Monty Haul a 5Th Edition ‘Zine with a 1St Edition Vibe

Monty Haul A 5th Edition ‘Zine With a 1st Edition Vibe

MARCH 2020 Vol 1 #0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome to Monty Haul: Do You Kids Want Snacks? 3 Critical Hits: An Alternate System 9 Familiars: An Old School Compromise 14 Interlude: My Balkanized World 18 Cleric Domains for City Campaigns 22 The Divine Archeologist: A Rogue Archetype 27 New Backgrounds for your City-State 35 The Noble House Random Generator 58

Written by Mark Finn

Artwork by Henry Justice Ford (Cover), Richard Dadd (9), Albert Robida (14, 27, 64), Arthur Rackham (15-17, 34), Howard Pyle (22, 24, 42, 69), Hans Baldung Grien (26), Elizabeth Shippen Green-Elliot (29, 33), Paul Gavarni (37), John Tenniel (39), Hans Holbein (40), Kenny Meadows (58, 61, 62), John Pettie (43), Henry C Selous (46, 50, 54), Louis Rhead (48), John Gilbert (47, 52, 57), G.F. Sargent (61), William Winter (66), John Jackson (engraver, 71), and a few talented printmakers from over a hundredSample years ago whose names are sadly lost to the vagariesfile of time.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms, the dragon ampersand, and all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast in the USA and other countries. All other original material in this work is copyright 2020 by Mark Finn and published by Monkeyhaus Design Works. Sample file Welcome to Monty Haul Do You Kids Want Any Snacks?

Part 1: A Little background Okay, so, I’m making a ‘zine. Again.

My name is Mark Finn. I’m a writer and an editor from Texas. I’ve written a lot of things: comics, radio plays, short stories, novels, and even non-fiction. I wrote Blood & Thunder: the Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, and it was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2007. In fact, when it comes to Robert E. Howard, I’ve done a lot of work over the past two decades. A lot.

If you’ve read any of the Dark Horse Comics Conan collections that Kurt Busiek or Tim Truman wrote, I worked on those. If you read Dark Horse’s Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword, I wrote the El Borak story and intro. If you have any of the Wildside Press REH collections, I wrote introductions for five of those books, and several intros for other volumes, from various publishers. Most recently, I was one of the REH experts hired to work on Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, the rpg from Modiphius, where I wrote for the core rulebook and also the Conan the Thief sourcebook.

Before all of that; before the biography of Robert E. Howard and all of those essays and introductions and REH scholarship, before comic stories for DC and Dark Horse and a bunch of indy publishers and the horror and fantasy short stories and the modern-day fantasy novels, and the humorous historical fantasy boxing stories, before Clockwork Storybook, Sampleeven before the black andfile white indy comics, and the ‘zines, and Tales of the Elvis Clones, I was a gamer.

Part 2: Products of My Imagination I started, like just about everyone else my age, with Dungeons & Dragons, 3 and over the years, I’ve owned and played a dizzying array of games with a wide circle of friends and acquain- tances. D&D was a part of my creative DNA, one of the first set of tools I had for creating stories and figuring out how to tell them.

My D&D experience was heavily col- ored by what I was reading at the time: aside from Robert E. Howard’s Conan (duh!), there was Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone, Robert Aspirin’s Thieves’ World shared-world anthologies, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Stephen Brust’s Vlad Tal- tos stories, and even historical fiction like Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, Howard Pyle’s illustrated stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur, any- thing even tangentially related to epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, or mythol- ogy and legend. Back then, we didn’t know how invaluable a reference Appendix N would be; to us, they were just the books we were reading.

Along the way, AD&D (as it was called back then) gave way to Call of Cthulhu, Villains and Vigilantes, Top Secret, Justice, Inc. GURPS, and a host of other RPGs, all designed to simulate and recreate specific storytelling genres. And while I’d moved away from Dungeons & Dragons, I always kept up with what it was doing. By the time I was ready to introduce my niece to D&D, 4th edition had been out for a while and 5th edition was poised to launch, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the game.

I was curious; there were things about 4th edition that I didn’t like. But runningSample the game with my kid brother and our niece reallyfile scratched an itch that I had been having for a long time. I bought the 5th edition Players Handbook while cresting the runner’s high of the media blitz. Around that time, a group of my employees were talking about playing the game, but they didn’t know how to run it, and would I consider playing with them? That was the excuse I was looking for.

4 Part 3: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss I dove back in with gusto, and right away, I could see that fifth edition was kind of like D&D’s Greatest Hits. They took all of the stuff that worked from previous editions, and built a couple of simple systems to govern it all, and presented it as the new and improved D&D. And you know what? It works. Oh, it’s not a universal a system, and it lacks many of the infinite (and frankly unmanageable) options from 3.5, and it’s certainly less tactical than 4th, and much more power-balanced than 1st edition, but I think those are features, not bugs.

Specifically, what this system does very well is simulate playing Dungeons & Dragons, in its own genre. It’s broad enough to encompass a number of different campaign styles, and it’s flexible on the back end, for DMs, and malleable enough on the front end for players to have a lot of (but not an infinite amount of) choices.

And I knew it was good, because right away, my brain started popping; ideas for backgrounds, archetypes, feats, all specific to my campaign’s needs. Stuff like that. There’s not been a game I’ve played since 1984 that I didn’t tweak in some way. House rules were just a part of playing D&D, and that thinking carried over into other games. If you don’t like the rule, don’t use it. If something doesn’t work for you, change it or get rid of it. We are, and have always been, the architect of our worlds.

And that is a good thing because I have never, not ever, warmed to the Forgotten Realms. Not backSample then, and not now. TSR tried file really hard to make that their de- fault setting for D&D, but there were too many of us who grew up campaigning in the World of Greyhawk and all that setting

5 encompassed. Greyhawk was a medieval/Middle Ages frame- work, and we got to put our own weirdness onto it. The Forgotten Realms already had the weirdness baked in for us (and in the begin- ning, it wasn’t really that weird). So, no, thank you.

I have always thought that the Forgotten Realms was a little too “generic fantasy” for my tastes; a setting that tries to be all things to everyone and in doing so, ends up being not much for anyone. Maybe it’s gotten better in three decades, but I just can’t bring myself to pull that trigger.

I still needed a world for this new game, though. Before I sat down with the kids to play, I made the decision to import my old campaign setting into 5th edition. This was easier said than done, because it was mostly world history and stories. I had to create a new map because the old one I had used lo, those many years ago *cough*Greyhawk*cough* was not mine and I had a vague idea of maybe writing some of this stuff down and eventually publishing it. Thus was born the World of Thera.

Part 4: IT! COULD! WORK! Initially, it was unapologetically a first edition world. That meant none of the third edition weirdness; no Tieflings, no Dragonborn, etc. You couldn’t initially play an elf or a dwarf or a halfling, either. Humans only. I know, I know, this makes me a terrible person. But my group grew up watching PeterSample Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and I didn’t want those file elves and that dwarf to be the template for what they were doing. I’d spent years in the 80’s separating out the most Tolkien-y bits of AD&D in order to make elves and dwarfs that were a little more edgy, a little less avuncular, and way less interested in yukking it up with a bunch of shaved apes.

6 Then I caved in a little bit. I made the decision that those exotic and need- lessly complicated races would just live in another part of the world, one less infested with men such as the ones who were eking out an existence on the main continent of Thera. Borrowing a video game idea, I told them that those races and classes were “unlockable” and if you found them, you could play them in the next game. They were on board with this.

I later seeded a lot of exotic races into Dimnae, the city-state run by a cabal of wizards, who are always more egalitarian about those kinds of things anyway, and offered that up as a starting point for the group. They chose not to go there, but oh, brother, the work I did making that place come alive.

In fact, I did so much work over the past five years that I wanted to share it with other old school players and DMs who were returning to the fold after a lengthy hiatus. I had been eyeballing both the DMsGuild.com and DriveThruRPG.com for a long time, trying to decide where to put this stuff, now that I had a stack of it.

Sample file

The Direwood Forest, my introductory campaign for the World of Thera.

7 Thankfully, ‘ZineQuest made the decision for me. When I saw what that little marketing stunt yielded last year, I decided I had to be a part of it for 2020. That meant all of this stuff I’d been playing around with was going to have a home, in ‘zines. Cool. But...now what?

Part 5: Well? How Did I Get Here? I cobbled this booklet together as a proof-of-concept document; I wanted to see how my preferred desktop publishing program would handle old school fonts and if it would look good enough to read.

I needed content, and so instead of dropping a bunch of Lorum Ipsum into it, I used material I had on hand that would more accurately reflect what I would be working with; tables, charts, wonky spacing, and so forth.

Therefore, I used the materials I’d published on my blog, Confessions of a Reformed RPGer, during the 30 Day RPG Challenge in 2019. For this release, I went back and cleaned up all of the text, and made additional tweaks, as well.

It took a lot of finagling and futzing to figure out how I wanted everything to look, but I like the vintage feel. It’s kind of a throwback, like myself. Also, because ‘zines are, at their low-tech heart, cults of personality, I’m going to write this up in my voice, with comments from me, talking about why I did what I did. I’ve always liked the liner notes in albums...sorry, I mean, CDs... er...um...oh, fuck it.

So, that’s it. Now you know where I’m coming from. Please, dive in, and I hope you’re inspired to use these creations in your own games, or better still, make up your own stuff.

Mark Finn Sample Deep in North file Texas, 2020

8 Critical Hits: An Old School Option Mark Sez: I sometimes miss the viciousness of first generation products like Grimtooth’s Traps and The Tomb of Horrors. I came up with this to strike a balance between the days of yore and the new aesthetic.

This system is designed to quickly generate special combat effects that arise when a critical hit (a natural 20) is rolled. While not completely lethal (well, mostly), these effects pose a challenge during an adventure without sidelining a character due to death, dismemberment, or unconsciousness.

Make sure you discuss this system with the players before you implement it and give them a chance to look over the possible outcomes.

Once a target receives a critical hit, roll one or more d6 dice and consult the tables below to determine location, severity, etc. The effects of the critical hit (extra damage, etc.) happen in ad- dition to any damage taken from the attack.

Characters cannot take a second crit- ical hit until the effects of the first are mitigated or removed in some way. Damage taken is as per a normal crit- Sampleical hit, but the effects arefile not applied. This keeps a critically-injured character from being overwhelmed by more than one set of critical conditions. That’s gonna leave a mark.

9 HOW TO USE THESE TABLES Simply roll a d6 to determine where the critical hit was received and roll additional d6s to determine the severity and duration as needed.

Pro-tip: use different-colored d6s for location, severity, etc. That way you can roll three or four dice at once and find the results more quickly.

Critical Hit Location d6 Location 1 Arm(s) 2 Leg(s) 3 Chest 4 Chest 5 Midsection 6 Head

Critical Hit: Arms D6 Injury Effects 1 Off-Arm Any items in hand are dropped. Any 2-handed actions are Hit made with Disadvantage for1d6 rounds. 2 Main Arm Any items in hand are dropped. Any 2- or 1-handed actions Hit are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 rounds. 3 Off -Arm +1d6 damage. Any 2-handed actions (weapon attacks) Injured are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 rounds. 4 Main Arm +1d6 damage. Any 2- or 1-handed actions (weapon Injured attacks) are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 hours. 5 Off-Arm +2d6 damage. Make a DC 15 CON save to avoid falling Severed unconscious. No attacks or skill checks possible until fully healed. See below. 6 Main Arm +2d6 damage. Make a DC 15 CON save to avoid falling Severed unconscious. No attacks or skill checks possible until fully Samplehealed. See below. file Main and Off-Arm refer to whether a character is predominently left-handed or right-handed. Characters who lose an arm may incur additional combat and/or skill check penalties at the DM’s discretion.

10 Critical Hit: Legs D6 Injury Effects 1 Pulled No movement-based maneuvers (Dash, etc.) for 1d6 Muscle rounds. 2 Hamstring -5’ to move. No movement-based maneuvers or skill checks Damaged (athletics, etc,) for 1d6 rounds. 3 Minor +1d6 damage. -10’ to move. No movement-based Trauma maneuvers or skill checks for 1d6 hours. 4 Major +1d6 damage. -15’ to move. No movement-based Trauma maneuvers or skill checks for 1d6 hours. 5 Kneecap +2d6 damage. -20’ to move. No movement-based Damaged maneuvers or skill checks for 1d6 days or until fully healed. 6 Leg/Foot +3d6 damage. -25’ to move. Target is now prone. Severed Make a DC 15 CON save to avoid falling unconscious. Characters who lose a leg may incur extra movement penalties at the DM’s discretion.

Critical Hit: Chest D6 Injury Effects 1 Winded Make a DC 12 CON save to catch your breath. Other- wise, all actions next turn are made with Disadvantage. 2 Staggered Make a DC 13 CON save to catch your breath. Otherwise, all actions are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 rounds. 3 Organ +1d6 damage. Make a DC 14 CON save to avoid being Damage Stunned for 1d6 rounds. All actions are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 hours. 4 Ribs +1d6 damage. Make a DC 15 CON save to avoid being Cracked Stunned for 1d6 rounds. All actions are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 days. 5 Lung +2d6 damage. Make a DC 15 CON save to avoid being Punctured Stunned for 1d6 rounds. All actions are made with SampleDisadvantage until fully healed. file 6 Heart +3d6 damage. Make a DC 15 CON save to avoid going Damaged unconscious. Once unconscious, the target begins making death saves on their turn. If the character survives and regains consciousness, all actions are made with Disadvantage until fully healed.

11 Critical Hit: Midsection D6 Injury Effects 1 Buttocks -10’ to move for 1d6 hours and cannot dash, dodge, or disengage during that time. Cannot take a short rest until wound is healed. 2 Waist -15’ to move for 1d6 hours. DEX and STR skill checks are made with Disadvantage. 3 Kidneys +1d6 damage. Make a DC 12 CON save to avoid being Prone for 1d6 rounds. All actions are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 hours. 4 Groin +1d6 damage. Make a DC 14 CON save to avoid being Prone for 1d6 rounds. Character is automatically Stunned for 1d6 rounds. All actions are made with Disadvantage for 1d6 days. 5 Groin +2d6 damage. Make a DC 16 CON save to avoid being Prone for 1d6 rounds. Target is automatically Stunned for 1d6 rounds. All actions are made with Disadvantage until fully healed. 6 Organ +3d6 damage. Character is automatically Stunned and Damage Prone for 1d6 rounds. Make a DC 18 CON save to avoid going unconscious each round that they are Stunned and Prone. When the target regains consciousness, all actions are made with Disadvantage until fully healed.

Critical Hit: Head D6 Injury Effects 1 Dizzy Target is stunned for 1d6 rounds. Make a DC 12 CON save to come to your senses or remain stunned for an additional 1d6 rounds. This condition persists until target makes a successful CON save. 2 Concussion, At the start of the target’s next turn make a DC 12 CON Mild save to avoid confusion (see below) during combat. This Samplesave is made for 1d6 rounds or whenever file attempting a skill check. The effects of the concussion last for 1d6 hours. 3 Concussion, +1d6 damage. Target suffers from confusion during Severe combat (see below) for1d6 days.

12 4 Skull +2d6 damage. Target suffers from confusion during Fracture combat for 1d6 days and all INT based skills are made with Disadvantage during that time. 5 Brain +3d6 damage. Target suffers from confusion during Damage combat for 1d6 days and all INT and WIS based skills are made with Disadvantage during that time. Make a DC 15 CON save or be afflicted with a random long- term madness until fully recovered. 6 Decapitated Target is dead, but can still be resurrected or revived if head is retained.

Confusion Critical hits to the head run the risk of causing temporary confusion for characters engaged in combat. Roll 1d6 on the table below and apply the effects at the start of the character’s turn, before any actions are attempted.

D6 Confusion Effect 1 You may take actions as normal 2 You can take no actions this turn, nor speak coherently. 3 You can take no actions this turn. 4 You must attack the nearest available friendly target. 5 You must attack the nearest available target, friend or foe. 6 You must attack the farthest target from you that you can reach in a single turn, friend or foe.

This system is not the character-killer that, say, the Role Master charts of old used to be. But with characters in 5th edition on a much sharper pow- er curve, these little setbacks will force players to allocate resources they would otherwise not have to in order to regain the use of their arms, their legs,Sample etc. It’s nothing more than a little “chin music” from thefile early days of Dungeons and Dragons, with a chance for some additional in-town short adventures thrown in for good measure: “Oh, your friend lost his head to a gargoyle, my son? That’s too bad. Ordinarily, resurrecting him would be no trouble, but the thieves guild has locked down all incoming shipments at the docks, including the incense we require for the spell...”

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