Friday, February 06, 2009

Fairytales and Hamsters

I've just added a new blog on the list to the right: A Hamsterish Hoard of Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not quite sure what the adjective "hamsterish" means in this case, but I do find the content very interesting. It's new goodies for BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia D&D, primarily monsters, but sometimes spells or other treats.

That would be neat enough on its own, but I'm also intrigued by a theme I'm noticing in the recent posts. I have no idea if this is temporary, or even a conscious decision on Taichara's part, but where most of us playing with older versions of D&D are embracing a more Swords & Sorcery motif, or wallowing in Dark Fantasy, Taichara's creations have a strong fairytale feel to them. Here's an example of a new magic-user spell that illustrates what I mean:

Vine Truth
Range: 0
Duration: 1 turn
Effect: One conjured flower for divining truth


This spell produces a small coiling vine that wraps around the wrist of the Magic-User, ending in a showy blossom held between the fingertips. Until the spell's duration runs out, if an individual within 30' of the Magic-User knowingly tells a lie, a petal will fall from the blossom to signal the untruth.


And check out this description of the thorn dragon:

Their name comes from their scales: mottled brown and rust-red, edged in green and rose -- and each one's tip drawn out into a long, curved thorn.


I can't quite see Frazetta illustrating this beastie, as most of his monsters tend towards the smoky and dreamy, and glisten wetly. But I could certainly imagine what one of the Pre-Raphaelites might make of it.

7 comments:

  1. Taichara is definitely generating some really, really neat content. In the last few weeks, I've definitely been reading that blog on a regular basis and dropping comments here and there. Great stuff.

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  2. Thanks for the link, definitely fascinating differences.

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  3. Hello!

    The "hamsterish" part doesn't have a huge meaning to it, other than it having become an in-joke nickname for myself (I like hamsters a good deal and used to keep some for pets).

    The feel to my posts is fairly deliberate, though I hadn't had the fairytale comparison occur to me until I read it here; it's the same sort of thing I write for my games.

    I can't help it; I like toying with little strange flowers *grins*

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  4. Toying with flowers can produce distrubing but fascinating results.

    I'm now very curious what your games are like. Do you have an adventure posted on your blog, or a description of one?

    - Brian

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  5. Toying with flowers can produce distrubing but fascinating results.

    Too true, that *grins*


    I'm now very curious what your games are like. Do you have an adventure posted on your blog, or a description of one?

    The games I currently run are smallish solo games for a friend; I have an abiding love of minidungeons, which works nicely since we're generally pressed for time.

    One of them I posted up on my blog here; a brief description of the original is here on my friends's Livejournal, if you're interested.

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  6. Thanks for the links! I love this bit:

    Leo: *swings hammer!*
    statue: *is not affected!*
    Leo: .... *attacks with torch!*
    statue: *FWOOSH!*
    Leo: ... SHIT! *runs away from flaming attack statue*

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  7. *grins* Yeh, she writes things up great. I have to admit, though, that is essentially how it happened --

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