Deceptively Disinterested

I like words.  I like them so much I make up ones rather regularly as one hopes is noticed when I write such things as “paralysistic” in my posts.  While I’m all in favor of making up words, I’m not terribly fond of changing the meaning of words.  Sure, it happens all of the time.  It’s the nature of language that words come to mean very different things, often enough the opposite of what they once meant.  Slang becomes mainstream, mainstream falls out of favor.  Whatever.

I want to point out two words, though, whose use continues to be notably annoying.  I’m not on some crusade to restore proper use of these words, I just feel like venting a bit and thought it might be interesting for those who don’t notice how they are used.  At some point, it will hardly matter – language evolves.

I’ll even try to tie this into gaming, somehow, since the point of the blog is not to muse upon random things in life.

Enormity

I heard this misused on a radio show this morning.  Yes, I listen to radio.  I know.  Bazaar [just seeing if you are paying attention].  I knew that our current President, Barack Obama, misused the word in his State of the Union Address; it is the only thing I recall of his speech.  I hadn’t realized Bill Clinton had also done so.  And, of course, these aren’t the only two presidents to misuse the word.  One would think their speech writers would work a bit harder or pay more attention to history.

Someday, it will likely have a primary meaning of vastness or enormousness.  Meanwhile, it should be used to mean gross wickedness, ghastliness, etc.  The enormity of a crime isn’t scale in and of itself but the notable wickedness of the crime.

So, that the enormity of the lack of rarity indicators on V:TES cards is ignored by the playerbase to such a degree is surprising to me and others I play with who are familiar with multiple CCGs.  If everyone else [it's possible that someone else hasn't in the last 10 years] can indicate rarity on the cards, V:TES can do it, too.  “But, rarities change.  Cards become fixed.”  Um, yeah, that happens in other CCGs, too – somehow, they manage to indicate rarity on the cards, anyway.

I could bring up other problems with V:TES – lack of keywords, lack of clear timing rules, inconsistent wording – that would fall under an area of management of the game that was not card design, but really, these aren’t nearly as surprising, so I kind of find them lacking in the enormity department.  I don’t really have much else to use as examples, mostly because there aren’t other games I care enough about to disparage to such a degree.

Moot

Increasingly, moot has come to mean settled.  This is because proper use of the word had the equivalent result to a matter being settled and people hearing its use didn’t realize the distinction.

What does it mean?  Debatable.  More specifically, it’s a matter in doubt because it’s debatable on an academic level.  You don’t argue about moot things in the course of your normal day because there is no known way to come to a conclusion as to what the answer is, not because the answer is known already or because there is no answer since the question is faulty.

I’ve gotten really tired of people answering rules questions with “Moot.” when what they meant was irrelevant or that the answer was obvious from information available.

What is the best vampire in V:TES?  Moot.  I claim Tupdog.  At virtually no point in the game’s history would I have said Arika as Anson was clearly superior up until at least the change in wording to Anarch Revolt.  Or, was he?  Who is up for some academic debate?

What is the best deck in V:TES?  For any given tournament?  Moot.  What’s the metagame going to be like for a given event?  I don’t know.  I can try to theorize.  So can everyone else.  The metagame isn’t the end all and be all of making a deck decision, anyway.  A common comment with Magic players, a game where metagames are much more important, is that you still have to be comfortable with the deck you play.  If you are comfortable with aggro and suck at playing control, doesn’t matter that control will be advantaged in the metagame.

Is Dominate overpowered?  … I don’t see this being moot, more being obvious.  I stated that I’d like to see movement in what the best clans/disciplines/whatever are in V:TES.  The sort of reply that I recall from my statement was along the lines of “You can’t make Quietus the best in the game as it would cause too much of a power increase or would require bannings/card rotations.”  Well, if Dominate weren’t so overpowered, it would be that much easier to elevate other disciplines.

What is the best RPG?  Moot.  What sort of experience are you looking for?  I hate d20 mechanics because I find them fiddly and flavorless, but I like Conan d20 because the world is a great world for swords and sorcery style role-playing and the mechanics aren’t as overbearing to the experience as in D&D 3.0 or 3.5.  I also hated FATE as being too vague, too confusing, counterintuitive, and forcing players to do things they should have the choice to do on their own.  Are we talking one shot or campaign?  Campaign play should see a good experience system where characters evolve mechanically if not always becoming clearly more powerful.  One shots don’t need an experience system at all.

Unfortunately, many more interesting RPG systems (to me) are tied into a specific world, a world that I may not care that much about.  My favorite system today is Legend of the Five Rings Third Edition Revised; it has been my favorite system for years.  But, I only like part of the world of Rokugan.  I would much rather see the system applied to other genres, assuming, of course, one can find enough players.

If you can’t find enough players to play a RPG, the value of that RPG is none.  It’s not moot, not debatable.  But, you can always find players if you try hard enough, so we move back into the world of moot-osity.  Course, can come from the other direction.  If a play group enjoys a RPG, it has sufficient value.  It’s not debatable what its value is – its value is “This is fun.”

Pedantic?  Sure.  That’s the way I roll.  Can someone find some grammar error, spelling error, misuse of a word (probably a use of “ironic”, which I don’t want to get into, though it could have been mentioned) on my part?  Sure.  It’s not like language is static or easily mastered.  I just prefer people to use enormiosity when they mean vast and unregardable when they mean irrelephant.

Interlude: Miskolc

At least, I think it’s Miskolc.

So, I would have been happy to finish my “series” on skill lists.  Actually, it occurred to me that taking a look at Solomon Kane wouldn’t be horrible since that’s a system I do actually make house rules for.  But, today was straightening up the computer room so that people can get around to fix some damage.

While not so late I couldn’t do something more involved, in cleaning up, I came across a page of notes from a Gen Con of yesteryear.  The notes for the RPG sessions are atrocious, though it appears I played some sort of Doctor Who game that year, quite the challenge to get into those, though it sounds like we were just part of UNIT.

Anyway, the important part of this discovery is that it has my notes about Miskolc (I have it written down as Mishkos, after some online research, I’m pretty sure they are one and the same).  That would be Miskolc, Hungary.  Why do I have notes about it?  It wasn’t because of a RPG session.  It was from something far funnier.

That year, I went with a friend who lives in the area.  We did mostly different things at the con.  When the con was over, we were exhausted.  So, we rested in the hotel room, turning the TV on after we talked about our various gaming experiences.  Somehow, we ended up on a travel channel or foreign channel or something that had a travel episode on Miskolc.

We were dying laughing.  From my notes:

Imaginary Tailor – I remember distinctly when the narrator started in on the town being known for its imaginary tailor.  Was that misheard?  Maybe.  But, the existence of the Little Tailor of Prague (close enough!) meant I couldn’t not connect the two.

200,000 … several times – Miskolc (according to the narrator, Wiki entry suggests otherwise) got to a population of 200,000 … several times.  We started thinking about scenarios for this.

Castle Ditch – There was something about how bread or food was served in the castle ditch.  I can still picture them panning a camera across what looked like the castle’s (empty) moat; I think there was a table with a woman and others dressed in archaic dress serving food, but this may just be the influence on my imagination from the Tailor.

Department Store – I don’t remember this at all.  Maybe, it was something about how the city had a department store.

Stone Theater – If you read the Wiki entry I did, Miskolc is credited with the first stone theater.  My notes, besides saying “stone theater”, also say “first” and “destroyed/rebuilt”.

Bank – Why is having a bank funny?  This sounded like a modern travel guide with comments about the city’s history.  My notes are “over 7 years” – I distinctly recall the narrator mentioning that the city had a bank for over seven years.  (That’s one more than six!)

Did you have to be there (and kind of high from exhaustion)?  Probably.  That I still remember lying on a bed, laughing hysterically while the narrator droned on about the amazing features of this singular city, from a gaming convention in 2006(?), suggests being there was a good place to be.

[Classic] Durga Syn

I’ve posted a lot in a lot of CCG forums over the years.  One of the reasons I was motivated to do a blog was to consolidate my more verbose thoughts.  I’m currently looking through the UK V:TES forum – http://www.anarchfreepress.com/vtesuk - for my favorite posts.  Here’s the first “classic” post.

In response to Shroudfilm‘s post about the preview of Durga Syn …

“Yeah LSJ,why hasn’t she got votes?!? Or Necromancy?!?!? Or Flight?!?!?!?! Why isn’t she 12-cap?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Why can’t she have an ability which wins me the game in one turn?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I hate VTES now, this one card means the game is doomed!!!!!!1111one!!”

… http://www.anarchfreepress.com/vtesuk/viewtopic.php?p=1729&highlight=#1729 …

I imagine the discussion went something like this:

[LSJ.1] Why don’t you give Durga some votes?

[LSJ.2] Too hard to become an anarch which would waste all of those disciplines. I’d piss off millions of anarch lovers.

[LSJ.1] You could make Orpheus happier if you gave Durga Necromancy.

[LSJ.2] Then he might notice how good Chimerstry is when you don’t pay full cost for it and would want highly flexible Necromancy cards … with no cost.

[LSJ.1] Durga seems to be lacking flight.

[LSJ.2] Does anybody even remember what any of the flight cards do anymore?

[LSJ.1] She could be a 12 cap.

[LSJ.2] Without PRE? Are you insane? Uh, don’t answer that.

[LSJ.1] Durga is a good choice for one of those win in one turn decks. You know, turbo, et al. You should give her FOR, a capacity increase when she’s in play, and NEC. And, the ability to play Baali cards.

[LSJ.2] What makes you think she can’t win in one turn? Besides, the text box font would be so small that no one would know that she would combo with every card in the game.

[LSJ.1] Aren’t people going to hate the game because of cards like this? Won’t Durga doom the game?

[LSJ.2] I keep trying, but they keep playing.

[LSJ.1] Local 1111?

[LSJ.2] Should be played by !Trem with Rutor’s Hands to see if it doesn’t suck. But, Eric Chiang keeps travelling.

The Good Old Days

Old School D&D is …

… one more level of awesome above eight – NINE LEVELS OF AWESOME!!!

 

I was quickly rifling through my old D&D/AD&D modules looking for something to steal ideas from when I ran across something not what I was looking for but with a splashy cover and a theme not irrelevant to one of my campaigns.

 

Allow me to share the indescribable beauty of this old (copyright 1979) AD&D mod with a cover price of $2.  This will take a while and involve many quotes of the material.  I think only the fact that I was feeling bad as I read this prevented me from laughing so hard that crying would be achieved, and that should have happened by page 4.

 

[quote]

Temple Routine

Set does not bother visiting the temple anymore, and has left it in charge of some evil priests.  He will not appear unless the players bring in characters or magic too powerful for a SECOND LEVEL [emphasis mine] dungeon.  (We have tried to balance the contents of each room to the power of an expedition of EIGHT SECOND LEVEL CHARACTERS [emphasis mine] using the formula:

 

P = L^2*N^3

 

where P is Power, L is Level, and N is number.  We assume a cautious group, with a reasonable amount of magic of their own.)

[unquote]

 

That’s it.  Ultimate level of RPG awesomeness has been achieved.  I could say that there’s no actual value recommended for P, but who really cares?  Let’s do the math.  P = 2^2*8^3 = 2048.  So, if you brought in 5th level dudes, you would get 2048/25 = N^3, N = ~4.35.  Okay, that’s cool … no, that’s awesome!!!!

 

Until you realize this is all total gibberish.  Later in the same section there are stats for guards, drivers, and slaves.  The drivers are nice 1 HP, AC 9 cannon fodder.  The 9 guards average 46 HP and all have AC -2.

 

Room 1 isn’t too exciting.  Sure, there’s a trap that does 1-100 HP of damage and a 90% chance of failing to bluff the guards even if you speak the exact four word password.  But, whatever.  Well, actually, I do have to mention one thing.  Under “Miscellanious:” [sic], there’s the line “There is a broom in the north west corner, and the room is fairly well swept and cleaned daily.”  Not feeling the awesome?  Just wait, payoff is coming, awesome payoff.

 

Room 2 has five giant Egyptian Cobras.  They have names … and … genders.  Four are explicitly mentioned as male, so maybe the fifth is female.

[quote]

Comments:  Since these are animals, their names can only be discovered by use of the Speak with Animals spell or equivalent.

[unquote]

 

There’s also a trap in this room.

 

[quote]

Lifting the weight of this string from the hook releases a catch which allows a ten pound weight to drop which in turn pulls out the stopper on a large (1′ x 10′ x 10′) copper vessel, hidden inside [emphasis not mine] the wall, which contains 200 cu. ft. of hydrogen cyanide under pressure.  The gas is invisible, odorless, and tasteless.

…

Treasure: … The only other thing of any value here is the cyanide gas trap.  The copper vessel has 1/4″ thick walls and weighs 2858.4 pounds.  Assuming 1 CP = 50 GP, 20% seigniorage, 1% minting expense, and 1/10 pound coins, the bullion value works out to about 451 GP.  (I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to bother lugging home two thousand pounds of metal for that small a profit.)  The value of the cyanide is purely problematical.

[unquote]

 

And, so ends page 4.

 

Ah, but we aren’t done with this room quite yet.

 

[quote]

Miscellanious:  There is a steel chisel on the floor.  It is meant for metal cutting, but if someone is desperate enough to use it as a weapon, it will do 1-8 points of damage, but hits like a -8 dagger. …

[unquote]

 

Room 3, I’ll only quote the important part.

[quote]

The Criosphinxes are supposed to keep their room clean, and there is a brand new broom, with cobwebs on it, standing against the center of the south wall.

[unquote]

 

Room 4, three fire lizards sleep here.  They have names and, of course, genders.  Boss, Pokey, and Thinker would be the names with Boss being female.  Random quote:

[quote]

Traps:  The only thing like a trap here is the Altar of the Sun described under “Treasure”.  We do not consider it a trap as it was not meant to be one.

Treasure:  There is a scroll of Shape Change on a shelf on the south wall, …

Miscellanious:  … There is no food or water in this room.

[unquote]

 

Room 5, four tigers lie in repose, guarding the guardian Naga in Room Six.  Three are female, one is male.

 

[quote]

Traps:  In the northeast corner is a bag of Foo-Yap.  Foo-Yap was an ancient (imaginary) Chinese alchemist who discovered how to distill a special essence from petroleum, to which he gave his name.  The modern world calls this stuff gasoline.  Any mixture of about 1% to 5% gasoline in the air is explosive.  [Explanation of the Foo-Yap trap ensues.]  Damage done will vary complexly with circumstances, so to keep things simple:  if the gasoline-air mixture explodes it does 1-20 six-sided dice of damage to those within the room, and half that to those in the room’s doorways if the relevant door is open.

…

Treasure:  The only treasure here is a very special magic item inside the bag of Foo-Yap in a sealed bag of its own.  This is a Candle of Gentle Light. … When it is lit it sheds a light, equal to lantern light, which only the gentle can see.  Determining who is gentle must be left to the Judge’s discretion, but in general Fighters, Thieves, Magic Users who use spells in combat, Clerics who carry weapons, Monks, and Assassins are not gentle.  In fact it may be very hard to find a character who can see this light.

…

Miscellaneous [spellcheck kicks in, oh wait, spellcheck didn't exist back then]:  This room is fairly clean, it was used by the slave-drivers.  They are going to be very surprised if they come back and find the tigers here.  There is no food or water in this room.

[unquote]

 

Room 6, one Guardian Naga is blessing the four crossbow bolts in the trap here, hoping somehow to find a way to use them against the Rakshasa in Room 13.

 

[quote]

Parendi speaks Sanskrit (= Guardian Naga), Hindi (= Rakshasa), Persian (= Djinn), Chinese (= Gold Dragon), Greek (= [bunch of creatures from Greek mythology]), Tamil (= Type V Demon), Bengali (= Weretiger), and Tibetian [sic] (= Yeti).  He does not speak English (= Common), nor any alignment language.

[unquote]

 

I won’t bother with quoting the trap description for the crossbow crossfire with Parendi being under the wires.

 

Room 7, five Jackalweres roll dice to see who gets the magic Scimitar they took from one of the guards they killed.  None of the Jackalweres are given genders.  So, it’s more important to know what the genders of snakes and lizards are than things that can breed with people.  Actually, keep this in mind, because it will all make sense … in an awesome way!!!!!

 

Barak (one of the five) speaks English, Egyptian (= Androsphinx, Mummy), and Swahili (= Jackalwere), by the way.

 

[quote]

The magic Scimitar is a +2 magic Sword.  It is 3’6″ long (3’2″ blade, 4″ handle) made of berylium carbide and weighs 2 pounds.  Its blade is razor sharp and always keeps its edge no matter how abused.  The blade is very strong and a force of more than 825 pounds is required to break it.  It is stiff, a force of more than 215 pounds is required to bend it appreciably, and elastic enough to recover completely from any bending which does not break it.

[unquote]

 

Because one can take only so much awesomeness, I’ll forego the description of the tidiness, or lack thereof, of the room and Jackalwere habits of defecation and urination.

 

Room 8, four lions are starving here, often scratching the door, trying to get out.  They have not been fed in seven days.  Clawpusher is female, Walkalot is female, Stud is male, and Roughtongue is female.  I won’t bore you with the Camel Cameo that changes things into a camel and possibly back.  I will point out that this room is not directly across the hall from the tiger room, that the Jackalwere room is in between.  No, no comment.

 

Room 9, six Crocodiles with parched skin move restlessly and noisily about, looking for water.  All six are male.  Don’t forget this.

 

[quote]

Comments:  These Crocodiles are not yet parched enough to be in distress.

Traps:  This room contains a sun lens set as a trap.  The entire roof here is a “magnifying glass”, actually a Fresnel lens.  The ceiling is a set of long wooden slats arranged like a venetian blind. …

Treasure:  On a shelf on the south wall is a gold and silver game of Senet, worth 1500 GP.  It weighs 15 lbs., and is 12″ long, 8″ high, and 6″ wide.

[unquote]

 

586 cubic inches, 15 lbs. - so by gold and silver they mean like 5% gold and silver.

 

Room 10, five giant Indian Cobras slither over the floor in a bizarre dance.  Two are male, three female.  Room 10 and Room 2 are on separate ends of the temple, both behind secret doors.  Given that I could imagine that Egyptian and Indian Cobras can breed, that’s very unhappy face.

 

Room 11, three giant Crocodiles lie in wait in the shadows of this room.  There are bulrushes growing in this room, and an inch of fetid water on the floor, helping conceal the Crocodiles.  On the other hand the roof here is glass, letting in the sunlight (there is a “venetian blind” ceiling here, just like the one in Room 9, but these are open and the glass roof is not a lens so this is not a trap).  One male, two females. 

 

Room 11 is across the hall from Room 9.  If the writers of this mod were beautiful women, I would so do them, respecting their supreme genius the whole time.  I will never write such a brilliantly interwoven setting in all of my infinite reincarnations.  These writers have also inspired me to hope one day to experiment with what giant things I can hide in one inch of fetid water.

 

[quote]

Comments:  These Crocodiles were pets long ago, and the names shown are the pet names given to them.  Because of this, these Crocodiles will be very friendly toward anyone who uses the Speak with Animals spell and treats them kindly.  Anybody else they will try to eat.

Traps:  There are no traps here.

Treasure:  There is no treasure here (you can’t win them all).

[unquote]

 

So true.  I can’t win them all.  I can’t.

 

Room 12, two Narnian Elephants are fighting each other.  Narnian Elephants are small (about 5′ high) but fully intelligent (read the chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis for background on Narnians).

 

[quote]

Comments:  Stang is a very evil African recruited by Set as part of the temple’s monsters.  Stang likes to kill.  Nesselrode is a very good Indian brought in by Parendi to oppose Stang.  Stang speaks Swahili, Nesselrode speaks Bengali, each being the the Elephant’s native tongue.

…

One real treasure here is the Elephants themselves.  If one or both are killed they do have ivory tusks (1/8 usual Elephant tusk value), but more important either one could easily become a faithful companion of a persuasive person of matched alignment (Note:  they can get through the doors.  This has been tested with a scale model Elephant in the scale model temple.).

[unquote]

 

The plot all ties together – the tigers protecting the guardian naga who is trying to kill the rakshasa and who brought in one Narnian elephant to do eternal battle with another.  But, wait, there’s more …

 

Room 13, one Rakshasa plots to take over the temple.  Tajik Taiz, no gender.

 

[quote]

Comments:  Taiz uses a false name of “Sir Rubindranath Tagore”.

…

Traps: … In the copper box is a six-sided copper die with the standard arrangement of pips, but these pips are inset jewels which look like diamonds (actually they are rhinestones).  The die’s edges are exceedingly sharp.  The die has been coated with pure nicotine.  Nicotine is a very strong poison which can be absorbed through the skin as well as taken in through tiny cuts or pinpricks in lethal amounts.  Anyone who handles this die with bare hands must save vs. poison or die within 1-2 minutes (a heavy smoker may live 1-4 minutes).

…

“Sir Rubin’s” dagger is also coated with pure nicotine.

…

“Sir Rubin’s” pack contains a flask of tari, an intoxicating Indian drink also called “toddy”.  The flask holds one quart and is half full.  The pack also holds a canteen with 1/2 gallon of water, a sack with 2 pounds of dates, 50′ of hemp rope, a complete change of clothing for “Sir Rubin”, a manicure set, five oranges, a sack with 10 pounds of dried beef, and a tightly covered bowl with 1/2 pound of ghi, which is clarified butter.

[unquote]

 

Room 14, four Mummies rest in their sarcophagi.  No genders.

 

[quote]

Traps: …  If a man should fall in, he will take 20d6 points of damage.

…

Treasures: … Note: Camels are immune to the effects of sandstorms including those from this Magic Sandstorm Sand.

[unquote]

 

Room 15, four giant Scorpions lurk here waiting for something to eat.  All male.

 

[quote]

Miscellaneous:  There is no food or water here.

[unquote]

 

Room 16, three Type V Demons weave a Robe of Eyes for which they are still collecting eyes.  No need for gender info as we all remember that Type V’s are one of the superhot demons, and thus I will start learning Tamil.

 

[quote]

Note:  This is a standard Dungeon Master’s Guide magic item, but we do not allow those with good alignment to use it, since to make a Robe of Eyes, a person must be murdered by the robe’s weavers for each pair of eyes sewn into the robe.

…

The 16 non-magic swords which these Demons have close at hand are ordinary broadswords made of bronze.  The +2 spear is also a standard +2 magic spear, made of bronze.  The +2 whip is a leather bullwhip, 15′ overall with a 1′ handle.  Its damage is computed by rolling three six-sided dice and looking for matched numbers.  If all are different, the target takes one point of damage.  If two and only two match, the target takes two points of damage.  If all three are the same, the target takes as many points of damage as the total number of pips on top of the dice.

[unquote]

 

I refuse to write out the description of what bonuses the bullwhip has against different armor classes and how a green dragon is not really “plate and shield”.

 

Room 17, no monsters.  Do need magic keys to get in or …

[quote]

Getting in by any other means will be difficult as the doors, portals, walls, ceiling, and floor of this room have been enchanted by Isis so as to be unaffected by any spell, device, or monster listed in Greyhawk.  However, they have not been enchanted against the NEW spells listed in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook.

…

Treasure:  In a niche in the north side of the western secret doorway, so hidden that it can be found only if this secret door is opened, is the Rod of Ra.

[unquote]

 

RoR has two at will powers – 98% magic resistance and the ability to travel anywhere at the speed of light.  It has two powers that take charges.  The first raises the dead to first level or to full level depending upon which words are used.  The second is a death ray, which “This ray of light inflicts exactly enough damage to kill – no more, no less.”

 

Room 18, here lies the Princess Rukmini, guarded by one Gorgriffspidrascorp, named Quab.  Quab is male, but the princess only has a charisma of 9 (str 17, int 14, wis 15, con 17, dex 15, cha 9).

 

[quote]

Princess Rukmini is a 6th level Monk.  She is now in a trance (induced by Set) and has been in it since she was captured.  She will recover in 38 seconds if rescue seems likely.

[unquote]

 

You may be wondering what a Gorgriffspidrascorp is.  I’m sure it will take only 38 seconds to figure out, but obviously, it’s:

“Specifically the Gorgriffspidrascorp has the head of a Gorgon, the body of a Dragonne (which itself is a blend of Lion and Dragon), four legs and the web gland of a giant Spider-these legs ending in the talons of a Hippogriff (which are those of an Eagle), four legs of a Lion-these legs ending in the cloven hooves of herd animal, the tail of a giant Scorpion, and the wings of a Dragon (which are those of a giant Bat).”

 

… and, for more info, …

 

“The Gorgriffspidrascorp likes to attack by flying over its victims, entangling them with webs and using its Gorgon’s breath to turn them to stone.  After four such passes, it will descend to rend, gore, and sting.

 

Its awareness, and breath, extend into the astral and ethereal planes.

 

The Gorgriffspidrascorp generally carries its treasure in a sack, but when it finds a good place for an ambush it puts the treasure into an obvious glittering pile to attract more victims.”

 

For those who survived to the end, THE END.

p.s.  I had a thought after I wrote this for my gamer friends.  It’s as if someone decided to create an entire module where Joe Camel (officially Old Joe according to Wikipedia) would be the ultimate protagonist.  As a heavy smoker, he averages surviving 1 extra minute after failing a save vs. poison from the nicotine.  I don’t know if he’s “gentle”, but sure, ignoring the standard reputation of camels, why not a marketing-savvy camel?  As a camel, he’s functionally immune to being changed into a camel by the Camel Cameo.  And, as a camel, he’s immune to the effects of the Magic Sandstorm Sand.  Also according to Wikipedia, Old Joe was being used in Europe in the ’70s, which means he predated the publication of this module.