The Sea-Changed (New Monster)

Ariel's Song from the Tempest as illustrated by Virgil Finlay

A new monster for your Portown, Saltmarsh or other coastal D&D campaign, inspired by this thread on ODD74, which shows a photo of a skull undergoing a "sea change". As a bit of further explanation, the modern expression "sea change" originates in Shakespeare's The Tempest (click on the image above to enlarge it so you can read the full quote), which was memorably referenced by Gary Gygax in the Example of Play in the original AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. I've taken it one step further by using it as the basis for a monster.

The Sea-changed

Move: 60 feet/turn
Hit Dice: 1 + 1
Armor Class: 5
Treasure Type: special

Alignment: lawful evil
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d6

Sailors whisper that a corpse that comes to rest in the brine may undergo a mysterious and sinister transformation, rising again in a calcified skeletal form known as "the sea-changed". 

The sea-changed seek to spread their animating force to the living by touch of calciferous claws or an equally mineralized weapon or tool used during life such as a cutlass, harpoon or even anchor.

A hit with such will, in addition to inflicting damage, encrust the area of the wound with the sea-change unless a successful saving throw versus poison is made. Failure results results in the loss of one point of dexterity per day as the calcification spreads. Once dexterity reaches zero, the victim will be transformed into one of the sea-changed.

The spread can be kept at bay, but not cured, through daily application of vinegar. It is rumored among sailors that the merfolk know the secret of how to reverse the sea-change.

Each sea-changed has a 1 in 10 chance of having pearlescent eyes (roll on the gem table for value).

The sea-changed are subject to turning as zombies.

9/24 Update: Added an alignment, which I had inadvertently left out: Lawful Evil like mummies, wights, wraiths & spectres in Holmes. Thanks to Lore Suto on Twitter for pointing this out to me.

Original Printing of The Maze of Peril on Amazon

The cover of The Maze of Peril (1986)

The Maze of Peril, J. Eric Holmes' 1986 fantasy novel, can now be ordered via Amazon from the original publisher, Space & Time Books. Follow this link to find it: 

The Maze of Peril (1986) on Amazon

For the uninitiated, this novel details the meeting of Boinger the Halfling and Zereth the Elf and their first grand adventure. The two characters had previously appeared in three short stories in Dragon magazine, and before that in several campaign stories in the Alarums & Excursions D&D APAzine. The adventures in the Maze of Peril are based on some of the characters and events from the original D&D campaign that Holmes ran for his sons and their friends in the mid-1970s. Here's the Amazon product teaser, which is straight from the back cover and highlights the OD&D megadungeon influence on the setting:

What race or races built the maze, no one knew. In the opinion of the sages of Caladan, many layers of dungeons and underworld were laid down, one atop the other, as the world crust was formed, so that now no one knew or even guessed how many levels extended below the surface. Corridors of wealth, they were also tunnels of deadly peril, for many of the rash adventurers and soldiers of fortune who set forth for the secret entrances were never heard from again. To those with the courage and ability to survive the challenges, however, the maze had always paid equal tribute with its fabulous mysteries and treasures from countless civilizations.

Now the Dagonites--creatures part human, part frog--seek to keep these riches for themselves and extend their domain to the surface. It falls to Boinger the halfling and his companions, in the midst of their quest for personal glory and wealth, to discover the Dagonite stronghold, challenge their warriors and wizards, rescue a kidnapped friend, preserve the waterways of Amazonia, and...perhaps...save the world!

This new retail outlet was brought to my attention via a thread on Dragonsfoot, and a commenter there that purchased the book confirmed with photos that this is remaining stock from the original 1986 printing. Tavis of the Mule Abides reported back in 2008 that 1,000 copies were originally printed and about half had been sold at the time.

This is much more convenient than the previous method of ordering directly from the publisher; when I ordered it more than twenty years ago I had to send in a check to the address listed on their website. 

As of February 2024, the book is still in stock at Amazon, with a cost of $17.95, which is $11 more than the original cover price of $6.95. 

The novel was later compiled in Tales of Peril by Black Blade Publishing, along with the short stories and other writings of J. Eric Holmes, although that is now out of print, with a second edition still in planning stages.

Despite the reprint, I  have a fondness for the original printing. Reading this book kickstarted my interest in the work of Holmes which eventually led to this blog. 

The original printing is zine-sized, with shiny cardstock covers and 147 pages plus endpapers. It has a few features not found in the reprint, including the pastel blue cover art by Dan Day (echoing the Holmes Basic rulebook color?) and a frontispiece illustration by Gregario Montejo. There are two excerpts from the story before the frontispiece, and another on the back cover (which you can see in the Dragonsfoot thread linked above). There is also an author bio for Holmes along with each of the artists.

Several reviews of the book:

Dragonsfoot review (2006) - by myself, points out the many similarities with Holmes Basic

OD&D Discussion thread (2008)

Grognardia Pulp Fantasy Library review (2010)

Carjacked Seraphim review (2010)
Delta's D&D Hotspot review (2011)

And a few years ago I began a Tales of Peril Book Club and made it through most of the first chapter of the Maze of Peril (warning, spoilers abound). I hope to return to this series eventually.

Combining OD&D Attack & Saving Throw Tables

Attack Matrix I annotated with the Saving Throw Categories

Above is a hypothetical format for combining two tables in OD&D: Attack Matrix I, which is used for PCs when they attack, and the Saving Throw Matrix. 

It's easy to do this because both rely on d20 rolls, and both tables advance the classes in the groups of levels (3 levels for Fighters, 4 levels for Clerics, 5 levels for Magic-Users). 

A 1st level fighter needs the same score (12) to Save Versus Poison as to hit AC 7, and the other saving throw categories likewise correspond to AC6 to AC3; i.e., Wands = AC6, Stone = AC5, Breath = AC4, Spell = AC3, as annotated above.

The higher levels match well enough. There is a bit of discrepancy in the spots where the Saving Throw table jumps differently. 

But a Fighter 10-12 saves 9/8/7/6/5 in the combined table versus 10/8/8/7/6 on the Saving Throw table. That's not more than a 5% difference between any two rolls.

In order to retain the relative saving throw bonus/penalties between classes, the following adjustments would also be used:

Magic-Users get a -1 to Poison, Wands and Breath, and a +1 to Stone at all levels, plus a +1 to Spells for each rank they are in (+1 at 1-5, +2 at 6-10, +3 at 11-15 etc). 

Clerics get a -1 to Spell & Breath, a +1 to Wands at all levels, and a +1 to Poison for each rank they are in (+1 at 1-4, +2 at 5-8, +3 at 9-12 etc).

This table can also be used to adjust the saving throw values. Poison by default would be AC7, but you could have weak poison (AC9) or a strong poison (AC5). One could also add a new easier category, like "Falling" at AC8, perhaps increasing the "AC" for every additional 10' fallen.

This is similar to using difficulty class (DC) values in 5E. To illustrate this, here is a further modified version with Descending AC replaced by Ascending AC/Difficulty Class:

Looking at OD&D in terms of 5E, one would view the saving throws in terms of Difficulty Class (DC), with Poison having a DC12, Wands having a DC13, Turned to Stone having a DC14, Dragon Breath having a DC15, and Spells having a DC16.

The table at the top of this post could also be used with Holmes Basic, which uses the OD&D tables, but with the addition of a Normal Man column prior to the Level 1-3 column (this was an addition to Holmes' manuscript by Gygax/TSR).

(Adapted from several posts in this recent thread in ODD74)