Stocking a Sandbox with the AD&D 1e DMG (Part 3)

I am back again to stock a third ring of hexes using the AD&D 1e DMG! You can find Parts 1 and 2 here and here. 

As with previous installments in this series, I begin by filling in terrain:

As a reminder, I am using Welsh Piper's Hex-Based Campaign Design to determine the terrain layout of the map. This third ring of hexes has five plains hexes, three forest hexes, two hills hexes, and two water hexes. I like the way this is turning out, with scattered forests and highlands and some sort of huge, weird-shaped lake or coastline to the northwest.

To keep it varied, I'm going to stock the hexes in a weird order: forest (SW) > plains (W) > hills (SW) > plains (N) > water (NW) > plains (NNE) > forest (E) > plains (SE) > hills (S) > plains (NE) > water (NNW) > forest (SE). Starting with the SW forest hex:

This is interesting! I have a medium castle ruled by a Chaotic Good 11th-level cleric, a thorp (population 70 with a Neutral 2nd-level cleric), a hamlet (population 300 with a Neutral Good 1st-level fighter, a 2nd-level paladin, and a Chaotic Good 4th-level elf fighter/magic-user), a single dwelling (population 4), and a ki-rin's lair (!) right in the middle of it all. (As you can see, I decided to stop combining adjacent settlements into one. I don't really have a reason for changing my approach. It felt wrong somehow!)

Since the center hex is both forest and swamp, I rolled d100 once and compared it to both tables - I rolled 31, which is ki-rin/lamamsu/shedu on both tables! I rolled d3 and got ki-rin. They apparently live in the clouds and never touch the ground, so I wasn't sure how to indicate this on the map. I landed on representing the lair with a big ol' cyclone-looking thing. I have no idea why it's in the swamp. It would certainly be a powerful ally to recruit in future battles against the orcs to the north or the brigands to the northeast!

Here is the W plains hex:

Hell yes! I have my first city. It has a population of 10,000, so it is the smallest of cities allowed by the 1e DMG. That still means that it contains 100 character-types, broken up as such:

• 65 low-level (1st- to 3rd-level)
• 20 mid-level (4th- to 7th-level)
• 10 high-level (7th- to12th-level)
• 5 very high-level (9th- to 20th-level)

The five very high-level character-types are a NG 8th-level elf fighter/thief, a LG 10th-level cleric, a CG 16th-level fighter, a 16th-level paladin, and a CE 18th-level illusionist! 

One interpretation could be that this is a levelocracy, and so these high-level character-types rule the city. The city ruled by a Chaotic Evil illusionist is probably not a great place to live! Perhaps there is a power struggle between the illusionist and this league of Good-doers, with the Lawful and the Chaotic not quite seeing eye-to-eye but united in common purpose against the sinister illusionist.

Or, you could just say the city is ruled by a king or whatever and the character-types just live there doing their own thing. I personally have never arrived at a totally satisfying answer to this question.

Prepping this city for play would be a lot of work. I wrote about my thoughts on preparing settlements for play here. Using guidelines from Brave, I determine that the city has six districts. These could also be determined by the character-types listed above: the magical district where the evil illusionist dwells, the temple district where the cleric and paladin offer sanctuary to the downtrodden, the district around the rowdy fighter's stronghold, and the elf enclave, plus maybe a market district and an upper class neighborhood. Something like that is more or less enough to get things moving.

We mustn't spend too much time on the city, because this hex also contains a fortress, a dungeon, and a monster lair! 

Both of the fortresses are small shell keeps. One is totally deserted, and the other is ruled by a CG 9th-level fighter. Perhaps the protege of the CG fighter in the city? The fighter has five 6th-level henchmen: a cleric and four fighters. The deserted keep was ruled by an assassin, but has since been cursed by the gods and shunned. Oh, assassin lord of old, what did you do? Perhaps the ruin is haunted by the spirits of those the assassin killed?

Lastly, we have a hill giant lair! There are three bachelor hill giants therein (the Monster Manual specifies that hill giantesses are present only if four or more giants are encountered) with two giant lizards for guards. Residents of the city must be careful not to wander into hill giant country! It does beg the question: Why don't the high-level Good-aligned character-types of the city deal with the giants? Perhaps the illusionist is in league with them, and conceals their lair against attempts to find them! Perhaps they simply have more pressing matters to attend to.

That was a surprisingly interesting hex, but there are many hexes to cover, and so we must move on to the SW hills hex:

This is a very crowded hex! I am now beginning to question this entire endeavor!

Although those settlements in the northeast corner look very close together, due to the movement cost when traveling through the hills (a multiplier of 3, so 3 hours to get from the center of the hex to the edge and vice versa), they're all actually nearly a day's travel from one another. Here's a line about each:

• Single dwelling: Population 4, no character-types
• Northern thorp: Population 30, no character-types
• Southern thorp: Population 50, N 3rd-level dwarf fighter
• Southern hamlet: Population 400, CE 1st-level fighter, NG 2nd-level fighter, NG 2nd-level ranger, NE 3rd-level fighter
• Northern hamlet: Population 400, LN 1st-level dwarf thief, LG 2nd-level magic-user, 3rd-level druid, LE 4th-level fighter

The moathouse was ruled by a cleric and was the site of a great miracle, but it now totally deserted. Perhaps it is a holy site with a taboo against occupation. Perhaps its dungeons are protected by celestial guardians.

The deserted castle is a medium walled castle with a keep. It was ruled by a magic-user. Now, it is inhabited by a will-o-wisp! I suppose the castle is still home to all manner of unstable arcane dangers, which are the hazards to which the will-o-wisp attempts to lure its victims.

Finally, the monster lairs:

• A den of 155 male orcs with 5 leaders, 15 assistants, a sub-chief, 12 guards, a chief, 20 bodyguards, 77 female orcs, and 155 young orcs
• A cave of 6 griffons with a single egg
• A cave of 20 male bugbears with a leader, chief, sub-chief, 10 female bugbears, and 10 young bugbears
• A giant ant nest with 44 worker ants, 8 warrior ants, a queen ant, and an egg chamber guarded by an additional 18 workers and 5 warriors

The bugbears and ants probably keep more or less to themselves (it would take a full day just for the bugbears to come down the mountain and go back up). The residents of the southern hamlet and northern thorp most likely have run-ins with orcs, and probably don't stand much of a chance defending against them. They might pay tribute to the orcs regularly to continue living in relative peace. The griffons can fly over the full hex and then some in a day, so residents of this hex probably know better than to keep horses. And probably everyone in the area knows about the old wizard's castle on the mountain that still glows with a haunting light at night.

We must drag ourselves away once more from the intrigue of this hex, moving on to the N plains hex:

This hex is surprisingly sparsely inhabited. Here is a summary of what's here:

• A thorp of 50 people with a CN 3rd-level fighter
• A totally deserted tower, built by a fighter and conquered by invaders, then abandoned
• Another griffon den, this one with 11 griffons, 2 eggs, and 5 fledglings
• A leprechaun burrow home to a single leprechaun
• A tribe of 57 tribesmen with 5 3rd-level fighters, a 5th-level chief, 3 4th-level subchiefs, a 3rd-level druid, 5 4th-level druids, a 6th-level druid, and an 8th-level druid, 57 women and 57 children, and 20 slaves
• A hippogriff nest with 9 hippogriffs, 3 eggs, and 2 fledglings

I've written before about how the description of "tribesmen" in the AD&D Monster Manual is repugnant. When I rolled them up here, I considered rerolling, but decided to keep the result for the sake of this exercise. I would not treat them as mud hut-dwelling cannibal savages as the Monster Manual describes them, but more like real world indigenous people with their own customs, folklore, wants, and needs.

This is the third griffon nest I've rolled up. I would be surprised if there's a single horse to be found in this entire region! With all those eggs and fledglings (worth 29,000 gp total), this is also the most valuable nest for an unscrupulous party of adventurers. Likewise, the eggs and fledglings in the hippogriff nest are worth from 7,000 to 10,000 gp. It's a poacher's paradise! One must also imagine that the griffons and hippogriffs (who don't like each other very much) clash in the skies quite often.

On to the NW water hex:

• A thorp of 70 with a LE 7th-level fighter
• A small castle inhabited by 126 brigands with 6 3rd-level fighters, 4 4th-level fighters, 3 5th-level fighters, 2 6th-level fighters, a 9th-level fighter leaders, 6 2nd-level fighter guards, a 7th-level fighter lieutenant, 2 important prisoners, and 50 camp followers/slaves
• A ruined tomb, abandoned by its original creators

Not a whole lot to say here. The thorp is, for now, blissfully isolated from everything, but is possibly ruled by a tyrannical warrior overlord. The brigands are a powerful faction in the area, but they're not on the water, so it's unlikely that they mess with the thorp much. We'll have to wait and see what's in the surrounding hexes to see what their impact is. The tomb is in shallow water, so is probably not totally submerged, but does present a neat opportunity for a flooded dungeon experience if desired. Or maybe it's on an island too small to be on the map. Perhaps it can be explored only at low tide?

Here is the NNE plains hex:

I did not generate a single "habitation" (i.e., settlement, castle, or ruin) in this hex! I did, however, generate another tribe of indigenous peoples, and another hippogriff nest, and the second troll hole in the region. By now you can probably imagine what these locations entail. I won't belabor this post by detailing all of these again.

Here's the E forest hex:

Here we have a hamlet of 100 people with a CE 11th-level (!) thief. We also have a second city, this time with 30,000 people - that's 15 very high-level character-types! There are two 20th-level fighters there - one CN and one CE. The city is in the middle of the forest for some reason. 

Immediately north of the city in the deep forest is a hieracosphinx lair. The hieracosphinx is an inexplicably Chaotic Evil, low intelligence, hawk-headed sphinx that eats people. There are 5 of them dwelling in this lair.

Here's the SE plains hex:

Not much in the way of settlements here, but two fortresses (including another brigands' castle!), a berserker camp, and our first ruined city!

The berserker camp right next to the ranger's stronghold is a bit unusual, but I've determined using opposed reaction rolls that they're indifferent to one another. Perhaps the ranger, themself an outlander, has made common cause or some sort of truce with the likeminded berserkers, but they're not at the point of working together.

The city was destroyed by raiders, so presumably conquered and then razed. The brigands might have something to with it, though they're rather isolated deep within the forest.

Giant spiders are the best kind - they're Tolkien's Mirkwood spiders, big and Evil, with save or die venom.

Here is the S hills hex:

Lmao. A castle inhabited by bandits, right next to a cave complex inhabited by brigands. And just a few hexes away, a brigand camp! The people of the hamlet are safe so long as they stay on their mountain, but the people of the thorp are ruled by a bandit king.

We also have another hill giant lair, and I got the opportunity to roll on the dragon subtable for the first time. Unfortunately, I got a chimera rather than a true dragon. This is nonetheless an area densely inhabited by bandits, brigands, and a few really scary monsters.

Here's the NE plains hex:

Not much going on here. A totally deserted shell keep (formerly ruled by a cleric, now cursed by the gods and shunned - must not have been a very good cleric!), plus our first demihuman stronghold. This one is a moathouse ruled by a NG 9th-level elf fighter/magic-user. No monster lairs!

We're nearing the end. Here's the NNW water hex:

Here are two ordinary single dwellings, a totally deserted tower (once ruled by a magic-user, now conquered and abandoned), and a buccaneer's warship (buccaneers, who are Neutral, not to be confused with pirates, who are Chaotic Evil). Perhaps the buccaneers are responsible for razing the wizard's tower?

There are 182 buccaneers, with 3 3rd-level fighters, a 5th-level fighter, 3 ransomed prisoners, an 8th-level captain, a 7th-level lieutenant, 4 4th-level mates, a 12th-level cleric, and a 6th-level magic-user. Considering the highest-level character-type is a cleric, these buccaneers must have some sort of religious bent. Perhaps they worship some sort of deity of the sea?

Finally, here is the SE forest hex:

The RNG did not want to make it easy for me to wrap this up! I rolled five habitations: the single dwelling, the thorp, the hamlet, the small keep ruled by a LG dwarf fighter, and the massive fortress complex ruled by a N thief. The other six locations are "monster lairs", half of which ended up being a nomad encampment and a halfling shire (both of which are essentially also settlements) and the castle lair of an order of dervishes (itself a stronghold). The remaining three monster lairs are our third hill giant lair, an ankheg nest, and an ogre den. This is very densely populated!

There are 6 hill giants. The hamlet has 300 people, so I estimate they can rally 30 or so defenders in a pinch, plus 3 low-level character-types. 5 to 6 warriors per giant might be enough to defend the hamlet, but it's not certain. The nomad encampment has 200 warriors plus leader types, so the giants are definitely not messing with them.

The nomads are predisposed slightly negatively towards both the dervishes and the dwarf lord, both of whom are in turn favorable towards the nomads. Perhaps the nomads have just shown up in the area and are being belligerent and making great demands of both strongholds. Both the dervishes and the dwarf lord are Lawful Good, so perhaps they are negotiating in good faith and attempting to get the nomads to go on their way.

The thief is favorable towards the dervishes, but the dervishes are indifferent towards the thief. They don't want anything to do with the scoundrel. The thief, however, commands the largest stronghold in the entire region!

The single dwelling is, unfortunately, both ankheg and ogre food. The halflings of the nearby shire are Neutral and insular, and won't do anything to aid the human homesteaders unless significantly compensated for the inconvenience.

Here is the entirety of the map after this round of stocking:

(Click on it first, then right-click to open the image in a new tab. Then you can zoom in, at which point it should be legible.)

As you can hopefully see, this is an incredibly dense play area with plenty to do at all levels of play. It would take ages to detail all these settlements, fortresses, ruins, and monster lairs. Keep in mind that the settlements need names, NPCs, locations, and in some cases, districts. All of the character-types in the settlements and fortresses (and certain monster lairs) need to be rolled up like characters, and they all have their own magic items. The ruins need to be mapped and stocked as dungeons with multiple levels, encounter tables, and the like. The monster lairs need to be stocked with treasure.

On top of that, I need to take a good look at the overall map and see how locations in one atlas hex might interact with those in adjacent atlas hexes. There are griffons, sphinxes, giant eagles, hippogriffs, and manticores flying here and there across nearly this entire region! The south is infested with brigands!

Despite how much is already here, the blank spaces at the edge of the map beckon to me. I don't even have a true dragon yet. The game is Dungeons & Dragons! Of course I want to finish this map!

And maybe I will, but not for a while. There's plenty here to inspire years of play if I so desire. I'm not planning on playing AD&D this year, but I genuinely believe that a map like this, using the AD&D method of stocking, could support a game of AD&D, modern D&D, OSE, ShadowDark, and many other game systems.

Just for fun, here is a version with the grid turned off, elevation turned on, and a road going through the one town to connect the two cities (ignore the dark/light grey blank hexes - it's a side effect of turning off GM only objects on this particular map):

And here's a version with every settlement/dwelling connected to that road. This is unrealistic and probably not how I'd do the final map, but it is illustrative in showing how isolated some of the inhabited areas are:

Cheers!

Spell Research: Knock and Wizard Lock

The knock spell first appears in original D&D's Book I: Men & Magic. It is a 2nd-level magic-user spell. The description is as follows:

A few things about this are immediately interesting to me. First, the spell opens secret doors, obviating the need to puzzle out how the secret door is intended to be opened. It also means that secret doors which are designed to open from only one side can be opened from the unintended side using this spell. I had always intuited that the purpose of this spell was to unlock doors, not open them, so this is a bit surprising to me on a close read.

I am also surprised to see that knock is a ranged spell. I had always assumed that the magic-user had to physically knock on the door for the magic to work. Since the spell doesn't simply unlock but instead opens such doors, that means doors can be opened at range, allowing any traps triggered by opening the door to be triggered while the magic-user is at a distance.

Interestingly, if we read the spell literally, it does not open doors that are not secret, held, locked by magic, barred, or otherwise secured, so the PCs will still have to risk opening those doors themselves.

No discussion of knock is complete without looking at its counterpart, the other 2nd-level magic-user spell, wizard lock:

Wizard lock has another counterpart alluded to here: hold portal. This post will not cover hold portal because it is not consistently represented in all editions of D&D. It is very similar to wizard lock except that its duration is shorter (think of a magic-user magically warding a dungeon door against an ogre attempting to batter it down, versus a magic-user permanently securing an important door in their inner sanctum).

Knock suppresses wizard lock only temporarily, and does not remove it. The magic-user must cast knock each time they wish to pass through the wizard lock. This makes me want to make the occasional wizard lock door trapped such that it automatically swings shut after a certain number of individuals pass through it, separating the party unless the wizard can open it again.

Interestingly, the magic-user seemingly cannot open their own wizard lock without a knock spell. That seems horribly inconvenient!

Since this is our introduction to the spell, I feel this is a good time to link to Designing Obstacles for OSR Play, which contains some interesting discussion about "Hard Locks" and "Soft Locks" and about knock and the problems posed by "skeleton key" spells like it and dispel magic. The post criticizes the use of wizard lock in published adventures and the tendency of adventure authors to take the ubiquity of knock for granted, rather than including more interesting ways of bypassing wizard lock and related obstacles. I don't see this as being an inherent problem with either spell so much as a flaw in the design culture surrounding these particular obstacles. 

As the post explains, there are much more interesting ways to integrate locked doors and their keys into adventures. The existence and implementation of knock does not offend my sensibilities. If I've designed a truly interesting magically locked door with an ingenious puzzle that needs solving to open it, but the player characters happen to have knock and can bypass it with a single spell, more power to them. It is less interesting, but I'm not always prioritizing what's interesting above all other considerations, such as rewarding players for being well-prepared.

I'm also not entirely sure whether wizard lock would be considered a Hard or Soft Lock. Is it a Hard Lock because it identifies specific means of bypassing it (the implication being that there are no other means of doing so)? Or is it a Soft Lock because there are multiple ways of bypassing it (knock, dispel magic, or the service of a higher-level magic-user)? This issue will only become muddier as we dig into different iterations of the spell.

Another common criticism of knock in particular is that it allows the magic-user to be a better thief than the thief. I will point out that at the time of original D&D's publication, the thief did not exist. The magic-user is not yet stepping on those particular toes. That is about to change.

Knock appears again in AD&D:

This being AD&D, the spell has been complicated quite a bit! It is classified as an alteration spell for the first time. Alteration (later called transmutation) is the school of magic concerned with the alteration of a thing's properties. In this case, the locked object is being magically transmuted into an unlocked object. Sure. That works I guess.

Knock now has an area of effect of 10 square feet/level of the caster. What exactly this means isn't at all made clear. Perhaps it will be clarified in the future, in some sort of updated version of the AD&D rules?

AD&D's version of knock also opens stuck doors (the original D&D version of the spell isn't explicit about this - my interpretation is that it doesn't affect stuck doors, unless a stuck door qualifies as "otherwise secured") and locked or trick-opening boxes or chests (in hindsight, it's interesting that the original spell only works on doors), and loosens shackles or chains. The description also specifies that knock does not open portcullises (the original version's "otherwise secured gates" language may or may not include portcullises). Lastly, each casting of the spell removes only two impediments to opening the door (i.e., a lock and a bar, but not a lock, a bar, and a spell like hold portal or wizard lock).

The thief is now a class. They are pretty bad at the things they're supposed to be good at. Knock, among other spells, allows the magic-user to automatically succeed at the things the thief is supposed to be good at, albeit a limited number of times per day. Similarly, the magic-user also automatically succeeds - again, just a few times a day - at opening stuck doors, which is one of the things the fighter is supposed to be good at. At least the magic-user can't bend bars/lift gates!

I personally am not really bothered by the toe-stepping. The magic-user only has so many spells per day, and if they want to cast knock multiple times they have to use multiple spell slots to prepare it. The magic-user is sacrificing a significant amount of utility just to open the occasional door. There is no on-demand magic (i.e., cantrips) in AD&D like would come in later editions, so the magic-user is making a choice to specialize their loadout for the day and then be limited to throwing their darts or whatever.

I think it's more likely that the party explores the areas of the dungeon that can easily be explored, the fighter and thief try their luck at any stuck or locked doors they come upon, take note of those they can't open, and the magic-user then prepares accordingly for the next delve into the dungeon to open any doors that continue to confound the rest of the party. 

That too comes with tradeoffs. The party may have random encounters as they retreat from the dungeon. If they make camp outside the dungeon - which they would be wise to do - they may have to fend off a dangerous wilderness encounter. While they're gone, the rooms they explored may be reoccupied. They may have more random encounters while traveling back to where the offending doors are. The party can make short excursions into the dungeon to achieve a straightforward goal such as this, but it's simply not an efficient way to explore.

In a world where any magic-user of 3rd-level (which is considered low-level in all versions of the game) can magically open almost any door, you also have to imagine that most important things are going to be behind several secured doors. Or, maybe, just one really secure one.

Each casting of knock only foils two "locks" on a given door. Imagine a huge vault door with multiple complex locking mechanisms and magic wards. The magic-user can get through two at a time. A 3rd-level magic-user can get through two locks per day. At 4th- through 6th-level, they can get through four locks per day. At 7th- through 9th-level they can get through six locks per day. And on and on. Suddenly the thief doesn't seem so superfluous (but you should probably make them more competent somehow - there are far more blog posts on the subject than I care to wrangle right now).

I also like how the spell suppresses a wizard lock for 1 turn specifically. In my world, doors with wizard locks are on a timer - after the turn is up, the door swings closed! I really like the idea of the party breaking into a magic-user's vault with their one use of knock, only to neglect to spike open the door and end up trapped inside.

The AD&D version of wizard lock similarly adds a number of specifications:

Like knock, wizard lock is an alteration spell, has the same unexplained area of effect, and specifies the types of objects it affects. The wizard lock can now be bypassed by breaking the affected object (the Lock is becoming Softer). However, magic-users now need to be one additional level higher than the original caster (i.e., 4 or more levels higher compared to the original spell's 3 or more levels higher).

The bit at the end is referring to the fact that hold portal can be shattered at will by any extra-dimensional creature (demons, devils, elementals, etc.). In other words, wizard lock is a permanent version of hold portal that also effectively keeps out such creatures.

AD&D 2e's version of knock cleans up the 1e version:

First, I love that the spell is now reversible. OD&D and 1e both had reversible spells, but knock wasn't one of them. We don't need a knock spell and a lock spell. They're the same spell. You just flip 'em! 

...Is what I would say, if it weren't for the fact that 2e still has a wizard lock spell! We'll get to that in a moment.

This version of knock makes the odd specification that the spell does not affect "ropes, vines, and the like." Okay. Why would it? It also specifies that the location of a secret door must be known in order for knock to open it. This sounds like common sense to me, but in hindsight one could read the original D&D and 1e descriptions as allowing the spell to open undiscovered secret doors (the 1e version in particular "causes secret doors to open", which is vague wording).

The 2e version also elaborates on the area of effect - delightfully, in my opinion. The intention is, apparently, for more powerful wizards to be able to open larger doors! A 20th-level wizard can knock a 200-square-foot door. How big are a giant's doors? If a standard human-sized door is 4' x 7', a 26-foot-tall storm giant (assuming similar proportions) would use a door that is roughly 15' x 26' (though probably even bigger than this). That would require a 39th-level wizard to open! Does the spell assume the caster is human-sized? Can giant wizards easily knock open their own doors? Much to think about!

2e's version of wizard lock is much the same as 1e's, albeit with an important quality of life change:

The caster can now open their own wizard lock! This feels like it should have always been the case. It also introduces an interesting possibility: If the wizard who originally cast wizard lock is at hand, the party could take the wizard hostage and force them to open all of their locks! I could imagine this happening if the party is raiding the wizard's stronghold and is able to neutralize the wizard, but still needs to gain entry into the vault. The Lock gets Softer yet again!

The description does not clarify the area of effect, but we can intuit that it is similar to knock. Interestingly, a 20th-level wizard can knock a 200-square-foot door, but wizard lock a 600-square-foot door. Such a door would require a 60th-level wizard to knock it open!

So what is the point of the reverse of knock, lock? Well, it only affects doors that have a physical locking mechanism. Because of knock's smaller area of effect, is also affects smaller doors than wizard lock. I have no idea why one would prepare lock rather than wizard lock. Making knock a reversible spell was a good idea, but it ultimately feels like a missed opportunity.

Surprisingly, the 3e version of knock is largely unchanged:

This version specifies that the spell only loosens welds, shackles, or chains which "serve to hold closures shut." I think what it means is that it loosens, for example, chains that block a door or bind a chest, but not shackles restraining an individual. There's a very minor change to its range (most likely accounted for by D&D switching from yards to feet as the standard measurement at the time). Very powerful wizards (and sorcerers) can now unlock very large doors from very far away!

Annoyingly, the description for arcane lock is split onto two pages:

First, the name change. Locking doors with magic isn't just for wizards anymore! Second, it's an abjuration now. This makes sense, as abjuration is the school of warding, protection, and negation. I like it better than magically altering the properties of a door from unlocked to locked. The spell also now requires a material component in the form of gold dust worth 25 gp. 

I like how the spell is integrated into 3e's skill system by specifying that it adds 10 to the normal DC to break open the door or portal. In AD&D, a mundane lock and a wizard lock are equally difficult to force. In 3e, each type of door has its own DC, mundane locks add to the DC, and arcane lock adds onto that, making it possible to create a door that is particularly hard to muscle open.

Importantly, this version no longer allows a higher-level caster to open the arcane lock at will. The Lock has become Harder. 

4e, unsurprisingly, changes knock more than any edition yet:

I don't care for the glowing blue key that floats into the door causing it to glow amber. It's weirdly specific and feels like a video game (a comparison no one has ever made with 4e). Otherwise this is interesting. 

In past editions, knock was a 2nd-level spell, which could be cast by a character of 3rd-level or higher. In 4e, knock is a 4th-level ritual, which means the character must be at least 4th-level to cast it (i.e., it is not comparable in power to a 4th-level spell in other editions). Knock is unlocked (haha) for player characters slightly later in 4e than in other editions.

Since knock is now a ritual, it's not tied to spell slots or to 4e's system of at will/encounter/daily powers. If the party has a knock scroll, they can cast the ritual once. If they have the ritual in a book, they can cast it as much as they want, if they have the necessary components.

This is the first time knock has a component cost. I think this is just because all rituals in 4e have a component cost (have to limit them somehow I suppose - 5e would change this, IMO for the worse). It also makes sense considering that 3e introduced a component cost for arcane lock.

I like the idea of the spell requiring a key carved from bone and etched with arcane symbols (a literal skeleton key) which crumbles into dust after the spell is cast. I suppose the ritual requires a healing surge because it's draining for the caster or their assistants (either can provide the necessary healing surge). I really like 4e's use of healing surges as meta currency and wish 5e did more with its hit dice.

I also like how opening a lock is now a skill check, with multiple locks or closures requiring multiple checks. If the rogue has to do it, the ritual caster should too! The description points to the Thievery skill for its DCs, which are 20 (Heroic tier), 30 (Paragon tier), and 35 (Epic tier). It doesn't seem fair that the ritual caster then gets a bonus to the check, presumably preserving their better-than-the-rogue abilities, but maybe there's something about the math that I'm not accounting for due to my unfamiliarity with 4e.

Knock no longer automatically opens the door, chest, gate, etc.! You still have to physically open the thing. It also destroys an arcane lock, which is too bad. No more automatic door traps.

It's important not to miss what the description is omitting! The range isn't specified (I assume it's roughly equivalent to every other version of the spell). Knock doesn't affect secret or stuck doors or chains anymore. The chains thing always seemed weird to me. The secret doors change is a good one. Players should have to figure out how to open those! Unfortunately, the days of more powerful spellcasters being able to open bigger doors are also at an end.

4e's version of arcane lock is similarly interesting:

Now, the Arcana check of the caster sets the DC to open the lock. This is an elegant solution to the "a wizard X or more levels higher than the the one casting the spell" mechanic. Now, the arcane lock caster sets the DC, and the creature trying to beat the lock has to beat the DC. Simple.

Let's not miss perhaps the most important change: You can now open an arcane lock with Thievery! Rogues and the like are not rendered useless by an arcane lock. The way that I read it is that arcane lock can magically reinforce an existing physical locking mechanism on the door, making it more challenging for a Thievery-using character to open. If the door has no physical locking mechanism and arcane lock is instead simply magically holding the door shut, I don't think Thievery would apply.

In addition, the caster can now designate specific individuals or categories of creatures who can open the door at will. The caster can also set a password, which introduces yet another way to bypass the lock.

In addition to now being destroyed by knock, arcane lock is now also destroyed by a successful Thievery check. The caster also knows instantly when the arcane lock is defeated, meaning it doubles as an alarm spell. That makes it a lot more difficult to break into the wizard's vault.

5e rolls back many of 4e's changes and adds a new spin to the spell:

No longer is knock a ritual. Its range is shorter than ever (unless I'm missing something about the 4e version) - 5e took the 60 yard range from pre-Wizards of the Coast D&D but kept feet as the standard unit of measure from 3e, resulting in a range of 60 feet. The spell once again does not require costly components. It affects any "object that contains a mundane or magical means that prevents access". It affects stuck doors again. It only unlocks one lock at a time. It once more only temporarily suppresses an arcane lock.

The author of the spell saved my favorite change for last. A real juicy sucker punch of a sentence: "When you cast the spell, a loud knock, audible from as far away as 300 feet, emanates from the target object." 

Aside from more powerful spellcasters being able to open bigger doors (no I won't let that one go), this is my favorite change yet. This is the best disincentive to using knock. How badly does the party need to open this thing? Are they willing to alert potentially all of the dungeon's inhabitants? What if those inhabitants come looking for them? They'll have to loot the vault quickly and then make a run for it. Can they use the spell as a diversion? Can they use it to set a trap? Should they cast a silence spell first?

It's fantastic.

The 2024 version of the spell is identical, albeit written more tersely and with Game Terms capitalized according to that style. 

5e's arcane lock preserves some of 4e's changes and blends in a bit of 3e:

You can still designate creatures that can bypass the lock, and you can still set a password. Knock only temporarily suppresses the lock. Instead of setting the DC with a spellcasting check like in 4e, you simply add 10 to the existing DC like in 3e. 5e still allows for the possibility of picking a magically augmented lock. 

The 2024 version doesn't seem to change much:

Unfortunately, you can no longer pick a lock affected by arcane lock. It reads as if you can still destroy the door or force it open, but no guidelines are given for modifying the DC. As seems to often be the case with the 2024 rules, this version offers only (often detrimental) simplification without clarity or innovation.

What's your favorite version of knock? How about wizard/arcane lock? The original versions are short and simple, AD&D's are more complex, 3e doesn't change much, 4e totally reworks both spells, and 5e brings them back to their roots with at least one brand new twist. 

Personally, I like some combination of AD&D's weird specificity, 4e's skill contests with a cost, and 5e's clever complications. There's just one problem that no version of knock has ever solved. The caster should have to physically knock on the door! That really grinds my gears. 

Here's my own version of knock, combining some of my favorite elements from several iterations:

Knock

2nd-level transmutation (ritual)

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Target: A stuck door or a door, box, chest, set of manacles, or other closed object secured with a lock, bar, arcane lock, or other means preventing access, with a surface area no larger than 10 square feet x your spellcaster level

Components: V, S, M (a key carved from bone and etched with silver-inlaid arcane symbols worth at least 25 gp, which the spell consumes)

Duration: Instantaneous

Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard 

 

Make a spellcasting ability check with proficiency against the lock, stuck, or barred door's DC. On a success, a target that is held shut by a mundane lock or that is stuck or barred becomes unlocked, unstuck, or unbarred. If the object has multiple locks, you may continue to make spellcasting ability checks until all locks are unlocked or until you fail.

 

If you choose a target that is held shut with arcane lock, make a spellcasting ability check against the DC set by the caster of arcane lock. On a success, that spell is suppressed for 10 minutes, during which time the target can be opened and shut normally.

 

If you know the mage hand spell, you can use your mage hand to deliver the knock. 

When you cast the spell, a loud knock, audible from as far away as 300 feet, emanates from the target object.

(Written for 5e, but you could easily use it with almost any edition by just changing or omitting certain details.)

The spell is now a ritual, which increases its utility, for better or worse. It has a component cost however, so it isn't necessarily spam-able (not that the 25 gp will be much to player characters for long). The caster has to physically knock on the object (unless they have mage hand, which I thought was a fun twist). We're also bringing back the limitation on the size of the target object, because of course we are. 

Because expert characters like rogues are likely to have expertise with thieves' tools, and the knock spell only grants proficiency on the spellcasting check, rogues are still likely to be better lockpickers than their spellcasting counterparts, but a spellcaster remains a viable substitution if a rogue isn't around. If the target is affected by an arcane lock, it triggers a skill contest, which I feel better represents the different capabilities of more or less powerful spellcasters accounted for in arcane lock's early iterations.

And here is my version of arcane lock:

Arcane Lock

2nd-level abjuration (ritual)

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Target: A closed door, window, gate, chest, or other entryway, with a surface area no larger than 10 square feet x your spellcaster level

Components: V, S, M (gold dust worth at least 25 gp, which you use to etch arcane glyphs on the object's surface, and which the spell consumes)

Duration: Until dispelled

Classes: Artificer, Wizard 

The target becomes locked and held fast for the duration. You and the creatures you designate when you cast this spell can open the object normally. You can also set a password that, when spoken within 5 feet of the object, suppresses this spell for 1 minute. Otherwise, it is impassable until it is broken or the spell is dispelled or suppressed. 

When you cast this spell, make a spellcasting ability check with proficiency. The result of your check determines the DC required for a knock spell to suppress your arcane lock.

While affected by this spell, the object is more difficult to break or force open, and any physical locks on it are more difficult to pick. The object's AC increased by 2, and it is treated as one size larger for the purposes of determining its hit points. The DC to force the object open or pick any locks on it increases by 10. If the object's locks are successfully picked, the spell continues to hold the object shut.

As with knock, I made arcane lock a ritual and added the limit on the area of effect (couldn't help myself). I made the arcane lock tougher to physically destroy and clarified that picking the locks still requires the door to be forced. 

In my mind, the spell is both making the lock tougher and physically reinforcing the door. Picking the lock doesn't remove the spell, but it makes forcing the door easier than if you were to try forcing the door with multiple locks in place. Hopefully that makes sense.

And that's knock and wizard/arcane lock! They're two classic spells that have gone through a variety of iterations. I am surprised by both the similarities and differences from one version to another, and delighted by the little intricacies and the ways in which each edition's quirks manifest in the spells' descriptions. They are interesting and iconic spells which are often written off for causing problems, but which I personally feel are just additional magical tools - one most likely to be used by the players to solve problems, and another to be used by the DM to cause them (in a good way).

Review: The Goblin Grinder (Mörk Borg)

The Goblin Grinder is a scenario for Mörk Borg. It is written by Ripley Caldwell, with graphic design and art by Johan Nohr, and editing by the Moonrat Conspiracy (Fiona Maeve Geist and Jarrett Crader).

Johan's cover art is a delightful collage of weapons and body parts splattered with neon pink gore and viscera:

This segues nicely into the scenario's introduction, where we're told that the streets of Galgenbeck (Mörk Borg's "greatest city that ever was") are littered with the "twisted, inhuman" corpses of goblins: "Their mottled, ropy flesh rots but never decomposes; even the oldest skins in the darkest alleys hold their shape to warn passersby of their swiftly approaching end."

Why are there so many goblin corpses in the streets? Well, there is also an infestation of live goblins. It sounds less like they are killing people and more like they are causing Gremlins-esque mischief. They are also afflicting the Galgenbeckians with the dreaded Goblin Curse.

What's the Goblin Curse? To find out, we'll have to check out the selection of creatures in Mörk Borg's core rulebook:

Maybe that's too hard to read (I just love the way monsters are presented in the Mörk Borg rulebook). Try the barebones edition:

When Mörk Borg's goblins attack you, you become cursed. Doesn't matter if the attack hits. The curse turns you into a goblin unless you kill the goblin that attacked you. I love this, because it makes Mörk Borg's goblins unique. I also hate it once I think about it for more than a second.

If a goblin is standing atop a 600-foot cliff and shoots at you with an arrow and runs away, you're cursed now. There is no way you're ever finding that goblin. In one to six days you become a goblin, and nothing can save you. Tear up that character sheet.

I would probably never use this in my game. At most, I'd say the curse is transmitted by a successful bite attack or something. If the goblin gets close enough to bite you and then slips away, at least you have a reasonable chance of chasing it down before you turn.

Anyway, all that is just to say that this scenario, in which Mörk Borg's "greatest city that ever was" is infested with comically-easily-transmitted curse-carrying goblins seems more like an outright apocalyptic event rather than anything the PCs can actually hope to resolve. I've seen Gremlins. I know how hard it was to deal with the gremlins - and the gremlins weren't turning everyone else into gremlins simply by looking at them. The scenario strains credibility immediately. If I'm a player, knowing what there is to know about goblins, I'm not going near that place.

But wait, there's hope! The local alchemist, Nagel Krat, is selling a cure for 40 silver. He's increasing the price each day as demand grows...

SPOILERS for the Goblin Grinder!

The next page after the hook describes "What's Really Going On?" and gives a list of reasons "Why Do the PCs Care About Any of This?"

It turns out that the alchemist Nagel Krat recently inherited both a Medickal Shoppe and a Derelict Mill from his father, Urvan Krat, who recently died of poison from an unidentified assassin. In the mill, Nagel found alchemical supplies and a machine called The Goblin Grinder. 

Nagel came up with a scheme to make goblins out of human corpses using the Goblin Grinder (it is implied but not explicitly stated that the Goblin Grinder turns human corpses into goblins - there is no indication as to what the machine actually is, how it achieves this, or why Urvan had it to begin with). To procure corpses, Nagel hired a gravedigger named Qarg. The corpses are fed into the Goblin Grinder to create corpses. The goblins infest Galgenbeck and curse people. Meanwhile, Nagel uses his alchemical supplies to produce a "cure" which does not actually cure the curse, but delays the transformation. He sells it to everyone and raises the prices every day. Infinite profit!

To rub it in my face a bit, this page has a reminder: "Anyone attacked by a goblin irrevocably transforms into one in d6 days, unless the attacking goblin is killed before then. Any attack is sufficient - it doesn't even need to be a successful hit. Goblins suck."

Yes, they do. 

So, why do the PCs care? There are four options: they're afflicted with the curse and can't keep up with rising prices, Nagel hires them as Medickal Shoppe guards, they're hired by a noble to investigate, or they're hired by a worried peasant. 

If you run goblins by the book, the PCs are certain to be cursed (not to beat a dead horse, but it's trivially easy to become cursed, and the city is infested with goblins), but there's no cure for the curse except to kill the offending goblin. What if a goblin jumps out at them first thing, then runs off into the city streets and eludes them? What are the chances that they find that goblin again? There is no conclusion to this scenario that ends with all the goblins dropping dead at once. It simply doesn't seem fair to me!

If Nagel hires the PCs as guards...what do they do? They just guard the shop against rowdy Galgenbeckians until what exactly happens? There's no actual hook to get the PCs into the meat of the scenario.

If a random peasant who "isn't able to pay, per se" tries to hire the PCs, they're probably going to tell him to buzz off. He does offer to trade a family heirloom in exchange for the PCs' service - it's a "magic" pearl which is hilariously and uselessly cursed. Even if all the PCs know is that it's a pearl, I hardly see this as sufficient motivation.

Mörk Borg is a bleak world inhabited by nasty people. It's not heroic fantasy! If you use the optional tables in the rulebook for generating character traits, you end up with a bunch of PCs who are aggravated, cruel, egocentric, nihilistic, vindictive, cowardly, lazy, bitter, deceitful, and arrogant (to name a few). The world is ending. Why do anything? For money! Even that is a tenuous motivation, considering there isn't that much to buy, but you can at least justify it as flawed people wanting to indulge themselves before the end of the world comes to pass. 

For that reason, I'm using the noble patron every time, and I don't see any reason why this scenario needs a d4 table of mostly useless hooks.

The next page introduces the notable characters:

The Bastard is the goblin leader, and somewhat explains why the goblins don't just attack Nagel Krat. He seems pretty nasty, as he makes the goblins fighting around him tougher and harder to shake. (For context, defense in Mörk Borg is normally DR 12, but is DR 14 against goblins specifically. The Bastard raises it again to DR 16. PCs can get up to +6 to their abilities, but the average character will have +0 unless they've survived a few scenarios already.)

Nagel Krat's description makes explicit the obvious: he killed his father. I'm not sure why the scenario tries to conceal that fact in the "What's Really Going On?" section, which reveals all of Nagel's other secrets. The fact that Nagel runs back to the mill at any sign of trouble suggests a path forward for the "PCs are hired guards" scenario - perhaps some Galgenbeckians attempt to loot the Medickal Shoppe, Nagel flees to the mill, and the PCs have to follow him there. If that is the intention, it'd be great if the hook on the previous page made that apparent.

Qarg is something of a nonentity. The PCs can bribe her to leave her post at the shop (I can imagine a few reasons the PCs might think to do so) or miss a delivery (why? Nagel doesn't really need to keep making goblins, since the nature of the curse perpetuates them anyway). I would simply say the PCs can bribe her to cooperate more generally.

Next, the Medickal Shoppe is detailed. Here Nagel sells the goblin cure (we're told that the price increases by 5 silver each day - props for making that explicit rather than leaving it to GM fiat), flash powder, "healing" tincture, invigorating elixir (basically speed), and apple juice. 

Nagel also keeps a crate of goblins behind the counter, which he releases in case of emergency. If the PCs aren't already suspicious of Nagel, his keeping a crate of goblins in his shop might lead them to consider him a suspect. 

But, I honestly don't see why they would be investigating the shop unless explicitly pointed in this direction by their patron - as far as anyone knows the goblin cure is real, and it wouldn't be surprising to see some ruthless capitalist taking advantage of the situation to their benefit. That doesn't clearly signpost that Nagel is responsible for everything. Maybe the PCs are there for another reason - the "guarding the shop" hook, or to steal as much cure as they can carry - and the goblins are revealed somehow and the adventure propels itself from there.

Still, I'm concerned over how tenuous the whole thing is. Nagel is obviously an unsavory character, but as I mentioned, so is everyone in the Mörk Borg world. Unsavoriness does not warrant suspicion in this setting. The only reason to be suspicious of Nagel in the first place is because he's like, the only character in the scenario. Isn't Galgenbeck "the greatest city that ever was"? Couldn't there be like, an investigation with different characters and locations?

The description of the goblin cure on this page also states: "Not actually a cure, but nobody knows that yet." Oh? So if the PCs only goal is to get a cure (as with one of the four suggested scenario hooks), they could just go and buy the cure, drink it, assume it worked, then turn into goblins in d6 days anyway? So their characters are essentially dead through no fault of their own?

It feels like the only reliable way to run this scenario is to say, "There's a goblin infestation in Galgenbeck. A noble has hired you to investigate and eliminate the source of the goblins. A local alchemist has been selling phony goblin cures, so she recommends you start there." And that's honestly fine with me. It just isn't how the scenario is presented.

Lastly, the scenario describes the Derelict Mill where Nagel keeps the Goblin Grinder. This is a neat little linear dungeon with a bit of time pressure - whenever the PCs linger, Nagel makes a goblin. I would qualify that statement with "If Nagel is here", since he spends a lot of time at the shop as well - although as written there's not much to point the PCs in this direction unless they're chasing Nagel.

The tower's ground floor features an encounter with three goblins and a cannon. They shoot the cannon at anyone walking in. Cool! (Kind of weird considering that Nagel and Qarg both also come through this door, but the goblins are "Given a chance to fire a cannon and are going to take it no matter what.") The cannon kills anyone it hits.

The cannon firing also alerts all of the other goblins in the mill. In the room above are three goblin arches on top of bookshelves. One of them douses the PCs in oil as they climb the stairs. The others shoot flaming arrows at them. Cool!

The next room is a laboratory filled with unstable reagents. Every round, there's a 2-in-6 chance of something bubbling over and causing a reaction. There's also an ooze monster lying in wait. Weapons stick to it and eventually melt. Cool!

Finally, at the top of the tower is Nagel Krat (again, assuming he's here), the Bastard, two goblins plus however many Nagel had time to create while the PCs climbed the tower, and the Goblin Grinder. This has the potential to be a pretty nasty fight, and Nagel can use his smoke bombs to escape at any time.

We still learn nothing about what the Goblin Grinder is or how it came to be here. We learn that it requires a key, fuel, and a human corpse to work. We don't know how it works or how to destroy it. It's also worth noting that even if Nagel and the Bastard are killed and the Goblin Grinder destroyed somehow, none of this solves the goblin infestation in Galgenbeck. The curse is self-perpetuating. There is no cure. The scenario has no resolution.

Ultimately, I was pretty disappointed by this one. The Goblin Grinder is one of the most frequently recommended Mörk Borg scenarios. I'm sure there's fun to be had, but it also feels like there's work to do. Here's what I'd change/make more explicit:

• Goblins transmit their curse via bite. This reduces the infestation to a smaller scale which feels more believable.
• The PCs are hired by a noble to investigate. I would point them towards a specific district in the city which has been quarantined to contain the outbreak.
• The PCs can ask around and learn about Nagel's shop and the mill. The mill makes a lot of noise at night (the Goblin Grinder is loud), but people assume that's just Nagel making cures late into the night, struggling to meet demand. Some people claim to have seen goblins in and around the mill. Others claim that Nagel's cures are phony.
• The PCs can investigate the shop or mill in whatever order. Nagel is at the shop during the day and the mill at night. If the PCs go to the mill during the day, maybe the Bastard is there making goblins? He doesn't do anything else, so I don't see why not.
• If confronted at the store, Nagel releases his goblins and flees to the mill. The PCs can chase him or question Qarg to find out what's going on.
• The PCs can stake out the mill and see Qarg delivering bodies in the dead of night, and see goblins emerging from within.
• The Bastard is keeping all the goblins together. If he's killed, they all run off into Galgenbeck's surrounding lands and eventually into the wilderness.

I feel like those are some pretty big changes from the material as written, but this set up gives PCs a clear motivation and suggests a direction in which to start their investigation, while allowing them freedom to explore and conduct the investigation in the order they like. It doesn't rely on the PCs having a specific encounter at a specific location to point them towards the next location. It has a resolution.

All that being said, I would be remiss not to conclude by praising the art and layout of this one. Johan Nohr's art is, as usual, evocative, stylish, whimsical, and hideous all at once. The layout is as easy to use as many of Mörk Borg's other official scenarios (which is to say, very useable). There are some pieces of information I'd move around or signpost earlier in the text, but it's not a big problem. 

I love a scenario that sticks to one striking color, and the neon pink here looks fantastic. I can't help but compare it to Mothership's A Pound of Flesh, which for some reason uses like, 8 point white font on a similar neon pink background, which is totally unreadable to me in most environments (I sincerely don't understand why Mörk Borg gets so much backlash for its stylistic choices while Mothership is constantly praised for the same, but this is neither the time nor place).

Anyway, that's the Goblin Grinder. I don't love it, but I'll try running it anyway. It's salvageable. It looks fantastic.

You can download the Goblin Grinder for free on the Mörk Borg website (direct link here). 

If you want a physical copy, you have to purchase Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory. I highly recommend it! In addition to the Goblin Grinder, you get rules for traveling between the locations of the Mörk Borg world and hunting its creatures (including a bunch of new monsters), the Death Ziggurat scenario (which I previously reviewed and liked a lot), a d66 table of magic items, four new classes, Dark Fort (the solo game upon which Mörk Borg developed), and more. Get it!