Creating a DM paper&pen RPG game based on DnD/d20 3rd Ed.

[Lunever]

Worms:

Well, you have a magenta worm in DM and a purple worm in DnD. However, it seems all wormlike monsters in DnD need to be gargantuan. Certainly a Freudian can easily find some explanation there. I agree with Beo that downsizing the purple worm according to the upgrading/downgrading monsters guidelines from the monster manual offers the best solution, unless someone finds a closer direct match. If some stat should be unfitting after the size adaptation, it can be substituted with a stat from a giant psurlon or tunnel terror (but without having any mental powers like those wormlike monsters).
There might be a difference between normal magenta worms and armoured worms. Either you give the normal worms less natural armour and the armoured ones more, or you actually declare that armoured worms are armoured by their mad gnomish dungeon keeper. In the latter case they'd hace some standard armour bonus, like +8 or so in addition to their natural armour. The tiger-striped worm might be something in-between. The digger worm might be some variant thereof. Alternatively, its role could be filled by a different creature - the Ankheg.

Giant Wasp: Giant Wasp

There you are, perfect match.

EDIT:
Muncher:

While the CSB muncher is functionally similar to a giant wasp, it just looks to different to be the same on an rpg context. There is a DnD monster that looks pretty much like a muncher - the sharn. However, the sharn is far more than the flying nuisance the muncher is. A sharn is a monster with high mental capacities. Again, this might bring an intersting population into the world of DM.

Ghost /Spectre:

Well, of course there is a ghost in DnD too. But there is also a spectre. Both might fill this role. DM2 features both anyway.I suggest using spectres for encounters that the dm plans to be rather combat-oriented, and ghosts for encounters that are rather story-oriented. Of course, like many undead in DnD, these creatures drain life energy and damage abilites instead of just hurting people like the original DM ghosts. Should be fine though, since more diverse abilities make encounters more interesting than just a thousand monsters that all do the same kind of damage.

Swamp Slimes / Slime Devils:

EDIT: A mixture between a shambling mound or tendriculous and a draudnu might offer a solution.
Slime devils might be a fiendish version of swamp slimes.

[Lunever]

Beo:
Mummy: Well, mummies can be adapted to party level of course, as you have proven. The standard mummy I suggested would be a tough single encounter for some level 3 party. Which is pretty close to what mummies are in DM. In my first DM game I followed the recomendation of a magazine to reincarnate fighters to get tougher stats later on and ressurrect casters in order to have some spells handy right away. First door, first mummy, party dead. I guess many players experienced similar

Screamers: Mobilizing a shrieker seems to be an agreable method of emulating a screamer. The attack you suggested in your hidden remark is also similar to what I was thinking of - only difference is, that I wouldn't have implemented into the common screamer, but have common screamers accompanied by other fungi with such abilities, so an encounter would be more descriptive and tactically diverse. Again, this is only a minor difference. Recently I had a midlevel party encounter exactly such a setup. Except that I forgot to mention one fungus above, which I was using in that encounter too - the phantom fungus (which I'm very fond of as a dm).

[Lunever]

Couatl: Couatl

Well, this is an interesting one. DM is a combat oriented dungeon crawl with attacking creatures and no real dialogue, so the DM couatl is just a big nasty flying snake. The DnD couatls however has the same physical features, but is a highly intelligent being with considerable mental powers. Yet, since this is supposed to be an RPG that also focuses on story and dialogue and not only on dungeon crawls, I'd just accept this tweak.

Wizard Eye / Flying Eye:

Beo, you mentioned a DnD Wizard Eye? I couldn't find that one, if you know where to look let me know. For now I'd suggest to take various beholderkin depending on the challenge rating the dm wants for the party. The standard wizard eye probably would be a Gauth, which already is a dangerous monster. For higher level parties a real beholder will be a tough challenge, and for very high level parties upgraded beholders like eye tyrants or hive mothers will be the right choice. Lower level parties might encounter zombie beholders or gas spores or foes with eyeball beholders as familiars (or weird pcs might have an eyeball as familiar themselves). The dm can spice up such encounters tactically with strange beholder variants like deathkiss, beholder mage, eye gouger and so on. Recently I had a midlevel party encounter a series of beholders in a sewer-themed dungeon, twas a lot of fun. A deathkiss grabbed the bard and drew him to the bottom of a stinky sewer and very nearly killed him until the rest of the party managed to rescue the severly injured and highly diseased poor bard.

Skeleton: Skeleton

Not much to say there. Take a human skeleton and arm it with large wooden shields and some onehanded heavy blade. You can adapt skeletons widely to the party level by taking other (larger or smaller) base creatures. Of course a standard human skeleton is rather weak compared to the rather strong original DM skeletons. This can be amended by making use of the skeletal warrior (Dragonlace Campaign Setting 3rd Ed.). And if we are about - for a high level party you can use death knights (an encounter which I will soon use for a high level party).

Stone Golem: Stone Golem

Good match, similar abilities. Can be increased in size to be stronger for powerful parties. Encounters can be spiced up tactically by mixing in other types of golems.

Giggler:

Well, I wouldn't really make a creature ot of them. I would take some small monster like a kobold and give it class levels with rogue and scout features and maxed out skill in ledgerdemain (pick pocket). Also the giggler should have "improved disarm" as feat or manoevre. Its movement should be maxed out with traits like "quick" and generic features like "fast movement". Same goes for the thicket thief, just with larger base creatures and tougher combat abilities. Ledgerdemain sometimes can be useful for combat. Recently one of my midlevel parties was parleying with a mage who possibly was a traitor. The party's rogue stole his component pouch, which significantly inhibited that mage during the ensuing battle.

[beowuuf]

Edit: Ah, I think the beholderkin I was thinking of was indeed the eyeball, though it would need resized.

[Lunever]

Pain Rat:

Well, while I found giant rats mentioned, I didn't find stats for them for now. There is the dire rat, but that is only a small animal. So I'd take the dire rat and increase its size and stats according to the guidelines to the category "large".

Vexirk / MonVexirk / Vexirk King:

EDIT: Physically modified Spellweavers might offer a good basis. Maybe remove the additional arms but add some shadow template and let them be some mysterious outsider cult from the plane of shadows, who gained foothold on material prime. Maybe some have learned a little monkish martial arts in addition to their spellcasting.

Ruster: Rust Monster

Good match. However, DnD rusters are physically a bit smaller and weaker than DM ones. Doing a large-size upgrade should amend this though.
If you need something more nasty for a high level party, I recommend an encounter with a rust dragon (Draconomicon 3.5)

Giant Scorpion: Monstrous Scorpion

Good match, wide array of predefined sizes can be used to get the appropriate CR. However, the huge scorpion, which would match the DM scorpion best in size, isn't as tough and mean as the DM one. The really nasty DnD monstrous scorpions are the gargantuan and colossal ones, which are a bit improbable in confined dungeon spaces. However, for an outdoor encounter, like in a desert, the big ones are nice (as are the real purple worms). Lower level parties should be vary of regions where these are about.

Water Elemental and Rives: Water Elemental

Match. Elementals are available in all kinds and sizes, so you can easily make up an interesting encounter. You can also add some air elementals to get that incorporeal issue. Or you create some ethereal water elementals to get the eerie flair of the DM ones. The latter ones might be the rives, with the same stats as a standard water elemental plus a phasing or blinking ability. Recently I had a midlevel party break into a to be restored wizard's tower. However, the building site was secured by a bunch of different elementals and mephits of various types, and the ground, full of holes, was drenched in rain. Large earth elementals used their awesome blow ability to kick the pcs toward the holes, and water elementals tried to drown them in there. The party's sniper barely survived. Mephits kept them busy, and huge air elementals seized those still standing and moved through the magically electrified fence. So I suggest taking the original DM water elementals only as a start and go broader in a full rpg

Fire Elementals and Flame Orbs: Fire Elementals.

See water elementals above. However, tha black flames of DM look far more sinister than the usual DnD fire elemental. These should be fiendish fire elementals, or hellfire elementals. Like a hellfire wyrm, half of their inflicted fire damage would be infernal and thus not subject to fire resistance.
Alternatively, instead of being small to medium fire elementals, Flame Orbs might actually be Magmins.

Animated Armour / Deth Knight:

Helmed Horrors from the "Monsters of Faerun" should do fine. Since the DM aninmated armours are very tough I'd grant the helmed horrors the benefit of armour damage reduction +4 (UA) in addition to their normal AC.
Deth knights could be advanced helmed horrors, or you could interpret them more literally and make them real armoured undead instead of animated armours. To this end you could simply make classical DnD "Death Knights" (See entry skeleton above). If you want to stick to constructs and not switch to undead, you can use the stats of the construct shield guardian instead.

Oitu:

Ok, granted, an oitu isn't really a spider. Still statwise monstrous spiders af various sizes, maybe also ettercaps are a good representation of oitus. If you want to spice up encounters, you'll find various spiderlike monsters in various supplements, like for example underdark and drow sources.
For the CSB greater oitus just take bigger monstrous spiders.

Materializers /Zytazes:

Good question. There are some strange ethereal beings, but it'd need some research to find a match there. Postponed.
EDIT: For now I suggest a phasing/blinking Phaerimm or an phasing/blinking avolakia.
EDIT2: Hey, I finally found a monster that has the suitable special qualities and attacks: The Teratomorph. A prismatic roper might give some additional inspiration. EDIT3: An Ocularon might serve as illustration.

Dragons:

DnD offers a wide variety of dragons. Classical DM/CSB dragons like Mongor could be red great wyrms. A good questions is though, whether the dragons' background and religion should be implemented in the DM world - that is the conflict of Tiamat vs. Bahamut. Since dragons are part of this campaign, these powers might be a good classical input. Yet probably it would be more suitable to use elements of these stories but deviate them to the DM world. Like, once upon a time dragons were the neutral steel dragons, living withdrawn and highly respecting the Grey Lord. But with the powergem catastrophe many of them became twisted and transformed. Thus the evil chromatic dragons were created, who revere Lord Chaos (instead of Tiamat), and the good metallic ones who revere Lord Librasulus (instead of Bahamut). Only very few remained in their original neutral state. Even more befitting might be to ditch the good/evil concept of dragons and instead split them into a chaotic faction (being drawn to Lord Chaos, albeit evil and neutral ones might be more drawn to him than good ones), and a lawful faction (being drawn to Lord Librasulus, albeit evil and neutral ones might be more drawn to him than good ones). Maybe good dragons don't exist at all or are extremely withdrawn from their non-good brethren.

Demons:

DnD offers a legion of Demons, Devils and other evil outsiders. Again, I recommend going broad and use varying demons in order to keep them ineresting.
For the CSB viper demons, there are some demons with snakelike traits too. Meriliths might be a good choice for example.

Lord Chaos, Lord Librasulus, The Grey Lord:

Should be at least Demipowers. Powerful, post-epic level avatars of higher principles. A good question is - aside from them, are their higher gods? There are demons after all. Have they been there before LC appeared? Are there angels too then? The existence of a priest class suggests their is some higher power. Is there a pantheon? Or do they just revere the universe and the balance (or LC / LL)? If there is a pantheon, does it have an overgod? Is there a pantheism vs. monotheism conflict? This will be questions for the campaign setting.

[beowuuf]

I had this discussion with Ameena recently...for no reason...

Check out the Oitu again closer - it doens't even have four legs, it has two legs, each of which has two conjoined parts. Then it has some strange small finger like claws (DM) or clws (CSB)

There must be some strange aberation it's based on...

High Lords: It's never referered to whether there were gods to start with. The Grey Lord makes it sound as if his race took the epic level path and ascended to the outer planes, and hence are effectively the gods of the world. My take on it is that they do not answer to anyone higher.

[Lunever]

Oitu:

Hmm, dunno - I see your point, but it also might only look like 2 legs due to perspective - I still perceive the oitu to have rather 4 legs.
But lets say it actually is rather 2 legged, that'd be fine. I'd take the ettercap then for the oitu. And often ettercaps are accompanied by monstrous spiders. The dm can spice uo such encounters with various tactically interesting critters like phase spiders and such.
Since the standard ettercap is a bit weak for an oitu, I'd advance him to large at least.
More monsters:

Hellhound: Hellhound

Generally a good match. Again, the standard hellhound is a bit weak comppared to the DM hellhound (but is of course fine for lower level parties), so I'd just take the Nessian Warhound variant (also in MM1, right next to the standard hellhound).

[Lunever]

Glop: Grey Ooze

Should be a sufficient match. Again, this can be spiced up by throwing in a bunch of other bizarre oozes.

Thorn Demon: Battlebriar

Illustration and description indicate a good match. However, while the thorn demons are tough, the battlebriars (Monsters of Faerun) are extremely tough and should only be used unmodified for high level parties. For lower level parties the battlebriars should be scaled down.

Vortex: Air elementals

Good match. See "water elementals" above.
EDIT: For high-level parties use a Tempest.

Wolf: Dire Wolf

Fine match. Take normal wolves for very low-level parties.

Axemen: Frost Giants

Fine match. Frost giants are powerful foes though, maybe for your campaign you want to go broader and utilize the various other giants and giantkin instead.
Our giant would have one strange quirk though: Maximum rank in ledgerdemain (pick pocket), and feats and manoevres like "improved disarm".

Tree Gorgon: Dark Tree

The dark tree (Monsters of Faerun) is a fine match. Both, the tree gorgon and the dark tree look similar and both are physically strong opponents. Well, the tree gorgon is fire vulnerable while the dark tree is fire resistant. The dm might change this or use it as a nasty surprise, as he sees fit.

Cave Bats, Tower Bats:

There are various bats available in DnD. Aside from normal bats and dire bats, have a look at the Desmodu Bats (MM2). Their guradian bats and riding bats should be interesting enough.

Rocky:

You should think among all these elemental creatures there should be some match. Yet on a first glance I didn't find one. However, the "Stone Children" from races of the stone might be a good choice. Albeit being rather a race than a monster species (which is an academic distinction anyway), there is also a monster class for them, so it is easy to implement them as monsters. Plus, they are an intelligent people that might be in for some interesting stories. They would be able to tend the furnace of castle skullkeep.

Archer Guards: Yuan-Ti

Fine match. Yuanti Purbloods, using their bows. Maybe their abomination masterminds have some very own sinister goals nobody knows anything about except for whispered rumours.

Minions:

Instead of Minions there are summoned monsters. There might be minion items though, that use psi-powers like summon astral construct or golem-like items.
EDIT: neutral Clockwork Horrors and spells/summoning lists and items that summon them might be a method of introducing DM2-like minions.

Dru Tan:

An individual, with some giantkin race. Maybe an ogre mage. Maybe he has class levels as shaman or dark druid too. Maybe he is an Incarnate (R&R1), continually reincarnating after having been slain. He might be interesting campaign-wise and lead a circle of shadow druids (see 2nd Edition Complete Druids). If there are gods and possibly evil gods (aside from Elsie and Libby), he might serve a deity like Malar in Faerun. While Elsies dragon and demon servants might be the terrors of skies and dungeons, and Dragoth's minions threaten the astral gateways, Dru Tan's minions might be the nemesis of the wilds. Or, to stay more close to the original environment Dru Tan ins encountered in, he might be a grey druid in some DM equivalent to the DnD Underdark.

Dragoth: A powerful Archdemon, like the ones you can find in the Book of Vile Darkness. Maybe an even more powerful primeval evil outsider and/or fallen angel, like Asmodeus (see http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Asmodeus ). This approach would make use of Dragoth for the campaign setting.

[Lunever]

Since I never played Theron's Quest and Nexus and the Encyclopaedia doesn't feature creatures for them:

Do they feature creatures not found in DM/CSB/DM2?

EDIT: I edited some of the postponed creatures so there is now at least some basis for every creature to work from.

Aside from that several creatures would need to get some stats defined exactly, their environment needs some description, so gathering what little information the manuals offer about the geography of the DM world might be a start.

[beowuuf]

Theron's quest uses the same monsters, I think nexus did too.


While providing a playsystem is an idea, any campaign setting 'book' is probably doomed to failure. There is simply too little canon material to go on. Theron's quest has the largest map of the world and hints of the history and wider world, and I'm not sure how much of that is the new authors just making it up. Certainly you could gather the meagre canon information together as a start to the DM then building their own campaign from it.

I have my notes on the DM world I am going to build up for my players, if they keep playing, but I would hope a different DM would create a completely new take on the world. Just as many of the customs feature differing versions of events in the DM world too (when they try to kept in the canon), and we don't restrict hat dungeon designers can use as backstory.

[Lunever]

Well, I'll just gather what canon is available, which is, as you remarked, very little. From that a campaign setting can take a start. The creature ideas above might also add a bit to it. Aside from that I can try to write something and maybe even manage to avoid to contradict what ahs been written in the forum game so far, so both materials stay compatible and can be used together.

DM1 backround:

Geography: Mount Anaias, the sacred mountain of crystal and lava. There is a town named Viborg, only a short journey from Mt. Anaias. Though what a short journey is for someone employing magical means of travelling leaves much room for interpretation.

Creatures, Races and Classes: there are dwarves, halflings, elves, men, and high lords; there are wizards' familiars; there are lizardmen and "dog-things"

Religion: According to the Grey Lord there are other high lords who are more arrogant than he is. And he refers to a creator, which indicates that their is a an overlord god, or at least an entity who created mortals. The mortals are supposed to have slumbered in the ice when they were created. According to legend the power gem thawed that ice.
The Gray Lord advocates a philosophy of balance (that would make him true neutral in DnD. Or, if you want to deviate from the DnD alignment axes, LC might be CE and LL might be LE, while GL is NG - after all, balance is the ultimate good).
According to Theron the high lords are gods, who retired on the upper planes except for the grey lord. The Grey Lord has saved the people from a probably not-so-good fellow high lord wizard named Whisdain. Could be a relationship comparable to Gandalf and Saruman (who are both Maiar).

Halk not only mentions gods, he curses "Loki's bolts". So there are gods, probably nordic ones. If there is a Loki, there might be a Thor and an Odin too. Or at least the Barbarians think so. The upper planes the high lords retired too could be planes like Asgaard and a couple of other mythical places from the Edda, connected by the branches of Yggdrasil.

Neta represents a priestly cross. So I'd say there is an overgod, there are high lords, at least some of them nordic-style, probably other styles exist too (like egyptian-style gods as indicated by the sun-symbol bearing the name Ra), there is either a christian-like patriarchalic religion, with a martyr's cross as a symbol, or a druidic-like earthmother religion, with the earthen cross as a symbol, or both. They may aim for harmony, as per the tenets of the Grey Lord, but sometimes there may be conflict too, which might result in some stories. Balance between gods and godesses or God and Godess might fit into the general comcept of balance of DM. Demons are horned and represent evil and darkness and are guardians of the night. Gods of darkness and night probably are evil like in other fantasy settings like the forgotten realms.

Trivia mentioned: chess; oaks; lambs; geese; the crest of tenders of the magic oak grove (-> druids)

Traditonal first names consist of no more than 7 letters that is, traditionally first names are short.

A possible interpretation of this information could be that there is a creator and higher beings similar to Eru Illuvatar and the Ainur/Maiar in the Silmarillion.

[beowuuf]

Check Theron's Quest too. If you assume them to being compatible (and I think they can be) then you can assume that the seven areas must at least have one close to Mount Anaias. Personally, I chose the Demon's gate.

Note that the champions names themselves are probably the biggest area to jump off of canon from - the names of places, and the type of champion they have produced can speak alot.

For example, Boris of Baldor - I turned Baldor into both the name of a high lord, and the name of a city-state magiocracy. Zed from Banville, I created a set of feudal regions combined together, Banville being one.

Due to the great amount of insects in CSB, and the regal names of some of them, I created a conjoined set of 'kingdoms' for the insects, invoking a hierarchy in the different insect races.

Sadly my notes are threadbare, and mostly in my head for the time being. And my order of game working has to be to finish my game notes, make them available to the players, then star working on the world building! Perhaps in a month or so I can start making my take on the DM world (and the ideas of my players) public

[Lunever]

If you don't mind I'd like to take over as much as possible from you. There is still plenty of room left to fill with my own ideas. And yes, the character surnames are a good things. Much of creating fantasy actually is about creating names.

To complete at least the DM1 canon I'll edit the post above I started earlier.

[beowuuf]

Well, it's not just me, it's my players too - since the canon is so open and it's a game we all share equal stake in, I've been happy to let them throw in anything they wish to the mix.

I know OB has been interesting in uncovering the world, Ian has been throwing in things about the Orcish society he's come from, and Ameena invented a new race!

[Lunever]

Best way to get a colourful campaign setting imho.

[Lunever]

I squeezed as much as possible from the DM1 manual, see the edited post above.

[beowuuf]

Did I miss the mention of Whsidain being a wizard he Grey Lord defeated? I now halk invokes his bones, didn't remember another mention. I still think the High Lords are 'it', and perhaps in the multiverse their names echo into other gods, they are mirrored in the gods of other universes, or they themselves sense the names of other gods and take them on. Or one of those wacky coincidences

For example, I let Westian to worship the High Lord Larethian from D&D based exactly on this principle.

I think the markers of DM and CSB, when creating champions, pulled upon any religion and culture to sprinkle in. I'd find a way to have these echoes spread as flavours or interpretations of a central source, instead of having all these pulled wholesale and existing together.

Kinda like how in Stargate the Gao'old (SP?) either started or upsurped many religeons (staring with egyptian) and other foes, etc then showed the roots of other mythos

[Lunever]

Everything above can be supported by quotes. I'll not quote anything (because that would essentially mean to retype almost the entire very short story from the manual that is downloadable at the Encyclopaedia anyway), but I'll add the quotes about the issues you are asking about.

"More than once he (the Grey Lord) personally saved the people from war and division; from the wizard's own kinsman, Whisdain."

Halk curses: "Loki's bolts, where's my sword?"

Regarding Halk: He is termed Barbarian. Usually people don't start to call themselves barbarians. Rather some culture who deems itself very civilized calls people barbarians whom they consider to be less civilized. So the barbarian word implies some civilization, probably some empire, with tribal people, probably northmen-like, living at its outskirts.

Using - among others - the Asgaardian and the Pharaonic pantheon actually is very D&D like. They included both these pantheons in the Deities & Demigods book. The Forgotten Realms even completely implemented the pharaonic pantheon into their host of gods. They placed their center of worship in the Mulhorand region there and called it the Mulhorandi pantheon, and it is abolutely the pharaonic pantheon, including the gods' names. A couple of Asgaardian gods found their way to some DnD canon worlds too, for example Tyr.

I'd like to interpret all of this like this: The high lords appear similar to humans. However, they are a separate race. Whether they are biologically compatible with other races or whether they actually reproducce biologically is unknown to anyone who isn't one of them. Although I used it as a reference above, I wouldn't interpret that race like the Maiar of LotR. Rather, I'd interpret them like the Valheru in Midkemia, though they don't have their history and took on the role of gods rather than fighting gods like the valheru. Gamewise, I'd take the Elan race from the Expanded psionics handbook. Just, there haven't been any new elans in a very long time, and those who exist are very old (Elans don't age). Also, high lords being an elan-like race would be the only ones in that world draft, who can access psionic powers.

Some of them forged their own realms and kingdoms in the upper planes, places like Asgaard for example. Some of the uper plane highlords founded religions and cults (though not all of them). Aside from their religions, there is a higher power called the Creator even the highlords bow to, similar to Lord Ao in the forgotten realms. The druids perceive the Creator as Earthmother, symbolized by the earthen cross. The clerics perceive the Creator to be godfather, symbolized by the cross of his martyred prophets. The heretics (see below) perceive the Creator as a more abstract entity, with a role comparable to that of Brahma.

Since there is only one divine spellcaster class, it is not a question of class, whether a character is a cleric or a druid. They are all priests, able to communicate with higher spheres. Just, unlike sorcerers or favoured souls or the normal interpretation of the generic spellcasters, I'd say our spellcasters need teachers or at least scrolls to acquire new spells. Druidic spells are taught by the druids, clerical spells are taught by the clerics. Since both religions compete with each other, they are vary of teaching those who are in good standing with the other branch of religion. There is a sect generally called the heretics by either branch who try to bring the tenets of the Grey Lord into this and who teach that you need to balance both religions within yourself. Yet since the Grey Lord is perceived to be rather a wizard by many, the heretics are not to be trusted. For a PC being a heretic offers chances, since they teach a small number of spells of both branches, but it also implies social handicaps and maybe it is more difficult to get an exotic spell that is specifically druidic or clerical in origin.

So if druids and clerics venerate the Creator, what use are gods for? The gods weren't gods from birth. They were an immortal fleshbound race. They could be killed, but they would not age. Eventually, those who did not meet some grim fate became archmasters as well as mind masters and build their planar homes. They experimented with the huge amounts of mana a host of believers can create. The built mana hubs, comparable to the prayer chorus of Haazheel Thorn in the Chronicles of the Dark Moon (dunno how the official translation is). They act as mediators between priests and Creator. A priests doesn't need to be a priest of one of those gods. He can just be a priest venerating the higher powers and the Creator in general, like the first drafts of AD&D clerics are described to be. However, dedicating oneself to a specific god does have advantages - you gain access to its domains. The domain spells are in addition to your few regular spells (albeit you must still learn their proper runes in order to access them), so this is significant. Plus, you are part of a cult hierarchy that even may have some political influence. And, more importantly, it has a severe impact on how a character thinks and feels and perceives the world. A priest can change allegiance. This will change his domains, but it will not gain him friends among his former brethren. A cleric who repeatedly changes allegiance will lose his old domains as usual, but may find that he must prove his loyalty to his new Lord before he gains the new ones.

[beowuuf]

Ah, yes, I remember the quote now for Whisdain, cheers. I just didn't recall where exactly, I remembered Halk's 'Whisdain's bones'

OB had Larethian's order like the jesuits, gathers of information above all else.

[Lunever]

Does anyone still have the extracted end movie from PC-DM1?
Same goes for the CSB intro and outro. From the Amiga, I remember a much longer intro than the one featured by RTC now (V 0.49).
And of course the DM2 clips too.

Some years ago I had all those little movies, but right now I don't have them at hand anymore, so help would be welcome.

CSB:

Geography: Viborg features a lake, named Lake Viborg.
The Grey Lord's home at Mt. Anaias appears to be a castle on the surface. It has a drawbridge.

Chaos resides in the Forge of FulYa.

Calendar: Chaos returned 13 monthes after the end of the cataclysm (the DM1 cataclysm took a bit more than a year - lets say it also took 13 monthes).

Metaphysics: There is a mana-draining ore called Corbum. It might be an analogue to similar metals from other rpgs, like Orichalkum. If enough of it is brought together it forms a cataclysmic critical mass.

The encounter in the grey lord's study doesn't tell much more about the outside world. It emphasizes once more, that a high lord essentially is an entity comprising of at least 2 aspects.
Once upon a time I twisted the DM story into a DnD campaign where an ancient archmage split into 4 aspects - Lord Chaos (chaotic evil), Lord Librasulus (lawful lawful), the Grey Lord (true neutral) and one more I devised (named Lord Paradox), who was chaotic good. Each time they successfully handled one of them reality warped and one part of AD&D 2nd Edition transmuted to DnD 3rd Ed, beginning with basic values and finishing with magic (like the time of troubles in FR). However, these days I would make the powers threefold. The neutral good Grey Lord, the chaotoc evil Lord Chaos, end the lawful evil Lord Librasulus, also called Lord Order.
The elan-like hihglords I have in mind shall get a trait from another rpg: like WoD-changelings they all shall have a seelie and an unseelie nature, which - hopefully - are somewhat in balance to comprise their true personality. Occassionally they can get into serious imbalance, like it was happening to the Gray Lord.

[ian_scho]

Same goes for the CSB intro and outro. From the Amiga, I remember a much longer intro than the one featured by RTC now (V 0.49).

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/591#toc17

[Lunever]

Well, I know the endings from the encyclopaedia, I should have been more precisely:

The DM1-PC ending is a *.gif.
The other endings however are smackplay.exe . They execute as tiny non-resizable windows and cannot be opened in normal media players. If there is a way of converting them to a more common media player format I don't know how. And I would like to exchange the to short Atari intro in RTC vs. the Amiga ones and also insert the other movies into RTC. However, before I can check how that is done, I'd need them in a proper format I guess.

Correction from the ending movie of DM2: The movie suggests that dragoth is serving a more sinister and evil power. So instead of my original suggestion to make Dragoth like Asmodeus, rather Dragoth should be an archdemon from the nine hells serving Asmodeus.

Also, the DM and CSB movies confirm, that Viborg is within sight of Mt. Anaias.

[beowuuf]

Remember with the corbums, you also have the apparently innert corbomite sitting in the DM dungeon.

The castle is an odd one to try and rectify, since his old laboritory was clearly supposed to be the level seven area in DM. Personally I assumed there was his 'residence' that he uses to possess, but that when he was deep in the madness of trying to uncover the secrets of the power gem, he spent more time inside Anaias itself.

You can probably assume he came back out of the dungeon in into his castle afterwards, and the CSB dungeon is the re-jigged DM dungeon that leads to the FUL YA forge.


I've already gone against this, simply because I wanted to reuse the DM dungeon as a quick template. So in my version, he is still split between the two. He basically receives visitors through the easier accessable start of the dungeon (where the hall of champions is now a set of portraits honouring the dead) and would get teleported into his castle - instead of letting people know how to get to his castle, which I have to assume is guarded by twisting mountain paths, etc.

Meanwhile, the old dungeon is locked off, but he still allows champions to quest in there for things missing, allows some of the ecology to remain, and he still has much of his more dangerous research and renmants of Chaos guarded deep inside.

[Sophia]

You can probably assume he came back out of the dungeon in into his castle afterwards, and the CSB dungeon is the re-jigged DM dungeon that leads to the FUL YA forge.

I always imagined it as one large, contiguous dungeon because of the way you would advance down in DM, but up in CSB. So the layout of the mountain was something like the Ful Ya forge near the top, where the volcanic caldera is, then the DDD further down, and the rest of the CSB dungeon. So the junction of the ways would be near the middle of the mountain. Then, the HoC and the prison are on the ground level, and the DM dungeon goes underground, so the Grey Lord's lab is deep down, and the Dragon's lair is very far down.

That's just me, though-- obviously, nothing in the canon supports any interpretation over any other, so it'll come down to a matter of personal choice/opinion.

[beowuuf]

Ah, interesting idea.... I put the Ful Ya near the 'heart' of the mountain, along with the power gem and the dragon, with the rest of the dungeon this secret area LC had dung deeper still.

[Gambit37]

I had avoided this thread since I'm not into roleplaying the way you guys are. However, it turns out there's lots of interesting chat here about DM canon and setting. Very cool to see these speculations. Plus there's a few things I'd like to comment on in no particular order:

Theron's quest uses the same monsters, I think nexus did too.

Yep. Nexus has different graphics, but the main monster types are the same -- although Chaos has two states and there are a few extra dragons. You can see them on these pages I made ages ago, surprised they are still up to behonest I don't have that account anymore!
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_hill/nexus/
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_hill/nexus/page2.htm

I have everything that is 'canon' (and there's not much) gathered in a word file. I'm trying to add all the references that are non-canon from this game. It's actually interesting some of the references (even just a character name or designation). Nexus remains a mystery, sadly.

Even if you were to get a translation of the manual and the intro movies, I wouldn't take Nexus as canon. FTL had almost nothing to do with it other than acting as remote producers and getting credit for the original scenario. From what I can tell of the intro (and I played it in full too) it's more or less the same game as DM1 in terms of story so I don't think you're really missing anything by not including it in your research.

Or, you know, people who just happen to speak Japanese. I can probably do something if someone has a zip of all the manual page images, in as high resolution as possible... that "slideshow" viewer on the encyclopedia is nice for viewing, but I don't know how to save pictures from it, and I'd need to zoom in some of those scans to decipher what some of the kanji (Chinese characters) are.

You should simply be able to right click the zoomed in image and save each source file. Failing that, I could always scan the book -- I have an original. But as noted above, I don't think it will reveal much in terms of original plot, and I even if it did, I wouldn't use it as canon anyway.

Check out the Oitu again closer - it doens't even have four legs, it has two legs, each of which has two conjoined parts. Then it has some strange small finger like claws...

I have been trying for years to work out exactly what's going on with the Oitu and kind of forgot about it until I read this. I thought it had four legs, but you're right -- on closer inspection, it does only have two with that strange supporting secondary limb attached to each! Really a unique design, one of the very few unique monsters in DM actually.

The other endings however are smackplay.exe . They execute as tiny non-resizable windows and cannot be opened in normal media players. If there is a way of converting them to a more common media player format I don't know how. And I would like to exchange the to short Atari intro in RTC vs. the Amiga ones and also insert the other movies into RTC. However, before I can check how that is done, I'd need them in a proper format I guess.

6 years ago I redid those animations as stand alone Smacker files. I don't have the original project files anymore, but I have the .SMK files. These can be played with Rad Games Tools Video Player at enlarged resolutions, get the software here: http://www.radgametools.com/down/Bink/RADTools.exe

Here's the animations if you want to view them. I painstakingly rebuilt the Amiga CSB introduction with better quality sounds and some 'pseudo' stereo effects. I didn't do the sounds on the CSB ending or the PC ending movies:

http://dmweb.free.fr/Stuff/files/anims/C ... m_FULL.smk
http://dmweb.free.fr/Stuff/files/anims/C ... roAnim.smk
http://dmweb.free.fr/Stuff/files/anims/DM_PC_EndAnim.smk

While it might be possible to translate these into RTC, it's quite a bit of work, though probably doable if you cleverly use a sequence of timed INFO SCREENS and timed ambient sound effects.

Finally:

I'm currently designing my own OpenGL engine, aiming to clone RTC (not DM itself) but

A clone of a clone? Fun times!

[Lunever]

Well, there is the atari intro when you start rtc-csb, right? By what method is that done?

Oitu: At least the Nexus Oitu from the links you posted looks very fourlegged to me.

RPG: You don't have to be into rpg much. While I absolutely know that story and background are more important than system and rules, in my experience the system can enhance or inhibit the story flow. Because of this I usually take great care of the rules setup so I can direct my full attention on the story once a campaign starts. Also, I think the system should really mesh with the backgroud. Important stuff should have important consequences, not some lame new supersuperflous feat or yet another prestige class you can select from. Well designed, strong core rules, like those of Ars Magica 2nd Ed will spare you a lot of headache later on.

So I first made a DnD-compatible character classes setup, then a magic system setup, then a creature collection that already contains some world-building ideas. These are all technical aspects only. They are just a basis for the campaign setting. The major part of the campaign setting will be to grab secondary canon information and squeeze some primary information out of them. While Nexus might not be written much by FTL, it might or might not contain some stuff that can be scavenged for a world description, so I very much hope Sophia can help there.

[beowuuf]

I forgot to comment on something said much earlier, this fourm isn't really the closest thing to FTL. I would have to say, with two additional games written for them, that there must be a Japanese website that has much more fan investment into the world, etc.

Be interesting to see what stories have originated from that direction, given the original DM was a much more Western-centric fantasy setting...

[Gambit37]

Well, there is the atari intro when you start rtc-csb, right? By what method is that done?

It also uses INFO SCREENS but it's much, much simpler with just a few frames of animation overall. The Amiga one is much more complex and needs to play sounds at key points. You'd need to set up some dungeon mech timed to your info screens to handle all of that. It's messy. This is why we asked for RTC to support an actual existing animation format, but it turns out that (a) it can't and (b) GG ain't doing RTC no more.

Oitu: At least the Nexus Oitu from the links you posted looks very fourlegged to me.

Yes, but if you're talking 'canon', we shouldn't go by what ended up in Nexus. It's... weird.... to say the least! Those crazy Japanese guys sure have a unique take on things! The classic Oitu design was done by Andy Jaros and is the one in the original DM & CSB. Anything else should be ignored IMHO.

Be interesting to see what stories have originated from that direction, given the original DM was a much more Western-centric fantasy setting...

There are certainly some DM comics and other spin-off materials that came out of Japan. I own some of them. Here's some:
http://page2.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b107954689
http://page8.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/h138980811

[Lunever]

Right, the closest thing I can read

PS: Next good question will be how to fit in DM2. It has a more technologically advanced flair than the rather archaic DM1. Does it play at a later time? That would be impractical, since that would mean you have even less canon for a single (non-timetravelling) campaign. I'd rather say that it is in some technologically more advanced part of the empire, comparable to Lantan or Halrua in Faerun.