around this time, Bogdan and Golgfag sack Bugman's Brewery.

After the Seige of Helmgart, Mudat and Grom end up on opposite sides in the Battle of Gonnear; Grom kills Mudat. This is the first recorded appearance of Grom's Goblin Guard.

Some time after this, Golgfag's second-in-command Gratthud slays Bogdan; 'Mad-Eyed' Hogg becomes the leader of Bogdan's chariots, and commands them at Zhuf Field, where he fights alongside Grom.

After Zhuf Field, Grom and Hogg assault the 'Dwarf City' of Middenheim, where Grom is killed.

Some years later is the battle of Mad Dog Pass, where Grom's Goblin Guard is exterminated. Hogg is also present at the battle, and leads the survivors of of Bogdan's chariots into the Darklands.



Originally hosted over at:

The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The War of Grom the Paunch - alternative timeline: 


In this timeline, it is the killing of Bono, son of Joseph, Bugman by Bogdan Legbreak and Golgfag the Rutdrogg that leads to Joseph Bugman to form his famous Rangers. The Rangers are exterminated, and Joseph disappears never to be seen again, presumed killed, when Bogdan and Golgfagg sack Bugman's Brewery. Indeed, Goblin legend tells of how Bogdan taunts and kills Joseph Bugman during the sacking of the brewery.

The stories of Bugman's return from the sacking of the Brewery and the refounding of the Rangers at Karak Varn seem not to based on early historical record. In even later stories, Bugman does not even found his Rangers until after the sack of the brewery. Finally, in the latest versions of the story, generations are transposed. In the earliest versions, Joseph is the grandson of Samuel Bugman, and Bono Bugman is Joseph's son. Later, Samuel is sometimes called Joseph or Josef Bugman's father; meanwhile, Bono is sometimes called a son of Samuel.

The sacking of Nuln, sometimes said in later tales to be the work of Grom the Paunch (of the Misty Mountain, as he is always known in the earliest tales), is here credited to Mudat Brokenbone. Though, after the sack of Nuln, later stories say that Grom was defeated by the Prince of Altdorf and attacked Middenheim, this is treated as an Imperial rather than a Dwarf city; and Grom is said to have personally broken the gates of the city and built a chariot there from the remains of a temple to Ulric. Thus, the use of chariots by the Goblin army is credited to Grom, whereas in the early tales it is Bogdan and Hogg who command them. He is than given a story of invading Uluthuan, whereas in the earliest version, he was killed in the siege of Middenheim.

In the earliest versions then, three Greenskin leaders (Grom the Paunch of the Misty Mountain, Mudat Brokenbone, and Bogdan Legbreak) command the forces that attack the dwarf cities and invade the Empire. Later tales only remember Grom the Paunch and ascribe all the deeds to him that in the earliest tales are the work of other commanders.

More MegaDungeon than you can shake a ten-foot pole at (or, 'How Dyson Saved Silvergate')

I admit it, I have been extensively raiding Dyson's maps. I tried some other sites, but they just weren't cutting the mustard.

Perhaps I'm very picky about what I want; I don't think I am. It seems to me that a dungeon-generator (of which there are dozens of free ones out there) should be relatively-controllable. But none of the generators I consulted allowed me to do the things I wanted to do.

I'm designing Silvergate in sections. The whole city will be built as a series of areas which can be thought of as something like districts or neighbourhoods, though they're really quite small. A megadungeon built of lairs bolted together, sure, but bolted together in a way that sort of makes some sense, please. And as (at a guess) I need something like 60 of these sections, each with 25-45 (or there abouts) rooms, that's about 2000 rooms all together. A lot of mapping.

My ideal generator would ask questions like 'how many rooms do you want for a given area?' and 'how many exits in which directions?' and 'do you want a) a mix of large and small rooms, b) few large and many small, or c) few small and many large?' - but those I've consulted don't ask those sorts of questions. Just some randomly-plonked spaces and corridors aren't so much use (even if they do come populated from some generators). Fine in theory for a random lair, not so good for a section of a bigger whole that is supposed to hang together in some way.

So I'm back to either drawing the maps myself or taking someone else's. I certainly have drawn some of my own. I will draw more of my own as I go along. But I'm also going to use some of Dyson's maps in the production of Silvergate as a playable megadungeon.

But, Orc, I hear you cry; surely the problem is that you can't control them? If a dungeon generator can't produce the results you want, how can taking existing maps from somewhere else?

Well, even if I can't control them exactly the way I want there are several advantages to using Dyson's maps. The main one is that due to his prolific production, there are hundreds of potential maps to be selected, and unlike a generator where I feed in the parameters and get it to produce something for me, I can see them before I download them, and if something looks useful, I can take a closer look and if I like what I see, I can download it.

There are three reasons really that I'm going to use some of Dyson's mega-delve material: a) they're very nice maps in their own right; b) they (at least some of the time) fit together in a logical way both horizontally and vertically, giving me more coherence about how the city is designed, and c) because Dyson's megadungeon is a Dwarf-city too, and so, why not?

If I find anywhere else that produces maps of the same quality, then I'll use them as well. But I haven't yet.

The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The Story of Otto Kleinhund, III & IV

The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The Story of Otto Kleinhund, Part the Third

The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The Story of Otto Kleinhund, Part the Fourth

Look, I really don't know how the hell this re-blogging thing works ... anyway here is the rest of the story of Otto Kleinhund. Please read it, if you like, it's all about Oldhammer.

Goblins galore!

A shot of some of my goblins that I was painting up for Kings of War... well, they languished in the box for a while, like 18 months, until yesterday when I got my paints down from the loft and painted their hats red. I'd decided that they needed more colour, and remembered the Redcaps of fairly folklore. What could be better for these be-capped Night Goblins? OK, technically the goblin 6 from the left in the front row is not a Night Goblin, but I only have a certain quantity of Goblins, and I was one short for this unit. Look, he's in a Night Goblin unit, he'll be statted as a Night Goblin (if I ever play a game where they're not just statted as 'Goblins').

So... still got a lot of work to do on these to get them looking 'nice' (if they ever do, I'm a rubbish painter) but I thought I might post them here. I looked up Redcaps - I didn't know that they were particularly from Northern England and Southern and Central Scotland. Perhaps they deserve their own entry in the Observer's Book of Monsters?

Under Threshold - further adventures of the intrepid and fragile explorers

Well, tonight's game was a treat. Picking up where they left off last time, the two surviving members of the party looted the body of Helia the Fan-Lady and tipped her into the water. Continuing to explore into the next cavern, they found a person in long robes lying on the floor. Being Dwarves they're not too good with humans but they definitely couldn't see a beard. So they don't know whether it's a  man or a girlman. The person in the robes isn't giving much away, as they have amnesia from a bump on the head.

Exploring a little further, they noticed a strange glow... which turned out to be three fire-beetles. A fight ensued - the wizardy-type remembered s/he knew some words for whoosh, and sure enough, there was some whoosh which resulted in the rapid exit of one of the beetles. Heartened by this the Dwarves piled in to attack the other two - one of which seemed very easy to kill and the other very hard. Once more, one of the PCs keeled over down to 0hp. Luckily there was plenty of time to dispatch the remaining beetle and perform first aid, using bandages torn from girlman's robes. Then time to prop him up and leave him to recover... it's totally safe to leave an unconscious party-member in a room of carrion, isn't it?

Bjorn - the surviving Dwarf - did remember that part of the point of what they were doing was harvesting interesting bits for the members of the Sages' Guild back at the North Bridge Tavern. So they collected the glowing sacs or bladders or whatever fire beetles have and off they went, leaving poor Bromeen all alone and unconscious.

It wasn't long before they were back though. Just a little further, and they came to crossroads, where there was a door to they left - this part of the complex looks properly built in contrast to the natural caverns they were exploring before. They opened the door, Bjorn going first, and found a small swarm of Giant Centipedes. They had a certain problem killing these little blighters - in fact, they only got one of them and both Bjorn and Wizard Mac Girlmanperson were bitten. Cue a slow vomitting exit from the room. Luckily, the centipedes didn't follow.

They decided to crawl back to Bromeen. So, one dead, two incapacitated by vomitting.

Luckily, Bromeen managed to pull through, and his condition was upgraded from 'dead' to 'healed'. Basically, this works like this: if first aid is applied rapidly (I give CON x 10 seconds or bleed to death) then make a CON roll: if that's successful, count that as '1hp' by permanently removing a point of CON. Healing can then take place as normal. Bromeen made his roll, and would therefore get the chance to heal overnight.

I did a couple of wandering monster rolls: some geckos wandered by, late at night, but the reaction matrix told me they were not going to attack. Lucky, with all the party members incapacitaed!

In the evening of day 2, Bromeen had sufficiently recovered to watch over and attempt to help his two companions.Good job too - a green slime appeared and slowly menaced them. Bjorn and Wizard crawled away slowly - but still faster than the slime. Bromeen threw a dead rabbit at it, then attacked it with a sword. He'd never seen a green slime before, he wasn't to know. Now he doesn't have a sword.

What happened next was that he decided to go and stand in the water (parts of the caverns are flooded) and lure the slime in. He did, then nipped (ie slowly waded) to the other side of the cavern and out again. Slimes aren't noted for their clever so I figured it just wandered off. Maybe it drowned. I don't know. It's served its purpose. Melting Bromeen's sword means that when the Town Guard want him to hand it back - they have the paperwork for his sword due to the town byelaws - he won't be able to. Oh dear oh dear, he hasn't sold it illegally has he? That would be very unfortunate... perhaps the gentleman would accompany these nice Watchmen to the Keep...

So, still vomitting and staggering, the remaining party members made their way back out. They emerged, about 36 hours after first venturing down there, having lost a party member, gained another, nearly lost another, killed three robber flies and three fire beetles and one giant centipede.

Bromeen, with his CHA of 7, went off to find 'an apoctherie'. Is there one in town? Of course. Town Hall Square. But as it was dawn the place was shut. Luckily Master Masym Hewe (that list of names I printed out is coming in handy, so far it's named about 10 townsfolk in 2 seconds) was prepared to come and experiment on the two sick PCs ... in exchange for 40GP, which is most of what they have. So after some bluffness, some messing about and some harrumphing, Masym Hewe, Apothecary-about-town gathered his potions and powders and followed Bromeen across the North Bridge to where Bjorn and Wizard were sitting by the warehouse throwing up. After a few minutes experimenting he hit on the right dosage and lo and behold, they stopped the explosive vomit. I did think of rolling for side effects, but that would probably have been a bit mean. After all, one doesn't really start playing an RPG with the expectation that they have to role-play being incapacitated for days...

So there they are - out of the dungeon, maybe 1/3 explored; no-one permanently died today, though it was close; and they've got some stuff that the Sages might be interested in after all...

The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The Story of Otto Kleinhund, Part the Second

Re-blogging this from one of my other blogs; not really sure how re-blogging works to be honest but it may be interesting to Oldhammer types...


The College of Speculative Antiquarians: The Story of Otto Kleinhund, Part the Second: The cellar was dark, the air cold and stale. Yet Otto began to sweat. Why had Master Wilhelm mentioned trolls? Was there something that Otto...