Shepherd Class for BFRPG

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Dragonsfoot's old OD&D and BECMI fan zine, OD&Dities. In addition to realizing how close I came to ripping off their name with my 3E OdditE series, I found a few things of passing interest to me; mostly different takes on character classes and optional rulesets.

The thing that really caught my interest in Issue #12 was the Shepherd class by one Kenneth Bailey. The shepherd is a rustic herder who combines a few thief/ranger skills, herbal healing, light fighting abilities, and nonmagical bardic music together into a generalist package that screams "pastoral folk hero" in like a thousand different languages and mythologies at once.

Naturally, I was piqued.

And then I was crushed, because for some reason the tables that should contain most of the information for the shepherd's abilities and how they scale with level don't appear anywhere in the zine.

All you get is its XP table (they level about as fast as magic-users on average), followed by a featureless, out-of-context spell progression table that resembles but ultimately falls behind the Rules Cyclopedia cleric's. It should be said that the shepherd is explicitly described in the text as not casting magic. Additionally, the section titled Shepherd Songs and Herbology doesn't include any of the herbology, leaving it a mystery what they do to use herbs in healing wounds, curing diseases, or doing weirder stuff like granting temporary infravision or invisibility to animals.

It's frustrating to find, and I don't know how it happened. Maybe the class was just published unfinished, or the wrong file version got submitted, or there was a major editing/formatting oopsie? I browsed around for several different hostings of the zine but all of them had the same imperfect file in their archives. I'm not going to blame anyone particular because it's a 20 year-old issue of a discontinued fan zine and I should really have better things to be doing, but it's pretty frickin' weird all the same.

I suppose I could just ask around Dragonsfoot to see if anyone from that era knows what the deal was. But I've never been a part of that community and don't know much about it, and ever since their AD&D 2E character roller with the dark green UI and half-ogres that I swear I didn't hallucinate went offline years ago, I've had little reason to start.

Anyway, with my curiosity frustrated thus, I decided I'd just make my own shepherd class instead.

Of course I'm not going to bother poring over enough Cyclopedia material to fully grok its class design all the way up to level 36, which is why you don't see BECMI in the title up there. Instead, I decided to recreate the spirit if not the letter of the class alongside my own personal tweaks in BFRPG, another OSR title of which I'm fond, and which I've made other mediocre content for in the past.

Shepherd

Shepherds are rustic hinterland folk and nomads who migrate throughout the year with their herds and flocks of animals. Some drive seas of cattle and horses across the plains to sell in distant markets, while others subsist with their small and hardy flocks in the hills and mountains. All are skilled in the ways of nature and life on the move. Such a tough life alone or in small, interdependent communities makes them competent survivalists with a broad skillset. It's no wonder then that some shepherds find themselves drawn to the adventuring life, where they help keep a very different kind of flock out of trouble.

I know I've used this art for posts in the past but I can't stop loving it.
Wanderers by merlkir

Requirements: To become a Shepherd, a character must have a Strength score of 9 or higher, a Dexterity score of 11, and a Wisdom score of 11. They may use any ranged weapon, but may not use any edged weapons besides daggers, hand axes, and shepherd's axes (see bottom of page). They may wear nothing heavier than leather armor (studded leather if using the armor and shields supplement), but not shields. There are no racial restrictions for the Shepherd.

Shepherds use a d6 to determine Hit Points. They fight using the cleric/thief columns and save as thieves. They may use magical versions of all allowed weapons and armor. Otherwise, they may utilize magical items that a thief would be able to use.

Special Abilities: Animals, both wild and domestic, are unavoidable and important facts of life for shepherds and their communities. Shepherds receive +2 to Reaction Rolls with all animals. Additionally, herd animals, beasts of burden, and all breeds of work dog never react worse than "Favorable" toward the shepherd.

Shepherds are highly proficient with the club/cudgel/walking staff and sling. When wielding a sling or walking staff, a shepherd adds +2 to their Attack Bonus. Additionally, shepherds may score a "critical hit" when an attack roll with a sling or walking staff results in a natural 20. A critical hit deals double weapon damage, increasing to triple at 5th level and quadruple at 9th.

Shepherds can Climb, Hide, and Track in wilderness areas, at percentages given in the table below. Tracking targets whom the shepherd is very familiar with, such as party members or animals from their flock, do not require a check to successfully track except in very adverse conditions such as severe weather or magical interference. When tracking a target, the shepherd must roll once per hour traveled or lose the trail.

Note: Track may also be used to represent gathering and preparing herbal medicine (see below) if your group is not using any optional rules for secondary character skills.

Shepherds are often miles from the nearest village with magical healing. As such, they are well-versed in folk medicine and herblore. Shepherds may spend time in the wilderness finding, collecting, and processing herbs into medicines that mimic the effects of a small number of cleric, magic-user, and druid spells.

To prepare a medicine the shepherd must be at least 1 level higher than a normal spellcaster who would be able to cast the spell it mimics. 1 use of medicine requires 1 hour of work per level of the spell being mimicked. Thus a poultice of cure light wounds can be made starting at 3rd level and takes 1 hour to make, a tea of cure disease becomes available at 7th level and takes 3 hours, etc. The shepherd must make a successful check (either the Track skill or an appropriate secondary skill) every hour to make progress. Failure means a setback and 1 wasted hour. Medicines of reversible spells cannot be reversed; they are not trained poisoners. Other herbal medicines probably exist out there in the world, to be discovered and learned through play. Medicines may be kept for 1 week before losing their potency.

Example Herbal Medicines include (but are not limited to):

Poultice of Cure Light Wounds - A mash of herbs applied to an injury to help heal cuts, reduce inflammation, and prevent infection. 3rd level, 1 hour.
Ointment of Protection From Animals - More of a noxious repellent, made from unmentionable substances. Slathered on the body to ward off animals, as protection from evil. 3rd level, 1 hour.
Tablets of Purify Food and Water - Pills containing bitter antimicrobial agents that kill most common pathogens, but don't help the taste much. 3rd level, 1 hour.
Tincture of Bless - A highly alcoholic solvent of one of the most powerful substances in the realms: placebo. Affects only the imbiber. 5th level, 2 hours.
Gel of Charm Animal - A cocktail of pleasant (to animals at least) botanicals sure to get the first pack of animals you encounter rubbing up on you. 5th level, 2 hours.
Tranquilizer of Slow Poison* - Depressants meant to arrest the progress of toxins until they can be fully treated. May cause grogginess. Must be formulated for a specific poison. 5th level, 2 hours.
Drops of Cure Blindness - A tiny, stoppered bottle, good for flushing out gunk and stimulating ocular muscles. 7th level, 3 hours.
Tea of Cure Disease - Technically a decoction, made by boiling horrible-tasting herbs, bark, and roots. Must be formulated for a specific disease. 7th level, 3 hours.
Eye Soak of Darkvision - Essentially just a highly concentrated dose of drops of cure blindness, able to briefly push human eyes beyond their limits. 7th level, 3 hours.
Needle of Neutralize Poison* - A rudimentary syringe with a single dose of antitoxin in it. Must be formulated for a specific poison. 7th level, 3 hours.

* Druid spell or druidic version of it.

Music is the shepherd's indispensable pastime. Without it, the long hours sitting around at pasture would be even longer. But those thousands of collective hours of boredom have also unlocked some of the secrets of those ancient songs, poems, and myths. Shepherds gain access to a limited number of Bard Songs related to wilderness survival, such as those listed below. They may also use and benefit from the effects of any magical instruments they come across. They begin with knowledge of 1 song and gain a small number of song proficiency points to either learn new songs or improve known songs according to the table below. Other shepherd songs probably exist out there in the world, to be discovered and learned through play.

Example Shepherd Songs include (but are not limited to):

Flock's Lullaby - Sometimes the animals are restless and need a bit of help settling down for the night. This song functions as the sleep spell when played to herd animals. Friendly targets may voluntarily fall asleep to it, in which case they gain +1 point of extra healing from a rest per rank.

Folk Hero's Ballad - This saga contains a little bit of everything; action, drama, tragedy, comedy, etc. And each chapter is more inspiring than the last. All allies within 60 feet receive +1 to saves against spells, initiative, or damage depending on if the shepherd uses the story to inspire caution, excitement, or righteous indignation in them. Additional ranks allow 2 or 3 effects to occur at once.
Wary Herder's Song - Predators in the night are a constant threat to the lone shepherd and their flock. The shepherd and all allies within 30 feet are less likely to be surprised, reducing the die roll range by 1 (from 1-2 on d6 to a roll of 1 on d6). A second rank of proficiency reduces the chance further to a roll of 1 on d8, and a third rank modifies the roll to 1 on d10.
Nomad's Migration Song - Moving camp across great distances is arduous business. This travel song helps lighten loads and spirits, increasing the carrying capacity of all who hear it by 20%, including any pack animals being used. Additional ranks increase this by +20%.

Song of Calling - This appeal to the land that sustains the shepherd summons a number of animals equal to the shepherd's Hit Dice from the surrounding wilderness to serve them and follow rudimentary commands for 1 turn per level. Unlike most bard songs, this can only be sung once per day. Additional ranks increase that limit by 1.

Shepherd

Lv	Exp. Points	Climb	Hide	Track	Songs (Max)	Hit Dice
1	0	80	10	40	1 (+1)	1d6
2	2,500	81	15	44	1 (+1)	2d6
3	5,000	82	20	48	2 (+1)	3d6
4	10,000	83	25	52	2 (+1)	4d6
5	20,000	84	30	56	2 (+1)	5d6
6	40,000	85	35	60	2 (+1)	6d6
7	80,000	86	40	64	3 (+1)	7d6
8	150,000	87	45	68	3 (+2)	8d6
9	300,000	88	50	72	3 (+2)	9d6
10	450,000	89	53	75	3 (+2)	9d6+2
11	600,000	90	56	78	4 (+2)	9d6+4
12	750,000	91	59	81	4 (+2)	9d6+6
13	900,000	92	62	84	4 (+2)	9d6+8
14	1,050,000	93	65	87	4 (+2)	9d6+10
15	1,200,000	94	68	90	5 (+3)	9d6+12
16	1,350,000	95	69	91	5 (+3)	9d6+14
17	1,500,000	96	70	92	5 (+3)	9d6+16
18	1,650,000	97	71	93	5 (+3)	9d6+18
19	1,800,000	98	72	94	6 (+3)	9d6+20
20	1,950,000	99	73	95	6 (+3)	9d6+22

Shepherd's Axes are constructed from a short staff with a small axehead mounted on it, sometimes with an accompanying metal spike or butt on the opposite end. They are commonly employed by shepherds in mountainous regions where they are useful as walking sticks, bushcraft tools, and even animal crooks (when the head is sheathed of course). Many are highly personalized, carved and decorated by their owners while they sit for long hours minding the herds.

Treat shepherd's axes as walking staffs for all intents and purposes, except that they deal 1d6 slashing damage in combat.

A monochrome public domain image to wrap up,
if that's more your speed.

The Collector

I think I've mentioned here or elsewhere that I listen to a lot of dungeon synth. It occupies the chunk of musical bandwidth I have leftover when I'm done listening to all the Mongolian throat singing, lo-fi jazz, parody covers, royalty-free rock tracks or themes to anime I've never watched that I hear in the backgrounds of video essays, and whatever TikTok videos my SO sends me.

Dungeon synth has its origins in the harsh and sometimes hateful black metal and dark ambient music scenes of the '90s. But the genre has since grown, matured, and experimented far beyond that to encompass a huge range of subgenres with porous and overlapping margins, as the case eventually is with all types of music. Whether you need to unwind to the sounds of nature, curl up with some tea to some cozy wintery noises, find a soundtrack for your tabletop game tonight, take an inadvisable amount of substances and mentally transcend to outer space, or just be a neurodivergent little boy with a fixation on Tolkien for a while, dungeon synth has a flavor for you.

Recently, I've been listening to a creator called Witch Bolt, who seems to have exploded into existence and popularity all of a sudden after releasing like 7 albums within the span of a few months earlier this year. In fact, in the time I've spent writing this post I had to go back and add that they just released another album.

Witch Bolt is decidedly in the ambient/nature synth subgenre, but each album has a unique flavor that I've thus far enjoyed. I'd say I like them almost as much as DIM, who might be my favorite artist in the scene. Shoutout to Tales Under The Oak and all their froggy excellence, too.

Witch Bolt's most recent second-most-recent album is The Collector, which combines moody soundscapes with some very delicate instrumental touches I keep coming back to.

It's also got a pretty solid album cover.

But I'm not just here to talk about the music. The Collector has a short description attached which, alongside the track titles, turns it into a concept album with a plot of sorts. It reads as follows:

"Witch Bolt's seventh release, The Collector, is the story of a nomadic figure navigating the boundaries that separate the planes of existence. The Collector gathers overlooked fragments of nature and humanity, bestowing upon them a renewed honor and purpose.

Through their mystical craftsmanship, they reveal the inherent dignity concealed within the humble.

The Collector scatters these creations, weapons, armor, treasures, imbued with enchantments across the land and in the paths of those deemed worthy. The Collector is a beacon of hope and renewal."

I was smitten by this concept right away. From playing the part of lonely, wandering god to a being associated with the lucky discovery of magic items, the Collector feels tailor-made to appear in someone's tabletop campaign. Which got me wondering how there aren't more gods like that in existing games where roving adventurers rolling on loot tables in weird and out-of-the-way places is a fundamental pillar of the play experience. Certainly there are hundreds of deities of luck, or craftsmanship, or wanderers, but you almost never get all three of those portfolios in one.

So, I decided to fiddle around and rectify that by doing a little god writeup of my own.

I'm doing this using a fun and flexible format I stole from As the Gods Demand, a system-agnostic and level-less divine magic supplement where anyone can become a cleric. It's by the excellent art-friend and bagel gremlin Charles Ferguson-Avery, and you should definitely check it out if you like more eldritch and inhuman takes on tabletop deities.

But considerably less spooky and severe than them is our friend of the day, the Collector.

The Collector, Beacon of Hope & Renewal

There once lived a quiet, gentle, and very shy thing. Their zest for life was only matched by their unease around other living things. They wished to see the world, but not to be seen. So they wandered in secret, keeping to backroads and the silent gulfs between realms.

But even out there, amidst the beauty of the forgotten and the gracefully crumbling, they still happened upon other souls. They came in search of quiet solitude, a balm for their woes amid a life of hardship and pain. But in seeking out eternal stillness, they stirred that little thing's heart to action. A yearning to help filled them until it threatened to burst, and so they poured it out into the rubble and ruin of that forgotten place.

To their surprise, that tender care imbued the things they touched with strength, dignity, and renewed purpose. Or perhaps, they merely helped bring those innate qualities back up to the surface, through the layers of time and neglect. The wandering thing went about gathering these blessings together, before scattering them in their wake, just ahead of those lost and lonesome souls.

A quiet joy like never before filled them, and they at last knew their own purpose. Even now, the Collector wanders the spheres in search of forgotten things in need of a home, and forgotten beings in need of hope.

The Borrowers

The Collector has no organized clergy, and those who behave as priests would never call themselves such. Instead, they have admirers. People who long ago caught the Collector's eye, and who took notice of them in turn. They see the worth and beauty in what the nomad does, and seek to aid their cause however they can.

So they wander the land as pilgrims and sightseers in search of overlooked places, things, and people. They carry with them the Collector's gifts, knowing that they keep them in their possession only as a passing thing, until the item's true purpose is revealed by time and circumstance. Then, they secret their treasures into the paths of the worthy-in-need. In short they are not keepers, but mere Borrowers.

Initiation: Gifts Left Behind

To become a Borrower, you must first catch the Collector's attention, and then come to the realization that they exist at all. This is easier said than done, considering how discreet and willing to let others take credit for their acts the Collector is. But once that is all said and done, the act of cementing one's friendship with the Collector is quite straightforward: sacrifice something precious.

This item can't merely be powerful, magical, or materially valuable. It must hold great personal significance to you- both you the character, and you the player. It must represent something about your life, experiences, and/or worldview. Family heirlooms, mementos, childhood toys, or tried-and-true pieces of equipment with their own inferred personalities and nicknames are common selections.

You must hide this object in an out-of-the-way but not completely inaccessible location, such as tucked into a hollow in a tree stump off a dirt road, or buried in the earth of a shallow cave mouth. In time the Collector will find your offering and consider it carefully, before imbuing it with new qualities and leaving it in the hands of a future someone who dearly needs it.

You will never know what your sacrifice does for that stranger, and they will never know it was you who aided them. Nor will they ever know the history of this item or the way it was cherished. Instead they will give it a whole new life, and in doing so kindle that beacon of hope and renewal, to be cast into the future in turn.

Such is faith.

Daily Invocation: A Quiet Prayer

• Do not hoard resources or possessions from those in need.
• Maintain humility in the face of gifts and good fortune.
• Do not reveal the Collector's existence to outsiders.
• Live life humbly and surreptitiously.

Initial Miracle: Journey Home

Borrowers are wanderers who have no one place they call home; rather, home is wherever they are most needed.

You may divine the location of the nearest forgotten little thing. The miracle can specifically look for an abandoned location like a ruin, old den, or shrine, a long-lost object, or a lonesome creature, or it can look for any/all of the above. You know the direction and distance to your target "as the crow flies", but not the exact path needed to reach it, such as through a maze.

Rites

I Pass

Sometimes, we are what the Collector places in the paths of others.

You must stop wandering long enough to help someone through a particularly dark time in their life. Merely rescuing them from a dangerous situation is not enough; you must come to know them and their struggles, befriend them, and help them to rise above their hardships. Then you must let go, and allow the friendship to conclude so that you each may return to your respective lives. When you bid farewell to one another with finality and carry with you all the bittersweet memories and experiences into the future, the rite is complete.

Miracle: In Praise of Gentleness

You may sooth the target's woes, removing all natural or supernatural fear, doubt, anger, or other negative emotions from them and replacing them with a contemplative calm that grants the target Advantage on their next Saving Throw related to the mind, emotions, mental state, etc.

You may instead target two or more groups who are about to come to blows with this miracle, in which case they are dissuaded from physical violence for a number of hours equal to your Hit Dice.

Wandering Artisan

In emulation of our foulweather benefactor, we furnish the worthy in need with the fruit of our sweat, labor, and love.

You must craft an object of surpassing quality for one of your skill level; if you are a novice at a given craft it must be competent, if you're a master it must be exceedingly high quality, if creating magic items is well within your ability it must be truly extraordinary, etc. This step may take months or more by itself, and call for you to find and obtain rare materials.

Once it is completed, the item must be anonymously donated to a worthy cause or person whom you believe will use it for good. You must be present to witness them doing so, but may not betray the item's origins while in their company. The rite is complete when the bearer of your gift accomplishes (or at least tries their best at) a feat that aligns with the Collector's goals.

Miracle: Treasures Left

You may spend some of the goodwill you've earned with the Collector to receive a short "advance" of sorts on their gifts. Choose Providence or Luck:

Providence allows you to stumble upon just the sort of mundane or low-magic item you'd need in a given encounter for a specific purpose, such as a healing potion to save a downed companion or a replacement weapon for one that's snapped. The item lasts until it is consumed or the encounter ends, at which point it vanishes when you take your eyes off it.

Luck allows you to reroll once on a random loot table and take whichever option you prefer. Note that the referee doesn't have to disclose everything about the two choices (curses, specific magical effects, etc).

Extremist/Heretical Rite: Humble Harvest

These are the Collector's gifts. They are given, but never earned. If someone abuses them, is it not our duty to intercede?

You must dispense with the Collector's gentle discretion for a time, and take the fight to those who would take advantage of their kindness. This person must be a tyrant of some sort who has enriched or empowered themselves using magical items that ultimately came from the Collector. Merely defeating them is not enough; you must see their every means of effecting evil systematically dismantled and neutralized.

You must personally disenchant or destroy the misused item(s) in their presence while explaining to them precisely how powerless and wrong they are. Once the former tyrant is thoroughly broken and made an example of, the rite is complete. Whether or not they can be convinced to make amends is outside the scope of this rite.

Miracle: Desolation

You may permanently snuff out all enchantments and effects on a single item held by the target, rendering it a completely nonmagical object. If the item is a powerful artifact (or other object of huge plot significance that would cause your referee a real headache to destroy just like that), its powers are instead suppressed for a number of weeks equal to your Hit Dice.

Favor: Honored Things

• Encourage others to give and share resources freely.
• Disperse ill-gotten hoards, with force if necessary.
• Undermine those who deny others peace and dignity.
• Pass another object of great value on to the Collector.

TROIKA! Background: Moondog

 Moondog, the Viking of 6th Street

Whether you're rubbing shoulders with Yardbird and the King of Swing, praying at your altar to Thor at home, or accidentally scaring the hell out of New York City couriers in darkened entryways, you do everything with a groove and a sense of vision that not even a dynamite cap to the face can cramp.

Go forth under the howl-honored moon, and remember the beat that Chief Yellow Calf taught you.

Possessions

• Spear, mostly for show.
• Horned helmet, jauntily tilted.
• A Trimba, Oo, or other idiosyncratic homemade instrument.
• Beard like a homeless wizard (which you are).

Advanced Skills

4 Acute Hearing

3 Classical Avant-Garde Jazz

3 Music Theory

2 Couplet Poetry

1 Religion (Old Norse)

Special

Once per day during combat or another situation that uses the Initiative Stack, you may activate Snaketime. This strange, slithery rhythm dislocates you from time and space, allowing you to briefly move through it as you please. You may remove as many tokens from the Initiative Stack or add as many previously drawn tokens back into it as you like, with the exceptions that you can't remove the End of the Round token or add the tokens of dead characters back in. This special ability lasts for 1 round, then time and Initiative return to normal.

Additionally, if you are ever reduced to 0 Stamina and the End of Round token is drawn (meaning you die), you may activate Snaketime regardless of whether or not you've already used it that day. Afterward, death rules apply normally.

Humanity might die in 4/4 time, but you won't.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 18.

This is the part of the narrative which would be enormously abbreviated, or completely omitted altogether. Partly due to the fact that it is somewhat of an awkward subject to recognize that Deneroth's area of influence ends so abruptly such a relatively close distance from its walls, facing southward, and partly due to the fact that many writers find the succeeding days of travel quite empty and dull. I do mean this generally, but I can also point to the accounts of Hirmant & Steppos as personal influences of my perspective on this.

Unfortunately for my dear readers, I will not exercise the same degree of brevity.

... As if the rest of my writing career is not an indication.

We are currently half of a day out from Janskurf's Place and the spot where curious Elrusyo separated from us. The seats of our wagons are growing less and less comfortable, and in the interest of spairing ourselves as well as staying warm, we've taken to walking beside the caravan. At the rate the sluggish animals are traveling, it is not so strenuous that I am incapable of writing- though some of my colleagues and I have already begun to sweat, or in my case, exude a pasty sort of glow. The end result is that our backsides and our legs hurt, rather than feel rested, from alternating sitting and walking. This comes with the natural exception of Hraela. In fact from this point onward, whenever I refer to any sort of physical hardship, the reader can be assured that I am not including her among sufferers or belly-achers.¹

The land south of Deneroth is not empty wasteland. Not in the sense of climate or natural life, and certainly not in the sense of human population either. These regions, once struck the hardest by the long winter of the Rupture, have been reclaimed by nature and by mankind alike over the past two hundred years or so. Small farms and communities like the one where we first encountered Elrusyo exist here, dotting fields, rivers, and hills. Organization between them is present but relatively minimum, except when the rare intermarriage or dispute over particular facets of land draw them together. They do more than subsist and survive, contributing to the north-south trade which keeps the road between Deneroth and Porylus from deteriorating into overgrown divots.

The people here are knowledgeable enough of the cities to know where we hail from and where we are likely bound, but they are ignorant enough to treat us kindly regardless. They speak a language based in Ersuut, but with a heavy admixture of Esgodarran words, as is quite common up north. In fact I would venture to say that they belong to the same continuum of mixed populations living in the region. A rare noun or highly irregular verb leaves Ciudo groping for possible Gertish or River-folk influences, but more often than not he becomes tangled in his own web of morphology.

The people here also sing, and those ethereal sounds are what we now listen to, carrying clearly over the cold air farther than they would in warmer seasons.

Their style of song isn't performative, although I don't doubt that they have a time and a place for that in their day-to-day life as well. Rather, it is one closely associated with physical work. Every profession, it seems, has its own little canon of songs, rhymes, and patterns of rhythm. Many of these songs, in addition to assisting in keeping the pace of work going steady, whether alone or in a team of individuals, also possess a mnemonic quality.

The women and their children harvesting herb gardens almost indistinguishable from the surrounding undeveloped land sing to recall which plant is safe, what each part of the plant is used for, and how to spot weeds or invasive species creeping into their respective habitats. The men elsewhere in groves keep up with one another on short but thick two-person saws as they gather lumber for the winter, and a periodic shout of a refrain alerts those nearby to falling boughs. Shepherds of both sexes stream a soothing series of notes which names and numbers each animal in their flock, yet with surprising fluidity it changes into a staccato litany of curses aimed at us when the caravan gets in the way of their road crossing, or one of the horses spooks a ewe. We cannot now hear them as we keep to the road, but a knowledgeable guide explains to us that songs also exist for domestic, culinary, and even legal matters at home. Their oral tradition is a strong one, with the wars which saw the deaths of the last Haraalians being just recent additions to a landscape of folklore.

It is an almost entirely illiterate world that they live in after all, and everything must be trusted to memory.

As terrifying as that prospect sounds to someone dependent upon writing like myself, I also can't help but see a certain seductive appeal in it. An axiom associated with Laizij holds that absence is the father of creativity, just as adversity is the mother of innovation. And I believe that these people have demonstrated that, though not according to the traditional models of progress. Rather than filling a preexisting void with a new mechanical thing, they have simply negated the void's existence by re-purposing something which they already possessed and knew well. It is enticingly simple.

But I must stop before I begin romanticizing rural populations of whom I know almost nothing about, like some simpering noble from the second tier reading a popular novel. I am sure that the world has a way of delivering just as much frustration and tedium to their lives as ours. Hopefully we hurry on our way before we contribute more of either to these shepherds.



¹ Granted, none of our professional porters and animal handlers are very likely to be in significant pain either. And since Ciudo and Sarq at least have youth on their side, I am without a doubt the least physically fit person within miles. Perhaps just keep that in mind as you read ahead, and allow me to maintain the illusion of dignity by subsuming myself within a tired collective.

Furt Digs Into The Ultraviolet Grasslands.

The Rusty Arc, by WizardThiefFighter

I like nomads.

If you read my blog even casually, you probably already know that from the amount of attention I've paid to groups like the Fokari, or the ancient Ersuunians.

Despite (but maybe not because of) it being a complete opposite in almost every way to the shut-in, sedentary life that I lead, nomadism and the people who live it have fascinated me since at least the end of my high school years.

Central to nomadism is travel from place to place for resources, and therefore survival. Home is the collapsible shelter you take with you, and your personal life can potentially fit into a saddlebag.

So when a fantasy game comes along that tries to capture the experience of travel beyond rolling on a random monster encounter table, I usually take an interest.

Of course true nomadism is a highly structured, cyclical system of migration following weather, animal patterns, and cultural traditions, while nomads as romanticized wanderers akin to adventurers are what have penetrated the tropes and tales of fiction the most in past years (when they aren't characterized as marauding hordes akin to murderhobos, of course).

Fortunately, the Ultraviolet Grasslands (UVG) by WizardThiefFighter includes both elements.

Supported by fuzzy psychedelic metal themes and the author's own distinctive art style which combines surreal blends of magic and science with an appreciation for desolate beauty, UVG is a game about traveling by caravan into the end of the world- literally.

Beyond the familiar lands of the Rainbowlanders who rule the bulk of the world, all the way at the Left End of the Right Road there is a Violet City- a massive trade hub which is a surreal melange of beings and forces all living together amid bizarre bazaars overseen by stewards who may or may not be the servants of hyper-intelligent house cats.

Beyond the Violet City, are the Ultraviolet Grasslands.

The Grasslands make up a steppe environment of inconceivable vastness stretching out into the west, studded by ruins and pieces of half-functional technology from an enigmatic "Long Ago" time.

And beyond that, long past the point where the laws of reality break down, is the Black City.

But it isn't about what your destination is- it's about the journey.

UVG is a rules-lite game which can be added in parts or as a whole to any existing game, though it works bests most similarly to OSR-type games, since the base rules assume six stats, AC, hit dice, etc.

UVG is also a Pointcrawl, which is a type of game system I only learned the existence of through this same game. For those who don't know, it's a way of organizing points of interest on a campaign map or what have you, but leaving the spaces in between those points vague and undefined. It's economical for DMs who don't have a lot of time or resources to work with, but also highly appropriate for travel across the Grasslands, where I get the sense that time and space are somewhat mutable, and the second trip through an area might not be the same as the first.

The Grasslands are populated by all manner of sub-human, superhuman, energy being, robot, and ghost. Player characters are even weirder, partly because they're actually willing to go on a trip out here. There are a host of reasons offered as to why they want to go into the Grasslands, from being merchants and their guards, to fulfilling destinies or prophecies in the face of the world coming to an end, to simply returning home as one of the Lime Nomads (it's unclear if they are named for the fruit or the color).

To show how vast and empty the Grasslands are, actions are taken according to Weeks, rather than rounds, turns, minutes, etc. In these Weeks, the players can travel, forage for supplies (measured in Sacks), make discoveries, and run into misfortune (one of several reasons not to dump Charisma in this game). Making good use of your Sacks is vital to finishing your job on the Grasslands alive and profitably, while weight allowance on the caravan is enough of a concern that you might prefer to permanently deface beautiful but heavy works of art in order to carry away a few handfuls of precious stones. Gritty realism is assumed for injury and healing, and cannibalism has a slot in the rules right on page 33. I wouldn't be surprised if a rule comes along soon for characters losing sanity from over-stimulation by the constant buzz and glow of the landscape.

I encourage you to give this weird world a shot if any of this has piqued your interest, particularly because the work-in-progress introductory book for the game is offered for free on the creator's Patreon page and through DriveThruRPG. More content pertaining to more locations in depth is available to Patrons, with even more goodies forthcoming.