Lost in the Desert: Does Dungeon Module B4's Hook Work?

The setup for Dungeon Module B4: The Lost City is as follows:

The player characters are traveling with a desert caravan when a sandstorm separates them and causes them to become lost. They wander the desert for days. Their mounts die, and they drink all of their water and eat all of their food. They stumble upon a ruined city with a pyramid at its center. An open door leads inside. With no provisions and nowhere else to go, the party has no choice but to enter.

This is a pretty good setup for a dungeon-focused module with just 30-some pages of content. It gets the characters to the dungeon and forces them to go inside and explore it. For low level characters, the dungeon is the default mode of play, so it makes sense to just plop them down in front of it right away and get on with it. 

The fact that the characters are stuck in the desert with only the dungeon as a source of shelter and provisions is emphasized several times in the text:

It's a neat idea for a scenario, but in my reading of the module, I found that this bore little fruit. In the beginning, you get stuff like this (Room 4):

Aside from the coinage itself, the full water bottle will probably feel like a sick score for the players, who are constantly being reminded how thirsty their characters are. I will assume that a "full water bottle" is enough water to sustain one character for one day, so not a huge get considering B4 recommends a party of 6 to 10 characters:

But then that's the only mention of food and water as treasure until we get to Room 11, which says:

This is the Brotherhood of Gorm's forward operating post in the upper levels of the pyramid. They keep their food and water here. How much food and water? Well...enough. This is repeated in other areas in which members of the factions are found. There are five Brothers of Gorm here, so if the players decide to fight them, we might say they have enough food and water in this room to provision five people for a day or something of that nature.

But the point of this is not necessarily to kill the Brothers and take their food and water. Rather, if the party joins the Brotherhood (or one of the dungeon's other factions), then the faction will be able to provide them with a sustainable source of food and water (and other supplies), as indicated here:

We later find out that each faction has a proper stronghold in the underground Lost City and that they have secret means of traveling between it and the pyramid:

It only takes half a day for messengers from one of the factions to travel back and forth:

The characters can also (at the DM's option) safely rest in the areas controlled by each faction. 

This incentivizes the players to align themselves with one of the factions quickly.  This then forces difficult situations on them down the road when they encounter the other factions:

Except that savvy players will already know that aligning themselves with a faction is advantageous regardless of whether or not they have provisions. Maybe I'm being unfair. This is, after all, a basic adventure aimed at players new to the game, so some extra scaffolding might be needed to point the players towards social play and away from murder-hoboism.

My issue is that the whole "You're lost in the desert and must rely on the dungeon for provisions" scenario is pretty much immediately negated by giving the party potentially limitless access to said provisions.

That in itself is not so much of a problem. I find the food and water provisioning aspect of D&D to be only somewhat engaging and often quickly handwave-able. 

Provisioning is often cited as a logistical challenge players must overcome to engage in wilderness expeditions, so let's assume we're running a scenario like that. If the party crosses over or is traveling alongside a river or stream (of which there are often several in my games, because they present the characters with both obstacles as well as a secondary type of "road" to aid their navigation), then I assume they fill their water skins. The party usually has a chunk of the day between traveling overland and actually sleeping during which they can hunt and forage, which provides them with a (uncertain) source of food. Once they have a mule or some other pack animal (which they could easily come to possess before even setting out on their first adventure), I assume they're packing ample food and water unless said mule gets carried off by a giant bird or something. 

The dramatic question is rarely if ever "Can the party afford enough food and water for their expedition?" and far more often "Can the party carry enough food and water for their expedition?" Once they have some pack animals, the dramatic question is handily answered so long as said animals remain alive and in their possession.

There are also spells which can purify or create food and water. The decision to commit your one spell per day to something like that is somewhat interesting, but only briefly, while spells per day are scarce (though it must be said that in OD&D this is limited to the cleric's 1st level purify food and water spell, then the 4th level create water and the 5th level create food, which are costly spells indeed).

All that is to say that I don't really care that B4 quickly gives the DM an excuse to provide the player characters with as much food and water as they need. It does, however, raise the question as to whether the setup is necessary at all. This becomes pertinent when you consider other complications which the scenario creates.

Namely, how is XP for treasure supposed to be awarded? Or, more aptly, when is it awarded? In Dungeon Module B1, for example, we're told that XP is awarded for treasure only when said treasure is removed from the dungeon (and presumably brought back to town):

This is the same rule of thumb used in B2:

This is preserved in OSE as well:

So, how is this addressed in B4? Well, it isn't. The module never explains how the DM is meant to award XP within these unusual circumstances. Do the characters get XP as soon as they find treasure? Do they have to bring it back somewhere? If so, where?

The easiest solution is to go back to the bit about characters joining factions. If the characters join a faction, the DM might rule that the faction's headquarters are "safe" from wandering monsters and that the party can rest there. So we might say that the characters are awarded XP when they bring the treasure back to that location. It is apparently trivially easy for the factions to travel to and from the Lost City (which is, after all, a city), so perhaps they are safely storing the party's treasure in their stronghold as it comes flowing in.

This works well enough, but I do find it a bit unsatisfying. Take, for example, this:

2,000 silver pieces weighs as much as four suits of plate mail. In a normal scenario, bringing this back to town to get the XP might require its own trip, distributing the weight across multiple party members, or the use of pack animals or porters, all of which introduce their own complications. But this treasure is in Room 7, and the Brotherhood of Gorm is in Room 11 (right next door), so what could be a meaningful logistical challenge instead turns into only a minor delay if the party has joined the Brotherhood.

(As an aside, the treasure in Room 7 belongs to the Brotherhood of Gorm and is guarded by killer bees who have somehow been trained to recognize the Brothers, so presumably the Brothers will not be happy to learn that the party has murdered their bees, stolen their treasure, and brought it back for safekeeping on the party's behalf. That is to say, I'm aware that the example is not a good one, but the general point I'm making is hopefully still salient, which is that moving treasure from one room of a dungeon to another to be safeguarded by NPCs is considerably easier than bringing the same treasure from the dungeon back to town yourself.)

These large amounts of coin are encountered very often in the dungeon:

Since the faction headquarters are found in the early levels of the dungeon, this becomes less of a problem as the party delves deeper. That is, they will still have to backtrack quite a bit to bring the treasure to a "safe" place. However, taking into consideration that the party moves five times as fast when retracing a previously mapped route through the dungeon, it still isn't such a huge drawback.

What if the party angers the faction which holds all their treasure? What if the faction is treacherous? They can still lose access to the treasure, but the XP has already been gained. Was the treasure ever really secured?

Let's say that we're okay with handwaving food and water once the party joins a faction and we're comfortable letting the party offload the responsibility of transporting treasure to said faction. What else is lost when we trap the party in a dungeon as in B4?

When the players decide to return to town (to bring back their treasure for XP, to heal, or to reprovision), they must engage in a risk-reward calculation. Is it worth it to leave the dungeon now, and can the risk of doing so be tolerated? 

One possibility they must account for is that the dungeon might change while they're away. If they have allies in the dungeon, perhaps their enemies will act against said allies while they're gone. A room which they previously cleared of monsters might become reoccupied. A rival adventuring party might claim some of the dungeon's treasure for themselves. 

The dungeon is alive, and while the party is gone, it breathes and eats and bleeds. There's still opportunity for this if the party is resting in a faction's lair, but returning to town every so often takes more time, which provides more time for the dungeon to change.

Another possible risk is that of outdoor encounters. If the way from the dungeon back to town is known, the party still must contend with outdoor encounters on their forays back and forth. Is it worth it to bring this amount of treasure back to town now, knowing that along the way the party might encounter a gang of teenaged dragons or a warband of 100 orcs? Every trek through the wilderness is a gamble with fate. When the party spends the entire campaign in the dungeon, the game lacks the variety and high stakes posed by these expeditions.

Lastly, it's worth mentioning that trapping the party in the dungeon greatly limits the variety of play environments with which the players can engage. There is no wilderness. There is no settlement play. There are no outdoor monster lairs. There are no strongholds. All of these environments contribute their own unique play experiences to the campaign, and a campaign feels somewhat incomplete without representation for all of them.

That being said, the Lost City itself has some potential as a sandbox which the players can explore once they delve deep enough. It is a City, after all. It has strongholds:

It has monster lairs:

It has wilderness:

I think this could work a bit better if the party could access the Lost City more quickly. Since the factions can travel back and forth to the Lost City quite easily, I don't see why the party couldn't befriend them enough to gain access to those same secret routes, which would open up more gameplay possibilities much sooner. The factions' secret passages are not shown on the dungeon map, however, presumably because the Lost City is left unfinished, and allowing the party to use those passages might present too much of a burden for the beginner DM.

I think there are two ways forward for Dungeon Module B4 if I were to consider running it myself. 

Option 1 is to disregard the "lost in the desert" scenario hook entirely. Instead, place the dungeon in a proper sandbox and have the dungeon recently unearthed in the desert, with a gold rush of adventurers hurrying to explore it and claim its treasures. Place settlements, other dungeons, monster lairs, and strongholds as you normally would.

Option 2 is to keep the "lost in the desert" hook, but focus on developing the Lost City itself into a miniature sandbox, ensuring that it has all the appropriate location types to explore. Then, once the party joins one of the module's factions and earns their trust somehow, give them access to the City and let them run wild down there. The module has a few suggestions for further adventures once the party reaches the City.

Option 2 appeals to me, since Option 1 requires finishing the module anyway as well as adding a whole other level on top of it in the form of the "overworld" sandbox. Still, I do vastly prefer making the party trek back and forth overland between delves. Getting a faction to escort them back and forth to the City feels a bit easy, but it would also be easier from a prepping perspective.

Overall, I think B4 is a bit too ambitious for its own restraints. The dungeon itself is good, until you get to the lower levels which are entirely undeveloped in the module. Fortunately, these are optional, but the fact that developing the titular Lost City itself is entirely up to the DM is a major tease and a disappointment. It presents a great opportunity for a sicko like me, but I can imagine it being a source of frustration for a beginner DM (or someone who just doesn't have a lot of time) who wants a more complete package from a module.

The "lost in the desert" hook is an evocative one, but I'm not entirely sure it works. I like that it incentivizes the players to make nice with at least one faction (and in so doing, pits them against the others), but I dislike how much of D&D's variety is omitted as a result. That being said, if you developed the Lost City itself into a proper sandbox (as the module suggests you should) and gave the players access to all it has to offer much sooner, I think B4 could make a strong foundation for a more long-term sandbox campaign.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 13)

We played the thirteenth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 3 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 1 (Maya)
• Zommernar, CN elf fighter 1 (Nael)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)

Last we played, the party found the goblin Tobb imprisoned inside a chamber in the orcs' lair. The chamber also contained a carving of a fiendish looking idol surrounded by religious symbols and runes. Tobb was combative at first, but upon hearing that the party had slain Drak the orc, Tobb threw himself at their feet and offered to be their slave. Llombaerth could sense a dormant and ancient malevolent presence when he touched the stone carving. Robbernar examined the markings and concluded that they were consistent with pagan barbarian markings, older than Quasqueton itself. Fearing what power the stone might contain, the party convinced Tobb to stay there and ensure that the other goblins did not interact with.

The party left Quasqueton with their treasure in tow. Since they had been in the dungeon so long, it was now evening, and they decided to camp outside the ruins before beginning their trek. 

In the middle of the night a shambling, robed figure approached their camp. It did not radiate any heat when viewed with infravision. The party loosed arrows at it, which had no effect. It affixed them with a baleful gaze, its red pinpricks for eyes causing most of the party to flee back inside the ruin in terror. Llombaerth watched from a distance as the figure rummaged through the party's belongings and pocketed the engraved silver plaque which had once been gifted to Erig, Quasqueton's captain of guards. The figure then wandered off and vanished into thin air.

The goblins inside the dungeon told the party that they had encountered the Ghost of Quasqueton, and that they were lucky that it had not demanded all of their treasure as tribute.

The following day, the party descended the hillside and struck out into the forest. The day was uneventful, and they made camp for the night. As they were preparing to sleep, they spotted a pair of animals that looked like bears circling their camp. A pair of owlbears burst through the bushes on either side of them. Mirkle slowed the first owlbear with caltrops while Llombaerth set the second on fire. The flaming owlbear pressed the attack against Robbernar, clobbering him with a claw before tearing his throat out with its beak.

The first owlbear fled into the woods while the second continued to attack. Bronson stood in front of it, waving his troch, and got his head knocked off by a swipe from its claw. Mirkle set her spear against its charge and skewered it. It fled the next round, and Llombaerth put an arrow in its back, killing it.

We picked up from there. The party built a cairn for Bronson and stripped Robbernar of any equipment and valuables. They hung his body up in a tree to keep giant ticks away (the players decided that since elves have no souls, they have no attachment to the bodies of their dead, and are okay with them being used for purposes such as this). Llombaerth took the owlbear's head.

While the party went about their work, they heard people approaching. An elf and two mercenaries appeared. It was Zommernar, daughter of Robbernar, here to find her father. The party let her know that she just missed him. Zommernar went through her father's belongings and took what equipment she needed. The two mercenaries were Bilodeau and Graves. Zommernar had paid them for two weeks' service.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. The light winds from the previous day persisted, and it was now unseasonably hot as well. It would normally take them an hour and twenty minutes to get clear of the forest at their current movement rate (encumbered by their treasure). Because of the heat, it would take even longer - about two hours. It would take another eight hours to cross the farmland south of Timbershore, so they would have to force march to reach town in time.

It was a long, hard trek, with frequent stops to rest and hydrate, but the party made it back to town without any additional encounters. At the gate, they paid their entrance fees and duties and tariffs on their treasure and headed inside. Not wanting to get fined for carrying foreign currency, they headed to the money changer right away. I also awarded experience points for the recovered treasure at this time, but no one leveled up (Mirkle and Zommernar received only partial XP because both Maya and Nael's characters had died mid-expedition).

The party decided to track down a wizard to determine if any of their treasure items were magical. They asked around and learned about three powerful spellcasters in town: Albertyna, a wizard who lived in a manse in the River Ward, Blanchefleur, a feared cleric who lived in the shell keep in the Chapel Ward, and Lambrecht, the wizard who ruled over all of the town from his castle in the High Ward. Since the party was already in the River Ward, and because Albertyna sounded like the most welcoming of the three, they decided to seek her out.

It was evening now. As they made their way to Albertyna's manse, they encountered a foppish dandy and a noblewoman out for a stroll, accompanied by two armed guards. The woman was tipsy and the dandy was considerably drunk, stumbling, slurring his words, and laughing at his own jokes. The woman seemed perturbed. 

The party stood aside for them, and Zommernar tipped her cap to the lady. The dandy said something unintelligible, stumbled, and reached to the lady to support himself, tearing at her dress. The woman's face reddened, she backed away, and one of the guards moved to separate the two. The woman began casting a spell, and suddenly the man began to float in the air. The woman made gestures with her hands and the man began to turn in midair. Sickened, he vomited on the street below.

The party asked the woman if she might happen to be the wizard Albertyna, to which she said yes. The party explained that they had been seeking her out just now, and wondered if she might be able to examine some items for them. She explained that this sort of work was a bit beneath her, but that an underling of hers, Thibaud, could help them. They gifted her with the pewter-studded cloak they had found in Quasqueton, which seemed to endear them to her.

Llombaerth showed her the owlbear head (which he was carrying around this whole time), which seemed to disgust her. She explained that such creatures had haunted the woods since Zelligar's time, and that there were many who believed the mad wizard was responsible for their creation. The party asked if Lambrecht might offer a reward for killing them, but she doubted it. She suggested that, as Lambrecht's agent, she might be able to requisition funds for such a purpose. She instructed the party to visit her manse the following morning. 

As Albertyna departed, the foppish dandy, now unconscious, slowly drifted to the ground. The party rifled through his clothing and found some pocket change and four gems, three of which Llombaerth identified as being worth 500 gold pieces each! This alone was enough to get Llombaerth to level 4! At this point I'm considering doing away with 2e's class-based XP rewards, because it is getting a little silly and I feel bad for the rest of the party lagging behind.

The party took the dandy's fine clothes for good measure and dumped his unconscious body in a rubbish bin, then headed back to the Mooring Post to spend the night. Lambrecht enlisted the staff there to boil the flesh from the owlbear's head and return the skull to him, intending to turn it into a helmet.

The next morning, the heatwave persisted, but the winds had let up. The party headed over the Albertyna's manse, where they were met by Janek, an ornery middle-aged fighter who demanded they state their business. After a few turns of being needlessly annoying (and accepting a bribe), he summoned Thibaud, who proceeded to be annoying as well. Mirkle wisely complimented the wizard's stylish hat (a top hat with three tiers, like a wedding cake), which earned them entry to the manse.

They proceeded to Thibaud's study, a dark chamber which the wizard dramatically illuminated with a light spell. "That is but a fraction of the power I wield!" he declared. The magical light glittered gaudily off of a large statue of a nude woman. 

The party laid out their items, including their copper and silver inlaid bronze statuette (also of a nude woman), which Thibaud lustily groped, licking his lips. "Where did you find this beautiful specimen?" he asked. The party explained that they had been to Quasqueton, and believed the statue to be a depiction of the stronghold's mistress.

That gave Thibaud pause. Apparently, Lambrecht had been searching for the stronghold, and would be none too pleased to find that some upstart adventurers had located it and begun to plunder its riches. Of course, he was obligated to inform Lambrecht of their trespass. The party explained that there was an even larger, more beautiful statue of a nude woman still in the stronghold, and wouldn't it be a shame if it were to fall into Lambrecht's hands? Thibaud coyly agreed that this would be a waste of such a priceless work of art.

The party traded the statuette in exchange for Thibaud's services in detecting any magic. No magic items were present, but Thibaud was interested in buying the bearskin (a rug would really tie the room together), plus the ring and the pearl the party had recovered in their first expedition. The party made the sale and headed to the manse's opposite wing to meet with Albertyna.

They found Albertyna in her study, brewing a hangover remedy using her elaborate alchemy set. She welcomed them in to have a seat. She had considered the possibility of a bounty for the owlbears and agreed to give the party 50 gold pieces for each owlbear slain, with the potential for a bonus if they rooted out the owlbears in their lair.

The party decided to inform Albertyna of their expeditions to Quasqueton. This troubled Albertyna. She explained that Lambrecht had a claim to Quasqueton, and that it was her duty to repossess any items recovered from there, as they rightfully belonged to her liege lord. The party had just sold the bearskin, which they were using to carry the treasure, so their arms were currently full with a looted tapestry, a pair of mounted ram's horns, and two barbarian swords. Now, if the items weren't from Quasqueton...well, Albertyna would have nothing to report. The party changed their story, instead claiming that they had stumbled upon the treasures in the woods. This pleased Albertyna.

The party asked if it would be a bad thing if Lambrecht came into possession of Quasqueton, to which Albertyna said no, of course not, Lambrecht is the rightful inheritor of Quasqueton and it would be good and just for him to be its ruler.

They asked if Albertyna was interested in hearing rumors about Quasqueton. She said yes, providing the rumors came from a veritable source. The party explained that they had "heard" that there was an ancient stone idol in Quasqueton which may or may not house some ancient malevolent entity intent on subjugating all who lived in the region. "That is a very troubling rumor indeed," Albertyna said, "if it is substantiated."

Since the party had shared a rumor with her, Albertyna felt it only right that she share a rumor with them. She had heard tell of a mercenary who had loudly boasted in taverns around town that he had been to Quasqueton and had single-handedly slain a "demon worm" within. He returned to town with a mule which he advertised as "the Mule of Quasqueton" in a desperate attempt to earn some money when carousing had left his pockets empty. Agents of Lambrecht had come for the man and brought him to the wizard's castle for questioning as to how he found the ruin, what he found there, and who he was with. She explained that most who are taken to the wizard's castle for questioning do not return.

The party asked if, by chance, some group of adventurers should stumble upon Quasqueton, whether they should avoid the place for fear of reprisal. Albertyna explained that Lambrecht is a cautious man, obsessed with portents and omens, and that he will take no action unless he determines that the stars are aligned properly for him to do so. She would never endorse the illegal plundering of Quasqueton, of course, but suggested that the party should keep their ears open for any further rumors about the place and report them to her upon hearing anything.

We wrapped the session there. This was another fun one! Lots of fun social interaction. It was good to get some of the town's NPCs introduced and to have the players learn that they really need to be careful about navigating the local politics and what information about their activities they choose to share. The encounter with Albertyna wandering the streets at night was a random encounter, and it was very fortuitous timing, so I'm happy with how that worked out. I had a lot of fun roleplaying the coy double talk interaction with her at the manse. We really got into a flow state and ended up playing a full hour longer than we had intended.

Next time, the party has a few more things to wrap up in town. They still need to sell the rest of their treasure, and they have expressed interest in recruiting some henchmen and in hiring a river boat to help them bring back more treasure from the dungeon. Then I imagine it will be back to Quasqueton for expedition number three!

What I Like About Orc Babies

This is a touchy subject, and I'll try my best to discuss it with care, but I want to talk about children in D&D - human children, halfling children, orc children, giant children, beaver children, and everything in between. 

This has been kicking around in my mind since reading Lonely Star's post on the absence of pregnant women in TTRPGs, which sparked a related conversation about children in TTRPGs. This of course brought to mind the AD&D Monster Manual and its very thorough inclusion of children of all kinds. The implications are grim, and this is infamously brought to the forefront in Gygax's own Dungeon Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands and its use of "monstrous" humanoid children.

I will also be talking about noncombatant adults (in the AD&D Monster Manual these are referred to universally as "females", but I will be using my preferred nomenclature because I believe that anyone can fight or not fight regardless of their gender). These adults go hand in hand with children, as they are often found in lairs and either don't have combat statistics or fight as lesser combatants compared to their "male" counterparts. In the case of those that do not fight at all, they pose the same thorny questions as do children. That is, once you've slashed and burned your way through the warriors guarding the Caves of Chaos, what do you do with the humanoid civilians?

So, let's talk about children and noncombatants in the fantasy colonial violence game.

Interestingly, there are no demihuman or humanoid children in OD&D's Monsters and Treasure. There are young dragons, lycanthropes, centaurs, and rocs, but no orc babies. The closest thing to children of people in the booklet are the lycanthropes and centaurs (lycanthropes being basically people most of the time, and centaurs being people from the waist up). Likewise, dragons, lycanthropes, and centaurs are the only entries in which female members of the species are mentioned (and only the female centaurs are noncombatants). 

AD&D's Monster Manual is vastly different. Here is a list of every (?) Monster Manual entry which mentions gender or children:

• A bugbear lair will have female and young bugbears each equal to 50% the number of male bugbears. In a life or death situation, the former fight as hobgoblins and the latter as kobolds.
• A centaur lair will have females equal to 200% the number of male centaurs and 5-30 young. In a life and death situation, the former will fight with hooves only (unlike the male centaurs, they do not wield weapons). Centaurs are 90% likely to ransom their threatened women and young using their treasure hoard - an even more grim implication than usual.
• A dwarf lair will have female and young dwarves equal to 50% and 25% the number of male dwarves, respectively. Presumably, neither fights (from here on, I will presume female and young monsters do not fight unless mentioned otherwise).
• An elf lair will have female and young elves equal to 100% and 5% the number of male elves, respectively. 5% of the time there will be 10-30 warrior elfmaids mounted on unicorns (cool).
• If more than one cloud giant is encountered in its lair there is a 75% chance that the second is a giantess (which fights as a fire giant), while the rest are young giants. Percentile dice are rolled to determine the young giants' maturity, and they have hit points and inflict damage equal to that percentage of an adult giant's hit points and damage. This same rule of thumb is more or less repeated with all giant types, except the storm giant for some reason.
• A gnoll lair will have female and young gnolls equal to 50% and 200% the number of male gnolls, respectively.
• A gnome lair will have female and young gnomes equal to 50% and 25% the number of male gnomes, respectively.
• A goblin lair will have female and young goblins equal to 60% and 100% the number of male gnomes, respectively. Here the Monster Manual explicitly states, "As is usual with creatures of this sort, the females and young do not fight," which is why I am presuming that female and young monsters listed in other entries do not fight unless mentioned otherwise.
• A halfling lair will have female and young halflings equal to 100% and 60% the number of male halflings, respectively.
• A hobgoblin lair will have female and young hobgoblins equal to 150% and 300% the number of male hobgoblins, respectively.
• A kobold lair will have female and young kobolds equal to 50% and 10% the number of male kobolds, respectively, as well as 30-300 eggs (worth mentioning as deciding what to do about the eggs is similar enough to the decision made about the females and young).
• Werewolf packs are typically a male and female werewolf and 3 to 6 young of 60% to 90% growth. Male and female werewolves fight the same, except the male werewolf gets +2 to hit and does full damage if the female werewolf is attacked, and the female werewolf gets +3 to hit and does full damage if the young werewolves are attacked. The young fight at -4 to -1 to hit depending on their maturity and do 2-5 points of damage (versus the adult werewolf's 2-8).
• A caveman lair will have female and young cavepeople equal to 100% and 50% the number of male cavemen, respectively.
• A tribesman village will have female and young tribespeople each equal to 100% the number of male tribesmen.
• A nomad lair will have female and young nomads equal to 200% and 100% the number of male nomads, respectively.
• A mermen lair will have merwomen and merchildren each equal to the number of mermen.
• An ogre lair will have 2-12 female ogres and 2-8 young ogres. The female ogres do 2-8 damage with a weapon (compared to the male ogre's 2-12 damage) and have a maximum of 6 hit points per hit die. The young ogres fight as goblins.
• An orc lair will have female and young orcs equal to 50% and 100% the number of male orcs, respectively.
• A sahuagin lair will have 30-120 female sahuagin and 10-40 hatchlings. Female sahuagin have 2 hit dice and hatchlings have 1 (compared to the standard 2+2 hit dice). It is worth noting that "the religious life of [sahuagin] is dominated by the females." There is a 10% chance for every 10 male sahuagin that there will be a 5th to 8th level priestess with 1-4 3rd or 4th level assistant priestesses. Female sahuagin are only slightly smaller than male sahuagin, and otherwise indistinguishable.
• A triton lair will have female and young tritons each equal to the number of male tritons.
• A troglodyte lair will have female troglodytes equal to the number of male troglodytes. Female troglodytes have 1+1 hit dice (versus the male troglodyte's 2 hit dice). "There will also be hatchlings and eggs, but these are of no importance."
• A yeti lair will have a 30% chance to have 1-3 female yetis and, if female yetis are present, a 15% chance to have 2-5 young.

This was compiled with a PDF of the Monster Manual and Ctrl + F (search terms "female" and "young"), not an eagle-eyed readthrough of the book in its entirety. Sometimes words like "hatchling" or "fledgling" are used in place of "young", so there may be some occurrences I've missed. I think you get the idea, though.

For the sake of brevity, I included only human-shaped monsters like demihumans, humanoids, giants, and the like - no animals or animal-like monsters such as giant beavers, pegasi, or owlbears. I already went into a great deal of detail as to how these other monsters' young are handled in my post on AD&D's monster economy, so it felt redundant to retread the same ground here. I've excluded dragons for similar reasons.

I also did not include "female-coded" monsters for whom biology is not really a thing - mostly demons and devils like the succubus, marilith, and erinyes, but also the banshee, which is always the spirit of a female elf, or the lamia, which has the upper body of a human woman but no explicit biology.

AD&D's presentation of "demihumans" (dwarves, elves, halflings, etc.) versus "humanoids" (goblins, kobolds, orcs, etc.) is very similar. That is, the Monster Manual's description of these different types of people (and they are all people in my eyes) is relatively consistent. They all have "lairs", treasure, combat statistics, leader-types, pets, an implied society, and, of course, noncombatants. They are all treated the same, which is as "monsters".

From high enough up, looking down, they are all simply "game pieces" with which to populate your world. They all show up on the encounter tables. They are in the Monster Manual because they exist in the milieu, not necessarily because they exist to be killed. The players will encounter elves and they will encounter orcs. Sure, the elves are Chaotic Good and the orcs are Lawful Evil, and one can imagine that you will fight the orcs more often than you fight the elves, but that doesn't mean you can't fight the elves and befriend the orcs.

This stands in contrast with modern D&D's approach to the issue of personhood. In the original 5e Monster Manual, you do not find any statblocks for halflings. There are technically statblocks for dwarves and elves, but these are Drow and Duergar, the dwarves and elves who live underground, who it is okay to kill because they are Evil. Dwarves, elves, halflings, dragonborn, tieflings, and the like have societies (described in the Player's Handbook), but they are not monsters. You can fight a bandit who the DM decides is an elf, but you cannot fight a regular elf. These races are broadly, as a people, "off-limits".

Compare that to goblins, kobolds, and orcs. All are in the Monster Manual and have generic statblocks. You could decide that your bandit is an orc, but you can also fight a regular orc using the orc statblock. Unlike the dwarves and elves and halflings, they're combat fodder. However, they also have the "humanoid" creature type - the same type used by player characters (before supplements introduced playable races with different creature types), suggesting that while they are low level combat fodder, they're also people.

In the new version of the 5e Monster Manual, orcs were elevated from the rank of monster fodder to off-limits personhood alongside dwarves, elves, and halflings. This is presumably because they became one of the core player character races (half-orcs were understandably removed as a player option and replaced with regular orcs). 

On the other hand, goblins are now fey type creatures. Kobolds are now dragon type creatures. You can see this same pattern with other formerly humanoid monsters. Aarakocra are elementals. Bullywugs are fey. Gnolls are fiends. While orcs were made "off-limits", the remaining humanoids were not, and in fact are no longer humanoid type monsters at all. The game seemed to double down on the distinction between human-shaped creatures that are people and human-shaped creatures that are not, right down to their game categorization.

Of course, you can just do what you want with the game and say your goblins are humanoids or your dwarves are elementals and your elves are fey, but it troubles me. In 5e, you can kill a goblin, because it's in the Monster Manual. You can kill a bandit who your DM has decided is an elf, but you can't kill a plain old elf. Dwarves and elves and halflings and orcs are off-limits. Goblins and kobolds and gnolls are not.

Returning to AD&D, you could call out the demihuman/humanoid distinction as being similar to the one I've pointed out in modern D&D (one is a Good not-human and one is an Evil not-human), but in terms of game mechanics, they're presented exactly the same. They are all there in the Monster Manual. One is presented as being more villainous, but they're all creatures living in the world. Here are their game statistics in case you have to kill them, dwarves and elves and halflings included. Everyone is on the encounter table, and they all bleed if you stab them. And they all have children.

Of course, you don't have to kill anyone. Just as the DM can use the entries on dwarves, elves, and halflings to create a "lifelike" demihuman enclave with which the players can interact, the same can be said of the entries on goblins, kobolds, orcs, and other humanoids. When I see how similarly AD&D presents the societies of demihumans and humanoids, my impression is that this is a game where all of these creatures are people, even if some are vilified while others are not.

This is, of course, not the default assumption in D&D - especially not the D&D of Gygax, who once famously asserted that it is both Lawful and Good to kill orc babies, going so far as to cite an infamous perpetrator of Native American genocide. AD&D's domain game requires that a player character who wishes to build a stronghold must first clear the land of any monster lairs present - i.e., those very same goblin, kobold, and orc lairs which contain so many noncombatants and children. Gygax's Keep on the Borderlands is one of the most foundational of D&D's early adventure modules, with the objective of clearing out the Caves of Chaos and their humanoid residents - including their noncombatants - so that the march of human civilization can push ever onward.

It is also worth mentioning that AD&D's section on CONSTRUCTION & SIEGE details the time it takes to excavate rock for the construction of dungeons beneath the player character's stronghold. This section includes rules for the cubic volume of rock excavated by different types of human-like creatures, including humans, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, but also gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, orcs, ogres, and several types of giants:

The use of humanoid and giant laborers is somewhat discouraged by this section, which describes these workers as generally unwilling and difficult, but here any notion of subtext becomes text. The player character can use these people to construct their stronghold dungeons, but they will be slaves, and will have to be heavily guarded to ensure peak efficiency:

When you consider this in combination with the prevalence of noncombatants in these monsters' lairs, it paints a bleak picture.

It's obvious that Gygax's idea of Law and Good is deeply flawed. It is certainly not the definition of Lawful Good I use in my games. Alignment in my games is more an ideological or cultural predilection or bent, not a cosmic or ontological truth. Orcs are not naturally Evil creatures born of shadow and sorcery. They might culturally tend towards Evil because their ideology espouses strength and mercilessness (likely because they have been done wrong time and again by their more powerful neighbors), but they are not universally or irredeemably Evil in any way. 

Even if the particular group of orcs in a scenario is Evil, that does not mean they are actively doing Evil. I use reaction rolls to determine how such people might interact with the world around them (generally, I find these older mechanics super helpful in making these scenarios more complex and engaging). The classically Chaotic or Evil orcs might be more likely to be unfriendly or hostile to their neighbors, but there is also a chance they are simply keeping to themselves, or even attempting to establish friendly relations or trade. Any character whose first course of action when dealing with such a people (even those who are Chaotic or Evil and hostile towards their neighbors) is to go to their home and kill them and their children is not Lawful Good in my eyes.

While AD&D's domain game may insist that player characters use violence to colonize their sphere of influence, I see no reason why this should be required. A detailed reading of the domain game rules suggests that player characters can eventually assimilate monster populations into their realm. This is dependent on the player character's and the monsters' respective alignments, but in a game where alignment is less prescriptive, why shouldn't the Lawful Good paladin be allowed to negotiate terms with the orcs, make them vassals, and attempt to change their ways? It is still colonialism, but with less bloodshed, and I don't see much of a way around it without excising the domain game entirely (or building your stronghold someplace where there is somehow both good land and also no one already living there).

Similarly, while AD&D requires that humanoid and giant workers be enslaved and heavily guarded in order to construct stronghold dungeons, there is no need for the individual DM to cling fiercely to this rule of thumb. Why must all goblins, ogres, and giants be loathe to do labor (any more than the average person loathes work)? Why can't they be recruited in good faith and compensated for their time the same as any other laborer? 

The Keep on the Borderlands is also an interesting case. Just as in the Monster Manual elves are detailed in much the same way as orcs, in B2 the Keep is given nearly as much description as the Caves of Chaos. It is not just a nondescript bastion of human civilization and home base for forays into the untamed wilderness, but a richly detailed play environment in which every defender, civilian, and treasure is placed with care. Do with it what you will.

The inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos may be Evil (or Chaotic, in this case), but they aren't actually doing anything besides fighting amongst each other. The rich detail of the Keep itself suggests that it is intended as another play environment which the players might need to "solve". The players might be able to unite the factions of the Caves against their common enemy. Better yet, why not lead them against the Cult of Chaos and negotiate terms for them with the Keep's Castellan? It's a bit of a stretch, certainly not Gygax's intention, and maybe not the most adventurous way to play out the module, but TTRPGs are all about tactical infinity. It's an option, is all I'm saying.

When human-like monsters are portrayed as inherently, irredeemably Evil or adversarial, the players' agency in interacting with them becomes extremely limited, lest they be forced to engage in "Lawful Stupid" behaviors. That is, when the orcs are Evil no matter what, the players have no choice but to thwart them in some way. If the players allow them retreat or surrender, they are presumably only leaving human civilization vulnerable to renewed offensives in the future.

The big problem with orc babies (here I'm using this as a catchall term for noncombatant monsters) is that if these monsters are irredeemably Evil or adversarial, it is easy to dismiss the wanton slaughter of their civilians as an act of "greater Good" - after all, the young will grow up to be Evil warriors, and the adult noncombatants will only exist to facilitate their Evil and to bring more Evil into the world. Genocide becomes permissible - even optimal - for a "Good" character to partake in.

Another problem with orc babies is when they're wielded against the players as a gotcha. "Aha! I, the DM, have created/am running a scenario in which the default mode of play is to go to the monsters' houses and kill them. You've done what you were intended to do, but you did not consider that at the end of the line you would encounter these helpless civilians. Now you have a moral dilemma, which I have given you no means of avoiding!"

For some groups, this dilemma might be fun to engage with. I think it sucks, at least when it's setup this way. Even if we decide that human-like monsters are not ontologically Evil, but must nonetheless be thwarted, and violence is somehow the only way, let's say the players decide that the threat has been neutralized and they allow the noncombatants to live. They are probably condemning the remainder to starvation or predation by some stronger foe, but they get to feel good about doing the "right thing", I guess.

The Keep on the Borderlands is such an infamous example because - while other approaches do exist - the default objective of play is to clear out the Caves of Chaos. Many DMs have and will run this module assuming that the player characters will go kill every humanoid combatant in those Caves, and many players have gone/will go along with the path of least resistance, only to encounter the gotcha once their grisly task is done. They are mostly not at fault because they were just going along with the quest hook, which is often considered the courteous thing to do when the DM is running a module.

A proper sandbox needn't have any assumed objectives, however. Sure, when I design a sandbox, I assume that the players will try to establish themselves in town, that they will explore the nearby dungeon, hunt down the owlbears, roust the brigands from the castle, clear the ogres from their lair, and overthrow the town's Evil overlords, more or less in that order. But they might also make common cause with the town's rulers, subdue the owlbears for the wizard's menagerie, become brigands themselves, and recruit the ogres to their side rather than run them off or slaughter them.

If there is an orc lair in my sandbox, there will probably be propaganda about how the orcs are uncouth, inimical to civilization and impossible to reason with. The only good orc is a dead orc and all that. Again, because of the way alignment works in my games, the orcs may not even be Chaotic or Evil. Even if they are, they may not prey upon their neighbors. They may be isolationist, or even cautiously friendly. Perhaps their mere presence is an inconvenience to the powers that be, who want to run them off their land, put down a parking lot for their dragons, and build a magic Walmart in place of the orcs' lair.

If the players dig into it, they may uncover the truth. They may in fact find a straightforward den of orcs with sinister intentions. Even this scenario is not exclusionary of less violent means of settling the dispute, however. Perhaps the players will find that the orcs do have some sort of ancestral claim to that territory, or they learn that the orcs can be appeased in some way which does not involve plundering all of human civilization. Perhaps there are factions of orcs, some less warlike than others, and negotiations can take place if the orcs have a change of leadership. Perhaps the human ruler is Good and is willing to make certain concessions, or perhaps the human ruler is the greater Evil and it is they who must be overthrown to ensure a lasting peace.

What I like about orc babies (again using this as a general term to encapsulate noncombatant monsters) is that they signal to the players that these monsters are people. When the players find out that there are hundreds of noncombatants in the orc lair, it should give them pause about how exactly to handle whatever conflict exists. Their first course of action shouldn't be to find a way to kill everyone inside. If they wrote "Good" on their character sheet, they have to find another way.

It complicates the scenario, but only if the orcs themselves have a level of complexity. In a proper sandbox, the presence of humanoid civilians shouldn't be a "gotcha". The players have the means to acquire whatever information they need, to make a choice based on that info, and to have their choice make an impact.

This all assumes that the player characters are basically Good and care about the wellbeing of civilians. If they are instead Evil, the result of including civilians in your monster populations can again be quite grim. 

I've already discussed this in the aforementioned post on AD&D's monster economy and in my post on subduing dragons. Generally, I feel that the assumption that player characters will want to subdue dragons and auction them off in the nearest town or city (and that most such places will usually have buyers eager to acquire them) is a fun bit of worldbuilding. Similarly, there are all sorts of animal-like creatures which the players are incentivized to kill, butcher for their hides, and steal their eggs and young to sell to the highest bidder.

I am not shy about referring to these practices as slavery, which they very plainly are. Many of these animal-like monsters are intelligent, peaceful, and even lean towards Goodness. All of the dragons are intelligent, half of them are Good, and all of them explicitly loathe their imprisonment and seek to break free of their masters at the earliest opportunity. Skinning giant beavers and kidnapping the children of monsters to be enslaved are clearly Evil acts, even if the monsters themselves are designated as "Evil".

Still, I argue that players should be able to play Evil characters, and that there should be opportunities for them to do Evil. Even if they are not Evil, they must still have the opportunity (and, even better, an incentive) to do Evil for their choice to be Good to matter:

Being Good is hard. It should be. It should be easier (or at least more profitable) to be Evil. Players can write "Good" on their character sheet all they want, but they have to actually do Good for that to mean anything. And for doing Good to actually mean something, it has to be a choice. For doing Good to be a choice, the players must also have the choice to do Evil. 

If they spend the whole game doing little quests for the dirt farmers of the local thorp out of the Goodness of their hearts with little wealth to show for it, they may start rethinking what they wrote on their character sheet once they hear that their (Evil) rivals just earned 80,000 gold from skinning giant beavers and selling their children into slavery. Maybe it just reaffirms their commitment to Goodness, and the existence of such Evil in the world instead serves to distinguish them from those sorts, and they vow to put an end to such injustices at any cost. But the (potential for) Evil deeds must exist to create that contrast.

You might have players who choose to play Evil characters, and that's okay too! A campaign of poaching monsters and selling their children into slavery is definitely not for everyone, so you might restrict these options, but I personally enjoy portraying a fantasy world in all its ugliness. If there are giant beavers nearby, the village may be negotiating with them to construct a dam, while simultaneously, outlaw poachers may be conspiring to prey upon them. The pegasi nesting nearby may be valuable allies to Good characters, but if there's a Chaotic Evil wizard in the area, they're likely to desire the creatures' eggs for nefarious purposes, and are willing to pay good money for them. The players get to choose how to engage with those dynamics one way or the other.

This is exactly the kind of thing session 0s and safety tools are for. If someone at the table is not comfortable with being a part of Evil acts, or with poaching or slavery specifically, then players should not play Evil characters, or those acts should be forbidden, or the person who's uncomfortable should consider playing in a different game. Violence against children and the enslavement of people is obviously an even thornier issue and should be handled with even more care. I totally understand why many or even most people don't want orc babies in their games.

But I like a bit of thorniness in my games. If the players decide that their best course of action is to carry out a genocide, then they should have to deal with the moral and spiritual toll of that. I am not going to trick them into it or force them into a situation where it's their only option, then inflict the dilemma on them as some sort of inane "twist", but if they make no attempt to gather more information or pursue less absolute avenues then that is their choice, and they must deal with the consequences. 

At the same time, if they have chosen to play Evil characters and all involved are interested in playing out the implications of that choice, then it is up to me to decide how much opportunity I'm willing to give them to engage in that sort of play and explore its consequences. If I know that my players are interested in exploring Evil, I have a choice as to whether or not to include orc babies in my sandbox, knowing exactly what the outcome might be. If the players decide to slay the orc civilians, then that is their choice, and it's also my choice because I put them there, knowing that this might happen.

And even if the player characters are not themselves Evil, just as with the subdual of dragons and participation in the monster economy, anything the player characters can do, NPCs can do too. The player characters might treat the orcs as people, but the NPCs might not. The player characters might seek to treat with the orcs as equals while the local Evil ruler is carrying out a genocide and enslaving their victims' civilians to excavate their subterranean dungeons (this is even represented in the background section of Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown).

Again, whether you choose to include this sort of thing will depend entirely on your and your players' sensibilities. Just as players will have different levels of comfort with carrying out Evil acts, they will have different levels of comfort in dealing with NPCs doing the same. Thwarting an Evil wizard who is doing cartoonish wizard villainy is one thing - thwarting a tyrannical slaver is another. Some players may relish the opportunity, while others will become despondent when forced to confront real world parallels in their leisure time.

I'm focusing on humanoid civilians because there is already so much baggage there with parallels to real world racism, colonialism, slavery, genocide, and so on, but it's important to again remember that AD&D's Monster Manual presents demihuman noncombatants the same way. Dwarves, elves, and halflings can present conflict in your setting as well, and players of Good characters who wish to resolve these conflicts will have to reckon with the fact that they're also people, just as you as the DM will have to consider whether to include noncombatant members of these people if you know your players are interested in exploring Evil deeds. The default assumption in many cases may be that the player characters are Good and that the orcs will be potential enemies and the elves potential allies, but this isn't always the case.

This is not to say that human-like monsters can never be fodder. This is a game, after all, and going toe-to-toe with thinking enemies with capabilities similar to yours is a fun scenario to play out. Remember that noncombatants only appear in lairs, so human-like monsters encountered in dungeons and outdoors are fair game (though again, that is not to say they are inherently Chaotic or Evil or even doing anything nefarious). Just as it is "okay" to kill a human brigand (that has its own baggage, as brigands are people too and probably have a good reason for turning to brigandry), it is okay to kill an elf or a goblin in an imaginary violence game.

All that being said...I think there is something very funny about an Evil child. My Hexmas sandbox, the Jinglebell Barrens includes a Chaotic Evil frost giant toddler:

• Kolvi: Hrothvar's only son. He is the frost giant equivalent of a toddler - as large as an ogre, but doughy and badly proportioned. He is always accompanied and protected by his pet winter wolf, Hoarfang. He is lazy and cowardly, has a child's temper and petulance, and wants nothing more than to see adventurers slain, roasted, and served up at a feast. He hates both his father and grandmother, but adores Rimehilda. He will run to her and make up any lie about adventurers which might get them into trouble. One adventurer, before being killed and eaten, spoke of a talking wishing well. Kolvi begs Rimehilda to take him there so that he might wish for all adventurers to be killed and eaten by him.

My recent post on halflings and their dogs includes this Lawful Evil halfling child:

Corin Thistlethorn (LE): 3 hp. A male Hairfoot child (AC 9). Thin and sharp-featured, with dark brown curls and keen grey eyes. His clothes are surprisingly tidy for a child. Although young, he is more intelligent than the average halfling (Int 14). He quietly observes conversations before joining in, and adults sometimes find his questions uncomfortably perceptive. He is selfish and manipulative and enjoys bending rules, knowing secrets, keeping score of favors, and figuring out how to gain advantages over his peers. He is tight-lipped around strangers, evaluating them carefully before deciding whether they are allies or people to avoid (neutral). Treasure: A carefully organized collection of bird feathers, insects, and unusual stones, a slate tablet and chalk used for keeping lists, small wooden tokens representing debts and favors owed by other children, and a pocketknife (no value). Corin has 2 dogs:

1. Bracken: A tan rabbit hound. Curious about everything, he has a habit of bringing interesting trinkets to Corin. Terrified by storms.
2. Soot: A black terrier with mismatched eyes. He distrusts strangers and watches them with the same suspicious scrutiny as his master.

Now, I'm not saying these children should be murdered because they're Evil. Once again, alignment is a mutable cultural tendency in my games, not an ontological truth about who a person is (the halfling child above, for example, is Lawful Evil despite halfling culture leaning towards Lawful Good). These are children, meaning they are even more malleable than most people, if gotten to early. Murdering a child, regardless of their fantasy race, personality, alignment, or whatever, is one of the most Evil things you can do.

Just because the frost giant child wants to eat you and will hide behind the Evil witch's skirts and tell lies about you to achieve that end does not mean he can be killed in good conscience. However, if you're trying to infiltrate the frost giants' home without ending up on a skewer yourself, maybe lock the child in a closet or trick them into drinking a sleeping potion or something. You probably don't have to do anything about the off-putting halfling child hanging around the shire, but it gives the place a little flavor for one of the children to be a bit unnerving.

And that's what I really like about orc babies. The fact that the Monster Manual tells me that 60% of the orcs in the lair will be children and noncombatant adults primes me to include those orcs as NPCs as well. If the orc lair has a certain number of warriors, 50% as many noncombatant adults, and 100% as many young orcs, then I know that 40% of the orcs in the lair are warriors, 40% are young, and 20% are noncombatant adults, and I can use that to give some variety to the NPCs encountered there.

If the player characters are hanging out in the orc lair, they should have a chance to encounter an orc child. Not "encounter" as in "fight" of course, but like...I don't know. Roleplaying an interaction with a orc toddler sounds fun to me. Make the child annoying to deal with just like you would any NPC. That doesn't give the players an excuse to murder them, no more than it gives them an excuse to kill a corrupt city official or a wizard's meddlesome henchman. 

In some cases, violence against children will be advantageous (yes, this is a weird sentence to write, but bear with me). In Dungeon Module G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, there's an opportunity to murder or subdue some hill giant children in order to take their clothes so that the player characters can pass as giant children themselves:

Again, the assumption of this module is that the giants are Evil and anything goes, which has its drawbacks, but in a more nuanced game I think the dilemma is somewhat interesting. Are the players willing to do this wretched thing for a slight upper hand, or is it too distasteful, so now they have to go about things the hard way? Is the moral calculus at all altered by the fact that those giant children are actually a significant threat with 13 to 26 hit points and armed with weapons with which they fight as ogres? For some groups it will be, for others not so much.

These types of NPCs make a place feel lifelike. I want to portray these as real places, not video game levels to be cleared. The elves and orcs are simply "game pieces" to the DM, but they should feel like people to the players. The presence of noncombatants reinforces that the lair can be a place where people live, not just where monsters wait to be slain. I don't want to exclude these NPCs out of fear for what the players might do to them, no more than I want my hamlets and thorps to be stuffed to the brim with guards and 1st level fighters, with nary a peasant farmer or meddlesome child in sight.

If you don't want to risk it, don't put noncombatants in your game. Or, simply tell your players up front that those NPCs are off-limits and you won't tolerate any violence against them. You could go the Bethesda RPG route and either have children be conspicuously absent from your world or else immune to harm. It's also okay to have your orcs or whatever just be monsters birthed from sorcery with no explicit biology, if you want violence against them to be totally free of consequence.

Personally, I like having orc babies in my games. I like weird, annoying, funny NPCs, and no person is weirder, more annoying, or funnier than a child. So much of the legacy of children and noncombatant monsters in D&D is tied up in the rancid worldview of Gygax and the baggage of classic modules, which assume that it is unambiguously okay to kill these creatures and which punish the players with unfair forced moral dilemmas for doing what the modules intend for them to do.

It's because of those same modules that we never talk about the children of dwarves, elves, and halflings, or the fact that every village, hamlet, and thorp is populated by many civilians and children. Not many modules feature demihuman lairs or detailed settlements. In the case of Dungeon Module N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God, in which the village of Orlane is detailed, the proportion of detailed men, women, and children is way off.

But the player characters can raid an elf village just as much as they can an orc lair (the elves have treasure too!), and the elves will have noncombatants and children just as the orcs do. Every time a village is attacked by a monster, we must imagine that noncombatants and children are being killed, eaten, burned by dragon fire, carried off into slavery, or whatever. It's not super fun to imagine, which is part of the reason it isn't talked about more, but it's there, happening in the background.

Fortunately, there isn't much (not really any that I can recall) violence against children or noncombatants happening "on screen" in my D&D games, but I've thought about running modules like B2 and G1. My villages, hamlets, and thorps have children in them. My sandboxes have orc lairs and elf lairs with all the usual noncombatants. There are petulant frost giant toddlers and unnerving halfling children. There are dragons that can be subdued. There are giant beavers that can be poached and enslaved. There is opportunity to do Evil. There are Evil NPCs pursuing their own goals in the sandbox, many of whom are willing to do these wretched things even if the player characters are not.

So, the potential is always there. It's something I'm comfortable with. I trust my players to engage with that material thoughtfully, and I trust that we can have a conversation about it if it becomes a problem. Not every table has the same luxury, so you will have to adjust to taste. 

D&D is a game where violence happens...a lot, whether the player characters initiate it or not. If you're trying to portray a lifelike world, it might also be a game where children are prevalent. You have to calibrate how much those two facets interface with one another, what happens on screen versus off, and how much opportunity to give your players to interact with those elements.

I don't begrudge anyone for preferring not to engage with it, but it's worth considering. Don't throw the orc babies out with the bathwater!

Developing the Sandbox: Strongholds

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.

In this post, I'll discuss the development of those strongholds in your sandbox which are ruled by NPCs. These are your classic fighters' bastions, wizards' towers, clerics' temple fortresses, and thieves' dens and hideouts, but it doesn't stop there. 

Paladins will rule strongholds somewhere between that of a fighter and a cleric. Rangers may rule fortified compounds in a more wilderness locale. Illusionists will disguise their strongholds to appear mightier than they truly are, or as simple earthen mounds or other natural features. Druids will rule secure woodland groves. Monks build monasteries. Assassins rule imposing wilderness fortresses.

Monster lairs can also be strongholds, and many famous "monster lair" modules play very similarly to strongholds. Bandits, berserkers, brigands, and dervishes may come to inhabit them. Giants and many underwater creatures will build strongholds as well. 

Two things that this post will not cover are (1) strongholds built by the player characters and (2) deserted strongholds, which are likely naught but ruins on the surface and which fall more readily into the dungeon category.

Most scholarship (i.e. blogs) on the subject of strongholds in D&D pertains to those built by player characters and the rules for doing so. I'm instead interested in how to design and key an existing NPC stronghold for the players to interact with. 

Strongholds are kind of like dungeons in the sense that the player characters can move from room to room and interact with objects inside. They will contain "empty" rooms, "monsters", traps, and treasure. They are also kind of like monster lairs in that they are home to a type of "monster" - broadly speaking, most often men and/or demi-humans, but more specifically, powerful NPCs that are very much like the player characters themselves, plus their henchmen, men-at-arms, special followers, pets, and the like.

Strongholds are tricky because they are very much real places, and complex ones at that. You'll want to have some knowledge about different types of real-world strongholds and how they functioned. You have to think about how real-world strongholds were constructed and defended, and anticipate ways in which your players might want to infiltrate or lay siege to them. You have to think about who all lives there and how much room is needed to house them.

Dungeons are similarly complex, but they're not exactly real places. It might be hard to imagine them without something historical to reference, but there are often robust procedures for designing them, and lots of advice on blogs. Because they're not really real, you can also let your imagination run wild. 

Monster lairs are "real" in the sense that bears and wolves and the like are a sort of "monster" that lives in our own world, and you can somewhat easily imagine what such a place would be like if instead an owlbear lived there, or what an otherwise normal cottage would be like if a leprechaun were instead its resident. They're also not usually especially complex, so there isn't a huge cognitive load when designing them.

There are also more fantastic elements to consider. What spells are laid upon the stronghold? Are there any monstrous inhabitants kept as pets - perhaps a subdued dragon or some enslaved monsters? Perhaps it's a stronghold like in OD&D, with heroes riding griffons and rocs, or defended by chimeras, trolls, manticores, and the like:

Just as you might steal some dungeons for your sandbox to lighten your workload, you can steal strongholds too. You can pretty easily steal the Keep on the Borderlands, Castle Ravenloft, the Hall of the Fire Giant King, or whatever. But you can't always steal exactly what you need, and you might want to create something original. It's not much fun to just use the Keep on the Borderlands over and over again. Is there a good adventure out there which features a fortified druid's grove? I don't know. I'll probably have to make one.

Because they are complex locations, inaccessible by design, ruled by powerful NPCs, and inhabited by large numbers of potentially hostile defenders, I generally assume that NPC strongholds will be one of the last places which the player characters explore in depth. Thus, they usually wind up at the very end of my list of sandbox locations to develop in more detail.

As with every location in my sandbox, before I go into more detail, I start with a minimalist sketch. For strongholds, this includes the stronghold type, who rules it, and how the ruler and their followers might react upon first meeting the player characters, as well as how they relate to those locations which surround them.

For the type of stronghold, I use this handy table from the AD&D DMG:

(Spoiler: The section on CONSTRUCTION AND SIEGE ENGINES really doesn't provide any details about castle types aside from how long it takes to build them. There's lot of information about excavation and mining - including notes on the efficiency of slave labor - a sort of glossary of castle features and how much each costs, and some rules for sieges. This section is kind of interesting, and the glossary is worth looking at, but it won't help you too much in actually designing such a location for your game.)

A castle can be totally deserted, deserted and inhabited by a monster, inhabited by humans (that is, bandits, brigands, berserkers, or dervishes), or inhabited by character-type NPCs:

Both types of deserted castles fall into the dungeon bucket, so we'll focus on just the other two types. There's another table for determining the type of humans in the castle:

In the case of character-types, it isn't as simple, because in AD&D, the stronghold ruler's class will also have some effect on what type of castle can be built. For example, a thief can only rule a small stronghold in or near a town or city, a monk can only rule a moat house or friary, and a druid's stronghold must be in the wilderness. This means that depending on which class is rolled as the ruler, we might be limited in which type of castle is possible.

I wrote up a handy summary of which type of character can rule a stronghold at what level and what type of stronghold they can rule, which is worth checking out. If you're not using AD&D, it isn't super important, but I think it's at least illuminating, and you can always use AD&D's tables for worldbuilding, even if you're using a different system.

Because the ruler's class affects what type of stronghold can be built and where, I determine that first using this table:

The level column is not quite accurate, which I elaborate on in the aforementioned post on the subject. 

In AD&D, only certain races can attain a high enough level in their class to build a stronghold. For example, only human clerics can reach a high enough level to build a stronghold, so if I roll cleric, I know my ruler is human. 

Similarly, if my stronghold is in the wilderness, I know it can't be ruled by a thief. If I roll monk, I know it must be a moat house or friary, and so on. It's a lot to wrap your head around, which is why I thought it worthwhile to summarize in that earlier post.

Knowing who my ruler is, I can then determine their alignment. This is also dependent upon class, such that paladins will always be Lawful Good, rangers always Good, druids always Neutral, and so on. This then modifies their reaction rolls pertaining to the player characters and their neighbors in the sandbox. 

Using my B1 sandbox as an example, I know that the brigands ruling Fayette's Hold are unfriendly towards Timbershore. They're not hostile, so they aren't attacking the town or riding around the countryside killing people, but they've occupied Ebongrove, the thorp at the foot of the castle and just outside of town, and are demanding tribute from Lambrecht, the wizard who rules his own stronghold in town. I also know that the brigands were originally recruited by Lambrecht to subvert the castle's rightful ruler, and that they're now holding the ruler for ransom. The people of Ebongrove are hoping someone will free Fayette from her cell. Lambrecht is attempting to court the ogres of Okorg's Den to aid him in retaking the castle.

That's pretty much all I need for a first draft for my sandbox. To get this location ready for play, I have to go deeper, starting with who all lives there.

In the case of bandits, berserkers, brigands, and dervishes, I simply use the numbers in the Monster Manual. For character-type NPCs, it will be more complicated:

1d4+1 henchmen, light and heavy cavalry led by fighters, and any additional special followers appropriate for the class. (If I'm interpreting this correctly, a cleric's stronghold is instead garrisoned by their special followers, while the other classes get both their special followers and the garrison listed above? Unclear.) 

The classes of henchmen are determined on a separate table than that used to determine who rules the stronghold:

This table yields slightly fewer clerics, fighters, magic-users, illusionists, assassins, and monks, and more druids, paladins, rangers, and thieves. I will ensure that henchmen are compatible with their masters, so a Lawful Good ruler will not have Chaotic Evil henchmen and a paladin will not have a henchman assassin. The level of these henchmen is determined by the level of the ruler:

If my hypothetical stronghold ruler is a Neutral Good 9th level human cleric, each of their henchmen will be 6th level, and none will be Evil. I find it fun to turn these henchmen into their own little "factions" of a sort, making opposed reaction rules with the ruler to determine whether they're favored, neglected, or on the outs, if they're fanatically loyal, unhappy, or actively seeking to betray their master. Remember that henchmen are, at the beginning, the pitiable wretches of the AD&D world, so it isn't hard to believe they might turn their cloaks if they think they might receive better treatment elsewhere.

A good example of this can be found in my Hexmas sandbox, the Jinglebell Barrens. The Tower of Noel is ruled by a fighter with several henchmen, each with their own personalities and agendas.

A stronghold's garrison will have a mix of from 38 to 64 men-at-arms (average 51). I don't love that this is unaffected by the size of the stronghold, so I like to roll as normal for a medium stronghold, roll twice for a small stronghold and keep the lower roll, and roll twice for a large stronghold and keep the higher roll. So a tower will have 2d4(keep lowest)+8 heavy cavalry, a large shell keep will have d4+8 as normal, and a fortress complex will have 2d4(keep highest)+8.

On to special followers. Clerics get a mix of cavalry and infantry:

Fighters get a medium level leader type and a company of either heavy infantry, crossbowmen, cavalry, or a mix of light cavalry and infantry:

Rangers are awesome and get 2d12 followers of mixed types:

This will mostly be normal stuff like character-type humans and demi-humans, but the lower you roll on 2d12, the more likely you are to get really cool stuff like giant animals, monsters, fey creatures, dragons, giants, treants, and lycanthropes:

This is the only thing in AD&D that really hints at OD&D's table of weird stronghold defenders, and that's too bad. There's no reason that your fighter's stronghold can't be garrisoned by griffon riders or your cleric's temple haunted by undead, but it would be a lot cooler if it was made explicit in some of these tables. Still it is really sick that if you play a ranger you have a chance of a dragon or giant just showing up to your stronghold to hang out.

Anyway, thieves get 4d6 thieves of 1st to 7th level and assassins (upon usurping the reigning Guildmaster/mistress) get 7d4 assassins of 1st to 8th level, 75% of which desert during the overthrow and are replaced by new 1st level recruits. There are more tables for those but they're not really worth sharing following those cool ranger tables.

After all that, you have to do the actual designing of the place, including layout and keying. Since strongholds are real historical places, you can do some research into each kind to figure out what exactly you're creating. You probably know what a tower is, but you might want to look up what exactly is a moat house or a shell keep or a concentric castle. 

Since medieval strongholds are not one of my special interests, I did some research. YouTube has a lot of videos describing different types of medieval strongholds, some with 3D renderings/walkthroughs detailing what might be found inside. I also watched some videos about how various defenses worked and how attackers usually laid siege to such places. I found it all enlightening and super interesting, and it's gotten my gears turning thinking about how I'd handle these scenarios in a D&D game.

The stronghold's character should be informed by the ruler of the stronghold. A thief's stronghold will be filled with nefarious traps. A magic-user's or cleric's will be warded by magic and protected by certain conjured beings. An illusionist's stronghold will be a very frustrating place indeed.

It's good to look over the list of spells available to the ruler and their henchmen to determine what sorts of magical effects might pervade the place, with a special eye towards those with a permanent duration. The stronghold may be guarded by animated dead. It may be lit entirely by continual light spells. Certain areas may be trapped with a glyph of warding. The stronghold may be surrounded by an overgrown thicket affected by plant growth. Locked doors may be affected by Leomund's trap. Other doors may be secured with wizard lock or affected by fire trap. A wall of iron may enclose the stronghold in place of wood or stone walls. Earthworks may be formed by move earth. An antipathy spell may repel attackers from a certain area. Clone vats may be found in one chamber. The windows of the ruler's chambers may be reinforced by glassteel. Permanency can make permanent the effects of enlarge, fear, gust of wind, invisibility, magic mouth, prismatic sphere, stinking cloud, wall of fire, wall of force, and web. 

There are many possibilities which will make the stronghold even more challenging than it otherwise would be, and this can quickly get out of hand. At the same time, this is the place where the NPC lives, so why shouldn't the wizard secure every door in the place with a wizard lock? Some spells will have costly material components or will be too high level to cast flippantly, so these should be treated with special consideration.

For the layout, you might consider using historical castle floorplans. As some of my contemporaries pointed out when I raised this subject, real-life castles are not super gameable. They are impregnable deathtraps which offer very little choice to player characters who might want to infiltrate or assault them, which is by design. They don't make for good dungeons. 

I think that's basically fine, because the types of strongholds in question aren't dungeons and aren't supposed to be. They're what the player characters' own armies of followers and men-at-arms are for - wargaming and sieges. This post isn't about adjudicating mass combat or siege scenarios, so although the topics go hand in hand, we'll leave them for now.

With a good plan the party might be able to stealthily scale the stronghold's walls and neutralize its defenders, or at higher levels they could teleport into the ruler's inner sanctum and confront them directly, but otherwise they'll need an army of their own.

...Unless there was some other way in. I seem to remember a famous D&D module which takes place in a dungeon built under an old NPC stronghold and a passing assumption in the AD&D DMG that player characters (and, presumably, NPCs) will always build dungeons beneath their strongholds. Such a dungeon could not only expand the functional square footage of such a stronghold, but also serve as a secret escape route for the stronghold's ruler in the event of a siege. And where there's a way out...

The dungeon beneath an NPC's stronghold is as important as the stronghold itself. Every NPC stronghold should have one. Like the stronghold above, these should be informed by the character of the NPC who rules it. You might go the B1 route and make this the mad labyrinth of a true dungeon sicko, or perhaps it is a more sensible extension of the stronghold itself - a series of cellars, cisterns, prison chambers, death traps, and treasure vaults. 

Is the dungeon garrisoned with men-at-arms like the stronghold above, or have they captured a menagerie of monsters and locked them down below to deter any would-be besiegers? This might be where the cleric keeps their undead servitors, or where the magic-user has bound their conjured elemental and fiends into service. This might be where most of the thief's traps are laid. 

Through the dungeon, the player characters might gain access to whatever area of the stronghold the ruler calls home. There will be guards to be dealt with inside, but it's still a lot better than storming the stronghold's walls and being peppered with arrows, bludgeoned with falling rocks, and scalded with boiling oil in the mad scramble over the walls. 

The assumption that characters will always build dungeons beneath their strongholds not only provides a more convenient way in for a small band of adventurers, but also a handy justification for defaulting to D&D's default mode of play, where the game is at its strongest. Whether intentional or not, it's a genius bit of design which simplifies a location which poses unique and difficult challenges for the player characters and DM alike.

In a way, strongholds are settlement, dungeon, and monster lair all in one. Preparing one for your sandbox requires you to combine approaches from all three of the former location types along with an understanding of the real-world places in our own history. It is no easy feat, and the resources provided by the game itself are somewhat lacking in this area. If you manage to design a good one, however, you'll be rewarded with a location that can support a variety of modes of play, from social intrigue to mass combat to your usual dungeon fare.