Mad Gaming Madness

 So, one of the most (in)famous items of D&D is the deck of many things . Inspired by Tarot cards, Gary Gygax first introduced the deck in Supplement I: Greyhawk  in 1975, and it has destroyed or derailed many campaigns since then. At its core, the deck is about powerful random effects. Each card has either a beneficial or detrimental effect, and they take effect immediately when drawn. Over the editions, the effects have varied slightly, but the essence has remained the same. The standard deck consists of: balance : change alignment (2♠) comet : defeat a challenge in solo combat (2♦) donjon : imprisoned (as per the spell) (A♠) euryale : penalty to petrification/all saving throws (Q♠) fates : avoid any situation you choose, once (A♥) flames : gain the enmity of a fiend (Q♣) fool : lose experience points; you must draw again (Joker with trademark) gem : gain valuable gems or jewelry (2♥) idiot : lose Intelligence; you may draw again (2♣) jester : gain experience points or ...

One of the iconic magic items of the original D&D game are figurines of wondrous power . Small statuettes that can grow to the size of the creature depicted (or even larger), they're a staple of the fairy tales that form one pillar of the core of D&D's "Appendix N."  It can be argued the the origins of the idea of the animating figurine is the ancient Egyptian ushabti figurine. These were small humanoid figurines that were buried with a deceased person. In the Afterlife, they would animate and grow to act as servants of the deceased. As a popular item, many variant figurines have appeared in D&D over the decades. They are fairly easy to convert to 5E, since the basic mechanism is similar: throwing the figurine down and saying the command word conjures a creature, usually an animal. Some animals might be slight variations on the basic creature -- retaining some of the hardness of the figurine 's material reflected in a higher AC, for example. Some of ...

 It seems ambitious, after letting the blog die shortly before the coronavirus pandemic, to start off again with a multipart post, but this is a tricky subject. When I was a wee gamer lad, our home game settings were eclectic. One friend might tell you, "I want to play a guy like Bulwyf from The 13th Warrior ," while another wanted to play Gandalf, and still a third wanted to play a Crusader. As a result, one popular thing to do was to decide your home game setting was part of a multiverse, a conglomeration of adjacent universes that connected somehow, usually through portals.  In this, we were probably influenced Time Bandits , where a map to the "holes in Creation" is a key plot MacGuffin. Another influence was Michael Moorcock's series', most of which took place in completely different universes that could be visited by the right means, such as the Dark Ship that sails the Seas of Fate or Balwyn Moor . So it was that you could gather together characters ...