Rynath's page

Some of Roslof's drawings were burned into the back of my young mind. Part of me craves that old style, but art evolves...

So I'll draw my next picture with him in mind.

Thanks for the images that set the mood all those years ago.

Wolfsnap wrote:

I was recently re-reading the old B2 Module "The Keep on the Borderlands" and I think a certain amount of the "kill the bad guys and take their stuff" can be traced back to certain conventions in that book and others of the period. The "Caves of Chaos" dungeon is basically set up like an "evil neighborhood" filled with competing tribes of Orcs, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, etc. The thing is that each Lair, in addition to having a number of seasoned warriors and boss monsters, is also home to a large number of non-combatant females and young - sometimes they outnumber the demi-human fighters. The end result being that, if the module was run as written, after you dispatched the tribe's warriors you would then step into the next room and be surrounded by wailing widows and orphans. EVIL widows and orphans. (supposedly)

The Demi-humans had treasure which was supposedly amassed from raiding (although its never specified who was robbed) and there's an evil temple in the area, but in hindsight it still seems weird to me.

Today's liberal mentality cant accept it, but back then, the common mindset was "nits make lice", meaning you kill the young before they can grow up to be a problem. Which stemmed from the idea that alignment was static for monsters; an orc was CE from birth to death, and only magic could change that, it was a genetic thing.

Which made killing a terrible evil acceptable.

even if you remove the BS of "good" and "evil" and simply go with "us versus them", you still get looting; thats how men on the move replace the ammunition they use in combat, upgrade damaged equipment, and restock food. If you use non-intelligent monsters, the characters still loot the corpse for food at least, and maybe for leather and other usable items to replace consumed items. Its how humanity has worked since time began.

+1

Having sympathy for goblins/orcs/hobgoblins etc. is silly. If they had their way, they would completely wipe out or enslave every human/dwarf/elf, man/woman/child in the world. There is no compromise here, no moral relativism. Just think how vile these creatures would be if they were real. It kind of reminds me of how some people wish they were vampires. Seriously, a vamp is a demonic CORPSE. I wouldn't mind their abilities, but I wouldn't want to be one. And frankly if they existed they would have to hunted down. Alignment conflicts are best left between the player races themselves. Just food for thought.

50 INTJ's or ISTJ's or I*** together in a room....how many I's become E's. Particularly if they have common interests? And the same for a group of E's....how many become I's. Group dynamics, leaders, followers, and outsiders are not always the same in every place.

INTJ every test. Years ago was ISTJ. Wonder what changed???