Armour of Valour

'You'll never been cold in it, either by sea or land. You'll never be tired when swimming, never hurt by fire, never troubled by hunger, and no iron will bite you. It will protect you against everything, with one exception.'
'What's that?' said Odd.
'Iron will bite you if you run away,' she said, 'even though you wear the shirt.'
'I've better things to do than run away from battles,' said Odd.

- Arrow-Odd, (Anon., 13th century AD)

The Armour of Valour is a chainmail shirt woven together by secret sorceries. It grants the wearer an immunity to hunger and exhaustion, gives a magical bonus of +4 to armour class, and also a +4 bonus to saving throws against fire-based attacks. However, all of these abilities (except the immunity to hunger) are negated whenever the wearer is fleeing from battle. In such a situation the armour becomes angered by its owner's cowardice - not only is the magical bonus lost, but the chainmail will allow attacks to penetrate as though the wearer had no armour at all. After such a flight, the armour will refuse to be removed as though it were cursed. The normal functions of the armour will only be restored when the wearer enters battle once again.

Pointing-Men

"And another thing," said Odd, "while I can scythe my way right up to Alf's banner, still I can't see the man himself."
Then one of the local men who had been with Vidgrip said to Odd, "I don't know what's up with you that you can't see him, because he's marching just behind his banner and never moves away from it. If you want any proof, he's the one shooting an arrow from each of his fingers who kills a man with every one of them."
"I still can't see him," said Odd.
Then the man raised his hand above Odd's head and said, "Now have a look, under my hand."
At once Odd could see Alf and all the other things he had been told about him. Odd said, "Keep your hand like that for a while."

- Arrow-Odd, (Anon., 13th century AD)

Certain people are born with a natural talent for seeing through illusions. If this talent is painstakingly trained over the course of many years, then they may join the illustrious ranks of the Pointing-Men. It is their power not only to see things that are magically concealed and discern the falsity of all sorcerous illusions, but to confer this ability on their allies. All the Pointing-Man must do is point and all deceptions will fall away as long as the finger remains pointing.

Unfortunately, this life of constant mental discipline means that the Pointing-Men have no time for even the most basic of martial training, and thus must always remain 0-level hirelings with 1d4 hitpoints. As a result, most Pointing-Men are cowards and it is often difficult to get them pointing at anything for very long before they flee in terror.

Thorstein's Marble

The dwarf took this bit of marble from his purse and with it a steel point. The marble was triangular in shape, white in the centre and one of the sides was red, with a yellow ring around it.
The dwarf said, 'If you prick the white part with the point, a hail-storm will come, so fierce no one will be able to face it. When you want to thaw out the snow, you only have to prick the yellow part and the sun will shine and melt it away. But when you prick the red part, fire and flames and a shower of sparks will come flying out that no one will be able to bear. Besides that, you can hit anything you aim at with the point and the marble, and they'll both come back into your hands when you call for them.'

- Thorstein Mansion-Might, (Anon.,14th century AD)

Well, so I don't really need to expand on this quote at all for it to be clear that this is an awesome magic item. But there are two things to take away from this as general principles of magic item design:

1. There are very specific ways to activate the item's powers, which are tied into the physical properties of the artefact. This instantly makes it much more interesting than just "control weather 1/day, burning hands 1/hour, +5 bonus to hit". It's also more gameable because, for example, the item requires two hands to activate, and requires you not to lose the needle. Now, you can summon the needle or the marble back to your hands, but only if you can speak... thus, there are weaknesses to be protected if you own the item, or exploited if your enemy has it.

AD&D had some things like this, with trigger words to activate magic items, playing music on Heward's Mystical Organ, etc. However, it does open the gateway to DM dickery where the players have to fumble around for ages to work out what a magic item does (or worse, discard it without realising that it's magical). This could be mostly remedied by making sure that Identify spells/sages/skills/whatever are affordable and comprehensive.

2. The marble has a lot of different powers - three separate spells and one combat function. In AD&D terms, it's reaching the border between Magic Item and Artifact. I think it's possibly more flavourful to have a bunch of powers tied up in one item, and it could reduce the dreaded 'Christmas tree effect'. The only problem would be if this made magic items proportionally rarer, so the PCs might spend ages searching for even one worthwhile item, and then whoever gets to use the item will be much more powerful than everyone else.

Grim the Good, Sapient Mead-Horn

'He'll have his great drinking horn brought into the hall, called Grim the Good, a magnificent treasure, ornamented with gold, and with magical powers. There's a man's head on the narrow point, with flesh and a mouth, and it can talk to people and tell them what the future holds for them and warn them when there's trouble ahead. It will be the death of us all if the king finds out that we've a Christian with us. We'll have to be very generous to Grim.'

- Thorstein Mansion-Might, (Anon., 14th century AD)

Grim the Good is an enormous drinking horn, taller than a man, owned by the giant king Geirrod. It has a face that speaks and predicts the future, making it a potent tool for Geirrod to ensure his safety and power. However, Grim is somewhat capricious and open to being flattered by others. Some men give gifts to Grim in order to gain his allegiance, but the greatest honour one can do to Grim is to empty him of mead in one draft. So far, none but King Geirrod have managed to do this.

The Ball Dripping Fat Seal's Head Game

'Go and fetch my gold ball, and bring it here,' he told them.
Off they went, and came back with a seal's head weighing two hundred pounds. It was red-hot, with sparks flashing from it like a forge-fire and fat dripping from it like burning tar.
The king said 'Take the ball now and throw it to each other. Anyone who drops it will be made an outlaw and forfeit all his property: and anyone afraid to throw the ball will be thought a coward.'

- Thorstein Mansion-Might, (Anon., 14th century AD)

It is said the giants of the north play a ball game with the burning head of an enormous seal. The game is to throw the ball from one team to the other, and the fun is in the damage it inflicts upon those who catch it. Usually, burnt skin and singed beards are the only dangers, but broken bones and even fatalities are not unheard of. The reward for playing the game is to receive the property of the outlawed cowards who drop the ball.

Humans cannot normally play in this game; the burning ball will tear through their weak bodies like a knife through butter. However, it is the only way for an outsider to gain prestige in the giant's court; thus, several travellers have come up with their own schemes to play the ball-game passably well despite their natural handicaps.

(Thorstein Mansion-Might is full of surreal non-sequiturs like this. Plot threads arise suddenly and then vanish without a trace. Characters die and come back to life, or act for wholly incomprehensible reasons. All the sagas have the feel of oral literature, of being recited out loud by someone, but only Thorstein Mansion-Might has the feel of being recited by someone who is really drunk.)

From the Classics: Glammad's Halberd

At Svia Skerries they fought a berserker called Glammad. He had one excellent weapon, a halberd, which could pick out any opponent as soon as the bearer knew his name.

Egil and Asmund, (Anon., 14th century AD)

Glammad's Halberd is a magical weapon that gains in martial prowess by knowing its enemy's name. The wielder must speak the name of the enemy he wishes to attack. The halberd will then gain a +3 bonus to hit and damage rolls against that enemy. Only unique, given names can be used in this way, so the halberd's power is useless against most animals.

Glammad's Halberd can also be introduced to the name of the opponent's weapon, if such a name exists. This grants the wielder a +3 defense bonus against the weapon's attacks, as the halberd moves with uncanny swiftness to block the enemy's blows.

From the Classics: The Temple of Jomali

From Bosi and Herraud, c. 1300 AD:

'In this forest,' said the girl, 'there's a great temple belonging to King Harek, the ruler of Permia. The god worshipped there is called Jomali, and a great quantity of gold and jewels can be found there, too. The king's mother, Kolfrosta, is in charge of the temple. Her witchcraft is so powerful that nothing could ever take her by surprise. By her sorcery she's been able to predict that she won't live out the month, so she's travelled by magic east to Glasir Plains and carried of King Godmund's sister, Hleid, whom she means to take her place as the priestess of the temple.'
...
'An enormous vulture, so savage it destroys everything that comes anywhere near it. Not a living soul has a chance if the vulture's claws and venom come anywhere near him. Under this vulture lies the egg you've been sent to get. There's also a slave in the temple, who looks after the priestess's food - she eats a two-year-old heifer at every meal. And there's an enchanted demonic bull in the temple, shackled with iron chains. The bull's supposed to mount the heifer, poisoning her flesh, and then all who taste it go crazy. The heifer is to be cooked for Hleid, and then she'll turn into a monster like the priestess.'
...
Herraud gripped the bull by the ears and the jaw, and gave the neck such a violent twist that it broke... The vulture set its claws hard against the slave's buttocks and struck the tips of its wings against Bosi's ears... The fight took them to the spot where Bosi was lying, the floor around him soaked with blood. The priestess slipped in the vulture's blood and fell flat on her back... then Bosi got hold of the bull's head and hit the old hag hard on the nose with it. Herraud tore one of her arms off at the shoulder, and after that her spirit began to weaken. Even so, her final death throes caused an earthquake.
...
In the vulture's nest they found the egg, covered in letters of gold. They found so much gold there they had more than enough to carry. Then they came to the altar where Jomali was sitting, and from him they took a gold crown set with twelve precious stones, and a necklace worth three hundred gold marks; and from his knees they took a silver cup filled with red gold and so big that four men couldn't drink it dry.
...
In the temple they found a secret side-room with a stone door, securely locked. It took them a whole day to break it open and get inside. There they saw a woman sitting on a chair - never had they seen such a beautiful woman! Her hair was tied to the chair-posts, and was as fair as polished straw or threads of gold.



And there you have it; a complete D&D adventure site, courtesy of 14th century Scandinavians. The bold text I have added to highlight important points for the Dungeon Master.

I really can't get over the fact that the author specifies the gold piece value of the necklace.

From the Classics: Whale Spell

The other Lappish king, Finn, turned himself into a whale. He hurled himself on top of the men who were fighting him and crushed fifteen of them to death beneath him. The dog Sel's-gift rushed at him, ripping him apart with its teeth, but as the whale opened its jaws, Hrifling's dog ran in right down to the belly, tearing at his innards, and bit away the heart. Then it ran out again and dropped down dead.

- Halfdan Eysteinsson, (Anon., 14th century AD)

The whale spell allows a magic-user to transform themselves instantaneously into a large right whale which is 50 feet long, 10 feet wide and weighs 60 tons. In water, the whale can swim at a speed of 120' per round, but on land it cannot move at all. Any creatures crushed beneath the whale take 4d10 damage, with a Reflex save for half. However, once transformed the caster is vulnerable if they are on land, and are considered wholly unarmoured for the purposes of attack rolls. Furthermore, enemies can crawl inside the whale's mouth and attack the insides for double damage. The magic-user must concentrate for three rounds in order to end the transformation; thus, the spell is often used only as a last resort.

From the Classics: Drunk Poetry Slam

Among many adventures depicted in the Viking romance Arrow-Odd, one of my favourite is a scene where the titular character is challenged to a drinking contest with a pair of lazy nobles named Sigurd and Sjolf. Now, drinking contests are always fun, but what's striking about this one is that it also incorporates improvised poetry. The drinkers take turns presenting a horn of mead to their opponent, but before the opponent drinks the offerer must speak a verse to them. Each verse is eight lines long and consists of alternately singing one's own valiant deeds and ridiculing the manhood of one's opponent. For example:

You weren't around,

Sjolf, when we reddened

Our steel on the earl

off Laeso Island.

Mad for sex, you

sat at home wondering

whether to cuddle

the calf or the kitchenmaid.

Sick burn! Obviously, as the competitors get more drunk, they become less able to come up with verses, and are eventually defeated. So it's one part drinking game and one part Medieval rap battle.

The following are some rules for simulating such a contest in a game of D&D:

Competitors take turns to present a horn of mead and a verse. By default, each player has two minutes to come up with a verse before they have to speak it. This might be intimidating for some players, but bear in mind that the verse doesn't have to rhyme or scan. All you have to do is tell a tale about your brave deeds and then talk some smack about your opponent. You can't talk about the same heroic deed more than once, so having a good character history will be of some help. Of course, you can choose to make something up, but this will require a Bluff check (or roll-under CHA if you're not playing with a skill system).

The characters' drunkenness is measured in terms of 'sobriety value'. Each character starts with SV 4, plus or minus their CON modifier. Each time they drink a horn, they must make a saving throw vs. poison (or CON save, Fortitude save, etc.) or else take -1 SV. The player's time allotted for composing a verse is equal to 30 seconds multiplied by their SV, so a character with SV 4 would get two minutes, but a character with SV 2 would only get one. A character with SV0 can still compete, so long as they begin to speak their verse immediately when their turn comes around. A character with negative SV passes out from drunkenness.

Contestants can be eliminated by the following means:

- Failing to provide a full verse of 8 lines containing a heroic deed and a diss

- Stumbling over words or hesitating while reciting the verse

- Being caught lying about their deeds

- Passing out

The last man standing is the winner. The game can be played 1-vs-1, free-for-all, or in tag teams. 

Alternate rule set: Ignore all the complicated crap about Sobriety Value and SV and just have each player drink an actual horn of mead when their turn comes around. Do not use this method if you are planning to carry on the session after the drinking contest is over.

Note: I don't know about you, but my players love drinking contests and will initiate them whenever they get the chance. I wouldn't use this system for that kind of ad-hoc minigame, because it's too long and involved. It would work best if something important rested on the outcome of the contest.

From the Classics: Gusir's Gifts

"Ketil Trout took these arrows off Gusir, king of the Lapps," said Grim. "Because dwarfs made them, they bite anything they're told to."
...
Then Odd took one of Gusir's Gifts and shot it like the first one. The giantess put up her hand, but the arrow went straight through it into her eye and out through the back of her head.

- Arrow-Odd, (Anon., 13th century AD)

The three legendary arrows known as Gusir's Gifts have the ability to pass through almost any object, whether it be stone, flesh or armour. As such, they ignore any AC bonus granted by armour, tough skin, etc. but not by dexterity. Each arrow can pass through up to 5 feet of any solid object before it becomes bogged down. Furthermore, the wielder can whisper to the arrow before firing it and exhort it to bite one thing and not another. If the arrows are not given any specific instructions, they will tend to pierce flesh and armour but not walls or other objects.

Gusir's Gifts will never break after firing and thus can usually be retrieved and reused, so long as they do not land in some inaccessible location. The arrows can still be destroyed if a person or creature makes a deliberate effort to snap them in two.

From the Classics: Rule by Dogfighting

"I'm one of three brothers," said Hildir. "Ulf's the name of one and Ylfing's the other. We've arranged to hold a meeting next summer to decide who's going to be king of Giantland. It's to be the one who performs the most heroic action and has the most savage dog in the dog-fight assembly."

- Arrow-Odd, (Anon., 13th century AD)

There is no way that there isn't going to be a nation in my next D&D campaign whose political system is based on dog-fighting. The possibilities for hijinks are endless. It gets better when you learn that the judges apparently aren't too strict with the definition of the word 'dog': Ulf is fielding a wolf, Ylfing has a polar bear, and Hildir eventually gets an even stronger bear which is mad and ravenous after hibernating for six months. For D&D, let's say that the officials who preside over the tournament are a trio of extremely wizened and short-sighted elders who will accept just about any creature so long as it has fur and four legs.

The most obvious adventure potential in this is that the PCs have to find, catch and train a powerful 'dog' of some kind in order to seize power, or to help their ally seize power (maybe you have to be a native to be eligible for kingship). This is exactly what Arrow-Odd does in the story.

There are also other implications if the dog-fight is conducted once a year, and the king is expected to defend his title with the same dog he used last time. What happens when a champion dog is growing old? What will the king pay for a method of reinvigorating his hound so he can rule for a few more years? On the flip side, what happens if the king dies but his dog keeps on winning?

Expect more material from Arrow-Odd in the next few days. I highly recommend it to those interested, as the resemblance it bears to a game of D&D is uncanny. It's got loot, secret doors, clever plans, magic items, a badass villain with a metal mask, and the age-old adventuring tradition of solving problems with fire.

From the Classics: Lapplings

There was a man named Grim, nicknamed Hairy-Cheek because he was born with a certain peculiarity, and this is how it happened: When Grim's father, Ketil Trout, went to bed with Hrafnhild Bruni's-Daughter, her father Bruni spread a hide over them because he'd invited a number of Lapps in. During the night Hrafnhild happened to look out from under the hide and caught a glimpse of one of the Lapps who was hairy all over. That was how Grim got this mark: for people think he was conceived at that very moment.

- Arrow-Odd, (Anon. 13th century AD)

OK, so I know that Lapps are really just people from northern Scandinavia, but let's D&D this up a bit. Lapplings are small hairy fae creatures, related to brownies, but more suited to colder climates. They can craft finely detailed objects with their tiny hands, and for this reason men will sometimes welcome them as trade partners. However, it is well known that lapplings are mischievous and should not be allowed to stay in a human camp or town for too long.

The strangest property of the lapplings is this: that if any woman looks upon a lappling at the moment she is conceiving a child, then that child will be born with thick hair growing somewhere unusual on his body. Powerful lappling chiefs may produce children with hair all over. The lapplings do not gain any real benefit from this, but they find it so amusing that they are always trying to sneak into bedrooms at the opportune moment.

There are several things you could do with lapplings. The PCs could be hired to get rid of a lappling infestation, or the patch of hair could be a distinguishing feature of an NPC. What I would really like to do, though, is wait until one of my PCs is having sex (admittedly this doesn't come up very often in the course of normal D&D play) and then have a lappling creep up on them.