Social class and crime & punishment

 Part One of "Sphere of the Indefatigable Adjudicator" AKA the Ready Ref Rewrite

Social classes 

Roll 3d6 to determine social class

3 to 7 Untouchable - Criminals, bandits, serfs, slaves, subhumans/humanoids/mutants, exogens. Aren't considered citizens and possess few social rights. Certain professions also fall into this category: beggars, gongfarmers, gladiators, corpse collectors, tanners, butchers, coal burners, people who work with radioactive chemicals. Class 0.

8 to 12 Common folk - Common rabble, plebians, and laborers. Peasants, potters, fishers. Expected to carry a dirk as sign of their freeman status.

Recieves 1 vote in elections. Expected wage: 50-100 septims/year. Class 1.

13 - 15 Optimate - The economic middle class. Those who possess specialized skills considered to be prestigious. Merchants, philosophers, scribes, musicians, lawyers, doctors, master-class guildsmen, low-level magicians; skilled trades, the highly educated. 

Recieves 5 votes in public elections. Expected wage: 500 septims/year. Class 2.

16, 17 Armiger - The warrior class. Highest attainable outside of birth or magic. Cavalry, generals, knights. Must abide by strict code of chivalry, honor, and ethics. 

Recieves 15 votes in public elections. Expected wage: 2,000 septims/year. Class 3.

18 Exultant - those of noble birth, patricians, senators, archons, priests. Also includes sorcerers of exceptional skill. 

Recieves 25 votes in public elections. Expected wage: 10,000+ septims/year. Class 4.

Special classes

Elves and dwarves are treated on a different social class scale due to exclusion from normal human society.

Dwarves are generally treated as honorary Optimates because of their association with merchantry and skilled trades. If a dwarf performs a trade of low prestige (barkeep, porter, underling) they'll be associated as a plebian, but with a mixture of pity and disgust. Dwarves are not allowed to vote or hold office and tend to keep to themselves. In human cities they tend to live together in ghettos organized by trade and clan affiliation. These areas are generally near guild districts, docks, or poor towns.

Elves on the other hand are treated as a mix of untouchable and exultant; fear, reference, transcendence and disgust. Elves are considered exogens: those born off-world, and thus are strictly outsiders. However, due to their association with magic, mystery, and advanced technology are frequently given deference.

A party that travels with an elf with stick out like a sore thumb. Everywhere they go people will gawk and point. At best the elf will receive treatment on level with a noble guest or high priest, at worst open mouthed gibbering and white knuckle horror, disdain, and mistreatment

Elves have difficulty passing as human. They do not look human: they are either very tall or quite short, extremely thin, with exotic, almost inhuman features. Huge almond shaped eyes, knife-like noses, wide mouths which are formed by a overly wide and abrupt slash across their face. Elves tend to interact with human objects with confusion and curiosity, and are almost completely oblivious to human social customs, with short attention spans and childlike wonderment.

If an elf has lived with humans for a very long time they may have adopted physical features and customs more readily acceptable to humans, but this masquerade can quickly vanish if the elf's attention breaks.

Crime and punishment

Chance of conviction = 75% + ((social class of plaintiff - social class of defendant) x5%)

Crime against protected class of people = +10%

Crime against persecuted class of people = -10%

Crime was especially heinous or subject taboo: +35 %

Self-defense = -30%

Plaintiff is governing body = +25%

Evidence:

Controversial +/- 5% per

Substantial +/- 10% per

Witnesses:

+ / - Social class of witness x10% each

Bribing judge:

5% per 100 septims, +5% per social class

Punishments

Mild crimes

1 - 6. Fine, 1d10 x10 gold pieces.

7. Amputation of: 1. Hand 2. Eye 3. Tongue 4. Nose 5. Ear 6. Foot

8. Breaking of 1. Arm 2. Leg 3. Skull 4. Both arms 5. Both legs 6. Teeth

9. 1d4 x10 lashes

10. Imprisonment, 2d10 months

11. Imprisonment, 1d6 years

12. Pillory or stocks, 2d6 hours x number of past offences

Felonies

1. Drop from 1d6 x10 feet

2. Clasped between two panes of thick glass and dipped in honey, left 2 weeks

3. Iron shoes, year and a day

4. Chained in water d12 weeks, up to 1. Knees 2. Waist 3. Chest 4. Neck 5. Overhead, permitted breathing apparatus 6. Ibid, no breathing apparatus

5. Plucking a stone from boiling water.

6. Gibetting, d12 months

7. Tied into a sack with a live baboon and thrown into river

8. Placed into copper plated solarium and hoisted into sky, d6+1 days

Severe crimes

1. Sealed in a cyst in the earth for 1,000 years.

2. Fed to lions

3. Returned to infancy and raised by 1. Wolves 2. A brutal family 3. A dwarf 4. Slavers 5. A vindictive wizard 6. Elves

4. Raised from the dead to be slaughtered again in a brutal way every day for a year and a day

5. Soul sealed to be used in artifact enchantment or undead servant or sold to a daemon

6. Inserted into the anus of a blue whale

7. Entombed alive

8. Placed inside a tree and kept alive (barely) so that the tree grows around you.

Refuse collection

Located in a burned out facility beneath rubbish dump on outskirts of Domzwolek. Entrance is a slippery chute to 5.

1. Nest

Angry wasp nest built inside massive, fragile vase (200gp) perched precariously on top of a wooden ladder. Wasps hate intruders and their stings leave horrible oozing blisters.

Room also contains most of the parts of a totally dismembered flyer. Familiarity or intelligence of 14+ required to recognize what it is at sight. It could be reassembled, but it would take several months effort from a knowledgeable specialist with a fully equipped workshop.

2. Skull-o-tron

Skull-o-tron, huge belching stinking machine crowds room. Chute at top, expulsion hole at bottom. Anything put in the top causes a skull of equal mass to be ejected out the bottom. If something is put in the bottom it begins smoking and catches fire.

3. Slovenly Gorsup

Huge orangutan "Gorsup the Gulper" (as ogre) lavishes among rotting mattresses, old books, tapestries. Waited on by exhausted android servant. Gorsup loves good food and is willing to trade for exotic dishes. He's also hugely strong, impatient, and has bouts of low self-esteem in which he projects his own short-comings into others.

In his pile of junk is 4 ornamental parade halberds (100gp each), a pearl necklace (800gp), a set of gold dentures (200gp), 3 elvish tapestries (800gp each), and a wig of woven gold filament, each hair carved with microscopic letters detailing the 40 Elder Sagas of the Dawnbringer (4000gp) (currently attached to a broom handle for use as a mop). Most of it is covered in rotting meat and feces.

S Door, locked. Gorsup has key. Not giving it up. It's made of plutonium and slowly killing him.

4. Pork chamber

40 gallon sized clay pots sealed with rancid fat. Contain pork in juices, also rancid. Nine rats nest here in a shredded mattress. They've amassed 40 sp. A rat has chewed it's way into a pot and drowned.

5. Sludge Recumbent

Four inches of water, foetid piles of mud, Android parts, sewing machines, aluminum tubes, massive heavy springs, rotting fabric in iridescent hues. Moving through junk at half speed.

Western entrance via slippery chute from scrap yard.

NW Door - lock, malfunctioning maglock. Super powerful magnet or acetylene torch required.

NE Door - made from pieces of a particleboard desk.

SE Door - trapped, blinking makeshift proxmine. 4:6 chance it explodes, otherwise shoots sparks and scuttles to a random room.

6. Static projector

Static Projection (as wraith) emits from malfunctioning video screen. Can't leave room. Shrieks in garbled noise which prevents communication.

N Door - trapped, door attempts to cut third person through in half.

7. Ocular Connection

4 orangutans (as goblins) armed with bone clubs and sharpened bits of metal sit in a loose circle jabbering and trading eyes they've collected in jars. They're very interested in obtaining elf eyes. Each orangutan has a purse of 50gp. One has a jade antler in a shoulder pouch of deerhide - each point on the antler has a single dose of venom which causes immediate paralysis (save to avoid) for d20+4 hours.

North part of room has clay forge, numerous pots of paint and iron beads.

NE Door - trap, obnoxious klaxon summons first aid bot unfamiliar with human anatomy.

8. Furnace

Vat of hot coals hangs from ceiling. Lever opens, dumps all over floor.

N door, trapped, glowing red hot.

S Door, locked, enter access code INCORRECT! SUMMONING FIRST AID BOT (no bot comes)

9. Runic Circle

A complex magical circle has been drawn on the floor in slightly incandescent chalk. It has no magical properties. A Magic-User with an intelligence score of at least 13 will recognize after a bit of investigation that it's a star chart depicting the location of a previously unknown planet orbiting a black hole 24,000 light years away.

Along the walls is a number of dilapidated particle board bookshelves containing 44 moldering texts on extinct forms of fungi (all told maybe worth 100gp to a collector)

NW DOOR locked, cemented shut.

10. Trap

Broken statue haunted by poltergeist with an obtuse sense of humor. Placated by opera, harp music, vases, and slapstick. Otherwise will follow party causing shenanigans for d6 turns before getting bored.

NW Door - trapped. Poltergeist pulls trespasser's shirt over their head and kicks them in the rear as they cross the threshold, cackling.

Wandering monsters

1. 2d8 flame fairies (1/2hd) gleefully starting and or putting out fires

2. 12 orangutans in I'll fitting armor parade around with halberds, very serious

3. Giant glowing gecko. Just wants to be left alone. Climbs on ceiling. Obnoxiously knocks things people over

4. Broken first aid bot shrieking for help in static

5. Pet iguana, scared, desires lettuce

6. 8 orangutans robbers

How to do a dungeon

UndeadWaffle on the OSR discord has been writing prolifically about his campaign lately. Not to be outdone I'm gonna riff on his stuff. 

Recently he did a write-up on his method of making dungeons. He uses the BX stocking method and comes up with ideas and monsters before he writes his dungeon.

I do the opposite. I generally start with layout first and work backwards to an idea, letting the development happen iteratively and organically from the layout.

This works for me because I rely heavily on procedurally generated content. The world starts out as random chaos and meaning begins to take shape as the pieces are developed.

I don't like long prep. I can easily spend all day tinkering if I let myself, which leads to burn out and damaged relationships. D&D is addictive.

The process

First I pick where I want a dungeon to go. This is probably a randomly chosen hex. I roll 2d10 for the number of rooms to start with. On graph paper I begin drawing rooms, sometimes throwing a d6 to help decide room size, orientation, and shape. I have a very intuitive mind and even randomly selected numbers can spontaneously generate rooms, shapes, traps, etc in my head. If I start having ideas I write them down, either as snippets or a table to roll on.

For my layouts I like to have a large main room with d4+2 branching paths, usually bisected by or connected to a main 'highway' which can quickly get occupants to a distant end of the dungeon. Highways are important because they form the backbone of transit around the floor - monsters use it, players use it, it's generally both dangerous and more likely to have divers travelers willing to barter, trade, or ply secrets, as well as rob, accuse, and solicit.

Each dungeon floor has 2 or 3 'areas' connected by choke points. Each area has 6-12 rooms, ordered chaotically, then connected with twisting passages, loops, and detours. I draw straight to final draft, letting ideas bubble up and vanish into the ether, forgotten. This i consider the 'pre-history' of the dungeon. Most dungeons are older beyond time out of mind, having been repurposed dozens of times over the centuries. I consider dungeons to be quasi-alive and malevolent. The original builders likely had minds unlike humans and altogether sinister, so I have no qualms about letting the layout make no sense. Dungeons are the bowels of the earth - treasure troves of dead gods, prisons for inhuman fiends, and bacterial cultures for transdimensional entities.

Once the layout is done I throw dice for each room to determine contents, adjusting at whim as I go.

1-2. Empty

3. Trap

4-5. Monster

6. Special

Empties have a 1:6 chance to have treasure. Traps have a 2:6. Monsters have 3:6. Specials are usually horrible. Generally there is something of low value, or medium value though cumbersome and awkward to transport, in every room. A few coins, a huge sheet of beaten copper, a forty pound demon skull, a crystal sarcophagus, ebony furniture. Etc.

Lots of empty rooms are important because death is almost a given. The idea here is to get in and get out. I've written before about my combats and I'll write about them again soon. I don't pull punches and my monsters are smart. The players have to be smarter. I refuse to except less.

By this point I've probably had enough ideas to give me a sense of at least some of the monster inhabitants. If there's clusters of occupied rooms I'll make these factions and use the factions to determine meaning.

Say I have 4 occupied rooms close together and the dungeon is located in a swamp (my favorite terrain type). These could be kobolds, Scorpio men, or zombies. Or maybe zombie kobolds and necromancer Scorpio men. I dress up the rooms around them with rooms for feeding, breeding, torturing, praying, communing, hiding, workshops, temples, and store rooms. Often rooms serve multiple purposes since real estate is limited. The faction probably has a leader, so I give them a private room, maybe near the temple or work rooms, provide them with secrets exits, protective traps, funds, furnishings, want artifacts. Often the faction will have a hierarchy, with a second in command, a priesthood, and a work force.

Factions always have friends, enemies, goals, prejudices, and obsessions. They're basically conglomerate NPCs. Sometimes the idea comes fully formed, sometimes I roll on tables. I make a few short notes.

After deciding the monster inhabitants I make the wandering monster table, either a d6 or d8. I like to have 1/2rd be weak or mindless monsters, and the remaining split between intelligent or powerful monsters. Some are taken from factions and placed monsters, some can only be found as wandering monsters.

Some OSR writers dislike long wandering monster lists, claiming it's better to a have a few interesting encounters than a long list of boring ones. My problem is rather that I have too many good ideas and I have to pare them down so they don't go to waste. I also like to make a note next to each entry to give them something to do, which I may not use when the time comes. An example of this:

1. D4 intelligent dingos, frantically looking for their pet dead cat.

2. Pet dead cat. Writhing full of maggots.

3. 2d6 goblins, holding court. Goblin lawyers well dressed, defendant is a severed elephant head with tusks worth 800gp each.

4. 2 goblin merchants, giant porcupine pack animal. Sell cooking equipment, linens, knife sharpening (will try to steal magic daggers they're given to sharpen)

5. Petulant ogre, two empty tuns, nursing wretched hangover.

6. D8 gnomes, probably convinced players stole something from them.

7. Purple worm!

8. Manticore and pet succubus, ended up here by mistake.

9. 2d12 zombies, organizing potion cupboard.

10. Vampire, stuck in mist form.

I could keep going all day. I'll use the note I wrote if it seems interesting in the moment or just throw for reaction.

After monsters are done it's time for traps. There's two types of traps: recent and occult. Recent traps were made and maintained by denizens. These include most genial booby traps.

Occult traps are maintained by nobody. They operate according to inscrutable laws of anti-physics, and exist for no reason other than their own sadistic glee. They may have been spawned as artistic expressions by the dungeon itself, by the original builders, or at some point in forgotten history it doesn't matter. These include glowing tiles that teleport you 3 feet down, urns that incinerate anything placed within, and cracked windows that hold back a flood of black water.

Specials are when things get really weird. Usually they're not as dangerous as traps, but potentially dangerous. A painting that inserts itself into your memories, a statue that insists you have a tea party with it, a room where it's constantly raining, or a tree that answers questions about botany, or a machine that turns meat into metal, or a metal vat containing liquidized ghosts  It's stuff to tinker with or find a way to leverage to your benefit. Or avoid.

I usually do empty rooms last because they're the most difficult. By definition empty rooms aren't barren - they just don't contain monsters, traps, or specials. I find it difficult to write descriptions of rooms that don't do anything, so I usually just cram them with nonsense furniture, broken machines, moldering books, broken masonry, tools, furniture, alters, etc. I should probably write some tables to automate this. If a dungeon dies on the operating table it's probably because I can't think of stuff that's boring but still interesting.

There. That's my method. Somewhere along the line everything starts falling into place. Reasons, meanings, hooks, rumors, but it doesn't need to. A dungeon doesn't exist for players to loot it, or to serve some outside purpose. Dungeons exist to keep things away from the world, to imprison things better forgotten, and to hide, sulk, ooze, and mangle. I don't care if players can't clear it, and I don't care if they nuke it from the atmosphere, and I don't care if the local lizardmen come and fill it up with black puddings after the players leave.

My motto is: the world isn't here to entertain you. If you come to my game you should know that you're here to entertain yourself with this weird little puzzle box I make in my free time.

I find the best art is made by the artist, for the artist, not her expected audience. My favorite musicians are shut ins with no dreams of fame. My favorite writers shriek with glee at their own stupidity. The game, to me, is figuring out what to do with this stuff and chasing obsessions and tangents into places you can't go if you planned it that way.

Happy corpses.

Play by Post Tips

 

Ok so here's my tips for smoothly running a pbp I'll probably add more when I think of stuff

-discord is for posting, obviously. Nothing else *just works*

-have separate channels for in character and out character and dice rolls. Have a secret channel for DM stuff, notes to yourself, secret rolls.

-campaignwiki for storing info, character sheets, notes. There's always a chance you can lose stuff on discord and campaignwiki doesn't require a login and you can revert charges if something gets baleeted. Campaignwiki works on a toaster oven and has zero learning curve. Just type and save. Fuck Google drive, editable PDFs and excel all to hell holy shit 

-DM should award treasure to specific PCs and update inventory themselves. Most players forget and everyone's gonna have their own way of doing it that'll drive you crazy

-I wouldn't run anything more complicated than swords & wizardry. No BX. The more you have to reference every character sheet before something happens the slower things get. Especially if the players have to reference their own sheets or god forbid each other's.

-have a very simple character sheet template a child could fill out

-simplify inventory. Use slot based, or armor based encumbrance, or just let players carry whatever reasonable amount of gear plus say 2000 coins in weight. Or just do away with encumbrance and adjudicate that shit.

-DM should pick a routine time to do updates and stick to it. A lot of pbp snowball into constant posting, this sucks up an enormous amount of the DMs energy because they always have to 'be on'. I like three to five times a week.

-have a caller. @ them or let them choose what the party does if everybody is dithering/afk

-have players declare routines they do eg when opening doors, checking for traps, and marching formation. Automate everything that happens a lot and have players give you default orders as a fall back like "if we get into a fight I'm gonna move to the back and shoot arrows" or "when we open a room we're gonna let dogs in first"

-don't make players map. Show them the hex crawl, give them a cropped picture of the dungeon room. Sometimes there's one player that really wants to map. It's okay to let them but be ready for them to get bored or go afk for two weeks

-use a kind of zoomed out perspective on Npc interaction. Nothing slows a game down faster than a week long conversation with some obtuse weirdo you dreamed up. If the players are hyperfocusing on something stupid or irrelevant just tell them the thing and move on "the alchemist likes you and will give you the potion for 200gp. Deal or no deal?"

-be obvious about traps, assume PCs are doing the right thing unless they're specifically saying they're not doing that. No pixel bitching.

-do all rolls that could cause harm to a PC in the open, but hide everything else. Don't make the PCs roll for anything other than attacks and saves.

-don't bother with VTTs. Don't make players use software outside what they need to post. It's not going to work for half the people. If you need to do a picture to clarify something either just handwaved it or sketch a pic in ms paint or on printer paper with a sharpie and snap a photo

-offer PCs three or four obvious options, but no more. Theyll get confused and start arguing for days or go silent because everybody's afraid to act, or just pick the first thing the lead player says anyway

-don't pick sides. Talk to the players who don't post often or go silent for long periods. Keep the conversation going. Don't be afraid to boot players who don't post or cause problems. Don't get upset when players don't like the game, don't like how you're doing things, or suddenly quit. Take their feedback with a grain of salt, consider it, and go with your gut. 

Foragers at worlds end

 Everybody has their own method for handling foraging and hunting. I prefer to find the middleground between realism and simplicity. It's easy to confuse complexity for realism. Our living world is a highly complex fractal of perspectives, so the more intricate you make your gaming system the closer to realism you get, right?

 This way of thinking makes two mistakes. First, it assumes realism is necessarily better. This is a flavor thing and I don't think I need to make comment on it. More importantly it argues from a mistaken position; that approximating reality requires many moving parts.

This is a bigger subject than I can fit in my brain currently. My own personal philosophy is that reality functions as a system of just-in-time rulings, much like a game of d&d. A wizard behind a curtain does it until you look, and then he quickly evaporates leaving only the panelboard for us to see. Rather than recreating the panelboard we only need to recreate the effect. If we have a reasonable facsimile that everyone at the table can agree is smooth, doesn't interrupt the flow of the game, and limits explanation and confusion, and reproduces the feeling and effect we want for this particular game, then we succeed. Let's move on.

What the Wilds are

The land outside human settlements is wild, untamed, and dangerous. It is inimical to intrusions from civilization and will resist in the most Yin way possible; be evading your assault. Chaos maps to the Yin principal; that which is dissolving, in shadow, inscrutable, evasive, destructive, consuming, passive. Law maps to the Yang principal - active, hierarchical, possessive, enforcing, knowable, penetrating, reductive. Yang reduces Yin to simple systems; it's what our science attempts to do by breaking the complexity of reality down into categories and then assuming those categories can be understood separately from each other. Yin is holistic; from the one comes the ten-thousand young, all interconnected by the source - it is unknowable. The land outside human settlements is, at its core, unknowable. The act of clearing a hex and setting up a stronghold is an act of 'taming' the Yin into Yang; it becomes map-able. But the Yin always tries to subvert your dominance in the form of monsters.

Finding Food

Nature is abundant and all giving, but it does not tolerate attempts to understand it. If you look for food you will find it, but there are risks.

Searching for Food

Takes a 4 hour watch or all day, depending on how you manage time. Everybody makes a Save. Those who fail find d4 rations worth of food, those who succeed find d6. Those who fumble incur a mishap; they accidentally ingest a poisonous plant, they're wounding while hunting, they get lost, gored by an elk, fall into a ravine, disturb a nest of hornets, etc. There's probably a d100 table writing itself right now. Those who get a critical success on a 20 find the maximum amount of food and can choose another teammate who is also rolling and increase their failure to a success.

Druids, Rangers, halflings, and frontiersman-types automatically find d4 food, d6 on a failure, and d6+6 on a success. They still suffer mishaps if they fumble because nobody is perfect.

Obviously, different locales will have different types of food and different difficulties in finding it. In a desert I would limit checks to only those who are familiar with the desert, as well as Druids and Rangers (not halflings). They can only ever find d4 rations.

While they're searching you should also roll an encounter for each group. Woe be to the ones who are attacked alone and lost. Hope you have a winding horn.

What Kind of Food is Found?

I would make d20 tables for every biome, if you care that much. If you're running a world that's vaguely European the list of familiar edible plants should be easy. There's about two dozen that are extremely common and easily identifiable. On high rolls I would say they caught rabbits, woodchucks, red deer, hedgehogs, raccoons, boar, or whatever else, as long as they're sufficiently equipped.

Working Together

Players that go into detail coming up with a good plan are more likely to succeed. If they spend time looking for tracks, finding deer trails, laying snares, or inquiring to locals about what plants are edible, I would more likely just give them the check rather than require a save. I might still check save to see if they fail utterly and get a mishap. The point is that if they're playing smart no check is needed, except to avert disaster.

But What about Starving?
The PCs are considered capable and competent. Any redneck with a gun can catch a deer. But if you over-hunt an area and abuse the Yin principle it fights back. Secretly roll some d6s. This is the maximum number of rations that can be extracted. If they push this boundary they get an automatic encounter as the Yin seeks to restore balance in Chaos. Druids will have a nightmare or omen foretelling the will of the Yin before it happens and will be aware through diegetic responses from the environment when the land is being abused. ("You look to the clouds, they look foreboding. You find a dead crow. The berries look like blood.")

Thanatology in the Last Lands - part one

 Undead

Sleep thought from the other day: vampire native form is black mist. They possess bodies which decay at normal rate. Must suck blood to keep body fresh. More blood = younger and stronger

Some games have vampires possess living human bodies.

I like corpses because they have a shelf life, dissolve into goo, and have an excuse to force vamp to drink blood

Also image of vamp w/o fangs biting & sucking blood like a remora is fun

They can't cross running water because it'll wash their mist body out thru orifices

Also they have to return to grave soil at morning to refresh. Store your rotting meat suit in a coffin of vermicompost. Back up bodies in giant urns of fermented sludge.

Raising dead requires installing a new soul. There's different ways of doing this but jewels are compact and effective. The more valuable the jewel the stronger the soul it can contain. Djinn and Efreeti are basically incorporeal so they can be captured too by a sufficiently potent sorcerer.

Easiest source of souls is captured children, but they're the least competent. Thus skeletons sing nursery rhymes, play hopscotch, pelt PCs with stones (harmless but annoying), and run away cackling when they're caught.

Adult souls are more capable but they can be confused by death, especially if they died unexpectedly or in great anguish. Unless regularly subdued they eventually go mad and turn feral.

Unwilling souls lose their memories, will, and the majority of their prowess, though they may retain bits. Thus undead servants can be raised to perform menial tasks based on their living profession.

Souls of scholars can organize libraries, sort texts, and act as scribes, though they're mindless and incapable of understanding any of it, being basically automata, so they can't combine ideas or interpret materials.

Souls of warriors make okay fighters, but fall short of living warriors. The benefit is that they're fearless, never tire, and feel no pain.

Undead peasants, porters, sailors, and smiths can pull plows, tie down cargo, adjust sails, and produce works, but their quality is shoddy at best. They don't tire or require supervision though, although they don't know to switch tasks on their own so you're liable to return to the forge and find a thousand horse shoes and a bored skeleton counting ants in the corner.

Willing participants are best and rarest, they maintain their memories and capabilities in death but their personality is erased. Never possess a corpse with it's original soul. Just trust me on this.

Fragments of personality may occasionally bubble to the surface. Nothing important. They may start imitating past activities in a harmlessly mindless way, organizing snail shells by color and size, staring at stars, counting hair follicles on a scalp, staring uncomprehendingly at a page in a book, or playing a game of mock chess with themselves using rocks. All done totally silently. Without orders they'll wait around patiently until something triggers them.

Skeletons have the soul crystal imbedded in their skull, the cavity of which is filled with gelatinous ichor. The top of the skull is replaced with riveted steel. Many necromancers keep desiccated mummies around as backstock. They're nice because they don't fall apart or rot.

Shamblers are walking corpses and have soul crystals embedded in their exposed hearts which swell and pump black ichor through their veins, animating them. They decompose in time if not taken care of, albeit slowly. If kept in a cool dry environment they can last centuries.

All undead go feral if their master dies, if they aren't given orders for too long, or if the incantations subduing them aren't refreshed often enough.

Souls trapped in undead bodies suffer great agony. They don't know what's happening to them and they seem to be living in a hellish prison and tormented by terrible visions mixing their past and current unlife. The suffering caused generates serious karmic defilements in the caster, twisting their karmic alignment towards chaos. The rebirths of powerful necromancers are invariably in the worst hells.

Thus they are motivated by self preservation to find the secrets of eternal life, to cheat reincarnation, or to transmit their souls to demons or other necromancers on the promise of safe keeping or installing into a fresh body. The worst kinds of lich are a sorcerer and apprentice pair that pass their souls back and forth for eternity, cloning or capturing new bodies with each iteration, and growing forever in knowledge. 

Wraiths, ghosts, shades, shadows, specters, voidlings, etc are confused dead souls which, due to unsatisfactory burial, incompleted obsessions, or other types of clinging failed to successfully transfer into the Mouth of Death. Without realizing the nature of their state dead souls often fixate on their old life and become trapped on this plane when the Mouth of Death gate closes.

Thus they wander, trying to live their old life, slowly going insane with frustration. Often they become violent or vengeful. These spirits can be manipulated by evil sorcerers, used as slaves or guardians, or sent as agents to inflict disease and misfortune.

All undead feed on life essence, often in the form of spiritual essence, flesh, organs or bodily fluids.

For information on the nature of the afterlife, attachment, and rebirth, read "the Tibetan Book of the Dead". I recommend the Jung commentary. I'll do another segment on how that plays into my campaign world.

Palladius: On Husbandry, c. 350

 Found this great section on medieval peasant farming practices, from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

Book I, C.5. Lands fat or lean, thick or rare, dry or moist, and not without defects, are good for divers seeds; but my advice is to choose the fat and moist. Its work is least and its fruit is best. And next the thick and rank is best; but eschew the thick and dry and let it alone.

C.24. Till all the field or all the field is lost; wheat sown thrice in too fat land will, wonderful to say, change into other grain....

C.27. To till a field one must have diligence and leave no part unsown; but plough it up altogether. A little well tilled will repay expenses well, so undertake as much as you can easily do.

C.33. But after it is burnt do not go near it for five years; and after that you will see that it, as richer land, will grow and thrive.

C 40. I am unwilling to make him who is a favorite foreman over the field; and why? For he will deem his work is well howsoever it may be.

C.65. And it is good for pipes to lead from it (the cistern) each to carry drinking water, the liquor of grace above, a thing celestial.

C.72. One should also take care about an oil-cellar; to warm it the pavement below should be perforated and raised. So that smoke cannot harm it, make a trench under the fire, and heat the well protected house from winter, keen and cold. Now I would like to write on the husbandry of stables.

C.73. Toward the south you set the stable and the stall for horses and neats and get the light from the north, and close it tight to keep out the winter cold. In summer take care to cool the house and in the cold weather make a fire near the beasts; it will help the oxen and make them fair if they keep near the fire.

C.108. Set the dunghill wet so it may rot and be odorless; also set it out of sight; the seed of thorn will decay and die in it. Assess dung is best to make a garden with; sheep's dung is next; and after that the goat's and neat's; also horses' and mares'; but swine's dung is the worst of all this lot.

C.114. One plants thorns; another sows seeds; but (for fences and garden walls) seeds of bramble and hound's thorn do well; and gather that as ripe as necessary.

C.145. The bee-yard should not be far away but aside, clean, secret, and protected from the wind, square, and so strong that no thief can enter it.

C.165. Make ready now each needed instrument; look to the little plough and the large one also; sharpen the edges and plough up where the land is moist; still more tools should be prepared as the mattock, axe, pickaxe, saws long and short, also crooked knives for vine and bough, and scythes and hooked sickles.

C.266. And crooked sharp-backed scythes; and bring forth also the little crooked knives to take away a branch in young plants, the hooks that cut the ferns, bills to dig up briars, rakes, crooks, adzes, pitchforks, and double-bitted axes for the thorns.

C.67. There must be marking irons for our beasts, and tools to geld, and clip, and shear; we also need leather coats to wear with hoods about our heads; and we must wear boots, leggings, mittens; all this is good for husbandmen and hunters; for they must walk in briars and in woods.

Book IV. C.25. Now sow hollyhocks and armorace or arborace which is wild radish; and now plant origan in its place; now (sow) leeks, beets, lettuce, capers, savory, colocasia, and cresses; let all now sow marigolds or radishes; and bless them; trust in God that all shall grow.

C.32. Asparagus is sown about the first of April in wet and fat land in small ridges made by a line, so that seeds which fall a half or three feet are left; and spread on it a sheet of dung and weed it well, and cast straw on it till spring; then it may be taken off

C.98. Now graft pears, sweet or sour apples, service trees, quince, plum, and mulberry trees. On March 24th this should be done. Pistachio is now grafted to grow in cold lands; and pine seed is sown.

Book V. C.1. Medicago should be sown in April in prepared beds; it is taught that, once sown, it will grow for ten years and be cut annually four or six times. It dungs lean lands and fattens up lean beasts and cures the sick ones. An acre a year will suffice for three horses.

Book VII. C.5. One ox's work with a little help from man will take up all the harvest in this wise: they make a square cart on two wheels and board it up in a certain way widening it toward the top so that toward the top it is broad. Its jaw in front which gathers up the wheat should not be high but even.

C.6. That instrument should be bent upwards and toothed so close that the spikes of grain will not pass them. And at the back fix two shafts as a dray has in front, and yoke to it a meek ox that will draw and stand and turn and make it go forward. And all the grain will fall into this cart

C.7. These teeth will force in the ears that are in front; the drover notices how low and high the grain is which is going in and leaves the chaff behind. Thus shall an ox in a few days gather up the whole harvest; this cart is to be used in plain field lands where chaff is of no use.

Book VIII. C.3. Small onions should now be sown in cold and wet places; also radishes and orage if you can water them, and basilicon; lettuce, mallows, beets, leeks should be watered now. Now sow turnip and rape in wet lands; they rarely thrive in rotten lands but in wet lands and fields.

Book X. C.23. Gith (cockle) is lastly also to be sown in this moon; cresses and dill in temperate lands or radishes in dry lands will grow quickly; parsnips and caerefolium may also be set out; at the first of October sow by hand lettuce, beets, and also coriander seeds; rape and turnip it is now indeed good to sow.

Book XI. C.38. The apple is planted in hot and dry land. At the first of November quince and service-berry are set in seed beds to multiply. And they do the same with the almond tree. Pine is to be sown now, and fruits to be kept for preserves, as has already been taught of each.

Book XII. C.3. For Columella affirms that a field which has been fallow has proved more profitable for wheat than the fields where the yield has been beans: sow six strikes to the acre of rich land; less is sufficient in poor land; but in firm land the bean will grow and it hates weak and lean soil.

C.45. This moon in dry places and cold regions the wild pear should be planted to be grafted; citron, olive, pomegranate, service, medlar, carob, mulberry, cherry, fig, almond, and walnut, as the craft has been taught before, are to be renewed in seed plots.

Source.

From: Palladius, On Husbandrie, trans. Barton Lodge, Early English Text Society, Vol. XXIV, No. 52, (London: N. Trubner, 1873-1879), reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 38-41.

Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.

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© Paul Halsall, September 1998

halsall@murray.fordham.edu